Level-2 fuzzy sets and their usefulness in object-oriented database modelling
In the real world information is, for the most part, available in an imperfect form. Managing this kind of information with classical database systems brings a disadvantageous loss of data semantics along. Therefore, advanced database modelling techniques are necessary. This paper deals with a uniform and advantageous representation of both perfect and imperfect 'real world' information in object-oriented databases. An object-oriented data(base) modelling technique, based on the concept 'level-2 fuzzy set', is presented. Hereby, the focus is on the semantic definitions of the structural, as well as on the behavioural aspects of the data. It is shown how level-2 fuzzy sets can be used to generalise the concept 'type'. Since types are generally recognised to be the basic building blocks of object-oriented database models, generalised types can be used as basic notions of fuzzy object-oriented database models. Finally, it is illustrated and discussed how the ODMG data model can be generalised to handle 'real world' data in a more advantageous way. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
level-2 fuzzy sets types imperfect data modelling object-orientation odmg databases