: In a traditional database system, the result of a query is a set of values (those values that satisfy the query). In other data servers, such as a system with queries based on image content, or many text retrieval systems, the result of a query is a sorted list. For example, in the case of a system with queries based on image content, the query might ask for objects that are a particular shade of red, and the result of the query would be a sorted list of objects in the database, sorted by how well the color of the object matches that given in the query. A multimedia system must somehow synthesize both types of queries (those whose result is a set, and those whose result is a sorted list) in a consistent manner. In this paper we discuss the solution adopted by Garlic, a multimedia information system being developed at the IBM Almaden Research Center. This solution is based on "graded" (or "fuzzy") sets. Issues of efficient query evaluation in a multimedia system are very different fro...

There are essential differences between multimedia databases (which may contain complicated objects, such as images), and traditional databases. These differences lead to interesting new issues, and in particular cause us to consider new types of queries. For example, in a multimedia database it is reasonable and natural to ask for images that are somehow "similar to" some fixed image. Furthermore, there are different ways of obtaining and accessing information in a multimedia database than information in a traditional database. For example, in a multimedia database, it might be reasonable to have a query that asks for, say, the top 10 images that are similar to a fixed image. This is in contrast to a relational database, where the answer to a query is simply a set. (Of course, in a relational database, the result to a query may be sorted in some way for convenience in presentation, such as sorting department members by salary, but logically speaking, the result is still simply a set, ...

. In this paper, we extend the domains of affirmation and negation operators, and more important, of triangular (semi)norms and (semi)conorms from the unit interval to bounded partially ordered sets. The fundamental properties of the original operators are proven to be conserved under this extension. This clearly shows that they are essentially based upon order-theoretic notions. Consequently, a rather general ordertheoretic invariance study of these operators is undertaken. Also, in a brief algebraic excursion, the notion of weak invertibility of these operators is introduced, and the relation with the order-theoretic concept of residuals is studied. The importance of these results for fuzzy set theory and possibility theory is briefly discussed. 1. Introduction In this paper, we introduce and study affirmation and negation operators, triangular (semi)norms and triangular (semi)conorms on bounded partially ordered sets. These operators are generalizations of the well-known classes o...