Remarks on Various Aspects of Bipolarity in Database Querying

An ability to account for positive and negative information in the representation of user preferences and intentions is an important facility that can enhance the functionality and usefulness of flexible database querying systems. This is in line with a growing interest in preference modeling. Bipolarity, as a formal representation of positive and negative information, is one of crucial factors in this context. We critically discuss various aspects of bipolarity in the context of database querying. It should help view various approaches and models to dealing with bipolarity in a proper perspective and clarify conceptual and implementational differences between them, and should open new perspectives for research and commercial applications with more comprehensive, enhanced querying capabilities.