Fuzzy logic techniques in multimedia database querying: a preliminary investigation of the potentials

Fuzzy logic is known for providing a convenient tool for interfacing linguistic categories with numerical data and for expressing user´s preference in a gradual and qualitative way. Fuzzy set methods have been already applied to the representation of flexible queries and to the modeling of uncertain pieces of information in databases systems, as well as in information retrieval. This methodology seems to be even more promising in multimedia databases which have a complex structure and from which documents have to be retrieved and selected not only from their contents, but also from “the idea” the user has of their appearance, through queries specified in terms of user´s criteria. This paper provides a preliminary investigation of the potential applications of fuzzy logic in multimedia databases. The problem of comparing semistructured documents is first discussed. Querying issues are then more particularly emphasized. We distinguish two types of request, namely, those which can be handled within some extended version of an SQL-like language and those for which one has to elicit user´s preference through examples