Organizing Multimedia Objects Using a Class Algebra Database

This chapter considers the question of how to locate appropriate multimedia objects. The traditional use of Web search engines is limited by the fact that there are as of yet no standard XML tags describing the many various types of multimedia objects. The users would much prefer to choose from menus, especially from a classification hierarchy where subclasses are all listed. Traditional SQL relational databases are generally not flexible enough to permit dynamic addition of attribute/value pairs to describe these multimedia objects, and to display the resulting schema. The solution suggested in this chapter is the sharing of class and binary relation definitions, including the binary superclass/subclass relation of the IS-A classification hierarchy of object-oriented technology. This object-oriented database implementation is based on class algebra. Similar users can see each other’s objects, classes, and relations, and add their own objects into appropriate places in both the class hierarchy and the binary relations. The binary relations look like subdirectories, and the available binary relations and methods can be chosen from a menu. The distributed database system, therefore, looks like a typical network operating system, and it is expected that average users may be able to make database queries and updates without any need of programmers.