Indexing method for transitive relationships of product information

Abstract

To successfully use a relational database management system (RDBMS) as a repository for product information, the RDBMS must efficiently process and properly answer ontological queries. The key to processing the ontological queries is whether the various semantic relationships among the concepts of the product ontology are likewise well-processed. In particular, the transitive relationships (e.g., is-a, component-of relationships) such as ancestors-descendents, parents-children, and taxonomy of products must be processed successfully. We propose an efficient index using a numbering scheme (labeling scheme) to process queries over transitive relationships.