The model, language, and implementation of an object-oriented multimedia knowledge base management system

New applications such as CAD, AI, and hypermedia require directrepresentation and flexible use of complex objects, behavioralknowledge, and multimedia data. To this end, we have devised a knowledgebase management system called Jasmine. An object-oriented approach in aprogramming language also seems promising for use in Jasmine. Jasmineextends the current object-oriented approach and provides the followingfeatures. Our object model is based on functional data models andwell-established set theory. Attributes or functions composing objectscan represent both structural and behavioral knowledge. The object modelcan represent incomplete and generic knowledge. The model can supportthe basic storage and operations of multimedia data. The facets ofattributes can flexibly represent constraints and triggers. The objectmanipulation language can support associative access of objects. Thestructural and behavioral knowledge can be uniformly treated to allowthe user to specify complex object operations in a compact manner. Theuser-defined and system-defined attributes can be uniformly specified toease user customization of the language. The classes and instances canbe uniformly accessed. Incomplete knowledge can be flexibly accessed.The system has a layered architecture. Objects are stored in nestedrelations provided by extensive DBMS as a sublayer. User query ofobjects is compiled into relational operations such as select and join,which can be efficiently processed using hashing. The behavioralknowledge is compiled into predicate and manipulation function interfaces that can directly access tuples in a buffer. —Authors' Abstract