The problem of efficiently processing queries that manipulate sets is considered with the
objective of minimizing the processing cost by reducing the size of transmitted data as much
as possible. The semantics of set operations is used to achieve this goal. A set query has the
general form SET 1 op SET 2. For two sets to be related by a set operation, their sizes
should satisfy a necessary condition. For the two sets to be equal, they should have the
same size. For SET 1 to be a subset of SET 2, its size should be less than or equal to the …

The problem of efficiently processing queries that manipulate sets is considered with the
objective of minimizing the processing cost by reducing the size of transmitted data as much
as possible. The semantics of set operations is used to achieve this goal. A set query has the
general form SET 1 op SET 2. For two sets to be related by a set operation, their sizes
should satisfy a necessary condition. For the two sets to be equal, they should have the
same size. For SET 1 to be a subset of SET 2, its size should be less than or equal to the …