Generalized lower and upper approximations in a ring

In this paper, the concepts of set-valued homomorphism and strong set-valued homomorphism of a ring are introduced, and related properties are investigated. The notions of generalized lower and upper approximation operators, constructed by means of a set-valued mapping, which is a generalization of the notion of lower and upper approximation of a ring, are provided. We also propose the notion of generalized lower and upper approximations with respect to an ideal of a ring which is an extended notation of rough ideal introduced lately by Davvaz [B. Davvaz, Roughness in rings, Information Science 164 (2004) 147–163] in a ring and discuss some significant properties of them.