Adaptive probabilistic query expansion

• US 20030212666A1
• Filed: 05/10/2002
• Published: 11/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SINOEAST CONCEPT LIMITED (Tencent Holdings Limited)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Smith, John R., Naphade, Milind R., Basu, Sankar
• Granted Patent: US 7,437,349 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A method, system and computer program for adaptively processing a query search. An expanding operation is utilized to expand the query into sub-queries, wherein at least one of the sub-queries is expanded probabilistically. A retrieving operation retrieves the results of the sub-queries, and a merging operation is used to merge the sub-query results into a search result. An adapting operation is configured to modify the search such that the relevance of the search result is increased when the search is repeated.

Claims

15-1. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one of the sub-queries is probabilistic.

24. A computer program product embodied in a tangible media comprising:

computer readable program codes coupled to the tangible media for adaptively processing a query search, the computer readable program codes comprising;

first computer readable program code configured to cause the program to probabilistically expand the query to sub-queries;

second computer readable program code configured to cause the program to retrieve sub-query results;

third computer readable program code configured to cause the program to merge the sub-query results into a search result; and

forth computer readable program code configured to cause the program to adapt the search such that the relevance of the search result is increased when the search is repeated.