Automatic query clustering

• US 7,257,571 B2
• Filed: 01/26/2004
• Issued: 08/14/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cheng, Lili, Turski, Andrzej, Rashid, Richard F., MacLaurin, Matthew
• Primary Examiner(s): Kindred; Alford W
• Application Number:
  US10/764,738
• Publication Number:
  US 20050165825A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,296 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707 3- 4, 707/5
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/148 File search processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology for automatic clusterization and display of data items in a local or remote database system. Such clusterization can be based on properties associated with the data items such as a type, location, people, date, time, user-defined, and so forth, wherein an initial property may be employed to form a first level of clusterization and a subsequent property may be automatically determined to form an optimized clusterization from which to find and retrieve desired information. A computerized interface for organizing and retrieving data is provided. The interface includes a property analyzer to determine an item distribution for at least two cluster properties and an organizer that forms new clusters based in part on the item distribution.

Claims

1. A computerized interface for data presentation, comprising:

a property analyzer that determines an item distribution and forms a plurality of first-level clusters based in part on a first property of a plurality of properties, and automatically determines a respective item distribution for each other property of the plurality of properties, calculates a clusterization score for each other property based on the respective item distribution, and selects one other property having a highest clusterization score; and

an organizer that automatically forms a plurality of new clusters based in part on the one other property, and presents the plurality of new clusters.

2. The interface of claim 1, the plurality of properties are associated with a plurality of items, the plurality of items are stored in at least one of a local or a remote storage location, or a combination thereof.

3. The interface of claim 2, the plurality of items include at least one of a document, a file, a folder, an image, an audio file, a video file, a code, a message, or a computer representation of external objects including people or locations, or a combination thereof.

4. The interface of claim 1, the plurality of properties comprises a type of an item, a date or time the item was created, people associated with the item, a location of the item, a category of the item, or a system, application, administrator or user-defined property of the item, or a combination thereof.

5. The interface of claim 1, the first property is a type of an item.

6. The interface of claim 1, the clusterization score is calculated in the following equation:

clusterization score=n_items_cluster1*n_items_cluster2* . . . , for all clusters associated with a particular property of the plurality of properties, where n_items is the number of items associated with a respective cluster.

7. The interface of claim 1, the clusterization score is calculated as follows:

clusterization score=(N_total)!/((n_items_cluster1)!*(n_items_cluster2)!* . . . ), for all clusters associated with a particular property of the plurality of properties, where N_total is the total number items of all clusters and n_items is the number of items associated with a respective cluster.

8. The interface of claim 1, further comprising a user interface to at least one of display cluster results, receive query selections, receive property information, or display information relating to an item in a cluster, or a combination thereof.

9. A computer readable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon for implementing the property analyzer and the cluster organizer of claim 1.

10. A graphical user interface, comprising:

one or more data items and associated properties stored in a database;

one or more display objects created for each of the data items;

an input component for selecting the data items and the associated properties;

a property analyzer that forms a plurality of clusters based on a first property of a plurality of properties, and automatically calculates a clusterization score for each other property of the plurality of properties and selects one other property of the plurality of properties having a highest clusterization score, and determines a data item distribution based in part on the one other property;

an organizer component that creates new clusters and stores the display objects associated with the data items in a respective new cluster based on the one other property; and

a display component to present the display objects and the new clusters based in part on an automated analysis of the properties.

11. The interface of claim 10, further comprising controls for interacting with the properties.

12. The interface of claim 11, the properties are employed for nested querying of results.

13. The interface of claim 11, the properties include at least one of a type, a location, a category, a person, a date, a time, or a user-defined parameter, or a combination thereof.

14. The interface of claim 11, further comprising a component to learn implicitly from user actions.

15. The interface of claim 11, further comprising at least one semi-collapsed list or group.

16. The interface of claim 15, further comprising controls for expanding the list or group.

17. The interface of claim 16, where at least one large property cluster is presented in a squeezed view utilizing a semi-collapsed list.

18. A computerized interface for optimizing retrieval and display of information, comprising:

a property analyzer that determines an item distribution and forms a plurality of clusters based on a first property of a plurality of properties, automatically calculates a clusterization score for each other property of the plurality of properties and selects at least one other property of the plurality of properties based on the clusterization score associated with the at least one other property, and determines a distribution of a plurality of items based in part on the at least one other property; and

an organizer that automatically forms a plurality of optimized clusters and distributes the plurality of items in the plurality of optimized clusters based in part on the at least one other property, and presents the plurality of optimized clusters.

19. The interface of claim 18, the plurality of items are stored in at least one of a local or a remote storage location, or a combination thereof.

20. The interface of claim 19, the plurality of items comprise at least two of a document, a file, a folder, an image, an audio file, a video file, a code, a message, or a computer representation of external objects including people or locations, or a combination thereof.

21. The interface of claim 18, the plurality of properties comprises a type of the item, a date or time the item was created, people associated with the item, a location of the item, a category of the item, or a system, application, administrator or user-defined property of the item, or a combination thereof.

22. The interface of claim 21, the plurality of properties further comprises metadata.

23. The interface of claim 18, the property analyzer selects the at least one other property based on a highest clusterization score, the clusterization score is equal to the product of a number of items in a respective cluster multiplied by a number of items per cluster in each other respective cluster, or to a total number of items divided by the product of the factorial of a number of items in a respective cluster multiplied by the factorial of a number of items per cluster in each other respective cluster.

24. The interface of claim 18, at least one of the plurality of optimized clusters or the plurality of items, or a combination thereof, are presented in a semi-collapsed form based on a significance criteria.