DYNAMIC TAXONOMY PROCESS FOR BROWSING AND RETRIEVING INFORMATION IN LARGE HETEROGENEOUS DATA BASES

• US 20080133490A1
• Filed: 01/31/2008
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Giovanni Sacco
• Original Assignee: 21 srl
• Inventors: SACCO, Giovanni
• Granted Patent: US 7,778,993 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3323 using document space presentation or visualization, e.g. category, hierarchy or range presentation and selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/904 Browsing; Visualisation therefor for navigating the web G06F16/954; browsing optimisation for the web G06F16/957
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/954 Relational
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A process is disclosed for retrieving information in large heterogeneous data bases, wherein information retrieval through visual querying/browsing is supported by dynamic taxonomies; the process comprises the steps of: initially showing (F1) a complete taxonomy for the retrieval; refining (F2) the retrieval through a selection of subsets of interest, where the refining is performed by selecting concepts in the taxonomy and combining them through boolean operations; showing (F3) a reduced taxonomy for the selected set; and further refining (F4) the retrieval through an iterative execution of the refining and showing steps.

Claims

1. A method for retrieving person records for applications such as matchmaking or human resource management, wherein retrieval is performed through visual queries on dynamic taxonomies, said dynamic taxonomies being a hierarchical organization of concepts, said concepts also comprising features such as age of person and location of person, said person records being able to be classified under different concepts, said person records and their classification being called an extension, said method comprising:

displaying a taxonomy for said retrieval;

selecting a subset of interest of said taxonomy in order to refine said retrieval, said subset of interest being specified by selecting taxonomy concepts and combining said taxonomy concepts through boolean operations, or being specified through querying methods, said querying methods retrieving classified person records according to different selection criteria;

displaying a reduced taxonomy for said selected subset of interest, said reduced taxonomy being derived from said taxonomy by eliminating from the extension of said taxonomy all person records not in said selected subset of interest and pruning concepts under which no person record in said selected subset of interest is classified; and

iteratively repeating said steps of selecting a subset and of displaying a reduced taxonomy to further refine said retrieval,

wherein;

said hierarchical organization of concepts comprises a set of features, each of said features being a descendant concept of the root concept of said organization, each of said features having as descendants in the taxonomy a set of concepts, each concept in said set of concepts representing either a single value or a set of values for said feature;

said person records are classified, for each said feature, under zero or more concepts representing either a single value or a set of values for that feature;

said step of displaying a reduced taxonomy either reports only the concepts belonging to the reduced taxonomy or, for each such concept also reports how many person records in the interest set are classified under the concept; and

said step of pruning of concepts includes eliminating from the taxonomy the concepts under which no person record in the selected subset of interest is classified, or preventing such concepts from being selected in order to specify interest sets.

2. A method for retrieving items for diagnostic applications such as medical diagnosis or malfunction diagnosis, wherein retrieval is performed through visual queries on dynamic taxonomies, said dynamic taxonomies being a hierarchical organization of concepts, said concepts also comprising features such as symptoms, said items being able to be classified under different concepts, said items and their classification being called an extension, said method comprising:

displaying a taxonomy for said retrieval;

selecting a subset of interest of said taxonomy in order to refine said retrieval, said subset of interest being specified by selecting taxonomy concepts and combining said taxonomy concepts through boolean operations, or being specified through querying methods, said querying methods retrieving classified items according to different selection criteria;

displaying a reduced taxonomy for said selected subset of interest, said reduced taxonomy being derived from said taxonomy by eliminating from the extension of said taxonomy all items not in said selected subset of interest and pruning concepts under which no item in said selected subset of interest is classified; and

iteratively repeating said steps of selecting a subset and of displaying a reduced taxonomy to further refine said retrieval,

wherein;

said hierarchical organization of concepts comprises a set of features, each of said features being a descendant concept of the root concept of said organization, each of said features having as descendants in the taxonomy a set of concepts, each concept in said set of concepts representing either a single value or a set of values for said feature;

said items are classified, for each said feature, under zero or more concepts representing either a single value or a set of values for that feature;

said step of displaying a reduced taxonomy either reports only the concepts belonging to the reduced taxonomy or, for each such concept also reports how many items in the interest set are classified under the concept; and

said step of pruning of concepts includes eliminating from the taxonomy the concepts under which no item in the selected subset of interest is classified, or preventing such concepts from being selected in order to specify interest sets.

3. A method for the statistical comparison of different subsets of an information base, said information base being described by a dynamic taxonomy, said method comprising:

initially displaying a view for each of said subsets, said view being a reduced taxonomy derived from the initial taxonomy by setting a specific focus;

displaying for each concept in each view, a measure of statistical deviation from uniformity for the subset represented by said concept with respect to the same concept in the first view only or in each of the other views including the first view, said measure of deviation only being a raw measure of deviation or including additional measures such as the statistical significance of such deviation, said first view being used as a reference view;

selecting a subset of interest in any of said views, such subset of interest being automatically added to the subset of interest of each of the other views; and

repeating said steps of selecting subsets of interest and showing views, in order to compare different subsets.

4. A method for retrieving information on large heterogeneous databases, wherein information retrieval is performed through visual queries on dynamic taxonomies, said dynamic taxonomies being an organization of concepts that ranges from a most general concept to a most specific concept, said concepts and their generalization or specialization relationships being an intension, items in said databases being able to be classified under different concepts, said items and their classification being called an extension, said method comprising;

displaying a taxonomy for said retrieval;

selecting a subset of interest of said taxonomy in order to refine said retrieval, said subset of interest being specified by selecting taxonomy concepts and combining the taxonomy concepts through boolean operations or being specified through querying methods, said querying methods retrieving classified items according to different selection criteria;

displaying a reduced taxonomy for said subset of interest, said reduced taxonomy being derived from said taxonomy by eliminating from the extension of said taxonomy all items not in said selected subset of interest and by pruning concepts under which no item in said selected subset of interest is classified; and

iteratively repeating said steps of selecting a subset of interest and of displaying a reduced taxonomy to further refine said retrieval,

wherein;

said step of pruning of concepts includes eliminating from the taxonomy all the concepts under which no item in the selected subset of interest is classified, or preventing said concepts from being selected in order to specify interest sets;

said step of displaying a reduced taxonomy either reports only the concepts belonging to the reduced taxonomy or, for each such concept also reports how many items in the interest set are classified under the concept;

said intension is organized as a hierarchy of concepts or as a directed acyclic graph of concepts, thereby allowing a concept to have multiple fathers;

items in said classification are classified manually, programmatically, or automatically; and

said method is able to reconstruct relationships among concepts based on the classification, a relationship between any two concepts existing if at least one item is classified (1) under a first concept or any descendants of the first concept, and (2) under a second concept, or any descendants of the second concept.

5. The method according to claim 4, said process accounting for the popularity of items by representing a numerical measure of popularity through a branch in the taxonomy.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said measure of popularity for an item is derived from the number of predefined actions, such as access or purchase, applied to said item, or is supplied by an external source, such as user or editorial reviews.

7. The method according to claim 4, said method allowing the personalization of interaction by permitting the user to predefine a focus and having the system use said focus instead of the universe for all user interactions.

8. The method according to claim 4, said method allowing the restriction of access for a specific user to a predefined set of items, where different users may be restricted to different sets of items, and for all the interactions of said specific user said set of items is used instead of the universe.

9. The method according to claim 4, said method allowing to track user interests by keeping track of all the concepts selected by users in order to define foci.

10. The method according to claim 9, said method keeping track of all the concepts selected by users in order to define foci and of all the concepts expanded.

11. The method according to claim 4, said method performing the computation of the reduced taxonomy for a set of items, said process working on a relation containing a pair of attributes, one of said attributes representing item identifiers, the other one of said attributes representing concept identifiers, in such a way that if there is in such relation a tuple with a specific item identifier and a specific concept identifier then the item identified by said specific item identifier is classified under the concept identified by said specific concept identifier, said method comprising

retrieving all the tuples containing an item identifier belonging to said set of items;

counting the number of tuples in said retrieved tuples for each concept identifier, and

producing said reduced taxonomy, concepts in said reduced taxonomy being all the concept identifiers with a count larger that zero, and the ancestors of said concepts.

12. The method according to claim 11, said method performing the counting of the number of tuples for each concept identifier by

grouping said tuples by concept identifiers, and

counting for each said concept identifier the number of tuples belonging to said group.

13. The method according to claim 11, further comprising saving computed interest sets in order to avoid recomputation.

14. The method according to claim 11, said further comprising saving computed reduced taxonomies in order to avoid recomputation.

15. A method for retrieving real estate items, wherein retrieval is performed through visual queries on dynamic taxonomies, said dynamic taxonomies being a hierarchical organization of concepts, said concepts also comprising features such as price and location of real estate items, said real estate items being able to be classified under different concepts, said real estate items and their classification being called an extension, said method comprising:

displaying a taxonomy for said retrieval;

selecting a subset of interest of said taxonomy in order to refine said retrieval, said subset of interest being specified by selecting taxonomy concepts and combining said taxonomy concepts through boolean operations, or being specified through querying methods, said querying methods retrieving real estate items classified according to different selection criteria;

displaying a reduced taxonomy for said selected subset of interest, said reduced taxonomy being derived from said taxonomy by eliminating from the extension of said taxonomy all real estate items not in said selected subset of interest and pruning concepts under which no real estate items in said selected subset of interest is classified; and

iteratively repeating said steps of selecting a subset and of displaying a reduced taxonomy to further refine said retrieval,

wherein;

said hierarchical organization of concepts comprises a set of features, each of said features being a descendant concept of the root concept of said organization, each of said features having as descendants in the taxonomy a set of concepts, each concept in said set of concepts representing either a single value or a set of values for said feature;

said real estate items are classified, for each said feature, under zero or more concepts representing either a single value or a set of values for that feature;

said step of displaying a reduced taxonomy either reports only the concepts belonging to the reduced taxonomy or, for each such concept also reports how many real items in the interest set are classified under the concept; and

said step of pruning of concepts includes eliminating from the taxonomy the concepts under which no real estate items in the selected subset of interest is classified, or preventing such concepts from being selected in order to specify interest sets.