Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-06
2001-01-23
Black, Thomas G. (Department: 2771)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06178419
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improved data access efficiency. In particular, the invention finds application in the area of tailored database creation.
2. Related Art
An example of an environment in which data is stored in a highly distributed fashion is the World Wide Web (WWW). The WWW is a vast, unstructured collection of information stored on many different servers around the Internet. Latest estimates put the number of individual pages of information at over 30 million and the number of servers at over 2,250,000.
Navigating around this quantity of data is particularly difficult without some assistance. Aids for navigation such as Indexes and Directories have been created for the WWW and represent the two main navigation approaches for the WWW.
In the case of Indexes, so-called search engines, for example AltaVista (http://altavista.digital.com), retrieve as many WWW pages as possible and index the words in each page. Typically, a search engine runs processes, known as robots or spiders, which exhaustively follow all hyper-links, embedded in retrieved pages, in selected areas of the WWW. A large Internet search engine may have a stored index of many millions of pages. Users are then able to enter a keyword, which is compared to the index entries, and receive a list of pages that contain that required keyword. This is a simple method of finding information which is, however, limited in effectiveness by how comprehensive and accurate the keyword indexes are.
A Directory, for example Yahoo, comprises a hierarchy of categories related to a particular topic. The hierarchy is defined by the creator of the Directory and has entries, under the lowest level categories, typically added by the Directory supervisor(s) or sometimes by users. It is easier to find information in a Directory than by using a search engine, as in a Directory the choices are constrained by the known topic area categories. However, the effectiveness of Directory-type WWW navigation is limited by the rigid categorisation scheme. This leads to two disadvantages: firstly, the categorisation of a particular heading may need to change leading to extensive manual re-working of the directory, and secondly, the scheme may not be suitable or intuitive for some users.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In an article entitled “Navigating with a Web Compass”, R. Baldazo, Byte, March 1996, McGraw-Hill, USA, volume 21, number 3, pages 97-98, there is a described a search tool which can cause search engines to perform a search on the basis of specific search terms.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for populating a destination database, said apparatus comprising:
a destination database;
means for connecting the apparatus to a distributed source database;
a memory area for containing a group of keywords related to a predetermined subject category;
means for controlling at least one search engine associated with said distributed source database, on the basis of a group of keywords contained in said memory area, to provide search results including information relating to the location of documents containing said keywords, said documents being stored in said distributed source database;
means for scoring each of the documents identified in search results provided by said at least one search engine on the basis of the respective contents thereof in accordance with predetermined criteria;
means for selecting at least some of the documents scored by said scoring means, on the basis of their respective scores; and
means for storing, for each document selected by said selecting means, in said destination database information relating to the location of the document in said distributed source database.
The invention overcomes problems associated with the known search methods by providing a practical way of populating a destination database from a much larger distributed database.
For the present purposes, and unless otherwise stated, the terms “pages” and “documents” both refer to a compilation of data stored at a single location, for example, in the WWW and are therefore interchangeable.
One example where embodiments of the invention might be useful is in a school environment in which a teacher wishes to limit the amount and type of information available to students. Once defined, the data in the database can be freely “browsed” by the students without the fear of finding inappropriate or irrelevant information. Another example is a company-wide environment where only commercial information on certain subjects, and not academic information, is required.
The memory area may be arranged to contain a set of groups of keywords, each group of keywords being related to a respective predetermined subject category. The categories may be arranged hierarchically with the most generic category at the highest level of a directory, and with increasingly more specific categories branching out at lower levels, similar, for example, to the Directories described above.
In preferred embodiments, a further step of reducing the number of retrieved document file references is included before the data is finally stored in the destination database. This allows removal of references to inappropriate or irrelevant documents. For example, if the required database has a category of “furniture” and a keyword of “tables”, it would be sensible and desirable to remove references to documents relating to mathematical “tables”.
According to a second aspect of this invention, there is provided an apparatus for populating a destination database, said apparatus comprising:
a destination database;
a memory area for containing a group of keywords related to a predetermined subject category; and
a processing platform which can access said destination database and said memory area, which is connectable to a distributed source database, and which is arranged to:
control at least one search engine associated with said distributed database, on the basis of a group of keywords contained in said memory area, to provide search results including information relating to the location of documents containing said keywords, said document being stored in said distributed source database;
score each of the documents identified in said search results on the basis of the respective contents thereof in accordance with predetermined criteria;
select at least some of the documents on the basis of their respective scores; and
store, for each selected document, in said destination database information relating to the location of the document in said distributed source database.
According to a third aspect of this invention, there is provided an apparatus for populating a destination database, said apparatus comprising:
a) means for connecting the apparatus to a distributed source database;
b) a first memory area for storing a group of keywords associated with a pre-determined subject category;
c) means for reading a keyword from the first memory area and transmitting said keyword to search means, said search means having access to the distributed source database;
d) means for receiving search results from said search means and storing said results in a second memory area, said results including information relating to the location of documents stored in said source database containing said keyword;
e) means for identifying and storing said location information in a third memory area;
f) means for reading location information from the third memory area and transmitting a request to the source database to return a copy of a document associated with selected location information to the apparatus;
g) means for receiving and storing said copy of said document in a fourth memory area;
h) means for accessing and scoring each of the documents stored in the fourth memory area on the basis of the respective contents thereof in accordance with pre-determined criteria; and
i) means for selecting at least some of said documents on the basis of the respective scores and, for each selected document, storing in a
Appleby Steve
Eyles Sarah
Fairman Ian
Legh-Smith Jon
Black Thomas G.
British Telecommunications PLC
Mizrahi Diane
Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.
LandOfFree
Data access system does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Data access system, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Data access system will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2463121