2998 results about "Information searching" patented technology

An information retrieval system allows a user to search a database of informational items for a desired informational item, and presents the search result in the form of matching index entries in the order of relevance. The information retrieval system in accordance with the principles of the present invention assigns a relevance rating to each of the index entries without requiring an explicit input from the user with respect to the usefulness or the relevance of the retrieved information corresponding to the respective index entries. When the user selects and retrieves an informational item through a list of index entries presented by the retrieval system, as a result of a search, the relevance rating of the selected informational item is increased by a predetermined amount. The relevance rating of the selected informational item is further adjusted based on any actions the user takes subsequent to the initial selection of the informational item if the subsequent act indicates that the relevance of the selected informational item may be less than what is reflected by the rating increase by the predetermined amount. Ratings of the informational items in the database are determined from implicit suggestions from the usage of the retrieval system and the database by the user rather than from an explicit user input. In another aspect of the present invention, the ratings are allowed to decay over time to minimize the tendencies for historical usage biased rating, and to provide more temporally accurate ratings. The most recently accessed time of each of the informational items in the database is compared to a predetermined stale access time threshold, and if the most recently accessed time is older than the threshold, than the rating of the corresponding informational item is decreased to reflect the dated nature of the information contained within the item.

The present invention relates to systems and methods that employ user models to personalize generalized queries and / or search results according to information that is relevant to respective user characteristics. A system is provided that facilitates generating personalized searches of information. The system includes a user model to determine characteristics of a user. The user model may be assembled automatically via an analysis of a user's content, activities, and overall context. A personalization component automatically modifies queries and / or search results in view of the user model in order to personalize information searches for the user. A user interface receives the queries and displays the search results from one or more local and / or remote search engines, wherein the interface can be adjusted in a range from more personalized searches to more generalized searches.

The present invention is directed to a system and method for correlating an image with information associated with the image comprising identifying image metadata for the image, wherein the image metadata includes information associated with conditions at the time of image capture, searching one or more information sources using parameters in the image metadata to collect inference information from the information sources, and displaying the inference information to a user.

A system, method and article of manufacture are provided for allowing concept based information searching. Textual information is collected utilizing a network. The textual information is parsed to create topic specific information packets, which are stored in an information cache. The system parses a user query and compares the parsed user query with the information packets in the information cache to locate matching information packets and displays the matching information packets to a user.

Improved method of and apparatus for aggregating data elements in multidimensional databases (MDDB). In one aspect of the present invention, the apparatus is realized in the form of a high-performance stand-alone (i.e. external) aggregation server which can be plugged-into conventional OLAP systems to achieve significant improments in system performance. In accordance with the principles of the present invention, the stand-alone aggregation server contains a scalable MDDB and a high-performance aggregation engine that are integrated into the modular architecture of the aggregation server. The stand-alone aggregation server of the present invention can uniformly distribute data elements among a plurality of processors, for balanced loading and processing, and therefore is highly scalable. The stand-alone aggregation server of the present invention can be used to realize (i) an improved MDDB for supporting on-line analytical processing (OLAP) operations, (ii) an improved Internet URL Directory for supporting on-line information searching operations by Web-enabled client machines, as well as (iii) diverse types of MDDB-based systems for supporting real-time control of processes in response to complex states of information reflected in the MDDB. In another aspect of the present invention, the apparatus is integrated within a database management system (DBMS). The improved DBMS can be used to realize achieving a significant increase in system performance (e.g. deceased access / search time), user flexibility and ease of use. The improved DBMS system of the present invention can be used to realize an improved Data Warehouse for supporting on-line analytical processing (OLAP) operations or to realize an improved informational database system, operational database system, or the like.

A method and a tool for suggesting search terms and other information during information search based on characters entered by users. Search terms may be suggested based on a heuristic that may take into account frequency of use and indexing of a database.

A computer-based information search and retrieval system and method for retrieving textual digital objects that makes full use of the projections of the documents onto both the reduced document space characterized by the singular value decomposition-based latent semantic structure and its orthogonal space. The resulting system and method has increased robustness, improving the instability of the traditional keyword search engine due to synonymy and / or polysemy of a natural language, and therefore is particularly suitable for web document searching over a distributed computer network such as the Internet.

A Web site is provided that contains an array of informative resources including for-pay services and extranet functions to serve consumers and traditional players in the financial services industry, including financial counselors, mortgage brokers, direct lenders, large national credit issuers, and third-party credit report re-sellers, plus information seekers such as the press, consumer groups, and government agencies. A primary focus is to educate consumers, consumer groups, and the consumer press by offering them access to the exceptionally high-quality information, both general and personal, about the practices of collection, storing, reporting, and evaluating consumer credit data.

An information retrieval system for automatically retrieving information related to the context of an active task being manipulated by a user. The system observes the operation of the active task and user interactions, and utilizes predetermined criteria to generate a context representation of the active task that are relevant to the context of the active task. The information retrieval system then processes the context representation to generate queries or search terms for conducting an information search. The information retrieval system reorders the terms in a query so that they occur in a meaningful order as they naturally occur in a document or active task being manipulated by the user. Furthermore, the information retrieval system may access a user profile to retrieve information related to the user, and the select information sources or transform search terms based on attributes related to the user, such as the users occupation, position in a company, major in school, etc.

An information search support device includes: a cluster selection history information accumulation unit which accumulates content information of each cluster and cluster selection history information indicating a cluster selected by a user; a degree of certainty calculation unit which calculates a degree of certainty indicating a degree to which a vague search target of the user has been identified, based on the cluster selection history information accumulated; a search target estimation unit which obtains a condition for estimating the search target; a search-omitted information extraction unit which extracts search-omitted information that is included in the cluster that is not selected and is estimated from the obtained condition; and a search-omitted information addition unit which adds, to the cluster selected by the user, the extracted search-omitted information, in the case where the degree of certainty is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold.

The product information distribution system (20) comprises: a database (8) having records of user purchasable products, each of the records including fields for at least identification and geographical availability of a product, an input means (15) for receiving input data from a user related to a preferred product which is selected from one of said product identification fields of said records, a distance value and a preferred geographical location from which the preferred product is to be sourced, searching means (7) for searching the database according to the input data and for determining a search result, the search result relating to those of the records including products meeting the product identification fields and available within a boundary determined by the distance value of the preferred geographical location, and an output display means (14) for displaying the search result to the user.

A information search and navigation system indexes, categorizes and condenses data from text or other documents. In various embodiments, the invention further can utilize user information goals, document or website types and multi-page link path options that together provide a fast, multi-page Web navigation system.

A data-driven, hierarchical information search and navigation system and method enable search and navigation of sets of materials by certain common attributes that characterize the materials. A rules engine provides for manipulation of the content displayed to the user based on the query entered by the user. The rules engine includes one or more rules with a trigger and an action. The action of a rule is performed only if the trigger is satisfied. A trigger may be specified in terms of expressions of attribute-value pairs and is evaluated against a given query or navigation state. The actions can include various techniques for content manipulation, such as supplementing content, rendering content in a particular way, and sorting content in a particular way. An action may be specified in terms of navigation states. The rules engine may include a script for processing the rules.

The present invention provides a technique for determining a search range using metadata that is associated with information (file) of an image as well as determining granularity of the search range based on a unit of numerical information included in a query when a file is searched from a database. More particularly, an information search apparatus searches a plurality of files that include numerical information. As a query for determining the search range, a first numerical value and a keyword are input, a unit of the first numerical value is determined, the second numerical value of the unit that corresponds to the keyword is acquired, and a file included in the search range that is determined based on the first the second numerical values is searched from the plurality of files.

A dialog management apparatus and method for processing an information-seeking dialogue with a user and providing a service to the user by prompting the user for a task-oriented dialogue may be provided. A hierarchical topic plan in which pieces of information are organized in a hierarchy according to topics corresponding to services may be used to prompt the user to change an information-seeking dialogue to a task-oriented dialogue, and the user may be provided with a service.

An improved method of and a system for managing data elements in a multidimensional database (MDB) supported upon a parallel computing platform using modular-arithmetic based address data mapping (i.e. translation) processes on integer-encoded business dimensions. The parallel computing platform has a plurality of processors and one or more storage volumes for physically storing data elements therein at integer-encoded physical addresses in Processor Storage Space (i.e. physical address space in the one or more storage volumes associated with a given processor). The location of each data element in the MDB is specified in MDB Space by integer-encoded business dimensions associated with the data element. A data loading mechanism loads the integer-encoded business dimensions and associated data elements from a data warehouse. The address data mapping mechanism performs a two part address mapping processing. The first step maps the integer-encoded business dimensions associated with each data element to a given processor identifier (which uniquely identifies the processor amongst the plurality of processors of the parallel computing platform). The second step maps the integer-encoded business dimensions associated with each data element into an integer-encoded physical data storage address in Processor Storage Space associated with the processor identified by the processor identifier generated in the first mapping step. The mapping performed in this second step is based upon size of the integer encoded business dimensions. The data management mechanism manages the data elements stored in the storage volumes using the integer-encoded data storage addresses generated during the two-part address data mapping process. The use of modular-arithmetic functions in the two-part address data mapping mechanism ensures that the data elements in the MDB are uniformly distributed among the plurality of processors for balanced loading and processing. The present invention can be used to realize (i) an improved MDB for supporting on-line analytical processing (OLAP) operations, (ii) an improved Internet URL Directory for supporting on-line information searching operations by Web-enabled client machines, as well as (iii) diverse types of MDB-based systems for supporting real-time control of processes in response to complex states of information reflected in the MDB.

The invention provides for techniques to process and produce email documents. The techniques provide for organizing a first plurality of email documents into a plurality of document groups, reviewing a document group from the plurality of document groups, and associating a review content with the document group. The techniques provide for ways to propagate the review content to one or more email documents associated with the document group and producing a second plurality of email documents. The techniques provide for annotating one or more email documents in accordance with the review content. Depending on the embodiment, review content may include text, graphics, audio, tag, and multimedia information. Produced documents can be searched and browsed in accordance with information in the review content. Email documents can be grouped by information in meta information and / or header information associated with the email documents into various groups, including threads or conversations, for example.

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to automated information-search and information-retrieval systems that provide information, on a continuous or periodic basis, to users or subscribers. In one embodiment of the present invention, information is gathered from a user's computer, or from computers accessible from the user's computer, on an essentially continuous basis in order to provide a database of information from which meaningful and focused search queries can be automatically constructed. The search queries are then employed to find, on behalf of the user or subscriber, current information useful to, and needed by, the user or subscriber.

A data-driven, hierarchical information search and navigation system and method enable search and navigation of sets of documents or other materials by certain common attributes that characterize the materials. The invention includes several aspects of a data-driven, hierarchical search and navigation system that employs this search and navigation mode. The search and navigation system of the present invention includes features of an navigation interface, a search interface, a knowledge base and a taxonomy definition process and a classification process for generating the knowledge base, a graph-based navigable data structure and method for generating the data structure, World Wide Web-based applications of the system, and methods of implementing the system. Users are able to search or browse a particular collection of documents by selecting desired values for the attributes or by searching the attribute-value pairs. A data-driven, hierarchical information search and navigation system and method enable this navigation mode by associating terms with the materials, defining a set of hierarchical relationships among the terms, providing a guided navigation mechanism based on the relationship between the terms, and providing a search mechanism that can respond to free-text queries with single-term or multi-term interpretations. In another aspect of the invention, implementations of the invention may be scalable through parallel or distributed computation.

An information retrieval system for automatically retrieving information related to the context of an active task being manipulated by a user. The system observes the operation of the active task and user interactions, and utilizes predetermined criteria to generate context representation of the active task that are relevant to the context of the active task. The information retrieval system then processes the context representation to generate queries or search terms for conducting an information search. The information retrieval system determines the relevance of a word to the context by utilizing an adaptive weighting system. The information retrieval system assigns varying weights to different attributes of a word and calculates an accumulated weight of the word by accumulating all weights assigned to the word. The attributes may include word size, style, location of the word, etc. The system then ranks the importance of words based on their respective accumulated weight, and chooses words that rank within a predetermined number from the top to form search terms to conduct an information search using various data sources.

Methods and apparatus for facilitating a process of designing, selecting, and / or customizing lighting effects or lighting shows. A library of indexed (tagged) predefined lighting effects or shows is searched by a search engine, based upon information provided by a user / designer, to identify a set of effects or shows having attributes that are in some way related to the information provided by the user. The user is then presented with search results, i.e., a manageable subset of intelligently chosen lighting effects or shows, which may be ranked in terms of relevance, any one or more of which may be readily selected by the user. The user may select one or more effects or shows from the search results “as is” for execution by a lighting system, may combine one or more effects or shows from the search results, or may modify one or more effects or shows from the search results to refine some aspect of the effect(s) / show(s) in accordance with user preferences. In one exemplary implementation, the library of lighting effects / shows and / or the search engine may be hosted by a web site and accessible via the Internet.

A computer-implemented system and method provides authoritative answers, developed within a community-based question answering service to users of a general network information search. This community-based question answering service receives a question from a first user, and receives answers from community members regarding this question. The authority of the answer is then determined by members of the community and if the authority is of an acceptable level, the question together with its authoritative answer is added to a database which includes all authoritatively answered questions. The answering service has an interface that exposes the contents of this database to queries from users of the network who are not necessarily members of the answering service. In one embodiment, results from queries of the community-based database are integrated with queries of a second database of general network information. An improved general information search service is also provided that includes query results from the authoritative answers generated by the community-based answering service.

A case-centric medical records system with social networking capabilities is disclosed. Using the system, users can build charts that are centered around a single procedure or treatment and include physician notes as well as imagery and video relating to the procedure. Users can also build social networks around their records by identifying colleagues with whom chart data can be shared. Search functions allow the charts to be searched by diagnosis and procedure codes or by other keywords or information. Users can search their networks of colleagues for relevant experience and expertise and can search and review their colleagues' charts to gain insights.

A networked information indexing and search apparatus and method provide access, including indexing and search access, to information located on one or more intranets, the Internet, or both. The networked search apparatus, also referred to herein as a network search device or network search appliance, and method comprise configuration, indexing, and searching capabilities to facilitate networked information search and retrieval.

In an information search server 600, a database includes a table storing a progress status of content, and information related to the content at the progress status, and a table storing user information with respect to a content playback apparatus, an identifier of the content playback apparatus, and an identifier of a terminal apparatus that differs from the content playback apparatus. A connecting user management unit manages user information with respect to the content playback apparatus connected to the information search server. A related information acquisition unit acquires a current progress status of content being played back on the content playback apparatus, and acquires information related to the content at the current progress status. A connecting user management unit identifies a terminal apparatus that differs from the content playback apparatus, and the related information acquisition unit transmits the related information to the terminal apparatus.

A method and system for searching an information retrieval system for items of interest that are in proximity to geographical locations provided by the user. The information retrieval system can perform a search for specified types of businesses or items of interest that surround or are in close proximity to the user's present geographical location, or a geographical location that the user has pre-configured in a database. The system receives geographical location information concerning the user's position from the wireless network carrier, which tracks the location of the user's mobile communications device. When the user desires to store a geographical location and geographical name for a future search, the information is entered into the pre-configured database. When conducting an information search at a later time, the user can narrow a search request to a geographical area in the vicinity of the stored geographical location.

A method and apparatus for providing viewer specific program information is described. A user of an integrated personal computer and television convergence device requests specific programming information from a remote server using an electronic program guide. The remote server performs a database search based upon the requested information and caches the results of the database search in a local storage device. The database search result information is viewer specific and appended to or integrated with the requested electronic program guide. Advanced searching techniques may be utilized to manipulate and filter the searched information to maintain the viewer specific integrity thereof. The database search result information is thereby provided to the client or convergence device along with the requested programming information. The database search result information thereby supplements and augments the viewing experience of the viewer.

A consumer product information requesting (CPIR) enabling Servlet for execution on the server-side of an information network such as the Internet. The CPIR-enabling Servlet comprises a Universal Product Number (UPN) a uniquely associated with a particular consumer product on which an information search is to be carried out within a database management subsystem. One or more classes are loaded on a an Internet-enabled information server. When the consumer selects a CPIR-enabling Servlet tag embedded within the WWW and corresponding CPIR-enabling Servlet, a UPN-directed-search is automatically carried out within the database management subsystem, the a graphical user interface (GUI) is displayed within the Internet-enabled browser program used by the consumer, and the results from the UPN-directed search are displayed within the GUI in the form of a menu of categorized URLs pointing to consumer product related information resources published on the WWW, without disturbing the consumer's point of presence thereon. The CPIR-enabling Servlets can be used to build various types of consumer product information systems for operation on the WWW.