Audience Inheritance Hierarchy for Layered Data Search
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current computer systems are inefficient in searching for values in audience-specific data due to lack of support for language, regional, and cultural variations, requiring separate searches across independent data sets and lacking inheritance mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a rule-based audience inheritance hierarchy that allows for the creation of multi-audience documents, enabling data to be inherited across layers, reducing redundant data entry and allowing for rapid addition of audiences with automatic updates, and utilizing fine-grained search operators to handle complex data locations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate independent data sets are used for each language and localization, then data integrity for each specific audience is maintained, but search efficiency deteriorates as each data set must be searched separately
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple separate language and localization data sets into a unified hierarchical data structure that maintains data integrity while enabling efficient unified searching. The hierarchy organizes data by language, region, and locale levels, allowing the system to search once across all audiences rather than separately searching each independent data set.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified hierarchical data structure serves multiple functions: it maintains data integrity for each specific audience, enables efficient unified searching across all audiences, and supports inheritance mechanisms where broader categories (language level) can provide default values for more specific categories (region/locale level).
2Manufacturing precision
If complete data entry is performed for each audience specific to language, region, and culture, then data accuracy for each audience is ensured, but data entry time and labor increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary data entry at the language level, creating a base layer of data that can be inherited by more specific audiences. This preliminary action eliminates the need to re-enter identical data for each region and locale, while still allowing customization where specific audience requirements differ.
Solution Approach 2:
The hierarchical structure implements a nested organization where language-level data contains region-level data, which in turn contains locale-level data. This nesting allows broader categories to provide default values that are automatically inherited by more specific categories, reducing redundant data entry while maintaining data accuracy for each specific audience.
3Adaptability or versatility
If detailed subdivision is made for regional, regulatory, and cultural variations within languages, then audience specificity is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the audience data into distinct hierarchical levels (language, region, locale) with clear separation of concerns. Each level handles specific aspects of audience specificity, and the segmented structure is managed through standardized interfaces that hide the underlying complexity from users.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds hierarchical dimensions to organize audience data, transforming a flat complex structure into a multi-dimensional hierarchy. This dimensional organization allows the system to handle regional, regulatory, and cultural variations systematically through defined inheritance levels, making the complexity manageable through structured layers rather than a flat monolithic system.
4Stability of the object's composition
If each audience is treated as an independent data set, then data independence is maintained, but maintenance effort increases as updates must be applied to all entries
Solution Approach 1:
The hierarchical structure nests audiences within broader categories, allowing maintenance operations to propagate automatically from parent to child levels. When data is updated at a language level, the changes automatically inherit to all regions and locales within that language, eliminating the need to manually update each independent data set while maintaining data independence through the hierarchical structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The hierarchical data structure provides universal maintenance functionality that works across all audience levels simultaneously. A single update operation at any hierarchical level automatically applies to all dependent audiences, providing both data independence through hierarchical organization and ease of maintenance through automatic inheritance propagation.
Data Source
AI summary
One or more embodiments of the invention enable a user to search for at least one value in layers of audience specific data comprising language, regional, regulatory and/or cultural specific values per layer. The word “audience” for the purposes of this specification means a group of document consumers such as people or computers that are associated with a language, country, region, regulation or culture. A search utilizing at least one embodiment of the invention occurs with respect to data that makes use of rule-based inheritance. For a three level inheritance embodiment, there are 8 permutations involving a NULL value in at least one of the layers, instead of making the user calculate the proper mask, the Current Audience Layer mask can be logical ORed with the Primary Audience Layer Mask or the Secondary Audience Layer Mask in order to create the desired search combination. In addition, predefined audience layer operators may also be used comprising “has value”, “is missing value”, “inherits primary”, “inherits secondary”, “inherits any” and “does not inherit”. These predefined masks save the user from generating a bit mask for searching by hand.