Automated Web Crawler with Neural Wrapper Adaptation

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current web crawling technologies require significant manual input for creating and maintaining web crawlers and crawling policies, and they fail to efficiently prioritize web content sources based on their influence and reputation, leading to inefficiencies in data collection and summarization.

Innovation Solution

An automated web crawling system that uses XPath expressions, neural networks, and natural language processing to generate and update web page wrappers and crawling policies, prioritizing content sources based on their influence and reputation, and employs parallel queues and threads for efficient data collection and summarization.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If manual or semi-automatic methods are used to create and maintain web page wrappers and crawling policies, then the system can handle web page structure changes, but it requires significant manual input and supervision on a regular basis

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveability to handle web page structure changesVSAvoidmanual input and supervision requirements
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs self-learning by automatically analyzing web page structures and generating updated wrappers without human intervention. The crawler autonomously adapts to structural changes by detecting patterns and modifying its extraction rules, eliminating the need for manual maintenance while maintaining high adaptability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

Manual mechanical processes of creating and updating wrappers are replaced with automated machine learning algorithms. The system uses supervised learning models that automatically generate and refine wrapper code based on observed web page structures, substituting human operators with intelligent software agents.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Ease of manufacture

If crawling policies are created based on web site frequency of visit, then the crawling process is simple to implement, but it ignores other important qualitative features related to the actual content of the web site

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesimplicity of crawling policy implementationVSAvoidignoring qualitative content features
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of manufactureVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The crawling policy transitions from using a single parameter (visit frequency) to multiple parameters including content quality metrics, source reputation scores, and topical relevance. The system dynamically adjusts crawling priorities based on weighted combinations of these parameters, allowing comprehensive evaluation while maintaining automated policy generation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback loops where crawled content quality is evaluated and used to refine future crawling decisions. Source reputation is updated based on the quality and influence of published content, creating a self-improving system that learns from past crawling experiences to optimize future resource allocation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Measurement precision

If manual or semi-automatic summarization methods are used, then the summaries can be accurate, but it involves inherent human intervention costs and delays when handling huge amounts of data

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesummary accuracyVSAvoidsummarization speed and cost
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

Manual text summarization is replaced with natural language processing algorithms and neural network models. The system automatically generates summaries by identifying key information, extracting important sentences, and synthesizing coherent text representations, achieving both accuracy and scalability without human intervention.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

The system creates simplified copies or representations of the original content through automated summarization. Instead of processing complete articles manually, it generates condensed versions that capture essential information, enabling rapid processing of large volumes of data while preserving key insights.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

4Quantity of substance

If a large-scale web crawler is created to collect content from multiple sources, then comprehensive data collection is achieved, but it requires continuous updating and adaptation of wrappers and policies

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvevolume of collected contentVSAvoidtime for continuous updating and adaptation
Core Design Contradiction:
Quantity of substanceVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements continuous learning and adaptation mechanisms that operate in the background during normal crawling operations. Wrapper generation and policy updates occur continuously rather than requiring system停机, allowing the crawler to maintain comprehensive data collection while automatically adapting to changes in web page structures across all monitored sources.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Data Source

PatentUS12105761B2System and method for web crawling and content summarization
Publication Date: 2024.10.01 PALO PSIFIAKES TECH ETAIRIA PERIORISMENIS EFTHYNIS
  • US12105761B2 patent drawing
  • US12105761B2 patent drawing
  • US12105761B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A web crawling solution is presented for automatically prioritizing web crawling according to crawling policies. Web page wrappers are automatically created and updated using XPath expressions and web page analysis algorithms. Crawling is implemented using parallel queues converging into a single prioritized queue taking into account web site reputation and influence and also exploiting content, comments and metadata from social media, blogs and other sources. The crawled news content is clustered according to similarity and thematic summaries are created before serving the results.