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Claims  |
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I claim:
1. A data-handling system provided for operating in network systems each
including a plurality of processor-database units each containing a
plurality of structured hypermedia data objects retrievable by user via
said network systems therefrom, said data-handling system comprising:
a user interface for a user to enter and modify a user input of a source
data-object and a destination data-object thus allowing a user to provide
intuitive-associations of two data-objects without requiring specific
input of link-defining terms, and to enter a user designated similarity
threshold;
an automatic link generator for receiving and processing said user input of
said source data-object and said destination data-object for generating a
system generated user-link-profile; and
said automatic link generator further provided for applying said system
generated user link profile and said similarity threshold to automatically
generate a plurality of system generated links for linking a plurality of
data-objects in said processor-database units conforming to said user
designated similarity threshold whereby a plurality of system generated
links can be generated based only on a user input of said source
data-object and said destination data-object without requiring a user
input of keywords or other link-defining terms.
2. The data-handling system of claim 1 wherein:
said automatic link generator further includes a term vector computing
means for computing a plurality of user-link term vectors for quantifying
said system generated user link profile for said user generated link; and
said automatic link generator further includes a link-similarity computing
means for applying said user-link term vectors to compute a
link-similarity between every two of said plurality of processor-database
units in order to automatically generate said plurality of
system-generated links for linking a plurality of processor-database units
conforming to said user designated similarity threshold whereby each of
said system-generated links .being generated based on said user input of
said source data-object and destination data-object without requiring a
user input of keywords or other link-defining terms.
3. The data-handling system of claim 1 wherein:
said automatic link generator further provides said system-generated links
to said user interface for said user to enter a new source data-object and
a new destination data-object, and to enter a new user designated
similarity threshold.
4. The data-handling system of claim 3 wherein:
said automatic link generator further includes a storage means for storing
said user input of source data-object and destination data-object said
similarity thresholds, said system generated user link profiles, said term
vectors, and said system-generated links.
5. A link management system provided for logging-on by a plurality of
data-users for linking said data-users to a plurality of indexed
data-objects distributed among a plurality of hypermedia databases, said
link management system comprising:
a link manager for receiving a similarity threshold and a user input of a
first data-object and a second-data object in said hypermedia databases,
said link manager includes a profile computing means for computing a
user-link profile representing an association of said first data-object to
said second data object;,
said link manager further applying said user-link profile to compute a
link-similarity between every two of said indexed data objects distributed
among said data bases; and
an automatic link generator for automatically generating a system-generated
link between two of said indexed data objects when said link-similarity
exceed said similarity threshold whereby a plurality of system generated
links can be generated based only on a user input of said first
data-object and said second data-object without requiring a user input of
keywords or other link-defining terms.
6. The link management system of claim 5 wherein:
a plurality of said indexed data-objects, represented by D-Obj.sup.k (1),
where k=1, 2, 3, . . . , L and L is a positive integer, wherein each
includes N.sup.k levels of sub-data-objects, represented by D-Obj.sup.k
(i), where i=2, 3, . . . N.sup.k and N.sup.k is a positive integer,
wherein D-Obj.sup.k (i) includes several D-Obj.sup.k (i+1); and
said automatic link generator generating a system-generated link between
two of said indexed data objects including any two of said D-Obj.sup.K (1)
and said sub-data-objects D-Obj.sup.k (i) for k=1, 2, 3, . . . , L and
i=2, 3, . . . N.sup.k, when said link-similarity exceed said similarity
threshold whereby said system generated links can be generated without a
data-object size limitation.
7. The link management system of claim 6 wherein:
said link-profile computing means further includes a term vector computing
means for applying a Salton Vector Space computation to compute a
plurality of term vectors for quantifying said user link profile and said
link-similarity between every two of said data objects and said
sub-data-objects.
8. A link management system provided for logging-on by a plurality of
data-users for linking said data-users to a plurality of indexed
data-objects distributed among a plurality of hypermedia databases, said
link management system comprising:
a link manager for receiving a similarity threshold and a user input of a
source data-object and a destination-data object in said hypermedia
databases, said link manager includes a profile computing means for
computing a user-link profile including a set of user-selected source term
vectors for said user-selected source data-object and a set of
user-selected destination term vectors for said user-selected destination
data-object for representing an association of said source data-object to
said destination data object;
said link manager further applying said sets of user-selected source term
vectors to compute a source-node similarity between said user-selected
source data-object and each of said data objects, said link manager
further applying said sets of user-selected destination term vectors to
compute a destination-node similarity between said user-selected
destination data-object and each of said data objects;
an automatic link generator for automatically generating a system-generated
link between a system generated source node having a source-node
similarity exceeds said source-node similarity threshold and a system
generated destination node having a destination-node similarity exceeds
said destination-node similarity threshold whereby a plurality of system
generated links can be generated between said system generated source node
and said system generated destination node based only on a user input of
said source data-object and said destination data-object without requiring
a user input of keywords or other link-defining terms.
9. The link management system of claim 8 wherein:
a plurality of said indexed data-objects, represented by D-Obj.sup.k (1),
where k=1, 2, 3, . . . , L and L is a positive integer, wherein each
includes N.sup.k levels of sub-data-objects, represented by D-Obj.sup.k
(i), where i=2, 3, . . . N.sup.k and N.sup.k is a positive integer,
wherein D-Obj.sup.k (i) includes several D-Obj.sup.k (i+1); and
said automatic link generator generating a system-generated link between
two of said indexed data objects including any two of said D-Obj.sup.K (1)
and said sub-data-objects D-Obj.sup.k (i) for k=1, 2, 3, . . . , L and
i=2, 3, . . . N.sup.k, when said link-similarity exceed said similarity
threshold whereby said system generated links can be generated without a
data-object size limitation.
10. The link management system of claim 9 wherein:
said link-profile computing means further includes a term vector computing
means for applying a Salton Vector Space computation to compute a
plurality of term vectors for quantifying said user link profile and said
link-similarity between every two of said data objects and said
sub-data-objects. |
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Description |
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to design method of network configurations
for data input/output (I/O) management in a computer network system. More
particularly, this invention relates to design method of network
configurations for managing data search and retrieval wherein an
experience-based automatic link generation is implemented on hierarchical
hyper-document networks which is facilitated by employing a user profile
filter database.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In performing a task of data search and retrieval on an automatic link
generation network system, user's need is either ignored or a requirement
is imposed on an user to explicitly enter a set of key words and queries
to invoke specific system actions. Among the searched documents
distributed in a plurality of networked databases, a user's task to search
and retrieval relevant information is often confronted with two
conflicting considerations. The processing time can be reduced and the
retrieval can be expeditiously completed by entering single key words and
documents shared these single key words can be easily located. However,
this type of search on a network often generates two many links and the
documents retrieved by use of this method are of low search precision. On
the other hand, a search can be performed among these networked data bases
by applying a duster of key words and only documents which share those
duster keywords are retrieved. This type of search can usually achieve
higher precision but requires longer processing time and workable only
with processors with higher level of processing power. Due to these
difficulties, in an automatic link generation networked system, a user's
interest for retrieval of relevant information is generally not satisfied
in searching multiple documents distributed in several connected nodes.
One method to reduce the disorientation of automatic link generation is to
limit the number of links or by attaching attributes to the links. The
pre-assigned link attributes are then employed to group, sort, and filter
a link generation request, Due to the pre-assignment nature of these link
attributes, a user's interest is often ignored. The organization and
filtering in link generation in response to a user's search request by
employing the pre-assigned link attributes may not directly related or
even relevant to a user's search interest since the link attributes which
are pre-assigned are not directly correlated with the search undergoing
with user's specific request and search patterns or profiles. The
pre-assigned link attributes therefore can not reflect the experiences and
special interest of the user applying the networked system for information
search and data retrieval.
Therefore, there is still a need in the art of configuration design and
management of the networked processors and databases for enhancement of
information retrieval to implement an improved and novel link generation
management system. The automatic link generation management system must be
able to directly and dynamically respond to a user's real time requests by
continuously and interactively updating and referencing to user specific
experience-based link profile. A user's interest including the past search
patterns and accumulated link attributes generated during the entire
history of searches can be My applied to facilitate the automatic link
generation.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved
network configuration management system capable of interactively and
dynamically performing automatic link generation in response to a user's
requests for data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and
databases such that the aforementioned difficulties and limitations in the
prior art can be overcome.
Specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide a network
configuration management system capable of interactively and dynamically
performing automatic link generation in response to a user's requests for
data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and databases
wherein the link generation is performed by using a user link profile of
the exiting links such that the user interests are fully accounted for.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a network
configuration management system capable of interactively and dynamically
performing automatic link generation in response to a user's requests for
data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and databases
wherein the links are generated with flexible anchor granularity.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a network
configuration management system capable of interactively and dynamically
performing automatic link generation in response to a user's requests for
data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and databases
wherein the links are generated interactively whereby a user can have
real-time control over the link generation and the entire search
processes.
Briefly, in a preferred embodiment, the present invention includes a
networked data-handling system including a plurality of processor-database
units wherein each includes a plurality of structured data objects. Each
structured data object contains retrievable user requested data therein.
The networked system includes an user interface for allowing an user to
enter and modify a data retrieval request based on a plurality of profile
models, profile modifications and link instructions. The networked system
further includes a link generator for receiving and executing the data
retrieval request based on the profile models, profile modifications and
the link instructions for generating links between the structured data
object distributed among the networked processor-database units for
retrieving the retrievable user requested data from the linked structured
data object. The link generator flier includes a user profile generating
means for accumulating and employing the profile models, profile
modifications and link instructions for generating a user profile
filtering file. The link generator further includes an experience-based
link creating means for applying the accumulated profile models, profile
modifications, and link instructions and the user profile filtering file
for generating a recommended links.
It is an advantage of the present invention is that it provides a network
configuration management system capable of interactively and dynamically
performing automatic link generation in response to a user's requests for
data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and databases
wherein the link generation is performed by using a user link profile of
the exiling links such that the user interests are fully accounted for.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it provides a network
configuration management system capable of interactively and dynamically
performing automatic link generation in response to a user's requests for
data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and databases
wherein the links are generated with flexible anchor granularity.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it provides a
configuration management system capable of interactively and dynamically
performing automatic link generation in response to a user's requests for
data retrieval from a plurality of networked processors and databases
wherein the links are generated interactively whereby a user can have
real-fie control over the link generation and the entire search processes.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will no
doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after having
read the following defied description of the preferred embodiment which is
illustrated in the various drawing figures.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing the system configuration of a
networked data processing system of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of an automatic link generator of the
present invention;
FIG. 3 shows the structure of a hypermedia documents;
FIG. 4 shows the hierarchical tree structure of the hypermedia document;
FIG. 5 shows the discriminating terms selected by the indexer;
FIG. 6A shows a hyper media display;
FIG. 6B shows a link creation process;
FIG. 6C shows the process that a user continues the linking process;
FIG. 6D shows the completed node connection between a source to a
destination node;
FIG. 6E the functions performed by a link manager;
FIG. 6F shows the pictorial view of link generation processes;
FIG. 7 shows an icon of a hypermedia display;
FIG. 8 shows a control panel for link modification; and
FIG. 9 shows an the control panel provided to the user interface.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram for illustrating the network
configurations at three stages according to the operations performed by an
automatic link generator of the present invention. The automatic link
generator is implemented in a networked data handling system 10 for
generating hypermedia links 12-1, 12-2, 12-3, etc., as that shown in the
third stage of the network configuration. The networked data-handling
system 10 includes a plurality of processor-database units, e.g., 15-1 to
15-N where N is a positive integer. In the first stage, i.e., stage-I, a
user browses several hypermedia documents in the networked data-handling
system 10 and identifies two hypermedia nodes, e.g., hypermedia nodes 18-1
and 18-2 which the user considers a link between the contents of these two
documents would suit the objectives of searches on this networked data
handling system 10. In the second stage, i.e., stage-II, the user creates
a user generated link 17 to link the user selected hypermedia nodes 18-1
and 18-2. Then in the third stage, i.e., stage-3, a link generator of the
present invention generates a plurality of hypermedia links 12-1, 12-2,
12-3, etc., by employing user selected similarity threshold values which
will be discussed below in more details.
In order to carry out the automatic link generation function as described
above, a link generating system ,i.e., the HieNet link generator is
developed. The HieNet system includes several primary modules to carry out
several functions. The first primary functional module is a preprocessing
module to preprocess a document. The following processes are performed on
a document during a preprocess functional step to prepare a document node
for automatic link generation according to the present invention.
a) Term Elimination
All terms in the document which are included in a stop-word list, e.g.,
"the", "and", "or", "etc.", etc. are eliminated and excluded from being
processed in the link generation process. A user can modify the stop-word
list by supplying a different stop-word list.
b) Term Frequency Calculation
The term frequencies of the remaining terms are counted and the final total
number of occurrence for each term is kept in a separate record.
c) Vector Term Selection
A default number of terms, e.g., one-hundred terms, with their term
frequencies closest to the median term frequency are selected for use as a
term vector of the document.
d) Vector Term Weight Calculation
A weight calculation is performed for each vector term is by applying a
post-order, i.e., a bottom-up, traversal of the document tree. By applying
a post-order traversal of the document tree, i.e., a bottom up sequence
along the tree, a very efficient weight computation is carried out since
the computations are performed only for the leaf nodes on the document
tree. Non-leaf nodes receive the weight credits from each of their leaf
nodes. Lower level nodes therefore propagate weights upward along the
hierarchical document tree. More details for calculating the vector term
weights are described below.
e) Size Calculation
In the same step, the node size, i.e., the total number of words, are
calculated. Again, only leaf nodes require the side calculation, since the
sizes of the non-leaf nodes can simply be obtained by summing up the sizes
for each of their children.
A second functional module is an automatic link generation module. A link
is created on a node in the document tree if and only if none of its
children nodes have links already been generated. The HieNet link
generator applies a pre-order, i.e., a top down order, tree traversal to
create a link on a node that is as small as possible. Only when an attempt
fails, then the link generator processes links for a larger size node. It
is for the purpose to allow a user to identify the smallest possible nodes
during the generation of links such that a user only has to deal with
smallest mount of data for relevant information. Under the circumstances
that a user desires to see links for larger bodies of texts, HieNet link
generator provides a slider bar for controlling the node size for link
generation as that shown in FIG. 6C for a "Control Panel for Automatic
Link Generation".
A third functional module is a user controlled dynamic link generation
module. HieNet provides two slider bars in this module. The first slider
bar is for the user to control the node similarity threshold and the
second slider bar is for controlling the node size. Again please refer to
FIG. 6C for the Control Panel for Automatic Link Generation. By default,
HieNet generates a link with a pair of smallest nodes that satisfies both
the similarity threshold and node size parameters. There is no fixed
constrain on node granularity and depending on the threshold and node
size, the node granularity can vary greatly. For example, the automatic
generated links can be established from paragraphs to sections, chapters,
books, or vice versa.
HieNet checks if the current node has a similarity measure above the
threshold. Only then does it traverse to the descendants of that node;
otherwise the sub-tree of that node is ignored completely. Since all the
relevant information in that branch for all the nodes below have already
propagated their term weights upward to each of the parent nodes, once a
document node is determined to have relevant data below a threshold value,
all the nodes in the branches below can be skipped without losing links
that would have satisfied the similarity threshold. After a node is
determined that a similarity threshold is satisfied, the node size is
checked to determine if an automatic link should be generated.
With this intelligent pruning heuristics, the time complexity required for
generating links is drastically lowered than the prior art methods which
is typically in the order of O(n). Thus, the user is able to interactively
change these parameters and obtains an expeditious response of dynamically
created links. The highly interactive nature of these user requests and
automatic generated links makes the approach practically useful. The
quality of the system generated links based on lexical co-occurrence is
fundamentally limited by the range and consistency of words used by the
document authors. Users need some trial-and-error to adjust the linking
parameters so that the system will create reasonable links without also
creating too many remotely relevant associations between large amount of
documents searched.
Please refer to FIG. 2 for the major components of a hypermedia link
management system and the functions performed by these major components
for the automatic link management and generation processes. For the very
first time all hypermedia documents are retrieved from the hypermedia
database 106 by the I/O controller 105 of the hypermedia link management
system 100 through the network connection 301. These documents are
processed and indexed by the preprocessing module as described above.
After this one-time process, the indexes including the term vectors, term
frequencies, node size and all relevant information relating to the
documents for document search and link generation are stored in an
associated document record. This is a one-time process and only the brand
new hypermedia documents are required to be pre-processed. For link
generation, the hypermedia documents are down loaded through an internal
bus 303 to a structure reader 104. The hypermedia document is decomposed
by the structure reader 104 into document nodes, i.e., hierarchical data
objects according to a document tree structure as that shown in FIG. 4.
Then the indexer applies various indexing methods to create indexing
information for different kinds of hypermedia objects and nodes, such as
indexes for graphics data, audio data, or textual data. The link generator
101 then selects discriminating terms based on term frequencies or other
term selection criteria as that exemplified in FIG. 5. A term vector
consists of these discriminating terms are computed for every node of each
of the document tree. Each entry in the vector represents the weight for a
discriminator. For each node or object, the term vector is calculated by
calculating a term weigh per entry in the term vector. Leaf nodes are
calculated first and the weights are propagated bottom up to a parent
node. The resulting term vector is then stored for each node as a separate
record.
After the hypermedia documents are retrieved by the I/O controller 105,
these documents are sent to the personal computers (PC), e.g., PC 107 to
109, via internal bus 203 and local area network 204. The hypermedia
documents are displayed on user's computer screen as that shown in FIG. 6A
and FIG. 9.
The major thrust of the present invention is to provide a link generator
101 which generates new links automatically based on existing user-created
links. The process starts with a user selects a source node from a
hypermedia document as that shown in FIG. 6B, and then the user selects a
second document node as a destination node as shown in FIG. 6C. Once the
source node and destination nodes are selected, a user created node, e.g.,
link 17 as that shown in FIG. 1, is generated by the links generator 101
(please referring to FIG. 6D). A user is provided with the flexibility to
create a link across the network into other remote hypermedia management
system 110 via connection 302 and Internet 205. Connection 302 to the
Internet system 205 allows the links to be created across the network and
also allows the links to be shared and distributed across the networks.
The user created link 17 is transferred from user's PC, e.g., PC 107 to
109, to the link manager 102 via the connection wire 201. The link manger
102 calculates the link profile for the user created link and stores the
results in an internal cache. The link profile contains information such
as date, link types, e.g., graphics, textual, audio, etc., and
identifications, unique addresses and term vectors of the nodes. Please
referring to FIG. 6E for an example of link profile for a user created
link, e.g., link 17 in FIG. 1. The link generator 101 the employs The link
profile generated by the link manager 102 is transferred to the link
generator 101 via a data bus cable 306. The link generator 101 the employs
the link profile and the indexing information from the hypermedia data
base 106 to start an automatic link generation process as that shown in
FIG. 6F. All the pairs of documents nodes in the hypermedia database 106
which have similarity between them that matches the similarity threshold
are selected as source and destination nodes and an automatic system
generated link is constructed. The similarity between two document nodes
is calculated by taking the inner product of their corresponding term
vectors. By default, the link generator 101 tries to link with smallest
possible pair of source and destination nodes. All system generated links
are transferred back to the link manager 102 and stored in the link cache
via data bus 307. The resulting links generated by the link generator 101
are also displayed in a user's computer 107 to 109 as that shown in FIG.
7.
A user is provided with the option to open the links by clicking on the
link icons. The user's requests to open and review the links are sent to
the link manager 102 and the contents of the links are sent to each
computer 107 to 109 via data bus 202 and 204. After a user reviews the
contents of the links, a user may then adjust the link generation, such as
similarity threshold and node size. The user changes of the link
generation parameters can be entered through the control panel as that
shown in FIGS. 8 and 9. The link generator 101 then interactively
generates new sets of links according to new link parameters provided by
the user as that shown in FIG. 9. Table 1, on the last page of the
specification, summaries the functions performed by each of the functional
blocks shown in FIG. 2.
Referring to FIG. 3 for the structure of a hypermedia document. A
hypermedia document can be decomposed into a plurality of objects or
nodes. The document node, e.g., a chapter, as shown in FIG. 3 includes
five objects which are "chapter", "section", "paragraph a" and "paragraph
b". The actual text are omitted for the purpose of simplicity of
illustration. FIG. 4 shows the tree-type hierarchical structure of a
objects or nodes. The hierarchical tree structure consists of objects or
nodes of different sizes thus constituting a hypermedia document. One
particular advantage of the present invention is that the automatically
generated links can link nodes of different granularity, i.e., the links
can be between two nodes of every kinds of objects, e.g., a book-to-a
paragraph, a chapter to a section etc. Unlike the restrictions in some of
the prior art systems where the nodes are limited to simple text chunks.
The text objects of the present invention are provided with unique
identification (ID) and other attributes thus greatly increasing the
flexibility in linking nodes of different granularity.
Referring to FIG. 5, the indexer 103 as shown in FIG. 2 selects the
discriminating terms based on the frequencies of these terms. The terms
with high frequencies of occurrence represent discriminating features of
the document. The discriminating terms as shown in FIG. 5 are selected
from 16,000 words. In this example, seven articles relating to Los Angeles
riots are transcribed from Newsweek and Time Magazines. Two chapters of
object-oriented (00) C++ graphics manuals are intermingled with these
seven articles. In FIG. 5, the top four terms are color, model, black and
value. These terms are commonly used in these articles.
In FIG. 6A hypermedia documents are displayed on a computer screen to
provide to a user a visual representation of the documents available
through the network system. With these documents accessible to a user,
selection is made in FIG. 6B where a user identifies a source document. In
this example, the user selects an source node which includes
discriminating terms such as "hours", "men", and "street". Then in FIG.
6C, a user selects a destination node for establishing a link between the
source node and the destination node. In this example, the article
selected by the user includes discriminating terms of "rioting", and
"talking" shown as part of the textual content in this destination node.
Upon a user's command, a user created link is established as that shown in
FIG. 6D thus linking the source node to the destination node. For this
user created link, the link manager 102 then calculates the link profile.
As shown in FIG. 6E the link profile is a table includes the link creation
date, the link owner, the link type, identification, unique addresses and
the term vectors. The definitions of the term vectors will be further
described below.
With this user created link and the link profile as that shown in FIG. 6E,
a plurality of system generated links linking a plurality of pairs of
source-and-destination nodes which satisfy the similarity threshold
Criterion and the node size requirement, are established as shown in FIG.
6F. According to the table shown in FIG. 6F, two system generated links
are established to link two pairs of source and destination nodes. The
terms which contribute to high term weights in the term vector for linking
these two pairs among these articles are "hour", "men", and "street" for
the source node, and "shot", "burn", "talking", "riot", and "rioting". A
screen display is shown in FIG. 7 as an example of the system generated
links. A special icon ".fwdarw." is shown to indicate that there are
system generated links established and a pop-up window is used to display
that a list of link destination. The order of the list is based on the
result of relevance ranking calculated with term vector weights as
explained below. The link manager 102 and link generator 101 also provide
a control panel as shown in FIG. 8 for a user to control the link
generation process and to adjust the link generation parameters such as
the node size and the similarity threshold. FIG. 9 shows an exemplary
search results displayed on a user's computer monitor. In addition to the
control panel, the system generated links including two hypermedia
documents and associated link profile parameters are also shown in this
display. A user is provided with a comprehensive graphic interface to
perform the document search and linking processes.
According to the present invention, when a user entered a data retrieval
request by entering a source node linking to a destination node, and link
instructions, the automatic link generator make use of the user created
links to generate a user preferred `link profile`. The Link Profile is
analogous to the fisherman's net that catches fish in the water. Depending
on the type or size of the networked system, different fishes, i.e.,
documented data, are caught and retrieved. Similarly, the link generator
in the invention builds a `information agent` that applies the Link
Profile to catch relevant information and bring it back to a user's
personal information space. The user can create Link profiles for any
given occasion. For example, a user may create a new Link Profile which is
used in an art class and save the Link Profile for other art-related
hypertext documents. The user may also load any Link Profile as a model
profile and generates new Link Profile based on the information and
indices contained in the model profile.
A running model can be built on a hypermedia document structure where the
test representation is based on the Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML) which is becoming a popular document exchange format and
hyper-document structure. Many popular tools and system functions are now
available on the market. Therefore, this invention can implemented as
efficient and practical procedures on a system which includes documents in
commonly used SGML format. A running model of this invention is built on
top of a version of DynaText which is used in Brown University. The
details of DynaText features are described in `HieNet: A User Centered
Approach for Automatic Link Generation` (Hypertext 93 Proceedings,
November 93 PP. 145-158 by Daniel T. Chang). The information included in
that paper is incorporated by reference.
As FIGS. 2 to 9 are provided for illustrating the processes performed by
the link generator 101 and link manager 102. The details of content
representations of each node by attributes and the calculation by the use
of Salton's Vector Space Model are fully described below and can be easily
referenced to an article by the present Applicant which is incorporated as
reference herein and attached as part of the Application. The details of
link profile vector and similarity threshold computations and evaluations
are also described below to fully disclose the novelty of the present
invention.
As one can appreciate that most hypertext systems facilitate one-at-a-time
link creation, but only few support automatic link generation. In systems
that support automatic link generation, user interests are either ignored
or explicit user actions are required to enter a set of keyword and
queries. In this invention, a hypermedia link management system is
disclosed wherein automatic system generated links are "calculated" and
then linked based on a previous created user-links. A user is allowed to
control the system generated links by providing similarity thresholds,
node granularity and the extent of linking in composite nodes. The term
vectors derived from Salton's Space Model are applied for similarity
computations. By applying an existing user created link as a basis for
similarity computations and threshold evaluation, the hypermedia link
management system disclosed in this invention provides automatic system
generated links which most closely and adaptively reflect the user
experience containing in the user link presented to the link management
system.
For a basic understanding of the extent of the invention, the definition of
a "node" is broadened to include any structured text object. Unlike the
nodes in some systems which are limited to simple text chunks, the text
object can contain other objects and it has an unique D and other
quantifiable attributes associated with each text object. For example, a
text object Chapter can contain several paragraph objects and section
objects. The section object, in turn, may contain other objects. By
applying the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) as the text
representation of the hyper-document structure, no restriction is placed
on the node, i.e., text object, granularity. The granularity is a
parameterized variable that the use may specify with great deal of
flexibility. In SGML structure, a hyper-document is constructed with a
tree hierarchy and when a document is managed with a tree structure, the
automatic linking process can be performed with a very efficient and
practical manner.
An executable program, i.e., HieNet, is built according to the principle of
this invention. HieNet is built on top of a version of DynaText used in
research at Brown University. DynaText is a hypertext browser of the
Electronic Book Technologies, Inc. The DynaText graphical browser consists
of a table of contents (TOC), a M-text window for displaying the text and
a full text structure based query facility. DynaText requires that a
document to be in SGML structure in order to index and format the document
as an on-line hypertext. A document is typically marked up in SGML by
employing a plurality of "tags" to delineate the structure as chapter,
section, subsection, etc. By the use of these tags, DynaText extracts the
hierarchical structure to form a tree. A collection of document trees
forms a document space. When a user link is provided to the link
generator, DynaText extracts and display the elemental attributes of the
user generated link. For example, the element
<video num=234> This is a text description of an emergency procedure <video
>
specifies a link that originates from this text element to video clip
number 234 stored in the database. SGML element tags can be used to
indicate the link types by specifying them as values of a link type
attribute. Hence, user can view desired links via attribute filters. The
structures of the document can also be used as filters. For example, the
use can ask, "show me all the video links (links to a piece of video)
contained in chapter 2".
The HieNet Link Database
Most research hypertext systems and a few commercial ones store links
separately in a database where each link is a record entry in a link
table. Several fields/attributes are associated with a link such as
address for the source and destination node, link type, link owner and
link date. However, no information is generally stored in the link table
to describe the content of the nodes.
The version of DynaText on which HieNet is built on still lacks a link
database and associated Link manager. A database is first built which is
now part of the commercial DynaText product. In addition to the typical
link attributes as generally included in a typical system, HieNet adds
extra attributes to store the content representation of the link's source
and destination nodes as text objects. The content representation now
stored by HieNet together with other attributes are employed to define a
link profile. A content description for each node is further calculated as
a vector by using a Salton Vector Space | | |
