Abstract: A multi-structural query system performs a high-level multi-dimensional query on a multi-structural database. The query system enables a user to navigate a search by adding restrictions incrementally. The query system uses a schema to discover structure in a multi-structural database. The query system leaves a choice of nodes to return in response to a query as a constrained set of choices available to the algorithm. The query system further casts the selection of a set of nodes as an optimization. The query system uses pairwise-disjoint collections to capture a concise set of highlights of a data set within the allowed schema. The query system further comprises efficient algorithms that yield approximately optimal solutions for several classes of objective functions.

Abstract: A modular scoring system using rank aggregation merges search results into an ordered list of results using many different features of documents. The ranking functions of the present system can easily be customized to the needs of a particular corpus or collection of users such as an intranet. Rank aggregation is independent of the underlying score distributions between the different factors, and can be applied to merge any set of ranking functions. Rank aggregation holds the advantage of combining the influence of many different heuristic factors in a robust way to produce high-quality results for queries. The modular scoring system combines factors such as indegree, page ranking, URL length, proximity to the root server of an intranet, etc, to form a single ordering on web pages that closely obeys the individual orderings, but also mediates between the collective wisdom of individual heuristics.