Abstract: The invention relates to a method for comparing a textual document with an existing document base. An identifier Ii is allocated to this new document Di. The document is divided into blocks Pij, such as sentences. A “unique” key Eij is associated with each sentence Pij, then searching for this key Eij in a finite state machine in order to determine which are the documents of the document base that contain the sentence Pij. A similarity is calculated between the elements of the existing database and the dataset formed by the sentences Pij. The set of the old documents contained in the existing database is determined that contain at least a fixed percentage X % of sentences of the document to be compared.

Abstract: A machine-implementable method and apparatus for automatic extension of results obtained by querying a database of relationally organized data and expressed in tabular row and column format. The method involves modifying the query by adding column variables to the query that show a high association with the initial query designated variables. The modified query is then used to access the table. This repeats until a stop condition is sensed. Tuples of values elicited responsive to the modified query are included in an extended response if they are significantly similar to tuples elicited by the original query. Several association and similarity modes are described by which the number of variables and tuples can be reiteratively extended.