Xerox Corporation

Palo Alto Research Center Inc.

Paula S Newman

Maribeth Joy Back

Polle Trescott Zellweger

Michelle Q Wang Baldonado

Stuart Kent Card

Francine R Chen

Thorsten Brants

William C Janssen

John C Blitzer

A system and method for managing digests comprising electronic messages is presented. A selection criteria that defines message-based content for a digest is defined. Properties and characteristics of the content of the digest are defined. A delivery criteria that specifies periodic sending of the digest is accepted. The digest is constructed as a set of electronic messages. A dynamic stream of the electronic messages is monitored. One or more of the electronic messages is evaluated by filtering the electronic messages against the selection criteria. Only those electronic messages that satisfy the selection criteria are grouped into the digest to which the selection criteria corresponds. The digest is periodically delivered upon satisfaction of the delivery criteria.

System and method for managing digests comprising electronic messages

A system and method for presenting message threads is provided. A main body and one or more excerpts are parsed from each of a plurality of messages into nodes structured to form a message tree through a procedural top-down recursive descent. The nodes in the message tree are related by determining line-group types for the main body and the excerpts of each message, which are enumerated into partitions for each of the line-group types. An output network of alternative paths through the messages is created based upon the partitions of the message tree. A document is formed from the output network to identify and remove redundant components in each message.

System and method for presenting message threads

A system and method for clustering nodes of a tree structure is provided. A plurality of messages is maintained. Each message is represented as a node in a tree structure. A word vector is assigned to each message. Pairs of the nodes are identified based on relationships in the tree structure. The nodes of one or more of the pairs are combined into clusters. Boundaries of each cluster are adjusted, including at least one of placing a root node into one such duster having a closest related child node, separating children nodes into distinct groups and retaining a relationship between a parent node and one such group including a nearest child node, and transferring a parent node to one such cluster having all children of the parent node. A digest of the messages, including one or more of the clusters is formed.

System and method for clustering nodes of a tree structure

Plural versions of an authoring/editing tool for fluid text include both a WYSIWYG editor and a content-driven treetable editor for producing narratives and their behavioral control in a fluid text viewing system environment. The tool includes content-driven treetable visualization and a layout mechanisms for authoring and/or editing hypertext narratives, electronic mail threads and other tree-oriented applications. Edit operations are disclosed that permit interactive development and modification of treetables.

Authoring tools, including content-driven treetables, for fluid text

Plural versions of an authoring/editing tool for fluid text include both a WYSIWYG editor and a content-driven treetable editor for producing narratives and their behavioral control in a fluid text viewing system environment. The tool includes content-driven treetable visualization and layout mechanisms for authoring and/or editing hypertext narratives, electronic mail threads and other tree-oriented applications. Edit operations are disclosed that permit interactive development and modification of treetables.

In the context of applications such as finding messages dealing with a particular topic, or finding inter-conversation topic groupings via centroid-based clustering methods, the essential text of a first message is adjusted to avoid vector distance distortions based on differences in quoting styles. Text is deleted from the first message if that text constitutes an entire prefixed or suffixed second message (typically a parent message), while selective quotes in the first message are included in the adjusted message because these are considered to form a logical pan of the message. When the first text does not contain any quoting portions of the second text, an analysis is done to determine whether all or part of a second text constitutes a logical reference to the first message. If so, all or some parts of the essential text of the second (parent) message are included in the adjusted message.

Method and apparatus for normalizing quoting styles in electronic mail messages

A method is provided for digesting the content of hierarchically related information. The method, which obtains relatively short overviews, selects a proportion of representative nodes and then extracts and organizes one or more sentences from the text associated with each selected node. For text trees representing archived discussions, the selection of nodes and sentences is from comment/response sequences drawn from lexically central nodes which will capture those aspects of the discussion considered most important to discussion participants.

Method and apparatus for generating overview information for hierarchically related information

The method and apparatus of the present invention identifies the logical components of a message, determines the conversational relationships among messages and then structures and formats the core components into a single document to facilitate efficient assimilation of the structure and content of the contained conversations. The message analysis technique delineates the material to be retained and omitted using a combination of a recursive descent analyzer and a single weighted finite state machine for the core process.

Method and apparatus for presenting e-mail threads as semi-connected text by removing redundant material

A method of visualizing and exploring tree structures whose interior nodes represent substantial amounts of logically related textual information. The method includes methods for partitioning tree-structured textual material into topically related clusters of adjacent items, then developing digests of each cluster. The digests include both shorter overviews and arbitrarily long summaries. The tree-structured material involved could be for example, but is not limited to, trees containing the messages and postings of an archived discussion within a newsgroup, discussion list, or on-line forum. This invention also provides methods for partitioning a two-dimensional tree visualization, called a treetable, into conveniently sized segments for detailed exploration.

Method and apparatus for displaying hierarchical information

A method for pre-segmenting a large tree or treetable for purposes of visualization and deeper exploration of individual nodes, with the segments sized so as to allow inclusion of at least some amount of content-indicative text for each node. This invention pre-partitions a tree or treetable into segments of related nodes whose approximate maximum dimension permits significant text to be presented for each node. The segments can be visually differentiated in an outline depiction of the tree or treetable as a whole, and individual segments then extracted for deeper exploration. The segments may also be constrained to represent only nodes within the same logical grouping, which may be an identified subtopic, or collection of less-focused material, or other type of grouping. When the segments are so constrained, regions of adjacent segments associated with each such grouping can also be visually differentiated from other such regions.

Method and apparatus for segmenting hierarchical information for display purposes

A method for partitioning a tree-structured discussion or other tree structured collections of texts into clusters dealing with identifiable subtopics, if such subtopics exist, or into manageable partitions if not. Each document is represented by a vector and is initially placed in a cluster containing only that document. Then a sequence of cluster combinations is performed, at each step combining the most similar two clusters, where the most similar two clusters are the clusters related by the most similar pair of document vectors, into a new cluster. The process can be halted before all clusters are combined based on application-specific criteria.

Method and apparatus for clustering hierarchically related information

The invention provides a sequence of increasingly detailed presentation levels to assist a user in deciding whether a thread is of interest. If so, the text of the threaded messages is presented at a level of detail corresponding to the user's level of indicated interest. In particular, the invention provides a method comprising creating a message collection viewing cascade including a plurality of viewing levels for presenting one or more message threads and abbreviated forms of one or more messages, abbreviating at least one of the messages using one of a plurality of abbreviation techniques, and formatting each abbreviated message to be displayed at one of the plurality of viewing levels in the message collection viewing cascade. Each abbreviation technique specifies a manner in which the messages can be abbreviated, and each viewing level in the collection viewing cascade offers a different degree of detail for presenting the abbreviated forms of the messages.

Method and system for display of electronic mail

A method for the conversion and display of tree-structured information to a 'treetable', a table-like display structure, in which each path from a root to a leaf node is represented by a single column, and cells representing the immediate successors of a node are placed immediately under that node. Variation in the amount of space given to cells within particular columns is used to allow more detail to be given for selected paths and subtrees. Extraction of subparts of a treetable into another such structure is used for deeper exploration of trees. The treatable structure is also suitable for use as a selector and guide to the reading, in auxiliary displays, of the concatenated node content associated with either (a) individual columns (representing full paths), or (b) all successors to a given node.

Method and apparatus for the construction and use of table-like visualizations of hierarchic material

A method for the conversion and display of tree-structured information to a 'treetable', a table-like display structure, in which each path from a root to a leaf node is represented by a single column, and cells representing the immediate successors of a node are placed immediately under that node. Variation in the amount of space given to cells within particular columns is used to allow more detail to be given for selected paths and subtrees. Extraction of subparts of a treetable into another such structure is used for deeper exploration of trees. The treetable structure is also suitable for use as a selector and guide to the reading, in auxiliary displays, of the concatenated node content associated with either (a) individual columns (representing full paths), or (b) all successors to a given node.

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Los Altos, CA, United States of America

Paula S Newman