Xerox Corporation

Inxight Software, Inc.

Sap America, Inc.

Business Objects Americas

Graham Holdings Company

Ramana B Rao

John Ogden Lamping

Tichomir G Tenev

Stuart Kent Card

Todd A Cass

M Margaret Withgott

Peter L T Pirolli

Dan S Bloomberg

Nareshkumar Rajkumar

James Edward Pitkow

Ronald M Kaplan

Daniel P Huttenlocher

Swapnil Hajela

Per-Kristian G Halvorsen

Brian L Neumann

Yozo Hida

Jock Douglas Mackinlay

Anand Rajaraman

Walter A Johnson

Leigh L Klotz, Jr

Steven C Bagley

Douglass R Cutting

Michael J Ferguson

Moshe Cohen

Harold J Shinsato, Jr

Linda Uyechi

Eric A Hoppe

A data processing system used for delivering profile data structures that contain interest nodes or channels. The interest nodes include sets of targets and qualifiers that comprise attributes used in filtering information files for delivery. Targets and qualifiers are applied to the attributes and available information files to produce the filtered set. Web pages showing results include tools to assist the user in creation and editing of the information. The user may share interest nodes with other users, and other users may be granted editing capability of the interest nodes. The other users may modify the interest nodes for their own personal use. Even if modified the user may continue to receive new content or information from the original user in accordance with the unmodified interest nodes or channels.

Channel sharing

A data processing system for delivering an open profile personalization system based profile data structures that contain one or more interest nodes. The interest nodes include respective sets of targets and qualifiers, where the targets and qualifiers comprise typed-attributes to be used in the filtering of information files for delivery as a result set for the interest nodes. Targets and qualifiers are applied the typed-attributes of available information files to produce the filtered set. Web pages showing the personalized results include tools based on sophisticated content analysis to assist the user in creation and editing of the open profile. A method for presenting and updating the web pages is responsive to the use of these tools.

Information display system based on user profile data with assisted and explicit profile modification

A node-link structure is laid out in a space with negative curvature, such as the hyperbolic plane. Nearby relationship data are obtained for an element in the structure, indicating information about nearby node-link relationships; then layout data for the element are obtained, based on the nearby relationship data. The layout data indicate the element's position relative to a parent in the negatively curved space. The layout data can indicate a position displacement and an angle displacement between the parent and the element. The nearby relationship data can be obtained by counting grandchildren of the parent for each child of the parent that is in a set that are being or have been laid out. The counts can be used to obtain a radius and an angle for each child in the set, and the radii and angles can be used to obtain the position displacement and angle displacement. The nearby node-link relationships can thus include only relationships among the parent and its children and grandchildren.

Local relative layout of node-link structures in space with negative curvature

Words having selected characteristics in a corpus of documents are found using a data processor arranged to execute queries. Memory stores an index structure in which entries in the index structure map words and marks for words having the selected characteristics to locations within documents in the corpus. Entries in the index structure represent words and other entries represent marks with the location information of a marked word. The entries for the marks can be tokens coalesced with prefixes of respective marked words or adjacent. A query processor forms a modified query by adding a mark for a word to the query. The processor executes the modified query.

Processor for fast contextual matching

A node-link structure is displayed within a display area having a narrow rectangular shape with an edge along one side acting as a horizon of a hyperbolic space half-plane. Lower level node features that share a parent node feature have centers of area positioned on the display in order along a line parallel with the horizon, with sufficiently similar spacings along an axis perpendicular to the horizon from the region around a parent node feature, and with sufficiently similar spacings in a dimension parallel to the horizon from adjacent node features along the line, that the lower level node features sharing the parent node feature are perceptible as a group of related node features. The half-plane model with compression is used for layout of the node-link data, and the hyperbolic layout data is mapped to a Euclidean space for display.

Tree visualization system and method based upon a compressed half-plane model of hyperbolic geometry

Processor for fast contextual searching

A node-link structure is displayed within a display area, having a narrow rectangular shape with an edge along one side acting as a horizon of a hyperbolic space half-plane. Lower level node features that share a parent node feature have centers of area positioned on the display in order along a line parallel with the horizon, with sufficiently similar spacings along an axis perpendicular to the horizon from the region around a parent node feature, and with sufficiently similar spacings in a dimension parallel to the horizon from adjacent node features along the line, that the lower level node features sharing the parent node feature are perceptible as a group of related node features. The half-plane model with compression is used for layout of the node-link data, and the hyperbolic layout data is mapped to a Euclidean space for display.

In a series of iterations, each of which automatically traverses a set of elements of a node-link structure, an iteration modifies the part of node-link data defining the structure that is in memory. The modified part of node-link data is more likely to define the set of elements that will be traversed by the next iteration. The iteration can determine whether to remove any of the part of node-link data, and then apply a criterion, such as a navigation history criterion or a least recently traversed criterion, to determine which of the part to remove. The iteration can also determine whether its set of elements includes an element with children that are not defined by the part of node-link data in memory, and can obtain a modified part that defines those children. Each iteration can, for example, prepare and present a representation of the node-link structure.

Controlling which part of data defining a node-link structure is in memory

A software visualization tool consistent with the present invention integrates OLAP functionality with focus&plus;context based techniques for navigation through and inspection of large multidimensional datasets. Focus&plus;context based navigation techniques are used to increase the clarity and information content provided to the user. The visualization tool supports a number of operations of the data set, including: select-slice, aggregation, promote/demote, repeat-variables, and sort.

Interactive interface for visualizing and manipulating multi-dimensional data

An information retrieval system having a secondary content analysis engine for use on collections of documents. Such collections of documents dynamically arise as a result of queries one or more, possibly distal, information sources. The secondary content analysis engine resides on an Information Access client computer system and allows the user to: 1) iteratively refine queries in more powerful ways than typically supported by relevance feedback or other query modification methods, 2) browse a medium-sized collection of documents (on the order of 1000 items) in more effective ways than is traditionally possible or 3) obtain more information for increasing user understanding of the collection.

Information retrieval system providing secondary content analysis on collections of information objects

A sequence of steps presents node-link representations on a display. The sequence includes a first step, a last step, and at least one intermediate step. The first step presents a first representation that represents a first node-link structure. The last step presents a last representation that represents a second node-link structure that is a modified version of the first node-link structure. Both node-link structures include a set of shared elements that include a moving element. The moving element is represented by features that have different positions in the first and last representations. Each intermediate step presents an intermediate representation that includes features representing a subset of the shared elements including the moving element, and each element in the subset is also represented by features in the first and last representations. The feature representing the moving element has object constancy through the sequence of steps. The modification can include both deletion and insertion, and the sequence can include a first subsequence in which features are deleted and a second subsequence in which features are inserted. Moving elements can follow paths that are not parallel straight lines. Separate changes can be concurrently animated.

Presenting node-link structures with modification

A node-link structure laid out in a space with negative curvature, such as the hyperbolic plane, is mapped to a rendering space, such as the unit disk, beginning from a starting element that has both a parent and a child. Data identifying the starting element are obtained, such as based on user signals. The starting element can be located at a starting position in the unit disk. Then a set of other elements can be mapped, each reachable from the starting element by a path that leads only through elements in the set. Each element's position in the negatively curved space relative to a preceding element on its path and the position of the preceding element in the rendering space can be used to obtain the element's position in the rendering space. The positions in the unit disk can then be used to present a representation of the node-link structure. The set of elements can include only a mapping root and descendants, where the mapping root is on an upward path from the starting element, but precedes the first element that maps to a position in the unit disk outside a precision horizon. A criterion can be applied to determine whether to map each element's descendants. If the rendering space has an active region within the precision horizon, it may not be necessary to map descendants if an element is outside the precision horizon or is outside the active region but has a parent inside the active region.

Mapping a node-link structure to a rendering space beginning from any node

Node-link data defining a graph also include tree defining data. The node-link data with the tree defining data further define a tree within the graph. The tree defining data indicate a set of elements in the graph that are represented in the tree. Each of a subset of elements in the set is represented more than once in the tree. For at least one element in the subset, the tree defining data indicate which representations of the element have descendants in the tree and which representations have none. The tree defining data can, for example, be expansion flags for links in the graph that are in the set of elements, with each links expansion flag indicating whether the link's to-node is expanded or contracted in the tree. In response to each of a series of expand and contract signals from a user, an iteration can modify the tree defining data and use it to present a representation of the graph with the indicated node expanded or contracted as requested.

Node-link data defining a graph and a tree within the graph

A method is disclosed for operating a processor-controlled system to produce a table image including graphical display objects in each of the cell regions indirectly representing the data values in an underlying n-dimensional (nD) information data array. Request signal data is received from a input signal source to present the table image in the display area of a display device connected to the processor-controlled system. In response to the request signal data, for each cell in the table image, the source data value and data type of a source data item in the nD data array is obtained, and a cell presentation type is selected using the data type. A graphical display object having at least one display feature representative of the data type of the data value is produced from the cell presentation type, and image definition data defining table image and the graphical display object for each cell is provided to a system display device for display. The underlying data in the nD data array is thus graphically and indirectly represented in the table image, facilitating the visual inspection and identification of patterns and trends in the data. In addition, for very large conventional table images that do not fit in a standard sized display area, indirect representation of the data occupies substantially less space in the display area, permitting very large tables to be entirely represented graphically in one image. A sophisticated user interface permits a system user to perform table manipulation functions, such as reordering rows and column, sorting rows or columns, and deriving new rows or column, in order to further reveal data trends and patterns in the graphical representations.

Method and system for producing a table image having focus and context

A system for extracting and analyzing information from a collection of linked documents at a locality to enable categorization of documents and prediction of documents relevant to a focus document. The system obtains and analyzes topology, usage and path information from for a collection at a locality, e.g. a web locality on the world wide web. For categorization, document meta information is represented as document vectors. Predefined criteria is applied to the document vectors to create lists of 'similar' types of documents. For relevance prediction, networks representing topology, usage path and text similarity amongst the documents in the collection are created. A spreading activation technique is applied to the networks starting at a focus document to predict the documents relevant to the focus document. Using category and relevance prediction information, tools can be built to enable a user to more efficiently traverse through the collection of linked documents.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Ramana B Rao