Patent · US Expired

Scatter-gather: a cluster-based method and apparatus for browsing large document collections

US5442778A · kind A · utility

228Cited by
11References
21Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateNov 12, 1991
Grant dateAug 15, 1995
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 12, 2011

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY10S707/99937
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Scatter-Gather is a computer based document browsing method which operates in time proportional to a number of documents in a target corpus. The Scatter-Gather method includes: preparing an initial ordering of the corpus using, for example, an off-line computational method; determining a summary of the initial ordering of the corpus for interactive utility; and providing a further ordering of the corpus using, for example, an on-line non-deterministic method. The step of an off-line preparation of an initial ordering of a corpus is non-time-dependent, thus an accurate initial ordering is prepared. The step of determining a summary includes determining a summary for presentation to a user without scrolling on a CRT. The step of providing a further ordering includes truncated group average agglomerate clustering, merging disjointed document sets, center finding, assign-to-nearest and other refinement methods.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.