20,235 research outputs found
The XML Query Language Xcerpt: Design Principles, Examples, and Semantics
Most query and transformation languages developed since the mid 90es for XML and semistructured dataâe.g. XQuery [1], the precursors of XQuery [2], and XSLT [3]âbuild upon a path-oriented node selection: A node in a data item is specified in terms of a root-to-node path in the manner of the file selection languages of operating systems. Constructs inspired from the regular expression constructs , +, ?, and âwildcardsâ give rise to a flexible node retrieval from incompletely specified data items.
This paper further introduces into Xcerpt, a query and transformation language further developing an alternative approach to querying XML and semistructured data first introduced with the language UnQL [4]. A metaphor for this approach views queries as patterns, answers as data items matching the queries. Formally, an answer to a query is defined as a simulation [5] of an instance of the query in a data item
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Okapi-based XML indexing
Purpose
â Being an important data exchange and information storage standard, XML has generated a great deal of interest and particular attention has been paid to the issue of XML indexing. Clear use cases for structured search in XML have been established. However, most of the research in the area is either based on relational database systems or specialized semiâstructured data management systems. This paper aims to propose a method for XML indexing based on the information retrieval (IR) system Okapi.
Design/methodology/approach
â First, the paper reviews the structure of inverted files and gives an overview of the issues of why this indexing mechanism cannot properly support XML retrieval, using the underlying data structures of Okapi as an example. Then the paper explores a revised method implemented on Okapi using path indexing structures. The paper evaluates these index structures through the metrics of indexing run time, path search run time and space costs using the INEX and Reuters RVC1 collections.
Findings
â Initial results on the INEX collections show that there is a substantial overhead in space costs for the method, but this increase does not affect run time adversely. Indexing results on differing sized Reuters RVC1 subâcollections show that the increase in space costs with increasing the size of a collection is significant, but in terms of run time the increase is linear. Path search results show subâmillisecond run times, demonstrating minimal overhead for XML search.
Practical implications
â Overall, the results show the method implemented to support XML search in a traditional IR system such as Okapi is viable.
Originality/value
â The paper provides useful information on a method for XML indexing based on the IR system Okapi
Hybrid XML Retrieval: Combining Information Retrieval and a Native XML Database
This paper investigates the impact of three approaches to XML retrieval:
using Zettair, a full-text information retrieval system; using eXist, a native
XML database; and using a hybrid system that takes full article answers from
Zettair and uses eXist to extract elements from those articles. For the
content-only topics, we undertake a preliminary analysis of the INEX 2003
relevance assessments in order to identify the types of highly relevant
document components. Further analysis identifies two complementary sub-cases of
relevance assessments ("General" and "Specific") and two categories of topics
("Broad" and "Narrow"). We develop a novel retrieval module that for a
content-only topic utilises the information from the resulting answer list of a
native XML database and dynamically determines the preferable units of
retrieval, which we call "Coherent Retrieval Elements". The results of our
experiments show that -- when each of the three systems is evaluated against
different retrieval scenarios (such as different cases of relevance
assessments, different topic categories and different choices of evaluation
metrics) -- the XML retrieval systems exhibit varying behaviour and the best
performance can be reached for different values of the retrieval parameters. In
the case of INEX 2003 relevance assessments for the content-only topics, our
newly developed hybrid XML retrieval system is substantially more effective
than either Zettair or eXist, and yields a robust and a very effective XML
retrieval.Comment: Postprint version. The editor version can be accessed through the DO
Content-Aware DataGuides for Indexing Large Collections of XML Documents
XML is well-suited for modelling structured data with
textual content. However, most indexing approaches perform
structure and content matching independently, combining
the retrieved path and keyword occurrences in a third
step. This paper shows that retrieval in XML documents can
be accelerated significantly by processing text and structure
simultaneously during all retrieval phases. To this end,
the Content-Aware DataGuide (CADG) enhances the wellknown
DataGuide with (1) simultaneous keyword and path
matching and (2) a precomputed content/structure join. Extensive
experiments prove the CADG to be 50-90% faster
than the DataGuide for various sorts of query and document,
including difficult cases such as poorly structured
queries and recursive document paths. A new query classification
scheme identifies precise query characteristics with
a predominant influence on the performance of the individual
indices. The experiments show that the CADG is applicable
to many real-world applications, in particular large
collections of heterogeneously structured XML documents
The State-of-the-arts in Focused Search
The continuous influx of various text data on the Web requires search engines to improve their retrieval abilities for more specific information. The need for relevant results to a userâs topic of interest has gone beyond search for domain or type specific documents to more focused result (e.g. document fragments or answers to a query). The introduction of XML provides a format standard for data representation, storage, and exchange. It helps focused search to be carried out at different granularities of a structured document with XML markups. This report aims at reviewing the state-of-the-arts in focused search, particularly techniques for topic-specific document retrieval, passage retrieval, XML retrieval, and entity ranking. It is concluded with highlight of open problems
Enhancing Content-And-Structure Information Retrieval using a Native XML Database
Three approaches to content-and-structure XML retrieval are analysed in this
paper: first by using Zettair, a full-text information retrieval system; second
by using eXist, a native XML database, and third by using a hybrid XML
retrieval system that uses eXist to produce the final answers from likely
relevant articles retrieved by Zettair. INEX 2003 content-and-structure topics
can be classified in two categories: the first retrieving full articles as
final answers, and the second retrieving more specific elements within articles
as final answers. We show that for both topic categories our initial hybrid
system improves the retrieval effectiveness of a native XML database. For
ranking the final answer elements, we propose and evaluate a novel retrieval
model that utilises the structural relationships between the answer elements of
a native XML database and retrieves Coherent Retrieval Elements. The final
results of our experiments show that when the XML retrieval task focusses on
highly relevant elements our hybrid XML retrieval system with the Coherent
Retrieval Elements module is 1.8 times more effective than Zettair and 3 times
more effective than eXist, and yields an effective content-and-structure XML
retrieval
Visual exploration and retrieval of XML document collections with the generic system X2
This article reports on the XML retrieval system X2 which has been developed at the University of Munich over the last five years. In a typical session with X2, the user
first browses a structural summary of the XML database in order to select interesting elements and keywords occurring in documents. Using this intermediate result, queries combining structure and textual references are composed semiautomatically.
After query evaluation, the full set of answers is presented in a visual and structured way. X2 largely exploits the structure found in documents, queries and answers to enable new interactive visualization and exploration techniques that support mixed IR and database-oriented querying, thus bridging the gap between these three views on the data to be retrieved. Another salient characteristic of X2 which distinguishes it from other visual query systems for XML is that it supports various degrees of detailedness in the presentation of answers, as well as techniques for dynamically reordering and grouping retrieved elements once the complete answer set has been computed
Investigation into Indexing XML Data Techniques
The rapid development of XML technology improves the WWW, since the XML data has many advantages and has become a common technology for transferring data cross the internet. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate and study the XML indexing techniques in terms of their structures. The main goal of this investigation is to identify the main limitations of these techniques and any other open issues.
Furthermore, this research considers most common XML indexing techniques and performs a comparison between them. Subsequently, this work makes an argument to find out these limitations. To conclude, the main problem of all the XML indexing techniques is the trade-off between the
size and the efficiency of the indexes. So, all the indexes become large in order to perform well, and none of them is suitable for all usersâ requirements. However, each one of these techniques has some advantages in somehow
A Database Approach to Content-based XML retrieval
This paper describes a rst prototype system for content-based retrieval from XML data. The system's design supports both XPath queries and complex information retrieval queries based on a language modelling approach to information retrieval. Evaluation using the INEX benchmark shows that it is beneficial if the system is biased to retrieve large XML fragments over small fragments
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