초록 ▼

A method and apparatus to dynamically maintain META-tag information specifying categorization and/or degree of compound documents, which are collections or hierarchy of collections of objects (possibly web pages), for efficient retrieval of leaf or intermediate objects with specific characteristics

A method and apparatus to dynamically maintain META-tag information specifying categorization and/or degree of compound documents, which are collections or hierarchy of collections of objects (possibly web pages), for efficient retrieval of leaf or intermediate objects with specific characteristics without the need to search any content of the collection. The specific characteristic and the contents of the collection can change constantly both qualitatively and quantitatively (including the insertion, deletion and update of objects). While dynamically maintaining the META-tag information, there are no inclusion restrictions on these compound documents, i.e., any collection can contain itself either directly or recursively; and all objects within a META-tagged compound document are not required to participate. The PICS protocol may be used to specify this META-tag information with both categorization and degree; to reflect the obsolescence, currency or freshness of an objects; to validate a given object using a digital signature; and to enable charging for the META-tag service. Aggregation methods are provided to enable maximization, minimization, and averaging; to limit the propagation of META-tags; and to handle the time-out of META-tag and information validity.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is claimed:] [1.] An apparatus for categorizing a plurality of objects which together comprise an object set, wherein a respective categorization value is associated with each object in said set, said apparatus comprising:a request handler for modifying said categorization value of one of sai

[ What is claimed:] [1.] An apparatus for categorizing a plurality of objects which together comprise an object set, wherein a respective categorization value is associated with each object in said set, said apparatus comprising:a request handler for modifying said categorization value of one of said objects or for one of deleting one of said objects or adding a further object to said object set;data storage means for storing a global rating value which is calculated based on each categorization value of all of said objects in said object set;compound means for recalculating said global rating value responsive to invocation of said request handler; andmodifying means for modifying said global rating value by employing an aggregation algorithm, wherein said aggregation algorithm recursively includes each one of said plurality of objects; and wherein said modifying means includes means for identifying and tracking each object for which said categorization value is included in said global rating value such that said aggregation algorithm includes said categorization value of each object of said plurality of objects a predetermined number of times.