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Interactive Query Formulation in Semistructured Databases

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Flexible Query Answering Systems (FQAS 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2522))

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Abstract

The use of large amounts of distributed and heterogeneous information has become extremely cumbersome; this difficulty is mainly related to exploring the data, rather than actually storing or exchanging it. The user who is interested in small bits of information is getting more and more confused when having to dig under a large volume of diverse and more importantly semi-structured data. In this paper,we propose an interactive and adaptive framework that guides the user in the search for data, by disclosing only a part of the underlying information at a time. It first provides the user with a high-level view of the raw data and gradually adapts to his/her needs in order to offer a refined answer. The proposed model offers the possibility to query a semistructured database based on general schema-related constraints imposed by the user or identified by the system, but without specific knowledge of the underlying metadata. This is achieved by receiving initially an amorphic query, which may consist of one or more basic paths, and helping the user to refine it gradually to a specific semistructured query, expressed in a language like XQuery or Lorel.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, Athens University of Economics and Business, USA

    Agathoniki Trigoni

Authors
  1. Agathoniki Trigoni
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Jaime G. Carbonell

  2. University of Saarland, Saabrücken, Germany

    Jörg Siekmann

  3. Roskilde University, Building 42-1, P.O. Box 260, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark

    Troels Andreasen  & Henning Christiansen  & 

  4. Department of Information and Software Engineering School of Information Technology and Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, 22030-4444, Virginia, USA

    Amihai Motro

  5. Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Aalborg University Esbjerg, Niels Bohrs Vej 8, 6700, Esbjerg, Denmark

    Henrik Legind Larsen

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Trigoni, A. (2002). Interactive Query Formulation in Semistructured Databases. In: Carbonell, J.G., Siekmann, J., Andreasen, T., Christiansen, H., Motro, A., Legind Larsen, H. (eds) Flexible Query Answering Systems. FQAS 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2522. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36109-X_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36109-X_28

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00074-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36109-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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