Intelligent database retrieval by visual reasoning

Abstract

The authors introduce the concept of personalized user profile for very large databases, as well as the VisualNet model as a representation for such a user profile. A user profile is a small and dynamic structure which contains the user's knowledge of the database, serves as a starting point for the user's access to the database, and supports intelligent database accesses. The basic idea is that a user usually accesses only a very small and stable region of a very large database, and therefore, the size of the user profile is much smaller than the whole database view. It is hoped that most of the user's database search can be conducted in the user profile. Techniques for automatic construction and maintenance of user profiles are discussed. A set of visual reasoning algorithms is presented to support intelligent and interactive user's queries to the database, as well as to coordinate the search between the user profile and the global database.<>