Information retrieval and navigation using a semantic layer

摘要

Systems and methods for information retrieval are provided that permit users and/or processing entities to access and define synthetic data, synthetic objects, and/or synthetic groupings of data in one or more collections of information. In one embodiment, data access on an information retrieval system can occur through an interpretation layer which interprets any synthetic data against data physically stored in the collection. Synthetic data can define virtual data objects, virtual data elements, virtual data attributes, virtual data groupings, and/or data entities that can be interpreted against data that may be stored physically in the collection of information. The system and methods for information retrieval can return results from the one or more collections of information based not only on the data stored, but also on the virtual data generated from interpretation of the stored data.

主权项

1. A system for information storage and retrieval, the system comprising:
a memory to store a collection of data records, each data record including attributes having values; a processor, coupled to the memory, configured to provide: a data layer configured to directly access the collection of data records stored in the memory; a semantic layer, configured to directly access the collection of data records stored in the memory, including a plurality of virtual objects, each virtual object storing operations and virtual data generated by the operations, the virtual data including attributes having values, the operations including query operations to be directly performed on the collection of data records stored in the memory and data operations to be performed on the virtual data, the data operations including programming language statements stored as values of one or more attributes; and a query interface configured to:
access the collection of data records through the data layer,access the collection of data records through the semantic layer,access the plurality of virtual objects in the semantic layer, andaccess at least one virtual object by an object name within a namespace defined by data objects stored in the collection of data records.