SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SIMPLIFYING AND MANIPULATING K-PARTITE GRAPHS

摘要

The system has a collection of a plurality of objects. Each object defines a node in a k-partite graph,such that, the nodes can be divided into a number of mutually exclusive sets such that all of the nodes are in exactly one of the sets; further edges occur only between nodes in different sets; The system also has a simplification process that aggregates one or more of the nodes into one or more categories and identifies a category node corresponding to each category. The category node inherits the mode and the edges of all the nodes in the respective category. Further, the system contains Directed Acyclic Graphs Indices (DAGIs) whose nodes may have a 1-1 mapping with the nodes in the k-partite graph. These indices can be used to aggregate and hide nodes in the k-partite graph. Aggregation occurs by selecting one or more non-leaf nodes in the DAGI and aggregating all descendent nodes. Hiding occurs by selecting some set of DAGI nodes, thus selecting some corresponding set of nodes in the k-partite graph, and requesting this set of nodes be hidden which effectively removes them from further consideration until they are restored by explicit request.