Patent ID: 7065521

Claim:
A method for searching a database comprising, in a computer: inputting a search string that comprises a plurality of search string arguments connected by one or more operators wherein each search string argument specifies a search criteria; computing a distance measure between a quantitative characterization corresponding to each of one or more of the search criteria, and quantitative characterizations of each of a plurality of records; selecting records for inclusion in answer sets for each mth search criteria among the one or more search criteria based, at least in part, on a plurality of distance measures each involving a quantitative characterization corresponding to the mth search criteria, and a quantitative characterization corresponding to one of the plurality of records; for each jth record in the answer set of each mth search criteria among the one or more search criteria, computing a retrieval relevance value by a method that comprises mapping a distance measure corresponding to the mth search criteria and the jth record into a finite range; for each ith record in the answer set of an mth content based retrieval algorithm based query, computing a retrieval relevance value by evaluating a function of the following form: RRV i,m C =(1 −H ( G F ( X i −X m ))) η where, RRVi,m c is a retrieval relevance value of an ith media file to a mth search criteria basis media file based on a cth content based retrieval algorithm; x i is a quantitative characterization of the ith media file based on the cth content based retrieval algorithm; x m is a quantitative characterization of the mth search criteria basis media file based on the cth content based retrieval algorithm; G F is a distance function; H is a mapping function that maps an argument into a finite range; and η is a constant exponent; for each kth operator of the search string performing an operation specified by the kth operator on answer sets that are arguments of the kth operator to form a kth answer set for the kth operator; for each nth record in the kth answer set for each kth operator, assigning a retrieval relevance value to the nth record in the kth answer set, wherein the retrieval relevance value is a mathematical function of one or more quantitative characterizations associated with the nth record in answer sets that are arguments of the kth operator.