Patent ID: 8024331

Claim:
A method for a data processing system to efficiently identify at least one data set from a collection of datasets according to a query containing information indicative of desired datasets, the method comprising the machine-executed steps: constructing a semantic vector for each dataset; receiving the query containing information indicative of desired datasets; constructing a semantic vector for the query; comparing the semantic vector for the query to the semantic vector of each dataset; selecting datasets whose semantic vectors are closest to the semantic vector for the query; and generating a result including information of the selected datasets according to a result of the selecting step; wherein: the query or each of the datasets includes at least one data point; and the semantic vector for the query or each of the datasets is constructed by the steps of: for each data point, constructing a table for storing information indicative of a relationship between each data point and predetermined categories corresponding to dimensions in the semantic space; determining a weighted significance of each data point with respect to the predetermined categories; constructing a semantic vector for each data point, wherein each semantic vector has dimensions equal to the number of predetermined categories and based on the weighted significance represents the relative strength of its corresponding data point with respect to each of the predetermined categories; and combining the semantic vector for each of the at least one data point to form the semantic vector of the query or each of the datasets.