TEXplorer: keyword-based object search and exploration in multidimensional text databases

Abstract

We propose a novel system TEXplorer that integrates keyword-based object ranking with the aggregation and exploration power of OLAP in a text database with rich structured attributes available, e.g., a product review database. TEXplorer can be implemented within a multi-dimensional text database, where each row is associated with structural dimensions (attributes) and text data (e.g., a document). The system utilizes the text cube data model, where a cell aggregates a set of documents with matching values in a subset of dimensions. Cells in a text cube capture different levels of summarization of the documents, and can represent objects at different conceptual levels. Users query the system by submitting a set of keywords. Instead of returning a ranked list of all the cells, we propose a keyword-based interactive exploration framework that could offer flexible OLAP navigational guides and help users identify the levels and objects they are interested in. A novel significance measure of dimensions is proposed based on the distribution of IR relevance of cells. During each interaction stage, dimensions are ranked according to their significance scores to guide drilling down; and cells in the same cuboids are ranked according to their relevance to guide exploration. We propose efficient algorithms and materialization strategies for ranking top-k dimensions and cells. Finally, extensive experiments on real datasets demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach.