Dynamic refinement of table summarization for M-commerce

Table summarization is important in mobile commerce as many diverse small devices, such as smart phones and personal digital assistants, are being equipped with applications that can access corporate databases. It is difficult to effectively present a large table of information on small devices as they tend to have limited display and processing capabilities. Hence, large tables need to be reduced and summarized in order to be properly displayed on small devices. Due to updates in the databases, device capabilities and personal preferences, a summarized table based on a previously defined specification may not be satisfactory anymore and requires further refinements. In this paper we present a flexible and lightweight implementation of dynamic refinement of table summarization. With a GUI tool or a browser the user of a small device in M-commerce can dynamically and interactively refine a summarized table until he/she is satisfied. Not only the summarized table output but also the corresponding specification are refined. Individual refined specifications are flexibly and efficiently maintained for subsequent table summarization.