Web searches for a specific topic can result in multiple document references for the topic, where information on the topic is redundantly presented across the document set. This can make it difficult for the user to locate a unique piece of information from the document set, or to comprehend the full scope of the information, without examining one document after another in the hope of discovering that new or interesting fact. Summarization techniques reduce the redundancy but often at the cost of information loss. Aggregation is difficult and may present information out of context. This paper presents a method for navigating the document set such that the facts or concepts and their redundant presentations are identified. The user can gain an overview of the concepts, and can locate where they are presented. The user can then view a desired concept as presented in the context of the document of choice. The approach also allows the user to move from concept to concept apart from the sequence of any one particular document. Navigation is accomplished via a graph structure in which redundant material is grouped into nodes. Sequential material unique to a document can also be clustered into a node for a more compact graph representation. Methods for identification of redundant content and for the construction of the navigation graph are discussed.

Date Published: 10 February 2010
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7540, Imaging and Printing in a Web 2.0 World; and Multimedia Content Access: Algorithms and Systems IV, 754009 (10 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.843238

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7540:
Imaging and Printing in a Web 2.0 World; and Multimedia Content Access: Algorithms and Systems IV
Theo Gevers; Qian Lin; Raimondo Schettini; Zhigang Fan; Cees Snoek, Editor(s)