Complex Searches

[Trevor]

I am looking to write a complex search facility for customers to
search on product descriptions. This area is something like data
mining, and crosses with a number of db areas.

I would like any pointers to books which may help.

Basic Problem Outline
---------------------

Data is stored on part and partdesc, price etc from a range of
manufacturers.

Cust can search based on a desire, eg cheap bath shower mixer, chrome
bsm etc

Stored Data:

1. Bath shower mixer with kit
2. Bath shower mixer with shower kit
3. BSM with kit

etc (100's of combinations)

The actual descs contain the information but not in a literal form.

Proposed Solution
-----------------

dbs from different merged dbs into one db, taking commonalities as
much as possible.

Cust request string is cut up and searched against the db. This
requires some knowledge of how srings can be cut up and how data in a
structure relates to the string.
When I was a postgraduate, years ago, I remember that people have
tried to understand these problems and never really succeeded.

Now, I have my own commercial problem for my own company which is more
related to db searches, than natural language processing, and
therefore I am hopeful someone here can help.

[Frank]

Trevor wrote:

I am looking to write a complex search facility for customers to
search on product descriptions. This area is something like data
mining, and crosses with a number of db areas.

I would like any pointers to books which may help.

Basic Problem Outline
---------------------

Data is stored on part and partdesc, price etc from a range of
manufacturers.

Cust can search based on a desire, eg cheap bath shower mixer, chrome
bsm etc

Stored Data:

1. Bath shower mixer with kit
2. Bath shower mixer with shower kit
3. BSM with kit

etc (100's of combinations)

The actual descs contain the information but not in a literal form.

Proposed Solution
-----------------

dbs from different merged dbs into one db, taking commonalities as
much as possible.

Cust request string is cut up and searched against the db. This
requires some knowledge of how srings can be cut up and how data in a
structure relates to the string.
When I was a postgraduate, years ago, I remember that people have
tried to understand these problems and never really succeeded.

Now, I have my own commercial problem for my own company which is more
related to db searches, than natural language processing, and
therefore I am hopeful someone here can help.

Sounds like a job for interMedia - it knows about aliases (BSM / Bath
SHower Mixer), deals with typo's, etc

--
Regards, Frank van Bortel

[Trevor]

Frank <fb*****@nescape.net> wrote in message news:<bp**********@news3.tilbu1.nb.home.nl>...

Trevor wrote:

I am looking to write a complex search facility for customers to
search on product descriptions. This area is something like data
mining, and crosses with a number of db areas.

I would like any pointers to books which may help.

Basic Problem Outline
---------------------

Data is stored on part and partdesc, price etc from a range of
manufacturers.

Cust can search based on a desire, eg cheap bath shower mixer, chrome
bsm etc

Stored Data:

1. Bath shower mixer with kit
2. Bath shower mixer with shower kit
3. BSM with kit

etc (100's of combinations)

The actual descs contain the information but not in a literal form.

Proposed Solution
-----------------

dbs from different merged dbs into one db, taking commonalities as
much as possible.

Cust request string is cut up and searched against the db. This
requires some knowledge of how srings can be cut up and how data in a
structure relates to the string.
When I was a postgraduate, years ago, I remember that people have
tried to understand these problems and never really succeeded.

Now, I have my own commercial problem for my own company which is more
related to db searches, than natural language processing, and
therefore I am hopeful someone here can help.

Sounds like a job for interMedia - it knows about aliases (BSM / Bath
SHower Mixer), deals with typo's, etc

Do you have a URL for this?

I saw http://www.intermedia.com but this looks irrelevant.

[Hans Forbrich]

Trevor wrote:

I saw http://www.intermedia.com but this looks irrelevant.

Intermedia is a feature set of the Oracle database.

Look at http://otn.oracle.com and in particular at
http://otn.oracle.com/products/intermedia/index.html