Flexible, efficient text databases

依赖文本的应用程序必须建立在数据组织原则的基础上，类似于传统数据库系统的基本原则。为了将文档库和其他结构化文本集合作为数据库进行管理，我们必须推进文本数据结构化(包括表示、语言和实现策略)的理论和实践。 因此，一个长期目标是通过将关系数据库经验应用于这一信息领域来支持文档存储和管理。这一目标包括设计合适的文件数据库系统并制作其原型。挑战是发现如何有效地管理复杂的文本结构和表达的多样性。第二个相辅相成的目标是创建以虚拟文本(“文本视图”)形式提供信息片段的系统。这些文本视图可以动态组合以满足各种应用程序的需求，并且它们可以用作数据库的更新门户。 短期内，这些目标的各个方面将继续通过三个主题加以解决：(1)设计和实施改进的算法，防止未经授权访问和修改文本；(2)设计和实施改进的信息检索系统，采用数据库系统中使用的做法；(3)设计和实施文本转换系统，用于装载结构化文本数据库、整合文本数据库以及支持物化和非物化视图。 全世界对XML的各种应用的持续兴趣表明，这项研究仍然是及时的，对加拿大一个重要的经济增长领域至关重要。出版商、数据提供者(例如通过万维网)、依赖任何形式的以文本为主的知识库开展内部和外部业务的组织以及软件系统提供者将受益于这项研究以及该理论产生的具体工具，这将为设计其数据库提供一个框架。

Applications relying on text must be built upon principles of data organization similar to those that are fundamental to conventional database systems. For document repositories and other collections of structured text to be managed as databases, we must advance the theory and practice of text data structuring (including representation, language, and implementation strategies). Thus one long-term objective is to support document storage and management by adapting and applying relational database experience to this domain of information. This objective includes designing and prototyping suitable document database systems. The challenge is to discover how the complexity of text, with its intricate structure and diversity of expression, can be efficiently managed. The second, complementary objective is to create systems that provide information fragments as virtual texts ("text views"). These text views can be assembled dynamically to meet various applications' needs, and they can be used as update portals into the database. In the short term, aspects of these objectives will continue to be addressed through three themes: (1) design and implementation of improved algorithms for protecting text from unauthorized access and modification; (2) design and implementation of improved systems for information retrieval, applying practices used in database systems; and (3) design and implementation of text transformation systems for loading structured text databases, for integrating text databases, and for supporting materialized and unmaterialized views. The continued worldwide interest in diverse applications of XML suggests that this research remains timely and crucial to an important economic growth area in Canada. Publishers, data providers (e.g., via the World Wide Web), organizations that rely on any form of text-dominated knowledge base for conducting their internal and external business, and software system providers will benefit from specific tools that arise from this research as well as from the theory, which will provide a framework for designing their databases.