An entity-based method for XML keyword search

Keyword search is a user-friendly way to query XML data. The basic problem of XML keyword search is how to define a valid query semantic. We observe that entity is an important concept for returning meaningful information in database queries. In this paper, we consider an XML document as a set of entities. By considering entity as the basic semantic unit, we propose a new semantic, Smallest Lowest Common Entity Ancestor (SLCEA) semantic to answer keyword search over XML documents. A SLECA node in an XML document represents complete information unit of the real world, it solves the problem with result not completely and meaningless. Besides the semantic, we also design two efficient algorithms to compute LCEA Set and SLCEA Set. By analyzing the semantic relationship among entity, property and value during keyword query processing, our approach significantly improves the search quality over XML documents. Finally, by according to different evaluation standard, we demonstrate effectiveness of our approach in the three different data sets.