COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR ENTERING AND SEARCHING FOR NON-ROMAN-ALPHABET CHARACTERS AND RELATED SEARCH SYSTEMS

摘要

A computer-implemented method for selecting a desired Roman or non-Roman-alphabet character or objects from a set of non-Roman characters or objectsmay include steps of providing an association database that includes, for eachnon-Roman-alphabet character of the set, a Roman alphabet or other phonetictransliteration associated with each said non-Roman-alphabet character and aplurality of entries that are associated with each said non-Roman-alphabetcharacter; receiving a phonetic transliteration of the desired non-Roman-alphabet character or data object and at least one associated entry that isassociated with the desired non-Roman-alphabet character or other similarsymbolic input; accessing the association database and identifying ascandidate characters those characters of the set that are associated with thereceived phonetic transliteration and with the at least one receivedassociated entry; if a number of candidate characters is greater than one,receiving additional associated entries and repeating the accessing andidentifying step until a number of candidate characters is narrowed down to asingle candidate character, and providing the single candidate character asthe desired non-Roman-alphabet character. Also, derived from the principlesdescribed above, this invention includes a variety of methods for improvingthe efficiency of search engines through use of associations and other meansof providing context for the item(s) being searched.