Database interaction and interpretation tool

The present invention refers to a method improving the possi bilities to retrieve data from a database. Furthermore, the present invention refers to a system providing such improved possibilities. Additionally, the present invention refers to a computer program product that allows to realize the in ventive method. Furthermore, the present invention refers to the use of the invention to provide improved search strate gies within such database.

Acquiring and utilizing data is important since the beginning of natural science. During time data required in the possi bilities arising therefrom significantly changed. Simultane ously to the possibilities also requirements and problems to use such data in an efficient way also changed significantly. Taking into account the sheer amount of data that can be col lected today and is collected it becomes more and more prob lematic to make decent use of it. Small amounts of data in the past could be structured and maintained manually. Today not only the size of the data required is far bigger, but it was also noted that is sufficient to include, for example, data regarding typical types of engines like continuous flow engines to make assessments and predictions for the specific different type in question. The whole field of data analytics research areas and evaluation methods has been established and can be made use of to acquire important insight in corre sponding subject matter. However, it was noted that the com plexity of the data analytics methods requires some technical expert requiring work closely together with an expert in the field of the data analytics to make out use of the new meth ods available that might be applied to start up data assets currently only used to fraction of its possibilities.

This and further problems are solved by the products and methods as disclosed hereafter and in the claims. Further beneficial embodiments are disclosed in the dependent claims and the further description and figures. These benefits can be used to adapt the corresponding solution to specific needs or to solve additional problems.

According to one aspect the present invention refers to a method of providing a search strategy within a database like a knowledge graph, wherein the method contains the steps of receiving instruc tions from a user interface and providing data to the user interface, wherein the database contains a plurality of datasets and a plurality of relationships of the datasets, wherein the database provides a search interface based on graph query language, wherein the method contains the step of exchanging data by means of the search interface based on graph query language, and wherein the method contains the step of processing instruc tions entered in the user interface being at least partially not in graph query language and/or processing data retrieved from the database being in graph query language, preferably converting at least a part of the instructions being not in graph query language into graph query language and/or con verting at least a part of the data retrieved from the data base being in graph query language into a different format.

Surprisingly, it was noted that it is typically highly bene- fial to provide such method being computer implemented to simplify the work of the user. While the data in such data bases is of great interest and allows to extract highly valu able information it was noted that typically it is very dif ficult to make use of such data. While graph query language is highly beneficial to extract data from the database it is also very complex and requires the user to be highly skilled in corresponding data analytics related topics. On the other hand it was noted that it is challenging for expert being ex pert on the technical field relating to the datasets stored in the database to provide the required data for an expert on the field of data analytics to directly provide satisfying search results. Surprisingly, it was noted that the inventive method allows to significantly simplify the work of a tech nical expert to formulate and customize the search himself making best use of his core competencies. For example, it was noted that for technical fields like the field of continuous flow engines or compressors the technical and experience ac cumulated on the side of the technical experts is especially required to make good use of the data available in the data base. Providing such possibility for such expert significant ly improves the workflow and possibilities available. Herein, it is surprisingly simple to automatically process the in structions and the data retrieved from the database utilizing available methods. It was further noted that methods like ma chine learning are especially suitable to provide a corre sponding system. It is assumed that the high consistency of technical experts like in the technical areas of continuous flow engines and compressors to phrase corresponding ques tions and the typical language and design expected for data received result in the simplified requirements. Thus, it is unexpectedly possible to realize such system despite the problem to be expected to provide such generic "translation".

Typically, such continuous flow engines utilize a stream of fluid continuously flowing through the engine to rotate a ro tor, for example, converting the kinetic energy into elec tricity. For example, such fluid stream can be generated by means of burning a fuel using burner in a gas turbine or boiling a liquid like water in a steam generator. Examples of corresponding continuous flow engines are gas turbines and steam turbines.

Compressors are utilized to compress a fluid like a gas for it following use. Herein, such compressor is often associated to a fridge being an application of the daily life. However, compressors are also utilized in industrial applications like in the chemical industry to continuously compress a fluid like in a cracking process to allow a further processing.

It has to be noted that the inventive method can contain mul tiple steps of receiving instructions from the user interface and providing data to the user interface. Typically, it is preferred that an iterative mechanism is utilized especially including data as specified in one or more of the embodiments as mentioned below to give a feedback to the user. In return the user sends comparable instructions or different types of instructions as mentioned in the embodiments below to correct or refine the search strategy. It was noted that technical experts like especially those working on the field of contin uous flow engines very efficiently provide reliable search strategies without much effort utilizing the embodiments as described herein.

According to a further aspect the present invention refers to a system comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the system to per form operations comprising: receiving instructions from a user interface, retrieving data from a database like a knowledge graph by means of a search interface, wherein the database contains a plurality of datasets and a plurality of relationships of the datasets, wherein the search interface is based on graph query lan guage, and wherein the system is adapted to process instructions entered in the user interface being at least partially not in graph query language and/or to process data retrieved from the da tabase being in graph query language, preferably including converting at least a part of the instructions being not in graph query language into graph query language and/or con verting at least a part of the data retrieved from the data base being in graph query language into a different format. Utilizing such system allows to utilize the inventive method and significantly improves the possibilities of experts being highly skilled in the technical topics yet not in the data base related topics.

According to further aspect the present invention refers to a computer program product, tangibly embodied in a machine- readable storage medium, including instructions operable to cause a computing entity to execute an inventive method.

According to further aspect the present invention refers to storage device for providing an inventive computer program product, wherein the device stores the computer program prod uct and/or provides the computer program product for further use.

According to further aspect the present invention refers to a use of an inventive method, an inventive system, or an in ventive computer program product to provide a search strategy within a database, wherein the database contains a plurality of datasets and a plurality of relationships of the datasets, and wherein the database provides a search interface based on graph query language.

To simplify understanding of the present invention it is re ferred to the detailed description hereafter and the figures attached as well as their description. Herein, the figures are to be understood being not limiting the scope of the pre sent invention, but disclosing preferred embodiments explain ing the invention further.

Fig. 1 shows a scheme of an inventive system using an in ventive method and an inventive computer program product.

Preferably, the embodiments hereafter contain, unless speci fied otherwise, at least one processor and/or data storage unit to implement the inventive method. In the following the invention will be exemplarily refer to continuous flow engines like gas turbines. It was noted that the application of the invention in such area was especially beneficial. It is assumed that this is resulting from, for example, the big amount of data material collected over years and decades as well as the inhomogeneous available data re sults in significant problems to provide a homogeneous data base. Herein, graph query language was found to be surpris ingly efficient to formulate search strategies. Simultaneous ly, it was surprisingly noted that the technical experts of this technical field significantly struggle to utilize such language to formulate search strategies themselves. Herein, it has to be understood that the inventive method is espe cially beneficially utilized in the aforementioned technical area, however, the application of the inventive method is not limited thereto. A person skilled in the art understands that the basic principle of this invention can be applied to dif ferent technical areas. Also, it is expected that taking into account modern data collection in an increasing number of ar eas similar situations will build up over time and will fur ther increase the benefit obtained by utilizing the inventive method and system in other technical areas. Additionally, it has to be noted that even in case the benefit might be slightly decreased for other technical areas it is still a significant improvement over existing alternatives like building structured databases specifically prepared to be used by technical experts manually.

According to one aspect the present invention refers to a method as described above.

It was noted that it is beneficial for typical embodiments that the datasets and/or relationsships contain technical da ta that is retrieved using the inventive method. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the retrieved data contains technical data. It was noted that it is especially beneficial for typical cases to include specified technical data being directly associated to corresponding datasets and/or relationships. Surprisingly, this allows in combina tion with the inventive method to enable users providing much experience with regard to the technical subject matter to make use of this know-how without requiring signifcant knowledge with regard to data analytics. For example, it was noted that such technical data can already be prepared in ad vance based on typical experiences. Data that might be pro vided in this context are details with regard to continuous flow engines as utilized in power plants like the type of the continuous flow engine, the power of the corresponding en gine, the maintenance state and maintenance schedules related details, and so on. Corresponding data can be extracted or assigned in advance to increase the speed of corresponding search requests.

A type of data that is especially beneficially utilized for the inventive method is time series data. According to fur ther embodiments it preferred that the database contains time series data. Typically, it is preferred that the data provid ed to the user interface contains times series data. It was noted that corresponding databases containing such time se ries data representing data collected over years and decades result in amounts of data being even for the same device slightly inhomogeneous based on changes over time. For exam ple, sensors might have been replaced or even the device it self might have been replaced in part or completely. As the collected data often does not reflect corresponding changes data analysts trying to retrieve reasonable data from such data material are confronted with big problems. Therefore, enabling a technical expert being aware of such changes or at least being able to associate a corresponding dataset to such change that might be expected from typical maintenance rou tines provides a significant benefit. In this context, it is typically preferred that the inventive method optionally in cludes the step of storing data in the database. Such possi bility of storing data in the database using the inventive method is not only beneficial for the embodiment as mentioned above but can be typically beneficially included in all em- bodiments of the inventive method as described herein. This allows to combine the specific search and introducing further technical information in the database. Such way without re quiring additional work for example knowledge of the system collected over years can be easily introduced into the data base to allow an even more efficient search in such database subsequently.

It was further noted that it is possible to beneficially im plement a summarization method into the inventive method. Ac cording to further embodiments it is preferred that the meth od contains the step of processing at least a part of the da tabase to provide summarized information of the plurality of datasets and/or the plurality of relationships, wherein the data provided to the user interface contains the summarized information. For example, the datasets and/or relationships contained in the database can be summarized according to sim ilar features shared by such datasets and/or relationships. Herein, such shared feature can, for example, be identified automatically, can be provided as instruction received from the user interface or combinations thereof. For example, the datasets can be summarized based on the power output of a turbine engine, wherein the datasets of a specific range of power output are summarized as single set of datasets shown in the user interface. Herein, the user can also be enabled to instruct to further summarize or split up certain sets of datasets to, for example, split such set of datasets based on the type of the turbine engine, summarize different ranges of power output or summarize certain sets of datasets to a big ger set of datasets based on his experience of comparable da ta. The summarized information can be provided as clustering based on shared features to summarize corresponding datasets and/or relationships to simplify the understanding of the content of the database.

It was noted that it is for typical cases very beneficial to provide a set of filters options for the user. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the data provided to the user interface contains a plurality of filters options relating to the datasets and/or the relationships to the user interface, wherein preferably the filter options contain at least one filter option based on a continuous flow engine like a type of continuous flow engine. For example, such type of continuous flow engine can be a based on a power level provided herewith clustering the available continuous flow engines like continuous flow engines providing a power output between 400MW and 500MW. However, it can also be preferred to filter according to the specific model of the continuous flow engine like SGT-800 or SGT-400. Surprisingly, even simple filter options provide a significant benefit, not only re sulting from the filter option itself. In general, such fil ter option as disclosed herein is not necessarily a simply option to be selected but can also be provided as search string or search text optionally containing an explanation. For example, it is also possible to provide a natural lan guage search text representing the filter option. During tests it was noted that the technical experts can use such available filter options to get an idea what possibly might be searched and may utilize a text search like even a natural language based text search to optimize the search strategy using a similar wording. Thus, corresponding filter options provided a surprising guidance for users going beyond the mere filter option possibility provided.

For example, the datasets can be filtered to provide datasets referring to a specific type of continuous flow engine. The corresponding datasets can be shown or reviewed in the user interface. Also, it can be possible to review the search strategy based on the filtered datasets. For example, it can be utilized to assess whether certain relevant datasets are correctly utilized in the search strategy. For example, an user being an expert for such continuous flow engines can as sess whether excluded datasets have been correctly excluded or whether similar types should be included again. Addition ally or alternatively the user is able to search for datasets related to specific continuous flow engines like specific types of continuous flow engines to review whether incorrect data has been utilized in the search strategy. For example, the user can easily identify and exclude corresponding da tasets that might be relevant in general but are not relevant for the specific search strategy.

Also, the inventive method can be beneficially utilized to retrieve specific information from the database. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the retrieved data contains data regarding the database, wherein the retrieved data preferably contains data regarding the datasets like nodes, the relationships, quantifiers, instant counts, hier archies, epistemic concepts, and/or instances in the data base. For example, such quantifier can indicate whether the strategy includes that certain datasets are more heavily in fluencing the search result than other datasets. Utilizing the inventive method to retrieve the corresponding data from the database was surprisingly beneficial despite being a data analytics topic that should be expected to be detrimental to the interest of the technical user being the target group. However, it was noted that including such feature surprising ly allows to easily collect the corresponding data from the database during the work of the technical expert allowing an expert for data analytics in a subsequent step to review the corresponding search strategy, its customizations and its re sults. Herein, it is not even required that the corresponding data is visible for the user being a technical expert but might be stored along the other data resulting out of the method. Also, it was noted that corresponding data regarding such correlation of customizations of the search strategy and the associated database related components allows to further optimize and adapt a correspondingly utilized system accord ing to the very specific case with far less effort.

Additionally, it was noted that the method is typically bene ficially containing the step of creating or customizing the search strategy. According to further embodiments it is pre ferred that the method contains the step of executing comput- er-executable instructions that when executed cause one or more processors to create a search strategy or customize a search strategy to be performed within the database, wherein search results and/or stages of the search and/or attributes of individual result instances are displayed and/or stored.

It was further noted that for some embodiments it is typical ly preferred that the method also contains the step of start ing the search based on the search strategy within the data base. For typical cases it was noted that this results in a faster and more efficient system.

For example, it can especially be preferred that data provid ed to the user interface contains a search strategy to be ex ecuted within the database, wherein the method contains the step of receiving instructions from the user interface to customize the search strategy, wherein optionally the method contains the step of providing filters options and data re garding the datasets and/or the relationships to the user in terface to be utilized for preparing the instructions. Typi cally, it is preferred that the method contains the step of automatically providing a selection of corresponding filter options and data regarding the datasets and/or the relation ships to the user interface, preferably the selection is based an automatic selection depending on the specific search strategy. Such automatic selection can, for example, be based on similar searches performed before and stored in a memory being part of a system utilized to execute the method or be ing accessible by such system.

Quite surprising it was noted that based on the easy to un derstand inventive method technical experts quickly grow ac customed to certain data analytics topics. According to fur ther embodiments it is preferred that the data provided to the user interface contains data regarding the creation and/or modeling effort to the user interface. Corresponding information are easily evaluated after short time even by technical experts not being accustomed to corresponding data analytics to this point and allow them to, for example, easi- er evaluate the quality of the corresponding datasets and/or relationships to even more improve the benefit obtained by the inventive method.

Furthermore, it was noted that it was especially helpful to structure the search strategy into subparts. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the search strategy consists of at least two, preferably a plurality, of sub search strategies being executed linearly or parallelly, wherein executing the at least two sub search strategies equals executing the search strategy, wherein the data pro vided to the user interface contains data regarding at least one sub search strategy, and wherein the method contains the step of receiving instructions regarding the customization or replacement of the sub search strategies from the user inter face. Surprisingly, it was noted that this step requiring ad ditional effort provides significant benefits for typical cases allowing to more easily process parts of the search strategy. It was noted that evaluating and providing instruc tions for such smaller parts of the overall search strategy significantly decreases the effort required by the user being technical experts. For example, the sub search strategies are preferably customizable according to the datasets selected during the search. Herein, it is preferred for typical embod iments that it is not only possible to select or deselect da tasets, groups of datasets and/or types of datasets, but it is also possible to include quantifiers relating to the da tasets. Such quantifier allows to influence the weight of the datasets for the search strategy.

A further beneficial feature that can be implemented is the possibility that the user can be enabled to directly select certain results to be retrieved and shown on the user inter face. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the instructions contain a selection of a partial search re sult and/or a preliminary search result, wherein the data provided to the user interface contains the partial search result and/or the preliminary search result, and wherein the method contains the step of customizing the search strategy using instructions from the user interface in response to the partial search result and/or preliminary search result, wherein optionally the instructions utilized for customizing are at least in part converted into graph query language. Surprisingly, it was noted that the experts utilizing the data structure product efficiently utilize cor responding search results the countercheck and improve the search strategy.

Furthermore, it was noted that in typical embodiments includ ing a quality identifier significantly simplifies the review ing process for technical experts. According to further em bodiments it is preferred that the data provided to the user interface contains a quality identifier for at least one da taset and/or at least one relationship. While experts for da ta analytics topics can typically easily evaluate the quality of such dataset or relationship on demand, it was noted that a technical expert benefits significantly from such addition al information. Such quality identifier can be provided in different forms like a ranking system with a number assigned to it like ranging from 1 to 10 or some ample system indicat ing, for example, datasets with low reliability by red and datasets with the high reliability by green. Further methods to provide such quality identifier available to persons skilled in the art and can be easily implemented to realize this embodiment of the invention.

For typical embodiments it is very efficient for the user to customize the search strategy by means of including quantifi ers. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the steps of:

- automatically providing a search strategy, wherein at least one quantifier is assigned to at least one dataset and/or at least one relationship,

- automatically excluding datasets and/or relationsships providing a low quantifier from the search, - providing data to the user interface containing data re garding the quantifier and/or excluded datasets and/or rela tionships to the user interface, preferably data regarding the quantifier and datasets and/or relationships that have been excluded. Typically, it is preferred that the method further contains the step of customizing at least one quanti fier and/or include at least one datasets and/or at least one relationship. Additionally or alternatively the instructions contain instructions influencing a threshold specifying what quantifier is required to exclude or include datasets and/or relationships in the search. This allows to introduce signif icant customizations of the search strategy in an easy to un derstandable way making best use of the technical know-how of experts. For example, this allows the knowledge of such ex perts what types of continuous flow engines provide a compa rable behavior or what situations during the use of corre sponding continuous flow engines are comparable to the situa tion being topic of the search.

A beneficial feature to be in typical applications benefi cially included in the user interface allows the user to uti lize natural language. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the instructions received from the user inter face contain instructions from a natural language interface.

A corresponding loss of accuracy is surprisingly more than compensated for typical applications by the simplification for the user being no data analytics expert. Such interface can be utilized also in combination with suggested filter op tions. This combination was especially useful for many appli cations, as it suggests certain formulations and even differ ent filter options entered using similar natural language can more easily be interpreted to relate to the correct terms in creasing the quality of the output.

Additionally, it is beneficial for specific embodiments that a natural language input is utilized to identify relevant da tasets or relationships. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the steps of: interpreting natural language to identify potentially rele vant datasets and/or relationships entered in natural lan guage in the user interface, and providing data containing the potentially relevant datasets and/or relationships and/or selected data like technical data of potentially relevant datasets and/or relationships to the user interface. Typically, it is preferred that corresponding data provided to the user interface is provided in a struc tured and/or grouped form. For example, it can be structured according to the quantifier or quality identifier of corre sponding datasets and/or relationships. Additionally or al ternatively the corresponding data can be grouped according to certain technical aspects like a certain type of continu ous flow engine. For example, it was noted that it especially beneficial to group the corresponding data according to the type of continuous flow engine being the source of the corre sponding dataset and structure the data according to the quality of the data available. This, for example, enables an user being an expert of continuous flow engines to easily se lect relevant data originating from similar continuous flow engines having a high quality to be included in the search strategy and optimize the results significantly.

Further experiences showed that it can be beneficial for typ ical applications that the inventive method includes utiliz ing of a data storage containing data regarding prior search es. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the steps of:

- providing a data storage containing data regarding prior searches and prior search strategies,

- manually, semiautomatically, or automatically compare a new search to the prior searches, and

- creating a new search strategy or adapting a new search strategy based on prior search strategies regarding similar prior searches. Identifying and qualifying such similarity can be realized using typical methods. Herein, it can be re lied upon "simple" methods like comparing the type of device like the type of continuous flow engine. However, for other embodiments it is preferred that alternatively or additional ly a similarity search is based on machine learning like deep learning. The correspondingly identified data regarding prior searches can, for example, be automatically utilized to opti mize the search strategy provided to the user interface. Al ternatively, the data provided to the user interface first contains a selection of possibly relevant prior searches and/or a suggestion of a similar prior search, wherein the instructions received by the user interface contain instruc tions verifying such suggestion and/or selecting at least one possibly relevant prior search from the selection. For typi cal embodiments it is preferred that the method contains at least a verification step to provide a suggestion of possibly included data regarding prior searches and/or prior search strategies to a user being able to decide upon such inclu sion. For example, such decision can be in the form of a yes/no decision. Typically, it is preferred that a corre sponding suggestion is accompanied by technical aspects being included in the prior searches. For example, the type and/or power output of a corresponding continuous flow engine can be provided to a user interface to enable a user being expert in the field of continuous flow engines to easily evaluate the relevance of corresponding prior searches. Typically, it is preferred that the system also enables the user to request additional information with regard to the suggested data to be included. This allows to simplify the decision of the ex pert.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the step of assigning at least one quantifier to a dataset and/or a relationship, and wherein a partial search result, a step of the search result, a preliminary search result and/or a search result is provid ed based on the at least one assigned quantifier. For typical embodiments it is preferred that the instructions received from the user interface contain instructions to assign at least one quantifier. Herein, assigning such quantifier also includes instructing to amend an existing quantifier. Fur- thermore, it is preferred that data provided to the user in terface contains at least one of the aforementioned results. This enables the user to, for example, directly review the consequences of a corresponding quantifier and compare it to the expectations. Typically, it is beneficial for many embod iments that the partial search result, the step of the search result and/or the preliminary search result contain data with regard to the changes resulting from including the quantifi er. Herein, it is possible to, for example, include the changes of corresponding values as percentages or absolute number possibly including a ranking according to the size of the change and/or provide a selection of the most significant changes being selected, for example, based on a threshold value.

A feature that is beneficially included for typical embodi ments it is a report feature. According to further embodi ments it is preferred that the method contains the step of providing a report of the search strategy, search result, partial search result, a step of the search result, and/or a preliminary search result, more preferred of the search strategy and/or search result. Although, it is typically pre ferred that in the first step that such report is provided to the user by means of the user interface, it is typically ben eficially to provide the report in a generic form easily ac cessible and distributable. For example, it may be exported as CSV or PDF file. Herein, it can be preferred to directly provide an interface to send the corresponding report utiliz ing a network like an internal network or the internet. For example, it can be sent directly to the service center uti lizing the Internet. In case of a transmission utilizing an insecure network it is typically preferred to include an en cryption mechanism. Although, it is possible to directly transmit data utilizing mechanisms like VPN it was surpris ingly beneficial to include such encryption being especially preferable automatically implemented to prevent a data loss in case of some malfunction combined with an automated send ing of the corresponding data. A technical area benefitting significantly from the present invention is the technical area of industrial plants like chemical plants and power plants, continuous flow engines and compressors. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the datasets contain data regarding industrial plants, continuous flow engines and/or compressors, more preferred continuous flow engines and/or compressors, even more pre ferred continuous flow engines. The data collected over dec ades for corresponding systems is very beneficially utilized using the inventive data structure product. Also, the tech nical experts working in this technical area are typically not that well accustomed with details of data analytic top ics. Simultaneously, corresponding technical experts are typ ically highly skilled and experienced with regard to the sys tems and requirements within their technical field while sim ultaneously corresponding detailed information regarding such data is typically not contained in such databases.

While it is possible to completely automate the process to provide a search strategy and perform such search it is bene ficial for typical embodiments to include at least one review step. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the steps of: providing data regarding the plurality of datasets and/or the plurality of relation ships to the user interface at least once, and receiving at least one instruction containing a verification that a user agrees to the search strategy and optionally con taining customizations of the search strategy. Typically, it is preferred that the data regarding the plurality of da tasets and/or the plurality of relationships refers to tech nical data in relationship to the data contained in the plu rality of datasets and/or plurality of relationships. It was noted that even a quick review utilizing the user interface significantly improves the overall benefit of corresponding searches. Making this review process faster and simpler while making it mandatory surprisingly provided the overall benefit that the implementation is far more efficient. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the steps of:

- providing data to the user interface, wherein the data con tains a plurality of filter options,

- receiving instructions from the user interface, wherein the instructions contain a selection of at least one filter op tion, and

- providing data to the user interface, wherein the data pro vided to the user interface contains filtered datasets and/or filtered relationships and/or data referring to filtered da tasets and/or data referring to filtered relationships based on the selection, and/or the filtered datasets and/or the filtered relationships are utilized to provide a partial search result, a preliminary search result and/or the search result, more preferred wherein the data provided to the user interface contains filtered datasets and/or filtered rela tionships and/or data referring to filtered datasets and/or data referring to filtered relationships based on the selec tion. Typically, it is preferred that the filter options are predefined filter options. Providing such plurality of prede fined filter options further improve the benefit obtained utilizing the inventive method. Despite the high speed of modern processors and large size of working memory the mass of data as available in, for example, the field of continuous flow engines is a challenging task. Providing some predefined filter options allowing to already structure and search this mass of data in advance allows to significantly increase the speed to provide some partial search result and/or prelimi nary search result. This is of special importance for the in ventive method, as it has been noted that technical experts confronted with corresponding data analysis do not intend to wait too long for corresponding result to be shown in the us er interface. As such result is also in many cases utilized to further optimize the search strategy increasing the speed even a little, thus, significantly improve the value of the corresponding method. Also, it was noted that it is typically beneficial to provide an improved user interface with the possibility to show more and especially detailed information regarding technical as pects. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the step of visualizing technical data regarding the datasets and/or the relationships in the user interface. Surprisingly, such apparently simple and trivial amendment significantly increases the acceptance as well as quality of the input by users being technical experts. It is assumed that a different mindset expects more technical info related information as well as figures to be reviewed and meeting this demand significantly increases the acceptance rate as well as possibility to quickly evaluate the corre sponding matter contrary to what is typically requested in the art.

Furthermore, it was noted that it is beneficial for typical applications like in the area of continuous flow engines that the data provided to the user interface contains non-language representations of the content of the database. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the step of processing at least a part of the plurality of datasets and/or the plurality of relationships, more pre ferred the plurality of datasets and/or the plurality of re lationships, of the database to provide a non-language repre sentation of the at least part of the data to the user inter face, wherein the non-language representation is provided to the user interface, wherein the instructions are at least in part, more preferred completely, based on the non-language representation of data of the database. For example, such non-language representation can be a diagram or scheme. This allows to provide an easy to understand overview of the con tent showing, for example, core datasets being linked to a big number of other datasets by means of relationships. The user might also select a certain type of dataset and/or rela tionship to highlight identical or similar data. Herein, such highlighted data can be in the non-language representation or in natural language data or graphic language data provided to the user interface. For example, the user might select a type of dataset in the non-language representation resulting in highlighting the corresponding element in graph query lan guage in a suggested search strategy and an explanation addi tionally provided in natural language.

Typically, it is preferred that at least a part of the da tasets and at least a part of the relationships of such non language representation are summarized to groups of similar datasets and/or similar relationships and/or datasets sharing at least one specific feature and/or relationships sharing at least one specific feature. This allows to significantly sim plify the data of the database and enables users being no ex perts of the data analytic field to understand the content of the database and to select datasets and/or relationships be ing, for example, point of interest or less interesting.

The inventive method can, for example, be especially usefully utilized to review maintenance requirements of continuous flow engines and compressors. According to further embodi ments it is preferred that the inventive method is used for determining future maintainance intervals of continuous flow engines like gas turbines and steam turbines or compressors, more preferred of continuous flow engines like gas turbines and steam turbines, even more preferred gas turbines.

Furthermore, it was noted that it is beneficial for typical embodiments to include a feedback possibility for the user being a technical expert to more easily evaluate the impact of customizations entered. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the steps of:

- receiving instructions from the user interface, wherein the instructions contain a customization of the search strategy, and

- providing data to the user interface, wherein the data con tains an information with regard to a change resulting from the customization. For example, it can be adapted to provide a feedback indicating a significant change resulting from the customization to indicate incorrect customizations that might be reviewed. Additionally or alternatively it can, for exam ple, give a feedback indicating that only a very small change results from the customization. This is surprisingly espe cially interesting for typical embodiments, as it gives a feedback to the user that a certain point is reached, wherein further customizations like quantifiers to be added or da tasets to be excluded or included do not provide a signifi cant improvement anymore. It was noted that such data is highly beneficial for technical experts to prevent wasting too much time optimizing some already satisfying result. Al so, such feedback directly indicates in case some grave mis take has taken place and the search strategy significantly deviates from the intended purpose. Surprisingly, this ena bles even unexperienced users being no experts in the data analytics topic to easily prevent to waste too much time and instead in such case, for example, contact some expert with regard to data analytics to clarify the point.

A further feature significantly improving the comfort for the user utilizing a learning mechanism. According to further em bodiments it is preferred that the method contains utilizing the results of a learning mechanism based on prior searches to optimize suggestions for a search strategy, filter options and/or potentially relevant datasets and/or relationships. Utilizing such system allows to significantly increase the quality of corresponding suggestion reducing the effort re quired by the user. For example, applying it to the field of continuous flow engines is especially useful and provides surprisingly good results.

A further problem is the different terminology used by dif ferent experts. According to further embodiments it is pre ferred that the method contains the step of utilizing an in ternal dictionary for interpreting instructions received by the user interface, wherein the internal dictionary is adapted to translate terminology utilized by technical users using the user interface. It was noted that a corresponding dictionary can easily be build by collecting corresponding instructions over time combined with the intended customiza tion that is verified in the end.

For technical fields like continuous flow engines providing data originating from different sources and not necessarily including all information with regard to minor differences it was further noted to utilize an accuracy dataset. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method uti lizes an accuracy dataset, wherein the accuracy dataset is calculated by measuring a difference between values of a technical device being topic of the search and corresponding values of comparable technical devices contained in the da tasets, wherein the data provided to the user interface con tains such accuracy dataset and/or the accuracy dataset is utilized to provide suggestions of potentially relevant da tasets and/or relationships. For example, such accuracy da taset can be based on a combination of the model of the con tinuous flow engine and its power to allow a quick evaluation whether corresponding datasets refer to a first generation continuous flow engine or a retrofitted modernized version making the data potentially less comparable. This allows to prepare additional data in advance that can be easily re viewed and surprisingly allows a very fast first evaluation of potentially relevant matter. However, it has to be under stood that corresponding accuracy datasets may differ depend ing in the corresponding search as, for example, specific as pects might still be maintained during an overhaul.

For example, for users having completely no experience it was further highly beneficial to already provide suggestions re garding the available filter options. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method contains the data provided to the user interface contains suggestions regarding available filter options. It was noted that providing corre sponding suggestions significantly decreases the effort re quired by corresponding users. Utilizing the inventive method furthermore significantly sim plifies the introduction of datasets originating from differ ent sources. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the database contains at least two datasets from differ ent sources. For example, it was noted that it is highly ben eficial to provide datasets referring to different types of continuous flow engines or compressors, preferably continuous flow engines. Providing such structured datasets, for exam ple, provides the benefit that technical experts reviewing corresponding data can easily differentiate whether the search relates to an component being relevant to such differ ent types of continuous flow engines and whether it is bene ficial to include corresponding datasets or not. For many em bodiments it is especially preferred that the database con tains a plurality of datasets from different types and/or models of continuous flow engines.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the plurality of datasets at least in part contain historical da ta like time series data of continuous flow engines. It was noted that the inventive method is especially suited to pro cess corresponding databases.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the da tabase is a knowledge graph. A knowledge graph is also known as heterogeneous data network. Typically, it contains a plu rality of data in the form of datasets regarding different technical devices like different types of continuous flow en gines and/or data regarding the same technical device yet re ferring to different aspects and/or sources of the data. Fur thermore, it contains data regarding the relationships of the corresponding data. For example, it may contain data regard ing different types of continuous flow engines. Herein, it contains data regarding the rotor, the blades and vanes, the cooling, the manufacturing, the use, the lifetime, the maintenance, and so on. Data sets regarding the manufacturing of the components are connected to the datasets regarding the component itself by a manufacturing relationship. Further- more, they can be connected to a plurality of datasets re garding the lifetime and maintenance in different types of continuous flow engines including a corresponding relation ship for each connection. Additionally, the components can be connected to datasets regarding different types of continuous flow engines containing the corresponding component. Also it can be connected to the real use of the continuous flow en gine and sensor data indication the wear out. Corresponding databases already existing are easily connected to be uti lized in the inventive method. Furthermore, corresponding da tabases are a good starting point to introduce, for example, features as described herein to further improve the possibil ities of making good use of the data and, for example, allow a more reliable prediction of the behavior of the continuous flow engine.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the knowledge graph contains nodes, and wherein the method provides a partial search result and/or a preliminary such result based on a node selected by user. Typically, such selection is realized by means of a user in terface allowing to customize the search strategy as well as displaying data regarding the database, preferably technical data relating to the datasets and/or relationships.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the knowledge graph contains nodes, wherein the instructions received by the user interface are utilized to define nodes of interest. Relying on the existing nodes of such knowledge graph databases surprisingly simpli fied to implement the search and data retrieval technologies of the data structure product as described herein.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the knowledge graph contains nodes, wherein the data provided to the user interface specifies potential nodes of interest and/or contains data regarding the potential nodes of inter est. Providing such information automatically significantly increases the speed and decreases the effort required to uti lize the inventive method for typical cases. For example, such nodes of interest can be identified based on historical search data reviewing past searches and customizations en tered by users. Additionally or alternatively corresponding suggestions can also be based on data available in the data base. Herein, an identification of corresponding suggestions can, for example, be based on technical aspects included in the search and reviewing the database whether corresponding technical aspects are present in further datasets to be pro vided to the user interface. For example, the search might relate to a rotor of a continuous flow engine, wherein the database contains data that the same type of rotor is intro duced in alternative types of continuous flow engines. Ac cordingly, corresponding datasets relating to the other types of continuous flow engines can be provided as suggestions, although, the original search referred to one specific type of continuous flow engine.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the da ta provided to the user interface contains suggestions of customizations of the search strategy. Such suggestions can, for example, be provided using machine learning using like deep learning. Corresponding machine learning systems utiliz ing artificial intelligence and deep learning using deep neu ral networks are known to the skilled person and implementing such known systems provides surprising beneficial results not to be expected. Instead of or in addition to such machine learning it is, for example, possible to utilize statistical methods. Herein, data regarding prior searches are utilized to provide suggestions based on, for example, customizations of similar searches entered by a user in the past. It was noted that correspondingly provided suggestions fulfill the required reliability as well as significantly decrease the effort required by the user.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the da ta provided to the user interface contains data regarding suggested customizations of the search strategy like quanti fiers with regard to datasets and/or relationships and data regarding the impact of corresponding customizations. For ex ample, the method can including providing a selection of pos sible customization and corresponding partial search results or preliminary search results. Typically, it is preferred that the data regarding the partial search results or prelim inary search results is in the form of differences compared to the unamended search strategy. Surprisingly, it was noted that it is quite easy to provide corresponding suggestions of relating quantifiers while the search strategy benefits sig nificantly from some quick manual review from a technical ex pert giving an indication whether the corresponding quantifi er is apparently correct or potentially defective.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the method utilizes a reinforced learning strategy to provide a search strategy. Herein, the data provided to the user inter face can contain data regarding the search strategy, prelimi nary search results or even suggestions to optimize the search strategy to the user interface to be reviewed by a us er. For example, it was beneficial for typical embodiments to provide a combination of partial search result or preliminary search result in combination with suggestions of potentially beneficial amendments. Surprisingly, it was noted that users skilled in the technical context of the database like espe cially in the field of continuous flow engines are able to provide evaluations with regard to the quality of the search strategy with a very high reliability using such information. Simultaneously, they can beneficially select from a plurality of suggested potential customizations to see whether this im proves the search strategy, wherein typically a new partial search result or preliminary search result is provided to the user interface based on the customized search strategy.

According to a further aspect the present invention refers to a system comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the system to per form operations comprising: receiving instructions from a user interface, retrieving data from a database by means of a search inter face, wherein the database contains a plurality of datasets and a plurality of relationships of the datasets, wherein the search interface is based on graph query lan guage, and wherein the system is adapted to process instructions entered in the user interface being at least partially not in graph query language and/or to process data retrieved from the da tabase being in graph query language, preferably including converting at least a part of the instructions being not in graph query language into graph query language and/or con verting at least a part of the data retrieved from the data base being in graph query language into a different format. Utilizing such system for the inventive method allows to eas ily improve the quality and reduce the time required to per form valuable searches in available databases as, for exam ple, available for continuous flow engines. Providing, for example, a fixed solution specifically adapted for such pur pose further simplifies such application and allows to easily implement the inventive method also in smaller sized indus trial plants that simply connect the inventive system to some internal database containing the stored up data.

The product and methods described herein may be embodied by a computer program product or a plurality of computer program products, which may exist in a variety of forms both active and inactive in a single computer system or across multiple computer systems. For example, they may exist as software program (s) comprised of program instructions in source code, object code, executable code or other formats for performing some of the steps. Any of the above may be embodied on a com puter readable medium, which include storage devices and sig nals, in compressed or uncompressed form. According to further aspect the present invention refers to a computer program product, tangibly embodied in a machine- readable storage medium, including instructions operable to cause a computing entity to execute an inventive method.

The term "computer" refers to any electronic device compris ing a processor, such as a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU), a specific purpose processor or a microcontrol ler. The processor is adapted to execute a special computing task. A computer is capable of receiving data (an input), of performing a sequence of predetermined operations thereupon, and of producing thereby a result in the form of data or sig nals (an output). Depending on context, the term "computer" will mean either a processor in particular or can refer more generally to a processor in association with an assemblage of interrelated elements contained within a single case or hous ing.

The computer program product may be processed in a distribut ed manner, such as that certain steps are performed on a first computing entity (e.g. at the turbine) and that other steps are performed on a second computing entity (e.g. on a central server).

The computer program product may be offered, placed on mar ket, used, imported and/or stored as (and thus may be part of) a computer program product. Thus, the computer program product may be provided on a storage medium (computer reada ble medium, like a computer disc or a memory stick etc.). Al ternatively, the computer program product may be provided via download by means of a respective network connection to a server, which stores the computer program product by provid ing a link to the server with the computer program product stored thereon. A "computer-readable medium" or "storage me dium" can be any means that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connec tion with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or de vice. The computer readable medium can be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromag netic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non- exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium can include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, and a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM).

The computer program product according to further embodiments is adapted to execute the embodiments of the inventive method and the embodiments of the inventive system. In this context, it has to be understood that each single or a combination of the specific embodiments as described above can be utilized to modify the computer program product as specified.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the computer program product contains a learning mechanism, wherein the learning mechanism reviews prior searches and customizations entered by means of the user interface to pro vide improved suggestions like filter options, quantifiers or actions available when providing data to the user interface. For example, such learning mechanism can be based on some ar tificial intelligence. Herein, corresponding relationships can be based on technical aspects to provide comparable amendments at a higher priority or automatically based on re viewing past searches and big data analysis to extrapolate potentially relevant data. This allows to automatically make good use of the tremendous amount of experience of the user being a technical expert continuously using the data struc ture product being also available for different users as well as future generation users.

According to further embodiments the computer program product contains an interpretation mechanism, wherein the interpreta tion mechanism is adapted to build up an internal dictionary for translating instructions like natural language entered in the user interface. It was noted, that is surprisingly highly beneficial to adapt the computer program product to the spe cific vocabulary of users being technical experts to minimize their effort to enter a correct customization. Based on the significant difference of the terminology of technical ex perts and data analytics experts a significant rate of misun derstandings seems to result from a different type of wording used and understood differently by these groups. Such inter pretation mechanism can, for example, be built up over time utilizing the amendments of customizations entered by the us er using a user interface and being amended again later on. Surprisingly, creating such dictionary requires little effort and works well. It is assumed that despite the difference in the vocabulary utilized the mindset is surprisingly similar and results is some basic translation of specific terms sig nificantly increasing the chance of a correct interpretation. Also, such interpretation mechanism can be programmed in ad vance based on certain test cases and a cooperation of tech nical experts and data analytics experts. It was noted, that for many cases it is highly beneficial to combine an automat ed and planned process to provide such interpretation mecha nism.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the computer program product is adapted to provide an accuracy dataset, wherein the accuracy dataset is calculated by meas uring a difference between values of a technical device being topic of the search and corresponding values of comparable technical devices contained in the datasets. For example, such technical device can be a continuous flow engine or a compressor, more preferred a continuous flow engine. This al lows to, for example, provide corresponding accuracy datasets containing information otherwise not being available for the user being a technical expert. Such easy to interpret addi tional information allows the user, for example, to more eas ily understand why a specific dataset was not included in the search strategy preventing him from forcibly including it again or to select from a number of datasets the most relia ble one.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the computer program product creates a selection a filter op tions, preferably by selecting from available predetermined filter options, and the data provided to the user interface contains the selection of filter options. Typically, it is preferred that the computer program product is adapted to provide suggestions of different filter options for at least two datasets of the database. This enables to gain insight into such searches very easy and additionally instantly pro vides some good results motivating user. Furthermore, it sur prisingly also simplifies the work for experienced users that already collected quite some experience within the data ana lytics field.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the computer program product utilizes a reinforced learning mech anism to provide a search strategy. Herein, the computer pro gram product can be utilized to provide data regarding the search strategy, preliminary search results or even sugges tions to optimize the search strategy to the user interface to be reviewed by a user. For example, it was beneficial for typical embodiments to provide a combination of partial search result or preliminary search result in combination with suggestions of potentially beneficial amendments. Sur prisingly, it was noted that users skilled in the technical field like especially in the field of continuous flow engines and compressors, especially continuous flow engines, are able to provide evaluations with regard to the quality of the search strategy with a very high reliability using such in formation. Simultaneously, they can beneficially select from a plurality of suggested potential customizations to see whether they improves the search strategy. Typically, it is preferred that a new partial search result or preliminary search result is provided to the user interface based on the customized search strategy thereafter. According to further embodiments it is preferred that the computer program product retrieves technical data relating to, preferably contained in, the plurality of datasets and/or the plurality of relationships from the database or a further database, and provides the technical data to the user inter face. Typically, it is preferred that such data being provid ed to the user interface is adapted to be utilized by the us er, preferably a user lacking knowledge in graphic query lan guage, to review and/or customize the search strategy. This allows to make best use of the available know how and reduces or even avoids less productive discussions rendering experts in graphic query language to mere translators sitting beside a technical expert to explain and formulate the graph query language input.

According to further aspect the present invention refers to a storage device for providing an inventive computer program product, wherein the device stores the computer program prod uct and/or provides the computer program product for further use.

According to further aspect the present invention refers to a use of an inventive method, an inventive system, or an in ventive computer program product to provide a search strategy within a database, wherein the database contains a plurality of datasets and a plurality of relationships of the datasets, and wherein the database provides a search interface based on graph query language.

According to further embodiments it is preferred that the search strategy is executed in the database being a knowledge graph. Surprisingly, it is surprisingly easy to implement the invention for such databases, wherein significantly improved results are obtained.

The following detailed description of the figure uses the figure to discuss illustrative embodiments, which are not to be construed as restrictive, along with the features and fur ther advantages thereof.

Figure 1 shows a scheme of an inventive system using an in ventive method and an inventive computer program product. Herein, a computer program product 2 is utilized to realize an inventive method. The computer program product 2 receives instructions from the user interface 1 as well as sends data to said user interface 1. The user interface enables a user 5 to review the data being visualized on the screen and select suggestions and details contained within the data provided. During this interaction the step of sending instructions to the computer program product 2 as well as providing data to the user interface 1 is repeated several times. Herein, a search strategy is refined step-by-step, wherein the user re quests more detailed information and suggestions regarding possible filter options and datasets to be quantified from the computer program product 2. On the other hand, the com puter program product 2 provides the requested data on demand as well as includes suggestions based on a learning mechanism taking into account prior searches.

The learning mechanism utilizes the data storage 7 containing data collected during prior searches and continuously storing new searches, search strategies, instructions received by the user interface, and customizations in the end being intro duced in the search strategy. It is possible to provide such learning mechanism independent from the computer program product 2 leaving the interaction between the computer pro gram product 2 and the data storage 7 being reduced to a re quest of corresponding suggestions and data. However, the em bodiment shown in figure 1 includes such learning mechanism in the computer program product 2 itself.

The computer program product 2 furthermore converts the in structions received from the user interface 1 at least in part into a graph query language. This is required to utilize the search interface 3 connecting the computer program prod- uct 2 the database 4 being a knowledge graph, as the search interface 3 is based on graph query language. It was noted that graph query language is a highly efficient language to formulate searches inside databases like being available for continuous flow engines or compressors, especially continuous flow engines. However, it was noted that a user 5 being a technical expert is confronted with significant challenges to enter instructions utilizing such language. Typically, it is required that such expert is first intensively trained in this matter to utilize such language. It was noted that high ly qualified experts typically have no time to acquire corre sponding trainings resulting in the requirement that they are required to closely work together with an expert for data an alytics to utilize a search strategy utilizing graph query language. This significantly reduces the efficiency of the overall process leading to the problem that the available possibilities are neglected and less efficient data retriev ing methods are typically implemented.

The inventive method solves this problem being especially beneficial for areas like continuous flow engines providing a huge amount of data in databases containing a plurality of datasets and a plurality of relationships of such datasets. Herein, at least a part of the instructions is converted into a graph query language and/or data retrieved from the data base 4 being in graph query language is processed to enable an easy understanding for users 5 being technical experts avoiding the requirement of extensive trainings.

To further simplify the search for the user 5 the computer program product 2 also provides the plurality of filter op tions to the user interface 1, wherein, for example, one op tion refers to the type of continuous flow engine. This al lows to, for example, easily select datasets regarding compa rable continuous flow engines. For example, the search itself might be related to an evaluation referring to the mainte nance schedule and how the corresponding maintenance plan should be scheduled to provide maximum security and efficien- cy. Herein, the search might relate to a gas turbine type A, which however lacks enough data to make a reasonable assess ment. However, the user 5 being an expert in this technical field is aware that a gas turbine of type B is identical or at least similar enough with regard to the component in ques tion to make assessments based on corresponding data. Thus, he can request corresponding datasets from the database 4 in a very simple manner utilizing the inventive computer program 2 to review the available data within the database 4. In case he considers the data being satisfactory based on the infor mation provided to the user interface 1 in response to his instructions before, he verifies that the search strategy should be amended in this way. In the following the search strategy can be utilized to provide the data required to sim ulate the real-time behavior of the gas turbine of type A to provide an optimized maintenance schedule.

The computer program product 2 is flexible and allows to re trieve required data from such databases 2 without any knowledge of graph query language. For example, it allows to retrieve data with regard to nodes, the relationships, quan tifiers, instant counts, hierarchies, epistemic concepts, and/or instances in the database utilizing requests phrased in natural language. In addition hereto the computer program product processes the plurality of datasets and the plurality of relationships to provide summarized information. This sum marized information is provided on demand to the user inter face 1 to enable the user gaining insight in the structure of the database 2. Also, it is possible to retrieve data with regard to the creation and/or modeling effort and review it on the user interface 1. Surprisingly, it was noted that even technical experts having no experience with corresponding da ta analytics before are able to utilize corresponding data based on the very simple and intuitive approach of the in ventive method and computer program product.

Furthermore, the computer program product 2 can provide a non-language representation of data contained in the database 4. In this context, the computer program product 2, for exam ple, identifies similar datasets and relationships, groups corresponding sets of datasets and set of relationships and provides a scheme. This scheme represents a simplified land scape of the datasets and relationships and allows the user 5 to select groups of datasets to, for example, include them, exclude them and/or attach quantifiers to them. Additionally, the user 5 can select a type of relationship resulting in identical or similar relationships being highlighted in the scheme. Furthermore, the computer program product 2 can be instructed to simultaneously provide a search term phrased in graph query language and its explanation in natural language besides the selected action based on the non-language repre sentation. This results in a very fast learning process for most users easily picking up basics of graph query language, for example, enabling them to understand terms of a search strategy phrased in graph query language. For advanced us ers 5 of the inventive method it, thus, typically becomes possible to provide a more detailed insight in the search strategy. Such advanced insight provided by the computer pro gram product 2 can be turned on and off as demanded.

Furthermore, it was noted that the users 5 beneficially uti lize partial search results and/or preliminary search results they request from the computer program product 2. In fact, is not only possible to take a quick look whether the search strategy already seems to fulfill their demands. It further more provides the chance for such user 5 to acquire an intui tive insight how the system behaves and how to achieve cer tain effects. Surprisingly, it was noted that this resulted in a significantly faster adaption of the inventive system and knowledge in this context that has not been achieved even using conventional training methods.

The computer program product 2 in addition to the actions as described above also assigns quantifiers as required to da tasets and/or relationships. In case of the embodiment as shown in figure 1 the assignment of the quantifiers is based on data of prior searches as stored in the data storage 7.

The suggested quantifiers are provided for the user 5 to the user interface 1 for review. Herein, the user 5 can easily verify or change the quantifier as it seems fit. He can also reduce the quantifier below a predefined threshold value to let certain datasets being excluded from the current search strategy. After receiving the instructions from the user in terface 1 the quantifiers are updated by the computer program product 2 and utilized to provide the search strategy.

The embodiment shown in figure 1 furthermore provides the possibility that the computer program product 2 retrieves da ta from the database 6 containing technical data referring to the datasets of database 4 as specific technical data is in this case not included in database 4. This allows to also re trieve data from the database 4 based on technical details only available in database 6. Herein, for example, the com puter program product 2 receives instructions to filter the datasets according to the technical feature A of gas turbine type A. However, the corresponding database does not contain the corresponding detailed information. However, it contains the relationship that feature A of gas turbine A can be pro vided by component type A. Taking this into account it auto matically retrieves from database 6 details with regard to component type A and checks whether the specific components of type A contained in the gas turbine A provide the feature A. As additional verification or in case the computer program product 2 does not reach a certain level of security the cor responding data is provided to the user interface 1 to ques tion whether it fulfills the requested parameters.

The scope of protection of the present invention is specified by the appended claims and is not restricted by the features explained in the description or shown in the drawing.