Rapid similarity links computation for table of contents determination

A method comprising:

• identifying a table of contents in a document by:
• (a) associating an initial indexing text fragment at about the middle of an ordered sequence of indexing text fragments with an initial set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments selected from an ordered sequence of body text fragments;
• (b) selecting the lower-ordered indexing text fragment to be at about the middle of a low-order sub-set of the ordered sequence of indexing text fragments defined by the set of indexing text fragments at lower order than the initial indexing text fragment;
• (c) selecting the higher-ordered indexing text fragment to be at about the middle of a high-order sub-set of the ordered sequence of indexing text fragments defined by the set of indexing text fragments at higher order than the initial indexing text fragment;
• (d) associating the lower-ordered indexing text fragment with a set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments at lower order than the highest order member of the initial set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments;
• (e) associating the higher-ordered indexing text fragment with a set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments at higher order than the lowest order member of the initial set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments;
• (f) repeating the selecting and associating operations (b), (c), (d), (e) for the low-order sub-set of the ordered sequence of indexing text fragments using the lower-ordered indexing text fragment as the initial indexing text fragment;
• (g) repeating the selecting and associating operations (b), (c), (d), (e) for the high-order sub-set of the ordered sequence of indexing text fragments using the higher-ordered indexing text fragment as the initial indexing text fragment;
• and
• (h) optimizing the candidate linked body text fragments to identify a table of contents including indexing text fragments each linked to a body text fragment.

A method comprising:

• identifying a table of contents in a document including of an ordered sequence of indexing text fragments and an ordered sequence of body text fragments by:
• associating a lower-ordered indexing text fragment with a set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments at lower order in the ordered sequence of body text fragments than a highest order candidate linked body text fragment associated with a set of N contiguous indexing text fragments at higher order and abutting the lower-ordered indexing text fragment in the ordered sequence of indexing text fragments;
• associating a higher-ordered indexing text fragment with a set of one or more candidate linked body text fragments at higher order in the ordered sequence of body text fragments than a lowest order candidate linked body text fragment associated with a set of M contiguous indexing text fragments at lower order and abutting the higher-ordered indexing text fragment ordered sequence of indexing text fragments;
• decrementing the order of the lower-ordered indexing text fragment;
• incrementing the order of the higher-ordered indexing text fragment;
• repeating the associating of the lower-ordered indexing text fragment, the associating of the higher-ordered indexing text fragment, the decrementing, and the incrementing to generate sets of one or more candidate linked body text fragments associated with the indexing text fragments;
• and
• optimizing the candidate linked body text fragments to identify the table of contents including indexing text fragments each linked to a body text fragment.