1. A computer-based method of retrieving one or more items from at least one database in response to a query specified by a user via at least one example set, the method comprising the steps of: constructing a scoring function from the at least one example set, wherein the scoring function is operable for use with a multidimensional indexing structure associated with the at least one database; and retrieving, via the multidimensional indexing structure, the one or more database items that have the highest score as computed using the scoring function.