function extractQuery(linkElementArg) {
	var hrefLink = $(linkElementArg).attr('href'); //href value of link provided
	var hrefQuery = hrefLink.split('?'); //query appended the the href URL
	var hrefPairs = hrefQuery[1].split('&');
	var href = {}; //dictionary containing query as key/value pairs
	for (var h in hrefPairs) {
		var pair = hrefPairs[h].split('=');
		href[pair[0]] = pair[1];
	};
	return href;
};