Question answer system using physical distance data

• US 10,042,892 B2
• Filed: 08/16/2017
• Issued: 08/07/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Clifford, Emmet R., Clifford, Stuart J., Loredo, Robert E., Lu, Fang, Quinn, William M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ortiz Ditren, Belix M
• Application Number:
  US15/678,338
• Publication Number:
  US 20170344611A1
• Time in Patent Office: 356 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24522 Translation of natural language queries to structured queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies

Abstract

A question relating to an individual is received and context from the question is extracted. Subject matter criteria can be identified from the context of the question. A database containing history data that includes recorded positional data for physical objects relative to the location of the individual at the time of recording can be accessed and relevant physical objects from the history data can be identified based upon the subject matter criteria. A set of answers can be generated for the question from a corpus of data and ranked based upon the identified physical objects and physical distance between the individual and the relevant physical objects.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to;

receive a question associated with a user ID;

extract context from the question;

identify subject matter criteria from the context of the question, wherein the subject matter criteria includes information that indicates categories of objects relevant to the question and a determined likelihood that proximity information is relevant to the question;

compare the determined likelihood to a threshold;

in response to determining that the determined likelihood exceeds the threshold, access a history database associated with the user ID which contains history data obtained over a period of time using a wearable device worn by a user and that has video recording capabilities and audio recording capabilities, the history data including multimedia data that contains positional data for a plurality of physical objects, wherein the positional data indicates the respective physical distance between the plurality of physical objects and the wearable device when the multimedia data was collected;

identify one or more physical objects from the plurality of physical objects that are relevant to the question based upon the subject matter criteria and the history data;

generate a set of answers for the question from a corpus of data, each answer in the set of answers associated with a respective one of the one or more relevant physical objects;

rank the set of answers based upon the respective physical distance, at the time the multimedia data was collected, between the wearable device and the respective physical object associated with each answer in the set of answers, respective total amount of time each respective physical object was proximal to the wearable device, and respective frequency each respective physical object was proximal to the wearable device; and

display the ranked set of answers such that answers associated with a respective physical object having the smallest physical distance, at the time the multimedia data was collected, between the wearable device and the respective physical object are displayed first.