Memory architecture for dialogue systems

• US 20030051096A1
• Filed: 09/05/2002
• Published: 03/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Di Profio, Ugo
• Granted Patent: US 6,973,532 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/111
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue

Abstract

A dialogue system (8) comprises a plurality of memory units (4) each of which is able to store an information unit and at least one logical connection between two or more of said memory units (4). An information unit is stored in one memory unit (4) at the time of occurrence of the information unit, and at least one logical connection to at least one other memory unit (4) is assigned to said memory unit (4) after storage of the information unit and said at least one logical connection is stored in said memory unit (4).

Claims

1. Dialogue system (8), characterized by a plurality of memory units (4) each of which is able to store an information unit and at least one logical connection between said memory unit (4) and at least one other of said memory units (4).

2. Dialogue system (8) according to claim 1, characterized by at least one memory manager module (3) which is respectively adapted to manage at least one group of logically connected memory units (4).

3. Dialogue system (8) according to claim 2, characterized in that a memory manager module (3) is adapted to store a definition of the content of each managed group of memory units (4).

4. Dialogue system (8) according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that a memory manager module (3) is adapted to store a definition of the content of at least one memory unit (4) of each managed group of memory units (4).

5. Dialogue system (8) according to anyone of claims 2 to 4, characterized in that a memory manager module (3) stores a logical connection to the first and/or a logical connection to the last logically connected memory units (4) of each managed group of memory units (4).

6. Dialogue system (8) according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized by at least one memory layer (5) which comprises a group of one or more logically connected memory units (4), and each of which memory layers (5) is assigned to a processing stage of the dialogue system (8).

7. Dialogue system (8) according to claim 6, characterized by a memory manager module (3) for each of the memory layers (5).

11. Computer program product, characterized by computer program means adapted to embody the dialogue system (8) as defined in anyone of claims 1 to 7 when said computer program product is executed on a computer, digital signal processor or the like.

8. Memory management method within a dialogue system (8), characterized by the steps of:

storing an information unit in one memory unit (4) at the time of occurrence of the information unit, and

assigning at least one logical connection to at least one other memory unit (4) to said memory unit (4) after storage of the information unit and storing said at least one logical connection in said memory unit (4).

9. Memory management method according to claim 8, characterized by the step of:

defining a content of a group of logically connected memory units (4) and managing said content in a memory manager module (3).

10. Memory management method according to claim 9, characterized by the step of:

storing a logical connection to the first and/or a logical connection to the last logically connected memory units (4) of each managed group of memory units (4) in a memory manager module (3).

12. Computer program product, characterized by computer program means adapted to perform the method as defined in anyone of claims 8 to 10 when said computer program product is executed on a computer, digital signal processor or the like.

13. Computer program product according to claim I1 or 12, characterized in that said computer program means are stored on a computer readable storage medium.