System and method for curating one or more multi-relational ontologies

• US 20060053171A1
• Filed: 05/05/2005
• Published: 03/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: BioWisdom Ltd. (Instem Plc)
• Original Assignee: BioWisdom Ltd. (Instem Plc)
• Inventors: Tilford, Nicholas Sean, Eldridge, Matthew David, Chambers, Jonathan Kim, Gardner, Stephen Philip, Hill, Robin Duncan, Maxwell, Michelle Joanna, Harter, Juergen, Barnes, Julie Christine
• Application Number:
  US11/122,056
• Publication Number:
  US 20060053171A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/358 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

The invention relates to a system and method for the enrichment and curation of concept, relationship, and assertion information into a multi-relational ontology. The invention includes a system enabling a curator, or other person, to verify the validity of assertions created by predetermined rules. The curator may also manually edit, delete, or add assertions to an ontology.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system for curating assertions into one or more multi-relational ontologies, wherein an assertion comprises a first concept, a second concept, and a relationship between the first concept and the second concept, and wherein a set of rules is used to extract one or more rules-based assertions from a corpus of documents, the system comprising:

a plurality of rules-based assertions, wherein each rules-based assertion is associated with evidence information;

means for storing the plurality of rules-based assertions in one or more databases;

means for curating one or more of the rules-based assertions into reified assertions; and

means for storing the set of reified assertions in one or more databases as an ontology.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for curating includes an editor module comprising an interface for enabling a curator to form reified assertions by either viewing, editing, or validating at least one of the rules-based assertions.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for curating includes an editor module comprising an interface for enabling a curator to form reified assertions by manually creating new assertions.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the interface includes a document viewer.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the interface includes a document viewer that utilizes the evidence information associated with each of the rules-based assertions to display evidence underlying each assertion.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the interface includes a document viewer that utilizes the evidence information associated with each of the rules-based assertions to display the evidence underlying each assertion and wherein the words underlying each rules-based assertion are highlighted.

7. The system of claim 2 wherein the interface includes a document viewer that utilizes the evidence information associated with each of the rules-based assertions to display the evidence underlying each assertion and wherein the words of suggested assertions are highlighted.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for curating includes means for adding information regarding a confidence weight for at least one of the one or more rules-based assertions.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein evidence information includes at least one data source indicator.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein evidence information includes at least one document indicator.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one data source indicator includes one or more of the identity of at least one data source for each rule-based assertion, or the type of data source for the at least one data source.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one document indicator includes the identity of at least one document from within the at least one data source.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one document indicator includes the identity of at least one document from within the at least one data source and a link to the at least one document evidencing the assertion.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one document indicator includes the identity of at least one document from within the at least one data source and a link to the at least one document evidencing the assertion, wherein one or more words evidencing the assertions are highlighted.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for curating includes means for automatically curating one or more rules-based assertions into reified assertions.

16. The system of claim 2, wherein the editor module enables the curator to create inferred assertions.

17. The system of claim 2, wherein the editor module presents suggested inferred assertions to the curator and enables the curator to create inferred assertions.

18. The system of claim 2, wherein the editor module associates information regarding the identity of the curator, and the actions taken by the curator to each assertion that the curator interacts with.

19. The system of claim 2, wherein the editor module enables more than one curator to interact with the rules-based assertions, and wherein information regarding the identity of the curator and the actions taken by the curator may be associated to each assertion that a curator interacts with.

20. The system of claim 2, wherein the editor module enables an administrative curator to edit a set of rules used in creating the plurality of rules-based assertions.

21. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for creating automated inferred assertions that are considered rules-based assertions.

22. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for creating automated inferred assertions that are considered rules-based assertions by comparing properties of two concepts for a concordance beyond an established threshold.

23. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for creating automated, reasoning-based, inferred assertions by identifying patterns in the set of reified assertions that suggest new associations.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of rules-based assertions and each of the set of reified assertions are associated with a set of temporal tags.

25. The system of claim 1, further comprising an upper ontology of predetermined concept types, relationship types, and a predetermined set of relationships that can be used to connect particular pairs of concepts into assertions, wherein the upper ontology directs, along with a set of rules, formation of rules-based assertions, and wherein an editor module enables an administrative curator to create and edit the upper ontology.