Association dictionary creation apparatus

• US 20060282258A1
• Filed: 08/22/2006
• Published: 12/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 (IP Bridge, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Tsuzuki, Takashi, Kutsumi, Hiroshi
• Granted Patent: US 8,280,720 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/36 Creation of semantic tools, e.g. ontology or thesauri

Abstract

An association dictionary creation apparatus is provided that is capable of easily and efficiently creating an association dictionary suiting the user'"'"'s taste. The association dictionary creation unit includes: a profile storage unit that stores a profile which is information regarding the user'"'"'s taste; a word selection unit that determines, every predetermined time, a word from the profile stored in the profile storage unit as an associated word search word, and further, selects words, other than the associated word search word, included in the profile as the associated word candidates; and an association degree calculation unit that calculates the degree of association between the associated word search word and each associated word candidate word selected by the word selection unit with reference to the contents stored in the contents storage unit, and when the association degree is higher than a predetermined threshold value, sets the associated word search word and the associated word candidate word as the associated word pair and stores the associated word pair and the association degree in the association dictionary storage unit in association with each other.

Claims

1. An association dictionary creation apparatus that creates an association dictionary storing a relationship between a plurality of words, said apparatus comprising:

a word selection unit operable to select an arbitrary word from information representative of a user'"'"'s taste as an associated word search word, and to select words, other than the associated word search word, included in the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste, as associated word candidates; and

an associated word storage unit operable to select an associated word associated with the associated word search word from among the associated word candidates, based on a database storing information to be searched for, and to store the associated word search word and the associated word into the association dictionary in association with each other.

2. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein said word selection unit is operable to obtain the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste from a profile in which information representative of the user'"'"'s taste is stored.

3. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein, in the profile, words representative of the user'"'"'s taste and weight values representative of a degree of the user'"'"'s preference for each of the words are stored in association with each other, and

said word selection unit is operable to determine that the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste is words of not less than a predetermined weight value stored in the profile.

4. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein said associated word storage unit is operable to calculate a degree of association between the associated word search word and each of the associated word candidates, based on a frequency of occurrence in the data base, and to select an associated word candidate having a calculated degree of association which is not less than a threshold value as the associated word associated with the associated word search word.

5. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 4,

wherein when an association word pair and the degree of association are already stored in the association dictionary in association with each other, said associated word storage unit is operable to update the associated word pair and the degree of association stored in the association dictionary, using the calculated degree of association between the associated word search word and the associated word associated with the associated word search word.

6. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a display information extraction unit operable to extract information regarding an on-screen display perused by the user,

wherein said word selection unit is operable to determine that the information regarding the on-screen display extracted by said display information extraction unit is the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste, to select an arbitrary word from the information regarding the on-screen display as the associated word search word, and to select words, other than the associated word search word, included in the information regarding the on-screen display as associated word candidates.

7. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising

a search unit operable to search the database for information matching a search criterion,

wherein the on-screen display perused by the user is a result of the information search, and

said display information extraction unit is operable to extract information regarding the result of the information search as the information regarding the on-screen display.

8. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein said display information extraction unit is operable to extract, from the result of the information search, information displayed on a display screen for not less than a predetermined time as the information regarding the on-screen display.

9. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 6,

wherein the on-screen display perused by the user is broadcast programs, and

said display information extraction unit is operable to extract information regarding the broadcast programs as the information regarding the on-screen display.

10. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 9,

wherein said display information extraction unit is operable to extract information regarding a broadcast program, among the broadcast programs, which is displayed on a display screen for not less than a predetermined time, as the information regarding the on-screen display.

11. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a taste suiting information extraction unit operable to extract information suiting the user'"'"'s taste, from the database, as taste suiting information, using a profile in which information representative of the user'"'"'s taste is stored,

wherein said associated word storage unit is operable to select an associated word associated with the associated word search word from among the associated word candidates by referring to the taste suiting information extracted from the database, and to store the associated word search word and the associated word into the association dictionary in association with each other.

12. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 11,

wherein said word selection unit is operable to determine that the taste suiting information extracted by said taste suiting information extraction unit is the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste, to select an arbitrary word from the taste suiting information as the associated word search word, and to select words, other than the associated word search word, included in the taste suiting information as associated word candidates.

13. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 11,

wherein said word selection unit is operable to obtain the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste from the profile in which information representative of the user'"'"'s taste is stored, to select an arbitrary word from the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste as the associated word search word, and to select words, other than the associated word search word, included in the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste as associated word candidates.

14. The association dictionary creation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a display information extraction unit operable to extract information regarding an on-screen display perused by the user; and

a taste suiting information extraction unit operable to extract information suiting the user'"'"'s taste from the database as taste suiting information, using of a profile in which information representative of the user'"'"'s taste is stored,

wherein said word selection unit is operable to determine that the information regarding the on-screen display extracted by said display information extraction unit is the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste, to select an arbitrary word from the information regarding the on-screen display as the associated word search word, and to select words, other than the associated word search word, included in the information regarding the on-screen display as associated word candidates, and

said associated word storage unit is operable to select an associated word associated with the associated word search word from among the associated word candidates, by referring to the taste suiting information extracted from the database, and to store the associated word search word and the associated word into the association dictionary in association with each other.

15. An association dictionary creation method for creating an association dictionary storing a relationship between a plurality of words, said association dictionary creation method comprising:

selecting an arbitrary word from information representative of a user'"'"'s taste as an associated word search word, and selecting words, other than the associated word search word, included in the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste as associated word candidates; and

selecting an associated word associated with the associated word search word from among the associated word candidates, based on a database storing information to be searched for, and storing the associated word search word and the associated word into the association dictionary in association with each other.

16. A program for creating an association dictionary storing a relationship between a plurality of words, said program causing a computer to execute:

selecting an arbitrary word from information representative of a user'"'"'s taste as an associated word search word, and selecting words, other than the associated word search word, included in the information representative of the user'"'"'s taste as associated word candidates; and

selecting an associated word associated with the associated word search word from among the associated word candidates, based on a database storing information to be searched for, and storing the associated word search word and the associated word into the association dictionary in association with each other.