Method and system for validating the content of technical documents

• US 20060288285A1
• Filed: 05/19/2006
• Published: 12/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Agency For Science Technology and Research
• Original Assignee: Agency For Science Technology and Research
• Inventors: Lai, Fon Lin, Tan, Ah Hwee
• Application Number:
  US11/438,751
• Publication Number:
  US 20060288285A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/708
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/226 Validation

Abstract

An automatic document validation system that can be trained to extract domain-specific entities and their linguistically-associated physical, abstract or relational properties, as described within an electronic document. Training of the system can be achieved through the provision of a set of example documents representative of the domain and that have been manually tagged by a domain expert in such a way as to identify the various types of entities and their associated set of recordable properties. Together with a domain-specific vocabulary (e.g.. a dictionary), the trained system is then able to automatically process new documents belonging to the same domain and to test the extracted information on any number of content-conditional rules that have been specified by the domain expert as necessary to confirm the completeness and validity of the new documents.

Claims

1. A method for performing content validation on a free-text document, the method comprising:

extracting a plurality of semi-structured representations from the free-text document;

applying a logical inference engine to the semi-structured representations; and

interpreting the output of the logical inference engine for a consequential action.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the document is a technical document.

3. A method according to claim 1 wherein the consequential action involves one or more of:

providing an indication that the content of the document is valid;

relating any of the validation rules that have failed; and

revising content of the document based on any of the validation rules that have failed

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein relating any of the validation rules that have failed comprises relating and highlighting to a human operator any of the validation rules that have failed.

5. A method according to claim 3 wherein relating any of the validation rules that have failed further comprises relating the associated semi-structured representations or corresponding original content of the document.

6. A method according to claim 3, wherein revising content of the document is further based on corresponding original content of the document.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein the semi-structured representations comprise discrete entities and their attributes.

8. A method according to claim 7, wherein the attributes of the discrete entities comprise qualitative, quantitative or logical attributes, or their relationships with other entities.

9. A method according to claim 7 wherein the discrete entities each corresponds directly to a physical or abstract concept as defined in a written language.

10. A method according to claim 7, wherein one or more of said entities comprise upper-level entities, the attributes of which represent lower-level entities, providing more detailed characteristics about their respective upper-level entity.

11. A method according to claim 1, wherein the logical inference engine is constructed from a list of structured validation rules.

12. A method according to claim 11, further comprising constructing the logical inference engine from the list of structured validation rules.

13. A method according to claim 11 wherein the structured validation rules are specified by an authority in the domain of the document.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein the domain authority comprises one or more of the group consisting of:

a human expert, a book, and other authoritative sources of information.

15. A method according to claim 1, wherein the logical inference engine comprises an inference network.

16. A method according to claim 1, wherein the logical inference engine comprises a process that can be represented as a decision tree, or another deterministic state transition graph representation.

17. A method according to claim 1, wherein the free-text documents comprise one or more of the group consisting of:

text, image, audio and video.

18. A method according to claim 1, wherein the list of structured validation rules comprises a list of conditional statements written in a formal declarative language.

19. A method according to claim 18, wherein each of the conditional statements comprises an antecedent part and a consequence part.

20. A method according to claim 19, wherein the antecedent part comprises a list of a number of independent conditional tests that are logically combined through a sequence of “

AND”

, “

OR”

or “

NOT”

logic operations.

21. A method according to claim 20, wherein each conditional test comprises a logical, relational, quantitative or qualitative constraint applied to relevant entities within the domain.

22. A method according to claim 1, wherein the consequence part comprises one or more of the group consisting of:

a set of entities to be highlighted, an error message to be displayed and a corrective action to be taken.

23. A method according to claim 1, further comprising displaying one or more of the group consisting of:

the semi-structured representations, the list of validation rules, the relationship between the semi-structured representations and the validation rules, and the highlights between the semi-structured representation or original content of the text documents and any validation rules they have failed.

24. A method according to claim 1, further comprising obtaining user instructions in terms of any one or more of the group consisting of:

new validation rules, revised validation rules, and revised document content.

49. A system according to claim 25, operable according to the method of any one of claims 1 to 24 and 48.

51. A computer program product having a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code means embodied therein for performing content validation on a free-text document, the computer program product comprising:

computer readable program code means for operating according to the method of claim 1.

25. A system for performing content validation on a free-text document, the system comprising:

means for extracting a plurality of semi-structured representations from the free-text document;

means for applying a logical inference engine to the semi-structured representations; and

means for interpreting the output of the logical inference engine for a consequential action.

26. A system according to claim 25, further comprising means for providing an indication that the content of the document is valid, as a consequential action.

27. A system according to claim 25 further comprising means for relating any of the validation rules that have failed, as a consequential action.

28. A system according to claim 25, further comprising means for revising content of the document based on any of the validation rules that have failed, as a consequential action.

29. A system according to claim 25, wherein the semi-structured representations comprise discrete entities and their attributes.

30. A system according to claim 29, wherein the attributes of the discrete entities comprise qualitative, quantitative or logical attributes, or their relationships with other entities.

31. A system according to claim 29 wherein the discrete entities each corresponds directly to a physical or abstract concept as defined in a written language.

32. A system according to claim 29, wherein one or more of said entities comprise upper-level entities, the attributes of which represent lower-level entities, providing more detailed characteristics about their respective upper-level entity.

33. A system according to claim 25, further comprising the logical inference engine.

34. A system according to claim 33, wherein the logical inference engine is constructed from a list of structured validation rules.

35. A system according to claim 33 further comprising means for constructing the logical inference engine from the list of structured validation rules.

36. A system according to claim 25, wherein the logical inference engine comprises an inference network.

37. A system according to claim 25, wherein the logical inference engine comprises a process that can be represented as a decision tree, or another deterministic state transition graph representation.

38. A system according to claim 25, operable when the free-text documents comprise one or more of the group consisting of:

text, image, audio and video.

39. A system according to claim 25, wherein the list of structured validation rules comprises a list of conditional statements written in a formal declarative language.

40. A system according to claim 39, wherein each of the conditional statements comprises an antecedent part and a consequence part.

41. A system according to claim 40, wherein the antecedent part comprises a list of a number of independent conditional tests that are logically combined through a sequence of “

AND”

, “

OR”

or “

NOT”

logic operations.

42. A system according to claim 41, wherein each conditional test comprises a logical, relational, quantitative or qualitative constraint applied to relevant entities within the domain.

43. A system according to claim 40, wherein the consequence part comprises one or more of the group consisting of:

a set of entities to be highlighted, an error message to be displayed and a corrective action to be taken.

44. A system according to claim 40, further comprising storage means for storing the semi-structured representations.

45. A system according to claim 40, further comprising a user interface.

46. A system according to claim 45, wherein the user interface is operable to display data to an operator.

47. A system according to claim 45 wherein the user interface is operable to input user instructions in terms of new validation rules, revised validation rules, or revised document content.

52. A computer program product having a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code means embodied therein for performing content validation on a free-text document, the computer program product comprising:

computer readable program code means which, when downloaded onto a computer renders the computer into a system according to claim 25.

48. A method of performing content validation on a free-text document substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

50. A system for performing content validation on a free-text document constructed and arranged substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.