Concept matching system

• US 20070005344A1
• Filed: 07/01/2005
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Kaplan, Aaron, Sandor, Agnes
• Granted Patent: US 7,809,551 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification

Abstract

A system for retrieving documents related to a concept from a text corpus includes a set of stored semantic classes which are combinable to express the concept each class including a set of keywords, each set of keywords including at least one keyword. Syntactic rules are applied to identified text portions which include one or more of the keywords. A rule is satisfied when keywords from the first and second semantic classes are in any one of a plurality of syntactic relationships. A concept matching module identifies text portions within the text corpus which include one or more of the keywords, for applying the syntactic rules to the text portions, and for identifying those text portions which satisfy at least one of the rules. Documents to be retrieved may include at least one of the identified text portions.

Claims

1. A system for retrieving documents related to a concept from a text corpus comprising:

a memory which stores;

a set of semantic classes which are combinable to express the concept,

a set of keywords for each of the semantic classes to be used in searching documents in the text corpus, each set of keywords including at least one keyword, and

a plurality of syntactic rules to be applied to identified text portions which include one or more of the keywords, each of the syntactic rules identifying a first of the semantic classes and a second of the semantic classes, the rule being satisfied when a keyword from the first of the semantic classes and a keyword from the second of the semantic classes are in any one of a plurality of syntactic relationships; and

a concept matching module, which accesses the memory, for identifying text portions within the text corpus which include one or more of the keywords and for applying the syntactic rules to the text portions and identifying those text portions which satisfy at least one of the syntactic rules, whereby documents are retrieved which include at least one of the identified text portions.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the syntactic relationships include at least two of the following pairs, where the first of the semantic classes includes a keyword in one of the pair and the second of the semantic classes includes a keyword in the other of the pair:

a verb and its subject;

a verb and its object;

one of an adjective and an adverb and one of a noun, verb and adjective that the adjective or adverb modifies;

a noun and another noun that the noun premodifies; and

a noun and one of a noun and verb that the noun modifies by prepositional attachment.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of syntactic relationships comprises at least four syntactic relationships.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of syntactic rules applies the same set of syntactic relationships.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of the semantic classes each include a plurality of keywords.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein at least four of the semantic classes each include at least five keywords.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of semantic classes comprises at least three semantic classes.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein there are fewer than about ten semantic classes.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of the semantic classes correspond to constituent notions selected from the group consisting of:

use, user, produce, producer, product, future, possibility.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the semantic classes includes a keyword of another of the semantic classes.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the syntactic rules identifies a third of the semantic classes and a fourth of the semantic classes, the rule being satisfied when a keyword from the first of the semantic classes and a keyword from the second of the semantic classes are in any one of the plurality of syntactic relationships and a keyword from the third of the semantic classes and a keyword from the fourth of the semantic classes are in any one of the plurality of syntactic relationships.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a ranking module which ranks retrieved text according to one or more ranking rules.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the ranking rules account for at least one of:

a number of times a syntactic rule is satisfied in a text passage;

a weighting of a syntactic rule; and

a number of occurrences of keywords from a set of keywords which are considered to express the concept irrespective of the existence a syntactic relationship.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein at least some of the semantic classes include keywords which are not synonymous with other keywords in the same semantic class.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising a parser, accessed by the concept matching module, which identifies the plurality of syntactic relationships in text and the syntactic relationships optionally comprise all the syntactic relationships that the parser identifies.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer implemented means applies a weighting to one or more of the syntactic rules and identifies text portions within the text corpus which satisfy a minimum weighted sum of the syntactic rules occurring in the text portion.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the concept matching module includes:

a component which labels selected keywords in the text corpus;

a component which associates the labeled keywords with a semantic class, each of the semantic classes including a plurality of the keywords;

a component which labels pairs of keywords of selected semantic classes which are in any one of a plurality of syntactic relationships; and

a component which identifies documents which include a labeled pair of keywords.

18. A computer implemented system for retrieving documents related to a concept from a text corpus comprising:

a component which labels selected keywords in the text corpus;

a component which associates the labeled keywords with a semantic class, each of the semantic classes including a plurality of the keywords;

a component which labels pairs of keywords of selected semantic classes which are in any one of a plurality of syntactic relationships; and

a component which identifies documents which include a labeled pair of keywords.

19. A method for retrieving documents related to a concept from a text corpus comprising:

labeling keywords in the text corpus which belong to at least one of a plurality of predefined semantic classes;

labeling pairs of labeled keywords which are in any one of a plurality of syntactic relationships and which meet one of a plurality of predefined syntactic rules; and

labeling documents which include at least one labeled pair; and

retrieving at least a portion of the documents which include at least one labeled pair.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

labeling sentences in the text corpus which include at least one labeled pair of labeled keywords.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

using user-selected keywords to identify the text corpus within a larger text corpus.

22. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

the labeling pairs of labeled keywords which are in any one of the plurality of syntactic relationships including employing a parser which identifies pairs of words which are in any one of a plurality of predefined syntactic relationships.