Automated Generation of Agent Networks from Standard Ontologies

• US 20080120544A1
• Filed: 11/20/2007
• Published: 05/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Treadgold, Nicholas Keith
• Application Number:
  US11/942,763
• Publication Number:
  US 20080120544A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/700
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/24 Object-oriented

Abstract

The development of a natural language interface component can be highly manual and time-consuming. This is especially true when the problem being addressed is based on a class of back-end applications rather than one particular back-end application. Aspects of the present invention support the automated generation of a natural language interface component for a specified back-end application (or more precisely, the automated generation of a natural language interface component that is specific to the ontology for a specified back-end application domain) wherein the generated component includes an agent network.

Claims

1. A method for the automated generation of an agent network, comprising:

obtaining an ontology for a specified application;

transforming said ontology to an ontology-independent model definition; and

transforming said ontology-independent model definition to a natural language interface component wherein said natural language interface component includes an agent network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology is obtained via a XML avenue.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the XML avenue is the Web Ontology Language (OWL).

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the XML avenue is the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology is obtained via an Application Programming Interface.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology is obtained from a user via a wizard facility.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation of the ontology to the ontology-independent model definition is performed by an Ontology Translator.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the Ontology Translator employs one or more templates.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the Ontology Translator employs one or more components.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology-independent model definition contains one or more elements including (a) commands, (b) objects, (c) fields, and/or (d) relations.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the elements are organized hierarchically.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation of the ontology-independent model definition to the agent network is performed by a Model Translator.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the Model Translator employs one or more templates.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the Model Translator employs one or more components.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the Model Translator creates one or more (a) ontology-specific Service Providers, (b) synonyms, (c) Explanation Formatters, and/or (d) Live Interpretation Matchers.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the Explanation Formatters are based on one or more of(a) XML and/or (b) HTML.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the agent network is defined through one or more Opal files.