Method and system for personal information extraction and modeling with fully generalized extraction contexts

• US 20080133213A1
• Filed: 10/29/2007
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Noblis, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Noblis, Inc.
• Inventors: Pollara, Victor J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,949,629 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/36 Creation of semantic tools, e.g. ontology or thesauri

Abstract

Systems and methods for modeling information from a set of documents are disclosed. A tool allows a user to model concepts of interest and extract information from a set of documents in an editable format. The extracted information includes a list of instances of a document from the set of documents that contains the selected concept. The user may modify the extracted information to create subsets of information, add new concepts to the model, and share the model with others.

Claims

1. A method for modeling information from a set of documents, comprising:

importing a set of concepts and corresponding extractors;

creating a model including representations of the concepts;

based on a user selection of a representation of a first concept, extracting information related to the first concept from the set of documents using the corresponding extractor;

facilitating an update, by a user, to the extracted information; and

based on the user update of the extracted information, defining an additional concept for the model.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracted information includes a list of instances from the set of documents that contains the first concept.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the additional concept for the model includes a subset of the instances.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracted information includes a list of text blocks from the set of documents that contain the first concept.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the model including the additional concept.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically generating a database customized to the model.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting the set of concepts and corresponding extractors based on the set of documents.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a trigger phrase related to the set of documents; and

defining the set of concepts and corresponding extractors based on the trigger phrase.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

exporting the model including the additional concept.

10. A method for personalizing a model of information, comprising:

obtaining a set of documents;

receiving the model that contains concepts and corresponding extractors;

extracting information related to the concepts from the set of documents using the corresponding extractors; and

selecting at least some of the extracted information to define an additional concept related to a context;

adding the additional concept to the model; and

displaying the model including the additional concept.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the context is a block of consecutive sentences in the set of documents.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the context is a boolean combination of at least two concepts.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the context is a subset of the extracted information.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the context is a section of a document in the set of documents.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the context is a status of a document defined by a user.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

automatically assigning an extractor to the additional concept, wherein a previously extracted concept is used to define the context in which the newly assigned extractor is applied.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

exporting the model including the additional concept.

18. A method for annotating a set of documents in a model of information, comprising:

downloading a set of documents;

receiving the model, wherein the model contains concepts and corresponding extractors;

extracting information related to the concepts from the set of documents using the corresponding extractors;

receiving a function to calculate a status of a document in the set of documents; and

after extracting information, automatically annotating a document in the set of documents based on the function.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

displaying the model using an entity-relationship diagram, wherein representations of the concepts are depicted as entities and relationships between the concepts are depicted as relations between entities.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the function is provided by a user.

21. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving a definition for the function from the user.

22. A method for modeling information from a set of documents, comprising:

importing a set of concepts and corresponding extractors;

creating a model including representations of a first concept and a second concept;

establishing a definitional dependency between the first concept and the second concept;

based on a user selection of a representation of the first concept, extracting information related to the first concept from the set of documents using the corresponding extractor;

after extracting information related to the first concept, receiving a modification of the second concept; and

after receiving the modification of the second concept, updating the extracted information related to the first concept using the definitional dependency between the first concept and the second concept.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

receiving an additional document for the set of documents after extracting information related to the first concept; and

updating the extracted information related to the first concept based on the additional document.

24. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

notifying a user of the modification of the second concept; and

receiving a request from the user to update the extracted information related to the first concept.

25. A system for modeling information from a set of documents, comprising:

an importing component configured to import a set of concepts and corresponding extractors;

a modeling component configured to create a model including representations of the concepts;

an extraction component configured to extract information, based on a user selection of a representation of a first concept, related to the first concept from the set of documents using the corresponding extractor;

a database configured to store the time of extraction of information; and

an update component configured to facilitate an update, by the user, to the extracted information.