EMPHASIZING SEARCH RESULTS ACCORDING TO CONCEPTUAL MEANING

• US 20090063472A1
• Filed: 08/29/2008
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Powerset (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Prevost, Scott, O'Connor, Brendan, Thione, Giovanni Lorenzo, Pell, Barney, Biewald, Lukas
• Granted Patent: US 8,209,321 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3344 using natural language analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results

Abstract

Computer-readable media, computerized methods, and computer systems for conducting semantic processes to present search results that include highlighted regions which are relevant to a conceptual meaning of a query are provided. Initially, content of document(s) is accessed and semantic representations are derived by distilling linguistic representations from the content. These semantic representations may be stored at a semantic index. Also, a proposition is derived from the query by parsing search terms of the query, and distilling the proposition from the search terms. Typically, the proposition is a logical representation of the conceptual meaning of the query. The proposition is compared against the semantic representations at the semantic index to identify a matching set. Regions of the content within the document, from which the matching set of semantic representations are derived, are targeted. Accordingly, highlighting may be applied to the targeted regions when presenting or displaying the search results.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for, in response to a query, presenting search results to a user having regions emphasized therein in accordance with a highlighting scheme, the method comprising:

receiving a query having one or more search terms therein;

distilling a proposition from the one or more search terms, wherein the proposition is a logical representation of a conceptual meaning of the query;

comparing the proposition against semantic representations retained in a semantic index to determine a matching set, wherein the semantic representations comprise a linguistic representation derived from content of passages within at least one document;

identifying the passages that are mapped to the matching set of semantic representations;

applying emphasis to the regions of the identified passages according to a highlighting scheme; and

presenting the emphasized regions of the identified passages to the user as the search results relevant to the query.

2. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the proposition comprises one or more logical elements that each represent a portion of the conceptual meaning of the query, wherein the emphasized regions comprise words that correspond with the one or more elements.

3. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the semantic representations comprises one or more linguistic items that each perform a semantic function, wherein the emphasized regions comprise words that correspond with the one or more items.

4. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein presenting the emphasized regions of the identified passages to the user comprises emphasizing words within actual text of the identified passages as the text appears in the at least one document from which the identified passages are extracted.

5. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein presenting the emphasized regions of the identified passages to the user comprises:

populating a listing of the search results with the identified passages that are mapped to the matching set of semantic representations; and

presenting the listing of search results, and the emphasis applied to the regions of the identified passages therein, at a user interface (UI) display.

6. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 5, wherein presenting the emphasized regions of the identified passages to the user further comprises:

surfacing a web page on the UI display;

populating the listing of search results with a first portion of the web page; and

inserting a search-entry area within a second portion of the web page, wherein the search-entry area is configured to receive the query.

7. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein applying emphasis to the regions the identified passages according to a highlighting scheme comprises employing typographic techniques to differentiate words within the region from surrounding words within the identified passages.

8. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 7, further comprising employing the highlighting scheme by imposing at least one of the following typographic techniques to emphasize the region:

bold font;

italicized font;

underlining;

textual coloring;

or conventional highlighting.

9. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 8, wherein employing the highlighting scheme by imposing typographic techniques comprises applying various typographic techniques in accordance with differing levels of correspondence between one or more logical elements of the proposition and one or more linguistic items of the semantic representations.

10. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 8, wherein employing the highlighting scheme comprises:

imposing a first type of typographic technique to emphasize a sequence of words within the region; and

imposing a second type of typographic technique to emphasize words that provide context for, or modify, the sequence of words within the region.

11. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein identifying passages that are mapped to the matching set of semantic representations comprises:

ascertaining a location of the content, from which the semantic representations are derived, within the passages of the at least one document;

writing the location of the content, as well as the semantic representations derived therefrom, to the semantic index;

upon comparing the proposition against semantic representations retained in a semantic index, inspecting the semantic index to determine the location of the content associated with the matching set of semantic representations; and

navigating to the passages within the content of the at least one document as targeted by the location.

12. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 11, wherein identifying passages that are mapped to the matching set of semantic representations further comprises:

ascertaining a location within the passages of the at least one document from which the semantic representations are derived; and

appending a pointer to the semantic representations that indicates the locations within the passages, thereby facilitating navigation to an appropriate character string for inclusion in the emphasized region.

13. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12, wherein the location within the passages of the at least one document from which the semantic representations are derived comprises at least one of character positions or byte positions within the passages.

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, further comprising selecting the region within the identified passage to which emphasis is applied, wherein selecting comprises:

detecting a sequence of words within the identified passages that are associated with the matching set of semantic representations; and

at least temporarily, storing the detected sequence of words as the region.

15. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 14, wherein the passages comprise sentences, and wherein the detected sequence of words comprises at least one of a phrase, one or more terms, or a sentence.

16. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the region comprises at least one of a contiguous sequence of words or a disconnected aggregation of words residing in the identified passages, wherein the region and words adjacent thereto comprise each of the search results, wherein the words adjacent to the region comprise at least one of a sentence, a phrase, a paragraph, a snippet of the at least one document, or one or more of the identified passages, and wherein the words adjacent to the regions are selected for inclusion into the search results based on their relevance to the query.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein applying emphasis to the regions of the identified passages according to a highlighting scheme comprises augmenting the regions by appending additional notation to the identified passages, and wherein the additional notation provides information that is absent from the region and satisfies the query.

18. A computerized method for presenting search results to a user having regions highlighted therein that are relevant to a conceptual meaning of a query, the method comprising:

employing a query conditioning pipeline to derive a proposition from a query, wherein deriving comprises;

(a) receiving a query having search terms therein; and

(b) distilling the proposition from the search terms, wherein the proposition is a logical representation of the conceptual meaning of the query;

employing an indexing pipeline to derive semantic representations from at least one document, wherein deriving comprises;

(a) accessing the at least one document, wherein the document comprises passages of content;

(b) parsing functional structures from the content of the passages; and

(c) converting the functional structures to the semantic representations for storage within a semantic index;

comparing the proposition against the semantic representations held in the semantic index to determine a matching set;

identifying the passages that are mapped to the matching set of semantic representations;

selecting regions of content within the identified passages from which the matching set of semantic representations are derived;

imposing highlighting on a sequence of words encompassed by the regions; and

revealing the highlighted sequence of words to the user on a user interface (UI) display within a listing of the search results relevant to the query.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein imposing highlighting on the sequence of words comprises:

imposing a first type of typographic technique to emphasize the sequence of words within the region, wherein the emphasized region encompasses words that literally match at least one, but not all, of the search terms included in the query, and wherein the emphasized region encompasses words that are absent from the search terms of the query; and

imposing a second type of typographic technique to emphasize words that provide context for, or modify, the sequence of words within the region.

20. A computer system capable of emphasizing a region within a search result that is selecting upon matching a proposition derived from a query to a semantic representation derived from content within at least one document, the computer system comprising a computer storage medium having a plurality of computer software components embodied thereon, the computer software components comprising:

a query parsing component that receives the query, that has search terms therein, from a client device;

a first semantic interpretation component that derives the proposition from the query based on a semantic relationship of the search terms, wherein the proposition is a logical representation of a conceptual meaning of the query;

a document parsing component that inspects a data store to access the at least one document and the content therein and to apply lexical functional grammar rules to the content to derive a functional structure therefrom;

a second semantic interpretation component that converts the functional structure into the semantic representation;

a semantic index that stores the semantic representations; and

a matching component that compares the proposition against the semantic representations held in the semantic index to determine a matching set, and identifies a region of content within the at least one document that is mapped to the matching set of semantic representations, wherein the region of content is emphasized, with respect to other content of the search result, when presented to a user.