ENHANCED KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY

• US 20090192968A1
• Filed: 09/29/2008
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Evi Technologies Ltd. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tunstall-Pedoe, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,838,659 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24522 Translation of natural language queries to structured queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/02 Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention relate to knowledge representation systems which include a knowledge base in which knowledge is represented in a structured, machine-readable format that encodes meaning.

Claims

1. A knowledge representation system, comprising:

a data store having a knowledge base stored therein comprising first knowledge represented in a structured, machine-readable format which encodes meaning; and

at least one computing device configured to;

generate second knowledge for inclusion in the knowledge base by inferring the second knowledge from the first knowledge;

store the second knowledge in the knowledge base in association with related knowledge information identifying the first knowledge from which the second knowledge was inferred;

dynamically generate third knowledge not represented in the knowledge base in response to queries by inferring the third knowledge from one or both of the first and second knowledge; and

respond to queries using one or more of the first knowledge, the second knowledge, or the third knowledge.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to translate natural language questions to the queries.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to repeat generation of the second knowledge with reference only to the first knowledge.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to repeat generation of the second knowledge with reference to both the first knowledge and at least some of the second knowledge previously generated.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to modify a portion of the second knowledge in response to a determination that a portion of the first knowledge from which the portion of the second knowledge was inferred is no longer true.

6. A knowledge representation system, comprising:

a data store having a knowledge base stored therein comprising knowledge represented in a structured, machine-readable format which encodes meaning; and

at least one computing device configured to;

translate a natural language question to one or more queries, the natural language question being associated with a knowledge domain within the knowledge;

determine whether any of the one or more queries relate to the knowledge domain; and

respond to the natural language question using a portion of the knowledge within the knowledge domain where at least one of the one or more queries relates to the knowledge domain.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to, where the one or more queries comprise a plurality of queries, facilitate disambiguation of the plurality of queries.

8. The system of claim 6 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to, where the one or more queries comprise a plurality of queries, generate a plurality of answers corresponding to the plurality of queries.

9. The system of claim 6 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to exclude another portion of the knowledge not within the knowledge domain from generation of one or more answers to the one or more queries.

10. The system of claim 6 wherein the knowledge domain is defined by an end user, and wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to create a sub-domain of the knowledge base corresponding to the knowledge domain, and to respond to all subsequent queries corresponding to the sub-domain using the portion of the knowledge within the knowledge domain.

11. A knowledge representation system, comprising:

a data store having a knowledge base stored therein comprising knowledge represented in a structured, machine-readable format which encodes meaning, the knowledge including a plurality of facts each of which is represented in the machine-readable format, and a plurality of explanations each of which is identified as corresponding to one or more of the facts, the explanations including human-readable explanatory text relating to the corresponding facts; and

at least one computing device configured to;

identify a first one of the facts corresponding to a query;

identify a first one of the explanations corresponding to the first fact; and

respond to the query using the explanatory text corresponding to the first explanation.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to translate a natural language question to the query, the natural language question comprising one of a how question, a why question, or a request for a definition of a term.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein some of the explanations comprise language translations of others of the explanations, each of the explanations having one or more corresponding translations identifying the others of the explanations to which it corresponds.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to:

generate a modified version of a second one of the explanations;

associate the modified version of the second explanation with the second explanation and infer that the one or more facts corresponding to the second explanation also correspond to the modified version of the second explanation where the modified version of the second explanation represents a first class of modification; and

associate the one or more facts corresponding to the second explanation with the modified version of the second explanation where the modified version of the second explanation represents a second class of modification.

15. The system of claim 14 where the at least one computing device is further operable to generate the modified version of the second explanation in response to modifications entered by a user, the modifications including modification class information entered by the user indicating whether the modified version of the second explanation represents the first or second class of modification.

16. A knowledge representation system, comprising:

a data store having a knowledge base stored therein comprising first knowledge represented in a structured, machine-readable format which encodes meaning; and

at least one computing device configured to;

generate second knowledge for inclusion in the knowledge base by inferring the second knowledge from the first knowledge;

store the second knowledge in the knowledge base;

dynamically generate third knowledge not represented in the knowledge base in response to queries by inferring the third knowledge from one or both of the first and second knowledge;

translate natural language questions to queries; and

respond to the queries using one or more of the first knowledge, the second knowledge, or the third knowledge.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the at least one computing device is configured to store the second knowledge in the knowledge base in association with related knowledge information identifying the first knowledge from which the second knowledge was inferred.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to repeat generation of the second knowledge with reference only to the first knowledge.

19. The system of claim 16 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to repeat generation of the second knowledge with reference to both the first knowledge and at least some of the second knowledge previously generated.

20. The system of claim 16 wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to modify a portion of the second knowledge in response to a determination that a portion of the first knowledge from which the portion of the second knowledge was inferred is no longer true.