CONTEXT-BASED DOCUMENT UNIT RECOMMENDATION FOR SENSEMAKING TASKS

• US 20090265330A1
• Filed: 04/18/2008
• Published: 10/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cheng, Wen-Huang, Gotz, David Haim
• Granted Patent: US 9,183,281 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536

Abstract

Techniques for locating information in a document relevant to an interest of a user are provided. Information defined by the user of a document browser is collected. A context model is generated using the collected information. A document selected by the user is obtained. The document is divided into one or more segments. A relevance value is computed for each of the one or more segments by comparing each of the one or more segments to the context model. The relevance value represents a relationship to an interest of the user. Each of the one or more segments with the computed relevance value is presented in a defined organizational area of a display. The one or more segments presented on the display are linked to a corresponding one or more segments in the document.

Claims

1. A method for locating information in a document relevant to an interest of a user, the method comprising:

collecting information defined by the user of a document browser;

generating a context model using the collected information;

obtaining a document selected by the user;

dividing the document into one or more segments;

computing a relevance value for each of the one or more segments by comparing each of the one or more segments to the context model, wherein the relevance value represents a relationship to an interest of the user; and

presenting each of the one or more segments with the computed relevance value in a defined organizational area of a display, wherein the one or more segments presented on the display are linked to a corresponding one or more segments in the document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information defined by the user comprises at least one of a portion of text from a previously viewed document, an image from a previously viewed document, a web address, and a note inputted by the user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the context model comprises at least one of inferred information about an interest of the user and explicit information from the user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the context model is updated when additional information is collected.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the relevance value for each of the one or more segments is re-evaluated when the context model is updated.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the context model is defined by one or more nodes and one or more edges.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more edges define an organizational structure of the one or more nodes.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein each of the one or more nodes represent at least one item of the collected information.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the one or more nodes comprise at least one of a data type of the at least one item, a node identifier, raw data of the at least one item, and a set of key data extracted from the raw data of the at least one item.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of computing the relevance value further comprises the step of calculating a similarity between each of the one or more segments of the document to each of the one or more nodes.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the similarity is calculated using at least one of a Jaccard Coefficient equation and a Pointwise Mutual Information equation.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the relevance value is the sum of the calculated similarities.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the sum of the calculated similarities is in accordance with a weight assigned to each of the calculated similarities.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is divided in accordance with at least one of structural tags of the document and text of the document.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more segments are presented in at least one of an order of relevance, an alphabetical order, and an order of appearance in the document.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the relevance value is presented as at least one of a histogram and a numeral.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

navigating to the one or more segments in the document in accordance with a user request to view a given segment; and

marking the one or more segments in the document by at least one of a highlight, a zoom-in, a thumbnail, and a popup window.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein navigating comprises at least one of scrolling and paging to the one or more segments in the document.

19. An article of manufacture for locating information in a document relevant to an interest of a user, the article comprising a computer readable storage medium including one or more programs, which when executed by a computer implement the steps of claim 1.

20. An apparatus for locating information in a document relevant to an interest of a user, the apparatus comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative to;

collect information defined by the user of a document browser;

generate a context model using the collected information;

obtain a document selected by the user;

divide the document into one or more segments;

compute a relevance value for each of the one or more segments by comparing each of the one or more segments to the context model, wherein the relevance value represents a relationship to an interest of the user; and

present each of the one or more segments with the computed relevance value in a defined organizational area of a display, wherein the one or more segments presented on the display are linked to a corresponding one or more segments in the document.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the information defined by the user comprises at least one of a portion of text from a previously viewed document, an image from a previously viewed document, a web address, and a note inputted by the user.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the context model is defined by one or more nodes and one or more edges.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein in the operation of computing the relevance value, the at least one processor is further operative to calculate a similarity between each of the one or more segments of the document to each of the one or more nodes.

24. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the at least one processor is further operative to:

(i) navigate to the one or more segments in the document in accordance with a user request to view a given segment; and

(ii) mark the one or more segments in the document by at least one of a highlight, a zoom-in, a thumbnail, and a popup window.

25. A system for locating information in a document relevant to an interest of a user, the system comprising:

a context tool interface for collecting information defined by the user of a document browser;

a context model update module for generating a context model using the collected information;

a document browser interface for obtaining a document selected by the user;

a document segmentation module for dividing the document into one or more segments;

a relevance computation module for computing a relevance value for each of the one or more segments by comparing each of the one or more segments to the context model, wherein the relevance value represents a relationship to an interest of the user; and

a display for presenting each of the one or more segments with the computed relevance value in a defined organizational area, wherein the one or more presented segments are linked to a corresponding one or more segments in the document.