PROVIDING KNOWLEDGE CONTENT TO USERS

• US 20100318537A1
• Filed: 06/12/2009
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: MOHAN, SIVA, VADDADI, PHANI, PRASAD, RAJEEV, SURENDRAN, ARUNGUNRAM CHANDRASEKARAN, NAJM, TAREK
• Application Number:
  US12/483,935
• Publication Number:
  US 20100318537A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/759
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3344 using natural language analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/36 Creation of semantic tools, e.g. ontology or thesauri

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-storage media for generating and providing knowledge content to users utilizing a web architecture that integrates information across data silos through a common, flexible data storage schema, such as a star or snowflake schema, are provided. Data from a content graph, a user activity graph, a social graph, and temporal data as it relates to each of the content graph, the social graph and the user activity graph, is stored in a knowledge content database utilizing the star schema. In this way, data from each of these formerly disparate sources may be accessed from a common, extensible application platform utilizing ontologies and pivot table functionality, thus providing smarter, more comprehensive knowledge in response to received user queries.

Claims

1. One or more computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for providing knowledge content to users in response to receiving information requests, the method comprising:

receiving an information request from a user;

processing the information request to extract one or more objects and/or attributes from the information request;

analyzing the objects and/or attributes from the information request utilizing a knowledge base to determine knowledge content relevant to the one or more extracted objects and/or attributes of the received information request, wherein the knowledge base includes a knowledge content database, and wherein the knowledge content database comprises at least a content graph, a social graph, a user activity graph, and temporal data relating to each of the content graph, the social graph and the user activity graph;

generating a response to the received information request, the response including the determined relevant knowledge content, wherein the relevant knowledge content comprises information derived from the knowledge content database that has at least one pivot applied thereto; and

transmitting the response to the user.

2. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein analyzing the objects and/or attributes from the information request utilizing a knowledge base to determine knowledge content relevant to the one or more extracted objects and/or attributes of the received information request includes applying at least one ontology to the extracted objects and/or attributes.

3. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein analyzing the objects and/or attributes from the information request utilizing the knowledge base comprises analyzing at least a portion of two or more of the content graph, the user activity graph, the social graph and the temporal data to determine knowledge content relevant to the one or more extracted objects and/or attributes of the received information request.

4. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 3, wherein analyzing two or more of the content graph, the user activity graph, the social graph and the temporal data comprises analyzing at least a portion of each of the content graph, the user activity graph, the social graph and the temporal data to determine knowledge content relevant to the one or more extracted objects and/or attributes of the received information request.

5. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein information stored in association with each of the content graph, the social graph and the user activity graph, and the temporal data, are integrated and stored in a common, flexible data storage schema.

6. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 5, wherein information stored in association with each of the content graph, the social graph and the user activity graph, and the temporal data, are integrated and stored in a star or snowflake schema.

7. A system having a processor and one or more computer-readable storage media for accessing knowledge content, the system comprising:

a data collection component configured for obtaining input data;

a data processing component configured for analyzing the obtained input data and extracting information there from; and

a knowledge base including a knowledge content database configured to store at least a content graph, a social graph, a user activity graph, and temporal data relating to each of the content graph, the social graph and the user activity graph in a common, referencing data storage schema,

wherein the knowledge base is configured to receive the information extracted from the input data and output knowledge content relevant to the input data.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the system further includes at least one ontology.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the system further includes a dimensional index.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the common, referencing data storage schema is a star or snowflake schema.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the dimensional index is configured to allow one or more pivots to be applied to the knowledge content across multiple dimensions.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the system further includes an inferencing engine configured to at least one of analyze the knowledge content to determine first additional knowledge content and accept manual input of second additional knowledge content.

13. One or more computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for generating knowledge content, the method comprising:

receiving a data reference;

extracting metadata from the data reference to determine at least one object and/or at least one attribute associated with the data reference;

analyzing the at least one object and/or at least one attribute utilizing a knowledge base to determine whether there is existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute, the knowledge base including a knowledge content database, and the knowledge content database including at least a content graph, a social graph, a user activity graph, and temporal data relating to each of the content graph, the social graph and the user activity graph,

wherein if it is determined that there is existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute, the method further comprises determining whether the existing knowledge content is accurate in view of the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute,

and wherein if it is determined that there is not existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute, the method further comprises determining whether any new knowledge content items are capable of being generated based on the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute.

14. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein receiving a data reference comprises receiving a data reference through the use of one or more of a user feed, an activity log, a web crawler, and a publisher feed.

15. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein analyzing the at least one object and/or at least one attribute utilizing a knowledge base to determine whether there is existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute includes applying at least one ontology to the determined at least one object and/or at least one attribute.

16. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein if it is determined that there is existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object, the method further comprises:

determining that the existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object includes a first relationship between the at least one object and another object stored in association with the knowledge content database; and

determining a second relationship between the at least one object and the other object based upon the at least one object and/or at least one attribute associated with the data reference; and

storing the second relationship in association with the knowledge content database.

17. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein if it is determined that there is existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object, the method further comprises:

determining that the existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object includes a relationship between the at least one object and other object stored in association with the knowledge content database; and

modifying the relationship between the at least one object and the other object based upon the at least one object and/or at least one attribute associated with the data reference; and

storing the modified relationship in association with the knowledge content database.

18. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein if it is determined that there is existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object, the method further comprises:

determining that the existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object includes a relationship between the at least one object and other object stored in association with the knowledge content database; and

eliminating the relationship between the at least one object and the other object based upon the at least one object and/or at least one attribute associated with the data reference.

19. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein if it is determined that there is not existing knowledge content relevant to the at least one object and/or the at least one attribute, the method further comprises:

determining that a new knowledge content item is capable of being generated based on the at least one object;

generating the new knowledge content item by establishing a new relationship between the at least one object and another object stored in association with the knowledge content database; and

storing the new knowledge content item in association with the knowledge content database.

20. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 19, wherein the new knowledge content item is capable of being discovered through the use of one or more pivots applied to the knowledge content database.