SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ANALYZING ENTITY PROFILES

• US 20110072052A1
• Filed: 05/27/2009
• Published: 03/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aptima Inc.
• Original Assignee: Aptima Inc.
• Inventors: Dejordy, Rich, Duchon, Andrew, Skarin, Bruce, Allopenna, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 9,123,022 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/794
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/288 Entity relationship models
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Embodiments of the subject invention comprise a computer based system and methods to collect and compare the attributes of a group of entities using data representing topic data of the entity and interaction data between entities. Embodiments of the invention comprise using minimally invasive means to automatically collect and model both an entity'"'"'s attributes such as their knowledge/work/interest as well as model the social interactions of the entity together with a means to identify opportunities to influence changes in the entity attributes. Minimally invasive means to collect and model attributes include semantic analysis and topic modeling techniques. Means to model social interactions include social network analysis techniques that can incorporate location data of the entity. Embodiments of the invention further provide a sharable index of the attributes of the entities and the group of entities.

Claims

1. A computer-based method of profiling entity information, said method comprising the step of:

automatically determining an interaction model of a set of interaction information from a group of entities.

2. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 1 wherein the interaction information comprises entity communication information.

3. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 1 wherein the interaction information further comprises entity location information.

4. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 1 wherein the step of determining the interaction model is automatically determined using semantic analysis techniques on entity communication information resident on a computing device of the entity.

5. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 1 wherein the step of determining the interaction model is automatically determined using topic modeling techniques.

6. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 1 wherein the step of determining the interaction model is automatically determined using social network modeling techniques.

7. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 1 wherein said method further comprises the steps:

automatically determining a topic model from at least two entities from the group of entities;

determining an entity topic profile for the at least two entities; and

comparing entity topic profiles to identify a degree of topic similarity of the at least two entities whereby changes in the entity topic profile can be identified to influence the similarity of the entity topic profiles.

8. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 7 further comprising:

determining an entity interaction profile from the interaction model for the at least two entities; and

comparing entity interaction profiles to identify a degree of interaction similarity of the at least two entities whereby changes in the entity interaction profile can be identified to influence the similarity of the entity interaction profiles.

9. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 7 further comprising:

determining an entity topic comparison function to identify a degree of topic similarity of the at least two entities;

determining an entity interaction profile from the interaction matrix for the at least two entities;

comparing entity interaction profiles to identify a degree of interaction similarity of the at least two entities; and

comparing the degree of topic similarity and the degree of interaction similarity of the at least two entities whereby changes in the entity interaction profile can be identified to influence the similarity of the entity topic profiles.

10. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 9 wherein the step of comparing the degree of topic similarity and the degree of interaction similarity comprises creating a topic matrix and a interaction matrix and subtracting the matrices to create at least one similarity matrix.

11. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 10 wherein the identified changes in the interaction profile to influence the similarity of the entity topic profiles are communicated to the entity.

12. An entity profiling system for analyzing entity profiles, said system comprising:

a system bus;

at least one database in communication with the system bus that includes entity data and interaction data associated with at least one entity;

an analysis engine in communication with the system bus comprising;

a model, comparison and recommendation engine comprising machine instructions capable of comparing entities by the topic profile and the interaction profile, and at least one processor in communication with the system bus capable of executing the machine instructions of the analysis engine; and

the system bus capable of communicating with a user interface for providing user input to support the operation of the entity profiling system.

13. The entity profiling system of claim 12 wherein the topic profile comprises a representation of attributes of the entity and the interaction profile comprises a representation of entity communication information.

14. The entity profiling system of claim 12 wherein the interaction data comprises entity location information.

15. The entity profiling system of claim 12 further comprising a topic extraction and correlation engine comprising machine instructions capable of analyzing contextual data from the at least one database to generate and correlate topics utilizing semantic analysis techniques.

16. The entity profiling system of claim 12 wherein the model, comparison and recommendation engine further comprises machine instructions capable of executing social networking techniques to generate an interaction model and an interaction profile.

17. The entity profiling system of claim 12 wherein the model, comparison and recommendation engine further comprises machine instructions capable of generating a topic model and a topic profile.

18. The entity profiling system of claim 12 wherein the model, comparison and recommendation engine further comprises machine instructions capable of comparing a topic profile and an interaction profile.

19. A computer-based method of profiling entity information, said method comprising the steps of:

automatically determining a topic model representing at least one attribute of a group of entities;

determining an entity topic profile of at least one entity representing the attributes of the entity; and

allowing the entity topic profile to be shared over a data network.

20. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 19 wherein the step of automatically determining an topic model further comprises analyzing the domain knowledge of the group of entities using semantic analysis techniques.

21. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 19 wherein the steps of automatically determining the topic model is performed using at least one of the techniques consisting of:

collaborative filtering techniques; and

content-based filtering techniques.

22. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 19 wherein the step of automatically determining a topic model further comprises analyzing communication information of the group of entities.

23. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 19 further comprising the step of comparing entity topic profiles to determine a degree of topic similarity of one entity topic profile to another.

24. The computer-based method of profiling entity information of claim 19 wherein:

the topic model is capable of being communicated and stored in a memory accessible to a data network;

the entity topic profile is capable of being communicated and stored in the memory; and

the step of allowing the entity topic profile to be shared further comprises storing the topic profile as an index in a format accessible to other entities on the data network.