METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR ANALYSIS OF REAL-TIME USER-GENERATED TEXT MESSAGES

• US 20120042022A1
• Filed: 02/16/2011
• Published: 02/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wright State University
• Original Assignee: Wright State University
• Inventors: Sheth, Amit, Gomadam, Karthik, Nagarajan, Meenakshi
• Granted Patent: US 8,688,791 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

The present invention generally relates to methods and systems for analysis of real-time user-generated text messages. The methods and systems allow analysis to be performed using term associations and geographical and temporal constraints.

Claims

1. A system for analyzing electronic messages comprising a processing circuit that stores one or more electronic messages related to an event in a memory, wherein the one or more electronic messages comprise temporal information, geographical information, and event descriptor terms;

the processing circuit further determines a set of electronic messages using the temporal and geographical information;

the processing circuit also parses the set of electronic messages to determine event descriptor terms;

the processing circuit further generates term frequency values for the event descriptor terms and association strength values for the event descriptor terms;

wherein the processing circuit also uses the term frequency values and the association strength values to generate term weight values that are indicative of the thematic importance of the event descriptor terms;

the processing circuit further uses the term weight values to select one or more event descriptor terms; and

wherein the processing circuit also provides the selected event descriptor terms to an electronic display.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit further generates the term frequency values using term frequency-inverse document frequency scores for the event descriptor terms.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the processing circuit further generates the association strength values using the word co-occurrence frequencies between the event descriptor terms.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the word co-occurrence frequencies are calculated by the processing circuit in part by determining a context for each event descriptor term;

wherein the context for each event descriptor term comprises a set of associated words that co-occur with the event descriptor term in an electronic message; and

wherein the set of associated words is limited to the most frequently co-occurring words in the message.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the word co-occurrence frequencies are further calculated in part by determining the point-wise mutual information between each event descriptor term and the context of each word in the set of associated words.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the term weight values are further generated using geographical and temporal weights.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit also determines visual indicia characteristics for the selected event descriptor terms using the term weight values and provides the visual indicia characteristics to the display.

8. A method for analyzing electronic messages comprising:

storing one or more electronic messages related to an event in a memory, wherein the one or more electronic messages comprise temporal information, geographical information, and event descriptor terms;

determining a set of electronic messages using the temporal and geographical information;

parsing the set of electronic messages to determine event descriptor terms;

generating term frequency values for the event descriptor terms;

generating association strength values for the event descriptor terms;

using the term frequency values and the association strength values to generate term weight values that are indicative of the thematic importance of the event descriptor terms;

using the term weight values to select one or more event descriptor terms; and

providing the selected event descriptor terms to an electronic display.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the term frequency values are generated using term frequency-inverse document frequency scores of the event descriptor terms.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the association strength values are generated using the word co-occurrence frequencies between the event descriptor terms.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the word co-occurrence frequencies are calculated in part by determining a context for each event descriptor term;

wherein the context for each event descriptor term comprises a set of associated words that co-occur with the event descriptor term in an electronic message; and

wherein the set of associated words is limited to the most frequently co-occurring words in the message.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the word co-occurrence frequencies are further calculated in part by determining the point-wise mutual information between each event descriptor term and the context of each word in the set of associated words.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the term weight values are further generated using temporal or geographic weights.

14. A system for analyzing electronic messages comprising:

a memory containing program instructions and one or more electronic messages related to an event, wherein the one or more electronic messages comprise temporal information, geographical information, and event descriptor terms;

a display; and

a processor coupled to the memory and the display, said program instructions when read from the memory and executed by the processor cause the processor to;

determine a set of electronic messages using the temporal and geographical information;

parse the set of electronic messages to determine event descriptor terms;

generate term frequency values for the event descriptor terms;

generate association strength values for the event descriptor terms;

use the term frequency values and the association strength values to generate term weight values that are indicative of the thematic importance of the event descriptor terms;

use the term weight values to select one or more event descriptor terms; and

provide the selected event descriptor terms to the electronic display.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the term frequency values are generated using term frequency-inverse document frequency scores of the event descriptor terms.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the association strength values are generated using the word co-occurrence frequencies between the event descriptor terms.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the word co-occurrence frequencies are calculated in part by determining a context for each event descriptor term;

wherein the context for each event descriptor term comprises a set of associated words that co-occur with the event descriptor term in an electronic message; and

wherein the set of associated words is limited to the most frequently co-occurring words in the message.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the term weight values are further generated using temporal weights and geographical weights.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the program instructions further cause the processor to use the term weight values to determine visual indicia characteristics for the selected event descriptor terms and to provide the visual indicia characteristics to the display.

18. The system of claim 18, wherein the word co-occurrence frequencies are further calculated in part by determining the point-wise mutual information between each event descriptor term and the context of each word in the set of associated words.