INTERFACE TO NAVIGATE AND SEARCH A CONCEPT HIERARCHY

• US 20140317103A1
• Filed: 07/03/2014
• Published: 10/23/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mukerjee, Kunal, Garg, Naveen
• Application Number:
  US14/323,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20140317103A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/726
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/33 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3334 Selection or weighting of terms from queries, including natural language queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/358 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

A method includes receiving a concept hierarchy at a computing device. The concept hierarchy identifies concepts associated with a document corpus. An interface based on the concept hierarchy is generated. The interface is operable to navigate and search the concept hierarchy.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

receive a concept hierarchy, wherein the concept hierarchy identifies concepts associated with a document corpus;

generate an interface based on the concept hierarchy, wherein the interface is operable to navigate and search the concept hierarchy;

transmit the interface for display to a display device;

receive a search query; and

in response to the search query;

search the document corpus using the search query; and

search the concept hierarchy for one or more concepts that are semantically related to the search query.

2. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1, wherein the interface is further operable to:

receive a selection of a particular concept of the concept hierarchy;

display portions of one or more documents of the document corpus that are associated with the particular concept; and

identify one or more other concepts that are semantically related to the particular concept.

3. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1, wherein the concept hierarchy is a self-organizing concept hierarchy, and wherein the concept hierarchy is configured to determine whether to reorganize itself each time a new document is added to the document corpus.

4. The computer-readable storage device of claim 3, wherein reorganizing the concept hierarchy includes one or more of establishing new links, removing existing links, and updating weights for existing links.

5. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1, wherein the concept hierarchy is a self-organizing concept hierarchy that automatically updates itself in response to modification of a document of the document corpus.

6. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1, wherein the concept hierarchy enables discovery of semantic relationships related to the search query, and wherein a lexical relationship is used to identify particular documents or portions of documents that are lexically related to the search query.

7. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1, wherein adding a document to the document corpus results in removing a concept from the concept hierarchy.

8. A system, comprising:

a processor;

a concept hierarchy module executable by the processor to determine a concept hierarchy corresponding to a document corpus; and

an interface module executable by the processor to;

generate an interface based on the concept hierarchy;

transmit the interface for display to a display device;

receive user input at the interface; and

update the interface to reflect results of performing a navigation operation on the concept hierarchy based on the user input or to reflect results of performing a search operation on the concept hierarchy based on the user input.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the interface indicates at least one weight that represents a degree of relation between concepts of the concept hierarchy, and wherein the interface module is further executable by the processor to automatically update the at least one weight based on a change at the document corpus.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the interface is integrated into a file manager application that is operable to:

receive a selection of a particular concept;

receive a selection of a particular directory;

identify one or more documents in the particular directory that are semantically related to the particular concept; and

identify one or more documents that are lexically related to the user input.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein adding a document to the document corpus results in removing a concept from the concept hierarchy.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the interface includes a concept browser, a folder viewer, and a file viewer.

13. A method comprising:

receiving a concept hierarchy at a computing device, wherein the concept hierarchy identifies concepts associated with a document corpus;

generating an interface using the concept hierarchy, wherein the interface is operable to navigate and search the concept hierarchy;

receiving a search query via the interface;

in response to receiving the search query, identifying document search results by searching the document corpus based on the search query and identifying conceptual search results by searching the concept hierarchy for one or more concepts that are semantically related to the search query; and

concurrently displaying the document search results and the conceptual search results at the interface,

wherein the document search results are selectable via the interface to view one or more documents of the document corpus that are associated with the document search results, and

wherein the conceptual search results are selectable via the interface to navigate the concept hierarchy and to view one or more documents of the document corpus that are associated with the conceptual search results.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising automatically determining whether to reorganize the concept hierarchy in response to detecting addition of a new document to the document corpus.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the interface represents the concept hierarchy as a graph comprising a plurality of nodes connected by a plurality of links, wherein a particular node of the plurality of nodes corresponds to a particular concept, and wherein a particular link between a pair of nodes represents a semantic relationship between concepts corresponding to the pair of nodes.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the interface concurrently displays particular documents or portions of documents that are lexically related to the search query.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein a concept is removed from the concept hierarchy in response to adding a document to the document corpus.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein a size of a node is based on a number of hierarchical levels below the concept corresponding to the node.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the particular link between the pair of nodes is associated with a weight that indicates a degree of relation between the concepts corresponding to the pair of nodes, and wherein the weight is dynamically updated as documents are added at the document corpus.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein newly created documents are automatically added to the document corpus and deleted documents are automatically removed from the document corpus based on one or more monitoring agents.