Answer Change Notifications Based on Changes to User Profile Information

• US 20170109390A1
• Filed: 10/16/2015
• Published: 04/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bradley, Lisa M.W., Carlson, Christina R., Freed, Andrew R., Henderson, Roderick C.
• Granted Patent: US 10,769,185 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Mechanisms are provided to implement an answer change notification system. The mechanisms receive a change operation to change a portion of a user profile data structure associated with a user and identify a first entry in a question and answer (QA) log data structure, corresponding to the user, having an indicator identifying a previous answer of the first entry as being dependent upon information in the user profile data structure. The mechanisms resubmit a question of the first entry to a question and answer (QA) system to generate a new answer to the question in response to identifying the entry. The mechanisms receive the new answer from the QA system and output, to a client device associated with the user, a notification identifying the new answer to the question in response to receiving the new answer.

Claims

1. A method, in a data processing system comprising at least one processor and a memory comprising instructions that cause the at least one processor to implement an answer change notification system, the method comprising:

receiving, by the answer change notification system, a change operation to change a portion of a user profile data structure associated with a user;

identifying, by the answer change notification system, a first entry in a question and answer (QA) log data structure, corresponding to the user, having an indicator identifying a previous answer of the first entry as being dependent upon information in the user profile data structure;

resubmitting, by the answer change notification system, a question of the first entry to a question and answer (QA) system to generate a new answer to the question in response to identifying the entry;

receiving, by the answer change notification system, the new answer from the QA system; and

outputting, by the answer change notification system, to a client device associated with the user, a notification identifying the new answer to the question in response to receiving the new answer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the first entry in the QA log data structure having an indicator identifying the previous answer of the first entry as being dependent upon information in the user profile data structure further comprises identifying the first entry as having a previous answer of the first entry that is dependent upon the portion of the user profile data that was changed by the received change operation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying an entry in the QA log data structure comprises:

identifying a subset of entries in the QA log data structure having indicators that indicate that the entries in the subset of entries have associated answers that are dependent upon information in the user profile data structure; and

identifying the first entry in the QA log data structure as an entry in the subset of entries whose previous answer is dependent upon the portion of information in the user profile data structure that is changed by the received change operation.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the portion of the user profile data structure comprises one or more fields of the user profile data structure storing personal information about the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting to a client device associated with the user, a notification identifying the new answer to the question in response to receiving the new answer further comprises:

comparing the new answer to the previous answer associated with the first entry;

determining a difference between the new answer and the previous answer based on the comparison; and

outputting the notification in response to the difference satisfying a notification criteria.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the notification criteria comprises at least one threshold value, and wherein the difference satisfies the criteria in response to the difference having a predetermined relationship to the at least one threshold value.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification further comprises an identification of the question and an identification of the portion of the user profile data structure changed by the change operation.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the QA system, an input question from the user;

retrieving, by the QA system, the user profile data structure corresponding to the user;

processing, by the QA system, the input question based on the user profile data structure to generate an answer to the input question; and

logging, by the QA system, in a question and answer data structure, the input question and the associated answer to the input question generated by the QA system.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining, by the QA system, whether or not the answer to the input question generated by the QA system is dependent upon information in the user profile data structure; and

in response to determining that the answer to the input question is dependent upon information in the user profile data structure, setting, by the QA system, a flag bit associated with the input question and answer.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining whether or not at least one of the input question or the answer to the input question comprises a temporal characteristic; and

scheduling a temporal characteristic based notification to be output to the user at a future time based on the temporal characteristic.

11. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a data processing system, causes the data processing system to implement an answer change notification system that operates to:

receive a change operation to change a portion of a user profile data structure associated with a user;

identify a first entry in a question and answer (QA) log data structure, corresponding to the user, having an indicator identifying a previous answer of the first entry as being dependent upon information in the user profile data structure;

resubmit a question of the first entry to a question and answer (QA) system to generate a new answer to the question in response to identifying the entry;

receive the new answer from the QA system; and

output to a client device associated with the user, a notification identifying the new answer to the question in response to receiving the new answer.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein identifying the first entry in the QA log data structure having an indicator identifying the previous answer of the first entry as being dependent upon information in the user profile data structure further comprises identifying the first entry as having a previous answer of the first entry that is dependent upon the portion of the user profile data that was changed by the received change operation.

13. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein identifying an entry in the QA log data structure comprises:

identifying a subset of entries in the QA log data structure having indicators that indicate that the entries in the subset of entries have associated answers that are dependent upon information in the user profile data structure; and

identifying the first entry in the QA log data structure as an entry in the subset of entries whose previous answer is dependent upon the portion of information in the user profile data structure that is changed by the received change operation.

14. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the portion of the user profile data structure comprises one or more fields of the user profile data structure storing personal information about the user.

15. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein outputting to a client device associated with the user, a notification identifying the new answer to the question in response to receiving the new answer further comprises:

comparing the new answer to the previous answer associated with the first entry;

determining a difference between the new answer and the previous answer based on the comparison; and

outputting the notification in response to the difference satisfying a notification criteria.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the notification criteria comprises at least one threshold value, and wherein the difference satisfies the criteria in response to the difference having a predetermined relationship to the at least one threshold value.

17. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the notification further comprises an identification of the question and an identification of the portion of the user profile data structure changed by the change operation.

18. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the data processing system comprises the QA system and wherein the computer readable program further causes the data processing system to:

receive, by the QA system, an input question from the user;

retrieve, by the QA system, the user profile data structure corresponding to the user;

process, by the QA system, the input question based on the user profile data structure to generate an answer to the input question; and

log, by the QA system, in a question and answer data structure, the input question and the associated answer to the input question generated by the QA system.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the computer readable program further causes the data processing system to:

determine, by the QA system, whether or not the answer to the input question generated by the QA system is dependent upon information in the user profile data structure; and

in response to determining that the answer to the input question is dependent upon information in the user profile data structure, set, by the QA system, a flag bit associated with the input question and answer.

20. An apparatus comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

receive a change operation to change a portion of a user profile data structure associated with a user;

identify a first entry in a question and answer (QA) log data structure, corresponding to the user, having an indicator identifying a previous answer of the first entry as being dependent upon information in the user profile data structure;

resubmit a question of the first entry to a question and answer (QA) system to generate a new answer to the question in response to identifying the entry;

receive the new answer from the QA system; and

output to a client device associated with the user, a notification identifying the new answer to the question in response to receiving the new answer.