Information filtering apparatus for selecting predetermined article from plural articles to present selected article to user, and method therefore

• US 5,907,836 A
• Filed: 07/31/1996
• Issued: 05/25/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Ono, Kenji, Sumita, Kazuo, Sakai, Tetsuya, Kajiura, Masahiro, Miike, Seiji
• Primary Examiner(s): AMSBURY, WAYNE P
• Application Number:
  US08/695,214
• Time in Patent Office: 1,028 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/6, 707/3, 707/10
• US Class Current: 707/754
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

An information filtering apparatus for receiving articles, such as texts or images, from information sources to select predetermined articles from the supplied articles to a user has a storage portion, an article retrieving portion, a determining portion and a presentation portion. The storage portion stores retrieving conditions previously specified for each user. The article retrieving portion retrieves the supplied articles to select articles which satisfy the retrieving conditions for each user. The determining portion calculates similarities among the articles selected by the article retrieving portion or the selected articles and other articles to determine relevant articles for each article in accordance with the similarities. The presentation portion adds information of the determined relevant articles to the selected articles to present the articles and information to the user.

Claims

1. An information filtering apparatus comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing retrieval conditions previously specified for a user;

means for storing retrieval conditions previously specified for a user;

article retrieving means for retrieving the articles received by said receiving means to select articles which match the retrieval conditions stored in said storing means for the user;

determining means for determining relevant articles for each article selected by said article retrieving means by calculating similarities among the articles selected by said article retrieving means or calculating similarities among the selected articles and other articles received by said receiving means;

output means for outputting the selected articles with information of the determined relevant articles; and

means for outputting the selected articles by retrieval conditions specified in a single language by another language calculating similarities among the retrieval conditions replaced into the another language and the articles retrieved by said article retrieving means and written in a different language to select articles in accordance with the similarities.

2. An information filtering apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for outputting the selected articles with information of retrieval conditions under which the articles have been selected by said article retrieving means to each article.

3. An information filtering apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for generating a summary having a length corresponding to a type of each article selected by said article retrieving means and means for outputting the summary generated by said means for generating to the user.

4. An information filtering apparatus comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing retrieval conditions previously specified for a user;

article retrieving means for retrieving supplied articles to select articles which match the retrieval conditions for the user so as to present the articles to the user; and

means for generating a summary having a length corresponding to similarities among retrieval conditions and a type of the article selected by said article retrieving means to present the summary to the user.

5. An information filtering apparatus, comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing a retrieval condition;

first calculating means for calculating first similarities between the retrieval condition stored in said storing means and the articles received by said receiving means;

output means for sorting the articles received by said receiving means based on the first similarities and for extracting at least one of

     1) a predetermined number of articles selected from articles having a highest first similarity and

     2) articles which have the first similarities greater than a predetermined threshold;

second calculating means for calculating second similarities between the articles extracted by said output means based on a field of the articles including at least one of a first sentence, a first paragraph, and a caption; and

means for grouping the articles extracted by said output means based on the second similarities.

6. An information filtering apparatus, comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing a retrieval condition;

means for calculating first similarities between the retrieval condition stored in said storing means and the articles received by said receiving means;

output means for sorting the articles received by said receiving means based on the first similarities and for extracting at least one of

     1) a predetermined number of the articles selected from articles having a highest first similarity and

     2) articles which have the first similarities greater than a predetermined threshold;

output article storage means for storing the articles extracted by said output means;

means for calculating second similarities between the articles stored by said output article storage means and the articles which are extracted by said output means; and

means for grouping the articles stored by said output article storage means and the articles which are extracted by said output means based on the second similarities, the articles grouped having information when the article is received by said receiving means.

7. An information filtering apparatus comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing retrieval conditions;

means for calculating similarities among retrieval conditions and supplied articles to retrieve articles by a specified number or articles having similarities greater than a predetermined threshold in accordance with the calculated similarities;

means for outputting the retrieved documents to a user; and

means for receiving articles written in a different language, replacing retrieval conditions specified in a single language by another language to calculate similarities with the articles to output the article written in the different language to the user while being mixed with the documents to be output by said outputting means.

8. An information filtering apparatus, comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing a retrieval condition;

means for calculating similarities between the retrieval condition stored in said storing means and the articles received by said receiving means;

output means for sorting the articles received by said receiving means based on the similarities and for extracting at least one of

     1) a predetermined number of the articles selected from articles having a highest similarity and

     2) articles which have the similarities greater than a predetermined threshold; and

means for changing at least one of

     1) the predetermined threshold and

     2) the retrieval conditions based on a total number of the articles extracted by said output means.

9. An information filtering apparatus, comprising:

means for receiving articles from information sources;

means for storing a retrieval condition; and

filtering means for calculating similarities between the retrieval condition stored in said storing means and the articles received by said receiving means using a combination of a character string matching scheme and a word matching scheme; and

means for extracting the articles received by said receiving means based on the similarities calculated by said filtering means.

10. An information filtering method comprising:

a step for receiving articles from information sources;

a step for storing retrieval conditions previously specified for a user;

an article retrieving step for retrieving the supplied articles to select articles which satisfy the retrieval conditions for the user;

a determining step for determining relevant articles for each article in accordance with the similarities by calculating similarities among the articles selected in said article retrieving step or similarities among the selected articles; and

an output step for outputting the articles with information of the determined relevant articles.

11. An information filtering method comprising:

a step for periodically receiving articles from information sources;

a step for calculating similarities among retrieval conditions previously specified by a user and supplied articles;

a step for sorting the articles in a descending order of the similarities calculated in said step and selecting articles by a predetermined number or only articles having similarities greater than a predetermined threshold;

an output article storage step for storing articles output to the user as a result of filtering;

a step for collecting articles stored in said output article storage step and articles supplied this day to calculate similarities among the articles so as to form the articles into groups or making the articles to be related to one another so as to output the articles to the user; and

a step for adding, to each article to be output, information whether the articles are in a group consisting of only articles supplied this day or a group including previous articles.

12. An information filtering method comprising:

a step for receiving articles from information sources;

a step for calculating similarities among retrieving conditions previously specified by a user and supplied articles to retrieve articles by a specified number or articles having similarities greater than a predetermined threshold in accordance with the calculated similarities; and

a step for receiving articles written in a different language, replacing retrieving conditions specified in a single language by another language to calculate similarities with the articles to present the article written in the different language to the user while being mixed with the articles to be presented.

13. An information filtering apparatus, comprising:

means for receiving first articles from information sources;

means for storing retrieval conditions previously specified for a user;

article retrieving means for retrieving the first articles received by said means for receiving in order to select second articles which match the retrieved conditions stored in said means for storing; and

means for outputting the second articles written in a different language by replacing the retrieval condition specified in a first language with the different language and by calculating similarities among the retrieval conditions replaced into the different language and the second articles to select third articles using the similarities among the retrieval conditions.

14. An information filter apparatus according to claim 13, further comprising:

determining means for determining relevant articles from said second articles by calculating at least one of similarities among the second articles and similarities among the second articles and other articles received by said means for receiving; and

output means for outputting the second articles with information about the determined relevant articles.

15. An information filtering apparatus according to claim 13, further comprising:

means for outputting the second articles with information about the retrieval conditions under which the second articles have been selected by said article retrieving means.

16. An information filtering apparatus according to claim 13, further comprising:

means for generating a summary having a length corresponding to a type of an article selected from said second articles; and

means for outputting to the user the summary generated by said means for generating.

17. An information filtering apparatus according to claim 14, further comprising:

means for forming the second articles into groups of articles by relating each of the second articles to one another using the similarities calculated by said determining means.

18. An information filtering apparatus according to claim 13, wherein said means for outputting outputs the third articles in a descending order using the similarities among the retrieval conditions.