Creating a multi-relational ontology having a predetermined structure

• US 7,496,593 B2
• Filed: 05/05/2005
• Issued: 02/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Bio Wisdom Limited
• Original Assignee: BioWisdom Ltd. (Instem Plc)
• Inventors: Baxter, Gordon Smith, Tilford, Nicholas Sean, Gardner, Stephen Philip, Hill, Robin Duncan, McMenamin, Conor
• Primary Examiner(s): Vital; Pierre M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nofal; Christopher P
• Application Number:
  US11/122,023
• Publication Number:
  US 20060053151A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,391 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/3, 707/9, 707/10, 707/101, 707/102, 707/103.R, 707/104.1, 709/202, 709/217, 709/224, 715/502, 715/513, 715/514, 715/768, 715/804, 715/835, 715/866, 717/106, 717/120, 717/146, 704/4, 704/9, 706/45
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/35 Discourse or dialogue representation

Abstract

The invention relates generally to a system and method for creating one or more structured multi-relational ontologies. The invention may include ontologies comprising assertions made up of concept-relationship-concept triplets. The invention may also include predefined sets of concept and relationship types as well as concept type hierarchies and concept-relationship association parameters. The invention may further include properties as concepts, synonyms of concepts as concepts, and documents or parts thereof as concepts.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system for creating one or more multi-relational ontologies having a predetermined structure, the system comprising:

at least one processor and a memory having instructions causing the processor to;

(i) create an upper ontology that includes;

a set of predetermined concept types,

a set of predetermined relationship types,

a set of concept type pairs, and

for each concept type pair, a set of relationships permitted to be used to connect the concept types of the concept type pair;

(ii) receive raw data and arrange the raw data into a plurality of individual assertions according to the upper ontology, each assertion comprising a first concept, a second concept, and a relationship between the first and second concept,

wherein the first and second concept of each assertion have a concept type from the set of predetermined concept types,

wherein the relationship of each assertion has a relationship type from the set of predetermined relationship types,

wherein the first and second concept of each assertion belong to a concept type pair of the set of concept type pairs and are connected by a relationship from the set of possible relationships permitted for the concept type pair,

wherein at least one concept within the plurality of assertions is part of more than one assertion,

wherein one or more relationships in the plurality of individual assertions comprise relationships unconstrained by any hierarchical arrangement of concepts,

wherein each concept within each assertion of the plurality of individual assertions is associated with a label, a concept type, and at least one property, and

wherein the at least one property includes at least a version of a data source from which the concept was derived; and

(iii) store on at least one data storage device;

the plurality of individual assertions as one or more multi-relational ontologies, and

one or more pieces of evidence supporting information contained in each assertion of the plurality of assertions, wherein each of the one or more pieces of evidence are linked to their corresponding assertion such that each of the one or more pieces of evidence are able to be accessed along with their corresponding assertion, and wherein the one or more pieces of evidence are each associated with at least a data source from which the evidence is derived.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein a piece of evidence comprises a document containing information underlying the information contained in one or more of the plurality of assertions.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one property further includes at least one of:

(i) a data source from which the concept was derived;

(ii) a data source type from which the concept was derived;

or

(iii) the mechanism by which the concept was derived from its data source.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one concept from the plurality of individual assertions is associated with one or more quantitative values.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one assertion of the plurality of individual assertions is associated with one or more quantitative values.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of individual assertions is associated with curator information that identifies a person or system that operated on the at least one assertion to approve its inclusion in the plurality of individual assertions.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one concept from the plurality of individual assertions is associated with one or more synonyms.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one concept within at least one assertion of the plurality of individual assertions is itself an assertion having at least two concepts connected by a relationship.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more concepts of the plurality of individual assertions comprise a document or a portion of a document.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more concepts of the plurality of individual assertions comprise a person.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more concepts of the plurality of individual assertions comprise a person, and wherein a concept comprising a person is associated with at least one of the person'"'"'s name, the person'"'"'s telephone number, the person'"'"'s business address, the person'"'"'s education history, or the person'"'"'s employment history.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of individual assertions is associated with information indicating that the one or more assertions are no longer deemed to be true.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of individual assertions is associated with at least one temporal tag.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one temporal tag comprises at least one of the date knowledge underlying the assertion was recognized as true, the date the knowledge underlying the assertion was recognized as not-true, or the date the assertion was entered into the one or more multi-relational ontologies.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of relationships permitted to be used to connect the concept types of a concept type pair are organized as a hierarchy of relationships.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of relationships permitted to be used to connect the concept types of a concept type pair and the concept type pairs themselves are organized as an ontology.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of relationships permitted to be used to connect the concept types of a concept type pair includes inverse relationships.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein each relationship within the set of relationships permitted to be used to connect the concept types of a concept type pair is either a normalized relationship or a non-normalized relationship.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein each relationship within the set of relationships permitted to be used to connect the concept types of a concept type pair is either a normalized relationship or a non-normalized relationship, wherein a normalized relationship is a relationship form that represents numerous semantically equivalent but linguistically divergent relationship forms.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more pieces of evidence are each further associated with

a data source type from which the evidence is derived.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more pieces of evidence are each further associated with one or more tags indicating whether users of specific access levels may interface with assertions derived from the data source and evidence derived from the data source.

22. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one temporal tag comprises the date the assertion was entered into the one or more multi-relational ontologies and one of the date knowledge underlying the assertion was recognized as true or the date the knowledge underlying the assertion was recognized as not-true.