Method for re-ranking documents retrieved from a multi-lingual document database

• US 7,603,353 B2
• Filed: 04/12/2006
• Issued: 10/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Harris Corporation (L3Harris Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Harris Corporation (L3Harris Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Fox, Kevin Lee, Frieder, Ophir, Knepper, Margaret M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Wilson
• Application Number:
  US11/279,473
• Publication Number:
  US 20060173839A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,280 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for processing documents in a multi-lingual document database includes generating an initial ranking of retrieved multi-lingual documents using an information retrieval system and based upon a user search query, and processing vocabulary words based upon occurrences thereof in at least some of the retrieved multi-lingual documents. Respective relevancies of the vocabulary words based on the occurrences thereof and the user search query are generated. A re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents is generated based on the relevancies of the vocabulary words.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for processing multilingual documents in a document database database using a computer-implemented system comprising a processor and a display operatively coupled to the processor, the method comprising:

operating the processor to perform the following

generating an initial ranking of retrieved multi-lingual documents using an information retrieval system and based upon a user search query provided by a user;

displaying for the user the initial ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents;

permitting user selection of a plurality of vocabulary words based upon occurrences thereof in at least some of the retrieved multi-lingual documents;

generating respective relevancies of the user-selected vocabulary words in the retrieved multi-lingual documents;

generating a re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents based on the generated respective relevancies of the vocabulary words; and

operating the display to display for the user the re-ranking of the multi-lingual documents, and for each multi-lingual document being displayed, also to display its initial ranking.

2. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 wherein the multi-lingual documents comprise at least one document having multiple languages.

3. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 wherein the multilingual documents comprise different documents with different languages.

4. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 wherein the user search query comprises a multi-lingual user search query.

5. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising translating the user search query into a multi-lingual user search query before generating the initial ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents.

6. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising generating the plurality of vocabulary words based upon occurrences thereof in at least some of the retrieved multi-lingual documents before generating the initial ranking of the retrieved documents.

7. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising selecting a vocabulary comprising the plurality of vocabulary words before permitting user selection of the plurality of vocabulary.

8. A computer-implemented method according to claim 7 wherein the plurality of vocabulary words are based upon words in at least one predetermined document.

9. A computer-implemented method according to claim 8 wherein the at least one predetermined document is not part of the retrieved multi-lingual documents.

10. A computer-implemented method according to claim 7 further comprising adding vocabulary words to the vocabulary based upon occurrences of words in at least some of the retrieved multilingual documents.

11. A computer-implemented method according to claim 10 further comprising determining a quality of the vocabulary based upon how many vocabulary words are added thereto.

12. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising selecting N top ranked documents from the retrieved multi-lingual documents before processing the plurality of vocabulary words, with N being an integer greater than 1;

and wherein generating the respective relevancies and generating the re-ranking are with respect to the N top-ranked documents.

13. A computer-implemented method according to claim 12 wherein generating the respective relevancies of the vocabulary words comprises:

counting how many times a respective, vocabulary word is used in the N top ranked documents; and

counting how many of the N top ranked documents uses the respective vocabulary word.

14. A computer-implemented method according to claim 13 further comprising generating a word/document ratio for each respective vocabulary word based upon the counting, and if the word/document ratio is less than a threshold, then the relevancy of the word is not used when generating the re-ranking of the N top ranked documents.

15. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising determining which documents from at least some of the retrieved multilingual documents are irrelevant to the user search query;

and wherein generating the re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents is also based on the irrelevant documents.

16. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising determining which documents from at least some of the retrieved multilingual documents are relevant to the user search query;

and wherein generating the re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents is also based on the relevant documents.

17. A computer-implemented method according to claim 16 further comprising determining if the respective vocabulary words are relevant to the user search query;

and wherein determining the relevant documents is based upon the relevant vocabulary words.

18. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising determining a respective source of at least some of the retrieved multilingual documents, and assigning priority to documents provided by preferred sources;

and wherein generating the re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents is also based on documents with preferred sources.

19. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising generating a second re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents based upon a combination of the initial ranking and the re-ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents.

20. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 further comprising displaying the re-ranked multi-lingual documents.

21. A computer-implemented method for processing multilingual documents in a document database using a computer-implemented system comprising a processor and a display operatively coupled to the processor, the multi-lingual documents having an initial ranking based upon a user search query provided by a user, the method comprising;

operating the processor to perform the following

selecting N top ranked multi-lingual documents from the retrieved multilingual documents, with N being an integer greater than 1;

displaying for the user the initial ranking of the N top ranked retrieved multi-lingual documents;

permitting user selection of a plurality of vocabulary words based upon occurrences thereof in at least some of the retrieved multi-lingual documents;

generating respective relevancies of the user-selected vocabulary words in the N top ranked retrieved multi-lingual documents;

generating a re-ranking of the N top ranked multi-lingual documents based on the relevancies of the vocabulary words; and

operating the display to display for the user the re-ranking of the multi-lingual documents, and for each multi-lingual document being displayed, also to display its initial ranking.

22. A computer-implemented method according to claim 21 wherein the multilingual documents comprise at least one document having multiple languages.

23. A computer-implemented method according to claim 21 wherein the multi-lingual documents comprise different documents with different languages.

24. A computer-implemented method according to claim 21 wherein the user search query comprises a multi-lingual user search query.

25. A computer-implemented method according to claim 21 further comprising translating the user search query into a multi-lingual user search query before generating the initial ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents.

26. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure for processing documents in a multilingual document database, the computer-readable medium comprising:

a first data field for generating an initial ranking of retrieved multilingual documents using an information retrieval system and based upon a user search query provided by a user;

a second data field for displaying for the user the initial ranking of the retrieved multi-lingual documents;

a third data field for permitting user selection of a plurality of vocabulary words based upon occurrences thereof in at least some of the retrieved multilingual documents;

a fourth data field for generating respective relevancies of the user-selected vocabulary words;

a fifth data field for generating a re-ranking of the retrieved multilingual documents based on the generated respective relevancies of the vocabulary words; and

a sixth data field for displaying for the user the re-ranking of the multi-lingual documents, and for each multi-lingual document being displayed, also displaying its initial ranking.

27. A computer-readable medium according to claim 26 wherein the multi-lingual documents comprise at least one document having multiple languages.

28. A computer-readable medium according to claim 26 wherein the multi-lingual documents comprise different documents with different languages.

29. A computer-readable medium according to claim 26 wherein the user search query comprises a multilingual user search query.

30. A computer-readable medium according to claim 26 further comprising a seventh data field for translating the user search query into a multi-lingual user search query before generating the initial ranking of the retrieved multilingual documents.