System and method for the transformation and canonicalization of semantically structured data

• US 8,412,740 B2
• Filed: 02/09/2012
• Issued: 04/02/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kominek, John Michael, Carriere, Steven Jeromy, Woods, Steven Gregory
• Primary Examiner(s): Woo, Isaac M
• Application Number:
  US13/369,456
• Publication Number:
  US 20120197632A1
• Time in Patent Office: 418 Days
• Field of Search: 707600-899
• US Class Current: 707/791
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1815 Semantic context, e.g. disambiguation of the recognition hypotheses based on word meaning
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A method of transforming and canonicalizing semantically structured data includes obtaining data from a network of computers, applying text patterns to the obtained data and placing the data in a first data file, providing a second data file containing the obtained data in a uniform format, and generating interface specific sentences from the data in the second data file.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for generating grammatical sentences, comprising:

storing data in a data file;

transforming, with at least one processor, the data in the data file into a uniform and semantically structured data structure format that is compatible with a plurality of interfaces; and

generating, with the at least one processor, grammatical sentences based on text patterns, wherein the grammatical sentences are compatible with the a specific canonical interface and are generated by transforming the uniform and semantically structured text patterns into an interface specific format.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate a traffic report describing a condition of the traffic.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate a voice command for input into a communication portal.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate a search query for searching a database.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising applying a lexical entry transformation table to transform the stored data into a common semantic form.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the text patterns by applying attribute phrase grammars to the stored data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the text patterns by applying term arrangement rules.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising applying a lexical entry transformation table to transform the stored data to a normalized and tagged format.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the uniform and semantically structured data structure format corresponds to a normalized and tagged format.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the grammatical sentences comprises:

applying attribute phrase grammars to the text patterns to create a parsed form of the data;

applying lexical entry transformation tables to the parsed form of the data to create a term substituted form of the data; and

applying term rearrangement rules to the term substituted form of the data according to the specific interface to create a rearranged form of the data.

11. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, which when executed on at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to perform a method comprising:

storing data in a data file;

transforming, with at least one processor, the data in the data file into a uniform and semantically structured data structure format that is compatible with a plurality of interfaces; and

generating, with the at least one processor, grammatical sentences based on text patterns, wherein the grammatical sentences are compatible with the a specific canonical interface and are generated by transforming the uniform and semantically structured text patterns into an interface specific format.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate a traffic report describing a condition of the traffic.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate a search query for searching a database.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate voice command for input into a communication portal.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method performed by the at least one processor further comprises:

applying a lexical entry transformation table to transform the stored data into a common semantic form.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method performed by the at least one processor further comprises:

generating the text patterns based on at least one of attribute phrase grammars and term arrangement rules.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method performed by the at least one processor further comprises:

applying a lexical entry transformation table to transform the obtained data to a normalized and tagged format.

18. An apparatus comprising:

a memory device storing instructions;

at least one processor executing the instructions to;

store data in a data file;

transform, with at least one processor, the data in the data file into a uniform and semantically structured data structure format that is compatible with a plurality of interfaces; and

generate, with the at least one processor, grammatical sentences based on text patterns, wherein the grammatical sentences are compatible with the a specific canonical interface and are generated by transforming the uniform and semantically structured text patterns into an interface specific format.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the grammatical sentences are used to generate at least one of a traffic report describing a condition of the traffic, a search query for searching a database, and a voice command for input into a communication portal.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor applies attribute phrase grammars to the text patterns to create a parsed form of the data.