Ontology for use with a system, method, and computer readable medium for retrieving information and response to a query

• US 8,612,208 B2
• Filed: 04/07/2004
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle OTC Subsidiary LLC (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle OTC Subsidiary LLC (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Cooper, Edwin Riley, Bierner, Gann, Graham, Laurel Kathleen, Yuret, Deniz, Williams, James Charles, Beghelli, Filippo
• Primary Examiner(s): Dorvil, Richemond
• Assistant Examiner(s): ADESANYA, OLUJIMI A
• Application Number:
  US10/820,341
• Publication Number:
  US 20130041921A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,541 Days
• Field of Search: 704/9
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90335 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/242 Dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis

Abstract

A system, method, and computer readable medium for applying one or more information retrieval technologies is disclosed for resolving a query. In one embodiment, an exemplary system generates a response using a language analysis module configured to parse a query into elements. This system can also include a rules engine configured to compare a condition of a rule against the elements, where the rule is configured to perform an action to retrieve information. Further, a response generator coupled to said rules engine receives the rule and retrieves the information for presentation to a querier in a portion of a display that adjusts proportionately to the degree of importance of said information.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled with the processor and storing a set of instructions which, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to implement;

a language analysis module configured to parse content of a query into elements and to associate an annotation with respective ones of the elements,

a type of annotation being either canonical or conceptual;

a rules engine coupled to the language analysis module to receive the elements and the annotation, the rules engine configured to perform a first comparison of a first condition of at least one rule from a rules dictionary against the elements and the annotation, each of the rules of the rules dictionary copmrising at least one respective condition and at least one respective action, the rules engine configured to perform a second comparison of peripheral information distinct from the content of the query to a second different condition of at least one rule from the rules dictionary, wherein the rules engine is further configured to selectively enable an action based on a result of the first comparison and a result of the second comparison and wherein the action when enabled selects a first information retrieval technology of a plurality of information retrieval technologies based on the selectively enabled action;

a response generator coupled to the rules engine, the response generator configured to generate a query response based at least in part on both the first comparison and the second comparison, the response generator configured to display the generated query response as an answer to the query,

wherein the response generator is further configured to generate the query response based on a content storage search via a semantic index of said first information retrieval technology and wherein a second action when enabled selects a second information retrieval technology, and the second information retrieval technology is configured to supply a managed answer to the query; and

associating, via a regular expression language specifying the first condition of the corresponding rule, a plurality of the elements and the annotation with a concept in a multi-layered concept repository, wherein the action specifies the concept as a key used to access the semantic index.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising matching ones of the elements against concepts stored in a multi-layered concept repository to produce conceptual annotations.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the action specifies at least one of the elements and an associated annotation as keys used to access the semantic index.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein a third one of the actions when enabled provides a bias requirement, and wherein the response generator is configured to selectively display the query answer based on the bias requirement.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the managed answer is specified via the one of the rules having the second action.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the language analysis module is further configured to process the content storage to form the semantic index.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the peripheral information includes data from a particular user profile that is preset prior to generation of the query.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the user profile specifies prior queries submitted by a respective user of the particular user profile.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the peripheral information includes a time that the query was initiated.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the peripheral information includes session information or web page information.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the rules engine is configured to perform the second comparison prior to performing the first comparison.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the rules engine is configured to bypass the first comparison conditionally according to the result of the second comparison, and if the first comparison is bypassed, selectively enable the action based only on the result of the second comparison.

13. A method, comprising:

parsing content of a received query into elements using a processor;

associating an annotation with respective ones of the elements;

comparing a first condition of at least one rule from a rules dictionary against the elements and the annotation;

comparing a second condition of at least one rule from the rules dictionary against peripheral information distinct from the content of the query;

generating a query response based at least in part on the comparisons and displaying the generated query response as an answer to the query;

selectively firing at least one action of at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary based on results of the comparisons, wherein the subset of the information retrieval technologies comprises at least a first and second one of the information retrieval technologies, and wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions;

in response to the selective firing, operating only a subset of a plurality of information retrieval technologies based on the selectively fired action, said operating to produce respective information;

generating the query response based on said respective information;

matching, by at least one of the rules, a plurality of the elements and the annotation to a concept representing an intent of the query content, wherein each of the plurality of the elements and the annotation corresponds to a word of the query content, wherein the matching is via a regular expression language, wherein the matching determines if at least one of the elements and the annotation shares a common ancestor in a multi-layered concept repository with a question example from the rules dictionary;

using the matched concept as a key to search a semantic index;

in response to a first one of the firing actions, operating the first information retrieval technology;

in response to a second one of the firing actions, operating the second information retrieval technology; and

providing, via the second information retrieval technology, a managed answer.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the displaying of the generated query response is selectively based on at least some of the firing actions.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the displaying of the generated query response is selectively based on a bias requirement.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the comparisons are via a regular expression language.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the associating is, at least in part, via a multi-layered concept repository producing conceptual annotations.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions, and wherein at least one of the firing actions specifies at least one of the elements and an associated annotation as additional keys used for searching content storage.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions, and the method further comprises:

determining a respective relevancy of each of the firing actions; and

selectively performing each of the firing actions based upon the respective relevancy.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the respective relevancy of a particular one of the firing actions is based on the ones of the elements and the annotation that contributed to the respective results of the comparisons.

21. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

prior to receiving the query, establishing content storage during an indexing mode by importing structured content and/or unstructured content into the content storage;

using the selectively fired action to define a search criteria including the concept; and

using the search criteria when searching the content storage as at least a part of the subset of information retrieval technologies.

22. The method of claim 13, wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions, the method further comprising:

specifying weightings via the actions selectively fired by the rules;

determining relevance to the query content of individual documents according to the weightings; and

displaying the documents according to the relevance;

wherein the rules of the rules dictionary identify both the concept representing the intent of the query content to be addressed in the information and the weightings determining the relevance of the documents in the information.

23. The method of claim 13, wherein the particular one subset of the information retrieval technologies includes at least one selected from the group comprising keyword searching, document-level relevance-based searching, and ontology-based searching.

24. An apparatus including a memory device having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

parsing content of a received query into elements;

associating an annotation with respective ones of the elements;

comparing a first condition of at least one rule from a rules dictionary against the elements and the annotation;

comparing a second condition of at least one rule from the rules dictionary against peripheral information distinct from the content of the query;

generating a query response based at least in part on the comparisons and displaying the generated query response as an answer to the query;

selectively firing at least one action of at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary based on respective results of the comparisons, wherein the subset of the information retrieval technologies comprises a first information retrieval technology and a second information retrieval technology, wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions;

in response to at least one of the firing actions, operating a subset of information retrieval technologies based on the selectively fired action to produce respective information;

generating the query response based on said respective information;

matching, via at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary, a plurality of the elements and the annotation to a concept representing an intent of the query content, wherein each of the plurality of the elements and the annotation corresponds to a word of the query content, wherein the matching utilizes a regular expression language and wherein the operations further comprise determining if at least one of the elements and the annotation shares a common ancestor in a multi-layered concept repository with a question example of the at least one of the rules;

in response to a first one of the firing actions, operating the first information retrieval technology;

in response to a second one of the firing actions, operating a second distinct one of the information retrieval technologies; and

providing, via the second one of the information retrieval technologies, a managed answer.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the displaying operates selectively based on at least some of the firing actions.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the operations further comprise providing, via the at least some of the firing actions, a bias requirement, and wherein the displaying operates selectively based on the bias requirement.

27. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the comparisons utilize a regular expression language.

28. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the associating utilizes a multi-layered concept repository to produce a conceptual annotation.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein at least one of the firing actions specifies at least one of the elements and an associated annotation as additional keys used for searching content storage.

30. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a respective relevancy of each of at least some of the firing actions;

and selectively performing each of the at least some of the firing actions based upon the respective relevancy.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the respective relevancy of a particular one of the firing actions is based on the ones of the elements and the annotation that contributed to the respective results of the comparison that selectively fired the particular firing action.