Method and apparatus for alert validation

• US 8,762,133 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2013
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Arria Data2text Limited
• Original Assignee: Arria Data2text Limited
• Inventors: Reiter, Ehud B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wozniak, James
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Timothy
• Application Number:
  US14/023,023
• Publication Number:
  US 20140062712A1
• Time in Patent Office: 287 Days
• Field of Search: 704/9
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/56 Natural language generation
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0453 worn on the body to detect health condition by physiological monitoring, e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, breathing detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 23/00 Alarms responsive to unspecified undesired or abnormal conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/18 Prevention or correction of operating errors G08B29/02, G08B29/12 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 5/22 using electric transmission; using electromagnetic transmission
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 5/36 using visible light sources
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 7/06 using electric transmission , e.g. involving audible and visible signalling through the use of sound and light sources
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 15/00 ICT specially adapted for medical reports, e.g. generation or transmission thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/00 ICT specially adapted for the handling or processing of medical references

Abstract

Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products are described herein that are configured to enable validation of an alert condition. In some example embodiments, a method is provided that comprises detecting an alert condition. The method of this embodiment may also include generating a set of messages based on one or more key events in a primary data channel and one or more significant events in one or more related data channels in response to the alert condition. The method of this embodiment may also include determining a validity of the alert condition based on the set of messages that express the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, a relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant events, an alert context and the one or causes of the alert condition.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

generating, using a processor, a set of messages based on one or more key events in a primary data channel and one or more significant events in one or more related data channels in response to an alert condition, wherein at least one message in the set of messages corresponds to at least one of the one or more of the key events or the one or more significant events and is expressible as a simple sentence;

determining a validity of the alert condition based on the set of messages that express the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, a relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant events, an alert context and the one or more causes of the alert condition;

generating a valid trigger event text portion indicating a validity of the alert condition in an alert validation text in an instance in which the alert condition is valid;

generating an invalid trigger event text portion indicating the validity of the alert condition in an alert validation text in an instance in which the alert condition is invalid; and

generating the alert validation text based on the set of messages and a relationship between them, wherein the alert validation text is configured to linguistically express at least of the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, the relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant event, the validity of the alert condition, the alert context, or one or more causes of the alert condition.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

detecting one or more patterns in the primary data channel by;

identifying one or more patterns wherein a pattern is at least one of a trend, spike or step in a data channel;

assigning an importance level to the one or more patterns; and

identifying one or more key events of the one or more patterns, wherein a key event is a pattern that exceeds a predefined importance level; and

identifying one or more patterns in the one or more related data channels by;

assigning an importance level to one or more patterns; and

identifying one or more significant events of the one or more patterns, wherein a significant event is a pattern that exceeds a predefined importance level.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

determining that the one or more patterns identified in the one or more related data channels violates a predetermined constraint; and

determining that the one or more patterns are one or more unexpected patterns, wherein the one or more significant events comprise one or more patterns that violate a predetermined constraint or is determined to be an unexpected pattern.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel that is received from a sensor configured to monitor a characteristic of a machine apparatus, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels; and

detecting one or more patterns in the primary data channel by;

identifying one or more patterns wherein a pattern is at least one of a trend, spike or step in a data channel;

assigning an importance level to the one or more patterns; and

identifying one or more key events of the one or more patterns, wherein a key event is a pattern that exceeds a predefined importance level.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel that is received from a sensor configured to monitor a characteristic of a machine apparatus, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels; and

identifying one or more patterns in the one or more related data channels by;

assigning an importance level to one or more patterns; and

identifying one or more significant events of the one or more patterns, wherein a significant event is a pattern that exceeds a predefined importance level.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

determining that the one or more patterns identified in the one or more related data channels violates a predetermined constraint; and

determining that the one or more patterns are one or more unexpected patterns, wherein the one or more significant events comprise one or more patterns that violate a predetermined constraint or is determined to be an unexpected pattern.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

accessing at least one of historical data or event data for the primary data channel and the one or more related data channels; and

causing the at least one of the historical data or the event data to be expressed linguistically in the alert validation text, wherein the historical data further comprises at least one of previous events, contextual information, background information, actions taken during a previous instance of the alert condition or results of a previous alert condition.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

determining one or more causes of the alert condition; and

causing one or more related data channels to be selected that correspond to the one or more causes of the alert condition, wherein the situational awareness text is further configured to linguistically express the one or more causes of the alert condition.

9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

detecting the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identifying one or more related data channels;

determining that a relationship exists between the primary data channel and the one or more related data channels; and

determining an expression that linguistically describes the relationship between the primary data channel and the one or more related data channels, wherein the situational awareness text is further configured to linguistically express the relationship between the primary data channel and the one or more related data channels.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprises:

generating a tree-structured object that selects and orders at least a portion of the set of messages, wherein the at least the portion of the set of messages are selected based on the one or more key events and one or more significant events and are ordered based on a text schema; and

refining the tree-structured object based on domain constraints, wherein the alert validation text is generated based on a realization of the tree-structured object.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprises:

refining the tree-structured object by converting the one or more messages to one or more phrase specifications by;

determining whether to combine one or more messages in the tree structure to produce a complex sentence;

selecting one or more words to express one or more concepts in the one or more messages and the relations between them; and

determining one or more words to refer to one or more entities in at least one of the one or more messages.

12. The method according to claim 10, further comprises:

traversing the refined tree structured object to express the refined tree structured object in natural language in the form of the situational awareness text by applying a grammar to one or more phrase specifications, wherein the grammar specifies one or more valid syntactic structures in a language and provides a mapping from the one or more phrase specifications into one or more corresponding natural language sentences.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the alert context further comprises information generated based on one or more of a determination of whether the alert condition is an intermittent alert condition, a determination of whether there is at least one previous instance of the alert condition on a machine apparatus that is currently experiencing the alert condition, a determination of one or more actions taken with respect to the previous instance of the alert condition in an instance in which there is at least one previous instance of the alert condition, a determination of whether there is at least one of another active alert condition or a maintenance request on the machine apparatus, or a determination of whether there is at least one of another active alert condition or another maintenance request on a related machine apparatus.

14. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to at least;

generate a set of messages based on one or more key events in a primary data channel and one or more significant events in one or more related data channels in response to an alert condition, wherein at least one message in the set of messages corresponds to at least one of the one or more of the key events or the one or more significant events and is expressible as a simple sentence;

determine a validity of the alert condition based on the set of messages that express the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, a relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant events, an alert context and the one or more causes of the alert condition;

generate a valid trigger event text portion indicating a validity of the alert condition in an alert validation text in an instance in which the alert condition is valid;

generate an invalid trigger event text portion indicating the validity of the alert condition in an alert validation text in an instance in which the alert condition is invalid; and

generate the alert validation text based on the set of messages and a relationship between them, wherein the alert validation text is configured to linguistically express at least of the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, the relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant event, the validity of the alert condition, the alert context, or one or more causes of the alert condition.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the at least one memory including the computer program code is further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to:

detect the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identify one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

detect one or more patterns in the primary data channel by;

identifying one or more patterns wherein a pattern is at least one of a trend, spike or step in a data channel;

assigning an importance level to the one or more patterns; and

identifying one or more key events of the one or more patterns, wherein a key event is a pattern that exceeds a predefined importance level; and

identify one or more patterns in the one or more related data channels by;

assigning an importance level to one or more patterns; and

identifying one or more significant events of the one or more patterns, wherein a significant event is a pattern that exceeds a predefined importance level.

16. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the at least one memory including the computer program code is further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to:

detect the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identify one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

access at least one of historical data or event data for the primary data channel and the one or more related data channels; and

cause the at least one of the historical data or the event data to be expressed linguistically in the alert validation text, wherein the historical data further comprises at least one of previous events, contextual information, background information, actions taken during a previous instance of the alert condition or results of a previous alert condition.

17. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the at least one memory including the computer program code is further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to:

detect the alert condition based on a triggering event in at least one data channel, wherein the at least one data channel is the primary data channel;

identify one or more related data channels based on a domain model that provides an indication of relationships between data channels;

determine one or more causes of the alert condition; and

cause one or more related data channels to be selected that correspond to the one or more causes of the alert condition, wherein the situational awareness text is further configured to linguistically express the one or more causes of the alert condition.

18. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the alert context further comprises information generated based on one or more of a determination of whether the alert condition is an intermittent alert condition, a determination of whether there is at least one previous instance of the alert condition on a machine apparatus that is currently experiencing the alert condition, a determination of one or more actions taken with respect to the previous instance of the alert condition in an instance in which there is at least one previous instance of the alert condition, a determination of whether there is at least one of another active alert condition or a maintenance request on the machine apparatus, or a determination of whether there is at least one of another active alert condition or another maintenance request on a related machine apparatus.

19. A computer program product comprising:

at least one computer readable non-transitory memory medium having program code instructions stored thereon, the program code instructions which when executed by an apparatus cause the apparatus at least to;

generate a set of messages based on one or more key events in a primary data channel and one or more significant events in one or more related data channels in response to an alert condition, wherein at least one message in the set of messages corresponds to at least one of the one or more of the key events or the one or more significant events and is expressible as a simple sentence;

determine a validity of the alert condition based on the set of messages that express the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, a relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant events, an alert context and the one or more causes of the alert condition;

generate a valid trigger event text portion indicating a validity of the alert condition in an alert validation text in an instance in which the alert condition is valid;

generate an invalid trigger event text portion indicating the validity of the alert condition in an alert validation text in an instance in which the alert condition is invalid; and

generate the alert validation text based on the set of messages and a relationship between them, wherein the alert validation text is configured to linguistically express at least of the one or more key events, the one or more significant events, the relationship between the one or more key events and the one or more significant event, the validity of the alert condition, the alert context, or one or more causes of the alert condition.

20. The computer program product according to claim 19, wherein the alert context further comprises information generated based on one or more of a determination of whether the alert condition is an intermittent alert condition, a determination of whether there is at least one previous instance of the alert condition on a machine apparatus that is currently experiencing the alert condition, a determination of one or more actions taken with respect to the previous instance of the alert condition in an instance in which there is at least one previous instance of the alert condition, a determination of whether there is at least one of another active alert condition or a maintenance request on the machine apparatus, or a determination of whether there is at least one of another active alert condition or another maintenance request on a related machine apparatus.