Visually representing a hierarchy of category nodes

• US 8,954,893 B2
• Filed: 11/06/2009
• Issued: 02/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus LLC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Sayers, Craig Peter, Zendejas, Ignacio, Lukose, Rajan, Scholz, Martin, Rajaram, Shyamsundar
• Primary Examiner(s): Theriault, Steven B
• Application Number:
  US12/614,193
• Publication Number:
  US 20110113385A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,922 Days
• Field of Search: 715/783, 715853-855
• US Class Current: 715/853
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing

Abstract

In a method of visually representing a hierarchy of category nodes that identify one or more concepts, accesses to documents are tracked and one or more concepts that are relevant to the accessed documents are determined. In addition, one or more category paths through the hierarchy of category nodes for the determined one or more concepts are determined and relevance levels for the category nodes with respect to the determined one or more concepts are determined based upon the generated one or more category paths. Moreover, a graph depicting a visual representation of the relevance levels determined for each of the category nodes in the hierarchy of category nodes is constructed.

Claims

1. A method of visually representing a hierarchy of category nodes, said method comprising:

in a computing device, tracking access by a user to a document containing text;

comparing, by a processor, the text contained in the accessed document with text contained in articles in a labeled text data source;

determining, by the processor, in the labeled text data source, a subset of the articles that contain text that is similar to the text of the accessed document, wherein the articles in the labeled text data source are each assigned with one or more concepts relevant to text of the article;

determining, by the processor, one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document to be the one or more concepts assigned to the determined subset of articles in the labeled text data source;

determining one or more category paths through the hierarchy of category nodes for the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein each of the one or more category paths is weighted according to a relevance between the one or more category paths and respective ones of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document;

determining relevance levels for the category nodes with respect to the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document based upon the one or more category paths;

constructing a graph depicting a visual representation of the relevance levels determined for each of the category nodes in the hierarchy of category nodes;

generating a visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein the visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document graphically depicts at least one distinguishing characteristic associated with the tracked access to the document and depicts those category paths that have been generated for the one or more concepts relevant to the document that have been accessed while omitting concepts relevant to documents that have not been accessed; and

displaying the category nodes linearly according to their hierarchy level in the visual representation of the relevance levels, wherein a line connects a selected category node in one hierarchy level with another selected category node in a lower hierarchy level, wherein the visual representation of the relevance levels includes a tag cloud containing the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents arranged linearly with the category nodes, and wherein the visual representation of the relevance levels further includes an articles list depicted below the category nodes.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein an arrangement of the hierarchy of category nodes is based upon category and concept relationships defined in the labeled text data source.

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

setting each of the category nodes to an initial predetermined score; and

assigning scores to each of the category nodes based upon the weights assigned to the one or more category paths for the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein the scores correspond to the relevance levels of the category nodes to the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein generating a visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document further comprises generating a tag cloud containing the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein at least one of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document has at least one characteristic that distinguishes the at least one of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document from other ones of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document in the tag cloud.

5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising:

tracking accesses to at least one of the graph and documents; and

modifying at least one of the category nodes and the tag cloud contained in the graph based upon the accesses.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein tracking the accesses further comprises receiving a selection of a category node displayed in the graph, said method further comprising:

modifying the tag cloud to only show concepts determined to be relevant to the selected category node.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein tracking the accesses further comprises receiving a selection of a category node displayed in the graph, said method further comprising:

modifying a visual representation of one or more of the concepts relevant to the accessed document based upon a relevance level of the one or more of the concepts relevant to the accessed document to the selected category node.

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

receiving a selection of at least one of a category node and a concept;

identifying one or more documents determined to be relevant to the one of the selected at least one of the category node and concept; and

displaying the identified one or more documents in addition to the graph.

9. An apparatus for visually representing a hierarchy of category nodes, said apparatus comprising:

a processor;

a memory on which is stored machine readable instructions that are to cause the processor to;

track access by a user to a document containing text;

compare the text contained in the accessed document with text contained in articles in a labeled text data source;

determine a subset of the articles in the labeled text data source that contain text that is similar to the text of the accessed document, wherein the articles in the labeled text data source are each assigned with one or more concepts relevant to the text of the article;

determine one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document to be the one or more concepts assigned to the determined subset of articles in the labeled text data source;

determine one or more category paths through the hierarchy of category nodes for the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein each of the one or more category paths is weighted according to a relevance between the one or more category paths and respective ones of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document;

determine relevance levels for the category nodes with respect to the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document based upon the determined one or more category paths;

construct a graph depicting a visual representation of the relevance levels determined for each of the category nodes in the hierarchy of category nodes;

generate a visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein the visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document graphically depicts at least one distinguishing characteristic associated with the tracked access to the document and depicts those category paths that have been generated for the one or more concepts relevant to the document that have been accessed while omitting concepts relevant to documents that have not been accessed; and

display the category nodes linearly according to their hierarchy level in the visual representation of the relevance levels, wherein a line connects a selected category node in one hierarchy level with another selected category node in a lower hierarchy level, wherein the visual representation of the relevance levels includes a tag cloud containing the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents arranged linearly with the category nodes, and wherein the visual representation of the relevance levels further includes an articles list depicted below the category nodes.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein an arrangement of the hierarchy of category nodes is based upon category and concept relationships defined in the labeled text data source.

11. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the machine readable instructions are further to cause the processor to set each of the category nodes to an initial predetermined score and to assign scores to each of the category nodes based upon the weights assigned to the one or more category paths for the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein the scores correspond to the relevance levels of the category nodes to the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document.

12. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the machine readable instructions are further to cause the processor to generate the tag cloud containing the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document, wherein at least one of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document has at least one characteristic that distinguishes the at least one of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed document from other ones of the one or more concepts in the tag cloud.

13. The apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the machine readable instructions are further to cause the processor to track accesses to at least one of the graph and documents and to modify at least one of the category nodes and the tag cloud contained in the graph based upon the accesses.

14. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the machine readable instructions are further to cause the processor to receive a selection of at least one of a category node and a concept, to identify one or more documents determined to be relevant to the one of the selected at least one of the category node and concept, and to display the identified one or more documents in addition to the graph.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium on which is embedded machine readable instructions that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

track accesses by a user to documents containing text;

compare the text contained in the accessed documents with text contained in articles in a labeled text data source;

determine a subset of the articles in the labeled text data source that contain text that is similar to the text of the accessed documents, wherein each of the articles is assigned with one or more concepts relevant to the text of the article in the labeled text data source;

determine the one or more relevant concepts assigned to the determined subset of articles from the one or more relevant concepts;

determine one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents to be the one or more concepts assigned to the determined subset of articles in the labeled text data source;

determine one or more category paths through the hierarchy of category nodes for the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents, wherein each of the one or more category paths is weighted according to a relevance between the one or more category paths and respective ones of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents;

determine relevance levels for the category nodes with respect to the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents based upon the generated one or more category paths;

construct a graph depicting a visual representation of the relevance levels determined for each of the category nodes in the hierarchy of category nodes;

generate a visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents, wherein the visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents graphically depicts at least one distinguishing characteristic associated with the tracked accesses to the documents and depicts those category paths that have been generated for the one or more concepts relevant to the documents that have been accessed while omitting concepts relevant to documents that have not been accessed; and

display the category nodes linearly according to their hierarchy level in the visual representation of the relevance levels, wherein a line connects a selected category node in one hierarchy level with another selected category node in a lower hierarchy level, wherein the visual representation of the relevance levels includes a tag cloud containing the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents arranged linearly with the category nodes, and wherein the visual representation of the relevance levels further includes an articles list depicted below the category nodes.

16. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 15, wherein said machine readable instructions are further to cause the processor to:

generate a visual representation of the one or more concepts relevant to the accessed documents, wherein the visual representation graphically depicts at least one distinguishing characteristic associated with the tracked accesses to the documents.