Mere-parsing with boundary and semantic driven scoping

• US 9,063,924 B2
• Filed: 01/28/2011
• Issued: 06/23/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Optum360, LLC (UnitedHealth Group Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: A-Life Medical, LLC
• Inventors: Heinze, Daniel T., Morsch, Mark L.
• Primary Examiner(s): HUYNH, CONG LAC T
• Application Number:
  US13/016,764
• Publication Number:
  US 20110167074A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,607 Days
• Field of Search: 715/200, 715/256
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/289 Phrasal analysis, e.g. finite state techniques or chunking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis

Abstract

Methods, systems and computer program products for implementing a mere-parser are disclosed. Text data is processed to generate one or more parse items. A boundary based attribute associated with one of the parse items is identified, and the identified mere attribute is associated with one or more of the remaining parse items that is not blocked from being associated with the boundary based attribute.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising a processor coupled to a memory, wherein the memory is encoded with computer executable instructions that when executed cause the processor to:

provide a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items based, at least in part, on text data;

provide an individual semantic match based, at least in part, on a parse item of the plurality of parse items and a set of semantic data definitions;

provide a merged semantic match based, at least in part, on the parse item of the plurality of parse items and the set of semantic data definitions;

provide a merged parse item responsive to determining that the merged semantic match provides a better semantic match than the individual semantic match; and

provide an ordered data structure including the merged parse item and the plurality of parse items.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:

responsive to determining that the parse item is associated with a propagateing attribute, associate the propagateing attribute with another parse item of the plurality of parse items.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the instructions to provide a merged semantic match further cause the processor to:

combine text of the parse item and text of another parse item of the plurality of parse items to provide combined text; and

compare the combined text against the set of semantic data definitions to obtain the merged semantic match.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the instructions to provide a merged semantic match further cause the processor to:

combine text of the parse item and text of a semantic attribute to provide combined text; and

compare the combined text against the set of semantic data definitions to obtain the merged semantic match.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the instructions to provide a plurality of parse items further cause the processor to:

normalize the text data to provide normalized text data;

morphologically process the normalized text data to provide standardized text data;

selectively convert at least one phrase of the standardized text data from a first standard to a second standard to provide processed text data; and

identify boundary markers in the processed text data to provide the plurality of parse items.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the instructions to provide a merged parse item further cause the processor to merge adjacent parse items.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the instructions to provide a merged parse item further cause the processor to:

copy the parse item to provide a copied parse item;

merge another parse item of the plurality of parse items with the copied parse item to provide the merged parse item; and

replace the parse item with the merged parse item in a linked list.

8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor, the instructions comprising:

providing a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items based, at least in part, on text data;

providing an individual semantic match based, at least in part, on a parse item of the plurality of parse items and a set of semantic data definitions;

providing a merged semantic match based, at least in part, on the parse item of the plurality of parse items and the set of semantic data definitions;

providing a merged parse item responsive to determining that the merged semantic match provides a better semantic match than the individual semantic match; and

providing an ordered data structure including the merged parse item and the plurality of parse items.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein instructions for providing a merged parse item include instructions for merging adjacent parse items.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein instructions for providing a merged semantic match include instructions for:

combining text of the parse item and text of another parse item of the plurality of parse items to provide combined text; and

comparing the combined text against the set of semantic data definitions to obtain the merged semantic match.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein instructions for providing a merged semantic match include instructions for:

combining text of the parse item and text of a semantic attribute to provide combined text; and

comparing the combined text against the set of semantic data definitions to obtain the merged semantic match.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein instructions for providing a plurality of parse items include instructions for:

normalizing the text data to provide normalized text data;

morphologically processing the normalized text data to provide standardized text data;

selectively converting at least one phrase of the standardized text data from a first standard to a second standard to provide processed text data; and

identifying boundary markers in the processed text data to provide the plurality of parse items.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions further comprise:

responsive to determining that the parse item is associated with a propagateing attribute, associate the propagateing attribute with another parse item of the plurality of parse items.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein instructions for associating the propagating attribute with another parse item of the plurality of parse items include instructions for:

determining a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute; and

selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items associated with the direction of propagation.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein instructions for selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items associated with the direction of propagation include instructions for selectively transforming the propagating attribute.

16. A method, comprising:

providing a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items based, at least in part, on text data;

providing an individual semantic match based, at least in part, on a parse item of the plurality of parse items and a set of semantic data definitions;

providing a merged semantic match based, at least in part, on the parse item of the plurality of parse items and the set of semantic data definitions;

providing a merged parse item responsive to determining that the merged semantic match provides a better semantic match than the individual semantic match; and

providing an ordered data structure including the merged parse item and the plurality of parse items.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein said providing a merged parse item comprises merging adjacent parse items.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein said providing a merged semantic match comprises:

combining text of the parse item and text of another parse item of the plurality of parse items to provide combined text; and

comparing the combined text against the set of semantic data definitions to obtain the merged semantic match.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein said providing a merged semantic match comprises:

combining text of the parse item and text of a semantic attribute to provide combined text; and

comparing the combined text against the set of semantic data definitions to obtain the merged semantic match.

20. A computer system comprising a processor coupled to a memory, wherein the memory is encoded with computer executable instructions that when executed cause the processor to:

identify a propagating attribute associated with a parse item of a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items arranged in an ordered data structure;

determine a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure; and

selectively associate the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure.

21. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the instructions to selectively associate the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure further cause the processor to associate the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure until association of the propagating attribute is blocked.

22. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the instructions to selectively associate the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure further cause the processor to selectively transform the propagating attribute.

23. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the ordered data structure comprises a linked list and wherein the instructions to determine a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure further cause the processor to determine whether the direction of propagation of the propagating attribute is left, right, or bidirectional.

24. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the instructions to identify a propagating attribute associated with a parse item of a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items arranged in an ordered data structure further cause the processor to:

identify at least one boundary marker to provide the plurality of parse items; and

identify a modifier associated with the parse item of the plurality of parse items.

25. The computer system of claim 24, wherein the instructions to identify at least one boundary marker to provide the plurality of parse items further cause the processor to identify at least one of a punctuation mark, a word, or a phrase.

26. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to replace the parse item with a merged parse item in the ordered data structure, the merged parse item based, at least in part, on the parse item.

27. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the instructions to determine a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure further cause the processor to:

determine a number of parse items of the plurality of parse items in a first direction of propagation; and

determine a number of parse items of the plurality of parse items in a second direction of propagation.

28. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to arrange the plurality of parse items in a linked list.

29. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor, the instructions comprising:

identifying a propagating attribute associated with a parse item of a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items arranged in an ordered data structure;

determining a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure; and

selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure.

30. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein instructions for selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure include instructions for associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure until association of the propagating attribute is blocked.

31. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein instructions for selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure include instructions for selectively transforming the propagating attribute.

32. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein a type of the propagating attribute comprises at least one of a certainty type or a temporality type.

33. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the instructions further include:

receiving text data;

normalizing the text data to provide normalized text data;

morphologically processing the normalized text data to provide standardized text data;

selectively converting at least one phrase of the standardized text data from a first standard to a second standard to provide processed text data;

identifying boundary markers in the processed text data to provide the plurality of parse items; and

arranging the plurality of parse items in the ordered data structure.

34. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the ordered data structure comprises a linked list and wherein instructions for determining a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure include instructions for determining whether the direction of propagation of the propagating attribute is left, right, or bidirectional.

35. A method, comprising:

identifying a propagating attribute associated with a parse item of a plurality of parse items, the plurality of parse items arranged in an ordered data structure;

determining a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure; and

selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein said selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure comprises associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure until association of the propagating attribute is blocked.

37. The method of claim 35, wherein said selectively associating the propagating attribute with each parse item of the plurality of parse items located in the direction of propagation within the ordered data structure comprises selectively transforming the propagating attribute.

38. The method of claim 35, wherein the ordered data structure comprises a linked list and wherein said determining a direction of propagation of the propagating attribute within the ordered data structure comprises determining whether the direction of propagation of the propagating attribute is left, right, or bidirectional.

39. The method of claim 35, further comprising selectively merging the parse item of the plurality of parse items with at least one of another parse item of the plurality of parse items or a semantic attribute based, at least in part, on a plurality of semantic matches.

40. The method of claim 35, wherein said identifying a propagating attribute associated with a parse item of a plurality of parse items comprises:

identifying at least one boundary marker to provide the plurality of parse items; and

identifying a modifier associated with the parse item of the plurality of parse items.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein said identifying at least one boundary marker to provide the plurality of parse items comprises identifying at least one of a punctuation mark, a word, or a phrase.