Facilitating extraction and discovery of enterprise services

• US 9,069,844 B2
• Filed: 11/02/2011
• Issued: 06/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Roy, Marcus, Schmidt, Dennis Markus Ren, Suleiman, Basem
• Primary Examiner(s): Ahn, Sangwoo
• Application Number:
  US13/287,634
• Publication Number:
  US 20130110861A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,336 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks

Abstract

Implementations of the present disclosure include methods, systems, and computer-readable storage mediums for improving keyword searches for enterprise services receiving user input, processing the user input to identify a set of terms, querying a knowledge base based on each term of the set of terms to define a first set of facts, each fact of the first set of facts including instance data associated with a concept, generating a query based on the first set of facts, processing the query to generate search results, the search results including one or more enterprise services stored in an enterprise service repository, and transmitting information associated with each of the one or more enterprise services for display to a user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for improving keyword searches for enterprise services, the method comprising:

receiving user input;

processing, by one or more processors, the user input to provide a set of terms, the processing comprising;

identifying one or more incoming concepts based on the user input;

processing each of the one or more incoming concepts to identify one or more paths, each path being associated with at least one of the one or more incoming concepts;

populating a first matrix based on the one or more paths;

populating a second matrix based on probabilities associated with the one or more paths;

generating a third matrix based on the first matrix and the second matrix, the third matrix comprising one or more potential concepts;

ranking the one or more potential concepts;

identifying one or more outgoing concepts based on the one or more potential concepts based on the ranking; and

defining a second set of facts based on the one or more outgoing concepts;

querying, by the one or more processors, a knowledge base based on each term of the set of terms to define a first set of facts, each fact of the first set of facts corresponding to a term in the set of terms and comprising instance data associated with a concept;

selectively processing, by the one or more processors, a set of concepts selectively provided based on the user input to provide a set of ranked concepts;

generating a query based on one or more of the first set of facts, the second set of facts and the set of ranked concepts;

processing, using the one or more processors, the query to generate search results, the search results comprising one or more enterprise services stored in an enterprise service repository; and

transmitting information associated with each of the one or more enterprise services for display to a user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein querying the knowledge base based on each term of the set of terms to define a first set of facts comprises:

identifying a set of base facts based on the set of terms;

determining a similarity score for each base fact in the set of base facts; and

including a base fact in the first set of facts based on an associated similarity score.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein each similarity score indicates a degree of similarity between a base fact and a term.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more incoming concepts are identified based on the user input.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more incoming concepts are based on one or both of permutations associated with the user input and one or more synonyms associated with the user input.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more paths further comprise the one or more potential concepts.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein populating the first matrix based on the one or more paths further comprises populating the first matrix based on the one or more potential concepts.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the probabilities are based on frequencies of occurrence of the one or more potential concepts.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the third matrix based on the first matrix and the second matrix further comprises multiplying the first matrix by the second matrix.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the one or more potential concepts associated with the third matrix is based on one or more respective accumulated sums of occurrence probabilities.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein identifying the one or more outgoing concepts based on the ranking further comprises determining a threshold for the one or more respective accumulated sums of occurrence probabilities.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a first vector based on the first set of facts and the terms;

generating a second vector based on the second set of facts and the one or more outgoing concepts; and

defining a third set of facts based on the first vector and the second vector.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the query is generated based on the third set of facts.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the first vector is based on similarities between the first set of facts and the terms.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the second vector is based on probabilities associated with second set of facts.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein providing the third set of one or more facts based on the first vector and the second vector further comprises intersecting the first vector with the second vector.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium coupled to one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations for improving keyword searches, the operations comprising:

receiving user input;

processing, by one or more processors, the user input to provide a set of terms, the processing comprising;

identifying one or more incoming concepts based on the user input;

processing each of the one or more incoming concepts to identify one or more paths, each path being associated with at least one of the one or more incoming concepts;

populating a first matrix based on the one or more paths;

populating a second matrix based on probabilities associated with the one or more paths;

generating a third matrix based on the first matrix and the second matrix, the third matrix comprising one or more potential concepts;

ranking the one or more potential concepts;

identifying one or more outgoing concepts based on the one or more potential concepts based on the ranking; and

defining a second set of facts based on the one or more outgoing concepts;

querying, by the one or more processors, a knowledge base based on each term of the set of terms to define a first set of facts, each fact of the first set of facts corresponding to a term in the set of terms and comprising instance data associated with a concept;

selectively processing, by the one or more processors, a set of concepts selectively provided based on the user input to provide a set of ranked concepts;

generating a query based on one or more of the first set of facts, the second set of facts and the set of ranked concepts;

processing, using the one or more processors, the query to generate search results, the search results comprising one or more enterprise services stored in an enterprise service repository; and

transmitting information associated with each of the one or more enterprise services for display to a user.

18. A system, comprising:

a computing device; and

a computer-readable storage device coupled to the computing device and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations for improving keyword searches for enterprise services, the operations comprising;

receiving user input;

processing, by one or more processors, the user input to provide a set of terms, the processing comprising;

identifying one or more incoming concepts based on the user input;

processing each of the one or more incoming concepts to identify one or more paths, each path being associated with at least one of the one or more incoming concepts;

populating a first matrix based on the one or more paths;

populating a second matrix based on probabilities associated with the one or more paths;

generating a third matrix based on the first matrix and the second matrix, the third matrix comprising one or more potential concepts;

ranking the one or more potential concepts;

identifying one or more outgoing concepts based on the one or more potential concepts based on the ranking; and

defining a second set of facts based on the one or more outgoing concepts;

querying, by the one or more processors, a knowledge base based on each term of the set of terms to define a first set of facts, each fact of the first set of facts corresponding to a term in the set of terms and comprising instance data associated with a concept;

selectively processing, by the one or more processors, a set of concepts selectively provided based on the user input to provide a set of ranked concepts;

generating a query based on one or more of the first set of facts, the second set of facts and the set of ranked concepts;

processing, using the one or more processors, the query to generate search results, the search results comprising one or more enterprise services stored in an enterprise service repository; and

transmitting information associated with each of the one or more enterprise services for display to a user.