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Providing answers to questions using hypothesis pruning

  • US 9,317,586 B2
  • Filed: 09/22/2011
  • Issued: 04/19/2016
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A system for generating answers to questions, comprising:

  • a computer device comprising at least one distinct software module, each distinct software module being embodied on a tangible computer-readable medium;

    a memory; and

    at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative for;

    receiving an input query;

    conducting a search through one or more data sources to identify a plurality of candidate answers to the input query, wherein each of the candidate answers is found in an associated supporting passage having identified content;

    providing each of the candidate answers with a content independent preliminary score based on one or more defined criterion and independent of the content of the supporting passage in which said each candidate answer was found;

    filtering out any of the candidate answers with a content independent preliminary score that does not satisfy a defined condition, wherein the candidate answers having content independent preliminary scores that satisfy said defined condition form a subset of the candidate answers;

    for each of the candidate answers in said subset, processing said each of the candidate answers to produce a plurality of further scores for said each of the candidate answers, said further scores including a content dependent score based on the content of the supporting passage in which said each candidate answer was found;

    applying a candidate ranking function to said plurality of further scores to determine a ranking for said each of the candidate answers in said subset; and

    after the applying the candidate ranking function, selecting one or more of the candidate answers as one or more final answers to the input query; and

    wherein;

    the computer device includes a pre-filter context independent candidate answer processing module, and a hypothesis filtering module;

    the pre-filter context independent candidate answer processing module performs the providing each of the candidate answers with a content independent preliminary score; and

    the hypothesis filtering module receives the content independent preliminary scores from the pre-filter context independent candidate answer processing module and filters the candidate answers based on said content independent preliminary scores.

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