Method of discovering and exploring feature knowledge

• US 9,547,701 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2014
• Issued: 01/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Finch Computing LLC (Qbase, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Qbase, LLC
• Inventors: Lightner, Scott, Boddhu, Sanjay, Flagg, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Shanmugasundaram, Kannan
• Application Number:
  US14/557,931
• Publication Number:
  US 20150154268A1
• Time in Patent Office: 777 Days
• Field of Search: 707/722
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24534 Query rewriting; Transformation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2468 Fuzzy queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Methods and systems for discovering and exploring feature knowledge included in large corpora are disclosed. The described systems and methods may include the application of in-memory analytics to records, where the analytic methods applied to the records and the level of precision of the methods may be dynamically selected by a user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a search manager computer, a search query and a selection from a user interface on a user computing device, wherein the selection includes a level of precision and selects an analytic computer that processes search query results for a presentation to the user, wherein the search manager computer receives the selection before receiving the search query results, wherein the selection selects an analytic method which is applied to the search query results, wherein the search manager computer processes the search query via one or more processes selected from the group consisting of;

address standardization, proximity boundaries, and nickname interpretation;

submitting, by the search manager computer, the search query to a search conductor computer for conducting a search based at least in part on the search query, wherein at least one of the search manager computer, the analytic computer, or the search conductor computer at least partially defines an in-memory database, wherein the search manager computer, the analytic computer, and the search conductor computer are distinct distributed nodes;

receiving, by the search manager computer, the search query results from the search conductor computer, wherein the search query results having one or more records matching the search query, wherein the search query results are based at least in part on the search, wherein the search query results contain at least one of an alphanumeric content or an image content;

forwarding, by the search manager computer, based at least in part on the search query results received from the search conductor computer, the search query results to the analytic computer selected by the user to process the search query results for the presentation such that a feature is disambiguated in the search query results according to the level of precision, wherein the analytic computer processes based at least in part on the analytic method, and wherein the analytic method interprets at least one of the alphanumeric content or the image content;

receiving, by the search manager computer, from the analytic computer, based at least in part on the forwarding, the search query results processed based at least in part on the analytic method by the analytic computer selected by the user; and

returning, by the search manager computer, the search query results to the user device for the presentation to the user in accordance with the processing based at least in part on the analytic method by the analytic computer.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the analytic computer disambiguates features in the search query results.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the selection from the user includes a level of precision for at least one of the search query results and disambiguation of the features in the search query results.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the analytic computer links the search query results that includes scoring the one or more records in the search query results to indicate a degree of matching to the search query and arranging related features by clusters.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the selection of the analytic computer is from a set of analytic computers, each of the analytic computers in the set executing a disambiguation computer algorithm having respective weights and confidence scores associated with feature attributes in the search query results.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the selection from the user includes a threshold of acceptance of the search query results.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the search query is constructed using a markup language.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the search query is constructed in a binary format.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the search manager computer combines the search query results among multiple searches.

10. A system comprising:

one or more server computers having one or more processors executing computer readable instructions for a plurality of code segments including;

a search manager code segment instructed to receive a search query and a selection from a user interface on a user computing device, wherein the selection includes a level of precision and selects an analytic computer code segment that processes search query results for presentation to the user, wherein the search manager code segment receives the selection before receiving the search query results, wherein the selection selects an analytic method which is applied to the search query results, wherein the search manager code segment is configured to process the search query via one or more processes selected from the group consisting of;

address standardization, proximity boundaries, and nickname interpretation, wherein the search manager code segment being further configured to;

submit the received search query to a search conductor code segment instructed to conduct a search based at least in part on the search query, wherein at least one of the search manager code segment, the analytic code segment, or the search conductor code segment at least partially defines an in-memory database, and wherein the search manager code segment, the analytic code segment, and the search conductor code segment are distinct distributed node modules,

receive the search query results from the search conductor code segment, wherein the search query results having one or more records matching the search query, wherein the search query results are based at least in part on the search, wherein the search query results contain at least one of an alphanumeric content or an image content,

forward the search query results to the analytic code segment selected by the user to process, based at least in part on the analytic method, the search query results for the presentation such that a feature is disambiguated in the search query results according to the level of precision, wherein the search query results are received from the search conductor code segment, wherein the analytic method interprets at least one of the alphanumeric content or the image content,

receive the search query results processed based at least in part on the analytic method by the analytic code segment selected by the user, wherein the processed search query results are received from the analytic code segment, and

return the search query results to the user device for the presentation to the user in accordance with the processing based at least in part on the analytic method by the analytic code segment.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the analytic computer module is configured to disambiguate features in the search query results.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the selection from the user includes a level of precision for at least one of the search query results and disambiguation of the features in the search query results.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein the analytic computer module is configured to link the search query results by being further configured to score the one or more records in the search query results to indicate a degree of matching to the search query and arrange related features by clusters.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein the selection of the analytic computer module is from a set of analytic computer modules, each of the analytic computer modules in the set being configured to execute a disambiguation computer algorithm having respective weights and confidence scores associated with feature attributes in the search query results.

15. The system of claim 10 wherein the selection from the user includes a threshold of acceptance of the search query results.

16. The system of claim 10 wherein the search query is constructed using a markup language.

17. The system of claim 10 wherein the search query is constructed in a binary format.

18. The system of claim 10 wherein the search manager computer module is configured to combine the search query results among multiple searches.