Adaptive ontology

• US 8,918,431 B2
• Filed: 09/09/2011
• Issued: 12/23/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: SRI International, Inc.
• Inventors: Mark, William Scott, Donneau-Golencer, Thierry, Yarlagadda, Madhu
• Primary Examiner(s): PYO, MONICA M
• Application Number:
  US13/229,591
• Publication Number:
  US 20130066921A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,201 Days
• Field of Search: 707/705, 707/794, 707/802, 705/7.11
• US Class Current: 707/794
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology

Abstract

A computing system has a user interface allowing a user to view and input data related to concepts in a knowledge area associated with the user, an observation sub-system to centralize data and to identify a plurality of knowledge concepts, a conceptualization sub-system to generate a plurality of nodes within an ontological mapping, wherein each of the nodes corresponds to a certain one of the plurality of identified knowledge concepts identified by the observation sub-system, a relationship identification sub-system to create relationships between at least some of the plurality of identified knowledge concepts, and attribute affinity weights to the relationships, a change refinement sub-system to modify at least one of the plurality of nodes, affinity weights and relationships based upon information associated with the user, and a non-transitory knowledge store to store the information associated with the user pertaining to a sub-plurality of the plurality of identified knowledge concepts.

Claims

1. A computing system including at least one processor, the system comprises:

a user interface to allow a user to view and input data related to sales associated with the user;

an observation sub-system having a processor configured to centralize data and to identify each of a plurality of sales concepts;

a conceptualization sub-system configured to generate a plurality of nodes within an ontological mapping, wherein each of the plurality of nodes corresponds to a certain one of the plurality of identified sales concepts identified by the observation sub-system, the conceptualization sub-system configured to generate new nodes within the ontological mapping responsive to a determination that a new concept exists in the system;

a relationship identification sub-system configured to create relationships between at least some of the plurality of identified sales concepts, and attribute affinity weights to the relationships, wherein the affinity weight quantifies a strength of the relationship between the sales concepts using concept occurrence and co-concept occurrence, and each concept occupies a node on the ontological mapping, the relationship identification sub-system to select relationships between the nodes with the greatest affinity index and then update the ontology to with the affinity index for the selected relationships;

a change refinement sub-system configured to modify at least one of the plurality of nodes, affinity weights and relationships based upon information associated with the user; and

a non-transitory knowledge store configured to the information associated with the user pertaining to a sub-plurality of the plurality of identified sales concepts.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the information associated with the user comprises at least one of a user profile, user inputs, and user interaction data.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the conceptualization sub-system comprises:

a node inclusion module configured to generate a new node within the ontological mapping responsive to a determination that a new concept exists in the system.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the change refinement sub-system comprises:

a removal module configured to remove a certain one of the plurality of nodes responsive to a determination that a certain affinity index pertaining an identified sales concept corresponding to the certain node has dropped below a predetermined threshold.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of identified sales concepts comprises one of a group consisting of:

sales contacts, sales cases, sales opportunities, sales partners, sales contracts, and assets.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the group further consists of:

sales campaigns, campaign managers, sales leads, sales opportunity competitors, and sales contract approvals.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the relationship identification sub-system is configured to define the relationships based at least in part on indexing of at least some of the plurality of identified sales concepts.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the relationship identification sub-system is configured to define the relationships based at least in part on classifications corresponding to at least some of the plurality of identified sales concepts.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the relationship identification sub-system is configured to define the relationships by determining frequency counts corresponding to at least some of the plurality of identified concepts.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the observation sub-system is configured to identify each of the plurality of sales concepts by analyzing a query.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the observation sub-system is configured to identify each of the plurality of sales concepts by analyzing click stream data.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the relationship identification sub-system is configured to determine the affinity weight based on an occurrence frequency of at least one identified sales concept pertaining to the at least one of the defined relationships.

13. The system of claim 1, the relationship identification sub-system further comprising a cluster generation module configured to generate at least one cluster based on a sub-plurality of the plurality of identified sales concepts and at least one defined relationship.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the relationship identification module is further configured to modify the at least one generated cluster.

15. A computing system including at least one processor, the system comprises:

a user interface to allow a user to view and input data related to concepts in a knowledge area associated with the user;

an observation sub-system having a processor configured to centralize data and to identify each of a plurality of knowledge concepts;

a conceptualization sub-system configured to generate a plurality of nodes within an ontological mapping, wherein each of the plurality of nodes corresponds to a certain one of the plurality of identified knowledge concepts identified by the observation sub-system, the conceptualization sub-system configured to generate new nodes within the ontological mapping responsive to a determination that a new concept exists in the system;

a relationship identification sub-system configured to create relationships between at least some of the plurality of identified knowledge concepts, and attribute affinity weights to the relationships, wherein the affinity weights quantify a strength of the relationship between the identified knowledge concepts using concept occurrence and co-concept occurrence, and each concept occupies a node on the ontological mapping, the relationship identification sub-system to select relationships between the nodes with the greatest affinity index and then update the ontology to with the affinity index for the selected relationships;

a change refinement sub-system configured to modify at least one of the plurality of nodes, affinity weights and relationships based upon information associated with the user; and

a non-transitory knowledge store configured to the information associated with the user pertaining to a sub-plurality of the plurality of identified knowledge concepts.