17968 results about "Information retrieval" patented technology

An information retrieval system in accordance with the principles of the present invention maintains a database that defines a relational association between a plurality of informational items in the system. The relational association is based on historical navigational behavior of users of the information retrieval system, and includes a relationship type, which is based on the characteristic similarities between the informational items, and relationship strength, which is based on the historical frequency of any related informational items being selected by a user within the same information retrieval session. When a navigation from one informational item to another information item is detected, the relationship type and the relationship strength of the two informational items are determined and stored in the database. During a subsequent selection of an informational item, any related informational items related to the selected informational item are sorted based on the respective relationship types and relationship strengths, and are provided in a sorted list from which the user can select.

A method to automatically retrieve data associated with content. An identifier is read that is stored on electronic readable medium storing content. The identifier is used to search a database for data associated with the content. Data that is associated with the content is retrieved as guided by the database. And the data retrieved is used to create a version of the content for electronic distribution. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a computer readable medium is described to carry out the above method.

An interactive television application is used to provide search results to a user. The user is provided with an opportunity to indicate a desire to search for programs. In response, the interactive television application generates search criteria and searches for programs. The search results that are displayed to the user include mosaic listings associated with programs that match the search criteria. In some embodiments, the interactive television application displays the mosaic listings in a manner that accentuates the different levels of relevance of the search results to the search criteria.

Disclosed herein are various exemplary systems and methods for linking entity references to entities and identifying associations between entities. In particular, a method for identifying an entity from a plurality of entity references, each entity reference being linked with a separate ghost entity, is provided. The method comprises the steps of comparing an entity reference of a first ghost entity with an entity reference of a second ghost entity to determine a match probability between the entity reference of the first ghost entity and the entity reference of the second ghost entity, linking the entity reference of the first ghost entity additionally with the second ghost entity and the entity reference of the second ghost entity additionally with the first ghost entity when the match probability is greater than or equal to a match threshold and repeating the steps of comparing and linking for one or more ghost entity pairings possible from the ghost entities. The method further comprises determining, for one or more entity references linked to a ghost entity, a score for the entity reference based at least in part on a match probability between the entity reference and a value representing the one or more entity references linked to the ghost entity and identifying the ghost entity as an actual entity based at least in part on one or more scores for the one or more entity references linked to the ghost entity.

A system for utilizing metadata created either at a central location for shared use by connected users, or at each individual user's location, to enhance user's enjoyment of available broadcast programming content. A variety of mechanisms are employed for automatically and manually identifying and designating programming segments, associating descriptive metadata which the identified segments, distributing the metadata for use at client locations, and using the supplied metadata to selectively record and playback desired programming.

A system and method for using a user profile to order placed content in search results returned by a search engine. The user profile is based on search queries submitted by a user, the user's specific interaction with the documents identified by the search engine and personal information provided by the user. Placed content is ranked by a score based at least in part on a similarity of a particular placed content to the user's profile. User profiles can be created and / or stored on the client side or server side of a client-server network environment.

A computer data processing system including a central processing unit configured with a novel integrated computer control software system for the management of data objects including dynamic and automatic organization, linking, finding, cross-referencing, viewing and retrieval of multiple objects regardless of nature or source. The inventive system provides underlying component architecture having an object-oriented database structure and a metadata database structure which is unique in storing only one instance of each object while linking the object to multiple collections and domains by unique metadata links for the grouping into and retrieval from any of the collections. The system employs configurable, extensible attribute / properties of data objects in metadata format, and a truly user-friendly configurable interface that facilitates faster, more unified, comprehensive, useful and meaningful information management. Additional features include a sticky path object hierarchy viewing system, key phrase linking, viewing by reference, and drag-and-drop relationship link creation.

An adaptive search engine (1) having a plurality of data items (4) from one or more data sources (5) stored in at least one database searchable by a search query (6) of a least one keyword (7) to produce a corresponding ranked search result listing (8) of data items (4), said search engine having a plurality of selectable filters (9) applicable by the search engine and / or the user to filter at least a portion (10) of the data items (4) of the search result listing (8), characterised in that said search engine records an association between a filter (9) applied to a search query (6) and a data item (4) selected by a user from said filtered portion (10) of the corresponding search result listing (8), wherein each recorded association contributes to the weighting given by the search engine (1) to application of said filter (9) in a subsequent search for at least one keyword (7) of said search query (6).

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and apparatus for searching using an active ontology. One embodiment of a method for searching a database includes receiving a search string, where the search string comprises one or more words, generating a semantic representation of the search string in accordance with an ontology, searching the database using the semantic representation, and outputting a result of the searching.

A system and a method are disclosed for adding linked content to text messages. Messages are analyzed to determine the context and meaning of a conversation between users, and linked content relevant to the conversation is selected and associated with certain words or phrases in the messages. This process for enhancing text messages beneficially provides users with additional information related to the meaning of their conversation, and also provides advertisers with a valuable new way of delivering highly relevant advertisements to a precise group of users.

A search engine system displays the results of a multiple-category search according to levels of relevance of the categories to a user's search query. A query server receives a search query from a user and identifies, within each of multiple item categories, a set of items that satisfy the query. The sets of items are used to generate, for each of the multiple categories, a score that reflects a level significance or relevance of the category to the search. The scores may be based, for example, on the number of hits within each category relative to the total number of items in that category, the popularity levels of items that satisfy the query, a personal profile of the user, or a combination thereof. The categories are then presented to the user, together with the most relevant items within each category, in the order of highest to lowest category relevance.

A content-indexing search system and method provides search results consistent with content filtering and blocking policies. The search system comprises a content-indexing search engine including a database coupled to an information network. A user provides search queries to the search engine through a gateway serving as a proxy server and cache and blocking engine. The blocking engine implements content filtering and blocking policies with respect to the search results. Alternative embodiments provide consistency between the results of the user content searches and the content filtering / blocking policies. One embodiment modifies the search engine to implement the same content blocking policy as the caching and filtering engine. Another embodiment modifies the search engine to build an indexing database by searching the caching and engine content. A third embodiment modifies the search engine to go through the cache and filter engine as the search engine builds its indexing database. A fourth embodiment modifies a search engine to go through a caching and filtering engine as it builds an indexing database.

Computer systems and methods incorporate user annotations (metadata) regarding various pages or sites, including annotations by a querying user and by members of a trust network defined for the querying user into search and browsing of a corpus such as the World Wide Web. A trust network is defined for each user, and annotations by any member of the querying user's trust network are made visible to the querying user during search and / or browsing of the corpus if the querying user and trust network members use similar queries to identify documents in the corpus. Users can also limit searches to content annotated by members of their trust networks or by members of a community selected by the user.

User profile information for a user may be determined by (a) determining initial user profile information for the user, (b) inferring user profile information for the user, and (c) determining the user profile information for the user using both the initial user profile information and the inferred user profile information. Initial user profile information for the user may be determined using past search queries submitted by the user, and / or past document selections by the user. User profile information for the user may be inferred by (a) defining a node for each of a number of documents and the user, (b) adding edges between nodes if there is an association between the nodes to define a graph, and (c) inferring user profile information for the user using a topology of the graph and user profile information of other documents. Similarly, user profile information for a document may be determined by (a) determining initial user profile information for the document, (b) inferring user profile information for the document, and (c) determining the user profile information for the document using both the initial user profile information and the inferred user profile information. The initial user profile information for the document may be determined using content information from the document, and / or document meta information. User profile information for the document may be inferred by (a) defining a node for each of a number of documents and for each of a number of users, (b) adding edges between nodes if there is an association between the nodes to define a graph, and (c) inferring user profile information for the document using a topology of the graph and user profile information of users and of other documents. Document, user, and / or ad user profile information may be used when serving ads.

The present invention presents embodiments of methods, systems, and computer-readable media for the retrieval, mining, filtering and visualization of information stored on a plural of computers connected to the Internet and on a local computer. Embodiments of this invention generate a conceptual search query using a description provided by a user, perform user selectable conceptual filtering of search results, concept following and link following to expand search results, search for files that may or may not contain certain information, rank concepts contained in search results or one or more files, compute relevancy rank of a file in search results, use conceptual path maps to display logic or statistical relationships among search results, monitor changes in information in a search or a file, and protect files or searches based on information contents.

A search engine provides intelligent multi-dimensional searches, in which the search engine always presents a complete, holistic result, and in which the search engine presents knowledge (i.e. linked facts) and not just information (i.e. facts). The search engine is adaptive, such that the search results improve over time as the system learns about the user and develops a user profile. Thus, the search engine is self personalizing, i.e. it collects and analyzes the user history, and / or it has the user react to solutions and learns from such user reactions. The search engine generates profiles, e.g. it learns from all searches of all users and combines the user profiles and patterns of similar users. The search engine accepts direct user feedback to improve the next search iteration One feature of the invention is locking / unlocking, where a user may select specific attributes that are to remain locked while the search engine matches these locked attributes to all unlocked attributes. The user may also specify details about characteristics, provide and / or receive qualitative ratings of an overall result, and introduce additional criteria to the search strategy or select a search algorithm. Additionally, the system can be set up such that it does not require a keyboard and / or mouse interface, e.g. it can operate with a television remote control or other such human interface.

In a pay-for-placement search system, the system makes search term recommendations to advertisers managing their accounts in one or more of two ways. A first technique involves looking for good search terms directly on an advertiser's web site. A second technique involves comparing an advertiser to other, similar advertisers and recommending the search terms the other advertisers have chosen. The first technique is called spidering and the second technique is called collaborative filtering. In the preferred embodiment, the output of the spidering step is used as input to the collaborative filtering step. The final output of search terms from both steps is then interleaved in a natural way.

A system analyzes a user's historic browsing activity to determine one or more topics of interest to the user and displays to the user one or more advertisements that are relevant to the user's topic(s) of interest. The system analyzes a plurality of browses to determine the user's interest(s). Each of a plurality of analyzers analyzes an aspect of each user browse. A relevance filter determines if and when the user is sufficiently interested in a topic to display an advertisement related to the topic. Once the relevance filter identifies a topic of interest, the system displays an advertisement that is related to the identified topic of user interest.

A method and system for forming a data table in memory on an end user system. The data table forming a library index of storage locations to electronic digital content in memory. The method consists of retrieving an encrypted file from storage. The file has a beginning, an end and a trailer section located just prior to the end. The file is read from the end a predetermined distance to verify if an identifier is present. Reading and decrypting the trailer section from the file read. Determining if there are any updates in the trailer section. In the case there are no updates in the trailer section then decrypting the reference table containing one or more data table location indicators for data items with the first decrypting key. Next, decrypting one or data items with the first decrypting key. Populating the data table with data items at locations specified in the reference table.

Disclosed is a semantic user interface system that allows text information to be tagged with machine-readable IDs that are associated with concepts for conveying information without any ambiguity or without being hampered by the limitations of human languages. Typically, a plurality of vocabularies are stored across a network, and each vocabulary includes a plurality of machine-readable IDs each corresponding to a concept and at least one keyword corresponding to each machine-readable ID. An input interface accepts text information, selects those machine-readable IDs whose keywords match up with the text information, and returns a list of candidates each corresponding to one of the selected machine-readable IDs and including a corresponding description. The machine-readable IDs can carry information in the form of concepts without any ambiguity as opposed to text information. This system can be applied to web and database searches, publishing messages to selected subscribers, interfacing of applications software, machine translations, etc.

An enhanced natural language information retrieval technique tokenizes an incoming query, comparing the tokenized representation against a collection of query templates. Query templates include a first portion having one or more query patterns representative of a query and in a form suitable for matching the tokenized representation of an incoming query. Query templates also include one or more information retrieval commands that are designed to return information relevant to those query patterns in its first portion. The enhanced natural language information retrieval technique selects those query templates that are determined to be most relevant to the incoming query (via its tokenized representation) and initiates one or more information retrieval commands associated with the selected query templates.

In one aspect, the invention provides apparatuses and methods for determining the sentiment expressed in answers to survey questions. Advantageously, the sentiment may be automatically determined using natural language processing. In another aspect, the invention provides apparatuses and methods for analyzing the sentiment of survey respondents and presenting the information as actionable data.

A system and method for generating a list is provided. The system includes a seed item input subsystem, an item identifying subsystem, a descriptive metadata similarity determining subsystem and a list generating subsystem that builds a list based, at least in part, on similarity processing performed on seed item descriptive metadata and user item descriptive metadata and user selected thresholds applied to such similarity processing. The method includes inexact matching between identifying metadata associated with new user items and identifying metadata stored in a reference metadata database. The method further includes subjecting candidate user items to similarity processing, where the degree to which the candidate user items are similar to the seed item is determined, and placing user items in a list of items based on user selected preferences for (dis)similarity between items in the list and the seed item.

Systems and methods for providing hands-free reading of content comprising: identifying a plurality of data items for presentation to a user, the plurality of data items associated with a domain-specific item type and sorted according to a particular order; based on the domain-specific item type, generating a speech-based overview of the plurality of data items; for each of the plurality of data items, generating a respective speech-based, item-specific paraphrase for the data item based on respective content of the data item; and providing, to a user through the speech-enabled dialogue interface, the speech-based overview, followed by the respective speech-based, item-specific paraphrases for at least a subset of the plurality of data items in the particular order.

A web site or other database access system provides access to a database in which items are arranged within item categories, such as browse categories of a hierarchical browse tree. Actions of users of the system are monitored and recorded to generate user activity data reflective of searches, item selection actions, and possibly other types of actions. A correlation analysis component collectively analyses the user activity to automatically identify associations between specific search criteria, such as specific search strings, and specific item categories. The results of the analysis are stored in a mapping table that is used to suggest specific item categories on search results pages.