IP Library › Granted Patent US 9,424,250
Granted Patent B2
US 9,424,250 · App. 14/997,054 · Granted Aug 23, 2016

Systems and methods for semantic information retrieval

Inventors: Azriel Chelst (Woodmere, NY); Nicola J. Guenigault (Brighton, GB); Jordan Rhys Powell (Hove, GB)
Assignee: AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL RELATED SERVICES COMPANY, INC.
G06F17/279G06F17/21G06F17/218G06F17/271G06F17/274G06F17/277G06F17/278
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 9,424,250
App. No.
14/997,054
Granted
Aug 23, 2016
Kind
B2
Abstract

A semantic tagging method may add context to a sentence in order to increase search efficiency. Regardless of an author's writing style, translating semantic concepts into tags may increase search efficiency. Automatic semantic tagging of documents may allow semantic search and reasoning. Text for semantic tagging may include an email, a website chat room, an internet forum, or a text message. Additional texts may include aggregating general consensus of an emailed topic across multiple emails, whether in the same email chain or separate emails. To increase search efficiency, the analysis of prior communications within the body of text may comprise analyzing structured contextual information to facilitate with homophora resolution. The structured contextual information may include at least one of a sender email address, one or more recipient email addresses, a subject field, a message date and time stamp, and an attachment title.

Claims (60)

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computer-based system, a body of text from a data source,

wherein the body of text is an electronic text and is one of an email, a website chat room, an internet forum, or a text message;

identifying, by the computer-based system, structured contextual information based on a known format of the body of text,

wherein the structured contextual information includes at least one of a sender email address, one or more recipient email addresses, a subject field, a message date and time stamp, or an attachment title;

tokenizing, by the computer-based system, the body of text by splitting the body of text into individual tokens;

resolving, by the computer-based system and based on the tokenizing, the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role with corresponding noun phrases;

wherein the resolving the individual tokens comprises weighting the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role based on the structured contextual information,

analyzing structured contextual information to facilitate a homophora resolution;

integrating, in response to the analyzing and in response to the weighting of the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role based on the structured contextual information, the homophora resolution into an anaphora resolution algorithm by substituting the structured contextual information into the body of text to create a substituted body of text;

translating, by the computer-based system and based on the integrating, semantic concepts of the substituted body of text into one or more semantic tags;

conducting, by the computer-based system, in response to the translating and using the one or more semantic tags, semantic reasoning to facilitate pattern identification within a group of documents,

wherein the pattern identification includes analyzing implied relationships of the text within the group of documents to identify a specific topic, wherein the pattern identification is based on at least one of progress or consensus of the substituted body of text within the group of documents; and

displaying, by the computer-based system, in response to the conducting and to a user interface, the specific identified topic of the substituted body of text.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising parsing, by the computer-based system, the body of text by determining a language and structure of the body of text.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, by the computer-based system, the known format of the body of the text.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the known format is based on a data source from which the body of text was received.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating, by the computer-based system and based on the tokenizing, a tagged body of text.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the generating comprises assigning each individual token a part-of-speech tag indicating a grammatical role of the individual token.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the part-of-speech tag may include custom terminology from a tagging database.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the grammatical role includes one of a noun, a pronoun, a verb, an adverb, an adjective, a conjunction, a preposition, an article, an auxiliary verb, an infinitive, an interjection, modal verb, an object, a participle, a phrase, or a predicate.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising splitting, by the computer-based system, the tagged body of text into grammatical chunks.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying, by the computer-based system, named entities within the body of text.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, by the computer-based system and in response to the resolving, a context and purpose of the body of text.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying, by the computer-based system and in response to the translating, one or more communication topics and presuppositions of the body of text.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the identifying the one or more communication topics and presuppositions comprises analysis of prior communications within the body of text to facilitate the tokenizing the body of text.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein in response to the identifying the structured contextual information, the analysis of prior communications within the body of text comprises analyzing structured contextual information to facilitate a homophora resolution.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating, by the computer-based system and in response to the translating, a list of the one or more semantic tags.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tokenizing further comprises splitting the body of text into sentences, and further splitting each sentence into words and punctuation.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the grammatical chunks include noun-phrase chunks and pronoun chunks.

18. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computer-based system, cause the computer-based system to perform operations comprising:

receiving, by the computer-based system, a body of text from a data source,

wherein the body of text is an electronic text and is one of an email, a website chat room, an internet forum, or a text message;

identifying, by the computer-based system, structured contextual information based on a known format of the body of text,

wherein the structured contextual information includes at least one of a sender email address, one or more recipient email addresses, a subject field, a message date and time stamp, or an attachment title;

tokenizing, by the computer-based system, the body of text by splitting the body of text into individual tokens;

resolving, by the computer-based system and based on the tokenizing, the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role with corresponding noun phrases;

wherein the resolving the individual tokens comprises weighting the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role based on the structured contextual information,

analyzing structured contextual information to facilitate a homophora resolution;

integrating, in response to the analyzing and in response to the weighting of the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role based on the structured contextual information, the homophora resolution into an anaphora resolution algorithm by substituting the structured contextual information into the body of text to create a substituted body of text;

translating, by the computer-based system and based on the integrating, semantic concepts of the substituted body of text into one or more semantic tags;

conducting, by the computer-based system, in response to the translating and using the one or more semantic tags, semantic reasoning to facilitate pattern identification within a group of documents,

wherein the pattern identification includes analyzing implied relationships of the text within the group of documents to identify a specific topic, wherein the pattern identification is based on at least one of progress or consensus of the substituted body of text within the group of documents; and

displaying, by the computer-based system, in response to the conducting and to a user interface, the specific identified topic of the substituted body of text.

19. A system comprising:

a tangible, non-transitory memory communicating with a processor,

the tangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving, by the processor, a body of text from a data source,

wherein the body of text is an electronic text and is one of an email, a website chat room, an internet forum, or a text message;

identifying, by the processor, structured contextual information based on a known format of the body of text,

wherein the structured contextual information includes at least one of a sender email address, one or more recipient email addresses, a subject field, a message date and time stamp, or an attachment title;

tokenizing, by the processor, the body of text by splitting the body of text into individual tokens;

resolving, by the processor and based on the tokenizing, the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role with corresponding noun phrases;

wherein the resolving the individual tokens comprises weighting the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role based on the structured contextual information,

analyzing structured contextual information to facilitate a homophora resolution;

integrating, in response to the analyzing and in response to the weighting of the individual tokens having a pronoun grammatical role based on the structured contextual information, the homophora resolution into an anaphora resolution algorithm by substituting the structured contextual information into the body of text to create a substituted body of text;

translating, by the processor and based on the integrating, semantic concepts of the substituted body of text into one or more semantic tags;

conducting, by the processor, in response to the translating and using the one or more semantic tags, semantic reasoning to facilitate pattern identification within a group of documents,

wherein the pattern identification includes analyzing implied relationships of the text within the group of documents to identify a specific topic, wherein the pattern identification is based on at least one of progress or consensus of the substituted body of text within the group of documents; and

displaying, by the processor, in response to the conducting and to a user interface, the specific identified topic of the substituted body of text.

Assignments (3)
CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT TO CORRECT THE FIRST ASSIGNOR LAST NAME PREVIOUSLY RECORDED AT REEL: 037712 FRAME: 0090. ASSIGNOR(S) HEREBY CONFIRMS THE ASSIGNMENT . Recorded Jul 6, 2016
From: GUENIGAULT, NICOLA J.; CHELST, AZRIEL L.
To: AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL RELATED SERVICES COMPANY, INC.
Reel/Frame 039269/0202 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Feb 11, 2016
From: POWELL, JORDAN R.
To: AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL RELATED SERVICES COMPANY, INC.
Reel/Frame 037711/0995 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Feb 11, 2016
From: GUENIGUALT, NICOLA J.; CHELST, AZRIEL L.
To: AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL RELATED SERVICES COMPANY, INC.
Reel/Frame 037712/0090 →
Continuity (2)
Continuation 13565036 · Aug 2, 2012
Related Publication 20160132483A1 · May 12, 2016