text:
Republicans pass tax breaks, but donŌĆÖt pay for them
Republicans pass tax breaks, but donŌĆÖt pay for them
Washington (CNN) ŌĆō Republicans want to cut the deficit. And Republicans want to cut taxes. Tuesday, those two sweeping goals collided as a GOP-controlled House committee voted to advance hundreds of billions in tax cuts at the cost of adding those billions to the deficit.
The House Ways and Means Committee voted almost entirely along party lines to make six tax breaks permanent at a cost of $310 billion over the next 10 years.
The top Democrat on the committee pounced.
ŌĆ£To say that Republican action today is hypocritical is a serious understatement,ŌĆØ Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan said. ŌĆ£This approach today of Republicans flies smack in the face of fiscal responsibility.ŌĆØ
But the committeeŌĆÖs Republican chairman, Dave Camp, also of Michigan, did not blink. He responded that the tax breaks have been passed year after year without any offsets.
ŌĆ£This bill has been extended, unpaid for, probably 30 times,ŌĆØ Camp said of a research tax credit. ŌĆ£I think itŌĆÖs important we extend this ŌĆ" supporting permanency, not a temporary extension.ŌĆØ
Team Camp also points to another argument: They believe the jobs that come from tax breaks are worth adding some red ink to the deficit.
ŌĆ£These are things that people feel are extremely worth adding to the economy,ŌĆØ said Camp spokeswoman Sarah Swinehart.
WhatŌĆÖs $310 billion get you?
These six so-called ŌĆ£tax extendersŌĆØ that the Ways and Means Committee approved Tuesday were plucked from a larger group of 55 tax breaks that expired at the end of 2013 and have been waiting for congressional renewal.
Among those passed Tuesday were three biggies: the research and experimentation deduction, the credit that helps small businesses with major equipment costs, and the break for businesses earning rent and interest overseas.
Camp was correct. In recent years, Congress has extended the breaks year after year without offsetting their costs. But in the 90s, most of them were offset.
Why the flashpoint now?
Democrats are particularly pressing the issue now because they see a conflict between the Republican demands that spending, especially on Democratic priorities like unemployment benefits, be offset while the GOP allows their own priority ŌĆō tax cuts ŌĆō to add to the deficit.
ŌĆ£ItŌĆÖs a clear double standard, particularly when you hold up unemployment,ŌĆØ said Chuck Marr, director of tax policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
But Democrats also have exceptions to pay-for pushes, notably, many Democrats believe that unemployment benefits are emergency spending and do not need to be offset.
When asked if that is a double standard from the left, Marr said no.
ŌĆ£Unemployment insurance is a temporary, countercyclical move,ŌĆØ he replied. ŌĆ£What Republicans are doing here is pushing for something permanent and unpaid for.ŌĆØ
GOP chooses tax cuts at expense of deficit
Republicans insist their decision to choose tax cuts over trimming the deficit is nothing new.
ŌĆ£(Chairman Camp) has the position that extensions of current policy and tax cuts donŌĆÖt have to be paid for,ŌĆØ said Swinehart. ŌĆ£Pay-fors are for spending. New spending. ThatŌĆÖs his position.ŌĆØ
Yet, in CampŌĆÖs recent sweeping tax reform proposal, he did pay for all the tax cuts he extended. He did that largely by repealing other tax cuts. But that proposal is not going anywhere.
Camp insists thatŌĆÖs not a contradiction. His office argues that paying for tax breaks is only possible in a comprehensive revision of the tax system, not when tax breaks are taken one by one as the House is preparing to do now.
The result: On Tuesday, Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee choose their anti-tax crusade over their image as deficit hawks.
Next, all Republicans in the House will face a similar choice.
Multiple GOP sources tell CNN they expect all six tax credit bills to get votes on the House floor and that leadership is still working out the exact timing.
And of course, the dems know a double standard when they see one, even if it isn't one. They are the master of that particular art.
How the hell do you pay for a tax cut? The way our government regards money and taxes is just so backwards. No wonder this country is falling on its knees. Our leadership has no clue.
and dems pass spending bills with out paying for them....
The OP proves that she doesn't have a clue here.
This one makes my head hurt. So Dems need to find a way to pay for their increased expenditures. I can see that. And Repubs need to find expenditure cuts so that they can decrease the revenue. Okay, I think i got it. Using the wording that the Republicans need to "pay for" their tax cuts seems like a strange way of saying that if you want to cut revenue, you need to cut expenditures. Maybe the way our Gov't is viewing money is a bit off.
Amen. DC is a clusterfuck.
All three of those tax cuts can be exploited and manipulated by large corporations. By the same token, more money in the hands of unemployed workers means they can still buy stuff and that helps the economy vis a vis large corporations...
This is basically a tug of war over who is going to make corporations happy first.
Quoting lizzielouaf: I still can not fathom why people (citizens) continue to argue one side is better than the other.


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Today I got my weekly SitRep from Operation Write Home's founder, Sandy Allnock- and it included a shocker. Due to the troops being withdrawn (and correspondingly the number of cards needed) there is beginning to be an imbalance in the amount of administration time needed and the folks being served. So she's decided to wrap it […]
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Ron Lehocky and the Heart Pin Project
February 12, 2015
When is a craft project a work of art? When is a work of art an act of love? When is an act of love an accomplishment of a lifetime? These are just a few of the questions I ask myself as I contemplate Dr. Ronald Lehocky. You've got to get to know this amazing […]
Simon Says Stamp Card Kit for Dec 2014 & CARDS!
December 3, 2014
You all know I like the Simon Says Stamp Card Kit Club…happy fan and subscriber, no freebies here! So here is what I got in the kit AND what I made! (So far, of course!) Which do you like best? I need to get another batch to send out to Operation Write Home…
World Card Making Day 2013!
October 5, 2013
Happy World Card Making Day! I'm thrilled to join in the Operation Write Home Blog Hop! I've got a few cards to share super-quick tutorial video. So let's jump in! I used the Challenge Sketch #183 to make my cards, which all have the "Thank You" theme. First, here's the sketch: And now my cards. […]
Crafty Love this Week and Fab Friday Giveway!
May 17, 2013
I asked my Facebook Crew today if I should share some crafty inspiration I found on the interwebs or do a giveaway of a mystery craft box. You know what they said, right? BOTH. *duh* Okay, I guess I can do that. SO here are some wonderfully crafty thinks I found on the interwebs this […]
Operation Write Home Card Party
June 8, 2012
Last month I was asked to share some info about Operation Write Home– a n0n-profit agency that provides hand-made greeting cards to troops overseas so that they can stay in touch with their families. Here's their "about" statement: This merry band of thousands of cardmakers is made up of Americans – and citizens of other […]
Lenten Crafting Ideas- 10 Ways to Craft "For Good"
February 24, 2012
For the Christian community, the next 40 days leading up to Easter are a sacred time- I time to reflect, grow, and recommit to God and spiritual practice. For me, Lent is a time not of deprivation, but of random joy. I choose to interpret Lent as a season in which I can spread kindness […]
CHA Winter 2011: Shoe Attitudes by Kodak, Innovations Winner
February 2, 2012
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Craft Product Review: Fiskars Squeeze Punches (From a Disability Viewpoint)
May 12, 2011
Until the last year or so, I'll be the first to admit, I never was a big fan of paper punches. Â I'm not entirely sure why…I suppose I never quite understood the need for them, I never really used them in my paper crafting…and to be honest, they've always been a bit difficult to use […]
Crafting for a Cause: Little Lion Designs
August 26, 2010
Last July when I was at the Cleveland Craft Coalition Show, I had the pleasure to meet Stephanie of Little Lion Designs. Her fabric collage pieces where colorful and delightful to behold, and when I found out that she uses her artwork to raise awareness, I knew I had to learn more about her and […]
Crafting for a Cause: Jason Orpe ALS Mojo Fest
August 21, 2010
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Celebrity Crafter Rosie O'Donnell Sells for Charity on Etsy
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More Breast Cancer Awareness Crafts: Pink Ribbon Pin
October 8, 2008
Ok, so here's a quick and cute "pink ribbon" craft, using safety pins and seed beads. I know I have a million of these little buggers around, so I'm going to get busy. Surf on over to About.com's family crafts, and you can get the full instructions. This is the basic grid…Â and I'm sorry […]
Pink Ribbon Quilting for Breast Cancer Awarenss
October 6, 2008
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Cross Stitch for Breast Cancer Awareness
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Well, October is here, and in the middle of planning my holiday crafting, I though I'd share a Breast Cancer Awareness craft. Since you have the whole month of October to craft pink, here's a cute one to get you going! Our friends over at CrossStitch.com have supplied FOUR different versions of the pink ribbon […]
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July 31, 2008
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Fashionable Medical Alert Bracelets
April 8, 2008
I read an article today in our local paper called "Medical ID Bracelets Become Stylish" and had a head-slapping-I-wish-I-thought-of-that moment. Of course! Who wouldn't want a cuter, more stylish medical ID bracelet? After working in the medical field for many years, I know firsthand how important and potentially life-saving these ID bracelets and tags are. […]


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RYR Race Pacers
RYR Story,
We are a group of Utah race pacers, giving back to our community by providing encouragement to fellow runners through organized races, weekly runs and through social media sharing of our stories our experience and running adventures with you. We race and pace many races throughout the year, always helping each other achieve our running goals.Our Goal "To help you run your race"
Our Vision, "To provide a positive running experience to athletes of all levels"
Our Objective, "To help all of those around us achieve their goals"
Our Values
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Active Bands Giveaway
6 comments:
I can't run without my watch or I feel naked!ReplyDelete
Sunglasses! I can't see through my squint without them. :)ReplyDelete
Liked active bands on fb!ReplyDelete
I hate having hair in my face! It is the worst! I can't run without my visor. It is the trifecta-keeps the hair out, keeps the sweat out, and shades my eyes from the sun.
I have liked Active Bands. I ALWAYS have a headband on when I work out. If not I look like a lion after my workouts. I also need my Garmin. I like seeing the miles tick by.ReplyDelete
Did you announce a winner yet? I sure do hope it's me! :)ReplyDelete
Winners are Stephanie and JessBQuick!!!! Congrats girlies!ReplyDelete


text:
Showbiz wigs: Wogan, Forsythe, Blackburn......
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06-05-2008, 17:08
Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: nottingham
Posts: 9,460
Andrew Neill's hair has changed dramatically since his spitting image days. It did look like a brillo pad then, but now it is completey straight as well as being much more substantial and a totally different colour.
I remember a chap at work who was suspected of having a syrup, he was in his 50's and had straight dark brown hair cut rather strangely. One of the girls decided to find out the truth and deliberately tripped over near him and clung on to his head to prevent herself falling over. Sadly his hair was real though she said the roots were grey
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Welcome to ProJusticeMN.org
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This website is for lawyers and advocates only. Members of the general public looking for legal information and legal help should visit www.LawHelpMN.org
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text:
A method and system organize and retrieve information using taxonomies, a document classifier, and an autocontextualizer. Documents (or other knowledge containers) in an organization and retrieval subsystem may be manually or automatically classified into taxonomies. Documents are transformed from clear text into a structured record. Automatically constructed indexes help identify when the structured record is an appropriate response to a query. An automatic term extractor creates a list of terms indicative of the documents' subject matter. A subject matter expert identifies the terms relevant to the taxonomies. A term analysis system assigns the relevant terms to one or more taxonomies, and a suitable algorithm is then used to determine the relatedness between each list of terms and its associated taxonomy. The system then clusters documents for each taxonomy in accordance with the weights ascribed to the terms in the taxonomy's list and a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure is created.
1. A method of processing a query to identify a particular knowledge container, associated with a knowledge map, that is relevant to the query, wherein the knowledge map includes at least one taxonomy representing a discrete perspective of a knowledge domain, wherein the at least one taxonomy is organized into a group of nodes, the nodes representing conceptual areas within the discrete perspective, and wherein the nodes have an indication of knowledge, including the particular content associated therewith, said method comprising the steps of:
(a) processing at least one of (i) the query to identify nodes of the taxonomies within the knowledge map that are potentially relevant conceptual areas; and (ii) information about a user to identify nodes in the taxonomy that represent conceptual areas previously indicated to be of interest to the user;
(b) identifying knowledge map regions surrounding at least one of the identified nodes;
(c) performing a content-based retrieval over the knowledge containers associated with the nodes in each identified region, to retrieve an ordered list of potentially relevant knowledge containers, where each retrieved knowledge container is assigned a numerical relevance score representing a quality of association between the retrieved knowledge container and the query; and
(d) returning as a result the ordered list of the knowledge containers.
2. The method of
3. The method of
4. The method of
5. The method of
6. The method of
7. The method of
modifying the numeric relevance scores; and
combining the ordered lists into the single reordered list based on the modified relevance scores;
wherein the numeric relevance score for a knowledge container in a particular knowledge map region is modified at least partially based on a quality measure for that knowledge map region.
8. The method of
9. The method of
names of authors of the knowledge containers;
date ranges for creation date of the knowledge containers;
date ranges for last modified date of the knowledge containers;
date ranges for expiration date of the knowledge containers;
words or phrases which must be present in the title of the knowledge containers;
name of publication or source in which the knowledge containers originally appeared; and
name of customers for which the knowledge containers were originally prepared.
10. The method of
receiving input from a user as to the suitability of particular portions of the returned result;
modifying the query in response to the input; and
repeating steps (a)–(d), using the modified query.
11. The method of
12. The retrieval method of
13. The retrieval method of
generating parameterized questions from which a user can interactively construct a taxonomic restriction to limit the areas of the knowledge map or construct a query from which result knowledge content is returned in response to the query, said parameterized questions including:
a boolean taxonomy-restriction expression, where the concept nodes in the expression are replaced with variables;
text of a previously composed question comprised of a plurality of text selection-list boxes for each variable within the boolean taxonomy-restriction expressiun, wherein each selection-list box holds lists of names or descriptions of concept-nodes that are potential values for the variable;
said lists being assembled using the names or descriptions of concept-nodes returned by the retrieval mechanism in the previous step of the dialog, possibly augmented with other nearby concept-nodes from the same taxonomies;
said selection-list boxes optionally having pre-selected as the default choice for the user the specific concept-nodes returned by the retrieval mechanism in the previous step of the dialog, such that when a user selects concept-nodes for each selection-list box within the parameterized question, the boolean taxonomy-restriction expression is instantiated by replacing each of its variables with the corresponding selection-list box selection, and the resulting taxonomic restriction is added to the user s query for the subsequent step of the dialog.
14. The method of
15. The retrieval method of
some of the content associated with the nodes of the knowledge map include an indication of a user and the user's interests; and
at least some of the steps of the retrieval process account for the user's interests.
16. The knowledge retrieval process of
17. The knowledge retrieval process of
18. The method of
an indication of an object; and
at least one tag, wherein each tag associates the object to a knowledge map representation of a discrete perspective of a domain of knowledge.
19. The method of
20. The method of
generating a natural language template based on at least one tag stored inside the knowledge container; and
merging content from the knowledge container and the tagged concept-nodes into the template.
21. The method of
combining the ordered lists for the identified regions into a single re-ordered list, based on calculating the quality of associations between the knowledge container in the list, the knowledge map, and the query; and
returning as a result the re-ordered list of the retrieved knowledge containers.
22. The method of
23. The method of
24. The method of
performing an additional search over an index for all knowledge containers associated with concept nodes in the knowledge map.
25. The retrieval method of
26. The method of
27. The method of
28. The method of
29. The method of
30. The methods of
31. The method of
32. The method of
a) a restriction that all knowledge containers returned must be associated with nodes in a particular one or more of the taxonomies;
b) a restriction that all knowledge containers returned must be associated with particular nodes;
c) a restrictions that all knowledge containers returned must be associated with nodes either at or taxonomically under a particular node or nodes; and
d) a boolean combination of the restrictions a), b) and c).
33. The retrieval method of
34. The method of
35. The method of
36. The method of
37. The method of
38. The method of
marked content that is a textual representation of the object;
selective demarcation of regions of the textual representation of the object; and
a plurality of indicators of the nature of the content.
39. The method of
40. The method of
41. The method of
42. The method of
43. The method of
44. The method of
a strength of the person's interest or information need;
relevancy to a question; and
expertise of a provider.
45. The method of
46. The method of
47. The method of
48. The method of
aggregating the content indicated by knowledge containers associated with each node into a single block of content;
grouping the blocks together based on vocabulary occurring within the blocks, using a text clustering system; and
grouping those knowledge containers whose content comprises the forming the knowledge containers from which the blocks in a group originate into a distinct subset.
49. The method of
50. The method of
51. The method of
52. The method of
a) a restriction that all knowledge containers returned may not be associated with nodes in a particular one or more of the taxonomies;
b) a restriction that all knowledge containers returned may not be associated with particular nodes;
c) a restrictions that all knowledge containers returned may not be associated with nodes either at or taxonomically under a particular node or nodes; and
d) a boolean combination of the restrictions a), b) and c).
53. The retrieval method of
54. The method of
SME designation;
source mapping based on where the knowledge container came from; and
dialog response.
55. The method of
56. The method of
57. The method of
58. The method of
wherein information about the experts may be included as part of the result of processing the query.
59. The retrieval method of
60. The method of
This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/594,083 filed Jun. 15, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,585 which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) from U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/139,509, filed Jun. 15, 1999, which applications are incorporated herein by reference.
This invention relates to systems and methods that facilitate the orderly storage of information and more particularly to a system and method for generating and utilizing knowledge containers for the orderly storage and retrieval of information.
A key resource of most, if not all, enterprises is knowledge. For example, in a customer service environment, customers expect prompt and correct answers to their information requests. These information requests may relate to problems with products the customer has purchased, or to questions about products they may decide to purchase in the future. In most cases, the answer to the customer's question exists somewhere within the enterprise. In other cases, the answer may have existed in the enterprise at one time, but is no longer there. The challenge is to find the answer and provide it to the customer in a timely manner. Further complicating the situation is the fact that very few customer service representatives possess the skills necessary to assist customers on more than a limited number of topics. Unfortunately, providing customer service representatives with the knowledge necessary to adequately serve customers involves time-consuming and expensive training. Even with training, customer service representatives will inevitably encounter questions for which no reasonable amount of training can prepare them to answer without expert consultation. The delay endured by the customer as the customer service representative consults with an expert is inconvenient, and often intolerable.
One solution to this problem has been to replace the customer service representative with a Web site of product-unique or vendor-unique reference material. Whenever the customer has a question, he/she is referred to the Web site for the answer. Another possible approach is for the vendor to maintain an email address specifically for customer inquiries, and to instruct customers to send all information requests to the email address. In addition to reducing the cost of providing customer service support, these solutions also afford the customer service representative a convenient forum for preparing a personal and comprehensive response. Unfortunately, they are considerably less timely than either of the previous two approaches, sacrifice the quality of the customer interaction and dehumanize the entire process.
Some enterprises employ Web search engines in an effort to provide reliable access to relevant information in the enterprise (e.g., on a company's computer network). Unfortunately, because these web search engines check for particular textual content without the advantage of context or domain knowledge, they generally do not reliably and consistently return the desired information. This is at least partly due to the fact that languages are not only inherently ambiguous, but also because they are susceptible to expressing a single concept any number of ways using numerous and unrelated words and/or phrases. By simply searching for specific words, prior art search engines fail to identify the other alternatives that may also be helpful.
What is desired is a system that can quickly deliver timely and highly relevant knowledge upon request.
The present invention satisfies the above-described need by providing a system and method for organizing and retrieving information through the use of taxonomies, a document classifier, and an autocontextualization system.
Documents stored in the organization and retrieval subsystem may be manually through an attribute matching process or automatically classified into a predetermined number of taxonomies through a process called autocontextualization. In operation, the documents are first transformed from clear text into a structured record (knowledge container) automatically constructed indexes (tags) to help identify when the structured record is an appropriate response to a particular query. An automatic term extractor creates a list of terms that are indicative of the subject matter contained in the documents, and then a subject matter expert identifies the terms that are relevant to the taxonomies. A term analysis system assigns the relevant terms to one or more taxonomies, and a suitable algorithm is then used to determine the relatedness (weight) between each list of terms and its associated taxonomy. The system then clusters documents for each taxonomy in accordance with the weights ascribed to the terms in the taxonomy's list and a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure is created.
The present invention may then be used to aid a researcher or user in quickly identifying relevant documents, in response to an inputted query. It may be appreciated that both a documents content and information added during autocontextualization is available for retrieval in the present invention. Moreover, the present system can retrieve any type of knowledge container, including not only those derived from some kind of document (such as "document" or "question" knowledge containers) but also those that represent people and resources (such as knowledge consumer and product knowledge containers.) In a preferred embodiment, two retrieval techniques may be utilized: multiple-taxonomy browsing and query-based retrieval. In multiple-taxonomy browsing, the user specifies a taxonomic restriction to limit the knowledge containers that are eventually returned to the user. Taxonomic restrictions can be in the form of actual taxonomies (topic, filter, or lexical, Boolean relations or taxonomic relations (at, near, under, etc.) In a query-based retrieval, a user specifies a natural language query with one or more taxonomy tags, one or more taxonomic restrictions, and any knowledge container restrictions deemed necessary. In both cases, the method of retrieving documents through the use of taxonomies and knowledge containers seeks to identify matches between the query and the concept nodes in a taxonomy, to provide a faster and more relevant response than a content-based retrieval, which is driven by the actual words in the document.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the methods, systems, and apparatus particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof, as well as the appended drawings.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the objects, advantages, and principles of the invention.
In the drawings
In the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part thereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration a specific embodiment in which the invention may be practiced. This embodiment is described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limited sense.
A system in accordance with the present invention is directed to a system (generically, an "e-service portal") and method for the delivery of information resources including electronic content (documents, online communities, software applications, etc.) and physical sources (experts within the company, other customers, etc.) to end-users.
Turning first to the nomenclature of the specification, the detailed description which follows is represented largely in terms of processes and symbolic representations of operations performed by conventional computer components, including a central processing unit (CPU), memory storage devices for the CPU, and connected pixel-oriented display devices. These operations include the manipulation of data bits by the CPU and the maintenance of these bits within data structures residing in one or more of the memory storage devices. Such data structures impose a physical organization upon the collection of data bits stored within computer memory and represent specific electrical or magnetic elements. These symbolic representations are the means used by those skilled in the art of computer programming and computer construction to most effectively convey teachings and discoveries to others skilled in the art.
For the purposes of this discussion, a process is generally conceived to be a sequence of computer-executed steps leading to a desired result. These steps generally require physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic, or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, or otherwise manipulated. It is conventional for those skilled in the art to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, objects, numbers, records, files or the like. It should be kept in mind, however, that these and similar terms should be associated with appropriate physical quantities for computer operations, and that these terms are merely conventional labels applied to physical quantities that exist within and during operation of the computer.
It should also be understood that manipulations within the computer are often referred to in terms such as adding, comparing, moving, etc., which are often associated with manual operations performed by a human operator. It must be understood that no such involvement of a human operator is necessary or even desirable in the present invention. The operations described herein are machine operations performed in conjunction with a human operator or user who interacts with the computer. The machines used for performing the operation of the present invention include general purpose digital computers or other similar computing devices.
In addition, it should be understood that the programs, processes, methods, etc. described herein are not related or limited to any particular computer or apparatus. Rather, various types of general purpose machines may be used with programs constructed in accordance with the teachings described herein. Similarly, it may prove advantageous to construct specialized apparatus to perform the method steps described herein by way of dedicated computer systems with hard-wired logic or programs stored in nonvolatile memory, such as read only memory.
The operating environment in which the present invention is used encompasses general distributed computing systems wherein general purpose computers, work stations, or personal computers are connected via communication links of various types. In a client server arrangement, programs and data, many in the form of objects, are made available by various members of the system.
Referring now to the figures, corresponding reference characters refer to corresponding elements, wherever possible. Like many systems of knowledge representation, the present invention represents and stores both the individual instances information, and the concepts that can be used to organize these instances (i.e., single concepts that can be associated with multiple instances).
Different types of knowledge containers 20 are used for different kinds of content and resources. Knowledge containers 20 can represent both rich electronic content (such as documents, answers to questions, marketing materials, etc.) and other physical and electronic resources (such as experts, customers, online communities of interest, software applications, etc.) The system uses a standard object-oriented inheritance model to implement the different types of knowledge containers 20. This provides a mechanism for creating new types of knowledge containers, which represent new types of content or resources, by creating and augmenting subtypes of the existing types. As further explained in Table 1, the types of knowledge containers include but are not limited to: document, question, answer, knowledge consumer, knowledge provider, e-resource and product knowledge containers.
As shown in
Context tags or taxonomy tags 60 represent a multidimensional classification of the knowledge container against a knowledge map, as depicted in
Marked content 70 is a textual representation of the contents of the knowledge container or a description or representation of the resource (for those knowledge containers that hold knowledge about resources). Marked content 70, as shown in
The knowledge container 20 additionally contains the original electronic form of the original content 80 (perhaps a Microsoft Word document, a PDF file, an HTML page, a pointer to such content in an external repository, or a combination of the above). This allows the knowledge container 20 to be displayed to the end user in its complete and original form if desired.
Knowledge containers also include typed links 90 to other related knowledge containers. These links 90 can indicate part/whole relationships (e.g., a 'question' knowledge container and an 'answer' knowledge container are each part of a previously asked question (PAQ) knowledge container), aggregations (such as a 'knowledge provider' knowledge container linking to a 'knowledge consumer' knowledge container which models the behavior of the same person as an information consumer), or other relationships. Links 90 have type and direction.
In general, knowledge containers are displayed in one of three ways, with many possible variations of each: (1) Summary View, in which some small part of the knowledge container (usually meta-data) is displayed to give the user a brief overview of the knowledge container. Summary Views are typically used when displaying a list of possible knowledge containers (for example, knowledge containers retrieved by a query) in order to guide the user's selection of a particular knowledge container; (2) Full View, in which most or all of the text (tagged content) is displayed, generally in conjunction with other knowledge container components. Full Views are generally used to let a user read the text content of a particular knowledge container; and (3) Original View, in which the original content is viewed, generally in an application dedicated to the type of data that the original content happens to be. Original View is used to allow a user to see the rich or multimedia content of a knowledge container, for example a slide presentation or a graphical web page.
In addition to displaying knowledge containers 20, the present system is also capable of displaying taxonomy tags 60 several different ways. For example, the present system allows a user to: (1) show all taxonomy tags as concept node names, optionally with the names of their associated taxonomies; (2) show taxonomy tags which match a customer's profile; and (3) show taxonomy tags which match query taxonomy tags. In the three cases above, the concept node names can be live links which take the user into a browsing interface, seeing the concept nodes above and below in the taxonomy, and seeing all knowledge containers at (and below) the taxonomy. Taxonomy tags may also be used to create a natural language description of a knowledge container, called a "smart summary". To construct a smart summary, the system concatenates phrases which describe the taxonomy with phrases which describe the concept nodes in that taxonomy that are tagged to the knowledge container in such a manner that a set of reasonable natural language sentences are formed.
As shown in
In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the system is also capable of using customer profile information described above to push content to interested users. More specifically, when a new batch of knowledge containers 20 enters the system, the system matches selected elements within each knowledge container against each customer's profile (taxonomy tags 40 in the associated customer knowledge container). Knowledge containers 20 which match customer profiles sufficiently closely-with a score over a predetermined threshold-are pushed to customers on their personal web pages, through email, or via email to other channels.
As stated earlier, knowledge containers are merely instances of information resources. Organizing these instances into comprehensive representations of information is accomplished through the use of taxonomies 30. An example of a taxonomy that details types of vehicles is shown in
Three main types of taxonomies are topic taxonomies, filter taxonomies and lexical or mentioned taxonomies. In a topic taxonomy, concept nodes represent topics. For knowledge containers representing documents or questions, tags to topic taxonomies indicate that the content of the document or question is about the topic to a degree indicated by the tag's weight. This mapping can be made manually through an attribute mapping process, or can be made via the automated autocontextualization process described below. For knowledge containers representing experts (Knowledge Provider knowledge containers), topic-taxonomy tags represent the areas where the expert has expertise. For knowledge containers representing people's interests (Knowledge Consumer knowledge containers), topic-taxonomy tags represent the person's interest level in a particular topic.
Filter taxonomies represent meta-data about documents, questions, knowledge-providers or knowledge-consumers that typically is not derivable solely from the textual content of the knowledge container. This can be any meta-data that can be represented by a taxonomy (e.g., a taxonomy of a geographic region a document or question originates from; a taxonomy of customer types or customer segments; a taxonomy of the organization from which experts are drawn; or a taxonomy of product types and products offered). Knowledge containers are tagged to taxonomy nodes by associating a topic tag with a document, set of documents, or questions at the point where they are submitted to the system. For example, a set of documents uploaded from a particular location could all be tagged as having the source taxonomy tag "Wall Street Journal" or a set of consumer-knowledge container's corresponding to customers could all be uploaded from an external database of customer information, with a mapping from a field in the customer information database to particular tags in a "customer segments" taxonomy. Such associations may be made manually or automatically. Filter taxonomies are extremely powerful when used in conjunction with other taxonomy types for retrieving knowledge. They are typically used to restrict retrieval of documents or experts that appear at, under, or near particular concept-nodes within the taxonomies. For example, users could be looking for documents that are from the NYTimes, pertain to any area of the United States, and are publicly readable.
Lexical taxonomies differ from the other taxonomies in the way that tags between concept-nodes and knowledge containers are determined. In lexical taxonomies, a knowledge container is tagged to a concept-node based on a simple lexical rule that matches against the content of the knowledge container. The content of the knowledge container here includes the text of the knowledge container, potentially marked content indicating entities (companies, locations, dates, peoples' names, etc.) and technical terminology (e.g. "object-oriented programming," or "business process re-engineering"). For example, a lexical taxonomy of companies might include a concept-node for "IBM" with the following associated lexical rule:
Lexical taxonomies are useful for identifying and grouping concepts that occur using specific words and phrases within knowledge containers. For example, using a lexical taxonomy of companies organized hierarchically by industry type, in conjunction with a topic taxonomy of legal issues, a user could ask the system to:
As shown in
Just as there are multiple types of knowledge containers and taxonomies, so too are there various meanings for the taxonomy tags that map between them. Table 2 below summarizes the meaning of tags between different types of knowledge containers and taxonomies.
Determining the context of the content of knowledge container 20 may be automatically accomplished through a process called autocontextualization. In a preferred embodiment, a "context" is a list of tags that together describe or classify multiple aspects of the content of a block of text, together with indications of the location of important features within the text. As stated earlier, taxonomy tags 40 and marked content 70 are added by autocontextualization. The purpose of autocontextualization is to provide a mechanism for transforming a document (e.g., a document created by a word processor, or an e-mail) into a structured record and to automatically (without human review) construct indexes usable by a content-based retrieval engine to help identify when the structured record is an appropriate response to a particular query. In one embodiment, autocontextualization is applied to document knowledge containers and question knowledge containers. In other embodiments similar techniques can be applied to consumer and provider knowledge containers. It is important to note that in some embodiments, some taxonomy tags are not dependent on the content of the knowledge container 20, but rather depend on the context in which particular content was created (e.g., by a certain author, or at a certain step in a business process). While these tags are important for defining context, they are an input to the autocontextualization process, not an output thereof.
The process of autocontextualization begins as shown in
Next, in step 510, the system adds known taxonomy tags and meta-data tags to the content's list of tags. As mentioned above, there are often taxonomy tags from either topic taxonomies or filter taxonomies, and other meta-data such as the submitter's name, that are known to apply when context is created. These tags are inputs to the autocontextualization process along with the content. In this step these tags are simply added to the content's list of tags. They can be added to the content as HTML, XML, as related database entries, or in a variety of other forms. As an example, a website providing customer service could contain different web pages that allow users to ask service questions about different product lines. For instance, one page could be labeled "Ask a question about your laser printer:" and another page could be entitled "Ask a question about your personal computer:". When a question arrives from the "laser printer" page to be autocontextualized and then answered, a tag for LASER-PRINTER from a "types of products" taxonomy may be added to the question. This tag is used similarly to automatically generate tags created from the content of the question. In this example, the tag serves to focus the retrieval process, described below, tending to select knowledge containers that pertain to laser printers. As another example, when a customer asks a question or an employee submits a document via a website or email, the system may know something about the customer or employee that can be added to the new question knowledge container or document knowledge container as tags. In addition to the customer's name or ID number, the system may know that the customer has purchased a large number of blue widgets recently; so a tag might be added to the customer's question that indicates BLUE-WIDGETS, to bias the retrieval process to prefer knowledge containers about that product. In some embodiments, this may be accomplished through integration with a customer database, a customer relationship management (CRM) system, or other external online repositories. The next step in the autocontextualization process is to markup the content structure (step 515). This step involves placing markup (e.g., XML, HTML) within the knowledge container content to designate key content structure features. In one embodiment, the XML tags may mark the following elements of the knowledge container content:
Content structure markup may be derived from the content itself, e.g. by recognizing whitespace patterns; or by preserving original structure elements from the original form of the document that has been converted. Content structure markup is embedded within the knowledge container using standard XML-based markers.
The fourth step of the process (step 520) is concerned with spotting entities within the context. "Entities" are names of people, place names, organization names, locations, dates, times, dollar amounts, numeric amounts, product names and company names, that appear in the text of the content being autocontextualized. Entities are identified (or "spotted") within the content using a combination of linguistic pattern-matching and heuristic techniques known in the art. In one embodiment, they are marked within the content using XML-based markers.
Next, in step 525, the system spots technical terms within the context. A technical term is a technical word or phrase that helps to define meaningful concepts in a given knowledge domain. Technical terms are usually 1 to 4 word combinations, used to describe a specialized function. In many cases, technical terms are the "jargon" of an expertise. Some examples of technical terms in the network computing field are "distributed computing", "local area network" and "router". In isolation, or outside the context of the knowledge domain of network computing, these words and word combinations have many meanings. Within a particular knowledge domain, however, technical terms are generally well understood by experts in the field. Technical terms are identified within the content using a combination of linguistic pattern-matching techniques, heuristic techniques, and dictionary lookup techniques known in the art. In one embodiment, they are marked within the content using XML-based markers. Similarly to content structure markup, the invention in its broadest aspect is not limited to any particular technique for identification or markup of technical terms.
Next, in step 530, the system performs co-reference spotting. The phrase co-reference refers to the use of multiple forms to refer to the same entity. For example, a document may refer to President William Clinton, President Clinton, Bill Clinton, Mr. Clinton, Clinton, William Jefferson Clinton, the President, and Bill. Despite the different forms, each phrase is a reference to the same individual. Co-references may be names of people, organization names (e.g., IBM and International Business Machines), place names (for example, New York City and the Big Apple) and product names (for example, Coke and Coca-Cola). In one embodiment, an algorithm for spotting co-references within a document begins with the entity spotting from step 520. The following entity types are examined for co-references:
All of the phrases marked as a person are run through the co-reference patterns established for that type. For example, the co-reference patterns for a person include Mr. <LAST_NAME>, <LAST_NAME>, <FIRST_NAME><LAST_NAME>, Ms. <FIRST_NAME><LAST_NAME>, <TITLE> and so on. Co-references are identified (or "spotted") within the content using techniques known in the field of computational linguistics. In one embodiment, they are marked within the content using XML-based markers.
The next step in the process (step 535) creates the taxonomy tags appropriate to the content of a knowledge container for taxonomies of the "topic taxonomy" type described above. Based on the entities, technical terms, and other words contained in the content, a text classifier is employed to identify concept nodes from a topic taxonomy. Each knowledge-container/concept-node association comprises a taxonomy tag. In one embodiment, the text classifiers are statistical differential vector-based text classifiers which are commonly known by those skilled in the art. These vector-based text classifiers operate by receiving a set of training texts for each classification they are meant to identify. They transform each training text into a vector of words and multi-word phrases and their frequencies, including the multi-word phrases tagged previously as entities and technical terms. They then perform aggregate statistics over these training-text vectors for each classification, and identify the statistical similarities and differences between vectors formed for each classification, in order to form a final trained vector for each classification. These vectors contain a list of words and multi-word phrases that are indicators of each classification, with weights or strengths (e.g. real numbers between 0 and 1) for each word or multi-word phrase. When presented with new text, the text classifiers turn the new text into a vector of words and multi-word phrases, and then identify the classifications that best correspond to the new text, assigning a score to each classification based on the distance between the classification's word/phrase vector and the new text's vector. In one embodiment, classifications used by the text classifiers correspond one-to-one with concept-nodes within topic taxonomies. A separate text classifier is applied for each taxonomy. Various parameters can be set to control the process of taxonomy tag identification using the text classifiers. These include threshold scores for tagging either document-knowledge containers or question-knowledge containers, and maximum numbers of tags to assign from each topic taxonomy to either document-knowledge containers or question-knowledge containers. Taxonomy tag identification creates a set of tags indicating concept-nodes from one or more taxonomies and weights for each tag, for the content being autocontextualized. These are added to the knowledge container, and can be represented as XML tags within the knowledge container content, as related database entries, or in a variety of other forms.
Optionally, autocontextualization can also add markup such as XML-tagged markers around those words and phrases in the text that the text classifiers indicate serve as the strongest evidence for the various taxonomy tags that are identified. For example, a vector-based text classifier may have learned a vector for the concept-node "business process re-engineering" that includes the technical terms "BPR", "business process reengineering", and "downsizing" with strong weights (and potentially many other terms). When autocontextualizing a new document, if the topic-taxonomy tag "BPR" is identified during co-reference spotting, the system may place markup around appearances of phrases such as "BPR" and "downsizing" that appear in the content of the new document. The markup indicates that the term was evidence for the topic-taxonomy tag "BPR". Evidence tags are useful because they indicate the terminology in the document that caused each topic tag to be produced. By viewing the knowledge container with evidence for various topic tags highlighted, a user can get a sense of where in the document information pertaining to the various topics is most prevalent. For example, most information about "BPR" in a multiple page document might appear on a single page or in a single paragraph, and highlighting evidence can indicate this page or paragraph. In a retrieval application where a user has asked a question about the topic "BPR" this highlighting can be used in a user-interface to direct the user to exactly the portion of the knowledge container that is most relevant to their question. The same idea can be applied with multiple topic tags, potentially drawn from multiple taxonomies. For example, if the user's question is about the topics "BPR" and "Petroleum Industry", the system can use evidence tags to direct the user to the portion(s) of knowledge containers that contain the most evidence for those two topics.
The next step in the process (step 540) involves identifying lexical taxonomy tags based on entities and technical terms spotted in the content and concept-nodes drawn from one or more lexical taxonomies as described above. This is a simple mapping; e.g. based on the presence of entity "XYZ Corp.", add markup that indicates a mapping to the concept-node "XYZ-CORP" in a lexical "Companies" taxonomy. One piece of content may contain entities and technical terms that are mapped to concept-nodes in one or many lexical taxonomies.
Optionally, a set of transformational inference rules can be applied to refine the taxonomy tags produced by the previous steps. These rules are conditional on taxonomy tags, entity and technical term tags, and potentially other aspects of the content, and can either adjust the weights (confidence measure) of taxonomy tags, remove taxonomy tags, or add new taxonomy tags to the content. The rules can form chains of inference using standard inference techniques such as forward or backward inference. These transformational inference rules exist at two levels: structural transformations (based on graph relations between concept nodes); and knowledge-based transformations (based on specific concept-nodes and marked content). Transformations take advantage of the ontological and taxonomic relationships between concept-nodes, entities, and technical terms, to improve the tagging. For example, a structural transformation may be: "If document is tagged to more than two children of a parent, add a tag to the parent." A knowledge-based transformation may be: "If content is tagged to A, B, and C, and event E involves A, B, and C, and event E corresponds to tag Etag, then add tag Etag to the content."
Context is created from the output of the previous steps. The combination of context and content is a knowledge container. It is important to note that while autocontextualization envisions a fully automatic process, humans may manually improve upon or correct the automatically-generated context of autocontextualization.
As an optional final step, content may be "sliced" by breaking the text into discrete sections. When a document, particularly a long document, contains sections about distinct topics, it is desirable to "slice" the document into multiple, contiguous sections. These multiple contiguous sections or "slices" may be stored as multiple knowledge containers, with individual taxonomy tags, or with knowledge container links to the previous and next slices. Referring now to
In addition to the topic distance between paragraphs, a slicing algorithm can take into account:
If a document is split into multiple slices, a master knowledge container is maintained which references each slice and enables the entire document to be reassembled. The output of the slicing step is multiple, linked knowledge containers each containing discrete sections of the text, in addition to the original knowledge container containing the entire original text.
Referring now to
Now that the process of autocontextualization has been described, the following example is provided to further illustrate the concept. Assume the following paragraph content is taken from a larger (fictitious) Microsoft Word document:
The following tags are known to the application through which the document is submitted, and are therefore also inputs to the autocontexutalization process
Tags include:
First, the document is converted from Microsoft Word format to an XML text document.
Next, in step 2, known tags and other meta-data are added. In this case, known information includes the submitter's ID, the date/time of submission, and the two taxonomy tags listed above. Adding these to the document (they could alternatively be added to a database entry for the document):
The next step in the autocontextualization process is to markup the content structure. Since the document structure here is minimal; the system recognizes a title and another header in the document, as well as paragraphs (the tag <p>) and sentences. The context is unchanged, and therefore is not reproduced below.
The system next performs entity spotting. In this step, as discussed above, the system spots entities such as dates, people, and organizations.
Next, autocontextualization spots technical terms within the content:
Next, co-references are spotted and linked together. As noted above, this is an optional step. In the XML snippet of content below we represent references by a "ref=N" attribute on the XML tags of entities. The only co-reference in this example is references to the IRS, which are all marked as "ref=1".
In the next step, the text classifiers for each topic taxonomy are now run against the content. Based on the weighted vectors of terminology they have learned for various concept-nodes, they identify the major topics (up to N per taxonomy, where N can be different for each taxonomy) found in the content. By matching the vectors against the text they also identify the key words and phrases that are indicative of each identified topic. In the present example, assume that there is a detailed "Government Agencies" topic taxonomy, and a "Government Issues" topic taxonomy. Assume the autocontextualization parameters are set to identify up to two concept-nodes from Government Agencies" and one "Legal Issues" concept-node. For our example content, typical concept nodes that might be identified by the text classifiers might be:
In the next step, any entities or terms that correspond to concept-nodes in lexical taxonomies are marked and added to the tag list. Assume there is a lexical taxonomy of Government Officials, containing a node entitled:
Government Officials:Congresspersons:Trent Lott This concept-node contains a lexical "rule" indicating that a Person entity of "Trent Lott" or its variations are indicators of the concept-node. After processing for lexical taxonomy tags, the result is as follows. Note the addition of a "tagid" to the <person> entity for Trent Lott.
The next step in the process involves using symbolic rules and reasoning in order to refine the set of tags applied to the document. For example, the output of this process may be the determination that another concept node that might be relevant to our example content is:
Government Issues:Legislation:Tax Legislation
A knowledge-based transformation that might infer the relevance of this concept node is:
Finally, the system stores the results as a knowledge container in its data store. If the document had been longer, the system could optionally invoke slicing to break the document into multiple, contiguous sections with different topics assigned to each section. In this case, however, it was not necessary to perform any slicing.
The previous sections of this description focused on the fundamental elements of a knowledge map and the process of determining the context of the content of a knowledge container. The next portion of this description will address a process for creating a knowledge map from a collection of documents. As explained above, taxonomies, and by extension knowledge maps, may be manually constructed based on the intuition of knowledge engineers and subject matter experts. Unfortunately, the knowledge engineering necessary for the intuitive creation of taxonomies is time-consuming (and therefore expensive). The following-described process is a mechanism for computer-aided generation of a knowledge map usable within the overall e-Service Portal (ESP). Aided generation, using a process such as is described, dramatically reduces the time and cost of taxonomy creation, while producing a knowledge map able to perform well when utilized as the framework for service provision within the ESP. A value of this process is in reducing the cost of bringing an ESP online, while simultaneously improving the quality of operation.
The input into the knowledge map generation mechanism is a set of documents and a set of "target" taxonomy root nodes. The output is a knowledge map. A set of steps and algorithms that translate the former into the latter is described below. The starting point for knowledge map generation, as shown in
The second input into the process (step 904) is a set of taxonomy root concept-nodes. One taxonomy is generated for each root node. A root concept-node is essentially the "name" of a taxonomy, and identifies the perspective on or facet of the knowledge domain covered by the taxonomy. Each root concept-node is the starting point for manufacturing a taxonomy, which is essentially an orthogonal view of the knowledge contained in the corpus. While the number of root concept-nodes is not limited, the set of root concept-nodes must meet three tests in order to be a valid input. First, the concept-nodes do not overlap. Second, the concept-nodes are relevant. Third, the concept-nodes are orthogonal. The purpose of each root concept-node is to be the seed for growing a full taxonomy. Therefore, the root nodes should not "overlap". Each root concept-node should generally be the basis for a discrete perspective on the underlying knowledge to be represented in the knowledge map. Overlap occurs when two root nodes are provided that are actually identical or nearly identical. In effect, the root concept-nodes are synonyms, and taxonomies generated from them would cover substantially the same portion and aspect of the knowledge domain. For example, the root nodes "Geography—The World" and "Nationality" may, for a given knowledge domain, turn out to be overlapping concepts. If all or most of the terms ascribed to two taxonomies overlap (i.e., they are ambiguous terms), then the taxonomies are non-discrete and are preferably combined into a single root node. If overlap is found, the input set of concept-nodes should be fixed and the knowledge map generation process re-initiated. Each root concept-node is a valid foundation for a view of knowledge actually contained in the corpus. Irrelevance occurs when a root concept node has no relationship to the content: For example, the concept-node "Geography—The World" would be irrelevant to a corpus that does not deal with "place" in any respect (combinatorial chemistry, for example). If few or no terms are ascribed to a particular root, then that root concept-node is probably not relevant. The cure is to eliminate the concept-node from the input set and to re-initiate the knowledge map generation mechanism. The goal is to have one taxonomy for each orthogonal view of knowledge within the corpus.
Each document may have one or more taxonomy tags into each taxonomy. In an orthogonal knowledge map, tags in one taxonomy should not, by definition, preclude tags in another taxonomy. Non-orthogonality occurs when two or more of the root concept-nodes provided are actually representative of a single view of knowledge and are more properly part of one taxonomy. A geographic view of corpus content might appropriately have the root concept of "The World". Non-orthogonality would exist when the content dealt with places around the world and two root concept-nodes were provided such as "Europe" and "North America". Essentially, non-orthogonality is the consequence of providing what more properly are leaf or interior nodes from a taxonomy as root nodes. The test for orthogonality is that within the knowledge domain there is no single concept for which two of the root nodes in the initial input are subsets. This test can be applied in the initial test on train step of knowledge map generation. If there is little or no cross-tagging between two taxonomies (documents tagged to one taxonomy are not tagged to another taxonomy), then non-orthogonality can be presumed. The remedy for non-orthogonality is to replace the root nodes with a single higher-level concept node and to re-initiate the knowledge map generation mechanism. Assuming valid inputs (documents and root concept-node set), the invention will produce a valid output.
As stated earlier, the described process generates a knowledge map. There is one taxonomy for each root concept-node in the input set. As shown in
Next, in step 940, a report is generated for all clusters produced in Step 938. The total number of clusters is the sum of the clusters generated for each of the taxonomies. For each cluster, the report lists the most significant terms in order of importance. This term list is the basis for cluster naming in Step 944, below. Processing then flows to step 942 where the DAG is created. Using the DAG Creation Algorithm (discussed below) the set of clusters are ordered into a baseline taxonomy. The DAG Creation Algorithm relies on three principles: (1) similar clusters should be located closer to each other within a taxonomy; (2) clusters with commonality to many other clusters should be located higher" in the taxonomy; and (3) more diffuse clusters should be higher in the taxonomy, more concentrated clusters lower.
As shown in
While S is not empty (step 9040), pick a cluster C in S (step 9050), find all clusters Ci that are similar to C (step 9060), where the same or a different similarity threshold may be used. If there are multiple Ci, make an edge (in step 9070) from C to each Ci (C becomes the parent of each Ci). Remove each Ci and each C from S. In this step, we choose clusters with commonality to multiple other clusters and elevate them to be parents of the others. But we have to avoid cycles in the graph, so we remove these parents and their children from further consideration. In that way, a child cannot become a parent of a parent, so cycles are avoided. But as with step 9000, this greedy approach means that the first potential parent/children group is selected, although there might be better candidates. Alternatively, all parent/child groupings may be generated, and the best ones selected. "Best" can be defined as preferring greater similarity and greater numbers of children. Another consequence of the original definition of step 9070 is that the depth of the taxonomy is limited, because children cannot become parents. This limitation can be eliminated by repeating the process over the parent clusters, that is, taking C to be an unattached cluster in the partition, and restricting the Ci to parent clusters. This process can be repeated until no more changes occur. If this is done, it is preferable to use a strict similarity measure in the first iteration and successively relax the similarity measure, so that nodes towards the bottom of the taxonomy are more similar to each other than nodes higher in the taxonomy. If S is empty (step 9040), processing flows to step 9045 where the system determines whether the graph G resulting from the previous processing is connected and has a single root. If the graph is connected with a single root, processing flows to step 9110. Otherwise, if G contains more than one node, processing flows to step 9080 where the system finds an unconnected or multiple root node. Next, processing flows to step 9090, and the system adds a node RS that will be a root for the set, and add an edge from RS to each parentless node in G, turning G into a rooted DAG (possibly a tree). If there are more unconnected or multiple root nodes, processing flows back to step 9080. Other wise processing flows to step 9110. In step 9110, the algorithm finds all clusters Cj that were not sufficiently similar to any other clusters (so they formed singleton sets and trivial graphs). For each Cj, find all non-trivial graphs Gk that are similar to Cj, where a graph is similar to a cluster if the union of terms in each cluster in the graph is similar to the terms in Cj, using a considerably lower similarity threshold. If there are multiple Gk (step 9120), make an edge from Cj to the root of each Gk (step 9130). In step 9140, add a node RCj that will be a root for all disconnected clusters, and add an edge from RCj to each Cj that was not similar to multiple Gk. Next, in step 9150, the algorithm, adds an edge from the root concept node for this taxonomy to each parentless node. If there are more Cj (singleton or trivial graphs), as determined in step 9160, processing flows back to step 9120, otherwise processing terminates in step 9170. The result, a rooted DAG (possibly a tree), is the baseline taxonomy.
Next, in step 944 (
Next, in step 954, taxonomy improvement is initiated. One common fix for taxonomy improvement is additional document collection. Documents should be identified pertaining to the concepts which need more content. These additional documents should manually tagged and the text classifier recreated. Steps 950 through 954 are repeated until the vast majority (at least 85%) of all concept nodes have an f-measure greater than 80% and the taxonomy f-measure is greater than 85%, as indicated in the test on train report. Once the taxonomy has been refined using the test on train process, processing flows to step 954 where final tuning is performed using a "test on test" process. The documents in the generation corpus that were not used to train the text classifier are automatically classified (tagged) by the text classifier, without retraining the it. A report similar to the test on train report is then generated. This report shows how well the text classifier is doing against "fresh" content which was not used in building the model. In step 956, each node of the taxonomy is inspected to determine whether it is a "good" concept and whether it has been sufficiently trained. This diagnosis has five outcomes, identical to those identified with respect to step 952. Next, in step 958, concept nodes are improved by adding more documents or combined/removed to eliminate poorly performing sections of the taxonomy. Steps 954–958 are repeated using new test document sets until the f-measure exceeds 0.65% (in one embodiment) (step 959), as indicated in the test on test report. Finally, in step 960, the completed taxonomy is reviewed by a subject matter expert to validate the completed taxonomy or to make any changes. If changes are made (step 962), steps 954–960 are repeated.
The next portion of this description will address the mechanism for retrieving an appropriate answer from a corporate knowledge base of populated taxonomies in response to a query from a customer or from a knowledge worker (K-Worker). In the present system, two retrieval techniques may be utilized: Multiple-taxonomy browsing and query-based retrieval. In multiple-taxonomy browsing, the user or application screen may specify a taxonomic restriction or filter to limit the knowledge containers that are presented to the user. The taxonomic restriction in turn, specifies a set of concept nodes using boolean expressions and taxonomic relationships among the selected nodes. In the end, only knowledge containers tagged to a set of nodes that satisfy the relationships are presented to the user. In the present system, taxonomic relations include (but are not limited to) at, near, and under, where "at" designates the selected node, "near" designates nodes within some taxonomic distance of the selected node, and "under" designates descendants of the selected node. Boolean relations include (but are not limited to) and, or, and not. Also, it is important to note that any taxonomy (including topic, filter, and lexical taxonomies) may be used in filtering.
Consider the Document Sources Taxonomy of
A knowledge container will not be returned to the user unless it is tagged to either the WSJ node 310 h or to some node that is a descendant of the Research-reports node 310 f (nodes are considered to be their own descendants) in
In query-based retrieval, the user (or application screen) specifies: a query; zero or more initial taxonomy tags; zero or more taxonomic restrictions; and knowledge container restrictions (if any). In operation, the user (or the application screen) first specifies a query, in natural language. The user then may identify initial taxonomy tags. That is, the user selects concept nodes that will further define the query. These concept nodes are used in retrieval along with the nodes found by autocontextualization of the query. The user may then specify a filter, which is to be applied to the results of retrieval. Next, one or more interest taxonomy tags are specified. Interest taxonomy tags affect the order of presentation of results to the user. Interest taxonomy tags may be specified by the user in the retrieval interface, added by an application screen, or be drawn from the user's customer profile. In the latter case, interest taxonomy tags support personalization; it may be appreciated that an individual's interest profile affects the presentation of results of all of the user's information requests. From an implementation perspective, interest taxonomy tags affect ranking or ordering of knowledge containers but do not affect knowledge container selection. The user may next decide to restrict the knowledge containers returned by the system to those of a given set of knowledge container types.
The user's inputs are then passed to the query-based retrieval system for resolution. Query-based Retrieval includes five stages: preparation; autocontextualization of query; region designation; search; and ranking. The preparation step takes place before any queries are run. In the described embodiment, preparation includes constructing a set of indexes (for use in the search step). Next, the system performs an autocontextualization of the query, as was described previously in this description. Region designation may then be performed to identify areas of the taxonomy that are likely to correspond to what the query is about. Next, a search is performed by a search engine. The searches are restricted to knowledge containers tagged to nodes in at least one of the areas identified in the previous stage. The result of this stage is one or more independently ordered lists of knowledge containers. The system then ranks the results by combining the ordered lists into a single list. The final result of executing these five stages is a single ordered list of knowledge containers.
Before a more specific discussion of query-based retrieval can be made, it is necessary to briefly discuss several basic terms. A search engine is a program that searches a document collection and returns documents in response to a query. The documents are typically ordered by their rank (closeness of their match to the query). A search engine typically operates on an index built from the document collection, rather than directly on the documents themselves; this is well known in the art. A document is said to be in an index if the document is indexed by that index. The index is available at the point when a query is entered, thus the index is built in a preparation stage, prior to any user interaction with the system.
A full-text retrieval engine is one kind of search engine that searches the entire content of documents in the collection. There are a number of other search options, including searching over sets of keywords that have been manually associated with each document, searching the abstracts of the documents or the titles but not the text. The term content-based retrieval is used to refer to any of these kinds of searches, and content-based retrieval engine refers to a program that performs such a search, in contrast for example to a meta-data search. Meta-data is information about the document rather than its content. Typical meta-data elements are author and creation date. A library catalog that offers subject, author, and titles search provides a meta-data search (it can be seen that the line between meta-data and content is blurry, as title can be considered both). Identifying a set of documents that are considered by the search engine to be responses to the query is distinguished from ranking, which is ordering the documents in that set according to a measure of how well the document satisfies the query. The ranking performed by full-text retrieval engines is based on vocabulary usage. That is, words occurring in a query that appear with the same frequency in every document contribute nothing to the rank of any document. At the other end of the spectrum, a query word that appears in only one document, and occurs many times in that document, greatly increases the rank of that document. Ranking takes into account the occurrences of a word both in the document being ranked and in the collection at large—to be precise, in the indexed collection. To be more precise, it is the occurrences of terms or sequences of words that a search engine takes into account. The mathematical expression commonly associated with ranking is:
It may be appreciated that the tf/df value for a term in a document depends not merely on that document but also on its frequency of occurrence in other documents in the collection. An index of a document collection stores term frequency statistics for the documents in the collection. Therefore, if a document is added to, or subtracted from the collection of documents over which an index is generated, the ranking of results for a query using that index may also be changed.
Now that the stages have been generally discussed and the fundamentals of information retrieval introduced, it is now possible to describe specific details of a preferred embodiment of the query-based retrieval system. In the preparation stage, one identified region to produce a single index for that region. The search engine then searches over that aggregate index. In the preferred multi-index embodiment, a set of knowledge containers that have similar vocabulary usage is treated as an approximation to a subdomain that has distinctive vocabulary usage. In this embodiment, nodes are clustered according to the vocabulary usage of the knowledge containers tagged to them using anyone of several text clustering algorithms known in the art, an example of which is "nearest neighbor" clustering. Thereby, subsets of nodes with similar vocabulary usage are discovered. A grouping of knowledge containers that takes advantage of the human knowledge that went into associating knowledge containers with concept nodes is desirable; the grouping preferably maintains the taxonomic structure put on the knowledge container set by the knowledge-building effort. To this end, all of the knowledge containers tagged to a particular concept node can be thought of as being aggregated together into one "concept-node-document". It is these "concept-node-documents" that are inputs to the clustering algorithm. The output of the clustering algorithm is clusters of nodes, each cluster comprised of a collection of knowledge containers that use similar vocabulary. Also, an index is built covering the knowledge containers tagged to nodes in the cluster. As a result, all knowledge containers tagged to a particular node are in the same index. A mapping from nodes to indexes is maintained for use at retrieval time. An index covers a concept node if the knowledge containers tagged to the node are in the index. At a minimum, every concept node is in some index, and some nodes may be in more than one index. In fact, there may be a benefit in having partial redundancy (generally similar indexes but of varying sizes), in that a better fit of indexes to a region can be obtained. This may be accomplished by running the clustering algorithm several times, and varying a parameter that specifies the number of clusters to produce.
An example of a taxonomy according to this implementation is shown in
Once the preparation phase has completed, processing then flows to the second step of the process and autocontextualization of the query is performed. During this step, the text of the query may be augmented or expanded. This query expansion may be based upon a thesaurus, to include synonyms or other related terms in the text. The query undergoes at least some of the stages of autocontextualization as described above. At the very least, topic taxonomy tag identification (step 7) is performed. A number of taxonomy tags are requested from and returned by this step, and these combined with the initial taxonomy tags associated with the query are passed to the next stage of retrieval. This set of taxonomy tags is hereafter referred to as the query taxonomy tags.
The system now performs region designation to identify additional areas of the taxonomy to improve the results of the query. Region designation is necessary because in most cases, topic-taxonomy tag identification is implemented via a text classifier, which is inherently imperfect on unseen data. The set of knowledge containers that share taxonomy tags with the query may have relevant knowledge containers omitted, due to this inherent imperfection. The imperfection can be ameliorated by augmenting the query taxonomy tags, which results in augmenting the set of knowledge containers that are considered by the subsequent search stage. In one embodiment, the query taxonomy tags are augmented by including, for each node in the set, its parent and child nodes in the taxonomy. In another embodiment, the query taxonomy tags are augmented by including, for each node in the set, all of its descendants. In yet another embodiment, the query taxonomy tags are augmented in two ways. First, the query taxonomy tags are augmented by including knowledge containers that have similar vocabulary usage but were not tagged to the concept nodes identified by the query taxonomy tags, and second by also including knowledge containers that are tagged to nodes close in the taxonomy to the concept nodes identified by the query taxonomy tags. The rationale for this strategy is that concept nodes that are close together in the taxonomy are likely to be about similar topics. In addition to augmenting the knowledge container set, this step groups the concept nodes identified by the query taxonomy tags such that an identified region includes concept nodes whose knowledge containers are about a set of closely related concepts, and distinct regions denote concept nodes whose knowledge containers are about significantly different concepts. This allows the system to treat distinct regions in distinct ways (ranking knowledge containers from one region higher than knowledge containers from another, for example) as well as allowing for relationships between regions. In one embodiment, all regions are treated equally for region designation purposes. In another embodiment, a knowledge container tagged to one region is preferred over knowledge containers tagged to other regions. In yet another embodiment, all regions are treated conjunctively, in a further embodiment all regions are treated disjunctively; and in still another embodiment some regions are treated conjunctively and some regions are treated disjunctively. A conjunctive interpretation is one in which knowledge containers tagged to more regions are preferred to knowledge containers tagged to fewer regions; a disjunctive interpretation is one in which knowledge containers tagged to a single region are preferred to knowledge containers tagged to multiple regions. For example, a conjunctive interpretation is generally appropriate for a query about tax consequences of variable rate mortgages, where a knowledge container that is tagged to both a node about mortgages and to a node about taxes would be preferred over a knowledge container that is tagged to just one or the other. A disjunctive interpretation is generally appropriate for a lexically ambiguous query that is tagged to one concept node because of some query term, and is tagged to another concept node because of that same term used in a different sense, in which case it would be preferred to not have a particular knowledge container tagged to both nodes. The term "jaguar" occurring in a query, for example, may result in query taxonomy tags to concept nodes "Jungle Cat" and "Automobile", but the query is about one or the other, not both. The actual process of region designation has three steps: marking, smoothing, and aggregation. In the marking step, concept nodes are identified that are below some taxonomic distance threshold from query taxonomy tags that the concept nodes are likely to be about. The threshold and the number of query taxonomy tags they must be close to are parameters of the system that may be set based on experimentation.
After the marking step, smoothing may then performed. Smoothing identifies nodes that are immediate or near neighbors of marked and query taxonomy tags and includes these identified nodes in the augmented set of query taxonomy tags. Referring now to
A search is then performed by invoking a content-based search engine one or more times, each time specifying a query and some set of indexes. Conceptually, the search engine is applied separately for each region. Regions are formed dynamically, and the objects on which search engines function are statically built indexes. Therefore, calling the search engine on a region is realized in approximation: for each region, a covering set of indexes is found from the mapping of nodes to indexes. More specifically, as shown in
In addition to a search over each region, in one embodiment, a search is also performed over an index that covers the full knowledge container set. This search may be thought of as a "baseline search" over the "baseline index", as the results of region searches are evaluated against the results of the baseline search. By this comparison, it can be determined if there is a knowledge container that happens to not be in any of the smaller indexes searched, but which has a very good content match to the query. The result of this step is a ranked list of knowledge containers.
After searching over the indexes, ranking is employed to merge knowledge container lists returned by the search stage to produce a single list ordered by relevance. In very general terms, ranking is performed as follows: for each knowledge container, the rank returned by the search engine is adjusted by one or more values derived from some source of knowledge about the quality of that knowledge container as a response to the query. Referring now to
The rank returned by the search engine for a knowledge container may be adjusted by a value that represents the quality of the region the knowledge container is tagged to, and is further adjusted by a value that combines the quality of the knowledge container's taxonomy tags and the distance from the knowledge container's taxonomy tags to the query taxonomy tags. The taxonomic distance between two regions of tags may be defined as a function of the taxonomic distance between tags in the first region and tags in the second region. The baseline index is treated as a region, and may be given a quality value, which may be a constant, for the purposes of ranking. Subsequent to ranking the knowledge containers by relevance to the query, the rank of each knowledge container may be further adjusted by its relevance to the user's interests. The taxonomic distance from the knowledge container's taxonomy tags to the user's interest taxonomy tags is a measure of a knowledge container's relevance to the user's interests. Upon completion of the ranking step, a ranked list of knowledge containers is presented to the user. This completes an instance of retrieving an appropriate answer from a corporate knowledge base of populated taxonomies in response to a query.
Thus far, this specification has described the algorithm for retrieving appropriate knowledge containers as a single query-response sequence. In other words, users type a question, perhaps augmented by initial taxonomy tags, interest taxonomy tags, and/or taxonomic restrictions (filters), and a single list of knowledge containers is returned. Another aspect of the invention is the ability to use the taxonomies and the retrieval algorithm to create a multi-step interactive "dialog" with users that leads them to appropriate knowledge containers.
A multi-step dialog begins with the user of the system entering, via either boxes where they can type text, or selection lists of possible choices, a combination of:
All of these clarifying dialog techniques make significant and direct use of the multi-taxonomy structure that knowledge containers have been tagged into. The novel aspect exists in the combination of using a multi-taxonomy structure to tag knowledge containers via autocontextualization; to retrieve knowledge containers using the retrieval methods described above; and to drive an interactive dialog to help users find knowledge containers through multiple steps. The combination of taxonomies, taxonomy tags, taxonomic restrictions (filters), and knowledge containers provide unequaled personalization capabilities to the present system. Certain of these taxonomies can be used to: capture the universe of information needs and interests of end-users; tag the knowledge containers representing these users with the appropriate concept nodes from these taxonomies, and use these concept nodes when retrieving information to personalize the delivery of knowledge containers to the user. Further, the system can use this tagging and other aspects of the knowledge containers in order to create a display format appropriate for the needs of the user receiving the knowledge container.
In order to personalize interactions with a specific customer, the system has a model for representing that customer and their interests and needs. As discussed above, that model is the knowledge container of type "Customer." The taxonomy tags associated with each customer knowledge container specify what the customer is interested in, and how interested he or she is. The system supports profiling a customer's interaction with the system explicitly based on stated or applied preferences, and implicitly based on what the system has learned from interacting with the customer.
Explicit profiling allows the user to select items of interest explicitly from one or more taxonomies. These, along with a default or explicit weight, become taxonomy tags for their customer knowledge container. Implicit profiling, on the other hand, relies on the system to add or modify customer knowledge container taxonomy tags in order to profile the customer. For example, when creating the customer knowledge container, the system may set a concept in "access level" or "entitlement level" taxonomies that match the privileges they wish to accord the end user whom the knowledge container represents. The system may alternatively observe user behavior and then modify taxonomy tags accordingly. That is, the system can increase the weight of taxonomy tags that are frequently spotted in the user's questions during the autocontextualization segment of the retrieval process and it can increase the weight of taxonomy tags for answers given by the user during the dialog segment of the retrieval process. Finally, the business context of the interaction, including the application screen, can create an implicit profiling which drives the retrieval. For example, a particular web page or email address from which or to which a question is entered into the system may implicitly add taxonomy tags to the user's question. This particular kind of implicit profiling is typically transient in that it only modifies the current interaction, but does not change the tagging of the user's customer knowledge container.
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