17. The method of claim 1 , wherein a person distance measure enforces gender consistency, deals with given name variants using a given name variant list, and allows initials to match long forms of names; wherein if a match is found, the name is assigned, by at least one of the data processors, to an existing entity; wherein if a match is not found, the name is used, by at least one of the data processors, to seed a new entity; and wherein if a name matches multiple entities, the name is assigned, by at least one of the data processors, to a name having a most recent mention.
1. A method for entity disambiguation for execution by one or more data processors, the method comprising: carrying out a within-document co-reference resolution for a plurality of documents, the within-document co-reference resolution comprising: initializing, by at least one of the data processors, a list of entities as an empty list; processing, by at least one of the data processors, names in order of longest to shortest within each entity type class; and comparing, by at least one of the data processors, each name to all entities with which it may be compatible, based on a token hash or database, the comparing being carried out via entity type-specific distance measures; aggregating, by at least one of the data processors, attributes about each entity mentioned in each document; and using, by at least one of the data processors, said entity attributes as features in determining which documents concern a same entity.