U.S. patent application number 12/959805 was filed with the patent office on 2011-06-30 for system and method of making unstructured data available to structured data analysis tools.
Invention is credited to Justin Langseth, Gene Sohn, Nithi Vivatrat.
Application Number | 20110161333 12/959805 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 37605090 |
Filed Date | 2011-06-30 |
United States Patent
Application |
20110161333 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Langseth; Justin ; et
al. |
June 30, 2011 |
SYSTEM AND METHOD OF MAKING UNSTRUCTURED DATA AVAILABLE TO
STRUCTURED DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS
Abstract
A system and method of making unstructured data available to
structured data analysis tools. The system includes middleware
software that can be used in combination with structured data tools
to perform analysis on both structured and unstructured data. Data
can be read from a wide variety of unstructured sources. The data
may then be transformed with commercial data transformation
products that may, for example, extract individual pieces of data
and determine relationships between the extracted data. The
transformed data and relationships may then be passed through an
extraction/transform/load (ETL) layer and placed in a structured
schema. The structured schema may then be made available to
commercial or proprietary structured data analysis tools.
Inventors: |
Langseth; Justin; (Great
Falls, VA) ; Vivatrat; Nithi; (Great Falls, VA)
; Sohn; Gene; (North Potomac, MD) |
Family ID: |
37605090 |
Appl. No.: |
12/959805 |
Filed: |
December 3, 2010 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
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11172955 |
Jul 5, 2005 |
7849048 |
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12959805 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
707/755 ;
707/E17.044 |
Current CPC
Class: |
Y10S 707/912 20130101;
G06F 16/254 20190101; G06F 16/258 20190101 |
Class at
Publication: |
707/755 ;
707/E17.044 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/30 20060101
G06F017/30 |
Claims
1. A method of making unstructured data available to structured
data tools comprising: accessing a source of unstructured data;
extracting the unstructured data; writing the extracted
unstructured data to a capture schema; sending the unstructured
data to a transformation tool; transforming the unstructured data
with the transformation tool; writing the transformed parsed
unstructured data in a structured analysis schema; providing data
connectors that allow structured data tools to access the
structured analysis schema.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting includes parsing the
unstructured data and associating the data source with the parsed
unstructured data.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation tool extracts
individual pieces of data and performs text and/or data processing
activities.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the text and data processing
activities include: determining the topic of a section of text,
extracting a section of text from a whole document, matching names,
or matching addresses.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the structured data tools include
business intelligence, statistical analysis, data visualization and
mapping, or data mining.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the source of unstructured data
includes email, word processing documents, spreadsheets,
presentation materials, PDF files, web pages, news/media reports,
case files, transcriptions, file servers, web servers, enterprise
content, enterprise search tool repositories, intranets, knowledge
management systems, or document management systems.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation tool includes:
(i) entity, concept and relationship tagging and extraction tools,
(ii) categorization and topic extraction tools, (iii) data matching
tools or, (iv) custom transformations.
8. A system for making unstructured data available to structured
data tools comprising: code to access a source of unstructured
data; code to extract the unstructured data; code to write the
extracted unstructured data to a capture schema; code to send the
unstructured data to a transformation tool; code to transform the
unstructured data with the transformation tool; code to write the
transformed parsed unstructured data in a structured analysis
schema; code to provide data connectors that allow structured data
tools to access the structured analysis schema.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein the code to extract includes code
to parse the unstructured data and associate the data source with
the parsed unstructured data.
10. The system of claim 8, wherein the transformation tool extracts
individual pieces of data and performs text and/or data processing
activities.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein the text and data processing
activities include: determining the topic of a section of text,
extracting a section of text from a whole document, matching names,
or matching addresses.
12. The system of claim 8, wherein the structured data tools
include business intelligence, statistical analysis, data
visualization and mapping, or data mining.
13. The system of claim 8, wherein the source of unstructured data
includes email, word processing documents, spreadsheets,
presentation materials, PDF files, web pages, news/media reports,
case files, transcriptions, file servers, web servers, enterprise
content, enterprise search tool repositories, intranets, knowledge
management systems, or document management systems.
14. The system of claim 8, wherein the transformation tool
includes: (i) entity, concept and relationship tagging and
extraction tools, (ii) categorization and topic extraction tools,
(iii) data matching tools or, (iv) custom transformations.
15. An extraction service for extracting unstructured data from a
plurality of unstructured data sources and a plurality of formats
comprising: a plurality of APIs to interface with the plurality of
unstructured data sources; and a single internal API that
interfaces with a plurality of software components that allow
structured data tools to operate on unstructured data.
16. The extraction service of claim 15, wherein the plurality of
unstructured data sources includes email, word processing
documents, spreadsheets, presentation materials, PDF files, web
pages, news/media reports, case files, transcriptions, file
servers, web servers, enterprise content, enterprise search tool
repositories, intranets, knowledge management systems, and document
management systems.
17.-27. (canceled)
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is related to applications "Schema and ETL
Tools for Structured and Unstructured Data" and "Analysis and
Transformation Tools for Structured and Unstructured Data," filed
even date herewith.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention is directed generally to software for
data analysis and specifically to a middleware software system that
allows structured data tools to operate on unstructured data.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] Roughly 85% of corporate information and 95% of global
information is unstructured. This information is commonly stored in
text documents, emails, spreadsheets, interne web pages and,
similar sources. Further, this information is stored in a large
variety of formats such as plain text, PDF, bitmap, ASCII, and
others.
[0004] To analyze and evaluate unstructured information, there are
a limited number of tools with limited capabilities. These tools
can be categorized into four distinct groups of tools. These are
(1) entity, concept and relationship tagging and extraction tools,
(2) enterprise content management and knowledge management tools,
(3) enterprise search categorization tools, and (4) document
management systems.
[0005] Entity extraction tools search unstructured text for
specific types of entities (people, places, organizations). These
tools identify in which documents the terms were found. Some of
these tools can also extract relationships between the identities.
Entity extraction tools are typically used to answer questions such
as "what people are mentioned in a specific document?" "what
organizations are mentioned in the specific document?" and "how are
the mentioned people related to the mentioned organizations?"
[0006] Enterprise content/knowledge management tools are used to
organize documents into folders and to share information. They also
provide a single, one-stop access point to look for information.
Enterprise tools can be used to answer questions such as "what
documents do I have in a folder on a particular terrorist group?"
and "who in my organization is responsible for tracking information
relating to a particular terrorist group?"
[0007] Enterprise search and categorization tools allow key word
searching, relevancy ranking, categorization by taxonomy, and
guided navigation. These tools are typically used to find links to
sources of information. Example questions such tools can answer
include "show me links to documents containing the name of a
particular terrorist" and "show me links to recent news stories
about Islamic extremism."
[0008] Document management tools are used to organize documents,
control versioning and permissioning, and to control workflow.
These tools typically have basic search capabilities. Document
management tools can used to answer questions such as "where are my
documents from a particular analysis group?" and "which documents
have been put in a particular folder?"
[0009] In contrast to unstructured or freeform information,
structured data is organized with very definite relationships
between the various data. These relationships can be exploited by
structured data analysis tools to provide valuable insights into
the operation of a company or organization and to guide management
into making more intelligent decisions. Structured data analysis
tools include (1) business intelligence tools, (2) statistical
analysis tools, (3) visualizations tools, and (4) data mining
tools.
[0010] Business intelligence tools include dashboards, the ability
to generate reports, ad-hoc analysis, drill-down, and slice and
dice. These tools are typically used to analyze how data is
changing over time. They also have the ability to see how products
or other items are related to each other. For example, a store
manager can select an item and query what other items are
frequently purchased with that item.
[0011] Statistical analysis tools can be used to detect fraud,
check quality control, fit-to-pattern analysis, and optimization
analysis. Typical questions these tools are used to answer include
"what is the average daily network traffic and standard deviation?"
"what combination of factors typically indicate fraud?" "How can 1
minimize risk of a financial portfolio?" and "which of my customers
are the most valuable?"
[0012] Visualization tools are designed to display data
graphically, especially in conjunction with maps. With these tools
one can visually surf and/or navigate though their data, overlay
and evaluate data on maps with a geographic information system
(GIS), and perform link and relationship analysis. These tools can
be used, for example, to show trends and visually highlight
anomalies, show a map color-coded by crime rate and zip code, or
answer the question "who is connected by less than 3 links to a
suspicious group?"
[0013] Data mining tools are typically used for pattern detection,
anomaly detection, and data prediction. Example question that can
be addressed with these tools are "what unusual patterns are
present in my data?" "which transactions may be fraudulent?" and
"which customers are likely to become high-value in the next 12
months?"
[0014] Tools for analyzing structured data are far more flexible
and powerful than the current tools used to analyze unstructured
data. However, the overwhelming majority of all data is
unstructured. Therefore it would be advantageous to have a
middleware system and method that allows structured data analysis
tools to operate on unstructured data.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0015] The present invention provides a system and method making
unstructured data available to structured data tools. The invention
provides middleware software system that can be used in combination
with structured data tools to perform analysis on both structured
and unstructured data. The invention can read data from a wide
variety of unstructured sources. This data may then be transformed
with commercial data transformation products that may, for example,
extract individual pieces of data and determine relationships
between the extracted data. The transformed data and relationships
may then be passed through an extraction/transform/load (ETL) layer
and placed in a structured schema. The structured schema may then
be made available to commercial or proprietary structured data
analysis tools.
[0016] One embodiment of the present invention provides a method of
making unstructured data available to structured data tools
comprising accessing a source of unstructured data; extracting the
unstructured data; writing the extracted unstructured data to a
capture schema; sending the unstructured data to a transformation
tool; transforming the unstructured data with the transformation
tool; writing the transformed parsed unstructured data in a
structured analysis schema; providing data connectors that allow
structured data analysis tools to access the structured analysis
schema.
[0017] In one aspect of the invention, extracting includes parsing
the unstructured data and associating the data source with the
parsed unstructured data. In another aspect of the invention, the
transformation tool extracts individual pieces of data and performs
text and/or data processing activities. In another aspect of the
invention, the text and data processing activities include:
determining the topic of a section of text, extracting a section of
text from a whole document, matching names, or matching addresses.
In another aspect of the invention, the structured data tools
include business intelligence, statistical analysis, data
visualization and mapping, or data mining. In another aspect of the
invention, the source of unstructured data includes email, word
processing documents, spreadsheets, presentation materials, PDF
files, web pages, news/media reports, case files, transcriptions,
file servers, web servers, enterprise content, enterprise search
tool repositories, intranets, knowledge management systems, or
document management systems. In another aspect of the invention,
the transformation tool includes: (i) entity, concept and
relationship tagging and extraction tools, (ii) categorization and
topic extraction tools, (iii) data matching tools or, (iv) custom
transformations.
[0018] Another embodiment the present invention provides a system
for making unstructured data available to structured data tools
comprising code to access a source of unstructured data; code to
extract the unstructured data; code to write the extracted
unstructured data to a capture schema; code to send the
unstructured data to a transformation tool; code to transform the
unstructured data with the transformation tool; code to write the
transformed parsed unstructured data in a structured analysis
schema; code to provide data connectors that allow structured data
analysis tools to access the structured analysis schema.
[0019] In one aspect of the invention, the code to extract includes
code to parse the unstructured data and associate the data source
with the parsed unstructured data. In another aspect of the
invention, transformation tool extracts individual pieces of data
and performs text and/or data processing activities. In another
aspect of the invention, the text and data processing activities
include: determining the topic of a section of text, extracting a
section of text from a whole document, matching names, or matching
addresses. In another aspect of the invention, the structured data
tools include business intelligence, statistical analysis, data
visualization and mapping, or data mining. In another aspect of the
invention, the source of unstructured data includes email, word
processing documents, spreadsheets, presentation materials, PDF
files, web pages, news/media reports, case files, transcriptions,
file servers, web servers, enterprise content, enterprise search
tool repositories, intranets, knowledge management systems, or
document management systems. In another aspect of the invention,
the transformation tool includes: (i) entity, concept and
relationship tagging and extraction tools, (ii) categorization and
topic extraction tools, (iii) data matching tools or, (iv) custom
transformations.
[0020] Another embodiment the present invention provides an
extraction service for extracting unstructured data from a
plurality of unstructured data sources and a plurality of formats
comprising a plurality of APIs to interface with the plurality of
unstructured data sources; and a single internal API that
interfaces with a plurality of software components that allow
structured data analysis tools to operate on unstructured data.
[0021] In one aspect of the invention, the plurality of
unstructured data sources includes email, word processing
documents, spreadsheets, presentation materials, PDF files, web
pages, news/media reports, case files, transcriptions, file
servers, web servers, enterprise content, enterprise search tool
repositories, intranets, knowledge management systems, and document
management systems.
[0022] Another embodiment the present invention provides a
transformation connector comprising code capable of understanding
the format of data provided by a transformation tool; and code to
convert the data provided by a transformation tool to a data format
that maps to a data capture schema, the data capture schema
comprising; a table to store data extracted from a plurality of
source documents having unstructured data; and a table to store
information about the extracted data, wherein the plurality of
documents are assigned a unique key that identifies the document
throughout a software system allowing (i) cross-analysis, (ii)
linking of results for further analysis, (iii) drill-down from
analytical reports back to the source documents, or (iv) drill-down
from analytical reports back to transformation information stored
in the schema.
[0023] In one aspect of the invention, the transformation tool
includes: (i) entity, concept and relationship tagging and
extraction tools, (ii) categorization and topic extraction tools,
(iii) data matching tools or, (iv) custom transformations. In
another aspect of the invention, the code to convert the data
comprises at least one XSL transform.
[0024] Another embodiment the present invention provides a core
server comprising code to allow parallel processing of unstructured
data on a continuous real-time basis, wherein the code is adapted
to configure unstructured source extractors and treat them as black
boxes in a data workflow; the code is adapted to extract
unstructured text from a plurality of data sources and source
systems, the extracted unstructured text available for input for
further processing; the code is adapted to configure end-to-end
data flow from the plurality of data sources through one or more
transformation components into a capture schema and into an
analysis schema for analysis by structured data analysis tools; the
code is adapted to retain a single key for each data source, the
key being associated with data generated by the transformation
components; and the code is adapted to store all extracted
unstructured text, metadata and transformation data in a single
schema.
[0025] In one aspect of the invention, the code is adapted to use a
drag and drop data editor.
[0026] Another embodiment the present invention provides a
structured data connector that allows structured data analysis
tools to analyze data in an analysis schema comprising ODBC code;
JDBC code; and code to pre-populate metadata of the structured data
analysis tools with tables, columns, attributes, data and metrics
from an analysis schema without performing tool customization or
application specific setup.
[0027] In one aspect of the invention, the structured data
connector further comprises pre-built reports, graphs and
dashboards. In another aspect of the invention, the structured data
connector further comprises embedded hyperlinks that allow
drill-through to underlying data sources. In another aspect of the
invention, the hyperlinks include a document ID, entity ID, or
relationship ID from the analysis schema. In another aspect of the
invention, the structured data connector further comprises a source
highlighter, the source highlighter adapted to access a capture
schema and retrieve a source document or a section of a source
document. In another aspect of the invention, the source
highlighter is adapted to retrieve start and end character
positions, and to scroll down and highlight a relevant sentence in
a retrieved source document or in a retrieved section of a source
document.
[0028] Additional features, advantages, and embodiments of the
invention may be set forth or apparent from consideration of the
following detailed description, drawings, and claims. Moreover, it
is to be understood that both the foregoing summary of the
invention and the following detailed description are exemplary and
intended to provide further explanation without limiting the scope
of the invention as claimed.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0029] The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a
further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and
constitute a part of this specification, illustrate preferred
embodiments of the invention and together with the detail
description serve to explain the principles of the invention. In
the drawings:
[0030] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the system overview of an
embodiment of the invention.
[0031] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the system architecture of
an embodiment of the invention.
[0032] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of the process
steps based upon the system of FIG. 2.
[0033] FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a capture schema of an
embodiment of the invention.
[0034] FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an analysis schema of an
embodiment of the invention.
[0035] FIG. 6 is a screen capture of a report generated by an
embodiment of the invention.
[0036] FIG. 7 is another screen capture of a report generated by an
embodiment of the invention.
[0037] FIG. 8 is another screen capture of a report generated by an
embodiment of the invention.
[0038] FIG. 9 is another screen capture of a report generated by an
embodiment of the invention.
[0039] FIG. 10 is a screen capture illustrating a feature of one
embodiment of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0040] The present invention is directed to a middleware software
system to make unstructured data available to structured data
analysis tools. In one aspect of the invention, the middleware
software system can be used in combination with structured data
analysis tools and methods to perform structured data analysis
using both structured and unstructured data. The invention can read
data from a wide variety of unstructured sources. This data may
then be transformed with commercial data transformation products
that may, for example, extract individual pieces of data and
determine relationships between the extracted data. The transformed
data and relationships are preferably stored in a capture schema,
discussed in more detail below. The transformed data and
relationships may be then passed through an
extraction/transform/load (ETL) layer that extracts and preferably
loads the data and relationships in a structured analysis schema,
also discussed in more detail below. Structured connectors
according to one embodiment of the invention provide structured
data analysis tools access to the structured analysis schema.
[0041] The present invention enables analysis of unstructured data
that is not possible with existing data analysis tools. In
particular, the present invention allows, inter alia, (i)
multi-dimensional analysis, (ii) time-series analysis, (iii)
ranking analysis, (iv) market-basket analysis and, (v) anomaly
analysis. Multi-dimensional analysis allows the user to filter and
group unstructured data. It also allows drill down into dimensions
and the ability to drill across to other dimensions. Time-series
analysis allows the user to analyze the genesis of concepts and
organizations over time and to analyze how things have increased or
decreased over time. Ranking analysis allows the user to rank and
order data to determine the highest performing or lowest performing
thing being evaluated. It also allows the user to focus analysis on
the most critical items. Market-basket analysis allows the user to
determine what items or things go with other items or things. It
also can allow the user to find unexpected relationships between
items. Anomaly analysis allows the user to determine if new events
fit historical profiles or it can be used to analyze an unexpected
absence or disappearance.
[0042] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic of a system overview of one
embodiment of the invention. As can be seen from the figure, this
embodiment constitutes middleware software system 100. That is,
this embodiment allows unstructured data 210 to be accessed and
used by structured data tools 230. With this embodiment of the
invention, business can use their existing structured data tools
230 to analyze essentially all of their various sources of
unstructured data, resulting in a more robust analytic
capability.
[0043] The unstructured data 210 that can be read by this
embodiment of the invention includes, but is not limited to,
emails, Microsoft Office.TM. documents, Adobe PDF files, text in
CRM and ERP applications, web pages, news, media reports, case
files, and transcriptions. Sources of unstructured data, include,
but are not limited to, (i) file servers; (ii) web servers; (ii)
enterprise, content, management, and intranet portals; (iii)
enterprise search tool repositories; (iv) knowledge management
systems; and (v) Documentum.TM. and other document management
systems. The structured data tools 230, include but are not limited
to, business intelligence tools, statistical analysis tools, data
visualization and mapping tools, and data mining tools.
Additionally, custom structured data and analysis tools 230 may be
developed and easily integrated with this embodiment of the
invention.
[0044] The middleware software system 100 of the present embodiment
of the invention may also be adapted to access transformation
components 220 capable of parsing the unstructured data 210. The
transformation components 220, can for example, be used to extract
entity and relationship information from the unstructured data 210.
Transformation components 220, include but are not limited to: (i)
entity, concept and relationship tagging and extraction tools; (ii)
categorization and topic extraction tools, (iii) data matching
tools, and (iv) custom transformers.
[0045] A preferred embodiment of the complete system architecture
of middleware software system 100 is illustrated in FIG. 2. This
embodiment includes extraction connectors 101 and extraction
services 102 for accessing the unstructured data 210. It also
includes a capture schema 103 that holds all of the unstructured
data 210. This embodiment further includes a core server 104 that
coordinates the processing of data, unstructured 210 and
structured, throughout the middleware software system 100. This
embodiment also includes transformation services 105 and
transformation connectors 106 that handle passing unstructured data
210 to and from the transformation components 220. Additionally,
the middleware software system 100 includes an
extraction/transform/load layer 107 in which the unstructured data
210 is structured and then written into a structured analysis
schema 108. Web service 109 and structured analysis connectors 110
provide structured data tools 230 access to the data in the
analysis schema 108.
[0046] This embodiment will now be described with reference to the
flow diagram illustrated in FIG. 3. In the method of the
illustrated embodiment, unstructured data 210 is accessed by the
extraction services 102 through the extraction connectors 101. The
extraction connectors 101 parse the unstructured data 210 while
also associating the source document with the unstructured data.
The parsed unstructured data is sent to the capture schema 103 and
then preferably sent to one or more commercial, open source, or
custom developed transformation components 220 capable of
extracting individual pieces of data from unstructured text,
determining the topic of a section, extracting a section of text
from a whole document, matching names and addresses, and other text
and data processing activities. The unstructured data 210 is sent
to the one or more commercial, open source, or custom-developed
transformation components 220 via the transformation service 105
and the transformation connectors 106. The extracted data may then
be added to data already present in the capture schema 103. The
data in the capture schema 103 may then be processed by the
extraction/transform/load layer 107. The extraction/transform/load
layer 107 structures the data and then stores it in the analysis
schema 108. Data from the analysis schema 108 may then be passed
through the structured analysis connectors 110 to one or more
commercial structured data analysis tools 230. The core server 111
manages and coordinates this entire data flow process and marshals
the data and associated and generated metadata all the way from the
various sources of data all the way through the various
transformation components 220 to the schemas 103, 108 and to the
analysis tools 230.
[0047] The middleware software system 100 of the present embodiment
enables structured data analysis tools 230 to analyze unstructured
data 210 along with structured data. It is composed of several
software modules, each of which includes features that distinguish
the middleware software system 100 from existing software tools
used for analyzing unstructured data 210.
[0048] The extraction services 102, for example, use a single
application program interface (API) that interfaces with the
various sources of unstructured data. The API can be used to access
and extract document text and metadata, such as author, date, size,
about the documents. Typically, each source of unstructured data
210 has its own API. Prior art tools that interfaced with multiple
sources of unstructured data 210 commonly had a corresponding API
for each source of data. In contrast, the single API of the
extraction services 102 of the present invention can interface with
numerous sources of unstructured data including (i) file servers;
(ii) web servers; (ii) enterprise, content, management, and
intranet portals; (iii) enterprise search tool repositories; (iv)
knowledge management systems; and (v) Documentum.TM.. Additionally,
the single API of the extraction services 102 can interface with
scanned and OCRed (optical character recognition) paper files.
Preferably, the single API can interface with all of the internal
modules of the middleware software system 100 as well as the
various structured data analysis tools 230. This allows the sources
to be treated as a "black box" by the rest of the middleware
software system 100 components.
[0049] The extraction connectors 101 process text, data, and
metadata that are returned from the unstructured source systems 230
as a result of the requests from the extraction services 102.
Additionally, the extraction connectors 101 load the results into
the capture schema 103. The extraction connectors 101 convert the
various outputs from the various unstructured source systems into a
consistent schema and format for loading into the capture schema
103. Preferably, the extraction connectors 101 also process the
various pieces of metadata that are extracted from the source
systems into a common metadata format. Further, a unique index key
is assigned to each extracted source document 210, which allows it
to be consistently tracked as it moves through the rest of the
middleware software system 100. This key, and the associated
metadata stored regarding the source location of the text, also
provides the ability to link back to the original text when desired
during the course of analysis. No currently available software can
take unstructured data 210 from a variety of sources and put them
into a consistent schema, nor process various pieces of metadata
that are extracted from multiple source systems into a common
metadata format.
[0050] The transformation services 105 manage the process of taking
the collected unstructured data 210 and passing it through one or
more custom, open source, or commercial transformation components
220. The transformation components 220 provide a variety of
value-added data transformation, data extraction, and data matching
activities. The results of one or more transformations may serve as
an input to downstream transformations. Further, the transformation
services 105 may be run by the core server 104 in a coordinated
workflow process. Similar to the extraction services 102, the
transformation services 105 provide a common API to a wide variety
of custom, open source, and commercial unstructured data
transformation technologies, while serving a as "black box"
abstraction to the rest of the middleware software system 100.
[0051] The transformation connectors 106 process the output of the
various transformation components 220 and convert the output into a
consistent format that then may be loaded into the capture schema
103. It maps the widely variant output from a wide variety of
unstructured and structures data transformation components 220 into
a common consistent format, while preferably also retaining
complete metadata and links back to the original source data. This
allows tracability from the end user's analysis back through the
transformations that took place and from there back to the original
source of the unstructured data 210.
[0052] The transformation connectors 106 are preferably engineered
to understand the format of data that is provided by the supported
data transformation tools 220. For example, a connector for the
GATE text processing system may be provided. The transformation
connectors 106 may be designed to take as input the specific XML
structure that is output by the GATE tool. The connector then uses
coded logic and XSL transforms to covert this specific XML from, in
this example, the GATE tool into a consistent transformation XML
format. This format represents an XML data layout that closely maps
to the data format of the capture schema 103. The transformation
connectors 106 then load the consistent transformation XML into the
capture schema 103 using standard data loading procedures.
[0053] The middleware software system 100 also includes a section
and header extractor (not shown). This is a custom transformation
tool 220 that takes for an input a text document and a set of
extraction rules and instructions. Preferably, the section and
header extractor outputs any and all document headers, as well as a
specific section or sections from the document as described by the
input rules. Unlike prior art tools for analyzing unstructured data
210, the section and header extractor provides a rules-based
approach to locate and extract document headers as well as sections
from unstructured texts that may or may not provide any internal
section headings, tags, or other indications as to where one
section ends and another begins.
[0054] The header extractor can look for specific document headers
and extract the data of the headers. Further, it stores the header
data in the capture schema 103. As an example, SEC filings include
headers such as "filed as of date", "effectiveness date", "central
index key", and "SIC code." These headers can be extracted by the
header extractor and put in the capture schema 103.
[0055] The section extractor can extract a specific section or a
series of specific sections from a document based on a
sophisticated set of rules. These rules may include: [0056] 1.
Preprocessing, including optional removal of HTML or other tags and
special character, and other specific character conversions
(example, convert "AAA" to "BBB" throughout document before further
extraction processing). Also include specific removals, for example
remove strings matching "CCC" or between "DDD" and "EEE" from all
parts of the document before further processing. [0057] 2. Section
Start Rules: Match document text to a set of provided character
strings, with the following optional parameters: [0058] a. Search
from the top of the document down, or from the bottom of the
document up [0059] b. Search for the first match of any string of
the set, or first search the whole document for the first string in
the set, and if not found move to the next string [0060] c. Search
in a case-sensitive manner or case-insensitive manner [0061] d.
Rules regarding what to do if start string not found (for example,
skip document, extract no section, or treat whole document as if it
was the desired section) [0062] 3. Section End Rules: essentially
the same as the Section Start rules, with the additional parameters
of: [0063] a. Search from the section start point, or from the
start of the document, or from the end of the document [0064] b.
Search up or down from the start point [0065] c. Optional parameter
to stop section extraction after a certain number of characters,
and direction to go from start point before stopping (up or down).
[0066] d. Rules regarding what to do if end point is not found (for
example, skip document, extract no section, save rest of document
starting at the start point, or extract a certain number of
characters from the start point).
[0067] The middleware software system 100 also includes a proximity
transformer (not shown). This is a custom transformation tool 220
that further transforms the results of other transformation tools
220. This transformation tool 220 looks for events, entities, or
relationships that are closest and/or within a certain distance
(based on number of words, sentences, sections, paragraphs, or
character positions) from other entities, events, or relationships.
Typically, it is configured to look for specific types of things
that are close to other specific types of things. For example, it
can be used to look for the closest person name and dollar amount
to a phrase describing the issuance of a loan. Unlike prior art
tools for analyzing unstructured data 210, the proximity
transformer can associate data elements together based on input
rules, types of elements, and their proximity to one another in
unstructured text.
[0068] In particular, the proximity transformer may be configured
to look for a certain types of entity or relationship (based on
entries in the entity and relationship hierarchy) entries in the
analysis schema 108. Preferably, for each matching entity or
relationship that is found, it then looks for the closest (by
character position, number of words, number of sentences, number of
paragraphs, or number of sections) instance of a second (and
optionally third, fourth, etc.) specific type of entity. If the
proper collection of relationship and entity types are located with
a certain optional distance limit (preferably, based on character
positions or other criteria listed above), and optionally within a
certain direction from the first entity or relationship (up or
down), then a new relationship is added to the analysis schema 108
to indicate the newly located relationship. The relationship is
associated with its related entities and the roles that these
entities play.
[0069] For example, the proximity transformer can be used to locate
instances of loans described in the source documents, and to locate
the borrower, lender, dates, and dollar amount of loans. In this
example, the proximity transformed could first look for entries in
an entity table in the analysis schema 108 that are related to the
hierarchy element "loan". Then the transformer could search for the
closest company entity and assign that company as the lender. Then
it could locate the nearest person, and assign that person as the
borrower. It could than locate the nearest entity of hierarchy type
"financial->currency" and assign that to be the amount of the
loan. Preferably, a new relationship would be entered into the
relationship table to represent this loan and its associated
related entities and the role that they play. Additionally, more
sophisticated rule sets can be used in conjunction with proximity
analysis in order to increase the quality of found relationships
and assigned entity roles.
[0070] The middleware software system 100 also includes a table
parser (not shown). The table parser is a custom transformation
tool 220 that takes as an input a table of data (which may have
been extracted from a document by using the section extractor)
represented in textual form (either with markup tags such as HTML
or in plain-text) and extracts the column headers, row headers,
data points, and data multipliers (such as "numbers in thousands")
from the table. Unlike prior art tools for analyzing unstructured
data 210, the table parser can preferably take any type of text
table that is readable by a human and can convert the table into a
structured rows, columns, cells, headers, and multiplier
representation that can then be used for further structured
analysis. Each input text table can vary from the next, and the
table parser can extract data without being specifically
pre-configured for each possible input table format. The table
parser can adapt dynamically to any table format and any
combination of columns and rows. It operates using algorithms
designed to analyze a table as a human would visually, for example
by distinguishing columns based on their placement to one another
and the "whitespace" between them.
[0071] The detection of a table in document can be performed with
section extractor, described above. Properly configured, the
section extractor is capable of finding and segregating tables from
surrounding text.
[0072] Once the table is extracted from the text, it then may be
parsed by the table parser. Preferably, the first part of the
algorithm breaks up the table into rows and columns and represents
the table in a 2-dimension array. For tables represented in a
markup language such as HTML, this may be done by analyzing the
markup tags that delineate the table into rows and columns.
Processing is then done to combine table cells that are marked as
separate but only for visual formatting purposes.
[0073] For tables represented in plain-text without markup tags
that are displayed in a fixed-width font such Courier, an algorithm
is used that mimics how a human would visually identify columns
based on the percentage of vertical white space in any vertical
column. Columns that contain a large percentage of white space are
identified as separating the table columns. Based on the column
analysis, rows and columns are extracted and represented in a
2-dimensional array.
[0074] The 2-dimensional array, created either from a table with
HTML or other markup, or from a plain-text table, may then be
processed further to identify column headers, numerical order of
magnitude indicators, and row headers. Column headers can be
identified based on their position on top of columns that mainly
contain numerical values. Order of magnitude indicators can be
extracted from the top portion of the table and generally are
worded as "numbers in thousands", or "numbers in millions". These
conversion factors are then applied to the onward processing of the
table. Preferably, row headers are located by looking for table
rows that have a label on the left-side of the table but do not
have corresponding numerical values, or that have summary values in
the columns. Row headers can be differentiated from multi-line row
labels by analyzing the indentation of the potential header and the
row(s) below. The result of this processing is a data array
containing row labels, corresponding headers, column headers, and
corresponding numerical values.
[0075] This data, once extracted from a table, may then be stored
in the capture schema 103 in a normalized data table that is
capable of storing data extracted from any arbitrary table format.
That data may then be loaded into the analysis schema 108 and can
be analyzed along with any other structured and unstructured 210
data.
[0076] Capture schema 103 is preferably a database schema. That is,
having a pre-designed layout of data tables and the relationship
between the tables. Preferably, the capture schema 108 is specially
designed to serve as a repository for data captured by the
extraction connectors 101 and also to hold the results of the
transformation connectors 106. Capture schema 108 is designed in an
application-independent manner so that it can preferably hold any
type of source unstructured data 210, extracted headers and
sections, and the results of transformation components 220. It also
can preferably hold entities and relationships, as well as any data
extracted from text tables within unstructured texts. The capture
schema 103 can suit the needs of any type of unstructured data
capture and transformation tool 220 without being custom-designed
for each application.
[0077] Additionally, the capture schema 103 is designed to capture
and record the output from various types of text transformation
tools 220, such as entity extraction, relationship extraction,
categorization, and data matching tools. The capture schema 103
preferably has a general-purpose structure to accommodate the
various outputs from a variety of type of text analysis tools from
a variety of vendors, open source communities, or from custom
application development projects.
[0078] The tables in the capture schema 103 include a table to
store information about extracted entities, such as people, places,
companies, dates, times, dollar amounts, etc. The entities are also
associated with attributes, such as their language of origin or
temporal qualities. Further, the capture schema 103 contains data
relating to entity occurrences, which are the actual locations of
the entities as found in the source documents. There may be
multiple occurrences of the same entity in a single document. The
capture schema 103 retains information about entities, entity
occurrences, and the relationships between these items, as well as
the associated attributes that may be associated with entities and
entity occurrences.
[0079] The capture schema 103 also contains information on
relationships. Relationships are associations between entities, or
events that involve entities. Similar to entities, relationships
also have associated relationship attributes and occurrences that
are all captured by the capture schema 103. Additionally, the
capture schema 103 contains a mapping table between relationships
and the related entities, master entities, and entity occurrences,
including information on the role that the related entities play in
the association or event.
[0080] The capture schema 103 also contains information about
documents in the middleware software system 100, and the
relationships between the documents to the entities and
relationships that are contained within them. Documents may have
associated attributes (such as source, author, date, time,
language, etc.), and may be grouped together in folders and be
grouped by the source of the document. The documents are all
assigned a unique key which can be used to identify the document
and data derived from the document throughout the entire system and
can be used to reference back to the original document in the
original source. The binary and character text of the document can
also be stored in the capture schema 103 as a CLOB and/or BLOB
object. Sections of the document, if extracted by the section
extractor, are also stored in the capture schema 103 and related to
the documents that they were extracted from.
[0081] Information from categorization tools may also be included
in the capture schema 103. Such data elements include topics and
categories of documents and sections of documents. This data is
linked to the other data such as entities and relationships through
a series of cross-reference tables.
[0082] The capture schema is designed to consolidate the output
from a variety of data analysis technologies in a central
repository while retaining a consistent key to allow for
cross-analysis and linking of results for further analysis. The
consistent key also allows for drill-down from analytical reports
back to source documents and to the details of the transformations
that led to each data element being present in the schema.
[0083] For example, from a report that shows the average number of
loans to executives disclosed in a company's SEC filings for an
entire industry, an analyst could drill down to the number of loans
for each company in the industry, then to the individual loans
disclosed in each filing, then to the details of a particular loan
event, then drill all the way down to the text in the filing that
disclosed the loan. The textual source of the event is generally
shown to the user within the context of the original source
document, with the appropriate sentence(s) or section(s)
highlighted.
[0084] This drill-down is enabled by several unique features of the
system. The hierarchies present in the analysis schema, discussed
in more detail below, can be traversed step-by-step along a variety
of dimensions present in the schema to drill down to the precise
set of information desired. From there, the details of the
underlying relationships, events, or entities can be displayed from
the user as they are also present in the analysis schema.
[0085] From there, when an analyst desired to view the underlying
source material, the source document is retrieved either from the
capture or analysis schema, if stored there, or from the original
source location via a URL or other type of pointer. The relevant
section, sentence, phrase, or word(s) can then be highlighted based
on the starting and ending positions stored in the analysis schema
that represent the location(s) that the relevant entities or
relationships were extracted from originally.
[0086] FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of the capture schema
103. Each of the boxes in the schematic diagram represents a
component of the capture schema 103. These content and function of
these components is as follows.
[0087] Document 401: This is a data table that preferably contains
details on each document, including the document title, URL or
other link back to the source, the source text itself (optionally
stored), the document size, language, initial processing
characteristics, link to the folder or other logical corpus
grouping containing the document, and a unique document key that is
consistently used to refer to the document throughout the system.
The term "document" in this system represents any distinct piece of
text, which may or may not resemble a traditional paper document.
For example a memo field value extracted from a CRM system would
also be referred to as a distinct document by the system. Given
this abstraction, a document could be very small or very large or
somewhere in between.
[0088] Document Attributes 402: Preferably contains a mapping of
each document to the extended properties or attributes of the
document. Examples of document attributes include, but are not
limited to, headers extracted from documents and their
corresponding values, or other metadata that is extracted along
with the document such as author(s), title, subtitle, copyright,
publishers, etc.
[0089] Attributes 403: Preferably, contains a master lookup table
of the types of attributes stored in the system, so that attributes
representing the same type of data can be represented by the same
attribute ID to allow for consistent analysis and loading of
attribute data.
[0090] Keywords 404: Preferably contains a master lookup table of
all keywords in all documents. A consistent key is assigned to each
unique keyword to allow for consistent data loading and for
cross-analysis of keywords across documents, sections of documents,
and collections of documents.
[0091] Keyword Occurrence 405: Preferably, contains a mapping to
the occurrences of keywords to the documents that contain the
keywords. Preferably, it includes one entry for each keyword
occurrence in each document. It also preferably includes the start
and end position (represented by character count from start of
document) of the occurrence of the keyword. Preferably, it also
includes information relating to the extraction process that found
the keyword occurrence.
[0092] Entity 406: Preferably contains one entry for each unique
entity that is mentioned in each document. An entity generally
represents a noun phrase that represents a physical or abstract
object or concept. Entities are generally found as nouns in
sentences. Example of entities include but are not limited to
people, companies, buildings, cities, countries, physical objects,
contracts, agreements, dates, times, various types of numbers
including currency values, and other concepts.
[0093] Entity Attributes 407: Preferably contains attributes
related to each entity. Attributes may be any arbitrary piece of
metadata or other information that is related to an entity, and may
include metadata from an entity extraction tool such as the
confidence level associated with the extraction of the entity from
a piece of text. Entity attributes may also include grouping or
ontological information that is useful in the later creation of
entity hierarchies during the creation of the analysis schema.
[0094] Entity Occurrence 408: Preferably contains one entry for
each time an entity is mentioned in a document. It may also include
the start and end position of the entity occurrence, as well as
details of the extraction process that found the occurrence.
[0095] Entity Occurrence Attributes 409: Preferably contains
arbitrary additional metadata relating to the entity occurrence.
These attributes are typically similar and in some cases may be the
same as the information in the Entity Attributes table, but may
also contain attributes that are unique to a particular occurrence
of an entity.
[0096] Relationship 410: Preferably contains details on
relationships extracted from documents. A relationship represents a
link between entities or an event involving entities. An example of
a relationship would be "works-for," in which an entity of type
person is found to work for an entity of type company, in a certain
capacity such as "President." This data structure represents unique
relationships on a per-document basis.
[0097] Relationship Attributes 411: Preferably contains additional
details of the extracted relationships, such as the confidence
level of the extracted relationship, ontological attributes of the
relationship, or other attributes at the relationship level.
[0098] Relationship Occurrence 412: Preferably contains information
on each occurrence of text that references a certain relationship.
For example, if a certain "works-for" relationship if referenced
several times in a certain document, this table would contain one
entry for each time the relationship is referenced. This table also
may contain information on the exact start and end character
position of where the relationship instance was found in the
document.
[0099] Relationship Occurrence Attributes 413: Preferably contains
details of attribute at the relationship occurrence level. May
contain similar information to the Relationship Attributes
table.
[0100] Relationship/Entity Xref 414: Preferably contains a
cross-reference table that links the entities to the relationships
that involve them. Preferably, this table exists both at the
relationship and the relationship occurrence levels. It also may
provide a link to the role that each entity plays in a certain
relationship.
[0101] Relationship/Entity Roles 415: Preferably contains a master
index of the various types of roles that are played by entities in
various relationships. By providing for a master relationship role
key, this allows relationship roles and the entities that play
those roles to be matched across various documents and across
collections of documents.
[0102] Document Folder 416: Preferably groups documents into
folders. Folders are abstract concepts that can group documents and
other folders together, and may or may not represent a folder
structure that was present in the original source of the
documents.
[0103] Concept/Topic 417: Preferably contains concepts or topics
referred to in documents or assigned to documents by concept and
topic detection tools. May also contain topics and concepts at the
section, paragraph, or sentence level if concept and topic
detection is performed at the lower sub-document level.
[0104] Concept/Topic Occurrence 418: Preferably contains details of
exactly where certain topics or concepts were detected within a
document or sub-component of a document. It may also include start
and end position within the text of the concept or topic
occurrence.
[0105] Section 419: Preferably contains details on sections of
documents. Sections may be designated in the extracted source
document, or may be derived by the system's section extractor.
Preferably, this table stores details on the sections, including
the start and end position, and optionally stores the section text
itself.
[0106] Paragraph 420: Preferably contains details on paragraphs
within a document or within a section of a document. It preferably
contains start and end position, and optionally contains the text
of the paragraph itself.
[0107] Sentence 421: Preferably contains details on sentences
within a document or within a section of a document. Preferably, it
also contains start and end position, and optionally contains the
text of the sentence itself.
[0108] The analysis schema 108 is similar to the capture schema
103, except it is preferably designed to allow for analysis by
commercially-available structured data analysis tools 230 such as
business intelligence, data mining, link analysis, mapping,
visualization, reporting, and statistical tools. The analysis
schema 108 provides a data schema that can be use to perform a wide
range of differing types of analysis for a wide variety of
applications based on data extracted from unstructured text without
needing to be custom-designed for each analytical application,
analysis tool, or each type of input data or applied
transformation.
[0109] The data in the analysis schema 108 resembles the data in
the capture schema 103, however it extends and transforms the data
in several ways in order to structure and prepare the data for
access and analysis by structured data analysis tools 230. In the
analysis schema 108, the entities are preferably also grouped into
master entities. The master entities group entities that appear in
multiple documents that are the same in the real world. Also,
master entities group together entities that may be spelled
differently or have multiple names in various documents or sources
into one master entity since they represent the same actually
entity in the real world. For example, the terrorist group Hamas
and the Islamic Resistance Movement may be grouped together as they
represent the same actual group.
[0110] The analysis schema 108 can also group entities that are
associated with a hierarchy. For example "George W. Bush" might be
associated with the
person->government->USA->federal->executive node of a
hierarchy. Similar to entities, relationships also have associated
hierarchies that also may reside in the analysis schema 108.
[0111] In the analysis schema 108, entities that represent dates
and numeric amounts may be processed so that the date and/or
numeric data is stored separately in specific table columns in the
appropriate data types. Typically, this processing requires
analysis of the text description of the entity and the extraction
and processing of the text into standard date and numeric
values.
[0112] Additionally, the analysis schema 108 also has the
capability to be extended in order to include existing or other
structured data, so that it can be cleanly tied to the rest of the
data and analyzed together in one consistent schema.
[0113] FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration of the analysis schema
108. Each of the boxes in the schematic diagram represents a
component of the analysis schema 108. These content and function of
these components is as follows.
[0114] The boxes labeled 501 through 521 correspond to boxes 401
through 421 of the capture schema 103, having substantially similar
structure and performing substantially similar functions.
[0115] Master Entity 522: Preferably contains a unified ID that
represents an entity that appears across multiple documents, and
links to the underlying entities and entities that occur within
individual documents. For example, a master entity of "United
States of America" would refer to the country of the same name. The
master entity would consolidate all mentions of the country in all
documents, including mentions that use alternative expressions of
the country's name such as "United States", "USA", "U.S. of A",
etc. This consolidated master entity allows this entity to be
analyzed across documents as a single entity. The actual
consolidation is preferably performed during the analytical ETL
process using matching algorithms or through the use of external
data matching technologies via a transformation connector 106.
[0116] Entity Hierarchy 523: Preferably, places entities into a
hierarchy based on an ontology of how entities relate to other
entities and how they can be grouped together. For example, a
hierarchy may group normal people into a
"thing->physical->animate->person->civilian" node of a
hierarchy. By associating entities into hierarchies, the
hierarchies can be used to group entities together into buckets
that can then be used for analysis at various levels.
[0117] Master Entity Hierarchy 524: preferably, identical to the
entity hierarchy, except at the master entity level. Both
hierarchies are useful, as some types of analysis are best
performed at the master entity level, and others at the entity
level.
[0118] Master Relationship 525: Preferably, similar to master
entity, except groups relationships into common relationships that
are expressed across a group of documents. For example, the fact
that George Washington was a former president of the United States
may be a relationship that is disclosed in a variety of documents
across a document collection. The master relationship would
establish this relationship, and would then link to the
sub-relationships that are expressed in individual documents.
[0119] Relationship Hierarchy 526: Preferably, similar to the
entity hierarchy, except representing relationships and events. For
example, a car bombing event may be categorized into a hierarchy
known as "event-physical-violent-attack-bombing-car_bombing." The
analysis of various types of relationships and events across a
hierarchy can provide interesting insights into what types of
events are discussed in a set of documents, or are taking place in
the world.
[0120] Master Relationship Hierarchy 527: Preferably, similar to
the Relationship Hierarchy, except involving Master Relationships.
These are useful as in some cases it is useful to analyze distinct
relationships or events that may be referenced in multiple sources,
and in other cases it may be interesting to analyze each individual
reference to an event or the frequency of mentions of one event
versus another.
[0121] Keyword Hierarchy 528: Preferably, groups keywords into
hierarchies. These hierarchies can then be used to group data
together for analysis.
[0122] Attribute Hierarchy 529: Preferably groups attributes
together into hierarchies. These hierarchies can then be used to
group documents together based on their various attributes for
analysis, or to select certain types of documents for inclusion or
exclusion from certain analyses.
[0123] Document Folder Hierarchy 530: Preferably, groups folders of
documents into higher level folders in a recursive manner allowing
for unlimited numbers of folder levels. These folders can be used
to separate collections documents into distinct buckets that can be
analyzed separately or in combination as required by the analytical
application.
[0124] Document Source 531: Preferably contains a cross-reference
between each document and the source of the document. The source
may be a certain operational or document management system, or may
represent a news organization or other type of external content
source.
[0125] Document Source Hierarchy 532: Preferably, groups document
sources into categories. For example internal documents may be
represented by an internal document hierarchy, and documents
acquired from a news feed may be in a separate hierarchy based on
type of news source and/or the geographic location of the source of
the document.
[0126] Document Source Attributes 533: Preferably, contains any
additional attributes relevant to the source of the document. Such
attributes may be trustworthiness of the source, any political
connections of the source, location of the source, or other
arbitrary data points relating to the source of the documents.
[0127] Concept/Topic Hierarchy 534: Preferably, contains a
hierarchy of concepts/topics. As with entities and relationships,
concepts and topics are often interested to analyze within the
context of a hierarchy. For example documents pertaining to
international finance may need to be grouped and analyzed
separately from those pertaining to intellectual property
protection.
[0128] Time Dimension 535: Preferably, represents a standard
relational time dimension as would be found in a traditional data
warehouse. This dimension, for example, contains years, months,
weeks, quarters, days, day of week, etc. and allows the rest of the
data that is stored as date values to be analyzed and grouped by
higher level date and time attributes, and also allows for
calculations such as grow rather week over week or year over year.
This also allows for period-to-date and this period vs. last period
calculations such as those used in time series and growth rate
analysis.
[0129] Entity (extensions) 506: Preferably, the analysis schema
also extends the entity table to represent numerical, currency, or
date-based entities in the appropriate data forms for analysis by
analytical tools. For example, any entities representing currency
would be converted to a currency data type in the underlying
database or data storage repository.
[0130] The extraction/transform/load (ETL) layer 107 provides a
mapping and loading routine to migrate data from the capture schema
103 to the analysis schema 108. The extraction/transform/load layer
107 is unique due to the uniqueness of the two general-purpose
application-independent schemas that it moves data between.
Further, the routines that make up the extraction/transform/load
layer 107 operate in an application-independent manner.
The ETL process can preferably contain the following steps: [0131]
Master entity determination and assignment: Matching entities to
corresponding master entities. Often involves matching disparate
spellings to the corresponding master entities. [0132] Master
relationship determination and assignment: Grouping of
relationships together that represent the same relationships or
events into a single master relationship. [0133] Entity Hierarchy
& Master Entity Hierarchy creation: creation and/or maintenance
of entities into their corresponding hierarchical groupings.
Similar process for master entities. [0134] Relationship Hierarchy
& Master Relationship Hierarchy: creation and/or maintenance of
relationships into their corresponding hierarchical groupings.
Similar process for master relationships. [0135] Keyword Hierarchy:
creation and/or maintenance of the keyword hierarchy. [0136]
Attribute Hierarchy: creation and/or maintenance of the attribute
hierarchy. [0137] Concept/Topic Hierarchy: creation and/or
maintenance of the concept/topic hierarchy. [0138] Document Folder:
creation and/or maintenance of the document folder hierarchy.
[0139] Document Source: extraction of document source information
from document attributes into its own data structure. [0140]
Document Source Attributes: extraction of attributes relating to
document sources into a separate data structure [0141] Document
Source Hierarchy: creation and/or maintenance of the document
source hierarchy. [0142] Time Dimension: creation of the standard
system time dimension for time-series analysis. [0143] Entity
Extensions: identification of date and numeric types of entities
and conversion of date and numeric values into corresponding native
data types where appropriate. [0144] Data de-duplication:
identification and (optional) removal of duplicate source documents
to avoid double-counting.
[0145] The core server 104 coordinates the execution of the various
components of the middleware software system 100 and the movement
of data between the components. It is designed in a multi-threaded,
grid-friendly distributed manner to allow for the parallel
processing of extremely large amounts of data through the system on
a continuous real-time high-throughput basis. It is the only data
processing server designed to perform these types of data movements
and transformation based on unstructured data sources.
The features of the core server 104 can include: [0146] The ability
to configure unstructured source extractors and treat them as black
boxes in the data workflows [0147] The ability to extract
unstructured data 210 from multiple disparate sources and source
systems and use the extracted information as input for further
processing [0148] The ability to automatically route the
unstructured data 210 through a series of unstructured
transformation tools 220, both custom-designed and off-the-shelf
[0149] The ability to configure a end-to-end data flow from sources
through one or more transformation tools 220, into a capture schema
103 and then into an analysis schema 108 for analysis by structured
analysis tools 230 [0150] The ability to retain a single key for
each source document as it moves through the middleware software
system 100 and as value-added information output from
transformation tools 220 is added to the capture schema 103 [0151]
The storage of all extracted unstructured data 210 as well as all
metadata and value-added extracted transformation results into a
single capture schema 103 [0152] The ability to use a drag &
drop data flow editor to design, edit, execute, and monitor
unstructured data 210 flows through transformation tools 220 and
into an analysis schema 108
[0153] The provider web service 109 provides a gateway for
structured analysis tools 230 to access and analyze the data
contained in the analysis schema 230. It is designed so that
structured analysis tools 230 can access the analysis schema 108
using a standard web services approach. In this manner, the
structured analysis tools 230 can use a web services interface to
analyze the results of transformations applied to unstructured data
210 and can join this data to other existing structured data that
may, for example, reside in a data warehouse. By allowing the
analysis of structured data and unstructured data 210 together, new
insights and findings can be found that would not be possible from
structured data alone.
[0154] The structured connectors 110 allow structured data analysis
tools 230 to analyze the data present in the analysis schema 108.
While this may sometimes be performed through common interfaces
such as ODBC or JDBC, the structured connectors 110 preferably also
include the capability to pre-populate the metadata of the
structured analysis tool 230 with tables, columns, attributes,
facts, and metrics helpful to immediately begin analyzing the data
present in the analysis schema 108 without performing tool
customization or any application-specific setup. Preferably, the
structured connectors 110 also provide the ability to drill-through
to the original unstructured source document, and also provide the
ability to view the path that the data took through the system and
the transformations that were applied to any piece of data.
Preferably, this allows the ability for an analyst to completely
understand the genesis of any result that they see in the
structured analysis tool 230, to know exactly where the data came
from and how it was calculated, and to be able to drill all the way
back to the original document or documents to confirm and validate
any element of the resulting structured analysis.
[0155] Typically, metadata can be pre-populated for supported
structured analysis tools 230. Preferably, middleware software
system 100 includes a pre-configured project for each analysis tool
to understand the tables, columns, and joins that are present in
the analysis schema 108. Further, the tables, columns, and joins
may be mapped to the business attributes, dimensions, facts, and
measures that they represent. Preferably, analytical objects such
as reports, graphs, and dashboards are also pre-built to allow
out-of-the box analysis of data in supported structured analysis
tools 230.
[0156] Drill-through to the underlying unstructured source data 210
is preferably accomplished through embedded hyperlinks that point
to an additional component, the source highlighter. Preferably, the
hyperlinks include the document ID, entity ID, or relationship ID
from the analysis schema 108. The source highlighter can accesses
the capture schema 103 and retrieve the document or section of
document where the selected entity or relationship was found. Also
the start and end character position may be loaded from the capture
schema 103. If so, the source highlighter may display the document
or section to the user, automatically scrolls down to the location
of the relevant sentence, and highlight it for easy reference by
the user.
[0157] The Middleware software system 100 also includes a
confidence analysis component (not shown). The confidence analysis
capability allows users to not only see and analyze data within
structured analysis tools 230, but to also calculate a numeric
confidence level for each data element or aggregate data
calculation. Since unstructured data 210 is often imprecise, the
ability to understand the confidence level of any finding is very
useful. The confidence analysis capability joins together many data
points that are captured throughout the flow of data through the
middleware software system 100 to create a weighted
statistically-oriented calculation of the confidence that can be
assigned to any point of data. Preferably, this combines the
results of various data sources and applied transformations into a
single confidence score for each system data point, to provide for
a quality level context while analyzing data generated by the
middleware software system 100.
[0158] The algorithm used to calculate confidence can take into
account the following factors when calculating a weighted
confidence score for any data element in the middleware software
system 100: [0159] Confidence score of value provided (if any) by
transformation tools 220 used in the data flow to generate the
relevant data point [0160] The number of relationships found in the
source document compared to the size of the source document,
compared to the average number of relationships found per kilobyte
or other size measure of a document. This metric can also be
calculated based on the average number of relationships per
kilobyte for relationships of the same type as the selected
relationship. [0161] The number of entities found to be associated
with the relationship, compared to the average number of entities
for relationships in the same hierarchy [0162] The number of times
similar relationships have been found in the past [0163] The number
of entities that are grouped together to form a master entity
[0164] The number of times the entity occurred in the document
compared to the average number of occurrences for entities in the
same hierarchy, optionally weighted by document size [0165]
Weighted confidences based on hierarchy of relationship or entity.
Some hierarchies may be more highly trusted than others and
assigned a higher confidence. [0166] Other commercially available
measures of data extraction confidence that can be integrated with
the system via the analysis schema 108 and included in confidence
calculations. [0167] Measures based on the "fullness" of a
relationship's attributes. For example a loan transaction event
where detail involving loan size, payment terms, interest rate,
lender, and borrower was all extracted would have a higher
confidence score than a loan relationship that only identified the
lender without the other attribute factors. [0168] Measures based
on the confluence of the same finding by multiple transformation
tools. For example if two different entity extraction tools find
the same entity in the same place, this would instill higher
confidence in data and calculations involving the entity. [0169]
Measures based on the source of the document. Some sources or
authors may be weighted as higher confidence based on various
factors. [0170] Weighted combinations of two or more of the above
metrics and/or various other metrics.
[0171] Further, the confidence scores calculated based on factors
such as those above can be assigned to individual data rows and
data points of analysis results and displayed together with the
resulting analysis.
[0172] The middleware software system 100 also includes an enhanced
search component (not shown). While analysis of the data in the
middleware software system's 100 capture schema 103 can provide for
interesting insights, and represents a paradigm shift from
traditional searching of unstructured information, the middleware
software system 100 also provides data and metadata that can be
used to improve existing or to drive new search capabilities.
[0173] Most searches of unstructured data are based on keywords or
concepts described in individual source documents, and most
searches result in a list of documents that meet the search
criteria, often ordered by relevancy.
[0174] Middleware software system 100 allows those search results
to be extended by the inclusion of additional items in the
traditional search indexing process. These techniques include:
[0175] Indexing the data in the analysis schema. This can be done
by creating "data dump" reports using a reporting tool that create
a list of each entity, topic, or relationship discussed in a
document along with a link back to the source document. This report
can then be run periodically automatically and included in the
indexing routine of a standard search engine. The search engine can
also be optionally enhanced to understand the format of this report
and to rate, rank, and provide the results accordingly. [0176]
Analytical reports can be automatically periodically run and
included in the indexing process of a search engine. This allows a
search engine to provide links to analytical reports interspersed
within standard links back to source documents. By indexing the
reports headers, title, and comments, as well as the actual data
that is contained in the report results, specialized search results
can be achieved. For example, a search for "hamas growth rate"
could provide a link back to a report that includes a metric called
"growth rate" and a data item called "Hamas." [0177] Search engines
can be enhanced to index and understand the metadata contained in
the definition of the dimensional model of the analytical data mart
schema, the definitions of the facts, metrics, and measures, and
also take into account the data contained within the dimensions and
measures, and to provide results accordingly. For example, if a
data mart contains a dimension such as "country", a dimension
called "year", and a metric called "population", a search engine
would be able to construct a report on the fly to answer a question
such as "population USA 2004", without having previously indexed
either a source document or a report result dataset containing this
information.
[0178] The following is an example query that can be run using the
system and method of the invention. In this example, the user wants
to know which companies have had transactions with their own
corporate officers that require reporting under SEC rules. This
requires the processing and analysis of approximately 40,000 pages
of SEC filings for each quarter-year's worth of filings. These
filings are plain text, that is, unstructured data. Unfortunately
for the user, there is no required uniform method of reporting the
desired transactions to the SEC and thus, they may be found under
sections with various headings and may be worded in various ways.
Using the middleware software system 100 of the present invention,
the filings are run through a transformation program 220 that is
instructed to associate the corporate officers to particular types
of transactions (e.g., loans, leases, purchases & sales, and
employment-related). The associated data is then stored in data
structures that can be analyzed with a business intelligence
tool.
[0179] The business intelligence software analyzes the data and
presents it using dashboards and reports. For example, the report
illustrated in FIG. 6 sorts the companies based on the number of
reported transactions, identifying the number of transactions per
type of transactions as well as a statistical comparison of the
company against the industry average number of transactions. The
reports illustrated in FIGS. 7 and 8 focus only on loan
transactions, further identifying the industry groups of the
individual corporations. This allows the user to determine if a
specific industry commonly engages in a particular type of
transaction and whether a specific company is behaving differently
from its peers. Because the data is structured and linked to the
original document, the business intelligence software can identify
the recipients and amounts of the loans, FIG. 9, as well as the
source text in the original document, FIG. 10. Further, the user
can then click on hyperlinks to seamlessly view the original
unstructured source to validate the findings.
[0180] Although the foregoing description is directed to the
preferred embodiments of the invention, it is noted that other
variations and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in
the art, and may be made without departing from the spirit or scope
of the invention. Moreover, features described in connection with
one embodiment of the invention may be used in conjunction with
other embodiments, even if not explicitly stated above.
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