U.S. patent application number 13/160082 was filed with the patent office on 2012-11-08 for system and method for metadata transfer among search entities.
Invention is credited to Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Vipul Ved Prakash.
Application Number | 20120284248 13/160082 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 45097064 |
Filed Date | 2012-11-08 |
United States Patent
Application |
20120284248 |
Kind Code |
A9 |
Ghosh; Rishab Aiyer ; et
al. |
November 8, 2012 |
System and method for metadata transfer among search entities
Abstract
A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods
to ascribe or transfer metadata from one search-related entity to
another, where each entity can be one of subject or source,
citation, and object or target. First, one or more complete or
incomplete attributes associated with one or more of entities
across source, citation and target are identified with a high
degree of probable accuracy, wherein such metadata or attributes
include but are not limited to, time, language, and location of the
entities. The identified attributes are then ascribed or
transferred from one entity where the metadata is available to
other search entities. Finally, the transferred attributes can be
utilized to facilitate the selection and ranking of the cited
targets for the search result.
Inventors: |
Ghosh; Rishab Aiyer; (San
Francisco, CA) ; Prakash; Vipul Ved; (San Francisco,
CA) |
Prior
Publication: |
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Document Identifier |
Publication Date |
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US 20110307465 A1 |
December 15, 2011 |
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Family ID: |
45097064 |
Appl. No.: |
13/160082 |
Filed: |
June 14, 2011 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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12895593 |
Sep 30, 2010 |
7991725 |
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13160082 |
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12628791 |
Dec 1, 2009 |
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12895593 |
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12628801 |
Dec 1, 2009 |
8244664 |
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12628791 |
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61354562 |
Jun 14, 2010 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
707/706 ;
707/E17.108 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/24573 20190101;
G06F 16/24578 20190101; G06F 16/2477 20190101; G06F 16/951
20190101; G06F 16/24575 20190101; G06F 16/9535 20190101; G06F
16/9537 20190101; G06F 16/248 20190101; G06F 16/24537 20190101 |
Class at
Publication: |
707/706 ;
707/E17.108 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/30 20060101
G06F017/30 |
Claims
1. A system, comprising: a citation search engine, which in
operation, retrieves a plurality of citations composed by a
plurality of subjects citing a plurality of objects that fit the
searching criteria; an object selection engine, which in operation,
identifies one or more attributes associated with one or more of
entities across the subjects, citations and objects with a high
degree of accuracy; ascribes the identified attributes from the
entities where the attributes are available to other entities;
selects the objects as a search result based on the matching of the
objects with the ascribed attributes of the objects.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein: each of the plurality of
subjects has an opinion wherein expression of the opinion is
explicit, expressed, implicit, or imputed through any other
technique.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein: each of the plurality of
subjects is one of: representation of a person, web log, and
entities representing Internet authors or users of social media
services, user of microblogging services, users of social networks,
reviewer who provides expressions of opinion, reviews, or other
information useful for the estimation of influence.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein: each of the plurality of objects
is one of: Internet web sites, blogs, videos, books, films, music,
image, video, documents, data files, objects for sale, objects that
are reviewed or recommended or cited, subjects/authors, natural or
legal persons, citations, or any entities that are associated with
a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).
5. The system of claim 1, wherein: each of the plurality of
citations includes one or more of: expression of opinions on the
objects, expressions of authors in the form of Tweets, blog posts,
reviews of objects on Internet web sites Wikipedia entries,
postings to social media, postings to websites, postings in the
form of reviews, recommendations, or any other form of citation
made to mailing lists, newsgroups, discussion forums, comments to
websites or any other form of Internet publication.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein: each of the plurality of
citations is made by a subject regarding an object, a subject
regarding another subject, or an object regarding another
object.
7. The system of claim 1, wherein: the citation search engine
accepts and enforces a plurality of criteria on citation searching,
retrieving and ranking, each of which is either be explicitly
described by a user or best guessed by the system based on internal
statistical data.
8. The system of claim 7, wherein: the plurality of criteria
include one or more of constraints for the plurality of citations,
type of the plurality of objects cited, and ranking bias of the
cited objects.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein: the attributes of the entities
are semantic or descriptive data regarding the entities.
10. The system of claim 9, wherein: the attributes include
timestamp, language, and location of the entities.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein: the object selection engine
sorts timestamps of the citations of an object and ascribes the
earliest timestamp to the object as the object's birth timestamp,
which provides an accurate estimate of when the object was
created.
12. The system of claim 10, wherein: the object selection engine
utilizes known language or location of the subjects to determine
the language of the citations or the location of the objects.
13. The system of claim 1, wherein: the object selection engine
utilizes one of the attributes as a content filter to select the
objects for the search result, wherein such attribute can be one of
the properties of the objects or the citations.
14. The system of claim 13, wherein: the object selection engine
tags the objects as obscene and the subjects as a source of obscene
content if the citation includes obscene words.
15. The system of claim 13, wherein: the object selection engine
tags the subjects that cited an object as sources which cite
obscene content if the object is flagged by users as obscene.
16. The system of claim 1, further comprising: an influence
evaluation engine, which in operation, calculates influence scores
of the plurality of subjects that compose the plurality of
citations citing the plurality of objects.
17. The system of claim 16, wherein: the citation search engine
enables a citation centric search process that focuses on influence
of the plurality subjects that cite the plurality of objects.
18. A method, comprising: retrieving a plurality of citations
composed by a plurality of subjects citing a plurality of objects
that fit the searching criteria; identifying one or more attributes
associated with one or more of entities across the subjects,
citations and objects with a high degree of accuracy; ascribing the
identified attributes from the entities where the attributes are
available to other entities; selecting the objects as a search
result based on the matching of the objects with the ascribed
attributes of the objects.
19. The method of claim 18, further comprising: accepting and
enforcing a plurality of criteria on citation searching, retrieving
and ranking, each of which is either be explicitly described by a
user or best guessed by the system based on internal statistical
data.
20. The method of claim 18, further comprising: sorting timestamps
of the citations of an object and ascribing the earliest timestamp
to the object as the object's birth timestamp, which provides an
accurate estimate of when the object was created.
21. The method of claim 18, further comprising: utilizing known
language or location of the subjects to determine the language of
the citations or the location of the objects.
22. The method of claim 18, further comprising: utilizing one of
the attributes as a content filter to select the objects for the
search result, wherein such attribute can be one of the properties
of the objects or the citations.
23. The method of claim 22, further comprising: tagging the objects
as obscene and the subjects as a source of obscene content if the
citation includes obscene words.
24. The method of claim 22, further comprising: tagging the
subjects that cited an object as sources which cite obscene content
if the object is flagged by users as obscene.
25. The method of claim 18, further comprising: calculating
influence scores of the plurality of subjects that compose the
plurality of citations citing the plurality of objects.
26. The method of claim 25, further comprising: enabling a citation
centric search process that focuses on influence of the plurality
subjects that cite the plurality of objects.
27. A machine readable medium having software instructions stored
thereon that when executed cause a system to: retrieve a plurality
of citations composed by a plurality of subjects citing a plurality
of objects that fit the searching criteria; identify one or more
attributes associated with one or more of entities across the
subjects, citations and objects with a high degree of accuracy;
ascribe the identified attributes from the entities where the
attributes are available to other entities; select the objects as a
search result based on the matching of the objects with the
ascribed attributes of the objects.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent
Application No. 61/354,562, filed Jun. 14, 2010, and entitled "A
system and method for metadata transfer for search entities," and
is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Knowledge is increasingly more germane to our exponentially
expanding information-based society. Perfect knowledge is the ideal
that participants seek to assist in decision making and for
determining preferences, affinities, and dislikes. Practically,
perfect knowledge about a given topic is virtually impossible to
obtain unless the inquirer is the source of all of information
about such topic (e.g., autobiographer). Armed with more
information, decision makers are generally best positioned to
select a choice that will lead to a desired outcome/result (e.g.,
which restaurant to go to for dinner). However, as more information
is becoming readily available through various electronic
communications modalities (e.g., the Internet), one is left to sift
through what is amounting to a myriad of data to obtain relevant
and, more importantly, trust worthy information to assist in
decision making activities. Although there are various tools (e.g.,
search engines, community boards with various ratings), there lacks
any indicia of personal trustworthiness (e.g., measure of the
source's reputation and/or influence) with located data.
[0003] Currently, a person seeking to locate information to assist
in a decision, to determine an affinity, and/or identify a dislike
can leverage traditional non-electronic data sources (e.g.,
personal recommendations--which can be few and can be biased)
and/or electronic data sources such as web sites, bulletin boards,
blogs, and other sources to locate (sometimes rated) data about a
particular topic/subject (e.g., where to stay when visiting San
Francisco). Such an approach is time consuming and often unreliable
as with most of the electronic data there lacks an indicia of
trustworthiness of the source of the information. Failing to find a
plethora (or spot on) information from immediate non-electronic
and/or electronic data source(s), the person making the inquiry is
left to make the decision using limited information, which can lead
to less than perfect predictions of outcomes, results, and can lead
to low levels of satisfaction undertaking one or more activities
for which information was sought.
[0004] Current practices also do not leverage trustworthiness of
information or, stated differently, attribute a value to the
influence of the source of data (e.g., referral). With current
practices, the entity seeking the data must make a value judgment
on the influence of the data source. Such value judgment is
generally based on previous experiences with the data source (e.g.,
rely on Mike's restaurant recommendations as he is a chef and
Laura's hotel recommendations in Europe as she lived and worked in
Europe for 5 years). Unless the person making the inquiry has an
extensive network of references from which to rely to obtain
desired data needed to make a decision, most often, the person
making the decision is left to take a risk or "roll the dice" based
on best available non-attributed (non-reputed) data. Such a
prospect often leads certain participants from not engaging in a
contemplated activity. Influence accrued by persons in such a
network of references is subjective. In other words, influence
accrued by persons in such a network of references appear
differently to each other person in the network, as each person's
opinion is formed by their own individual networks of trust.
[0005] Real world trust networks follow a small-world pattern, that
is, where everyone is not connected to everyone else directly, but
most people are connected to most other people through a relatively
small number of intermediaries or "connectors". Accordingly, this
means that some individuals within the network may
disproportionately influence the opinion held by other individuals.
In other words, some people's opinions may be more influential than
other people's opinions.
[0006] As referred to herein, influence is provided for augmenting
reputation, which may be subjective. In some embodiments, influence
is provided as an objective measure. For example, influence can be
useful in filtering opinions, information, and data. It will be
appreciated that reputation and influence provide unique advantages
in accordance with some embodiments for the ranking of individuals
or products or services of any type in any means or form. In
addition, it would also be desirable if information, attributes, or
metadata associated with one entity can be shared with other
related entities in order to be able to identify relevant entities
during search.
[0007] The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations
related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not
exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become
apparent upon a reading of the specification and a study of the
drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008] FIG. 1 depicts an example of a citation graph used to
support citation search.
[0009] FIG. 2 depicts an example of a system diagram to support
transfer of attributes among search entities.
[0010] FIG. 3 depicts an example of a flowchart of a process to
support transfer of attributes among search entities.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS
[0011] The approach is illustrated by way of example and not by way
of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which
like references indicate similar elements. It should be noted that
references to "an" or "one" or "some" embodiment(s) in this
disclosure are not necessarily to the same embodiment, and such
references mean at least one.
[0012] A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and
methods to ascribe or transfer metadata from one search-related
entity to another, where each entity can be one of subject or
source, citation, and object or target. As referred to hereinafter,
each source or subject can be but is not limited to an internet
author or user of social media services that cites a target or
object, which can be but is not limited to Internet web sites,
blogs, videos, books, films, music, image, video, documents, data
files, etc.. Each citation may describe, for a non-limiting
example, an opinion by a source on a target or object. Each
citation can be but is not limited to, a Tweet, a blog post, and a
review of objects on an Internet web site. First, one or more
complete or incomplete attributes associated with one or more of
entities across source, citation and target are identified with a
high degree of probable accuracy, wherein such metadata or
attributes include but are not limited to, time, language, and
location of the entities. The identified attributes are then
ascribed or transferred from one entity where the metadata is
available to other search entities. Finally, the transferred
attributes can be utilized to facilitate the selection and ranking
of the cited targets for the search result.
Citation Graph
[0013] An illustrative implementation of systems and methods
described herein in accordance with some embodiments includes a
citation graph 100 as shown in FIG. 1. In the example of FIG. 1,
the citation graph 100 comprises a plurality of citations 104, each
describing an opinion of the object by a source/subject 102. The
nodes/entities in the citation graph 100 are characterized into two
categories, 1) subjects 102 capable of having an opinion or
creating/making citations 104, in which expression of such opinion
is explicit, expressed, implicit, or imputed through any other
technique; and 2) objects 106 cited by citations 104, about which
subjects 102 have opinions or make citations. Each subject 102 or
object 106 in graph 100 represents an influential entity, once an
influence score for that node has been determined or estimated.
More specifically, each subject 102 may have an influence score
indicating the degree to which the subject's opinion influences
other subjects and/or a community of subjects, and each object 106
may have an influence score indicating the collective opinions of
the plurality of subjects 102 citing the object.
[0014] In some embodiments, subjects 102 representing any entities
or sources that make citations may correspond to one or more of the
following:
[0015] Representations of a person, web log, and entities
representing Internet authors or users of social media services
including one or more of the following: blogs, Twitter, or reviews
on Internet web sites;
[0016] Users of microblogging services such as Twitter;
[0017] Users of social networks such as MySpace or Facebook,
bloggers;
[0018] Reviewers, who provide expressions of opinion, reviews, or
other information useful for the estimation of influence.
[0019] In some embodiments, some subjects/authors 102 who create
the citations 104 can be related to each other, for a non-limiting
example, via an influence network or community and influence scores
can be assigned to the subjects 102 based on their authorities in
the influence network.
[0020] In some embodiments, objects 106 cited by the citations 104
may correspond to one or more of the following: Internet web sites,
blogs, videos, books, films, music, image, video, documents, data
files, objects for sale, objects that are reviewed or recommended
or cited, subjects/authors, natural or legal persons, citations, or
any entities that are or may be associated with a Uniform Resource
Identifier (URI), or any form of product or service or information
of any means or form for which a representation has been made.
[0021] In some embodiments, the links or edges 104 of the citation
graph 100 represent different forms of association between the
subject nodes 102 and the object nodes 106, such as citations 104
of objects 106 by subjects 102. For non-limiting examples,
citations 104 can be created by authors citing targets at some
point of time and can be one of link, description, keyword or
phrase by a source/subject 102 pointing to a target (subject 102 or
object 106). Here, citations may include one or more of the
expression of opinions on objects, expressions of authors in the
form of Tweets, blog posts, reviews of objects on Internet web
sites Wikipedia entries, postings to social media such as Twitter
or Jaiku, postings to websites, postings in the form of reviews,
recommendations, or any other form of citation made to mailing
lists, newsgroups, discussion forums, comments to websites or any
other form of Internet publication.
[0022] In some embodiments, citations 104 can be made by one
subject 102 regarding an object 106, such as a recommendation of a
website, or a restaurant review, and can be treated as
representation an expression of opinion or description. In some
embodiments, citations 104 can be made by one subject 102 regarding
another subject 102, such as a recommendation of one author by
another, and can be treated as representing an expression of
trustworthiness. In some embodiments, citations 104 can be made by
certain object 106 regarding other objects, wherein the object 106
is also a subject.
[0023] In some embodiments, citation 104 can be described in the
format of (subject, citation description, object, timestamp, type).
Citations 104 can be categorized into various types based on the
characteristics of subjects/authors 102, objects/targets 106 and
citations 104 themselves. Citations 104 can also reference other
citations. The reference relationship among citations is one of the
data sources for discovering influence network.
[0024] FIG. 2 depicts an example of a system diagram to support
determination of quality of cited objects in search results based
on the influence of the citing subjects. Although the diagrams
depict components as functionally separate, such depiction is
merely for illustrative purposes. It will be apparent that the
components portrayed in this figure can be arbitrarily combined or
divided into separate software, firmware and/or hardware
components. Furthermore, it will also be apparent that such
components, regardless of how they are combined or divided, can
execute on the same host or multiple hosts, and wherein the
multiple hosts can be connected by one or more networks.
[0025] In the example of FIG. 2, the system 200 includes at least
citation search engine 204, influence evaluation engine 204, and
object selection engine 206. As used herein, the term engine refers
to software, firmware, hardware, or other component that is used to
effectuate a purpose. The engine will typically include software
instructions that are stored in non-volatile memory (also referred
to as secondary memory). When the software instructions are
executed, at least a subset of the software instructions is loaded
into memory (also referred to as primary memory) by a processor.
The processor then executes the software instructions in memory.
The processor may be a shared processor, a dedicated processor, or
a combination of shared or dedicated processors. A typical program
will include calls to hardware components (such as I/O devices),
which typically requires the execution of drivers. The drivers may
or may not be considered part of the engine, but the distinction is
not critical.
[0026] In the example of FIG. 2, each of the engines can run on one
or more hosting devices (hosts). Here, a host can be a computing
device, a communication device, a storage device, or any electronic
device capable of running a software component. For non-limiting
examples, a computing device can be but is not limited to a laptop
PC, a desktop PC, a tablet PC, an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad,
Google's Android device, a PDA, or a server machine. A storage
device can be but is not limited to a hard disk drive, a flash
memory drive, or any portable storage device. A communication
device can be but is not limited to a mobile phone.
[0027] In the example of FIG. 2, citation search engine 202,
influence evaluation engine 204, and object selection engine 206
each has a communication interface (not shown), which is a software
component that enables the engines to communicate with each other
following certain communication protocols, such as TCP/IP protocol,
over one or more communication networks (not shown). Here, the
communication networks can be but are not limited to, internet,
intranet, wide area network (WAN), local area network (LAN),
wireless network, Bluetooth, WiFi, and mobile communication
network. The physical connections of the network and the
communication protocols are well known to those of skill in the
art.
Citation Search
[0028] In the example of FIG. 2, citation search engine 202 enables
a citation search process, which unlike the "classical web search"
approaches that is object/target-centric and focuses only on the
relevance of the objects 106 to the searching criteria, the search
process adopted by citation search engine 202 is "citation"
centric, focusing on influence of the citing subjects 102 that cite
the objects. In addition, the classical web search retrieves and
ranks objects 106 based on attributes of the objects, while the
proposed search approach adds citation 104 and subject/author 102
dimensions. The extra metadata associated with subjects 102,
citations 104, and objects 106 provide better ranking capability,
richer functionality and higher efficiency for the searches.
[0029] In some embodiments, the citation search/query request
processed by citation search engine 202 may accept and enforce
various criteria/terms on citation searching, retrieving and
ranking, each of which can either be explicitly described by a user
or best guessed by the system based on internal statistical data.
Such criteria include but are not limited to,
a) Constraints for the citations, including but are not limited
to,
[0030] Description: usually the text search query;
[0031] Time range of the citations;
[0032] Author: such as from particular author or sub set of
authors;
[0033] Type: types of citations;
b) Types of the cited objects: the output can be objects, authors
or citations of the types including but are not limited to,
[0034] Target types: such as web pages, images, videso, people
[0035] Author types: such as expert for certain topic
[0036] Citation types: such as tweets, comments, blog entries
c) Ranking bias of the cited objects: which can be smartly guessed
by the system or specified by user including but are not limited
to,
[0037] Time bias: recent; point of time; event; general knowledge;
auto
[0038] View point bias: such as general view or perspective of
certain people.
[0039] Type bias: topic type, target type.
Influence Evaluation
[0040] In the example of FIG. 2, influence evaluation engine 204
calculates influence scores of entities (subjects 102 and/or
objects 106), wherein such influence scores can be used to
determine at least in part, in combination with other methods and
systems, the ranking of any subset of objects 106 obtained from a
plurality of citations 104 from citation search results.
[0041] In some embodiments, influence evaluation engine 204
measures influence and reputation of subjects 102 that compose the
plurality of citations 104 citing the plurality of objects 106 on
dimensions that are related to, for non-limiting examples, one or
more of the specific topic or objects (e.g., automobiles or
restaurants) cited by the subjects, or form of citations (e.g., a
weblog or Wikipedia entry or news article or Twitter feed), or
search terms (e.g., key words or phrases specified in order to
define a subset of all entities that match the search term(s)), in
which a subset of the ranked entities are made available based on
selection criteria, such as the rank, date or time, or
geography/location associated with the entity, and/or any other
selection criteria.
[0042] In some embodiments, influence evaluation engine 204
determines an influence score for a first subject or source at
least partly based on how often a first subject is cited or
referenced by a (another) second subject(s). Here, each of the
first or the second subject can be but is not limited to an
internet author or user of social media services, while each
citation describes reference by the second subject to a citation of
an object by the first subject. The number of the citations or the
citation score of the first subject by the second subjects is
computed and the influence of the second subjects citing the first
subject can also be optionally taken into account in the citation
score. For a non-limiting example, the influence score of the first
subject is computed as a function of some or all of: the number of
citations of the first subject by second subjects, a score for each
such citation, and the influence score of the second subjects. Once
computed, the influence of the first subject as reflected by the
count of citations or citation score of the first subject or
subject can be displayed to the user at a location associated with
the first subject, such as the "profile page" of the first subject,
together with a list of the second subjects citing the first
subjects, which can be optionally ranked by the influences of the
second subject.
[0043] In some embodiments, influence evaluation engine 204 allows
for the attribution of influence on subjects 102 to data sources
(e.g., sources of opinions, data, or referrals) to be estimated and
distributed/propagated based on the citation graph 100. More
specifically, an entity can be directly linked to any number of
other entities on any number of dimensions in the citation graph
100, with each link possibly having an associated score. For a
non-limiting example, a path on a given dimension between two
entities, such as a subject 102 and an object 106, includes a
directed or an undirected link from the source to an intermediate
entity, prefixed to a directed or undirected path from the
intermediate entity to the object 106 in the same or possibly a
different dimension.
[0044] In some embodiments, influence evaluation engine 204
estimates the influence of each entity as the count of actual
requests for data, opinion, or searches relating to or originating
from other entities, entities with direct links to the entity or
with a path in the citation graph, possibly with a predefined
maximum length, to the entity; such actual requests being counted
if they occur within a predefined period of time and result in the
use of the paths originating from the entity (e.g., representing
opinions, reviews, citations or other forms of expression) with or
without the count being adjusted by the possible weights on each
link, the length of each path, and the level of each entity on each
path.
[0045] In some embodiments, influence evaluation engine 204 adjusts
the influence of each entity by metrics relating to the citation
graph comprising all entities or a subset of all linked entities.
For a non-limiting example, such metrics can include the density of
the graph, defined as the ratio of the number of links to the
number of linked entities in the graph; such metrics are
transformed by mathematical functions optimal to the topology of
the graph, such as where it is known that the distribution of links
among entities in a given graph may be non-linear. An example of
such an adjustment would be the operation of estimating the
influence of an entity as the number of directed links connecting
to the entity, divided by the logarithm of the density of the
citation graph comprising all linked entities. For example, such an
operation can provide an optimal method of estimating influence
rapidly with a limited degree of computational complexity.
[0046] In some embodiments, influence evaluation engine 204
optimizes the estimation of influence for different contexts and
requirements of performance, memory, graph topology, number of
entities, and/or any other context and/or requirement, by any
combination of the operations described above in paragraphs above,
and any similar operations involving metrics including but not
limited to values comprising: the number of potential source
entities to the entity for which influence is to be estimated, the
number of potential target entities, the number of potential
directed paths between any one entity and any other entity on any
or all given dimensions, the number of potential directed paths
that include the entity, the number of times within a defined
period that a directed link from the entity is used for a scoring,
search or other operation(s).
Metadata Transfer
[0047] In the example of FIG. 2, object selection engine 206
ascribes or transfers metadata or attributes from one
search-related entity to another, where each entity can be one of
subject, citation, and object as depicted by an example of a
process in FIG. 3. Although this figure depicts functional steps in
a particular order for purposes of illustration, the process is not
limited to any particular order or arrangement of steps. One
skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that the various steps
portrayed in this figure could be omitted, rearranged, combined
and/or adapted in various ways.
[0048] In the example of FIG. 3, the flowchart 300 starts at block
302 where citation searching, retrieving and ranking criteria and
mechanisms are set and adjusted based on user specification and/or
internal statistical data. The flowchart 300 continues to block 304
where a plurality of citations of objects that fit the search
criteria, such as text match, time filter, author filter, type
filter, are retrieved. The flowchart 300 continues to block 306
where one or more attributes associated with one or more of
entities across source, citation and target are identified with a
high degree of probable accuracy. The flowchart 300 continues to
block 308 where the identified attributes are ascribed or
transferred from the entities where the attributes are available to
other entities. The flowchart 300 ends at block 310 where objects
are selected as the search result based on the matching of the
objects with the searching criteria as well as the transferred
attributes of the objects.
[0049] In some embodiments, the metadata or attributes of the
entities identified and ascribed by the object selection engine 206
can be semantic or descriptive data regarding the entities,
including but are not limited to, timestamp, language, and location
of the entities, which can be utilized for the selection of the
objects.
[0050] In the example of FIG. 2, object selection engine 206
utilizes the identified and ascribed attributes to determine the
selection and ranking of objects 106 cited by the citations,
wherein the objects include but are not limited to documents on the
Internet, products, services, data files, legal or natural persons,
or any entities in any form or means that can be searched or cited
over a network. For a non-limiting example, the object selection
engine 206 may sort the timestamps of citations of an object and
ascribe the earliest timestamp to the object as the object's
"birth" timestamp, i.e., providing a probably accurate estimate of
when the object was created. For another non-limiting example, the
object selection engine 206 may utilize the language or location of
the subject, if known, to determine the language of the citation or
the location of the object.
[0051] In some embodiments, the object selection engine 206
utilizes one of the attributes ascribed among the subjects,
citations, and objects as various types of content filters to
select the objects for the search result, wherein such attribute
can be one of the properties of the objects or the citations. For a
non-limiting example, if the citation includes obscene words, the
object selection engine 206 may tag the objects as possibly obscene
and the subjects as a source of obscene content. Similarly, if an
object is flagged by users as obscene, the object selection engine
206 may also tag the subjects that cited that object as sources
which cite obscene content.
[0052] In some embodiments, in combination with the ascribed
attributes of objects described above, the object selection engine
206 may also calculate and rank the influence scores of the cited
objects based on one or more of the following scoring
components:
[0053] Subjects of the citations: such as influence scores of the
subjects/authors, expertise of the subjects on the give topic,
perspective bias on the subjects of the citations.
[0054] Citations: such as text match quality (e.g., content of
citations matching search terms), number of citations, date of the
citations, and other citations related to the same cited object,
time bias, type bias etc.
[0055] For a non-limiting example, in the example depicted in FIG.
1, citing subject Author One has an influence score of 10, which
composes Citation 1.1 and Citation 1.2, wherein Citation 1.1 cites
Target One once while Citation 1.2 cites Target Two twice; citing
subject Author Two has an influence score of 5, which composes
Citation 2.1, which cites Target One three times; citing subject
Author Three has an influence score of 4, which composes Citation
3.2, which cites Target Two four times. Based on the influence
scores of the authors alone, object selection engine 206 calculates
the influence score of Target One as 10*1+3*5=25, while the
influence score of Target Two is calculated as 10*2+4*4=36. Since
Target Two has a higher influence score than Target One, it should
be ranked higher than Target One in the final search result.
[0056] In some embodiments, object selection engine 206 determines
the qualities of the cited objects by examining the distribution of
influence scores of subjects citing the objects in the search
results. For a non-limiting example, one measure of the influence
distribution is the ratio of the number of citations from the
"influential" and the "non-influential" subjects, where
"influential" subjects may, for a non-limiting example, have an
influence score higher than a threshold determined by the
percentile distribution of all influence scores. Object selection
engine 206 accepts only those objects that show up in the citation
search results if their citation ratios from "influential" and
"non-influential" subjects are above a certain threshold while
others can be marked as spam if the ratio of their citation ratios
from "influential" and "non-influential" subjects fall below the
certain threshold, indicating that they are most likely cited from
spam subjects.
[0057] In some embodiments, object selection engine 206 calculates
and ranks cited objects by treating citations of the objects as
connections having positive or negative weights in a weighted
citation graph. A citation with implicit positive weight can
include, for a non-limiting example, a retweet or a link between
individual blog posts or web cites, while a citation with negative
weight can include, for a non-limiting example, a statement by one
subject 102 that another source is a spammer.
[0058] In some embodiments, object selection engine 206 uses
citations with negative weights in a citation graph-based
rank/influence calculation approach to propagate negative citation
scores through the citation graph. Assigning and propagating
citations of negative weights makes it possible to identify
clusters of spammers in the citation graph without having each
spammer individually identified. Furthermore, identifying
subjects/sources 102 with high influence and propagating a few
negative citations from such subjects is enough to mark an entire
cluster of spammers negatively, thus reducing their influence on
the search result.
[0059] In some embodiments, object selection engine 206 presents
the generated search results of cited objects to a user who issues
the search request or provides the generated search results to a
third party for further processing. In some embodiments, object
selection engine 206 presents to the user a score computed from a
function combining the count of citations and the influence of the
subjects of the citations along with the search result of the
objects. In some embodiments, object selection engine 206 displays
multiple scores computed from functions combining the counts of
subsets of citations and the influence of the source of each
citation along with the search result, where each subset may be
determined by criteria such as the influence of the subjects, or
attributes of the subjects or the citations. For non
limiting-examples, the following may be displayed to the user --"5
citations from Twitter; 7 citations from people in Japan; and 8
citations in English from influential users." The subsets above may
be selected and/or filtered either by the object selection engine
206 or by users.
[0060] In some embodiments, object selection engine 206 selects for
display of every object in the search result, one or more citations
and the subjects of the citations on the basis of criteria such as
the recency or the influence of their citing subjects relative to
the other citations in the search result. Object selection engine
206 then displays the selected citations and/or subjects in such a
way that the relationship between the search result, the citations
and the subjects of the citations are made transparent to a
user.
[0061] One embodiment may be implemented using a conventional
general purpose or a specialized digital computer or
microprocessor(s) programmed according to the teachings of the
present disclosure, as will be apparent to those skilled in the
computer art. Appropriate software coding can readily be prepared
by skilled programmers based on the teachings of the present
disclosure, as will be apparent to those skilled in the software
art. The invention may also be implemented by the preparation of
integrated circuits or by interconnecting an appropriate network of
conventional component circuits, as will be readily apparent to
those skilled in the art.
[0062] One embodiment includes a computer program product which is
a machine readable medium (media) having instructions stored
thereon/in which can be used to program one or more hosts to
perform any of the features presented herein. The machine readable
medium can include, but is not limited to, one or more types of
disks including floppy disks, optical discs, DVD, CD-ROMs, micro
drive, and magneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs,
DRAMs, VRAMs, flash memory devices, magnetic or optical cards,
nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any type of media
or device suitable for storing instructions and/or data. Stored on
any one of the computer readable medium (media), the present
invention includes software for controlling both the hardware of
the general purpose/specialized computer or microprocessor, and for
enabling the computer or microprocessor to interact with a human
viewer or other mechanism utilizing the results of the present
invention. Such software may include, but is not limited to, device
drivers, operating systems, execution environments/containers, and
applications.
[0063] The foregoing description of various embodiments of the
claimed subject matter has been provided for the purposes of
illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive
or to limit the claimed subject matter to the precise forms
disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to
the practitioner skilled in the art. Particularly, while the
concept "interface" is used in the embodiments of the systems and
methods described above, it will be evident that such concept can
be interchangeably used with equivalent software concepts such as,
class, method, type, module, component, bean, module, object model,
process, thread, and other suitable concepts. While the concept
"component" is used in the embodiments of the systems and methods
described above, it will be evident that such concept can be
interchangeably used with equivalent concepts such as, class,
method, type, interface, module, object model, and other suitable
concepts. Embodiments were chosen and described in order to best
describe the principles of the invention and its practical
application, thereby enabling others skilled in the relevant art to
understand the claimed subject matter, the various embodiments and
with various modifications that are suited to the particular use
contemplated.
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