Abstract: A system is provided for learning extraction patterns (grammar) for use in connection with an information extraction system. The learning system learns extraction patterns from examples of texts and events. The patterns can then be used to recognize similar events in other input texts. The learning system builds new extraction patterns by recognizing local syntactic relationships between the sets of constituents within individual sentences that participate in events to be extracted. The learning system generalizes extraction patterns it has learned previously through simple inductive learning of sets of words that can be treated synonymously within the patterns. Sets of patterns for a sample extraction task perform nearly at the level of a hand-built dictionary of patterns.

Abstract: A parallel processing system is provided which traverses logical records of an events or transactional database contained in two or more physical files in accordance with one or more view definitions specified by the user. Each view definition includes a set of processing parameters and may reference one or more of the physical files. The one or more view definitions are transformed into entries of a logic table, the logic table including a plurality of sets, each set corresponding to a respective physical file and containing entries corresponding to the view definitions which reference its respective physical file. Each set of the logic table is transformed into machine code instructions for a separate thread of the parallel processing system.