Patents by Inventor Tie Yan

Tie Yan has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8145592
    Abstract: An importance system calculates the importance of pages using a conditional Markov random walk model rather than a conventional Markov random walk model. The importance system calculates the importance of pages factoring in the importance of sites that contain those pages. The importance system may factor in the importance of sites based on the strength of the correlation of the importance of a page to the importance of a site. The strength of the correlation may be based upon the depth of the page within the site. The importance system may iteratively calculate the importance of the pages using “conditional” transition probabilities. During each iteration, the importance system may recalculate the conditional transition probabilities based on the importance of sites that are derived from the recalculated importance of pages during the iteration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Wei-Ying Ma
  • Patent number: 8122015
    Abstract: Systems and methods for processing user queries and identifying a set of documents relevant to the user query from a database using multi ranker search are described. In one implementation, the retrieved documents can be paired to form document pairs, or instance pairs, in a variety of combinations. Such instance pairs may have a rank order between them as they all have different ranks. A classifier, hyperplane, and a base ranker may be constructed for identifying the rank order relationships between the two instances in an instance pair. The base ranker may be generated for each rank pair. The systems use a divide and conquer strategy for learning to rank the instance pairs by employing multiple hyperplanes and aggregate the base rankers to form an ensemble of base rankers. Such an ensemble of base rankers can be used to rank the documents or instances.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2007
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Qin Tao, Hang Li
  • Patent number: 8103599
    Abstract: Method for determining a webpage importance, including receiving web browsing behavior data of one or more users; creating a model of the web browsing behavior data; calculating a stationary probability distribution of the model; and correlating the stationary probability distribution to the webpage importance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Bin Gao, Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Yuting Liu
  • Patent number: 8095477
    Abstract: A load fuzzy modeling device for the power system based on the causality diagram, the composite cloud generator and the improved T-S fuzzy model, comprising: a hardware device, including: the sensors, a signal conditioning and filter module, an A/D conversion module, a causality conversion module, a DSP module, a memory module, a display and keyboard module connected with the DSP module, respectively and a communication module connected with the PC.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2012
    Assignee: Northeastern University
    Inventors: Hua-Guang Zhang, Qiu-Ye Sun, Dong-Sheng Yang, Zhan-Shan Wang, Tie-Yan Zhang, Zhi-Shan Liang, Hong Xin, Wu-Qi Song, Yun-Shuang Wang
  • Publication number: 20110302193
    Abstract: A “Ranking Optimizer,” provides a framework for directly optimizing conventional information retrieval (IR) measures for use in ranking, search, and recommendation type applications. In general, the Ranking Optimizer first reformats any conventional position based IR measure from a conventional “indexing by position” process to an “indexing by documents” process to create a newly formulated IR measure which contains a position function, and optionally, a truncation function. Both of these functions are non-continuous and non-differentiable. Therefore, the Ranking Optimizer approximates the position function by using a smooth function of ranking scores, and, if used, approximates the optional truncation function with a smooth function of positions of documents. Finally, the Ranking Optimizer optimizes the approximated functions to provide a highly accurate surrogate function for use as a surrogate IR measure.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 7, 2010
    Publication date: December 8, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Tao Qin, Hang Li
  • Publication number: 20110295845
    Abstract: Importance ranking of web pages is performed by defining a graph-based regularization term based on document features, edge features, and a web graph of a plurality of web pages, and deriving a loss term based on human feedback data. The graph-based regularization term and the loss term are combined to obtain a global objective function. The global objective function is optimized to obtain parameters for the document features and edge features and to produce static rank scores for the plurality of web pages. Further, the plurality of web pages is ordered based on the static rank scores.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 27, 2010
    Publication date: December 1, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Bin Gao, Taifeng Wang, Tie-Yan Liu
  • Publication number: 20110295855
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and devices for sorting and processing various types of graph data are described herein. Partitioning graph data into master data and associated slave data allows for sorting of the graph data by sorting the master data. In another embodiment, promoting a data bucket having a first data bucket size to a data bucket having a second data bucket size greater than the first data bucket size upon reaching a memory limit allows for the reduction of temporary files output by the data bucket.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 31, 2010
    Publication date: December 1, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Taifeng Wang, Tie-Yan Liu
  • Patent number: 8069167
    Abstract: The page ranking technique described herein employs a Markov Skeleton Mirror Process (MSMP), which is a particular case of Markov Skeleton Processes, to model and calculate page importance scores. Given a web graph and its metadata, the technique builds an MSMP model on the web graph. It first estimates the stationary distribution of a EMC and views it as transition probability. It next computes the mean staying time using the metadata. Finally, it calculates the product of transition probability and mean staying time, which is actually the stationary distribution of MSMP. This is regarded as page importance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corp.
    Inventors: Bin Gao, Tie-Yan Liu
  • Publication number: 20110258148
    Abstract: Many search engines attempt to understand and predict a user's search intent after the submission of search queries. Predicting search intent allows search engines to tailor search results to particular information needs of the user. Unfortunately, current techniques passively predict search intent after a query is submitted. Accordingly, one or more systems and/or techniques for actively predicting search intent from user browsing behavior data are disclosed herein. For example, search patterns of a user browsing a web page and shortly thereafter performing a query may be extracted from user browsing behavior. Queries within the search patterns may be ranked based upon a search trigger likelihood that content of the web page motivated the user to perform the query. In this way, query suggestions having a high search trigger likelihood and a diverse range of topics may be generated and/or presented to users of the web page.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 19, 2010
    Publication date: October 20, 2011
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Bin Gao, Tie-Yan Liu
  • Patent number: 8005784
    Abstract: A method and system for rank aggregation of entities based on supervised learning is provided. A rank aggregation system provides an order-based aggregation of rankings of entities by learning weights within an optimization framework for combining the rankings of the entities using labeled training data and the ordering of the individual rankings. The rank aggregation system is provided with multiple rankings of entities. The rank aggregation system is also provided with training data that indicates the relative ranking of pairs of entities. The rank aggregation system then learns weights for each of the ranking sources by attempting to optimize the difference between the relative rankings of pairs of entities using the weights and the relative rankings of pairs of entities of the training data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 15, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Yu-Ting Liu
  • Patent number: 7974977
    Abstract: A clustering system generates an original Laplacian matrix representing objects and their relationships. The clustering system initially applies an eigenvalue decomposition solver to the original Laplacian matrix for a number of iterations. The clustering system then identifies the elements of the resultant eigenvector that are stable. The clustering system then aggregates the elements of the original Laplacian matrix corresponding to the identified stable elements and forms a new Laplacian matrix that is a compressed form of the original Laplacian matrix. The clustering system repeats the applying of the eigenvalue decomposition solver and the generating of new compressed Laplacian matrices until the new Laplacian matrix is small enough so that a final solution can be generated in a reasonable amount of time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 3, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 5, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Bin Gao, Wei-Ying Ma
  • Publication number: 20110161330
    Abstract: A calculate importance system calculates the global importance of a web page based on a “mean hitting time.” Hitting time of a target web page is a measure of the minimum number of transitions needed to land on the target web page. Mean hitting time of a target web page is an average number of such transitions for all possible starting web pages. The calculate importance system calculates a global importance score for a web page based on the reciprocal of a mean hitting time. A search engine may rank web pages of a search result based on a combination of relevance of the web pages to the search request and global importance of the web pages based on a global hitting time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2011
    Publication date: June 30, 2011
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Lei Qi, Bin Gao
  • Patent number: 7930303
    Abstract: A calculate importance system calculates the global importance of a web page based on a “mean hitting time.” Hitting time of a target web page is a measure of the minimum number of transitions needed to land on the target web page. Mean hitting time of a target web page is an average number of such transitions for all possible starting web pages. The calculate importance system calculates a global importance score for a web page based on the reciprocal of a mean hitting time. A search engine may rank web pages of a search result based on a combination of relevance of the web pages to the search request and global importance of the web pages based on a global hitting time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Lei Qi, Bin Gao
  • Patent number: 7890502
    Abstract: A method and system for determining the contribution of a document within a hierarchy of documents based on the contribution of descendant documents is provided. The contribution system provides a hierarchy of documents that specifies the ancestor/descendant relations between documents. For each document of a hierarchy, the contribution system determines the contribution of each document factoring in the contribution of descendant documents. The contribution may be the relevance of a document to a topic, a feature of a document, and so on.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Wei-Ying Ma, Tao Qin
  • Publication number: 20110029466
    Abstract: A method and system for rank aggregation of entities based on supervised learning is provided. A rank aggregation system provides an order-based aggregation of rankings of entities by learning weights within an optimization framework for combining the rankings of the entities using labeled training data and the ordering of the individual rankings. The rank aggregation system is provided with multiple rankings of entities. The rank aggregation system is also provided with training data that indicates the relative ranking of pairs of entities. The rank aggregation system then learns weights for each of the ranking sources by attempting to optimize the difference between the relative rankings of pairs of entities using the weights and the relative rankings of pairs of entities of the training data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 15, 2010
    Publication date: February 3, 2011
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Yu-Ting Liu
  • Patent number: 7860971
    Abstract: An anti-spam tool works with a web browser to detect spam webpages locally on a client machine. The anti-spam tool can be implemented either as a plug-in module or an integral part of the browser, and manifested as a toolbar. The tool can perform an anti-spam action whenever a webpage is accessed through the browser, and does not require direct involvement of a search engine. A spam detection module installed on the computing device determines whether a webpage being accessed or whether a link contained in the webpage being accessed is spam, by comparing the URL of the webpage or the link with a spam list. The spam list can be downloaded from a remote search engine server, stored locally and updated from time to time. A two-level indexing technique is also introduced to improve the efficiency of the anti-spam tool's use of the spam list.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 21, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2010
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Bin Gao, Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Lei Yang
  • Patent number: 7853599
    Abstract: This disclosure describes various exemplary methods, computer program products, and systems for selecting features for ranking in information retrieval. This disclosure describes calculating importance scores for features, measuring similarity scores between two features, selecting features that maximizes total importance scores of the features and minimizes total similarity scores between the features. Also, the disclosure includes selecting features for ranking that solves an optimization problem. Thus, this disclosure identifies relevant features by removing noisy and redundant features and speeds up a process of model training.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2010
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Geng Xiubo, Tao Qin, Hang Li
  • Patent number: 7840522
    Abstract: A method and system for rank aggregation of entities based on supervised learning is provided. A rank aggregation system provides an order-based aggregation of rankings of entities by learning weights within an optimization framework for combining the rankings of the entities using labeled training data and the ordering of the individual rankings. The rank aggregation system is provided with multiple rankings of entities. The rank aggregation system is also provided with training data that indicates the relative ranking of pairs of entities. The rank aggregation system then learns weights for each of the ranking sources by attempting to optimize the difference between the relative rankings of pairs of entities using the weights and the relative rankings of pairs of entities of the training data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2010
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, Yu-Ting Liu
  • Patent number: 7834239
    Abstract: Four zebrafish gene promoters, which are skin specific, muscle specific, skeletal muscle specific and ubiquitously expressed respectively, were isolated and ligated to the 5? end of the EGFP gene. When the resulting chimeric gene constructs were introduced into zebrafish, the transgenic zebrafish emit green fluorescence under a blue light or ultraviolet light according to the specificity of the promoters used. Thus, new varieties of ornamental fish of different fluorescence patterns, e.g., skin fluorescence, muscle fluorescence, skeletal muscle-specific and/or ubiquitous fluorescence, are developed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2010
    Assignee: The National University of Singapore
    Inventors: Zhiyuan Gong, Jiangyan He, Bensheng Ju, Toong Jin Lam, Yanfei Xu, Tie Yan
  • Publication number: 20100281078
    Abstract: A distributed data reorganization system and method for mapping and reducing raw data containing a plurality of data records. Embodiments of the distributed data reorganization system and method operate in a general-purpose parallel execution environment that use an arbitrary communication directed acyclic graph. The vertices of the graph accept multiple data inputs and generate multiple data inputs, and may be of different types. Embodiments of the distributed data reorganization system and method include a plurality of distributed mappers that use a mapping criteria supplied by a developer to map the plurality of data records to data buckets. The mapped data record and data bucket identifications are input for a plurality of distributed reducers. Each distributed reducer groups together data records having the same data bucket identification and then uses a merge logic supplied by the developer to reduce the grouped data records to obtain reorganized data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 30, 2009
    Publication date: November 4, 2010
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Taifeng Wang, Tie-Yan Liu