Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for automatically estimating the confidence of a detected LAT to provide a more accurate overall score for an obtained candidate answer. A confidence “score” or value of each detected LAT is obtained, and the system and method performs combining the confidence score with a degree of match between a LAT and an AnswerType of the candidate answer to provide improved overall score for the candidate answer.

Abstract: A user's electronic calendar may be analyzed to identify those calendar items that relate to a specific topic or classification. The classification may identify, for example, business or personal items, or items relating to a specific project, task, or other classification. The analysis may classify calendar items by a set of heuristics as well as by associations between calendar items and with other databases. The associations may include analysis of a user's contact list, social networks, and other information.

Abstract: Displaying relevant data subsets of at least one data collection includes providing an input data subset, determining a plurality of partial relevance values for different characteristics of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection with respect to the input data subset according to a term frequency of terms in the input data subset and term in each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection and according to an inverse document frequency of the terms, determining a relevance of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection based on the partial relevance values of the different characteristics, and displaying at least a portion of the data subsets of the at least one data collection in order of relevance.

Abstract: One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for creating socially authored, or community authored, summaries of documents and/or for navigating a forum comprising such summaries. In one embodiment, at least some of the summaries are generated automatically when a document is written and/or discovered (e.g., by a web crawler), for example. In another embodiment, the documents are created by users of the forum. A plurality of summaries of a document may be created (e.g., by different users), and users can provide feedback, such as comments or ratings, that may assist other users in identifying which summary or summaries better describe the document. Moreover, the users can navigate the forum and retrieve summaries by browsing categories (and subcategories) to identify a topic of interest and/or by performing a search based upon user inputted search term(s).

Abstract: Individuals receive overwhelming barrage of information which must be filtered, processed, analysed, reviewed, consolidated and distributed or acted upon. However, prior art tools for automatically processing content, such as for example returning search results from an Internet or database search for example are ineffective. Prior art search techniques merely provide large numbers of “hits” with at most removal of multiple occurrences of identical items. However, it would be beneficial to present searches as a series of multi-document clusters wherein occurrences of commonly themed content are clustered allowing the user to rapidly see the number of different themes and review a selected theme. Further, it would be beneficial, in repeated searches, for new clusters to be identified automatically as well as new items of content associated with existing clusters to be associated to these clusters.

Abstract: Mechanisms for selecting data providers to provide input data to an application are provided. A desired region and desired quality of information (QoI) function for the desired region are defined. The desired region is a region for which a condition is to be analyzed by the application. One or more provider regions and one or more QoI functions associated with the one or more provider regions are retrieved. A relevancy level between the one or more provider regions and the desired region is calculated based on the desired QoI function for the desired region and the QoI functions associated with the one or more provider regions. One or more data providers for providing input data to the application are selected based on the calculated relevancy level.

Abstract: A process for generating social recommendations is provided. For each user, a user profile index is accessed to determine reading interests of the user. Further, relevance matching is performed to determine matching users having at least one publishing interest that is relevant to the reading interests of the user. Next, the matching users are ranked. Based on the ranking, one or more top ranked matching user(s) are determined. Additionally, a social recommendation for each of the top ranked matching user(s) is enabled to be made to the user.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for searching for items on a computer network, such as the internet, based on a query and an exclusion specification comprising a specification of a characteristic of sources of the items, to create a list of identifiers of items relevant to the query that are not excluded by the exclusion specification. Such characteristics include measures of popularity of the sources of the items so that items from sources having popularity greater than the specified popularity may be excluded from the list.

Abstract: A method for automatically determining an Internet home page corresponding to a named entity identified by a specified descriptor including building a trained machine-learning model, generating candidate matches from the specified descriptor, wherein each candidate match includes an Internet address, extracting content-based features from websites associated with the Internet addresses of the candidate matches, determining a model score for each candidate match based on the content-based features using the trained machine-learning model, and determining a match from among the candidate matches according to the scores, wherein the match is returned as the Internet home page corresponding to the named entity.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for visualizing results from a text search engine are described. A query term is first received. A first set of results is generated based on the query term using a database storing documents, and an index of documents, each document having at least one structural element. Structural elements associated with the first set of results are retrieved. A second set of results is generated based a predefined relationship between the structure elements and the query term. A visualization of the second set of results is displayed.

Abstract: In general, one aspect of the subject matter described can be embodied in a method that includes, for a first document that is included in first search results responsive to a first user-submitted query, selecting a plurality of previously submitted queries for which the first document was a responsive search result. The method can further include determining whether second documents that are relevant to the previously submitted query have at least a threshold level of diversity in comparison to the first search results, wherein second documents are determined to be relevant to the previously submitted query based on data that is indicative of user behavior. The method can additionally include identifying one or more queries from the selected previously submitted queries to provide as first suggested queries, and providing the one or more identified queries as first suggested queries with the first search results for the first user-submitted query.

Abstract: A computer system and method a computer system and method for processing a search query result includes identifying a plurality of result pages in response to a search query submitted from a computing device directed to a collection of pages, determining a relevancy ranking of the result pages in accordance with a multiple dimension parameter set that includes metrics relating to the search query itself and also includes metrics unique to a subscriber associated with the search query, and providing the result pages in accordance with the determined relevancy ranking. This provides an active ranking process for the search results before they are provided to a user.

Abstract: One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for transitioning between representations of an electronic document. Elements, such as visual elements, common between a first set of elements from a first representation of the document and a second set of elements from a second representation of the document are identified. The non-intersecting elements from the first and second sets are respectively ranked in accordance with a representation relevance. First set non-intersecting elements are removed from an intermediate representation of the document, and second set non-intersecting elements are added to the intermediate representation, while the intermediate representation is not equivalent to the second representation; and respective iterations of the intermediate representation are output, such as to a display to depict a transition from the first representation of the document to the second representation of the document.

Abstract: The present disclosure discloses a search method and system. A method obtains a first search result set of first search results relevant to query data submitted by a client. According to a first relevance score and a preset diversity field of each first search result in the first search result set, a second relevance score of each first search result is calculated. The preset diversity field represents an attribute category of a respective first search result. According to the first relevance score and the second relevance score, a relevance parameter score for each first search result is generated. According to a preset number of second search results and the relevance parameter score, the present number of second search results are extracted from the first search result set to display to the client. The technique achieves lower consumption of system resources, faster computation speed and more flexibility in diversification of search results.

Abstract: A search engine system accepts queries that include query terms and labels applicable to certain documents. A domain filter is constructed that is used to filter search results to certain domains, where the domains are determined based on the labels included in the query. The filtered search results are processed to ensure that certain portions of the results are from domains included in the filter. The results are further processed to include the query labels with certain ones of the results.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for automatically associating tags with files in a computer system. In one method, the method comprises receiving a search request from a user containing a search keyword; retrieving results including one or more files responsive to the search request; receiving file information and the user's previous access information about the one or more files; selecting at least one eligible file from the one or more files based on the access information and the file information; identifying at least one tag based on at least one of the search keyword, the access information, and the file information; associating the tag with the eligible file; and storing the association of the tag with the eligible file.

Abstract: Systems and methods for extracting information from structured documents are provided. The systems and methods relate to selecting a centroid document from a group of structured documents, selecting a subset of the group of structured documents in order to form a cluster of the subset of documents about the centroid document. The selecting the subset is preferably based on the relative similarity between each of the selected subset and the centroid document. Then, systems and methods according to the invention include marking a data element on the centroid document. The systems and elements also include identifying a data element on each of the subset of documents, the data element that corresponds to the marked data element on the centroid document. Finally, data may be extracted from the subset of documents based on the identifying step.

Abstract: Concepts and technologies are described herein for mining location contexts within document text. Through an implementation of the concepts and technologies presented herein, functionality can be provided for location context mining within articles, websites, travelogues, or other such documents. A location context is a concept associated with a specific location. For example, the contexts “beach” and “hula” are associated with Hawaii. Similarly, “glacier” and “polar bear” are contexts associated with Alaska. Location context mining can automatically discover locations and location contexts by mining information from a set of documents. User interfaces to support queries of the mined information are also presented herein.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for presenting semi-structured sets of search results comprising two or more differently-structured subsets of search results. The search results are divided into two or more groups of similarly-structured results. The search results are displayed in their respective groups rather than as a single set. Each group is displayed using a different display structure, in an order determined by a group ranking mechanism. The search results within a group ordered by a result ranking mechanism. Techniques are also disclosed for enhancing a display of similarly structured data by emphasizing highly relevant result fields. The highly relevant result fields may be identified based on metadata ranking mechanisms, uniqueness of their constituent values, historical feedback, keyword location, and/or other mechanisms. The fields are emphasized using, without limitation, highlighting, reordering, and filtering of unemphasized fields from the display.

Abstract: Embodiments are directed towards collecting, aggregating and indexing unique and non-unique user data from a plurality of users. The result for a query of this indexed aggregation of user data is provided in a plurality of sub-sets of aggregated user data. Each subset of aggregated user data corresponds to a particular portion of the plurality of users. Also, each of these particular portions of the users is set at least large enough to provide general anonymity for the individual users. User data may be collected by one or more user data suppliers and provided to a user data aggregator. In some embodiments, user data may be collected as unique user data, non-unique user data, or any combination thereof. In some embodiments, user data may be aggregated by zip code, expanded zip code, and/or one or more attributes.

Abstract: Method, system, and programs for context-based query suggestion are disclosed. A user input is received first. The user input is associated with a request for query suggestion and a page identifier for identifying a page on which a user is browsing. A plurality of page aboutnesses of the page are then fetched from a database based on the received page identifier. A plurality of query suggestions are determined based on the fetched plurality of page aboutnesses. The determined plurality of query suggestions are provided to the user.

Abstract: A server may scan an entity's or business' web page to identify information linking to one or more social networking web sites associated with the entity. The server may receive a request from a client device for information about the entity, specifically, a request to view an entity's place page. A place page may provide various types of information to users, for example, by displaying information about the particular entity such as user reviews, contact information, etc. In response to the request, the server may include the entity's social networking web site with the place page information provided to the client device. The server may also access the identified social networking web site in order to identify content such as coupons or other offers recently provided by the entity on the web site. This identified content may also be included in the place page provided to the requesting client device.

Abstract: Search systems and methods for searching structured data and enhancing the relevancy of search results provided to a requesting user or application. Enhanced search results are provided by searching a cache of a user's most recently used items to eliminate or reduce search indexing latency. Also, more relevant search results are provided by re-ranking results based on use history, data security models and/or hierarchical user role models.

Abstract: Some embodiments of on-the-fly pattern recognition with configurable bounds have been presented. In one embodiment, a pattern matching engine is configured based on user input, which may include values of one or more user configurable bounds on searching. Then the configured pattern matching engine is used to search for a set of features in an incoming string. A set of scores is updated based on the presence of any of the features in the string while searching for the features. Each score may indicate a likelihood of the content of the string being in a category. The search is terminated if the end of the string is reached or if the user configurable bounds are met. After terminating the search, the scores are output.

Abstract: Example methods, apparatuses, or articles of manufacture are disclosed that may be implemented using one or more computing devices to facilitate or otherwise support one or more processes or operations in connection with performing information searches, such as, for example, domain-specific on-line searches using social survey-type queries.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for providing search result page previews. In one aspect, a method includes receiving data that specify a set of search results responsive to a search query. Query-relevant content is selected to be included in a page preview for at least one of the search results. In turn, data that cause presentation of the page preview are provided. The data provided can cause presentation of the query-relevant content at an initial zoom level and at a higher zoom level, where the initial zoom level is a zoom level at which both the query-relevant content and other content from the resource are presented. The page preview can include a page tear that defines multiple portions of the page preview for a resource.

Abstract: A tag database storing tags indexing captured object can be searched efficiently. In one embodiment, such a search begins by receiving a query for one or more objects captured by a capture system, and determining whether a query time range exceeds a time range of a set of fast tables. In one embodiment, the invention further includes searching the set of fast tables if the query time range does not exceed the time range of the fast tables, the set of fast tables containing tags having meta-data related to captured objects. In one embodiment, the invention further includes searching a set of hourly tables if the query time range does exceed the time range of the fast tables. In one embodiment, the present invention further includes searching a set of daily tables if the query time range also exceeds the time range of the hourly tables.

Abstract: A graphical user interface is disclosed for management and easy reorganization of graphical objects displayed over the graphical user interface. The graphical user interface may relate to prioritizing and organizing the results of a database search. The graphical user interface may alternatively relate to prioritizing and organizing graphic objects such as personalized topics on a homepage and formatting icons in a productivity application program, such as a word processing application program, a spreadsheet application program, a presentation application program and a drawing application program.

Abstract: According to the disclosed subject matter, various embodiments for generating a search results page that provides contextual information to an entity/target site associated with a search result are presented. In response to receiving a search query from a user, a set of search results is obtained. Each search result in the set of search results comprises a hyperlink to content at a target site. From the set of identified search results, a search results page is generated. The generated search results page includes at least one search result that is encoded with data for providing contextual information of the user's current query context to the corresponding target site upon user selection of the at least one search result. The generated search results page is then provided to the user in response to the search query.

Abstract: A ranking component refines an initial document ranking in which the initial ranking is based on a scoring criterion. The ranking component generates or receive a set of documents that are related to a document. The set of documents may be related in a number of ways, such as similarity in authorship or publisher. The ranking component then applies the scoring criterion to the set of related documents to generate a related set score. The related set score is used to refine the initial rankings.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for searching a set of documents using search terms. In one embodiment, a summary is provided for each document in the set. Search terms are received, and the set of documents are parsed using the received search terms. A first relevance value is calculated using only the summary of each document. A subset of documents having the highest relevance is provided by using the first relevance value. The subset of documents is parsed using the received search terms, to calculate a second relevance value for each document using the respective document. Query results are provided, the query results including documents having the highest relevance according to the second relevance value.

Abstract: Determining ranked candidate media in response to media query data corresponding to a query media includes receiving the media query data including feature data of the query media, coordinate data, and boundary data, matching the features with corresponding features of an media database using the feature data to identify features in the media database within a predetermined hamming distance in a hash table from the corresponding features of the query media to obtain matched features in the media database, determining candidate media whose number of matched features exceeds a matched feature threshold, generating a geometry similarity score between the query media and each candidate media using the feature data and the coordinate data, generating a boundary similarity score between the query media and each candidate media using the boundary data, ranking the candidate media based on the numbers of matched features, the geometry similarity scores and the boundary similarity scores.

Abstract: Search systems and methods for searching structured data and enhancing the relevancy of search results provided to a requesting user or application. Enhanced search results are provided by searching a cache of a user's most recently used items to eliminate or reduce search indexing latency. Also, more relevant search results are provided by re-ranking results based on use history, data security models and: or hierarchical user role models.

Abstract: The accessing of event related content on a client device at an event techniques include a method, and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. In some embodiments of these techniques, the method includes receiving a request to check-in to the event from the client device. The check-in request includes geographic location information of the client device. The method further includes determining whether the client device is located at a venue holding the event based on the received geographic location information of the client device and a first predetermined radius. The method further includes determining whether the event at the venue is in progress. The method further includes transmitting a first plurality of event information to the client device based upon determination that the client device is located at the venue and the event is in progress.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for validating candidate translations for a phrase. A plurality of candidate translations for a phrase are received. A similarity score for each of the candidate translations is calculated. Each similarity score is an estimate of visual similarity between a group of visual media search results responsive to a visual media search query with text corresponding to the phrase and a group of visual media search results responsive to a visual media search query with text corresponding to a candidate translation. One or more of the candidate translations are selected based on the similarity scores. The selected candidate translations are associated with the phrase as valid translations for the phrase.

Abstract: The present invention relates generally to methods and systems for searching and retrieving records from a database and in particular to capturing a user's preferences to facilitate retrieval of records from the database in accordance with those preferences. The invention is suitable for use in applications in which the records retrieved from the database correspond to books, films, music or the like and it will be convenient to describe the invention in relation to that exemplary, but non-limiting, application.

Abstract: Identifying synonyms of entities using a collection of documents is disclosed herein. In some aspects, a document from a collection of documents may be analyzed to identify hit sequences that include one or more tokens (e.g., words, number, etc.). The hit sequences may then be used to generate discriminating token sets (DTS's) that are subsets of both the hit sequences and the entity names. The DTS's are matched with corresponding entity names, and then used to create DTS phrases by selecting adjacent text in the document that is proximate to the DTS. The DTS phrases may be analyzed to determine whether the corresponding DTS is synonyms of the entity name. In various aspects, the tokens of an associated entity name that are present in the DTS phrases are used to generate a score for the DTS. When the score at least reaches a threshold, the DTS may be designated as a synonym. A list of synonyms may be generated for each entity name.

Abstract: A method and system for determining a service description that most closely matches a service name. A ranked service name list is generated by use of a name parser, a dictionary, and a name composer, wherein the ranked service name list comprises at least one alternative service name and a respective rank of each alternative service name of the at least one alternative service name, and wherein the respective rank indicates how closely the alternative service name associated with the respective rank resembles the service name provided by the user. It is ascertained that the service description matches the highest ranked alternative service name in the service name list. The service description matching the highest ranked alternative service name is communicated to the user.

Abstract: Systems and processes are provided for selecting content items for distribution to content distribution slots. A content distributor can identify relevant content for distribution in response to a request for content associated with a first domain by identifying a target domain to associate with the first domain.

Abstract: An electronic document analysis method receiving N electronic documents pertaining to a case encompassing a set of issues including at least one issue and establishing relevance of at least the N documents to at least one individual issue in the set of issues, the method comprising, for at least one individual issue from among the set of issues, receiving an output of a categorization process applied to each document in training and control subsets of the at least N documents, the output including, for each document in the subsets, one of a relevant-to-the-individual issue indication and a non-relevant-to-the-individual issue indication; building a text classifier simulating the categorization process using the output for all documents in the training subset of documents; and running the text classifier on the at least N documents thereby to obtain a ranking of the extent of relevance of each of the at least N documents to the individual issue.

Abstract: A document search apparatus for searching stored document data based on a specified search word is provided with a search word input unit for inputting the search word, a search processing unit for counting the number of times the search word appears in the document data, and a display control unit for changing, based on the number of times the search word appears in the document data counted by the search processing unit, an amount of the document data displayed. The document search apparatus is capable of lightening the burden placed on the user in finding the document of interest and in search refinement by displaying the search result in an easy-to-see graphical layout.

Abstract: The present invention is directed towards systems, methods and computer program products for providing query-based advertising content. According to one embodiment, a method for providing query-based advertising content comprises receiving a web query and generating an ad query associated with the web query, wherein the ad query is generated on the basis of one of a query to advertisement relationship, a query to feature vector relationship, or a rewritten query vector. An advertisement is selected on the basis of the generated ad query.

Abstract: A persistent filter refining system places a search result comprising objects in a dynamic non-persistent bucket and displays the search result in a dynamic non-persistent bucket display for selection of the objects by a user. The system transfers a selected object from the dynamic non-persistent bucket to a persistent bucket and displays the transferred selected object in a persistent bucket display. The system iteratively provides additional search results to the user for selection and transfer of additional selected objects to the persistent bucket to provide access by a user to take action on the transferred selected object and additional selected objects. In one embodiment, the present system displays one or more additional search results for comparison and selection of objects by the user.

Abstract: A context-aware targeted information delivery system comprises a mobile device, an MMR matching unit, a plurality of databases for user profiles, user context and advertising information, a plurality of comparison engines and a plurality of weight adjusters. The mobile device is coupled to deliver an image patch to the MMR matching unit which in turn performs recognition to produce recognize text. The recognized text is provided to a first and second comparison engines to produce relevant topics and relevant ads. The relevant topics and relevant ads are adjusted with information from a user context database including information such as location, date, time, and other information from a user profile. The third comparison engine compares the relevant topics and relevant ads to produce a set of final ads that are most related to the topics of interest for the user and delivered for display on to the mobile device.

Abstract: Disclosed are systems, apparatus, and methods for context-aware messaging. In various implementations, a conversation between two or more users may be hosted by a communications tool, where the conversation generates text included in a conversation thread. Information and entities may be extracted from the generated text. One or more weights may be assigned to each of the extracted plurality of entities based on the contents of the conversation thread. The one or more weights may provide a rank for each of the extracted entities for a search of at least one information feed. In some implementations, the at least one information feed may be searched based on the weighted extracted entities to identify at least one relevant information feed. The at least one relevant information feed may be updated with the information extracted from the conversation thread.

Abstract: A method for providing a review from a customer relationship management (CRM) system is disclosed. The method includes receiving a message including a request for a review relevant to a viewer from a requesting user system associated with a first user, where the message also includes information identifying a review subject and readily available information related to the viewer. Reviews related to the review subject and managed by a CRM system are identified and a relevance score is determined for each of the records based on relevance factors relating to the viewer and to data managed by the CRM system, and social media influence factors relating to social media content from a social networking entity. Recommended reviews are selected based on the relevance scores of the reviews, and information identifying the recommended reviews is included in a response message that is transmitted to the requesting user system.

Abstract: A method for providing information to a user system from a customer relationship management (CRM) system is disclosed. The method embodiment includes receiving by a server a message from a user that includes a request for recommended information relevant to the user and/or an enterprise, where the message also includes real-time user-specific information collected by and stored on the user's system and/or enterprise-specific information. The method also includes identifying records managed by a CRM system based on the real-time user-specific and/or the enterprise-specific information. A relevance score is determined for each of the identified records based on relevance factors and on social media influence factors, and recommended records are selected based on the relevance scores of the recommended records. Information identifying the recommended records is included in a response message that is transmitted by the server to the user's system.

Abstract: A method for providing recommended information relating to an account from a customer relationship management (CRM) system is disclosed. The method embodiment includes receiving by a server a message from a user system associated with a user including a request for information relating to a target account representing a customer, competitor and/or partner of an enterprise, and information identifying the target account. Based on the information identifying the target account, accessible records associated with the enterprise and relating to the target person are identified, and public social media content relating to the target account is collected from social networking entities. A comprehensive account profile associated with the target account is generated based on the accessible records and on the social media content, and at least a portion of the profile is included in a response message that is transmitted by the server to the user system.

Abstract: A method for providing recommended products from a customer relationship management (CRM) system is disclosed. The method embodiment includes receiving from a user system a message including a request for a product relevant to a customer affiliated with an enterprise, where the message also includes information identifying the customer, the enterprise, and/or a product purchased by the customer. The method also includes identifying suggested products based on information managed by the CRM system and related to the customer, the enterprise and/or the purchased product. A relevance score is determined for each of the suggested products based on relevance factors and social media influence factors, and recommended products are selected based on the relevance scores of the recommended products. Information identifying the recommended products is included in a response message that is transmitted to the user system.

Abstract: One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for constructing a temporal visualization of query results. That is, query results associated with temporal information, such as timestamps, may be used to create a temporal distribution (e.g., query results comprising images and image capture dates, web pages and web page creation dates, etc.). The temporal distribution may comprise a distribution of the query results over time (e.g., query results may be sorted and/or grouped based upon dates specified by the timestamps). A temporal visualization of the query results may be constructed using the temporal distribution. For example, query results may be assigned to date slots within the temporal visualization. The temporal visualization may illustrate a substantial number of query results (e.g., thousands) that may otherwise not be visually presentable at once. Zoom commands and/or hover commands may be processed to provide finer and/or coarser granularity of the query results.