JPH10228488A - Information retrieval collecting method and its system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently take out information which a user requires as one collected information at the time of retrieving and collecting information on internet. SOLUTION: Category classes expressing respective categories are defined based on object directing programming and information items to be collected are set for the respective categories as properties. Methods describing information acquiring methods and information work processing methods are set for the respective properties. Request input from the user is set in a request input format which a system can understand (step S1) and the request input is classified into the category classes. The information item which the system outputs for the request input is expressed by the property of the class to which the request input belongs. Information is retrieved and collected based on the content mentioned in the method and it is outputted as comprehensive information corresponding to the request input (steps S2-S4).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of collecting specific information from the Internet, collecting information corresponding to a user's request from a large number of information related to a keyword input by the user, and collecting the collected information. The present invention relates to an information search and collection method and system for outputting collected information as one piece of comprehensive information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, it has become possible to search and collect various kinds of information using the Internet. In order to search and collect information from the Internet, for example, there is a search method in which a keyword input by a user is applied to a search engine and the addresses of all pages hit by the keyword are output.
For example, when trying to collect information about a famous person, if the name of the person is input as a keyword, all the addresses of pages that hit the keyword are output. This allows the user to access a page where the information is likely to exist and retrieve only the necessary information in order to obtain the information required by the user among various information related to the person. By doing so, desired information is obtained.

[0003]

However, according to the above-described search / collection method, if the person who wants to collect information is a person who is active in various fields,
If you search for a keyword with just your name, the number of pages searched can sometimes be hundreds of pages. This is because not only people but also information about a certain facility, for example, if the facility is famous, there is a high possibility that information on the facility exists in various fields, If you try to search and collect using the facility name as a keyword, a huge number of pages will be searched.

[0004] As a method of improving the search / collection effort as much as possible, for example, a plurality of keywords representing the information to be collected can be input, and the address of a page that hits all the keywords can be input. In some cases, information is narrowed down to a certain extent, for example, by outputting an address of only a page where a keyword appears more than a certain number.

[0005] As a specific example, when information of a famous person who is active in a wide field is to be collected, the main occupation of the person and various related information are to be collected. By inputting as a keyword, the address of only the page that hits both keywords is output, so that the number of pages to be extracted is greatly reduced.

[0006] However, even if a certain degree of narrowing is performed in this manner, the information that the user really needs is often not part of the whole page, but a part of it. Eventually, it is necessary for the user to perform a task of selecting necessary information from the retrieved pages.

As described above, in the search service at the present stage,
Even if the information is narrowed down to some extent, after all, it is necessary for the user to find necessary information from a large amount of searched information and edit the information as one information page, which further improves usability. There is room.

Accordingly, the present invention analyzes a user's input request based on a keyword from the user, converts the user's request into a format that can be understood by the system, and converts the information into a format based on a preset algorithm. The purpose is to search and collect, and to provide comprehensive information according to the user's request input.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided an information retrieval and collecting method for retrieving and collecting information based on a request input from a user. Based on the request input format, collect information related to the request input based on the request input format, analyze the collected result, extract necessary contents, and extract the extracted contents according to the user's request input. It is characterized by being output as important information.

More specifically, in an information search and collection method for searching and collecting information based on a request input from a user, a category class expressing each content category is defined based on object-oriented programming, In each category class, the information items to be collected for each category are set as properties, and each property has a method that describes the information acquisition method and information processing method for each property. After making the request input format understandable by the system, the request input is classified into the category class,
In response to the request input, based on the properties of the class to which the request input belongs and on the basis of the contents described in the method, information relating to the information item to be collected is searched and collected, and the collection result is determined by the user. Is output as comprehensive information according to the request input.

The information items to be collected are defined as title classes, and each title class is
For each information item, the content of the information for each information item is set as a property, and a class structure that has a method that describes the data acquisition method, data processing method, etc. for each information content You may have it.

Further, the content of the information is defined as an information format class. In each of the information format classes, a method of representing the information for each information content is set as a property for each information content, and each information format class is set as a property. A class structure having a method describing a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like for each method of representing information may be used.

Further, in such an information search and collection method, the property for each category is displayed,
An arbitrary property may be made selectable from the displayed properties.

Further, the information search and collection system of the present invention comprises:
In an information search and collection system that searches and collects information based on a request input from a user, a request analysis unit that converts the request input from the user into a request input format that can be understood by the system, and a request obtained by the request analysis unit. An information collecting means for collecting information related to the request input based on the input format, a content analyzing / collecting means for analyzing the collected result and extracting necessary content, and a content analyzing / collecting means for extracting the required content. Information editing / output means for editing and outputting the content as comprehensive information according to a request input from a user.

More specifically, in an information search and collection system for searching and collecting information based on a request input from a user, a request analysis means for converting the request input from the user into a request input format understandable by the system; An information collection unit that collects information related to the request input based on the request input format obtained by the request analysis unit, a content analysis / collection unit that analyzes the collected result and extracts necessary content, Information editing / output means for editing and outputting the content extracted by the content analysis / collection means as comprehensive information in response to a request input from a user, and each content category based on object-oriented programming. Category classes that represent the data, and each category class should be collected for each category. The information items are set as properties, and each property has a method that describes the information acquisition method and information processing method for each property. After the request input from the user is in a request input format that the system can understand, The request input is classified into the category class, and information on the information items to be collected is collected based on the property of the class to which the request input belongs and on the basis of the content described in the method. In addition to searching and collecting, the collected result is output as comprehensive information according to a user's request input.

[0016] In such an information retrieval and collection system, the information items to be collected are defined as title classes, and each title class has, for each information item, the content of information for each information item as a property. In addition to the class structure, the class structure may be set so as to have a method describing a data acquisition method and a data processing method for each content of information. Further, the content of the information is defined as an information format class, and each information format class includes:
The method of representing information for each information content is set as a property for each information content, and each method has a method that describes the data acquisition method, data processing method, etc. It may have a class structure.

Further, in such an information search and collection system, properties for each of the categories may be displayed, and an arbitrary property may be selected from the displayed properties.

As described above, according to the present invention, a request input from a user is converted into a request input format that can be understood by the system, and then the request input is classified into a category class, and the request input belongs to the request input. In addition to searching and collecting information based on the properties of the class and the contents described in the method for each property,
The collection result is output as comprehensive information according to a user's request input. As a result, the system can search and collect the information desired by the user based on the keyword input by the user only by performing the processing according to the predetermined algorithm. It becomes possible. Further, the collected information can be extracted as one set of information according to a user's request input.

Further, the information items are defined as title classes, the information contents are set as properties for each title class, and the method thereof is determined, so that the information contents of each information item can be collected. It is not necessary to set a method indicating a method of processing information or information for each category class classified by a keyword from a user, thereby simplifying an algorithm and improving processing efficiency.

Further, for each content of information, the method of representing information is set as a property, and each method of representing information has a method describing a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like. Therefore, when information of the same format is used in different classes, processing can be performed by a common algorithm, and processing efficiency can be improved.

Further, since the property for each category is displayed to the user, and the user can select an arbitrary property from the displayed properties,
User customization can be realized, and it is also possible to search and collect only information according to the user's preference, thereby improving processing efficiency.

[0022]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

As a general process of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, when a search request from a user is received, the search request is analyzed (step s1), so that the format is understood by the system. Then, based on a request input from the user, information information related to the search request is collected by, for example, a search engine (step s2), and content analysis is performed to collect necessary information (step s3). Then, the collected information is edited and the information is displayed to the user (step s4). The above processing flow is a schematic processing to be performed by the present invention,
Each process will be specifically described.

For example, a case will be described in which a user attempts to collect information on a person who is world famous (this person is called "A"). This person A
Is a world-renowned person, both as a technician and as a manager, and in other fields. Here, the user is a technician of person A based on a predefined category class structure. And to collect information as a manager. The information required by the user as a technician and manager of person A includes, for example,
It is assumed that the photograph is a face photograph of the person A, a career, a technical paper as an engineer, an asset as a manager and the like.

Now, when the user tries to obtain information as a technician and a manager of the person A, various methods for inputting the information are conceivable. Enter A's name "A". At this stage, the system analyzes the input and understands that the user's request is an information search request for "the person named A". next,
The user inputs information to be collected for this person A. Here, since the user is trying to collect information as a technician and a manager of the person "A", the user inputs contents such as a technician and a manager.

Thus, on the system side, the request from the user is in an input format based on a predefined category class structure such as "person, engineer and manager, name is A". .

That is, the present invention has a class structure by object-oriented programming as shown in FIG. 2 (this is called class structure 1). As can be seen from FIG. 2, there is a category as content, and the category is, for example, a category class such as facility, person, product, etc. In the case of a person as a subclass of the category class, a technician, It has managers and even classes (not shown) such as athletes, politicians and the like.

In such a class structure, for example, "A" is an instance of a technician / manager who inherits a manager class and a technician class which are subclasses of the person class.

The user's request input is a category class 1
There may be instances of one class, but in some cases, as in the example above, instances that inherit from multiple category classes.

When a class in a category is determined, information items to be collected are determined for each class. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, if the class is a person class, for example, the face, career, occupation, and the like are set as properties, and if the class is a manager class, for example, an asset is set as the property, and a technician is set. In the case of a class, for example, an item of information to be collected for each class is set in advance as a property, for example, a paper is set as the property.

Further, for each property,
The method of collecting information (constructor) and the method of displaying information to the user (show) are described in advance as methods.

For example, for the “face” which is a property of the person class, in the information collected by the search engine using the name “A” as a keyword,
A method of collecting information is described for each item, such as extracting a face image file and an image whose title is the name of the person.

As described above, in this embodiment, for example, a keyword input by a user such as a person's name or a manager / engineer is converted into an input format based on a category class structure which the system has in advance. For each category class, preset properties (such as face and career for the person class, assets for the manager class, and papers for the technician class) are set in advance for each category class. Information is collected based on a predetermined method of collecting information, and the collected information is output to the user as comprehensive information.

That is, in this case, the user simply specifies the category, and for example, for the person “A”,
The manager of person A, including his / her photo, career, dissertation, and assets /
The information as the technician is displayed to the user in the form of a single page. By the way, the class structure 1 shown in FIG. 2 is an example of a class structure for setting each class of a category or its subclass as the content, and sets information collection items for each category class and its subclass as properties. Then, an example was described in which the method of collecting information and the processing of information were described as a method for each property.However, as the contents of the content, the collection items for the title class were set as properties, and for each property, You can also define a method.

That is, the properties (for example, face, career, assets, papers, etc.) in the class structure 1 are the titles of the respective items when creating a page to be displayed to the user. As a title class, properties for the title class are predetermined, and for each property, a method of collecting information (constructor) and a method of displaying information to a user (sho
Write w) in advance as a method.

In the example of the class structure (referred to as class structure 2) shown in FIG. 4, an example in which a face class, a career class, a dissertation class, an asset class, and the like are defined as title classes is shown. As shown in FIG. 7, for example, for a face class, the information content of the face class includes, for example, a photograph and an information source U indicating where the photograph was taken from the Internet.
RL is set as a property, and for the history class, text, list, etc. are set as properties of the information, and for the dissertation class, the list is set as a property of the information. The method of collecting the information (constructor) and the method of displaying the information to the user (show) are described in advance as a method for each property.

As described above, for each title class, a property indicating the content of information for each title class is determined, and for each property, 1
A predetermined information collection method (constructor) and a predetermined information display method (show) are determined for each information content.

By adopting such a method,
When there is a property common to different category classes, it is not necessary to describe a method such as a method of collecting information on each title for each category class.

Further, the photograph shown in the class structure 2 above,
An information format class can be defined for a property indicating how to represent information for each information content such as text and list.

For example, as shown in FIG. 6, the contents of the information of each item representing the title are text,
A class structure (referred to as class structure 3) representing each information format such as a graphic, a table, a list, a moving image, and a sound is set. Then, as shown in FIG. 7, for example, in the case of a text class, a format, a size, and the like are set as properties, and an information acquisition method, an information processing method, and the like are described in a method. For text, this method describes how to collect the text, how to format and size it, or how to summarize the content.

As described above, the information content of the item representing the title is represented by a class structure as an information format class, so that when information of the same format is extracted from different category classes, the information collection process can be shared. Is also possible.

For example, when the category class is a person class, information to be collected in the person class includes text information on the person, and when the category class is a facility class, it represents an outline of the facility. There is also text information. As described above, even in different category classes, the information format (information content) representing the content of the information item corresponding to each category class is often common. Therefore, the efficiency of information collection can be further improved by standardizing the information collection process for the format representing the contents of the information items.

In the embodiment described above, the user tries to collect information as a manager / engineer for the person "A", and as a keyword on the system side, "A" and " This is an information search / collection process when a keyword such as “manager / technologist” is input.

As described above, when the user inputs a predetermined keyword, first, the request input format is such that the system can understand based on the keyword. In this case, the user inputs "A" and "management". Analyzing "technical person / technical person", the user's search request is in a format such as "a certain person, who is a manager and a technician whose name is A", that is, " It is converted into a form that a system such as "person / manager / engineer / A" can understand.

Then, properties (person class: face, career, occupation, etc., manager class: assets, etc., engineer class: papers) preset for each category class (person class, manager class, engineer class) After collecting information by a predetermined method, the collected information is displayed in a predetermined format in response to a user request. FIG. 8 shows a display example of the information collected in this way. In this case, the property of the category class (in this case, face, career, paper, asset) which is also the title of each item on the display page is based on the class structure 2 as shown in FIG. To collect information. Further, information can be collected for each format (text class, graphic class, photo class, etc.) of each title class based on the class structure 3 as shown in FIG. 6 as in the example of FIG.

In the example of FIG. 8, a face photograph of the person "A" and its information source URL are displayed, a summary of the history and a history list are displayed as the history, a paper list as the paper,
The summary is displayed as the asset. As described above, only the information corresponding to the user's request is extracted from the large number of information searched based on the keyword input by the user, and is output as one integrated information.

The method of accepting a request from the user has been described in the above embodiment as an example in which the user makes a unidirectional input from the keyboard. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Is also good.
Hereinafter, this interactive method will be schematically described.

First, the user makes an input such as "I want to know about the person A". As a result, the system performs input analysis based on the input from the user. At this stage, the result of the analysis is “person, −? −, A”, and the system knows “A Do you have a thing? "Or" What do you want to know? "

Thus, when the user makes a response such as “A is said to be a visionary in the information industry,” the system responds by requesting the user “person /
The format is converted into a format of "manager / technical engineer, A", and a search process is performed based on the format. In addition, this interactive method is not limited to an interactive method using a keyboard and a screen display, but may be an interactive method using a natural language.

Further, a property of a category class in which the input keyword becomes an instance may be displayed to the user, and the user may select a property from the displayed properties. Furthermore, a class structure as shown in FIG. 2 is displayed on the screen of the system,
The user is prompted to select the required category class from the category class by clicking on it, then the properties of the category class are displayed and the user is allowed to select from the displayed properties. The user may select from the contents.

As described above, the user can select only necessary properties or select a class and perform processing based on the selected properties, so that only necessary search items need to be processed. In addition, processing efficiency can be improved, and high-speed data search and collection processing can be performed.

FIG. 9 shows a schematic configuration of the system according to the present invention. The main components are a request analysis unit 11, an information collection unit 12, a content analysis / collection unit 13, an information editing unit 14, an information display unit 15, and the like. And

The request analysis means 11 converts the keyword input by the user into a format that the system can understand.
That is, as described above, the format is, for example, "person / manager / engineer / A" based on the content input by the user.

Based on such a request format, related information is collected on the Internet by the information collecting means 12, and necessary information is collected by the content analyzing / collecting means 13 from the collected information. . As described above, in the method of collecting this information, for example, in the case of the person class, the properties such as face, career, occupation, etc. are collected based on the method defined for each property.

Then, the collected information is edited into a predetermined format by the information editing means 14, and the information is displayed by the information display means 15. This editing work
It is not just a fixed format. For example, if it is text data, it may include summarizing the contents, and if it is graphic data, it may include processing such as data compression and reduction. After such editing work, the information is output as page information in a format as shown in FIG.

Incidentally, the present invention can be realized not only by a server but also by client software. In this case, for example, if you have a category class as described above as client software, the user inputs keywords based on the class structure of the category class, and retrieves the final result from the server. It is also possible to perform the processing in a distributed manner between the client software and the server, such that a part of the processing is performed by the client software, and the processing-intensive part is performed by the server.
Further, it is also possible to cause all the processing to be performed by the client software.

The processing program for performing the processing of the present invention can be stored in a storage medium such as a floppy disk, an optical disk, or a hard disk. The present invention includes those storage media. Alternatively, data may be obtained from a network.

[0058]

According to the present invention, a request input from a user is converted into a request input format that can be understood by the system, and then the request input is classified into a category class, and the request input belongs to a class to which the request input belongs. In addition to searching for and collecting information based on the properties of each property and the contents described in the method for each property, the collected results are output as comprehensive information according to the user's request input . As a result, the system can search and collect information desired by the user only by processing the keyword input by the user in accordance with a predetermined algorithm, and can efficiently search and collect information. . Then, the collected information can be extracted as one set of information according to the user's request input. For example, in the case of collecting information on a person, items such as the person's background and work content can be used as titles, and information can be provided in a state where each piece of information is edited for each title.

In addition, a title class is defined for each item of information output by the system in response to a request input from a user, and in each title class, the content of information for each item is set as a property for each item. In addition, each information content has a method that describes a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like. As described above, the information content is set as a property for each title class and its method is determined, so that a method indicating a method of collecting information of the information content for the item (title), a method of processing the information, and the like is provided. It is not necessary to set for each category classified by the keyword from the user, so that the algorithm can be simplified and the processing efficiency can be improved.

Further, an information format class indicating a method of representing information is defined for each content of the information, and for each information format class, a method of representing information for each content is set as a property for each content of information. At the same time, each method of representing information has a method that describes a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like. Thus, when information of the same format is used in different classes, processing can be performed by a common algorithm, and processing efficiency can be improved.

Further, by displaying the property for each category to the user and allowing the user to select an arbitrary property from the displayed properties, user customization can be realized, and the user can customize the property. It is also possible to search and collect only the information that has been collected, thereby improving the efficiency of the processing. In the case of a paid search service, the service can be received at a low price.

As described above, according to the present invention, information on the Internet is searched for based on a request input from a user.
When collecting, it is no longer necessary for the user to narrow down the information from a huge amount of search results as in the past, and the information required by the user can be efficiently extracted as one set of information for each item according to a predetermined algorithm. Can be.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart schematically illustrating an information retrieval and collection processing procedure according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a class structure of a category class corresponding to a user's request input in the information search and collection processing according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary view for explaining an example of properties and methods in the category class structure shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a class structure in which a property in a category class shown in FIG. 3 is a title class.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary view for explaining an example of properties and methods in the title class structure shown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a class structure in which a property in the title class shown in FIG. 4 is an information format class.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary view for explaining an example of properties and methods in the information format class structure shown in FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is an exemplary view for explaining an example of the format of information output by the information search and collection process according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a schematic system configuration diagram in the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Request analysis means 12 Information collection means 13 Content analysis / collection means 14 Information editing means 15 Information display means

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Michihiro Nagaishi 3-3-5 Yamato, Suwa-shi, Nagano Prefecture Seiko Epson Corporation

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An information search and collection method for searching for and collecting information based on a request input from a user, wherein the request input from the user is set to a request input format that can be understood by a system, and the request is input based on the request input format. Gather information related to the input, analyze the collected results,
An information search and collection method, which extracts necessary contents and outputs the extracted contents as comprehensive information according to a user's request input. 2. An information search and collection method for searching and collecting information based on a request input from a user, wherein a category class representing each content category is defined based on object-oriented programming, and each category class is Information items to be collected for each category are set as properties, and each property has a method that describes the information acquisition method and information processing method, so that the system can understand the request input from the user. After the input format, the request input is classified into the category class, and the request input should be collected based on the property of the class to which the request input belongs and based on the content described in the method. Search and collect information on information items, and collect the results Information retrieval collection method and outputting a comprehensive information corresponding to the request input of over THE. 3. The information item to be collected is defined as a title class. In each title class, the content of information for each information item is set as a property for each information item, and the title class of each information item is set. 3. The information retrieval and collection method according to claim 2, further comprising a method describing a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like for each content. 4. The information content is defined as an information format class. In each information format class, a method of expressing information for each information content is set as a property for each information content, and each information format class is set as a property. 4. The information search and collection method according to claim 3, further comprising a method in which a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like are described for each method of representing information. 5. The information search / collection according to claim 2, wherein properties for each category are displayed, and an arbitrary property can be selected from the displayed properties. Method. 6. An information search and collection system for searching and collecting information based on a request input from a user, a request analysis means for converting the request input from the user into a request input format that can be understood by the system, and a request analysis means. Information collecting means for collecting information related to the request input based on the request input format obtained by the above, a content analysis / collection means for analyzing the collected result and extracting necessary content, An information editing and outputting means for editing and outputting the content extracted by the collecting means as comprehensive information according to a request input from a user; 7. An information retrieval and collecting system for searching and collecting information based on a request input from a user, a request analyzing means for converting the request input from the user into a request input format understandable by the system, Information collecting means for collecting information related to the request input based on the request input format obtained by the above, a content analysis / collection means for analyzing the collected result and extracting necessary content, Information editing / outputting means for editing and outputting the content extracted by the collecting means as comprehensive information according to a request input from a user, and expressing respective content categories based on object-oriented programming. Category categories are defined, and each category class contains information items to be collected for each category. It is set as a property and has a method that describes the information acquisition method and information processing method for each property. The request input from the user is converted into a request input format that the system can understand, and then the request input Is classified into the category class, and for the request input, based on the property of the class to which the request input belongs, and based on the content described in the method, searching for information on the information items to be collected, An information search and collection system that collects and outputs the collected result as comprehensive information according to a user's request input. 8. The information item to be collected is defined as a title class. In each title class, the content of information for each information item is set as a property for each information item, 8. The information search and collection system according to claim 7, further comprising a method describing a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like for each content. 9. The content of the information is defined as an information format class. In each information format class, a method of representing information for each information content is set as a property for each information content, and each information format class is set as a property. 9. The information search and collection system according to claim 8, further comprising a method that describes a data acquisition method, a data processing method, and the like for each information presentation method. 10. A property for each category is displayed, and an arbitrary property can be selected from the displayed properties.
Information retrieval and collection system according to any of the above.