Selective fact generation from table data in a cognitive system

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to implement an ingestion engine for ingesting natural language textual content, the ingestion engine operating to:

• initiate ingestion of natural language textual content;
• identify an embedded structured data portion within the natural language textual content;
• generate a signature of the structured data portion, wherein the signature comprises one or more metadata elements describing the configuration or content of the structured data portion;
• identify references to the structured data portion in natural language text portions of the natural language textual content;
• evaluate the references based on the signature of the structured data portion;
• generate an ingestion prioritization plan for ingesting a set of facts associated with a set of elements of the structured data portion based on results of the evaluation;
• and
• apply the ingestion prioritization plan to generate the set of facts and store the set of facts in an ingested representation of the natural language textual content.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to implement an ingestion engine for ingesting natural language textual content, the ingestion engine operating to:
• initiate ingestion of natural language textual content;
• identify an embedded structured data portion within the natural language textual content;
• generate a signature of the structured data portion, wherein the signature comprises one or more metadata elements describing the configuration or content of the structured data portion;
• identify references to the structured data portion in natural language text portions of the natural language textual content;
• evaluate the references based on the signature of the structured data portion;
• generate an ingestion prioritization plan for ingesting a set of facts associated with a set of elements of the structured data portion based on results of the evaluation;
• and
• apply the ingestion prioritization plan to generate the set of facts and store the set of facts in an ingested representation of the natural language textual content.