Method and system for measuring the quality of a hierarchy
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsGeorge H. Forman, Tom E. Fawcett, Henri J. Suermondt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Method and system for measuring the degree of coherence of nodes in a hierarchy. A hierarchy that includes a plurality of nodes is received. A plurality of training cases are also received. Based on these inputs, a measure of coherence is determined for at least one node D in the hierarchy. The determination of the measure of coherence includes evaluation of the training cases with at least one feature under a local environment of node D and evaluation of the training cases with at least one feature under a subtree of the node D.
Claims27
A method for measuring the degree of coherence of the arrangement of nodes in a hierarchy comprising the steps of:
- a) receiving a hierarchy of nodes;
- b) receiving a plurality of training cases that are filed under said nodes;
- and
- c) responsive thereto for determining a measure of coherence, for at least one node that has a local environment, by evaluating the training cases under the node with respect to the training cases in the local environment of the node.
An apparatus for measuring the degree of coherence of at least one considered node that has associated therewith a subtree and a local environment in a hierarchy comprising:
- a) a training case counter for determining the number of training cases under the subtree and the number of training cases for the local environment;
- b) an average prevalence determination unit for determining for at least one feature the average prevalence under the subtree and the average prevalence for the local environment;
- and
- c) a predictive feature determination unit for determining the set of predictive features that distinguish training cases of the subtree from documents of the local environment;
- and
- d) a coherence assignment unit for generating a coherence metric number for each considered node based on at least one predictive feature.
A system for measuring the degree of coherence of nodes in a topic hierarchy comprising:
- a) a coherence analyzer unit for receiving the topic hierarchy and a set of labeled training cases and responsive thereto for determining, for at least one current node under consideration, a measure of coherence by evaluating the training cases and at least one feature under the local environment of the current node and by evaluating the training cases and at least one feature under the subtree of the node under consideration.
A method for measuring the degree of coherence for one or more current nodes in a hierarchy comprising the steps of:
- a) receiving a hierarchy and the training cases filed into said hierarchy;
- b) determining a list of predictive features that distinguish documents of the current node's sub-tree from those in the current node's local environment;
- c) assigning a coherence value to the current node based on the list of predictive features and based on one or more of their degree of predictiveness, their the degree of prevalence, and their degree of uniformity, wherein the degree of uniformity reflects how evenly distributed said predictive features are among the children subtrees of the current node based on the training cases under each child subtree.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.