Methods and apparatus for entity detection

Apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one processor-readable storage medium storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, perform a method comprising:
• matching a token from at least a portion of a text string with a matching concept in an ontology, wherein the at least a portion of the text string has been labeled as corresponding to a particular entity type;
• identifying a first concept as being hierarchically related to the matching concept within the ontology;
• identifying a second concept as being hierarchically related to the first concept within the ontology;
• and
• training a statistical model to associate the first concept with a first probability of corresponding to the particular entity type and the second concept with a second probability of corresponding to the particular entity type, based at least in part on the labeling of the at least a portion of the text string as corresponding to the particular entity type.

At least one computer-readable storage medium encoded with computer-executable instructions that, when executed, perform a method comprising:

• matching a token from at least a portion of a text string with a matching concept in an ontology, wherein the at least a portion of the text string has been labeled as corresponding to a particular entity type;
• identifying a first concept as being hierarchically related to the matching concept within the ontology;
• identifying a second concept as being hierarchically related to the first concept within the ontology;
• and
• training a statistical model to associate the first concept with a first probability of corresponding to the particular entity type and the second concept with a second probability of corresponding to the particular entity type, based at least in part on the labeling of the at least a portion of the text string as corresponding to the particular entity type.