Managing questioning in a question and answer system
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsCorville O. Allen, Albert A. Chung, Andrew R. Freed, Dorian B. Miller
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system, a method, and a computer program product for managing questioning in a Question and Answering (QA) system are disclosed. An input question received by the QA system is analyzed to determine the set of answer-types. A set of answer-types is determined. Prompting for clarifying data associated with the input question happens. A set of candidate answers of the answer-type is determined. The clarifying data is used to determine the set of candidate answers. At least one candidate answer of the set of candidate answers of the answer-type is provided.
Claims15
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:
- receive an input question;
- determine, by analyzing the input question, a set of answer-types which includes a temporally-related answer-type;
- prompt for temporally-related data clarifying the input question;
- determine, using received temporally-related data, a set of confidence ratings for at least a portion of a set of candidate answers of the temporally-related answer-type;
- and
- provide, using the set of confidence ratings for at least the portion of the set of candidate answers of the temporally-related answer-type, at least one candidate answer of the set of candidate answers of the temporally-related answer-type.
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 first computing device, causes the first computing device to:
- receive an input question;
- determine, by analyzing the input question, a set of answer-types which includes a temporally-related answer-type;
- generate a natural language clarifying question configured to stimulate clarifying data which clarifies the input question;
- prompt for clarifying data clarifying the input question;
- determine, using received clarifying data, a set of candidate answers of the temporally-related answer-type;
- and
- provide at least one candidate answer of the set of candidate answers of the temporally-related answer-type.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.