Natural Language Processing and Candidate Response Evaluation

A computer program product for identifying and evaluating candidate passages responses, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program code embodied therewith, the program code executable by a processor to:

• represent a natural language passage as a plurality of natural language tokens and analyze the passage in natural language form, including apply one or more natural language input tokens against one or more passage tokens represented as natural language passage tokens;
• generate a structure representing the analyzed passage, the structure including one or more entries identifying matching input and passage tokens;
• represent the one or more input tokens in compact form and to represent the one or more passage tokens in compact form;
• leverage the structure and iteratively associate the one or more input tokens and matching passage tokens as an index representation;
• determine a first count of matching token entries qualified by a closeness criteria and a second count of evaluated token entries qualified by the closeness criteria;
• and
• calculate an alignment of the passage to a candidate question represented by the one or more input tokens, including assess a ratio of the first count and the second count as a confidence value;
• and
• a candidate answer from the passage returned with the confidence value.

A computer system comprising:

• a processing unit operatively coupled to memory;
• an artificial intelligence (AI) platform in communication with the processing unit, the AI platform to identify and evaluate candidate passage responses, including:
• a natural language (NL) manager to represent a natural language passage as a plurality of natural language tokens and analyze the passage in natural language form, including apply one or more natural language input tokens against one or more passage tokens represented as natural language passage tokens;
• a structure manager operatively coupled to the NL manager, the structure manager to generate a structure representing the analyzed passage, the structure including one or more entries identifying matching input and passage tokens;
• a token manager to represent the one or more input tokens in compact form and to represent the one or more passage tokens in compact form;
• the token manager to leverage the structure and iteratively associate the one or more input tokens and matching passage tokens as an index representation;
• the token manager to determine a first count of matching token entries qualified by a closeness criteria and a second count of evaluated token entries qualified by the closeness criteria;
• and
• a director to calculate an alignment of the passage to a candidate question represented by the one or more input tokens, including assess a ratio of the first count and the second count as a confidence value;
• and
• a candidate answer from the passage returned with the confidence value.

A computer implemented method comprising:

• analyzing a passage in natural language form, including identifying one or more passage tokens matching one or more input tokens;
• generating a structure representing the analyzed passage, the structure including one or more entries identifying matching input and passage tokens;
• representing the one or more input tokens and the one or more passage tokens in compact form;
• leveraging the structure and iteratively associating the one or more input tokens and matching passage tokens as an index representation;
• assessing the leveraged structure with the compact representation of the tokens with a compact operation, and the assessment determining a first count of matching token entries qualified by a closeness criteria and a second count of evaluated token entries qualified by the closeness criteria;
• calculating an alignment of the passage to the one or more input tokens, including assessing a ratio of the first count and the second count as a confidence value;
• and
• data from the passage qualified by the one or more input tokens is returned with the confidence value.

A computer program product for identifying and evaluating candidate passages responses, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program code embodied therewith, the program code executable by a processor to:

• analyze a passage in natural language form, including identifying one or more passage tokens matching one or more input tokens;
• generate a structure representing the analyzed passage, the structure including one or more entries identifying matching input and passage tokens;
• represent the one or more input tokens and one or more passage tokens in compact form;
• leverage the structure and iteratively associating the one or more input tokens and matching passage tokens as an index representation;
• assess the leveraged structure with the compact representation of the token with a compact operation, and the assessment determining a first count of matching token entries qualified by a closeness criteria and a second count of evaluated token entries qualified by the closeness criteria;
• calculate an alignment of the passage to the one or more input tokens, including assessing a ratio of the first count and the second count as a confidence value;
• and
• data from the passage qualified by the one or more input tokens is returned with the confidence value.