US 6,144,964 AGranted

Methods and apparatus for tuning a match between entities having attributes

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsJohn S. Breese, Carl M. Kadie

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Abstract

Matching (e.g., via correlation or similarity process) entities having attributes, some of which have associated values. The values of the attributes may be adjusted based on number of entities that have values for a particular attribute so that the values decrease as the number increases. The attributes of the entities may be harmonized and provided with default values so that entities being matched have common attributes defined by the union of the attributes of the entities being matched. The attributes of the entities may be expanded and provided with default values so that the entities being matched have attributes that neither had originally. Match values may be normalized to provide a weight value which may be used to predict an attribute value of a new entity based on known attribute values of known entities. The weight values may be tuned such that relatively high weights are amplified and relatively low weights are suppressed.

Claims9

Dependent claims

Given a first entity having a first set of attributes, at least some of which have associated attribute values, and a group of entities, each entity of the group of entities having a set of attributes values, at least some of which have associated attribute values, a method of operating a computer-implemented machine, the method comprising steps, implemented through computer instructions executed by the machine, of:

(a) accepting information regarding the first entity, the first set of attributes, the group of entities and the sets of attributes of the group of entities;
(b) for each entity of the group of entities, determining a degree to which the first entity matches the entity of the group of entities;
(c) for each entity of the group of entities, normalizing the determined degree to which the first entity matches the entity of the group of entities to generate a weight (w);
(d) for each entity of the group of entities, determining, whether or not the weight is relatively high or relatively low;
and
(e) for each entity of the group of entities:
(e1) if the weight is relatively high, enhancing the weight to generate a new weight (w.sub.e), such that if w.gtoreq.0, w.sub.e =w.sup.p where p is a tunable parameter;
and
(e2) if the weight is relatively low, suppressing the weight to generate a new weight (w.sub.s), such that if w<0, w.sub.s =-(-w.sup.p).

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.