Document ranking systems and methods

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with a document ranking application comprising modules executable by a processor and configured to rank document data retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:

• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve negation terms and negation rules from a memory, the negation terms comprising prefix negation terms and suffix negation terms, the negation rules comprising a prefix negation rule comprising that a prefix negation term appear before the key term in a same sentence as the key term within a selected proximity and a suffix negation rule comprising that a suffix negation term appear after the key term in the same sentence as the key term within the selected proximity, the selected proximity comprising a selected number of words;
• compare the negation terms to other terms in each document within the selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term and according to the negation rules;
• exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in each document if at least one negation term matches another term according to the negation rules within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value, the relevancy ranking value comprising a document relevance value comprising a ratio comprising the term weight value in a numerator of the ratio and the term frequency value in a denominator of the ratio;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with a document ranking application comprising modules executable by a processor and configured to rank document data retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:

• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve at least one negation term from a memory;
• compare the at least one negation term to other terms included in each document that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each document of the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with a document ranking application comprising modules executable by a processor and configured to rank document data retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:

• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify at least two documents, each document comprising a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each document of the at least two documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in each document of the at least two documents;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve at least one negation term and at least one negation rule from a memory;
• compare the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule to other terms in each document of the at least two documents that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document of the at least two documents based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document of the at least two documents based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each document of the at least two documents in an order based on the relevancy ranking value of each document of the at least two documents.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with a document ranking application comprising modules executable by a processor and configured to rank document data retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:

• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify at least two records, each record comprising a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each record of the at least two records, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in each record of the at least two records;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve at least one negation term and at least one negation rule from a memory;
• compare the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule to other terms in each record of the at least two records that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one record for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each record of the at least two records based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each record of the at least two records based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each record of the at least two records in an order based on the relevancy ranking value of each record of the at least two records.

A ranking system comprising:

• a memory comprising at least one negation term and at least one negation rule;
• a processor comprising a document ranking application comprising modules executable by the processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:
• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve the at least one negation term and the at least one negation rule from the memory;
• compare the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule to other terms in each document that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each document of the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A ranking system comprising:

• a memory comprising negation terms and negation rules, the negation terms comprising prefix negation terms and suffix negation terms, the negation rules comprising a prefix negation rule comprising that a prefix negation term appear before the key term in a same sentence as the key term within a selected proximity and a suffix negation rule comprising that a suffix negation term appear after the key term in the same sentence as the key term within the selected proximity, the selected proximity comprising a selected number of words;
• a processor comprising a document ranking application comprising modules executable by the processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:
• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve the negation terms and the negation rules from the memory;
• compare the negation terms to other terms in each document within the selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term and according to the negation rules;
• exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in each document if at least one negation term matches another term according to the negation rules within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value, the relevancy ranking value comprising a document relevance (DR) value comprising a ratio comprising the term weight (TW) value in a numerator of the ratio and the term frequency (TF) value in a denominator of the ratio;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A ranking system comprising:

• a memory comprising at least one negation term;
• a processor comprising a document ranking application comprising modules executable by the processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:
• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve the at least one negation term from the memory;
• compare the at least one negation term to other terms included in each document that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each document of the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A ranking system comprising:

• a memory comprising at least one negation term and at least one negation rule;
• a processor comprising a document ranking application comprising modules executable by the processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:
• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify at least two documents, each document comprising a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each document of the at least two documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in each document of the at least two documents;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve the at least one negation term and the at least one negation rule from the memory;
• compare the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule to other terms in each document of the at least two documents that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document of the at least two documents based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document of the at least two documents based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each document of the at least two documents in an order based on the relevancy ranking value of each document of the at least two documents.

A ranking system comprising:

• a memory comprising at least one negation term and at least one negation rule;
• a processor comprising a document ranking application comprising modules executable by the processor to rank records retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising:
• a term frequency module to:
• query the data source to identify at least two records, each record comprising a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• and
• determine a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each record of the at least two records, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in each record of the at least two records;
• a negation module to:
• retrieve the at least one negation term and the at least one negation rule from the memory;
• compare the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule to other terms in each record of the at least two records that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determine that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and exclude a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one record for having the negative context;
• and
• determine a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each record of the at least two records based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• a ranking module to determine a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each record of the at least two records based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• a user interface module to generate a list of document data for display, the list identifying each record of the at least two records in an order based on the relevancy ranking value of each record of the at least two records.

A ranking method comprising:

• executing a document ranking application on a processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising a term frequency module, a negation module, a ranking module, and a user interface module;
• querying the data source from the term frequency module to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• determining a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents at the term frequency module, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• retrieving at least one negation term and the at least one negation rule from a memory using the negation module;
• comparing, at the negation module, the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule to other terms in each document that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determining that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and excluding a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document at the negation module for having the negative context;
• determining a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• determining a corresponding relevancy ranking value at the ranking module for each document based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• generating a list of document data for display at the user interface module, the list identifying each document of the plurality of documents in an order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A ranking method comprising:

• executing a document ranking application on a processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising a term frequency module, a negation module, a ranking module, and a user interface module;
• querying the data source at the term frequency module to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• determining a corresponding term frequency value at the term frequency module for the key term in each of the plurality of documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• retrieving negation terms and negation rules from a memory using the negation module, the negation terms comprising prefix negation terms and suffix negation terms, the negation rules comprising a prefix negation rule comprising that a prefix negation term appear before the key term in a same sentence as the key term within a selected proximity and a suffix negation rule comprising that a suffix negation term appear after the key term in the same sentence as the key term within the selected proximity, the selected proximity comprising a selected number of words;
• comparing the negation terms at the negation module to other terms in each document within the selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term and according to the negation rules;
• excluding a particular occurrence of the key term in each document at the negation module if at least one negation term matches another term according to the negation rules within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term;
• determining a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document at the negation module based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• determining a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document at the ranking module based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value, the relevancy ranking value comprising a document relevance (DR) value comprising a ratio comprising the term weight (TW) value in a numerator of the ratio and the term frequency (TF) value in a denominator of the ratio;
• and
• generating a list of document data for display at the user interface module, the list identifying the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A ranking method comprising:

• executing a document ranking application on a processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising a term frequency module, a negation module, a ranking module, and a user interface module;
• querying the data source using the term frequency module to identify a plurality of documents that each comprises a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• determining a corresponding term frequency value for the key term in each of the plurality of documents using the term frequency module, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in a particular document;
• retrieving at least one negation term from a memory using the negation module;
• comparing the at least one negation term at the negation module to other terms included in each document that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determining that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and excluding a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document at the negation module for having the negative context;
• determining a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document at the negation module based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• determining a corresponding relevancy ranking value for each document at the ranking module based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• generating a list of document data for display at the user interface module, the list identifying each document of the plurality of documents in order based on the corresponding relevancy ranking value of each document.

A ranking method comprising:

• executing a document ranking application on a processor to rank documents retrieved from a data source in response to a search request, the document ranking application comprising a term frequency module, a negation module, a ranking module, and a user interface module;
• querying the data source at the term frequency module to identify at least two documents comprising a key term, the key term matching a search term in the search request;
• determining a corresponding term frequency value at the term frequency module for the key term in each document of the at least two documents, the term frequency value comprising a total number of occurrences of the key term in each document of the at least two documents;
• retrieving at least one negation term and at least one negation rule from a memory using the negation module;
• comparing the at least one negation term according to the at least one negation rule at the negation module to other terms in each document of the at least two documents that are within a selected proximity of each occurrence of the key term to determine if each occurrence of the key term has a negative context;
• determining that the at least one negation term matches another term within the selected proximity of the particular occurrence of the key term according to the at least one negation rule and excluding a particular occurrence of the key term in at least one document at the negation module for having the negative context;
• determining a corresponding term weight value for the key term in each document of the at least two documents at the negation module based on each occurrence of the key term that has not been excluded;
• determining a corresponding relevancy ranking value at the ranking module for each document of the at least two documents based on the corresponding term frequency value and corresponding term weight value;
• and
• generating a list of document data for display at the user interface module, the list identifying each document of the at least two documents in an order based on the relevancy ranking value of each document of the at least two documents.