System and method for determining quality of cited objects in search results based on the influence of citing subjects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11036810-B2
Application number	US-201113158992-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 13, 2011
Priority date	Dec 1, 2009
Publication date	Jun 15, 2021
Grant date	Jun 15, 2021

Abstract

A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods to examine and determine quality of objects cited by citations in a search result based on a citation graph that includes citing subjects, citations, and cited objects. First, influence scores of a plurality of subjects/sources that compose the citations of the objects in the search result are calculated. The quality of the objects cited by the subjects can then be determined by examining the influence scores for the subjects of the citations. Finally, the cited objects selected can be presented to a user or provided to a thirty party for further processing together with the relevant citations and citing subjects.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a citation search engine with a processor, which in operation, sets and adjusts one or more of citation searching and ranking criteria based on at least one of user specification or internal statistical data, the citation search engine to receive a web search query having a searching criterion and produce citation search results by retrieving a plurality of citations each describing an opinion of a subject or an object, each subject is a representation of a user and having a subject influence score indicating a degree to which the subject's opinion influences other subjects, each object having an object influence score indicating collective opinions of a plurality of subjects citing the object and each object is accessible by the web search query, and the citation search engine searches a citation graph that includes nodes, at least some of the nodes of the citation graph are objects and subjects, and at least one edge between an object node and a subject node represents an opinion of an object of the object node from a subject of the subject node;
an influence evaluation engine with a processor, which in operation, calculates a subject influence score for one of the plurality of subjects based on how often that subject is cited by another one of the plurality of subjects, with the subject influence scores being used as a ranking of objects obtained from the plurality of citations from the citation search results;
an object selection engine with a processor, which in operation,
calculates object influence scores of the plurality of objects in the plurality of citations based on the subject influence scores of the plurality of subjects and the ranking criteria,
utilizes the object influence scores to determine a selection and ranking of objects cited by the citations,
selects as a search result of the web search query the plurality of objects based on both matching of the objects with the searching criteria as well as the object influence scores of the objects, and
ranks the plurality of objects based on the object influence scores of the plurality of objects.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
each of the plurality of subjects has an opinion wherein expression of the opinion is explicit, expressed, implicit, or imputed through any other technique.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
each of the plurality of subjects is one of: representation of a person, and entities representing Internet authors or users of social media services, user of microblogging services, users of social networks, reviewer who provides expressions of opinion, reviews, or other information useful for the estimation of influence.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
each of the plurality of objects is one of: Internet web sites, blogs, videos, books, films, music, image, video, documents, data files, objects for sale, objects that are reviewed or recommended or cited, or any entities that are associated with a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
each of the plurality of citations includes one or more of: expression of opinions on the objects, expressions of authors in the form of Tweets, blog posts, reviews of objects on Internet web sites Wikipedia entries, postings to social media, postings to websites, postings in the form of reviews, recommendations, or any other form of citation made to mailing lists, newsgroups, discussion forums, comments to websites or any other form of Internet publication.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
each of the plurality of citations is made by a subject regarding an object, a subject regarding another subject, or an object regarding another object.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the citation search engine enables a citation centric search process that focuses on influence of the plurality subjects that cite the plurality of objects.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the citation search engine accepts and enforces a plurality of criteria on citation searching, retrieving and ranking, each of which is either be explicitly described by a user or best guessed by the system based on internal statistical data.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein:
the plurality of criteria include one or more of constraints for the plurality of citations, type of the plurality of objects cited, and ranking bias of the cited objects.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the subject influence score of each of the plurality of subjects indicates degree to which the subject's opinion influences other subjects and/or a community of subjects.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the subject influence score of each of the plurality of objects indicates collective opinions of the plurality of subjects citing the object.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
some of the plurality of subjects are related to each other via an influence network or community.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine calculates the subject influence scores of the plurality of subjects based on their authorities in the influence network.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine calculates the subject influence scores of the plurality of subjects on one or more dimensions that are related to one or more of the objects cited by the subjects, form of the citations, and search terms.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine determines an influence score for a first subject in the plurality of subjects at least partly based on how often the first subject is cited or referenced by one or more second subjects in the plurality of subjects.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein:
each of the one or more second objects references a citation of an object by the first subject.

17. The system of claim 15 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine computes the number of the citations of the first subject by the second subjects as the citation score and takes into account the influence of the second subjects citing the first subject in the citation score.

18. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine calculates the subject influence scores of the plurality of subjects based on a citation graph having the plurality of subjects and the plurality of objects as its entities and the plurality of citations as its edges.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine allows for attribution of influence on the plurality of subjects to data sources to be estimated and distributed based on the citation graph.

20. The system of claim 18 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine estimates the subject influence score of each entity from one or more of count of actual requests for data, opinion, or searches relating to or originating from other entities, entities with direct links to the entity or with a path in the citation graph.

21. The system of claim 18 , wherein:
the influence evaluation engine adjusts the subject influence score of each entity in the citation graph by metrics relating to the citation graph comprising all entities or a subset of all linked entities in the citation graph.

22. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the ranking criteria include one or more of: subject influence scores of the citing subjects, date or time, and geographical location associated with the objects.

23. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the object selection engine determines qua

Assignees

• Prakash Vipul Ved
• Cui Lun Ted
• Ghosh Rishab Aiyer
• Emerson Thomas James
• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Prakash Vipul Ved
• Cui Lun Ted
• Ghosh Rishab Aiyer
• Emerson Thomas James

Classifications

• G06F16/313

  Selection or weighting of terms for indexing · CPC title

• G06F16/951 Primary

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• G06F16/9538

  Presentation of query results · CPC title