International Business Machines Corporation

Patrick Michael Wildt

Thomas John Eggebraaten

Richard Joseph Stevens

Mark Gregory Megerian

Eric W Will

Steven Gene Halverson

William Craig Rapp

Joel C Dubbels

Corville O Allen

Michael J Branson

John Edward Petri

Roberto Delima

Marie Louise Setnes

Gregory Scott Hurlebaus

Andrew James Streit

Walter H Schwane

Arthur A Daniel

David Henry Sandifer

Mark Ambrose McKelvey

Brian Richard Lucier

John A Modry

David Ferguson Legler

Keith A Zblewski

Michael A Schlasner

Larry N Robel

William A Lynch

Ronald F Forman

Eric G Roubal

Andrew E Sandstrom

System, method, and computer program product to identify candidate values to provide to a deep question answering (QA) system as part of a case, by receiving a case, wherein the case includes a plurality of documents for evaluation by the deep QA system, evaluating the plurality of documents using natural language processing (NLP) to identify one or more concepts reflected by text content within the plurality of documents in the case, wherein the plurality of documents includes a plurality of distinct values for at least a first one of the concepts, selecting, from the plurality of distinct values, a candidate value for the first concept to provide to the deep QA system to process the case, and prior to submitting the case to the deep QA system, returning at least the candidate value selected for the first concept to present in a user interface.

Verification of natural language processing derived attributes

Method, system, and computer program product to analyze a plurality of candidate answers identified as responsive to a question presented to a deep question answering system, by computing a first feature score for a first feature of an item of evidence, of a plurality of items of evidence, the first feature score being based on at least one attribute of the first feature, the item of evidence relating to a first candidate answer, of the plurality of candidate answers, and computing a merged feature score for the first candidate answer by applying the first feature score to a second feature score for a second feature of the item of evidence.

Multi-dimensional feature merging for supporting evidence in a question and answering system

An object oriented framework mechanism for distributing and managing operations of a network application defines classes and class relationships that provide for easily extending the framework to define new heterogeneous operations in a network application. Core functions of the framework mechanism support operation management functions, which may include status reporting, error recovery, scheduling, reexecution of previously-defined operations, persistence of operations, and sharing of operations between users. The framework mechanism provides extensible functions that are extended by a user to define a network application. A network application can thus be defined by a user that supports any or all of the above-mentioned operation management functions without explicitly providing these functions, because these functions are part of the core function of the framework mechanism.

Object oriented framework mechanism and method for distributing and managing heterogenous operations of a network application

The preferred embodiment of the present invention provides system for data collection that provides a solution that can be easily extended to collect different data types. The preferred embodiment provides a collection repository that stores different collected data types with a single consistent interface for accessing the collected data. The preferred embodiment is a data collector implemented from an object-oriented framework. The object-oriented data collector can be easily extended by adding additional instances of the data collector from the framework. The preferred embodiment framework includes mechanisms for global customization of the collector and synchronization of the collection. The preferred embodiment also includes base probe classes that define the probes that perform the actual collection of the system data and store the data in a common collection repository. Subclasses are provided to implement the collection of different types of system data. Thus, the preferred embodiment provides an extensible and flexible solution to the problem of collecting and analyzing different types of system data.

Object-oriented framework for the generic collection of system data

Computer systems have the ability to monitor their components and operations, generate events which indicate the occurrence of a monitored condition (e.g. out of paper, Joe Smith just signed on, disk utilization nearing capacity, etc.), and process these events in some manner. The present invention provides significant enhancements to the latter capability. The events of an event stream or streams are 'filtered' into categories or groups of events. Once categorized, the invention associates an action or actions with the categorized event. The associated action can be logging the event, routing the event to the electronic address of a user, or sending the event to an application program for further processing.

Event handling mechanism having a process and an action association

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Patrick Michael Wildt