JP7545061B2 - Information processing system, information processing method, and program - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an information processing system, an information processing method, and a program.

As the number of electronic documents within companies increases, the importance of document search systems for efficiently searching for documents required for business is growing. A document search system is a system that presents users with a collection of documents related to the search criteria they input. A typical example is a system that allows users to input a search query as a string and retrieves related documents based on the search keywords included in the search query.

In search systems, there is technology that displays the character strings around the search keywords in the documents of the search results and further highlights the search keywords (highlight function) to distinguish and display them (hereafter, words that are the subject of distinguishing display are called distinguished words).

The highlighting feature allows users to efficiently find words that interest them among multiple documents returned as search results, allowing them to quickly identify which document they are looking for.

Non-patent document 1 discloses a highlighting function in a document search system.

https://www. hitachi-systems. com/ind/srpartner/product/highlight/index. html

Non-Patent Document 1 discloses a function that highlights and displays keywords used in a search in a color specified by the user.

However, depending on the search method, there are issues with only highlighting the keywords used in the search, such as not being able to efficiently grasp the characteristics of the searched documents.

Therefore, the present invention aims to provide a mechanism for efficiently checking search results.

The information processing system of the present invention comprises a search means for performing a document search using a search query specified by a user, a display control means for controlling the display of the search results by the search means, and a characteristic word acquisition means for acquiring characteristic words in the searched documents from the documents, and the display control means controls the display of the characteristic words in the documents searched by the search means so as to be identifiable as identification words.

The information processing system of the present invention also includes a search means for performing a document search using a search query specified by a user, a display control means for controlling the display of search results by the search means, and a related word acquisition means for acquiring related words that are words related to the documents searched for by the search means, and the display control means controls the related words included in the documents searched for by the search means to be displayed identifiably as identification words.

The present invention makes it possible to efficiently review search results.

1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system configuration of a document search system according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a hardware configuration of a document search system and a client terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a set of documents to be searched stored in a document DB according to the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of data used as a search condition in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of data used as a search result in an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a priority rule table related to a search result list in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a priority rule table regarding detailed search results in the embodiment of the present invention. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an identification word candidate source table created by an identification word candidate creation unit in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an identification word candidate table created by an identification word candidate creating unit in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a search process performed by a search processing unit in the embodiment of the present invention. 10 is a flowchart showing an identification word candidate generating process performed by an identification word candidate generating unit in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of a search result screen in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a state in which identification word candidates are displayed on a search result screen in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a state in which an identification word has been selected on a search result screen in an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a search result detail screen in which identification word candidates are displayed in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a state in which an identification word has been selected on a search result details screen in an embodiment of the present invention.

The following describes an embodiment of the present invention in detail with reference to the drawings.

Figure 1 is a diagram showing an example of the system configuration of a document search system 100 in an embodiment of the present invention.

The document search system 100 consists of a document registration device 110, a document DB 120, a document search device 130, and a feature word update device 140.

The document registration device 110 is a device for registering documents that are the subject of searches by users, and is composed of a document receiving unit 111, a keyword extraction unit 112, and a document registration processing unit 113.

The document receiving unit 111 is a functional unit for accepting documents to be registered. A user (client terminal) can send any document to the document receiving unit 111 via a web browser or the like. Alternatively, a crawler may be configured to mechanically collect and send documents.

The keyword extraction unit 112 is a functional unit for extracting keywords that are candidates for characteristic words in a document received by the document receiving unit 111, and the frequency of their occurrence. Details of characteristic words will be described later. The keyword extraction process in the keyword extraction unit 112 uses a known morphological analysis technique. Here, the morphemes to be extracted may be limited to specific parts of speech, such as proper nouns, depending on the application of the document search system. Also, character strings that match a predetermined pattern may be extracted as keywords without using morphological analysis.

The document registration processing unit 113 is a device that associates the document received by the document receiving unit 111 with the keywords extracted by the keyword extracting unit 112 and stores them in the document DB 120 .

The document DB 120 has an area for storing a document ID for uniquely identifying a document, a document name, a text body, a keyword (occurrence frequency) for storing values extracted by the keyword extraction unit 112, and characteristic words. An example of data stored in the document DB 120 is shown in FIG. 3. A method for creating characteristic words will be described later. Note that, although the above-mentioned five items are exemplified as a configuration for explaining this idea, additional items to be used as a document search system, such as a URL indicating the location of the document, the size of the document, and the creator of the document, may be included.

The document search device 130 comprises a search processing unit 131, a search condition storage unit 132, a search operation storage unit 133, a search result storage unit 134, an identification word candidate creation unit 135, a priority rule table (search result list) 136, and a priority rule table (search result details) 137.

The search processing unit 131 is a functional unit that accepts a search operation from a user, interprets the search operation, generates search conditions to query the search DB, and searches the document DB 120 for documents that match the search conditions, and has a function of retrieving documents related to the search conditions in order of score. Details of the search process performed by the search processing unit 131 will be described later. Furthermore, the user can also send an identification word at the same time as sending the search operation to the search processing unit 131.

The search condition storage unit 132 is a functional unit that stores the search conditions of a search performed by a user. As shown in FIG. 4, the search conditions consist of a "search query," "characteristic words of the similar document search query," and a "keyword filter."

The search operation storage unit 133 is a functional unit that stores the search operations of searches performed by the user. At least three types of values can be stored in the search operation storage unit 133: "search by search query," "search for similar documents," and "add keyword filter." Furthermore, when "add keyword filter" is selected, a keyword string can be stored as additional information.

The search result storage unit 134 is a functional unit that stores the results of searches performed by the user. As shown in FIG. 5, the search results consist of a "document list" that is a set of documents that match the search criteria extracted from the document DB 120, "related words" that are a list of words related to the search results, and "snippets" that are parts of the text that are extracted and displayed for identification for each document ID in the document list.

The search processing unit 131 updates the information stored in the search condition storage unit 132, the search operation storage unit 133, and the search result storage unit 134 each time a search process is performed.

The identification word candidate creation unit 135 performs an identification word candidate creation process to create an identification word candidate table as shown in FIG. 9. The identification word candidate table is a table that contains words and their priorities. The identification word candidate table creation process will be described later.

The priority rule table (search result list) 136 holds priority rules such as those shown in FIG. 6, which are used in the process of creating identification word candidates for the search result list. Furthermore, the priority rule table (search result details) 137 holds priority rules such as those shown in FIG. 7, which are used in the process of creating identification word candidates for the search result details. The method of using these tables will be explained together with the explanation of the process of creating the identification word candidate table. Note that values can be set in these priority rule tables by the system administrator when the document search system is constructed.

The feature word updating device 140 is a device that extracts characteristic keywords as feature words for each document stored in the document DB and updates the corresponding record. Feature words can be selected using tf-idf, which is one of the indices that represent the feature amount of a word. The feature word updating device 140 obtains the occurrence frequency of each word from the keyword: occurrence frequency field in the document DB 120, and extracts up to N keywords as feature words in descending order of tf-idf value. The value of N can be set by the system administrator when the document search system is constructed. For example, in the document DB 120 in Figure 3, the feature words for document 1 are "design", "screen", and "mobile".

In FIG. 1, an example has been described in which the document search system 100 is configured with three devices, the document registration device 110, the document search device 130, and the feature word update device 140, and the document DB 120. However, the document search system of the present invention is not limited to this configuration example, and may be a system in which a single device has the functions of each device.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the hardware configuration of an information processing device that can be used as the document search and retrieval system 100 of the present invention and each device.

As shown in FIG. 2, the information processing device is connected to a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 201, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 202, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 203, a storage device 204, an input controller 205, an audio controller 206, a video controller 207, a memory controller 208, and a communication I/F controller 209 via a system bus 200.

The CPU 201 provides overall control over each device and controller connected to the system bus 200.

The ROM 202 or external memory 213 holds the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and OS (Operating System), which are control programs executed by the CPU 201, computer-readable and executable programs for implementing this information processing method, and various necessary data (including data tables).

RAM 203 functions as the main memory, work area, etc. of CPU 201. CPU 201 loads programs and the like required for executing processing from ROM 202 or external memory 213 into RAM 203, and executes the loaded programs to realize various operations.

The input controller 205 controls input from input devices such as a keyboard 210 and a pointing device such as a mouse (not shown). If the input device is a touch panel, the user can give various instructions by pressing (touching with a finger, etc.) icons, cursors, or buttons displayed on the touch panel.

The touch panel may also be a touch panel capable of detecting positions touched by multiple fingers, such as a multi-touch screen.

The video controller 207 controls the display on an external output device such as a display 212. The display also includes the display of a notebook computer that is integrated with the main body. Note that the external output device is not limited to a display, and may be, for example, a projector. In addition, for devices that can accept the aforementioned touch operations, an input device is also provided.

The video controller 207 can control a video memory (VRAM) for display control, and can use part of the RAM 203 as a video memory area, or can provide a separate dedicated video memory.

The memory controller 208 controls access to the external memory 213. The external memory can be an external storage device (hard disk) that stores the boot program, various applications, font data, user files, edit files, and various data, a flexible disk (FD), or a compact flash (registered trademark) memory connected to a PCMCIA card slot via an adapter.

The communication I/F controller 209 connects and communicates with external devices via a network, and executes communication control processing on the network. For example, communication using TCP/IP, telephone lines such as ISDN, and 4G and 5G lines for mobile phones are possible.

The CPU 201 can display the outline font on the display 212 by, for example, executing a process of expanding (rasterizing) the outline font in a display information area in the RAM 203. The CPU 201 can also allow the user to give instructions using a mouse cursor (not shown) on the display 212.

Next, the search process that the search processing unit 131 executes when it receives a search request from a client terminal in this embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to the flowchart in FIG. 10.

First, in step S1001, a single search condition is created by combining the search condition included in the search operation received from the client with the search condition stored in the search condition storage unit 132.

As shown in FIG. 4, the search conditions include a "search query," a "characteristic word of the similar document search query," and a "keyword filter." As shown in FIG. 4, the search query is a keyword. A full-text search is performed on the text of documents registered in the document DB 120 using the search conditions including the search query.

The feature words of a similar document search query are keywords used as search conditions in a similar document search in which a user sends a document they have to the document search system 100, and the document search system 100 retrieves documents similar to that document from the search DB. When the document is received from a user, the document search system 100 finds characteristic words in the document from statistics such as tf-idf and automatically extracts them as feature words. By performing a search process using search conditions that include the feature words of the similar document search query, documents are retrieved that have a matching rate between the keywords of documents registered in the document DB and the feature words in the similar document search query that is equal to or exceeds a threshold value.

A keyword filter is a narrowing down condition that includes a keyword. When a search is performed using search conditions that include this, only documents that contain the keyword are searched from the document database.

When search conditions include multiple types of "search query," "characteristic words of similar document search query," and "keyword filter," the final list of documents in the search results is determined by taking the AND condition of each condition.

For example, assume that a search operation of "Operation type: Search by search query, Search query: 'Product X specifications'" is received from a user when nothing is stored in the search condition storage unit 132. At this time, a search condition with the search query being "Product X specifications" is generated. Then, through later processing, the search condition "Search query: 'Product X specifications'" is stored in the search condition storage unit 132.

After that, suppose that an additional search operation of "operation type: add keyword filter, keyword: 'screen'" is received from the user. At this time, the search condition "search query: 'product X specifications'" stored in the search condition storage unit 132 is combined with the keyword filter "screen" generated by the operation received from the user to generate search conditions of "search query: 'product X specifications'" and "keyword filter: 'screen'".

In step S1002, documents that match the search criteria are searched for in the document DB 120, and the retrieved documents are sorted in descending order of score, which is a value indicating the degree to which the documents match the search criteria. To achieve efficient search processing, the document registration processing unit 113 can create a transposed index, which is a well-known technique, and use it during the search.

In step S1003, related words from the search results are obtained. Some of the keywords contained in the searched documents are used as related words. As a specific method for obtaining related words, for example, keywords that are commonly contained in approximately half of the searched documents are selected. With this selection method, when the searched documents contain a mixture of documents with multiple topics, it is expected that related words that appropriately divide those topics will be selected.

In step S1004, the search condition storage unit 132 is updated based on the generated search conditions, and the search operation storage unit 133 is updated based on the search operation received from the user.

In step S1005, the process branches depending on whether an identification word has been presented (specified) by the user. If an identification word has been presented, it is used as the identification word and the process proceeds to step S1010. If an identification word has not been presented, the process proceeds to step S1006.

In step S1006, the process branches depending on whether the document search system is in the simple identification word selection operation mode. Whether the document search system is in the simple identification word selection operation mode can be set by the system administrator of the document search system. If the document search system is in the simple selection operation mode, the process proceeds to step S1007, and if the document search system is not in the simple selection operation mode, the process proceeds to step S1008.

If the mode is simple identification word selection mode (step S1006: YES), in step S1007, words are extracted from the search query stored in the search condition storage unit using spaces as delimiters, and are used as identification words.

If the identification word simple selection mode is not selected (step S1006: NO), in step S1008, the identification word candidate creation unit is made to perform an identification word candidate creation process, and the result is received. The identification word candidate creation process will be described later. As a result, an identification word candidate table having words and priorities, as shown in FIG. 9, is obtained.

In step S1009, words that satisfy a predetermined condition (e.g., the top N words with a priority or words with a priority equal to or higher than a threshold) are selected as identification words from the identification word candidate table. Here, N is a constant defined in the document search system 100.

Users may be accustomed to the behavior of words included in a search query being highlighted. In that case, the system administrator can configure the document search system to use the simple word identification selection mode, which will highlight the words in the search query, providing a behavior that is natural to users.

On the other hand, if the administrator wants to highlight words that are more likely to be interesting to users, the system administrator can configure the document retrieval system to perform a process to create candidate discriminative words.

In step S1010, a character string around the identified word is extracted as a snippet from the body of each document obtained as a search result. The surrounding character string can be N characters before and after the identified word. Here, N is a constant defined in the document search system 100.

Furthermore, the identified word portion of the extracted snippet is enclosed in an identification display tag so that the identified word portion is displayed in an identifiable manner on the client terminal. The method of identifying and displaying the identified word may be any display format that makes the identified word identifiable, such as displaying the identified word in bold, displaying it in a font different from other character strings, displaying it in a colored marker, or displaying it in a character color different from other character strings.

To extract snippets efficiently, the position of identified words in the text can be obtained using a known technique called inverted indexing.

When there are multiple identification words, the extracted results of each identification word and surrounding context can be combined into a string and used as a snippet.

For example, in the search screen shown in FIG. 12, the user does not explicitly specify an identification word, and "Product X specifications" is set in the search query 1201, the feature words "Product Y", "Specifications", and "Screen" are set in the feature word 1202 of the similar document search query, and the keywords "Screen" and "Mobile" are set in the keyword filter 1203. Note that the keyword filter is displayed on the screen with a label "Refinement conditions". If the operation mode of the identification word simple selection is Yes in step S1006, two words, "Product X" and "Specifications", are selected as identification words in step S1007. At that time, the search processing unit extracts a snippet "The specifications of the management screen of Product X are as follows" from the text as the surrounding context of "Product X" and "Specifications" in the first document of the search results. Furthermore, "Product X" and "Specifications" are surrounded by identification display tags. As a result, on the client device, the first document in the search results is displayed as a snippet consisting of two pieces of text: "The specifications of the administration screen for product X are as follows" and "The specifications of the administration screen are as follows," with "product X" and "specifications" clearly displayed.

In addition, on the search screen in Figure 14, the user specifies "mobile" as the identification word. In this case, the search processing unit selects "mobile" as the identification word. Similarly, on the client terminal, in the first document of the search results, a snippet consisting of two pieces of text, "The management screen is not provided for mobile devices" and "The design of the search screen for mobile devices is as follows," is displayed, with "mobile" being identified.

In step S1011, the search result storage unit 134 is updated with the document list obtained from the document DB 120 and the related words and snippets found.

In step S1012, the search results are returned to the client terminal. The search results screen shown in FIG. 12 is displayed on the client terminal.

Next, the identification word candidate creation process executed by the identification word candidate creation unit 135 in an embodiment of the present invention will be described using the flowchart in FIG.

As a reference example, assume that the search conditions in FIG. 4 are stored in the search condition storage unit 132, the search results in FIG. 5 are stored in the search result storage unit 133, and the search operation stored in the search operation storage unit 133 is "Add keyword filter, keyword 'mobile'." Also assume that the priority rule table (search result list) 136 is used as the priority rule table, and its contents are as shown in FIG. 6.

In steps S1101 to S1105, the process of creating the identification word candidate source table is performed. The identification word candidate source table is a table consisting of words, their source of acquisition, and source details, as shown in FIG. 8. The source details may be empty. The same word may appear more than once.

In step S1101, words from the search query stored in the search condition storage unit 132 are added to the identification word candidate source table.

For example, the search conditions in Figure 4 include the search query "Product X specifications", but by separating the string of this search query with spaces, the words "Product X" and "Specifications" are obtained. The source of "Product X" is the "search query", and since it is the first word obtained from the left in the search query, it is added to the identification word candidate source table with the source details set to "first from the front". Similarly, the source of "Specifications" is the "search query", and since it is the second word obtained from the left in the search query, it is added to the identification word candidate source table with the source details set to "second from the front".

In step S1102, words are added to the identification word candidate source table from the feature words of the similar document search query stored in the search condition storage unit 132.

For example, the search conditions in Figure 4 include "product Y," "specifications," and "screen" as feature words in the similar document search query, so the words "product Y," "specifications," and "screen" are obtained. The sources from which these words are obtained are added to the identification word candidate source table as "feature words in similar document search queries."

In step S1103, words are added to the identification word candidate source table from the keyword filter stored in the search condition storage unit 132.

For example, the search conditions in Figure 4 include "screen" and "mobile" as keyword filters, so the words "screen" and "mobile" are obtained. These words are added to the identified word candidate source table with the acquisition source as "keyword filter."

In step S1104, words are added to the identification word candidate source table from the related words stored in the search result storage unit 134.

For example, the search results in Figure 5 include the related words "planning," "design," and "proposal," so the words "planning," "design," and "proposal" are obtained. These words are added to the identified word candidate source table as "related words in search results."

In step S1105, the characteristic words (words that are characteristic of the document and can be determined from statistical values such as tf-idf) in the document list stored in the search result storage unit 134 are added to the identification word candidate source table.

For example, the first document in the search results in Figure 5 contains the feature words "design," "screen," and "mobile," so the words "design," "screen," and "mobile" are obtained. The source of these words is set as "feature words of search results," and because they are feature words obtained from the document with the highest search score, the source details are added to the identification word candidate source table as "document with the highest search score." Feature words can be added in the same way for the second and third documents in the search results.

In step S1106, a process of repeating the list of entries in the identification word candidate source table begins.

In step S1107, the priority to be added is calculated based on the priority rules according to the acquisition source and the search operation stored in the search operation storage unit 133.

For example, the priority of the word "mobile" in entry 801 in the identification word candidate source table in FIG. 8 is calculated as follows using the priority rule table (search result list) in FIG. 6. First, because the source is a keyword filter, the priority is set to +300 according to rule 604.

In addition, since the operation type of the most recent search operation stored in the search operation storage unit 133 is "add keyword filter" and the added keyword is "mobile," the priority is increased by +800 based on rule 605.

In general, it is believed that the last search operation performed by a user reflects the content in which the user was most recently interested. For this reason, it is believed to be beneficial to increase the priority of identification words related to the last search operation performed by the user and display them preferentially. Rules 601, 602, and 603 are also rules for increasing the priority of content in which the user was most recently interested.

Finally, the priority of the word "mobile" in entry 801 becomes 1100.

As another example, the priority of the word "design" in the entry 802 in the identified word candidate source table in Fig. 8 is calculated as follows: First, since the source is the "characteristic word of the search result", the priority is set to +50 according to the rule 604.
Furthermore, since the document has the first highest search score in the source details, the priority is reduced by 1 according to rule 605 .

This rule states that the higher the search ranking, the higher the priority (the smaller the drop).

Documents with high search rankings match the search criteria specified by the user to a high degree, and are therefore likely to be of interest to the user. For this reason, it is considered beneficial to give priority to identifying words that appear characteristically in documents with high search rankings, and display them preferentially.

In step S1108, the priority of the word entry in the identification word candidate table is updated. If the word already exists in the identification word candidate table, the priority value is the sum of the existing priority and the value determined in step S1107. On the other hand, if the word does not exist in the identification word candidate table, the word is added with the value determined in step S1107 as the initial priority value.

For example, in the identified word candidate source table of FIG. 8, the word "mobile" has two entries: an entry 801 whose source is "keyword filter" and an entry 803 whose source is "characteristic words of search result documents."
If entry 801 obtains a priority of 1100 and entry 803 obtains a priority of 49, then the final priority of the word "mobile" becomes 1149, which is the sum of the priorities.

In step S1109, if there are unprocessed words remaining in the list of identified words, the process returns to step S1106, and if all processing has been completed, the process proceeds to step S1110.

In step S1110, the identification word candidate table is sorted in descending order of priority. Note that words with the same priority may be sorted in any order. If a unique order is desired, the order may be in the order of the word's character code.

The final identification word candidate table will look like that shown in Figure 9. If the operation mode for simple identification word selection is No in step S1006 of the search process, and the document search system is set to select the top priority word as the identification word, the identification word will be "mobile." This will be a different result from when an identification word is simply selected from the search query. In this way, it is possible to automatically prioritize and display words that are likely to interest the user, such as words in the keyword filter that are closely related to the most recent search operation.

The identification word candidate creation process is not only called as part of the search process, but can also be executed independently in response to a request from a client terminal. The purpose is to present candidates to the user when manually inputting an identification word, making it easy to input the identification word.

An explanation will be given using Figure 13 as an example. When the search result screen is displayed on the client terminal, the user operates the client terminal and focuses on form 1301 for manually entering identification words. At this time, the client terminal requests an identification word candidate table from the document search system. Upon receiving the request, the document search system performs an identification word candidate creation process and returns the identification word candidate table to the client terminal. Note that in this case, the created identification word candidate table is not narrowed down to just the top entries, but the entire table is returned to the client terminal. It is also possible not to return entries for words that are identification words in the current search results.

The client terminal that receives the identification word candidate table displays an identification word candidate list 1302 at the bottom of the form 1301. The identification word candidate list 1302 lists the words in the identification word candidate table. The higher the word that appears, the higher the priority, and when the words are in the same vertical position, the word that appears to the left has the highest priority.

When a user operates the client terminal to click on a word included in the list of identified word candidates 1302, that word is entered into form 1301. At the same time, the client terminal sends a request to the document search system to perform a search using the same current search conditions as the clicked word as the identified word. As a result, a search process is performed in the document search system, and the search results are returned to the client terminal. The client terminal updates the display of the search results based on the returned search results. Note that because the search conditions are the same, the documents and rankings of the search results will be the same, and in fact only the snippet display is updated.

For example, when the word 1303 "mobile" in FIG. 13 is clicked, the search screen changes to that shown in FIG. 14. In other words, the document in the search results is the same, and the snippet display changes to the character string surrounding "mobile."

In addition, a search result details screen like that shown in Figure 15 can be displayed on the client terminal, showing details of a specific document.

This is a screen that displays the details of only one document from the documents returned as a result of a search request. This screen allows users to view the text of the document that interests them in more detail.
The search result details screen also has a function that allows the user to manually set the identification word and check the surrounding context of the identification word. In this case, the document search system also supports the user by presenting candidates for the identification word to the user so that the user can input the identification word.

The flow of presenting identification word candidates is similar to that of the search result list screen.
When a user operates a client terminal and focuses on a form 1501 for manually inputting an identification word, the client terminal requests an identification word candidate table from the document search system. However, at this time, the client terminal requests that the priority be determined using the priority rule table (search result details). The document search system returns the identification word candidate table determined using the priority rule table (search result details) to the client terminal. The client terminal that receives the identification word candidate table displays an identification word candidate list 1502 at the bottom of the form 1501.

When a user operates the client terminal to click on a word included in the list of identification word candidates 1502, that word is entered into form 1501. At the same time, the client terminal sends a request to the document search system to search for the document ID of the document currently being displayed in detail, using the clicked word as the identification word and the document ID as the search condition. As a result, a search process is performed in the document search system, and search results including a snippet from that one document are returned to the client terminal. Based on the returned search results, the terminal replaces the display of the main text with the snippet. Note that the search system can be configured to extract snippets from text items other than the main text, such as the title, and the display of fields other than the main text can be replaced with the extracted snippet.

For example, when the word 1503 "mobile" in the list of identified word candidates in FIG. 15 is clicked, the text changes to show the characters around "mobile" as shown in FIG. 16. Because the title does not include "mobile," a blank is displayed.

The process of creating an identification word candidate table for search result details will be described. Basically, the process is performed according to the flowchart in FIG. 11, similar to the process for the search result list. However, in step S1105, only the characteristic words of the document to be displayed in detail are added to the identification word candidate source table, and characteristic words of other documents are not added. This is because related words of other documents are unlikely to be related to the document being displayed in detail. In addition, when calculating the priority rule in step S1107, the calculation is performed using the priority rule table (search result details) 137. An example of the priority rule table (search result details) 137 is shown in FIG. 7. It is basically the same as the priority rule table (search result list) 136, but for the characteristic words of the search results, the rule is applied when the source is a characteristic word of the document, as in rule 701. In addition, the search score ranking is not used.

As described above, the present invention makes it possible to distinguish and display not only the words specified as the search query, but also words that characterize the searched document and words related to the searched document, allowing users who perform document searches to efficiently check the search results.

The present invention can be embodied, for example, as a system, device, method, program, or recording medium. Specifically, it may be applied to a system made up of multiple devices, or to an apparatus made up of a single device.

The program of the present invention is a program that enables a computer to execute the processing method of the flowcharts shown in Figures 10 and 11, and the storage medium of the present invention stores a program that enables a computer to execute the processing method of Figures 10 and 11. Note that the program of the present invention may be a program for each processing method of each device in Figures 10 and 11.

As described above, it goes without saying that the object of the present invention can be achieved by supplying a recording medium on which a program that realizes the functions of the above-mentioned embodiments is recorded to a system or device, and having the computer (or CPU or MPU) of that system or device read and execute the program stored on the recording medium.

In this case, the program read from the recording medium itself realizes the novel functions of the present invention, and the recording medium on which the program is recorded constitutes the present invention.

Recording media for supplying the program may include, for example, a flexible disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-R, a DVD-ROM, a magnetic tape, a non-volatile memory card, a ROM, an EEPROM, a silicon disk, etc.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that not only are the functions of the above-mentioned embodiments realized by the computer executing a program it has read, but also that the functions of the above-mentioned embodiments can be realized by an operating system (OS) or the like running on the computer carrying out some or all of the actual processing based on the instructions of the program.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that this also includes cases where a program read from a recording medium is written into a memory provided on a function expansion board inserted into a computer or a function expansion unit connected to a computer, and then a CPU or the like provided on the function expansion board or function expansion unit performs some or all of the actual processing based on the instructions of the program code, thereby realizing the functions of the above-mentioned embodiments.

The present invention may be applied to a system made up of multiple devices, or to a device made up of a single device. Needless to say, the present invention can also be applied to cases where the effects of the present invention are achieved by supplying a program to a system or device. In this case, the effects of the present invention can be enjoyed by reading a recording medium that stores a program for achieving the present invention into the system or device.

Furthermore, by downloading and reading a program for achieving the present invention from a server, database, etc. on a network using a communication program, the system or device can enjoy the effects of the present invention. Note that the present invention also includes configurations that combine the above-mentioned embodiments and their variations.

100 Document search system

Claims (9)

A search means for searching documents using a search query specified by a user;
a display control means for controlling display of a result of the search by the search means;
a feature word acquiring means for acquiring, for each document retrieved by the retrieval means, feature words that characterize the document;
Equipped with
The information processing system is characterized in that the display control means controls the display of words identified from among identification word candidates including words obtained from the search query specified by the user and characteristic words obtained by the characteristic word acquisition means according to a priority calculated based on information including the source of acquisition , in such a way that they are associated with the document as identification words for the document and displayed in an identifiable manner. The information processing system according to claim 1, characterized in that the feature word acquisition means acquires feature words in the document based on the tf-idf values of words contained in the document. 3. The information processing system according to claim 1 , wherein the display control means controls so that a predetermined number of identification words are identifiable and displayed in descending order of priority. A reception means is provided for receiving an identification word designated by a user,
4. The information processing system according to claim 1 , wherein the display control means controls the display of an identification word in an identifiable manner when the reception means receives a designation of an identification word from a user. The display control means controls to display candidates of the identification word,
5. The information processing system according to claim 4 , wherein the accepting unit accepts the designation of an identification word by accepting a selection of a word to be identifiably displayed from among the displayed identification word candidates. The information processing system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the display control means controls the display of a character string surrounding an identification word that is to be displayed in an identifiable manner from documents searched by the search means as a snippet . The information processing system according to claim 6 , wherein the display control means displays the identification word included in the snippet in an identifiable manner. An information processing method in an information processing system, comprising:
a search step in which a search means of the information processing system searches for documents using a search query specified by a user;
a display control step of controlling a display control means of the information processing system to display a result of the search performed by the search step;
a feature word acquisition step in which a feature word acquisition means of the information processing system acquires, for each document searched in the search step, feature words that characterize the document;
Equipped with
The information processing method is characterized in that the display control process controls the display of words identified from among identification word candidates including words obtained from the search query specified by the user and characteristic words obtained in the characteristic word acquisition process according to a priority calculated based on information including the source of acquisition , in such a way that the words are associated with the document as identification words for the document and displayed in an identifiable manner. A program for causing a computer to function as each of the means according to any one of claims 1 to 7 .

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