Patent Document ID: 9830314
Application ID: 14082862

Base Claim:
1. A method, in a data processing system comprising a processor and a memory, for performing tabular data correction in a document, the method comprising: configuring the processor to implement a natural language processing (NLP) system that performs natural language processing on natural language content at least by processing logical relationships in the natural language content; responsive to receiving a natural language document with table structures and functional dependencies identified therein: configuring an erroneous data value analysis engine to analyze a portion of content within a natural language document to identify an erroneous sub-portion within the natural language document comprising an erroneous or missing item of information; analyzing, by the erroneous data value analysis engine executed by the processor in the data processing system, a portion of content within a natural language document to identify an erroneous sub-portion within the natural language document comprising an erroneous or missing item of information, wherein the portion of content comprises a table data structure present in the natural language document, wherein the erroneous sub-portion comprises a cell in the table data structure having an erroneous or missing data value, wherein the erroneous sub-portion is identified based on the erroneous sub-portion failing to conform with a regular structure associated with the portion of content within the natural language document, and wherein the regular structure is a repeatable pattern within the portion of content within the natural language document; configuring a question generation engine to generate a semantic signature for the erroneous sub-portion; generating, by the question generation engine executed by the processor in the data processing system, the semantic signature for the erroneous sub-portion, wherein generating the semantic signature for the erroneous sub-portion comprises: performing, by the question generation engine, a discovery of functional dependencies between the erroneous or missing data value in the cell of the table data structure and a second portion of content, wherein the functional dependencies are indicated by the repeatable pattern; analyzing, by the question generation engine, context information surrounding the erroneous sub-portion of content in the natural language document utilizing the functional dependencies between the erroneous or missing data value in the cell of the table data structure and a second portion of content; and converting, by the question generation engine, the context information into a narrated statement using a narration mechanism; configuring a Question and Answer (QA) system to generate a query based on the semantic signature and apply the query to a knowledge base to identify a candidate sub-portion of content for correcting the erroneous sub-portion; generating, by the Question and Answer (QA) system executed by the processor in the data processing system, the query based on the semantic signature; applying, by the QA system, the query to the knowledge base to identify the candidate sub-portion of content for correcting the erroneous sub-portion; configuring a correction engine to correct the erroneous sub-portion to generate a corrected natural language document and store the corrected natural language document; correcting, by the correction engine executed by the processor in the data processing system, the erroneous sub-portion using the identified candidate sub-portion of content to generate the corrected natural language document; and storing, by the correction engine, the corrected natural language document in a storage device.

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Claim 3:
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing discovery of functional dependencies between the erroneous or missing data value in the cell of the table data structure and the second portion of content comprises identifying one or more mathematical, statistical, logical, or conditional functions that operate on the cell of the table data structure and that indicate a functional dependency of the cell on the second portion of content.