Patent Document ID: 9916378
Application ID: 14332483
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for selecting a structure to represent tabular information, the method comprising: selecting, corresponding to a table comprising the tabular information, a table structure from a collection of table structures, wherein the table structure is selected from the collection of table structures based upon a probability of the table structure representing the tabular information of the table; selecting a table structure function, the table structure function describing when cells in a cell-pair in the table structure should be similar to one another; selecting a cell similarity function, wherein the cell similarity function compares the cells in the cell-pair in the table structure and outputs a probability that the cell-pair includes cells that contain values that are similar to one another according to a criterion; determining a cell similarity probability, the cell similarity probability being a probability value that, in a first cell-pair in the table, a first cell in the first cell-pair is actually similar to a second cell in the first cell-pair according to the cell similarity function; adjusting a computed probability of the table structure representing the table using the cell similarity probability; and indicating the computed probability as a probability of a first model representing the table, wherein the first model is a function of the table structure and the selected cell similarity function; selecting, corresponding to the table, a second table structure; selecting a second cell-pair from the second table structure; determining a cell similarity probability of a first cell and a second cell in the second cell-pair are similar to each other according to the cell similarity function; adjusting a second computed probability of the second table structure representing the table using the cell similarity probability; indicating the second computed probability as a probability of a second model representing the table, wherein the second model is a function of the second table structure and the selected cell similarity function; selecting, from a set of models, that model which has a higher computed probability, forming a selected model, the set of models comprising the first model and the second model; forming an interpretation of the table according to the selected model, wherein the Q&A system uses the interpretation to answer the natural language question; and indicating a third computed probability as a probability of a third model representing the table, wherein the third model is a function of a third table structure and the selected cell similarity function, wherein the selecting selects from a subset of the set of models, wherein the subset comprises those models whose corresponding computed probabilities exceed a probability threshold.