Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-22
2001-04-03
Bayerl, Raymond J. (Department: 2773)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000, C345S960000, C704S239000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06211876
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to methods and apparatus for providing computerized access to an experience journal containing unstructured text items relating to a topic and, more particularly, to a computerized experience journal wherein text items are automatically arranged according to similarity and wherein text items of interest can be accessed with extreme ease.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Medical advances make it increasingly possible for children with previously fatal illness to live and thrive. However, a significant number still experience repeated operations, hospitalizations and invasive procedures, or need special care at home. Many do so with little or no intervention to help them and their families cope with the emotional stresses involved. Serious medical illness is, therefore, increasingly recognized as an important early risk factor for emotional disturbance.
A variety of interventions have been developed to assist patients and their families with the hope of improving the resiliency of both. These include pre-admission hospital preparatory programs, meetings between families and physicians, books and videos for children of different ages and psychiatric consultation. Yet it is clear that the majority of families are not able to avail themselves of these resources before coming to the hospital.
One additional and potentially underutilized source of psychological support is the community of patients and families who have experienced hospitalization. However, in spite of a general willingness to share experiences, communication among patients and families is usually limited. To facilitate this process, the use of computer technology to record, organize and display stories about the experiences of families with children who have been treated for serious illness has been proposed. Children and their families are asked to record text and multimedia vignettes describing some aspect of their illness, coping strategies or care that might be useful to others. The collection of text and vignettes is referred to as an experience journal.
A difficulty arises in providing access to the items in the experience journal. The text items are highly unstructured and differ greatly in style, content and sophistication. The items may be prepared by anyone from a physician or a parent to a young child. Thus, organizing the text items for access is extremely difficult. The user group likewise may vary from medical professionals to parents to very young children. Thus, the text items must be available to users with limited computer skills. Because the text items are unstructured and differ greatly in content, existing techniques of index, classification and search are not useful. Accordingly, there is a need for methods and apparatus for organizing and providing access to an experience journal which includes unstructured text items relating to a topic.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the invention, methods and apparatus for providing access to an experience journal including unstructured text items relating to a topic are provided. The method is implemented in a computer system comprising a processor, a storage device, a video display unit having a display screen, and a user interface. The computer system executes the steps of storing the unstructured text items in the storage device, determining similarity among the unstructured text items and displaying icons, one corresponding to each of the unstructured text items on the display screen. The icons are positioned on the display screen relative to each other such that the distances between icons are representative of the determined similarities among the unstructured text items. In response to user selection of one of the icons, the corresponding unstructured text item is displayed on the display screen.
The similarity among the unstructured text items may be determined by analyzing the unstructured text items for use of the same words. In particular, stop words may be removed from the text items and suffixes may be removed from words in the text items. The remaining words in the text items are weighted according to the inverse of their occurrence frequency in a reference text to provide a word vector for each of the text items. A similarity score is determined for each pair of unstructured text items by determining the dot product of the corresponding word vectors.
The icons are preferably positioned relative to each other by multidimensional scaling of the determined similarities among the unstructured text items.
A new text item may be entered into the experience journal after optional review and editing by a screening committee by determining similarity between the new text item and other text items in the experience journal, displaying a new icon corresponding to the new text item on the display screen and positioning the new icon relative to other icons such that the distances between the icons are representative of the determined similarities among the text items.
The experience journal may be implemented as a website on the World Wide Web. Alternatively, the experience journal may be implemented on a local area network, on a single computer or on a combination of the World Wide Web and one or more local area networks. The principal user functions include accessing entries in the experience journal and submitting new entries for inclusion in the experience journal.
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Ackermann Edith
Bromley Dennis Nathan
DeMaso David Ray
Gibson Sara Frances Frisken
Gonzalez-Heydrich Joseph
Bautista X. L.
Bayerl Raymond J.
Brinkman Dirk
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories Inc.
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