{"id":171259,"date":"2014-01-07T17:35:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T17:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/synonym-mining\/"},"modified":"2018-07-19T11:58:46","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T18:58:46","slug":"synonym-mining","status":"publish","type":"msr-project","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/synonym-mining\/","title":{"rendered":"Synonym Mining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"asset-content\">The same entity is often referred to in a variety of ways. For example, the camera Canon 600d is also referred to as &#8220;canon rebel t3i&#8221;, the celebrity Jennifer Lopez is also referred to as &#8220;jlo&#8221; and Seattle Tacoma International Airport is also referred to as &#8220;sea tac&#8221;. These are known as synonyms. Without knowledge of synonyms, many applications like e-commerce search will fail to return relevant results. We leverage the data assets amassed by Bing to automatically mine such synonyms.<!-- .asset-content --><\/p>\n<div id=\"en-usprojectssynonymsdefault\" class=\"page-content\">\n<p>One of the main insights is to use Bing&#8217;s query log to mine synonyms. However, simple techniques like using co-click frequencies are not adequate; we developed new features like pseudo-document similarity and context similarity. Furthermore, we leverage other data sources like web lists, web tables and certain text patterns to mine synonyms.<\/p>\n<h2>Impact<\/h2>\n<p>Our synonym research had tremendous impact of several Microsoft products and services over the years:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Synonyms technology is used by Bing\u2019s entity-linking technology which in turn powers\u00a0several applications like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/store\/p\/snapp\/9nblggh09m4d\">Bing Snapp<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/mobile\/experiences\/cortana\/\">Ask Cortana<\/a>, and <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bing.com\/widget\/knowledge\">Bing Knowledge Widget<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. (2015)<\/li>\n<li>We worked closely with Bing and Azure DataMarket teams to release the the <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/datamarket.azure.com\/dataset\/bing\/\/intent\"><strong>Synonym API<\/strong><span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> so that external developers can integrate the synonym knowledge into their applications (e.g., e-commerce search application). It is part of <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bing.com\/dev\/en-us\/dev-center\"><strong>Bing Dev Center<\/strong><span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> along with the other Bing APIs. (2012)<\/li>\n<li>We have integrated our synonym technology into <strong>Dynamics AX for Retail<\/strong>\u00a0to power their e-commerce search functionality. (2013)<\/li>\n<li>Synonyms technology is used by <strong>Bing Sports<\/strong> as well to return relevant information when people search for sports teams, players, leagues, etc. For example, when users search for `<a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bing.com\/search?q=tampabaybucs&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=tampabaybucs&sc=8-11&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=431a759263574a95b7edafde1cb23c6e\">tampabaybucs<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u2019, they leverage our synonyms to return \u201cinformation card\u201d about Tampa Bay Buccaneers. (2012)<\/li>\n<li>Synonym technology\u00a0is used\u00a0to enhance product search\u00a0in <strong>Bing Shopping <\/strong>(2010)<\/li>\n<li>Synonym technology is used by<strong> Bing Ads<\/strong> for\u00a0matching keyword queries with advertisements (2010)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"page-content\">Other contributors: Dong Xin, Venkatesh Ganti, Tao Cheng<\/div>\n<div id=\"en-usprojectssynonymsdefault\" class=\"page-content\">Past interns: Manish Gupta, Bilyana Taneva, Tomasz Tylenda<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The same entity is often referred to in a variety of ways. For example, the camera Canon 600d is also referred to as &#8220;canon rebel t3i&#8221;, the celebrity Jennifer Lopez is also referred to as &#8220;jlo&#8221; and Seattle Tacoma International Airport is also referred to as &#8220;sea tac&#8221;. These are known as synonyms. Without knowledge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"research-area":[13563,13555],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-171259","msr-project","type-msr-project","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-data-platform-analytics","msr-research-area-search-information-retrieval","msr-locale-en_us","msr-archive-status-active"],"msr_project_start":"2014-01-07","related-publications":[163072,164142,164288,238103,357566,357899],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-groups":[],"related-events":[],"related-opportunities":[],"related-posts":[],"related-articles":[],"tab-content":[],"slides":[],"related-researchers":[{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Surajit Chaudhuri","user_id":33764,"people_section":"Group 1","alias":"surajitc"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Yeye He","user_id":34992,"people_section":"Group 1","alias":"yeyehe"}],"msr_research_lab":[199565],"msr_impact_theme":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/171259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-project"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/171259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391565,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/171259\/revisions\/391565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=171259"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=171259"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=171259"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=171259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}