Bangalore 07 May 2007: Sobha Renaissance information Technology (SRIT) today announced a revolutionary ‘Artificial Intelligence’ technology for immediate application in deriving context-based internet search results. Coined as Latent Metonymical Analysis and Indexing (LMai^TM) this algorithm uses mathematical techniques in the realm of unsupervised or advance machine learning to derive results no other contemporary technology has been able to achieve till date.

Times of India

Sobha researcher redefines the concept of search

Dhanya Krishnakumar | TNN

Bangalore: Have you been flummoxed wondering what exact key words to type when running a search on Google? Then you may want to take a look at LMai, a new algorithm developed by a researcher at Bangalore-based Sobha Renaissance information Technology (SRIT). What is unique about LMai (or Latent Metonymical Analysis and Indexing) is that it uses mathematical techniques to come up with context based search results.

In simple language what this means is that once LMai has been installed as a plug-in on any search engine, irrespective of what words you type in, the algorithm will derive the possible connection or relationship between them and then throw up results. Traditionally search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN depend on keywords, which are specific to initiate their crawlers, which then scan all the billion gigabytes of data on their servers before throwing up results.

But where these engines fail is when you type in multiple words, which the crawler treats as individual entities and then throws up disconnected results. Say you type in mental health, a normal search engine will throw up results for both mental and health. LMai scores over them in that it will realise that mental health is a related term and will throw up specific results pertaining to mental health and also give you a choice of related results say about matters like schizophrenia or delusion which are directly related to mental health.

The algorithm is also intelligent enough to scan the entire document and pull out relevant words relating to the search string and offer you a brief description of the document in two lines beneath the URL, making it easier for the end user to choose from.

Syed Yasin visualised this product way back in 2003, after designing an algorithm that worked with speech engines to produce a personal computer that would talk to humans and carry out specific orders. In 2005 he had the draft ready of an algorithm that learns by itself. By April 2006, under the aegis of SRIT, Syed began work on a prototype of LMai which could change the face of search engines as we know them today.

Explains Syed, “LMai works on a novel decomposition technique that enables the algorithm to extract contextually related terms without any external guidance. Say you type in vegetables in the search string, LMai will throw up information about everything that is even related to vegetables like say farming, vitamins, manure, irrigation, crop cycles etc. It even solves problems faced by users like when searching for a word, which has multiple meanings like Java, which is not only an island but also a programming protocol. Normal search engines need to be told which one in particular you are looking for in the first place.”

And since it’s a plug-in, it operates by integrating the results thrown up by the base engine and overwriting those that are not relevant. And this also affords it much more scalability since it can automatically tap into the data of the base search engine and one does not have to actually set up a separate search engine to enjoy its results.

The concept of search is undergoing a paradigm shift. Big boy Microsoft is looking to have its own search engine soon and has allocated close to .1 billion for research in this specific area. Yahoo and Google are working on refining their searches while also attempting to maximise revenues from them. In this context, such a finding by an Indian company could make the big wigs sit up and take notice. 

And it is already making waves claims Madhu Nambiar, CEO & MD of SRIT, “There is wide interest in this space and we have already had external experts coming and testing the feasibility and viability of this product. We have tested LMai on more than 90000 files and more than 70 million words. It has now been proven that LMai is capable of powering next generation search engines.” SRIT has a patent for LMai pending in the US.

IN SEARCH MODE: Sobha Renaissance, which recently acquired Objective Systems Integrators, the telecom support systems business of Agilent Technologies, has invested close to Rs 200 crore in R&D since 2001. SRIT MD Madhu Nambiar says the company will focus on creating innovative products like LMai.

About The Times of India
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Economic Times

SOBHA Renaissance information Technology (SRIT), the Bangalore-headquartered mid-tier IT Company, has come up with a new search engine, which it says makes search on the internet more relevant. The new search engine is based on an algorithm called LMAI or latent metonymical analysis and indexing where the search is based on the context unlike the traditional word search.

Syed Yasin, R&D project lead, SRIT, said it has demonstrated the concept and has tested with over 70 million words. Yasin claimed that the majority of the web search engines today are based on words which are not very contextual and throw up results which are not entirely relevant.

LMAI can also be used to support applications in robotics, decision support systems and knowledge systems. However, SRIT has not decided on the roadmap for this solution, though it claimed there has been enough interest from others in using this solution. SRIT has invested around Rs 200 crore for the last five years in its R&D activity.

Dr Madhu Nambiar, CEO, SRIT, said it was looking at making newer acquisitions in the near future to build on its R&D portfolio. It is likely to make a buy-out in the healthcare vertical in the next three to four months. SRIT has crossed revenue of over Rs 200 crore and generates over 40% of its revenues from IT solutions with the rest from services.

About Economic Times
The Economic Times is a part of the Bennett & Coleman Group, which also publishes The Times of India. The Economic Times enjoys a near monopoly status, in terms of both circulation and advertising and is India’s No.1 financial and business publication and among the world's top three English business dailies with 4 lakh subscribers. The Economic Times is published simultaneously from nine cities across India, has a circulation of 400,000 copies, and is read by over 1 million people every day. From breaking stories to larger features and in-depth analysis, The Economic Times is the business publication of choice for all corporates, business houses, executives and influencers, students and opinion leaders. The Economic Times publishes special supplements on marketing, corporate strategy and investment such as Corporate Dossier, ET Big Bucks and Brand Equity.

Business Standard

Your search just got encyclopedic!

Bibhu Ranjan Mishra / New Delhi May 15, 2007 

TECHNOLOGY: A monster Einstein could soon be powering the way you gather information.  

Type in a keyword in a search engine and your frustration will probably have you tearing your hair out because, of course, when you’re searching for Java, the Indonesian island, you’ll probably end up with Java, the computing language.  

It is not funny, but it happens all the time. Search terminologies “are basically keyword search engines, not context-based search engines”, says Syed Yasin, R&D project head of Bangalore-based Sobha Renaissance information Technology (SRIT).  

Searchers say: “This happens because the algorithm embedded in your search engine is unable to correlate the word with the context.” An algorithm is a set of rules a search engine uses to rank the responses to a particular query.  

Most search engines today face two problems — those of synonymy and those of polysemy. The first occurs when people use different words to search for the same object (say cell phone and mobile phone). The second occurs when the search engine is not able to differentiate between words with more than one meaning.  

But these problems could soon be history. Artificial intelligence developed by SRIT will differentiate search results on the basis of the context rather than the exact keyword, thereby providing users with the flexibility to zero in on search information.  

Latent Metonymical Analysis and Indexing (LMai), the new algorithm, uses mathematical techniques from the data and phrases throughout the documents to analyze and identify the contextual relationship between words automatically. It will pick up the exact matches the user is looking for as well as throw up search results which have a relationship with the keyword.

So, if you search, for instance, for “heart surgery”, the system will throw up information on “open heart surgery”, “minimal invasive heart surgery”, “heart attack”, “heart bypass surgery”, “vascular surgery”, “angioplasty” and “cardiac catheterization”. Under the single decomposition (SDV) technique which deconstructs single terms, LMai can identify words that go together.  

So, “mental health” — two words — will be identified by LMai as a single word and the search results will relate the keyword with other related words to throw up results like “homeless health concern”, “teen health”, “depression”, “schizophrenia”, “panic disorder”, “anxiety” and “alcoholism”, among others. “This is a powerful feature wherein a machine behaves like an expert, although not to an accuracy of 100 per cent,” says Yasin.  

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! have been investing heavily on search-engine optimization. Google, considered the best in this category, has huge spends for R&D and even Microsoft has a budget of $ 1.1 billion for year-ending June 2007. Will SRIT be wooing these competitors to sell the product, or market it on a licensing basis? “We have various options in place,” says Madhu Nambiar, CEO of SRIT.  

“A renowned US-based media house has offered to jointly market the product by setting up a special purpose vehicle. We may also consider partnering a third-party search engine, or sell them the algorithm since to start a search engine requires huge investment.”   

Meanwhile, it’s filed a patent in the US for the technology. Google that!

About Business Standard:

Business Standard is a part of the Anand Bazaar Patrika group that publishes a variety of business and general interest publications in different languages. It is India’s No.2 financial and business daily. Published from seven centers (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi), Business Standard has a circulation of 1,20,000 copies daily. The publication focuses mainly on corporate news, IT trends and direction, finance, commodities and markets, national/international news and current affairs. Ice World, The Strategist, Smart Investor and Motoring are the weekly supplements of Business Standard.

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