As shown in Figure 1, the system consists of three layers: the interaction layer, the knowledge layer and the intention layer. Each layer plays its own role by executing functions of the modules.
Three layers and the modules of the system framework
The interaction layer is responsible for interacting with consumers: getting questions from consumers and producing answers to consumers. There are four functional modules in the layer:
AIML Files: AIML is an artificial intelligence markup language extended by XML. In this module, knowledge and question-answering patterns are stored using different tags. Some important tags are <template>, <pattern>, <topic>, <that>, <srai>, <set>, <get>, <random>, <star>, <condition> and <think>.
Chinese Segmentation Module: Three parts in Figure 1 cooperate with this module. AIML memory tree and AIML reference engine are organized by the words which are the segmented results of user questions by the module under the support of AIML files.
Sentence Composition Module: The AIML response engine is under supports of this module and the module of AIML files to composite answers according to the template logic.
AIML Response Engine: This module receives intentions from the module of intention recognition and knowledge from the module of AIML memory tree, and then composites answers to the questions of e-commerce consumers under the support of the sentence composition module.