Allan Third

Automating generation of textual class definitions from OWL to English

BackgroundText definitions for entities within bio-ontologies are a cornerstone of the effort to gain a consensus in understanding and usage of those ontologies. Writing these definitions is, however, a considerable effort and there is often a lag between specification of the main part of an ontology (logical descriptions and definitions of entities) and the development of the text-based definitions. The goal of natural language generation (NLG) from ontologies is to take the logical description of entities and generate fluent natural language. The application described here uses NLG to automatically provide text-based definitions from an ontology that has logical descriptions of its entities, so avoiding the bottleneck of authoring these definitions by hand.ResultsTo produce the descriptions, the program collects all the axioms relating to a given entity, groups them according to common structure, realises each group through an English sentence, and assembles the resulting sentences into a paragraph, to form as ‘coherent’ a text as possible without human intervention. Sentence generation is accomplished using a generic grammar based on logical patterns in OWL, together with a lexicon for realising atomic entities. We have tested our output for the Experimental Factor Ontology (EFO) using a simple survey strategy to explore the fluency of the generated text and how well it conveys the underlying axiomatisation. Two rounds of survey and improvement show that overall the generated English definitions are found to convey the intended meaning of the axiomatisation in a satisfactory manner. The surveys also suggested that one form of generated English will not be universally liked; that intrusion of too much ‘formal ontology’ was not liked; and that too much explicit exposure of OWL semantics was also not liked.ConclusionsOur prototype tools can generate reasonable paragraphs of English text that can act as definitions. The definitions were found acceptable by our survey and, as a result, the developers of EFO are sufficiently satisfied with the output that the generated definitions have been incorporated into EFO. Whilst not a substitute for hand-written textual definitions, our generated definitions are a useful starting point.AvailabilityAn on-line version of the NLG text definition tool can be found at http://swat.open.ac.uk/tools/. The questionaire and sample generated text definitions may be found at http://mcs.open.ac.uk/nlg/SWAT/bio-ontologies.html.

More Fragments of Language

By a fragment of a natural language, we understand a collection of sentences forming a naturally delineated subset of that language and equipped with a semantics commanding the general assent of its native speakers. By the semantic complexity of such a fragment, we understand the computational complexity of deciding whether any given set of sentences in that fragment represents a logically possible situation. In earlier papers by the first author, the semantic complexity of various fragments of English involving at most transitive verbs was investigated. The present paper considers various fragments of English involving ditransitive verbs and determines their semantic complexity.

Linked Data Indexing of Distributed Ledgers

Searching for information in distributed ledgers is currently not an easy task, as information relating to an entity may be scattered throughout the ledger with no index. As distributed ledger technologies become more established, they will increasingly be used to represent real world transactions involving many parties and the search requirements will grow. An index providing the ability to search using domain specific terms across multiple ledgers will greatly enhance to power, usability and scope of these systems. We have implemented a semantic index to the Ethereum blockchain platform, to expose distributed ledger data as Linked Data. As well as indexing block- and transaction-level data according to the BLONDiE ontology, we have mapped smart contracts to the Minimal Service Model ontology, to take the first steps towards connecting smart contracts with Semantic Web Services.

Towards the Temporal Streaming of Graph Data on Distributed Ledgers.

We present our work-in-progress on handling temporal RDF graph data using the Ethereum distributed ledger. The motivation for this work are scenarios where multiple distributed consumers of streamed data may need or wish to verify that data has not been tampered with since it was generated – for example, if the data describes something which can be or has been sold, such as domestically-generated electricity. We describe a system in which temporal annotations, and information suitable to validate a given dataset, are stored on a distributed ledger, alongside the results of fixed SPARQL queries executed at the time of data storage. The model adopted implements a graph-based form of temporal RDF, in which time intervals are represented by named graphs corresponding to ledger entries. We conclude by discussing evaluation, what remains to be implemented, and future directions.

Online learning and experimentation via interactive learning resources

Recent trends in online learning like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Educational Resources (OERs) are changing the landscape in the education sector by allowing learners to self-regulate their learning and providing them with an abundant amount of free learning materials. This paper presents FORGE, a new European initiative for online learning and experimentation via interactive learning resources. FORGE provides learners and educators with access to world-class facilities and high quality learning materials, thus enabling them to carry out experiments on e.g. new Internet protocols. In turn, this supports constructivist and self-regulated learning approaches, through the use of interactive learning resources, such as eBooks.

Architecture for a grounded ontology of geographic information

A major problem with encoding an ontology of geographic information in a formal language is how to cope with the issues of vagueness, ambiguity and multiple, possibly conflicting, perspectives on the same concepts.We present a means of structuring such an ontology which allows these issues to be handled in a controlled and principled manner, with reference to an example ontology of the domain of naive hydrography, and discuss some of the issues which arise when grounding such a theory in real data -- that is to say, when relating qualitative geographic description to quantitative geographic data.

ScienceMiles: Digital Currency for Researchers

Peer-reviewing is a community-driven activity where volunteer researchers assess the work of other researchers. Peer-reviewing is an important and time-consuming activity that has very little recognition. This lack of incentive may lead to poor-quality reviews and frustration from researchers. In this paper, we envision ScienceMiles, a Blockchain-based platform to manage the incentivization of peer-reviewers through a crypto-currency.

Integrating medical scientific knowledge with the semantically quantified self

The assessment of risk in medicine is a crucial task, and depends on scientific knowledge derived by systematic clinical studies on factors affecting health, as well as on particular knowledge about the current status of a particular patient. Existing non-semantic risk prediction tools are typically based on hardcoded scientific knowledge, and only cover a very limited range of patient states. This makes them rapidly out of date, and limited in application, particularly for patients with multiple co-occurring conditions. In this work we propose an integration of Semantic Web and Quantified Self technologies to create a framework for calculating clinical risk predictions for patients based on self-gathered biometric data. This framework relies on generic, reusable ontologies for representing clinical risk, and sensor readings, and reasoning to support the integration of data represented according to these ontologies. The implemented framework shows a wide range of advantages over existing risk calculation.

An Ontology Based Scheme for Formal Care Plan Meta-Description

Contemporary healthcare delivery is based on state-of-the-art scientific best practices captured in systematically developed formal care plans which include guidelines, clinical protocols, integrated care pathways, etc. Research so far has addressed the computerized execution of formal care plans by developing a number of related representation languages, execution engines and integrated platforms to support real time care plan execution. However, much less effort has been put into organizing available formal care plans. In this paper we propose a conceptual model and an ontology for a meta-description of the formal care plan. The proposed conceptual model and ontology allows semantic tagging and enrichment of clinical protocols so that they can be used and reused across platforms and also be linked directly to other relevant scientific information, e.g. published works in Pub-Med or personal health records, and other clinical information systems. It also allows modelling of the provenance and justifications for modifications or alterations to care plans.

How Easy Is It to Learn a Controlled Natural Language for Building a Knowledge Base

Recent developments in controlled natural language editors for knowledge engineering (KE) have given rise to expectations that they will make KE tasks more accessible and perhaps even enable non-engineers to build knowledge bases. This exploratory research focussed on novices and experts in knowledge engineering during their attempts to learn a controlled natural language (CNL) known as OWL Simplified English and use it to build a small knowledge base. Participants’ behaviours during the task were observed through eye-tracking and screen recordings.