Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemTranslating Place-Related Questions to GeoSPARQL Queries(ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, 2022)Many place-related questions can only be answered by complex spatial reasoning, a task poorly supported by factoid question retrieval. Such reasoning using combinations of spatial and non-spatial criteria pertinent to place-related questions is increasingly possible on linked data knowledge bases. Yet, to enable question answering based on linked knowledge bases, natural language questions must first be re-formulated as formal queries. Here, we first present an enhanced version of YAGO2geo, the geospatially-enabled variant of the YAGO2 knowledge base, by linking and adding more than one million places from OpenStreetMap data to YAGO2. We then propose a novel approach to translate the place-related questions into logical representations, theoretically grounded in the core concepts of spatial information. Next, we use a dynamic template-based approach to generate fully executable GeoSPARQL queries from the logical representations. We test our approach using the Geospatial Gold Standard dataset and report substantial improvements over existing methods.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableNeural factoid geospatial question answering(UNIV MAINE, 2021)Existing question answering systems struggle to answer factoid questions when geospatial information is involved. This is because most systems cannot accurately detect the geospatial semantic elements from the natural language questions, or capture the semantic relationships between those elements. In this paper, we propose a geospatial semantic encoding schema and a semantic graph representation which captures the semantic relations and dependencies in geospatial questions. We demonstrate that our proposed graph representation approach aids in the translation from natural language to a formal, executable expression in a query language. To decrease the need for people to provide explanatory information as part of their question and make the translation fully automatic, we treat the semantic encoding of the question as a sequential tagging task, and the graph generation of the query as a semantic dependency parsing task. We apply neural network approaches to automatically encode the geospatial questions into spatial semantic graph representations. Compared with current template-based approaches, our method generalises to a broader range of questions, including those with complex syntax and semantics. Our proposed approach achieves better results on GeoData201 than existing methods.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe semantics of place-related questions(UNIV MAINE, 2021)The trend to equip information systems with question-answering capabilities raises the design problem of deciding which questions a system should be able to answer. Typical solutions build on mining human conversations or logs from similar systems for question patterns. For the case of questions about geographic places, we present a complementary approach, showing how to derive possible questions from an ontology of spatial information and a classification of place facets. We argue that such an approach reduces the inherent and substantial data bias of current solutions. At a more general level, we provide a novel understanding of spatial questions and their role in designing and using spatial information systems.
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ItemExtracting interrogative intents and concepts from geo-analytic questions(Copernicus GmbH, 2020)Understanding syntactic and semantic structure of geographic questions is a necessary step towards true geographic question-answering (GeoQA) machines. The empirical basis for the understanding of the capabilities expected from GeoQA systems are geographic question corpora. Available corpora in English have been mostly drawn from generic Web search logs or limited user studies, supporting the focus of GeoQA systems on retrieving factoids: factual knowledge about particular places and everyday processes. Yet, the majority of questions enquired about in the spatial sciences go beyond simple place facts, with more complex analytical intents informing the questions. In this paper, we introduce a new corpus of geo-analytic questions drawn from English textbooks and scientific articles. We analyse and compare this corpus with two general-purpose GeoQA corpora in terms of grammatical complexity and semantic concepts, using a new parsing method that allows us to differentiate and quantify patterns of a question’s intent.
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ItemTemplates of generic geographic information for answering where-questions(TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-01-02)In everyday communication, where-questions are answered by place descriptions. To answer where-questions automatically, computers should be able to generate relevant place descriptions that satisfy inquirers’ information needs. Human-generated answers to where-questions constructed based on a few anchor places that characterize the location of inquired places. The challenge for automatically generating such relevant responses stems from selecting relevant anchor places. In this paper, we present templates that allow to characterize the human-generated answers and to imitate their structure. These templates are patterns of generic geographic information derived and encoded from the largest available machine comprehension dataset, MS MARCO v2.1. In our approach, the toponyms in the questions and answers of the dataset are encoded into sequences of generic information. Next, sequence prediction methods are used to model the relation between the generic information in the questions and their answers. Finally, we evaluate the performance of predicting templates for answers to where-questions.
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ItemPlace facets: a systematic literature review(Taylor & Francis, 2020)Place is a central concept in geography and a topic of interest in the social sciences, urban planning, architecture, and most recently in information science. The notion of place has therefore been studied with different foci of interest. Consequently, heterogeneous terminologies, conceptualizations, models, and ontologies have been proposed to capture this elusive concept. Yet these studies complement each other. Utilizing the concept of place facet as a particular type of information about place, in this review paper we bridge these multidisciplinary studies about place. We collect the different facets of place introduced in the literature and synthesize place characteristics by categorizing the identified facets. Finally, we discuss future directions for place-related research.
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ItemPlace questions and human-generated answers: A data analysis approach(Springer, Cham, 2020-01-01)This paper investigates place-related questions submitted to search systems and their human-generated answers. Place-based search is motivated by the need to identify places matching some criteria, to identify them in space or relative to other places, or to characterize the qualities of such places. Human place-related questions have thus far been insufficiently studied and differ strongly from typical keyword queries. They thus challenge today’s search engines providing only rudimentary geographic information retrieval support. We undertake an analysis of the patterns in place-based questions using a large-scale dataset of questions/answers, MS MARCO V2.1. The results of this study reveal patterns that can inform the design of conversational search systems and in-situ assistance systems, such as autonomous vehicles.