Question answering on the semantic Web

Question answering on the Web is moving beyond the stage where users simply type a query and retrieve a ranked ordering of appropriate Web pages. Users and analysts want targeted answers to their questions without extraneous information. These answers might contain information from current and authoritative sources, terms with the same meaning as those used in the query, relevant links such as justifications, follow-up questions fitting the context, and provenance information. Next-generation question-answering systems might also provide better querying support. This could include identifying whether questions are incoherent and therefore can't be answered, too general and would retrieve too many answers, or over constrained and would retrieve few if any answers. We present a spectrum of techniques for improving question answering and discuss their potential uses and impact.     

基于分层抽样的重叠深网数据源选择

深网查询在Web上众多的应用,需要查询大量的数据源才能获得足够的数据,如多媒体数据搜索、团购网站信息聚合等.应用的成功,取决于查询多数据源的效率和效果.当前研究侧重查询与数据源的相关性而忽略数据源之间的重叠关系,使得不同数据源上相同结果的数据被重复查询,增加了查询开销及数据源的工作负载.为了提高深网查询的效率,提出一种元组水平的分层抽样方法来估计和利用查询在数据源上的统计数据,选择高相关、低重叠的数据源.该方法分为两个阶段：离线阶段,基于元组水平对数据源进行分层抽样,获得样本数据;在线阶段,基于样本数据迭代地估计查询在数据源上的覆盖率和重叠率,并采用一种启发式策略以高效地发现低重叠的数据源.实验结果表明,该方法能够显著提高重叠数据源选择的精度和效率.     

Web数据引擎的查询表达

当前Web的发展越来越快,Web上的信息也越来越丰富。如何能够快速准确地查找到有价值的信息成为一个人们普遍关心的问题,虽然目前有一些工具,例如各种搜索引擎,可以解决这个问题,但是结果都不太令人满意。另外,在数据库领域中,数据库技术可以支持复杂的查询请求,并且能够返回精确的查询结果。可否将数据库技术应用到Web上呢?从模型化的观点来看,在Web的某个局部的特定领域当中,数据库技术与搜索引擎技术有望结合起来实现更加精确的查询。为此,作者展开了相关的研究,设计并实现了一个原型系统WebView。论文主要介绍了该系统的查询表达部分的设计方法,通过采用三层模式框架和概念复合技术,使得用户可以很方便地表达比较复杂的查询请求。     

查询分布式RDF知识库的体系结构和运算法则的研究

随着语史网的发展,存储和查询ILDF数据是亟待解决的问题.为此,展示用来存储RDF数据的基于DHT的P2P网络的体系结构,描述RDF的模型图及查询图,提出在分布式的上下文中查询处理和优化的运算法则.     

利用约束优化数据库WEB视图上的查询

当前,许多大的WEB站点的信息和数据呈现出结构化或半结构化的特点,因而可经抽象,作为类似关系数据库或者面向对象数据库并加以处理,以提高操作效率,特别是在此基础上进行的查询操作。但查询这些抽象的结构化或半结构化的视图需要新的技术。由于数据存储比较分散,并且多数以HTML、XML等形式存放,因而网络访问成为主要的查询代价构成要素。为此通过利用WEB数据库的冗余来减少网络访问。文章采用数据模型Araneus的一个子集作为数据模型,并利用链接约束、包含约束、范围约束以及多种规则重写关系代数表达式,以期达到优化查询结果的目的。     

Continuous querying in database-centric Web applications

Web applications are becoming increasingly database-centric. Unfortunately, the support provided by most Web sites to explore such databases is rather primitive and is based on the traditional database metaphor of submitting an SQL query and packaging the response as an HTML page. Very often, the result set is empty or contains too many records. It is up to the user to refine the query by guessing how the query constraints must be tightened or relaxed and then go through another submit/response cycle. Furthermore, once results are displayed, typically no further exploration capabilities are offered. Web applications requiring interactive exploration of databases (e.g. e-commerce) need that the above submit/response metaphor be replaced with a continuous querying metaphor that seamlessly integrates querying with result browsing. In addition to supporting queries based on predicates on attribute values, queries based on example records should also be supported. We present techniques for supporting this metaphor and discuss their implementation in a Web-based database exploration engine.     

Beyond search: Retrieving complete tuples from a text-database

A common task of Web users is querying structured information from Web pages. For realizing this interesting scenario we propose a novel query processor for systematically discovering instances of semantic relations in Web search results and joining these relation instances into complex result tuples with conjunctive queries. Our query processor transforms a structured user query into keyword queries that are submitted to a search engine, forwards search results to a relation extractor, and then combines relations into complex result tuples. The processor automatically learns discriminative and effective keywords for different types of semantic relations. Thereby, our query processor leverages the index of a search engine to query potentially billions of pages. Unfortunately, relation extractors may fail to return a relation for a result tuple. Moreover, user defined data sources may not return at least k complete result tuples. Therefore we propose an adaptive routing model based on information theory for retrieving missing attributes of incomplete result tuples. The model determines the most promising next incomplete tuple and attribute type for returning any-k complete result tuples at any point during the query execution process. We report a thorough experimental evaluation over multiple relation extractors. Our query processor returns complete result tuples while processing only very few Web pages.     

XML数据的查询技术

XML规范已成为当前网络应用(包括数字图书馆、Web服务以及电子商务)中事实上的数据表达、交换的标准.针对XML数据的查询在当前XML数据管理研究中占有重要的地位,也是当前XML数据处理研究领域的热点方向,相关的研究文献有很多.根据查询模式描述的不同,将当前XML查询技术归入两大类:XML Query方式和XML IR方式.后者又进而可分以为3个子类:XML IR/keyword方式、XML IR/fragment和XML IR/query方式,并从中挑选出3个研究者关注的问题进行了简述,它们是:Twig查询模式的处理、SLCA(smallest lowest common ancestor)节点的获取以及对所获取的XML片段相似性的度量.以方便普通用户使用为准则探讨了相关XML查询技术的优、缺点,将如下4个问题作为需要进一步关注的研究内容:结构化关键字查询及相应的结构相似性度量方法,如何消除XML Query查询处理模式(包含XML IR/query)和XML IR/keyword查询处理模式间数据冗余的问题,XML Query查询方式的理论探讨及其实现以及针对特定应用的XML数据的有效管理.     

基于树合并的Deep Web查询接口集成

随着在线数据库应用的流行,整个互联网已经被迅速"深化".对于某一特定领域的deep Web,不同的站点往往会提供不同查询能力的查询接口.为了能够集成同一领域内的各个数据源,首先要解决的问题就是查询接口的集成.但是面对数量众多和结构各异的查询接口,基于人工或规则的集成方案显然无法适用.针对这种状况,提出了基于树合并的查询接口全自动集成方法.树结构可以充分体现查询接口属性之间的结构关系,通过树的合并来实现查询接口的集成.该方法不但能保持各个原始接口的结构特征,还具备良好的扩展性,以适应不断频繁更新的查询接口.最后通过多个领域的测试数据证明了本方法的有效性.     

Semantic cache mechanism for heterogeneous Web querying

In Web-based searching systems that access distributed information providers, efficient query processing requires an advanced caching mechanism to reduce the query response time. The keyword-based querying is often the only way to retrieve data from Web providers, and therefore standard page-based and tuple-based caching mechanisms turn out to be improper for such a task. In this work, we develop a mechanism for efficient caching of Web queries and the answers received from heterogeneous Web providers. We also report results of experiments and show how the caching mechanism is implemented in the Knowledge Broker system.     

基于路径仓的面向对象XML查询处理技术

XML正在迅速成为Internet上数据表示和交换的标准,存储与查询XML数据变得日益重要,如何快速、准确地查询面向对象的XML数据成为当前研究的热点,索引技术是提高查询效率的有效方法。该文基于路径仓索引模式,提出了一种面向对象的XML数据的查询处理技术。     

XML查询优化研究

XML已经成为网络上信息描述和信息交换的标准.由于网络上信息的本质特性和XML数据内在的灵活性,很多用XML编码的数据都是半结构化的.随着XML应用得越来越广泛,人们提出了多种XML数据的存储模型.与此同时,XML的查询优化也是数据库领域研究的一个重要课题.综合论述了XML数据查询优化技术的现状,指出了XML查询优化的特点和研究的关键性问题.描述了查询优化技术各个方面的重要研究成果以及存在的问题,进一步展望了未来的研究方向,并在此基础上提出了对XML查询优化方法的一些观点.     

Deep Web数据源聚类与分类

随着Internet信息的迅速增长,许多Web信息已经被各种各样的可搜索在线数据库所深化,并被隐藏在Web查询接口下面.传统的搜索引擎由于技术原因不能索引这些信息--Deep Web信息.本文分析了Deep Web查询接口的各种类型,研究了基于查询接口特征的数据源聚类方法和基于聚类结果的数据源分类方法,讨论了从基于规则与线性文档分类器中抽取查询探测集的规则抽取算法和Web文档数据库分类的查询探测算法.     

Prototyping an integrated information gathering system on CORBA

The sheer volume of information and variety of sources from which it may be retrieved on the Web make searching the sources a difficult task. Usually, meta-search engines can be used only to search Web pages or documents; other major sources such as data bases, library corpuses and the so-called Web data bases are not involved. Faced with these restrictions, an effective retrieval technology for a much wider range of sources becomes increasingly important. In our previous work, we proposed an Integrated Retrieval (IIR), which is based on Common Object Request Broker Architecture, to spare clients the trouble of complicated semantics when federating multiple sources. In this paper, we present an IIR-based prototype for integrated information gathering system. It offers a unified interface for querying heterogeneous interfaces or protocols of sources and uses SQL compatible query language for heterogeneous backend targets. We use it to link two general search engines (Yahoo and AltaVista), a science paper explorer (IEEE), and two library corpus explorers. We also perform preliminary measurements to assess the potential of the system. The results shown that the overhead spent on each source as the system queries them is within reason, that is, that using IIR to construct an integrated gathering system incurs low overhead.     

Web信息的结构化及其查询视图研究

Web并不是传统的关系数据库。在WWW浏览器上进行信息搜索时,常常难于快速有效地得到查询结果。就Web站点信息库的数据模型化、关系代数演算及关系视图的建立加以探讨,基于这一模式结构的Web站点信息查询便易于表达和实现。     

Rule-based composite event queries: the language XChangeEQ and its semantics

Web systems, Web services, and Web-based publish/subscribe systems communicate events as XML messages and in many cases, require composite event detection: it is not sufficient to react to single event messages, but events have to be considered in relation to other events that are received over time. This entails a need for expressive, high-level languages for querying composite events. Emphasizing language design and formal semantics, we describe the rule-based composite event query language XChange^EQ. XChange^EQ is designed to completely cover and integrate the four complementary querying dimensions: event data, event composition, temporal relationships, and event accumulation. Semantics are provided as a model theory with accompanying fixpoint theory, an approach that is established for rule languages but has not been applied to event queries so far. Because they are highly declarative, thus easy to understand and well suited for query optimization, such semantics are desirable for event queries.     

Natural-language understanding at BBN

Natural-language understanding has evolved from its earliest days in which scientists use an early approach to parsing, to more sophisticated techniques that enable systems to extract information from open-domain text sources to fill data bases automatically. Natural language processing has many potential applications, such as translating foreign-language documents on the Web; automatically routing questions to an appropriate expert at a help/service telephone number; fully automatic question answering; delivering answers to a Web query, as opposed to delivering pointers to Web pages; and automatically filling a structured database with desired information from text or speech sources.     

RDF 数据查询处理技术综述

随着语义网以及信息抽取技术等研究的发展,Web上涌现出越来越多的RDF数据,海量RDF数据的管理,已经成为学术界和工业界研究的热点之一。从RDF数据集形态及RDF数据组织存储两个维度以及查询表述、查询处理、查询优化等方面,深入地分析和比较了RDF数据查询处理方法,并在此基础上提出了未来研究的方向和挑战。