Presentation given at PyLadies meetup Montreal

1. Challenges in NLP
Zareen Syed
zareensyed@gmail.com

2. Ambiguity
• Natural language is highly ambiguous and
must be disambiguated.

3. Ambiguity in Speech
• Speech Recognition
–“recognize speech” vs. “wreck a nice beach”
–“youth in Asia” vs. “euthanasia”

4. 1. I saw the man. The man was on the hill. I was using a telescope.
2. I saw the man. I was on the hill. I was using a telescope.
3. I saw the man. The man was on the hill. The hill had a telescope.
4. I saw the man. I was on the hill. The hill had a telescope.
5. I saw the man. The man was on the hill. I saw him using a telescope.
I saw the man on the hill with a telescope.
Ambiguity in Preposition Attachment

5. Humor and Ambiguity
• Many jokes rely on the ambiguity of language:
– One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he
got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.
– She criticized my apartment, so I knocked her flat.

6. 7
Polysemy
Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD)
• Words in natural language usually have a fair number
of different possible meanings.
– Ellen has a strong interest in computational linguistics.
– Ellen pays a large amount of interest on her credit card.
– The dog is in the pen.
– The ink is in the pen.
– I put the plant in the window
– Ford put the plant in Mexico
• For many tasks (question answering, translation), the
proper sense of each ambiguous word in a sentence
must be determined.

7. Some more examples of Polysemy
A world record.
A record of the conversation.
Record it!
He left the bank five minutes ago.
He left the bank five years ago
He caught a fish at the bank.
I need some paper.
I wrote a paper.
I read the paper.

9. Computers are no better than your dog.
But we can teach them “how-to” by coding our
knowledge of the language comprehension
process

10. Co-Reference Resolution
• Determine which phrases in a document
refer to the same underlying entity.
– John put the carrot on the plate and ate it.
– Bush started the war in Iraq. But the president
needed the consent of Congress.

11. Ellipsis Resolution
• Frequently words and phrases are omitted
from sentences when they can be inferred
from context.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say;
fools, because they have to say something.“ (Plato)
"Wise men talk because they have something to say;
fools talk because they have to say something.“ (Plato)

12. 16
Information Extraction (IE)
• Identify phrases in language that refer to specific
types of entities and relations in text.
• Named entity recognition is task of identifying names
of people, places, organizations, etc. in text.
people organizations places
– Michael Dell is the CEO of Dell Computer Corporation and
lives in Austin Texas.
• Relation extraction identifies specific relations
between entities.
– Michael Dell is the CEO of Dell Computer Corporation and
lives in Austin Texas.

13. Question Answering
• Directly answer natural language questions
based on information presented in a
corpora of textual documents (e.g. the
web).
– When was Barack Obama born? (factoid)
• August 4, 1961
– Who was president when Barack Obama was
born?
• John F. Kennedy
– How many presidents have there been since
Barack Obama was born?
• 9

14. Projects & Research

15. Wikitology:
A Novel Hybrid Knowledge Base
Derived from Wikipedia
Zareen Syed
Ourplansare going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandyall the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val onlyto
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It'sbasically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplansare going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandyall the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val onlyto
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It'sbasically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Our plans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraser handy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The MetasystemTransition as
the Quantumof Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the formof in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplansare going
ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so
let's put
that in in hard
pencil, but keep
your eraser handy
all the same. My life
Ourplansare going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandyall the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only
19

16. Introduction and Motivation
Page 20
Ourplansare going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandyall the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val onlyto
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It'sbasically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplansare going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandyall the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val onlyto
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It'sbasically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Our plans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraser handy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The MetasystemTransition as
the Quantumof Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the formof in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplans are going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandy all the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only to
talk on "The Metasystem Transition as
the Quantum of Evolution". This is
the theoretical base to the PCP, which I
described the form of in my talk
to WESS. It's basically between Francis
and Val how would like to talk, or
both, or what.
Ourplansare going
ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so
let's put
that in in hard
pencil, but keep
your eraser handy
all the same. My life
Ourplansare going ahead, Heylighen is
getting tickets, so let's put
that in in hard pencil, but keep your
eraserhandyall the same. My life is
really hectic, and I won't be in a sane
place till mid-April. We'll pin
down the details later, but at this point
we were considering Val only
Human mind capable of
understanding and reasoning over
knowledge in different forms and is
influenced by contextual factors
World Knowledge is available in
different forms
Context important in understanding the
semantics of data
And may be available in different forms

17. Related Work
Page 21
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August
29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an
American singer-songwriter,
dancer, actor, choreographer,
businessman, philanthropist and
record producer.
Contents
Life and Career
Death
.
.
See Also
References
External Links
Typical Wikipedia Article
Linked Open Data
Wikipedia Derived Knowledge Resources
Support Structured
Queries
Supports Natural
Language Queries
Wikitology
Supports Hybrid
Queries

18. Wikitology
• Linked to LOD Cloud with over 295 datasets
22

19. Wikitology
Document Concept Prediction
• Identifying the topics and concepts associated with a
document or collection of documents is a common task for
many applications such as:
– Annotation and categorization of documents in a
corpus
– Modelling user interests
– Business intelligence
– Selecting Advertisements
Page 23

20. Test Document Title Method 1
Ranking Categories Directly
Method 2
Spreading Activation
Pulses=3
Weather Prediction of thunder storms (CNN) “Weather_Hazards” “Meterology”
Prediction for Single Test Document
Experiments
More pulses -> More Generalized Concepts
Data Set Method 1
Ranking Categories
Directly
Method 2 (2 pulses)
Spreading Activation on
Category links Graph
Method 3 (2 pulses)
Spreading Activation on
Article Links Graph
10 articles related to
Organic Farming
Agriculture (Rank 1) Agriculture (in Top 5) Organic_farming
(Rank 1)
Prediction for a Set of Documents
Concept not in the
Category Hierarchy

21. Wikitology
Cross Document Co-reference Resolution
• Problem:
– Determine whether various named entities in different
documents refer to the same object in the world.
• Are two documents that talk about “George Bush” talking about the same
George Bush?
– defined as a task in ACE
Page 25

22. Wikitology
Entity Linking
• Research Problem:
– Given an entity mention string and an article with that
entity mention, find the link to the right Wikipedia entity if
one exists.
– Defined as a task in TAC KBP Track
Page 26
John Williams
Richard Kaufman goes a long way
back with John Williams. Trained as a
classical violinist, Californian Kaufman
started doing session work in the
Hollywood studios in the 1970s. One of
his movies was Jaws, with Williams
conducting his score in recording
sessions in 1975...
John Williams author 1922-1994
J. Lloyd Williams botanist 1854-1945
John Williams politician 1955-
John J. Williams US Senator 1904-1988
John Williams Archbishop 1582-1650
John Williams composer 1932-
Jonathan Williams poet 1929-
Knowledge Base
Identify matching entry, or determine that entity is missing from KB

23. Automatic Discovery of
Slots and Fillers
Page 27
Slot Score Fillers Example
Musician 1.00 ray_charles, sam_cooke ...
Album 0.99 bad_(album), ...
Location 0.97 gary,_indiana, chicago, …
Music_genre 0.90 pop_music, soul_music, ...
Label 0.79 a&m_records, epic_records, ...
Phonograph_
record
0.67
give_in_to_me, this_place_hotel
…
Act 0.59 singing
Movie 0.46 moonwalker …
Company 0.43 war_child_(charity), …
Actor 0.41 stan_winston, eddie_murphy,
Singer 0.40 britney_spears, …
Magazine 0.29 entertainment_weekly,…
Writing_style 0.27 hip_hop_music
Group 0.21 'n_sync, RIAA
Song 0.20 d.s._(song) …
New Slots
Album
Movie
Phonograph_record/songs
Musician (related Musicians)
Act

24. Wikitology Architecture and API
Page 28

25. A Broader Unified Framework for
Automatically Enriching Wikitology
Page 29

26. CONCEPT
PREDICTION
INFORMATION
EXTRACTION
PART OF SPEECH
TAGGING
CLUSTERING
CLASSIFICATION
SENTIMENT
ANALYSIS
TAXONOMY
MANAGEMENT
ENTITY LINKS
GRAPH

27. Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
Enola_Gay
George_Weller
Little_Boy
"Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British Grand
Slam, which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare".These fateful words of the President on August 6th,
1945, marked the first public announcement of the greatest scientific achievement in history. The atomic bomb, first tested in
New Mexico on July 16, 1945, had just been used against a military target.On August 6th, 1945, at 8:15 A.M., Japanese time, a B-
29 heavy bomber flying at high altitude dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. More than 4 square miles of the city were
instantly and completely devastated. 66,000 people were killed, and 69,000 injured.On August 9th, three days later, at 11:02
A.M., another B-29 dropped the second bomb on the industrial section of the city of Nagasaki, totally destroying 1 1/2 square
miles of the city, killing 39,000 persons, and injuring 25,000 more.On August 10, the day after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki,
the Japanese government requested that it be permitted to surrender under the terms of the Potsdam declaration of July 26th
which it had previously ignored.
Title
Enola Gay was the name
of the aircraft
Weller's reports
from Nagasaki after the nuclear
bombing were censored by
the United States military but
appeared in a book in 2002.
"Little Boy" was
the codename of the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima
Predicted Concepts
None of this information is present as
words in the given text!

28. Little Boy – Keyword Search
Keyword search retrieves irrelevant
documents in results as well
32
Example: 1
Query : Little Boy
More than 100,000 Results

29. Field : wikiconceptref
Query : Little Boy
A conceptual search only retrieves relevant articles related to
the “little boy” concept
100,000 results vs.
26 Relevant Results

30. BotColony

31. Botcolony

32. 20Q game
https://www.botcolony.com/ppSD2/custom/get_started/register-trial.php

33. BotColony 3D Game

34. Thank you

35. Wikitology Related Publications
1. Z. Syed and T. Finin. "Creating and Exploiting a Hybrid Knowledge Base for Linked
Data", LNCS, Springer-Verlag. 2010. (submitted)
2. Z. Syed and T. Finin. “Approaches for Enriching Wikipedia”. In Proc. of the AAAI-
2010 Workshop on Collaboratively-built Knowledge Sources and Artificial
Intelligence. 2010.
3. Z. Syed and T. Finin. “Unsupervised techniques for discovering Ontology elements
from Wikipedia article links”. International Workshop on Formalisms and
Methodology for Learning by Reading (FAM-LbR). 2010.
4. Z. Syed, T. Finin and V. Mulwad. “Exploiting a Web of Semantic Data for
Interpreting Tables”. In Proc. of Web Science Conference, WebSci’2010.
5. T. Finin and Z. Syed. "Creating and Exploiting a Web of Semantic Data", In Proc. of
the Second International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence. Jan.
2010.
6. T. Finin, Z. Syed, J. Mayfield, P. McNamee, and C. Piatko, "Using Wikitology for
Cross-Document Entity Coreference Resolution", Proceedings of the AAAI Spring
Symposium on Learning by Reading and Learning to Read, March 2009.
Page 39

36. Wikitology Related Publications
7. J. Mayfield, D. Alexander, B. Dorr, J. Eisner, T. Elsayed, T. Finin, C. Fink, M.
Freedman, N. Garera, P. McNamee, S. Mohammad, D. Oard, C. Piatko, A. Sayeed, Z.
Syed, R. Weischedel, “Cross-Document Coreference Resolution: A Key Technology
for Learning by Reading”, AAAI 2009 Spring Symposium on Learning by Reading
and Learning to Read, March 2009.
8. Z. Syed and T. Finin. "Wikitology: A Novel Hybrid Knowledge Base derived from
Wikipedia", In Proc. of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
Conference, October 2009. (Abstract)
9. Z. Syed and T. Finin. "Wikitology: Wikipedia as an ontology", In Proc. of the Grace
Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference, October 2008. (Abstract)
10. Z. Syed, T. Finin and A. Joshi. 2008. “Wikipedia as an Ontology for Describing
Documents”. In Proc. of the International Conference on Weblogs and Social
Media. 2008.
11. Mark Dredze, Paul McNamee, Delip Rao, Adam Gerber, and Tim Finin, “Entity
Disambiguation for Knowledge Base Population”, Proceedings of the 23rd
International Conference on Computational Linguistic. 2010.
Page 40