The BRIDGE: Bridging Unstructured and Structured Data

Introduction

The two worlds of data, unstructured and structured data, are now gaining more attentions to be adopted as a whole by leveraging the advantage of both types of data. For example, natural language interfaces for system requires the connection between unstructured query and structured APIs, enterprise search analytics requires the consolidation of both structured and unstructured company data etc. The BRIDGE project focuses on the design of data representation, the semantics and processes that bridges the two ends of data, such as transformation, interpretation and mapping.

Project I: Unstructured to Structured Query Transformation

Current research and development of structured retrieval systems allow search communities to tap into structured resources over the web. These resources have advantages compared with the normal web resources as they have additional annotations that can be utilized when composing a search request. However, structured query languages used by these retrieval systems are not meant for normal searchers. This article addresses this problem by automating the construction of a structured query from a keywords or natural language query that is more familiar to the web search user. The scope of research include development of techniques for interpreting natural language queries to representing them in structured query form like XQuery, NEXI, SQL, SOLR etc.

Scope
DBLP XML

People
Gan Keng Hoon

Publications

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong: A Semantic-Syntax Model for XML Query Construction. International Journal of Web Information Systems 13(2): 155-172, Emerald Insight (2017).

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong: Finding Target and Constraint Concepts for XML Query Construction. International Journal of Web Information Systems 11(4): Emerald Insight (2015).

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong: An Intermediate Query Model for Structured Retrieval's Queries Construction. iiWAS 2014: 289-295, 4-6 December, 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong: A query transformation framework for automated structured query construction in structured retrieval environment. Journal of Information Science 40(2): 249-263, SAGE (2014).

Project II: Natural Language to Formal API/Data Interfaces

Natural Language Processing is one of the most convenient method for end user to interact with various computing interfaces like API, information or data. These interfaces are formally represented using format like JSON, XML etc. and accessible using input like form filling and option-based navigation. For example, interpreting natural language input like command, "Send SMS to all in my contact list saying Happy New Year!" and map the information needs to the interface of action/function API.

Scope
Semeval 2017 Task 11 Dataset
Embedded Software

People
Tan Sau Kae

Publications

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong: Automated query transformation for searching semantically rich structured collections. STAIR 2011: 175-181, Putrajaya, Malaysia. [Best Paper Award]

Keng Hoon Gan: Using a mediated query approach for matching unstructured query with structured resources. SIGIR 2008: 895, Singapore.

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong, Saravadee Sae Tan, Tang Enya Kong: Minexml: bridging unstructured query with structured resources via mediated query. SIGIR 2008: 879, Singapore.

Gan Keng Hoon, Phang Keat Keong, Tang Enya Kong: A Semantic Learning Approach for Mapping Unstructured Query to Web Resources. Web Intelligence 2006: 494-497, Hong Kong.