AQUA's Splashscreen
AKTKMiOU


Welcome to AQUAS's Homepage

Automated Question Answering

The use of the web has becoming popular and also the need of services that could exploit the vast amount of information in it. Therefore, there is a need for automated question answering systems. These kind of systems should allow users to ask questions in English and receive an answer and a context which allows user validate the answer. Current search engines can return ranked list of documents but they do not deliver answers to users. The question answering system should provide an answer in real time and it will be able to give a textual answer  in an specific domain.

 

Typical examples in the AKT portal:

Aqua runs on Sicstus Prolog under Unix/Linus platforms.

This is a query-answering system which uses the AKT ontology (an ontology describing academic life). In order to use AQUA you have to consult aqua.pl file and to invoke the system:

?- aqua.

When the prompt     Question:> occurs,
enter the following queries to perform experiments. in our AQUA system.

For each query, press to obtain alternative answers press press ' ; '
To exit the system, enter the query

Question:> exit.

Question:> which researchers work in project akt?
Question:> which researchers do not work in project akt?
Question:> which researchers work in all projects?
Question:> which researchers work in most projects?
Question:> which researchers work in few projects?
Question:> which researchers do not work in most projects?
Question:> which institution owns tool webonto?
Question:> which institution owns tool bkd?
Question:> which institution owns tool mnm?
Question:> which technologies institution kmi had produced? or another way to ask the same question:
which technologies produced institution kmi?
Question:> which tools institution kmi had produced?
Question:> which publications institution kmi had published?
Question:> which publications researcher 'Maria Vargas' had published?
Question:> which publications researcher 'Enrico Motta' had published?
Question:> which researchers work in research_area genetic_algorithms?
Question:> which requirements are needed by tool webonto?
Question:> which requirements are needed by tool bkd?
Question:> which requirements are needed by tool mnm?
Question:> which tools support technique ie?
Question:> which tools support technique bayesian_belief_networks?
Question:> which are the requirements to run tool webonto?
Question:> which are the requirements to run tool bkd?
Question:> which methods were presented in event workshop_edin?
Question:> which methods were presented in event workshop_abdn?
Question:> which methods are relevant to research_area knowledge_capture?
Question:> which methods are relevant to research_area genetic_algorithms?
 

Where and what questions

Question:> where is researcher 'Maria Vargas' based?
Question:> what is mnn?
 

Who questions:

Question:> who works in multimedia_simulation_tools?
Question:> who works in ontologies and akt?
Question:> who works in patman?
Question:> who owns webonto?
Question:> who owns mnm?
Question:> who is 'Enrico Motta'?
Question:> who is 'Maria Vargas'?
Question:> who is 'Nigel Shadbolt'?

Type yes or no questions:

Question:> all researchers work in project alice?
Question:> all researchers work in project akt?
Question:> most researchers work in most projects?
Question:> few researchers work in few projects?
Question:> all technologies were produced by institution kmi?
Question:> does researcher 'Enrico Motta' work in akt?

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by Advanced Knowledge Technologies (AKT) Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC), which is sponsored by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant number GR/N15764/01. The AKT IRC comprises the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Southampton and the Open University.
 

Enjoy it!
 

Dr Maria Vargas-Vera
Email: m.vargas-vera@open.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1908 655761

Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
England UK.