Arabic Query Expansion Using WordNet and Association Rules

Query expansion is the process of adding additional relevant terms to the original queries to improve the performance of information retrieval systems. However, previous studies showed that automatic query expansion using WordNet do not lead to an improvement in the performance. One of the main challenges of query expansion is the selection of appropriate terms. In this paper, we review this problem using Arabic WordNet and Association Rules within the context of Arabic Language. The results obtained confirmed that with an appropriate selection method, we are able to exploit Arabic WordNet to improve the retrieval performance. Our empirical results on a sub-corpus from the Xinhua collection showed that our automatic selection method has achieved a significant performance improvement in terms of MAP and recall and a better precision with the first top retrieved documents

Ontology model for zakat hadith knowledge based on causal relationship, semantic relatedness and suggestion extraction

Hadith is the second most important source used by all Muslims. However, semantic ambiguity in the hadith raises issues such as misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and misjudgement of the hadith’s content. How to tackle the semantic ambiguity will be focused on this research (RQ). The Zakat hadith data should be expressed semantically by changing the surface-level semantics to a deeper sense of the intended meaning. This can be achieved using an ontology model covering three main aspects (i.e., semantic relationship extraction, causal relationship representation, and suggestion extraction). This study aims to resolve the semantic ambiguity in hadith, particularly in the Zakat topic by proposing a semantic approach to resolve semantic ambiguity, representing causal relationships in the Zakat ontology model, proposing methods to extract suggestion polarity in hadith, and building the ontology model for Zakat topic. The selection of the Zakat topic is based on the survey findings that respondents still lack knowledge and understanding of the Zakat process. Four hadith book types (i.e., Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abu Dawud, and Sunan Ibn Majah) that was covering 334 concept words and 247 hadiths were analysed. The Zakat ontology modelling cover three phases which are Preliminary study, source selection and data collection, data pre-processing and analysis, and development and evaluation of ontology models. Domain experts in language, Zakat hadith, and ontology have evaluated the Zakat ontology and identified that 85% of Zakat concept was defined correctly. The Ontology Usability Scale was used to evaluate the final ontology model. An expert in ontology development evaluated the ontology that was developed in Protégé OWL, while 80 respondents evaluated the ontology concepts developed in PHP systems. The evaluation results show that the Zakat ontology has resolved the issue of ambiguity and misunderstanding of the Zakat process in the Zakat hadith. The Zakat ontology model also allows practitioners in Natural language processing (NLP), hadith, and ontology to extract Zakat hadith based on the representation of a reusable formal model, as well as causal relationships and the suggestion polarity of the Zakat hadith

31th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases

Information modelling is becoming more and more important topic for researchers, designers, and users of information systems.The amount and complexity of information itself, the number of abstractionlevels of information, and the size of databases and knowledge bases arecontinuously growing. Conceptual modelling is one of the sub-areas ofinformation modelling. The aim of this conference is to bring together experts from different areas of computer science and other disciplines, who have a common interest in understanding and solving problems on information modelling and knowledge bases, as well as applying the results of research to practice. We also aim to recognize and study new areas on modelling and knowledge bases to which more attention should be paid. Therefore philosophy and logic, cognitive science, knowledge management, linguistics and management science are relevant areas, too. In the conference, there will be three categories of presentations, i.e. full papers, short papers and position papers