LocLinkVis: A Geographic Information Retrieval-Based System for Large-Scale Exploratory Search

In this paper we present LocLinkVis (Locate-Link-Visualize); a system which supports exploratory information access to a document collection based on geo-referencing and visualization. It uses a gazetteer which contains representations of places ranging from countries to buildings, and that is used to recognize toponyms, disambiguate them into places, and to visualize the resulting spatial footprints.Comment: SEM'1

A Hybrid Approach to Domain-Specific Entity Linking

The current state-of-the-art Entity Linking (EL) systems are geared towards corpora that are as heterogeneous as the Web, and therefore perform sub-optimally on domain-specific corpora. A key open problem is how to construct effective EL systems for specific domains, as knowledge of the local context should in principle increase, rather than decrease, effectiveness. In this paper we propose the hybrid use of simple specialist linkers in combination with an existing generalist system to address this problem. Our main findings are the following. First, we construct a new reusable benchmark for EL on a corpus of domain-specific conversations. Second, we test the performance of a range of approaches under the same conditions, and show that specialist linkers obtain high precision in isolation, and high recall when combined with generalist linkers. Hence, we can effectively exploit local context and get the best of both worlds.Comment: SEM'1

Good Applications for Crummy Entity Linkers? The Case of Corpus Selection in Digital Humanities

Over the last decade we have made great progress in entity linking (EL) systems, but performance may vary depending on the context and, arguably, there are even principled limitations preventing a "perfect" EL system. This also suggests that there may be applications for which current "imperfect" EL is already very useful, and makes finding the "right" application as important as building the "right" EL system. We investigate the Digital Humanities use case, where scholars spend a considerable amount of time selecting relevant source texts. We developed WideNet; a semantically-enhanced search tool which leverages the strengths of (imperfect) EL without getting in the way of its expert users. We evaluate this tool in two historical case-studies aiming to collect a set of references to historical periods in parliamentary debates from the last two decades; the first targeted the Dutch Golden Age, and the second World War II. The case-studies conclude with a critical reflection on the utility of WideNet for this kind of research, after which we outline how such a real-world application can help to improve EL technology in general.Comment: Accepted for presentation at SEMANTiCS '1

Semantic Corpus Exploration

Abstract of paper 1110 presented at the Digital Humanities Conference 2019 (DH2019), Utrecht , the Netherlands 9-12 July, 2019

Telling How to Narrow it Down:Browsing Path Recommendation for Exploratory Search

Supporting exploratory search tasks with the help of structured data is an effective way to go beyond keyword search, as it provides an overview of the data, enables users to zoom in on their intent, and provides assistance during their navigation trails. However, finding a good starting point for a search episode in the given structure can still pose a considerable challenge, as users tend to be unfamiliar with exact, complex hierarchical structure. Thus, providing lookahead clues can be of great help and allow users to make better decisions on their search trajectory. In this paper, we investigate the behaviour of users when a recommendation engine is employed along with the browsing tool in an exploratory search system. We make use of an exploratory search system that facilitates browsing by mapping the data on a hierarchical structure. We designed and developed a path recommendation engine as a feature for this system, which given a text query, ranks different browsing paths in the hierarchy based on their likelihood of covering relevant documents. We conduct a user study comparing the baseline system with the featured system. Our main findings are as follows: We observe that, using the baseline system the users tend to explore the data in a breadth-firstlike approach by visiting different data points at the same level of abstraction to choose one of them to expand and go deeper. Conversely, with browsing path recommendation (BPR) as a feature, the users tend to drive their search in a more depth-first-like approach by quickly going deep into the data hierarchy. While the users still incline to explore different parts of the search space by using BPR, they are able to restrain or augment their search focus more quickly and access smaller but more promising regions of the data. Therefore, they can complete their tasks with less time and effort

On Search Powered Navigation

Query-based searching and browsing-based navigation are the two main components of exploratory search. Search lets users dig in deep by controlling their actions to focus on and and just the information they need, whereas navigation helps them to get an overview to decide which content is most important. In this paper, we introduce the concept of search powered navigation and investigate the effect of empowering navigation with search functionality on information seeking behavior of users and their experience by conducting a user study on exploratory search tasks, differentiated by different types of information needs. Our main findings are as follows: First, we observe radically different search tactics. Using search, users are able to control and augment their search focus, hence they explore the data in a depth-first, bottom-up manner. Conversely, using pure navigation they tend to check different options to be able to decide on their path into the data, which corresponds to a breadth-first, top-down exploration. Second, we observe a general natural tendency to combine aspects of search and navigation, however, our experiments show that the search functionality is essential to solve exploratory search tasks that require finding documents related to a narrow domain. Third, we observe a natural need for search powered navigation: users using a system without search functionality and creative ways to mimic searching using navigation

NLeSC/xtas: v3.4

Version 3.4</p