Transcript Document

Guided Conversational Agents and
Knowledge Trees for Natural Language
Interfaces to Relational Databases
Mr. Majdi Owda, Dr. Zuhair Bandar, Dr. Keeley
Crockett
The Intelligent Systems Group, Department of
Computing and Mathematics, Manchester
Metropolitan University.
Background to Research
• Databases
– Hierarchal Databases
– Relational Databases *
– Object Oriented Databases
• Artificial Intelligence
– Knowledge Representation
• Knowledge Trees *
– Expert Systems
– Natural Language Processing
• Conversational Agents *
– Machine Learning
• Human-Computer Interaction
– Natural Language Interfaces *
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
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Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Contents
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
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Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
• Where the Complexity comes from !!
• Past Approaches
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Pattern-Matching
Intermediate Language
Syntax-Based Family
Semantic-Grammar
The Problem: Creating Reliable Natural Language Interfaces to
Relational Databases.
Contents
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
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•
Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Guided Conversation Agents
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Alan Turing (Turing Test) 1950
Joseph Weizenbaum (Eliza) 1960s
Colboy (Parry) late 1960s
Wallace (Alice) 2000
MMU (InfoChat-Adam) 2001
Idea: use a guided conversational agent for NLIDBs.
Algorithm: having a guided conversational agent component
trained to converse within a database domain knowledge.
Guided Conversation Agents – Why
InfoChat
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Autonomous general purpose CA
Deals set of contexts
Direct the users towards a goal
Flexible and robust
Converse freely within a specific domain
Extract, manipulate, and store information
Contents
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
•
•
•
•
Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Knowledge Trees
Direction Node
Goal Node
Idea: using knowledge trees for NLIDBs.
Algorithm: having knowledge trees component within the new
framework.
Knowledge Trees Benefits
• Easy way to revise and maintain the
knowledge base
• Overcome the lacking of connectivity
between CA and the Relational Database
• Road map for the conversational agent
dialogue flow
• Direct the conversational agent towards the
goal.
Contents
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
•
•
•
•
Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Conversation-Based NLI-RDB Framework
User Query
Agent Response
• Main components
Conversation
Manager
Response
Generation
Knowledge
Tree
Context
Switching
& Manage
Conversational
Agent
SQL
statements
Rule
Matching
Context
Script files
Information
Extraction
Relational
Database
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Conversational Agents
Knowledge Trees
Conversation Manager
Relational Database
Contents
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
•
•
•
•
Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Conversation-Based NLI-RDB Prototype
Tools
Conversation-Based NLI-RDB Interface
Conversation-Based NLI-RDB Interface
Contents
• Introduction
– Natural Language Interfaces to Databases
– Guided Conversational Agents
– Knowledge Trees
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•
•
•
Proposed Framework
Developed Prototype
Conclusions and Future Work
Q/A
Conclusions
• Easy and flexible way in order to develop a
Conversation-Based NLI-RDB
• General purpose framework which can be
applied to a wide range of domains
• Utilizing dialogue interaction
• Knowledge trees are easy to create, structure,
update, revise, and maintain
• Capability of handling simple and complex
queries
Current & Future Work
• An adaptive conversation-based NLIDB
• Dynamic knowledge trees
Idea: There is still big room to do further research. 
Special thanks “MMU Research Team”
Dr. Keeley Crockett
Mr James O’Shea
Dr. Zuhair Bandar
Dr. David Mclean
Questions
[email protected]