Related papers: Enhancing Algebraic Query Relaxation with Semantic…
Relational databases are valuable resources for learning novel and interesting relations and concepts. In order to constraint the search through the large space of candidate definitions, users must tune the algorithm by specifying a…
In many data analysis applications, there is a need to explain why a surprising or interesting result was produced by a query. Previous approaches to explaining results have directly or indirectly used data provenance (input tuples…
The emergence of large-language models (LLMs) has enabled a new class of semantic data processing systems (SDPSs) to support declarative queries against unstructured documents. Existing SDPSs are, however, lacking a unified algebraic…
A large-scale conversational agent can suffer from understanding user utterances with various ambiguities such as ASR ambiguity, intent ambiguity, and hypothesis ambiguity. When ambiguities are detected, the agent should engage in a…
In this report, we unify two quite distinct approaches to information retrieval: region models and language models. Region models were developed for structured document retrieval. They provide a well-defined behaviour as well as a simple…
Traditional relational data interfaces require precise structured queries over potentially complex schemas. These rigid data retrieval mechanisms pose hurdles for non-expert users, who typically lack language expertise and are unfamiliar…
For complex data types such as multimedia, traditional data management methods are not suitable. Instead of attribute matching approaches, access methods based on object similarity are becoming popular. Recently, this resulted in an…
We study here fundamental issues involved in top-k query evaluation in probabilistic databases. We consider simple probabilistic databases in which probabilities are associated with individual tuples, and general probabilistic databases in…
Consistent answers to a query from a possibly inconsistent database are answers that are simultaneously retrieved from every possible repair of the database. Repairs are consistent instances that minimally differ from the original…
Clarifying questions are an integral component of modern information retrieval systems, directly impacting user satisfaction and overall system performance. Poorly formulated questions can lead to user frustration and confusion, negatively…
The like regular expression predicate has been part of the SQL standard since at least 1989. However, despite its popularity and wide usage, database vendors provide only limited indexing support for regular expression queries which almost…
Text simplification is crucial for improving accessibility and comprehension for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. This study goes a step further and aims to facilitate ESL learners' language acquisition by simplification.…
Shared control problems involve a robot learning to collaborate with a human. When learning a shared control policy, short communication between the agents can often significantly reduce running times and improve the system's accuracy. We…
Class algebra provides a natural framework for sharing of ISA hierarchies between users that may be unaware of each other's definitions. This permits data from relational databases, object-oriented databases, and tagged XML documents to be…
The vocabulary mismatch problem is one of the important challenges facing traditional keyword-based Information Retrieval Systems. The aim of query expansion (QE) is to reduce this query-document mismatch by adding related or synonymous…
When writing SQL queries, it is often convenient to use correlated subqueries. However, for the database engine, these correlated queries are very difficult to evaluate efficiently. The query optimizer will therefore try to eliminate the…
Relevance modeling aims to locate desirable items for corresponding queries, which is crucial for search engines to ensure user experience. Although most conventional approaches address this problem by assessing the semantic similarity…
The objectives of this research work which is intimately related to pattern discovery and management are threefold: (i) handle the problem of pattern manipulation by defining operations on patterns, (ii) study the problem of enriching and…
We propose a new formalism for specifying and reasoning about problems that involve heterogeneous "pieces of information" -- large collections of data, decision procedures of any kind and complexity and connections between them. The essence…
Words and phrases acquire meaning from the way they are used in society, from their relative semantics to other words and phrases. For computers the equivalent of `society' is `database,' and the equivalent of `use' is `way to search the…