Design and use of ontologies in information-providing dialogue systems

• Main Author: Flycht-Eriksson (Silvervarg), Annika
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Linköpings universitet, NLPLAB - Laboratoriet för databehandling av naturligt språk 2004
• Subjects: Computer programs; artificiell intelligens; ontology; information-providing dialogue systems; dialogue management; semantic; Computer science; Datavetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-5007; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:91-7373-947-2

In this thesis, the design and use of ontologies as domain knowledge sources in information-providing dialogue systems are investigated. The research is divided into two parts, theoretical investigations that have resulted in a requirements specifications on the design of ontologies to be used in information-providing dialogue systems, and empirical work on the development of a framework for use of ontologies in information-providing dialogue systems. The framework includes three models: A model for ontology-based semantic analysis of questions. A model for ontology-based dialogue management, specifically focus management and clarifications. A model for ontology-based domain knowledge management, specifically transformation of user requests to system oriented concepts used for information retrieval. In this thesis, it is shown that using ontologies to represent and reason on domain knowledge in dialogue systems has several advantages. A deeper semantic analysis is possible in several modules and a more natural and efficient dialogue can be achieved. Another important aspect is that it facilitates portability; to be able to reuse adapt the dialogue system to new tasks and domains, since the domain-specific knowledge is separated form generic features in the dialogue system architecture. Other advantages are that it reduces the complexity of linguistic produced in various domains.