Ontology-based Semantic Similarity Measures Research Articles

An Improved Fusion-Based Semantic Similarity Measure for Effective Collaborative Filtering Recommendations

Semantic-enhanced recommendation systems are promising approaches to overcome the sparsity and cold-start problems, which are hard to handle using the conventional collaborative filtering (CF) approaches. Further research is needed to effectively integrate ontologies into collaborative filtering recommender systems. This paper proposes an ontology-based semantic similarity measure to evaluate similarities between items and eventually generate accurate recommendations. The proposed semantic similarity measure termed fusion-based semantic similarity takes into account the semantics of ontological instances (i.e. items) inferred from a specific domain ontology, which is determined by analyzing the hierarchical relationships among the instances, as well as the features of the instances and their relationships to other instances. The new measure comprehensively captures the semantic knowledge associated with instances by exploiting all possible shared semantics between instances in a given domain ontology. Furthermore, this paper proposes a new semantic-enhanced hybrid recommendation approach as a result of combining the new semantic similarity measure with the standard item-based CF to enhance the quality of generated recommendations. In order to assess the effectiveness of our semantic-enhanced hybrid collaborative filtering method, a series of experiments were conducted to compare the performance of the proposed approach against well-established benchmark techniques. The reported experimental results consistently emphasize its superiority, demonstrating enhanced predictive abilities and a notable improvement in the quality of recommendations. More specifically, the proposed approach achieved notable 6% reduction in Mean Absolute Error (MAE) in certain cases, outperforming other benchmark techniques. Additionally, this study highlights the potential of using semantic-based similarity to enhance the performance of recommendation systems. Such enhancements address challenges within collaborative filtering, potentially leading to advancements in recommendation system design and optimization.

Finding most informative common ancestor in cross-ontological semantic similarity assessment: An intrinsic information content-based approach

Semantic Similarity (SS) has become a long-standing research domain in artificial intelligence and cognitive science for measuring the strength of the semantic relationship between entities (e.g., words, documents). Several ontology-based SS measures have been proposed in the recent time due to their ability of mimicking the cognitive process of humans. Among them, intrinsic information content (IC) based approaches have shown a significant correlation with human assessment. The design principle of the existing intrinsic IC-based SS measures constrain themselves to be applicable in a single ontology. However, such SS measures can be leveraged within two ontologies with the help of identifying the most informative common ancestors (MICA) across the ontologies. Existing IC-based MICA identification algorithms follow string matching of the labels of the concepts. In this paper, we propose a novel intrinsic IC-based MICA finding algorithm that exploits two domain-ontologies for finding SS without using string matching of the labels. The proposed approach has been evaluated using a widely used benchmark dataset of medical terms. The experimental results show that the proposed IC-based approach can be a stepping stone to a new direction in the process of finding MICA over two ontologies.

A large reproducible benchmark of ontology-based methods and word embeddings for word similarity

This work is a companion reproducibility paper of the experiments and results reported in Lastra-Diaz et al. (2019a), which is based on the evaluation of a companion reproducibility dataset with the HESML V1R4 library and the long-term reproducibility tool called Reprozip. Human similarity and relatedness judgements between concepts underlie most of cognitive capabilities, such as categorization, memory, decision-making and reasoning. For this reason, the research on methods for the estimation of the degree of similarity and relatedness between words and concepts has received a lot of attention in the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive sciences. However, despite the huge research effort done, there is a lack of a self-contained, reproducible and extensible collection of benchmarks which being amenable to become a de facto standard for large scale experimentation in this line of research. In order to bridge this reproducibility gap, this work introduces a set of reproducible experiments on word similarity and relatedness by providing a detailed reproducibility protocol together with a set of software tools and a self-contained reproducibility dataset, which allow that all experiments and results in our aforementioned work to be reproduced exactly. Our aforementioned primary work introduces the largest, most detailed and reproducible experimental survey on word similarity and relatedness reported in the literature, which is based on the implementation of all evaluated methods into the same software platform. Our reproducible experiments evaluate most of methods in the families of ontology-based semantic similarity measures and word embedding models. We also detail how to extend our experiments to evaluate other unconsidered experimental setups. Finally, we provide a corrigendum for a mismatch in the MC28 similarity scores used in our original experiments.

Ontology-based Extractive Text Summarization: The Contribution of Instances

In this paper, we present a text summarization approach focusing on multi-document, extractive and query-focused summarization that relies on an ontology-based semantic similarity measure, that specifically explores ontology instances. We employ the DBpedia Ontology and a theoretical definition of similarity to determine query-sentence and sentence-sentence similarity. Furthermore, we define an instance-linking strategy that builds the most accurate sentence representation possible while achieving a better coverage of sentences that can be represented by ontology instances. Using primarily this instances linking strategy, the semantic similarity measure and the Maximal Marginal Relevance Algorithm- MMR - we propose a summarization model that is capable of avoiding redundancy from a more fine-grained representation of sentences, due to the irrepresentation as ontology instances. We demonstrate that our summarizer is capable of achieving compelling results when compared with relevant DUC systems and recently published related studies using ROUGE metrics. Moreover, our experiments lead us to a better understanding of how ontology instances can be used to represent sentences and what is the role of said instances in this process.

A reproducible survey on word embeddings and ontology-based methods for word similarity: Linear combinations outperform the state of the art

Human similarity and relatedness judgements between concepts underlie most of cognitive capabilities, such as categorisation, memory, decision-making and reasoning. For this reason, the proposal of methods for the estimation of the degree of similarity and relatedness between words and concepts has been a very active line of research in the fields of artificial intelligence, information retrieval and natural language processing among others. Main approaches proposed in the literature can be categorised in two large families as follows: (1) Ontology-based semantic similarity Measures (OM) and (2) distributional measures whose most recent and successful methods are based on Word Embedding (WE) models. However, the lack of a deep analysis of both families of methods slows down the advance of this line of research and its applications. This work introduces the largest, reproducible and detailed experimental survey of OM measures and WE models reported in the literature which is based on the evaluation of both families of methods on a same software platform, with the aim of elucidating what is the state of the problem. We show that WE models which combine distributional and ontology-based information get the best results, and in addition, we show for the first time that a simple average of two best performing WE models with other ontology-based measures or WE models is able to improve the state of the art by a large margin. In addition, we provide a very detailed reproducibility protocol together with a collection of software tools and datasets as supplementary material to allow the exact replication of our results.

HESML: A scalable ontology-based semantic similarity measures library with a set of reproducible experiments and a replication dataset

This work is a detailed companion reproducibility paper of the methods and experiments proposed by Lastra-Díaz and García-Serrano in (2015, 2016) [56–58], which introduces the following contributions: (1) a new and efficient representation model for taxonomies, called PosetHERep, which is an adaptation of the half-edge data structure commonly used to represent discrete manifolds and planar graphs; (2) a new Java software library called the Half-Edge Semantic Measures Library (HESML) based on PosetHERep, which implements most ontology-based semantic similarity measures and Information Content (IC) models reported in the literature; (3) a set of reproducible experiments on word similarity based on HESMLand ReproZip with the aim of exactly reproducing the experimental surveys in the three aforementioned works; (4) a replication framework and dataset, called WNSimRep v1, whose aim is to assist the exact replication of most methods reported in the literature; and finally, (5) a set of scalability and performance benchmarks for semantic measures libraries. PosetHERep and HESML are motivated by several drawbacks in the current semantic measures libraries, especially the performance and scalability, as well as the evaluation of new methods and the replication of most previous methods. The reproducible experiments introduced herein are encouraged by the lack of a set of large, self-contained and easily reproducible experiments with the aim of replicating and confirming previously reported results. Likewise, the WNSimRep v1 dataset is motivated by the discovery of several contradictory results and difficulties in reproducing previously reported methods and experiments. PosetHERepproposes a memory-efficient representation for taxonomies which linearly scales with the size of the taxonomy and provides an efficient implementation of most taxonomy-based algorithms used by the semantic measures and IC models, whilst HESML provides an open framework to aid research into the area by providing a simpler and more efficient software architecture than the current software libraries. Finally, we prove the outperformance of HESML on the state-of-the-art libraries, as well as the possibility of significantly improving their performance and scalability without caching using PosetHERep.

A semantic enhanced hybrid recommendation approach: A case study of e-Government tourism service recommendation system

Recommender systems are effectively used as a personalized information filtering technology to automatically predict and identify a set of interesting items on behalf of users according to their personal needs and preferences. Collaborative Filtering (CF) approach is commonly used in the context of recommender systems; however, obtaining better prediction accuracy and overcoming the main limitations of the standard CF recommendation algorithms, such as sparsity and cold-start item problems, remain a significant challenge. Recent developments in personalization and recommendation techniques support the use of semantic enhanced hybrid recommender systems, which incorporate ontology-based semantic similarity measure with other recommendation approaches to improve the quality of recommendations. Consequently, this paper presents the effectiveness of utilizing semantic knowledge of items to enhance the recommendation quality. It proposes a new Inferential Ontology-based Semantic Similarity (IOBSS) measure to evaluate semantic similarity between items in a specific domain of interest by taking into account their explicit hierarchical relationships, shared attributes and implicit relationships. The paper further proposes a hybrid semantic enhanced recommendation approach by combining the new IOBSS measure and the standard item-based CF approach. A set of experiments with promising results validates the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid approach, using a case study of the Australian e-Government tourism services.

An Ontology-Based Semantic Similarity Measure Considering Multi-Inheritance in Biomedicine

Computation of semantic similarity between words for text understanding is a vital issue in many applications such as word sense disambiguation, document categorization, and information retrieval. In recent years, different paradigms have been proposed to compute semantic similarity based on different ontologies and knowledge resources. In this paper, we propose a new similarity measure combining both superconcepts of the evaluated concepts and their common specificity feature. The common specificity feature considers the depth of the Least Common Subsumer (LCS) of two concepts and the depth of the ontology to obtain more semantic evidence. The multiple inheritance phenomenon in a large and complex taxonomy is taken into account by all superconcepts of the evaluated concepts. We evaluate and compare the correlation obtained by our measure with human scores against other existing measures exploiting SNOMED CT as the input ontology. The experimental evaluations show the applicability of the measure on different datasets and confirm the efficiency and simplicity of our proposed measure.

Clustering rule bases using ontology-based similarity measures

Rules are increasingly becoming an important form of knowledge representation on the Semantic Web. There are currently few methods that can ensure that the acquisition and management of rules can scale to the size of the Web. We previously developed methods to help manage large rule bases using syntactical analyses of rules. This approach did not incorporate semantics. As a result, rule categorization based on syntactic features may not be effective. In this paper, we present a novel approach for grouping rules based on whether the rule elements share relationships within a domain ontology. We have developed our method for rules specified in the Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL), which is based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and shares its formal underpinnings. Our method uses vector space modeling of rule atoms and an ontology-based semantic similarity measure. We apply a clustering method to detect rule relatedness, and we use a statistical model selection method to find the optimal number of clusters within a rule base. Using three different SWRL rule bases, we evaluated the results of our semantic clustering method against those of our syntactic approach. We have found that our new approach creates clusters that better match the rule bases’ logical structures. Semantic clustering of rule bases may help users to more rapidly comprehend, acquire, and manage the growing numbers of rules on the Semantic Web.

A framework for unifying ontology-based semantic similarity measures: A study in the biomedical domain

Ontologies are widely adopted in the biomedical domain to characterize various resources (e.g. diseases, drugs, scientific publications) with non-ambiguous meanings. By exploiting the structured knowledge that ontologies provide, a plethora of ad hoc and domain-specific semantic similarity measures have been defined over the last years. Nevertheless, some critical questions remain: which measure should be defined/chosen for a concrete application? Are some of the, a priori different, measures indeed equivalent? In order to bring some light to these questions, we perform an in-depth analysis of existing ontology-based measures to identify the core elements of semantic similarity assessment. As a result, this paper presents a unifying framework that aims to improve the understanding of semantic measures, to highlight their equivalences and to propose bridges between their theoretical bases. By demonstrating that groups of measures are just particular instantiations of parameterized functions, we unify a large number of state-of-the-art semantic similarity measures through common expressions. The application of the proposed framework and its practical usefulness is underlined by an empirical analysis of hundreds of semantic measures in a biomedical context.

Ontology-Based Semantic Similarity Measure with Concept Lattice

Semantic similarity measure has always been one of the important contents in artificial intelligence. This paper puts the ontology as the research object, and measure the semantic similarity between two ontologies in view of concept lattice. Firstly, concept lattice is introduced to similarity measure, and the thought of the ontology-based semantic similarity measure with concept lattice was given. Next, the solution of the measure was described, which includes generating a formal context of heterogeneous ontologies, constructing the corresponding formal context of formal context to fetch the formal context in concept lattice, and using irreducible infimum theory to calculate the similarity value of heterogeneous ontology concept. Finally, we employed a sample to verify the measure method. The results showed the method can effectively compute the semantic similarity between the ontologies, and the method proposed is valid and feasible.

An Overview of Ontology-based Semantic Similarity Measures

An Overview of Ontology-based Semantic Similarity Measures

A modified ant-based text clustering algorithm with semantic similarity measure

Ant-based text clustering is a promising technique that has attracted great research attention. This paper attempts to improve the standard ant-based text-clustering algorithm in two dimensions. On one hand, the ontology-based semantic similarity measure is used in conjunction with the traditional vector-space-model-based measure to provide more accurate assessment of the similarity between documents. On the other, the ant behavior model is modified to pursue better algorithmic performance. Especially, the ant movement rule is adjusted so as to direct a laden ant toward a dense area of the same type of items as the ant’s carrying item, and to direct an unladen ant toward an area that contains an item dissimilar with the surrounding items within its Moore neighborhood. Using WordNet as the base ontology for assessing the semantic similarity between documents, the proposed algorithm is tested with a sample set of documents excerpted from the Reuters-21578 corpus and the experiment results partly indicate that the proposed algorithm perform better than the standard ant-based text-clustering algorithm and the k-means algorithm.