<p>    </p> <p>Knowledge Base (KB) systems have been studied for decades. Various approaches have been explored in acquiring accurate and scalable KBs. Recently, many studies focus on Knowledge Graphs (KG) which uses a simple triple representation. A triple consists of a head entity, a predicate, and a tail entity. The head entity and the tail entity are connected by the predicate which indicates a certain relation between them. Three main research fields can be identified in KG acquisition. First, relation extraction aims at extracting the triples from the raw data. Second, entity linking addresses mapping the same entity together. Last, knowledge fusion integrates heterogeneous sources into one. This dissertation focuses on relation fusion, which is a sub-process of knowledge fusion. More specifically, this dissertation aims to investigate if the concurrently popular prompt-based learning method can assist with relation fusion. A framework to acquire a KG is proposed to work with a real world dataset. The framework contains a Preprocessing module which annotates raw sentences and links known entities to the triples; a Prompting module, which generates and processes prompts for prediction with Pretrained Language Models (PLMs); and a Relation Fusion module, which creates predicate representations, clusters embeddings, and derives cluster labels. A series of experiments with comparison prompting groups are conducted. The results indicate that prompt-based learning, if applied appropriately, can help with grouping similar predicates. The framework proposed in this dissertation can be used eectively for assisting human experts with the creation of relation types during knowledge acquisition. </p>

<p>    </p> <p>The counting process is the fundamental of many real-world problems with event data. Poisson process, used as the background intensity of Hawkes process, is the most commonly used point process. The Hawkes process, a self-exciting point process fits to temporal event data, spatial-temporal event data, and event data with covariates. We study the Hawkes process that fits to heterogeneous drug overdose data via a novel semi-parametric approach. The counting process is also related to survival data based on the fact that they both study the occurrences of events over time. We fit a Cox model to temporal event data with a large corpus that is processed into high dimensional covariates. We study the significant features that influence the intensity of events. </p>

<p dir="ltr">Weather conditions such as thunderstorms, wind shear, snowstorms, turbulence, icing, and fog can create potentially hazardous flying conditions in the National Airspace System (NAS) (FAA, 2021). In general aviation (GA), hazardous weather conditions are most likely to cause accidents with fatalities (FAA, 2013). Therefore, it is critical to communicate weather conditions to pilots and controllers to increase awareness of such conditions, help pilots avoid weather hazards, and improve aviation safety (NTSB, 2017b). Pilot Reports (PIREPs) are one way to communicate pertinent weather conditions encountered by pilots (FAA, 2017a). However, in a hazardous weather situation, communication adds to pilot workload and GA pilots may need to aviate and navigate to another area before feeling safe enough to communicate the weather conditions. The delay in communication may result in PIREPs that are both inaccurate and untimely, potentially misleading other pilots in the area with incorrect weather information (NTSB, 2017a). Therefore, it is crucial to enhance the PIREP submission process to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and usefulness of PIREPs, while simultaneously reducing the need for hands-on communication.</p><p dir="ltr">In this study, a potential method to incrementally improve the performance of an automated spoken-to-coded-PIREP system is explored. This research aims at improving the information extraction model within the spoken-to-coded-PIREP system by using underlying structures and patterns in the pilot spoken phrases. The first part of this research is focused on exploring the structural elements, patterns, and sub-level variability in the Location, Turbulence, and Icing pilot phrases. The second part of the research is focused on developing and demonstrating a structured two-level Named Entity Recognition (NER) model that utilizes the underlying structures within pilot phrases. A structured two-level NER model is designed, developed, tested, and compared with the initial single level NER model in the spoken-to-coded-PIREP system. The model follows a structured approach to extract information at two levels within three PIREP information categories – Location, Turbulence, and Icing. The two-level NER model is trained and tested using a total of 126 PIREPs containing Turbulence and Icing weather conditions. The performance of the structured two-level NER model is compared to the performance of a comparable single level initial NER model using three metrics – precision, recall, and F1-Score. The overall F1-Score of the initial single level NER model was in the range of 68% – 77%, while the two-level NER model was able to achieve an overall F1-Score in the range of 89% – 92%. The two-level NER model was successful in recognizing and labelling specific phrases into broader entity labels such as Location, Turbulence, and Icing, and then processing those phrases to segregate their structural elements such as Distance, Location Name, Turbulence Intensity, and Icing Type. With improvements to the information extraction model, the performance of the overall spoken-to-coded-PIREP system may be increased and the system may be better equipped to handle the variations in pilot phrases and weather situations. Automating the PIREP submission process may reduce the pilot’s hands-on task-requirement in submitting a PIREP during hazardous weather situations, potentially increase the quality and quantity of PIREPs, and share accurate weather-related information in a timely manner, ultimately making GA flying safter.</p>

<p>The availability of abundant multimodal data, including textual, visual, and sensor-based information, holds the potential to improve decision-making in diverse domains. Extracting data-driven decision-making information from heterogeneous and changing datasets in real-world data-centric applications requires achieving complementary functionalities of multimodal data integration, knowledge extraction and mining, situationally-aware data recommendation to different users, and uncertainty management in the open-world setting. To achieve a system that encompasses all of these functionalities, several challenges need to be effectively addressed: (1) How to represent and analyze heterogeneous source contents and application context for multimodal data recommendation? (2) How to predict and fulfill current and future needs as new information streams in without user intervention? (3) How to integrate disconnected data sources and learn relevant information to specific mission needs? (4) How to scale from processing petabytes of data to exabytes? (5) How to deal with uncertainties in open-world that stem from changes in data sources and user requirements?</p> <p><br></p> <p>This dissertation tackles these challenges by proposing novel frameworks, learning-based data integration and retrieval models, and algorithms to empower decision-makers to extract valuable insights from diverse multimodal data sources. The contributions of this dissertation can be summarized as follows: (1) We developed SKOD, a novel multimodal knowledge querying framework that overcomes the data representation, scalability, and data completeness issues while utilizing streaming brokers and RDBMS capabilities with entity-centric semantic features as an effective representation of content and context. Additionally, as part of the framework, a novel text attribute recognition model called HART was developed, which leveraged language models and syntactic properties of large unstructured texts. (2) In the SKOD framework, we incrementally proposed three different approaches for data integration of the disconnected sources from their semantic features to build a common knowledge base with the user information need: (i) EARS: A mediator approach using schema mapping of the semantic features and SQL joins was proposed to address scalability challenges in data integration; (ii) FemmIR: A data integration approach for more susceptible and flexible applications, that utilizes neural network-based graph matching techniques to learn coordinated graph representations of the data. It introduces a novel graph creation approach from the features and a novel similarity metric among data sources; (iii) WeSJem: This approach allows zero-shot similarity matching and data discovery by using contrastive learning<br> to embed data samples and query examples in a high-dimensional space using features as a novel source of supervision instead of relevance labels. (3) Finally, to manage uncertainties in multimodal data management for open-world environments, we characterized novelties in multimodal information retrieval based on data drift. Moreover, we proposed a novelty detection and adaptation technique as an augmentation to WeSJem.<br> </p> <p>The effectiveness of the proposed frameworks, models, and algorithms was demonstrated<br> through real-world system prototypes that solved open problems requiring large-scale human<br> endeavors and computational resources. Specifically, these prototypes assisted law enforcement officers in automating investigations and finding missing persons.<br> </p>

<p><strong>The Energy Monitoring Framework</strong>, designed and developed by IAC, IUPUI, aims to provide a cloud-based solution that combines business analytics with sensors for real-time energy management at the plant level using wireless sensor network technology.</p> <p>The project provides a platform where users can analyze the functioning of a plant using sensor data. The data would also help users to explore the energy usage trends and identify any energy leaks due to malfunctions or other environmental factors in their plant. Additionally, the users could check the machinery status in their plant and have the capability to control the equipment remotely.</p> <p>The main objectives of the project include the following:</p> <ul> <li>Set up a wireless network using sensors and smart implants with a base station/ controller.</li> <li>Deploy and connect the smart implants and sensors with the equipment in the plant that needs to be analyzed or controlled to improve their energy efficiency.</li> <li>Set up a generalized interface to collect and process the sensor data values and store the data in a database.</li> <li>Design and develop a generic database compatible with various companies irrespective of the type and size.</li> <li> Design and develop a web application with a generalized structure. Hence the database can be deployed at multiple companies with minimum customization. The web app should provide the users with a platform to interact with the data to analyze the sensor data and initiate commands to control the equipment.</li> </ul> <p>The General Structure of the project constitutes the following components:</p> <ul> <li>A wireless sensor network with a base station.</li> <li>An Edge PC, that interfaces with the sensor network to collect the sensor data and sends it out to the cloud server. The system also interfaces with the sensor network to send out command signals to control the switches/ actuators.</li> <li>A cloud that hosts a database and an API to collect and store information.</li> <li>A web application hosted in the cloud to provide an interactive platform for users to analyze the data.</li> </ul> <p>The project was demonstrated in:</p> <ul> <li>Lecture Hall (https://iac-lecture-hall.engr.iupui.edu/LectureHallFlask/).</li> <li>Test Bed (https://iac-testbed.engr.iupui.edu/testbedflask/).</li> <li>A company in Indiana.</li> </ul> <p>The above examples used sensors such as current sensors, temperature sensors, carbon dioxide sensors, and pressure sensors to set up the sensor network. The equipment was controlled using compactable switch nodes with the chosen sensor network protocol. The energy consumption details of each piece of equipment were measured over a few days. The data was validated, and the system worked as expected and helped the user to monitor, analyze and control the connected equipment remotely.</p> <p><br></p>