Digital Democracy, established at Cal Poly's Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy, initially provided users access to a distinctive dataset, including state legislative committee hearings, transcripts, videos, and more. However, the discontinuation of funding ended operations for the project and emphasized the need for a streamlined application independent of third-party dependencies and capable of offering real-time and organized access to the invaluable Digital Democracy dataset. We introduce FILTER, a cloud-hosted API designed for read access to the Digital Democracy dataset through twelve distinct endpoints. The system contains two databases: the Digital Democracy Database (DDDB) and the Digital Democracy Knowledge Graph (DDKG). The latter, designed after DDDB, utilizes the advantages of a graph data structure for efficient data retrieval and novel knowledge discovery. This thesis is a comprehensive resource, providing detailed documentation and architectural design specifications for FILTER. The study outlines the API's design, functionality, and pipeline developed for maintaining DDKG. Furthermore, the thesis presents rigorous API performance evaluations, compares the efficiency of the two databases under significant loads on the API, and a series of case studies showcasing the unique insights derived from analysis performed on the novel DDKG dataset.

In the era of total digitization of documents, navigating vast and heterogeneous data landscapes presents significant challenges for effective information retrieval, both for humans and digital agents. Traditional methods of knowledge organization often struggle to keep pace with evolving user demands, resulting in suboptimal outcomes such as information overload and disorganized data. This thesis presents a case study on a pipeline that leverages principles from cognitive science, graph theory, and semantic computing to generate semantically organized knowledge graphs. By evaluating a combination of different models, methodologies, and algorithms, the pipeline aims to enhance the organization and retrieval of digital documents. The proposed approach focuses on representing documents as vector embeddings, clustering similar documents, and constructing a connected and scalable knowledge graph. This graph not only captures semantic relationships between documents but also ensures efficient traversal and exploration. The practical application of the system is demonstrated in the context of digital libraries and academic research, showcasing its potential to improve information management and discovery. The effectiveness of the pipeline is validated through extensive experiments using contemporary open-source tools.

Knowledge bases are employed in a variety of applications, from natural language processing to semantic web search; alas, in practice, their usefulness is hurt by their incompleteness. To address this issue, several techniques aim at performing knowledge base completion, of which embedding models are efficient, attain state-of-the-art accuracy, and eliminate the need for feature engineering. However, embedding models predictions are notoriously hard to interpret. In this work, we propose model-agnostic methods that allow one to interpret embedding models by extracting weighted Horn rules from them. More specifically, we show how the so-called \"pedagogical techniques\", from the literature on neural networks, can be adapted to take into account the large-scale relational aspects of knowledge bases, and show experimentally their strengths and weaknesses. / Bases de conhecimento apresentam diversas aplicações, desde processamento de linguagem natural a pesquisa semântica da web; contudo, na prática, sua utilidade é prejudicada por não serem totalmente completas. Para solucionar esse problema, diversas técnicas focam em completar bases de conhecimento, das quais modelos de embedding são eficientes, atingem estado da arte em acurácia, e eliminam a necessidade de fazer-se engenharia de características dos dados de entrada. Entretanto, as predições dos modelos de embedding são notoriamente difíceis de serem interpretadas. Neste trabalho, propomos métodos agnósticos a modelo que permitem interpretar modelos de embedding através da extração de regras Horn ponderadas por pesos dos mesmos. Mais espeficicamente, mostramos como os chamados \"métodos pedagógicos\", da literatura de redes neurais, podem ser adaptados para lidar com os aspectos relacionais e de larga escala de bases de conhecimento, e mostramos experimentalmente seus pontos fortes e fracos.

Knowledge bases are employed in a variety of applications, from natural language processing to semantic web search; alas, in practice, their usefulness is hurt by their incompleteness. To address this issue, several techniques aim at performing knowledge base completion, of which embedding models are efficient, attain state-of-the-art accuracy, and eliminate the need for feature engineering. However, embedding models predictions are notoriously hard to interpret. In this work, we propose model-agnostic methods that allow one to interpret embedding models by extracting weighted Horn rules from them. More specifically, we show how the so-called \"pedagogical techniques\", from the literature on neural networks, can be adapted to take into account the large-scale relational aspects of knowledge bases, and show experimentally their strengths and weaknesses. / Bases de conhecimento apresentam diversas aplicações, desde processamento de linguagem natural a pesquisa semântica da web; contudo, na prática, sua utilidade é prejudicada por não serem totalmente completas. Para solucionar esse problema, diversas técnicas focam em completar bases de conhecimento, das quais modelos de embedding são eficientes, atingem estado da arte em acurácia, e eliminam a necessidade de fazer-se engenharia de características dos dados de entrada. Entretanto, as predições dos modelos de embedding são notoriamente difíceis de serem interpretadas. Neste trabalho, propomos métodos agnósticos a modelo que permitem interpretar modelos de embedding através da extração de regras Horn ponderadas por pesos dos mesmos. Mais espeficicamente, mostramos como os chamados \"métodos pedagógicos\", da literatura de redes neurais, podem ser adaptados para lidar com os aspectos relacionais e de larga escala de bases de conhecimento, e mostramos experimentalmente seus pontos fortes e fracos.

Aim: The aim of this study is to analyze the usage of Search Engine Optimization and Knowledge Graphs and the connection between them to achieve profitable business visibility and reach. Methods: Following a qualitative method together with an inductive approach, ten marketing professionals were interviewed via an online questionnaire. To conduct this study both primary and secondary data was utilized. Scientific theory together with empirical findings were linked and discussed in the analysis chapter. Findings: This study establishes current Search Engine Optimization utilization by businesses regarding common techniques and methods. We demonstrate their effectiveness on the Google Knowledge Graph, Google My Business and resulting positive business impact for increased visibility and reach. Difficulties remain in accurate tracking procedures to analyze quantifiable results. Contribution of the thesis: This study contributes to the literature of both Search Engine Optimization and Knowledge Graphs by providing a new perspective on how these subjects have been utilized in modern marketing. In addition, this study provides an understanding of the benefits of SEO utilization on Knowledge Graphs. Suggestions for further research: We suggest more extensive investigation on the elements and utilization of Knowledge Graphs; how the structure can be affected; which techniques are most effective on a bigger scale and how effectively the benefits can be measured. Key Words: Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Knowledge Graphs, Google My Business, Google Search Engine, Online Marketing.

Cybersecurity is an expanding and prominent field in the IT industry. As the amount of vulnerabilities and breaches continue to increase, there is a need to properly test these systems for internal weaknesses in order to prevent intruders proactively. Penetration testing is the act of emulating an adversary in order to test a system’s behaviour. However, due to the amount of possible vulnerabilities and attack methods that exists, the prospect of efficiently choosing a viable weakness to test or selecting a fairly adequate attack method becomes a cumbersome task for the penetration tester. The main objective of this thesis is to explore and show how the semantic data concept of Knowledge Graphs can assist a penetration tester during decision-making and vulnerability analysis. Such as providing insight to attacks a system could experience based on a set of discovered vulnerabilities, and emulate these attacks in order to test the system. Additionally, design aspects for developing a Knowledge Graph based penetration testing system are made and discussions on challenges and complications for the combined fields are also addressed. In this work, three design proposals are made based on inspiration from Knowledge Graph standards and related work. A prototype is also created, based on a penetration testing tool for web applications, OWASP ZAP. Which is then connected to a vulnerability database in order to gain access to various cybersecurity related data, such as attack descriptions on specific types of vulnerabilities. The analysis of the implemented prototype illustrates that Knowledge Graphs display potential for improving data extracted from a vulnerability scan. By connecting a Knowledge Graph to a vulnerability database, penetration testers can extract information and receive suggestions of attacks, reducing their cognitive burden. The drawbacks of this works prototype indicate that in order for a Knowledge Graph penetration testing system to work, the method of extracting information needs to be interfaced in a more user-friendly manner. Additionally, the reliance on specific standardizations create the need to develop several integration ­modules.

In the realm of biomedical technology, both accuracy and consistency are crucial to the development and deployment of these tools. While accuracy is easy to measure, consistency metrics are not so simple to measure, especially in the scope of biomedicine where prediction consistency can be difficult to achieve. Typically, biomedical datasets contain a significantly larger amount of features compared to the amount of samples, which goes against ordinary data mining practices. As a result, predictive models may fail to find valid pathways for prediction during training on such datasets. This concept is known as underspecification. Underspecification has been more accepted as a concept in recent years, with a handful of recent works exploring underspecification in different applications and a handful of past works experiencing underspecification prior to its declaration. However, underspecification is still under-addressed, to the point where some academics might even claim that it is not a significant problem. With this in mind, this thesis aims to identify and minimize underspecification of deep learning cancer subtype predictors. To address these goals, this work details the development of Predicting Underspecification Monitoring Pipeline (PUMP), a software tool to provide methodology for data analysis, stress testing, and model evaluation. In this context, the hope is that PUMP can be applied to deep learning training such that any user can ensure that their models are able to generalize to new data as best as possible.

Knowledge Graph (KG) is an emerging topic of research. The promise of KGs is to be able to turn data into knowledge by supplying the data with context at the source. This could in turn allow machines to make sense of data by inference; looking at the context of the data and being able to derive knowledge from its context and relations, thus allowing for new ways of finding value in the sea of data that the world produces today. Working with KGs today involves many steps that are open to simplification and improvement, especially in regards to usability. In this thesis, we've aimed to design and produce an application that can be used to modify, extend and build KGs. The work includes the front-end library VueJS, the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) library D3 and the graph database Stardog. The project has made use of Scrum methodology to distribute and plan the work that took place over a span of six months, with two developers working halftime (20 hours/week). The result of the project is a working application that can be used by developers within the KG domain who want to be able to test and modify their graphs in a visual manner.

Knowledge graphs (KGs) store relational information in a flexible triplet schema and have become ubiquitous for information storage in domains such as web search, e-commerce, social networks, and biology. Retrieval of information from KGs is generally achieved through logical reasoning, but this process can be computationally expensive and has limited performance due to the large size and complexity of relationships within the KGs. Furthermore, to extend the usage of KGs to non-expert users, retrieval over them cannot solely rely on logical reasoning but also needs to consider text-based search. This creates a need for multi-modal representations that capture both the semantic and structural features from the KGs. The primary objective of the proposed work is to extend the accessibility of KGs to non-expert users/institutions by enabling them to utilize non-technical textual queries to search over the vast amount of information stored in KGs. To achieve this objective, the research aims to solve four limitations: (i) develop a framework for logical reasoning over KGs that can learn representations to capture hierarchical dependencies between entities, (ii) design an architecture that can effectively learn the logic flow of queries from natural language text, (iii) create a multi-modal architecture that can capture inherent semantic and structural features from the entities and KGs, respectively, and (iv) introduce a novel hyperbolic learning framework to enable the scalability of hyperbolic neural networks over large graphs using meta-learning. The proposed work is distinct from current research because it models the logical flow of textual queries in hyperbolic space and uses it to perform complex reasoning over large KGs. The models developed in this work are evaluated on both the standard research setting of logical reasoning, as well as, real-world scenarios of query matching and search, specifically, in the e-commerce domain. In summary, the proposed work aims to extend the accessibility of KGs to non-expert users by enabling them to use non-technical textual queries to search vast amounts of information stored in KGs. To achieve this objective, the work proposes the use of multi-modal representations that capture both semantic and structural features from the KGs, and a novel hyperbolic learning framework to enable scalability of hyperbolic neural networks over large graphs. The work also models the logical flow of textual queries in hyperbolic space to perform complex reasoning over large KGs. The models developed in this work are evaluated on both the standard research setting of logical reasoning and real-world scenarios in the e-commerce domain. / Doctor of Philosophy / Knowledge graphs (KGs) are databases that store information in a way that allows computers to easily identify relationships between different pieces of data. They are widely used in domains such as web search, e-commerce, social networks, and biology. However, retrieving information from KGs can be computationally expensive, and relying solely on logical reasoning can limit their accessibility to non-expert users. This is where the proposed work comes in. The primary objective is to make KGs more accessible to non-experts by enabling them to use natural language queries to search the vast amounts of information stored in KGs. To achieve this objective, the research aims to address four limitations. Firstly, a framework for logical reasoning over KGs that can learn representations to capture hierarchical dependencies between entities is developed. Secondly, an architecture is designed that can effectively learn the logic flow of queries from natural language text. Thirdly, a multi-modal architecture is created that can capture inherent semantic and structural features from the entities and KGs, respectively. Finally, a novel hyperbolic learning framework is introduced to enable the scalability of hyperbolic neural networks over large graphs using meta-learning. The proposed work is unique because it models the logical flow of textual queries in hyperbolic space and uses it to perform complex reasoning over large KGs. The models developed in this work are evaluated on both the standard research setting of logical reasoning, as well as, real-world scenarios of query matching and search, specifically, in the e-commerce domain. In summary, the proposed work aims to make KGs more accessible to non-experts by enabling them to use natural language queries to search vast amounts of information stored in KGs. To achieve this objective, the work proposes the use of multi-modal representations that capture both semantic and structural features from the KGs, and a novel hyperbolic learning framework to enable scalability of hyperbolic neural networks over large graphs. The work also models the logical flow of textual queries in hyperbolic space to perform complex reasoning over large KGs. The results of this work have significant implications for the field of information retrieval, as it provides a more efficient and accessible way to retrieve information from KGs. Additionally, the multi-modal approach taken in this work has potential applications in other areas of machine learning, such as image recognition and natural language processing. The work also contributes to the development of hyperbolic geometry as a tool for modeling complex networks, which has implications for fields such as network science and social network analysis. Overall, this work represents an important step towards making the vast amounts of information stored in KGs more accessible and useful to a wider audience.

Analyzing the data produced by next-generation sequencing technologies relies on access to information synthesized based on previous research findings. The volume of data available in the literature is growing rapidly, and it is becoming increasingly necessary for researchers to use AI or other statistics-based approaches in the analysis of their datasets. In this project, knowledge graphs are explored as a tool for providing access to contextual gene-information available in scientific literature. The explorative method described in this thesis is based on the implementation and comparison of two approaches for knowledge graph construction, a rule-based statistical as well as a neural-network and co-occurrence based approach, -based on specific literature contexts. The results are presented both in the form of a quantitative comparison between approaches as well as in the form of a qualitative expert evaluation of the quantitative result. The quantitative comparison suggested that contrasting knowledge graphs constructed based on different approaches can provide valuable information for the interpretation and contextualization of key genes. It also demonstrated the limitations of some approaches e.g. in terms of scalability as well as the volume and type of information that can be extracted. The result further suggested that metrics based on the overlap of nodes and edges, as well as metrics that leverage the global topology of graphs are valuable for representing and comparing contextual information between knowledge graphs. The result based on the qualitative expert evaluation demonstrated that literature-derived knowledge graphs of gene-information can be valuable tools for identifying research biases related to genes and also shed light on the challenges related to biological entity normalization in the context of knowledge graph development. In light of these findings, automatic knowledge-graph construction presents as a promising approach for improving access to contextual information about genes in scientific literature. / För att analysera de stora mängder data som produceras med hjälp av next-generation sequencing krävs det att forskare har tillgång till och kan sammanställa information från tidigare forskning. I takt med att mängden data som finns tillgänglig i den vetenskapliga litteraturen ökar, så ökar även behovet av att använda AI och andra statistiska metoder för att få tillgång till denna data i analysen. I detta projekt utforskas kunskapsgrafer som verktyg för att tillgängliggöra kontextuell geninformation i vetenskapliga artiklar. Den explorativa metod som beskrivs i detta projekt är baserad på implementationen och jämförelsen av två olika tekniker för kunskapsgrafgenerering, en regelbaserad-statistisk metod samt en metod baserad på neurala-nätverk och co-occurrence, baserade på specifika kontexter inom litteraturen. Resultatet presenteras både i form av en kvantitativ jämförelse mellan metoder samt genom en kvalitativ expertutvärdering baserad på det kvantitativa resultatet. Den kvantitativa jämförelsen antydde att jämförelsen mellan kunskapsgrafer genererade med hjälp av olika metoder kan bidra med värdefull information för tolkningen och kontextualiseringen av viktiga gener. Resultatet visade även på begränsningar hos vissa metoder, till exempel gällande skalbarhet samt den mängd och typ av information som kan extraheras. Men även att metrics baserade på överlappning av hörn och kanter, samt metrics som tar hänsyn till den globala topologin i grafer kan vara användbara i jämförelsen av, samt för att representera skillnader mellan biologiska kunskapsgrafer. Resultatet från den kvalitativa expertutvärderingen visade att kunskapsgrafer baserade på geninformation extraherad från vetenskapliga artiklar kan vara värdefulla verktyg för att identifiera forskningsbias gällande gener, samt framhävde viktiga utmaningar gällande normalisering av biologiska entiteter inom området kunskapsgrafsutveckling. Baserat på dessa fynd framstår automatisk kunskapsgrafsgenerering som ett lovande tillvägagångssätt för att förbättra tillgängligheten av kontextuell geninformation i vetenskaplig litteratur.