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The expansion of Semantic Web Services is restricted by traditional ontology engineering methods. Manual ontology development is time consuming, expensive and a resource exhaustive task. Consequently, it is important to support ontology engineers by automating the ontology acquisition process to help deliver the Semantic Web vision. Existing Web Services offer an affluent source of domain knowledge for ontology engineers. Ontology learning can be seen as a plug-in in the Web Service ontology development process, which can be used by ontology engineers to develop and maintain an ontology that evolves with current Web Services. Supporting the domain engineer with an automated tool whilst building an ontological domain model, serves the purpose of reducing time and effort in acquiring the domain concepts and relations from Web Service artefacts, whilst effectively speeding up the adoption of Semantic Web Services, thereby allowing current Web Services to accomplish their full potential. With that in mind, a Service Ontology Learning Framework (SOLF) is developed and applied to a real set of Web Services. The research contributes a rigorous method that effectively extracts domain concepts, and relations between these concepts, from Web Services and automatically builds the domain ontology. The method applies pattern-based information extraction techniques to automatically learn domain concepts and relations between those concepts. The framework is automated via building a tool that implements the techniques. Applying the SOLF and the tool on different sets of services results in an automatically built domain ontology model that represents semantic knowledge in the underlying domain. The framework effectiveness, in extracting domain concepts and relations, is evaluated by its appliance on varying sets of commercial Web Services including the financial domain. The standard evaluation metrics, precision and recall, are employed to determine both the accuracy and coverage of the learned ontology models. Both the lexical and structural dimensions of the models are evaluated thoroughly. The evaluation results are encouraging, providing concrete outcomes in an area that is little researched.

O processo de Mineração de Dados (MD) consiste na extração automática de padrões que representam o conhecimento implícito em grandes bases de dados. Em geral, a MD pode ser classificada em duas categorias: preditiva e descritiva. Tarefas da primeira categoria, tal como a classificação, realizam inferências preditivas sobre os dados enquanto que tarefas da segunda categoria, tal como o clustering, exploram o conjunto de dados em busca de propriedades que o descrevem. Diferentemente da classificação, que analisa exemplos rotulados, o clustering utiliza exemplos para os quais o rótulo da classe não é previamente conhecido. Nessa tarefa, agrupamentos são formados de modo que exemplos de um mesmo cluster apresentam alta similaridade, ao passo que exemplos em clusters diferentes apresentam baixa similaridade. O clustering pode ainda facilitar a organização de clusters em uma hierarquia de agrupamentos, na qual são agrupados eventos similares, criando uma taxonomia que pode simplificar a interpretação de clusters. Neste trabalho, é proposto e desenvolvido um módulo de aprendizado não-supervisionado, que agrega algoritmos de clustering hierárquico e ferramentas de análise de clusters para auxiliar o especialista de domínio na interpretação dos resultados do clustering. Uma vez que o clustering hierárquico agrupa exemplos de acordo com medidas de similaridade e organiza os clusters em uma hierarquia, o usuário/especialista pode analisar e explorar essa hierarquia de agrupamentos em diferentes níveis para descobrir conceitos descritos por essa estrutura. O módulo proposto está integrado em um sistema maior, em desenvolvimento no Laboratório de Inteligência Computacional ? LABIC ?, que contempla todas as etapas do processo de MD, desde o pré-processamento de dados ao pós-processamento de conhecimento. Para avaliar o módulo proposto e seu uso para descoberta de conceitos a partir da estrutura hierárquica de clusters, foram realizados diversos experimentos sobre conjuntos de dados naturais, assim como um estudo de caso utilizando um conjunto de dados real. Os resultados mostram a viabilidade da metodologia proposta para interpretação dos clusters, apesar da complexidade do processo ser dependente das características do conjunto de dados. / The Data Mining (DM) process consists of the automated extraction of patterns representing knowledge implicitly stored in large databases. In general, DM tasks can be classified into two categories: predictive and descriptive. Tasks in the first category, such as classification and prediction, perform inference on the data in order to make predictions, while tasks in the second category, such as clustering, characterize the general properties of the data. Unlike classification and prediction, which analyze class-labeled data objects, clustering analyses data objects without a known class-label. Clusters of objects are formed so that objects that are in the same cluster have a close similarity among them, but are very dissimilar to objects in other clusters. Clustering can also facilitate the organization of clusters into a hierarchy of clusters that group similar events together. This taxonomy formation can facilitate interpretation of clusters. In this work, we propose and develop tools to deal with this task by implementing a module which comprises hierarchical clustering algorithms and several cluster analysis tools, aiming to help the domain specialist to interpret the clustering results. Once clusters group objects based on similarity measures which are organized into a hierarchy, the user/specialist is able to carry out an analysis and exploration of the agglomeration hierarchy at different levels of the hierarchy in order to discover concepts described by this structure. The proposed module is integrated into a large system under development by researchers from the Computational Intelligence Laboratory ? LABIC ?- which contemplates all the DM process steps, from data pre-processing to knowledge post-processing. To evaluate the implemented module and its use to discover concepts from the hierarchical structure of clusters, several experiments on natural databases were carried out as well as a case study using a real database. Results show the viability of the proposed methodology although the process could be complex depending on the characteristics of the database.

O processo de Mineração de Dados (MD) consiste na extração automática de padrões que representam o conhecimento implícito em grandes bases de dados. Em geral, a MD pode ser classificada em duas categorias: preditiva e descritiva. Tarefas da primeira categoria, tal como a classificação, realizam inferências preditivas sobre os dados enquanto que tarefas da segunda categoria, tal como o clustering, exploram o conjunto de dados em busca de propriedades que o descrevem. Diferentemente da classificação, que analisa exemplos rotulados, o clustering utiliza exemplos para os quais o rótulo da classe não é previamente conhecido. Nessa tarefa, agrupamentos são formados de modo que exemplos de um mesmo cluster apresentam alta similaridade, ao passo que exemplos em clusters diferentes apresentam baixa similaridade. O clustering pode ainda facilitar a organização de clusters em uma hierarquia de agrupamentos, na qual são agrupados eventos similares, criando uma taxonomia que pode simplificar a interpretação de clusters. Neste trabalho, é proposto e desenvolvido um módulo de aprendizado não-supervisionado, que agrega algoritmos de clustering hierárquico e ferramentas de análise de clusters para auxiliar o especialista de domínio na interpretação dos resultados do clustering. Uma vez que o clustering hierárquico agrupa exemplos de acordo com medidas de similaridade e organiza os clusters em uma hierarquia, o usuário/especialista pode analisar e explorar essa hierarquia de agrupamentos em diferentes níveis para descobrir conceitos descritos por essa estrutura. O módulo proposto está integrado em um sistema maior, em desenvolvimento no Laboratório de Inteligência Computacional ? LABIC ?, que contempla todas as etapas do processo de MD, desde o pré-processamento de dados ao pós-processamento de conhecimento. Para avaliar o módulo proposto e seu uso para descoberta de conceitos a partir da estrutura hierárquica de clusters, foram realizados diversos experimentos sobre conjuntos de dados naturais, assim como um estudo de caso utilizando um conjunto de dados real. Os resultados mostram a viabilidade da metodologia proposta para interpretação dos clusters, apesar da complexidade do processo ser dependente das características do conjunto de dados. / The Data Mining (DM) process consists of the automated extraction of patterns representing knowledge implicitly stored in large databases. In general, DM tasks can be classified into two categories: predictive and descriptive. Tasks in the first category, such as classification and prediction, perform inference on the data in order to make predictions, while tasks in the second category, such as clustering, characterize the general properties of the data. Unlike classification and prediction, which analyze class-labeled data objects, clustering analyses data objects without a known class-label. Clusters of objects are formed so that objects that are in the same cluster have a close similarity among them, but are very dissimilar to objects in other clusters. Clustering can also facilitate the organization of clusters into a hierarchy of clusters that group similar events together. This taxonomy formation can facilitate interpretation of clusters. In this work, we propose and develop tools to deal with this task by implementing a module which comprises hierarchical clustering algorithms and several cluster analysis tools, aiming to help the domain specialist to interpret the clustering results. Once clusters group objects based on similarity measures which are organized into a hierarchy, the user/specialist is able to carry out an analysis and exploration of the agglomeration hierarchy at different levels of the hierarchy in order to discover concepts described by this structure. The proposed module is integrated into a large system under development by researchers from the Computational Intelligence Laboratory ? LABIC ?- which contemplates all the DM process steps, from data pre-processing to knowledge post-processing. To evaluate the implemented module and its use to discover concepts from the hierarchical structure of clusters, several experiments on natural databases were carried out as well as a case study using a real database. Results show the viability of the proposed methodology although the process could be complex depending on the characteristics of the database.

Modern vehicles nowadays are equipped with highly sensitive sensors which continuously log in the information when the vehicle is in motion. These vehicles also deal with some performance issues like more fuel consumption, breakdown, or failure, etc. The information logged in by the sensors can be useful to analyze and evaluate these performance issues.  As vehicles are there in the market and are used in multiple places. These vehicles can perform differently based on the way they are operated and driven and the usage of a vehicle varies from time to time. Moreover, the European Accident Research and Safety Report from Volvo Organization describes the factors responsible for road fatalities and accidents. It explains that 90\% of road fatalities are caused by the style of the vehicle being driven and 30\% is caused by the external weather and environmental factor. Therefore, in this work, vehicle usage modeling is done based on time to determine the different usage styles of a vehicle and how they can affect a vehicle's performance. The proposed framework is divided into four separate modules namely: Data pre\textendash processing, Data segmentation, Unsupervised machine learning, and Pattern Analysis. Mainly, ensemble clustering methods are used to extract the pattern of the vehicle usage style and vehicle performance in different seasons using truck logged vehicle data (LVD). From the results, we could build a strong correlation between the vehicle usage style and the vehicle performance that would require further investigation.

In this thesis we present a new way of extracting relevant data from texts. We use the method presented in the paper by Patwardhan and Rilo (2007), with improvements of our own. Our approach modifes the input to the support vector machine, to construct a self-trained relevant sentence classi er. This classffer is used to identify relevant sentences on the MUC-4 terrorism corpus.We modify the input by removing stopwords, converting words to its stem and only using words that occur at least three times in the corpus. We also changed how each word is weighted, using TF x IDF as weighting function. By using the relevant sentence classiffer together with domain relevant extraction patterns, we achieved higher performance on the MUC-4 terrorism corpus than the original model.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis presents a computational method for the inductive inference of explicit and implicit semantic design knowledge from the symbolic-mathematical syntax of design formulations using an unsupervised pattern recognition and extraction approach. Existing research shows that AI / machine learning based design computation approaches either require high levels of knowledge engineering or large training databases to acquire problem reformulation knowledge. The method presented in this thesis addresses these methodological limitations. The thesis develops, tests, and evaluates ways in which the method may be employed for design problem reformulation. The method is based on the linear algebra based factorization method Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), dimensionality reduction and similarity measurement through unsupervised clustering. The method calculates linear approximations of the associative patterns of symbol cooccurrences in a design problem representation to infer induced coupling strengths between variables, constraints and system components. Unsupervised clustering of these approximations is used to identify useful reformulations. These two components of the method automate a range of reformulation tasks that have traditionally required different solution algorithms. Example reformulation tasks that it performs include selection of linked design variables, parameters and constraints, design decomposition, modularity and integrative systems analysis, heuristically aiding design “case” identification, topology modeling and layout planning. The relationship between the syntax of design representation and the encoded semantic meaning is an open design theory research question. Based on the results of the method, the thesis presents a set of theoretical postulates on computable relationships between design syntax and semantics. The postulates relate the performance of the method with empirical findings and theoretical insights provided by cognitive neuroscience and cognitive science on how the human mind engages in symbol processing and the resulting capacities inherent in symbolic representational systems to encode “meaning”. The performance of the method suggests that semantic “meaning” is a higher order, global phenomenon that lies distributed in the design representation in explicit and implicit ways. A one-to-one local mapping between a design symbol and its meaning, a largely prevalent approach adopted by many AI and learning algorithms, may not be sufficient to capture and represent this meaning. By changing the theoretical standpoint on how a “symbol” is defined in design representations, it was possible to use a simple set of mathematical ideas to perform unsupervised inductive inference of knowledge in a knowledge-lean and training-lean manner, for a knowledge domain that traditionally relies on “giving” the system complex design domain and task knowledge for performing the same set of tasks.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis presents a computational method for the inductive inference of explicit and implicit semantic design knowledge from the symbolic-mathematical syntax of design formulations using an unsupervised pattern recognition and extraction approach. Existing research shows that AI / machine learning based design computation approaches either require high levels of knowledge engineering or large training databases to acquire problem reformulation knowledge. The method presented in this thesis addresses these methodological limitations. The thesis develops, tests, and evaluates ways in which the method may be employed for design problem reformulation. The method is based on the linear algebra based factorization method Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), dimensionality reduction and similarity measurement through unsupervised clustering. The method calculates linear approximations of the associative patterns of symbol cooccurrences in a design problem representation to infer induced coupling strengths between variables, constraints and system components. Unsupervised clustering of these approximations is used to identify useful reformulations. These two components of the method automate a range of reformulation tasks that have traditionally required different solution algorithms. Example reformulation tasks that it performs include selection of linked design variables, parameters and constraints, design decomposition, modularity and integrative systems analysis, heuristically aiding design “case” identification, topology modeling and layout planning. The relationship between the syntax of design representation and the encoded semantic meaning is an open design theory research question. Based on the results of the method, the thesis presents a set of theoretical postulates on computable relationships between design syntax and semantics. The postulates relate the performance of the method with empirical findings and theoretical insights provided by cognitive neuroscience and cognitive science on how the human mind engages in symbol processing and the resulting capacities inherent in symbolic representational systems to encode “meaning”. The performance of the method suggests that semantic “meaning” is a higher order, global phenomenon that lies distributed in the design representation in explicit and implicit ways. A one-to-one local mapping between a design symbol and its meaning, a largely prevalent approach adopted by many AI and learning algorithms, may not be sufficient to capture and represent this meaning. By changing the theoretical standpoint on how a “symbol” is defined in design representations, it was possible to use a simple set of mathematical ideas to perform unsupervised inductive inference of knowledge in a knowledge-lean and training-lean manner, for a knowledge domain that traditionally relies on “giving” the system complex design domain and task knowledge for performing the same set of tasks.

Le Web des données offre un environnement de partage et de diffusion des données, selon un cadre particulier qui permet une exploitation des données tant par l’humain que par la machine. Pour cela, le framework RDF propose de formater les données en phrases élémentaires de la forme (sujet, relation, objet) , appelées triplets. Les bases du Web des données, dites bases RDF, sont des ensembles de triplets. Dans une base RDF, l’ontologie – données structurelles – organise la description des données factuelles. Le nombre et la taille des bases du Web des données n’a pas cessé de croître depuis sa création en 2001. Cette croissance s’est même accélérée depuis l’apparition du mouvement du Linked Data en 2008 qui encourage le partage et l’interconnexion de bases publiquement accessibles sur Internet. Ces bases couvrent des domaines variés tels que les données encyclopédiques (e.g. Wikipédia), gouvernementales ou bibliographiques. L’utilisation et la mise à jour des données dans ces bases sont faits par des communautés d’utilisateurs liés par un domaine d’intérêt commun. Cette exploitation communautaire se fait avec le soutien d’outils insuffisamment matures pour diagnostiquer le contenu d’une base ou pour interroger ensemble les bases du Web des données. Notre thèse propose trois méthodes pour encadrer le développement, tant factuel qu’ontologique, et pour améliorer l’interrogation des bases du Web des données. Nous proposons d’abord une méthode pour évaluer la qualité des modifications des données factuelles lors d’une mise à jour par un contributeur. Nous proposons ensuite une méthode pour faciliter l’examen de la base par la mise en évidence de groupes de données factuelles en conflit avec l’ontologie. L’expert qui guide l’évolution de cette base peut ainsi modifier l’ontologie ou les données. Nous proposons enfin une méthode d’interrogation dans un environnement distribué qui interroge uniquement les bases susceptibles de fournir une réponse. / The web of data is a mean to share and broadcast data user-readable data as well as machine-readable data. This is possible thanks to rdf which propose the formatting of data into short sentences (subject, relation, object) called triples. Bases from the web of data, called rdf bases, are sets of triples. In a rdf base, the ontology – structural data – organize the description of factual data. Since the web of datacreation in 2001, the number and sizes of rdf bases have been constantly rising. This increase has accelerated since the apparition of linked data, which promote the sharing and interlinking of publicly available bases by user communities. The exploitation – interrogation and edition – by theses communities is made without adequateSolution to evaluate the quality of new data, check the current state of the bases or query together a set of bases. This thesis proposes three methods to help the expansion at factual and ontological level and the querying of bases from the web ofData. We propose a method designed to help an expert to check factual data in conflict with the ontology. Finally we propose a method for distributed querying limiting the sending of queries to bases that may contain answers.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:06:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5554.pdf: 2294386 bytes, checksum: ce6dc6cd7128337c0533ddd23c0bc601 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-07 / The mining of sequential patterns in data from environmental sensors is a challenging task: the data may show noise and may also contain sparse patterns that are difficult to detect. The knowledge extracted from environmental sensor data can be used to determine climate change, for example. However, there is a lack of methods that can handle this type of database. In order to reduce this gap, the algorithm Incremental Miner of Stretchy Time Sequences with Post-Processing (IncMSTS-PP) was proposed. The IncMSTS-PP applies incremental extraction of sequential patterns with post-processing based on ontology for the generalization of the patterns. The post-processing makes the patterns semantically richer. Generalized patterns synthesize the information and makes it easier to be interpreted. IncMSTS-PP implements the Stretchy Time Window (STW) that allows stretchy time patterns (patterns with temporal intervals) are mined from bases that have noises. In comparison with GSP algorithm, IncMSTS-PP can return 2.3 times more patterns and patterns with 5 times more itemsets. The post-processing module is responsible for the reduction in 22.47% of the number of patterns presented to the user, but the returned patterns are semantically richer. Thus, the IncMSTS-PP showed good performance and mined relevant patterns showing, that way, that IncMSTS-PP is effective, efficient and appropriate for domain of environmental sensor data. / A mineração de padrões sequenciais em dados de sensores ambientais é uma tarefa desafiadora: os dados podem apresentar ruídos e podem, também, conter padrões esparsos que são difíceis de serem detectados. O conhecimento extraído de dados de sensores ambientais pode ser usado para determinar mudanças climáticas, por exemplo. Entretanto, há uma lacuna de métodos que podem lidar com este tipo de banco de dados. Com o intuito de diminuir esta lacuna, o algoritmo Incremental Miner of Stretchy Time Sequences with Post- Processing (IncMSTS-PP) foi proposto. O IncMSTS-PP aplica a extração incremental de padrões sequencias com pós-processamento baseado em ontologia para a generalização dos padrões obtidos que acarreta o enriquecimento semântico desses padrões. Padrões generalizados sintetizam a informação e a torna mais fácil de ser interpretada. IncMSTS-PP implementa o método Stretchy Time Window (STW) que permite que padrões de tempo elástico (padrões com intervalos temporais) sejam extraídos em bases que apresentam ruídos. Em comparação com o algoritmo GSP, o IncMSTS-PP pode retornar 2,3 vezes mais sequencias e sequencias com 5 vezes mais itemsets. O módulo de pós-processamento é responsável pela redução em 22,47% do número de padrões apresentados ao usuário, porém os padrões retornados são semanticamente mais ricos, se comparados aos padrões não generalizados. Assim sendo, o IncMSTS-PP apresentou bons resultados de desempenho e minerou padrões relevantes mostrando, assim, que IncMSTS-PP é eficaz, eficiente e apropriado em domínio de dados de sensores ambientais.