QAPD: an ontology-based question answering system in the physics domain

The tremendous development in information technology led to an explosion of data and motivated the need for powerful yet efficient strategies for knowledge discovery. Question answering (QA) systems made it possible to ask questions and retrieve answers using natural language queries. In ontology-based QA system, the knowledge-based data, where the answers are sought, have a structured organization. The question-answer retrieval of ontology knowledge base provides a convenient way to obtain knowledge for use. In this paper, QAPD, an ontology-based QA system applied to the physics domain, which integrates natural language processing, ontologies and information retrieval technologies to provide informative information for users, is presented. This system allows users to retrieve information from formal ontologies using input queries formulated in natural language. We proposed inferring schema mapping method, which uses the combination of semantic and syntactic information, and attribute-based inference to transform users’ questions into ontological knowledge base query. In addition, a novel domain ontology for physics domain, called EAEONT, is presented. Relevant standards and regulations have been utilized extensively during the ontology building process. The original characteristic of system is the strategy used to fill the gap between users’ expressiveness and formal knowledge representation. This system has been developed and tested on the English language and using an ontology modeling the physics domain. The performance level achieved enables the use of the system in real environments.