A Factorization Machine Framework for Testing Bigram Embeddings in Knowledgebase Completion

Embedding-based Knowledge Base Completion models have so far mostly combined distributed representations of individual entities or relations to compute truth scores of missing links. Facts can however also be represented using pairwise embeddings, i.e. embeddings for pairs of entities and relations. In this paper we explore such bigram embeddings with a flexible Factorization Machine model and several ablations from it. We investigate the relevance of various bigram types on the fb15k237 dataset and find relative improvements compared to a compositional model.

An Attentive Neural Architecture for Fine-grained Entity Type Classification

In this work we propose a novel attention-based neural network model for the task of fine-grained entity type classification that unlike previously proposed models recursively composes representations of entity mention contexts. Our model achieves state-of-the-art performance with 74.94% loose micro F1-score on the well-established FIGER dataset, a relative improvement of 2.59%. We also investigate the behavior of the attention mechanism of our model and observe that it can learn contextual linguistic expressions that indicate the fine-grained category memberships of an entity.

Extraction of evidence tables from abstracts of randomized clinical trials using a maximum entropy classifier and global constraints

Systematic use of the published results of randomized clinical trials is increasingly important in evidence-based medicine. In order to collate and analyze the results from potentially numerous trials, evidence tables are used to represent trials concerning a set of interventions of interest. An evidence table has columns for the patient group, for each of the interventions being compared, for the criterion for the comparison (e.g. proportion who survived after 5 years from treatment), and for each of the results. Currently, it is a labour-intensive activity to read each published paper and extract the information for each field in an evidence table. There have been some NLP studies investigating how some of the features from papers can be extracted, or at least the relevant sentences identified. However, there is a lack of an NLP system for the systematic extraction of each item of information required for an evidence table. We address this need by a combination of a maximum entropy classifier, and integer linear programming. We use the later to handle constraints on what is an acceptable classification of the features to be extracted. With experimental results, we demonstrate substantial advantages in using global constraints (such as the features describing the patient group, and the interventions, must occur before the features describing the results of the comparison).

Anytime Belief Propagation Using Sparse Domains

Belief Propagation has been widely used for marginal inference, however it is slow on problems with large-domain variables and high-order factors. Previous work provides useful approximations to facilitate inference on such models, but lacks important anytime properties such as: 1) providing accurate and consistent marginals when stopped early, 2) improving the approximation when run longer, and 3) converging to the fixed point of BP. To this end, we propose a message passing algorithm that works on sparse (partially instantiated) domains, and converges to consistent marginals using dynamic message scheduling. The algorithm grows the sparse domains incrementally, selecting the next value to add using prioritization schemes based on the gradients of the marginal inference objective. Our experiments demonstrate local anytime consistency and fast convergence, providing significant speedups over BP to obtain low-error marginals: up to 25 times on grid models, and up to 6 times on a real-world natural language processing task.

Automorphism Groups of Graphical Models and Lifted Variational Inference

Using the theory of group action, we first introduce the concept of the automorphism group of an exponential family or a graphical model, thus formalizing the general notion of symmetry of a probabilistic model. This automorphism group provides a precise mathematical framework for lifted inference in the general exponential family. Its group action partitions the set of random variables and feature functions into equivalent classes (called orbits) having identical marginals and expectations. Then the inference problem is effectively reduced to that of computing marginals or expectations for each class, thus avoiding the need to deal with each individual variable or feature. We demonstrate the usefulness of this general framework in lifting two classes of variational approximation for maximum a posteriori (MAP) inference: local linear programming (LP) relaxation and local LP relaxation with cycle constraints; the latter yields the first lifted variational inference algorithm that operates on a bound tighter than the local constraints.

Latent Relation Representations for Universal Schemas

Traditional relation extraction predicts relations within some fixed and finite target schema. Machine learning approaches to this task require either manual annotation or, in the case of distant supervision, existing structured sources of the same schema. The need for existing datasets can be avoided by using a universal schema: the union of all involved schemas (surface form predicates as in OpenIE, and relations in the schemas of pre-existing databases). This schema has an almost unlimited set of relations (due to surface forms), and supports integration with existing structured data (through the relation types of existing databases). To populate a database of such schema we present a family of matrix factorization models that predict affinity between database tuples and relations. We show that this achieves substantially higher accuracy than the traditional classification approach. More importantly, by operating simultaneously on relations observed in text and in pre-existing structured DBs such as Freebase, we are able to reason about unstructured and structured data in mutually-supporting ways. By doing so our approach outperforms state-of-the-art distant supervision systems.

Improving the Accuracy and Efficiency of MAP Inference for Markov Logic

In this work we present Cutting Plane Inference (CPI), a Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) inference method for Statistical Relational Learning. Framed in terms of Markov Logic and inspired by the Cutting Plane Method, it can be seen as a meta algorithm that instantiates small parts of a large and complex Markov Network and then solves these using a conventional MAP method. We evaluate CPI on two tasks, Semantic Role Labelling and Joint Entity Resolution, while plugging in two different MAP inference methods: the current method of choice for MAP inference in Markov Logic, MaxWalkSAT, and Integer Linear Programming. We observe that when used with CPI both methods are significantly faster than when used alone. In addition, CPI improves the accuracy of MaxWalkSAT and maintains the exactness of Integer Linear Programming.

Inference by Minimizing Size, Divergence, or their Sum

We speed up marginal inference by ignoring factors that do not significantly contribute to overall accuracy. In order to pick a suitable subset of factors to ignore, we propose three schemes: minimizing the number of model factors under a bound on the KL divergence between pruned and full models; minimizing the KL divergence under a bound on factor count; and minimizing the weighted sum of KL divergence and factor count. All three problems are solved using an approximation of the KL divergence than can be calculated in terms of marginals computed on a simple seed graph. Applied to synthetic image denoising and to three different types of NLP parsing models, this technique performs marginal inference up to 11 times faster than loopy BP, with graph sizes reduced up to 98%-at comparable error in marginals and parsing accuracy. We also show that minimizing the weighted sum of divergence and size is substantially faster than minimizing either of the other objectives based on the approximation to divergence presented here.