Information extraction meets the semantic web: a survey

Abstract

We provide a comprehensive survey of the research literature that applies Information Extraction techniques in a Semantic Web setting. Works in the intersection of these two areas can be seen from two overlapping perspectives: using Semantic Web resources (languages/ontologies/knowledge-bases/tools) to improve Information Extraction, and/or using Information Extraction to populate the Semantic Web. In more detail, we focus on the extraction and linking of three elements: entities, concepts and relations. Extraction involves identifying (textual) mentions referring to such elements in a given unstructured or semi-structured input source. Linking involves associating each such mention with an appropriate disambiguated identifier referring to the same element in a Semantic Web knowledge-base (or ontology), in some cases creating a new identifier where necessary. With respect to entities, works involving (Named) Entity Recognition, Entity Disambiguation, Entity Linking, etc. in the context of the Semantic Web are considered. With respect to concepts, works involving Terminology Extraction, Keyword Extraction, Topic Modeling, Topic Labeling, etc., in the context of the Semantic Web are considered. Finally, with respect to relations, works involving Relation Extraction in the context of the Semantic Web are considered. The focus of the majority of the survey is on works applied to unstructured sources (text in natural language); however, we also provide an overview of works that develop custom techniques adapted for semi-structured inputs, namely markup documents and web tables.