KnowledgE ENgineering team
Funded projects - Recent highlights - Members and collaboratorsThe aim of the team's activities is to contribute computing theory, methods, and techniques to the knowledge society.
The scope of the KEEN team is knowledge engineering in its broad sense. This includes ontology engineering, the Semantic Web, intelligent (logic-based, ontology-driven) conceptual modelling, and natural language generation.
Currently funded research projects
- GeNi: A Grammar Engine for Nguni natural language Interfaces. Funded by the NRF (2015-2017).
- Foundations for Nguni natural language generation systems. UCT Science Faculty Launching grant (2014-2017).
- ARISTOTELES: Methodology and algorithms for automatic revision of ontologies in task based scenarios. Funded by the Polish National Science Center (2015-2018) and spearheaded by Agnieszka Lawrynowicz.
- Other funding from: HPI Research School in Computer Science for Africa (CS4A) at UCT, NRF incentive funding, ULPDO@UKZN.
Recent highlights
- SAICSIT'17 paper with accompanying SUGIO-Gen tool with as main contributor Zubeida Khan (with Maria Keet), on automatically changing modules in a linked or imported ontology so as to facilitate the process of modular ontology development and management. The implementation that can do that for you is SUGOI-Gen.
- ER'17 paper by Maria Keet and Sonia Berman on which representation mode would be deemed better to represent temporal constraints in conceptual models: diagrams for 'simple' temporal constraints, but natural language sentences for the more complex constraints.
- INLG'17 paper with as main author PhD student Joan Byamugisha (with Maria Keet and Brian DeRenzi), on the evaluation of Runyankore natural language generation for healthcare messages: the 100 or so participants could not distinguish the human-written sentences from the computer-generated ones!
- ESWC'17 paper and two ESWC'17 demos: the paper is about patterns for heterogenenous alignments between different modelling decisions (by Pablo Fillottrani and Maria Keet). One demo showcased the isiZulu verbaliser of OWL ontologies (by Musa Xakaza, Langa Khumalo, and Maria Keet), and the other one was on test-driven development of ontologies with TDDonto2, by Kieren Davies, Agnieszka Lawrynowicz, and Maria Keet.
- Joan Byamugisha wins postgrad award of CS@UCT for 2016; the prize is awarded yearly to the postgraduate student with the most distinguished scientific contribution.
Members and collaborators
LeaderMaria Keet
Postgraduate students
- Joan Byamugisha (PhD, 2015-); topic: Runyankore knowledge-to-text NLG for healthcare
- Zubeida Khan (PhD; 2014-); topic: ontology modularity
- Yamiko Msosa (PhD; 2014-); topic: clinincal practice guideline changes
- Zola Mahlaza (MSc; 2016-); topic: data-to-text NLG for weather bulletins in isiXhosa and isiZulu
- Jarvis Mutakha (MSc, supervisor; 2017-); topic: Applications of isiZulu CNLs
- Cameron Kyle (M. IT, supervisor; 2017-); topic: CNLs for finance
- Iman Neguib (M. IT, supervisor; 2017-); topic: temporal conceptual models and databases
- Nthabiseng Mashiane, Frida Mjaria, and Siseko Neti, on Spellcheckers for isiZulu and isiXhosa (2017)
- Soham Singh, Nikhil Gilbert, and Kgotso Nkosi, on Automated marking of language learning exercises (2017)
- Musa Xakaza (2016); linking the verbaliser to Owlready
- Takunda Chirema (2016); a tool for modelling with relations and roles
- Norman Pilusa (2016); isiZulu spellchecker
- Digital Libraries Lab, UCT (Hussein Suleman)
- Poznan University of Technology, Poland - Laboratory of Operational Research and Artificial Intelligence (Agnieszka Lawrynowicz)
- Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahia Blanca, Argentina - Depto. Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación (Pablo Fillottrani)
- University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa - Linguistics program and University Language Planning and Development Office (Langa Khumalo)
- Ameerah Allie (2016; BSc honous); topic: Test-driven development of ontologies
- Kieren Davies (2016; BSc honours in CS); topic: Test-driven development of ontologies