SConE: Simplified Cone Embeddings with Symbolic Operators for Complex Logical Queries

Chau Nguyen, Tim French, Wei Liu, Michael Stewart


Abstract
Geometric representation of query embeddings (using points, particles, rectangles and cones) can effectively achieve the task of answering complex logical queries expressed in first-order logic (FOL) form over knowledge graphs, allowing intuitive encodings. However, current geometric-based methods depend on the neural approach to model FOL operators (conjunction, disjunction and negation), which are not easily explainable with considerable computation cost. We overcome this challenge by introducing a symbolic modeling approach for the FOL operators, emphasizing the direct calculation of the intersection between geometric shapes, particularly sector-cones in the embedding space, to model the conjunction operator. This approach reduces the computation cost as a non-neural approach is involved in the core logic operators. Moreover, we propose to accelerate the learning in the relation projection operator using the neural approach to emphasize the essential role of this operator in all query structures. Although empirical evidence for explainability is challenging, our approach demonstrates a significant improvement in answering complex logical queries (both non-negative and negative FOL forms) over previous geometric-based models.
Anthology ID:
2023.findings-acl.755
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2023
Month:
July
Year:
2023
Address:
Toronto, Canada
Editors:
Anna Rogers, Jordan Boyd-Graber, Naoaki Okazaki
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
11931–11946
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2023.findings-acl.755
DOI:
10.18653/v1/2023.findings-acl.755
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Chau Nguyen, Tim French, Wei Liu, and Michael Stewart. 2023. SConE: Simplified Cone Embeddings with Symbolic Operators for Complex Logical Queries. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2023, pages 11931–11946, Toronto, Canada. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
SConE: Simplified Cone Embeddings with Symbolic Operators for Complex Logical Queries (Nguyen et al., Findings 2023)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2023.findings-acl.755.pdf