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30th October 2006 | Draft Generating a Million Questions from UIA Databases Problems, Strategies, Values - / - Also published in modified form in Statistics, Visualizations and Patterns (Vol 5 of the Yearbook of International Organizations, Munich, K G Saur Verlag, 6th edition, 2006/2007, as sections 10.1.1 and 10.1.2) Background The experiment described below follows from an initial interest of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), in support of the questions project of the international nonprofit organization Dropping Knowledge – as clarified during a workshop on the online databases of the Union of International Associations (Saarbrucken, 8 December 2005). Dropping Knowledge subsequently appropirated this information as the basis for establishing an online web facility to enable people worldwide to ask questions and to be exposed to answers -- thereby creating a "Living Library". The categorization of the questions was undertaken using the ontology developed by the UIA (cf Enabling a Living Library, 2006) The concern here, in contrast, is whether it was possible to generate a Questions database from three long-established UIA databases: World Problems-Issues, Global Strategies-Solutions, and Human Values. These databases are part of the online Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, originally initiated in collaboration with Mankind 2000, whose development was most recently funded by the European Commission. The databases are integrated with others on international organizations, international meetings, biographies and bibliographies (cf Yearbook of International Organizations, International Congress Calendar). The thousands of problems, strategies and values identified from the documented preoccupations of the network of international organizations (governmental and nongovernmental) provide a relatively objective focus for the generation of questions associated with those preoccupations -- or implicit in them. Clearly a particular interest in this experiment is to determine in what ways the result of generating questions could be meaningful and significant. The work builds on the possibilities of the use of such databases for simulations (cf Simulating a Global Brain: using networks of international organizations, world problems, strategies, and values, 2001). WH-questions There is an extensive literature on what are termed “WH-questions”. “WH-questions” refer to questions of the type: How? Why? Where? What. Which? When? Who? Further comments on studies in relation to such questions are noted below. The Questions database was first generated experimentally in December 2005, and then more comprehensively in October 2006. In each case by applying a template of the WH-questions to the titles of Problems, Strategies and Values.. This can be done by embedding the "seed title" (XXXX) in a suitable template phrase. For example:: How is XXXX caused? Who is responsible for YYYY? Where does XXX occur? When does XXXX occur? What is XXXX? The range of templates is illustrated by the following table Templates used experimentally to generate questions Source database Generated query (** = not finally used) . WH-query Phrase-1 Seed Phrase2 World Problems-Issues (13 templates applied) How much XXXX is there? How does XXXX happen? (**) How is XXXX caused? (**) Why does XXXX happen? Why give priority to XXXX ? Why does God allow XXXX to happen? (**) Why be concerned by XXXX ? (**) Where does XXXX occur? What is XXXX ? What causes XXXX ? What results in XXXX ? (**) Who causes XXXX ? Who is responsible for XXXX ? Who is concerned about XXXX ? When does XXXX occur? When will XXXX occur? When did XXXX arise? Which kind of XXXX ? Global Strategies-Solutions (14 templates applied) How can XXXX be enabled? Why is XXXX unsuccessful? Why give priority to XXXX ? Where is XXXX undertaken? Where is XXXX successful? What is required for XXXX ? What causes XXXX to fail? Who undertakes XXXX ? Who is responsible for XXXX ? Who is concerned about XXXX ? When is XXXX undertaken? When will be XXXX undertaken? When was XXXX undertaken? Which kind of XXXX ? Human Values (constructive or destructive -- 9 templates applied ) How is XXXX elicited? Why is XXXX valued? Why give priority to XXXX ? Where is XXXX found? What is XXXX ? Who exemplifies XXXX ? Who values XXXX ? When is XXXX evident? Which kind of XXXX ? Human Values (polarities -- 10 templates applied ) How are XXXX related? How can XXXX be reconciled? How can XXXX be transcended? Why is the XXXX relation so challenging? Where are XXXX reconciled? What transcends XXXX ? Who embodies XXXX ? Who exemplifies the XXXX ambiguity? When are XXXX transcended? Which kind of XXXX relationship? As is clear from the table above, different templates were used both according to the source database and according to the WH-Question. Since many Problems and Strategies have a number of alternative titles (notably employing synonyms), these too have been used as seeds for the generation of alternative titles for a question -- effectively constituting alternative formulations of the same question (but clustered together in the Question entry). Although they may be accessed through their keywords, they are not treated as distinctly profiled questions. Preliminary results The very preliminary results in generating these questions in December 2005 are indicated in the following table. Preliminary results (December 2005) . Seed entities WH-templates used Questions generated   Total Selected   Main WH-Variants Problems 59205 12995 13 168935 239252 Strategies 42032 12848 14 179872 167426 Values 3257 3209 9 /10 29111 16470 Totals 104494 29052 377918 423148   801066   Indication of distribution of seed entities by type   Problems-Issues Strategies-Solutions Profiles Links Profiles Links 1996 2000 % 1996 2000 % 1996 2000 % 1996 2000 % A 0 196 n.a. 0 3,507 n.a. 0 1,518 n.a. 0 16,767 n.a. B 170 187 10% 5,300 7,090 34% 158 154 -3% 3,697 4,253 15% C 575 722 26% 13,816 19,347 40% 1,100 1,089 -1% 17,096 25,206 47% D 2,162 2,740 27% 30,613 52,451 71% 3,315 3,452 4% 19,374 43,329 124% E 3,857 5,378 39% 29,626 52,587 78% 3,008 5,298 76% 11,092 50,677 357% F 3,072 3,917 28% 38,625 61,604 59% 1,382 1,972 43% 7,015 19,580 179% G 2,153 30,279 1306% 5,979 47,112 688% 7,685 13,107 71% 3,604 69,059 1,816% Other 214 12,716 5,842% 905 26,255 2,801% 12,850 6,105 -52% 61,129 34,070 -44% Total 12,203 56,135 360% 124,864 269,953 116% 29,498 32,695 11% 123,007 262,941 114%   Indication of seed entity relationships  . Hierarchical links Functional links    . Broader Narrower Related Aggravating Aggravated  by Reducing Reduced by Problems 26403 35500 14264 31024 31105 1507 1529 Strategies 27134 32541 3010 3302 2902 17826 16911 Values 11392 Totals The subsequent generation of the Questions in October 2006 gave the following results: Final results of question generation (October 2005) . Problems Strategies Values Value-Polarities Totals . Main WH- Variants Main WH- Variants Main WH- Variants Main WH-Variants Main WH-Variants All Seed entities 45892 31055 2978 229 80154 WH-templates 7 6 7 7 7 2 7 3 28 18 46 Main 321244 - 217385 - 20846 - 1603 - 561078 - 561078 (Alternative titles) 133917 114786 107422 107422 9807 2802 - - - - - WH-Variants - 275352 - 217385 - 5956 - 687 - 499380 499380 Total questions 321244 275352 217385 217385 20846 5956 1603 687 561078 499380 1060458 Broader 433244 371352 370174 370174 79765 22790 0 687 883183 765003 1648186 Narrower 346577 297066 284396 284396 0 0 79744 34176 710717