Presentation of NewsReader as keynote for VOGIN-IP 2015. Can we handle the news? How computers reads millions of news articles to extract what, when, where and who is involved over longer periods of time. News reading technology is developed for 4 languages (English, Dutch Spanish and Italian), creating RDF from text.

1. NewsReader
recording history
by processing massive streams of daily news
VOGIN-IP
March, 26, 2015
Piek Vossen
ICT 316404
FP7-ICT-2011-8
www.newsreader-project.eu

2. Can we handle the news?
• Information broker LexisNexis:
• 1.5 million news articles on a single working day
• 30,000 different sources

3. How did the
automotive industry change
during the financial crisis?
• 6 million English articles in the LexisNexis
archive published in the last 10 years
• In 2012: 2 million Google hits for “Volkswagen
takeover” not sorted by publication date

4. December 2015

5. Measures volume of news in
relation to topic
but NOT
the volume of change!
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Volkswagen%2BTakeover

6. VOLUME OF CHANGE
6
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015
New New

7. VOLUME OF CHANGE
7
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015
SpeculationPast New New
On 16 September 2008,
Porsche increased its
shares by another
4.89%, in effect taking
control of the company,
with more than 35% of
the voting rights.
6 Jan 2009 – Porsche
has been on a quest
to takeover VW for
more than two years.
Past

8. VOLUME OF CHANGE
8
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015
SpeculationPast New New
205M mentions
27M entities
1.3
MILLION
ARTICLES
HOW
MANY
CHANGES?
On 16 September 2008,
Porsche increased its
shares by another
4.89%, in effect taking
control of the company,
with more than 35% of
the voting rights.
6 Jan 2009 – Porsche
has been on a quest
to takeover VW for
more than two years.
Past
Volume of
entities

9. What if
computers could
read the news?

10. NewsReader (ict316404)
• Reading Technology to process massive streams of
news from many different sources in 4 languages
(English, Dutch, Spanish and Italian):
• Recording the changes in the world as they are told in
the media over long periods of time → history-
recorder.
• What happened, where and when, who was involved.
• Who made what statement, where do sources agree
and disagree: provenance!

11. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/
industry/engineering/10125280/Porsche-family-
buys-back-10pc-stake-from-Qatar.html
17 Jun 2013
Porsche family buys back 10pc stake from Qatar
Descendants of the German car pioneer Ferdinand
Porsche have bought back a 10pc stake in the
company that bears the family name from Qatar
Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf State’s
sovereign wealth fund.

12. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/
industry/engineering/10125280/Porsche-family-
buys-back-10pc-stake-from-Qatar.html
17 Jun 2013
Porsche family buys back 10pc stake from Qatar
Descendants of the German car pioneer Ferdinand
Porsche have bought back a 10pc stake in the
company that bears the family name from Qatar
Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf State’s
sovereign wealth fund.
WHO:
http://dbpedia.org/page/Category:Porsche_family
http://dbpedia.org/page/Category:Qatarholding
http://dbpedia.org/page/Category:PorscheSE
INSTANCESMENTIONS

13. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/
industry/engineering/10125280/Porsche-family-
buys-back-10pc-stake-from-Qatar.html
17 Jun 2013
Porsche family buys back 10pc stake from Qatar
Descendants of the German car pioneer Ferdinand
Porsche have bought back a 10pc stake in the
company that bears the family name from Qatar
Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf State’s
sovereign wealth fund.
INSTANCESMENTIONS
WHAT:
buy_back

14. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/
industry/engineering/10125280/Porsche-family-
buys-back-10pc-stake-from-Qatar.html
17 Jun 2013
Porsche family buys back 10pc stake from Qatar
Descendants of the German car pioneer Ferdinand
Porsche have bought back a 10pc stake in the
company that bears the family name from Qatar
Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf State’s
sovereign wealth fund.

15. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/banking-and-
finance/2013/06/17/Qatar-Holding-sells-10-stake-in-
Porsche-to-family-shareholders.html
Monday, 17 June 2013
Qatar Holding sells 10% stake in Porsche to founding
families
Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf state’s
sovereign wealth fund, has sold its 10 percent stake in
Porsche SE to the luxury carmaker’s family
shareholders, four years after it first invested in the firm.

16. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/banking-and-
finance/2013/06/17/Qatar-Holding-sells-10-stake-in-
Porsche-to-family-shareholders.html
Monday, 17 June 2013
Qatar Holding sells 10% stake in Porsche to founding
families
Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf state’s
sovereign wealth fund, has sold its 10 percent stake in
Porsche SE to the luxury carmaker’s family
shareholders, four years after it first invested in the firm.
INSTANCESMENTIONS
WHO:
http://dbpedia.org/page/Category:Porsche_family
http://dbpedia.org/page/Category:Qatarholding
http://dbpedia.org/page/Category:PorscheSE

17. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/banking-and-
finance/2013/06/17/Qatar-Holding-sells-10-stake-in-
Porsche-to-family-shareholders.html
Monday, 17 June 2013
Qatar Holding sells 10% stake in Porsche to founding
families
Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the Gulf state’s
sovereign wealth fund, has sold its 10 percent stake in
Porsche SE to the luxury carmaker’s family
shareholders, four years after it first invested in the firm.
INSTANCESMENTIONS
WHAT:
sell

18. Event
buy/sell
fn:Seller
fn:Commerce_money_transfer
fn:Goods fn:Money
fn:Buyerdbp:Porsche dbp:QatarHolding
?
Entity
10% stake
type
Qatar Holding sells 10% stake in Porsche to
founding families
Porsche family buys back 10pc
stake from Qatar
http://english.alarabiya.net http://www.telegraph.co.uk
2013-06-17
sem:hasTime

19. Qatar[2] Holding[2] sells[8] 10% stake[5] in Porsche[10] to founding[3] families[8]
dbp:Qatar_Investment_Authority…SELL/BUY..STAKE.… dbp:Porsche
TIME=2013-06-17
(fn:Commerce, fn:Seller, QATAR.)
(fn:Commerce, fn:Buyer, PORSCHE)
(fn:Commerce, fn:Goods, 10%STAKE)
english.alarabiya.net → STATEMENT → CERTAIN
WORDS
CONCEPTS
RELATIONS
PROVENANCE
SOURCE
From mentions to instances
2*2*8*5*10*3*8=38400 concept combinations
Language
Technology

20. System Architecture

21. Entity detection
Qatar Holding sells 10% stake in Porsche to founding families

23. e
e
p
p
t
l
p
p
t
p
e
e
t
e
Event coreference
• Instance based event-coreference:
• All event mentions with similar Iemma
and same time anchor
• Share at least one actor (possibly
DBPedia URI)
• Share at least one place (possibly
DBPedia URI)
• Aggregation of SEM instances from NAF
mentions and the extraction of
provenance layers through named graphs
similar
similar
similar
similar
coref
coref
coref
coref
l
buy/acquire sell/sales
- time
- concept
- participant
coref

24. SEM in RDF-TriG format
ENTITY INSTANCE
<http://dbpedia.org/resource/PorscheSE>
rdfs:label "Porsche" , “Porsche company" ;
gaf:denotedBy
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5760-PM51-JD34-
P4RM.xml#char=98,104> ,
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/57K5-FKK1-
DYBW-2534.xml#char=44934,44940> .
dbo:Agent,Company
dbr:Privately_held_company
schema.org/Organization

25. SEM in RDF-TriG format
EVENT INSTANCE
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5758-BPN1-F0J6-D2T2.xml#sellEvent>
a fn:Commerce_sell , fn:Commerce_buy;
rdfs:label "sell" , “buy”;
gaf:denotedBy
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5758-BPN1-F0J6-
D2T2.xml#char=12,15> ,
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5758-BPN1-F0J6-
D2T2.xml#char=1352,1356> ,
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5760-PM51-JD34-
P4H7.xml#char=1536,1540>.

26. Semantic relations
as named graphs
<nwr:/data/cars/2013/1/1/5758-BPN1-F0J6-D2T2.xml#pr25,rl55> {
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5722-S821-F0J6-D48N.xml#sellEvent>
sem:hasActor <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Qatar_Holding> .
}
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5760-PM51-JD34-P4H7.xml#pr46,rl114> {
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5758-BPN1-F0J6-D2T2.xml#sellEvent>
sem:hasPlace <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Germany> .
}
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5760-PM51-JD34-P4H7.xml#docTime_26> {
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/5760-PM51-JD34-P4H7.xml#sellEvent>
sem:hasTime <nwr:time/2013-01-01> .
}

27. Properties of relations
FACTUALITY
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/57K5-FKK1-DYBW-2534.xml#factValue_1125> {
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/57K5-FKK1-DYBW-2534.xml#sellEvent>
nwr:hasFactBankValue
“CERTAIN-POS-NONFUTURE” .}
PROVENANCE
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/57R8-5451-F0J6-D2GH.xml#pr25,rl55>
gaf:denotedBy
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/57R8-5451-F0J6-D2GH.xml#char=1352,1356> ;
prov-o:wasAttributedTo
<nwr:sourceowner/Peru_Autos_Report> .
<nwr:data/cars/2013/1/1/57K5-FKK1-DYBW-2534.xml#factValue_1125>
prov-o:wasAttributedTo
<nwr:sourceowner/Peru_Autos_Report> .

28. 2000 2005 2010 2014
1 MILLION ARCTICLES
FROM 30,000 SOURCES
100 EVENT MENTIONS PER ARTICLE
5 EVENT INSTANCE PER ARTICLE
ENTITIESPLACES EVENTS
ON A WORKING DAY
1 ARTICLE
Tuesday
09:34
February 10
Friday
10:15
February 6
1995 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 2005 06 07 08 09 2010 11 12 13 14 2015

29. KnowledgeStore Data sets

30. KnowledgeStore Data sets

31. Entities

32. Events

33. Visualize & interact

35. www.newsreader-project.eu/
results/demos/synerscope/

36. Perspective model
• Chrysler expects to sell 5,000 diesel Liberty
SUVs, President Dieter Zetsche says at a
DaimlerChrysler Innovation Symposium in New
York.
• Manfred Bisschoff said that Chrysler will
probably not sell 5,000 diesel Liberty SUVs

39. Conclusions
• Event-centric presentation of news
• Capturing the changes and not the amount of talk
• Perspective model to capture the relation between the source
and the statements
• From text to RDF, from unstructured to structured
• Reasoning over long-term developments involving millions of
participants
• Querying and interacting with the data through advanced
visualisation techniques

40. e
e
p
p
t
l
p
p
t
l
p
e
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Buy Sell