# A Modular Framework for Domain-Specific Conversational Systems Powered by Never-Ending Learning
## 4 Experimental Results
### Never-Ending Language Learning  
The never-ending language learning (NELL) process is triggered by new knowledge demand, which could be carried out by a user who wishes to insert new knowledge into the system to cover more topics in the dialog or by a user inquiry that could not be solved with the available knowledge at that time. In the experiments, we, as the human supervisors, started the NELL process when we noticed a user's questions were not answered. When this process was triggered, one automated bot searched for pages in a specific web portal with information relevant to our banking domain; then, it captured HTML pages or PDF files and extracted the text from them, creating a plain text file. This file was then consumed by the NELL process itself, and the knowledge-producing modules predicted new beliefs based on this document, which were analyzed before being inserted into the ontology. Afterward, this new knowledge could be used during the dialog to answer new questions. For example, consider the initial ontology shown in Figure 12, which includes knowledge about one event (blue node), its presenters (green nodes), and the companies in which they work. Based on this ontology, the system is capable of conducting the dialog about this event, as shown in Figure 13. The first question the user asks is, \"Who presents the event \"Event1*?\" and the system responds with the related presenters: \"The presenters for the event \"Event1*?\" are: \"[PERSON]\", \"[PERSON]\", and \"[PERSON]*\". Additionally, the system can answer other information about the event, as shown in the next question, \"How does it happen?\" which is responded by \"The event \"Event1* is online\"; this information is a property in the ontology and is not shown in the previous figure. However, it was not possible to answer the last question, 'What events are presented by \"[PERSON]*?\" due to unavailable data on the knowledge base; there is no instance of a presenter by this name in our current ontology. Then, when running the NELL process with a new document containing information about this new event, a snippet from this document can be seen in the following:  
*Event2* ingresso (mico, Gratis  
17 de setembro de 2021, 14 h-15 h 30, Evento online via Netshow.me (...) DESRICAO O evento sera composto por tres mesas redondas voltadas ao tema da economia circular, luma nova forma de pensar as atividades economica associando desenvolvimento e melhoria no uso de recursos naturais, por meio de novos modelos de negocio, da reestruturacao da relacao de consumo e da otimizacao de processos de fabricacao, com foco na utilizacao de insumos mais duraveis, recidaveis e renovaveis. (...) MINI BIO DO(S) PALESTRANTE(S)  
Figure 12: Initial ontology. The relations shown are “trabalha em” (from Portuguese) that means “works for” (in English), and “apresenta” (from Portuguese) that means “presents” (in English). The other terms shown are organization names. *Talker4* Especialista em Meio Ambiente da FIRJAN (Federacao das Industrias do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) (...)
*[PERSON]*:tivista ambiental, empreendedora e idealizadora do MENOS 1 LIXO, movimento e negocio de impacto por meio de uma plataforma de educacao ambiental. [PERSON] tambem e colonista das revistas Glamour e Ela, defensora da ONU Meio Ambiente na campanha Mares Limpos e conselheira do Greenpeace Brasil, tendo sido premiada pela Geracao Glamour de 2018 como a mulher mais influuente no segemento da sustentabilidade de 2017. (...)  
Which can be translated to English as the following:  
*Event2*  
single ticket, free  
17 September 2021, 2 p.m.-3:30 p.m., Online event via Netshow.me (...) DESCRIPTN The event will consist of three round tables focused on the topic of circular economy, a new way of thinking about economic activities associating development and improvement in the use of natural resources, through new business models, restructuring the consumption relationship and optimization of manufacturing processes, focusing on the use of more durable, recyclable and renewable inputs.