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How do I use KGs for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)? (2.1 – Prompt Enhancement) – length: up to one page

Lead: Diego Collarana 

Contributors:

  • Daniel Burkhardt (FSTI)
  • Robert David (SWC)
  • Diego Collarana (FIT)
  • Daniel Baldassare (doctima)
  • Michael Wetzel (Coreon)

...

  • Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) methods combine retrieval mechanisms with generative models to enhance the output of LLMs by incorporating external knowledge. By grounding the generated output in specific and relevant information, RAG methods improve the quality and accuracy of the generated output.
  • Types of RAG:

    • Conventional RAG has three components: 1) Knowledge Base, typically created by chunking text documents, transforming them into embeddings, and storing them in a vector store. 2) Retriever searches the vector database for chunks that exhibit high similarity to the query. 3) Generator feeds the retrieved chunks, alongside the original query, to an LLM to generate the final response.
    • Graph RAG integrates knowledge graphs into the RAG framework, allowing for the retrieval of structured data that can provide additional context and factual accuracy to the generative model. 
      The retrieval can be done on any source with a semantic representation, e.g., documents with semantic annotations or relational data via OBDA or R2RML, thereby ingesting structured and unstructured source information into the Graph RAG.
  • RAG is used in various natural language processing tasks, including question-answering, information extraction, sentiment analysis, and summarization. It is particularly beneficial in scenarios requiring domain-specific knowledge.

We describe various solutions for integrating knowledge graphs into RAG systems to improve accuracy, reliability, and explainability. 

Answer 1: Knowledge Graph as a Database with Natural Language Queries (NLQ)

Description: This solution treats the knowledge graph as a structured database and leverages natural language queries (NLQ) to retrieve specific information. The implementation steps are as follows:

  • First, the user's question is processed to extract key entities and relationships using entity linking and relationship extraction techniques. (Natural Language Understanding)
  • Next, the natural language query is partially or fully mapped into a graph query language, e.g., Cypher or SPARQL. (Graph Query Construction)
  • Then, the constructed graph query is executed against the knowledge graph database, which retrieves precise and targeted information from the knowledge graph. (Knowledge Graph Execution)
  • Finally, the retrieved results are passed to the LLM for summarization or further processing to generate the final answer. (Response generation)

Considerations:

  • Accurate Query Mapping: Requires advanced NLP techniques to map natural language queries to graph queries accurately. Entity linking and relationship extraction must be precise to ensure correct query formulation.
  • Performance Efficiency: Executing complex graph queries may impact performance, especially with large-scale knowledge graphs. Optimization of graph databases and queries is necessary for real-time applications.
  • Scalability: The system should handle growing knowledge graphs without significant performance loss. Scalable graph database solutions are essential.
  • User Experience: The system must effectively interpret user intent from natural language inputs. Providing clear and concise answers enhances usability and trust.

Standards and Protocols:

  • Compliance with Data Standards: Ensure the knowledge graph adheres to relevant data modeling standards. Where applicable, utilize standardized vocabularies and ontologies.
  • Interoperability: Design the system for various graph databases and query languages. Support integration with external data sources and systems.

Answer 2: KG-Guided Retrieval Mechanisms

Description: KG-Guided Retrieval Mechanisms involve using, for example, knowledge graphs or vector databases to enhance the retrieval process in RAG systems. Knowledge graphs provide a structured representation of knowledge, enabling more precise and contextually aware information retrieval. This approach can directly query knowledge graphs or use them to augment queries to other data sources, improving the relevance and accuracy of the retrieved information.

  • First, the user's question is processed to extract key entities and relationships using entity linking and relationship extraction techniques as a (semantic) graph representation of the question. (Natural Language Understanding)
  • Next, the graph representation is executed against the knowledge graph database, which first retrieves information from the knowledge graph and then retrieves the associated mapped data source.
    Data sources can be of different kinds:
    • Knowledge graph data
    • Non-knowledge graph data with a graph representation:
      • Tabular and relational data, e.g., via OBDA or R2RML.
      • Semi-structured data, e.g., XML or DITA.
      • Unstructured natural language, e.g., via semantic annotations.
  • Then, the retrieved (different kinds of) results are consolidated (preprocessed) to be ingested into the LLM prompt. (Data consolidation)
  • Finally, the consolidated results are passed to the LLM for summarization or further processing to generate the final answer. (Response generation)

Considerations:

  • Limited input data: a short user's question poses a challenge to effectively create a graph representation sufficiently expressive for a high-quality retrieval of information.
  • Knowledge model: a high-quality graph representation of both the user question and the actual information in the database is very likely to need a knowledge model with sufficient expressivity in the background.
  • Graph representation: doing graph-based retrieval of (heterogeneous) data sources needs an established graph representation for each source.
  • Consolidation architecture: Setting up a system architecture for consolidated data sources needs different kinds of integration components.
  • Semantic gap: there is the risk of a gap of semantic information between the retrieved information and the LLM-generated answer, because any semantics contained in the knowledge graph and any knowledge model cannot be preserved during ingestion into the LLM generation.

Standards and Protocols:

  • Compliance with Data Standards: Ensure the knowledge graph adheres to relevant data modeling standards. Where applicable, utilize standardized vocabularies and ontologies.
  • Interoperability: Design the system for various graph databases and query languages. Support integration with external data sources and systems.

Answer 3: Hybrid Retrieval Combining KGs and Dense Vectors

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Short definition/description of this topic: Hybrid Retrieval combines the strengths of knowledge graphs and dense vector representations to improve information retrieval. This approach leverages the structured, relational data from knowledge graphs and the semantic similarity captured by dense vectors, resulting in enhanced retrieval capabilities. Hybrid retrieval systems can improve semantic understanding and contextual insights while addressing scalability and integration complexity challenges. 

Key Challenges

  • Knowledge Graph Construction and Maintenance: Creating and updating high-quality knowledge graphs for specific domains can be challenging and resource-intensive.
  • Scalability and Efficiency: Retrieving information from large and complex knowledge graphs while maintaining acceptable response times remains challenging.
  • Evaluation Standardization: The lack of widely accepted benchmarks and evaluation metrics hinders progress and comparability across Graph RAG approaches. The quality of KG is crucial.
  • Human Element, we need knowledge engineers and domain specialists. 

References

How do I enhance LLM explainability by using KGs? (2.2 – Answer Verification) – length: up to one page

Lead: Daniel Burkhardt

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Problem Statement (one paragraph) 

KG-Enhanced LLM Interpretability refers to the use of knowledge graphs to improve the transparency and explainability of large LLMs. By integrating structured knowledge from KGs, LLMs can generate more interpretable outputs, providing justifications and factual accuracy checks for their responses. This integration helps in aligning LLM-generated knowledge with factual data, enhancing trust and reliability. 

Explanation of concepts 

Brief description of the state of the art (one paragraph) 

References

Answer 1: Measuring KG Alignment in LLM Representations

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Short definition/description of this topic: This involves evaluating how well the representations generated by LLMs align with the structured knowledge in KGs. This alignment is crucial for ensuring that LLMs can accurately incorporate and reflect the relationships and entities defined in KGs, thereby improving the factuality and coherence of their outputs.

...

Brief description of the state-of-the-art

The emerging field of Graph RAG develops methods to exploit the rich, structured relationships between entities within a KG to retrieve more precise, factually relevant context for LLMs. Graph RAG methods encompass graph construction, knowledge retrieval, and answer-generation techniques [1,2,5]. We find methods that leverage existing open-source KGs [3] to methods for automatically building domain-specific KGs from raw textual data using LLMs [6]. The retrieval phase focuses on efficiently extracting pertinent subgraphs, paths, or nodes relevant to a user query with techniques like embedding similarity, pre-defined rules, or LLM-guided search. In the generation phase, retrieved graph information is transformed into LLM-compatible formats, such as graph languages, embeddings, or GNN encoding, to generate enriched and contextually grounded responses [4]. Recently, significant attention has been given to hybrid approaches combining conventional RAG and Graph RAG strengths [7,8]. HybridRAG integrates contextual information from traditional vector databases and knowledge graphs, resulting in a more balanced and effective system that surpasses individual RAG approaches in critical metrics like faithfulness, answer relevancy and context recall. 

We describe various solutions for integrating knowledge graphs into RAG systems to improve accuracy, reliability, and explainability. 

Answer 1: Knowledge Graph as a Database with Natural Language Queries (NLQ)

Description: This solution treats the knowledge graph as a structured database and leverages natural language queries (NLQ) to retrieve specific information. The implementation steps are as follows:

  • First, the user's question is processed to extract key entities and relationships using entity linking and relationship extraction techniques. (Natural Language Understanding)
  • Next, the natural language query is partially or fully mapped into a graph query language, e.g., Cypher or SPARQL. (Graph Query Construction)
  • Then, the constructed graph query is executed against the knowledge graph database, which retrieves precise and targeted information from the knowledge graph. (Knowledge Graph Execution)
  • Finally, the retrieved results are passed to the LLM for summarization or further processing to generate the final answer. (Response generation)

Considerations:

  • Accurate Query Mapping: Requires advanced NLP techniques to map natural language queries to graph queries accurately. Entity linking and relationship extraction must be precise to ensure correct query formulation.
  • Performance Efficiency: Executing complex graph queries may impact performance, especially with large-scale knowledge graphs. Optimization of graph databases and queries is necessary for real-time applications.
  • Scalability: The system should handle growing knowledge graphs without significant performance loss. Scalable graph database solutions are essential.
  • User Experience: The system must effectively interpret user intent from natural language inputs. Providing clear and concise answers enhances usability and trust.

Standards and Protocols:

  • Compliance with Data Standards: Ensure the knowledge graph adheres to relevant data modeling standards. Where applicable, utilize standardized vocabularies and ontologies.
  • Interoperability: Design the system for various graph databases and query languages. Support integration with external data sources and systems.

Answer 2: KG-Guided Retrieval Mechanisms

Description: KG-Guided Retrieval Mechanisms involve using, for example, knowledge graphs or vector databases to enhance the retrieval process in RAG systems. Knowledge graphs provide a structured representation of knowledge, enabling more precise and contextually aware information retrieval. This approach can directly query knowledge graphs or use them to augment queries to other data sources, improving the relevance and accuracy of the retrieved information.

  • First, the user's question is processed to extract key entities and relationships using entity linking and relationship extraction techniques as a (semantic) graph representation of the question. (Natural Language Understanding)
  • Next, the graph representation is executed against the knowledge graph database, which first retrieves information from the knowledge graph and then retrieves the associated mapped data source.
    Data sources can be of different kinds:
    • Knowledge graph data
    • Non-knowledge graph data with a graph representation:
      • Tabular and relational data, e.g., via OBDA or R2RML.
      • Semi-structured data, e.g., XML or DITA.
      • Unstructured natural language, e.g., via semantic annotations.
  • Then, the retrieved (different kinds of) results are consolidated (preprocessed) to be ingested into the LLM prompt. (Data consolidation)
  • Finally, the consolidated results are passed to the LLM for summarization or further processing to generate the final answer. (Response generation)

Considerations:

  • Limited input data: a short user's question poses a challenge to effectively create a graph representation sufficiently expressive for a high-quality retrieval of information.
  • Knowledge model: a high-quality graph representation of both the user question and the actual information in the database is very likely to need a knowledge model with sufficient expressivity in the background.
  • Graph representation: doing graph-based retrieval of (heterogeneous) data sources needs an established graph representation for each source.
  • Consolidation architecture: Setting up a system architecture for consolidated data sources needs different kinds of integration components.
  • Semantic gap: there is the risk of a gap of semantic information between the retrieved information and the LLM-generated answer, because any semantics contained in the knowledge graph and any knowledge model cannot be preserved during ingestion into the LLM generation.

Standards and Protocols:

  • Compliance with Data Standards: Ensure the knowledge graph adheres to relevant data modeling standards. Where applicable, utilize standardized vocabularies and ontologies.
  • Interoperability: Design the system for various graph databases and query languages. Support integration with external data sources and systems.

Answer 3: Hybrid Retrieval Combining KGs and Dense Vectors

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Short definition/description of this topic: Hybrid Retrieval combines the strengths of knowledge graphs and dense vector representations to improve information retrieval. This approach leverages the structured, relational data from knowledge graphs and the semantic similarity captured by dense vectors, resulting in enhanced retrieval capabilities. Hybrid retrieval systems can improve semantic understanding and contextual insights while addressing scalability and integration complexity challenges. 

Key Challenges

  • Knowledge Graph Construction and Maintenance: Creating and updating high-quality knowledge graphs for specific domains can be challenging and resource-intensive.
  • Scalability and Efficiency: Retrieving information from large and complex knowledge graphs while maintaining acceptable response times remains challenging.
  • Evaluation Standardization: The lack of widely accepted benchmarks and evaluation metrics hinders progress and comparability across Graph RAG approaches. The quality of KG is crucial.
  • Human Element, we need knowledge engineers and domain specialists. 

References

[1] Boci Peng, Yun Zhu, Yongchao Liu, Xiaohe Bo, Haizhou Shi, Chuntao Hong, Yan Zhang, Siliang Tang: Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation: A Survey. CoRR abs/2408.08921 (2024)

[2] Diego Collarana, Moritz Busch, Christoph Lange: Knowledge Graph Treatments for Hallucinating Large Language Models. ERCIM News 2024(136) (2024)

[3] Junde Wu, Jiayuan Zhu, Yunli Qi: Medical Graph RAG: Towards Safe Medical Large Language Model via Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation. CoRR abs/2408.04187 (2024)

[4] Sen, Priyanka, Sandeep Mavadia, and Amir Saffari. Knowledge graph-augmented language models for complex question answering. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Natural Language Reasoning and Structured Explanations (NLRSE). 2023

[5] Shirui Pan, Linhao Luo, Yufei Wang, Chen Chen, Jiapu Wang, Xindong Wu: Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. 36(7): 3580-3599 (2024)

[6] Darren Edge, Ha Trinh, Newman Cheng, Joshua Bradley, Alex Chao, Apurva Mody, Steven Truitt, Jonathan Larson: From Local to Global: A Graph RAG Approach to Query-Focused Summarization. CoRR abs/2404.16130 (2024)

[7] Bhaskarjit Sarmah, Benika Hall, Rohan Rao, Sunil Patel, Stefano Pasquali, Dhagash Mehta: HybridRAG: Integrating Knowledge Graphs and Vector Retrieval Augmented Generation for Efficient Information Extraction. CoRR abs/2408.04948 (2024)

[8] Jens Lehmann, Dhananjay Bhandiwad, Preetam Gattogi, Sahar Vahdati: Beyond Boundaries: A Human-like Approach for Question Answering over Structured and Unstructured Information Sources. Trans. Assoc. Comput. Linguistics 12: 786-802 (2024)

How do I enhance LLM explainability by using KGs? (2.2 – Answer Verification) – length: up to one page

Lead: Daniel Burkhardt

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Problem Statement (one paragraph) 

KG-Enhanced LLM Interpretability refers to the use of knowledge graphs to improve the transparency and explainability of large LLMs. By integrating structured knowledge from KGs, LLMs can generate more interpretable outputs, providing justifications and factual accuracy checks for their responses. This integration helps in aligning LLM-generated knowledge with factual data, enhancing trust and reliability. 

Explanation of concepts 

...

Brief description of the state of the art (one paragraph) 


References

Answer 1: Measuring KG Alignment in LLM Representations

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Short definition/description of this topic: KG-Guided Explanation Generation uses knowledge graphs to provide explanations for the outputs of LLMs. By leveraging the structured data and relationships within KGs, this approach can generate detailed and contextually relevant explanations, enhancing the interpretability and transparency of LLM outputs.  This involves evaluating how well the representations generated by LLMs align with the structured knowledge in KGs. This alignment is crucial for ensuring that LLMs can accurately incorporate and reflect the relationships and entities defined in KGs, thereby improving the factuality and coherence of their outputs.

literature: https://arxiv.org/abs/23122311.0035306503 , https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03008

Contributors:

Answer 3: KG-Based Fact-Checking and Verification

Contributors:

...

2406.03746, https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.06764

Answer 2: KG-Guided Explanation Generation

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

Short definition/description of this topic: KG-Guided Explanation Generation uses knowledge graphs to provide explanations for the outputs of LLMs. By leveraging the structured data and relationships within KGs, this approach can generate detailed and contextually relevant explanations, enhancing the interpretability and transparency of LLM outputs. 

literature: https://literatur: https://arxiv.org/abs/24042312.0094200353, https://aclanthologyarxiv.org/abs/2403.03008

Contributors:

Answer 3: KG-Based Fact-Checking and Verification

Contributors:

  • Daniel Burkhardt (FSTI)
  • Robert David (SWC)

Draft from Daniel Burkhardt

literatur: 2023.acl-long.895.pdf, https://arxiv.org/pdfabs/2406.01311 

Description: 

2404.00942, https://aclanthology.org/2023.acl-long.895.pdf, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.01311 

Description: 

Short definition/description Short definition/description of this topic: This involves using knowledge graphs to verify the factual accuracy of information generated by LLMs. By cross-referencing LLM outputs with the structured data in KGs, this approach can identify and correct inaccuracies, ensuring that the generated information is reliable and trustworthy. 

...

How do I evaluate LLMs through KGs? (3) – length: up to one page

First Version: Automatic evaluation of LLMs is usually done by cleverly comparing a desired result. The desired output can be evaluated using direct matching or similarity metrics (BLEU, N-gram, ROUGE, BERTScore). However, there are various reasons why KG can be used in the evaluation to support or enhance these evaluation techniques. 
Firstly, KG triplets can be extracted from the output of an LLM and then analyzed. The triplets can be compared with a KG to check factuality or knowledge coverage. Examples of this knowledge coverage would be political positions, cultural or sporting events, or current news information. Furthermore, the extracted KG triplets can be used to evaluate tasks/features where a similarity comparison of the LLM output is undesirable. This is the case for identifying and evaluating hallucinations of LLMs.
The second reason is to use KGs to enhance LLM inputs with relevant information. This method is beneficial, for example, if the goal is to use in-context learning to provide relevant information for a specific task to the LLM. In addition, planned adversarial attacks can be carried out on the LLM to uncover biases or weak points. 
Both variants are explained in more detail below as examples. 

...

  • Daniel Burkhardt (FSTI)
  • Daniel Baldassare (doctima)
  • Fabio Barth (DFKI)
  • Max Ploner (HU)
  • ... 

Draft from Daniel BurkhardtBurkhardt

Short definition/description of this topic: This involves using knowledge graphs to analyze and evaluate various aspects of LLMs, such as knowledge coverage and biases. KGs provide a structured framework for assessing how well LLMs capture and represent knowledge across different domains. This involves assessing the extent to which LLMs cover the knowledge represented in KGs. By comparing LLM outputs with the structured data in KGs, this approach can identify gaps in knowledge and areas for improvement in LLM training and performance

First Version: The first evaluation process can be divided into two parts. Those can be executed through various techniques, which this section will not discuss. First, the LLM generates output sequences based on an evaluation set of input samples. Specific KG triplets are then identified and extracted from the generated output sequence. The variants for extraction and identification can be found in other subchapters of this DIN SPEC. The extracted KG triplets are usually domain or task-specific. These KG triplets are used to generate a KG. 
In the second step, the KG can now be analyzed. For instance, factuality can be checked by analyzing each KG triplet in the generated KG, given the context provided. Alternatively, the extracted KG triplets can be compared with an existing, more extensive KG to analyze the knowledge coverage of an LLM.
Short definition/description of this topic: This involves using knowledge graphs to analyze and evaluate various aspects of LLMs, such as knowledge coverage and biases. KGs provide a structured framework for assessing how well LLMs capture and represent knowledge across different domains. This involves assessing the extent to which LLMs cover the knowledge represented in KGs. By comparing LLM outputs with the structured data in KGs, this approach can identify gaps in knowledge and areas for improvement in LLM training and performance


literature: https://www.amazon.science/publications/grapheval-a-knowledge-graph-based-llm-hallucination-evaluation-framework

...


Answer 2: Analyzing LLM Biases through KG Comparisons

...

Short definition/description of this topic: This involves using knowledge graphs to identify and analyze biases in LLMs. By comparing LLM outputs with the neutral, structured data in KGs, this approach can highlight biases and suggest ways to mitigate them, leading to more fair and balanced AI systems.

First Version: 

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literature: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.04756