The list of accepted papers is now available: http://glicom.upf.edu/OIAF4HLT/Papers.html
For anybody interested in attending the workshop and COLING, please remember that the early registration deadline is tomorrow, July 2nd. Looking forward to seeing many of you there... -- Jens On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 2:34 PM, Jens Grivolla <j+...@grivolla.net> wrote: > Workshop on Open Infrastructures and Analysis Frameworks for HLT > ================================================================ > > http://glicom.upf.edu/OIAF4HLT/ > > At the 25th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING > 2014) > Helix Conference Centre at Dublin City University (DCU) > 23-29 August 2014 > > Description > ----------- > > Recent advances in digital storage and networking, coupled with the > extension of human language technologies (HLT) into ever broader areas and > the persistence of difficulties in software portability, have led to an > increased focus on development and deployment of web-based infrastructures > that allow users to access tools and other resources and combine them to > create novel solutions that can be efficiently composed, tuned, evaluated, > disseminated and consumed. This in turn engenders collaborative development > and deployment among individuals and teams across the globe. It also > increases the need for robust, widely available evaluation methods and > tools, means to achieve interoperability of software and data from diverse > sources, means to handle licensing for limited access resources distributed > over the web, and, perhaps crucially, the need to develop strategies for > multi-site collaborative work. > > For many decades, NLP has suffered from low software engineering standards > causing a limited degree of re-usability of code and interoperability of > different modules within larger NLP systems. While this did not really > hamper success in limited task areas (such as implementing a parser), it > caused serious problems for building complex integrated software systems, > e.g., for information extraction or machine translation. This lack of > integration has led to duplicated software development, work-arounds for > programs written in different (versions of) programming languages, and > ad-hoc tweaking of interfaces between modules developed at different sites. > > In recent years, two main frameworks, UIMA and GATE, have emerged that aim > to allow the easy integration of varied tools through common type systems > and standardized communication methods for components analysing > unstructured textual information, such as natural language. Both frameworks > offer a solid processing infrastructure that allows developers to > concentrate on the implementation of the actual analytics components. An > increasing number of members of the NLP community have adopted one of these > frameworks as a platform for facilitating the creation of reusable NLP > components that can be assembled to address different NLP tasks depending > on their order, combination and configuration. Analysis frameworks also > reduce the problem of reproducibility of NLP results by formalising > solution composition and making language processing tools shareable. > > Very recently, several efforts have been devoted to the development of web > service platforms for NLP. These platforms exploit the growing number of > web-based tools and services available for tasks related to HLT, including > corpus annotation, configuration and execution of NLP pipelines, and > evaluation of results and automatic parameter tuning. These platforms can > also integrate modules and pipelines from existing frameworks such as UIMA > and GATE, in order to achieve interoperability with a wide variety of > modules from different sources. > > Many of the issues and challenges surrounding these developments have been > addressed individually in particular projects and workshops, but there are > ramifications that cut across all of them. We therefore feel that this is > the moment to bring together participants representing the range of > interests that comprise the comprehensive picture for community-driven, > distributed, collaborative, web-based development and use for language > processing software and resources. This includes those engaged in > development of infrastructures for HLT as well as those who will use these > services and infrastructures, especially for multi-site collaborative work. > > > ### Workshop Objectives > > The overall goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for discussion of > the requirements for an envisaged open “global laboratory” for HLT research > and development and establish the basis of a community effort to develop > and support it. To this end, the workshop will include both presentations > addressing the issues and challenges of developing, deploying, and using > the global laboratory for distributed and collaborative efforts and > discussion that will identify next steps for moving forward, fostering > community-wide awareness, and establishing and encouraging communication > among the various players. > > It aims at bringing together members of the NLP community specifically > users, developers or providers of components and tools for these frameworks > in order to explore and discuss the opportunities and challenges in using > such platforms for modern, well-engineered NLP applications. > > The challenge of creating reusable and interoperable components raises > particular interest and are affected by legal issues, such as potentially > incompatible licenses of components and tools as well as the technical > aspects of packaging and distribution of components. Also, tools are > important, for example to assemble complex processing pipelines, to manage > the bodies of data that are to be analysed and to visualize, explore, and > further deploy the analysis results. Further challenges are involved in > embedding framework based analysis within applications or using it in > distributed computing scenarios, such as deployment of and access to > required resources. Finally, the preservation of analysis results, their > provenance and reproducibility are of particular interest to the scientific > user community. > > ### Topics > > Workshop topics include, but are not limited to: > > - processing of very large data collections: scale-out, parallelization, > and performance optimization > - advanced applications driven by an NLP framework > - sophisticated tools to build and manage complex processing pipelines > - analysis of results: exploration, evaluation, visualization, and > statistical analysis > - experience reports combining components from different sources, as well > as solutions to interoperability issues > - experience reports combining different frameworks (e.g. > GATE/UIMA/WebLicht/etc.) > - UIMA components with a special focus on genericity and type-system > independence > - repositories of ready-to-use components for UIMA and/or GATE > - distribution of components: documentation, licensing and packaging > - developing for UIMA or GATE: simplified APIs, debugging, unit testing, > and limitations of the frameworks > - combining annotation type systems in processing frameworks (GATE, UIMA, > etc.) with standardization efforts, such as done in the ISO TC37/SC4 or TEI > contexts. > - use of NLP frameworks in real-world "industry" settings > - reports on current projects and frameworks, their challenges and > proposed or implemented solutions, including efforts to address > interoperability > - issues and challenges of multi-site collaborative projects, including > reports of implemented or proposed strategies > - pipeline management, including authentication, strategies for passing > resources through disparate tools and across hosting nodes, and licensing > - development and use of evaluation environments that facilitate > assessment of HLT component performance, iterative application development, > and replication of results > - community awareness and implementation of open infrastructures, > including how to engage the community, establish confidence in the process, > and promote use > > Dates > ----- > Paper Submission Deadline: 2nd May 2014 > Author Notification Deadline: 6th June 2014 > Camera-Ready Paper Deadline: 27th June 2014 > Workshop: 23rd August 2014 > > Organisers > ---------- > Nancy Ide > Department of Computer Science, Vassar College > > James Pustejovsky > Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University > > Eric Nyberg > Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie > Mellon University > > Christopher Cieri > Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania > > Jonathan Wright > Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania > > Jens Grivolla > GLiCom, Universitat Pompeu Fabra > > Kalina Bontcheva > Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield > >
