Mailing-List: contact uima-user-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: uima-user@incubator.apache.org
Received-SPF: pass (athena.apache.org: local policy)
From: holmberg2066@comcast.net (greg@holmberg.name)
To: uima-user@incubator.apache.org, <uima-user@incubator.apache.org>
Cc: "Pascal Coupet" <pascal.coupet@temis.com>
Subject: RE: Asynchronous UIMA (workflow) ?
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:17:57 +0000
Message-Id: 
 <101120071717.22259.470E5AC50007889B000056F32200734076C0C0CFCD099D0A0D03040108@comcast.net>

Pascal--


I was thinking essentially the same thing: serialize the CAS to a file or database, do your human interaction (possibly including the CAS Editor), then reload it and resume processing.

It would be nice to generalize it, rather than have two explicit analysis engines.  So a nice enhancement to UIMA would be the ability to persist not just the CAS but the state of the engine along with it, so that it could be stopped and restarted at any point.

For my purposes, this would be useful if say, one annotator depended on finding certain data in the CAS from another annotator, but that earlier one failed or didn't produce the right data, and I need a user to produce the data manually.

For example, if a taxonomy classifier runs first and a named entity extractor runs second, and the entity extractor wants to select a name catalog to use based on the classification ("if classified biology, use biology NC, else if classified chemistry use chemistry NC"), but the classifier doesn't classify at all, or doesn't classify into the right catefgory (not biology or chemisty), then I would want the user to classify it manually.  So I would persist that document and engine state, notify the user, who would classify it, and then restart the engine, which would then move on to run the entity extractor with an NC based on the user's classification.

Not knowing in advance where in the engine the failure will occur (failure to classify being only one possibility), I can't create two explicit engines.  Having a general mechanism to persist the state of the engine would let me handle any failure or missing dependency.  NLP being generally an imprecise process, I foresee human intervention in the pipeline as a not-infrequent occurance.  So having a mechanism to deal with that in a general way would be helpful.

This is not a high priority enhancement for me at the moment, just an idea for us to kick around.


Greg Holmberg


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Pascal Coupet" <pascal.coupet@temis.com>
> Hi Thomas,
> 
>  
> 
> I think a way to do it is to split this process across 2 workflows. The first 
> consumer will get the CAS, eventually store it in XML somewhere (file, database 
> ...). A small application will manage the interaction with the user (sending 
> mail, reminders ...), watch a return address mailbox, update the XCAS and make 
> it available. The source of the second workflow will watch for available updated 
> XCAS and continue from there. You can in theory make the consumer of the first 
> workflow to send the mail and the source of the second watch for incoming emails 
> but it will be more difficult I think to manage properly the interaction with 
> users (reminder to responds, statistics, routing configuration ...). 
> 
>  
> 
> Just some thoughts,  
> 
>  
> 
> Pascal
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: Thomas Francart [mailto:thomas.francart@mondeca.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:01 AM
> To: uima-user@incubator.apache.org
> Subject: Asynchronous UIMA (workflow) ?
> 
>  
> 
> 
> Hi all -
> 
> I'm thinking about whether or not it would be possible to add an asynchronous 
> step in a UIMA pipeline ? For example having an analysis engine that would ask 
> for a user input or a user review of a CAS, or something like that. Well my 
> point is that at some point in the pipeline, I would like a user to review the 
> state of the CAS, maybe add some more information, delete some others, and so 
> on; and then the rest of the pipeline would continue upon user validation. (by 
> "user" here I don't mean someone that sits in front of a computer and watch the 
> UIMA processing taking place, but maybe someone receiving an email saying "hey, 
> you should have a look and validate that").
> 
> I know this a generic workflow question, but I was just wondering if some other 
> people had the same question/requirements with a UIMA integration, and if you 
> had some ideas on how it could be adressed/solved.
> 
> Best,
> Thomas
> 
> -- 
> 
> Thomas Francart 
> Mondeca 
> 3, cit� Nollez 75018 Paris France 
> Tel: +33 (0)1 44 92 35 04 - Fax: +33 (0)1 44 92 02 59 
> Blog: mondeca.wordpress.com 
> Web: www.mondeca.com 
> Mail: thomas.francart@mondeca.com 
> 
>