The document discusses the Natural Language Processing Interchange Format (NIF), an RDF/Owl-based format designed to enable interoperability between NLP tools, resources, and annotations. It highlights the upcoming release of NIF 2.0, its ability to address and normalize text through URIs, and its scalability advantages as an exchange format. Additionally, the document outlines the impact and interest in NIF from various projects and its potential alignment with W3C standards.

1. Creating Knowledge out of Interlinked Data
Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 1 http://lod2.eu
NIF 2.0 Draft
http://slideshare.net/kurzum
http://nlp2rdf.org
http://lod2.eu
Sebastian Hellmann
AKSW, Universität Leipzig
LOD2 Presentation . 02.09.2010 . Page http://lod2.eu

2. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 2 http://lod2.eu
Introduction
The NLP Interchange Format (NIF) is an RDF/OWL-based format
that aims to achieve interoperability between Natural Language
Processing (NLP) tools, language resources and annotations.
• Version 1.0 published in November 2011
• Version 2.0 is scheduled for completion within 2012

3. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 3 http://lod2.eu
NIF Introduction

4. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 4 http://lod2.eu
Addressing primary data
●
file://path/on/my/local/drive/log.txt
●
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
●
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, ...”
NIF: use a document URI and add “#offset_717_729” to address a
substring of the text from index 717 to 729
- file://path/on/my/local/drive/log.txt#offset_717_729
- http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html#offset_717_729
- urn:content-item-sha1-1bf4330e5a4a707f381513b2e7#offset_717_729

5. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 5 http://lod2.eu
Example

6. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 6 http://lod2.eu
Normalizing Text
NIF provides URIs for Unicode Characters using Unicode
Normalization Form C counted in Code Units.
For all NIF URIs, the universe of discourse will then be the words
over the alphabet of Unicode characters (sometimes called Σ ∗ ).
These URIs can become subjects in RDF triples:
Structural interoperability:
- based on RDF
- defines how text is treated and counted
- compatible with RFC 5147 “#char=717,729”

7. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 7 http://lod2.eu
As a Web Service

8. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 8 http://lod2.eu
NIF Combinator
http://nlp2rdf.lod2.eu/demo.php

9. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 9 http://lod2.eu
NIF Combinator

10. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 10 http://lod2.eu
Conceptual Interoperability
NIF can be extended by Vocabulary Modules
OliA
http://purl.org/olia

11. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 11 http://lod2.eu
Conceptual Interoperability
NIF can be extended by Vocabulary Modules
Apache Stanbol
http://stanbol.apache.org/

12. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 12 http://lod2.eu
Scalability
https://bitbucket.org/srfgkmt/stanbol-nlp

13. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 13 http://lod2.eu
Scalability
- Less problematic, if only used as exchange format
- RDF is flexible and good for data integration, not fast
- NIF is very compact (1-3 triples per annotation)
- Inference possible, but optional
- Other formats add overhead as well (e.g. SOAP-XML)
- NIF Web services are RESTful
- JSON-LD might be the best option for serialization

14. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 14 http://lod2.eu
Scalability

15. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 15 http://lod2.eu
NIF 2.0 - plans
• NIF 2.0 tries to be compatible to (Vocabulary Module):
• FISE used in Apache Stanbol (IKS-EU Project)
• LAF/GrAF XML – ISO standard, recently published
• Fragment Identifiers by IETF and W3C
• Lemon ontology from Monnet EU Project
• NERD ontology from EURECOM and LinkedTV EU Project
• Xpointer/XPath URI scheme

16. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 16 http://lod2.eu
Impact NIF
Impact:
• Around 600 feedback items or events (email requests,
presentation Q&A, personal questions, 70 people on the
mailing list)
• Five known 3rd party implementations (one for GATE JAPE)
• Over 1 million requests per month on the demo web services
• Projects that have announced interest / are working on a NIF
wrapper: LODifier, Apache Stanbol, LAPPS (NSF project),
Tipalo/Fred, DKPro (UIMA instantiation), ITS 2.0 test suites

17. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 17 http://lod2.eu
Impact NIF
NIF will likely be the recommended RDF conversion of the
Internationalisation Tagset 2.0 W3C standard (ITS 2.0) -
http://www.w3.org/TR/its20/

18. Pisa – 2012/10/05 – Page 18 http://lod2.eu
Thanks for your attention
Open Community – All feedback is welcome!
http://slideshare.net/kurzum
Direct email:
http://bis.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/SebastianHellmann
Public Mailing List:
http://lists.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/mailman/listinfo/nlp2rdf
Wiki (collection of use cases and issues):
http://wiki.nlp2rdf.org/wiki/Use_cases_and_requirements#Use_cases
http://wiki.nlp2rdf.org/wiki/Issues
Website:
http://nlp2rdf.org