@article{SildatkeKarwanniKraftetal.2023, author = {Sildatke, Michael and Karwanni, Hendrik and Kraft, Bodo and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {A distributed microservice architecture pattern for the automated generation of information extraction pipelines}, series = {SN Computer Science}, journal = {SN Computer Science}, number = {4, Article number: 833}, publisher = {Springer Singapore}, address = {Singapore}, issn = {2661-8907}, doi = {10.1007/s42979-023-02256-4}, pages = {19 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Companies often build their businesses based on product information and therefore try to automate the process of information extraction (IE). Since the information source is usually heterogeneous and non-standardized, classic extract, transform, load techniques reach their limits. Hence, companies must implement the newest findings from research to tackle the challenges of process automation. They require a flexible and robust system that is extendable and ensures the optimal processing of the different document types. This paper provides a distributed microservice architecture pattern that enables the automated generation of IE pipelines. Since their optimal design is individual for each input document, the system ensures the ad-hoc generation of pipelines depending on specific document characteristics at runtime. Furthermore, it introduces the automated quality determination of each available pipeline and controls the integration of new microservices based on their impact on the business value. The introduced system enables fast prototyping of the newest approaches from research and supports companies in automating their IE processes. Based on the automated quality determination, it ensures that the generated pipelines always meet defined business requirements when they come into productive use.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SiebigterothKraftSchmidtsetal.2019, author = {Siebigteroth, Ines and Kraft, Bodo and Schmidts, Oliver and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {A Study on Improving Corpus Creation by Pair Annotation}, series = {Proceedings of the Poster Session of the 2nd Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge (LDK-PS 2019)}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Poster Session of the 2nd Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge (LDK-PS 2019)}, issn = {1613-0073}, pages = {40 -- 44}, year = {2019}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KohlFreyerKraemeretal.2023, author = {Kohl, Philipp and Freyer, Nils and Kr{\"a}mer, Yoka and Werth, Henri and Wolf, Steffen and Kraft, Bodo and Meinecke, Matthias and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {ALE: a simulation-based active learning evaluation framework for the parameter-driven comparison of query strategies for NLP}, series = {Deep Learning Theory and Applications. DeLTA 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science}, booktitle = {Deep Learning Theory and Applications. DeLTA 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science}, editor = {Conte, Donatello and Fred, Ana and Gusikhin, Oleg and Sansone, Carlo}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-031-39058-6 (Print)}, doi = {978-3-031-39059-3}, pages = {235 -- 253}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Supervised machine learning and deep learning require a large amount of labeled data, which data scientists obtain in a manual, and time-consuming annotation process. To mitigate this challenge, Active Learning (AL) proposes promising data points to annotators they annotate next instead of a subsequent or random sample. This method is supposed to save annotation effort while maintaining model performance. However, practitioners face many AL strategies for different tasks and need an empirical basis to choose between them. Surveys categorize AL strategies into taxonomies without performance indications. Presentations of novel AL strategies compare the performance to a small subset of strategies. Our contribution addresses the empirical basis by introducing a reproducible active learning evaluation (ALE) framework for the comparative evaluation of AL strategies in NLP. The framework allows the implementation of AL strategies with low effort and a fair data-driven comparison through defining and tracking experiment parameters (e.g., initial dataset size, number of data points per query step, and the budget). ALE helps practitioners to make more informed decisions, and researchers can focus on developing new, effective AL strategies and deriving best practices for specific use cases. With best practices, practitioners can lower their annotation costs. We present a case study to illustrate how to use the framework.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SildatkeKarwanniKraftetal.2020, author = {Sildatke, Michael and Karwanni, Hendrik and Kraft, Bodo and Schmidts, Oliver and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {Automated Software Quality Monitoring in Research Collaboration Projects}, series = {ICSEW'20: Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops}, booktitle = {ICSEW'20: Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops}, doi = {10.1145/3387940.3391478}, pages = {603 -- 610}, year = {2020}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SchmidtsKraftWinkensetal.2021, author = {Schmidts, Oliver and Kraft, Bodo and Winkens, Marvin and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {Catalog integration of heterogeneous and volatile product data}, series = {DATA 2020: Data Management Technologies and Applications}, booktitle = {DATA 2020: Data Management Technologies and Applications}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-030-83013-7}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-83014-4_7}, pages = {134 -- 153}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The integration of frequently changing, volatile product data from different manufacturers into a single catalog is a significant challenge for small and medium-sized e-commerce companies. They rely on timely integrating product data to present them aggregated in an online shop without knowing format specifications, concept understanding of manufacturers, and data quality. Furthermore, format, concepts, and data quality may change at any time. Consequently, integrating product catalogs into a single standardized catalog is often a laborious manual task. Current strategies to streamline or automate catalog integration use techniques based on machine learning, word vectorization, or semantic similarity. However, most approaches struggle with low-quality or real-world data. We propose Attribute Label Ranking (ALR) as a recommendation engine to simplify the integration process of previously unknown, proprietary tabular format into a standardized catalog for practitioners. We evaluate ALR by focusing on the impact of different neural network architectures, language features, and semantic similarity. Additionally, we consider metrics for industrial application and present the impact of ALR in production and its limitations.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SchmidtsKraftWinkensetal.2020, author = {Schmidts, Oliver and Kraft, Bodo and Winkens, Marvin and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {Catalog integration of low-quality product data by attribute label ranking}, series = {Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications - Volume 1: DATA}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications - Volume 1: DATA}, isbn = {978-989-758-440-4}, doi = {10.5220/0009831000900101}, pages = {90 -- 101}, year = {2020}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SchreiberKraftZuendorf2016, author = {Schreiber, Marc and Kraft, Bodo and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {Cost-efficient quality assurance of natural language processing tools through continuous monitoring with continuous integration}, series = {3rd International Workshop on Software Engineering Research and Industrial Practice}, booktitle = {3rd International Workshop on Software Engineering Research and Industrial Practice}, doi = {10.1145/2897022.2897029}, pages = {46 -- 52}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KloeserBuesgenKohletal.2023, author = {Kl{\"o}ser, Lars and B{\"u}sgen, Andr{\´e} and Kohl, Philipp and Kraft, Bodo and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {Explaining relation classification models with semantic extents}, series = {DeLTA 2023: Deep Learning Theory and Applications}, booktitle = {DeLTA 2023: Deep Learning Theory and Applications}, editor = {Conte, Donatello and Fred, Ana and Gusikhin, Oleg and Sansone, Carlo}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-031-39058-6 (Print)}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-39059-3_13}, pages = {189 -- 208}, year = {2023}, abstract = {In recent years, the development of large pretrained language models, such as BERT and GPT, significantly improved information extraction systems on various tasks, including relation classification. State-of-the-art systems are highly accurate on scientific benchmarks. A lack of explainability is currently a complicating factor in many real-world applications. Comprehensible systems are necessary to prevent biased, counterintuitive, or harmful decisions. We introduce semantic extents, a concept to analyze decision patterns for the relation classification task. Semantic extents are the most influential parts of texts concerning classification decisions. Our definition allows similar procedures to determine semantic extents for humans and models. We provide an annotation tool and a software framework to determine semantic extents for humans and models conveniently and reproducibly. Comparing both reveals that models tend to learn shortcut patterns from data. These patterns are hard to detect with current interpretability methods, such as input reductions. Our approach can help detect and eliminate spurious decision patterns during model development. Semantic extents can increase the reliability and security of natural language processing systems. Semantic extents are an essential step in enabling applications in critical areas like healthcare or finance. Moreover, our work opens new research directions for developing methods to explain deep learning models.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BuesgenKloeserKohletal.2022, author = {B{\"u}sgen, Andr{\´e} and Kl{\"o}ser, Lars and Kohl, Philipp and Schmidts, Oliver and Kraft, Bodo and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {Exploratory analysis of chat-based black market profiles with natural language processing}, series = {Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications}, isbn = {978-989-758-583-8}, issn = {2184-285X}, doi = {10.5220/0011271400003269}, pages = {83 -- 94}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Messenger apps like WhatsApp or Telegram are an integral part of daily communication. Besides the various positive effects, those services extend the operating range of criminals. Open trading groups with many thousand participants emerged on Telegram. Law enforcement agencies monitor suspicious users in such chat rooms. This research shows that text analysis, based on natural language processing, facilitates this through a meaningful domain overview and detailed investigations. We crawled a corpus from such self-proclaimed black markets and annotated five attribute types products, money, payment methods, user names, and locations. Based on each message a user sends, we extract and group these attributes to build profiles. Then, we build features to cluster the profiles. Pretrained word vectors yield better unsupervised clustering results than current state-of-the-art transformer models. The result is a semantically meaningful high-level overview of the user landscape of black market chatrooms. Additionally, the extracted structured information serves as a foundation for further data exploration, for example, the most active users or preferred payment methods.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BuesgenKloeserKohletal.2023, author = {B{\"u}sgen, Andr{\´e} and Kl{\"o}ser, Lars and Kohl, Philipp and Schmidts, Oliver and Kraft, Bodo and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {From cracked accounts to fake IDs: user profiling on German telegram black market channels}, series = {Data Management Technologies and Applications}, booktitle = {Data Management Technologies and Applications}, editor = {Cuzzocrea, Alfredo and Gusikhin, Oleg and Hammoudi, Slimane and Quix, Christoph}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-031-37889-8 (Print)}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-37890-4_9}, pages = {176 -- 202}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Messenger apps like WhatsApp and Telegram are frequently used for everyday communication, but they can also be utilized as a platform for illegal activity. Telegram allows public groups with up to 200.000 participants. Criminals use these public groups for trading illegal commodities and services, which becomes a concern for law enforcement agencies, who manually monitor suspicious activity in these chat rooms. This research demonstrates how natural language processing (NLP) can assist in analyzing these chat rooms, providing an explorative overview of the domain and facilitating purposeful analyses of user behavior. We provide a publicly available corpus of annotated text messages with entities and relations from four self-proclaimed black market chat rooms. Our pipeline approach aggregates the extracted product attributes from user messages to profiles and uses these with their sold products as features for clustering. The extracted structured information is the foundation for further data exploration, such as identifying the top vendors or fine-granular price analyses. Our evaluation shows that pretrained word vectors perform better for unsupervised clustering than state-of-the-art transformer models, while the latter is still superior for sequence labeling.}, language = {en} }