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<! |
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<! |
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BioC is designed to allow programs that process text and |
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annotations on that text to easily share data and work |
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together. This DTD describes how that data is represented in XML |
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files. |
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Some believe XML is easily read by humans and that should be |
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supported by clearly formatting the elements. In the long run, |
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this is distracting. While the only meaningful spaces are in text |
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elements and the other spaces can be ignored, current tools add no |
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additional space. Formatters and editors may be used to make the |
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XML file appear more readable. |
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The possible variety of annotations that one might want to produce |
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or use is nearly countless. There is no guarantee that these are |
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organized in the nice nested structure required for XML |
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elements. Even if they were, it would be nice to easily ignore |
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unwanted annotations. So annotations are recorded in a stand off |
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manner, external to the annotated text. The exceptions are |
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passages and sentences because of their fundamental place in text. |
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The text is expected to be encoded in Unicode, specifically |
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UTF-8. This is one of the encodings required to be implemented by |
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XML tools, is portable between big-endian and little-endian |
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machines and is a superset of 7-bit ASCII. Code points beyond 127 |
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may be expressed directly in UTF-8 or indirectly using numeric |
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entities. Since many tools today still only directly process |
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ASCII characters, conversion should be available and |
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standardized. Offsets should be in 8 bit code units (bytes) for |
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easier processing by naive programs. |
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collection: Group of documents, usually from a larger corpus. If |
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a group of documents is from several corpora, use several |
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collections. |
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source: Name of the source corpus from which the documents were selected |
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date: Date documents extracted from original source. Can be as |
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simple as yyyymmdd or an ISO timestamp. |
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key: Separate file describing the infons used and any other useful |
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information about the data in the file. For example, if a file |
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includes part-of-speech tags, this file should describe the set of |
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part-of-speech tags used. |
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infon: key-value pairs. Can record essentially arbitrary |
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information. "type" will be a particular common key in the major |
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sub elements below. For PubMed references, passage "type" might |
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signal "title" or "abstract". For annotations, it might indicate |
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"noun phrase", "gene", or "disease". In the programming language |
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data structures, infons are typically represented as a map from a |
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string to a string. This means keys should be unique within each |
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parent element. |
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document: A document in the collection. A single, complete |
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stand-alone document as described by its parent source. |
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id: Typically, the id of the document in the parent |
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source. Should at least be unique in the collection. |
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passage: One portion of the document. In the sample collection of |
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PubMed documents, each document has a title and frequently an |
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abstract. Structured abstracts could have additional passages. For |
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a full text document, passages could be sections such as |
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Introduction, Materials and Methods, or Conclusion. Another option |
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would be paragraphs. Passages impose a linear structure on the |
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document. Further structure in the document can be described by |
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infon values. |
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offset: Where the passage occurs in the parent document. Depending |
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on the source corpus, this might be a very relevant number. They |
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should be sequential and identify a passage's position in the |
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document. Since the sample PubMed collection is extracted from an |
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XML file, literal offsets have little value. The title is given an |
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offset of zero, while the abstract is assumed to begin after the |
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title and one space. |
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text: The original text of the passage. |
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sentence: One sentence of the passage. |
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offset: A document offset to where the sentence begins in the |
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passage. This value is the sum of the passage offset and the local |
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offset within the passage. |
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text: The original text of the sentence. |
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annotation: Stand-off annotation |
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id: Used to refer to this annotation in relations. Should be |
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unique at whatever level relations at appear. If relations appear |
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at the sentence level, annotation ids need to be unique within |
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each sentence. Similarly, if relations appear at the passage |
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level, annotation ids need to be unique within each passage. |
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location: Location of the annotated text. Multiple locations |
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indicate a multi-span annotation. |
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offset: Document offset to where the annotated text begins in |
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the passage or sentence. The value is the sum of the passage or |
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sentence offset and the local offset within the passage or |
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sentence. |
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length: Length of the annotated text. While unlikely, this could |
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be zero to describe an annotation that belongs between two |
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characters. |
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text: Typically the annotated text. |
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relation: Relation between multiple annotations and / or other |
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relations. Relations are allowed to appear at several levels |
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(document, passage, and sentence). Typically they will all appear |
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at one level, the level at which they are determined. |
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Significantly different types of relations might appear at |
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different levels. |
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id: Used to refer to this relation in other relations. This id |
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needs to be unique at whatever level relations appear. (See |
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discussion of annotation ids.) |
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refid: Id of an annotation or an other relation. |
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role: Describes how the referenced annotattion or other relation |
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participates in the current relation. Has a default value so it |
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can be left out if there is no meaningful value. |
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--> |
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<!ELEMENT collection ( source, date, key, infon*, document+ ) > |
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<!ELEMENT source (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ELEMENT date (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ELEMENT key (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ELEMENT infon (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ATTLIST infon key CDATA #REQUIRED > |
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<!ELEMENT document ( id, infon*, passage+, relation* ) > |
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<!ELEMENT id (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ELEMENT passage ( infon*, offset, ( ( text?, annotation* ) | sentence* ), relation* ) > |
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<!ELEMENT offset (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ELEMENT text (#PCDATA)> |
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<!ELEMENT sentence ( infon*, offset, text?, annotation*, relation* ) > |
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<!ELEMENT annotation ( infon*, location*, text ) > |
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<!ATTLIST annotation id CDATA #IMPLIED > |
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<!ELEMENT location EMPTY> |
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<!ATTLIST location offset CDATA #REQUIRED > |
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<!ATTLIST location length CDATA #REQUIRED > |
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<!ELEMENT relation ( infon*, node* ) > |
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<!ATTLIST relation id CDATA #IMPLIED > |
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<!ELEMENT node EMPTY> |
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<!ATTLIST node refid CDATA #REQUIRED > |
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<!ATTLIST node role CDATA "" > |
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