The TTLab (Text Technology Lab), headed by Prof. Alexander Mehler, is part of the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics (Fachbereich Informatik und Mathematik) at the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt. It investigates formal, algorithmic models to deepen our understanding of information processing in the humanities. We examine diachronic, time-dependent as well as synchronic aspects of processing linguistic and non-linguistic, multimodal signs. The Lab works across several disciplines to bridge between computer science on the one hand and corpus-based research in the humanities on the other. To this end, we develop information models and algorithms for the analysis of texts, images, and other objects relevant to research in the humanities.
News
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New publication accepted at DHd 2025
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The following publication was accepted at the DHd 2025 in Bielefeld, Germany (03. – 07.03.2025).
DUUI: A Toolbox for the Construction of a new Kind of Natural Language Processing
2025. DUUI: A Toolbox for the Construction of a new Kind of Natural Language Processing. Proceedings of the DHd 2025: Under Construction. Geisteswissenschaften und Data Humanities. accepted.BibTeX@inproceedings{Abrami:et:al:2025, author = {Abrami, Giuseppe and Baumartz, Daniel and Mehler, Alexander}, title = {DUUI: A Toolbox for the Construction of a new Kind of Natural Language Processing}, year = {2025}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the DHd 2025: Under Construction. Geisteswissenschaften und Data Humanities}, numpages = {3}, location = {Bielefeld, Germany}, series = {DHd 2025}, keywords = {duui}, note = {accepted} } -
Nomination for the Goethe-University Innovation Prize
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The Bundestags-Mine has been nominated for the Innovation Prize of the Goethe-University!
A final pitch will take place on December 10th, 2024 at 6 PM in the Festsaal Casino at Campus Westend. All the finalists will compete for the final ranking and the corresponding prize money, which is sponsored by the Sparkasse Foundation. If you’d like to join, tickets are freely avaiable on eventbrite.
The project idea was initiated through a lecture held by Prof. Dr. Alexander Mehler and Giuseppe Abrami. After the course ended, it was continued privately by one of the students, Kevin Bönisch, while maintaining contact with the Text Technology Lab. In 2023, the project was published in the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications series, again through the Text Technology Lab in conjuction with Sabine Wehnert from the Georg-Eckert-Institut.
The Bundestags-Mine leverages artificial intelligence to analyze various data formats from the German Bundestag, including plenary proceedings, polls, agenda items, and more. The processed data is curated within the platform and made available for download. All data is freely accessible and can be obtained directly from the Bundestags-Mine website. This approach enables personalized access to the vast amounts of data produced daily by the German Bundestag, making politics more accessible. Additionally, it utilizes state-of-the-art AI techniques for advanced analysis, including sentiment analysis, topic modeling, summarization, and more, provided by the tools that were developed within the Text Technology Lab.
The Text Technology Lab actively encourages students to go beyond expectations, supporting them in publishing their first scientific papers, bachelor’s or master’s theses, and, as demonstrated in this example, achieving distinguished awards. The lab also provides guidance and infrastructure for large-scale research projects when necessary.
So if you are interested in research projects, bachelor’s or master’s theses that align with our research, or have other inquiries, feel free to contact us.
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New publications published in the special issue New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia
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The following publications have been published in the special issue New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia:
Viki LibraRy: Collaborative Hypertext Browsing and Navigation in Virtual Reality
2024. Viki LibraRy: Collaborative Hypertext Browsing and Navigation in Virtual Reality. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 0(0):1–31.BibTeX@article{Boenisch:et:al:2024:b, author = {B\"{o}nisch, Kevin and Mehler, Alexander and Babbili, Shaduan and Heinrich, Yannick and Stephan, Philipp and Abrami, Giuseppe}, abstract = {We present Viki LibraRy, a dynamically built library in virtual reality (VR) designed to visualize hypertext systems, with an emphasis on collaborative interaction and spatial immersion. Viki LibraRy goes beyond traditional methods of text distribution by providing a platform where users can share, process, and engage with textual information. It operates at the interface of VR, collaborative learning and spatial data processing to make reading tangible and memorable in a spatially mediated way. The article describes the building blocks of Viki LibraRy, its underlying architecture, and several use cases. It evaluates Viki LibraRy in comparison to a conventional web interface for text retrieval and reading. The article shows that Viki LibraRy provides users with spatial references for structuring their recall, so that they can better remember consulted texts and their meta-information (e.g. in terms of subject areas and content categories)}, title = {{Viki LibraRy: Collaborative Hypertext Browsing and Navigation in Virtual Reality}}, journal = {New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia}, volume = {0}, number = {0}, pages = {1--31}, year = {2024}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, doi = {10.1080/13614568.2024.2383581}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2024.2383581}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2024.2383581} }Geo-spatial Hypertext in Virtual Reality: Mapping and Navigating Global News Event Spaces
2024. Geo-spatial hypertext in virtual reality: mapping and navigating global news event spaces. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 0(0):1–30.BibTeX@article{Schrottenbacher:et:al:2024, author = {Schrottenbacher, Patrick and Mehler, Alexander and Berg, Theresa and Hustedt, Jasper and Gagel, Julian and Lüttig, Timo and Abrami, Giuseppe}, title = {Geo-spatial hypertext in virtual reality: mapping and navigating global news event spaces}, journal = {New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia}, volume = {0}, number = {0}, pages = {1--30}, year = {2024}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, doi = {10.1080/13614568.2024.2383601}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2024.2383601}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2024.2383601}, abstract = {Every day, a myriad of events take place that are documented and shared online through news articles from a variety of sources. As a result, as users navigate the Web, the volume of data can lead to information overload, making it difficult to find specific details about an event. We present News in Time and Space (NiTS) to address this issue: NiTS is a fully immersive system integrated into Va.Si.Li-Lab that organises textual information in a geospatial hypertext system in virtual reality. With NiTS, users can visualise, filter and interact with information currently based on GDELT on a virtual globe providing document networks to analyse global events and trends. The article describes NiTS, its event semantics and architecture. It evaluates NiTS in comparison to a classic search engine website, extended by NiTSs information filtering capabilities to make it comparable. Our comparison with this website technology, which is directly linked to the user's usage habits, shows that NiTS enables comparable information exploration even if the users have little or no experience with VR. That is, we observe an equivalent search result behaviour, but with the advantage that VR allows users to get their results with a higher level of usability without distracting them from their tasks. Through its integration with Va.Si.Li-Lab, a simulation-based learning environment, NiTS can be used in simulations of learning processes aimed at studying critical online reasoning, where Va.Si.Li-Lab guarantees that this can be done in relation to individual or groups of learners.} }
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