TDS version info

The TDS revision id is: 3584 (Fri Nov 5 13:40:00 CET 2010).

TDS project information

The TDS project has been carried out by a research group of the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT), with members representing the University of Amsterdam, Leiden University, Radboud University Nijmegen, and Utrecht University. It was financed through a grant by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and by the participating universities.

The initial phase of the project was started in September 2000, and the project entered the implementation phase on 1 May 2004. Originally scheduled to run for three years, it has been extended until 31 December 2007. In 2008 and 2009 man power was still available to maintain the TDS software and server, and to add new databases to the system.

A CLARIN-NL Call 1 project proposal, TDS-Curator, has been rewarded and in the second half of 2010 the TDS architecture will be partially redesigned and the implementation revised to meet the IDDF vision as described in some of the recent paper (see below).

The TDS flyer provides an overview of the TDS.

Maintenance team (2008 - 2009)

• Alexis Dimitriadis, database integration and domain expert (Utrecht institute of Linguistics (Uil-OTS))
• Kees Hengeveld, database integration and domain expert (University of Amsterdam)
• Dirk van der Meulen, student assistant (University of Amsterdam) (November 2008 - September 2009)
• Menzo Windhouwer, software system designer and developer (University of Amsterdam)

Development team (2004 - 2007)

• Tamás Biró, linguistic design and database integration (University of Amsterdam) (October 2006 - October 2007)
• Alexis Dimitriadis, project manager (Utrecht institute of Linguistics (UiL-OTS)) (April 2004 - December 2007)
• Rob Goedemans, database integration and phonology domain expert (Leiden University) (August 2004 - August 2007)
• Hans van Halteren, database developer (Radboud University Nijmegen) (2004 - 2006)
• Ruth Lind, intern (Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (UiL-OTS)) (December 2005 - February 2006)
• Adam Saulwick, ontology developer and typologist (University of Amsterdam) (August 2004 - August 2006)
• Eugenie Stapert, student assistant (University of Amsterdam) (March 2005 - January 2006)
• Franca Wesseling, student assistant (University of Amsterdam) (April 2006 - August 2007)
• Menzo Windhouwer, software system designer and developer (University of Amsterdam) (April 2004 - December 2007)

Steering Committee (2004 - 2007)

• Martin Everaert (Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (UiL-OTS))
• Kees Hengeveld, chair (University of Amsterdam)
• Roeland van Hout (Radboud University Nijmegen)
• Pieter Muysken (Radboud University Nijmegen)
• John Nerbonne (University of Groningen)
• Peter Wittenburg (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen)

Setup phase

• Dik Bakker
• Alexis Dimitriadis
• Rob Goedemans
• Kees Hengeveld
• Roeland van Hout
• Anne-Marie Mineur
• Paola Monachesi
• Pieter Muysken
• Manuela Pinto
• Leon Stassen

Component databases

The component databases available through the TDS were independently created by researchers who generously agreed to make them publically available through the TDS interface. The databases page describes the databases currently included in the TDS.

TDS publications

Papers

• A. Dimitriadis, M. Windhouwer, A. Saulwick, R. Goedemans, T. Bíró. How to integrate databases without starting a typology war: The Typological Database System. In S. Musgrave, M. Everaert and A. Dimitriadis (eds.), The use of databases in cross-linguistic research, Mouton de Gruyter, March 2009.
• M. Windhouwer, A. Dimitriadis. Sustainable operability: Keeping complex resources alive. In Proceedings of the LREC workshop on Sustainability of Language Resources and Tools for Natural Language Processing (SustainableNLP08 ), Marrakech, Morocco, May 31, 2008.
• A. Dimitriadis. Managing Differences: The TDS Approach. In Proceedings of the E-MELD Workshop on Toward the Interoperability of Language Resources (E-MELD 2007 ), Stanford, CA, July 13-15, 2007. Position paper.
• A. Dimitriadis, A. Saulwick, M. Windhouwer. Semantic relations in ontology mediated linguistic data integration. In Proceedings of the E-MELD Workshop on Morphosyntactic Annotation and Terminology: Linguistic Ontologies and Data Categories for Linguistic Resources (E-MELD 2005 ), Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 1-3, 2005.
• A. Saulwick, M. Windhouwer, A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans. Distributed tasking in ontology mediated integration of typological databases for linguistic research. In J. Castro and E. Teniente, Proceedings of the CAiSE'05 Workshops (International Workshop on Data Integration and the Semantic Web (DISWeb'05) in conjuction with CAiSE'05 ), Volume I, pp 303-317, Porto, Portugal, June 14, 2005.
• A. Dimitriadis, P. Monachesi. Integrating Different Data Types in a Typological Database System. In P. Austin, H. Dry and P. Wittenburg (eds.), Proceedings of the International Workshop on Resources and Tools in Field Linguistics, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain, 2002.
• P. Monachesi, A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, A. Mineur, M. Pinto. A Unified System for Accessing Typological Databases. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 3), Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain, 2002.
• P. Monachesi, A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, A. Mineur, M. Pinto. The Typological Database System. In S. Bird, P. Buneman and M. Liberman (eds.), Proceedings of the IRCS Workshop on Linguistic Databases, pp 181-186, Philadelphia, 2001

Presentations and demonstrations

• M.A. Windhouwer, A. Dimitriadis. Sustainable operability: Keepin complex linguistic resourcec alive. CLIN 20, Utrecht, The Netherlands, February 5, 2010.
• M.A. Windhouwer. A TDS perspective on interoperability and sustainability. Workshop on Small Tools for Cross-Linguistic Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands, June 15-16, 2009.
• M.A. Windhouwer, A. Dimitriadis. Sustainable operability: Keeping complex resources alive. FIDLR-start workshop, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 21, 2008.
• T. Bíró, A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, K. Hengeveld, A. Saulwick and M. Windhouwer. Typological Database System. Twaalfde Taalgala, Utrecht, The Netherlands, November 16, 2007.
• T. Bíró, A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, K. Hengeveld, A. Saulwick and M. Windhouwer. TDS launch. Association for Linguistic Typology - 7th Biennial Meeting (ALT7 ), Paris, France, September 25-28, 2007.
• A. Dimitriadis, M. Windhouwer, A. Saulwick, T. Bíró, R. Goedemans and K. Hengeveld. Integrated access to diverse linguistic databases with the Typological Database System. Association for Linguistic Typology - 7th Biennial Meeting (ALT7 ), Paris, France, September 25-28, 2007. (French translation )
• A. Dimitriadis. The Typological Database System. E-MELD Workshop on Toward the Interoperability of Language Resources (E-MELD 2007 ), Stanford, CA, July 13-15, 2007.
• A. Saulwick, R. Goedemans, A. Dimitriadis, M. Windhouwer. Architecture and procedures for the integration of linguistic databases in the Typological Database System. 28th Annual meeting of the German Society for Linguistics (DGfS 2006 ), Bielefeld, Germany, February 22-24, 2006.
• M. Windhouwer, A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, A. Saulwick. Semantic Integration of Typological Databases. Dutch-Belgian Database Day (DBDBD 2005 ), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 31, 2005.
• A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, A. Saulwick, M. Windhouwer. Typological Database System: Ontology mediated integration of typological databases for linguistic research. Proceedings of the 8^th Int'l Protégé Conference (Protégé 2005 ), Madrid, Spain, July 18-21, 2005.
• A. Dimitriadis, R. Goedemans, A. Saulwick, M. Windhouwer. The Typological Database System: Integrated access to diverse typological databases. In Proceedings of the E-MELD Workshop on Morphosyntactic Annotation and Terminology: Linguistic Ontologies and Data Categories for Linguistic Resources (E-MELD 2005 ), Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 1-3, 2005.

TDS on the web

• The TDS project page at the University of Amsterdam, a TDS partner institution.
• The TDS case study page at 1060 Research, the developers of NetKernel.

The TDS implementation

The TDS front end and back end are developed with the help of open source software:

• ODBTP provides us access to MS Windows-based ODBC databases,
• 1060 NetKernel provides the infrastructure to build a Web frontend using various XML -based technologies,
• Saxon provides the XQuery and XSLT 2.0 implementation which enables us to query the database XML dumps and style the answers,
• Backbase provides many rich user interface enhancements to make the TDS web interface a usable one,
• some of the icons in the interface were taken from the Sweetie free icon set, and
• Protégé provides us, through the OWL plugin , with a graphical user interface to edit the OWL -based ontology.

The TDS is open source

The TDS server relies on open source software for much of its functionality, and is itself open source. However, we didn't get around to make it available as a downloadable and easy installable bundle. But you can receive the latest version by sending a request to the TDS project.

The TDS disclaimer

Read the TDS disclaimer.