# A Cloud-Native Web Application for Assisted Metadata Generation and Retrieval: THESPIAN-NER +
## 6 Discussion  
In the present work, THESPIAN-NER, a cloud-native web application for assisted, AI-powered metadata generation and custom query creation, has been presented and discussed. It is currently available to researches in the 4 CH Cloud as a part of the INFN-CHNet SaaS cloud suite, embedded therein, as explained in the text.  
The service's two deep neural NLP networks, ArcheoNER and hsNER, have been presented in detail. These models were developed by customising the spaCy v3 models and were trained by using transfer learning on two ad hoc datasets to identify named entities having archaeological and/or scientific significance. The outcomes coming from the two models may not seem completely satisfactory at first glance, due to their relatively low scores, but they can be nevertheless considered adequate for the purpose of the development of the application itself. It is important to stress here that additional work is needed to improve the NER models, either by exploring different model architectures or by enlarging and diversifying the training datasets.  
Nonetheless, these two models enabled us to create and deploy the online service THESPIAN-NER, deferring the task of optimising the model performances in favour of providing users with quick access to the cloud-native web application for either semiautomatically generating their custom queries or metadata form.  
THESPIAN-NER, together with the aforementioned THESPIAN-Mask, THESPIAN-XRF, and THESPIAN-RadioCarbonApp, constitute the THESPIAN suite of applications that have been ported to a cloud-native environment. In such respect, the activities carried out to integrate the application in the 4 CH cloud platform have been presented and discussed, together with the architectural design and definition of the related cloud platform.  
To properly integrate web application in a cloud-oriented environment, as an added value, procedures have been presented and described with the aim to define real guidelines to be established within the 4 CH community.  
In particular, the individual contribution is reported hereafter. Conceptualization, A.C.; Methodology, A.B.; Software, A.B., A.A. and L.C.; Formal analysis, A.B.; Data curation, A.F.; Writing--original draft, A.B. and A.A.; Writing--review & editing, F.G. and A.C.; Project administration, A.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
The present work has been partially funded by the European Commission within the Framework Programme Horizon 2020 with the project 4 CH (GA n.101004468--4 CH). The work of AB was funded by the research grant titled \"4 CH operating platform and cultural heritage cloud\" and funded by Project 4 CH.  
Not applicable.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.  
The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:  
\begin{tabular}{l l} INFN & Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare \\ CHNet & Cultural Heritage Network \\ CH & Cultural Heritage \\ FAIR & Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Accessible \\ NLP & Natural Language Processing \\ NER & Named Entity Recognition \\
4 CH & Competence Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage \\ CC & Competence Centre \\ EOSC & European Open Science Cloud \\ THESPIAN & Tools for HErtitage Science Processing, Integration, and ANalysis \\ UX & User eXperience \\ IaaS & Infrastructure-as-a-Service \\ PaaS & Platform-as-a-Service \\ SaaS & Software-as-a-Service \\ IaC & Infrastructure-as-Code \\ ICT & Information and Communication Technology \\ JWT & JSON Web Token \\ \end{tabular}