Grad C: I guess I 'm just a little hesitant to try to go whole hog on sort of the the whole framework that that NIST is talking about , with ATLAS and a database and all that sort of stuff ,
PhD F: So Grad C: cuz it 's a big learning curve , just to get going .
PhD D: Hmm .
PhD A: Hmm .
Grad C: Whereas if we just do a flat file format , sure , it may not be as efficient but everyone can program in Perl and and use it .
PhD F: OK .
Grad C: Right ?
PhD A: But this is Grad C: So , as opposed to PhD A: I I 'm still , um , not convinced that you can do much at all on the text on the flat file that that you know , the text representation . e Because the text representation is gonna be , uh , not reflecting the structure of of your words and annotations . It 's just it 's Grad C: Well , if it 's not representing it , then how do you recover it ? Of course it 's representing it .
PhD A: No . You you have to what you have to do is you have to basically Grad C: That 's the whole point .
PhD A: Y yeah . You can use Perl to read it in and construct a internal representation that is essentially a lattice . But , the and then Grad C: OK .
PhD D: Yeah .
Grad C: Well , that was a different point .
PhD A: Right .
Grad C: Right ? So what I was saying is that PhD A: But that 's what you 'll have to do . Bec - be
Grad C: For Perl if you want to just do Perl . If you wanted to use the structured XML query language , that 's a different thing . And it 's a set of tools that let you specify given the D - DDT DTD of the document , um , what sorts of structural searches you want to do . So you want to say that , you know , you 're looking for , um , a tag within a tag within a particular tag that has this particular text in it , um , and , uh , refers to a particular value . And so the point isn't that an end - user , who is looking for a query like you specified , wouldn't program it in this language . What you would do is , someone would build a tool that used that as a library . So that they so that you wouldn't have to construct the internal representations yourself .
PhD F: Is a See , I think the kinds of questions , at least in the next to the end of this year , are there may be a lot of different ones , but they 'll all have a similar nature . They 'll be looking at either a word - level prosodic , uh , an a value ,
Grad C: Mm - hmm .
PhD F: like a continuous value , like the slope of something . But you know , we 'll do something where we some kind of data reduction where the prosodic features are sort o uh , either at the word - level or at the segment - level ,
Grad C: Right .
PhD F: or or something like that . They 're not gonna be at the phone - level and they 're no not gonna be at the frame - level when we get done with sort of giving them simpler shapes and things . And so the main thing is just being able Well , I guess , the two goals . Um , one that Chuck mentioned is starting out with something that we don't have to start over , that we don't have to throw away if other people want to extend it for other kinds of questions ,
Grad C: Right .
PhD F: and being able to at least get enough , uh , information out on where we condition the location of features on information that 's in the kind of file that you put up there . And that would that would do it ,
Grad C: Yeah . I think that there are quick and dirty solutions ,
PhD F: I mean , for me .
Grad C: and then there are long - term , big - infrastructure solutions . And so we want to try to pick something that lets us do a little bit of both .
PhD F: In the between , right . And especially that the representation doesn't have to be thrown away ,
Grad C: Um Right .
PhD F: even if your tools change .
Grad C: And so it seems to me that I mean , I have to look at it again to see whether it can really do what we want , but if we use the ATLAS external file representation , um , it seems like it 's rich enough that you could do quick tools just as I said in Perl , and then later on if we choose to go up the learning curve , we can use the whole ATLAS inter infrastructure ,
PhD F: Yeah . I mean , that sounds good to me .
Grad C: which has all that built in .
PhD F: I I don't So if if you would l look at that and let us know what you think .
Grad C: Sure .
PhD F: I mean , I think we 're sort of guinea pigs , cuz I I want to get the prosody work done but I don't want to waste time , you know , getting the PhD A: Oh , maybe PhD F: Yeah ?
PhD A: um Grad C: Well , I wouldn't wait for the formats , because anything you pick we 'll be able to translate to another form .
PhD A: Well Ma well , maybe you should actually look at it yourself too to get a sense of what it is you 'll you 'll be dealing with ,
PhD F: OK .
PhD A: because , um , you know , Adam might have one opinion but you might have another , so
Grad B: Yeah .
PhD F: Yeah , definitely .
PhD A: I think the more eyes look at this the better .
PhD F: Especially if there 's , e um you know , if someone can help with at least the the setup of the right Grad C: Hi , Jane .
PhD F: Oh , hi .
PhD A: Mmm .
PhD F: the right representation , then , i you know , I hope it won't We don't actually need the whole full - blown thing to be ready ,
Grad C: Can you Oh , well .
PhD F: so . Um , so maybe if you guys can look at it and sort of see what ,
Grad B: Yeah .
Grad C: Sure .
PhD F: um I think we 're we 're  we 're actually just Grad C: We 're about done .
PhD F: yeah ,
Grad B: Hmm .
PhD F: wrapping up , but , um Yeah , sorry , it 's a uh short meeting , but , um Well , I don't know . Is there anything else , like I mean that helps me a lot ,
Grad C: Well , I think the other thing we might want to look at is alternatives to P - file .
PhD F: but Grad C: I mean , th the reason I like P - file is I 'm already familiar with it , we have expertise here , and so if we pick something else , there 's the learning - curve problem . But , I mean , it is just something we developed at ICSI .
PhD A: Is there an is there an IP - API ?
Grad C: And so Yeah .
PhD A: OK .
Grad C: There 's an API for it . And , uh ,
PhD A: There used to be a problem that they get too large ,
Grad C: a bunch of libraries , P - file utilities .
PhD A: and so basically the uh the filesystem wouldn't Grad C: Well , that 's gonna be a problem no matter what . You have the two - gigabyte limit on the filesystem size . And we definitely hit that with Broadcast News .
PhD A: Maybe you could extend the API to , uh , support , uh , like splitting up , you know , conceptually one file into smaller files on disk so that you can essentially , you know , have arbitrarily long f
Grad C: Yep . Most of the tools can handle that .
PhD A: Yeah .
Grad C: So that we didn't do it at the API - level . We did it at the t tool - level . That that most many of them can s you can specify several P - files and they 'll just be done sequentially .
PhD A: OK .
Grad C: So .
PhD F: So , I guess , yeah , if if you and Don can if you can show him the P - file stuff and see .
Grad C: Sure .
PhD F: So this would be like for the F - zero Grad B: True .
Grad C: I mean , if you do " man P - file " or " apropos P - file " , you 'll see a lot .
Grad B: I 've used the P - file , I think . I 've looked at it at least , briefly , I think when we were doing s something .
PhD A: What does the P stand for anyway ?
Grad C: I have no idea .
Grad B: Oh , in there .
Grad C: I didn't de I didn't develop it . You know , it was I think it was Dave Johnson . So it 's all part of the Quicknet library . It has all the utilities for it .
PhD A: No , P - files were around way before Quicknet . P - files were were around when w with , um , RAP .
Grad C: Oh , were they ?
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
PhD A: Right ?
PhD F: It 's like the history of ICSI .
PhD A: You worked with P - files .
Grad C: Mm - hmm .
PhD F: Like PhD D: No .
PhD A: I worked with P - files .
PhD F: Yeah ?
PhD D: I don't remember what the " P " is , though .
PhD A: No .
Grad C: But there are ni they 're The Quicknet library has a bunch of things in it to handle P - files ,
PhD A: Yeah .
Grad C: so it works pretty well .
PhD A :
PhD F: And that isn't really , I guess , as important as the the main I don't know what you call it , the the main sort of word - level Grad C: Neither do I .
PhD D: Probably stands for " Phil " . Phil Kohn .
Grad C: It 's a Phil file ?
PhD D: Yeah . That 's my guess .
PhD F: Huh . OK . Well , that 's really useful . I mean , this is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to settle . Um , so Grad C: Yeah , I 've been meaning to look at the ATLAS stuff again anyway .
PhD F: Great .
Grad C: So , just keep PhD F: Yeah . I guess it 's also sort of a political deci I mean , if if you feel like that 's a community that would be good to tie into anyway , then it 's sounds like it 's worth doing .
Grad C: Yeah , I think it it w
PhD A: j I think there 's Grad C: And , w uh , as I said , I what I did with this stuff I based it on theirs . It 's just they hadn't actually come up with an external format yet . So now that they have come up with a format , it doesn't it seems pretty reasonable to use it .
PhD A: Mmm .
Grad C: But let me look at it again .
PhD F: OK , great .
Grad C: As I said , that PhD F: Cuz we actually can start Grad C: There 's one level there 's one more level of indirection and I 'm just blanking on exactly how it works . I gotta look at it again .
PhD F: I mean , we can start with , um , I guess , this input from Dave 's , which you had printed out , the channelized input . Cuz he has all of the channels , you know , with the channels in the tag and stuff like that .
Grad C: Yeah , I 've seen it .
PhD F: So that would be i directly ,
Grad C: Yep . Easy easy to map .

Summary: Since the team is familiar with Perl and a flat file format is easier, it was suggested that the cost of learning a new framework, like ATLAS, might be too high. It was suggested that ATLAS be used for the external file representation initially, and if it seems suitable, then it should be adopted in its entirety. P files were also discussed but the problem with them was that they could still get pretty big.