Austria

Information Extraction (IE) plays a pivotal role in transforming unstructured data into structured formats, such as Knowledge Graphs. One of the main tasks within IE is Relation Extraction (RE), which identifies relations between entities in text data. This process enriches the semantic understanding of documents, enabling more precise information retrieval and query answering. Recent works leveraging pre-trained language models have demonstrated significant performance improvements in RE. In the current era of Large Language Models (LLMs), fine-tuning these LLMs can mitigate the limitations of zero-shot RE methods, particularly in overcoming the domain adaptation challenges inherent in RE. This work explores not only the effectiveness of fine-tuned LLMs but also their integration into a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)-based RE approach to address domain adaptation challenges when general-purpose LLMs serve as generators within the RAG framework. Empirical evaluations on the TACRED, TACRED-Revisited (TACREV), and Re-TACRED datasets reveal substantial performance improvements with fine-tuned LLMs, such as Llama2-7B, Mistral-7B, and Flan-T5 Large and surpass previous methods on these datasets.

ACL 2025

Fine-Tuning Large Language Models for Relation Extraction within a Retrieval-Augmented Generation Framework

The purpose of the AAAI conference is to promote research in artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific exchange among AI researchers, practitioners, scientists, and engineers in affiliated disciplines. 

AAAI 2021

workshop paper

### Welcome to The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025)

Message from the General Chair: 
*It is my great pleasure and honor to welcome you to the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025), held in beautiful Vienna, Austria, from July 27 to August 1, 2025. ACL2025continues our field’s tradition of excellence in scholarship, innovation, and inclusivity, and I am deeply grateful to the many volunteers who have worked tirelessly to bring this event to life.* 
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Welcome to The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025)

This paper compares two approaches for table extraction from images: deep learning computer vision and Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs). Computer vision models for table extraction, such as the Table Transformer model (TATR), have enhanced the extraction of complex table structural layouts by leveraging deep learning for precise structural recognition combined with traditional Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Conversely, MLLMs, which process both text and image inputs, present a novel approach by potentially bypassing the limitations of TATR plus OCR methods altogether. Models such as GPT-4o, Phi-3 Vision, and Granite Vision 3.2 demonstrate the potential of MLLMs to analyze and interpret table images directly, offering enhanced accuracy and robust extraction capabilities. A state-of-the-art metric like Grid Table Similarity (GriTS) evaluated these methodologies, providing nuanced insights into structural and text content effectiveness. Utilizing the PubTables-1M dataset, a comprehensive and widely used benchmark in the field, this study highlights the strengths and limitations of each approach, setting the stage for future innovations in table extraction technologies. Deep learning computer vision techniques still have a slight edge when extracting table structural layout, but in terms of text cell content, MLLMs are far better.

Benchmarking Table Extraction: Multimodal LLMs vs Traditional OCR

While LLMs have grown popular in sequence labeling, linear-chain conditional
random fields (CRFs) remain a popular alternative
with the ability to directly model interactions between labels.
However, the Markov assumption limits them to interactions between adjacent labels.
Weighted finite-state transducers (FSTs), in contrast, can model
distant label–label interactions, but exact label inference is intractable in general.
In this work, we present regular-pattern-sensitive
CRFs (RPCRFs), a method of enriching standard
linear-chain CRFs with the ability to learn
long-distance label interactions through user-specified patterns.
This approach allows users to write regular-expression
label patterns concisely specifying which types of interactions
the model should take into account, allowing
the model to learn from data whether and in
which contexts these patterns occur. The result
can be interpreted alternatively as a CRF augmented with additional,
non-local potentials,
or as a finite-state transducer whose structure
is defined by a set of easily-interpretable patterns.
Critically, exact training and inference
are tractable for many pattern sets. We detail
how an RPCRF can be automatically constructed from a set of user-specified patterns,
and demonstrate the model’s effectiveness on
a sequence of three synthetic sequence modeling datasets.

Regular-pattern-sensitive CRFs for Distant Label Interactions

Probing techniques for large language models (LLMs) have primarily focused on English, overlooking the vast majority of other world's languages. In this paper, we extend these probing methods to a multilingual context, investigating how LLMs encode linguistic structures across diverse languages. We conduct experiments on several open-source LLM models, analyzing probing accuracy, trends across layers, and similarities between probing vectors for multiple languages. Our key findings reveal: (1) a consistent performance gap between high-resource and low-resource languages, with high-resource languages achieving significantly higher probing accuracy; (2) divergent layer-wise accuracy trends, where high-resource languages show substantial improvement in deeper layers similar to English; and (3) higher representational similarities among high-resource languages, with low-resource languages demonstrating lower similarities both among themselves and with high-resource languages. These results provide insights into how linguistic structures are represented differently across languages in LLMs and emphasize the need for improved structure modeling for low-resource languages.

Exploring Multilingual Probing in Large Language Models: A Cross-Language Analysis

Text-to-SQL is a task with excellent prospects and challenges, and it aims to convert natural language queries (NL) into corresponding structured query language (SQL) statements. The main challenge of this task is how to efficiently transform unstructured data and structured data. In recent years, the emergence of large language models (LLMs) has further promoted the development of this field. However, current LLM-based text-to-SQL methods rely on specific few-shot example construction, resulting in poor performance across domains. To solve this problem, we propose a text-to-SQL method of self-contrastive loop of thought structure. This method designs the LLM inference process as a loop structure based on the comparison of positive and negative examples. The model optimizes the generated results through continuous verification and error correction, greatly improving accuracy and reducing dependence on few-shot example construction. The experimental results on SPIDER and BIRD datasets show that this method can generate SQL with higher precision without relying on few-shot example construction.

Self-Contrastive Loop of Thought Method for Text-to-SQL Based on Large Language Model

This paper addresses the constraints of down-stream applications of pre-trained language models (PLMs) for low-resource languages. These constraints are pre-train data deficiency preventing a low-resource language from being well represented in a PLM and inaccessibility of high-quality task-specific data annotation that limits task learning. We propose to use automatically labeled texts combined with manually annotated data in a two-stage task fine-tuning approach. The experiments revealed that utilizing such methodology combined with vocabulary adaptation may compensate for the absence of a targeted PLM or the deficiency of manually annotated data. The methodology is validated on the morphological tagging task for the Udmurt language. We publish our best model that achieved 93.25% token accuracy on HuggingFace Hub along with the training code1.

Combining Automated and Manual Data for Effective Downstream Fine-Tuning of Transformers for Low-Resource Language Applications

Transformer-based models have demonstrated significant success in various source code representation tasks. Nonetheless, traditional positional embeddings employed by these models inadequately capture the hierarchical structure intrinsic to source code, typically represented as Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs). To address this, we propose a novel tree-based positional embedding approach that explicitly encodes hierarchical relationships derived from ASTs, including node depth and sibling indices. These hierarchical embeddings are integrated into the transformer architecture, specifically enhancing the CodeBERTa model. We thoroughly evaluate our proposed model through masked language modeling (MLM) pretraining and clone detection fine-tuning tasks. Experimental results indicate that our Tree-Enhanced CodeBERTa consistently surpasses the baseline model in terms of loss, accuracy, F1 score, precision, and recall, emphasizing the importance of incorporating explicit structural information into transformer-based representations of source code.

Seamlessly Integrating Tree-Based Positional Embeddings into Transformer Models for Source Code Representation

We investigate the capabilities of the openly available Llama 3.2 1B language model for Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) parsing through supervised fine-tuning, further enhanced by reinforcement learning via Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO). Existing supervised methods for AMR parsing face limitations due to static loss functions and challenges in capturing complex semantic phenomena. To address this, our GRPO-based approach explicitly optimizes fine-grained semantic rewards, including Smatch scores, frame-argument correctness, and structural validity of logical operations. Experimental results show that supervised fine-tuning alone establishes Llama as a capable English AMR parser, and subsequent GRPO fine-tuning further improves its performance. Our final model achieves higher Smatch scores, consistently respects critical low-level semantic constraints, and outperforms existing parsers on high-level semantic evaluation metrics across diverse linguistic phenomena.

Enhancing AMR Parsing with Group Relative Policy Optimization

Non-factoid question answering (NFQA) poses a significant challenge due to its open-ended nature, diverse intents, and the necessity for multi-aspect reasoning, rendering conventional retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) approaches insufficient. To address this, we introduce Typed-RAG, a type-aware framework utilizing multi-aspect query decomposition tailored specifically for NFQA. Typed-RAG categorizes NFQs into distinct types—such as debate, experience, and comparison—and decomposes them into single-aspect sub-queries for targeted retrieval and generation. By synthesizing the retrieved results of these sub-queries, Typed-RAG generates more informative and contextually relevant responses. Additionally, we present Wiki-NFQA, a novel benchmark dataset encompassing diverse NFQ types. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that TypeRAG consistently outperforms baseline approaches, confirming the effectiveness of type-aware decomposition in improving both retrieval quality and answer generation for NFQA tasks.

Typed-RAG: Type-Aware Decomposition of Non-Factoid Questions for Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Aspect sentiment quad prediction (ASQP) facilitates a detailed understanding of opinions expressed in a text by identifying the opinion term, aspect term, aspect category and sentiment polarity for each opinion. However, annotating a full set of training examples to fine-tune models for ASQP is a resource-intensive process. In this study, we explore the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) for zero- and few-shot learning on the ASQP task across five diverse datasets. We report F1 scores almost up to par with those obtained with state-of-the-art fine-tuned models and exceeding previously reported zero- and few-shot performance. In the 20-shot setting on the Rest16 restaurant domain dataset, LLMs achieved an F1 score of 51.54, compared to 60.39 by the best-performing fine-tuned method MVP. Additionally, we report the performance of LLMs in target aspect sentiment detection (TASD), where the F1 scores were close to fine-tuned models, achieving 68.93 on Rest16 in the 30-shot setting, compared to 72.76 with MVP. While human annotators remain essential for achieving optimal performance, LLMs can reduce the need for extensive manual annotation in ASQP tasks.

Do we still need Human Annotators? Prompting Large Language Models for Aspect Sentiment Quad Prediction

Large language models (LLMs) have advanced document-level relation extraction (DocRE), but DocRE is more complex than sentence-level relation extraction (SentRE), facing challenges like diverse relation types, coreference resolution and long-distance dependencies. Traditional pipeline methods, which detect relations before generating triplets, often propagate errors and harm performance. Meanwhile, fine-tuning methods require extensive human-annotated data, and in-context learning (ICL) underperforms compared to supervised approaches. We propose an iterative reflection framework for DocRE, inspired by human non-linear reading cognition. The framework leverages explicit and implicit relations between triplets to provide feedback for LLMs refinement. Explicit feedback uses logical rules-based reasoning, while implicit feedback reconstructs triplets into documents for comparison. This dual-process iteration mimics human semantic cognition, enabling dynamic optimization through self-generated supervision. For the first time, this achieves zero-shot performance comparable to fully supervised models. Experiments show our method surpasses existing LLM-based approaches and matches state-of-the-art BERT-based methods.

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Benchmarking Table Extraction: Multimodal LLMs vs Traditional OCR

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Re-TACRED: Addressing Shortcomings of the TACRED Dataset