=head1 NAME

WordNet::SenseRelate::TargetWord - modules for performing word sense
disambiguation.

=head1 DESCRIPTION

In this section, we list the modules provided in the package. A short
description of each is provided alongside.

=over

=item Preprocessing modules

Currently, only one preprocessing module is provided in the package:

=over

=item WordNet::SenseRelate::Preprocess::Compounds

This module detects collocations within the text, and joins them with
underscores. For example, a piece of text such as "the board of directors"
would become "the board_of_directors".

=back

=item Context Selection modules

One context selection module is provided in the package:

=over

=item WordNet::SenseRelate::Context::NearestWords

This modules picks the N words nearest the target word as the context words
that should be used by the disambiguation algorithm. A stop list can be
specified to omit words like "a", "an, "the", etc. The value N can be set
during initialization.

=back

=item Postprocessing modules

As of this vesion, there are no postprocessing modules in the
package. However, we intend to add some in future releases.

=item Sense Selection Algorithm

Four sense selection algorithm modules are provided in the pacakge:

=over

=item WordNet::SenseRelate::Algorithm::Local

This modules selects that sense of the target word which is most related to
the senses of the context words. To do this it uses the "Local"
disambiguation algorithm as described by Banerjee and Pedersen (2002). In
order to determine the relatedness of senses, the algorithm uses one of the
WordNet::Similarity measures of relatedness. Using the configuration
options for this module, the user can specify which measure the algorithm
should use.

=item WordNet::SenseRelate::Algorithm::Global

This modules selects that sense of the target word which is most related to
the senses of the context words. To do this it uses the "Global"
disambiguation algorithm as described by Banerjee and Pedersen (2002). This
algorithm is somewhat similar to the "Local" algorithm. It differs from the
"Local" algorithm, in that it forms all possible combinations of the senses
of the context words, and evaluates the semantic relatedness for each
combination separately. The combination with the maximum score is is
selected, and the sense of the target word in that combination is returned
as the answer.

=item WordNet::SenseRelate::Algorithm::SenseOne

This module provides a baseline for the disambiguation process by always
returning the first sense of the target word as the answer.

=item WordNet::SenseRelate::Algorithm::Random

This module provides another baseline by randomly selecting one of the
senses of the target word as the answer.

=back

=back

Apart from all of the modules mentioned above that form the pieces of the
bigger structure, the package also contains the
WordNet::SenseRelate::TargetWord module which combines the above pieces.

In order to use these modules in a Perl program for Word Sense
Disambiguation, we need only create an instance of the
WordNet::SenseRelate::TargetWord module in our program, and provide it with
options that indicate which of the above modules (along with configuration
options) it should use in the disambiguation process.

Additionally, in order to be able to use this package for disambiguating
instances from the Senseval2 or the Senseval3 data sets, the
WordNet::SenseRelate::Reader::Senseval2 module has also been provided in
the package. The reader module reads in an entire Senseval2 formatted XML
file and builds a list of instances from the file. A Perl program can then
iterate over these instances and pass them to the
WordNet::SenseRelate::TargetWord object.

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/senserelate>

L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/WordNet-SenseRelate-TargetWord>

L<http://senserelate.sourceforge.net>

=head1 AUTHORS

 Siddharth Patwardhan, University of Utah, Salt Lake City
 sidd at cs.utah.edu

 Satanjeev Banerjee, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
 banerjee+ at cs.cmu.edu

 Ted Pedersen, University of Minnesota Duluth
 tpederse at d.umn.edu

=head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2005 Siddharth Patwardhan, Ted Pedersen, and Satanjeev
Banerjee

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
Texts.

Note: a copy of the GNU Free Documentation License is available on
the web at L<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html> and is included in
this distribution as FDL.txt.

=cut