AutoPrep: Natural Language Question-Aware Data Preparation with a Multi-Agent Framework

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Main Authors: Fan, Meihao, Fan, Ju, Tang, Nan, Cao, Lei, Li, Guoliang, Du, Xiaoyong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Fan, Meihao
Fan, Ju
Tang, Nan
Cao, Lei
Li, Guoliang
Du, Xiaoyong
author_facet Fan, Meihao
Fan, Ju
Tang, Nan
Cao, Lei
Li, Guoliang
Du, Xiaoyong
contents Answering natural language (NL) questions about tables, known as Tabular Question Answering (TQA), is crucial because it allows users to quickly and efficiently extract meaningful insights from structured data, effectively bridging the gap between human language and machine-readable formats. Many of these tables are derived from web sources or real-world scenarios, which require meticulous data preparation (or data prep) to ensure accurate responses. However, preparing such tables for NL questions introduces new requirements that extend beyond traditional data preparation. This question-ware data preparation involves specific tasks such as column derivation and filtering tailored to particular questions, as well as question-aware value normalization or conversion, highlighting the need for a more nuanced approach in this context. Because each of the above tasks is unique, a single model (or agent) may not perform effectively across all scenarios. In this paper, we propose AutoPrep, a large language model (LLM)-based multiagent framework that leverages the strengths of multiple agents, each specialized in a certain type of data prep, ensuring more accurate and contextually relevant responses. Given an NL question over a table, AutoPrep performs data prep through three key components. Planner: Determines a logical plan, outlining a sequence of high-level operations. Programmer: Translates this logical plan into a physical plan by generating the corresponding low-level code. Executor: Executes the generated code to process the table. To support this multi-agent framework, we design a novel Chain-ofClauses reasoning mechanism for high-level operation suggestion, and a tool-augmented method for low-level code generation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_10422
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AutoPrep: Natural Language Question-Aware Data Preparation with a Multi-Agent Framework
Fan, Meihao
Fan, Ju
Tang, Nan
Cao, Lei
Li, Guoliang
Du, Xiaoyong
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Answering natural language (NL) questions about tables, known as Tabular Question Answering (TQA), is crucial because it allows users to quickly and efficiently extract meaningful insights from structured data, effectively bridging the gap between human language and machine-readable formats. Many of these tables are derived from web sources or real-world scenarios, which require meticulous data preparation (or data prep) to ensure accurate responses. However, preparing such tables for NL questions introduces new requirements that extend beyond traditional data preparation. This question-ware data preparation involves specific tasks such as column derivation and filtering tailored to particular questions, as well as question-aware value normalization or conversion, highlighting the need for a more nuanced approach in this context. Because each of the above tasks is unique, a single model (or agent) may not perform effectively across all scenarios. In this paper, we propose AutoPrep, a large language model (LLM)-based multiagent framework that leverages the strengths of multiple agents, each specialized in a certain type of data prep, ensuring more accurate and contextually relevant responses. Given an NL question over a table, AutoPrep performs data prep through three key components. Planner: Determines a logical plan, outlining a sequence of high-level operations. Programmer: Translates this logical plan into a physical plan by generating the corresponding low-level code. Executor: Executes the generated code to process the table. To support this multi-agent framework, we design a novel Chain-ofClauses reasoning mechanism for high-level operation suggestion, and a tool-augmented method for low-level code generation.
title AutoPrep: Natural Language Question-Aware Data Preparation with a Multi-Agent Framework
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.10422