Tilburg University Faculty of Humanities, department of Communication and Information Sciences
Tilburg, 5000 LE (Noord-Brabant), 38 hours per week
Job description
Function title: PhD Researcher
Summary of the project
The ability to paraphrase, i.e. to say the same thing in another way, can serve a variety of purposes. It can serve to explain something or to provide feedback in dialogue. Generating shorter paraphrases is useful for subtitles or news feeds. Paraphrasing can also change the register of a text: from formal speak to street language, or from old-fashioned prose to present-day language. In the MEMPHIX project, a system is built that learns to generate paraphrases on the basis of examples. The project makes use of a memory-based translation system (MBMT), developed within the NWO VICI project "Implicit Linguistics". The MBMT technology can be straightforwardly trained on pairs of paraphrases. While the generation of paraphrases can be driven in the first place by surface similarities (leaving semantics completely implicit, just as in a statistical MT system), explicit semantic information may also play a role, such as the semantic roles of NPs and the coreference relations between NPs and pronouns. Such information may be computed through automatic means (parsing, semantic role labeling, co-reference resolution). The project will compare the direct implicit route with the use of explicitly computed semantics. This part of the project will join forces with an international effort of the ISO organization aimed at developing semantic annotation formalisms with a well-defined semantics. The project will make use of a richly annotated Dutch corpus of 1 million words developed in the STEVIN Daeso-project, consisting of pairs of texts that express paraphrased or at least comparable information from various domains. While the Dutch language will be a core object of study, the methods are language-independent, and so other paraphrasing corpora will be considered as well to explore alternative routes to gather paraphrase subcorpora beyond the 1 million word scale.
Requirements
Required education/skills:University Graduate
The candidate has an honours or (research) master degree (or equivalent) in communication & information sciences, computational linguistics, or a relevant related area, with a a background in statistical NLP and/or machine learning, corpus linguistics, and computational semantics, and with some experience in programming. The candidate is expected to have a strong interest in doing research, excellent writing skills and a good command of English. Applicants should have, or be willing to develop, active knowledge of spoken and written Dutch, which is the target language within the project.
Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s):
- Research trainees, non-tenured lecturers, researchers(Scientific discipline: Language & Culture)
Organization
Tilburg University
Faculty of Humanities, department of Communication and Information Sciences
Tilburg University is a modern, specialized university. Its education and research are of high quality. Students and employees experience Tilburg University as an environment in which they are challenged and inspired. Moreover, it offers excellent fringe benefits and a corporate culture in which commitment and cooperation are central themes.
The Department of Communication and Information Sciences in the Faculty of Humanities is dedicated to research and education in the areas of language technology, human-computer interaction, professional communication, and discourse studies. It offers bachelor's and master's programmes in business communication and digital media; a master's programme in human aspects of information technology; and it participates in an inter-university research master's programme in language and communication. It is home to two research programmes, one in language technology and computational linguistics ("Making Sense: Computational models for learning to understand and generate natural language"), directed by Prof. dr. Harry Bunt and Prof. dr. Antal van den Bosch, and one in communication, cognition and discourse studies ("Multimodality and Cognition"), directed by Prof. dr. Fons Maes and Prof. dr. Marc Swerts. The department has an inspiring working environment with an international orientation and good computing facilities. The Department of Communication and Information Sciences has an opening for a PhD position for the project "MEMPHIX: MEMory-based paraPHrasing with Implicit and eXplicit semantics", which belongs to the research programme "Making Sense".
Conditions of employment
Estimated maximum salary per month: eur 2000 - 2500
Maximum salary amount in Euro's a month 2558
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: 3-4 years
Maximum hours per week: 38
Additional conditions of employment:
A candidate with a research master (or equal experience) is offered a 3 year contract. The selected candidate will start with a contract for one year, concluded by an evaluation. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining years.
Additional Information
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:
Antal van den Bosch
Telephone number: 31 13 466 3117
E-mail address: antal.vdnbosch@uvt.nl
Or Harry Bunt
Telephone number: 31 13 4668118
E-mail address: harry.bunt@uvt.nl
Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links:
You can apply for this job before 15-05-2008 (dd-mm-yyyy) by sending your application to:
Universiteit van Tilburg
P. van Balen, Human Resources
Postbus 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
E-mail: solliciterenFDL@uvt.nl
When applying for this job always mention the vacancy number AT 500.08.13.
Job description
Function title: PhD Researcher
Summary of the project
The ability to paraphrase, i.e. to say the same thing in another way, can serve a variety of purposes. It can serve to explain something or to provide feedback in dialogue. Generating shorter paraphrases is useful for subtitles or news feeds. Paraphrasing can also change the register of a text: from formal speak to street language, or from old-fashioned prose to present-day language. In the MEMPHIX project, a system is built that learns to generate paraphrases on the basis of examples. The project makes use of a memory-based translation system (MBMT), developed within the NWO VICI project "Implicit Linguistics". The MBMT technology can be straightforwardly trained on pairs of paraphrases. While the generation of paraphrases can be driven in the first place by surface similarities (leaving semantics completely implicit, just as in a statistical MT system), explicit semantic information may also play a role, such as the semantic roles of NPs and the coreference relations between NPs and pronouns. Such information may be computed through automatic means (parsing, semantic role labeling, co-reference resolution). The project will compare the direct implicit route with the use of explicitly computed semantics. This part of the project will join forces with an international effort of the ISO organization aimed at developing semantic annotation formalisms with a well-defined semantics. The project will make use of a richly annotated Dutch corpus of 1 million words developed in the STEVIN Daeso-project, consisting of pairs of texts that express paraphrased or at least comparable information from various domains. While the Dutch language will be a core object of study, the methods are language-independent, and so other paraphrasing corpora will be considered as well to explore alternative routes to gather paraphrase subcorpora beyond the 1 million word scale.
Requirements
Required education/skills:University Graduate
The candidate has an honours or (research) master degree (or equivalent) in communication & information sciences, computational linguistics, or a relevant related area, with a a background in statistical NLP and/or machine learning, corpus linguistics, and computational semantics, and with some experience in programming. The candidate is expected to have a strong interest in doing research, excellent writing skills and a good command of English. Applicants should have, or be willing to develop, active knowledge of spoken and written Dutch, which is the target language within the project.
Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s):
- Research trainees, non-tenured lecturers, researchers(Scientific discipline: Language & Culture)
Organization
Tilburg University
Faculty of Humanities, department of Communication and Information Sciences
Tilburg University is a modern, specialized university. Its education and research are of high quality. Students and employees experience Tilburg University as an environment in which they are challenged and inspired. Moreover, it offers excellent fringe benefits and a corporate culture in which commitment and cooperation are central themes.
The Department of Communication and Information Sciences in the Faculty of Humanities is dedicated to research and education in the areas of language technology, human-computer interaction, professional communication, and discourse studies. It offers bachelor's and master's programmes in business communication and digital media; a master's programme in human aspects of information technology; and it participates in an inter-university research master's programme in language and communication. It is home to two research programmes, one in language technology and computational linguistics ("Making Sense: Computational models for learning to understand and generate natural language"), directed by Prof. dr. Harry Bunt and Prof. dr. Antal van den Bosch, and one in communication, cognition and discourse studies ("Multimodality and Cognition"), directed by Prof. dr. Fons Maes and Prof. dr. Marc Swerts. The department has an inspiring working environment with an international orientation and good computing facilities. The Department of Communication and Information Sciences has an opening for a PhD position for the project "MEMPHIX: MEMory-based paraPHrasing with Implicit and eXplicit semantics", which belongs to the research programme "Making Sense".
Conditions of employment
Estimated maximum salary per month: eur 2000 - 2500
Maximum salary amount in Euro's a month 2558
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: 3-4 years
Maximum hours per week: 38
Additional conditions of employment:
A candidate with a research master (or equal experience) is offered a 3 year contract. The selected candidate will start with a contract for one year, concluded by an evaluation. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining years.
Additional Information
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:
Antal van den Bosch
Telephone number: 31 13 466 3117
E-mail address: antal.vdnbosch@uvt.nl
Or Harry Bunt
Telephone number: 31 13 4668118
E-mail address: harry.bunt@uvt.nl
Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links:
- About the organization (http://www.tilburguniversity.nl)
- About the department (http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/faculties/humanities/dci)
- About the function (http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/vacancies/5000813.html)
You can apply for this job before 15-05-2008 (dd-mm-yyyy) by sending your application to:
Universiteit van Tilburg
P. van Balen, Human Resources
Postbus 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
E-mail: solliciterenFDL@uvt.nl
When applying for this job always mention the vacancy number AT 500.08.13.
