University of Groningen
(Groningen), 38 hours per week
Job description
Function title: PhD position
For the following project. The aim of STEVIN DAISY is to develop and evaluate essential technology for automatic summarization of Dutch informative texts. Innovative algorithms for topic salience detection, topic discrimination, rhetorical classification of content, sentence compression and text generation will be implemented.
An important part of the DAISY project concerns sentence generation. The task of the sentence generation module is to produce actual grammatical sentences on the basis of such abstract representations, using the declarative grammar of Alpino as its key knowledge source. Alpino is a wide-coverage grammar for Dutch, defined as a unification-based grammar, in which many insights from HPSG have been implemented (examples are the inheritance hierarchy of lexical types and grammatical rules). There has been a lot of work on text generation for unification grammars. More recent work on which we will base our approach includes Carroll and Oepen (2005).
Although the Alpino grammar can be used to ensure that well-formed sentences are produced, a further fluency module will be developed to ensure that the sentences that are produced are natural and appropriate. Just as parsing needs a (statistical) disambiguation component to select the appropriate parse from potentially large sets of possible parses, we need a fluency component to select the most appropriate sentence from the set of possible sentences given by the grammar. For the fluency component, we propose to develop a machine-learning method similar in approach to the disambiguation component of the Alpino parser. The disambiguation component of Alpino contains a discriminative maximum-entropy model, trained on the Alpino treebank. For statistical ranking of competing surface realizations of the same content, we propose to implement a similar discriminative maximum-entropy model.
Requirements
Required education/skills:University Graduate
- a MA degree in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science or related field
- knowledge of Dutch, or willingness to learn Dutch
- ability to work together in a project with members from different institutes.
Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s):
- Teaching & Research(Scientific discipline: Language & Culture)
Organization
University of Groningen
Founded in 1614. One of the best universities in Europe and the world. A wide variety of disciplines. Internationally oriented. Rooted in the North of the Netherlands. Socially active. Our researchers and lecturers are inspired academics. Ambitious students. We respect the differences in talent, ambitions and performance of the 25.000 students and members of staff.
The university provides a career advisory service for partners of new staff who move to Groningen.
The university is an equal opportunities employer. Because women are still underrepresented in a number of fields, they are particularly encouraged to apply.
Faculty of Arts
The Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG) is a research institute within the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen. It embraces all the linguistic research in the faculty. A considerable number of the researchers participate in the Graduate School for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN), and in the Landelijke Onderzoekschool Taalwetenschap (LOT). Within the CLCG there are six research groups: Syntax & Semantics, Discourse and Communication, Language Variation and Language Change, Computational Linguistics, Neurolinguistics, and Language and Literacy Development over the Life Span. The following position is located in the Computational Linguistics group.
Conditions of employment
Maximum salary amount in Euro's a month 2558
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: Four years
Maximum hours per week: 38
Additional conditions of employment:
The University of Groningen offers a salary of € 2000 gross per month in the first year up to a maximum of € 2558 gross per month in the fourth year. The appointment is temporary for a specified period of four years. After the first year there will be an assessment of the candidates results and the progress of the project. Based on this, it will be decided whether the employment will be continued. The position requires residence in Groningen, 36 hrs/week research, and must result in a PhD dissertation.
Starting date: September 1, 2008.
Additional Information
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:
Dr. Jörg Tiedemann, project supervisor (about the position)
Telephone number: 31 50 3635935
E-mail address: J.Tiedemann@rug.nl
Or Mrs. Wyke van der Meer, CLCG secretariat (for general information)
Telephone number: 31 50 3635806
E-mail address: w.a.van.der.meer@rug.nl
Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links:
You can apply for this job before 01-06-2008 (dd-mm-yyyy) by sending your application to:
University of Groningen
Personnel and Organization Office
P.O. Box 72
9700 AB Groningen
The Netherlands
E-mail: vmp@rug.nl
When applying for this job always mention the vacancy number AT208127.
Job description
Function title: PhD position
For the following project. The aim of STEVIN DAISY is to develop and evaluate essential technology for automatic summarization of Dutch informative texts. Innovative algorithms for topic salience detection, topic discrimination, rhetorical classification of content, sentence compression and text generation will be implemented.
An important part of the DAISY project concerns sentence generation. The task of the sentence generation module is to produce actual grammatical sentences on the basis of such abstract representations, using the declarative grammar of Alpino as its key knowledge source. Alpino is a wide-coverage grammar for Dutch, defined as a unification-based grammar, in which many insights from HPSG have been implemented (examples are the inheritance hierarchy of lexical types and grammatical rules). There has been a lot of work on text generation for unification grammars. More recent work on which we will base our approach includes Carroll and Oepen (2005).
Although the Alpino grammar can be used to ensure that well-formed sentences are produced, a further fluency module will be developed to ensure that the sentences that are produced are natural and appropriate. Just as parsing needs a (statistical) disambiguation component to select the appropriate parse from potentially large sets of possible parses, we need a fluency component to select the most appropriate sentence from the set of possible sentences given by the grammar. For the fluency component, we propose to develop a machine-learning method similar in approach to the disambiguation component of the Alpino parser. The disambiguation component of Alpino contains a discriminative maximum-entropy model, trained on the Alpino treebank. For statistical ranking of competing surface realizations of the same content, we propose to implement a similar discriminative maximum-entropy model.
Requirements
Required education/skills:University Graduate
- a MA degree in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science or related field
- knowledge of Dutch, or willingness to learn Dutch
- ability to work together in a project with members from different institutes.
Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s):
- Teaching & Research(Scientific discipline: Language & Culture)
Organization
University of Groningen
Founded in 1614. One of the best universities in Europe and the world. A wide variety of disciplines. Internationally oriented. Rooted in the North of the Netherlands. Socially active. Our researchers and lecturers are inspired academics. Ambitious students. We respect the differences in talent, ambitions and performance of the 25.000 students and members of staff.
The university provides a career advisory service for partners of new staff who move to Groningen.
The university is an equal opportunities employer. Because women are still underrepresented in a number of fields, they are particularly encouraged to apply.
Faculty of Arts
The Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG) is a research institute within the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen. It embraces all the linguistic research in the faculty. A considerable number of the researchers participate in the Graduate School for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN), and in the Landelijke Onderzoekschool Taalwetenschap (LOT). Within the CLCG there are six research groups: Syntax & Semantics, Discourse and Communication, Language Variation and Language Change, Computational Linguistics, Neurolinguistics, and Language and Literacy Development over the Life Span. The following position is located in the Computational Linguistics group.
Conditions of employment
Maximum salary amount in Euro's a month 2558
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: Four years
Maximum hours per week: 38
Additional conditions of employment:
The University of Groningen offers a salary of € 2000 gross per month in the first year up to a maximum of € 2558 gross per month in the fourth year. The appointment is temporary for a specified period of four years. After the first year there will be an assessment of the candidates results and the progress of the project. Based on this, it will be decided whether the employment will be continued. The position requires residence in Groningen, 36 hrs/week research, and must result in a PhD dissertation.
Starting date: September 1, 2008.
Additional Information
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:
Dr. Jörg Tiedemann, project supervisor (about the position)
Telephone number: 31 50 3635935
E-mail address: J.Tiedemann@rug.nl
Or Mrs. Wyke van der Meer, CLCG secretariat (for general information)
Telephone number: 31 50 3635806
E-mail address: w.a.van.der.meer@rug.nl
Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links:
- About the organization (http://www.rug.nl)
- CLCG (http://www.rug.nl/let/onderzoek/onderzoekinstituten/clcg/index)
You can apply for this job before 01-06-2008 (dd-mm-yyyy) by sending your application to:
University of Groningen
Personnel and Organization Office
P.O. Box 72
9700 AB Groningen
The Netherlands
E-mail: vmp@rug.nl
When applying for this job always mention the vacancy number AT208127.
