7.727, FYI: Finite-State Techniques in NLP, Summer School

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-727. Tue May 21 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  355
 
Subject: 7.727, FYI: Finite-State Techniques in NLP, Summer School
 
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu> (On Leave)
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Editor for this issue: dseely at emunix.emich.edu (T. Daniel Seely)
 
---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 21 May 1996 13:14:16 +0200
From:  markjan at let.rug.nl ("M.J.Nederhof")
Subject:  master class "Finite-State Techniques in NLP"
 
2)
Date:  Tue, 21 May 1996 19:36:13 +0700
From:  kas at bcn.rug.nl (Mark Kas)
Subject:  Summer School in Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 21 May 1996 13:14:16 +0200
From:  markjan at let.rug.nl ("M.J.Nederhof")
Subject:  master class "Finite-State Techniques in NLP"
 
        "FINITE-STATE TECHNIQUES IN NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING"
 
              July 8-12, 1996, Groningen (The Netherlands)
 
      Master class, part of the BCN Summer School, July 1-12, 1996
 
                        lectures by (among others)
 
                 MARTIN KAY (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center)
                 GIORGIO SATTA (University of Padua)
                 ATRO VOUTILAINEN (University of Helsinki)
 
For any kind of mechanical processing of input, in whatever form, some kind
of finite-state process is involved. Much theory has already been developed
during the early days of computer science, much of it however very
abstract, or at least not readily applicable to processing of natural
language. The last few years have seen a surge of interesting publications
that close the gap between the theory of finite-state techniques and the
practice of computational linguistics.
 
During the course of our master class, students will be made familiar with
these new developments. Three prominent researchers will discuss a wide
range of topics, including some ideas just emerging in this field.
Apart from the lectures by the three invited speakers, some ongoing
research at the Humanities Computing Department (Alfa Informatica)
of the University of Groningen will be discussed. To make the course
accessible to students without any prior knowledge of finite-state techniques,
we will start with some introductory lectures on formal language theory,
finite-state automata and transducers, regular languages, rational
transductions, etc.
 
The master class will be held in the building of the Faculty of Arts.
It comprises 5 sessions, each from 9:00 to 12:00. The registration fee for
the master class also covers the other events of the summer school.
 
For more information concerning this master class, contact the coordinator
 
             Mark-Jan Nederhof
             University of Groningen
             Faculty of Arts
             P.O. Box 716
             NL-9700 AS Groningen
             The Netherlands
             E-mail: markjan at let.rug.nl
             Tel. +31-50-3635970
             Fax. +31-50-3636855
 
and see http://grid.let.rug.nl/~markjan/masterclass.html for the most
up-to-date version of this document.
 
For registration and for more information concerning the summer school
of which this master class is part, see Web page http://www.bcn.rug.nl/
or contact
 
             Office of Graduate School BCN
             Nijenburgh 4
             NL-9747 AG Groningen
             The Netherlands
             E-mail: bureau at bcn.rug.nl
             Tel. +31-50-3634734
             Fax. +31-50-3634740
 
An overview of the lectures by the invited speakers follows:
 
 ===========================================================================
 
Martin Kay
 
The properties of classical finite-state automata and regular sets,
as well as finite-state transducers and regular relations.  Algorithms that
implement the complete calculus of set theoretic operations on finite
automata, plus some important additional ones such as minimization.  Also
algorithms for useful operations on finite transducers.  The emphasis will
be on methods that can be efficiently applied to large machines such as
arise in phonology, morphology, and the lexicon.
 
 ===========================================================================
 
Giorgio Satta
 
First lecture (90min):
Finite State Tree Automata and Transformation-Based Parsing
 
We present the paradigm of transformation-based parsing (Brill, 1993)
and develop efficient parsing algorithms based on finite state tree automata.
 
This lecture will cover the following topics.  Top-down tree automata,
bottom-up tree automata.  Tree regular expressions. Tree automata and
tree pattern matching algorithms.  Precomputation of tree transformations
into tree automata.  Transformation-based parsing algorithms. Overlapping
redexes.
 
 
Second lecture (90min):
Finite State Transducers and Constraint Ranking.
 
We present the notion of constraint ranking as developed by recent
phonological theories. Under the assumption that constraints are
represented through regular expressions, we develop finite state
transducer implementations of these theories.
 
This lecture will cover the following topics. Optimality Theory (Prince
and Smolensky 1993). Constraint ranking and constraint violability.
Optimality systems. Conditional intersection of regular languages.
Computation of constraint violability through finite state transducers.
 
 ===========================================================================
 
Atro Voutilainen
 
Surface-oriented reductionistic finite-state parsing
 
These lectures (3 hours) outline recent work on FS parsing in Helsinki
(Koskenniemi, Tapanainen, Voutilainen). Most of the attention is given
to linguistic rather than algorithmic issues.
 
- Linguistic representation: morphological, syntactic and word boundary tags.
- Specification of grammatical representation. Grammar definition corpus.
- Representation of morphologically analysed (ambiguous) sentences and
     rules: regular expressions that are compiled into deterministic FSAs
     before parsing.
- Rule formalism: implication rules, rejection rules.
- After lexical analysis, parsing is reductionistic: illegitimate
     readings are discarded; no new readings are added. Parsing by
     intersection: all grammar automata are intersected with the
     (ambiguous) sentence automaton.
- How to write a realistic parsing grammar. Dealing with remaining
     ambiguities.
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2)
Date:  Tue, 21 May 1996 19:36:13 +0700
From:  kas at bcn.rug.nl (Mark Kas)
Subject:  Summer School in Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences
 
The Groningen Graduate School for Behavioral and Cognitive
Neurosciences (BCN) announces its first
 
Summer School in Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences
                    July 1-12 1996
               Groningen, The Netherlands
 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
 
Scope
Brain, behavior and cognition traditionally are studied by
various disciplines, ranging from linguistics and experimental
psychology through behavioral biology, biophysics and
biochemistry to the preclinical and clinical neurosciences.
Within the Groningen Graduate School for Behavioral and
Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN), established in 1991 at the
University of Groningen, researchers join efforts to study
these different areas of brain research. The Summer School
brings together international expertise in this
multidisciplinary field, with a focus on the interaction
between the disciplines.
 
Program
The Summer School program consists of 15 master classes, 3
general lectures, 2 poster sessions and 1 workshop. Each
master classes consists of five 3-hour sessions. They are
taught each morning and each afternoon in four parallel
sessions, and provide an excellent opportunity for in-depth
discussions. The general lectures will be held in the evening,
the poster sessions in the afternoon. The workshop takes place
on Friday July 5 (both morning and afternoon).
 
Week 1 (July 1-5)
Parallel morning sessions:
 
- Language Acquisition
  Guest coordinator: N.M. Hyams (UCLA)
  Guest speakers: T. Hoekstra, RU Leiden, Jeannette
  Schaeffer, UCLA
- Models for Memory and Attention (I)
  Coordinator: G. Mulder, Experimental Psychology
  Guest speakers: G.R. Mangun and T. Schwaab, Center
  for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis; M.D.
  Rugg, Wellcome Brain Research Group, Saint Andrews,
  Scotland; J. Jolles, Department of Clinical Psychology,
  University of Maastricht
- Stress Mechanisms: Neurobiology and Neuroimmunology
  Coordinators: B.G. Bohus and J.M. Koolhaas, Animal
  Physiology
  Guest speakers: R. Dantzer, Bordeaux, France;
  E. Fuchs, G&oumlttingen, Germany;E. Blalock,
  Birmingham, AL, USA
- The Central Nervous System Control of Micturition and
  Sexual Behavior (I): Micturition
  Coordinator: G. Holstege, Anatomy and Embryology
  Guest speakers: W.C. DeGroat, University of Pittsburgh;
  E.A. Tanagho, UCSF; R.A. Janknegt, University of
  Maastricht; D. Griffith, University of Alberta;
  Ph.E.V. van Kerrebroeck, University of Nijmegen;
  J.L.H.R. Bosch, University Hospital Rotterdam; F.W. van
  Leeuwen, Netherlands Institute for Brain Research
 
Parallel afternoon sessions:
 
- Development of Behavior and Cognition
  Coordinator: P.L.C. van Geert, Developmental Psychology
  Invited speaker: K.W. Fischer, Harvard University
- Circadian Rhythms
  Coordinator: S. Daan, Behavioral Biology
  Guest speaker: R.G. Foster, Imperial College London
- Models for Memory and Attention (II)
  Coordinator: G. Mulder, Experimental Psychology
  Guest speakers: G.R. Mangun and T. Schwaab, Center
  for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis; M.D.
  Rugg, Wellcome Brain Research Group, Saint Andrews,
  Scotland; J. Jolles, Department of Clinical Psychology,
  University of Maastricht
- The Central Nervous System Control of Micturition and
  Sexual Behavior (II): Sexual Behavior
  Coordinator: G. Holstege, Anatomy and Embryology
  Guest speakers: D. Pfaff, Rockefeller University;
  R.B. Simerly, Oregon Regional Primate Research Center;
  J.G. Veening and L.M. Coolen, University of Nijmegen;
  Lee Ming Kow, Rockefeller University; J. Bakker,
  University of Rotterdam; A. Slob, Erasmus University
  Rotterdam; F.W. van Leeuwen, Netherlands Institute for
  Brain Research
 
Week 2 (July 8-12)
Parallel morning sessions:
 
- Finite-State Techniques in Natural Language Processing
  Coordinator: M.J. Nederhof, Computational Linguistics
  Guest speakers: Giorgio Satta, University of Padua;
  Atro Voutialainen, University of Helsinki;
  Martin Kay, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
- Neurolinguistics: Aphasia
  Coordination: Y.R.M. Bastiaanse, Linguistics
  Invited speakers: Edgar Zurif, Brandeis University;
  Yosef Grodzinsky, University of Tel Aviv
- Physiology of the Mammalian Motor System: From Muscle to
  Cerebral Cortex
  Coordinator: D. Kernell, Medical Physiology
  Invited speakers: R.N. Lemon, National Hospital for
  Neurology and Neurosurgery, London; A.J. Sargeant,
  Free University Amsterdam
 
Parallel afternoon sessions:
 
- Neuropharmacology and Neurochemistry of Receptors
  Coordination: J. Zaagsma and H.V. Wikstrom, Pharmacy
  Guest speakers: to be announced
- Foundations of Cognitive Science
  Coordination: M.R. ter Hark and T.A.F. Kuipers, Philosophy
  Guest speakers: to be announced
- Neuro-imaging
  Coordination: H. Duifhuis, Biophysics
  Guest speakers: C. Moonen, In vivo NMR Research
  center, Bethesda, Md, USA; M.A. Viergever, Computer
  Vision Research Group, University of Utrecht
- Neurobiology of Brain Damage
  Coordination: J.H.A. De Keyser, Neurology, and P.G.M.
  Luiten, Animal Physiology
  Guest speakers: to be announced
 
Workshop Conflicting Constraints
The aim of the workshop is to discuss the nature and ranking
of the constraints in Optimality Theory (OT). Issues for
discussion involve universality, learnability, optionality,
modularity, and compositionality. The workshop will be held at
Friday July 5. Organizers: H. de Hoop and D. Gilbers,
Linguistics
 
Invited speakers:
     Luigi Burzio, John Hopkins University;
     John McCarthy, University of Massachusetts;
     Bruce Tesar, Rutgers University
 
General Lectures
Three prominent scientists in the field of behavioral and
cognitive neurosciences will give an evening lecture:
- Tuesday July 2:
  Henry J. Ralston III, University of California, San Francisco
- Thursday July 4:
  Stephen Grossberg, Boston University, Department of
  Cognitive and Neural Systems
- Monday July 8:
  Mchel LeMoal, INSERM Bordeaux, France
 
Poster Sessions
Two poster sessions will be held, the first on Wednesday July
3, the second on Thursday July 11. The poster sessions are
scheduled after the master classes. Aim of the poster sessions
is to facilitate the exchange of ideas in an informal environ-
ment. All participants, but in particular the young resear-
chers and advanced students, are invited to present their
research to the Summer School audience.
 
Fees
* Fees (registration due before June 15)
* Graduate and undergraduate students Dfl 50,-
* BCN staff and postdocs Dfl 200,-
* Non-BCN Staff and postdocs Dfl 400,-
* Industrial participants Dfl 1.000,-
 
Registration after June 15:
* Graduate and undergraduate students Dfl 62,50,-
* BCN staff and postdocs Dfl 250,-
* Non-BCN Staff and postdocs Dfl 500,-
* Industrial participants Dfl 1.250,-
 
Inquiries
Further information regarding the Summer School or BCN can be
obtained by contacting:
 
BCN Office
Nijenborgh 4
9747 AG  Groningen
The Netherlands
tel: +31-50-363.47.34
fax: +31-50-363.47.40
e-mail: bureau at bcn.rug.nl
 
See for more details our Web-site: http://www.bcn.rug.nl/bcn/summerschool
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LINGUIST List: Vol-7-727.