19.1394, Jobs: Dutch & Comp Ling: PhD position, University of Groningen

Thu Apr 24 18:49:05 UTC 2008

LINGUIST List: Vol-19-1394. Thu Apr 24 2008. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 19.1394, Jobs: Dutch & Comp Ling: PhD position, University of Groningen

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1)
Date: 24-Apr-2008
From: Wyke van der Meer < w.a.van.der.meer at rug.nl >
Subject: Dutch & Computational Linguistics: PhD position, University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, Netherlands

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:47:07
From: Wyke van der Meer [w.a.van.der.meer at rug.nl]
Subject: Dutch & Computational Linguistics: PhD position, University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, Netherlands
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University or Organization: University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts 
Department: Center for Language and Cognition
Job Location: , Netherlands 
Web Address: http://www.rug.nl/let/onderzoek/onderzoekinstituten/clcg/index

Job Rank: PhD position  

Specialty Areas: Computational Linguistics; Syntax, Corpus Linguistics

Required Language(s): Dutch (nld)

Description:

The university of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, Center for Language and
Cognition, announces the following vacancy:

PhD position in Dutch Language Investigation of Summarization Technology
(DAISY) (1,0 fte),  Vacancy number 208127

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:
-  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

Conditions of Employment:
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period.  
Duration of the contract: Four years, starting September 1, 2008. The
position requires residence in Groningen, 36 hrs/week research, and must
result in a PhD dissertation. 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
University of Groningen offers a salary of € 2000 gross per month in the
first year to €2558 gross per month in the fourth year .

Additional information about the position can be obtained from:
Dr. Gertjan van Noord, project supervisor
Tel: +31 50 3637811
Email: G.J.M.van.Noord at rug.nl

Additional information about the research institute can be obtained through
the website listed above.

Application procedure:

You can apply for this vacancy by sending your application to the
application address listed below.

Please include:
-  your curriculum vitae
-  a copy of your diploma together with a list of grades
-  a list of publications (if any)
-  a recent publication or your Master's thesis
-  letters of two referees

Electronic applications are prefered. Please identify the vacancy Number
208127.

Application Deadline: 01-Jun-2008 
Mailing Address for Applications:
	University of Groningen 
	Personnel and Organization Department 
	P.O. Box 72 
	Groningen 9700 AB 
	Netherlands  
Email Address for Applications: vmp at bureau.rug.nl 
Contact Information:
	Wyke van der Meer 
	Email: w.a.van.der.meer at rug.nl 

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