November 2024 - Corpora

3-year PhD position in Computational Models of Semantic Memory and its Acquisition (Inria and University of Lille, France)
by Pascal Denis 13 May '25

13 May '25

Hello, Could you please distribute the following job offer? Thanks. Best, Pascal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3-year PhD position in Computational Models of Semantic Memory and its Acquisition (Inria and University of Lille, France) We invite applications for a 3-year PhD position at the University of Lille in the context of the recently funded research project "COMANCHE" (Computational Models of Lexical Meaning and Change). The position is funded by Inria, the French national research institute in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. COMANCHE proposes to transfer and adapt neural word embeddings algorithms to model the acquisition and evolution of word meaning, by comparing them with linguistic theories on language acquisition and language evolution. At the intersection between Natural Language Processing, psycholinguistics and historical linguistics, this project intends to validate or revise some of these theories, while also developing computational models that are less data hungry and computationally intensive as they exploit new inductive biases inspired by these disciplines. The first strand of the project, on which the successful candidate will work, focuses on the development of computational models of semantic memory and its acquisition. Two main research directions will be pursued. On the one hand, we will compare the structural properties associated to different semantic spaces derived from word embedding algorithms to those found in human semantic memory as reflected in behavioral data (such as typicality norms) as well as brain imaging data. The latter data will then used as additional supervision to inject more hierarchical structure into the learned semantic spaces. One the other hand, we intend to experiment with training regimes for word embedding algorithms that are closer to those of humans when they acquire language, controlling the quantity as well as the linguistic complexity of the inputs fed to the learning algorithms through the use of longitudinal and child directed speech corpora (e.g., CHILDES, Colaje). In both cases, both English and French data will be considered. The successful candidate holds a Master's degree in computational linguistics or computer science or cognitive science and has prior experience in word embedding models. Furthermore, the candidate will provide strong programming skills, expertise in machine learning approaches and is eager to work across languages. The position is affiliated with the MAGNET team at Inria, Lille [1] as well as with the SCALAB group at University of Lille [2] in an effort to strenghten collaborations between these two groups, and ultimately foster cross-fertilizations between Natural Language Processing and Psycholinguistics. Applications will be considered until the position is filled. However, you are encouraged to apply early as we shall start processing the applications as and when they are received. Applications, written in English or French, should include a brief cover letter with research interests and vision, a CV (including your contact address, work experience, publications), and contact information for at least 2 referees. Applications (and questions) should be sent to Angèle Brunellière (angele.brunelliere(a)univ-lille.fr) and Pascal Denis (pascal.denis(a)inria.fr). The starting date of the position is 1 October 2022 or soon thereafter, for a total of 3 full years. Best regards, Angèle Brunellière and Pascal Denis [1] https://team.inria.fr/magnet/ [2] https://scalab.univ-lille.fr/ -- Pascal ---- Pour une évaluation indépendante, transparente et rigoureuse ! Je soutiens la Commission d'Évaluation de l'Inria. ---- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Pascal Denis Equipe MAGNET, INRIA Lille Nord Europe Bâtiment B, Avenue Heloïse Parc scientifique de la Haute Borne 59650 Villeneuve d'Ascq Tel: ++33 3 59 35 87 24 Url: http://researchers.lille.inria.fr/~pdenis/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Corpora of English novels
by Martin Wynne 02 Dec '24

02 Dec '24

I have a student who is interested in tracing the development of the English novel from its origins to the present day (or at least to the start of the twentieth century), and I'm trying to gather information about relevant corpora covering this text type and period. We know about the European Literary Text Collection (ELTeC, https://www.distant-reading.net/eltec/) which will be very useful for the later end of the timescale. We also know it is possible to assemble a corpus from Project Gutenberg, archive.org, Oxford Text Archive, etc. , but would be interested in re-using any corpora that people might already have made, which aim to be representative of particular periods within this genre. The student has some flexibility with her research question, so while the original idea of 'English novels' was probably 'novels in English from Great Britain and Ireland', other related areas such as US novels might be interesting as well. Any tips and suggestions gratefully received. If we get a number of interesting direct emails, I'll be happy to summarize the results to the list. Best wishes, Martin -- Senior Researcher in Corpus Linguistics Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford National Co-ordinator, CLARIN-UK martin.wynne(a)ling-phil.ox.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4155-0530

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6th HPLT & NLPL Winter School on Pretraining Data Quality and Multilingual LLM Evaluation
by Andrey Kutuzov 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

(Apologies for cross-posting) Dear colleagues, We invite participants to a three-day winter school on large-scale NLP research, with special emphasis on pretraining data quality and multilingual evaluation of large language models (LLMs). The school will provide lectures and space for discussion by the following invited speakers: - Jenia Jitsev (Jülich Supercomputing Centre) - Marianna Nezhurina (LAION) - Guilherme Penedo (Huggingface) - Gema Ramírez-Sánchez (Prompsit Language Engineering) - Anna Rogers (IT University of Copenhagen) - Ahmet Üstün (Cohere AI) - other international experts to be confirmed. The winter school is organized as a collaboration between the Horizon Europe project High-Performance Language Technologies (HPLT, https://hplt-project.org/) and the Nordic Language Processing Laboratory (NLPL). The event will be held ‘in real life’ on February 3–5, 2025, in Norway. For additional information, please see: http://wiki.nlpl.eu/Community/training There is no participant fee for the winter school, and HPLT will provide free bus transfer between the Oslo airport and the conference hotel (about two hours north of Oslo, with skiing facilities just outside the door). Participants will need to cover their own travel to Oslo and accommodation at the hotel (NOK 3855 for two nights in a single room, including all meals and conference facilities). We kindly invite expressions of interest in participation in the winter school. Please register through the on-line form linked up from the above overview page. We will process requests for participation on a first-come, first-served basis, with an eye toward regional balance. Participation will be confirmed in three batches, one on December 6, another one on December 13, and finally after the closing date for registration, which is Friday, December 20, 2024. Welcome to Skeikampen in February 2025! Andrey Kutuzov & Stephan Oepen (for the organizing team) -- Andrey Language Technology Group (LTG) University of Oslo

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ACL 2025 - nominations and self-nominations to join the ACL 2025 programme committee
by Horacio Saggion 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

Dear NLP community members, Greetings from ACL 2025! We would like to invite nominations and self-nominations to join the ACL 2025 programme committee, as a reviewer or an area chair, depending on your interest, availability and experience. ACL 2025 review process will be run through ARR in the February cycle. The tentative timeline for the review period is 1 March to 20 March 2025 and the rebuttal period 26 March to 31 March 2025. Area chairs need to be available throughout the ARR February cycle. Please submit your (self-)nominations through this form by 16 December 2024: https://forms.gle/Yu34Z13YzQ3sM8R4A Afterwards, you will be invited to join the ARR February reviewer or area chair (action editor) pool through the ARR OpenReview platform. Finally, please share this message with your colleagues, postdocs and PhD students. Many thanks in advance for your time and contribution! ACL 2025 PC chairs -- Horacio Saggion Full Professor / Chair in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Head of the Natural Language Processing Group - TALN DTIC Deputy Director for Recruitment Project Coordinator iDEM Project Universitat Pompeu Fabra https://twitter.com/h_saggion https://www.linkedin.com/in/horacio-saggion-1749b916

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CfP: 13th International Quantitative Linguistics Conference QUALICO 2025 to be held in Brno, Czechia, June 26-28, 2025
by gmikros＠gmail.com 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

#Apologies for cross-posting# The International Quantitative Linguistics Association and Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, invites the submission of abstracts for the 13th International Quantitative Linguistics Conference QUALICO 2025, to be held in Brno, Czechia, June 26-28, 2025. TOPICS All contributions relating to quantitative linguistics and text analysis are welcome. We particularly encourage submissions on: - Descriptions and analysis of all aspects of language and text phenomena, insofar as they use quantitative mathematical methods (probability theory, stochastic processes, differential and difference equations, multidimensional analysis, fuzzy logic and set theory, function theory, etc.). - Development of mathematical and/or statistical concepts and methods which contribute to theoretical understanding of language phenomena. - Applications of methods, models, or findings from quantitative linguistics to problems of natural language processing, text classification, stylistics, authorship attribution, text mining, language complexity, and complex network analysis. - Epistemological issues relevant to quantitative linguistics such as explanation of language and text phenomena, contributions to theory construction, systems theory, philosophy of science. - Application of theories and methods of quantitative linguistics to the analysis of text generated by AI and Large Language Models (LLM). Please note that the use of mathematical and statistical concepts and methods or their computational implementation on an ad hoc basis, without placing them in a linguistic context, does not in itself qualify an abstract for acceptance at the conference. MULTIPLE WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR The maximum number of submissions by the same author or co-author is two papers. Submissions exceeding this threshold will be automatically deleted without notification. SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS Abstracts should be in English and include keywords, author affiliations, and references. They should not exceed 250 words. The requested format for submission is plain text .txt. Each paper will be allotted 30 minutes (20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion). There will also be a poster session (accepted formats A0, A1 or similar). Abstracts can be submitted via the Oxford Abstracts system. Submission link: you can submit here: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/76890/submissions/new?behalf=false&f… VENUE Masaryk University in Brno, Faculty of Arts, Arne Nováka 1/1, 602 00 Brno. The conference webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/qualico2025/home IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline: February 2, 2025, 11:59:59 pm (CET) Notification of acceptance: March 2, 2025 Conference fee payment: April 27, 2025 Registration deadline: May 25, 2025 Conference dates: June 26–28, 2025 CONFERENCE FEES Regular: 300€ IQLA Member: 200€ CONFERENCE VOLUME Authors of the accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full papers for publication in the volume at one of the leading publishing houses (e.g., John Benjamins, Springer, Routledge, De Gruyter). Please note that the deadline for submitting papers will be approximately three months after the conference.

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Join us for the LLM Hackathon in Ecology in Bielefeld, Germany or Online!
by D'Souza, Jennifer 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

We are excited to host the “AI & LLM Hackathon for Applications in Evidence-based Ecological Research and Practice” in a hybrid format. The onsite event will take place at ZiF, Bielefeld, Germany from 20th to 22nd January, 2025. The online event happens in parallel with communications conveyed via Zoom. The event aims to explore and demonstrate innovative applications of artificial intelligence and large language models in ecology. It is part of the ZiF Resident Group „Mapping Evidence to Theory in Ecology: Addressing the Challenges of Generalization and Causality“ (https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/groups/ongoing/mapping-evide…). Event highlights: • An introductory talk on the potential of LLMs in ecology. • A wide range of projects to get involved in. • And, of course, lots of pizza! 🍕 For onsite participants, travel scholarships will be offered to up to 15 participants. So do not miss out! To secure your place at the AI & LLM Hackathon register now here: https://forms.gle/w7DDFUWc6zEQ2VpU9 The same form is used for both online and onsite participants. If you want to apply for a scholarship make sure to register before December 15. Over time, you will find more details on the event page: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/events/#/event/8023 We look forward to seeing you!

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(Self-)nominations for the ACL 2025 review process
by Anette Frank 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

Dear NLP community members, Greetings from ACL 2025! We would like to invite nominations and self-nominations to join the ACL 2025 programme committee, as a reviewer or an area chair, depending on your interest, availability and experience. The ACL 2025 review process will be run through ARR in the February cycle. The tentative timeline for the review period is 1 March to 20 March 2025 and the rebuttal period 26 March to 31 March 2025. Area chairs need to be available throughout the ARR February cycle. Please submit your (self-)nominations through this form by *16 December 2024:* https://forms.gle/Yu34Z13YzQ3sM8R4A Afterwards, you will be invited to join the ARR February reviewer or area chair (action editor) pool through the ARR OpenReview platform. Finally, please share this message with your colleagues, postdocs and PhD students. Many thanks in advance for your time and contribution! ACL 2025 PC chairs -- Prof. Dr. Anette Frankhttp://www.cl.uni-heidelberg.de/~frank Computational Linguistics Department email:frank@cl.uni-heidelberg.de University of Heidelberg phone: +49-(0)6221/54-3247 Im Neuenheimer Feld 325 secr: +49-(0)6221/54-3245 69120 Heidelberg, Germany fax: +49-(0)6221/54-3242

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Join us for the LLM Hackathon in Ecology in Bielefeld, Germany or Online!
by Jennifer D'Souza 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

We are excited to host the “AI & LLM Hackathon for Applications in Evidence-based Ecological Research and Practice” in a hybrid format. The onsite event will take place at ZiF, Bielefeld, Germany from 20th to 22nd January, 2025. The online event happens in parallel with communications conveyed via Zoom. The event aims to explore and demonstrate innovative applications of artificial intelligence and large language models in ecology. It is part of the ZiF Resident Group „Mapping Evidence to Theory in Ecology: Addressing the Challenges of Generalization and Causality“ ( https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/groups/ongoing/mapping-evide… ). Event highlights: • An introductory talk on the potential of LLMs in ecology. • A wide range of projects to get involved in. • And, of course, lots of pizza! 🍕 For onsite participants, travel scholarships will be offered to up to 15 participants. So do not miss out! To secure your place at the AI & LLM Hackathon register now here: https://forms.gle/w7DDFUWc6zEQ2VpU9 The same form is used for both online and onsite participants. If you want to apply for a scholarship make sure to register before December 15. Over time, you will find more details on the event page: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/events/#/event/8023 We look forward to seeing you!

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PhD position in LLMs & reasoning for scientific discovery in cancer
by André Freitas 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

PhD position in LLMs & complex reasoning for supporting scientific discovery in cancer (University of Manchester) We have an exciting new PhD position at the interface between LLMs, complex reasoning and cancer discovery. Melanoma is an aggressive type of skin cancer associated with an incidence of ≈17500 patients and 2300 deaths per year in the United Kingdom. Immunotherapy (checkpoint inhibitors [CPI]; anti-CTLA-4, anti-PD-1, anti-LAG3) has revolutionised patient outcomes in melanoma and other cancers however, challenges remain. Critically, the presence of liver metastasis is associated with poor CPI response and prognosis, with patients with liver metastasis progressing on average 15 months earlier than those without. The aims of this exciting project will be to understand complex interactions between melanoma and cells within the liver microenvironment to understand mechanisms associated with immune suppression and resistance to CPI. To do this, the student will systematically integrate curated databases (e.g. KEGG, Reactome, STRING, and HMDB) alongside systematic extraction from the literature to derive models of signalling pathways, metabolic reactions, and protein-protein interactions relevant to this immunosuppressive environment. The student will develop techniques in open information extraction, integration of large datasets from multiple sources, large language models, causal reasoning, natural language inference and explainable question answering. Furthermore, they will gain an in-depth understanding of cancer biology and the immune system. We are looking for a hard-working, focused, ambitious person to join our excellent, friendly, inclusive and collaborative teams. The student will enjoy integrating with both the Freitas laboratory which focuses on development of AI methods to support abstract, explainable and flexible inference and the Lee laboratory which uses a broad range of in vitro and in vivo techniques to study melanoma, with the aim of developing novel therapies for patients. We would be particularly happy to receive applications from individuals with a strong academic track record and Masters-level and/or other research experience in artificial intelligence, large language models and bioinformatics. The project will provide comprehensive training in cancer biology, large language models and use of artificial intelligence to inform mechanisms behind complex tumour-microenvironment interactions and to build complex models of these. Essential requirements: - BSc and MSc in computer science, bioinformatics or related areas. - Experience in the construction of NLP and ML models evidenced by academic or industrial projects. - Python programming. - Confident in the development of complex computational pipelines. - Experience in biomedical problems is a plus. Interested applicants please send an email to andre.freitas(a)manchester.ac.uk and rebecca.lee-3(a)manchester.ac.uk with your CV by December 31st. Additional information. https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/bicentenary-modelling-melanoma-induce…

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PhD position in Agent/LLM-based Evidence-based Reasoning
by André Freitas 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

PhD position in Agent/LLM-based Evidence-based Reasoning (IDIAP - Switzerland) - How to make LLM-based models capable of rigorous, fact-based inference? - How to build AI models which can make sense of large-scale complex evidence? This is an exciting opportunity to work at the interface between Large Language Models (LLMs) and complex reasoning. The project: LLMs have defined the foundations for the construction of models which can interpret and reason over language at scale. However, technical challenges remain in delivering models which are capable of factually correct, controlled and rigorous reasoning, fundamental in critical domains of applications such as biomedicine and policy-making. In this project, we will work on the development of novel natural language inference (NLI) paradigms which can jointly reason over qualitative and quantitative evidence at scale. The project will focus on areas such as: (i) the development of new reasoning planning models for evidence-based reasoning and (ii) the integration of NLI models with statistical, causal and mechanistic inference paradigms. The candidate will work at the Neuro-symbolic AI Group at IDIAP and will also be affiliated with the EPFL PhD programme. This is a 4-year position funded by the SNSF-FAPESP RATIONAL project in collaboration with Daniel Pedronette (UNESP). Candidates are expected to have: - A BSc/MSc degree in Computer Science or related areas. - Previous academic or industrial project experience in NLP (evidenced by project results and papers). - Be confident in software development and in developing complex NLP experimental pipelines. Interested applicants please send your CV to andre.freitas(a)idiap.ch by December 31st.

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2025

2024

2023

2022

Corpora November 2024