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Assistant Professorship in Semantic Systems and Natural Language Processing, tenure track, deadline 20/11
by Jacek Malec 14 Nov '23

14 Nov '23

The Robotics and Semantic Systems group at the Department of Computer Science, Lund University, has announced an Assistant Professor position (biträdande universitetslektor, BUL) in Computer Science with focus on semantic systems and natural language processing. The group (https://rss.cs.lth.se) is doing research in cognitive robotics and AI, including Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Human-Robot Interaction and Advanced Robotics. The group is part of the RobotLab LTH (https://robotics.lth.se). It is involved in a number of research centers and programmes, including WASP (Wallenberg Autonomous Software and Systems Programme, https://wasp-sweden.org), ELLIIT (Excellence Center at Linköping – Lund in Information Technology, https://elliit.se), LTH profile area: Pillars of AI and Digitalization and LU profile area: Natural and Artificial Cognition. The candidate is expected to have a PhD a couple of years old, preferably after a postdoc, planning to settle for the academic career in a vibrant university (with a fresh Nobel prize in house:-). Detailed information about the position may be found in the announcement: https://lu.varbi.com/what:job/jobID:654845/?lang=en The deadline for applying is 20th November 2023. You are welcome to contact me for more details. Jacek Malec, head of the RSS group -- Jacek Malec jacek.malec(a)cs.lth.se Department of Computer Science tel. +46 46 2224950 LTH, Lund University cell +46 70 4950474 Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden http://cs.lth.se/Jacek_Malec/ When you send emails to Lund University, we process your personal data in accordance with existing legislation. To find out more about the processing of your personal data, visit the Lund University website: https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/about/contact-us/processing-of-personal-da…

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Recruiting PhD students in NLP at the University of Sydney
by Jonathan K Kummerfeld 13 Nov '23

13 Nov '23

Hi, I'm recruiting PhD students for my group at the University of Sydney. See this page for details: https://www.jkk.name/students/recruiting-phd/ I have funding for projects in a wide range of NLP topics. Note that, unlike the central application process for many PhD programs, students should apply directly to me. I have already started reading applications, so students should contact me as soon as possible. Thanks! Jonathan Kummerfeld

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ELRA Catalogue of Language Resources - Update
by info＠elda.org 13 Nov '23

13 Nov '23

[Apologies for multiple postings] We are happy to announce that 1 new written corpus, 1 new monolingual lexicon and 2 new speech resources are now available in our catalogue. Corpus for fine-grained analysis and automatic detection of irony on Twitter <https://catalogue.elra.info/en-us/repository/browse/ELRA-W0337/> ISLRN: 478-366-550-085-8 <http://www.islrn.org/resources/478-366-550-085-8> This corpus was annotated by trained annotators (Master’s students in Linguistics) using a detailed annotation scheme for irony categorization, which describes four labels: ‘ironic by means of a polarity contrast’, ‘situational irony’, ‘other verbal irony’ and ‘not ironic’. It consists of 4791 instances with an irony label and a tweet ID. Bitext Synonym Data - General Language <https://catalogue.elra.info/en-us/repository/browse/ELRA-L0202/> ISLRN: 470-885-612-363-1 <http://www.islrn.org/resources/470-885-612-363-1> The Bitext Synonym Data - General Language includes 31,723 entries and more than 100,000 synonyms for English language. This dataset is a set of synonyms developed to augment the English version of Wordnet, a powerful open-source lexical database, released in 2005. All synonyms can be linked to Bitext Lexical Data - English (see ELRA-L0140) for lemmatization, POS and morphological information. Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ) <https://catalog.elra.info/en-us/repository/browse/ELRA-S0488/> ISLRN: 280-594-494-328-0 <https://islrn.org/resources/280-594-494-328-0/> The "Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese" (or CSJ) contains about 650 hours of spontaneous speech that correspond to about 7000k words. All these speech materials are recorded using head-worn close-talking microphones and DAT, and down-sampled to 16kHz, 16bit accuracy. The speech material is transcribed both at orthographic and phonetic levels. In addition, segment label, intonation label, and other miscellaneous annotations are provided for a subset of CSJ, called the Core, which contains about 500k words or 45 hours of speech. EWA-DB – Early Warning of Alzheimer speech database <https://catalogue.elra.info/en-us/repository/browse/ELRA-S0489/> ISLRN: 730-022-142-264-9 <http://www.islrn.org/resources/730-022-142-264-9> EWA-DB is a speech database that contains data from 3 clinical groups: Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, mild cognitive impairment, and a control group of healthy subjects. Speech samples of each clinical group were obtained using the EWA smartphone application, which contains 4 different language tasks: sustained vowel phonation, diadochokinesis, object and action naming (30 objects and 30 actions), picture description (two single pictures and three complex pictures). The total number of speakers in the database is 1649. Of these, there are 87 people with Alzheimer's disease, 175 people with Parkinson's disease, 62 people with mild cognitive impairment, 2 people with a mixed diagnosis of Alzheimer's + Parkinson's disease and 1323 healthy controls. For more information on the catalogue or if you would like to enquire about having your resources distributed by ELRA, please contact us <mailto:contact@elda.org>. _________________________________________ Visit the ELRA Catalogue of Language Resources <http://catalog.elra.info> Visit the Universal Catalogue <http://universal.elra.info> Archives of ELRA Language Resources Catalogue Updates <http://www.elra.info/en/catalogues/language-resources-announcements> --

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PhD position on industrial applications of Large Language Models (TH Augsburg)
by Alessandra Zarcone 13 Nov '23

13 Nov '23

1 PhD Position on industrial applications of Large Language Models at the Technische Hochschule Augsburg We invite applications for a fully funded PhD position at the University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg ("Technische Hochschule Augsburg", full-time, TV-L E13 on the German federal wage agreement scheme) on industrial applications of Large Language Models in the project "CHIASM" ("Chancenreiche industrielle Anwendungen für vortrainierte Sprachmodelle"). The University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg is an important center fueling innovation in the region and offers plenty of opportunities to collaborate with local companies to integrate the latest technologies in real use cases. We are committed to a collegial and family-friendly work environment and flexible working hours. You can find the call here: https://karriere.hs-augsburg.de/Wissenschaftlicher-Mitarbeiterin-mwd-mit-Pr… Please apply at your earliest convenience but no later than Nov 22nd. I am happy to answer questions about the position ( alessandra.zarcone(a)tha.de ). Best Alessandra Zarcone

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[CFP] Special Issue on "Information Extraction and Language Discourse Processing" of Journal Information (ISSN 2078-2489)
by Jennifer D'Souza 13 Nov '23

13 Nov '23

The open access journal /Information/ is arranging a Special Issue on “Information Extraction and Language Discourse Processing” topic. As Guest Editor for this Special Issue, we would like to invite you to contribute a review or research article. The submission deadline will be /10 December 2022/. If you are interested in submitting, the journal office will do its best to apply for the maximum discount for you. You can see more details at the link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/WYS02U2GTD Yours cordially, Dr. Jennifer D'Souza Prof. Dr. Chengzhi Zhang Guest Editors

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36th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2024): Third Call for Papers
by Announce 13 Nov '23

13 Nov '23

*** Third Call for Papers *** 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE'24) June 3-7, 2024, 5* St. Raphael Resort and Marina, Limassol, Cyprus https://cyprusconferences.org/caise2024/ (*** Submission Deadline: November 24, 2023 AoE ***) The CAiSE’24 organization calls for full papers with a special emphasis on the theme of Information Systems in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology, revolutionizing various industries, and its significance in Information Systems cannot be overstated. AI-powered systems have the potential to streamline operations, enhance decision-making processes, and drive innovation across organizations. From data analysis to automated processes, AI is reshaping the way we leverage information in the digital age. The relevance of AI in IS extends beyond internal operations. AI-powered predictive analytics enables organizations to forecast trends, anticipate customer needs, and optimize resource allocation. This empowers businesses to adapt swiftly to changing market dynamics, gain a competitive edge, and make proactive decisions. AI algorithms can also detect anomalies and patterns that indicate potential security breaches, contributing to robust cybersecurity measures in information systems. However, while acknowledging the benefits, it is essential to consider the ethical implications of AI in information systems. Ensuring data privacy, addressing bias in algorithms, and maintaining transparency are vital aspects that need to be carefully managed and regulated to foster trust and accountability. In addition to offering an exciting scientific program, CAiSE’24 will feature a best paper award, a journal special issue, and a PhD-thesis award: • Best Paper Award‚ prize EUR 1000 (sponsored by Springer) • A small selection of best papers will be invited to submit enhanced versions for consideration in a special issue of Elsevier Information Systems journal dedicated to this conference. • PhD-Thesis Award • Best PhD thesis of a past CAiSE Doctoral Consortium author (co-sponsored by the CAiSE Steering Committee and Springer) Papers should be submitted in PDF format. Submissions must conform to Springer‚ LNCS format and should not exceed 15 pages, including all text, figures, references, and appendices. Submissions not conforming to the LNCS format, exceeding 15 pages, or being obviously out of the scope of the conference, will be rejected without review. See the guidelines here: https://www.springer.com/comp/lncs/authors.html . The results described must be unpublished and must not be under review elsewhere. Three to five keywords characterizing the paper should be listed at the end of the abstract. Each paper will be reviewed by at least two program committee members and, if positively evaluated, by one additional program board member. The selected papers will be discussed among the paper reviewers online and during the program board meeting. As the review process is not blind, please indicate your name and affiliation on your submission. Accepted papers will be presented at CAiSE’24 and published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) conference proceedings. We invite three types of original and scientific papers. The type of submission must be indicated in the submission system. Each contribution should explicitly address the engineering or the operation of information systems, clearly identify the information systems problem addressed, the expected impact of the contribution to information system engineering or operation, and the research method used. We strongly advise authors to clearly emphasize these aspects in their paper, including the abstract. Technical papers describe original solutions (theoretical, methodological or conceptual) in the field of IS Engineering. A technical paper should clearly describe the situation or problem tackled, the relevant state of the art, the position or solution suggested and its potential‚ as well as demonstrate the benefits of the contribution through a rigorous evaluation. Empirical papers evaluate existing problem situations including problems encountered in practice, or validate proposed solutions with scientific means, i.e., by empirical studies, experiments, case studies, experience reports, simulations, etc. Scientific reflection on problems and practices in industry also falls into this category. The topic of the evaluation presented in the paper as well as its causal or logical properties must be clearly stated. The research method must be sound and appropriate. Exploratory papers describe completely new research positions or approaches, in order to face a generic situation arising because of new ICT tools, new kinds of activities, or new IS challenges. They must precisely describe the situation and demonstrate why current methods, tools, ways of reasoning, or meta-models are inadequate. They must also rigorously present their approach and demonstrate its pertinence and correctness in addressing the identified situation. The topics of contribution include but are not limited to: • Novel Approaches to IS Engineering ◦ Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ◦ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) ◦ Big Data, Data Science and Analytics ◦ Blockchain applications in IS ◦ Simulation and Digital Twins  ◦ IS for collaboration and social computing  ◦ Virtual reality / Augmented Reality ◦ Context-aware, autonomous and adaptive IS • Models, Methods and Techniques in IS Engineering ◦ Ontologies and Ontology Engineering ◦ Conceptual modeling, languages and design ◦ Requirements engineering ◦ Process modeling, analysis and improvement ◦ Process automation, mining and monitoring ◦ Models and methods for evolution and reuse ◦ Domain and method engineering ◦ Product lines, variability and configuration management ◦ Compliance and alignment handling ◦ Active and interactive models ◦ Quality of IS models for analysis and design ◦ Visualization techniques in IS ◦ Decision models and business intelligence ◦ Knowledge graphs ◦ Human-centered techniques • Architectures and Platforms for IS Engineering ◦ Distributed, mobile and open architecture ◦ Big Data architectures ◦ Cloud- and edge-based IS engineering ◦ Service oriented and multi-agent IS engineering ◦ Multi-platform IS engineering ◦ Cyber-physical systems and Internet of Things (IoT) ◦ Workflow and Process Aware Information Systems (PAIS) ◦ Handling of real time data streams ◦ Content management and semantic Web ◦ Crowdsourcing platforms ◦ Conversational agents (chatbots) ◦ Microservices design and deployment • Domain-specific and Multi-aspect IS Engineering ◦ IT governance ◦ eGovernment ◦ Autonomous and smart systems (smart city management, smart vehicles, etc.) ◦ IS for healthcare ◦ Educational Systems and Learning Analytics ◦ Value and supply chain management ◦ Industry 4.0 ◦ Sustainability and social responsibility management ◦ Privacy, security, trust, and safety management ◦ IS in the post-COVID world Submit your paper using the Easy Chair link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caise2024 . IMPORTANT DATES • Abstract Submission: 24th November 2023 (AoE) • Paper Submission: 1st December 2023 (AoE) • Notification of Acceptance: 23rd February 2024 • Camera-ready Papers: 5th April 2024 • Author registration: 5th April 2024 ORGANISATION General Chairs • Haris Mouratidis, University of Essex, UK • Pnina Soffer, University of Haifa, Israel Local Organizing and Finance Chair • George A. Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Program Chairs • Giancarlo Guizzardi, University of Twente, The Netherlands • Flavia Maria Santoro, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Other Committee Members https://cyprusconferences.org/caise2024/committees/

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Paid full-time PhD Position on Perspectivism and Disagreement in Natural Language Processing
by d.braun＠utwente.nl 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Job posting: 4-year paid full-time PhD Position on Perspectivism and Disagreement in Natural Language Processing Employer: University of Twente Location: Enschede, Netherlands Deadline: 4th December 2023 Application website and more details: https://utwentecareers.nl/en/vacancies/1505/phd-position-on-perspectivism-a… Do you want to work on Natural Language Processing and aspects of fairness and representation in Machine Learning? We are looking for a highly motivated and curious PhD candidate to join the High-tech Business & Entrepreneurship Department (HBE) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Your profile - A background in Natural Language Processing; - A strong interest in ethical and societal aspects of AI; - You hold, or will shortly acquire, a master’s degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Information Systems, or a related discipline; - Demonstrated programming skills in Python, JavaScript or similar languages; - First experience with user studies is a plus; - Capable of conducting independent research and willing to develop writing and publication skills; - Proficient in written and oral English (C1; above IELTS 7 or equivalent); - A positive team spirit and enthusiasm for working in an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented environment. Our offer We encourage high responsibility and independence, while collaborating with colleagues, researchers, other university staff and partners. We follow the terms of employment by the Dutch Collective Labour Agreement for Universities (CAO). Our offer contains: a full-time 4-year PhD position with a qualifier in the first year; excellent mentorship in a stimulating research environment with excellent facilities; and a personal development program within the Twente Graduate School. It also includes: - Gross monthly salary of € 2.770 in the first year, increasing each year up to € 3.539 in the fourth year; - Excellent benefits including a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary, an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%, and a solid pension scheme; - 29 holidays per year in case of full-time employment; - A training programme as part of the Twente Graduate School where you and your supervisors will determine a plan for a suitable education and supervision; - A green campus with free access to sports facilities and an international scientific community; - A family-friendly institution that offers parental leave (both paid and unpaid); - A full status as an employee at the UT, including pension, health care benefits and good secondary conditions are part of our collective labour agreement CAO-NU for Dutch universities. How to apply Are you interested in being part of our team? Please submit your application before the 4th of December and include: A cover letter (maximum 2 pages A4), emphasizing your specific interest, qualifications, and motivations to apply for this position; A Curriculum Vitae, including a list of all courses attended and grades obtained, and, if applicable, a list of publications. Additional information can be acquired via email from d.braun(a)utwente.nl. Applications can be submitted via https://utwentecareers.nl/en/vacancies/1505/phd-position-on-perspectivism-a…

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Call for participation: Shared Task on Word Embedding Evaluation for Ancient and Historical Languages (SIGTYP @ EACL)
by Oksana Dereza 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Dear colleagues, [Apologies for cross-posting] In 2024, SIGTYP is hosting a *Shared Task on Word Embedding Evaluation for Ancient and Historical Languages*: https://sigtyp.github.io/st2024.html The workshop will be co-located with EACL. *Summary* In recent years, sets of downstream tasks called benchmarks have become a very popular, if not default, method to evaluate general-purpose word and sentence embeddings. Starting with decaNLP (McCann et al., 2018) and SentEval (Conneau & Kiela, 2018), multitask benchmarks for NLU keep appearing and improving every year. However, even the largest multilingual benchmarks, such as XGLUE, XTREME, XTREME-R or XTREME-UP (Hu et al., 2020; Liang et al., 2020; Ruder et al., 2021, 2023), only include modern languages. When it comes to ancient and historical languages, scholars mostly adapt/translate intrinsic evaluation datasets from modern languages or create their own diagnostic tests. We argue that there is a need for a universal evaluation benchmark for embeddings learned from ancient and historical language data and view this shared task as a proving ground for it. The shared task involves solving the following problems for 12+ ancient and historical languages that belong to 4 language families and use 6 different scripts. Participants will be invited to describe their system in a paper for the SIGTYP workshop proceedings. The task organisers will write an overview paper that describes the task and summarises the different approaches taken, and analyses their results. *Subtasks* For subtask A, participants are not allowed to use any additional data; however, they can reduce and balance provided training datasets if they see fit. For subtask B, participants are allowed to use any additional data in any language, including pre-trained embeddings and LLMs. A. Constrained 1. POS-tagging 2. Full morphological annotation 3. Lemmatisation B. Unconstrained 1. POS-tagging 2. Full morphological annotation 3. Lemmatisation 4. Filling the gaps - Word-level - Character-level *Data* For tasks 1-3, we use Universal Dependencies v. 2.12 data (Zeman et al., 2023) in 11 ancient and historical languages, complemented by 5 Old Hungarian codices from the MGTSZ website (HAS Research Institute for Linguistics, 2018) that are annotated to the same standard as the corpora available through UD. For task 4, we add historical Irish data from CELT (Ó Corráin et al., 1997), Corpas Stairiúil na Gaeilge (Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann, 2017), and digital editions of the St. Gall glosses (Bauer et al., 2017) and the Würzburg glosses (Doyle, 2018) as a case study of how performance may vary on different historical stages of the same language. We set the upper temporal boundary to 1700 CE and do not include texts created later than this date in our dataset. List of languages: - Ancient Greek - Ancient Hebrew - Classical Chinese - Coptic - Gothic - Classical, Late & Medieval Latin - Medieval Icelandic - Old Church Slavonic - Old East Slavic - Old French - Old Hungarian - Old, Middle & Early Modern Irish - Vedic Sanskrit *Important dates* *05 Nov 2023*: Release of training and validation data *02 Jan 2024*: Release of test data *08 Jan 2024*: Submission of the systems *13 Jan 2024*: Notification of results *20 Jan 2024*: Submission of shared task papers *27 Jan 2024*: Notification of acceptance to authors *03 Feb 2024*: Camera-ready *15 Mar 2024*: Video recordings due *21/22 Mar 2024*: SIGTYP workshop *Important links* - *Registration form* <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdINgMfzzZGIZ-uBVQhvyndB6yeaaj-wT7…> - Data + detailed description: https://github.com/sigtyp/ST2024 *Task organisers* - Oksana Dereza, Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute, University of Galway - Priya Rani, SFI Centre for Research and Training in AI, Data Science Institute, University of Galway - Atul Kr. Ojha, Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute, University of Galway - Adrian Doyle, Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute, University of Galway - Pádraic Moran, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Moore Institute, University of Galway - John P. McCrae, Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute, University of Galway *Contact details* - Oksana: oksana.dereza(a)insight-centre.org - Priya: priya.rani(a)insight-centre.org Best wishes, Oksana and the organisers -- [image: https://nuig.insight-centre.org/] <https://www.insight-centre.org/> Oksana Dereza | PhD student on the Cardamom <http://cardamom.insight-centre.org/> project | Unit for Linguistic Data | Insight Centre for Data Analytics | Data Science Institute | University of Galway Oksana Dereza | Iarrthóir PhD ar thionscadal Cardamom <http://cardamom.insight-centre.org/> | An tAonad um Shonraí Teangeolaíocha | Insight, Ionad na hAnailísíochta Sonraí | Institiúid Eolaíochta Sonraí | Ollscoil na Gaillimhe

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PhD Studentship in e-Health and/or Sign Language Translation] @ Queen's University Belfast, UK
by Mohammed Hasanuzzaman 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Dear Colleagues, I am looking for a PhD student in e-Health and/or Sign Language Translation at the School of School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen's University in Belfast, UK. The details of the project can be found below: 1. https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate-research/phd-opportunities/causa… 2. https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate-research/phd-opportunities/endto… Requirements: The successful candidate is expected to have a solid background in Machine Learning, Statistics, computer science or related discipline. The minimum academic requirement for admission to a research degree programme is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI HE provider, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University. Refer to the official application process for details. Application Process: For enquiries, please send an email to Dr. Mohammed Hasanuzzaman at m.hasanuzzaman(a)qub.ac.uk with your CV and transcript as well as a brief description of your research interests. Unfortunately, due to a high volume of inquiries, I may not be able to respond to all emails. Submit your formal application through the following link. https://dap.qub.ac.uk/portal/user/u_login.php Your application should be clearly marked as EEECS/2024/MH1 and/or EEECS/2024/MH2 to ensure consideration for funding About Queen's: The Queen's University Belfast, founded almost two centuries ago, is one of the oldest universities in the United Kingdom. As a member of the prestigious Russell Group, Queen’s is one of the UK’s 24 leading research-intensive universities (ranked 13th in the UK for research intensity). Queen's has 15 subjects in the top 200 in the world (QS World University Rankings 2023). Five of those subjects are in the World Top 100 (QS World Rankings by subject 2023). For more details: https://www.qub.ac.uk/Study/Why-Study-at-Queens/rankings-and-reputation/ *International students are welcome to apply, but additional funding ( https://www.qub.ac.uk/Study/international-students/international-scholarshi…) or personal finances will be required to cover the difference between home (UK) and overseas fees. Best regards, Mohammed ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Dr. Mohammed HasanuzzamanLecturer/Assistant Professor**Queen's University Belfast <https://www.qub.ac.uk/>, UK * *&Munster Technological University <https://www.mtu.ie/>, Ireland* *Funded Investigator, ADAPT Centre- <https://www.adaptcentre.ie/> A <https://www.adaptcentre.ie/>* World-Leading SFI Research Centre <https://www.adaptcentre.ie/> *C**hercheur Associé*, GREYC UMR CNRS 6072 Research Centre, France <https://www.greyc.fr/en/home/> *Associate Editor:* * IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, Nature Scientific Reports, IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, ACM TALLIP, PLOS One, Computer Speech and Language**Website: **https://mohammedhasanuzzaman.github.io/ <https://mohammedhasanuzzaman.github.io/>* [image: Mailtrack] <https://mailtrack.io?utm_source=gmail&utm_medium=signature&utm_campaign=sig…> Sender notified by Mailtrack <https://mailtrack.io?utm_source=gmail&utm_medium=signature&utm_campaign=sig…> 10/11/23, 14:20:50

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3-year PhD position in Automatic Argumentation Mining in French Legal Decisions (Inria Lille, University of Lille, and LexisNexis France)
by Pascal Denis 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Hi there, Could you please distribute the following job offer? Thanks. Best, Pascal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We invite applications for a 3-year PhD position co-funded by Inria, the French national research institute in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and LexisNexis France, leader of legal information in France and subsidiary of the RELX Group. The overall objective of this project is to develop an automated system for detecting argumentation structures in French legal decisions, using recent machine learning-based approaches (i.e. deep learning approaches). In the general case, these structures take the form of a directed labeled graph, whose nodes are the elements of the text (propositions or groups of propositions, not necessarily contiguous) which serve as components of the argument, and edges are relations that signal the argumentative connection between them (e.g., support, offensive). By revealing the argumentation structure behind legal decisions, such a system will provide a crucial milestone towards their detailed understanding, their use by legal professionals, and above all contributes to greater transparency of justice. The main challenges and milestones of this project start with the creation and release of a large-scale dataset of French legal decisions annotated with argumentation structures. To minimize the manual annotation effort, we will resort to semi-supervised and transfer learning techniques to leverage existing argument mining corpora, such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) corpus, as well as annotations already started by LexisNexis. Another promising research direction, which is likely to improve over state-of-the-art approaches, is to better model the dependencies between the different sub-tasks (argument span detection, argument typing, etc.) instead of learning these tasks independently. A third research avenue is to find innovative ways to inject the domain knowledge (in particular the rich legal ontology developed by LexisNexis) to enrich enrich the representations used in these models. Finally, we would like to take advantage of other discourse structures, such as coreference and rhetorical relations, conceived as auxiliary tasks in a multi-tasking architecture. The successful candidate holds a Master's degree in computational linguistics, natural language processing, machine learning, ideally with prior experience in legal document processing and discourse processing. Furthermore, the candidate will provide strong programming skills, expertise in machine learning approaches and is eager to work at the interplay between academia and industry. The position is affiliated with the MAGNET [1], a research group at Inria, Lille, which has expertise in Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, in particular Discourse Processing. The PhD student will also work in close collaboration with the R&D team at LexisNexis France, who will provide their expertise in the legal domain and the data they have collected. 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 Pascal Denis (pascal.denis(a)inria.fr). The starting date of the position is 1 November 2022 or soon thereafter, for a total of 3 full years. Best regards, Pascal Denis [1] https://team.inria.fr/magnet/ [2] https://www.lexisnexis.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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