________________________________ From: Rui Sousa Silva via Corpora corpora@list.elra.info Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2023 12:29:12 PM To: corpora@list.elra.info corpora@list.elra.info Subject: [Corpora-List] LITHME WG1 TECH TALKS: "With a little help from NLP", R. Mitkov. 17.03.2023

*** APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTINGS ***

Dear all,

The chairs of LITHME Working Group 1 - Computational Linguistics are pleased to invite you to our forthcoming online talk, ' With a little help from NLP: My Language Technology applications with impact on society(and my thoughts on the future of NLP) ', by Ruslan Mitkov.

The talk will present original methodologies developed by the speaker, underpinning implemented Language Technology tools which are already having an impact on the following areas of society: e-learning, translation and interpreting and care for people with language disabilities.

The first part of the presentation will introduce an original methodology and tool for generating multiple-choice tests from electronic textbooks. The application draws on a variety of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques which include term extraction, semantic computing and sentence transformation. The presentation will include an evaluation of the tool which demonstrates that generation of multiple-choice tests items with the help of this tool is almost four times faster than manual construction and the quality of the test items is not compromised. This application benefits e-learning users (both teachers and students) and is an example of how NLP can have a positive societal impact, in which the speaker passionately believes. The latest version of the system based on deep learning techniques will also be briefly introduced.

The talk will go on to discuss two other original recent projects which are also related to the application of NLP beyond academia. First, a project, whose objective is to develop next-generation translation memory tools for translators and, in the near future, for interpreters, will be briefly presented. Finally, a project will be outlined which focuses on helping users with autism to read and better understand texts. The speaker will put forward ideas as to what we can do next.

The presentation will finish with a brief outline of the latest (and forthcoming) research topics (to be) which the speaker plans to pursue and his vision on the future NLP applications. In particular, he will share his views as to how NLP will develop and what should be done for NLP to be more successful, more inclusive and more ethical.

You can find a bio note of Ruslan Mitkov below.

Since this talk might be of interest to other LITHME members, we took the liberty of sharing it with the whole network.

The talk will take place on Friday, 17 March, at 13:00 (CET), via Zoom. Attendance, as usual, is free, but you will need to register in advance by clicking:

https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrcO2urz0qHt3aELxrDnw_A...

We look forward to seeing you online on 17 March.

All best

Rui & Henrique

Ruslan Mitkov - Bionote

Prof Dr Ruslan Mitkov has been working in Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computational Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, Machine Translation, Translation Technology and related areas since the early 1980s. Whereas Prof Mitkov is best known for his seminal contributions to the areas of anaphora resolution and automatic generation of multiple-choice tests, his extensively cited research (more than 270 publications including 20 books, 35 journal articles and 40 book chapters) also covers topics such as deep learning for NLP, machine translation, translation memory and translation technology in general, bilingual term extraction, automatic identification of cognates and false friends, natural language generation, automatic summarisation, computer-aided language processing, centering, evaluation, corpus annotation, NLP-driven corpus-based study of translation universals, text simplification, NLP for people with language disorders and computational phraseology. In addition, Ruslan Mitkov is well known for his vision in research based on innovative ideas and drive towards research output which seeks to enhance the work efficiency of different professions (e.g. for teachers, translators and interpreters) or seeks to improve the quality of life (e.g. for people with language disabilities) and which has significant impact beyond academia. Mitkov is author of the monograph Anaphora resolution (Longman) and Editor of the most successful Oxford University Press Handbook - The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics whose second and substantially revised edition was published in June 2022. Current prestigious projects include his role as Executive Editor of the Journal of Natural Language Engineering published by Cambridge University Press and Editor-in-Chief of the Natural Language Processing book series of John Benjamins publishers. Dr Mitkov is also working on the forthcoming Oxford Dictionary of Computational Linguistics (Oxford University Press, co-authored with Patrick Hanks) and the Oxford Handbook of Phraseology Linguistics (Oxford University Press, co-authored with Gloria Corpas and Jean-Pierre Colson). Prof Mitkov has been invited as a keynote speaker at more than 200 international conferences. He has acted as Chair or Programme Chair of more than 65 international conferences on Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Translation, Translation Technology, Translation Studies, Corpus Linguistics and Anaphora Resolution. He is asked on a regular basis to review for leading international funding bodies and organisations and to act as a referee for applications for Professorships both in North America and Europe. Ruslan Mitkov is regularly asked to review for leading journals, publishers and conferences and serve as a member of Programme Committees or Editorial Boards. Prof Mitkov has been an external examiner of many doctoral theses and curricula in the UK and abroad, including Master’s programmes related to NLP, Translation and Translation Technology. Prof Mitkov is Coordinator (Director) of the first and only Erasmus Mundus Master’s Programme in Technology for Translation and Interpreting - an innovative and inspirational programme, with a strong research focus but an equally strong emphasis on business; leading companies in the global translation and language industry participate as associated partners. Dr Mitkov has considerable external funding to his credit (more than £ 20,000,000) and has been Principal Investigator of 25 projects, are funded by UK research councils, by the EC as well as by companies and users from the UK and USA. Ruslan Mitkov received his MSc from the Humboldt University in Berlin, his PhD from the Technical University in Dresden and worked as a Research Professor at the Institute of Mathematics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. Mitkov is Professor of Computational Linguistics and Language Engineering at the University of Wolverhampton which he joined in 1995 and where he set up the Research Group in Computational Linguistics. His Research Group has emerged as an internationally leading unit in applied Natural Language Processing and members of the group have won awards at different NLP/shared-task competitions and conferences. In addition to being Head of the Research Group in Computational Linguistics, Prof Mitkov is also Director of the Research Institute in Information and Language Processing and Director of the Responsible Digital Humanities Lab. The Research Institute consists of the Research Group in Computational Linguistics and the Research Group in Statistical Cybermetrics, which is another top performer internationally. Ruslan Mitkov is Vice President of ASLING, an international Association for promoting Language Technology. Dr Mitkov is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, was a Marie Curie Fellow, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France and Distinguished Visiting Researcher at the University of Malaga, Spain; he also serves/has served as Vice-Chair for the prestigious EC funding programmes ‘Future and Emerging Technologies’ and ‘EIC Pathfinder Open’. In September 2022 the renowned National Board of Medical Examiners (USA) presented Prof Mitkov with a certificate of distinguished collaboration which resulted in lasting impact on the strategic planning and decision making of the US organisation and their employment of NLP solutions to assessment for the last 17 years. In recognition of his outstanding professional/research achievements, Prof Mitkov was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa at Plovdiv University in November 2011. At the end of October 2014 Dr Mitkov was also conferred Professor Honoris Causa at Veliko Tarnovo University and on 25 October 2022 Prof R Mitkov received the title ‘Doctor Honoris Cause’ for the third time, this time awarded by New Bulgarian University, Sofia.

Rui Sousa Silva

Professor Auxiliar | Assistant Professor PhD Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto | Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto CLUP-Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto | Linguistics Centre of the University of Porto

www.linguisticaforense.pthttp://www.linguisticaforense.pt | https://s.up.pt/qjur

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Rui Sousa Silva.

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Professor Auxiliar | Assistant Professor www.letras.up.pt | www.clup.pt | www.linguisticaforense.pt