Acronym recognition and processing in 22 languages

We are presenting work on recognising acronyms of the form Long-Form (Short-Form) such as "International Monetary Fund (IMF)" in millions of news articles in twenty-two languages, as part of our more general effort to recognise entities and their variants in news text and to use them for the automatic analysis of the news, including the linking of related news across languages. We show how the acronym recognition patterns, initially developed for medical terms, needed to be adapted to the more general news domain and we present evaluation results. We describe our effort to automatically merge the numerous long-form variants referring to the same short-form, while keeping non-related long-forms separate. Finally, we provide extensive statistics on the frequency and the distribution of short-form/long-form pairs across languages

Foundation, Implementation and Evaluation of the MorphoSaurus System: Subword Indexing, Lexical Learning and Word Sense Disambiguation for Medical Cross-Language Information Retrieval

Im medizinischen Alltag, zu welchem viel Dokumentations- und Recherchearbeit gehört, ist mittlerweile der überwiegende Teil textuell kodierter Information elektronisch verfügbar. Hiermit kommt der Entwicklung leistungsfähiger Methoden zur effizienten Recherche eine vorrangige Bedeutung zu. Bewertet man die Nützlichkeit gängiger Textretrievalsysteme aus dem Blickwinkel der medizinischen Fachsprache, dann mangelt es ihnen an morphologischer Funktionalität (Flexion, Derivation und Komposition), lexikalisch-semantischer Funktionalität und der Fähigkeit zu einer sprachübergreifenden Analyse großer Dokumentenbestände. In der vorliegenden Promotionsschrift werden die theoretischen Grundlagen des MorphoSaurus-Systems (ein Akronym für Morphem-Thesaurus) behandelt. Dessen methodischer Kern stellt ein um Morpheme der medizinischen Fach- und Laiensprache gruppierter Thesaurus dar, dessen Einträge mittels semantischer Relationen sprachübergreifend verknüpft sind. Darauf aufbauend wird ein Verfahren vorgestellt, welches (komplexe) Wörter in Morpheme segmentiert, die durch sprachunabhängige, konzeptklassenartige Symbole ersetzt werden. Die resultierende Repräsentation ist die Basis für das sprachübergreifende, morphemorientierte Textretrieval. Neben der Kerntechnologie wird eine Methode zur automatischen Akquise von Lexikoneinträgen vorgestellt, wodurch bestehende Morphemlexika um weitere Sprachen ergänzt werden. Die Berücksichtigung sprachübergreifender Phänomene führt im Anschluss zu einem neuartigen Verfahren zur Auflösung von semantischen Ambiguitäten. Die Leistungsfähigkeit des morphemorientierten Textretrievals wird im Rahmen umfangreicher, standardisierter Evaluationen empirisch getestet und gängigen Herangehensweisen gegenübergestellt

Dashboard design to assess the impact of distinct data visualization techniques in the dynamic analysis of survey’s results

A study of available data visualization techniques is required to comprehensively and accurately display real-time information. Customizing existing platforms and designing new specific display formats are among the important tasks for getting an accurate view of information. In this work we have carried out a bibliographic review on visualization of data, techniques and platforms of existing Dashboards. We implemented a generic and dynamic dashboard based on information collected in real time. The objective was to assess the impact of the Data Visualization Techniques available on the developed dashboard. Therefore, Dashboard users will be able to interact with the information, accessing at an early stage a set of pre-defined charts, tables, and reports produced by the Dashboard itself. At a later stage it will be possible for users to have greater control over the presentation of the data and to customize the views presented, generating graphs, tables and reports dynamically. This implementation allows you to test an existing set of data visualization techniques and dynamically generated new forms, showing that Dashboards can become a unique and powerful means of providing information

Cross-lingual Linking of Multi-word Entities and their corresponding Acronyms

This paper reports on an approach and experiments to automatically build a cross-lingual multi-word entity resource. Starting from a collection of millions of acronym/expansion pairs for 22 languages where expansion variants were grouped into monolingual clusters, we experiment with several aggregation strategies to link these clusters across languages. Aggregation strategies make use of string similarity distances and translation probabilities and they are based on vector space and graph representations. The accuracy of the approach is evaluated against Wikipedia's redirection and cross-lingual linking tables. The resulting multi-word entity resource contains 64,000 multi-word entities with unique identifiers and their 600,000 multilingual lexical variants. We intend to make this new resource publicly available

A model for research supervision of international students in engineering and information technology disciplines: Final Report 2013

A large proportion (over 12 per cent) of international and non-English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate research students enrol in engineering and information technology (IT) programs in Australian universities. They find themselves in an advanced research culture, and are technically and scientifically challenged early in their programs. This is in addition to cultural, social and religious isolation and linguistic barriers they have to contend with. The project team surveyed this cohort at QUT and UWA, on the hypothesis that they face challenges that are more discipline-specific. The results of the survey indicate that existing supervisory frameworks which are limited to linguistic contexts are not fully assisting these students and supervisors to achieve high quality research. The goal of this project is to extend these supervisory frameworks to a holistic model that will address the unique needs and supervisory issues these students face in engineering and IT disciplines. The model will be useable by all other Australian universities

“Can’t be what you can’t see”: the transition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to higher education

This report presents the findings of an investigation into the processes, the data, the key issues, the pathways, the enablers, the constraints and the opportunities regarding the transition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into higher education. Through an examination of qualitative and quantitative evidence, the report explores the nuances, dimensions and different perspectives of what constitutes successful transition to higher education from a range of Indigenous community contexts and diverse university settings. The accompanying literature review for this project examined relevant research, policy and programs in peer-reviewed, non-peer-reviewed and grey literature relating to the transitioning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into higher education, including case studies of promising practice models nationally and internationally. • The research was commissioned and supported by the Australian Government through the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT). The project involved researchers from the Nulungu Research Institute and The University of Notre Dame Australia, from Southern Cross University and the Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE). It was completed under the expert leadership and guidance of Professor Lyn Henderson-Yates, Professor Marguerite Maher and Professor Patrick Dodson

Economic growth in Cape Town : An assessment and redirection of Cape Town's Spatial Development Framework

A challenge presented to city planners in Cape Town concerns the need to remedy spatial injustices and economic inequalities polarizing the city’s population. However, the current SDF does not sufficiently establish that the Voortrekker Road Corridor is the likely location for Cape Town's future economic backbone. This dissertation questions the feasibility of the Voortrekker Road Corridor project by testing the hypothesis that the city’s future economic backbone is unlikely to be situated along the West-East Voortrekker Road Corridor. This is accomplished by analysing growth trends in the non-residential property market. Evidence supporting the hypothesis was drawn using Geospatial Information System (GIS) analysis of the city’s recent spatial economic development using non-residential building area completions between 2005 and 2012. Informing these findings, interviews were conducted with property brokers, development managers and a senior urban planner at the City of Cape Town in order to gain expert insight into the property market in Cape Town. Rode’s Report analysing Cape Town’s property market for the first quarter of 2013 was also consulted, along with other reputable secondary sources. The results were and formed strong case for the nature of the city’s current spatial-economic trends. It was found that the most rapid rate of spatial economic growth is occurring along two north-south axes towards the northern peripheries. These development axes are broadly situated along N7 on the West Coast and along the R300’s northern segment towards Tygervalley and Brackenfell. What is more, spatial economic development is developing in several nodes, rather than along a single corridor. These have implications for planning to remedy spatial economic injustices in the city. It is argued that the SDF overestimates the capacity of planners to shape the course of spatial development, as is reflected by the encouragement of the East-West Voortrekker Road Corridor vision

The State of the Art of Automatic Programming

Automaatprogrammeerimine või koodi genereerimine on teatud tüüpi arvutiprogrammide loomisviis, kus kood genereeritakse mõne tööriista abil, mis võimaldab arendajatel koodi kirjutada kõrgemal abstraktsioonitasemel. Selliste programmide rakendamine tarkvaraarenduse protsessis on hea viis programmeerijate produktiivsuse tõstmiseks, võimaldades neil keskenduda pigem käesolevale ülesandele kui implementatsiooni detailidele. Senises teaduskirjanduses on vaadeldud konkreetseid lähenemisi või meetodeid eraldi. Väga vähesed uurimustööd vaatlevad aga kogu valdkonna viimast taset. Käesolevas töös käsitletakse automaatprogrammeerimist olemasoleva kirjanduse süstemaatilise kirjandusülevaate meetodi abil. Töö teeb ülevaate teemaga seonduvatest algoritmidest, probleemidest ning uurmisvaldkonna avatud uurimisküsimustest ning võrdleb valdkonna hetketaset praktika hetketasemega. Vaaldeldud 37 asjakohasest uuringust tegelesid 19 automaatprogrammeerimise üldise määratlemise ja alateemadega. Kolmkümmend uuringut pakkusid välja konkreetse algoritmi või lähenemisviisi. Esitatud tehnikatest rakendati 2 praktikas. Viimasel ajal on automaatprogrammerimise fookus nihkunud programmide sünteesilt induktiivsele programmeerimisele, mille on põhjustanud läbimurded tehisintellekti valdkonnas. Mõistete ja alateemade määratlus on teadlaste vahel ühtne. Õigete spetsifikatsioonide sõnastamine ja piisava teabe andmine automatiseerimiseks on endiselt lahtine uurimisküsimus.Automatic programming or code generation is a type of computer programming where the code is generated using some tools allowing developers to write code at the higher level of abstraction. Implementing these types of programs into the software development process is a good way to boost programmers’ performance by focusing on the task at hand rather than implementation details. Current literature on the subject reviews single approach or method. Very few of them are reviewing state of the art in general. This paper reviews the state of the art of automatic programming by overviewing the existing literature on the topic using systematic literature review method. The paper overviews approaches and algorithms of the topic, examines issues and open questions in the field and compares the state of the art to the state of the practice. Of 37 relevant studies, 19 addressed general definitions and subtopics of automatic programming. 30 presented specific algorithms or approaches. 2 of proposed techniques were implemented in practice. Currently, the focus of automatic programming shifted from program synthesis to inductive programming, caused by a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Definition of the term and subtopics is consistent between scholars. However, formulating correct specification and providing sufficient information for automation is still an open research question

OECD reviews of higher education in regional and city development, State of Victoria, Australia

With more than 5.3 million inhabitants Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Once a manufacturing economy, Victoria is now transforming itself into a service and innovation-based economy. Currently, the largest sectors are education services and tourism. In terms of social structure, Victoria is characterised by a large migrant population, 24% of population were born overseas and 44% were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas. About 70% of the population resides in Melbourne. Victoria faces a number of challenges, ranging from an ageing population and skills shortages to drought and climate change and increased risk of natural disasters. Rapid population growth, 2% annually, has implications for service delivery and uneven development as well as regional disparities. There are barriers to connectivity in terms of transport and infrastructure, and a high degree of inter-institutional competition in tertiary education sector. The business structure in Victoria includes some highly innovative activities such as in biotechnology, but other sectors, especially those with high number of small and medium-sized enterprises, are lagging behind. Most of the larger manufacturing enterprises are externally controlled and there is uncertainty over the long term investments they will make in the state, as well as the place of Victoria in the global production networks