New Methods, Current Trends and Software Infrastructure for NLP

The increasing use of `new methods' in NLP, which the NeMLaP conference series exemplifies, occurs in the context of a wider shift in the nature and concerns of the discipline. This paper begins with a short review of this context and significant trends in the field. The review motivates and leads to a set of requirements for support software of general utility for NLP research and development workers. A freely-available system designed to meet these requirements is described (called GATE - a General Architecture for Text Engineering). Information Extraction (IE), in the sense defined by the Message Understanding Conferences (ARPA \cite{Arp95}), is an NLP application in which many of the new methods have found a home (Hobbs \cite{Hob93}; Jacobs ed. \cite{Jac92}). An IE system based on GATE is also available for research purposes, and this is described. Lastly we review related work.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, uses nemlap.sty (included

Effect of Crime Type, Citizenship Status, Ethnicity, and Location of Interrogation on Perceptions of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

The current study asks when, if ever, is it acceptable to use enhanced interrogation techniques? A mostly White (90.4%), female (55%) sample of 240 participants read a vignette describing an Italian or Saudi Arabian suspect, who was a U.S. citizen or illegal immigrant, who was interrogated on either a U.S. army base or abroad for one of two crimes: child molestation or terrorism. The study failed to find the hypothesized interaction that participants would be more likely to endorse the use of harsh interrogation tactics when the suspect was Saudi Arabian, an illegal immigrant, accused of terrorism, and interrogated abroad. Instead, an unexpected finding of ethnicity emerged: participants were more likely to endorse the use of harsh techniques when the suspect was Italian. The black sheep effect and reactivity are possible explanations presented, but future research is needed to further explore how these factors affect perceptions of enhanced interrogations

Automated essay grading: an evaluation of four conceptual models

Automated essay grading has been proposed for over thirty years. Only recently have practical implementations been constructed and tested. This paper describes the theoretical models for four implemented system described in the literature, and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. All four models make use of comparisons with one or many model answer documents that have been previously assessed by human markers. One hybrid system that makes use of some linguistic features, combined with document characteristics, is shown to be a practical solution at present. Another system that makes use of primarily linguistics features is also shown to be effective. An implementation that ignores linguistic and document features, and operates on the ?bag of words? approach, is then discussed. Finally an approach using text categorisation techniques is considered