Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:12:09 GMT Server: Apache/1.1.1+ Content-type: text/html Content-length: 3699 Last-modified: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 22:20:26 GMT Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval: U of U CS

University of Utah
Department of Computer Science

Natural Language Processing
and Information Retrieval


Calvin: "I like to verb words."
Hobbes: "What?"
Calvin: "I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when `access' was a thing? Now it's something you do . It got verbed."
Calvin: "Verbing weirds language."
Hobbes: "Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding."

- Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

Current Research Projects

Information Extraction

Our natural language processing research focuses on information extraction , which involves recognizing and extracting specific types of information from text. We are currently building a new conceptual sentence analyzer called Sundance (Sentence UNDerstanding ANd Concept Extraction).

Automated Dictionary Construction

We have developed the AutoSlog dictionary construction system that generates dictionaries of extraction patterns automatically using an annotated corpus. We are currently working with a new version, AutoSlog-TS, that does not require text annotations but simply preclassified texts instead.

Text Categorization

Our approach to text classification an underlying information extraction system to recognize linguisic context in order to achieve high precision. We have developed several algorithms for text classification, including the relevancy signatures algorithm, the augmented relevency signatures algorithm, and a case-based classification algorithm.

Information Retrieval

The URSA (Utah Retrieval System Architecture) Project has been ongoing at Utah for many years and involves building query-based retrieval engines and text browsers.

Cast of Characters

Faculty:  Ellen Riloff, The Queen of Slog
	  Lee Hollaar, Washington Correspondent
Staff:	  Robert Elens, Pif God
Students: David Bean, Chief Parrothead
	  Jeff "Crash" Lorenzen
	  Kem "Kareem" Mason
	  Paul Nielson, Newlywed
	  Mark Salem, Virtual Student
	  Jessica Shepherd
	  Kiri Wagstaff


About SLC and Utah



Mail: riloff@cs.utah.edu for more information.
Last modified: Thu Nov 23 08:14:37 1995