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PhD Studentship in Language Technology, Monash University (Australia), Deadline: 31 Oct 2008

PhD Studentship in Language Technology, Monash University, Australia

(DEADLINE: 31:10:2008)

PhD Studentship in Language Technology, Monash University, Australia

The User Modeling and Natural Language (UMNL) Group at Monash University 
has been granted an ARC Linkage Grant for a project entitled "Sentiment 
detection from opinion surveys -- the quest for customer and employee 
satisfaction".  This project has a Melbourne- based industry partner, 
GAPbuster Worldwide, who is a leading provider of customer experience 
management solutions. The project will address current challenges in 
automatic sentiment detection, including determining whether discourse is 
subjective, and if so, its topic, polarity, intensity and usefulness. 
Sentiment detection is used for discriminating fact from opinion in 
information gathering applications, and extracting prevalent opinions 
about items. The aim of the project is to develop computational mechanisms 
that detect sentiment from texts, and summarize the sentiment expressed in 
multiple texts. The developed techniques will be applied to textual 
feedback provided by customers and employees about different aspects of 
service industries. The PhD student will focus on novel techniques for 
detecting polarity, intensity and usefulness, using Machine Learning 
techniques such as classification, bootstrapping and data compression. 
This is an excellent opportunity to work on a project with strong 
practical as well as theoretical merits, while closely interacting with a 
commercial organization.

Successful candidates will have a 1st class honours degree in Computer 
Science, Statistics or equivalent, or a Masters degree with a major 
research component, an exceptional academic record, excellent programming 
skills, strong written and verbal communications skills, and an ability to 
work in a team environment.

The studentship is available for Australian citizens and permanent 
residents and New Zealand citizens, for a period of 3 years, earning 
$25,627 per annum. The studentship must be taken up by March 31, 2009 at 
the latest. For further information and applications please contact Prof 
Ingrid Zukerman by email at Ingrid.Zukerman@infotech.monash.edu.au.

Deadline for application is October 31, 2008.