Logic List Mailing Archive

Postdoctoral position in "Argument Analytics", Dundee (Scotland), Dedline: 30 Sep 2014

Postdoctoral research assistant in ?Argument Analytics? project, Dundee, 
SCOTLAND

http://www.arg-tech.org/index.php/tsb14-ra/

TSB-funded project ?Argument Analytics? Applications are invited for a 
postdoctoral research assistant in the project ?Argument Analytics? to be 
developed with an industrial partner. This R&D project is funded by the 
Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences 
Research Council (EPSRC) within the scope of Technology-inspired 
innovation ? ICT, and specifically in the area of ?Big data exploration?. 
The research sits on the border of the areas of computer models of 
argument, natural language processing and big data. Our aim will be to 
provide technologies for processing, navigating, manipulating and 
exploring argument structures through the big datasets of texts in natural 
language.

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Important dates
Application deadline: 30 Sept 2014, you can apply here
Interview for selected candidates: October 2014 (exact date will be given in 
individual invitations)
Starting date of the project: 1 Nov 2014 or as soon as possible thereafter
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1. Goal of the Project The project selects two of the most promising 
technologies with differing risk profiles ? argument mapping and argument 
mining ? and aims to develop industrial proof of concept demonstrators 
that integrate them as Argument Analytics platform technologies in a 
commercial market estimated to be worth £11bn in 2013.

Argument mining exploits the techniques and methods of natural language 
processing, or more specifically ? text and opinion mining, for 
semi-automatic and automatic recognition and extraction of structured 
argument data from unstructured natural language texts. Where opinion 
mining has focused on the identification of broad sentiment from a text 
(popular with corporate marketing departments in large companies eager to 
know if comments online are positive or negative about their products), 
argument mining aims to identify reason-conclusion structures that can 
lead to models of why people hold the positions they do (which provides 
even more desirable information for developing of marketing strategies).

The group in Dundee has a strong record in developing technologies for 
argument mapping, in particular software tools that allow for the 
representation and the visualisation of argument structures. The project 
will aim to expand the functionality of these tools in order to adopt them 
for the needs of a commercial domain targeted by the industrial partner, 
as well as to allow for the exploration of the space of massive datasets 
semi-automatically analysed by argument mining tool against deep argument 
structures.

We will adopt an agile approach to the software engineering, with a focus 
on rapid prototyping combined with frequent and regular evaluation and 
feedback from engineers working for the industrial partner. The consortium 
is committed to maintaining strong links with its potential users.

2. Prospects for Further Career Path Different funding bodies are starting 
to recognise the potential and importance of innovation and development in 
the area of big data. The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has just funded 
?Big data? innovation centre setting to add over 300 jobs and £150m to 
Scottish economy (read here). Both EPSRC and EU (H2020) are investing a 
large amounts of funds for the calls addressing the area of big data:

Big Data creates numerous opportunities for driving research and 
development (?) [RCUK] recognises the enormous potential of Big Data for 
the UK economy with a total sum of £189 million to invest in its 
exploitation. UK Research Councils on Big Data; available at here

Worldwide Big Data technology and services are expected to grow from €2.4 
billion in 2010 to €12.7 billion in 2015. The challenge is to strengthen 
Europe?s position as provider of products and services based on digital 
content and data. EU Council Decision Establishing the Specific Programme 
Implementing HORIZON 2020.

By working closely with and for the industrial partner, this project 
promotes the commercial experience and opens new paths for potential 
future employment in industry.

3. Environment and Support The position will be held in the Centre for 
Argument Technology, ARG-tech, in the School of Computing at the 
University of Dundee. The research will be led by Dr. Katarzyna Budzynska 
with regular contact with the industrial partner. We will be closely 
cooperating with Prof. Chris Reed and a PhD student who will start at the 
same time on an EPSRC DTG-funded project ?Recognizing Trust in Natural 
Language?, as well as with our collaborators in France, Germany, Poland 
and Switzerland.

ARG-tech has built a reputation on balancing high quality theoretical 
research with robust and reliable software engineering. Its software is in 
use in thousands of schools, colleges and universities in over 60 
countries around the world. The group of ARG-tech is working with users 
and major players in domains such as law, mediation, government, media and 
education, and the tools we are building are regularly demonstrated to 
groups within these domains.

The student will be working in close cooperation with the international 
network of our collaborators in IRIT Toulouse (discourse processing and 
opinion mining, computational linguistics); University of Potsdam 
(discourse generation and speech act theory, computational linguistics); 
Polish National Academy of Sciences at Warsaw (logic and philosophy of 
communication); and Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano 
(pragmatics of financial communication, communication studies).

At the most recent RAE, the research of the School of Computing in Dundee 
was rated fourth in Scotland, with two thirds of its research rated world 
leading or internationally excellent (4* or 3*). Dundee has been ranked 
amongst the top places in the world for scientists to work (The 
Scientist), has one of the lowest costs of living in the UK, and is less 
than 1.5 hr from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

4. Requirements and Conditions The candidate should have a PhD degree, 
preferably in computational linguistics, computer science, artificial 
intelligence or related areas. Programming experience is an advantage. 
Interest in communication and natural language in either computational, 
linguistic or philosophical settings would be beneficial.

The starting date of the project will be 1st Nov 2014 or as soon as 
possible thereafter, and will run for 18 months.

Remuneration will be at Grade 7 (£29,837 to £36,661 per year).

5. Application Further details and an application pack are available from 
our website: www.jobs.dundee.ac.uk . Alternatively, contact Personnel 
Services, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, tel: (01382) 384817 
(answering machine).

You should apply through the dedicated webpage here. Informal enquiries 
are encouraged and should be directed to Dr. Katarzyna Budzynska: 
k.budzynska (at) dundee.ac.uk

The closing date for applications is 30 Sept 2014.