The UNDL Foundation and the University of Patras invite applications for the XIV UNL School, to take place at the University of Patras, in Patras, Greece, from March 10th to 14th, 2014. The workshop is dedicated to the development of the resources for the processing of the languages below. The UNDL Foundation will pay the travel and accommodation expenses for the selected candidates not living in the region of Patras.

IMPORTANT DATES

DEDICATION

The XIV UNL School is dedicated to the memory of Olga Vartzioti

LANGUAGES

The workshop is dedicated to the development of the resources for the following languages:

• Albanian
• Basque
• Belarussian
• Catalan
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• Finnish
• Greek (Ancient)
• Greek (Modern)
• Hebrew
• Icelandic
• Latin
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Macedonian
• Maltese
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Swedish
• Turkish

GOAL

The main goal of the XIV UNL School is to extend the number of languages participating in the UNL Program, by creating the corresponding basic dictionaries and corpora, as well as the morphological modules of the grammar (inflectional paradigms and subcategorization frames)

REQUISITES

In order to apply, external candidates must comply with ALL the following requisites:

• Candidates must be native speakers of any of the languages referred to above OR must have a university diploma in Latin or Ancient Greek;
• Candidates must have completed the certificates CLEA750 and CUP500 (these certificates may be be pursued online at VALERIE - the Virtual Learning Environment for UNL, available at www.unlweb.net/valerie)
• Candidates must have a degree in Linguistics, Language Studies, Translation Studies, Computational Linguistics or related field; and
• Candidates must be residents in Europe or Middle East.

Previous experience in natural language processing, respectable academic records and previous experience in any of the existing projects within the UNLweb will also be valued, but are not mandatory. Local candidates (from the University of Patras) will be selected according to the criteria defined by the local organization.

APPLICATION

In order to apply, candidates must fill in the form available at www.unlweb.net/school/registration until the deadline.

SELECTION

The UNDL Foundation will select up to 10 local candidates from the University of Patras, and up to 10 external candidates not living in the region of Patras, according to the following criteria:

• Language diversity
• Strongest experience in the UNLweb
• Strongest experience in natural language processing
• Highest academic degree

VENUE

University of Patras, Patras, Greece

SUPPORT

The UNDL Foundation will pay the following travel and accommodation expenses for the selected candidates

• To the external candidates (i.e., not living in the region of Patras)
  • a round-trip plane, bus or train ticket from/to Patras;
  • 6 (six) nights at a budget hotel in Patras; and
  • 6 (six) per diem of USD50.00 (total of USD300.00), to cover any other expenses, including meals and transportation.
• To the local candidates (i.e., living in the region of Patras)
  • 6 (six half per-diem) of USD25.00 (total of USD150.00), to cover any expenses, including meals and transportation.

PROGRAM

The workshop will take 30 hours, from March 10th to March 14th, 2014, according to the tentative schedule below:

• March 10th, Monday - Introduction to UNL
• March 11th, Tuesday - Grammar: inflectional paradigms
• March 12th, Wednesday - Grammar: subcategorization frames
• March 13th, Thursday - Dictionaries
• March 14th, Friday - Evaluation & Discussion

CERTIFICATION

The UNDL Foundation will issue a Certificate of Participation, upon evaluation, for all the participants.

THE UNL AND THE UNDL FOUNDATION

The UNDL Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, which has received, from the United Nations, the mandate for implementing the Universal Networking Language (UNL). The UNL is an artificial language that has been used for several different tasks in natural language engineering, such as machine translation, multilingual document generation, summarization, information retrieval and semantic reasoning. It has been, since 1996, a unique initiative to reduce language barriers and strengthen cross-cultural acommunication in the framework of the UN.

LOCAL ORGANIZATION

FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information, please contact:

Ronaldo Martins, PhD

Language Resources Manager

UNDL Foundation

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