Lynette Hirschman

Bio: Lynette Hirschman is an academic researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Spoken language & Natural language. The author has an hindex of 16, co-authored 36 publications receiving 1357 citations.

Multi-site data collection and evaluation in spoken language understanding

Abstract: The Air Travel Information System (ATIS) domain serves as the common task for DARPA spoken language system research and development The approaches and results possible in this rapidly growing area are structured by available corpora, annotations of that data, and evaluation methods Coordination of this crucial infrastructure is the charter of the Multi-Site ATIS Data COllection Working group (MADCOW) We focus here on selection of training and test data, evaluation of language understanding, and the continuing search for evaluation methods that will correlate well with expected performance of the technology in applications

Evaluating message understanding systems: an analysis of the third message understanding conference (MUC-3)

Abstract: This paper describes and analyzes the results of the Third Message Understanding Conference (MUC-3). It reviews the purpose, history, and methodology of the conference, summarizes the participating systems, discusses issues of measuring system effectiveness, describes the linguistic phenomena tests, and provides a critical look at the evaluation in terms of the lessons learned. One of the common problems with evaluations is that the statistical significance of the results is unknown. In the discussion of system performance, the statistical significance of the evaluation results is reported and the use of approximate randomization to calculate the statistical significance of the results of MUC-3 is described.

The challenge of spoken language systems: Research directions for the nineties

Abstract: A spoken language system combines speech recognition, natural language processing and human interface technology. It functions by recognizing the person's words, interpreting the sequence of words to obtain a meaning in terms of the application, and providing an appropriate response back to the user. Potential applications of spoken language systems range from simple tasks, such as retrieving information from an existing database (traffic reports, airline schedules), to interactive problem solving tasks involving complex planning and reasoning (travel planning, traffic routing), to support for multilingual interactions. We examine eight key areas in which basic research is needed to produce spoken language systems: (1) robust speech recognition; (2) automatic training and adaptation; (3) spontaneous speech; (4) dialogue models; (5) natural language response generation; (6) speech synthesis and speech generation; (7) multilingual systems; and (8) interactive multimodal systems. In each area, we identify key research challenges, the infrastructure needed to support research, and the expected benefits. We conclude by reviewing the need for multidisciplinary research, for development of shared corpora and related resources, for computational support and far rapid communication among researchers. The successful development of this technology will increase accessibility of computers to a wide range of users, will facilitate multinational communication and trade, and will create new research specialties and jobs in this rapidly expanding area. >

Multi-site data collection for a spoken language corpus

Abstract: This paper describes a recently collected spoken language corpus for the ATIS (Air Travel Information System) domain. This data collection effort has been co-ordinated by MADCOW (Multi-site ATIS Data COllection Working group). We summarize the motivation for this effort, the goals, the implementation of a multi-site data collection paradigm, and the accomplishments of MADCOW in monitoring the collection and distribution of 12,000 utterances of spontaneous speech from five sites for use in a multi-site common evaluation of speech, natural language and spoken language.

Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition

Abstract: From the Publisher: This book takes an empirical approach to language processing, based on applying statistical and other machine-learning algorithms to large corpora.Methodology boxes are included in each chapter. Each chapter is built around one or more worked examples to demonstrate the main idea of the chapter. Covers the fundamental algorithms of various fields, whether originally proposed for spoken or written language to demonstrate how the same algorithm can be used for speech recognition and word-sense disambiguation. Emphasis on web and other practical applications. Emphasis on scientific evaluation. Useful as a reference for professionals in any of the areas of speech and language processing.

Speech and Language Processing

Abstract: is one of the most recognizablecharacters in 20th century cinema. HAL is an artificial agent capable of such advancedlanguage behavior as speaking and understanding English, and at a crucial moment inthe plot, even reading lips. It is now clear that HAL’s creator, Arthur C. Clarke, wasa little optimistic in predicting when an artificial agent such as HAL would be avail-able. But just how far off was he? What would it take to create at least the language-relatedpartsofHAL?WecallprogramslikeHALthatconversewithhumansinnatural

The Text Mining Handbook: Advanced Approaches in Analyzing Unstructured Data

Abstract: 1. Introduction to text mining 2. Core text mining operations 3. Text mining preprocessing techniques 4. Categorization 5. Clustering 6. Information extraction 7. Probabilistic models for Information extraction 8. Preprocessing applications using probabilistic and hybrid approaches 9. Presentation-layer considerations for browsing and query refinement 10. Visualization approaches 11. Link analysis 12. Text mining applications Appendix Bibliography.

Intelligent Automated Assistant

Abstract: An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.