MODERN

___________________________________________________________________________________

Modeling Discourse Entities and Relations for Coherent Machine Translation

MODERN is a SNSF Sinergia projected started in August 2013 and finished in July 2017.

MODERN was supported by grant n. CRSII2_147653 from the SNSF.

MODERN was led by the Idiap Research Institute with participants from the Universities of Geneva, Utrecht, and Zurich.

The goal of MODERN is to model and automatically detect textual dependencies across sentences, and to study their integration within machine translation systems, with the aim of demonstrating improvement in translation quality, with a specific focus on the interplay between referring expressions and discourse relations in four languages: English, French, German and Dutch. The MODERN project took advantage of the previous work carried in the COMTIS SNSF Sinergia project (2010-2013).

See also the English abstract and the French résumé in the SNSF database for MODERN.

News
[21-SEP-2018] Jet Hoek successfully defended her PhD thesis at the Utrecht University; the title of her thesis is: Making sense of discourse. On discourse segmentation and the linguistic marking of coherence relations. [31-AUG-2018] Xiao Pu successfully defended publicly her PhD thesis at EPFL; the title of her thesis is: Word Sense Consistency in Statistical and Neural Machine Translation [08-JAN-2018] Approval of the final scientific report. [14-NOV-2017] Approval of the final financial report. [23-OCT-2017] Laura Mascarell successfully defended her PhD thesis at the University of Zurich; the title of her thesis is: Crossing Sentence Boundaries in Machine Translation. [11-SEP-2017] Scientific and financial reports submitted to the SNSF. [7-SEP-2017] Presentation of several papers from MODERN to WMT and DiscoMT 2017 in Copenhagen. [31-JUL-2017] End of the MODERN project. [3-APR-2017] Machine translation: going beyond sentence by sentence, press release by the SNSF, relayed by Le Nouvelliste, Swissinfo, RTS, Handelszeitung, ArcInfo, and others. [3-APR-2017] Several MODERN papers will be presented at EACL in Valencia, by (first authors): Xiao Pu, Ngoc Quang Luong, Lesly Miculicich, Annette Rios and Don Tuggener. [7-NOV-2016] Plenary meeting at the Institut de langue et littérature françaises, University of Bern. [1-NOV-2016] The DiscoMT 2017 Workshop on Discourse and MT will be held next autumn at EMNLP in Copenhagen. [8-JUN-2016] The MODERN project will be presented at the First Swisstext Conference at ZHAW in Winterthur by Laura Mascarell. [11/12-MAY-2016] Plenary meeting at the Institute for Computational Linguistics, Zürich. [11/14-APR-2016] Strong MODERN presence at the TextLink Second Action Conference: 3 talks, 3 posters, one workshop. [4-MAR-2016] Nikolaos Pappas has defended his PhD thesis at EPFL partially supported by MODERN. [18-FEB-2016] UZh/Idiap meeting at the Institute for Computational Linguistics, Zürich. [30-NOV-2015] Maryam Habibi has defended her PhD thesis at EPFL partially supported by MODERN. [2-NOV-2015] Cristina Grisot has defended at UniGe her PhD thesis started in COMTIS and completed in MODERN. [17-SEP-2015] Second workshop on Discourse and MT at EMNLP in Lisbon: strong involvement of MODERN through several papers, participation in the shared task on pronoun translation, and co-chairing the workshop. [10/11-SEP-2015] Plenary meeting at the Idiap Research Institute in Martigny. [20-MAY-2015] Joint paper between the U. of Zurich and Idiap accepted at the ACL Student Research Workshop. [9/10-APR-2015] Plenary meeting at the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, UiL/OTS. [20-MAR-2015] Public PhD defense of Thomas Meyer (Idiap) at EPFL. [18-MAR-2015] Prof. Martin Volk (UZh) presented a poster (with L. Mascarell and M. Fishel) on "Compounds, Coreferences and Multiword Translations" at the Parseme COST Action Meeting, Malta. [10-MAR-2015] Prof. Martin Volk (UZh) was interviewed for the Neue Luzerner Zeitung on "Sprachgenies in Taschenformat". [08-DEC-2014] Successful private PhD thesis defense of Thomas Meyer at EPFL. [01-DEC-2014] Arrival at Idiap of Quang Luong, postdoctoral researcher, PhD from the U. of Grenoble. [19-NOV-2014] Plenary meeting at the Institute of Computational Linguistics of the University of Zurich. [20-OCT-2014] First annual scientific report is approved by the SNSF. [09-OCT-2014] Paper presented at Konvens 2014 by L. Mascarell, M. Fishel, N. Korchagina, and M. Volk. [15-SEP-2014] Visit of Idiap team to the University of Zurich. [15-AUG-2014] Arrival at Idiap of Lesly Miculicich for a 6-month internship. [01-AUG-2014] Arrival at Idiap of Xiao Pu, PhD student, and Pierre Lison, postdoctoral visitor from the University of Oslo. [25-26-JUN-2014] Two-day plenary meeting at the University of Geneva. [01-APR-2014] Martin Groen and Jet Hoek join MODERN in the UiL/OTS team. [03-MAR-2014] Plenary meeting at Idiap. Talk by Martin Volk to the institute. [24-JAN-2014] Paper accepted at LREC 2014 on "English-French Verb Phrase Alignment in Europarl for Tense Translation Modeling" by S. Loaiciga, Th. Meyer and A. Popescu-Belis. [24-JAN-2104] paper accepted at LREC 2014 on "Cross-linguistic annotation of narrativity for English/French verb tense disambiguation", by C. Grisot and Th. Meyer. [27-DEC-2013] two positions announced (postdoc, PhD) at UiL/OTS, Utrecht. [21-DEC-2013] three positions announced (postdoc, PhD, intern) at Idiap, Martigny. [03-DEC-2013] Idiap/UniZh technical meeting in Zurich. Talk by A. Popescu-Belis. [01-NOV-2013] Laura Mascarell joins MODERN as a PhD student at UniZh/CL. [07-OCT-2013] kick-off plenary meeting in Lausanne. [22-AUG-2013] informal meeting between Idiap/NLP, UiL/OTS and UniZh/CL in Lausanne. [01-AUG-2013] official start of the MODERN project.

News

[21-SEP-2018] Jet Hoek successfully defended her PhD thesis at the Utrecht University; the title of her thesis is:
Making sense of discourse. On discourse segmentation and the linguistic marking of coherence relations.
[31-AUG-2018] Xiao Pu successfully defended publicly her PhD thesis at EPFL; the title of her thesis is:
Word Sense Consistency in Statistical and Neural Machine Translation
[08-JAN-2018] Approval of the final scientific report.
[14-NOV-2017] Approval of the final financial report.
[23-OCT-2017] Laura Mascarell successfully defended her PhD thesis at the University of Zurich;
the title of her thesis is: Crossing Sentence Boundaries in Machine Translation.
[11-SEP-2017] Scientific and financial reports submitted to the SNSF.
[7-SEP-2017] Presentation of several papers from MODERN to WMT and DiscoMT 2017 in Copenhagen.
[31-JUL-2017] End of the MODERN project.
[3-APR-2017] Machine translation: going beyond sentence by sentence, press release by the SNSF, relayed
by Le Nouvelliste, Swissinfo, RTS, Handelszeitung, ArcInfo, and others.
[3-APR-2017] Several MODERN papers will be presented at EACL in Valencia, by (first authors):
Xiao Pu, Ngoc Quang Luong, Lesly Miculicich, Annette Rios and Don Tuggener.
[7-NOV-2016] Plenary meeting at the Institut de langue et littérature françaises, University of Bern.
[1-NOV-2016] The DiscoMT 2017 Workshop on Discourse and MT will be held next autumn at EMNLP in Copenhagen.
[8-JUN-2016] The MODERN project will be presented at the First Swisstext Conference at ZHAW in Winterthur by Laura Mascarell.
[11/12-MAY-2016] Plenary meeting at the Institute for Computational Linguistics, Zürich.
[11/14-APR-2016] Strong MODERN presence at the TextLink Second Action Conference: 3 talks, 3 posters, one workshop.
[4-MAR-2016] Nikolaos Pappas has defended his PhD thesis at EPFL partially supported by MODERN.
[18-FEB-2016] UZh/Idiap meeting at the Institute for Computational Linguistics, Zürich.

[30-NOV-2015] Maryam Habibi has defended her PhD thesis at EPFL partially supported by MODERN.
[2-NOV-2015] Cristina Grisot has defended at UniGe her PhD thesis started in COMTIS and completed in MODERN.
[17-SEP-2015] Second workshop on Discourse and MT at EMNLP in Lisbon: strong involvement of MODERN
through several papers, participation in the shared task on pronoun translation, and co-chairing the workshop.
[10/11-SEP-2015] Plenary meeting at the Idiap Research Institute in Martigny.
[20-MAY-2015] Joint paper between the U. of Zurich and Idiap accepted at the ACL Student Research Workshop.
[9/10-APR-2015] Plenary meeting at the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, UiL/OTS.
[20-MAR-2015] Public PhD defense of Thomas Meyer (Idiap) at EPFL.
[18-MAR-2015] Prof. Martin Volk (UZh) presented a poster (with L. Mascarell and M. Fishel) on "Compounds,
Coreferences and Multiword Translations" at the Parseme COST Action Meeting, Malta.
[10-MAR-2015] Prof. Martin Volk (UZh) was interviewed for the Neue Luzerner Zeitung on "Sprachgenies in Taschenformat".
[08-DEC-2014] Successful private PhD thesis defense of Thomas Meyer at EPFL.
[01-DEC-2014] Arrival at Idiap of Quang Luong, postdoctoral researcher, PhD from the U. of Grenoble.
[19-NOV-2014] Plenary meeting at the Institute of Computational Linguistics of the University of Zurich.
[20-OCT-2014] First annual scientific report is approved by the SNSF.
[09-OCT-2014] Paper presented at Konvens 2014 by L. Mascarell, M. Fishel, N. Korchagina, and M. Volk.
[15-SEP-2014] Visit of Idiap team to the University of Zurich.
[15-AUG-2014] Arrival at Idiap of Lesly Miculicich for a 6-month internship.
[01-AUG-2014] Arrival at Idiap of Xiao Pu, PhD student, and Pierre Lison, postdoctoral visitor from the University of Oslo.
[25-26-JUN-2014] Two-day plenary meeting at the University of Geneva.
[01-APR-2014] Martin Groen and Jet Hoek join MODERN in the UiL/OTS team.
[03-MAR-2014] Plenary meeting at Idiap. Talk by Martin Volk to the institute.
[24-JAN-2014] Paper accepted at LREC 2014 on "English-French Verb Phrase Alignment in Europarl for
Tense Translation Modeling" by S. Loaiciga, Th. Meyer and A. Popescu-Belis.
[24-JAN-2104] paper accepted at LREC 2014 on "Cross-linguistic annotation of narrativity for
English/French verb tense disambiguation", by C. Grisot and Th. Meyer.
[27-DEC-2013] two positions announced (postdoc, PhD) at UiL/OTS, Utrecht.
[21-DEC-2013] three positions announced (postdoc, PhD, intern) at Idiap, Martigny.
[03-DEC-2013] Idiap/UniZh technical meeting in Zurich. Talk by A. Popescu-Belis.
[01-NOV-2013] Laura Mascarell joins MODERN as a PhD student at UniZh/CL.
[07-OCT-2013] kick-off plenary meeting in Lausanne.
[22-AUG-2013] informal meeting between Idiap/NLP, UiL/OTS and UniZh/CL in Lausanne.
[01-AUG-2013] official start of the MODERN project.