What can NLP do in a Disaster?

by hagiwara on October 26, 2011 · No Comments

The paper we submitted to IJCNLP2011 has been accepted, and will be presented soon at the conference which will be held in a few weeks from now.
The paper describes the #ANPI_NLP project, a voluntary relief project focusing on text and safety information mining in the wake of The East Japan Earthquake in March, 2011.

Here’s the full paper PDF (which is kindly uploaded by the leading co-author Mr. Graham Neubig).

In the paper, we not only describe how the project was started and evolved and what kind of tasks we dealt with, but also focused on the lessons we learned from the project experience.
Even after the submission we have received some useful feedback from colleagues and peer researchers. In retrospect, we could have done more things during the relief effort and even BEFORE any disasters happen.
Please read the paper if you are interested, and give us back any feedback. (Floods in Thailand still continue as I write this article — I hope the conference is held without any problems)