Editorial
Welcome to the first issue of the Machine Translation Review. The Review incorporates the Newsletter of the Natural Language Specialist Group of the British Computer Society and aims to continue and develop the Newsletter's well established tradition of informing its members about its activities and about developments in machine translation and related areas. The new title, the improved format, and the twice yearly appearance of the Review are intended to encourage a wide range of contributions.
Topics covered in the present issue include the Groups's MNLP Project, a summary of the Cranfield Conference, a description of an MT system under development, and the role of MT in a commercial environment; there are also book reviews and an introduction to linguistic resources on the Internet. Articles (either of an academic or non-academic nature), reviews, advertisements, items of information, letters, and suggestions are warmly welcomed.
If you develop, teach, or in any way use software that touches on the concerns of multilingual text processing, please consider contributing to the Review. Arrangements are also in hand to publish the Review electronically alongside the printed version.
Derek Lewis
Group News and Information
Letter from the Chairman
There was some relief when we found that the MT Conference in November last year was going to be well attended and then pleasure when in the event it was such a success. This was thanks to all the hard work of the organising committee, particularly those at Cranfield led by Douglas Clarke. We must also thank the speakers for all their work in preparing and presenting such a varied and interesting set of papers.
The Group's programme of talks in 1994 unfortunately suffered but we hope we can start making up for that soon.
Last year we were delighted to welcome a number of additions to the Committee: Derek Lewis from Exeter University as Newsletter Editor, with the assistance of Catharine Scott from the University of North London, and Tania Reynolds; Ian Thomas as Treasurer; and Roger Harris.
However, we were sorry to lose Frank Knowles, David Robinson and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, but we thank them for their contribution and their interest in the work of the Group.
I hope you like our new look publication, Machine Translation Review, which Derek Lewis has master-minded. We hope you will now feel more inclined to submit articles and reports for publication. We very much want to increase the quantity, quality and range of its contents for your information.
Most of what I said last year about supporting the Group still applies. If you are interested in MT and/or MNLP please try to become more involved with the work of the Group and learn more by taking part. We could still use a Membership Secretary, a Universities and Projects Monitor, and a Librarian to keep in touch with the BCS Library and Publishers in order to report relevant new books.
If you would like any further information about these jobs, such as the numbers involved or how much time they might take, please let me know. If you have any other ideas about how you would like to contribute to our knowledge and your own at the same time, please let me know.
David Wigg
The Committee
The telephone numbers and E-Mail addresses of the Officers of the Group are as follows:
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| David Wigg (Chair): |
01732 455446 (Home)
0171 815 7472 (Work)
wiggjd@vax.sbu.ac.uk
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| Monique L'Huillier (Secretary): |
01276 20488 (H)
01784 443243 (W)
m.lhuillier@vax.rhbnc.ac.uk
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| Ian Thomas (Treasurer): |
0181 464 3955 (H)
0171 379 9800 (W)
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| Derek Lewis (Editor): |
01404 814186 (H)
01392 264330 (W)
01392 264377 (fax)
d.r.lewis@exeter.ac.uk
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| Tania Reynolds (Assistant Editor): |
01444 416012 (H)
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| Catharine Scott (Assistant Editor): |
0181 889 5155 (H)
0171 607 2789 X 4008 (W)
c.scott@unl.ac.uk
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| Ian Kelly (Rapporteur): |
01276 857599 (H)
idkk@gsi.fr
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BCS Library
The following books kindly donated by members have recently been passed to the BCS Library at the IEE, Savoy Place, London, WC2R 0BL, UK, and will be added to the slowly growing number of books on MT. Reference books may be examined in the library. Members of the BCS may borrow non-reference books from this library, either in person or by post. All they have to provide is their membership number. The Library is open Monday to Friday, 9.00 to 5.00 pm. (Tel: 0171 240 1871; Fax: 0171 497 3557).
- Automatic Natural Language Parsing
- Sparck Jones, K. and Wilks, Y. (eds) (1985)
- Machine Translation
- Nirenburg, S. (ed.) (1987)
- Multilingual PC Directory (3rd edition)
- Tresman, Ian (1994)
Books
The following MT or NLP related books have been seen or advertised in the last year. This list does NOT purport to be a list of recommendations. Please let us know of any others you think we should know about, or of any similar books proposed for 1995/96. Reviews of books submitted by publishers are in separate section of this periodical (see page 32).
- Computational Approaches to the Lexicon
- Atkins, B. T. and Zampolli, A. (eds) (1994)
OUP: Oxford.
Hardback £55.00.
ISBN 0-19-823979-3.
- The Multilingual PC Directory
- Tresman, I. (1994)
3rd edition, Knowledge Computing, 9 Ashdown Drive, Boreham Wood, Herts. WD64LZ, UK.
£35 + postage.
ISBN 1-873091-03-6.
- String Processing and Text Manipulation in C
- Lipkin, B. S. (1994)
Prentice Hall.
Paperback £27.82.
ISBN 0-13-121443-8.
- Computing in Linguistics and Phonetics. Introductory Readings
- Roach, P. (editor) (1992)
London: Academic Press. Paperback £14.95.
ISBN 0-12-589340-X
- Machine Translation. An Introductory Guide
- Arnold, D., Balkan, L., Lee Humphreys, R., Meijer, S., and Sadler, L. (1994)
Oxford: NCC/Blackwell. Hardback £40.00. ISBN 1-85554-246-3.
Paperback £18.99. ISBN 1-85554-217-X.
- Natural Language Processing: the PLNLP Approach, Boston
- Jensen, K., Heidorn, G. E. and Richardson, S. D. (1993)
Kluwer Academic Press.
Hardback £80. ISBN 0-7923-9279-5.
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