Titulo Estágio
Automatic Question Answering Framework
Áreas de especialidade
Sistemas Inteligentes
Local do Estágio
Novabase / Center for Cognitive Computing / Coimbra
Enquadramento
The recently created Center for Cognitive Computing of Novabase, headquartered in Coimbra, is dedicated to applying the latest cognitive technologies, delivering the best solutions for the most challenging problems. With the increasing size of organizations and complexity of their processes, we live in an era where information is the most valuable asset of any business and their biggest challenge at the same time. The value hidden in this ever growing ocean of information can be used to empower people, automate processes and improve experiences. The cognitive technologies are here to uncover that potential and transform businesses once again, to something that we could only imagine until now.
With the growing amount of unstructured information that is available today, knowledge workers are forced to spend most of their time reading and analyzing texts in order to collect the information they need. But, for many organizations, coping with the amount of data that is available has become an impossible task, either because they cannot afford to dedicate more employees for such task, or because the task has become itself impossible to be handled by humans.
In order to overcome this problem, several approaches have been exploited over the years. From information retrieval/filtering to information extraction, all these approaches try to ease the task of finding and collecting relevant information from unstructured content. But, many of them fail to provide an objective answer to the user, because searching for a document, or having it recommended, does not answer the user question, it just reduces the search space.
The task of Automatic Question Answering aims to answer questions posed by humans in a natural language. An automatic question answering system can help humans find the answers they need more efficiently, using data collected from a knowledge base and combining different approaches, from Natural Language Processing to Machine Learning, to understand the question and generate an adequate answer.
Objetivo
The main objective of this internship is the development of an Automatic Question Answering Framework based on state of the art approaches, to support the implementation of solutions that require generating answers for questions targeting a given set of texts (e.g. answer the question “what is the current perspective for the USD currency?”, given a set of investment reports).
The development of such a framework will require the completion of the following goals:
- Analysis of the state of the art, available technologies and existing competitors.
- Analysis and comparison of possible approaches.
- Implementation of a solution for automatic question answering, including support for data ingestion, question analysis and answer generation, as well as adequate APIs.
- Experimentation and fine-tuning of the implemented solution.
By the end of the internship, the intern should have gained experience in the development of solutions at an enterprise level, including processes and expected deliverables. More specifically, the intern will have acquired relevant knowledge about the design, implementation and experimentation of an Automatic Question Answering Framework, including applicable and relevant approaches.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
Semestre 1 (Tempo parcial 16h/s, no DEI para alunos de MDM): * [Máximo de 5000 caracteres]
- State of the Art, Technological Survey and Competitor Analysis [September- October]
- Requirement Analysis [November]
- Approach Analysis and Selection [November - December]
- Specification and Design [December]
- Thesis Proposal Writing [January - February]
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
Semestre 2 (Tempo inteiro 40h/s): * [Máximo de 5000 caracteres]
- Solution Development (Agile) [February - June]
- Solution Experimentation [June]
- Thesis Writing [June - July]
Condições
The intern will work at the Centre for Cognitive Computing of Novabase, headquartered in Coimbra, in the middle of a dynamic innovation ecosystem. Integrated in a growing team of talented people that are passionate about what they do, never run away from a good problem and are committed to deliver with the highest quality. We offer a challenging environment, the opportunity to work on large projects with international customers and a career focused on personal development.
The internship will be supervised by a senior member of the team, which will ensure a smooth integration of the intern and provide guidance whenever needed.
The intern will be invited to join the team by the end of the internship, given that they demonstrate to be up to the challenge and is able to deliver the expected results.
The intern will receive an internship grant.
Orientador
Bruno Antunes
bruno.antunes@novabase.com 📩