Read the research blog Further Findings.
Research Prizes and Honors
[Have you or a colleague won a research-related prize or honor? Let the Research Alert know.]
BARD INVITED TO BECOME HONORARY FELLOW IN CHEMISTRY SOCIETY
Allen Bard, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been invited to become an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). The Council of the RSC celebrates excellence in the chemical sciences by inviting a small number of eminent individuals to become Honorary Fellows. There are 85 Honorary Fellows.
News and Information
RESEARCH FORUM CALLS FOR ABSTRACTS
The Central Texas Clinical Research Forum has issued a call for abstracts for presentation at the forum, which is May 7, 2010.
The event is for faculty, residents, students, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and staff interested in research.
QuotedUT Researchers in the News
[A sampling of recent quotes by university faculty members and researchers. To be included in this section, let the Research Alert know when you or a colleague have been quoted.]
National Public Radio
Feb. 2, 2010
HEADLINE: Roadblocks May Keep Guantanamo Prison Open
Bobby Chesney from University of Texas Law School was an adviser to the Obama administration’s detention policy task force.
Professor BOBBY CHESNEY (University of Texas Law School): Where they are ought not to be driving the debate, we should be focused on whether we have a consensus as to how they should be held, what the screening mechanism should be, what the conditions ought to be, regardless of where it is. But that’s not really where the debate has been for six or seven years now. For better or worse, the public debate has focused extraordinarily closely on the fact of Guantanamo itself.
Research Opportunities
Important university research deadlines:
Awards and Grants
Limited Submissions
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT
The University of Texas at Austin Stimulus Package Web page is online.
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Recovery Act Limited Competition: Framework Programs for Global Health Signature Innovations Initiative
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Feb. 22, 2010; Application, March 22, 2010
[This is a limited submission. For more information, including OSP Internal deadlines, contact limitedsub@austin.utexas.edu.]
Notice of Limited Competition Availability of Recovery Act Funds for NCMHD Competitive Revision Applications to Support Comparative Effectiveness Research for Eliminating Disparities
Deadline: April 6, 2010
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Biotechnology Risk Assessment Research Grants Program
Deadline: March 17, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
FY10 BONE MARROW FAILURE RESEARCH PROGRAM
1. Exploration – Hypothesis Development Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 25, 2010; Application, April 8, 2010
2. New Investigator Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 11, 2010; Application, June 10, 2010
-FY09 PEER REVIEWED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAM
1. Clinical Trial Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, April 22, 2010; Application, May 13, 2010
2. Concept Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 25, 2010; Application, April 8, 2010
3. Investigator-Initiated Research Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 11, 2010; Application, Aug. 5, 2010
4. Technology/Therapeutic Development Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, April 22, 2010; Application, May 13, 2010
-FY10 PROSTATE CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM
1. Exploration – Hypothesis Development Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 10, 2010; Application, March 31, 2010
2. Idea Development Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application: March 3, 2010; Application, June 9, 2010
3. Impact Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 17, 2010; Application, June 9, 2010
4. Synergistic Idea Development Award
Deadlines: Pre-Application, March 3, 2010; Application: June 9, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Scientific Data Management and Analysis at Extreme
Deadline: March 18, 2010
Regional and Global Climate Modeling Program: Modes of Low Frequency Variability in a Changing Climate under the Regional and Global Climate Modeling
Deadline: April 12, 2010
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Exploring New Air Pollution – Health Effects Links in Existing Datasets
Deadline: April 27, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Improving Patient Safety through Simulation Research
Deadline: March 26, 2010
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Technology-Based Adherence Interventions for Substance Abusing Populations with HIV
Deadline: May 7, 2010
Research on Alcohol and HIV/AIDS
Deadline: May 7, 2010
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Ocean Acidification
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, March 29, 2010; Full Proposal, April 26, 2010
NSF/Food and Drug Administration Scholar-In-Residence At FDA
Deadline: April 27, 2010
ARTS, HUMANITIES AND CULTURE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Innovation and Improvement: Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Program
Deadlines: Notice of Intent to Apply, Feb. 16, 2010; Application, March 16, 2010
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
National Operating Committee on Standards in Athletic Equipment
Deadlines: Preliminary Application, May 1, 2010; Invited Full Proposal, Oct. 1, 2010
Bi-National Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation
New Opportunity to Submit U.S. – Israel Joint Renewable Energy Proposals (a program for U.S. – Israel joint renewable energy developments funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures and the BIRD Foundation)
Deadlines: Executive Summary, March 26, 2010; Full Proposal, May 31, 2010
Research Project
[Let the Research Alert know about your research projects.]
CAREER: Word Meaning: Beyond Dictionary Senses
RESEARCHER: Katrin Erk, assistant professor, Department of Linguistics
AGENCY: National Science Foundation
AMOUNT: $130,700
Most words have more than one meaning. The standard computational model for word meaning is through lists of dictionary senses. However, choosing the right dictionary sense is a highly difficult task for humans as well as machines.
This CAREER project follows the hypothesis, based on current models of human concept representation, that word meaning is better described through a graded notion of similarity than through dictionary senses. The hypothesis is tested through a novel meaning annotation framework and computationally through a vector space model of word meaning. The model uses vector characterizations of typical arguments to compute the meaning of an individual occurrence compositionally from the words in its syntactic context. For evaluation, the project focuses on the ability to draw appropriate inferences, in both shallow and deep frameworks, from similarity-based meaning representations. The research effort goes together with educational work that focuses on supporting undergraduate research, stressing hands-on data exploration and interdisciplinary work.
The characterization of word meaning is a central issue in lexical semantics and in computational linguistics as a whole. This CAREER project will yield a broadly applicable paradigm that describes word meaning without recourse to dictionary senses. It aims both to provide a more cognitively adequate model and to benefit language technology applications, in particular information retrieval, which already relies heavily on vector space models.
