The Institute of Digital Sciences, Management and Cognition at the University of Lorraine
(Nancy, France) opens a new Masters program in Natural Language Processing and Data
Science - Computer Science, Speech, Language, and Knowledge Representation

http://institut-sciences-digitales.fr/idmc-master-degree-in-natural-language-processing/

Do you want to become an expert in Deep Neural Networks, Logic, Speech Processing,
Information Retrieval, Knowledge Representation, ? all of this for Natural Language?
Here's your chance!

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is at the crossroads of linguistics, computer science,
and artificial intelligence. We propose a modern curriculum which combines different
approaches covering both theoretical and applied perspectives.

The program includes a hands-on project in each semester. It ends with a 6-month paid
internship in a company or a research lab.

See the course description below.


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You can apply for the 1st year (M1) or for directly entering the 2nd year (M2).
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Language
-------------
All courses are taught in English (except the 'French for non-native speakers' course).


Fees
-------
The University of Lorraine is publicly funded and therefore offers tuition-free education
for all students including students from both inside and outside EU/EEA/EFTA countries.
The only student expenditures are a nominal semester fee of about 600 euros which
includes health insurance. Nancy?s high quality of life goes hand-in-hand with a low cost
of living.


Why Nancy?
---------------
Nancy is a center of excellence for NLP!

1/Two important research centers:
- LORIA, the computer science research laboratory (http://www.loria.fr/en/)
- ATILF the linguistics research laboratory (http://www.atilf.fr/)

Both research units participate in many national and international research projects.
Their members are highly visible in the international community and regularly publish in
the most prestigious conferences and journals in the field.

2/ The University of Lorraine participates in two Erasmus Mundus Masters funded by the
European Union :
- Erasmus Mundus Master Language and Communication Technology (http://lct-master.org/)
- Erasmus Mundus Master EMLex (https://www.emlex.phil.fau.eu/)


Why NLP?
--------------
Natural Language Processing is a rapidly expanding field.

With the proliferation of digital data, there is a massive need for well-trained
engineers and researchers able to exploit this data for commercial (e-commerce,
recommendation systems, translation, etc) and socio-political (e-learning, opinion
mining, behavioral prediction, etc.) purposes.

Start-ups, small firms with strong R&D profiles and large companies (e.g., in France,
Airbus, Thales, EDF, Orange) are looking for scientists and engineers who can contribute
to the development of systems capable of managing and exploiting textual data.

The GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) are hiring intensively in both the
NLP and the Speech processing domains.

The need for PhD candidates is also strong as shown by the many PhD scholarships offered
by both academic and industrial players.


Contacts
------------
Head of the MSc program:
        Maxime Amblard <maxime.amblard@univ-lorraine.fr>
Secretary:
        Karine Weisse <karine.weisse@univ-lorraine.fr>
Location of the courses :
        École des Mines (Artem Campus, Tram stop 'Blandan')
        http://www.alliance-artem.fr/


Application
---------------
The application file is available here:
https://ecandidat.univ-lorraine.fr

More information:
http://institut-sciences-digitales.fr/application-process-nlp-master-degree/#application


Academic Year 2018-2019
-----------------------------------
From September 3rd to 13th, 2018: Refresher courses in mathematics (probability theory,
statistics) and computer science (algorithms, programming)

M1:
        1st semester from September 17th to January 11th
        2nd semester from January 14th to June 6th
M2:
        1st semester from September 17th to February 15th
        Internship from February to August


In brief
----------
? A program with strong national and international visibility
? Taught entirely in English
? A high quality research environment with two research centers covering a wide range of
disciplines (linguistics, computer science, speech and language processing) and
applications (Human-Machine Interfaces, Speech Processing, Knowledge Retrieval,
Statistical Machine Translation, etc.)
? Studies in a vibrant, human-sized city
? Studies at a low cost (Tuition fees at around 600 euros per year incl. health insurance)


Course Description
---------------------------
M1 1st Semester
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PROBABILITIES, STATISTICS AND ALGORITHMS FOR AI
        ? Elementary mathematical tools, statistics, algorithms to define and solve
artificial intelligence problems
        ? Case studies covering both theoretical and practical aspects

CORPUS DESIGN AND ACQUISTION
        ? Written corpora
        ? Speech corpora

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        ? Collection, analysis and formalization of customers' needs
        ? Software design and development
        ? Functional analysis and specifications
        ? Project management

LINGUISTICS FOR NLP (1)
        ? Methods for Natural Language Processing
        ? Phonology
        ? Morphology

PROJECT AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE
        ? Hands-on project
        ? Foreign language (French)

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M1 2nd Semester
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MACHINE LEARNING AND SEMANTIC WEB
        ? Machine learning theory
        ? Data mining
        ? Knowledge retrieval

FORMAL TOOLS
        ? Logic
        ? Formal languages
        ? Calculability and complexity

DATA PROCESSING
        ? Storage and retrieval
        ? Data analysis

LINGUISTICS FOR NLP (2)
        ? Lexicology: lexical units and phraseology
        ? Syntax
        ? Semantics

PROJECT AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE
        ? Hands-on project
        ? Scientific communication
        ? Foreign language (French)

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M2 1st Semester
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DEEP LEARNING AND DATA MINING
        ? Neural networks, Deep neural networks
        ? Data mining (structured data and text)
        ? Collaborative filtering

TEXT AND SPEECH PROCESSING
        ? Processing textual data
        ? Speech processing
        ? Terminology and ontology

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND DISCOURSE
        ? Application to text
        ? Computational semantics
        ? Discourse and Dialog modeling

LEXICONS AND GRAMMARS FOR NLP
        ? Diachronic and synchronic lexicology
        ? Lexical resources
        ? Syntactic framework

PROJECTS AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE
        ? Software project
        ? Law and ethics
        ? Research methods
        ? Professional integration
        ? Foreign language (French)

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M2 2nd Semester
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Paid internship (company or research lab)