PI: Dejing Dou
We propose to advance biomedical natural language processing by combining ontology-based reasoning, semantic search, and embedding-driven methods to improve information extraction, representation, and consistency detection in biomedical texts.
PI: Nisansa de Silva
The Knowledge Representation project investigates methods for structuring, aligning, and reasoning over knowledge extracted from language, with particular emphasis on low-resource settings, domain-specific semantics, and intelligent information access.
PI: Nisansa de Silva
We propose to advance natural language processing for low-resource settings by leveraging data augmentation, transfer learning, and model adaptation techniques to overcome the scarcity of annotated data and linguistic resources.
PI: Nisansa de Silva
This project delves into the synergy between Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the legal domain, presenting novel solutions to enduring challenges.
PI: Nisansa de Silva
We propose to build and analyze Sinhala language resources, datasets, and models to strengthen NLP research for this low-resource language, while connecting it to English and Tamil through bilingual lexicons, embeddings, and cross-lingual methods.
PI: Nisansa de Silva
We propose to advance social media text analysis by combining linguistic study, preprocessing, and deep learning models to better capture sentiment, structure, and meaning in informal, large-scale user-generated text.
Journal Papers
W M Yomal De Mel and Nisansa de Silva, "Linguistic Analysis of Sinhala YouTube Comments on Sinhala Music Videos: A Dataset Study", ICTer, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 121-130, 2025. doi: 10.4038/icter.v18i2.7299
Pengwei Wang, Lei Ji, Jun Yan, Dejing Dou, Nisansa de Silva, Yong Zhang, and Lianwen Jin, "Concept and Attention-Based CNN for Question Retrieval in Multi-View Learning", ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 41, 2018. doi: 10.1145/3151957
Jingshan Huang, Fernando Gutierrez, Harrison J Strachan, Dejing Dou, Weili Huang, Barry Smith, Judith A Blake, Karen Eilbeck, Darren A Natale, Yu Lin, Bin Wu, Nisansa de Silva, and others, "OmniSearch: a semantic search system based on the Ontology for MIcroRNA Target (OMIT) for microRNA-target gene interaction data", Journal of biomedical semantics, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 25, 2016. doi: 10.1186/s13326-016-0064-2
Conference Papers
Keet Sugathadasa, Buddhi Ayesha, Nisansa de Silva, Amal Shehan Perera, Vindula Jayawardana, Dimuthu Lakmal, and Madhavi Perera, "Legal Document Retrieval using Document Vector Embeddings and Deep Learning", in Science and information conference, 2018, pp. 160--175. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-01177-2_12
Dimuthu Upeksha, Chamila Wijayarathna, Maduranga Siriwardena, Lahiru Lasandun, Chinthana Wimalasuriya, N. H. N. D. de Silva, and Gihan Dias, "Comparison Between Performance of Various Database Systems for Implementing a Language Corpus", in International Conference: Beyond Databases, Architectures and Structures, May. 2015, pp. 82--91. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-18422-7_7
Workshop Papers
Ovindu Atukorala, Randeepa Appuhami, and Nisansa de Silva, "LawChain: A Resource-Efficient Blueprint for Legal Information Retrieval in Low-Resource Jurisdictions", in ICML 2026 GlobalSouthML, 2026.
Extended Abstracts
Niduni Kasige, Nishan Kavinda, Kisara Kodithuwakku, and Nisansa de Silva, "Hybrid Approach for Information Retrieval in Sri Lankan Legal Domain", in Proceedings of the Engineering Research Unit Symposium, 2025, pp. 70-71. doi: 10.31705/ERU.2025.33
