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
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: Dejing Dou
We propose to advance methods for semantic oppositeness detection in natural language, focusing on embedding-based models and contextual representations to improve reasoning and error detection in text.
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.
Dissertations
Theses: BSc
Gathika Ratnayaka, Thejan Rupasinghe, Menuka Warushavithana, and Viraj Gamage, "Ontology-Based Information Extraction for Automatic Generation of Legal Arguments", University of Moratuwa, 2019
Vindula Jayawardana, Keet Sugathadasa, Dimuthu Lakmal, and Buddhi Rathnayake, "Ontology-Based Legal Information Extraction", University of Moratuwa, 2018
Journal Papers
Vindula Jayawardana, Dimuthu Lakmal, Nisansa de Silva, Amal Shehan Perera, Keet Sugathadasa, Buddhi Ayesha, and Madhavi Perera, "Word Vector Embeddings and Domain Specific Semantic based Semi-Supervised Ontology Instance Population", International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1, 2017. doi: 10.4038/icter.v11i1.7191
Fernando Gutierrez, Dejing Dou, Nisansa de Silva, and Stephen Fickas, "Online Reasoning for Semantic Error Detection in Text", Journal on Data Semantics, Jul. 2017. doi: 10.1007/s13740-017-0079-6
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
Jingshan Huang, Karen Eilbeck, Barry Smith, Judith A Blake, Dejing Dou, Weili Huang, Darren A Natale, Alan Ruttenberg, Jun Huan, Michael T Zimmermann, Guoqian Jiang, Yu Lin, Bin Wu, Harrison J. Strachan, Nisansa de Silva, and others, "The development of non-coding RNA ontology", International journal of data mining and bioinformatics, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 214--232, 2016. doi: 10.1504/IJDMB.2016.077072
Conference Papers
Vindula Jayawardana, Dimuthu Lakmal, Nisansa de Silva, Amal Shehan Perera, Keet Sugathadasa, Buddhi Ayesha, and Madhavi Perera, "Semi-Supervised Instance Population of an Ontology using Word Vector Embedding", in 2017 Seventeenth International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer), 2017, pp. 1--7. doi: 10.1109/icter.2017.8257822 
Nisansa de Silva, Dejing Dou, and Jingshan Huang, "Discovering Inconsistencies in PubMed Abstracts Through Ontology-Based Information Extraction", in Proceedings of the 8th ACM International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics, New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2017, pp. 362--371. doi: 10.1145/3107411.3107452
Vindula Jayawardana, Dimuthu Lakmal, Nisansa de Silva, Amal Shehan Perera, Keet Sugathadasa, and Buddhi Ayesha, "Deriving a Representative Vector for Ontology Classes with Instance Word Vector Embeddings", in 2017 Seventh International Conference on Innovative Computing Technology (INTECH), 2017, pp. 79--84. doi: 10.1109/intech.2017.8102426
N. H. N. D. de Silva, "SAFS3 Algorithm: Frequency Statistic and Semantic Similarity Based Semantic Classification Use Case", in Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer), 2015 Fifteenth International Conference on, August. 2015, pp. 77--83. doi: 10.1109/ICTER.2015.7377670
Indeewari Wijesiri, Malaka Gallage, Buddhika Gunathilaka, Madhuranga Lakjeewa, Daya Wimalasuriya, Gihan Dias, Rohini Paranavithana, and Nisansa de Silva, "Building a WordNet for Sinhala", in Proceedings of the Seventh Global WordNet Conference, January. 2014, pp. 100--108.
N. H. N. D. de Silva, A. S. Perera, and M. K. D. T. Maldeniya, "Semi-Supervised Algorithm for Concept Ontology Based Word Set Expansion", in Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer), 2013 International Conference on, December. 2013, pp. 125--131. doi: 10.1109/ICTer.2013.6761166
E. L. Karannagoda, H. M. T. C. Herath, K. N. J. Fernando, M. W. I. D. Karunarathne, N. H. N. D. de Silva, and A. S. Perera, "Document Analysis Based Automatic Concept Map Generation for Enterprises", in Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer), 2013 International Conference on, December. 2013, pp. 154--159. doi: 10.1109/ICTer.2013.6761171
N. H. N. D. de Silva, C. S. N. J. Fernando, M. K. D. T. Maldeniya, D. N. C. Wijeratne, A. S. Perera, and B Goertzel, "SeMap-Mapping Dependency Relationships into Semantic Frame Relationships", in Engineering Research Unit Research Seminar, December. 2011.
Preprints
