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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/R22551/01
Title: Logic-Based Technology For Measuring Inconsistency of News Reports
Principal Investigator: Hunter, Professor A
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Computer Science
Organisation: UCL
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 12 November 2001 Ends: 11 November 2004 Value (£): 162,417
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Fundamentals of Computing Information & Knowledge Mgmt
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Communications Creative Industries
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
23 Jan 2001 Software Technologies Deferred
Summary on Grant Application Form
There is a massive increase in the number of news reports that many professionals need to process. Increasingly these reports will be in the form of structured text (eg in XML or in a template output by an information extraction system) where the text is restricted to words, numbers, or very simple phrases. Such structured text can be straightforwardly represented in logic. Each report can be represented by a conjunction of ground literals. Once a news report is in logic, we can use logic-based techniques for analysing the consistency. Inconsistencies between a news report and the domain knowledge can indicate errors in the report, anomalies with respect to expectations, the start of a new trend, etc. Furthermore, some inconsistencies may be more significant than others, and some reports may contain more inconsistencies than others. To address this, we can use logic-based measurement of inconsistencies to localize inconsistencies in each report, assess the significance of the inconsistencies in each report, and to compare reports to determine which are more inconsistent that others. In this project, we want to develop this theory, in particular develop viable algorithms, and implement modules incorporating these algorithms that can be integrated to give Inconsistent News Measurement (INM) Tools for particular domains. In addition, we want to implement a demonstration INM Tool for the domain of business news on companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Note, however, the theory for measuring inconsistency is intended to be a general theory for use in a much wider range of applications, and so we can regard handling news reports as a testbed for this research.
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