Posted on by Anna Jonsson

Attending the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2022)

  • Dublin rooftops which of some are hit by a rainbow dropping from a cloudy sky.
    A rainbow over Dublin.
  • Image from the Trinity College Dublin courtyard. Beautiful old buildings are surrounding it and in the middle of the yard, there is green grass.
    Trinity College Dublin.

The ACL 2022 conference took place May 22-27 at the Convention Centre Dublin, and we are happy to say that LPCN was represented in the form of its members Johanna Björklund, Frank Drewes and Anna Jonsson who were invited to present their paper Improved N-Best Extraction with an Evaluation on Language Data.

An ill-dimensioned panorama photo portraying the view from inside of the Convention Centre Dublin with brown couches in the foreground.
Attempt at a panorama photo from inside of the Convention Centre Dublin.

Below follows the 12 min long presentation video that was made in preparation for the conference.

The conference was for the first time held in a hybrid fashion (~1500 participants in-person and ~1500 online), something that was exciting to be a part of: the organisers did an incredible job! Given the pandemic not being over quite yet, it was mandatory wearing a mask at the venue, and as indicated in the last photo below, there was a system in place to signal what level of social distancing each participant wanted to practice.

  • A photo taken from the opposite side of the canal of the Convention Centre Dublin. The building consists of a square block of concrete and a tilted cylinder of glass.
    The Convention Centre Dublin from the outside.
  • The exhibition hall of the conference with company booths and poster sessions.
    The exhibition hall of the conference with company booths and poster sessions.
  • A traffic light system for social distancing. Green means "handshakes and hugs ok", amber means "being cautious, no touching" and red indicates "keep a distance".
    Social distancing 2.0.

We also had the pleasure to visit the botanical gardens of Dublin, of which the only downside was the time restrictions.

  • Johanna pets a cork oak while Frank beholds its branching.
    A first meeting with a cork oak.
  • A small cottage with a thatched roof surrounded by green grass, with Frank and Johanna in the foreground examining the cottage.
    Frank and Johanna considering to move to Dublin because of the cultivation possibilities.
  • Frank and Anna are standing in a brick greenhouse, both looking at a bunch of grape vines climbing the inside walls of the greenhouse.
    “Is that grapes? I don’t see the grapes!” Frank (and later also Anna) spying grape vines.

All in all, ACL 2022 delivered beautiful views of a stunning city as well as an opportunity to meet both old colleagues and gain new acquaintances. The Foundations of Language Processing group seminar will hopefully host one or two of these new faces soon, stay tuned 😉