Leitung

Prof. Dr. Günther Görz

Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science (formerly IMMD) [Artificial Intelligence], retired

Born 1947 in Nuremberg. Studies in mathematics, physics, computer science and philosophy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Diploma degree (equiv. M.S.) in mathematics, Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.) in Computer Science.

From 1972 to 1987 scientist at the Computation Center, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

From 1989 to 1991 Professor of Computer Science/ Artificial Intelligence at the University of Hamburg.

Since May 1991 professor of Computer Science/ Artificial Intelligence at the Computer Science Department, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU). Also member („Zweitmitglied“) of the faculty of arts and humanities (Philosophische Fakultät). Retired in Oct. 2012, since then leader of the Digital Humanities Research Group.

In 1981 visiting assistant professor at UCLA, Los Angeles, in summer 1985 and in autumn 2004 visiting scientist at CSLI (Center for the Study of Language and Information), Stanford University. From 1987 to 1989 visiting research scientist at the LILOG project (Linguistic and Logical Methods) of IBM Germany at Stuttgart. Visiting scientist at IRST/fbk, Trento, in spring 1995, and at ICSI, Berkeley, in summer 1999. 2010-2016 Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), Berlin. From 2016-2020 Visiting Scholar at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History (Biondo project). Member of several academic committees, founding member of FAU’s Interdisciplinary Center on Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, founding member of FAU’s Center for European Middle Ages and Renaissance Studies (IZEMIR) at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), and member of the Artificial Intelligence section of the German Computer Science Society (GI e.V.). Lecturer and organizer at several national conferences and workshops on Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics and at national and international spring and summer schools.

Main research interests and projects

  • Knowledge Representation and Processing

    We are investigating various issues of applied computational logic and knowledge representation, among which are dialogue logic, description logics, constraint-based attributive formalisms for the representation of linguistic knowledge, and partial logics. In the area of description logics, we are particularly interested in the representation of time and space, and in modelling various application domains. Recently, we have focussed on the application of Semantic Web techniques in the documentation of cultural heritage, in particular with the WissKI DFG project (Scientific Communication Infrastructure), which is being carried out in cooperation with two museums: the Germanic National Museum, Nuremberg (GNM), and the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn (ZFMK). In the meantime, there are more than 100 different applications of WissKI (see IGSD e.V.). At its core is Erlangen CRM, our OWL-DL implementation of a formal reference ontology, ICOM CIDOC’s Conceptual Reference Model (CRM). Erlangen CRM is also being used by many institutions abroad, among them the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), Berlin, the German Archeological Institute (DAI), Berlin, and the British Museum.
    Within this framework, we are investigating the oldest extant globe of the earth by Martin Behaim (1492) and also contribute conceptual modelling to Renaissance cartography in the Biondo project. Related fields of interest are digital documents and libraries, where we are working on a digital edition of an early cosmographic text, the socalled German Ptolemy, and participating in the „Edition Open Access“.

  • Natural Language Processing

    Actually, we are working on text analysis (Named Entity Recognition, constraint-based dependency parsing, and information integration on the semantic representation level), in particular within WissKI, and actually contributing to cognitive linguistic analysis in the Biondo project.
    Previous work also comprised flexible and robust architectures for incremental speech/language systems and dialogue management in several projects, in particular within the German national joint project (EMBASSI), funded by the Ministry of Research (bmbf), where we also applied conceptual modelling, and SIPaDIM. These systems were designed to provide intelligent assistance in using technical devices, and to give recommendations. Another important joint project to which we contributed was VERBMOBIL (bmbf) for speech-to-speech translation.

  • AI Programming, Machine Learning, and Parallel Processing

    Our work in this area focuses on meta-level architectures and on Distributed AI (Software Multiagent) Systems. In cooperation with the School of Economics (Wirtschaftsinformatik II) we contributed to a project on Agent-Based Tracing and Tracking of Supply Chains, funded by the German Research Council (DFG).
    Furthermore, we implemented Kanerva’s parallel Sparse Distributed Memory (SDM) model on the CM-2 Connection Machine and we are interested in its application to language processing and learning systems.

For further information on publications see the list of references .

 

In cooperation with the Computer Science Collection Erlangen (ISER) I prepared a small exhibition on the Astrolabe, the most import astronomical analog computer in history.

 

In German only:

 

Eine Vorlesung zusammen mit Josef Schneeberger über Digitale Dokumente, Editionen und Bibliotheken – XML-basierte Darstellung und Verarbeitung digitaler Dokumente (10 /CourseID:26) ist als Videoaufzeichnung verfügbar.
Der dort in der Einleitung genannte Link zu den Folien und weiteren Dokumenten ist nicht mehr erreichbar. Die Seite „Kulturerbe digital“ ist hier zu finden.

 

Auf dem Videoserver sind noch weitere Aufzeichnungen meiner Vorträge an der FAU abrufbar: