Here is a big challenge for Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Semantics experts!

In a recent article – State-media story fuels questions on gymnast’s age – about He Kexin, a Chinese gymnast, this funny line appeared:

He herself told reporters after Wednesday’s final that “my real age is 16. I don’t pay any attention to what everyone says.”

Can any NLP technology ever crack this one? “He” is actually a “She” !!!

The full article written by JOHN LEICESTER, an Associated Press Writer is quoted below:

BEIJING – Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government’s news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.

In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of “10 big new stars” who made a splash at China’s Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, “this little girl” pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, http://www.hb.xinhuanet.com

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China’s first women’s team Olympic gold in gymnastics. He is also a favorite for gold in Monday’s uneven bars final.

Yang was also on Wednesday’s winning team. Questions have also been raised about her age and that of a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan.

Gymnasts have to be 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games. He’s birthday is listed as Jan. 1, 1992.

Chinese authorities insist that all three are old enough to compete. He herself told reporters after Wednesday’s final that “my real age is 16. I don’t pay any attention to what everyone says.”

Zhang Hongliang, an official with China’s gymnastics delegation at the games, said Thursday the differing ages which have appeared in Chinese media reports had not been checked in advance with the gymnastics federation.

“It’s definitely a mistake,” Zhang said of the Xinhua report, speaking in a telephone interview. “Never has any media outlet called me to check the athletes’ ages.”

Asked whether the federation had changed their ages to make them eligible, Zhang said: “We are a sports department. How would we have the ability to do that?”

“We already explained this very clearly. There’s no need to discuss this thing again.”

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said repeatedly that a passport is the “accepted proof of a gymnast’s eligibility,” and that He and China’s other gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible. The IOC also checked the girls’ passports and deemed them valid.

A May 23 story in the China Daily newspaper, the official English-language paper of the Chinese government, said He was 14. The story was later corrected to list her as 16.

“This is not a USAG issue,” said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. “The FIG and the IOC are the proper bodies to handle this.”

I am sad to learn that Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an international sensation and a best-selling book, died today early Friday at his home in Virginia.

On my site, I only talk about people and scientists whom I know. But Randy Pausch first caught my attention while I was reading Wall Street Journal.

I like his thinking and admire his courage.

He was an articulate Lecturer and focused. One line I particularly like is when he talked about framing his illness as an engineering problem — engineering is not about optimal solution but it’s doing the best with what you have.

The lecture was videotaped and footage began spreading across thousands of Web sites. (The full talk can now be seen at thelastlecture.com.) His last lecture is shown below:

LinkedDataPlanet -exploring the new web of connected data – Jupitermedia conference is here in NYC.
I’ll be speaking on – Best Practice in Semantic Systems Development:

This presentation explores the challenges and approaches for effective semantic systems development. We explore the ROI of semantic systems which are primarily based on agility, flexibility, and information quality. While best practices in traditional database-driven systems development life cycle (SDLC) may still be relevant to semantic systems development, there are important differences between them. We elaborate the success factors to consider with examples of different enterprise solutions: ecommerce site, social network analysis, semantic search engine, and risk management. The audience will walk away understanding the critical first steps and on-going management needed to deliver an enterprise semantic system.

See you in NYC!

My interview with BusinessWeek -

Companies can also use Semantic Web technologies to better respond to rapid change. Financial analysts and traders at Citigroup are inundated with information about fast-moving financial markets. So the banking powerhouse is looking at ways Semantic Web technologies can help extract valuable information, uncover trends, and generally help financial analysts, bankers, and traders make better decisions, says Rachel Yager, vice-president and program director of the semantic initiative at Citigroup.

See featured article at BusinessWeek.

My Semantic Web initiative was featured in MIT Technology Review:

One of the company’s early clients is Citigroup. The banking giant’s global head of capital markets and banking technology, Chris Augustin, is heading an initiative to use semantic technologies to organize and correlate information from diverse financial-data feeds. The goal is to help identify capital-market investment opportunities. “We are interested in providing our customers and traders with the latest information in the most relevant and timely manner to help them make the best decisions quickly,” says Rachel Yager, the program director overseeing the effort.

See featured article at MIT Technology Review.