Björn Bringert - Projects & Publications

Peer-reviewed Publications

• Interactive Multilingual Web Applications with Grammatical Framework, Moisés Salvador Meza Moreno and Björn Bringert, in Advances in Natural Language Processing, 6th International Conference, GoTAL 2008, Gothenburg, Sweden, August 25-27, 2008. [abstract, paper (pdf), bibtex]
• Speech Translation with Grammatical Framework, Björn Bringert, in Coling 2008: Proceedings of the workshop on Speech Processing for Safety Critical Translation and Pervasive Applications, Manchester, UK, August 23, 2008. [abstract, paper (pdf), bibtex]
• A Pattern for Almost Compositional Functions, Björn Bringert and Aarne Ranta, Journal of Functional Programming, volume 18, issue 5-6, pages 567-598. This is an extended and reorganized version of the ICFP 2006 paper with the same title. [abstract, paper (pdf), bibtex]
• Rapid Development of Dialogue Systems by Grammar Compilation, Björn Bringert, in Proceedings of the 8th SIGdial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue, Antwerp, Belgium, September 1-2, 2007. [abstract, paper (pdf), bibtex, poster (pdf)]
• Speech Recognition Grammar Compilation in Grammatical Framework, Björn Bringert, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Grammar-Based Approaches to Spoken Language Processing, (SPEECHGRAM 2007), Prague, Czech Republic, June 29, 2007. [abstract, paper (pdf), bibtex, slides (pdf)]
• A Pattern for Almost Compositional Functions, Björn Bringert and Aarne Ranta, in Proceedings of ICFP 2006, The 11th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming, Portland, Oregon, USA, September 18-20, 2006. [abstract, paper (pdf), paper (ps), bibtex, slides (pdf)]
• Multimodal Dialogue System Grammars, Björn Bringert, Robin Cooper, Peter Ljunglöf, Aarne Ranta, in Proceedings of DIALOR'05, Ninth Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, Nancy, France, June 9-11, 2005. [abstract, paper (pdf), paper (ps), bibtex, slides (pdf)]
• Student Paper: HaskellDB Improved, Björn Bringert, Anders Höckersten, Conny Andersson, Martin Andersson, Mary Bergman, Victor Blomqvist and Torbjörn Martin. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 2004 Haskell Workshop, Snowbird, Utah, USA, September 22, 2004. [abstract, paper (pdf), paper (ps), bibtex]

Theses

• Programming Language Techniques for Natural Language Applications, Björn Bringert, PhD Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, November 2008. [abstract, thesis (pdf), announcement (pdf), bibtex]
• Compiling Grammar-based Speech Application Components, Björn Bringert, Licentiate Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, October 2007. [abstract, thesis (pdf), bibtex, announcement (pdf)]
• Embedded Grammars, Björn Bringert, Master's Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, February 2005. [abstract, report (pdf), report (ps), bibtex]

Selected Talks

• HaskellDB [slides (pdf), slides (ps)] given at AFP 2004, 5th International Summer School on Advanced Functional Programming, Tartu, Estonia, and in the Databases course, Fall 2005 and Spring 2006, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.
• Building Multimodal Dialogue Systems in Grammatical Framework [abstract, slides (pdf)], presented at the TYPES2004 conference, Jouy-en-Josas, France, December 15-18, 2004.

Software

The projects below vary greatly in how long ago I touched them, how well they work and how well they are documented. I'm happy to answer questions about any of them, but I might not always remember all that much.

Unless noted otherwise in the source code, packages or repositories, this software is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Many of the projects are kept in darcs repositories. They are browsable using an ordinary web browser. If you want to get your own copy of a project, you need to install darcs and run darcs get repo-url, where repo-url is the URL for the repository, e.g. http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~bringert/darcs/hope/. For more information about darcs, see the darcs homepage.

Natural Language Technology

• Embedded GF Interpreter is an interpreter written in Java for parsing and linearization using GF grammars. The interpreter has an OAA interface so that it may be used as a component in systems written in other programming languages.
• Numerals translator applet [screenshot] is a demo applet which uses the Embedded GF interpreter and the GF numerals grammars to translate numerals between a number of languages. You need a Java 1.5 plugin to run the applet.
• GF Speech Translator is a simple unidirectional speech translation system which uses GF grammars.
• Tramdemo [demo movie] demonstrates the use of multimodal grammars as a method for implementing multimodal dialog systems.
• Dialogutil is a set of utilities for writing dialog systems using Java and OAA.
• The GF Transfer Language is a programming language which can be used to write functions which work on abstract syntax terms.
• Pizza Demo [demo movie] is a web based dialog system which uses XHTML+Voice generated from a GF grammar.

Haskell libraries

• tar [HackageDB], a library for reading and writing TAR archives.
• haxr [HackageDB], a Haskell XML-RPC client and server library. The design and implementation of this library is described in the report Haskell XML-RPC.
• HTTP [HackageDB], a Haskell HTTP client library originally created by Warrick Gray.
• haskelldb [HackageDB], a declarative Haskell database library originally created by Daan Leijen.
• cgi [HackageDB], a CGI library for Haskell.
• fastcgi [HackageDB], a FastCGI library for Haskell.
• xhtml [HackageDB], a version of the html package modified to produce XHTML 1.0.
• gd [HackageDB], a Haskell binding to a (currently very small) subset of the GD graphics library.
• exif [HackageDB], a Haskell binding to a subset of libexif.
• rss, [HackageDB], a Haskell package for generating RSS 2.0 feeds. This is an updated version of Jeremy Shaw's original RSS module.
• unix-compat, [HackageDB], a cross-platform POSIX compatibility layer.
• hmarkup [HackageDB], implements an extensible simple wikitext-like mark-up format. Currently only produces XHTML.
• parsedate [HackageDB], a Haskell date parsing library.
• hs-readline [HackageDB], a simple readline replacement written in pure Haskell. It supports line editing, history and tab completion. Probably very VT100-specific.
• cabal-upload [HackageDB], is a command-line tool for uploading Cabal packages to HackageDB.
• alsa, a set of Haskell bindings to a part of the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) library API.

Haskell web applications

• Hope, a platform for Haskell web applications. The code is in the Hope darcs repo.
• Modular Haskell Web Server, a heavily modified version of Simon Marlow's Haskell Web Server. Has a module system and can run CGI programs.
• Haskell Web Server, a conservative modernization of Simon Marlow's Haskell Web Server.
• dyn-cgi, a system for writing web applications with dynamically interpreted Haskell code. See the demo wiki for more information.
• hask-home is a program that I use to generate home pages for cabalized Haskell libraries and programs.
• hdb-foldoc is a Haskell XML-RPC server for querying a local copy of Foldoc using HaskellDB.
• Halbum is a simple web-based photo album system. NOTE: this is an old version of the code that has become the halbum2 module in Hope stand-alone (see above).
• BloB is a simple blogging system with web, RSS and XML-RPC interfaces. NOTE: this is an old stand-alone version of the code that has become the blob2 module in Hope (see above).

Language training

• Langtrain is a web-based program for doing translation exercises generated by GF. The code is available from the Langtrain darcs repo.
• flip is a flashcard vocabulary training program for PalmOS.

Speech recognition

• Haskell bindings to Nuance 9.0 and RealSpeak 4.5.
• atkrec contains simple C and Haskell wrappers for ATK.
• atkswe is a set of scripts for quickly building acoustic models with HTK. There is also some simple training and test data for building a very basic recognizer for Swedish, and a program which uses Functional Morphology to generate pronunciation dictionaries for Swedish. These tools and my experiences with building a prototype recognizer for Swedish are described in the report Creating Small Speech Recognizers Quickly.

Java libraries and utilities

• Higher-Order Java is a Generic Java library for curried higher order functions.
• loadlib is Java library for loading native libraries from various sources, including urls, input streams, zip and jar files.
• niowww is a small and fast webserver written in Java. Requires Java 1.4.0 or higher. Usage: java -jar niowww.jar [-r root] [-p port]
• jwake is a Java appplication which sends Wake-On-LAN packets.

Programming languages stuff

• plan is an interpreter for a subset of Scheme. It is written in Generic Java, and requires Sun's prototype compiler with generics.
• ETAJ is an interpreter for the ETA programming language, written in Java. Usage: java -jar etaj.jar hello.eta
• Some quines.

Multimedia software

• viewer is an image viewer written in Java. Features include: fullscreen mode, remote control support, zoom, and rotation.
• jmms is a Java media player that uses the Java Media Framework.
• metamedia is an OSD-enabled front-end for various *NIX multimedia programs.

Games

• Netciv is a turn-based multiplayer strategy game simliar to Civilization II.

IR remote control

• jlirc is a Java API for the LIRC and WinLIRC IR remote control software.
• IR receiver for PIC16F84 microcontrollers.
• IRClient.java is a client for controlling NetStereo with an IR remote control. See also IRClient.lirc, a sample config file for the IRClient.

Linux kernel and systems stuff

• lcdterm is a Linux kernel module for alphanumeric LCDs connected to the parallel port. Supports VT100 escape sequences and buttons / switches connected to the input pins.
• Granular setuid is a patch against Linux 2.4.20 that lets the system administrator give additional permissions to processes running a given program. For example, /usr/bin/passwd maybe be given permission to write to /etc/passwd. The intention is to reduce the number of programs that must run setuid root. This patch is only a proof-of-concept. Do not use it for anything serious. If you need this functionality, consider making the program setuid to a user/group of its own and using some ACL system to grant the permissions to that group. This system is described in the report Executable based access control.
• ru_yawerty_se, a phonetic keyboard layout for typing in Russian on a Swedish keyboard. For XFree86.

Contributions to other Open Source Software

Some other open source software projects that I have contributed to but don't maintain myself:

• QuickCheck 2, a Haskell library for random testing.
• A directory of open source language technology software, which I help maintain (the directory that is, not all the software). You are welcome to e-mail me additions to the directory.
• BNF Converter, a compiler front-end generator.
• Grammatical Framework, a grammar formalism based on type theory.
• GHC, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler.
• Functional Morphology, a toolkit for morphology development.
• Data.ByteString, a library for efficient string representation in Haskell.
• Data.Binary, a Haskell library for binary serialization using lazy ByteStrings.
• The Haskell time package.
• hs-plugins, a library for loading Haskell code at runtime.
• HSQL, a Haskell database interface.
• Cabal, the Haskell Common Architecture for Building Applications and Libraries.
• LIRC - Linux Infrared Remote Control, a package for using IR remotes with Linux.
• XOSD, an On-Screen Display program for X11.
• SDCC, the Small Device C Compiler.

Copyright Björn Bringert 2003-2008.

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