our News

September 11, 2015

The Future of the Law: the impact of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies on the search for truth and justice

LawTech Europe Congress is the leading annual law-, audit-, & technology conference taking place this year on October 26th-27th in Brussels. Innovation in law is one of the key drivers in this industry to change knowledge management and processes in law practices radically. One of the disruptive law-technology companies emerge in this field is SemLab from the Netherlands. SemLab
is the premium big data analytics companies using Artificial Intelligence and Semantic Analytics for predictive analytics and knowledge management in law practices. CEO Bram Stalknecht is delighted to be panelist in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. In discussion with Ann Hemming & Alex Smith (LexisNexis) the topic is:

Making Connections With Legal Content

In the world of Big Data, there are new opportunities to implement smart systems and use intelligent linking of content to help users to find answers to legal problems, not only more quickly but also in new ways. Big Data analysis is helping us understand the DNA of the law from the creation of legislation through to interpretation in practice and in the court room. Find out how Big Data analytics has the potential to change the way we work with legal content.

Other conference topics include:

  • Data Privacy/Protection and Cross-Border ESI Requests
  • E-Discovery/E-Disclosure in a Big Data World
  • Competition Investigations and dawn raids
  • Mobile / Social Media / Cloud Discovery
  • Governance Risk and Compliance
  • Legal Efficiencies (Knowledge, Project, and Price Management)
  • Artificial Intelligence in Dispute Resolution
  • Digital Fraud Forensics
  • Data Analytics for Auditors
  • Digital Forensics Training

Come and learn and network with some of the best minds in audit, investigations, and technology.
The event website is www.lawtecheuropecongress.com

 

April 29, 2014

SemLab news analytics now available with event sentiment from non-attributed minutes of ECB governing council meetings

In a speech in Amsterdam on Thursday, the ECB president Mario Draghi said he is convinced that publishing an account of the main arguments raised in the central bank’s monthly policy meetings “would be useful” and “will on balance serve to strengthen the governing council’s collegiate decision making and communication”.
Bram Stalknecht, CEO SemLab said publishing non-attributed minutes of council meetings will open up the ECB’s decision making process, as an addition to ECB the monthly held press conferences, avoiding unexpected decisions.
With SemLab council meetings sentiment analytics, customers can react faster on ECB decisions, including conventional measures, eg liquidity operations and longer-term fixed rate operations. This provides at-a-glance insight in macro economic moving events, in a computer readable format.The resulting minute events are ranked according to their implicit sentiment on scale of -5 (negative) to 5 (positive).
Mario Draghi has backed plans for the European Central Bank to publish non-attributed minutes of its governing council meetings, a proposal that would move the central bank closer to its peers in the UK, US and Japan.

 

July 3, 2013

Ranking Luxury cars brands based on sentiment

SemLab’s semantic text processing platform enables the real-time monitoring of product and brand associated sentiments. In our showcase application AutoSentiment we continuously monitor the top ten most popular online automotive blog websites in The Netherlands and capture the sentiments expressed in the edited articles as well as in the readers’ comments.

In contrast to traditional sentiment tools, we determine the semantics of the expressed opinions by comparing the text to an automotive ontology of over 300 events. These events describe the most common concepts expressed in these types of text. For example the events range from “I like the car” to “the engine noise is barely audible”. Furthermore, the events are classified in the seven main quality parameters for luxury cars: Price, Looks, Driving experience, Comfort, Fuel consumption, Quality and Safety.

A live version of the AutoSentiment monitoring system is available here.

Results

The system is currently online and has processed about 145.000 text items resulting in 141.396 useful events. Excluding all car brands that yield 50 events or less, results in data on the 37 most popular car brands currently available in The Netherlands.

Ranking this data according to the defined parameters results in the following graphs:

Luxury car brands ranked on price sentiment

 

The graph above lists the car brands according to the percentage of positive sentiment about its purchasing cost. On the left hand side the brands are perceived as (too) expensive, the cars on the right are deemed affordable or to offer good value for money.

The overall results are not surprising: The top five expensive car brands include Ferrari, Land Rover and Cadillac, whereas the affordable brands are Skoda, Suzuki and Mitsubishi. More interesting is the position of Dacia and Renault. Renault is perceived as significantly more affordable than its low cost sister brand Dacia, which this data puts in the same range as the acclaimed luxury brand Lexus.

Read more
 

May 13, 2013

ViewerPro automatiseert verwerking Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur (WOB) verzoeken

SemLab’s VIEWERPRO software wordt ingezet tegen het explosief stijgende aantal verzoeken van burgers, bedrijven en advocaten die beroep doen op de Wet openbaarheid van bestuur (WOB). “De reactietijd is thans zo verbeterd dat onze klanten, waaronder het Openbaar Ministerie, de stroom WOB verzoeken makkelijk aankunnen, en ruimschoots binnen de wettelijk gestelde termijn kunnen reageren” zegt Bram Stalknecht, SEMLAB te Alphen aan den Rijn. “Onze klanten vermoeden steeds vaker misbruik van deze wet, en hebben de stap genomen om onze taaltechnologie te gebruiken voor het detecteren van deze verzoeken. Door onze technologie in het informatieproces te integreren wordt de informatiestroom door een intelligent computersysteem gestuurd. Medewerkers worden nu ontlast en het systeem is zo ingeregeld dat het pieken makkelijk kan opvangen en flexibel voor elk WOB-onderwerp kan worden ingericht.”

Door middel van Natural Language Processing en Artificial Intelligence technieken detecteert VIEWERPRO met hoogste precisie en recall woorden en begrippen die relevant zijn uit de binnenkomende brieven en e-mails. Deze worden automatisch opgenomen in de reacties naar de verzoekers.

 

 

May 13, 2013

SemLab Internship Opportunities: Now open for international candidates

Internship Opportunities: Now open for international candidates:

1- Econometrics & Operations Research

2- Quantitative Modeling for Algorithmic Trading & Testing

We are looking for candidates for our fast growing work in our knowledge engineering developments in algorithmic trading.

Ad1-

Background of candidate is in Econometrics & Operations Research at a M.A. level university.

The candidate will be joining our Research & Development team in The Netherlands, near Amsterdam Airport. The thesis project is focusing on news analytics for multi asset class investments. The candidates should have an understanding of the implications and effects from news events on investments and risks. Macro economics and fixed income as well as equities and derivatives are subjects of interest of the internship work.

Duration: 6 month. After a successful completion of the thesis it is expected to be part of the growing development team.

Ad2-

Background of the candidate is in Quantitative Modeling and/or Financial Mathematics (M.Sc./PhD-thesis)

The candidate will be joining our Research & Development team in The Netherlands, near Amsterdam Airport. The thesis project is focusing on news analytics and market data for equity asset class algorithmic trading.

Candidates should have an understanding of risk/(multi) asset valuation modeling and an emphasis on financial service applications.

We require academic experience in the field of financial data analysis and research, with strong analytic solving skills, including tools like Matlab/R and experience of working with statistics and data sets for testing your algorithm and benchmark against indices.

Communication in English is essential to both of the intern positions as well as a valid EU working permit.

If you are interested in any of these positions please send your C.V. to stalknecht@semlab.nl

 

April 25, 2013

Filtering misinformation AP hacked twitter account; News analytics does work

 

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Recently a hacker took over the twitter account for the Associated Press (AP), creating momentary chaos across the world. The hacker posted a fake message claiming that US President Barack Obama was injured as a result of an explosion in the White House: AP Twitter

Immediately after the fake tweet went live, legacy news feed machines took up this message. This resulted in drastic nosedives of both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 before quickly rebounding:  Machine in Control

“This is what happens if you don’t incorporated semantic cross referencing in your Machine Readable News (MRN) processing systems” says Bram Stalknecht, CEO of semantic analytics software vendor SemLab. “High frequency traders relying on social media only, without enhanced noise filtering  and cross referencing, risk taking decisions based on wrong news”.

 

April 19, 2013

Reputation Brand Monitoring and Marketing

With Semlab’ proprietary semantic web software you can analyze millions of user forums, tumblr blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ feeds, in order to measure in real-time the sentiment of  your product and service opinions.

It has been a challenge imposed by processing social media because of use of incorrect language, irony, short or incomplete sentences, lack of contextual information, use of multiple languages and use of slang but Semlab succeeded to address all of these challenges with its semantic web solutions and other language processing technologies.

Read more
 

April 15, 2013

Latest customers using our technology

SEMLAB’s technology is used across a wide range of industries to assist companies and government organizations to efficiently implement flexible solutions to the knowledge management- and data processing problems they face. Every day and night, our platforms are quietly at work assisting banks, hospitals, law enforcement, media agencies and regulators to process and maximize their intelligence and other core assets.

Some of our latest testimonials coming from organizations we work with, include:

EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Brussels,  ICT,Competitiveness & Innovation, March 2013:

SEMLAB provides the most innovative solution in Language Technology in combination with high yield critical business processes, including financial services and risk management.

Read more
 

April 15, 2013

New SemLab website

We have upgraded our website. The new site provides a more complete view of our offering and is easier to maintain. This should result in more up to date content, and hopefully more pageviews.

 

April 12, 2013

Irene Aldridge, speaker at NYU-Poly’s Big Data Finance Conference, May 3, NYC, Sponsor SEMLAB

Big Data is a fact, fueling a transformation of finance and the world of business in yet unpredictable ways.  Scientific parsing of big data and Data Analytics are encountering challenges to process data, produce meaningful inferences and maintain the integrity and the safety of its use.

Irene Aldridge is Industry Assistant Professor, Dept. of Finance and Risk Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU).  At NYU, Aldridge specializes in cutting edge HFT and other data-driven finance research and teaches courses on HFT and algorithmic execution.  Aldridge is the author of several books, including “High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies and Trading Systems” (2nd edition just published by Wiley, 2013), translated into several languages.

Aldridge worked for various institutions on Wall Street and in Toronto, including Goldman Sachs and CIBC, and is a founder of ABLE Alpha Trading, LTD, a company specializing in high frequency trading technologies, including quantitative market-making. Her research has been profiled on BBC, CNBC, FOX Business, CBC, BNN, German ZDF, National Public Radio (NPR), Bloomberg Radio, as well as in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Financial Times, Thomson/Reuters, Bloomberg LP, Forbes and other major business news outlets.