WEEK 1 & 2

Natural Language
Processing
CSC 4106
GCR Code: s7lhsql

MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED

LECTURER (Artificial Intelligence & Robotics)
Course Outline

• Introduction to Natural Language application domains

• Overview of NLP, Advantages of NLP, Application domain of NLP
• Sentiment Analysis, E-Recruitment, E-Health, Social Media
Monitoring, Language Translators, Chat Bots, Email Filtering

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Grading Policy

• Assignments 10%
• Quiz 10%
• Project 10%
• Midterm 30%
• Final Exam 40%

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Text & Reference Books

Required Textbook
• Natural Language Processing in Action: Understanding,
analyzing, and generating text with Python, Hobson Lane,
Hannes Hapke, Cole Howard Publication Date: April 2019
• Natural Language Processing with Python, Steven Bird, Ewan
Klein, and Edward Loper Publication Date: June 2009

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
What is Natural Language Processing?

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
What is NLP?
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subset of Artificial Intelligence
(AI) – specifically Machine Learning (ML) that allows computers and
machines to understand, interpret, manipulate, and communicate
human language.

Natural language processing (NLP) is a field of computer science,

artificial intelligence, and computational linguistics concerned with the

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interactions between computers and human (natural) languages.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Applications of NLP

• Real-time language translation

• Spam filters in email services
• Voice assistants and chatbots
• Text summarization
• Autocorrect features
• Sentiment analysis and more

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
How NLP Works?
• The user must input a sentence into the Natural Language
Processing (NLP) system.
• The NLP system then breaks down the sentence into smaller
parts of words, called tokens, and converts audio to text.
• Then, the machine processes the text data and creates an audio
file based on the processed data.
• The machine responds with an audio file based on processed text

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data.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Approaches to Natural Language Processing

• Supervised NLP: Trains models on labeled data to make accurate

predictions, like classifying emails.
• Unsupervised NLP: Works with unlabeled data to find patterns,
useful for tasks like topic modeling.
• Natural Language Understanding (NLU): Helps machines interpret
and understand the meaning of human language.
• Natural Language Generation (NLG): Creates human-like text,

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such as writing summaries or chatbot responses.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
NLP Market Size & Growth
The Natural Language Processing (NLP) market is showing phenomenal
promise and is anticipated to be valued at around $156.80bn by the
year 2030. This growth is at an annual CAGR of 27.55%.
• Increased incorporation of AI in products and services
• The race to provide the best customer experience
• Explosion of digital data
• The availability of low-cost cloud-based solutions
• The adoption of the technologies across diverse industries including

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healthcare, manufacturing, automotive and more
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Benefits of NLP (Cont.)

Increased documentation efficiency & accuracy

An NLP-generated document accurately summarizes any original
text that humans can’t automatically generate. Also, it can carry
out repetitive tasks such as analyzing large chunks of data to
improve human efficiency.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Benefits of NLP (Cont.)

Capability to automatically create a summary of large & complex

textual content
Natural processing language can be used for simple text mining
tasks such as extracting facts from documents, analyzing
sentiment, or identifying named entities. Natural processing can
also be used for more complex tasks, such as understanding
human behaviors and emotions.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Benefits of NLP (Cont.)

Enables personal assistants like Alexa to interpret spoken words

NLP is useful for personal assistants such as Alexa, enabling the
virtual assistant to understand spoken word commands. It also
helps to quickly find relevant information from databases
containing millions of documents in seconds.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Benefits of NLP (Cont.)

Enables the usage of chatbots for customer assistance

NLP can be used in chatbots and computer programs that use
artificial intelligence to communicate with people through text or
voice. The chatbot uses NLP to understand what the person is
typing and respond appropriately. They also enable an
organization to provide 24/7 customer support across multiple
channels.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Benefits of NLP (Cont.)

Performing sentiment analysis is simpler

Sentiment Analysis is a process that involves analyzing a set of
documents (such as reviews or tweets) concerning their attitude
or emotional state (e.g., joy, anger). Sentiment analysis can be
used for categorizing and classifying social media posts or other
text into several categories: positive, negative, or neutral.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Benefits of NLP

Advanced analytics insights that were previously out of reach

The recent proliferation of sensors and Internet-connected devices
has led to an explosion in the volume and variety of data
generated. As a result, many organizations leverage NLP to make
sense of their data to drive better business decisions.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Challenges with NLP (Cont.)

Misspellings
Natural languages are full of misspellings, typos, and
inconsistencies in style. For example, the word “process” can be
spelled as either “process” or “processing.” The problem is
compounded when you add accents or other characters that are
not in your dictionary.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Challenges with NLP (Cont.)

Language Differences
An English speaker might say, “I’m going to work tomorrow
morning,” while an Italian speaker would say, “Domani Mattina
vado al lavoro.” Even though these two sentences mean the same
thing, NLP won’t understand the latter unless you translate it into
English first.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Challenges with NLP (Cont.)

Innate Biases
Natural processing languages are based on human logic and data
sets. In some situations, NLP systems may carry out the biases of
their programmers or the data sets they use. It can also sometimes
interpret the context differently due to innate biases, leading to
inaccurate results.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Challenges with NLP (Cont.)

Words with Multiple Meanings

NLP is based on the assumption that language is precise and
unambiguous. In reality, language is neither precise nor
unambiguous. Many words have multiple meanings and can be
used in different ways. For example, when we say “bark,” it can
either be dog bark or tree bark.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Challenges with NLP

Uncertainty and False Positives

False positives occur when the NLP detects a term that should be
understandable but can’t be replied to properly. The goal is to
create an NLP system that can identify its limitations and clear up
confusion by using questions or hints.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
NLP Tasks (Cont.)

Speech Recognition
This involves converting voice or audio data into texts. This process
is crucial for any application of NLP that features voice command
options. Speech recognition addresses the diversity in
pronunciation, dialects, haste, slurring, loudness, tone and other
factors to decipher intended message.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
NLP Tasks (Cont.)

Speech Tagging
Similar to how we were taught grammar basics in school, this
teaches machines to identify parts of speech in sentences such as
nouns, verbs, adjectives and more. This also teaches systems to
understand when a word is used as a verb and the same word is
used as a noun.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
NLP Tasks (Cont.)

Word Sense Disambiguation

This is a crucial process that is responsible for the comprehension
of a sentence’s true meaning. Borrowing our previous example,
the use of semantic analysis in this task enables a machine to
understand if an individual uttered, “This is going great,” as a
sarcastic comment when enduring a crisis.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
NLP Tasks

Named Entity Recognition (NER)

When there are multiple instances of nouns such as names,
location, country, and more, a process called Named Entity
Recognition is deployed. This identifies and classifies entities in a
message or command and adds value to machine comprehension.

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Why Is NLP Important?
Computers are very basic. They do not understand human languages.
To enable machines to think and communicate as humans would do,
NLP is the key.
• Uncovering critical insights from in-house data
• Deploying automation to simplify workflows, communications, and processes
• Personalization and hyper-personalization of experiences
• Implementing accessibility features to include differently abled people into
computing ecosystems
• Fuelling innovation in niche domains such as clinical oncology, fleet

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management in supply-chain, data-driven decision making in autonomous
cars and more
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
NLP Use Cases
• Intelligent document processing
• Sentiment Analysis
• Fraud detection
• Language detection
• Conversational AI / Chatbot for customer assistance
• Text summarization
• Text Translation / Machine Translation
• Question-Answering
• Social Media Monitoring

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• Business Analytics

Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)

Industries Leveraging NLP (Cont.)
Healthcare
• The extraction insights from medical records and analysis of
unstructured data
• Improve and personalize clinical decision support systems
• Optimize responses from chatbots for seamless patient care
experiences
• Monitor, predict, and mitigate adverse drug reactions and

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implement pharmacovigilance strategies and more
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Industries Leveraging NLP (Cont.)

Fintech
• Seamless document processing and onboarding
• Optimize risk management and fraud detection
• Assessment of creditworthiness of individuals for financing
• Personalization of financial products in terms of tenures and
premiums and more

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Industries Leveraging NLP (Cont.)

Media & Advertising

• Content personalization and delivery of vernacular content
• Precision analysis and targeting of user personas
• Market research on trends, topics, and conversations for topical
opportunities
• Ad copy development and placement optimization and more

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Industries Leveraging NLP (Cont.)

Retail
• Precise recommendation engines
• Voice search optimization
• Location-based service suggestions
• Targeted advertising such as loyalty programs, first-time user
discounts and more

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)
Industries Leveraging NLP (Cont.)

Manufacturing
• Automated machine health monitoring and defect detection
• Real-time process analysis
• Optimizing delivery routes and schedules including fleet
management
• Better worker and workplace safety through predictive analytics

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and more
Natural Language Processing (NLP) | MUHAMMAD ATIF SAEED (Lecturer)