Virtual Humanist Libraries

Based in the CESR (Centre for Advanced Renaissance Studies) of Tours, the BVH programme was initiated in 2002, in collaboration with the humanist section of the IRHT (Institute for Research and History of Texts).

The team’s activities ally research in Renaissance literature and computing technology and concentrate in particular on the electronic publication of Renaissance documents in the form of digital facsimiles and transcribed texts.

Scientific Director: Marie-Luce Demonet, professor of French Renaissance Literature, director of the Val de Loire branch of the Maison des Science de l’Homme. 

BVH team members: Anne-Laure Allain, Lauranne Bertrand, Sandrine Breuil, Jorge Fins, Élise Gauthier, Anne Guérineau, Rémi Jimenes, Myriam Olivier, Marie Olivron, Toshinori Uetani.

Further information:
http://www.bvh.univ-tours.fr/
http://bvh.hypotheses.org/

Computer Laboratory of Tours University (LI, EA 6300)

The LI (EA 6300) of François-Rabelais University of Tours concentrates its research activities on the conception and development of models and algorithms for extracting information and knowledge from diverse types of data, as well as the concomitant question of the man-machine interface.

The BbTln team specialises in the representation, manipulation, maintenance and analysis of unstructured, semi-structured and structured voluminous data, contained in various storage systems:  highly structured relational databases, semi-structured XML databases, weakly-structured textual corpora, etc. Research activities are organised according to three main domains:

• Data warehouses and digs
• Web services and data
• Automatic treatment of languages and interactions.

The RFAI team specialises in the recognition of forms and the analysis of images. The crux of their work involves following up a number of “low-level” processes, enabling raw data (signals, images, videos) to be cleaned and adapted, with the “high-level” process of form recognition in order to obtain robust and pertinent indexes and descriptors. The originality of the team’s approach lies in their conception of the various steps of system analysis and decision making as interdependent processes. They aim to understand and exploit the relationships between these processes by:

• Developing forecasting and classification models and cognitive apprenticeship methods based on hybridisation and collaboration (incrementation, fusion, boosting, supervised approaches, theory of belief).
• Proposing methods for 2D and 3D image segmentation and characterisation, with particular emphasis on the use of a priori knowledge, data fusion operators and man-machine interaction (notably thanks to the exploitation of active contour models, graphs and cognitive approaches).

Further information:
http://li.univ-tours.fr/

Loire Linguistic Laboratory (LLL, Tours-Orléans University, UMR 7270)

The LLL is an UMR (Mixed Research Unit, N° 7270) attached to the universities of Orléans and Tours and the CNRS and spread over three sites (Tours, Orléans, Paris). Its members include linguists of the universities of Orléans and Tours and curators and staff of the audiovisual department of the BnF (French National Library).

The laboratory is affiliated with the Ministry of Advanced Education and Research and, through the BnF, the Ministry of Culture and Communication. It is associated with the Institute of French Linguistics Research Federation (FR 2393) and the Val de Loire branch of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, which is a USR (Unité de Services et de Recherche/Services and Research Unit, N° 3105).

The LLL centres its activity on the constitution, processing and exploitation of a wide spectrum of oral corpora. Its competences cover the following disciplines: linguistics, phonology, phonetics, morphology, lexicology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis (taking into account diachrony, didactics and Transaction Application Language). It publishes the Revue de Sémantique et Pragmatique.

Further information:
http://www.lll.cnrs.fr/

With the participation of the IAE (Institute for Business Management) of Tours:  http://www.iae.univ-tours.fr/