Updates from Project “Smart Complex of Information Systems of Specialized Biology Lexis for the Research and Preservation of Linguistic Diversity” (09.10.2023.)

October 9, 2023

Owing to cooperation between researchers of Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) and Institute of Horticulture (IoH), the project “Smart Complex of Information Systems of Specialized Biology Lexis for the Research and Preservation of Linguistic Diversity” funded by Latvian Council of Science has been implemented for thirty-three months already. The project comes to an end, and it is time to see what has been done.


The researchers and programmers involved into the IMDS project have been active: they have participated in conferences by presenting the research results and they have written publications. “Studies about Languages” (indexed on Scopus, Erih Plus, EBSCO), Volume 42, issued on 30th June, 2023 (https://www.kalbos.ktu.lt/index.php/KStud) includes the following scientific articles by the project’s researchers:

1.  Jānis Veckrācis “Linguistic scenery in Latvian botany textbooks (1880s-1940s): Stable and varying features”

2.  Arturs Stalažs, Karina Šķirmante, Silga Sviķe, Gints Jasmonts, Roberts Ervīns Ziediņš “Experience of design and development of a new open access interactive multifunctional database management system for special lexis of biology”

3.  Linda Ozola-Ozoliņa, Silga Sviķe “Latvian environmental term 'purvs' Problems and solutions in Latvian-English-Latvian translations of helonyms”


This issue also includes research results summarised in scientific articles after the conference “Linguistic Diversity, Terminology and Statistics” (03.–04.11.2022) (https://www.virac.eu/ldts), organised within the IMDS project. The article devoted to the conference by the keynote speaker Dr. philol. Marie Vachková has been published in “Jazykovědné aktuality” (https://www.jazykovednesdruzeni.cz/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/JA-1_2_23_TISK.pdf), a journal published in the Czech Republic.


From 27th to 29th September, the scientific manager and project researcher Dr philol. S. Sviķe participated in the 2nd Eurasian Translation Congress “Translation Through Intermediary Language”, which took place t Yerevan State University (https://old.ysu.am/etc/en/). She presented her study “Latvian Plant Names of the Genera Sambucus and Syringa in Historical Dictionaries and Other Lexicographic Sources for Translation”, and the Congress was organised by the Yerevan State University (Armenia) and University of Verona (Italy).


The main project deliverables are being prepared for the publication. They include a database for the storage and research of organism names (Bioleksipēdija.lv) with various types of data extraction, statistical collection and representation functions, as well as multilingual translation dictionary of botany terms.


During the previous three months, the system’s development group worked on the introduction of hierarchy statistics and secure registration functionality, as well as on the translation of system’s microtexts into English. The rest of the months of implementing the project will be spent by programmers and researchers on finishing the administrative panel and publishing the system with bioleksipedija.lv as a domain name.


Data entry is actively continuing. By now, 151,287 different organism taxon names from 8524 bibliography sources have been entered thus linking 558,962 organism names in the module (scientific, local names, and disease names) that makes 93.16 % of the projected number of the linked units.

 

This project has been funded by the Latvian Council of Science, project “Smart Complex of Information Systems of Specialized Biology Lexis for the Research and Preservation of Linguistic Diversity“. Project No. Izp-2020/1-0179.

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