Lia Frischholz, a graduate of Hof University of Applied Sciences, has been awarded the coveted Bavarian Culture Prize. The Master’s student in computer science impressed the jury with her thesis, in which she investigated the influence of spelling errors in the field of natural language processing (NLP).
In her paper “An Analysis of Text errors in NLP: How do Text errors influence quality?”, Lia Frischholz researched the impact of text errors on the quality of artificial intelligence. To this end, text error types were first categorized and then used with increasing frequency in training data. The analysis of the results showed that spelling errors in particular had an impact on the quality of the AI, while grammar and punctuation errors had less influence. The findings of this work help to ensure that data can be pre-processed in a more targeted manner and thus qualitative AI solutions can be developed more efficiently.
During her Master’s thesis between October 2021 and May 2022, she was supervised by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Leuoth at Hof University of Applied Sciences:
“Even during her Bachelor’s degree, Lia Frischholz showed above-average commitment and a high level of understanding for selected problem areas in computer science. With great determination and high self-motivation, she adapted linguistic models in her work and developed an interference model for the English language, which also takes into account abbreviations, youth language and typical grammatical errors.”
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Leuoth
Lia Frischholz originally comes from Middle Franconia, where she also completed her A-levels. She then moved to the city on the Saale to study computer science at the Hof University of Applied Sciences. There she first completed her Bachelor’s degree and then her Master’s degree. During her studies, she worked several times as a student assistant at the university and also initially worked as a research assistant after graduating. In Prof. René Peinl’s System Integration team, she was able to work primarily on the topic of speech recognition. Lia Frischholz now lives in Leipzig and works at Linguwerk GmbH, where she is involved in the development of speech-based applications.
“I am honored and delighted to have my thesis recognized by the Kulturpreis Bayern. I would especially like to thank Prof. Sebastian Leuoth and Prof. René Peinl, who have been instrumental in shaping my academic career. I will always have fond memories of my time studying at Hof University of Applied Sciences and I am delighted that I was able to represent Hof University of Applied Sciences at the award ceremony in Munich.”
Lia Frischholz
Creatives and scientists honored
The Bavarian Culture Prize is a joint award presented by Bayernwerk AG and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and Culture. At the award ceremony in Munich’s Eisbachstudios, creative people were once again honored. In addition to the German-Syrian artist Adidal Abou-Chamat, the jury chose the writer Rita Falk, the chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra Jakub Hrůša and the artists and art patrons Michaela and Bruno Wank as this year’s award winners.
Bavarian Minister of Art and Science Markus Blume emphasized:
Bavaria is proud of its cultural diversity and of the artists who shape it. Their works are enriching, inspiring and thought-provoking. The award winners are ambassadors of our Free State, which is as multifaceted and unique as its artists. “
Markus Blume, Minister of State for Art and Science
The jury for this year’s Bavarian Culture Prize consisted of Angelika Kaus (Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts), Angelika Diekmann (publisher of Mediengruppe Bayern), Dr. Meret Foster (BR-Klassik), Susanne Hermanski (Süddeutsche Zeitung) and Wilhelm Koch (visual artist).
Background to the Bavarian Culture Prize
The Bavarian Culture Prize was awarded for the 19th time this year. Its roots go back to the year 1959. In addition to artists, outstanding graduates and doctoral students from Bavarian universities are also honored with the Bavarian Culture Prize (separate press release to follow). The Bavarian Culture Prize is endowed with 5,000 euros in the art category and 2,000 euros in the science category.
