This dissertation explores the linguistic and computational aspects of the meaning relations that can hold between two or more complex linguistic expressions (phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs). In particular, it focuses on Paraphrasing, Textual Entailment, Contradiction, and Semantic Similarity. In Part I: "Similarity at the Level of Words and Phrases", I study the Distributional Hypothesis (DH) and explore several different methodologies for quantifying semantic similarity at the levels of words and short phrases. In Part II: "Paraphrase Typology and Paraphrase Identification", I focus on the meaning relation of paraphrasing and the empirical task of automated Paraphrase Identification (PI). In Part III: "Paraphrasing, Textual Entailment, and Semantic Similarity", I present a novel direction in the research on textual meaning relations, resulting from joint research carried out on on paraphrasing, textual entailment, contradiction, and semantic similarity.

BUTTE - Montana Tech in Butte is giving some high school students from around the state a chance to build the best robot rover. Four schools, including Butte High, Red Lodge, Great Falls CMR and Anaconda High were given kits from Montana Tech to build robot rovers -- rovers that could be sent down to rescue trapped miners. The team with the best rover will be rewarded in the end. "We're going to provide all the team participants a $1,000 scholarship to Tech, and the high school mentors receive a stipend for their work. Any supplies that are needed, we provide those as well," said Montana Tech Assistant Dean Curtis Link.