linguistlist.org>
Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>
dcs.shef.ac.uk>******************************************************************* * * * First EAGLES/ISLE Workshop on * * Meta-Descriptions and Annotation Schemas for * * Multimodal/Multimedia Language Resources * * * * Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation * * LREC 2000 Pre-Conference Workshop * * Athens, Greece * * * * 29 or 30 May 2000 * * * * 1st Announcement * * and * * Call for Papers * * * * * ******************************************************************* 1. Workshop Outline =================== Currently, we can identify a number of trends in the community dealing with multimodal/multimedia language resources: - The number of resources is increasing rapidly. - Due to multimedia extensions and rich annotations the structural complexity of the resources is entering new dimensions. - The quantity of data to be handled is increasing enormously due to multimedia extensions, demanding new solutions. - The development of technology makes us assume that more and more of these resources will be available on the Internet. The joint EC/NSF funded EAGLES/ISLE [1] initiative aims to create standards and guidelines that can be applied to natural interactivity and multimodal language reources (e.g. speech, gesture, facial expressions, manual languages) that support the creation, use, re-use of and access to such resources. As part of this initiative, the workshop will address current trends and discuss structures which could simplify and assist the creation and use of annotated multimodal/multimedia resources, the process of finding suitable resources, and accessing them, for instance, via the Web. The workshop will address two related areas: annotation schemas and meta-descriptions for multimodal/multimedia language resources. Meta-Descriptions for Multimodal/Multimedia Language Resources (MMLR) - ------------------------------------------------------------------- Similar to other communities it is time to bring the widespread users of multimedia language resources together and start a discussion about meta schemas describing these resources. The goal is to have the available multimedia language resources associated with linked meta-descriptions which form a browsable and searchable universe open to the Internet. A known portal, standardised meta-descriptions and suitable tools will help users to more easily find suitable resources for the task in mind. This interest unifies people from science, industry, and also general users who have to use annotated multimedia resources for their scientific analysis, training of commercial components and many more. Part of the proposed workshop will be dedicated to discussing the need for such a universe of linked meta-descriptions, the scope of the community, and existing work in this area. Also the nature of the meta-descriptions must be extensively discussed with an emphasis on questions such as: (1) Which are the elements which describe the various language resources? (2) Is a more minimal schema preferable or a more elaborate one? (3) How can we achieve flexibility within the standard meta-description? (4) How can we automatically derive meta-descriptions to make it a feasible task? The workshop will also discuss whether benefits can be taken from existing standards such as Dublin-Core from the community of digital libraries, whether initiatives in the telecommunication and broadcasting community are of relevance for our goals, and the impacts of the W3C initiative toward a unifying framework called Resource Description Framework for all these initiatives. Annotation Schemas for MMLR - ------------------------- A second part of the workshop will be dedicated to discussing annotation schemas for multimodal/multimedia language resources. Until now the community has experience with text-only corpora based mostly on orthographical transcriptions (with all their limitations) and with corpora covering speech data often associated with one layer of orthographic transcriptions and specifically tailored to the needs of Automatic Speech Recognition systems. With the increasing power of computer technology we see that people are starting to build corpora based on several video and sound tracks with rich annotations covering easily more than 50 layers. These annotations have complex time relationships and various dependencies between and within layers. It seems to be clear, therefore, that a large number of such complex structured corpora will emerge and the community needs guidelines to restrict the heterogeneity of such corpora. At the Granada LREC conference we have heard about initial projects having implemented "Abstract Data Models" for such multimedia corpora [2]. In the meantime a broad discussion about the underlying universal structure for such annotations has also been initiated [3]. A number of projects in the US and Europe were and are funded to develop annotation and exploitation tools to cope with such complex multimedia databases. To guarantee a high amount of interoperability and unified access to the resources it is time to have a separate workshop dedicated to the nature of annotation schemas. Only good agreement in this respect will limit the number of access tools needed to exploit such databases. The emergence of multimedia on computers has changed traditional views, since direct media access allows us to refer to media time which will never change instead of referring only to transcriptions which can be modified and often are not adequate for coding complex time relationships. However, the workshop will not only address theoretical matters such as the underlying common structure and abstract data models, but also raise questions of suitable representation formats important for implementation. Formats suitable for open exchange and long-term archiving will not be the optimal choice for all types of program access and vice versa. We expect that modern tools have to rely on several co-existing representation formats. We also have to deal with the question of how we can integrate existing textually based corpora or corpora which are stepwise extended with media data afterwards. 2. Call for Papers ================== The workshop will have two subsequent sessions: One will focus on Internet-accessible Meta-Descriptions of MMLR. The other will be dedicated to Annotation Schemas for MMLR. This workshop is seen as a first one in a series which will help understand the complexity of the problems and the various approaches found until now. Each session will be started by an invited talk to introduce the problem and define the scope and be finished by a summary from the organizers. The workshop will focus on oral contributions and give enough space for broad discussions. Papers are invited which can contribute to these two topics. Format of Submission - ------------------ Submissions should consist of an extended abstract of about one page (DIN A4) and a separate title page providing the following information: Official title of the paper; names and affiliations of the authors; full address of the first author including phone, fax, email, URL; required facilities. Only electronic submissions in ASCII, Word, or HTML format will be accepted. The submissions should be sent to: ISLE-2000Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
loria.fr>- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Concerns all students in Logic, Linguistics and Computer Science --- ======================================================================== SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS ESSLLI-2000 STUDENT SESSION August 6-18 2000, Birmingham, Great Britain Submission Deadline : March 15th, 2000 http://www.loria.fr/~piliere/ESSLLI-2000.html ======================================================================== We are pleased to announce the Student Session of the 12th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI-2000) organized by the University of Birmingham and located at the same University in August 2000 (http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~esslli). We will welcome submission of papers for presentation at the ESSLLI-2000 Student Session and for appearance in the proceedings. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PURPOSE This fifth ESSLLI Student Session will provide, like the other editions, an opportunity for ESSLLI participants who are students to present their own WORK IN PROGRESS and get feedback from senior researchers and fellow-students. It is desired that papers presenting creative and innovative ideas will be submitted. The ESSLLI-2000 Student Session encourages submissions from students at any level, from undergraduates - before completion of the Master Thesis as well as postgraduates - before completion of the PhD degree. Papers co-authored by non-students will not be accepted. The ESSLLI Student Session consists of paper presentations and has its own timeslot in the summerschool's schedule: 60 minutes every day for two weeks, provided that a sufficient number of good quality papers is accepted. Each presentation will last 30 minutes (including 10 minutes of discussion). The accepted papers will be published in the ESSLLI-2000 Student Session proceedings, which will be made available during ESSLLI-2000. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KLUWER BEST PAPER AWARD As in previous editions of ESSLLI, the best paper will be selected by the program committee and will be offered a prize by Kluwer Academic Publishers. The prize of 1000 Dfl consists of a free choice of Kluwer books to be displayed during the school. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- REQUIREMENTS The Student Session papers should describe original, unpublished work, completed or in progress, that demonstrates insight, creativity and promise. No previously published papers should be submitted. Papers will cover topics within the six ESSLLI subject areas (Logic, Language, Computation, Logic & Language, Logic & Computation, Language & Computation). - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FORMAT OF SUBMISSION Student authors should submit an anonymous extended abstract headed by the paper title, not to exceed 5 pages of length exclusive of references and send a separate identification page (see below). Note that the length of the full papers will not be allowed to exceed 10 pages. Since reviewing will be blind, the body of the abstract should omit author names and addresses. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity (e.g., " We previously showed (Smith, 1991)... ") should be avoided. It is possible to use instead references like " Smith (1991) previously showed...". For any submission, a plain ASCII text version of the identification page should be sent SEPARATELY, using the following format: Title: <title> Author: <firstname lastname of the first author> Address: <address of the first author> .. Author: <firstname lastname of the last author> Address: <address of the last author> Short summary (5 lines): <summary> Subject area (one of): Logic | Language | Computation | Logic and Language | Logic and Computation | Language and Computation. The submission of the extended abstract should be in one of the following formats: 1) SELF-CONTAINED LATEX SOURCE (the most encouraged): The LaTeX source should use the standard article document-class, with A4 paper size and 12pt font size. The source should not refer to any other external files or styles, except for the standard styles for LaTeX2e. The bibliography for a LaTeX submission cannot be submitted as separate .bib file: the actual bibliography entries must be inserted in the submitted LaTeX source file. 2) POSTSCRIPT: PostScript submissions must use a standard font and A4 (8 1/4 " x 11 3/4 ") size pages. Please avoid the default letter page size if submitting from outside Europe. 3) ASCII text. Submissions outside the specified length and formatting requirements will be subject to rejection without review. The extended abstract and separate identification page must be sent by e-mail to: Catherine.PiliereMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue