LINGUIST List 12.80

Mon Jan 15 2001

Calls: Syntax-Semantics Journal, Adaptive Systems

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. snippets, SYNTAX-SEMANTICS JOURNAL
2. Julita Vassileva, Empirical Evaluations of Adaptive Systems (UM2001)

Issue 3 of the syntax-semantics newsletter _Snippets_ is now out. 
It is accessible at the web site
http://www.lededizioni.it/ledonline/snippets.html
and hard copies are on their way to those institutions that requested
hard copies. (The website contains updated copyright information that
is not present in the hard copies.)

The contents of Issue 3 are:

1. Tanmoy Bhattacharya 
The puzzle of Bangla Comp-internal clauses 

2. Yoon Chung 
Against the two types of _tough_ gaps: a response to Jacobson 

3. Felicia Lee 
Wh- and Focus are not the same projection 

4. Christopher Potts 
(Only) some crossover effects repaired 

5. Susi Wurmbrand 
Back to the future

The deadline for submissions to Issue 4 is
* APRIL 1, 2001 *

- ---------------------------------------------------- 

 From the SNIPPETS Editorial Statement:
The aim of _Snippets_ is to publish specific remarks that 
motivate research or that make theoretical points germane to 
current work. The ideal contribution is the ideal footnote: a 
side remark that taken on its own is not worth lengthy development 
but that needs to be said. 

We will publish notes that contribute to the study of _syntax and 
semantics in generative grammar_. The notes are to be brief, 
self-contained and explicit. They may do any of the following 
things:

a. point out an empirical phenomenon that goes against accepted 
generalizations or that shows that some aspect of a theory is 
problematic; 
b. point out unnoticed minimal pairs that fall outside the scope 
of any existing theory; 
c. point out an empirical phenomenon that confirms the 
predictions of a theory in an area where the theory has not 
been tested; 
d. explicitly describe technical inconsistencies in a theory or 
in a set of frequently adopted assumptions; 
e. explicitly describe unnoticed assumptions that underlie a 
theory or assumptions that a theory needs to be supplemented 
with in order to make desired predictions; 
f. propose an idea for a pilot experiment in language acquisition 
or language processing that directly bears on theoretical 
issues; 
g. call attention to little-known or forgotten literature in 
which issues of immediate relevance are discussed.

We will solicit submissions issue by issue. A new submission deadline
will be announced for each issue, and the submissions that we receive
we will consider only for that issue. The submissions that we accept
will be printed in the upcoming issue; none will be scheduled for a
later issue.

Submissions are to be a _maximum_ of 500 words (including examples),
with an additional half page allowed for diagrams, tables and
references. Given that we envision the submissions themselves as
footnotes, _the submissions may not contain footnotes of their own_.
The ideal submission is one paragraph; a submission of five lines is
perfectly acceptable. _We will not consider abstracts_. We will
accept electronic submissions at the address snippetsunimi.it

Paper submissions should be sent to

Caterina Donati 
Facolta' di Lingue 
Universita' di Urbino 
Piazza Rinascimento 7 
61029 Urbino 
ITALY 

We strongly encourage electronic submissions. Electronic submissions
may take the form of the text of an e-mail message, or an attached
file. The attached file should be a simple text file, a Word file (Mac
or Windows), or a Rich Text Format (RTF) file. All submissions must
state the name and affiliation of the author(s), and a (postal or
electronic) return address.

*****************************************************
 Call for Papers
 Workshop on Empirical Evaluations of Adaptive Systems
 in conjunction with UM2001
 July 13, 2001
 Sonthofen, Germany
 *****************************************************

Empirical evaluations of adaptive systems are hard to find, e.g., only
a quarter of the articles published in UMUAI are reporting significant
empirical evaluations. Several reasons have been identified to be
responsible for this lack. These include both structural as well as
adaptivity specific reasons. However, user modeling systems are
designed for human-computer interaction and thus, an empirical
approach is absolutely necessary if we want to justify the enormous
efforts which are needed to make systems adaptive. The aim of this
full-day workshop is to systematize, coordinate and encourage research
on evaluation issues by bringing together people who are interested in
comparing research in different domains, identifying common problems,
and discussing possible solutions.

Workshop Format 

Each session focuses on a few exemplary evaluations in a specific
domain: participants are required to bring along a description of a
finished or planned empirical evaluation. Each evaluation will be
introduced by a talk of 5-10 minutes (depending on the total amount of
participants). Evaluations that have been completed will be discussed
in terms of what worked well, what went wrong, and how it might be
done better next time, etc. Discussions on planned evaluations will
identify strengths, weaknesses, pitfalls, and possible methods of
analysis based on the experience of the group members with similar
cases. This workshop format will help encourage discussion, since the
participants will be discussing specific empirical evaluations that
they have done or plan to do rather than evaluations in the abstract.

The topics of interest include, but are not
limited to, the following list:
 - evaluation frameworks for user-modeling systems
 - introduction, comparison or, discussion of evaluation criteria
 - influence of adaptations on behavioral or cognitive variables
 - evaluation of the accuracy or correctness of either user models 
 or inference techniques
 - effectiveness of user adaptations for task accuracy, task 
 completion time, task quality
 - evaluation methods and techniques (experimental design vs. 
 field studies; transfer of usability techniques; questionnaire 
 design; behavior observation; eye-tracking; etc.)
 - qualitative methods applied to user modeling
 - design-guidelines or heuristics inferred from empirical evaluations
 - solutions of problems that are specific for the evaluation of adaptivity
 - investigation of evaluation strategies

Submission and Information 

 Due to the workshop format there are several
 submission requirements. Please, refer to the
 workshop web page for detailed information and
 submission instructions:
 http://art2.ph-freiburg.de/um2001/index.html

Important Dates 

 March 1, 2001: submission of abstract (recommended)
 March 8, 2001: submission deadline for workshop papers
 April 1, 2001: notification of authors
 July 13, 2001: workshop


Workshop Organizers 

 Stephan Weibelzahl
 PH Freiburg, Germany
 weibelzauni-freiburg.de 

 David Chin
 University of Hawaii, USA
 chinhawaii.edu 

 Gerhard Weber
 PH Freiburg, Germany
 webergehph-freiburg.de

________________________________

Stephan Weibelzahl
Institute of Psychology
Pedagogical University Freiburg
weibelzauni-freiburg.de
++49 761 682-523
________________________________