LINGUIST List 13.2629

Tue Oct 15 2002

Calls: Grammatical Inference, Gen'l Ling/Students

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Menno van Zaanen, Special Issue Pattern Recognition/Grammatical Inference
2. Millermrk1, UT Arlington Student Conference in Linguistics

CALL FOR PAPERS
Pattern Recognition
(The Journal of the Pattern Recognition Society)
Special Issue on Grammatical Inference Techniques & Applications

This Special Issue will be published in April, 2004 to commemorate and
honor the memory of Late Professor K. S. Fu. Grammatical Inference
(GI) is a collection of methodologies for learning grammars from
training data. The most traditional field of application of GI has
been syntactic pattern recognition. In the recent past, however,
concerted efforts from diverse disciplines to find tractable inference
techniques have added new dimensions and opened up unchartered
territories. Applications of GI in more nontraditional fields include
Gene Analysis, Sequence Prediction, Cryptography and Information
Retrieval. Development of algorithms for GI has evolved over the
years from dealing with only positive training samples to more
fundamental efforts that try to circumvent the lack of negative
samples.. This idea is pursued in stochastic grammars and languages
which attempt to overcome absence of negative samples by gathering
statistical information from available positive samples. Also within
the framework of information theory, probability estimation technique
for Hidden Markov Model known as Backward-Forward and for Context-Free
language, the Inside-Outside algorithm are focal point of
investigations in stochastic grammar field. Techniques that use
intelligent search to infer the rules of grammar are showing
considerable promise. Recently, there has been a surge of activities
dealing with specialized neural network architecture and dedicated
learning algorithms to approach GI problems. In more customary track,
research in learning classes of transducers continue to arouse
interests in GI community. Close interaction/collaboration between
different disciplines and availability of powerful computers are
fueling novel research efforts in GI.

The objective of the Special Issue is to present the current status of
this topic through the works of researchers in different
disciplines. Original and tutorial papers are solicited that address
theoretical and practical issues on this theme. Topics of interest
include (but are not limited to):

Theory:
Neural network framework and learning algorithms geared to GI
GI via heuristic and genetic search
Inference mechanisms for stochastic grammars/languages 
Algebraic methods for identification of languages
Transduction learning
Applications:
Image processing and computer vision
Biosequence analysis and prediction
Speech and natural language processing
Data mining/information retrieval
Optical character recognition 

Submission Procedure:

Only electronic (ftp) submission will be accepted. Instructions for
submission of papers will be posted on November 10 at the guest
editor's web site (http://www-ee.ccny.cuny.edu/basu) . All submitted
papers will be reviewed according to guidelines and standards of
Pattern Recognition.

Deadlines:
Manuscript Submission: December 10, 2002 
Notification of Acceptance: April 16, 2003
Final Manuscript Due: June 16, 2003
Publication Date: April 2004

Guest Editor:
Mitra Basu , The City College of CUNY, New York, U.S.A.
basuccny.cuny.edu

+-------------------------------------+
| Menno van Zaanen | 
| mvzaanenscience.uva.nl | 
| http://www.science.uva.nl/~mvzaanen | 

The Ninth Annual UTA Student Conference in Linguistics -UTASCIL


Deadline for Abstracts: 5:00 p.m., December 2nd, 2002
Date: February 27th-28th , 2003
Location: Carlisle Hall, University Center, The University of Texas at 
Arlington

Papers for this conference are invited in all areas of linguistics.
The focus of this year's Conference concerns the typological limits of
languages in the world, so papers which provide descriptive data on
various languages are particularly welcome. Students from any
educational institution are encouraged to submit their research and
share insights they have discovered in the field. Presentations will
last 20 minutes with 10 minutes for discussion and questions. This is
a great opportunity to develop professional skills! The
best-presented paper will be awarded the Yumi Nakamura Memorial Prize
in Linguistics ($400.00 USD).

The deadline for submission of abstracts is Monday, December 2nd,
2002. Notifications of acceptance will be distributed in early
January, 2003. Abstracts should be written on a single page (500
words or less), with an optional additional page for graphs and/or
references. Please provide 5 copies of your anonymous abstract with
the title of the page at the top and a 3" x 5" index card including
the following information:

1. Your name
2. Affiliation
3. Address, phone number, and e-mail address
4. Title of paper

Papers should be sent to the attention of: Coleen Anderson, Program in
Linguistics, Box 19559, University of Texas at Arlington, TX
76019-0559 by the deadline. Electronic submission in MS word format
is also welcome. Please e-mail your abstract to Coleen at:
UTASCILling.uta.edu

For more information, please visit our website at: 
http://ling.uta.edu/~lingua