LINGUIST List 13.677

Tue Mar 12 2002

Calls: Chat Analysis, Computational Ling

Editor for this issue: Renee Galvis <reneelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Elke Hentschel, Chat-Workshop in Berne
2. Roberta Catizone, LREC Workshop call

Call: Chat-Workshop in Berne, November 2002

Dear all,

A workshop on computer-mediated chat is going to take place during the
"2nd Days of Swiss Linguistics". Tage der Schweizer Linguistik "iemes
journees de linguistique Suisse" on Friday/Saturday November 8./9. in
Berne. It will be dealing with any kind of analysis of chats
(discourse analysis; the lexicon, spelling, morphology, syntax...; the
use of chats in foreign language teaching; or any other chat-related
issue). Talks will take 20 minutes plus 10 minutes discussion
time. Languages: German, French, English. We are planning to publish
the papers.

If you are interested, please contact me for further information as
soon as possible.

Kind regards,

Elke Hentschel <jasamgerm.unibe.ch>


Prof. Dr. Elke Hentschel
Universit�t Bern
Institut f�r Germanistik
L�nggass-Str. 49
CH-3000 Bern 9
Dir. +41-31-6318312
Sekr. +41-31-6318311
Fax +41-31-6313788
http://www.cx.unibe.ch/~jasam/

		 	Call for Papers
	 ******Extended Deadline for Submission******

	 'Event Modelling for Multilingual Document Linking'

			LREC 2002 Workshop
 2nd June 2002, Las Palmas, Canary Islands - Spain
		http://www.lrec-conf.org/lrec2002/



This Workshop, although focused on specific issues in Learning
applied to Content/Event Modelling of Multilingual Documents
(especially the role of verb representations) will also be a forum for
discussing more general issues of Learning in Advanced HLT
applications.
 
Specific Motivation and Aims

There is a growing need for modelling the content of multilingual
documents for purposes such as IR and IE which rest on classification
and document similarity.

This workshop aims to discuss the issues surrounding content modelling
of multilingual documents, and in particular the issue of whether
event representations can function as cross-document links.Specific
Issues are:

1. How large-scale language resources can be used in Content Modelling. 

2. How NLP techniques can be used to full advantage in event/content
modelling. Can generic tools be used or is it inevitable that tools
developed be application specific.

3. Discussion of learning techniques that have been applied to such tasks.

4. Discussion of applications that use content/event modelling as an
intermediate stage or end result in document linkage.

5. Issues concerning evaluation of how well the content is modelled.

6. Multilingual document analysis


General Motivation and Aims:

The application of HLT to current IT trends requires large amounts of
specific linguistic resources. However, existing large scale resources
are not normally intended (i.e. designed and handcrafted) for specific
application tasks.

In order to bridge the gap with specific applications, a variety of
methods for acquisition, adaptation and integration of linguistic
resources have been proposed in the NLP research area since the late
80's. Machine learning and statistical techniques have been employed
as devices to deal with the scale and the complexity of the
problem. Although a substantial area of research, the impact of these
technologies on applications is still low with respect to their
potential. Open problems are:

- the unclear targets of the learning activity: no general consensus
exists among the proposed approaches as to the quality and quantity of
linguistic information needed for different tasks (e.g. what is the
most suitable representation that captures selective information from
the LR training material able to optimize parsing accuracy? Is it
fully grammatical, like in bracketed corpora, or lexical);

- the heterogeneity of sources: relevant information for the
adaptation task can be distributed in different repositories (LKBs and
texts) or expressed differently (in different languages and/or raw,
e.g. texts, vs. semistructured data, e.g. HTML/XML formats);

- the architectural idiosyncrasies: proposed learning systems make
reference to different sources of information in different pipelined
(or redundant as in voting) application architectures.

- the application scope: current applications make a limited use (if
any) of available adaptation technologies. This often limits the scale
reachable by the current HLT aplications;

The above issues are orientated towards reducing the complexity of the
problem in current research, given the enormous potential of the
application field in areas like Web Mining, Q\A and Knowledge
Management.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers of both academic and
industrial organizations interested in:
 
- Theoretical and Practical aspects of adaptive Natural Language
Processing
- Models of Acquisition and Integration of Domain Knowledge 
- Integration of induction models from heterogeneus data (lexicons vs.
ontologies, texts vs. HTML/XML pages)
- Learning Multlingual Information by exploiting Multilingual
Resources (e.g. EWN)
- Theoretical and Practical aspects of Lexical Acquisition in
multilingual scenarios
- Architectures for learning, adaptation, and integration of LR
- Adaptive HLT applications (including but not limited to search,
retrieval, navigation and Q/A)
- What level of representation (terms, event structures etc.) are most
appropriate for document linkage.
 
Papers are invited for presenting theoretical and methodological
aspects of Machine Learning of Natural Language as well as approaches
making effective use of adaptive methods in the perspective of
pre-industrial or industrial applications.


Program Committee 

Roberta Catizone University of Sheffield
Walter Daelemans CNTS/Language Technology Group, Antwerp
M. V. Marabello KnowledgeStones S.p.A
M. T. Pazienza University of Roma, Tor Vergata
G. Rigau Polytechnical University of Catalunia
Horatio Rodriguez Polytechnical University of Catalunia
A. Setzer University of Sheffield
N. Webb University of Sheffield
Y. Wilks University of Sheffield
R�mi Zajac 	Systran Software, CA
F.M. Zanzotto University of Roma, Tor Vergata

Contact person

Roberta Catizone
University of Sheffield
211 Portobello Street, Regent Court, S1 4DP Sheffield (UK)
phone: +44 114 2221897; fax +44 114 2221810
r.catizonedcs.shef.ac.uk


Time schedule (Important Dates)
 Deadline for workshop abstract submission: 20th of March 2002
 Notification of acceptance: 27th of March 2002
 Final version of paper for proceedings: 15th of April 2002
 Workshop: 2st of June 2002
 
Agenda 
 Morning Session:
 - 1st Invited Talk (8:00-9:00)
 - Technical Papers (9:00-11:30)
 - 2nd Invited Talk (11:30-12:30)
 - Panel and Round Table (12:30-1:30)

A summary of the intended workshop Call for Participation. 

 In the workshop the following invited speakers are expected:
 - Roberto Basili (University of Roma, Tor Vergata)
 - Fabio Ciravegna (University of Sheffield)

A panel session on "Adaptive Technologies and their implications on
advanced HLT applications (IR, IE, Q&A and KM)"

Distinguished panelists will be invited, some of whom have confirmed
their participation:
 - Nino Varile (EC Commission)
 - F. Gardin (AISoftware)

Submissions

 Papers should describe existing research connected to the topics
 of the workshop. The presentation at the workshop will be 30
 minutes long (20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for
 questions and discussion). Each submission should show: title;
 author(s); affiliation(s); and contact author's e-mail address,
 postal address, telephone and fax numbers. Abstracts (maximum
 2 pages, plain-text format).

 The final version of the accepted papers should be no longer than
 10 A4 pages. Instructions for formatting and presentation of 
 the final version will be sent to authors upon notification 
 of acceptance.

The Workshop was Previously named 'Learning for Advanced HLT
Applications: from Language Resources to Processes'