LINGUIST List 14.685

Mon Mar 10 2003

Calls: Natural Lang Learning/Historical Ling

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Priscilla Rasmussen, 7th Conference on Natural Language Learning
2. EsbenL, 16th International Conference of Historical Linguistics

			FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS

 CoNLL-2003: Seventh Conference on Natural Language Learning

 Organized at HLT-NAACL-03, Edmonton, Canada

 May 31 - June 1 2003

 http://cnts.uia.ac.be/conll2003/


CoNLL is an international forum for discussion and presentation of
research on natural language learning. We invite submission of papers
about natural language learning topics, including, but not limited to:

 - Computational models of human language acquisition
 - Computational models of the origins and evolution of language
 - Machine learning methods applied to natural language processing
 tasks (speech processing, phonology, morphology, syntax,
 semantics, discourse processing, language engineering
 applications)
 - Symbolic learning methods (Rule Induction and Decision Tree
 Learning, Lazy Learning, Inductive Logic Programming, Analytical
 Learning, Transformation-based Error-driven Learning)
 - Biologically-inspired methods (Neural Networks, Evolutionary
 Computing) 
 - Statistical methods (Bayesian Learning, HMM, maximum entropy,
 SNoW, Support Vector Machines) 
 - Reinforcement Learning 
 - Active learning, ensemble methods, meta-learning 
 - Computational Learning Theory analysis of language learning 
 - Empirical and theoretical comparisons of language learning methods 
 - Models of induction and analogy in Linguistics 

CoNLL is the yearly meeting organized by SIGNLL, the Association for
Computational Linguistics Special Interest Group on Natural Language
Learning. Previous CoNLL meetings were held in Madrid (1997), Sydney
(1998), Bergen (1999) Lisbon (2000), Toulouse (2001), and Taipei
(2002).

See http://www.aclweb.org/signll and
 http://ilk.uvt.nl/~signll/conll.html

for more information about SIGNLL and CoNLL.

Special Theme
- -----------

As in previous years, in addition to submissions on the general topics
listed above, we encourage submissions on a special theme. This year's
special theme is:

 Semi-supervised / unsupervised learning and sample selection
 techniques for language learning (co-training, active learning,
 EM, etc). 

Supervised Machine Learning methods suffer from a "data annotation
bottleneck" which is especially harmful for language learning tasks
where a lot of training data is needed (e.g. parsing). Sample
selection techniques, and combination of supervised learning with
semi-supervised and unsupervised techniques may provide a solution to
this problem.

Shared Task
- ---------

This year's workshop will also accept submissions for a shared task:
machine learning approaches to named entity recognition. Special
attention will be given to the use of multiple sources of knowledge,
like training data, lists of examples and unannotated data. 
Interested groups will be supplied with the same training and testing 
material (in several languages), and will all use the same evaluation
criteria, thus allowing comparison between various learning methods.

More information on the shared task is available at: 

http://cnts.uia.ac.be/conll2003/ner/

Invited Speaker
- -------------

			 STEVEN ABNEY
		 Understanding the Yarowsky Algorithm


Submissions
- ---------

* Main Session Submissions

Submit a full paper of no more than 8 pages (Postscript, PDF or plain
text ASCII) by March 16, 2003 electronically to the address below.
Authors of accepted submissions will be invited to produce a final
paper to be published in the proceedings of the workshop, which will
be available at the workshop for participants, and distributed
afterwards by ACL. Final submissions must follow the HLT-NAACL style
(http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/conferences/hlt-naacl03/format.html).
We strongly recommend the use of these style files also in the
submission.

Submit main session papers to:

Walter Daelemans
daelemuia.ua.ac.be
CNTS Language Technology Group, University of Antwerp,
Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerpen, Belgium.
Tel: +32 3 8202766; Fax: +32 3 8202662

* Shared Task Submissions

Submit a paper of maximum 4 pages describing the learning approach,
and your results on the test set by March 16, 2003 to the address below
(preferably by email). A special section of the proceedings will be
devoted to a comparison and analysis of the results and to a
description of the approaches used. Submit shared task submissions to:

Erik Tjong Kim Sang, eriktuia.ua.ac.be or
Centrum Nederlandse Taal en Spraak
Linguistics, Department of Germanic languages and literature
UIA, University of Antwerp
Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium


Important Dates
- -------------

 Deadline for Paper Submission: March 16, 2003
 Deadline for Shared Task Submission: March 16, 2003
 Notification: March 24, 2003
 Deadline camera-ready paper: April 10, 2003
 Conference: May 31-June 1 2003

Programme Committee
- -----------------

Walter Daelemans, University of Antwerp and Tilburg (Belgium and
Netherlands), co-chair 
Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh (UK), co-chair
Erik Tjong Kim Sang, University of Antwerp (Belgium), shared task chair
Thorsten Brants, Google Inc. (USA) 
Claire Cardie, Cornell University (USA)
James Cussens, University of York (UK) 
Ido Dagan, Bar-Ilan University (Israel)
Diane Litman, University of Pittsburgh (USA) 
Rada Mihalcea, University of North Texas (USA) 
Yuji Matsumoto, Nara Institute of Science and Technology (Japan) 
Raymond Mooney, University of Texas at Austin (USA) 
John Nerbonne, University of Groningen (Netherlands) 
Hwee-Tou Ng, National University of Singapore (Singapore) 
David Powers, Flinders University (Australia)
Adwait Ratnaparkhi, Microsoft (USA)
Ellen Riloff, University of Utah (USA)
Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) 
Antal van den Bosch, Tilburg University (Netherlands)

16th International Conference of Historical Linguistics

Short Title: ICHL 2003
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Date: 11-AUG-03 - 15-AUG-03

Call Deadline: 15-Mar-2003

Web Site: http://www.hum.ku.dk/ichl2003

Contact Person: Esben Lydiksen
Meeting Email: ichl2003hum.ku.dk
Linguistic Subfield(s): Historical Linguistics

Meeting Description: 

In addition to the general programme to which you are invited to
propose a paper, thematic sections will be organised.
				
Final call:

Submission of abstracts for the 16th International Conference on
Historical Linguistics is March 15th 2003. See web site for details -
http://www.hum.ku.dk/ichl2003