LINGUIST List 4.1086

Tue 21 Dec 1993

Calls: Integration of Speech and Language

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Paul Mc Kevitt, INTEGRATION OF SPEECH AND LANGUAGE AAAI-94 WORKSHOP

 Advance Announcement

 CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION

 AAAI-94 Workshop on the
 Integration of Natural Language and Speech Processing

 Twelfth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-94)
 Seattle, Washington, USA

 2 days during July 31st-August 4th 1994

 Chair:
 Paul Mc Kevitt
 Department of Computer Science
 University of Sheffield

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

There has been a recent move towards considering the integration of
perception sources in Artificial Intelligence (AI) (see Dennett 1991
and Mc Kevitt (Ed.) 1994). This workshop will focus on research
involved in the integration of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and
Speech Processing (SP). The aim here is to bring to the AI community
results being presented at computational linguistics (e.g.
COLING/ACL), and speech conferences (e.g. ICASSP, ICSLP).

Although there has been much progress in developing theories, models
and systems in the areas of NLP and SP we have just started to see
progress on integrating these two subareas of AI. Most success has
been with speech synthesis and less with speech understanding.

However, there are still a number of important questions to answer
about the integration of speech and language processing. How is
intentional information best gleaned from speech input? How does one
cope with situations where there are multiple speakers in a dialogue
with multiple intentions? What corpora (e.g. DARPA ATIS corpora,
MAP-TASK corpus from Edinburgh) exist for integrated data on speech
and language? How does discourse understanding occur in multi-speaker
situations with noise? How does prosodic information help NLP systems?

The workshop is of particular interest at this time because research
in NLP and SP have advanced to the stage that they can each benefit
from integrated approaches. Also, such integration is important as
people in NLP and SP can gain insight from each others' work.

References

Dennett, Daniel (1991)
Consciousness explained
Harmondsworth: Penguin

Mc Kevitt, Paul (1994) (Guest Editor)
Integration of Natural Language and Vision Processing
Special Volume (Issues 1,2,3) of AI Review Journal
Dordrecht: Kluwer (forthcoming)

WORKSHOP TOPICS:

The workshop will focus on three themes:

 * Theoretical issues on integrated NLP and SP

 * Systems exhibiting integrated NLP and SP

 * Intelligent multimedia involving NLP and SP

The following issues will be focussed upon during the workshop:

 * Common representations for NLP and SP

 * How does NLP help SP and vice-versa?

 * What does integration buy us?

 * Symbolic versus connectionist models

 * Varieties of communication between NLP and SP processors

 * Designs for integrating NLP + SP

 * Tools for integrating NLP + SP

 * Corpora for integrated NLP + SP

 * Testing of integrating NLP + SP systems

 * Possible applications of integration

WORKSHOP FORMAT:

Our intention is to have as much discussion as possible during the
workshop and to stress panel sessions and discussion as well as having
formal paper presentations. We will also organize a number of
presentations on Site Descriptions of ongoing work on NLP + SP. There
may be a number of invited speakers.

Day 1: Theory and modelling for integrated NLP and SP.

Day 2: Systems for integrated NLP/SP, and intelligent multimedia.

ATTENDANCE:

We hope to have an attendance between 25-50 people at the
workshop.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

Papers of not more than 8 pages should be submitted by electronic mail
to Paul Mc Kevitt at p.mckevittdcs.shef.ac.uk. Preferred format is
two columns with 3/4 " margins all round. Papers must be printed to 8
1/2" x 11" size. Double sided printing is encouraged. If you cannot
submit your paper by e-mail please submit three copies by snail mail.

*******Submission Deadline: March 18th 1994
*******Notification Date: April 8th 1994
*******Camera ready Copy: April 29th 1994

PUBLICATION:

Workshop notes/preprints will be published by AAAI. If there is
sufficient interest we will publish a book on the workshop with AAAI
Press.

WORKSHOP CHAIR:

Paul Mc Kevitt
Department of Computer Science
Regent Court
University of Sheffield
211 Portobello Street
GB- S1 4DP, Sheffield
England, UK, EC.

e-mail: p.mckevittdcs.shef.ac.uk
fax: +44 742 780972
phone: +44 742 825572 (office)
 825590 (secretary)

WORKSHOP COMMITTEE:

 Prof. Ole Bernsen (Roskilde, Denmark)
 Dr. Martin Cooke (Sheffield, England)
 Prof. Noel Sharkey (Sheffield, England)
 Dr. Eiichiro Sumita (ATR, Japan)
 Prof. Dr. Walther V.Hahn (Hamburg, Germany)
 Prof. Yorick Wilks (Sheffield, England)
 Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster (DFKI, Germany)
 Dr. Sheryl R. Young (CMU, USA)