LINGUIST List 8.13

Wed Jan 15 1997

Calls: Multimedia, Computational ling

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <annlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Elisabeth Andre, Multimedia language processing
2. Pamela W. Jordan, ACL97 Student Session CFP

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Call for Submissions Please Distribute Widely
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	 REFERRING PHENOMENA IN A MULTIMEDIA CONTEXT
		 AND THEIR COMPUTATIONAL TREATMENT

	 Organized by the ACL Special Interest Group
		 on Multimedia Language Processing
			 SIGMEDIA
		

		 Madrid, Spain, July 7-11, 1997
		 (in conjunction with ACL-97/EACL-97)
	http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/imedia/workshops/mm-references.html.


WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

A growing number of research projects has started to investigate the
use of referring expressions in multimedia systems. On the one hand,
the use of multiple media has led to new problems, such as a proper
treatment of cross-media references. For example, text may refer to
parts of an illustration. On the other hand, it has turned out that
many concepts already known from natural language processing, such as
cohesion, take on an extended meaning in multimedia discourse. For
example, a proper treatment of referring expressions in a multimedia
discourse requires an explicit representation of the syntax and
semantics of the graphical discourse. As theories of NL reference
become more sophisticated, it is quite natural to investigate whether
these theories also encompass other media, such as graphics and
pointing gestures.

Several research projects have already started to transfer theories to
the broader context of multimedia discourse. Examples of models that
have been used for multimedia applications are Grosz and Sidner's
theory of discourse structure, the centering model developed by Joshi
and colleagues and Appelt's and Kronfeld's model of
referring. However, there are researchers who doubt that linguistic
phenomena, such as anaphora, also exist in multimedia dialogue. The
reason they give is that there are no graphical devices for
distinguishing between a reference-specifying and a
predication-specifying part since objects and their properties are
hardly separable once depicted.

The workshop will be centered around questions, such as "To what
extent can linguistic models be applied to multimedia references?",
"Which linguistic phenomena can also be observed in multimedia
discourse?" and "Is a cross-modality theory of reference
possible?". Topics of interest include, but are by no means restricted
to the following:

- computational models for the analysis/generation of referring 
 expressions in a multimedia discourse
- coordination/synchronization of multiple media, such as speech and
 pointing gestures
- deixis in multimedia environments
- cohesion and coherence in multimedia discourse
- representation of multimedia discourse
- encoding theories for text and graphics
- formal models of multimedia referring
- referring expressions in augmented/virtual realities
- empirical studies


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Thomas Rist (Primary Contact), DFKI, Germany (ristdfki.uni-sb.de)
Elisabeth Andre, DFKI, Germany (andredfki.uni-sb.de)
Laurent Romary, CRIN-CNRS & INRIA Lorraine, (romaryloria.fr)


PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:

Elisabeth Andre, DFKI GmbH, Germany
Doug Appelt, SRI International, USA
Jean Caelen, University of Grenoble, France
Robert Dale, Microsoft Research Institute, Australia
John Lee, University of Edinburgh, UK
Luis Pineda, IEE, Mexico
Thomas Rist, DFKI GmbH, Germany
Laurent Romary, CRIN, France
Massimo Zancanaro, IRST, Italy
Bonnie Webber, University of Pennsylvania, USA


SUBMISSION DETAILS:

We solicit the submission of full papers (5 - 12 pages) or short
project descriptions (2 - 4 pages).

Electronic submissions in postscript format are strongly encouraged
and should be emailed to ristdfki.uni-sb.de. Hard copy (*four* copies
of the paper) should be mailed to Thomas Rist (address below).


WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION:

Workshop attendance will be limited to maximally 40 people, persons
without a submission should contact the organizers as soon as
possible. According to the ACL/EACL workshop guidelines, all workshop
participants must register for the ACL/EACL main conference.


IMPORTANT DATES:

17th March 1997: Deadline for receipt of submissions
4th April 1997: Authors informed of acceptance/rejection
24th April 1997: Final versions due for proceedings
11th/12th July 1997: 1-Day Workshop


ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSION AND FURTHER INFORMATION:

Thomas Rist
DFKI GmbH
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3
D-66123 Saarbruecken
Germany
Phone: +49 681 302 5266
Fax: +49 681 302 5341
email: ristdfki.uni-sb.de

 *** ACL-97 CALL FOR STUDENT PAPERS EACL-97 ***
 Student Sessions
 at the
 35th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
 and
 8th Conference of the European Chapter of the
 Association for Computational Linguistics

 Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (UNED)
 Madrid, Spain
 July 7-10, 1997

PURPOSE: The goal of these sessions is to provide a forum for student
members to present WORK IN PROGRESS and receive feedback from other
members of the computational linguistics community. This year, the
sessions will consist of poster presentations by student authors. The
accepted papers will be published in a special section of the
conference proceedings. Note that the student sessions in no way
influence the treatment of student-written papers submitted to the
main conference. Rather, the student sessions will provide an
entirely separate track emphasizing students' work in progress rather
than completed work.

REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe original, unpublished work in
progress that demonstrates insight, creativity, and promise. Topics
of interest are the same as for the main conference. All authors must
have ACL Student Membership (or be students even though paying the
regular member rate because they earn a regular income) at the time of
the conference. For membership information, see the section on the
ACL LISTSERV below. Papers submitted to the main conference cannot be
considered for the student sessions. Students may, of course, submit
DIFFERENT papers to the main conference and the student sessions, or
papers on different aspects of a particular problem or
project. Information about ACL97 and about the student session can be
also found on the ACL homepage, at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~acl.

SCHEDULE: Submissions must be received by Monday, February 3, 1997.
Late papers will not be considered. Authors will be notified of
acceptance by March 17, 1997. Authors will then have time to revise
their papers, taking the reviews into account. Camera-ready copies of
final papers for inclusion in the proceedings, prepared in a
double-column format, preferably using a laser printer, must be
received by May 1, 1997, along with a signed copyright release
statement.

FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION: Student authors should submit preliminary
versions of their papers, not to exceed 1800 words (exclusive of
references). Authors should submit using the ACL submissions style
file (aclsub.sty), available by ftp from the ACL server (see
below). This is equivalent to the length of the final papers, which is
three double-column pages. Papers outside the specified length and
formatting requirements are subject to rejection without review.
Papers should be headed by a title page containing the paper title, a
short (5 line) summary and a specification of the subject area(s).
Since reviewing will be ``blind'', the title page and the paper should
omit author names and addresses. Furthermore, self-references that
reveal the authors' identity (e.g., ``We previously showed (Smith,
1991) ...'') should be avoided. Instead, use references like ``Smith
(1991) previously showed ...'' To identify each paper, a separate
identification page should be supplied, containing the paper's title,
the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses, the short (5 line)
summary, a word count, and the specification of the subject area(s).

MEDIA OF SUBMISSION: Authors may submit their papers electronically or
in hard copy. Electronic submission is strongly preferred.

Electronic submission should be sent to BOTH jordanpogo.isp.pitt.edu
and boscoli.uni-sb.de. Hard copy submissions should consist of six
(6) copies of the paper and one (1) copy of the identification page.
Hard copies submissions should be sent to one of the two student
session chairs at the addresses below.

 Student ACL/EACL '97
 c/o Ms. Pamela Jordan
	ISP
	901CL
	University of Pittsburgh
	Pittsburgh PA 15260 USA
	Email: jordanisp.pitt.edu
	Telephone: +1 412-624-7573
	Fax: +1 412-624-6089 [addressed to P. Jordan at ISP]


 Student ACL/EACL '97
 c/o Johan Bos
	Computerlinguistik
	Universitaet des Saarlandes 
	Im Stadtwald
	D-66041 Saarbruecken
	Germany 
	Email: boscoli.uni-sb.de 
	Telephone: +681 3024680
	Fax: +681 3024351