LINGUIST List 9.29

Sat Jan 10 1998

Calls: ESSLLI--Probabilistic Logic, Lexical Semantics

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Alessandra Di Pierro, ESSLLI'98--Probabilistic Logic and Randomised Computation
2. Paul Buitelaar, LEXICAL SEMANTICS IN CONTEXT: CORPUS, INFERENCE AND DISCOURSE

 ESSLLI-98 Workshop on 
 PROBABILISTIC LOGIC AND RANDOMISED COMPUTATION 
 August 17 - 21, 1998

 A workshop held as part of the 

 10th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information
 (ESSLLI-98) 
 August 17 - 28, 1998, Saarbrueken, Germany

 ** SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS **


ORGANISERS: Alessandra Di Pierro and Herbert Wiklicky (London)

Web site: http://www.cs.city.ac.uk/~adp/esslli98.html

BACKGROUND: Probabilistic concepts recently gained widespread interest
in logic and computer science, for example in the investigation of
randomised algorithms and probabilistic proof systems.

Whereas probability and randomisation have always played an important
role in complexity theory (from average case analysis to probabilistic
complexity classes) the investigation of these notions in semantics
was much more limited and only in the last years renewed interest
seems to develop.

This workshop aims at bringing together researchers from areas like
philosophy, logics, semantics and the theory of algorithms whose
research is related to aspects of probability, stochastic processes,
randomised algorithms etc., in order to foster links and facilitate
cross-fertilisation of ideas among them.

The workshop topics include:

o philosophical foundations of probability o probabilistic logics
o probabilistic proof systems o probabilistic proof
checking
o probabilistic knowledge representation o probabilistic games
o randomised automata o randomised algorithms
o semantics of probabilistic languages o probabilistic
non-determinism
o probabilistic reasoning o fuzzy and belief systems
o inexact matching o constraints and
probability
o Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods o practical applications
o randomised optimisation (e.g. simulated annealing, genetic
algorithms)
o (stochastic) approximation algorithms (for NP problems)

WORKSHOP FORMAT: The workshop will be held as part of ESSLLI'98.
There will be five sessions of 90 minutes each, one on each day of the
first week of the school (August 17-22, 1998). The workshop will
consist in the presentation of submitted papers and discussion
sessions. Notes containing the papers accepted for presentation will
be made available in electronic form. Opportunities for publishing
revised versions of the papers will be explored. The workshop will be
open to attendance by all school registrants.

SUBMISSION: All researchers in the area, but especially Ph.D.
students and young researchers, are encourage to submit a paper.
Papers should be submitted in the form of an extended abstract of NO
MORE THAN 4000 words (8-10 pages) in length, and must include the
e-mail address of all authors and a 200-300 word abstract. Deadline
is February 15, 1998.

To submit a paper, please send a postscript file to
<adpcs.city.ac.uk> or <herbertcs.city.ac.uk> OR send three (3) hard
copies of your paper to one of the organisers (below).

	Alessandra Di Pierro
	adpcs.city.ac.uk
	http://www.cs.city.ac.uk/~adp
	 
	Herbert Wiklicky
 	herbertcs.city.ac.uk
	http://www.cs.city.ac.uk/~herbert

	Department of Computer Science
	School of Informatics
	City University
	Northampton Square
	London EC1V 0HB
	United Kingdom

Electronic submission is STRONGLY encouraged. 

REGISTRATION:
Workshop contributors will be required to register for ESSLLI-98, but they 
will be elligible for a reduced registration fee.

IMPORTANT DATES:
 Feb 15, 98: Deadline for submissions
 Apr 15, 98: Notification of acceptance
 May 15, 98: Deadline for final copy
 Aug 17, 98: Start of workshop
 
FURTHER INFORMATION: To obtain further information about ESSLLI-98
please visit the ESSLLI-98 home page at
http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/esslli

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 ESSLLI-98 Workshop on 
 LEXICAL SEMANTICS IN CONTEXT: CORPUS, INFERENCE AND DISCOURSE
 August 17 - 21, 1998

 A workshop held as part of the 
 10th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information 
 (ESSLLI-98) 
 August 17 - 28, 1998, Saarbruecken, Germany

 ** SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS **


ORGANIZERS: Johan Bos (Saarbruecken) and Paul Buitelaar (Brandeis
University)


The workshop aims at bringing together research in two complementary
fields of semantic analysis that are still too far apart. In order to
achieve both a broad and a deep understanding of any given text
document, a system needs both advanced acquisition of corpus specific
lexical semantic knowledge and powerful inference mechanisms that
utilize that knowledge in discourse analysis.

Given the still relatively limited results within both areas there has
been little impetus to combine them. Corpus-based extraction of
lexical semantic knowledge has only recently become a more feasible
task, because of the growing availibility of on-line text documents;
robust corpus processing technologies, such as broad coverage
part-of-speech tagging and shallow parsing; and readily available
statistical methods. The various approaches to discourse analysis,
originating in such diverse fields as formal semantics, psychology and
AI, are in the process of converging into a unified approach to the
analysis and representation of the cohesive structure of natural
language documents.

The intersection between these two fields lies in the application of
lexical semantic knowledge to such problems in discourse analysis as
anaphora resolution and discourse segmentation. In fact, the benefit
will be mutual, because knowledge of discourse structure is helpful to
lexical knowledge extraction as well.

In summary, large scale domain specific lexical semantic knowledge
acquisition can assist in analyzing discourse structures, which in
turn can assist in acquiring even more accurate lexical semantic
representations for the relevant terms in the domain.



FURTHER INFORMATION:

To obtain further information please visit the workshop home page at 

 http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~paulb/esslli98.html