[Corpora-List] UCNLG+MT: Second Call for Papers

Tue May 22 16:31:19 UTC 2007

UCNLG+MT - SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS
=================================

**********************************************************************
News:

* Attribute Selection for Referring Expressions Generation Challenge:
  First NLG Shared Task to be held at UCNLG+MT, see
  http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/research/evaluation

* Call extended to opinion pieces/position statements on language
  generation and MT (submission of extended abstracts, see below)

* Paper formatting instructions changed (see below)

**********************************************************************

Using Corpora for NLG: Language Generation and MT (UCNLG+MT) is a
pre-conference workshop at MT Summit XI, to be held in Copenhagen, 11
September 2007.

There are many branches of NLP research where language is generated
(MT, summarisation, human-computer dialogue, data-to-text generation,
document authoring, etc.). However, for the most part, these form
separate research communities and the field called "Natural Language
Generation (NLG)" is to some degree isolated from many of them.

The UCNLG workshops have the general aims

1. to provide a forum for reporting and discussing data-based
   methods for generating language in all areas of application;
2. to open up the NLG research field to neighbouring areas in NLP
   and to foster cross-fertilisation between these research fields;
   and
3. to promote the sharing of data in NLG and the use of data-based
   methods of evaluation.

The special theme of this second UCNLG workshop is Language Generation
and MT. Target language generation is typically given less attention
than other aspects of MT, such as evaluation, source language analysis
and transfer.  Recently there has been increasing interest in
combining linguistic knowledge with statistical MT.  Conversely, NLG
-- where symbolic approaches have long dominated -- has seen
increasing interest in probabilistic methods. With this special theme,
we would like to explore crossover points and potential for
cross-fertilisation between MT and NLG.

The workshop also continues from UCNLG'05 in its general focus on
data-based methods for language generation and their evaluation.

We invite submissions on all aspects of using corpora in the
generation of language.  Specific topics include, but are not limited
to:

* Using NLG techniques in MT
* Combining statistical MT with rule-based techniques such as those
  developed in NLG
* Introducing linguistic filters into statistical MT
* Issues in annotating corpora for language generation
* Statistical approaches to deep and/or surface generation
* Machine learning methods for deep and/or surface generation
* Uses of corpora in the evaluation of automatically generated language
* Reuse of corpus resources developed for NLU (e.g. treebanks) in
  language generation
* Domain-specific vs. general-purpose corpora for language generation

Invited Speaker:
----------------

Kevin Knight, ISI, University of Southern California, US, will present
the keynote address.

Discussion Session on Language Generation and MT:
-------------------------------------------------

There will be a discussion session on the special theme of the workshop,
Language Generation and Machine Translation.  It is intended as a
discussion forum where people can present short `opinion pieces' on the
special theme.  Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to,
the following:

* common research agenda for NLG and MT
* given the `more data is better data' mantra of statistical MT, what
  space is there for linguistically motivated generation?
* can a shared task be defined that would interest both NLG and MT
  researchers?
* data resources that can be shared between NLG and MT
* methods and tools that can be used for NLG and MT

We invite submissions of extended abstracts for this session which should
be up to 2 pages long and follow the ACL'07 guidelines using the style
files provided at http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/acl2007/styles/. Abstracts
should be sent in PDF format by email to ucnlg at itri.brighton.ac.uk no
later than July 1. Submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of
the programme committee, to ensure appropriateness of content.  If there
are more submissions than we can accommodate, then the workshop organisers
will make a selection based on the reviews.  Extended abstracts will be
included in the workshop proceedings.

Proceedings:
------------

The proceedings of the workshop will be published by the MT Summit XI
conference organisers, in a companion volume to the main conference
proceedings.

Requirements:
-------------

Papers should describe original and unpublished work, emphasizing
actual rather than intended work, and should indicate clearly the
state of completion of the reported results.  Wherever appropriate,
concrete evaluation results should be included.  Papers that are being
submitted to other conferences or workshops should indicate this.

Submission information:
-----------------------

Submissions should be no longer than 8 (eight) pages, and should follow
the ACL'07 guidelines using the style files provided at
http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/acl2007/styles/. Submitted papers should be sent
in PDF format by email to ucnlg at itri.brighton.ac.uk no later than 8 June
2007.  RTF format is also accepted but not encouraged.

Reviewing of papers will be blind.  Reviewing will be managed by the
international workshop programme committee.  Final decisions on the
technical programme will be made by the workshop organisers.

As reviewing will be blind, the paper should not include the authors'
names and affiliations.  Self-references that reveal the authors'
identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be
avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed (Smith,
1991) ...".

In the body of the email submitting the paper, please include
the authors' names and affiliations, and the paper title.

Important Dates:
----------------

08 June           Submission deadline for workshop papers
29 June           Notification of acceptance to authors of workshop
                  papers
01 July           Submission deadline for extended abstracts for Discussion
                  Session on NLG and MT
09 July           Notification of acceptance to authors of extended abstracts
                  for Discussion Session on NLG and MT
20 July           Camera-ready copy from all authors
11 September      UCNLG+MT in Copenhagen

Programme Committee:
--------------------

Srinivas Bangalore, AT&T, USA
Stephan Busemann, DFKI, Germany
Robert Dale, Macquarie University, Australia
Kevin Knight, ISI, U of Southern California, USA
Irene Langkilde-Geary, Brigham Young University, USA
Chris Mellish, U of Aberdeen, UK
Jon Oberlander, U of Edinburgh, UK
Richard Power, Open University, UK
Flo Reeder, The Mitre Organisation, USA
Ehud Reiter, U of Aberdeen, UK
Amanda Stent, SUNY, USA
Michael Strube, EML Research, Germany
Kees van Deemter, U of Aberdeen, UK
Bonnie Webber, U of Edinburgh, UK
Mike White, Ohio State University, USA

Workshop organisers:
--------------------

Anja Belz, NLTG, University of Brighton, UK
Sebastian Varges, Information and Communication Technology, University of
Trento, Italy

Workshop website:
-----------------

http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/ucnlg/