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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Workshop on Free/Open-Source Arabic Corpora and Corpora Processing Tools</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Workshop URL:
</span></b><a href="http://www.kacstac.org.sa/osact/index.html"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">http://www.kacstac.org.sa/osact/index.html</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">
</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:red"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red">Workshop description
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">For Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computational Linguistics (CL) communities, it was a known situation that Arabic is a resource poor language. This situation was thought
to be the reason why there is a lack of corpus based studies in Arabic. However, the last years witnessed the emergence of new considerably free Arabic corpora and in lesser extent Arabic corpora processing tools.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Freely available Arabic corpora can be divided into two groups. The first group contains large Arabic corpora, which are designed and constructed basically for Arabic linguistics
research and activities, and maybe for Arabic NLP. These corpora are diverse in the genres they cover and their sizes range from one million words to 700 million words. The second group contains corpora that were designed basically for Arabic text classification
and clustering, they mainly contain newspapers' articles. They range from less than 1 million words to 11 million words.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Some Arabic corpora are available on the web to explore using different tools, basically large corpora, while other corpora are only available for download. For the corpora that
are available for download, the user may need to use standalone corpus processing tools. These tools contain many functionality such as word frequency, concordance, collocation, etc. Therefore, with the availability of large and diverse Arabic corpora, the
situation does not change. There is still a lack of Arabic corpus base studies. Is this because of representativeness of these corpora? The available functions and tools associated with these corpora? or is it because they are not well known enough for the
Arabic linguistics community? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red">Motivation and topics of interest</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">This half-day-workshop aims to encourage the researchers and developers to foster the utilization of freely available Arabic corpora and open source Arabic corpora processing tools and help in highlighting the
drawbacks of these resources and discuss techniques and approaches on how to improve them<span style="font-size:11.0pt">. The workshop topics include but not limited to:</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Surveying and criticizing the design of freely available Arabic corpora, their associated tools and stand alone Arabic corpora processing tools.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The applications and uses of freely available Arabic language resources in fields such as Arabic language education e.g. L1 and L2.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black; background:white">Arabic language modeling.</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black; background:white">Corpus based Arabic lexigraphy.</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"></span></p>
<ol start="5" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black; text-align:left; background:white"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Lexical semantics and word sense.</span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">6.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Corpus based Arabic syntactic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">7.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Corpus based Arabic morphology.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">8.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Development of Arabic mobile applications based on the available Arabic language resources.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">9.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Evaluation and assessment of
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Arabic Corpora and Corpora Processing Tools</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">.</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align:justify; text-indent:-.25in">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="">10.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Future directions of Free/Open
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Arabic Corpora and Corpora Processing Tools</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">.</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red">Important Dates</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black">Submission deadline: 10 February 2014</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black">Notification of acceptance: 10 March 2013</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black">Final submission of manuscripts: 21 March 2014</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black">Workshop date: 27 May 2014 (</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:#282828; background:white">morning session</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:black">)
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red">Submission guidelines</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The language of the workshop is English and submissions should be with respect to LREC 2014 paper submission instructions. All papers will be peer reviewed possibly by three independent
referees. Papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format to the STAR system. When submitting a paper from the START page, authors will be asked to provide essential information about resources (in a broad sense, i.e. also technologies, standards, evaluation
kits, etc.) that have been used for the work described in the paper or are a new result of your research. Moreover, ELRA encourages all LREC authors to share the described LRs (data, tools, services, etc.), to enable their reuse, replicability of experiments,
including evaluation ones, etc.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:#282828"><br>
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red">Organising Committee</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Hend Al-Khalifa, King Saud University, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Abdulmohsen Al-Thubaity, King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red">Program Committee</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:red"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Eric Atwell, University of Leeds, UK
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Khaled Shaalan, The British University in Dubai (BUiD), UAE
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Dilworth Parkinson, Brigham Young University, USA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><em><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Nizar Habash</span></em><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">, Columbia University, USA
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Khurshid Ahmad, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Abdulmalik AlSalman,
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">King Saud University, KSA</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Maha Alrabiah,
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">King Saud University</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Saleh Alosaimi, Imam University, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Sultan almujaiwel,
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">King Saud University</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Adam Kilgarriff, Lexical Computing Ltd<span class="apple-converted-space">, UK </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Amal AlSaif, Imam University, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Maha AlYahya,
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">King Saud University</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Auhood AlFaries,
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">King Saud University</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Salwa Hamadah, Taibah University, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">Mansour Algamdi,
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; background:white">, KSA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Abdullah Alfaifi,
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt">University of Leeds<span style="background:white">, UK</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:#444444; background:white"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; color:#444444; background:white"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<span dir="LTR"></span><strong>Warning: </strong>This message and its attachment, if any, are confidential and may contain information protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and delete the message and
its attachment, if any. You should not copy the message and its attachment, if any, or disclose its contents to any other person or use it for any purpose. Statements and opinions expressed in this e-mail and its attachment, if any, are those of the sender,
and do not necessarily reflect those of King Abdulaziz city for Science and Technology (KACST) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. KACST accepts no liability for any damage caused by this email.</p>
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<span lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:9.0pt"><strong>تحذير:</strong></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="AR-SA" dir="LTR" style="font-size:9.0pt"><span dir="LTR"></span>
</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:9.0pt">هذه الرسالة وما تحويه من مرفقات (إن وجدت) تمثل وثيقة سرية قد تحتوي على معلومات محمية بموجب القانون. إذا لم تكن الشخص المعني بهذه الرسالة فيجب عليك تنبيه المُرسل بخطأ وصولها إليك، وحذف الرسالة ومرفقاتها (إن وجدت)،
ولا يجوز لك نسخ أو توزيع هذه الرسالة أو مرفقاتها (إن وجدت) أو أي جزء منها، أو البوح بمحتوياتها للغير أو استعمالها لأي غرض. علماً بأن فحوى هذه الرسالة ومرفقاتها (ان وجدت) تعبر عن رأي المُرسل وليس بالضرورة رأي مدينة الملك عبدالعزيز للعلوم والتقنية بالمملكة العربية
السعودية، ولا تتحمل المدينة أي مسئولية عن الأضرار الناتجة عن ما قد يحتويه هذا البريد</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR" style="font-size:9.0pt"><span dir="LTR"></span>.</span><span dir="LTR"></span></p>
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