11.1887, Calls: Natural Lang Data, Computational Linguistics

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-11-1887. Thu Sep 7 2000. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 11.1887, Calls: Natural Lang Data, Computational Linguistics

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>
            Andrew Carnie, U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Associate Editors:  Ljuba Veselinova, Stockholm U. <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
		    Scott Fults, E. Michigan U. <scott at linguistlist.org>
		    Jody Huellmantel, Wayne State U. <jody at linguistlist.org>
		    Karen Milligan, Wayne State U. <karen at linguistlist.org>

Assistant Editors:  Lydia Grebenyova, E. Michigan U. <lydia at linguistlist.org>
		    Naomi Ogasawara, E. Michigan U. <naomi at linguistlist.org>
		    James Yuells, Wayne State U. <james at linguistlist.org>

Software development: John Remmers, E. Michigan U. <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Sudheendra Adiga, Wayne State U. <sudhi at linguistlist.org>
                      Qian Liao, E. Michigan U. <qian at linguistlist.org>

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 ==========================================================================

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=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 07 Sep 2000 15:43:34 +0200
From:  Vincenzo Pallotta <Vincenzo.Pallotta at epfl.ch>
Subject:  Robust Methods for Analysis of Natural Lang Data  (ROMAND2000)

2)
Date:  Thu, 7 Sep 2000 13:01:29 -0600
From:  "Grigori Sidorov" <sidorov at pollux.cic.ipn.mx>
Subject:  Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Ling (CICLing-2001)

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 07 Sep 2000 15:43:34 +0200
From:  Vincenzo Pallotta <Vincenzo.Pallotta at epfl.ch>
Subject:  Robust Methods for Analysis of Natural Lang Data  (ROMAND2000)




			Call for Participation

			     ROMAND 2000

 1st workshop on RObust Methods in Analysis of Natural language Data

		    Department of Computer Science

		Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

		     Lausanne  October 19-20 2000

		  http://lithwww.epfl.ch/romand2000/



ROMAND 2000 is the first of a series of workshop that aims at bringing
together  researchers working  on robust  methods in  natural language
processing. The  term "natural language"  is intended as  all possible
modalities of human communication and  it is not restricted to written
or spoken  language.  The main goal  of the workshop will  be to bring
together researchers  working in fields  like artificial intelligence,
computational   linguistics,  human-computer   interaction,  cognitive
science  who are  facing with  the  problem of  feasible and  reliable
systems implementation.  Theoretical aspects of robustness  in NLP are
welcome as well as engineering and industrial experiences.

The  workshop  will  be  held  in collaboration  with  the  TALN  2000
conference  (le  Traitement   Automatique  des  Langues  Naturelles  -
Automatic Natural Language Processing)  which will be held in Lausanne
from  October 16th  to 18th.  The ROMAND  workshop will  be  held just
afterwards, from the 19th to 20th.

We received papers on  all topics related  to robustness  in natural
language processing, including, but not limited to:

- Robust Text Analysis
- Information Extraction
- Spoken Dialogue systems
- Multimodal human-computer interfaces
- Natural Language Architectures
- NLP and Soft Computing
- Robust Semantics
- Underspecification
- Multimedia document analysis
- Robust Parsing
- Complexity of linguistic analysis
- Hybrid methods in computational linguistics
- Text Mining


WORKSHOP COMMITTEE:

Program chairs are

Afzal Ballim Afzal.Ballim at epfl.ch
Vincenzo Pallotta Vincenzo.Pallotta at epfl.ch
Hatem Ghorbel Hatem.Ghorbel at epfl.ch

Program committee

- Steve Abney
- Wolfgang Menzel
- Jean-Pierre Chanod
- Alberto Lavelli
- Rens Bod
- Giorgio Satta
- Joachim Niehren
- Roberto Basili
- Manuela Boros
- Diego Molla' Aliod
- Hervé Bourlard
- Bangalore Srinivas
- C.J. Rupp
- Peter Asveld
- Guenter Goerz
- Atro Voutilainen

ORGANIZATION:

This year's workshop is organized  in collaboration with the TALN 7eme
conférence  annuelle   sur  LE  TRAITEMENT   AUTOMATIQUE  DES  LANGUES
NATURELLES  ( http://liawww.epfl.ch/taln2000/  ).   The workshop  will
take place at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne. The
workshop  is  endorsed  by   ATALA  (Association  pour  le  Traitement
Automatique des LAngues).

REGISTRATION:

Details about the  registration procedure are available at the
official web site (http://lithwww.epfl.ch/romand2000).

The registration fee will be:

     Normal registration: 150.- CHF
     For registered TALN attendee: 100.- CHF

ACCEPTED PAPERS

A list of accepted papers is available at
http://lithwww.epfl.ch/romand2000/accepted-papers.html


FURTHER INFORMATION:

News about the conference will be posted on the workshop's Web page at
http://lithwww.epfl.ch/romand2000/

For any information related to the organization, please contact:

Vincenzo Pallotta

DI-LITH EPFL
IN F Ecublens
1015 Lausanne
Switzerland

tel. +41-21-693 52 97
fax. +41-21-693 52 78

Vincenzo.Pallotta at epfl.ch


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 7 Sep 2000 13:01:29 -0600
From:  "Grigori Sidorov" <sidorov at pollux.cic.ipn.mx>
Subject:  Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Ling (CICLing-2001)

                CICLing-2001

        Second International Conference
        on Intelligent Text Processing
        and Computational Linguistics

        February 18 to 24, 2001
        Mexico City, Mexico

       Second Call for Papers

SUMMARY

        PUBLICATION: Springer LNAI

        SUBMISSION DEADLINE: October 1, posters: November 5

        INVITED SPEAKERS: Graeme Hirst, Ruslan Mitkov;
                to confirm: Ivan Sag, Igor Mel'cuk

        EXCURSIONS: Ancient pyramids, Monarch butterflies,
                great cave and colonial city, and more

        URL: http://www.cicling.org/2001

+--------------------------------------------------------
| If you have Internet access, we strongly recommend you to
| read this text at http://www.cicling.org/2001. One of the
| reasons is that it could have been changed since this file
| was published.
+--------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS

       General Information
       Areas of Interest
       Poster & Demo Section
       Publication and Submission Guidelines
       Registration
       Important Dates
       Invited Speakers
       Hotel Info
       Local Transportation Guide
       Tentative Schedule
       Cultural Program
       Conference Committees

You can see many photos of the excursions of the past
CICLing-2000 at
http://www.cicling.org/2000/Photos/Frames.htm
All those photos were made by the participants of
CICLing-2000, http://www.cicling.org/2000

+-------------------------------------------------------
|      GENERAL INFORMATION
+-------------------------------------------------------

This conference is the second CICLing event. The past CICLing-2000 was
very successful, according to the comments of the participants. One of
the messages we have received after the event was the following:
"Everything was just great! Super-hyper-ultra-well done!" wrote Igor
Mel'cuk, a world-recognized linguist, the author of the Meaning-Text
Theory. A book of selected papers of CICLing-2000 is in press by a
prestigious publishing house "Fondo de Cultura Economica."

We consider the following factors to define our identity:

* General interest. The conference covers
  nearly all topics related to computational
  linguistics. This makes it attractive for people
  from different areas, and leads to vivid and
  interesting discussions and exchange of
  opinions.

* Informal atmosphere. It is intended for a
  small group of serious specialists, not more
  than 50 thoroughly selected participants. This
  allows for informal and friendly atmosphere,
  more resembling a party of friends than an
  official procedure. Of course, serious
  preparation stands behind this ease.

* Excellent excursions. Mexico is a wonderful
  country rich with culture, history, and nature.
  The conference is intended for young and
  active people - young in their soul, not
  necessarily age, -  explorers in their nature,
  both in science and in life. Our cultural
  program brings the participants to unique
  marvels of history and nature hidden from the
  usual tourists.

* Relief of frosts. In the middle of February
  frosts, the participants from Europe and North
  America can enjoy bright warm sun under the
  shadow of palms.

The conference is held at the Center for Computer Research (CIC) of
the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), Mexico. The IPN is one of
the largest universities in the world with over 120,000 students.  The
CIC is a relatively new school devoted to the cutting edge research in
all areas of science related to computers, both in software and
hardware. The conference is organized by the Natural Language
Processing laboratory of CIC.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|       AREAS OF INTEREST
+-------------------------------------------------------

In general, we are interested in whatever helps, or will help
eventually, or might help, computers meaningfully process language
data.

The conference is intended to the exchange of opinions between the
scientists working in different areas of the growing field of
computational linguistics and intelligent text processing. Our idea is
to get a bird's-eye view of the state of art in computational
linguistics and its applications.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited by, the following
topics, as long as the topic is presented in computer-related or
formal description aspects:

        Computational linguistics research:

* Computational linguistic theories and formalisms
* Representation of linguistic knowledge
* Morphology
* Syntax
* Semantics
* Discourse models
* Text generation
* Statistical methods in computational linguistics
* Corpus linguistics
* Dictionaries for text processing and generation

        Intelligent text processing and applications:

* Document classification and search
* Information retrieval
* Text mining and Information extraction
* Automatic summarization
* Thematic segmentation of text
* Natural language interfaces

In particular, papers on the following narrower themes are especially
welcomed:

* HPSG
* Meaning-Text theory
* Generative Linguistics
* Ambiguity resolution
* Subcategorization
* Anaphora resolution

Naturally, we welcome the works on processing any language, not
necessarily English, though usually major languages are of more
general interest.

   Note: when describing phenomena of languages other than
   English, be sure to make your discussion
   understandable for people not familiar with this
   particular language.

On the other hand, we are not interested in the topics not related to
computers processing language. For example, we are not interested in
the following types of submissions, which would find much more
appreciative audience at some another conf or in an appropriate
journal:

* No: Purely linguistic, dialectological, historic,
  etc. discussions of particular languages,
  without relation to their computer processing,
  e.g.: "Evolution of personal names in classic
  Latin."

* No: Purely computer topics not related to
  meaningful language processing, e.g.: "Unicode
  character table for Mayan hieroglyphs," or:
  "Pentium-V processors with 64 MB cache make
  syntactic analyzers work faster."

* No: Application of tools traditionally
  developed within computational linguistics, to
  non-linguistic-related tasks, e.g.: "Generating of
  hardware test sequences with stochastic
  grammars."

If you are not sure whether your particular topic is of interest,
please do not hesitate to ask at gelbukh at cicling.org. You can also
have a look at the past CICLing-2000 program at
http://www.cicling.org/2000 to get an idea of our interests.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|       POSTER & DEMO SECTION
+-------------------------------------------------------

POSTERS

The papers can be submitted either as full papers or
as poster abstracts. The authors of poster abstracts are
to present their works as posters or demos. A 2-page
poster a bstracts will be published in the Proceedings.
Whenever possible, the abstract should give
references to Internet sites where more detailed info
on the work can be found.

Though we expect that generally the poster presenters will be local
students, there will be no preference neither to local authors nor to
students. The authors of some of the rejected full papers will be
recommended by the Committee to re-submit their work as a poster
abstract. There will be 5 days to write their 2-page abstract after
rejection of their full paper.

PUBLICATION FORMAT: All accepted poster abstracts will be published in
the Proceedings by Springer- Verlag and thus must be prepared in the
required format, see below. In particular, they must not have the word
"Abstract" in their title nor subtitle, and must be supplied with an
abstract according to Springer requirements, with the exception that
the abstract should be very short (say, not more than 5 lines).

POSTER/DEMO FORMAT: You will be given approximately 2 square meters of
vertical space to attach your material. If you have some special
requirements, please let us know. The following common wisdom improves
your presentation:

For a poster

* Arrange individual pages vertically, in
  columns, from top to bottom. Horizontal
  arrangement of pages makes the readers to
  zigzag when reading your material.

* Use large font, at least 20 pt, and much larger
  for headings. Note that you probably will
  explain your poster to several or many people
  at the same time.

* Have detailed and additional material handy,
  though do not attach it together with your main
  material. It is a good idea to prepare some
  sufficient number of handouts.

For a demo

* Have a working program, not a PowerPoint
  presentation (which should constitute your
  poster instead).

* Prepare some plan of your demonstration,
  including some examples tested in advance.

* Prepare all necessary input files in advance,
  even small. On the other hand, give the users a
  chance to test their own examples and to play
  with your program's options and features.

* If possible, have handy some floppies or CDs
  with your program and documentation, that
  you can give out to the participants. Clearly
  indicate your name and email on these disks.
  Indicate the web page where more info can be
  found.

PRESENTATION: The Poster/Demo presentations will be organized during
short breaks and after the end of the regular talks, i.e., each day
from 18 to 20 pm. On the first day of the conf, the Poster/Demo
session from 18 to 20 pm will be combined with the Welcome party.

REGISTRATION: There are no special rules for registration of poster
presenters. The local students presenting a poster will, according to
the general rule, have a free access to the conf, while will not be
given a copy of the Proceedings unless they pay the registration
fee. All other poster presenters will have to register accordingly.

DEMOS

During the same poster/demo sessions, all participants will be able to
demonstrate the material related to their talks or posters.

Demo platforms provided by the organizers: PC with Windows 95/98, CD
and floppy drives; no significant space on the disk is
guaranteed. Those who need Windows NT on PC, Solaris on Sun, Linux on
PC, Mac, etc., should contact the Committee in advance at
gelbukh at cicling.org. The same about significant disk space, Internet
access, or any special hardware or software requirements.

Even if you do not have any special requirements, we encourage you to
let us know for how much hours you will probably need a demo computer.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|      PUBLICATION AND SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
+-------------------------------------------------------

PUBLICATION

All accepted papers and poster abstracts will be published in
CICLing-2001 Proceedings volume edited by Springer-Verlag in its
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series, see
http://link.springer.de/series/lncs, listed at
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/fcp2001.html

The full papers should not exceed 14 PAGES, though we encourage you to
keep it shorter (as short as possible - but not shorter).

Poster abstracts should not exceed 2 PAGES and should, if possible,
contain references to Internet sites where more detail on the work can
be found.  Otherwise the format of the poster abstracts is identical
to that of full papers.

FORMAT

Please strictly follow the format guidelines of Springer LNAI series,
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html  We can not guarantee
acceptance of any paper that does not follow these guidelines. Please
do not hesitate to ask any questions at gelbukh at cicling.org.

     Note for Word users: the template sv-lncs.dot,
     http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/word/sv-lncs.dot ,
     currently provided by Springer has the
     following bugs that you must correct in your
     paper in order for it to be accepted:

     1. All centered paragraphs (title, author,
        address, email, equation, etc.) and some
        other special paragraphs (table and figure
        captions) have 0.4cm first line indentation,
        please set it to 0 (not indented). This can be
        done through the menu Format | Paragraph
        | Indentation and Space or (only for expert
        users!) Format | Style | Modify | Format |
        Paragraph | Indentation and Space.

     2. Bulleted lists seem to have a problem with
        the bullet character. You can choose
        another bullet character through the menu
        Format | Numbering and lists | Bulleted lists
        | Personalize or (only for expert users!)
        Format | Style | Modify | Format |
        Numbering | Bulleted lists | Personalize.

     3. Table title style has German language,
        please set it to English.

SUBMISSION

We accept only electronic submissions. To submit a
paper, send both or any one of the following at
submission at cicling.org:

* PostScript or PDF file. PostScript usually
  better works with non-English characters.

* Source file in RTF or DOC. Or, file in LaTeX
  together with a PostScript or PDF files.

When sending us the camera ready paper, please send
all of the following:

* Source file in LaTeX or RTF (not in DOC). If
  you use LaTeX, then also all necessary source
  files, such as EPS pictures and all style files
  different from llncs.cls (note that the use of
  custom style files is strongly discouraged).

* PostScript and PDF file, if you are unable to
  produce a PDF file. If you use LaTeX, then
  also DVI file.

* Hard copy (see address below). Only as an
  exception, you can ask us to print your paper
  for you (i.e., not to send us the hard copy).

* Copyright form, either the original hard
  copy (preferable) or a fax (see the number
  below). The form is at
  http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/copyrigh.html.

If you are not sure whether some special symbols are printed correctly
at our side, we encourage you to send us scanned images or printed
copies of the pages in question by fax and/or mail, clearly indicating
what symbols are to be checked; e.g., you can draw a circle around the
symbol we should check. Note that these copies are complementary; in
any case we need your electronic submission.

CONTACT

Email: gelbukh at cicling.org

Fax: +1 (520) 441-1817 (in the USA).

Street address:
     CICLing-2001,
     Prof. Alexander Gelbukh,
     Laboratorio de Lenguaje Natural,
     CIC - Centro de Investigacion en Computacion,
     IPN - Instituto Politecnico Nacional,
     Av. Juan Dios Batiz s/n esq. Av. M. Othon Mendizabal,
     Unidad Profesional "Adolfo Lopez Mateos",
     Col. Zacatenco, C.P. 07738, Mexico D.F.
     MEXICO.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|      REGISTRATION
+-------------------------------------------------------

AUTHORS OF ACCEPTED PAPERS: By submitting a paper, at least one author
thereby promises, in case of acceptance of the paper, to attend the
conf in person to present their paper and to pay the corresponding
early registration fee. Unless the current policy changes, the authors
of accepted papers will be allowed to register on-site at the early
registration rates.

     Note: We reserve the right to change this information
     before November 20; please check our website.

PUBLIC: Please contact registration at cicling.org before
November 20 for early registration information.

REGISTRATION FEE:

Before November 20:

     Specialists: US$ 180
     Students: US$ 90

On site:

     Specialists: US$ 220
     Students: US$ 120
     Local students: enter free (no printed material)

A limited number of reduced registrations will be available. To apply,
please contact the organizing committee at gelbukh at cicling.org and
justify your application. The reduced registration can be provided,
among others, to the following categories (not in all cases!):

* People whose fee will not be paid by their
  institution and whose family income does not
  allow to afford paying the full fee,

* Those people from underdeveloped countries
  whose institutions have real difficulties paying
  the full fee (included: Latin America, Eastern
  Europe; not included: North America, Western
  Europe).

+-------------------------------------------------------
|         IMPORTANT DATES
+-------------------------------------------------------

Regular papers

    Submission deadline: October 1
    Notification of acceptance: November 1
    Camera-ready deadline: November 15

Poster abstracts

    Submission deadline: November 5
    Notification of acceptance: November 17
    Camera-ready deadline: November 20

Conf: February 18-24

+-------------------------------------------------------
|         INVITED SPEAKERS
+-------------------------------------------------------

* Graeme Hirst (U. Toronto, Canada). He will
  present a talk on near-synonymy (with Diana
  Zaiu Inkpen), and give a discussion/tutorial on
  lexical chains (with Alex Budanitsky).
  http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~gh

* Ruslan Mitkov (U. of Wolverhampton, UK).
  He will probably talk about anaphora
  resolution.
  http://www.wlv.ac.uk/~le1825

* To be confirmed: Igor A. Mel'cuk (U.
  Montreal, Canada). He is the author of the
  Meaning-Text Theory of language
  understanding and translation.
  http://www.fas.umontreal.ca/employes/MEL'CUKIgorA.html

* To be confirmed: Ivan Sag (Stanford U.,
  USA). He is one of the key developers of the
  HPSG theory, probably the most widely
  accepted modern syntactic theory.
  http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~sag/sag.html

+-------------------------------------------------------
|         HOTEL INFO
+-------------------------------------------------------

We are considering several possibilities: a hotel at the
conf place, a hotel at the Historical Center, or an
affordable hotel rather near to the Historical Center.
You can help us make the decision; please send us
your vote.

The hotel **** El Ejecutivo is affordable, nice, and
located in the central district. Address: Av. Viena # 8,
Colonia Juarez, Mexico DF, 06600. Tel. +52 (5) 566-6422,
566-6565, fax for reservations +52 (5) 535-5088. At our
website http://www.cicling.org/2001 you also
can see a booklet with some info and a local map.
Hotel: http://www.netfm.com.mx/ejecutivo.

Rates (approximately):

* Single: US$35 per night,
* Double: $38.50 (shared $19.25/person) per night.
* Triple: $42.50 (shared $14.17/person) per night.

You do not need to reserve your room, we will do it
for you. Please send a message at hotel at cicling.org
indicating:

* your name,
* dates: from what day to what day you will stay
  in the hotel
* type of the room (single, double, triple, JR
  suite, Master suite),
* the number of persons,
* whether you prefer to share the room with
  other persons (e.g., you can indicate a shared
  triple room for one person; in this case you will
  share this room with other two persons),
* male or female (for shared rooms),
* any other indications (e.g., with whom you
  would prefer to share the room).

Currently all info regarding the hotel is preliminary.
In any case, though, we will provide you with a
reservation in a hotel of comparable quality and
comparable rates.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|         LOCAL TRANSPORTATION GUIDE AND USEFUL INFO
+-------------------------------------------------------

HOW TO GET TO THE HOTEL EL EJECUTIVO:

At the airport, ask for the authorized taxi service. It is
located to the leftmost part of the airport building (as
you see it when come out of the customs), there you
pay to a window and receive a ticket. You do not pay
anything to the driver. When buying the ticket, you
indicate the zone that in your case will be "Zona
Rosa," or "Zona Central". You pay about US$10 (100
pesos) or less.

To the taxi driver, tell the address: Zona Rosa, Calle
Viena (pasar por Reforma), #8, hotel "El Ejecutivo."
Please print out this page and show the address to the
driver.

HOW TO GET TO CIC, THE CONF PLACE

See the local site map at http://www.cicling.org/2001.
You are advised to print out
this image. See also a photo of the building.

ADDRESS: CIC building, Av. Juan de Dios Batiz
unnumbered, cross with Av. Miguel Othon de
Mendizabal Ote, Unidad Profesional "Adolfo Lopez
Mateos" of the Instituto Politecnico Nacional (IPN).
Zip code: 07738. Mexico City, MEXICO.

TAXI: The taxi from the Central zone should cost
about 30 pesos (US$3). Go north by Av. Eje Central
Cien Metros until the Subway station "Politecnico,"
and you are almost here; you can continue on foot or
in taxi. Pass the Subway station, pass one building
more (car dealer Ford MYLSA, a glass building), turn
right by Av. Venus, and enter the IPN territory gate.
The nearest 3-floor pink building is the CIC. You can
print out the following text in Spanish and show it to
the taxi driver:

    "Va al Norte por Eje Central Cien Metros
    hasta el Metro Politecnico, paselo, pase un
    edificio mas (tienda de autmoviles seminuevos
    MYLSA), de vuelta a la derecha (por la calle
    Venus), entre en el IPN, va al edificio rojo de 3
    pisos."

METRO: By the Yellow line, go North to the terminal
station Politecnico. Exit to "Calle Diana". Walking
along the car circulation by the large street (Eje
Central), pass one building (car dealer Ford MYLSA,
a glass building), turn right, and enter the IPN
Institute territory gate. The nearest 3-floor pink
building is the CIC.

BUS: There are many buses and microbuses that go
along Av. Eje Central to the "Metro Politecnico"
Subway station. Ask the driver to tell you when the
bus arrives to that station. Then walking along the car
circulation by the large street (Eje Central), pass one
building (car dealer Ford MYLSA, a glass building),
turn right, and enter the IPN Institute territory gate.
The nearest 3-floor pink building is the CIC.

CAR: Take North Ave. Eje Central Cien Metros. Pass
the large bus terminal "Terminal de Autobuses del
Norte" (to the right from you). Pass the tower of the
Mexican Oil Institute - Instituto Mexicano de
Petroleo (to the left from you) and the Subway station
"Instituto de Petroleo." When crossing Eje 5 Norte
(Montevideo), move to the right lane of Ave. Eje
Central Cien Metros. Pass the Subway station
"Politecnico" and go slowly. Pass the Ford car dealer
MYLSA (a glass building), turn right into Venus
street, and enter the IPN gate. Leave some personal
identification document at the entrance gate to IPN.
The nearest building is CIC, a pink square 3 floor
building.

IN CASE OF ANY PROBLEM

Call Alexander Gelbukh (or a person who answers) at
home: 5597-0709 (local phone) or at work 5729-6000
ext. 56544, 56602, 56518. If someone else responds at
home, please speak English (do not speak Spanish).

USEFUL LOCAL INFORMATION

* TAXI. Taxi in Mexico is very cheap and very frequent
  in nearly any place of the city. They are easy to
  recognize: usually these are green or yellow bugs,
  sometimes green Nissans; the price is the same. To
  any place you need to go, you probably better go by
  taxi. Within the city, you would pay from less than
  US$1 (10 pesos) to US$5 (50 pesos), but you will save
  a lot of time. You should, however, either ensure that
  the driver has turned on the taximeter (except for the
  night time when the taximeters are not used), or agree
  the price in advance. If you pay by taximeter, you do
  not need to give tips to the driver. We do not recommend
  using the taxis waiting near expensive hotels, unless
  you are sure these are authorized (which can be
  expensive); you always better stop any green bug
  passing by the street.

  On the other hand, taxis in Mexico are considered not
  completely safe (though we do not know what other
  transport would be much safer). Also, sometimes the
  drivers do not know the city very well, so assure the
  driver does know the place you need and does know how to
  get there. Usually the drivers are honest enough not to
  fool you about the route, but they might just not know
  the optimal route.

* METRO AND BUS. Metro and bus are also very cheap.
  One trip in metro costs US$0.15 (1.5 pesos); you
  should buy tickets sold at the entrance.

  Buses and especially microbuses (usually also green)
  are also very frequent; one bus trip costs some $US0.2
  to $US0.4 (2 to 4 pesos) depending on distance, which
  you pay to the driver. The entrance is only from the
  front door, exit only from the rear door. There are no
  fixed stops for microbuses; to take a micro in the
  street, you should signal it with your hand; to get
  out of the micro, you should ask the driver to stop
  (or press a special button to bell usually located
  above or near to the rear door). In general, we do
  not recommend you to use buses unless you know very
  well how to get to the place you need; use taxis
  instead.

* FOOD. Food in Mexico is extremely hot (spicy), which
  can seriously affect you if you do not get used to it.
  We recommend you to either eat in restaurants or buy
  food in supermarkets. Ask for European-type food; in
  a restaurant, ask specifically for a food that is not
  hot ("no picante" in Spanish). We strongly do not
  recommend you to eat the food sold in the streets
  (tacos, tortas, quesadillas); if you want to try it,
  better do it in the last day of your trip. In
  restaurants, the waiters are tipped with 10% of the
  check price (i.e., tips are not included in the price).

  Water in the city water supply is not potable. Potable
  water is sold in the shops, supermarkets, and in the
  streets.

* MUSEUMS. The museums typically work from 8 am to 5 pm.
  After 5 pm, you will probably find everything closed.
  In many museums and archeological zones, on Sunday the
  entrance is free.

* CREDIT CARDS. Major credit cards are typically
  accepted in restaurants, supermarkets, and most of
  the shops (ask about your card type if not sure),
  so you do not need to exchange too much money for
  pesos. In the city, there are many bankomats where
  you can get cash from your credit card (at least
  from a Visa and MasterCard). For currency, usually
  the best exchange rates are at the Airport; there
  is no commission.

* SECURITY. The following recommendations are usual
  for any travel. We do not recommend you to walk alone
  in the nighttime. You should always avoid carrying
  with you in the street any valuable objects (even
  the objects that do not have big commercial value
  but are valuable for you personally). Accordingly,
  we do not recommend you to wear any golden jewels,
  or better no jewels at all. If you still are robbed,
  it is safer not to resist to a violent robber. Local
  police usually is of no help in such cases. For the
  same reason, we recommend you to avoid carrying with
  you a credit card with too much money on it; possibly
  you could use different cards, one with your main
  account and one with a smaller sum for just one-day
  usage.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|        TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
+-------------------------------------------------------

(See submission deadlines in the section Important Dates above.)

* February 18, Sunday: Registration. Excursion
               to Teotihuacan: ancient Indian pyramids.
* February 19, Monday: Registration. Talks.
               Welcome party.
* February 20, Tuesday: Talks. Possibly
               excursion to the City Center.
* February 21, Wednesday: Excursion to
               Angangueo: Monarch Butterfly wintering site.
* February 22, Thursday: Talks and workshops.
* February 23, Friday: Talks and workshops.
               Excursion to the Anthropological Museum.
* February 24, Saturday: Excursion to
               Cacahuamilpa and Taxco: great cave and
               colonial city.

Note: This schedule is tentative; in particular, the
order of excursions can change.

+-------------------------------------------------------
|        CULTURAL PROGRAM
+-------------------------------------------------------

EXCURSIONS

One of the most exciting things at the conference are
excursions to the ancient Indian pyramids and visiting
a unique nature phenomenon, the Monarch Butterfly
wintering site where you can see millions of beautiful
butterflies in the trees and in the air around you. In
common opinion of the last year's participants, the
excursions were excellent; you can see their own
photos: http://www.cicling.org/2000/Photos/Frames.htm

Here is the tentative list of excursions:

* Anthropological Museum (Mexico City)
* Teotihuacan: ancient Indian pyramids, 1 hour drive
* Cacahuamilpa and Taxco: great cave and colonial city, 2 h
* Angangueo: Monarch Butterfly wintering site, 4 hours drive

More info and photos can be found at
http://www.cicling.org/2001/excurs.htm.

NOTE FOR FORMER CICLING-2000 PARTICIPANTS: We do
understand that repeating the same excursions is a bad
idea. On the other hand, these are the best of the best
ones, and significantly changing the list would not be
fair to the new participants. If you have any specific
idea what you would like to visit, please let me know
and we will try to arrange for this.

We are open to any ideas on what excursions would
be interested. Please write your ideas to Alexander
Gelbukh at gelbukh at cicling.org.

WELCOME PARTY

The reception party will be combined with the
opening of the Poster and Demo section. We will
have some snack, maybe some wine. No music, no
serious food, even no tables, sorry. You will enjoy the
informal atmosphere to speak with each other and
with the presenters of the posters and demos. You will
also have a chance to show and discuss your own
programs (for this, please let us know your software
and hardware requirements).

+-------------------------------------------------------
|         CONFERENCE COMMITTEES
+-------------------------------------------------------

This year, the conference features a very strong
international Program Committee. Please read the list:
if you are seriously involved in computational
linguistics, you will be surprised how many of the
names you will find very familiar.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

1.      Baeza-Yates, Ricardo, Chile
2.      Blekhman, Michael, Canada
3.      Boitet, Christian, France
4.      Bolshakov, Igor, Mexico
5.      Brusilovsky, Peter, USA
6.      Calzolari, Nicoletta, Italy
7.      Cassidy, Patrick, USA
8.      Cristea, Dan, Romania
9.      Gelbukh, Alexander (chair), Mexico
10.     Guzman-Arenas, Adolfo, Mexico
11.     Hasida, Koiti, Japan
12.     Harada, Yasunari, Japan
13.     Hirst, Graeme, Canada
14.     Kittredge, Richard, USA / Canada
15.     Koch, Gregers, Denmark
16.     Laufer, Natalia, Russia
17.     Lopez-Lopez, Aurelio, Mexico
18.     Loukanova, Roussanka, USA / Bulgaria
19.     Maegard, Bente, Denmark
20.     Martin-Vide, Carlos, Spain
21.     Mel'cuk, Igor, Canada
22.     Metais, Elisabeth, France
23.     Milicevic, Jasmina, Canada
24.     Mitkov, Ruslan, UK
25.     Murata, Masaki, Japan
26.     Narin'yani, Alexander, Russia
27.     Nevzorova, Olga, Russia
28.     Nirenburg, Sergei, USA
29.     Palomar, Manuel, USA / Spain
30.     Pedersen, Ted, USA
31.     Pineda-Cortes, Luis Alberto, Mexico
32.     Piperidis, Stelios, Greece
33.     Sag, Ivan, USA
34.     Sidorov, Grigori, Mexico
35.     Sharoff, Serge, Russia
36.     Sun Maosong, China
37.     Trujillo, Arturo, UK
38.     T'sou Ka-yin, Benjamin, Hong Kong
39.     Verspoor, Karin, USA / The Netherlands
40.     Vilares Ferro, Manuel, Spain
41.     Wilks, Yorick, UK

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

1.      Alexander Gelbukh (chair)
2.      Carlos Vizcaino Sahagun
3.      Carlos Ulloa
4.      Soila Vargas Garcia
5.      Teresa Salcedo Camarena
6.      Sofia Galicia Haro

+-------------------------------------------------------
| You are strongly advised to have a look at
| http://www.cicling.org/2001 time to time
| to see if there are any changes to the info above.
+-------------------------------------------------------

Alexander Gelbukh,
   gelbukh at cicling.org
   http://www.cic.ipn.mx/~gelbukh

Program and Organizing Chair of
CICLing-2001, http://www.cicling.org/2001

   September 7, 2000

   This document can be found at
   http://www.cicling.org/2001/CFP.txt
   See the conf's home page http://www.cicling.org/2001

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