16.1950, Confs: Computational Ling/Barcelona, Spain

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1950. Fri Jun 24 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1950, Confs: Computational Ling/Barcelona, Spain

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1)
Date: 20-Jun-2005
From: Marsal Gavalda < marsal at gavalda.org >
Subject: Societal Applications and Repercussions of Language Technologies 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 01:01:49
From: Marsal Gavalda < marsal at gavalda.org >
Subject: Societal Applications and Repercussions of Language Technologies 
 



Societal Applications and Repercussions of Language Technologies 

Date: 11-Jul-2005 - 13-Jul-2005 
Location: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain 
Contact: Ana Camps 
Contact Email: ana.camps at cuimpb.es 
Meeting URL: http://www.cuimpb.es/cuimpb/actionServlet?accio=ficha&id=6&lang=esp 

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics 

Meeting Description: 

The Universitat Internacional Menéndez Pelayo - Centre Ernest Lluch 
(http://www.cuimpb.es/) and the City of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) 
present once again an international summer seminar on Language 
Technologies.

This year the focus is on SOCIETAL APPLICATIONS AND REPERCUSSIONS OF 
LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES and thus we shall be examining the increasingly 
important (and not always positive) role that speech recognition, natural 
language processing, machine translation, information retrieval and 
related technologies play in the lives of millions of people.
 
Official languages are English, Catalan, and Spanish, and simultaneous 
translation over wireless headsets will be provided for all sessions. 

Monday, July 11
09:30 - 10:15 Workshop: Can you read spectrograms?
by Marsal Gavaldà
(Foundations of speech recognition I: digital signal processing, 
frequency analysis, the vowel triangle.)

10:30 - 13:30 Lecture: Orkut: Google's social network
by Orkut Buyukkokten, engineer at Google, Inc. (Mountain View, 
California, U.S.A.).
(Orkut Buyukkokten, creator of the social network orkut.com, will talk 
about the motivation behind the development of Orkut, touch on the 
technical aspects of implementing and maintaining a system with over 
5,000,000 users, and reflect on the lessons learned from observing the 
growth of this social network.)

15:30 - 16:15 Workshop: Which word comes ____?
(Foundations of speech recognition II: language models, entropy, language 
identification.)

16:30 - 19:30 Lecture: Reflections on machine translation
by Joseba Abaitua, professor at the University of Deusto (Basque Country, 
Spain).
(Professor Joseba Abaitua will give a historical introduction to machine 
translation, describe some of the techniques employed, show examples of 
both successul and unsuccessful MT systems, and reflect on the effects 
that the increasing presence of deployed MT systems will have on society.)

Tuesday, July 12
09:30 - 10:15 Workshop: Do time flies like arrows?
by Marsal Gavaldà
(Foundations of natural language processing: grammars, parse trees, 
ambiguity resolution.)

10:30 - 13:30 Lecture: Controversial uses of language and information 
technologies
by David L. Sobel, General Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center 
(Washington, D.C., U.S.A.).
(The activist lawyer David Sobel will talk about some controversial uses 
of language and information technologies by intelligence agencies and 
private companies, touch on actual and potential societal impacts of such 
programs, and lay out some of the steps that society should take in order 
to protect itself from misuses of information tehcnologies.)

15:30 - 16:15 Workshop: Is Socrates mortal?
by Marsal Gavaldà
(Foundation of dialog systems: logical reasoning, natural language 
generation, speech synthesis.)

16:30 - 19:30 Lecture: The NOPPA system for guidance for the blind.
by Ari Virtanen, research scientist at the VTT (Technical Research Centre 
of Finland).
(Ari Virtanen, director of the NOPPA system for navigation and guidance 
for the blind, will present this system that combines speech recognition, 
global positioning system data, and real-time status of public 
transportation in Helsinki to help blind people get to their bus, among 
many other benefits.)

Wednesday, July 13
09:30 - 13:30 Panel discussion with all the speakers, chaired by Joan 
Clos, Mayor of Barcelona.





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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1950