Appel: 2 INLG'2000 workshops

[Philippe Blache]

______________________________________________________________________

1/ From: Svetlana Sheremetyeva <lana at crl.NMSU.Edu>
   Objet : workshop deadline extended

2/ From:  ralf.klabunde at t-online.de (Ralf Klabunde)
   Subject:  Cognitive modeling/NLG systems (INLG'2000)
______________________________________________________________________

1/ From: Svetlana Sheremetyeva <lana at crl.NMSU.Edu>
   Objet : workshop deadline extended



 WORKSHOP DEADLINE EXTENDED

 Call for papers

 Analysis for Generation

     a Workshop

in conjunction with
The International Conference on
Natural Language Generation INLG'2000 (June 13-14)

 June 12, 20000, Mitzpe
Ramon, Israel

1. The reasons why the workshop is of interest at this time.

The last decade has seen an explosion in the work done in the field of
NLG with the emphasis on the development of independent NLG applications
rather than generation modules of MT systems. While it seems natural to
consider problems of
analysis and generation as two sides of a coin in such NLP applications
as MT, researchers working on "pure" generation systems sometimes treat
problems arising at every stage of generation^content specification,
sentence planning, and
surface realization^as independent. Time may be ripe for examining the
mutual utility of analysis and generation in greater detail. The impetus
is, as can be expected, the goal of minimizing system-building efforts
in language engineering.

2.  A brief technical description of the issues the workshop will
address.

The workshop proposes to address:

     ^ issues connected to the needs of analysis in generation systems
as well as

     ^ issues of interrelation between generation and analysis from the
standpoint of reusability and adaptability of analysis techniques and
tools for generation.

     ^ issues of reusability of analysis knowledge and methodology of
its acquisition for generation.

Analysis as part of generation. A wide range of complex problems which
are considered to be specific for generation^content specification,
planning, and grammaticalization^may lead one to believe that generation
is completely independent
of analysis. Most generators tacitly assume that an intermediate system
module can use the output of the preceding module as its input without
any processing (that is, analysis) of this output. This is not, however,
the case in practice.

A modicum of analysis is, in fact, an essential part of every generation
system. The input to generation systems such as raw data in tables,
lists, diagrams, elements of various databases or even text snippets
that are fed into the system directly
by a user still must first be somehow processed, that is, analyzed. The
analysis is needed to provide both the necessary content and, often,
format for the content specification (see, for example, Dale 1995, Robin
1994, Kukich 1988, McKeown et al. 1994, Bateman and Teich 1995). This
problem becomes especially important in those applications (including
multilingual ones) in which at least some input to generation is in
textual form (e.g., Sheremetyeva and Nirenburg 1996).

Many NLG systems often use a variety of analysis techniques. The
question arises whether it is possible to develop criteria to better
choose and integrate analysis techniques which could be efficiently
applied at different stages of generation.

Reusability and adaptability of analysis techniques and tools for
generation. While it is not uncommon to believe that generation and
analysis are not reversible, a number of contributions over the years
have discussed reversibility of analysis
and generation resources, especially the grammars. Appelt 1987, Barnett
and Mani 1990 and van Noord 1993, among others, demonstrate how the use
of reversible grammars may lead to efficient and flexible natural
language parsing and
generation systems. It is worth discussing constraints on reversibility.

Reusability of analysis knowledge and methodology of its acquisition for
generation. Generation and analysis are closely related in that both
processes use many similar resources, and often it is less expensive to
reorganize an existing
"analysis" resource (e.g., an analysis lexicon) than to acquire one for
generation from scratch. (Allgayer et al. 1989, Viegas and Beale 1996,
Sheremetyeva and Nirenburg 1999a, 1999b). It is worth discussing how to
establish whether a resource
built for analysis can be used for generation and at what price.
In particular the workshop will seek to address the following issues:

I. Applications of analysis in generation and types of analysis
techniques used in NLG.

II. Reusability and adaptability of knowledge resources in generation
and analysis
- knowledge representation
     - lexicon format and indexing
     - rule writing format
- knowledge acquisition and adaptation
     - reversibility of grammars
     - use of microtheories
- architectural issues
     - converting (morphological, syntactic, semantic, etc.) analyzers
into generator modules
     - architectural peculiarities of systems involving both analysis
and synthesis and reusability of their modules.

FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION

Paper submissions should consist of full papers (maximum of 12 pages,
including references, 12pt font size). Each submission should include a
separate title page providing the following information: the title, a
short abstract, names and
affiliations of all the authors, the full address of the primary author
(or alternate contact person), including phone, fax, and email. Please
send your electronic submission (PostScript or PDF format) until APRIL,10
to:

Svetlana Sheremetyeva
Computing Research Laboratory, New Mexico State University
USA Box30001/Dept.3CRL/Las Cruces New Mexico 88003-8001
505 646 5466 (voice)
505 646 6218 (fax)
lana at crl.nmsu.edu

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline: APRIL, 10 (extended)
Notification of acceptance: April 20
Final paper to workshop coordinator: April 28
Workshop: June 12
INLG 2000: June13 - June 16

3. Organizing Committee

Svetlana Sheremetyeva, Chair and contact person
Computing Research Laboratory, New Mexico State University, USA
lana at crl.nmsu.edu

Sergei Nirenburg
Computing Research Laboratory, New Mexico State University, USA
sergei at crl.nmsu.edu

Richard Kittredge
Department of Linguistics and Translation, University of Montreal
kittredge at IRO.UMontreal.CA

Anna Sagvall Hein
Department of linguistics, Uppsala University
Anna at ling.uu.se

Evelyne Viegas
Microsoft Corporation
evelynev at microsoft.com

Michael Zock
Language & Cognition LIMSI - CNRS
zock at limsi.fr


______________________________________________________________________

2/ From:  ralf.klabunde at t-online.de (Ralf Klabunde)
   Subject:  Cognitive modeling/NLG systems (INLG'2000)



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

Attention: workshop DEADLINE EXTENDED


           C A L L     F O R     P A P E R S


Why care for cognitive modeling when building NLG systems ?

 Workshop to be held in conjunction with INLG 2000
      International Conference on Natural Language Generation

 Workshop home page: http://pc03.idf.uni-heidelberg.de/~ralf/wkshop


WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Natural Language Generation (NLG) exists now for many years as a
subdiscipline
of computational linguistics. Many systems have been built with different
goals and from different perspectives. While some approaches are strongly
driven by engineering concerns, others are more concerned with insights in
human language production.

By organizing this workshop we pursue three goals:

(a) to show that cognitive and engineering approaches, rather then being
    mutually exclusive, are highly complementary;
(b) to identify some of the loci where the human factor should be taken into
    account;
(c) to discuss then what methods could be used in order to enhance current
    systems or architectures by means of cognitive models of human language
    generation.

While there is no doubt that cognitive modeling is useful for testing
theories of human behavior, it is probably also quite useful in
cognitive engineering, that is, as a complementary methodology for
building systems. If the engineering point of view is overemphasised,
designers will be more concerned with the machine than with their
final users: people. In order to build truly user-friendly
NL-generators, i.e. systems which adapt themselves to users rather
than the other way around, we need a deeper understanding of the
knowledge and the processes that people use when producing
language. These kinds of insights can profitably be used when building
systems, especially if they are meant to be used by people.

At present, we observe a strong tendency towards an engineering
approach. While many researchers in the field have based their systems
on empirical research, their approach still remains more motivated by
engineering considerations (efficiency) then by psycho-linguistic
factors (the problems people face).  Yet we do believe, that
integrating the human factor into the engineering approach would
greatly enhance the overall quality (adequacy, flexibility, scope) of
the existing systems.

To approach these goals, the workshop invites full papers that deal with
any aspect of the following topics:

-       ARCHITECTURE (flexibility, decomposition and control of the process)
-       CONTENT DETERMINATION / CONCEPTUALIZATION
-       NATURE OF THE INPUT (proximity to language)
-       OUTLINE PLANNING
-       NP-GENERATION (the problem of reference)
-       LEXICAL ACCESS

For more information on the workshop and its topics have a look at the
workshop homepage.


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
Gerard Kempen, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
kempen at rulfsw.leidenuniv.nl

Ralf Klabunde, University of Heidelberg, Germany (Chair)
klabunde at novell1.gs.uni-heidelberg.de

Koenraad de Smedt, University of Bergen, Norway
deSmedt at hf.uib.no

Michael Zock, LIMSI - CNRS, France
zock at limsi.fr


FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION
Paper submissions should consist of full papers (maximum of 10 pages
including references, 12pt font size). Each submission should include
a separate title page providing the following information: the title,
a short abstract, names and affiliations of all the authors, the full
address of the primary author (or alternate contact person), including
phone, fax, and email.  Electronic submissions should be sent to Ralf
Klabunde until April 6. We strongly advise standard html, but
PostScript or PDF form is also possible.

Ralf Klabunde
University of Heidelberg
Center for Computational Linguistics
Karlstr. 2
69117 Heidelberg, Germany

klabunde at novell1.gs.uni-heidelberg.de


IMPORTANT DATES
Paper submission deadline:  April 6            
Notification of acceptance:  April 14
Final paper to workshop coordinator:    May   2         
Workshop:    June 12
INLG 2000:    June13 - June 16



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