Conf: AMTA-2002 Conference

[Alexis Nasr]

            --- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ---

     The Association for Machine Translation in the Americas


AMTA-2002 Conference

Location:  Tiburon, California

Dates:  October 8-12, 2002

The Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA) is
pleased to announce its fifth biennial conference, planned for October
8-12, 2002, in Tiburon (near San Francisco), California.

Conference theme: From Research to Real Users

Ever since the showdown between Empiricists and Rationalists a decade
ago at TMI-92, MT researchers have hotly pursued promising paradigms
for MT, including data-driven approaches (e.g., statistical,
example-based) and hybrids that integrate these with more traditional
rule-based components.

During the same period, commercial MT systems with standard transfer
architectures have evolved along a parallel and almost unrelated
track, increasing their coverage (primarily through manual update of
their lexicons, we assume) and achieving much broader acceptance and
usage, principally through the medium of the Internet. Web page
translators have become commonplace; a number of online translation
services have appeared, including in their offerings both raw and
post-edited MT; and large corporations have been turning increasingly
to MT to address the exigencies of global communication.  Still, the
output of the transfer-based systems employed in this expansion
represents but a small drop in the ever-growing translation
marketplace bucket.

Now, 10 years later, we wonder if this mounting variety of MT users is
any better off, and if the promise of the research technologies is
being realized to any measurable degree.  In this regard, we pose the
following questions:

Why aren't any current commercially available MT systems primarily
data-driven?

Do any commercially available systems integrate (or plan to integrate)
data-driven components?

Do data-driven systems have significant performance or quality issues?

Can such systems really provide better quality to users, or is their
main advantage one of fast, facilitated customization?

If any new MT technology could provide such benefits (somewhat higher
quality, or facilitated customization), would that be the key to more
widespread use of MT, or are there yet other more relevant unresolved
issues, such as system integration?

If better quality, customization, or system integration aren't the
answer, then what is it that users really need from MT in order for it
to be more useful to them?

We solicit participation on these and other topics related to the
research, development, and use of MT in the form of original papers,
demonstrations, workshops, tutorials, and panels. We invite all who
are interested in MT to participate, including developers,
researchers, end users, professional translators, managers, and
marketing experts. We especially invite users to share their
experiences, developers to describe their novel systems, managers and
marketers to talk about what is happening in the marketplace,
researchers to detail new capabilities or methods, and visionaries to
describe the future as they see it.  We also welcome and encourage
participation by members of AMTA's sister organizations, AAMT in Asia
and EAMT in Europe.

Details regarding the conference may be found on the AMTA Web site:

http://www.amtaweb.org/AMTA2002/


CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS

Elliott Macklovitch, General Chair

Stephen D. Richardson, Program Chair

Violetta Cavalli-Sforza, Local Arrangements Chair

Bob Frederking, Workshops and Tutorials

Laurie Gerber, Exhibits Coordinator


AMTA-2002: PAPER AND SYSTEM DESCRIPTION/DEMONSTRATION SUBMISSIONS.


Authors/system developers are invited to submit presentations in English
in any of the following three categories:


1. Theoretical papers: Unpublished papers describing original work on
all aspects of Machine Translation.  Preference will be given to papers
that include concrete results and that address the theme of moving MT
research technology (including, but not limited to, data-driven systems
or components) into real use.  Papers should not be longer than 10
pages, with minimum character font size of 11 pt.

2. User studies: Studies of users' experiences with implementing MT or
testing its applicability to some task.  Of particular interest are
experiences deploying new or advanced MT technology in a production
context.  Users, managers, and sales/marketing professionals are
especially welcome to submit.  Studies should not be longer than 8
pages, with minimum character font size of 11 pt.

3. System descriptions with optional system demonstrations: Approx. 25
minutes will be allocated per system description/demo.  Submissions
should not be longer than 4 pages. The goal of system descriptions is to
educate participants about the features and functionality of current and
emerging MT systems. Sales presentations are not appropriate. The
following information should be provided in each system description;

-  name and contact information of system builder

-  system category (research, pre-market prototype, or commercially
   available)

-  system characteristics (e.g., languages, domains,
   integration/networking features)

If a system demonstration is included, please provide the following
information:

-  hardware platform and operating system

-  name and contact information of system operations specialist


First page: All submissions should include a separate title page with
the following information:

- paper title,

- author(s)' name(s), address(es), telephone and fax numbers, email
  address(es),

- one-paragraph abstract,

- for theoretical papers: subject area keyword(s)

- for user studies: the words "User study"

- for system descriptions/demos: the words "System description/demo"


DEADLINES and SCHEDULE:

Submissions due at address below:   April 15, 2002 (Monday)

Notification of acceptance:         May 31, 2002 (Friday)

Final versions of papers due:       July 15, 2002 (Monday)


Electronic submissions are strongly preferred.  They should be sent to:

     email address: steveri at microsoft.com

     subject line: AMTA-2002 submission

in one of the following formats:

     Microsoft Word (RTF format)

     PostScript

     ASCII plain text

Hardcopy submissions (please send four (4) copies):

AMTA-2002: Stephen D. Richardson

Microsoft Research

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

USA


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