Corpora: Final C4P - Deadline Extension: LREC 2002 Workshop on Portability Issues in Human Language Technologies

[Bojan Petek]

                Final call for Papers

                     LREC 2002
        http://www.lrec-conf.org/lrec2002/
                    Workshop on

    Portability Issues in Human Language Technologies

    1st June 2002, Las Palmas, Canary Islands - Spain


Please note that the poster abstract submission deadline
has been extended through 8th March 2002.

The proposed workshop is intended to continue the series of
SALTMIL (ISCA SIG) http://isl.ntftex.uni-lj.si/SALTMIL/
LREC workshops related to the integration of local and global
languages ("Language Resources for European Minority Languages"
(LREC'98)) as well as the workshop on "Developing Language
Resources for Minority Languages: Re-usability and Strategic
Priorities" (LREC'00)).


IMPORTANT DATES

- Deadline for workshop abstract submission:
    8th March 2002
- Notification of acceptance:
    15th March 2002
- Final version of the paper for the workshop proceedings:
    8th April 2002
- Workshop:
    1st June 2002


MOTIVATION AND AIMS

There are more than 6000 languages in the world, yet only a
small number possess the resources required for implementation
of Human Language Technologies (HLT). This imbalance in technical
resources available to languages of the world is likely to result
in a significant linguistic divide that further exacerbates global
social and economic inequities unless decisive action is taken
relatively soon. One potential means of ameliorating this
imbalance in technology resources is through encouraging research
in the portability of human language technology for multilingual
application.

Portability issues in HLT are important in the structuring and
acquisition of local language resources. The primary objective of
the workshop is to bring together participants from academia and
industry to discuss and disseminate the current state of the art
in multilingual research and development in the context of
cross-language HLT transfer. Major challenges for HLT-portability
research will also be discussed.

The workshop will focus on the following topics and languages:
-       Linguistic corpora and portability (new models, language
        maps, novel systems for creating and managing multilingual
        data);
-       Automatic Speech Recognition (generic design in acoustic
        modelling, task portability, cross-language portability):
        -       Acoustic modelling (monolingual and multilingual
                modelling, cross-language transfer, finite state
                automata, decision trees and data-driven methods);
        -       Dictionary development (word-definition issues,
                automatic dictionary acquisition);
        -       Language modelling (the Internet as a linguistic
                resource, language modelling in spoken language
                processing).
-       Natural Language Processing (cross-language transfer of
        HLT):
        -       Parsing;
        -       Translation.


WORKSHOP AGENDA

        Oral Session: Portability Issues in HLT
14:30
        Workshop Welcome and Introduction
        Bojan Petek
14:35
        Multilingual Time Maps: Portable Phonotactic Models for
        Speech Technology
        Julie Carson-Berndsen
15:00
        Automatic Phonetic and Prosodic Characterization of
        Spoken Language
        Steven Greenberg
15:25
        Creating Re-usable Documentation for Little-studied
        Languages
        Steven Bird
15:50
        Some Issues in Speech Recognizer Portability
        Lori Lamel

16:15 Break

        Oral Session: HLT and the Coverage of Languages
16:30
        Challenges and Opportunities in Portability of Human
        Language Technologies
        Bojan Petek
16:55
        Atlantis Project: Resources Available in the Internet
        to Serve Speakers and Learners of Minority Languages
        Salvador Climent Roca
17:20
        Towards the definition of a basic toolkit for HLT
        Kepa Sarasola

17:45 Panel Discussion - Invited speakers will be included as
      panelist members.
18:15 Poster Session
20:00 End


WORKSHOP ORGANIZING AND PROGRAM COMMITTEE

- Julie Carson-Berndsen, University College Dublin, Dublin,
  Ireland
- Steven Greenberg, International Computer Science Institute,
  Berkeley, USA
- Bojan Petek, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Kepa Sarasola, University of the Basque Country, Donostia,
  Basque Country


SUBMISSION

Papers are invited that describe research and development in
the area of Human Language Technology portability. All
contributed papers will be presented in poster format. Each
submission should include: title; author(s); affiliation(s);
and contact author's e-mail address, postal address, telephone
and fax numbers. Abstracts (maximum 500 words, plain-text format)
should be sent via email to:

Bojan Petek, bojan.petek at uni-lj.si

All contributed papers will be printed in the workshop
proceedings.


WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FEES

The registration fees for the workshop are:
-       If you are not attending LREC: 70 EURO
-       If you are attending LREC: 45 Euro

These fees cover the following: a copy of the proceedings of
the attended workshop, coffee-breaks and refreshments.
Participation in the workshop is limited by the venue. Requests
for participation will be processed on first come first served
basis.
Registration will be handled by the LREC Secretariat.