[Corpora-List] Call for Summer 1993 NRRC Workshop Proposals

[David Day]

      Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA)
         Northeast Regional Research Center (NRRC)

            Call for 2003 Workshop Proposals

The Northeast Regional Research Center (http://nrrc.mitre.org) of the
Advanced Research and Development Activity (http://www.ic-arda.org)
requests workshop proposals for the Summer 2003 Workshop Series.  ARDA
is an intelligence community organization whose mission is to sponsor
high-risk, high-payoff research designed to leverage leading edge
technology in the solution of some of the most critical problems
facing the Intelligence Community (IC). ARDA established the NRRC to
create partnerships between government and industry/academic experts
to identify and engage in focused, 6-8 week long workshops to actively
solve complex IC problems. The NRRC encourages novel approaches,
non-traditional government contractors, and new cross-organizational
teams.

2003 Challenge Focus

The 2003 Workshops will focus on ARDA’s Information Exploitation
(Info-X) area, with an emphasis on the Video Analysis and Content
Extraction (VACE) and Advanced Question Answering for Intelligence
(AQUAINT) programs (see http://www.ic-arda.org/InfoExploit/index.html
for details on these programs).  The NRRC will also consider
compelling proposals that fall outside these two areas.  Proposals
that define evaluation methodologies and engage intelligence analysts
will be preferred.  We encourage both long (e.g., 6-8 week, contiguous
times or spread out over several months) workshops as well as short
(e.g., several days to a week) workshops.  The NRRC is also open to
alternative workshop models that would most successfully achieve
results and IC impact.

VACE.  With respect to ARDA’s VACE program, the NRRC is particularly
interested in, but not limited to, proposals that address the
following challenge areas which would most likely be long workshops:

1. Video event ontology and knowledge representation in language and
   vision.

2. Cross-cutting video understanding areas (e.g., recognizing people,
   demographics detection such as gender, age, and ethnicity), new
   algorithms for rapid object detection and recognition in real-time,
   streaming processing contexts).

3. Non-traditional approaches to video acquisition such as:

   - New technologies for robust, far-field human detection
     (stereovision, fused IR/visible spectrum, omni-directional
     cameras, etc.);

   - Adaptive signal collection management (e.g., mobile or wearable
     cameras, variable scope or resolution).

4. Video/multimedia data mining; content association and knowledge
   discovery; using prior knowledge to direct data mining.

5. Architectures and future environments for video understanding
   including:

   - Video intelligence analyst environment of the future,
     incorporating novel visualization and interaction modalities for
     efficient review and discovery;

   - Rich integration of video processing, analysis and data/meta-data
     representation capabilities, enabling foundation for new video
     analysis experiments.

We are also interested in short term workshops on topics such as:

   - Creating a technology roadmap for video content extraction and
     content analysis (e.g., human video analysis processing to guide
     machine processing);

   - Creating methods, measures, and metrics for more effective
     evaluation (e.g., identifying a task and obtaining
     government/community buy-in).

AQUAINT.  With respect to ARDA’s AQUAINT program, the NRRC is
particularly interested in, but not limited to, proposals that address
the following challenge areas which will most likely be long
workshops:

1. Temporal processing for Q&A: Build on the success of the previous
   NRRC workshop dedicated to Temporal and Event representation and
   processing models (http://time2002.org/) by pursuing significant
   extensions, such as multi-document summarization via temporal
   coherence of events, integrating TimeML with Q&A, multilingual
   issues, etc.

2. Handling geo-spatial, structural or even social relationships
   within the context of Q&A.

3. Multiple perspectives: Build on the successful NRRC ’02 Workshop on
   Multiple Perspectives.

4. Explore issues in Information Retrieval performance and Q&A
   relating to performance variability as a function of topic,
   collection, queries and other contextual aspects.

5. User models and task-specific context in support of Q&A;
   scenario-based Q&A.

6. The use of Q&A technology to address problems in knowledge
   discovery from large, unstructured data collections.

7. Knowledge representation models, inference and/or integration
   issues for Q&A.

8. Answer generation and presentation (incorporating multiple sources,
   graphical/interactive displays, etc.).

9. Data chasm/challenges: missing data, reliability, contradictory
   information sources, heterogeneity in original sources (media,
   language, genre, perspective, etc.).

The NRRC is also interested in short term or alternative format
workshops in a variety of areas (e.g., the creation of a question
answering roadmap that identifies needed resources, impediments to
progress, and likely future outcomes).  There are specific AQUAINT
resources that may be made available to benefit workshop participants,
such as non- proliferation data from the Center for Nonproliferation
Studies (CNS) and/or "glass box" data from analysts performing
open source exploitation.

Other. The NRRC is also interested in short and long term workshop
proposals that address ARDA’s overall Information Exploitation program
in areas not covered by the above, such as data filtering and
selection, content data markup, content data transformation,
information discovery, information understanding, synthesis and
fusion, information retrieval, analytic knowledge, presentation and
visualization, assessment and interpretation, information analysis.

Workshop Proposal Content and Format

The workshop proposal shall not exceed 10 pages and must succinctly
address each of the following key elements:

Problem:  Succinct definition of problem to be addressed.

Approach: Method for solving the problem, e.g., collection of data,
creation of algorithms, evaluation, integration and test of existing
heterogeneous capabilities, study of human processes to inspire new
approach.

Workshop Duration and Format: Long term workshop (approximately 6-8
weeks), short term workshop (approximately 1-5 days) or alternative
structure.

Domain and data sets: Size, required annotation,
availability/intellectual property.

Evaluation: Measures and methods, qualitative/quantitative.

Proposed team and roles Lists names of individuals and their
institutions, as well as their primary role, e.g., lead, annotator,
developer, statistician, etc.

Plan: Key tasks/milestones, dates, including pre-workshop preparation,
training, lectures/seminars and potential post-workshop activities.

Impact: Product (e.g., software, algorithms, data, report),
performance, process, or other outcomes.

Resources: Required staff, data, tools, and infrastructure. 

Issues: Membership, resources, intellectual property, other 

Proposal Cover Sheet

Each proposal shall have a one-page cover sheet that includes the
following information:

(1) Program addressed (e.g., AQUAINT, VACE, Other)

(2) Challenge focus (e.g., from the above list or other)

(3) Proposal title

(4) Technical point of contact including: name, telephone number,
    electronic mail address, fax (if available) and mailing address

(5) Administrative point of contact including: name, telephone number,
    electronic mail address, fax (if available) and mailing address

(6) Summary of the resources of the proposed research, including total
    level of effort and any resource/cost sharing if relevant.  This
    need not be a detailed cost estimate but rather provide a high
    level summary of the resources needed.

(7) Contractor's type of business, selected from among the following
    categories: academic, industrial, non-profit, government, national
    laboratory.

Workshop Selection Criteria

Workshops will be selected based on fundamental issues such as 

  - Is the problem being addressed important to the Intelligence
    Community?

  - Is workshop environment the best to address the problem?

  - Does the proposal have the right team?

  - Is challenge sufficiently provocative to attract the best talent
    and provide impact on government needs.

Workshops which contain novel approaches, non-traditional government
contractors, and new cross-organizational teams will be favored.

Specifically, the following criteria will be applied to select among
competing workshop proposals (relative weighting of criteria is
indicated parenthetically after each criterion):
 
  - Team (the quality, experience, composition, e.g., good mix of
    industry, academia, government; skill of the workshop lead(s); and
    identified government champion) (30% of overall score);

  - Technical approach.  feasibility (including achievable in given
    time frame), innovation, evaluability (30% of overall score);

  - Expected impact (20% of overall score);

  - Commitment (e.g., agreement to personally attend the entire
    workshop, additional contributed resources by participants) (10%
    of overall score);

  - Cost in terms of resources required (e.g., financial, human, data,
    time) (10% of overall score).

Graduate Students

Following workshop selection, the NRRC will run a competition to
identify extraordinary graduate students to participate in the
workshops.

Awards

In 2002, the NRRC funded two large workshops and one small workshop.
We expect to support approximately the same number of workshops in
2003.  Large workshops can be funded up to $500,000 and small
workshops at approximately $50,000.

NRRC

ARDA focuses on revolutionary not evolutionary advances in information
technology for intelligence community grand challenge problems.  It
aims to achieve well-defined goals with measurable results based on
sound scientific methodology. The NRRC is an essential element of
ARDA’s Resource Enhancement Program.  The NRRC focuses on the
reinforcement of ARDA thrusts by targeting scientific results that
have a positive impact on Intelligence Community (IC) problems,
engaging regional experts from commercial, academic, government and
non-profit organizations, infusing technology into government
workforce, and transfering technology to and from industry.  The NRRC
is sponsored by ARDA, a US Government entity which sponsors and
promotes research of import to the IC which includes but is not
limited to the CIA, DIA, NSA, NIMA and NRO.

The MITRE Corporation

As specified in workshop proposals, MITRE will provide facilities,
technical assistance, as well as contractual assistance to the
workshop participants.  Video teleconferencing facilities are also
available in MITRE facilities.

Schedule

The schedule for the NRRC 2003 Workshop Series is as follows. 

  October 7, 2002: 	Call for workshop proposals

  November 4, 2002:	Intent to submit a workshop submitted
                        to NRRC 
  November 12, 2002:	5 page workshop proposals due

  November 25, 2002:	Executive Committee (EC) elects
                        proposals for presentation to EC
  December 3-5, 2002:	Oral proposals presented (in person or
                        teleconference) to EC
  December 9th, 2002:	Notification of selected workshops

  January 13th, 2003:   Final proposals including final membership
                        and costing

  February, 2003:       First workshop pre-planning meetings (e.g.,
                        establishing data, computing, and facility
                        requirements) at the NRRC, Bedford, MA
                        June-July 2003: Workshops

NOTE: Submission forms, examples of previous workshop proposal
briefings, and other related submission materials will soon be made
available on the NRRC web site.  See: http://nrrc.mitre.org/ and
follow the "Workshops" link.


NRRC POCs:

Dr. Mark Maybury 	
Executive Director, NRRC		
The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730	
Email: maybury at mitre.org 		 
Tel: (781) 271-7230		

Ms. Penny Chase
Program Manager, NRRC
The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730
Email: pc at mitre.org
Tel: (781) 271-2113

Dr. David Day
Deputy Program Manager, NRRC
The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730
Email: day at mitre.org
Tel: (781) 271-2854
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