[Corpora-List] CoNLL 03 CFP (Organized at HLT-NAACL-02)

[Miles Osborne]

(apologies for any duplicates)

			   CALL FOR PAPERS

     CoNLL-2003: Seventh Conference on Natural Language Learning

	     Organized at HLT-NAACL-02, Edmonton, Canada

			 May 31 - June 1 2003

		   http://cnts.uia.ac.be/conll2003/


CoNLL is an international forum for discussion and presentation of
research on natural language learning. We invite submission of papers
about natural language learning topics, including, but not limited to:

     - Computational models of human language acquisition
     - Computational models of the origins and evolution of language
     - Machine learning methods applied to natural language processing
       tasks (speech processing, phonology, morphology, syntax,
       semantics, discourse processing, language engineering
       applications)
     - Symbolic learning methods (Rule Induction and Decision Tree
       Learning, Lazy Learning, Inductive Logic Programming, Analytical
       Learning, Transformation-based Error-driven Learning)
     - Biologically-inspired methods (Neural Networks, Evolutionary
       Computing)
     - Statistical methods (Bayesian Learning, HMM, maximum entropy,
       SNoW, Support Vector Machines)
     - Reinforcement Learning
     - Active learning, ensemble methods, meta-learning
     - Computational Learning Theory analysis of language learning
     - Empirical and theoretical comparisons of language learning methods
     - Models of induction and analogy in Linguistics

CoNLL is the yearly meeting organized by SIGNLL, the Association for
Computational Linguistics Special Interest Group on Natural Language
Learning. After previous CoNLL meetings were held in Madrid (1997),
Sydney (1998), Bergen (1999) Lisbon (2000), Toulouse (2001), and
Taipei (2002).

See http://www.aclweb.org/signll and
    http://ilk.uvt.nl/~signll/conll.html

for more information about SIGNLL and CoNLL.

Special Theme
-------------

As in previous years, in addition to submissions on the general topics
listed above, we encourage submissions on a special theme. This year's
special theme is:

       Semi-supervised / unsupervised learning and sample selection
       techniques for language learning (co-training, active learning,
       EM, etc).

Supervised Machine Learning methods suffer from a "data annotation
bottleneck" which is especially harmful for language learning tasks
where a lot of training data is needed (e.g. parsing). Sample
selection techniques, and combination of supervised learning with
semi-supervised and unsupervised techniques may provide a solution to
this problem.

Shared Task
-----------

This year's workshop will also accept submissions for a shared task:
machine learning approaches to named entity recognition. Special
attention will be given to the use of multiple sources of knowledge,
like training data, lists of examples and unannotated data.
Interested groups will be supplied with the same training and testing
material (in several languages), and will all use the same evaluation
criteria, thus allowing comparison between various learning methods.

More information on the shared task will be available at:

http://cnts.uia.ac.be/conll2003/ner/

Invited Speaker
---------------

TBA


Submissions
-----------

* Main Session Submissions

Submit a full paper of no more than 8 pages (Postscript, PDF or plain
text ASCII) by March 16, 2003 electronically to the address below.
Authors of accepted submissions will be invited to produce a final
paper to be published in the proceedings of the workshop, which will
be available at the workshop for participants, and distributed
afterwards by ACL. Final submissions must follow the HLT-NAACL style
(http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/conferences/hlt-naacl03/format.html).
We strongly recommend the use of these style files also in the
submission.

Submit main session papers to:

Walter Daelemans
daelem at uia.ua.ac.be
CNTS Language Technology Group, University of Antwerp,
Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerpen, Belgium.
Tel: +32 3 8202766; Fax: +32 3 8202662

* Shared Task Submissions

Submit a paper of maximum 4 pages describing the learning approach,
and your results on the test set by March 16, 2003 to the address below
(preferably by email). A special section of the proceedings will be
devoted to a comparison and analysis of the results and to a
description of the approaches used. Submit shared task submissions to:

Erik Tjong Kim Sang, erikt at uia.ua.ac.be or
Centrum Nederlandse Taal en Spraak
Linguistics, Department of Germanic languages and literature
UIA, University of Antwerp
Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium


Important Dates
---------------

     Deadline for Paper Submission: March 16, 2003
     Deadline for Shared Task Submission: March 16, 2003
     Notification: March 24, 2003
     Deadline camera-ready paper: April 10, 2003
     Conference: May 31-June 1 2003

Programme Committee
-------------------

Walter Daelemans (Belgium & The Netherlands), co-chair
Miles Osborne (UK), co-chair
Erik Tjong Kim Sang (Belgium), shared task chair
Dan Roth (USA)
Thorsten Brants (USA)
Claire Cardie (USA)
James Cussens (UK)
Diane Litman (USA)
Yuji Matsumoto (Japan)
Raymond Mooney (USA)
John Nerbonne (The Netherlands)
David Powers (Australia)
Adwait Ratnaparkhi (USA)
Antal van den Bosch (The Netherlands)
Rada Mihaelcea (USA)
Ted Pedersen (USA)