[Corpora-List] NAACL-HLT 2010 : Young Investigators Workshop on Computational Approaches to Languages of the Americas (1st CFP)

Fri Dec 18 23:18:35 UTC 2009

                    ***************************************
                        FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
                     ***************************************

                     Young Investigators Workshop
       on Computational Approaches to Languages of the Americas

          http://groups.google.com/group/naacl-2010-yi-workshop

               Submission Deadline : February 15, 2010
          Travel Award Application Deadline : February 15, 2010
                 Notification to Authors : March 1, 2010
                   Camera Ready Deadline : April 1, 2010

          Workshop Date June 5 or 6, 2010 in Los Angeles, California
                    immediately following NAACL-HLT 2010

Workshop description

Research in Computational Linguistics (CL) and related fields is carried
out in all of the Americas. However, interaction among investigators
from the different countries in this half of the world is rare. This is
evident when we look at the proceedings of the last conference of the
North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics
(NAACL 2009) where out of 13 countries represented in the proceedings
of the main conference the only two from the Americas are the USA and
Canada. Among contributions including international collaborations, the
majority are from European authors while a few were collaborative work
between researchers in Canada and the USA. In these proceedings, there
are no contributions from authors in Central or South America, or the
Caribbean. This demonstrates that the research communities in each of
these regions work in a somewhat isolated environment, organizing their
own satellite events on CL and related topics. Typically, events
organized in the USA will be primarily attended by researchers from
this country. In a similar way, events organized say in Mexico or
Brazil, will have a predominant attendance from people in these
countries. Having these regional events has clear advantages: it allows
to focus sessions around the specific interests of the local
communities, and at the same time travel expenses are cheaper. But it
also has the major drawback of discouraging the exchange of ideas that
drives the advancement of science and knowledge by keeping research
work from different parts of the Americas in separate worlds, unknown to
each other and the wider international research community.

The goal of the workshop is to increase awareness of the state of
the art research in all of the Americas by bringing together researchers
from across the Americas to discuss the work carried out at their home
institutions. The workshop program and activities, as well as this
opportunity to  showcase their research will allow the attendees
to explore the possibilities for international collaborations. In
addition, the workshop will also include an open discussion session for
proposing mechanisms that will promote a more interactive community in
the Americas.

The target audience are young investigators launching independent
careers that can take advantage of the opportunity to do some networking
with other people at the same stage in their careers. The format of the
workshop will allow the participants to showcase their research and have
meaningful discussions with people interested in the same topics. The
presentations will give attendees an overview  of the state of the art
in CL research carried on outside their own country.

Please note that young refers to the length of time actively working
and doing research in CL and not to chronological age. Examples of it
young investigators would include  (but are not limited to) advanced
Ph.D. students, post-docs, and junior faculty who are not yet tenured.
However, more senior investigators are also welcome to submit and
participate in the workshop, since both their research and their
experiences in their own country can help guide young investigators as
they move forward.

Workshop Topics

We are particularly interested in submissions from researchers and
groups working on languages used south of the Rio Bravo (e.g., Spanish,
Portuguese, Quechua, Nahuatl, etc.) We welcome three types of
submissions for this workshop. All three categories must specifically
identify meaningful opportunities for collaboration that will cross
linguistic or geographic boundaries in the Americas. These opportunities
should be expressed in terms of expertise or resources the authors can
provide to another project, or what expertise and resources would be of
assistance to meeting the goals of the authors' own project.

1) Research papers presenting recent results in any area of CL, where
the work shows specific and focused contributions to the state of the
art in languages of the Americas. In addition,  the author must
specifically describe how this work could be incorporated in other
projects and what benefits it might provide, and/or discuss what
expertise or resources the author does not currently have access to
that would allow this work to advance. This topic focuses on an
individual researcher and submissions are particularly encouraged from
young investigators.

2) Surveys of on--going research projects in CL and related areas
carried out by an individual or research group residing in the Americas,
where the authors clearly describe their plans for future work and
identify opportunities for collaboration as described above. These
papers are distinct from the research papers in that they will be
broader in scope and describe an entire project rather than a specific
contribution (as topic 1 does). The submission must also describe
collaborative opportunities as described above. This topic focuses on a
group as a whole and submissions from both more senior and young
investigators are welcome.

3) Opinion papers describing the research situation in a particular
country, paying particular attention to funding, typical career paths,
and research infrastructure. These papers should propose specific ideas
or mechanisms to strengthen ties and interactions among researchers in
the Americas to resolve whatever limitations may be noted by the
author. In addition, these papers should provide a brief sketch of the
CL community in that country that may include (but is not limited to)
the number of researchers and groups and their geographic distribution,
the number of students who study CL, and any significant initiatives
taken within that country to advance the state of CL. This topic
focuses on an entire country and submissions from more senior
investigators are especially encouraged.

Submission Information

Submissions in all categories must be in English and should not have
been published previously. All submissions are limited to 8 pages
(including references), and must use the NAACL-HLT 2010 style files,
available here :

http://naaclhlt2010.isi.edu/authors.html

Research paper submissions (topic 1) must be anonymous with no author
information provided, while survey papers (topic 2) and opinion papers
(topic 3) should include author information. Papers will be submitted
via START - more information about this will be provided shortly.

Submissions in all categories will be reviewed by at least two members
of the Program Committee. Research papers (topic 1) will be judged on
the technical merit of their contributions as well as the degree to
which the opportunities for collaboration are well thought--out and
feasible. Research papers that do not specifically discuss
opportunities for collaboration will not be accepted. Survey papers
(topic 2) will be judged on their clarity and the degree to
which they successfully describe the history and future plans of a given
project, paying particular attention to the degree to which
opportunities for collaboration are well  thought--out and feasible.
Survey papers that do not specifically discuss opportunities for
collaboration will not be accepted. Opinion papers (topic 3) will be
judged on how effectively they provide an overview of the current state
of CL research in that country. In addition, the feasibility of the
proposed mechanisms for improving ties and interactions both within the
given country and between others will receive significant weight.
Opinion papers that do not include specific proposals for improving
ties and interactions will not be accepted.

Travel Awards

Travel awards are available due to the generous support of the
Information and Intelligent Systems Directorate and the Office of
International Science and Engineering of the National Science
Foundation (USA). These awards are intended for young investigators with
limited travel funds, such as senior-level PhD students, post-docs and
junior faculty members, especially those in predominantly undergraduate
institutions.  The travel awards will be some combination of airfare,
accommodations, and workshop registration fees, depending on the
particular budget constraints of the participants and the workshop.

To be eligible for an award, you must be an author (or co-author) of an
accepted submission to the workshop. You should submit a short travel
award application (form to be provided) at the time you make your
submission. This should go directly to the Workshop Chairs, and should
include an estimate of your travel, hotel and registration expenses,
and indicate what other sources of funding you may have available.

Workshop Chairs

Thamar Solorio (primary contact)
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
1300 University Boulevard
Birmingham, Alabama 35294-1170
solorio at uab dot edu
http://www.cis.uab.edu/solorio

Ted Pedersen
Professor
Department of Computer Science
The University of Minnesota, Duluth
1114 Kirby Drive
Duluth, Minnesota 55812-3036
tpederse at d dot umn dot edu
http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse

Program Committee

Laura Alonso Alemani, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Argentina
John Atkinson, Universidad de Concepcion, Chile
Diego Burgos, Instituto Tecnologico Metropolitano, Colombia
Vitor Carvalho, Microsoft Bing, USA
Maria das Gracas Volpe Nunes, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil
Ana Feldman, Montclair State University, USA
Caroline Gasperin, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil
Alexander Gelbukh, CIC, IPN, Mexico
Carlos Gomez Gallo, Harvard, USA
Agustin Gravano, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Diana Inpken, University of Ottawa, Canada
Greg Kondrak, University of Alberta, Canada
Jorge Antonio Leoni de Leon, Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica
Aurelio Lopez Lopez, INAOE, Mexico
Lucia Helena Machado Rino, Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Brazil
Rada Mihalcea, University of North Texas, USA
Raymond Mooney, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Manuel Montes y Gomez, INAOE, Mexico
Thiago A. S. Pardo, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil
Renata Vieira, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Luis Villasenor-Pineda, INAOE, Mexico
Dina Wonsever, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay

Discussion Group

The most recent copy of the Call for Papers plus additional information
about the workshop will always be available here:

http://groups.google.com/group/naacl-2010-yi-workshop

--
Ted Pedersen
http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse

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