7.40, Calls: New Directions in Planning & Natural Language Generation

Wed Jan 10 05:07:38 UTC 1996

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-40. Tue Jan 9 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  273

Subject: 7.40, Calls: New Directions in Planning & Natural Language Generation

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu>
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>

Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>

Editor for this issue: aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu (Anthony M. Aristar)

---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Wed, 10 Jan 1996 12:52:06 +0900
From:  kris at is.aist-nara.ac.jp (Kristiina Jokinen)
Subject:  CFP: Gaps and Bridges - New Directions in Planning and Natural Langua
ge
	  Generation

---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Wed, 10 Jan 1996 12:52:06 +0900
From:  kris at is.aist-nara.ac.jp (Kristiina Jokinen)
Subject:  CFP: Gaps and Bridges - New Directions in Planning and Natural Langua
ge
	  Generation

                          CALL FOR PAPERS

                          ECAI-96 Workshop

     ----------------------------------------------------------
     ----------------------------------------------------------

                         GAPS AND BRIDGES:

     New Directions in Planning and Natural Language Generation

     ----------------------------------------------------------
     ----------------------------------------------------------

        12th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence

                          August 12 or 13, 1996
                          Budapest, Hungary

Recent research on autonomous cooperative systems has shown that linguistic
knowledge is not enough for successful communication: strategic planning, which
is prior to and independent of language, plays a key role in planning
communicative contributions. There has also been a focus shift in NLG from the
study of well-formedness conditions (grammars) to the exploration of
communicative adequacy of linguistic forms: speaking is viewed as an indirect
means for achieving communicative goals rather than an exercise to produce
grammatically correct output. Moreover, new ideas like rational agency (Cohen
and Levesque 1990), conflict resolution (Galliers 1989) and resource-bounded
agency (Bratman, Israel and Pollack 1988) have become central issues within thi
s
larger framework: they affect not only planning, but also the realisation of
utterances.

Despite a growing awareness of the importance of these issues, there is still
relatively little work showing ways of integrating them into a system. Yet, one
of the most important areas in AI research is the establishment of a link
between NLG-systems and intelligent planning systems.

This workshop aims at clarifying the role of rational and cooperative planning
in generation, contributing to the ultimate goal of building a computational
model that integrates these components into a unified whole. Furthermore, the
workshop provides an opportunity to examine theoretical models of planning
agents and their impact on practical aspects of NLG architecture.

Contributions dealing with the following topics are particularly welcome:

-       generation viewed as a rationally, cooperatively planned goal-
        oriented activity;

-       interactions between situational, motivational (speaker and
        addressee goals), cognitive and linguistic  constraints;

-       generation of discourse based on techniques developed in AI and
        computational linguistics;

-       the effect of the various constraints on the generation process
        as a whole (resource-bounded agency and planning constraints;
        open-world assumption; time and space constraints);

-       planning strategies: reactive vs. deliberate planning, anytime
        planning, resource-bounded planning;

-       quantitative methods based on corpus analysis (showing which
        linguistic or communicative acts are instrumental in a given
        setting), statistical and stochastic models; evaluation.

PARTICIPANTS

The workshop will be kept small, with a maximum of 40 participants. Preference
will be given to active participants selected on the basis of their submitted
papers. A small number of participants without a paper will also be considered;
such persons should submit a 1-2 page statement of interest and a list of
relevant publications. No-paper participants will be requested to give comments
on the accepted papers.

According to ECAI rules, all workshop attendees must register for the main
ECAI-96 conference. In addition, there is a separate workshop registration fee
of ECU 50.

More information about registration can be found at ECAI-96 Registration page
  http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/ecai96/Registration.html

WORKSHOP FORMAT

The workshop is intended to be a genuinely interactive event with constructive
development and exchange of ideas rather than a mini-conference. Participants
are asked to read some of the articles mentioned in the workshop description
before their arrival. Yet, rather than aiming at a consensus for a particular
theory or research direction, the participants are encouraged to present
thought-provoking ideas which allow for vivid and vigorous discussions.

Being aware of the lack of communication between theorists and engineers, the
workshop also aims at bridging this gap. Besides emphasizing the innovative
aspects of research and their potential for practically oriented work,
discussion of practical applications as testbeds for theory will be encouraged.
The workshop aims at building a common ground allowing a productive interaction
between these two groups.

The one-day workshop is structured around individual presentations, group
discussions and a panel discussion. The presentations should not exceed 20
minutes, in order to encourage the speakers to reach quickly the point they wan
t
to make. Every session is followed by an open, 30 minute group discussion. Thus
new and thought provoking ideas may serve as starting points for a discussion,
allowing each participant to contribute to its development from their own
perspective.

Demonstration of software could be organised as part of the main ECAI
conference.

SUBMISSIONS

Potential participants are invited to submit extended abstracts on the topics
outlined above. Submissions should be no longer than 5 pages, single spaced,
and be in line with the ECAI-style sheet, obtainable from
  http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/ecai96/download/ecai96.sty
  http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/ecai96/download/ecai96.bst

Electronic submissions should be sent to:
  kris at is.aist-nara.ac.jp

Alternatively, three hardcopies of the extended abstract can be mailed to
Kristiina Jokinen at the address below.

Accepted submissions will be published in the proceedings of the workshop
which will be distributed to each participant.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Significance:

  How important is the work reported? Does it attack an important and/or
  difficult problem? Does the approach have the potential for improving
  the state of the art? Does the work stimulate discussion on important
  issues, or an alternative point of view?

Originality:

  Has this or similar work been previously reported? Are the problems and
  approaches completely new? Is this a novel combination of familiar
  techniques? Does the paper point out differences with related research ?
  Does it introduce an idea that appears promising or might stimulate
  others to develop promising alternatives?

Quality:

  Is the paper technically sound? Does it carefully evaluate the strengths
  and limitations of its contributions? How are its claims backed up?

Clarity:

  Is the paper clearly written? Does it motivate the research? Does it
  specify the inputs, outputs and basic algorithms employed? Is the
  paper written in a manner that makes its content accessible to most
  AI researchers?

Relevance:

  Is the paper germane to the focused topic of the workshop? Would it be
  better served to be published/presented elsewhere?

IMPORTANT DEADLINES

March 15        Deadline for submission of extended abstracts (5 pages)

April 15        Notification of acceptance

May 20          Final paper for the working notes

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Kristiina Jokinen
Computational Linguistics Laboratory
Graduate School of Information Science
Nara Institute of Science and Technology
8916-5 Takayama, Ikoma, Nara
630-01 JAPAN
Email:  kris at is.aist-nara.ac.jp
Tel:    81-7437-2-5242
Fax:    81-7437-2-5249

Mark Maybury
Artificial Intelligence Center
MITRE Corporation, MS K308
202 Burlington Road
Bedford, MA  01730-1420
Email:  maybury at linus.mitre.org
Tel:    (617) 271-7230
Fax:    (617) 271-2352

Michael Zock
LIMSI - CNRS
B.P. 133, 91403 Orsay, FRANCE
Email:  zock at limsi.fr
Tel:    331- 69 85 80 05
Fax:    331- 69 85 80 88

FURTHER INFORMATION

Should you have any questions or need additional information on the workshop,
please contact Kristiina Jokinen by e-mail (kris at is.aist-nara.ac.jp) or at the
address above. The call for papers can be obtained from Gaps and Bridges home
page at
  http://cactus.aist-nara.ac.jp/staff/kris/ecaiws.html

Further information on the ECAI-96 conference, including updated information
on hotel and travel information, can be obtained fom the ECAI home page at
  http://www.is.cs.utwente.nl:8080/mars/ECAI96.html

Information on the ECAI Workshops is listed at ECAI workshop page
  http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/ecai96/accepted-workshops.html

Updated information on this workshop and the final papers will be made availabl
e
via the Gaps and Bridges home page, reachable also via the ECAI workshop page.

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