Appel: Modular Programming (Eurolan Workshop)

[Philippe Blache]

From: Constantin Orasan <in6093 at wlv.ac.uk>

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                                CALL FOR PAPERS
Workshop on "Modular Programming applied to Natural Language Processing"
            Held as part of EUROLAN'01 Summer School
                        July 30 - August 11
                            Iasi, Romania


The call for papers and comprehensive information can be found on line
at http://www.wlv.ac.uk/sles/compling/news/workshop.html


The effectiveness of modular programming in designing software has long
been acknowledged by the computer science community. However, the
computational linguistics community preferred to develop components in
isolation, without integrating existing modules into proposed systems.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, integration of different
modules is not a trivial task, requiring a lot of time. Usually the
major problem is the loss of information caused when the output of one
module has to be converted to the input of another. Most research
projects do not have the time or resources to concentrate on a real
modular architecture, using trade offs (such as manually created inputs)
instead. Secondly, most of the work in the research community is
directed towards proposing and demonstrating new hypotheses, and not
building robust and fully automatic applications. In many cases
preprocessing steps, which produce the input data for the tested method,
are considered trivial and accurate, and as a result replaced with hand
produced data. Therefore, when a researcher needs a certain module for a
method, s/he prefers to produce the output of that program manually,
either because
s/he is not aware of an existing implementation which performs the
required task, or because the work involved in setting it up is greater
than that involved in manually producing the output (usually because the
implementation was developed and tested on a different platform).

However, this situation has started to change rapidly. More and more
researchers have appreciated the complexity of NLP tasks and the need to
use modular programming. A quick look at the systems presented at the
latest MUC indicated that they are complex systems which reuse previous
research. Systems
like GATE have been designed in order to help with the integration of
different modules in a system. In addition, the research community is
increasingly requiring the development of fully automatic applications.

This workshop will provide a forum for discussion between researchers
involved in the development of automatic NLP systems and leading names
in the field. We would like to invite all researchers to submit their
original and unpublished work to the workshop. Topics of interest
include but are not limited to:
- modular architectures for NLP
- black/glass box evaluation measures
- research on the influence of substitution and alternate combinations
of modules on overall system performance
- reusability
- integration of resources (including conversion formats between
modules)
- platforms for developing modular applications
- repositories
Demos of the presented systems are encouraged.

2. Submission Requirements

Papers should describe original work in progress or completed work. The
main purpose of presenting at the Workshop is to exchange ideas with
other researchers and to receive helpful feedback for further
development of the work.

The submissions should not exceed 10 pages with 12pt Times New Roman
font including figures, references, and appendices. Authors will be sent
details of the final format for camera-ready versions together with
notification of
acceptance. Each paper will be reviewed by at least two members of the
program committee.

Electronic submissions are encouraged but hard copies are acceptable.
For electronic submission, papers should be in Postscript, PDF,
Microsoft Word, or RTF format. For other formats, please contact the
organising committee. All papers should be sent to
workshop-eurolan at wlv.ac.uk

3. Contact Address

Constantin Orasan
HLSS
University of Wolverhampton
Stafford Street
Wolverhampton
WV1 1SB
UK
Email: C.Orasan at wlv.ac.uk (please use "EUROLAN WORKSHOP" in the subject
line)

4. Important Dates

Submission Deadline: 1st April 2001
Notification of Acceptance: 4th May 2001
Camera-ready Papers: 1st June 2001
Workshop: To be announced

5. Registration

People wanting to attend the workshop must be registered in the
Eurolan'01 School. Participation to the workshop is open to all
Eurolan'01 attendants. Copies of workshop proceedings will be made
available.

6. Organizing committee

Constantin Orasan - University of Wolverhampton
Richard Evans - University of Wolverhampton
Catalina Barbu  - University of Wolverhampton

7. Program committee

Dan Cristea - University of Iasi
Hamish Cunningham - University of Sheffield
Le An Ha - University of Wolverhampton
Nancy Ide - Vassar College, Poughkeepsie
Ramesh Krishnamurty - University of Wolverhampton
Daniel Marcu - University of Southern California
Oliver Mason - University of Birmingham
Ruslan Mitkov - University of Wolverhampton
Maximiliano Saiz Noeda - University of Alicante
Chris Paice - Lancaster University
Valentin Tablan - Universities of Iasi & Sheffield
Doina Tatar - Babes-Bolyai University
Dan Tufis - Romanian Academy

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