Title ACL 2004 Newsletter No.2 - 31 March 2004 Text ACL 2004 NEWSLETTER NO. 2 (March 31, 2004) The Association for Computational Linguistics invites the submission of papers for its 42nd Annual Meeting hosted jointly with the European Chapter of the ACL. Papers are invited on substantial, original, and unpublished research on all aspects of computational linguistics. ACL 2004 will be held at the new Barcelona Forum Convention Centre, which is schedulded to be completed in December 2003, officially opening on April, 2004. The ACL meeting will be part of the programme of the Forum of Cultures that will take place in Barcelona from April to Semptember 2004. ::Main Dates Tutorials: July 21, 2004 Main Conference: July 22-24, 2004 Post-conference Workshops: July 25-26, 2004 ::Contents This newsletter includes: 1.Call for exhibitors 2.Important news on Registration 3.Visa information 4.Tutorials 5.Workshops 6.Social events 7.Main conference news 8.Student workshop news 9.Associated conferences 10.Others More details can be found at the website of the ACL2004 Conference ::Call for exhibitors Chair: Deborah Dahl (Conversational Technologies, USA) Local Chair: Ant?nia Mart? (University of Barcelona, Spain) If you have a commercial product or service of interest to the natural language processing community, the ACL 2004 Exhibits Program is the perfect way to introduce it to your potential customers. ACL conference attendees will include an estimated over 700 academic, government, and industrial researchers and developers, working on all areas of natural language processing technology ranging from fundamental research to specific end-user applications. The ACL is the only conference to be held in Europe in 2004 that will attract this many of your targeted customers. The ACL 2004 exhibits space is ideally located adjacent to the paper presentation rooms and break areas. High-speed Internet connectivity and telephone connections, as well as wide range of audio-visual equipment are available. A wide range of products will be featured in the exhibits program, including: - Natural language processing technology including systems for machine translation, natural language understanding, dialog processing and natural language generation - Natural language processing components such as lexicons and parsers - Tools and software used in natural language processing research, such as tools for corpora analysis and NL processing analysis - Tools and software used in developing natural language applications, for example, dialog design tools and tools for customizing NLP and speech recognition systems - Tools and software for teaching natural language processing - Corpora - Speech recognition and understanding systems - Technical books and publications Note that the exhibits program is targeted primarily for commercial products. If you're interested in demonstrating non-commercial or research software, you'll want to contact the demonstration program. Costs and Facilites The basic price for exhibits is $500 per day for a 9m2 space. An exhibit can run for one, two, or all three days, depending on you needs. You can also include a short description of the exhibit in the Exhibits/Sponsors brochure, which will be distributed to all conference registrants. Exhibit space is also included Platinum ($10,000) and Gold ($5,000) conference sponsorship. See the sponsorship page for details on sponsorship. A reduced price of $250 per day is available for publishers. The price includes a 2m2 skirted table and chairs if requested, as well as electrical power. Pipe and drape partitions, telephone lines, audio-visual equipment, and Internet connections are also available upon request. Equipment can be sent to the CCIB: Barcelona International Convention Center no earlier than 3-4 days before the meeting, must be removed immediately after the meeting, and it must be conveniently packed and clearly labelled. The exhibits area will be open the same hours as the technical meeting. Security will be provided for your equipment during the hours when the building is open. How to Exhibit If your organization is interested in a commercial exhibit, please send the following information by May 1 by email to the Exhibits Chair, Deborah Dahl: - Name of organization: - Title of exhibit: - Type of exhibit (publisher, NL software, tools, etc.) - Are you a Platinum or Gold conference sponsor? - Describe your needs for tables, chairs, pipe and drape, audiovisual equipment, Internet connectivity and telephone service - Description of exhibit (1-2 paragraphs) to be included in the exhibits pamphlet - Organizational contact for exhibits: (name, address, email, telephone and fax) - Exhibit days requested (and hours if the exhibit won't be open all the time) Contact Deborah Dahl or Ma. Ant?nia Mart? if you have any other questions about the exhibits program. Payment questions should be directed to Priscilla Rasmussen: Priscilla Rasmussen ACL 3 Landmark Center East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 USA email: acl@aclweb.org Phone: +1-570-476-8006 Fax: +1-570-476-0860 Deadlines: Exhibits registration and payment deadline: by 1st May 2004 top ::Important news on Registration The venue for the conference will be within the large congress and exhibition centre of the Forum of Cultures, entry to which will be restricted to conference attendees and registered visitors to the other activities in the centre. The advantage to ACL'04 attendees will be free access to the many other daily activities of the site - science and art exhibitions, muscial events, theatre, etc. However, it does mean that there will be an added level to our registration process: in addition to our standard registration badge from ACL, we will each be issued a security pass for the site by the Forum officials. To get this, ACL attendees will be required to provide on registration the number of their official identity document - i.e., passport or national identity card; this information will be included in the registration form. On arrival at the conference, we will first have to visit the security office at the conference site, and present this document for inspection before being issued a security pass. So don't forget to bring it with you on arrival to the conference. The Forum officials have liaised with the ACL?04 organisers to make this process of issuing security passes as quick and efficient as possible. However, it will mean that registration may take slightly longer than usual, so don?t forget to factor this in when you arrive for your first conference event ? whether a tutorial, the welcome reception, or the first, invited, talk of the main session. Detailed information on registration and the issue of security passes will be available on the conference web site closer to the time. top ::Visa information Citizens of following countries, with an ordinary passport, valid for a minimum of 3 months, who wish to stay in Spain for tourist or business purposes for up to 90 days DO NOT need a visa: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Nicaragua, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, San Marino, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA, Vatican City, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Macao and countries of the European Union. Citizens from other countries must apply for a visa to enter Spain. Application requirements Applicants must fill in the visa application form in the corresponding Embassy or Consulate (which is given freely). The following information is required: A) IN ALL CASES 1. The application form filled and signed. 2. A photograph (passport size). 3. Passport, valid for a minimum of 90 days after the ending date of the visa. 4. Documentation corresponding to the socio-economical, personal or familiar characteristics of the applicant, which guarantees that he will return to his country of origin. 5. Documentation which proves the reason of the journey and the conditions of the stay. 6. Adequate maintenance means during the stay in Spain. 7. Accommodation disposal. 8. Medical coverage for the medical expenses in the stay and repatriation. B) Any ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION that the Consulate considers appropriate depending on the aim of the stay. This information can be found in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs top ::Tutorials Tutorials chair: Inderjeet Mani (Georgetown University, USA) There will be four 3-hour tutorials, to be given by leading experts in language and speech processing. The tutorials will take place on July 21. The titles, times, and presenters are: Morning: :: Beyond Syntax: Predicates, Arguments, Valency Frames and Linguistic Annotation Collin Baker, International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, USA. Jan Hajic, Charles University, Prague University, Czech Republic. Martha Palmer, University of Pennsylvania, USA. Manfred Pinkal, Saarland University, Germany. :: Adaptive Learning: From supervised to Active Learning of statistical models for Natural Language and Speech Processing Giuseppe Riccardi, Dilek Hakkani-Tue and Gokhan Tur, AT&T Labs Research, USA. Afternoon: :: Kernel Methods in Natural Language Processing Jean-Michel Renders, Xerox Research Center Europe, France. :: Building linguistically motivated speech recognisers with Regulus Manny Rayner, International Computer Science Institute, USA, and University of Geneva, Switzerland. Beth Ann Hockey, NASA Arnes Research Center, USA. Pierrette Bouillon, University of Geneva, Switzerland. top ::Workshops Workshop Committee: Srinivas Banbalore, (AT&T Labs-Research, USA) Christopher Manning, (Stanford University, USA) Helen Meng, (CUHK, Hong Kong) Marcello Federico, (IRST, Italy) :: Current Themes in Computational Phonology and Morphology Organizing Committee: Richard Wicentowski, Swarthmore College John Goldsmith, University of Chicago Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 16, 2004 Notification of acceptance: May 7, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 24, 2004 Workshop date: July 26, 2004 :: Discourse Annotation Organizing Committee: Bonnie Webber, University of Edinburgh Donna Byron, Ohio State University Important dates: Paper submission deadline: March 22, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 24, 2004 Workshop date: July 25, 2004 :: Incremental Parsing: Bringing Engineering and Cognition Together Organizing Committee: Stephen Clark, University of Edinburgh Matthew Crocker, Saarland University Frank Keller, University of Edinburgh Mark Steedman, University of Edinburgh Important dates: Paper submission deadline: March 22, 2004 Notification of acceptance: May 3, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 24, 2004 Workshop date: July 25, 2004 :: Multiword Expressions: Integrating Processing Organizing Committee: Takaaki Tanaka, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Japan Aline Villavicencio, University of Cambridge, UK Francis Bond, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Japan Anna Korhonen, University of Cambridge, UK Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 1, 2004 Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 26, 2004 :: Question Answering in Restricted Domains Organizing Committee: Diego Moll?, Macquarie University, Australia Jos? Luis Vicedo, Alicante University, Spain Important dates: Paper submission deadline: March 15, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 15, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 25 or 26, 2004 :: RDF/RDFS and OWL in Language Technology: 4th Workshop on NLP and XML (NLPXML-2004) Organizing Committee: Nancy Ide, Vasar College, USA Laurent Romary, Loria/CNRS, France Graham Wilcock, University of Helsinki, Finland Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 1, 2004 Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 25, 2004 :: Reference Resolution and its Applications Organizing Committee: Sanda Harabagiu, University of Texas at Dallas David Farwell, New Mexico State University Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 5, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 25, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 25-26, 2004 :: SENSEVAL-3 Third International Workshop on the Evaluation of Systems for the Semantic Analysis of Text Organizing Committee: Phil Edmonds, Sharp Laboratories of Europe Rada Mihalcea, University of North Texas Important dates: Registration: February 2004 Evaluations: March-April 2004 Paper submission deadline: April 20 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 18, 2004 Workshop date: July 25-26, 2004 :: Tackling the challenges of terascale human language problems Organizing Committee: Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh Robert Malouf, San Diego State University Srinivas Bangalore, AT&T Labs-Research Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 18, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 26, 2004 :: 2nd Workshop on Text Meaning and Interpretation Organizing Committee: Graeme Hirst, University of Toronto Sergei Nirenburg, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 1, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 16, 2004 Workshop date: July 25-26, 2004 :: Text Summarization Branches Out Organizing Committee: Eduard Hovy, Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, USA Marie-Francine Moens (co-chair), Interdisciplinary Centre for Law & Information Technology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Dragomir Radev, School of Information and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, USA Stan Szpakowicz (co-chair), School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, Canada Important dates: Paper submission deadline: March 25, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 25, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 25-26, 2004 :: Third SIGHAN Workshop on Chinese Language Processing Organizing Committee: Oliver Streiter, Eurac, Italy Qin Lu, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 1, 2004 Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2004 Camera ready papers due: May 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 25-26, 2004 top ::Social events Opening Reception The reception will take place in the conference building-the Barcelona International Convention Center (CCIB) inside the Forum 2004 premises-on July 21 at 7:00pm, just after the afternoon tutorials. You will not be able to reach the CCIB unless you obtain the Forum security pass beforehand, a procedure which, as indicated above (see section on Registration), may take a few minutes. So allow yourself some time to complete the Forum security procedure before the reception; or simply register earlier during the day and enjoy the ACL tutorials or the Forum events. After the reception you will also be able to wander all over the Forum area and enjoy the events scheduled for that evening. Banquet The banquet will take place on July 23, the second day of the main conference in the medieval ?Sal? de Contractacions? (Trading Hall) of the ?Llotja? (the Exchange). The stylized Trading Hall was built in 1392 and is one of the most important ensembles of civil Gothic architecture around the Mediterranean. From the 14th century and until recently, most significant commercial institutions have carried out their activities in the Exchange. In the 18th century a Neo-classical building was built around the medieval Exchange and the Trading Hall is carefully preserved inside. The ?Llotja? is today the corporate headquarters of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. top ::Main conference news After the deadline dust had settled, we were left with 348 complete submissions that were submitted in time. The papers have been distributed to the eleven area chairs who distributed them in turn to more than 200 reviewers. We were pleased with a good distribution of papers over topical and geographical areas. The review process has finished now and final decisions about the programe were made during a PC meeting in Brighton late April. The PC accepted 88 papers, an acceptance rate of 25%. Thanks to the excellent work of the reviewers, we are looking forward to an exciting and varied technical program. Decisions about invited speakers will be made soon. top ::Student Workshop news A record 43 papers has been received by the chairs of the Student Research Workshop. The papers have been sent out for review by teams of faculty and student reviewers, and we expect to accept roughly 25% of submissions. Accepted papers will be presented at the Student Research Workshop, which will take place on a single day, during the main conference, and in the same building. Commentary on each paper will be presented by a faculty respondent. Thanks to the generosity of the National Science Foundation and the Walker fund, student presenters will be funded for travel, food and lodging, and a best paper prize will be awarded during the session. The Student Workshop has also received a grant from the US National Science Foundation to fund this year's workshop. top ::Associated conferences :: EMNLP 2004, 2004 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing Organizing Committee: Dekang Lin, University of Alberta Dekai Wu, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Important dates: Paper submission deadline: April 28 2004 Notification of acceptance: May 6, 2004 Camera ready papers due: June 15, 2004 Workshop date: July 25-26, 2004 top ::Others ACL LaTeX style files or Microsoft Word Style files for this year's conference