IRLIST Digest ISSN 1064-6965 January 4, 1999 Volume XVI, Number 2 Issue 438 ****************************************************************** II. JOBS 1. UNC: SILS, Graduate Assistantships 2. Rutgers U.: Graduate and Post-Doctoral Fellowships, Cognitive Science III. NOTICES A. Publications 1. Software Release: Timbl 2.0 2. International Summer School on the Digital Library 3. Press Release: Tracers Information Specialists B. Meetings 1. ISAS '99 2. 3rd International Cognitive Technology Conference 3. IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems 4. CIA'99 5. ESS'99 6. I2A SIG Meeting 7. ICML99 8. Workshop on Prognostic Methods During AIMDM'99 9. Workshop on Machine Learning and Intelligent Agents (ACAI-99) 10. Computers, Freedom and Privacy: The Global Internet IV. PROJECTS C. Awards, Fellowships, Grants, & Scholarships 1. TIIAP Press Announcement: Grants in IT D. Research 1. Ergo's 1st Annual Parsing Contest ****************************************************************** II. JOBS II.1. Fr: Diane Sonnenwald Re: UNC: SILS, Graduate Assistantships University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Studies Graduate Assistantship Opportunities The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to announce the availability of competitive graduate assistantships for doctoral studies. Fellowship recipients will participate in multi-disciplinary research teams during the semester and summer, including: * the distributed nanoManipulator project (http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/nano). Specifically, the distributed nanoManipulator evaluation team, conducting research evaluating the impact of distributed virtual reality collaborative tools on scientific collaboration; and * the Collaborative Electronic Learning Laboratory (CELL) project conducting action research on the design, development, and evaluation of collaboration technologies to support collaborative teaching and learning across distances. These projects are lead by SILS faculty member, Diane H. Sonnenwald (http://www.ils.unc.edu/sonnenwald), in collaboration with faculty and students from computer science, biology, physics, and chemistry. The assistantships include part-time employment during the academic year (20 hours per week) and full-time summer employment. Assistantship recipients will receive $17,000 - $18,000 per 12 months and student health insurance for the fellowship recipient. Two assistantships also provide in-state tuition remission. Assistantships begin mid-August 1999, and may be renewable. For further information on the doctoral program and application materials, please see the SILS web site at http://www.ils.unc.edu. Application deadline is March 31, 1999. Dr. Diane H. Sonnenwald Assistant Professor CB #3360 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360 USA Phone: +1 919 962 8065 Fax +1 919 962 8071 E-mail: dhs@ils.unc.edu ********** II.2. Fr: Nicholas J. Belkin Re: Rutgers U.: Graduate and Post-Doctoral Fellowships, Cognitive Science Graduate and Post-Doctoral Fellowships In Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ The Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS) announces the availability of pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, funded through an NIH National Research Service Award program recently awarded to RuCCS. The program is designed to afford unique opportunities for interdisciplinary research training in the Center's strengths of language and vision at both the graduate and post-doctoral level. GRADUATE fellowships are available to students enrolled or who are enrolling in a Ph.D. program in one of the departments who pursue an interdisciplinary program of studies leading to the center's Certificate in Cognitive Science. The program provides a structured way for students to carry out research in Cognitive Science with guidance from relevant faculty advisors and share those results with an interdisciplinary student community and the general university research community. One of its requirements is to complete and present an independent research project that will provide breadth of experience outside of the methodologies typically used in the student's home discipline. For more information on the Rutgers NRSA graduate program visit: http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/NRSA.html and links located there. (we also supply an address and phone below). In brief, students interested in pursuing interdisciplinary doctoral studies should both apply for admission to the Ph.D. program in one of the participating departments (primarily Psychology, Linguistics, Computer Science and Philosophy, though also applicable in selected programs in the School of Library and Information Science, Biomedical Engineering and other related degree-granting departments) and, by January 15, 1999, declare their interest in Cognitive Science to RuCCS. POST-DOCTORAL fellowships provide opportunities for recent, and occasionally somewhat more senior Ph.D.s, to obtain training in an allied field of Cognitive Science. Preference will be given to applicants whose background fits with the areas of specialization of the Center and who wish to work with any member of the current faculty affiliated with the Center who would act as their sponsor for the term of the fellowship. Moreover, in keeping with the interdisciplinary focus, fellowships will be awarded preferentially for work in a field different from the one in which the candidate obtained his or her graduate degree. For more information on the Rutgers NRSA post-doctoral program visit: http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/NRSA-postdoc.html and links located there. RuCCS is concerned with coordinating research activities in Cognitive Science throughout Rutgers University. It hosts special seminars and laboratory research; it sponsors colloquium series in language, in vision and in Cognitive Science; and it provides the facilities to enable researchers to interact fully and freely with each other as well as with other external researchers and industrial laboratories. For more information, contact: Director, NRSA Training Program, Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, Psych Bldg Addition, Busch Campus Rutgers University - New Brunswick 152 Frelinghuysen Road Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020 (732)-445-0635 FAX: (732)-445-6715 http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ ****************************************************************** III. NOTICES III.A.1. Fr: Jakub.Zavrel@kub.nl Re: Software Release: Timbl 2.0 Software release: TiMBL 2.0 Tilburg Memory Based Learner ILK Research Group, http://ilk.kub.nl/ The ILK (Induction of Linguistic Knowledge) Research Group at Tilburg University, The Netherlands, announces the release of a new version of TiMBL, Tilburg Memory Based Learner (version 2.0). TiMBL is a machine learning program implementing a family of Memory-Based Learning techniques. TiMBL stores a representation of the training set explicitly in memory (hence `Memory Based'), and classifies new cases by extrapolating from the most similar stored cases. TiMBL features the following (optional) metrics and speed-up optimalizations that enhance the underlying k-nearest neighbor classifier engine: - Information Gain weighting for dealing with features of differing importance (the IB1-IG learning algorithm). - Stanfill & Waltz's / Cost & Salzberg's (Modified) Value Difference metric for making graded guesses of the match between two different symbolic values. - Conversion of the flat instance memory into a decision tree, and inverted indexing of the instance memory, both yielding faster classification. - Further compression and pruning of the decision tree, guided by feature information gain differences, for an even larger speed-up (the IGTREE learning algorithm). The current version is a complete rewrite of the software, and offers a number of new features: - Support for numeric features. - The TRIBL algorithm, a hybrid between decision tree and nearest neighbor search. - An API to access the functionality of TiMBL from your own C++ programs. - Increased ability to monitor the process of extrapolation from nearest neighbors. - Many bug-fixes and small improvements. TiMBL accepts commandline arguments by which these metrics and optimalizations can be selected and combined. TiMBL can read the C4.5 and WEKA's ARFF data file formats as well as column files and compact (fixed-width delimiter-less) data. Download You are invited to download the TiMBL package for educational or non-commercial research purposes. When downloading the package you are asked to register, and express your agreement with the license terms. TiMBL is *not* shareware or public domain software. If you have registered for version 1.0, please be so kind to re-register for the current version. The TiMBL software package can be downloaded from http://ilk.kub.nl/software.html or by following the `Software' link under the ILK home page at http://ilk.kub.nl/ . The TiMBL package contains the following: - Source code (C++) with a Makefile. - A reference guide containing descriptions of the incorporated algorithms, detailed descriptions of the commandline options, and a brief hands-on tuturial. - Some example datasets. - The text of the licence agreement. - A postscript version of the paper that describes IGTREE. The package should be easy to install on most UNIX systems. Background Memory-based learning (MBL) has proven to be quite successful in a large number of tasks in Natural Language Processing (NLP) -- MBL of NLP tasks (text-to-speech, part-of-speech tagging, chunking, light parsing) is the main theme of research of the ILK group. At one point it was decided to build a well-coded and generic tool that would combine the group's algorithms, favorite optimization tricks, and interface desiderata. The current incarnation of this is now version 2.0 of TiMBL. We think TiMBL can make a useful tool for NLP research, and, for that matter, for any other domain in machine learning. For information on the ILK Research Group, visit our site at http://ilk.kub.nl/ On this site you can find links to (postscript versions of) publications relating to the algorithms incorporated in TiMBL and on their application to NLP tasks. The reference guide ("TiMBL: Tilburg Memory-Based Learner, version 2.0, Reference Guide.", Walter Daelemans, Jakub Zavrel, Ko van der Sloot, and Antal van den Bosch. ILK Technical Report 99-01) can be downloaded separately and directly from http://ilk.kub.nl/~ilk/papers/ilk9901.ps.gz For comments and bugreports relating to TiMBL, please send mail to Timbl@kub.nl ********** III.A.2. Fr: Jola Prinsen Re: International Summer School on the Digital Library Press report Fourth International Summer School on the Digital Library The fourth International Summer School on the Digital Library will be held at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, from Sunday 15 up to and including Friday 27 August 1999. The course is updated every year on the basis of the most recent developments. It provides an excellent refreshment opportunity for librarians (working at middle and higher management levels in university, college, research and business libraries) as well as for teachers at library schools. The course is also of value for publishers, subscription agents and other intermediaries. Some 30 lectures, case studies and demonstrations will be presented by international experts. In 1998, lecturers included: - William Y. Arms (Corporation for National Research Initiatives, USA) - Lynne J. Brindley (University of Leeds, UK) - Ronald J. Dietz (Elsevier Science, USA) - Hans Geleijnse (Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, NL) - Emanuella Giavarra (Chambers of Mark Watson-Gandy, UK) - John A. Hearty (OCLC, USA) - Richard Luce (Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA) - Prof. John Mackenzie Owen (Ticer B.V., NL) - Eugenie Prime (Hewlett Packard Company, USA) - Bas Savenije (Universiteit Utrecht, NL) - Herbert Van de Sompel (Universiteit van Gent, BE) In 1998, themes included: - the changing information chain (publishers, subscription agents, scientists) - the future role of libraries strategic planning - organisational, management and financial issues - electronic documents (formats, copyright, journals, research papers, licensing) - information technology (networks, CD-ROMs, integrated desktops) - Internet and WWW - users in an electronic environment - preparing your library staff Group discussions and workshops will enable you to apply the new information in your own situation. The first three Summer Schools were a great success. They were attended by 150 participants from 23 different countries. Ninety per cent of the participants indicated that they would recommend the Summer School to colleagues in the field. The Summer School is organized by Ticer (Tilburg Innovation Centre for Electronic Resources) in cooperation with Tilburg University. You can put in a request for a brochure on the Summer School at Ticer B.V., P.O. Box 4191, 5004 JD Tilburg, the Netherlands, telephone +31-13-4668310, telefax +31-13-4668383, electronic mail Ticer@kub.nl. The text of this brochure can also be found on the home page of Ticer: http://www.ticer.nl. Reports on and an evaluation of last year's summer school can be found at: http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/summer98/litlist.htm. ********** III.A.3. Fr: Terry Kilburn Re: Press Release: Tracers Information Specialists For Immediate Release: January 8, 1999 Contact: Terry Kilburn Director of Special Operations 1-888-753-8848 GREENFIELD, MA. Tracers Information Specialists, Inc., a Massachusetts-based public records research firm, has announced the development of a unique, World Wide Web-based delivery system for public records and skip tracing tools. Tracers, a long-time provider of these records to investigation, legal, and law enforcement professionals, developed the system in response to growing industry demand for simple, immediate-response delivery methods. Tracers has always been the one-stop source for public records like UCC filings, corporate and limited partnership records, bankruptcies, tax liens, judgments, real property records and criminal and civil records, explains Tracers Director of Special Operations Terry Kilburn. The web system simply allows our customers to directly access the same data sources that we've always accessed to get their information immediately, and extremely easily through the World Wide Web, using any web browsing software. The development of this system was really a team effort, General Manger Dale Kilburn added. We worked with the people who actually use the data the investigators, the law firms, the collection agencies, the law enforcement agencies. They told us what they needed and how they wanted it returned to them, and we designed the system they told us they wanted. The system's specifications, according to Kilburn, included ease of access which was achieved by making the system completely accessible through the World Wide Web, and a simple billing system which was achieved by implementing a flat-fee based schedule that does not add charges for detail records or for time spent online. Additionally, the system allows for searching with very broad parameters. If all an investigator knows about a search subject is his name, his approximate age, and that he lives somewhere in Virginia, says Kilburn, he can run a name and state search. The system will return every person in Virginia with that name. Then, the investigator can view or print the details on each name returned and try to match each one with the limited information he has. It's an extremely flexible search and since the detail records are free, it's also an extremely cost effective search. Although the Web Site (www.tracersinfo.com) can be accessed by anyone, actual searches may only be performed by research professionals who have completed an application process which includes a background check to ensure that the information is used appropriately in accordance with the principals of the Individual Reference Service Group (IRSG). For more information about the system, contact Nancy Brown, Director of Marketing at 1-888-753-8848 or write to Tracers Information Specialists, Inc., 39 Federal Street, Greenfield, MA 01301. E-mail: info@tracersinfo.com. ********** III.B.1. Fr: Les Pourciau at UMem Re: ISAS '99 CALL FOR PAPERS 5th International Conference on INFORMATION SYSTEMS, ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS: ISAS'99 Orlando, Florida (USA) July 30 to August 3, 1999 www.iiis.org/isas/ Honorary President: Bela Banathy Honorary Program Chair: Nagib Callaos Program Chair: William Lesso General Chair: Michel Torres MAJOR THEMES Information Systems Development Information Systems Management Management Information Systems Virtual Engineering Mobile/ Wireless Computing Communication Systems and Networks Emergent Computation Image, Acoustic, Speech, and Signal Processing Computing Techniques Human Information Systems Education and Information Systems ACADEMIC AND SCIENTIFIC CO-SPONSORS WOSC: World Organization on Systemics and Cybernetics (France) The Centre for Systems Studies (UK) Systems Society of Poland Society Applied Systems Research (Canada) Slovenian Artificial Intelligence Society Simon Bolivar University (Venezuela) Italian Society of Systemics ISSS: International Society for the Systems Sciences (USA) ISI: The International Systems Institute (USA) IFSR: International Federation of Systems Research (Austria/USA) IEEE/Latinamerica Cybernetics and Human Knowing: A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics and Cybersemiotics (Denmark) CUST, Engineer Science Institute of the Blaise Pascal University (France) ORGANIZED BY THE IIIS: The International Institute of Informatics and Systemics. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Integrated by 111 prestigious scholars/researchers from 40 countries (Details at the web page http://www.iiis.org/isas/ or by e-mail request). TYPES OF SUBMISSION ACCEPTED 1. Papers (Research, Review, Position or Report) 2. Panel Presentation, Workshop and/or Round Table Proposals 3. New Topics Proposal (which should include a minimum of 5 papers) 4. Focus Symposia (which should include a minimum of 15 papers) 5. Tutorial Proposal (which should include an outline of it and a brief biography, and clearly indicate whether the tutorial is half- day or full-day duration and whether it is technically or managerially oriented). DEADLINES January 18, 1999 Submission of extended abstracts (500-1500 words) or paper drafts (2000-5000 words). March 1, 1999 Acceptance notifications. April 26, 1999 Submission of camera/ready papers: hard copies and Electronic versions. PUBLICATIONS Participants who wish to present a paper are requested to submit three copies of the extended abstract or paper draft before January 18, 1999. Submitted papers will be refereed. Accepted papers, which should not exceed six single- spaced typed pages, will be published by means of paper and electronic proceedings. Selected papers will be included by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, in the CD-ROM Extended Encyclopedia of Systemics, Informatics and Cybernetics, whose development is presently in progress. The full paper should be sent via internet and by means of diskette and photoready hard copies of artwork, not later than April 26, 1999. EXTENDED ABSTRACTS AND PAPER DRAFTS SUBMISSION FORM Extended abstracts or paper drafts should be send according the following format: 1. Conference title: ISAS=B499. 2. Paper title. 3. Extended abstract of 500 to 1500 words and paper drafts of 2000 to 5000 words, in English. 4. Author or co-authors with names, addresses, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address. 5. Major theme of the paper, according the major themes given above. Extended abstracts or paper drafts should be sent via Internet, preferentially through the conference web page, or by means of the e-mail to torres@iiis.org Exceptionally, extended abstracts or paper drafts might be sent to the following postal mail address or faxed to the following numbers: IIIS, ISAS. 6220 S. Orange Blossom Trail, Suite 173. Orlando, FL 32809, USA Fax Numbers: 1-(407) 888-2263 (Orlando, USA) or (Caracas,Venezuela) +58(2) 9621519 ACTIVE PARTICIPATION Organizing/Chairing Session on new, or existing topics. Those interested in participating in the: Program Committee. Organizing Committee, The organization of a Focus Symposium, Please contact the General Chair Michel Torres. E-mail: mtorr@sagi.ucv.edu.ve CONFERENCE CONTACTS: Michel Torres (General Chair): USA Phone: 1 (407) 888-2225 USA Fax Numbers: 1-(407) 888-2263 Venezuela Tel/Fax (office): +58 (2) 9621519. E-mail: torres@iiis.org (Conference); mtorr@sagi.ucv.edu.ve (Academic) Conference secretariat: Mary Gonzalez E-mail: nacallao@telcel.net.ve Other contacts are given in the Conference Web Page. INVITED SESSIONS To organize an invited session for ISAS=B499, the following steps are suggested: 1) Identify a special topic is in the scope of ISAS'99. You may contact the general chair, the program chair or other program committee members, on the suitability of the topic, if it is not included in the Conference Program. 2) Contact researchers or practitioners in your field to see if they can contribute a paper to your proposed session and attend ISAS'99. 3) Collect the extended abstracts or the paper drafts from each prospective invitee. 4) Write a summary (1-2 page) on the session's significance and coherence of the invited/selected papers. 5) Mail the invited session proposal including a summary and copy of all abstracts before, April 26, 1999 to Michel Torres, the General Chair. CONFERENCE FEES The conference fees will be $300 before April 26, 1999 and $350 after April 26, 1999. This fee includes: Welcoming Reception & coffee breaks; A CD-ROM version of the proceedings. One volume of the hard copy version of the Conference Proceedings. (Other volumes will be available with a 30% of discount for participants). BEST PAPERS WILL BE SELECTED FOR AWARDS AND RECOMMENDED FOR JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS. MULTIPLE AUTHORS BOOKS WILL BE PUBLISHED BY IIIS, BASED ON BEST-INVITED SESSIONS, BEST FOCUS SYMPOSIA OR BEST MINI-CONFERENCES. More details can be found at the Conference web page (http://www.iiis.org/isas/) or a detailed Call for Papers could be requested by e-mail (nacallao@ telcel.net.ve). Answers to specific questions can be requested also by e-mail. ********** III.B.2. Fr: Kevin Cox Re: 3rd International Cognitive Technology Conference CALL FOR PAPERS THIRD INTERNATIONAL COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE, CT'99 NETWORKED MINDS Aug. 11-14, 1999 San Francisco/Silicon Valley, USA Conference site: http://mindlab.msu.edu/CT99/ Host: Media Interface & Network Design Lab, Michigan State University www.mindlab.msu.edu Supported by: Cognitive Technology Society The Practical Memory Institute Warwick University, England, host of CT'2001 The University of Aizu, host of CT'97 City University of Hong Kong, host of CT'95 DEADLINES Abstracts: 15, February, 1999 Acceptance: 25, March, 1999 Full paper: 1, June, 1999 INVITED SPEAKERS * David Good, Cambridge University, UK: "TBA" * Jean Paul Jacob, IBM, USA & Brasil: " Informatics: the future is not what it used to be! " * Ted Nelson, Project Xanadu, Keio University, "TBA" * Gavriel Salomon, Haifa University, Israel : "Is there light at the end of the website?" * Juergen Streeck, The University of Texas, USA: "Non-Canonical Cognitive Technologies" COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVE Cognitive Technology (CT) is the study of the integration between the human mind, the human body, and the material world. Its main concern is how human cognition develops along with the tools that people create to enhance it. In particular, the emphasis is on why, how and to what extent technologically constructed tools/aids: · bear on dynamic changes in human perception, · affect natural human communication, and · are used to promote or control human adaptation. At the heart of these investigations is the need to understand how the use of tools impacts the processes by which an individual forms an integrated ecological continuum between the brain, body and environment, rather than how such use allows the individual to function more effectively within a group of interacting, but separate, individual agents. The key design issue in CT is: 'How can we define, predict, and recognize the threshold at which technological enhancement of human ability and/or performance becomes a constraint on that very ability and/or performance?' More detailed information about CT and its research perspective can be obtained from www.edutools.cityu.edu.hk/ctsoc/ STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The upcoming Third International Conference (San Francisco, 1999) will take cognitive technology into the heart of Silicon Valley, and ask how emerging telecommunication and collaborative technologies affect human cognition from the point of view of gathering rather than dispersing the different approaches. On the eve of a century in which telecommunication systems will increasingly connect embodied minds in a technologically woven web of representations, we inquire about the optimal role of technology in human communication, collaborative computing, and distributed cognition. The concept of 'networked minds' neatly subsumes all these questions. Further information about the conference and its organization and publication procedures can be obtained from the CT'99 website: www.mindlab.msu.edu/CT99/index.html. ********** III.B.3. Fr: ICECS 99 Re: IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems Sixth ICECS: The IEEE CAS Society Region-8 Conference THE SIXTH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ELECTRONICS, CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS (ICECS '99) September 5 - 8, 1999 Pafos, CYPRUS http://www.vlsi.ee.upatras.gr/~icecs99 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Deadline for Submission of Draft Papers: JANUARY 15, 1999 The 6th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems will be held in Pafos, Cyprus, September 5-8, 1999. It is IEEE CAS Society Region-8 conference and hosted by the University of Patras, Greece. The conference will include regular sessions on the topics listed below; special sessions on emerging electronics, circuits and systems topics; plenary sessions on selected advanced aspects of the theory, design, and applications of electronics, circuits and systems and short courses given by experts in the specific state-of the art subject areas. Prospective authors are invited to submit their papers reporting original work as tutorial overviews in all areas of electronics, circuits and systems. AUTHORS' SCHEDULE Deadline for Submission of Draft Papers: January 15, 1999 Notification of Acceptance: March 30, 1999 Deadline for Submission of Camera-ready Paper: April 30, 1999 Topics for regular sessions include, but are not limited to, the following: 1.Analog Circuits and Signal Processing 1.1 Analog circuits and filters 1.2 Switched capacitor/current techniques 1.3 Analog and mixed signal processing 1.4 Data conversion and S-D modulation 2.General Circuits and Systems 2.1 Linear and nonlinear circuits and systems 2.2 Chaos and applications 2.3 Distributed circuits and systems 2.4 Power electronics and systems 3.Digital Signal Processing 3.1 Digital filters and filter banks 3.2 Wavelets and multirate signal processing 3.3 Adaptive signal processing 3.4 Multidimensional systems 3.5 Fast computations for signal processing 4.VLSI 4.1 Analog and digital ICS 4.2 Low power design 4.3 VLSI physical design 4.4 Testing: analog, digital and mixed 4.5 High level synthesis and hardware/software codesign 4.6 Logic synthesis and formal verification 4.7 Fault tolerance systems 4.8 Modeling, simulation and CAD tools 4.9 Microsystems and Applications 5.Multimedia and Communication 5.1 Speech processing and coding 5.2 Image processing and coding 5.3 Video and multimedia technology 5.4 Signal processing and communications 5.5 Computer communications 6.Computational Methods and Optimization 6.1 Numerical methods and circuits simulation 6.2 Linear and nonlinear optimization 6.3 Graph theory and combinatorial optimization 7.Neural Systems 7.1 Neural networks 7.2 Cellular neural networks 7.3 Fuzzy logic and circuits 8.Control Systems 8.1 Industrial automation 8.2 Robotics 8.3 Control systems and application 9.Industrial Applications 9.1 Sensors 9.2 Robotics 9.3 Space Systems Design 9.4 Micromechanics 9.5 Others 10.Electronic Education Prospective authors should submit 5 copies of their draft paper by postal mail to the Conference Secretariat: ICECS'99 Secretariat Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept. University of Patras Patras 26500 Greece Tel: +30 61 997283 Fax: +30 61 994798 Submissions should include: 1) A cover sheet containing: (i) Title of proposed paper, authors' names and affiliations; (ii) Postal address, phone and FAX numbers, and e-mail address of the contact author; (iii) Paper category numbers (from the above list) that best describe the paper; (iv) Choice of presentation (lecture or poster); and (v) Name of the presenter author. 2) The complete draft of the paper: (i) Paper title, authors; names, affiliations, and addresses; and (ii) Paper category numbers (from the above list). The draft paper should not exceed 12 pages (double spaced A4 or equivalent, fontsize 12). The international review panel will give high preference to papers that excluding references, figures and tables, do not exceed 3000 words to clearly present the work, methods, results, originality, significance, superiority and applications of the techniques discussed. The submitted manuscript should closely reflect the final paper as it will appear in the Proceedings, which will be maximum 4 pages, double column format. Proposal for Special Sessions, Plenary Sessions, and half or full-day Short Courses may be submitted to the respective chair by January 30, 1999. Please contact them directly for further information. Check the symposium web site for up to date information: http://www.vlsi.ee.upatras.gr/~icecs99 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Chair Tech. Program Chair Dr. Odysseas Koufopavlou Dr. Thanos Stouraitis University of Patras University of Patras koufopav@ee.upatras.gr thanos@ee.upatras.gr Plenary Sessions Special Sessions Dr. Costas Goutis Dr. Dimitris Soudris University of Patras University of Thrace goutis@ee.upatras.gr dsoudris@demokritos.cc.duth.gr Tutorials Publications Dr. Spyros Nikolaidis Dr. Evaggelos Dermatas University of Thessaloniki University of Patras snikolaid@physics.auth.gr dermatas@george.wcl2.ee.upatras.gr Publicity Local Arrangement Dr. Efstathios Kyriakis-Bitzaros Leonidas Koufopavlou NCSR Demokritos Cyprus College mpitz@imel.demokritos.gr lkoufopa@sting.cycollege.ac.cy ********** III.B.4. Fr: Gerhard Weiss Re: CIA'99 CALL FOR PAPERS: Third International Workshop CIA-99 on COOPERATIVE INFORMATION AGENTS July 31 - August 2, 1999 Uppsala (Sweden) CIA-99 Homepage: http://www.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/~klusch/cia99.html The CIA-99 workshop is co-sponsored by the * ESPRIT Network of Excellence for Agent-Based Computing (AgentLink) * Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany. * Daimler-Benz AG, Germany. * George Mason University, USA. * Active On-line Systems Ltd., UK. and supported by the * Special Interest Group on Distributed Artificial Intelligence of the German Computer Society (GI). Invited Speakers The CIA-99 features invited talks from leading experts in intelligent information agents technology: Mike P. Papazoglou (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) Toru Ishida (University of Kyoto, Japan) Michael Wellman (University of Michigan, USA) Pat Langley (Daimler-Benz R&T at Palo Alto, USA) Walt Truszkowski (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA) Amit Sheth (Georgia University, USA) Erol Gelenbe (Duke University, USA) Alexander Brodsky & Samuel Varas (George Mason University, USA) Michael Lewis (University of Pittsburgh, USA) CIA-99 Proceedings The proceedings will be published as a volume in the series Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) from Springer Publisher. The proceedings of the CIA-97 and CIA-98 workshops appeared as LNAI Vol. 1202 and Vol. 1435, respectively. CIA-99 Topics & Deadlines Modern information environments mainly consist of large, distributed and heterogenous resources that are connected in the Internet or corporate Intranets. These environments are open and can dynamically change over time. To cope with such information environments means, in particular, to deal with uncertain, incomplete and vague information. In general, the effective handling of uncertainty is critical in designing, understanding, and evaluating autonomous, computational systems tasked with making intelligent decisions. It is also crucial to the ultimate success and broad application of intelligent information agents on the Internet as well as in any industrial context. Moreover, any advanced human-agent interaction in such environments, e.g., via synthetic characters, believable avatars or 3-D multimedia-based representation of the so-called virtual information space available for individual users in the Internet, remains to be a challenging research topic. In addition, up to now there are not many systems of (collaborating) mobile information agents available. The CIA-99 workshop mainly focus on the following three special themes: (1) Information agents in UNCERTAIN information environments. (2) Systems and applications of MOBILE information agents. (3) Advanced Human-Agent INTERACTION, in particular maintenance and visualization of dynamically changing VIRTUAL INFORMATION SPACES. We encourage especially submission of papers that report on research and development within these themes. Besides that, like in previous CIA workshops, all topics in the research area of intelligent and collaborating information agents are covered by the CIA-99 workshop. TOPICS o Advanced Database and Knowledge-Base Technology Application of Techniques for Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in open, distributed and dynamically changing environments. Management of uncertain and incomplete knowledge for information gathering in the Internet or large corporate Intranets. o Human-Agent Interaction Synthetic Agents, believable avatars, and 3-D multimedia-based representation of individual user information spaces in the Internet. Advanced interfaces for conversations and dialogues among information agents and users. o Adaptive Information Agents Performance and measurement of adaptation of single agent or multiagent systems in uncertain information environments. Computation and Action under uncertainty and limited resources. Methods for automated uncertain reasoning for collaborating information agents. o Mobility and Issues of Security in the Internet Architectures, environments and languages for mobile and secure information agents and servers. Collaborative information agents on wearable computers, hand-held and/or satellite-based control devices. o Rational Information Agents and Electronic Commerce Agent-based marketplaces in the Internet. Electronic Commerce with incomplete and uncertain information. Economic models of cooperative problem solving among rational information agents in open information environments. Standards for privacy of communication, security, and jurisdiction for agent-mediated commerce. o Systems and Applications Implemented systems and applications of multiple collaborating information agents on the Internet. IMPORTANT DATES Deadline for Paper Submission: March 5, 1999 Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: April 18, 1999 Deadline for camera-ready version: May 10, 1999 CIA-99 Location The workshop will be held in the city of Uppsala in Sweden. Uppsala is located 70 km north from Stockholm with the international airport Arlanda (ARN) halfway in between. Please check the CIA-99 homepage for actual info on the workshop site in Uppsala. There will be a shuttle connection from the workshop site in Uppsala to the conference center in Stockholm on August 2, 1999 to enable you to attend the IJCAI-99 conference in time. The IJCAI-99 main conference starts on August 2 in the evening, the CIA-99 workshop ends on August 2 around noon. Paper Submission The length of submitted paper must be no more than 12 pages (10 pt) including all figures, tables, and bibliography. All papers must be written in English. Submissions will be reviewed for quality, correctness, originality and relevance. Papers accepted or under review by other conferences, workshops or journals are not acceptable. Papers not conforming to the above requirements may be rejected without review. Each submission includes the full paper (title, authors, abstract, text), and in addition a separate title page with the title, a 300-400 word abstract, a list of keywords, authors (names, addresses, email addresses, telephone and fax numbers). For publication in the Springer LNCS series, please prepare a camera-ready version of your contribution together with the corresponding Springer style files ''llncs'' (for LaTeX) to be obtained by ftp trick.ntp.springer.de (/pub/tex/latex/llncs). For those not using the Springer LNCS style files: The paper must be formatted using 10 point Times. (If Times is not available, please use one of the similar typefaces widely used in phototypesetting.) Printing area should be 12.2 x 19.3 cm, and the interline distance should be arranged in such a way that some 42 to 45 lines occur on a full-text page. You can submit your contribution by ** MAIL or ELECTRONIC MAIL **. It is strongly recommended to submit your paper by electronic mail! If receipt of your submission is not confirmed within one week, you are kindly asked to resend it. Submission: - by MAIL to Onn Shehory Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute 5000 Forbes Av. Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890, USA Fax: +1-412-2685569 Phone: +1-412-268-3740 Please send three single-sided hard-copies of your paper. OR - by EMAIL to onn@cs.cmu.edu Please send the postscript file of your contribution, and check if this file is printable on any ordinary postscript printer! In case of a long file, please use compression (zip, gzip, or compress) before sending it by email, and give information on the type of used compression. CIA-99 Organization General Chair: Matthias Klusch (Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany) Co-Chairs: Onn Shehory (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) Gerhard Weiss (Technical University of Munich, Germany) CIA-99 Program Committee: Sonia Bergamaschi (University of Modena, Italy) Wolfgang Benn (Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany) Hans-Dieter Burkhard (Humbold University Berlin, Germany) Brahim Chaib-draa (Laval University, Canada) Yves Demazeau (Leibniz/IMAG/CNRS, France) Frank Dignum (University of Eindhoven, Netherlands) Innes Ferguson (Active Online Systems London, UK) Klaus Fischer (DFKI German Research Lab on AI, Germany) Christian Freksa (University of Hamburg, Germany) Erol Gelenbe (Duke University, USA) Carl Hewitt (MIT AI Lab, USA) Mike Huhns (University of South Carolina, USA) Toru Ishida (University of Kyoto, Japan) Leonid A. Kalinichenko (Russian Academia of Sciences, Russia) Bart Kosko (University of Southern California, USA) Sarit Kraus (University of Maryland, USA) H.-J. Mueller (Deutsche Telekom AG, R&D Darmstadt, Germany) Joerg P. Mueller (John Wiley & Sons Corp. London, UK) San Murugesan (University of Western Sydney, Australia) Pablo Noriega (Institute for AI Research, Spain) Moira C. Norrie (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Aris Ouksel (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Mike P. Papazoglou (Tilburg University, Netherlands) Amit Sheth (University of Georgia, USA) Carles Sierra (CSIC AI Research Lab, Catalonia, Spain) Elizabeth Sonenberg (University of Melbourne, Australia) Kurt Sundermeyer (Daimler-Benz AG, R&T Berlin, Germany) Katia Sycara (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) Peter Thomas (UWE Bristol, UK) Robert Tolksdorf (Technical University of Berlin, Germany) Jan Treur (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) Christian Tschudin (University of Uppsala, Sweden) Mike Wooldridge (QMW College London, UK) ********** III.B.5. Fr: European Network in Language and Speech Re: ESS'99 *** Now open for registration! *** 7TH ELSNET EUROPEAN SUMMER SCHOOL ON LANGUAGE AND SPEECH COMMUNICATION MULTIMODALITY IN LANGUAGE AND SPEECH SYSTEMS (MiLaSS) Stockholm, Sweden, 12-23 July 1999 The program for the summer school is now available at http://www.speech.kth.se/milass/ and pre-registration is now open. The participation is limited to about 60 and will be handled on a first-come-first-served basis. Please register as soon as possible. ********** III.B.6. Fr: Matthias Klusch Re: I2A SIG Meeting CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Second Meeting of the AgentLink Special Interest Group on INTELLIGENT INFORMATION AGENTS April 21 & 22, 1999 London (UK) SIG Meeting Homepage: http://www.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/~klusch/SIGM2.html The main aim of this special interest group (SIG) is to promote collaborative projects and cross fertilisation of ideas between academic nodes with similar interests in the research area of INTELLIGENT INFORMATION AGENTS (I2A). This shall be done, e.g., by putting groups with related interests in touch with one-another, providing and disseminating information about work of national and international groups and projects in the I2A area, supporting workshops and conferences of interest. For more details about the I2A-SIG, please, see the SIG's home page in the Web, bookmark it and check back often for up-to-date informations: http://www.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/~klusch/i2a-SIG.html This SIG meeting is *not* an academic workshop. Recent and ongoing activities in european R&D of intelligent information agents will be presented and discussed at the meeting. Especially, SIG working groups for advanced research and focused collaborative efforts in the I2A domain shall be set up. PARTICIPATION If you like to attend the meeting please SEND a STATEMENT OF INTEREST to arrive not later than JANUARY 28, 1999, including (1) your name, affiliation and full contact address (2) list of recent and ongoing collaborations and participation in national and european research programs or projects of your group/institute in R&D of intelligent information agents and/or available prototypes of (systems of) information agents for demonstration at the meeting. (3) a short (update of the) report about your group (in plain text, pdf or postscript) You may check the following URL for reports on european R&D in intelligent information agents carried out by entities in the SIG: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~klusch/sig/reports.html by email (to klusch@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de) or mail (see address below). The number of attendees of this meeting is limited to 40 persons. AgentLink SIG meetings are **by invitation only**, i.e., all participants have to confirm their attendance of the meeting, and have to be confirmed by the meeting chair. You may find more information on the I2A SIG's activities at: http://www.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/~klusch/i2aActiv.html DATE & LOCATION The meeting will be held at APRIL 21 & 22, 1999, and will be co-located with the PAAM-99 conference in LONDON, UK. More detailed info will be available soon. The I2A SIG meeting is co-located with meetings of other SIGs of AgentLink. On April 23rd will be a plenary meeting of the AgentLink network, which everyone attending the SIG meeting is invited to attend. TRAVEL FUNDING AgentLink (AL) will fund a *maximum* of one person from each AL member node to attend *each* SIG meeting, provided that these people are *actively participating* (e.g. by presenting something). AL will allow up to 2 people from each AL node to attend each SIG meeting (i.e., if 2 people attend a single SIG meeting, then at most one will be funded.) Note that travel support will *only* be available to AgentLink members. Please indicate your need to be funded not later than January 28, 1999 by email (to klusch@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de) or mail (see address below). You will be notified on acceptance or rejection of your request for travel support by email on February 10, 1999. About AgentLink I2A SIG is part of AgentLink: Europe's ESPRIT funded Network of Excellence for agent-based computing. For further information about AgentLink and its activities (including how to join), see http://www.AgentLink.org/. Contact For all inquiries concerning the SIG meeting please contact: Matthias Klusch Technical University of Chemnitz Strasse der Nationen 62 09111 Chemnitz, Germany. email: klusch@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de phone: +49-371-531-1511 fax: +49-371-531-1530 ********** III.B.7. Fr: ICML-99 (16th Intl Conf on Machine Learning) Re: ICML99 Call for Papers THE SIXTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MACHINE LEARNING June 27-30, 1999 Bled, Slovenia Workshop proposals due *** January 10, 1999 ***. Tutorial proposals due *** January 10, 1999 ***. Title pages due *** January 28, 1999 ***. Papers due *** February 1, 1999 ***. http://www-ai.ijs.si/SasoDzeroski/ICML99/cfp.html Submissions are expected that describe empirical, theoretical, and cognitive-modeling research in all areas of machine learning. Submissions that present algorithms for novel learning tasks, interdisciplinary research involving machine learning, or innovative applications of machine learning techniques to challenging, real-world problems are especially encouraged. For application papers, novelty and lessons for the machine learning community are of particular interest. Authors must send four (4) hardcopies and an electronic version (PostScript) of each submission, as well as a copy of the title page via email. The mailing address for hardcopies is: Ivan Bratko & Saso Dzeroski / ICML-99 Institut Jozef Stefan Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Electronic versions and title pages should be emailed to icml99@ijs.si On-line version of full CFP: http://www-ai.ijs.si/SasoDzeroski/ICML99/cfp.html ********** III.B.8. Fr: Peter Lucas Re: Workshop on Prognostic Methods During AIMDM'99 AIMDM'99 -- Call for Papers for the workshop ** Prognostic Models in Medicine ** Artificial Intelligence and Decision Analytic Approaches during the Joint European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Medical Decision Making (AIMDM'99) in Aalborg, Denmark, 20th - 24th June 1999 (WWW version of this CFP: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~lucas/ipm-aimdm99.html) (WWW version of of AIMDM http://www.miba.auc.dk/AIMDM99/) Important dates * Submission deadline of structured abstracts: 1 March 1999 * Notification of acceptance: 15 April 1999 * Conference: 20th - 24th June 1999 * Workshop: Sunday, 20th June 1999 Prognostic models are increasingly used in medicine to predict the natural course of disease, or the expected outcome after treatment. Prognosis forms an integral part of systems for treatment selection and treatment planning. In evaluating quality of care, prognostic models are used for predicting outcome, such as mortality, which is compared with the actual measured outcome. Furthermore, prognostic models may play an important role in guiding diagnostic problem solving, e.g. by only requesting information concerning tests, of which the outcome affects knowledge of the prognosis. In recent years several methods and techniques from the fields of artificial intelligence, decision theory and statistics have been introduced into models of the medical management of patients (diagnosis, treatment, follow-up); in some of these models, assessment of the expected prognosis constitutes an integral part. Typically, recent prognostic methods rely on explicit (patho) physiological models, which may be combined with traditional models of life expectancy. Examples of such domain models are causal disease models, and physiological models of regulatory mechanisms in the human body. Such model-based approaches have the potential to facilitate the development of actual systems, because the medical domain models can be (partially) obtained from the medical literature. Various methods have been suggested for the representations of such domain models ranging from quantitative and probabilistic approaches to symbolic and qualitative ones. Semantic concepts such as time, e.g. for modelling the progressive changes of regulatory mechanisms, have formed an important and challenging modelling issue. Moreover, automatic learning techniques of such models have been proposed. When model construction is hard, less explicit domain models have been studied such as the use of case-based and neural network representations and their combination with more explicit domain models. In medical decision analysis, where the theories of probability and utility are combined, various representations and techniques are suggested such as decision trees, regression models, and representations in which advantage is taken from the Markov assumption (such as in Markov decision problems). This workshop aims at bringing together various theoretical and practical approaches to computational prognosis that comprise the state of the art in this field. This workshop is a follow up on the initiative started with the successful invited session on "Intelligent Prognostic Methods in Medical Diagnosis and Treatment Planning" in 1998 during the conference "Computational Engineering in Systems Applications 1998 (cesa'98) (http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~lucas/ipm-cesa98.html) which has resulted in a special issue on prognosis of the journal Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Papers are sought that describe medical prognosis applications using methods and techniques from artificial intelligence, decision theory, and statistics as well as papers proposing theoretical foundations of such methods. The workshop will also include one or more invited talks (details will appear in due time on the corresponding WWW-page of this workshop and the AIMDM'99 pages). Topics of interest Papers are sought on topics including, but not limited to: * Modelling and Reasoning: o the specification of prognostic models, possibly as part of diagnostic or therapy-planning applications o representation and reasoning about (multiple) model types such as empirical, anatomical and (patho)physiological ones o representation of and reasoning with time o qualitative representation and reasoning o decision modelling and analysis o (dynamic) probabilistic networks o representation and interpretations of strategies and guidelines o health care quality assurance o technology assessment and health policy making o function-based representation and reasoning o case-based representation and reasoning * Knowledge Acquisition: o acquisition of the medical prognostic models o automated learning of domain or task models using machine learning and data-mining techniques * Formalisation: o use of logical, set-theoretical or probabilistic methods to formalise various aspects of prognosis and therapy planning * Medical Applications: o clinical context of actual prognostic models o role of prognostic models in diagnosis or treatment planning of a specific disease o evaluation of prognostic models Each submission will be refereed by at least two members of the programme committee. Accepted papers will appear in the working notes of the workshop "Prognostic Models in Medicine: Artificial Intelligence and Decision Analytic Approaches". Attempts are made to organise a special issue of a suitable international journal based on the best papers. Instructions to authors Structured abstracts (up to 4 pages) are to be addressed to the first co-chair and should be written in English with a short abstract and a list of keywords. Electronic submissions by e-mail are encouraged (either postscript files or plain text). Alternatively, 3 paper copies may be submitted. The accepted abstracts will appear in the working notes. Note that authors planning to submit a structured abstract to the workshop may also submit their contributions (full paper or structured abstract) to the main conference of AIMDM'99. Registration fee Workshop only 750 DKK, for participants of AIMDM'99 500 DKK. The fee includes light refreshments and lunch. Workshop organization Co-Chairs: Ameen Abu-Hanna, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Peter Lucas, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Programme committee A. Abu-Hanna, The Netherlands S. Andreassen, Denmark P.M.M. Bossuyt, The Netherlands J. Fox, UK L.C. van der Gaag, The Netherlands J.D.F. Habbema, The Netherlands P. Haddawy, USA P. Hammond, UK E. Keravnou, Cyprus N. Lavrac, Slovenia J. van der Lei, The Netherlands P.J.F. Lucas, The Netherlands L. Ohno-Machado, USA M. Ramoni, UK M. Stefanelli, Italy Th. Wetter, Germany J. Wyatt, UK For more information about the workshop please contact one of the co-chairs. ********** III.B.9. Fr: Nick Zacharis Re: Workshop on Machine Learning and Intelligent Agents (ACAI-99) Call For Papers Workshop on Machine Learning and Intelligent Agents MACHINE LEARNING AND APPLICATIONS Advanced Course on Artificial Intelligence 1999 (ACAI'99) 5-16 July 1999, Chania, Greece (http://www.iit.demokritos.gr/skel/eetn/acai99) European Coordinating Committee on Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI) (http://www.eccai.org) & Hellenic Artificial Intelligence Society (EETN) (http://www.iit.demokritos.gr/skel/eetn) Workshop Background Machine Learning in single and multi-agent systems is a relatively new but significant and promising topic in Artificial Intelligence. Intelligent agents and agent-based computer systems represent an important, fundamentally new way of dealing with many important software application problems for which mainstream computer science techniques offer no obvious solution in recent dynamic and distributed nature of both data and applications. Topics to be covered during this workshop must be applications which concern the development of intelligent agent architectures which exhibit machine learning capabilities. These architectures must apply some learning strategy (learning from examples, from instruction, by discovery or analogy, etc.), some learning feedback method (supervised, reinforcement, unsupervised learning, etc.), and must be safely characterized as intelligent agent systems. Examples of topics: Single-agent or isolated Learning, multi-agent or interactive learning, Mutual learning, cooperative learning, collaborative learning, etc. Workshop Objectives The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners with an active interest in machine learning problems in environments inhabited by single intelligent agents and/or shared by multiple intelligent agents. Also, this workshop will provide a forum for discussing existing approaches and results and developing new ideas and perspectives. Organizing Committee Asst. Prof. T. Panayiotopoulos, University of Piraeus, Dept of Computer Science Email: themisp@unipi.gr Dr. N. Zacharis University of Piraeus, Dept of Computer Science E-mail: nzach@unipi.gr Submission Format Interested authors are requested to submit a paper, of no more than 10 pages, before 23 February 1999 Authors of accepted papers will be asked to provide a camera-ready version of their paper before 1 April 1999. Submission should be sent by e-mail to: Assist. Prof. Themis Panayiotopoulos Themis, University of Piraeus, Department of Computer Science Karaoli & Dimitriou 80 Piraeus - 18534, Greece Tel : (+301) 4222193 Fax : (+301) 4221520 E-mail : themisp@unipi.gr Organisational Issues Up to 10 accepted papers will be presented. The Workshop will take place during the afternoon sessions of ACAI-99, from 14:30 to 18:00. The exact date of the workshop will be finalized by the ACAI-99 organizing committee by the end of December 1998. Anyone registered for the main ACAI-99 event can also attend all the workshops. For the Workshop participants who will not be registered for the whole ACAI-99 there will be a fee of 100 ECUs. Proceedings will be published as a technical report in collaboration with the ACAI-99 organization committee. Important Dates 23 February, 1999 Deadline for paper submission 13 March, 1999 Notification of acceptance 1 April, 1999 Deadline for final camera ready papers 5-16 July, 1999 The exact date will be finalised soon ********** III.B.10. Fr: Les Pourciau at UMem Re: Computers, Freedom and Privacy: The Global Internet Computers, Freedom + Privacy 1999 THE GLOBAL INTERNET Omni Shoreham Hotel Washington, DC April 6-8, 1999 CALL FOR PROPOSALS The Program Committee of the conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (CFP99) is seeking proposals for the ninth annual CFP, which will be held in Washington DC between April 6th and April 8th 1999 at the Omni Sheraton Hotel. CFP is the leading Internet policy conference. For almost a decade, CFP has shaped the public debate on the future of privacy and freedom in the online world. The CFP audience is diverse with representatives from government, business, education, non-profits and the media. The themes are broad and forward-looking. CFP explores what will be, not what has been. It is the place where the future is mapped. The theme of the 1999 CFP conference is "The Global Internet." Proposals are welcomed on all aspects of privacy and freedom. The 1999 Program Committee is particularly interested in receiving proposals that deal with: ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, particularly those relating to globalization and governance. Of particular interest are issues of privacy, censorship, free speech and access. INTERNATIONAL ISSUES, especially the emerging issues of global privacy protection, encryption policy, international principles of human rights, regulation, legislation, and copyright. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, including the impact of payment systems, regulations, and technical standards on personal freedom and privacy. CULTURE AND LANGUAGE ON THE INTERNET, such as the significance of diversity, multilingualism, and cultural representation We strongly encourage proposals that involve leading experts, innovators, policymakers, and thinkers. The CFP99 Program Committee will finalize the selection of proposals by February 1, 1999, and all proposals must be received by January 15, 1999 Please follow the submission guidelines below. CFP99 PROPOSAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Proposals should be sent by email to proposals@cfp99.org before January 15, 1999. Proposals should include the following information: 1. Presentation Title 2. Presentation Type (Panel discussion, Luncheon meeting, Tutorial, "BOF" Session) 3. Proposed Length of Presentation (typical CFP sessions are 1 hour) 4. Name(s) of Speaker(s), plus brief background description for each speaker. 5. A one to two paragraph description of the Topic and Format, suitable for conference brochure and press release. 6. Complete contact information (email, phone, and mailing address). For presentations with more than one speaker, please provide contact information for all of the proposed speakers. For more information on the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conferences, please visit the conference Web page http://www.cfp99.org. If your have further questions about CFP, please feel free to contact a member of the Program Committee. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Marc Rotenberg, EPIC and ACM, Washington, DC, CFP99 Chair; Carlos Afonso, Alliance for Progressive Computing, Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL; Phil Agre, University of California, San Diego, California; Yaman Akdeniz, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, Leeds University, London, UNITED KINGDOM; Roger Clarke, Australian National University, Canberra, AUSTRALIA; Tracey Cohen, Centre For Applied Legal Studies, SOUTH AFRICA; Lorrie Faith Cranor, AT&T Labs-Research, Florham Park, New Jersey; Simon Davies, London School of Economics, London, UNITED KINGDOM; David Flaherty, Office of the Privacy and Information Commissioner, British Columbia, CANADA; Oscar Gandy, Annenburg School of Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Deborah Hurley, Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Joichi Ito, Digital Garage, Tokyo, JAPAN; Stephen Lau, Privacy Commission, HONG KONG; Paul McMasters, Freedom Forum, Rosslyn, Virginia; Peter Neumann, SRI, Menlo Park. California; Eli Noam, Columbia University, New York, New York; Jonathan Peizer, Open Society Institute, New York, New York; Bruce Schneier, Counterpane Systems, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Keith Sears, Creative Artists, Los Angeles, California; Barbara Simon, ACM, Palo Alto, California; Ross Stapleton-Gray, Electronic Embassy Program, Arlington, Virginia; Barry Steinhardt, American Civil Liberties Union, New York; Nadine Strossen, American Civil Liberties Union, New York, New York; Frank Tuerkheimer, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE Rob Kushen, Open Society Institute, New York, New York PREVIOUS CFP CHAIRS Jim Warren, Woodside, California (CFP91); Lance Hoffman, George Washington University, Washington, DC (CFP92); Bruce Koball, Berkeley, California (CFP93); George Trubow, John Marshall School of Law, Chicago, Illinois (CFP94); Carey Heckman, Stanford Law School, Stanford, California (CFP95); Hal Abelson, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts (CFP96); Kent Walker, Netscape Communication, Mountain View, California (CFP97); Mark Lemley, University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas (CFP98) MORE INFORMATION proposals@cfp99.org info@cfp99.org http://www.cfp99.org/ ****************************************************************** IV. PROJECTS IV.C.1. Fr: Joan K Lippincott Re: TIIAP Press Announcement: Grants in IT COMMERCE ANNOUNCES $17 MILLION IN GRANTS TO BE AWARDED IN 1999 TO HELP EXTEND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BENEFITS TO ALL AMERICANS Potential Applicants Encouraged to Participate in Regional Workshops WASHINGTON, DC. Approximately $17 million in grants will be awarded in 1999 by the Commerce Department to state, local, and tribal governments and non-profit entities as part of the Clinton Administration program to extend benefits of the Internet and other information technology to all Americans, especially those in inaccessible, rural and underserved urban communities, Commerce Secretary William M. Daley announced. "Across America, communities are recognizing that telecommunications and information technologies are key to creating economic opportunities. The Commerce Department's Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) is playing an important role, as it focuses on underserved communities, especially inner cities and rural areas," Secretary of Commerce Daley said. "The TIIAP program illustrates how technology equips American workers and entrepreneurs, students and teachers, doctors and patients, and parents and children with the skills and tools they need to meet the challenges of the Information Age. Projects funded through these grants have helped forge partnerships in local communities across the country and have ensured that information technologies live up to their potential and enhance community services, health care delivery, civic participation and much more." TIIAP is a highly competitive, merit-based grant program, providing seed money for innovative, practical projects that use advanced telecommunications and information technology. Administered by the Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the program, since its inception in 1994, has provided more than $118 million in matching grants. NTIA said it will launch the 1999 grant award competition and immediately begin accepting applications, which are due by March 11, 1999. Grant applicants are encouraged to develop projects of national significance which demonstrate how telecommunications and information technologies can be used to extend valuable services and opportunities to all Americans, especially the underserved. Projects funded so far include innovations in education and training, support for the creation of more responsive public institutions, enhancement of economic development in rural and disadvantaged areas, and increased public access to health care. In addition, the program is specifically encouraging projects developed by smaller, locally-based organizations that both serve and represent technologically underserved communities. Grant applicants are also encouraged to consider the use of advanced network technologies to enhance the quality and efficiency of services delivered through non-profit entities. Moreover, TIIAP is interested in cross-cutting projects involving partnerships among its five application areas*community networking; education, culture, and lifelong learning; health; public safety; and public services. "Our purpose in establishing some specific priorities this year is to bring new groups and people into the process," said Larry Irving, Assistant Secretary and Administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. "We hope that by encouraging organizations that haven't been as involved in the past and by encouraging new partnerships among different types of organizations, we'll get an even stronger pool of creative and compelling applications." NTIA will hold a series of regional Technical Assistance Workshops to discuss the TIIAP funding priorities, application requirements, and lessons learned from previous TIIAP grantees. This is a key opportunity for interested parties to understand the TIIAP goals and process and meet representatives of other organizations interested in the TIIAP program. The Technical Assistance Workshops will be held on January 21, in Portland, Oregon; January 26, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; January 29, in Memphis, Tennessee; February 3, in Boston, Massachusetts; and February 11, in Chicago, Illinois. Assistant Secretary Irving will hold a special briefing for press, associations and interested parties in Washington, D.C. on January 19 at the Department of Commerce, Room 4830, at 2 P.M. Information about the program's regulations and procedures can be found in the Notice of Availability of Funds, published in the Federal Register on January 4, 1999. For more information about TIIAP and the Technical Assistance Workshops, call (202) 482-2048, or e-mail to tiiap@ntia.doc.gov, or via the Internet at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/. TIIAP is administered by the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). NTIA serves as the principal adviser to the President, Vice President and Secretary of Commerce on domestic and international communications and information issues and represents the Executive Branch before the Congress, other Federal agencies, foreign governments and international organizations. ********** IV.D.1. Fr: Philip A. Bralich Re: Ergo's 1st Annual Parsing Contest Ergo Linguistic Technologies would like to announce its first annual parsing contest based on a fixed set of sentences and a fixed set of tasks to be performed on that set of sentences. The area of NLP to be explored is that of increased syntactic analysis to provide: 1) improvements in navigation and control technology through more complex grammar, 2) improvements in the implementation of question/answer, statement/response dialogs with computers and computer characters, and 3) improvements in web and database searching using natural anguage queries. The contest will be based on a comparison of results for parses of a fixed set of sentences (included at end of this message) and various tasks that can be performed as a result of those parses. That is, the comparison will be based on the actual parse tree and the ability to use that parsed output to generate theory independent parse trees and output and to perform various NLP tasks. The judging will be based on the standards for evaluating NLP that have been proposed previously on this list by myself and Derek Bickerton and which are currently being developed into an ISO standard for the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) as part of the VRML Consortium's development efforts (http://www.vrml.org/WorkingGroups/ NLP-ANIM). The standards proposed are theory and field independent standards that allow both linguists and non-linguists to evaluate NLP systems in the areas of navigation and control, question/answer dialogues, and database and web searching. I will also be at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America this week in Los Angeles for those who would like to discuss this in more detail. The sentences chosen for this contest are rather simple, but as we find more and more parsers that can accomplish the tasks on this list, we will add more complex sentences and tasks to the list. Please, be aware that systems that may be designed for large corpora of unrestricted text actually cannot work in this domain. Thus, while such systems may be useful for certain searching tasks, they are not useful in the domain explored in this contest - and this is evidenced by their inability to perform on tests such as the one provide here. The full contest instructions and an HTML document of Ergo's results in this area can be found at http://www.ergo-ling.com. The standards were designed to allow the developers of a parsing system (statistical or syntactic) to demonstrate the thoroughness and accuracy of the parses they produce by using the parsed output to perform a number of straightforward, traditional syntactic tasks such as changing a statement to a question or an active to a passive as well as demonstrating an ability to create standard trees (Using the Penn Treebank II guidelines) and standard grammatical analyses. All the standards chosen were chosen to be theory independent measures of the accuracy of a parse through the use of standard and ordinary grammatical and syntactic output. The contest officially begins on January 15th and will be closed on March 31st. This will allow developers 2.5 months to develop tools and to work with trouble spots that they may have with the set of sentences offered in this contest. The contest will be offered in subsequent years from January to March. As time develops we hope the parsers, the contest rules, and the test sentences will all grow in sophistication and scope. However, as most parsers have existed many more years than ours, it is reasonable to think these tools exist already. THE CONTEST RULES: Anyone who joins must submit an HTML document and the parser (source code only) that created it. The parser can be in any format but it must require a minimum of effort for the contest judges to set up and run. For example, a WIN95 Interface that takes input files and produces the html output file would be considered a minimum effort parser. There will be tests to ensure that the output is genuine parsed output rather than a synthesis such as a series of print calls that merely present the correct output for a particular string rather than generating it. The HTML files of all contestants will be made available at the Ergo web site (http://www.ergo- ling.com). Those who wish to join even though their parsing system is not robust or complete enough for all the tasks or all the sentences in the contest are also welcome to join. Reviewers will then look at these documents as promising parsers for future contests. Their results will be posted on our web site as well. Judging will be based on the percentage of sentences that parsed, the percentage of the tasks that are completed and on the accuracy of the parses that result and the success on the parsing tasks. Currently, the judges will be Derek Bickerton and myself, but we will welcome others to join in the task. Because of the home court advantage of the judges, there will be printed reports of the judging available on the Ergo web site for review by the overall community of professionals in this area. Complaints or criticisms will also be posted. Anyone who would like to review the judging and the comments on the judging are welcome to do so. Anyone who wishes to be a volunteer judge may also contact us. However, the criteria for all judging will be the accuracy of the parser in creating a correct parse of all the sentences and completing all the tasks set forth in the test materials. We would like this contest to remain open not only to challengers but also to those who would like to design and improve the contest itself through the addition of more sentences or more tasks added to the parsing task. There is one condition, however, on being able to this, we will hold rigidly to the rule that those who would improve on or add to the contest must first meet the original challenge at a minimum level of 75% accuracy before being allowed to contribute. We are starting with a small set of relatively simple sentences to make this as available as possible to as many people as possible. In this manner researchers in industry, academia, and government will be able to compare their results without exposing any proprietary or confidential information. We also do not want the contest to be unduly influenced by those who would like to target some ideal of parsing that is not thoroughly grounded in what is currently possible in these domains. At a Virtual Reality and Multi-Media Conference in Japan (VSMM '98), Ergo was awarded the "Best Technical Award" for its NLP technology. I believe the main reason that judges and others were able to notice this is because I was able to point out that "THE ENTIRE FIELD OF VIRTUAL REALITY AN D MULTI-MEDIA IS BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY GRAMMAR." And then I went on to explain that the main reason many VR and Multi-Meida sites and programs are not catching on is because their users cannot ask even a simple question of the characters or about the objects they encounter. Thus, a UNESCO virtual world such as reconstructed cathedral will receive many visitors but they will not stay and explore because they cannot ask even the simplest questions like "How many stairs in this Cathedral?" "When was the Nave built?" and so on. Ithen pointed out that while speech and graphics were actually ready to work with such projects, the fact that their grammatical abilities is so limited, no one is using them with these products. The missing link between speech, VR and multi- media and users actually talking to avatars and sites is GRAMMAR. When I then demonstrated that this was so with the use of the Ergo tools, we won the award. The main reason I am sponsoring this contest is so that all linguists and NLP researchers who would like to paticipate in this very large future source of jobs can do so as soon as possible. So in order to stimulate research and interest this contest is proposed. WE WOULD ESPECIALLY LIKE TO INVITE PROFESSORS, STUDENTS, AND STAFF AT CARNEGIE MELON, STANFORD, XEROX PARC, MICROSOFT, IBM, DRAGON, LEARNOUT AND HAUSPIE, PHILIPS, MIT, SUN MICROSYSTEMS (JAVASPEECH GROUP), NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, AND GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY TO SUBMIT ENTRIES TO THIS CONTEST. WE WILL BE HAPPY TO POST THEIR RESULTS AND WOULD ALSO BE HAPPY TO TELL THE WORLD IF THEY CAN GENERATE A PARSE THAT IS BETTER THAN OURS ON THE STANDARDS PROVIDED HERE. THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS AND JUNIOR STAFF TO WORK WITH EXTANT PARSERS TO COMBINE AND EXTEND TOOLS INTO THESE VERY USEFUL AND PRACTICAL AREAS. THE SENTENCES The full set of sentences for the contest is available at the http://www.ergo-ling.com web site. This list contains five from each of the three sections: 1) theory independent parsing, 2) navigation and control, and 3) Question/answer, statement/response repartee. The full list contains 105 sentences and will grow and be modified over the years as this annual contest takes root. Section 1: Theory independent parsing. 1. there is a dog on the porch 2. John's house is bigger than mary's house 3. the tall thin man in the office is reading a technical report 4. the man who mary likes is reading the book that john gave her 5. learning how to cope with stress is of primary importance in the work world Section 2: Navigation and Control. 1. Erase all files that end in .doc 2. print the file called teach.doc 3. send an email to bob that says "meeting at eight" 4. send a fax to bob that says "there is a meeting at eight tonight" 5. go to yahoo and find information about golf courses in Georgia Section 3: Question and Answer/Statement Response Repartee. 1. bill's email is bill@server.com what is bill's email address what is bill's email 2. john has romantic books what kind of books does john have 3. My appointment with bob is at six o'clock what time is my appointment what time are my appointments 4. the tall thin man in the office is reading a technical report book what is the man reading what is the man doing is the man reading a report who is reading a report 5. John gave mary a book because it was her birthday who gave mary a book who did john give a book what did john give mary why did john give mary a book did john give mary a book did john give mary a book because it was her birthday did john give mary a pencil did john give mary a book because it was bob's birthday Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D. President and CEO Ergo Linguistic Technologies 2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 175 Honolulu, HI 96822 Tel: (808)539-3920 Fax: (808)539-3924 bralich@hawaii.edu http://www.ergo-ling.com ****************************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA. 94607-5200. Send subscription requests and submissions to: nancy.gusack@ucop.edu Editorial Staff: Nancy Gusack nancy.gusack@ucop.edu Cliff Lynch (emeritus) cliff@cni.org The IRLIST Archives is set up for anonymous FTP. Using anonymous FTP via the host ftp.cdl.ucop.edu, the files will be found in the directory /data/ftp/pub/irl, stored in subdirectories by year (e.g., data/ftp/pub/irl/1993). Search or browse archived IR-L Digest issues on the Web at: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/idom/irlist/ These files are not to be sold or used for commercial purposes. Contact Nancy Gusack for more information on IRLIST. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN IRLIST DO NOT REPRESENT THOSE OF THE EDITORS OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. AUTHORS ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR MATERIAL.