FSMNLP 2009

Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing - FSMNLP 2009

Eight International Workshop

University of Pretoria, South Africa

http://fsmnlp2009.fastar.org

fsmnlp2009@fastar.org

21-24 July 2009

As in 2008, FSMNLP is merged with the FASTAR (Finite Automata Systems - Theoretical and Applied Research) workshop.

SCOPE

AIM

The International Workshop Series of Finite State Methods and Natural Language Processing (FSMNLP), is a forum for researchers and practitioners working on

1.NLP applications or language/language technology research resources, 2.theoretical and implementation aspects, or  3.their combinations

having obvious relevance or an explicitly discussed relation to Finite-State Methods in NLP.

In the past, seven FSMNLP workshops have been organised (Budapest 1996, Ankara 1998, Helsinki 2001, Budapest 2003, Helsinki 2005, Potsdam 2007, Ispra 2008).

We invite submissions related to all obvious or traditional FSMNLP topics, see e.g. FSMNLP 2008. The updated list of topics includes all the obvious or traditional topics plus some new topics such as:

1. common interfaces, portability, and shared methods for testing/benchmarking/evaluation of finite-state tools 2. coping with large alphabets during finite-state compilation and in real-word applications 3. fixed parameter tractability and narrowness in streamed NLP 4. conventional/parallel algorithms using/manipulating conventional/stochastic finite-state automata/paths 5. applications of rational kernels to active/statistical machine learning of finite-state models.

SPECIAL THEME

In recognition of its location on the African continent, this year's FSMNLP has Finite-State Methods for Under-Resourced Languages as a special theme. The theme is relevant to finite-state methods

1.applied to practical tasks such as language survey, elicitation, data collection, computer-aided annotation, morphological description, modeling and normalization, 2.considering demanding conditions such as linguistic complexity and diversity, scarce resources, research infrastructures, real-time grammar updates, 3.in language processing fields such as comparative linguistics, field linguistics, applied linguistics, language teaching, and computer-aided translation.

The special theme does not restrict the scope but attempts to draw the attention of contributors to the challenges of computational linguistics in Africa. We hope that the theme teases out promising and useful applications of Finite-State Methods in this context.

SPECIAL SESSIONS

RELATED EVENTS

Our plan is to catalyze discussion and subworkshopping under some intense topics by providing tutorials, competitions (shared tasks), and sessions/submissions suited for e.g. researcher training. Our special effort to catalyze discussion and joint subworkshopping includes the following topic areas that have been selected considering the opportunities provided by the location of this year's event:

1.Finite-State Methods for African and Other Under-Resourced/Low-Density Languages, including knowledge and data-driven methods and their combinations 2.Practical Aspects and Experience of Finite-State Methods and Systems, including exchange formats, performance, tool demos, compression 3.Tree Automata and Transducers, including all applications of formal tree language theory in natural language processing.

Each such program is organized by international experts related to the topics. The organizers are also represented in the main event Program Committee.

TUTORIALS AND INVITED TALKS

We expect to have tutorials on the following tentative topics:

1.Developing Computational Morphology for Low- and Middle-Density Languages by Kemal Oflazer 2.Machine Learning with Automata by Colin de la Higuera

The invited speakers will be announced later.

COMPETITIONS

We hope to be able to include small competitions / shared tasks:

1.machine learning of morphology 2.compression of dictionaries

BUSINESS MEETING

We wish to provide a slot for a business meeting of a special interest group on finite-state methods and models provided that the necessary initial actions for getting such a SIG in Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) have been carried out successfully before the FSMNLP 2009.

SUBMISSION

PAPER CATEGORIES AND FORMATS

We initially invite submissions of full papers i.e. scientific contributions presenting new theoretical or experimental results. Papers should present original, unpublished research results and should not be submitted elsewhere simultaneously.

At a later stage, submission of extended abstracts on on-going research, systems, interactive software demos, and joint projects will likely be invited for each of the subworkshopping areas. (Note that the early acceptance notification date for full papers may help to keep travel costs for international participants reasonably low.) If you come from far away and have only an extended abstract, the abstract can be submitted earlier as if it were a full paper.

The information about the author(s) should be omitted in the submitted papers since the review process wil be double blind (submissions by ordinary PC members are such as well). Submissions are electronic and in PDF format via a web-based submission server.

Authors are encouraged to use Springer LNCS style (Proceedings and Other Multiauthor Volumes) for LaTeX in producing the PDF document. For graph visualization, Vaucanson-G LaTeX style, Graphviz/dot and XFig are recommended. If you use a non-roman script or Microsoft Word, it is advisable to warn the organizers as early as possible. The page limit is 12 pages for full papers.

PROCEEDINGS AND SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUE

The on-site proceedings will be on CD.

The actual proceedings with revised regular papers will be published after the conference in a volume of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence as a part of the LNCS Series by Springer-Verlag.

In addition, a special journal issue on Finite-State Methods and Models in NLP is being planned. Extended versions of the papers and abstracts may be submitted to this special issue (the publication involves a second review/selection cycle).

IMPORTANT DATES

1.First call for papers: December 2008 2.Full paper submissions due: 22 March 2009 3.Notification of acceptance for full papers: 22 April 2009 4.Camera-ready versions of full papers due: 10 May 2009

CHAIRS AND COMMITTEES

CONFERENCE CHAIR

Bruce Watson (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Andras Kornai (Budapest Institute of Technology, Hungary and MetaCarta, Cambridge, USA) (PC chair) Jacques Sakarovitch (Ecole nationale supérieure des Télécommunications, Paris, France) (PC chair) Anssi Yli-Jyrä (University of Helsinki) (PC chair)

Sonja Bosch (Department of African Languages, University of South Africa) Francisco Casacuberta (Instituto Tecnologico De Informática, Valencia, Spain) Jean-Marc Champarnaud (Université de Rouen, France) Maxime Crochemore (Department of Computer Science, King's College London, UK) Jan Daciuk (Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland) Dafydd Gibbon (Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft, University of Bielefeld, Germany) Karin Haenelt (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and University of Heidelberg, Germany) Thomas Hanneforth (University of Potsdam, Germany) Colin de la Higuera (Jean Monnet University, Saint-Etienne, France) Arvi Hurskainen (University of Helsinki, Finland) Lauri Karttunen (Palo Alto Research Center and Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, USA) André Kempe (Yahoo Search Technologies, Paris, France) Kevin Knight (Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California) Derrick Kourie (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa) Marcus Kracht (Univeristy of California, Los Angeles, USA) Hans-Ulrich Krieger (DFKI GmbH, Saarbrücken, Germany) Eric Laporte (Université de Marne-la-Vallée, France) Stoyan Mihov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria) Kemal Oflazer (Sabanci University, Turkey) Jakub Piskorski (Joint Research Center of the European Commission, Italy) Michael Riley (Google Research, New York, USA) Strahil Ristov (Ruder Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia) James Rogers (Computer Science Department, Earlham College, USA) Max Silberztein (Université de Franche-Comté, France) Bruce Watson (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa) Sheng Yu (University of Western Ontario, Canada) Menno van Zaanen (Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Tilburg University, the Netherlands) Lynette van Zijl (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)

(a few more to be added)

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Loek Cleophas (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa) (OC chair) Derrick Kourie (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa) Jakub Piskorski (Joint Research Center of the European Commission, Italy) Bruce Watson (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa) Anssi Yli-Jyrä (University of Helsinki) This CfP was obtained from WikiCFP