Call for Participation The 2nd Workshop on "Multilinguality in Software Industry: the AI Contribution (MULSAIC'97)" International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-97) Nagoya, Japan, August 23-29, 1997 Workshop Objectives ------------------- This workshop aims to bring together people from the software industry and the AI research community. It will provide an opportunity for people from the software industry to present particular problems and questions associated with multilinguality as well as an opportunity for AI researchers to show that AI-based methods and tools can help improve the current situation. Workshop Background ------------------- The ability to develop multilingual products is a prerequisite for software companies wishing to be active internationally. However, multilinguality in software industry imposes problems on processes such as: - exchanging data in different languages, - supporting different languages in the user interface, - processing multilingual documents, - retrieving multilingual information, - ensuring consistency in terminology and in writing and translation style, - reducing the translation and in general the localisation cost. AI provides methods, techniques and tools that can improve these processes. MULSAIC'97, based on the results of the MULSAIC'96 Workshop held in ECAI-96, intends to promote the discussion between people from software industry and AI in issues such as the following: * Multiscript communication through networks * Localisation of user interfaces * Cross-language, language-independent text retrieval * Language identification techniques * Multilingual text generation * Machine Translation (MT) and Machine-Assisted Human Translation (MAHT) * Creation and use of multilingual resources (dictionaries, terminologies, corpora) We would like to receive papers of two kinds. Papers presenting the current situation and the experiences of software industry people concerning multilinguality, as well as papers presenting AI-based methods and techniques in the above issues. We would also encourage the demonstration of AI-based tools as well as the demonstration of off-the-shelf tools used by software companies. Organising Committee -------------------- Dr. Costas Spyropoulos, NCSR "Demokritos", Athens, Greece (costass@iit.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr) Dr. Geni-chiro Kikui, NTT Information and Communication Systems Laboratories, Japan (kikui@nttnly.ntt.jp) Dr. Osamu Furuse, ATR Interpreting Telecommunications Research Laboratories (furuse@itl.atr.co.jp) Dr. Key-Sun Choi, Department of Computer Science, Center for Artificial Intelligence Research, Taejon, Korea (kschoi@cs.kaist.ac.kr) Dr. Douglas Oard, University of Maryland, USA (oard@glue.umd.edu) Mr. Andreas Sch|tz, Software AG, Germany (AS@software- ag.de) Dr. Vangelis Karkaletsis, NCSR "Demokritos", Athens, Greece (vangelis@iit.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr) Workshop Format and Attendance Requirements ------------------------------------------- The format of this one-day workshop will encourage interaction and discussion between people from software industry and AI researchers. Invited speakers from the software industry will present particular problems and questions concerning multilinguality. There will be two types of submission for interested participants: papers and statements of interest. The workshop will be kept small, with no more than 40 participants. We intend the workshop sessions to contain discussion periods long enough to allow real exchange of ideas. At the workshop end there will also be a discussion on the major issues addressed, directed by a panel. We hope to foster the workshop atmosphere by having the written versions of the accepted presentations circulated a few weeks in advance of the event, thus enabling the presenters to relate their work as much as possible to that of the others and also allowing non-presenting participants to be prepared for the discussion. Please note that workshop participation is not possible without registration for the IJCAI'97 conference. Submission Format ----------------- Interested authors are requested to submit a two page abstract before 14 February 1997. The abstract should start with the title, authors, full address, telephone, fax and e-mail. The authors are requested to state clearly the problem examined and the AI method used as well as to discuss the costs and benefits of their approach. Performance evaluation results are also encouraged. Authors of accepted abstracts will be asked to provide a camera-ready version of their paper before 18 April 1997. Other potential participants are requested to register, sending a one page summary of their interests and experience on relevant matters, before 18 July 1997. Submission (preferably ASCII, via e-mail) should be sent to: Dr. Costas Spyropoulos, Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications, National Centre for Scientific Research (NCSR) "Demokritos", 15310 Aghia Paraskevi, Athens, Greece Tel: +301-6510310, +301-6513110 ext.520, Fax: +301-6532175 E-mail: costass@iit.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr Important Dates --------------- 13 December 1996 Call for Participation issued 14 February 1997 Deadline for two-page abstracts 7 March 1997 Notification of acceptance or rejection 18 April 1997 Deadline for final camera ready versions of papers 18 July 1997 Deadline for registration 21 July 1997 Send workshop material to all participants 23,24,or 25 August 1997 Workshop date (announced later)