CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IJCAI-97 Workshop Specialized topic: "Issues in AI and Music -- Evaluation and Assessment --" to be held in the context of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-97) Date: Either one of days Aug. 23-25 (full day) City: Nagoya, Japan The field of AI and Music (i.e. AI research aimed at music as its specific target) is currently expanding both in its width and depth, with increasing number of contributions dealing with various aspects of music. This trend is further supported by advances in multi-media systems, and growing interest in subjective/artistic aspects of human activity. Music as a research topic is gaining recognition in the AI community at large, as can be seen from the series of workshops on music held in major AI conferences (e.g., AAAI-88, IJCAI-89, ECAI-90, ECAI-92, AAAI-94, and IJCAI-95). The field can be seen to be growing towards its maturity, and that instead of being a collection of individual pioneering work, is entering the stage of establishing itself as a sound research field. That is, to provide common grounds for mutual information exchange and evaluation, thus cumulating the contributions which will be of value to both inside and outside of the field. In view of this situation, this workshop will focus on the issue of evaluation and assessment of research results in AI and Music. The aim is to develop a framework of research evaluation so that the obtained results can be properly assessed and categorized from a common viewpoint. This addresses a broad range of issues, starting, at the informal end, from cultivating a general ethical attitude; to the development of concrete evaluation methodology, criteria, and procedures. The workshop will focus mainly on technical issues, although discussion on more foundational issues is also within its scope. *** TOPICS OF INTEREST *** Specific topics to be discussed include (but are not limited to) the following: - General issues - significance and difficulties of evaluation - merits and demerits of evaluation - what is to be/can be evaluated - action program, authorization - Individual practice - criteria of a "sound" presentation - assessment of existing work - comparison of related works - "Subjective/Objective" duality - distinction and characterization of subjective/objective aspects - subjective aspects of music - objective aspects of music - Methodology - viewpoints of evaluation (methodical, performance, etc.) - specific topics and forms of evaluation - enhancing objectivity of evaluation - formalization/systematizing of evaluation methods - evaluation methodology in AI, Psychology, and other related fields - Common workgrounds - terminology - common problem sets, benchmarks - corpora, data archives, standard formats - (multimedia & network) support for sharing research results - forums for discussion and critical reviewing *** PLANNED PROGRAM *** The workshop will be a full-day workshop on one of the days between Aug. 23-25 (to be arranged by the IJCAI organizers). It will feature brief, individual talks presenting the speakers' experiences, positions and views, panel discussions, and open discussion. Since the topic of the workshop is prospective by nature, plenty of time will be reserved for open discussions. The position papers of the attendees will be printed beforehand as IJCAI-97 working notes, and will be handed out at the workshop. *** EXPECTED ATTENDEES *** The expected attendees are active researchers in AI and Music who have special interest in evaluation issues. Besides these, those from other disciplines (e.g. Musicology and Music Psychology) are welcome to present distinctive views and critical comments. Attendees are expected to actively contribute in the workshop, by presenting a talk and/or taking part in the discussions. *** SUBMISSION FOR PARTICIPATION *** Provisional attendees are requested to submit their position papers (extended abstracts), together with other submission material. Submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee. Participation is limited to at most 30 attendees, so if the number of submissions exceeds this limit, selection will be made on a competitive basis. Submission can be made by either e-mail or postal mail (e-mail preferred, described below). All submission material must be written in English. Submissions should be made individually for each attendee; co-authored submissions are generally not recommended. The material to be submitted are: * Information sheet: include the following: * Paper title * keywords * Attendee's name, affiliation * return postal address * e-mail address, fax number (if any) * Position paper (extended abstract) Up to 4 pages. Arrange it in camera-ready, full paper form (with title, author name at the head), so that it is directly printable as working notes if necessary. Papers are preferred to be in A4 size paper (297mm X 210mm). If letter size paper must be used, format it in a proportion suitable for A4 size printout. * Required equipment sheet List required equipment for presentation and/or demonstrations. Make clear whether the equipment is to be brought by the attendee, or to be prepared by the organizers. Please note that we may not be able to fulfill all requests. The power supply in Nagoya, Japan is 100V 60Hz AC. Commonly available video format is VHS NTSC (other formats like PAL and SECAM may not be readily available). The position paper must clearly state what topic on evaluation is to be discussed by the attendee, presenting the views and discussion at length. Note that this is not to be a presentation of individual research results, although reference to and evaluation of existing work (either by the attendee or by others) is welcome. Some (if not all) of the accepted attendees will be appointed to give individual talks, and will be asked to submit a full-length paper (of up to 6 pages) for the working notes. Others may also update their submitted papers upon acceptance. But please note that we are working on a tight schedule (see below). The submitted paper will be used for the working notes printing by default. * DETAILS OF POSTAL SUBMISSION Include 4 copies each of the submission material. Mark one copy of the position paper as the master copy. The print must be in legible type. If possible, set the formatting proportion to fit A4 size paper, with a minimum 1 inch (2.5cm) margin on all four sides. Use a minimum 10 point size for characters. Double column format preferred. Put a backing cardboard sheet in the envelope so that the material does not get bent during delivery. Please note that the submissions must be RECEIVED by the below deadline(s). Expect a 1-week delivery period from North America or major European countries. However, note that delivery may be considerably delayed according to region or season. * DETAILS OF E-MAIL SUBMISSION Preferably arrange all submission material in one file. Acceptable forms are: + Plain text Arrange the paper in pre-formatted style, with max. 80 chars/line and 66 lines/page. + PostScript files or uuencoded DVI files Put only the file body in the e-mail. To avoid printing problems, use only the minimal, standard features of TeX/LaTeX. Do not use any extensions (file attachments etc.), nor any encoding/compressing tools (except for uuencode for DVI files). If EPS files are to be used, the submission must be in PostScript form. See above for other formatting requirements. Any other forms are liable to be not printable, so should be sent as hard copies by postal mail. Please check your e-mail regularly after submitting. If we can't print the files, we would request for re-submission in a different form. *** IMPORTANT NOTICE *** IJCAI regulations require that participants should register for the main IJCAI-97 conference. In addition, IJCAI charges a fee of US$ 50 for workshop participation. For information about IJCAI-97, please point at the IJCAI-97 WWW page (http://ijcai.org/ijcai-97). PLEASE NOTE: attendees who have not registered for IJCAI-97 will not be admitted to the workshop. *** IMPORTANT DATES *** Submissions due by: March 1, 1997 Notification of acceptance: April 1, 1997 Camera-ready version of final paper due: April 25, 1997 Date of the workshop: either one of days Aug. 23-25, 1997 IJCAI-97 conference: Aug. 23-29, 1997 *** ORGANIZING COMMITTEE *** Roger Dannenberg Carnegie Mellon University (USA) Peter Desain Nijmegen University (Netherlands) Yuzuru Hiraga Univ. of Library and Information Science (Japan) Keiji Hirata NTT Basic Research Laboratories (Japan) Henkjan Honing University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) * CONTACT ADDRESS All submissions and inquiries are to be sent to: Dr. Keiji Hirata NTT Basic Research Laboratories 3-1, Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa, 243-01 Japan tel: +81-462-40-3658 fax: +81-462-40-4721 hirata@nefertiti.brl.ntt.co.jp