SPECOM'97 - Second Call for Papers

Attila Ferencz (ferencz@bavaria.utcluj.ro)
Thu, 6 Mar 1997 17:02:44 +0200 (GMT+0200)

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1997 International Workshop
SPEECH and COMPUTER (SPECOM'97)
27-30 October 1997, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Organized by the Cluj-Napoca subsidiary of Research Institute for Computer
Technique "S.C. Software ITC S.A."

Our present sponsors are:
- Ministry of Science and Technology, Bucharest
- S.C. ALCOM S.A., Cluj-Napoca

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Taking into account potential clashes with other events the Organizing
Committee decided to postpone the International Workshop "Speech and
Computer" SPECOM'97 to 27-30 October 1997.

GENERAL CHAIR

Mircea Pusca, Vice-minister of Science and Technology, Romania

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES

The international workshop "Speech and Computer" - SPECOM'97 will be
concerned with the most important topics of speech interaction with computer.
It is aimed to obtain and use new original adequate approaches to spoken
language understanding by means of integrating the results of pattern
recognition, quantitative linguistics, information theory, psychoacoustics
and other related areas. It is a meeting place for dialogue between
researchers from different fields that are related to speech and computers.
An important goal of this workshop - besides the scientific one - is to build
bridges between researchers, scientists from countries from Western, Central,
Eastern Europe and other continents. It is also aimed to develop a spirit of
collaborative research and to provide guidance for future research
directions.

TOPICS

The topics were chosen in order to maintain the initial goals settled at
SPECOM'96 in St. Petersburg, Russia. So the main topics to be covered include
(but are not limited to):

- Conceptual models of natural language
- Models for spoken language semantic interpretation
- Integration of diverse knowledge in speech understanding process
- Spoken language translation models
- Adaptation and training in speech understanding
- Speech recognition
- Text-to-Speech synthesis methods
- Phonetics, phonology and prosody
- Applied systems

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Co-Chairs:
Louis C.W. Pols - Institute of Phonetic Sciences, University of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, President of ESCA
Florin T. Tanasescu - Ministry of Science and Technology

Members:
George Kokkinakis - Wire Communication Laboratory, University of
Patras, Greece
Antonio Rubio - Department of Electronics and Computer Technology,
University of Granada, Spain
Yuri A. Kosarev - Institute for Informatics and Automation,
St. Petersburg, Russia
Steven Krauwer - Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS,
The Netherlands, ELSNET Coordinator
Lucia Popescu - S.C. Software ITC S.A. Bucharest, Romania
Mircea Fernea - S.C. Software ITC S.A. Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Gavril Toderean - Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Attila Ferencz - S.C. Software ITC S.A. Cluj-Napoca, Romania

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

Authors should submit 1-2-page abstracts of no more than 500 words for
review. Submission should include the title, authors' names, affiliations,
addresses, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses if any. Please
indicate the topic area of interest closest to your submission. The deadline
for receiving the Abstracts is the 15th of June 1997. Electronic and fax
abstracts submission will be preferred. We can handle ASCII, PostScript, WP,
MSWord files.

The notifications of acceptance will be mailed out until 15th of July 1997.
Camera-ready full papers (maximum 6 A4 pages) will be published and the
Proceedings will be distributed at the workshop. Authors of accepted
abstracts will be asked to provide the camera-ready version of their papers
before the 15th of September. They must be sent to the Organizing Committee
by regular mail. Instructions about the form of camera-ready papers will be
sent with the notification of acceptance.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

The official language of the event will be English.

LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Chair: Attila Ferencz *
Members: Maria Ferencz *
Teodora Ratiu *
Radu Arsinte *
Diana Zaiu **
Tunde-Csilla Kovacs *
Lajos Simon *

* S.C. Software ITC S.A. Cluj-Napoca, Romania
** Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania

ADDRESS

All correspondence regarding the workshop should be addressed to:

Attila Ferencz
S.C. Software ITC S.A. Cluj-Napoca
109 Gh. Bilascu Street
3400, Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA
tel.: +40-64-197681
fax: +40-64-196787
e-mail: ferencz@utcluj.ro

INFORMATION ABOUT THE ORGANIZER INSTITUTE

S.C. Software ITC S.A. is a research institute coordinated by the Romanian
Ministry of Science and Technology.

Our research institute was initially affiliated to the Romanian Academy
of Sciences, then later, until the Romanian Revolution from 1989, it was a
governmental national research institute. Nowadays it is financed by means of
projects launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology. Before 1989
our institute developed prototypes of important Romanian computer equipment.

DEADLINES AND KEY DATES

Submission of abstracts: 15 June 1997
Notification of acceptance: 15 July 1997
Submission of camera-ready papers: 15 September 1997

THE OUTLINE OF THE PROGRAMME

All sessions of the workshop will be plenary (no parallel sessions) and they
will consist of paper presentations followed by discussions on the issues
raised. The event will include a workshop dinner and a one day trip in the
nearby mountains.

REGISTRATION FEES

Registration fees are arranged as follows:

*************************************************************
* Foreign participants * 150 USD *
* Participants from Central and Eastern Europe * 100 USD *
* (former socialist countries) * *
* Foreign students * 80 USD *
* Romanian participants * 20 USD *
* Romanian students (without Proceedings) * 10 USD *
*************************************************************

The fees include the Reception, a copy of the workshop Proceedings, all
workshop materials, admission to the session and to the banquet, coffee break
refreshments and a trip in the nearby mountains. Additional Proceedings copy
is 20 USD.

GRANTS

The organizers will offer a limited number of grants for Romanian
participants.

We inform you that ESCA (European Speech Communication Association) has a
limited grant-fund to support especially young researchers from Central and
Eastern Europe to participate at scientific events. Interested scientists can
get information from the ESCA secretariate (e-mail address:
esca@icp.grenet.fr).

LOCATION

Cluj-Napoca is considered the capital city of the region known as
Transylvania which is placed in the north-western part of Romania. The city
at an altitude of 360 m is in the neighborhood of the Western-Carpathian
Mountains which offers a lot of famous touristic places. It was founded 20
centuries ago by the Romans and it was named Napoca. In the Middle Ages there
were Universities, and since those days our town has been one of Eastern and
Central Europe's cultural and scientific centers.

In the present Cluj-Napoca offers the possibility to study in several
Universities like: "Babes-Bolyai" Science University, Technical University,
the "Gh. Dima" Music Academy, the "Iuliu Hatieganu" Medical and
Pharmaceutical University, Economical Sciences University, the "Ion
Andreescu" Art Academy, etc., some of them preparing the students in foreign
languages. The best graduate students of these universities can continue
their scientific activities in the framework of several research institutes
coordinated by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Two theaters, two operas, parks, museums, art galleries and entertaining
centers of Cluj-Napoca offer various enjoyment possibilities.

HOW TO REACH CLUJ-NAPOCA

Cluj-Napoca can be reached easily by direct trains from Bucharest (which is
500 km from Cluj-Napoca), Budapest (400 km) and some other capital cities of
Europe. Cluj-Napoca can also be reached by plane from Bucharest.