Subject: SPECOM'98 announcement
From: kosarev <kosarev@mail.iias.spb.su>
To: elsnet-list@let.ruu.nl
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:02:21 +0100


                   1998 International Workshop
                 SPEECH AND COMPUTER (SPECOM'98)
            26-29 October 1998, St-Petersburg, Russia

   Organized by  St-Petersburg Institute  for Informatics  and
   Automation  of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS)
   in cooperation with State Pedagogical University of Russia

   Supported by the European Speech Communication Association (ESCA)
   and European Network in Language and Speech (ELSNET)
  


                      FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

GENERAL CHAIR:

Rafael M.Yusupov
SPIIRAS,St-Petersburg, Russia

The  International  workshop  'Speech  and  Computer' - SPECOM'98
will  cover  the  most  important  topics  of  speech-computer
interaction. It  is aimed to obtaining  and  using  new  original
adequate   approaches   to   spoken   language  understanding  by 
means of integration results of pattern recognition, quantitative   
linguistics, information theory, psychoacoustics, and other related 
areas.
SPECOM'98 will be held with especial emphasis on spoken language 
understanding concepts and approaches.

TOPICS to be covered include, but are not limited to:

- Conceptual models for natural spoken language;
- Models for spoken language semantic interpretation;
- Integration of diverse knowledge in the speech understanding process;
- Using prosodical knowledge in speech semantic interpretation;
- Speech-to-speech translation;
- Telephone natural language response generation;
- Speech dialogue models creation;
- Spontaneous speech perception modeling;
- Multi-lingual and multi-modal systems;
- Psychological approaches to speech understanding;
- Applied systems.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE :

Chair:   Rafael M.Yusupov  SPIIRAS, St-Petersburg, Russia

Members: H.Fujisaki        Science University of Tokyo, Japan
         A.Gorin           AT&T Laboratories, USA
         G.Kokkinakis      WCL, University of Patras, Greece
         Y.Kosarev         SPIIRAS, St-Petersburg, Russia
         S.Krauwer         University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
         B.Millar          University of Canberra, Australia
         H.Niemann         University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
         R.Piotrowski      State Pedagogical University of St-Petersburg,
                           Russia        
         G.Rigoll          Gerhard-Mercator-University Duisburg, Germany
         E.Vidal           Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
         A.Waibel          University of Karlsruhe, Germany
            
TUTORIAL: Some lectures will be presented by leading scientists.

LANGUAGE: English is the official language of the workshop. Reports
in Russian will be also allowed. Simultaneous translation will be served.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

Prospective authors should submit 3 copies of 1-2-pages abstracts
of no more than 500 words by regular post or by Email (in ASCII format).
Submissions  should include a title, author's names, affiliations, address,
telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address if any.

Camera-ready full papers  (4 or 6 pages)  will  be  published 
in the proceedings distributed at the workshop. The  text  must be
sent to the Organizing Committee by regular mail. Instructions about
the  form  of  camera-ready   papers  will  be  distributed  later.

EXHIBITS:

If  you  have a product (working model, demo program, electronic
devices, commercial products, etc.), that  you  would  like  to 
demonstrate,  please  contact  the workshop secretariat by e-mail
(see below) as soon as possible. Also people from other interested
communities,  such  as  industry,  business,  science,  defense,
education, will be invited for this exhibition.

EXCURSIONS:

There will be possible excursions to some research and education
institutions belonging to the 'Educational Research Center for Speech
and Language'.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Chair:          Yuri Kosarev         SPIIRAS, Russia
Members:        Aleksandr Osipov     SPIIRAS, Russia
                Anatoli Tkatsh       SPIIRAS, Russia
                Irina Podnozova      SPIIRAS, Russia 
                Alexei Machovikov    SPIIRAS, Russia
                Iliana Machovikova   SPIIRAS, Russia

REGISTRATION:

Registration fees are arranged as following:
Western participants - $ 280;
Western students - $ 150;
Central Europe participants - $ 180;
Central Europe students - $ 80;
Russian and former SU states participants -  $  50;
Russian students (without workshop Proceedings) - free of charge.

This fee must be paid on-site at the workshop, or by post with
10% discount if before Aug.1, 1998.

The  fees  include the  Reception, a copy of the workshop Proceedings, 
all workshop material, admission to all sessions and to the exhibition,
banquet, and coffee break refreshments.
Additional Proceedings copy is $ 40.

INFORMATION:

Dr.Y.Kosarev
SPIIRAS, 39, 14th line, St-Petersburg, 199178, RUSSIA
Tel.: + 7 812 218 7081
Fax : + 7 812 218 0685
E-mail: specom@mail.iias.spb.su
http://www.spiiras.nw.ru/speech

SCHEDULE:

Submission of abstracts:           15 June      1998
Notification of acceptance:        15 July      1998
Submission of camera-ready papers: 1 September  1998