Call for Papers and Participation

        Workshop on Cross Language Issues in Artificial Intelligence

    URL: http://jsaic.krdl.org.sg/pricai98/workshops/pricai-wks-cli.html

                              as part of the

     5th Pacific Rim International Conference on Artificial Intelligence

               http://jsaic.krdl.org.sg/pricai98/home.html


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Introduction

Human intelligence is very much tied to language, whether one admits
to neuro-physiological evidence, or that language differentiates
humans from the animals, or just that, socially, we cannot function
without it. Artificial intelligence is equally tied to language, in
that information, rules, assumptions, concepts, relationships, etc.,
are couched in some form of language.

     With the increasing globalisation of industries, of information
access, of the internet, it is clear that no single language, not even
English and its variants, will predominate. It is clear that, sooner
or later, traditional paradigms of computing must embrace a
multilingual approach and cater to a plenitude of cultures and nuances
that come with operating in such an environment.

     This is especially evident when we start to go cross-language,
i.e., where information sources or corpora are available in one
language, and problems to be solved, or questions to be answered are
in a different one.

     This workshop will offer participants a forum for discussing the
issues of working with multilingual and cross-language information
sources and user requirements in the context of traditional AI
paradigms.  Papers should stimulate the interchange of various ideas
and state-of-the-art research results to provoke interesting
discussions on the challenges facing AI in a cross-language
environment.

Topics of Interest

     The focus of the workshop is on raising issues, and to provoke
the interchange of ideas. Thus the following topics are neither
exhaustive nor limiting, but should serve as starting points:

        o Cross Language Searching
        o Cross Language Case Based Reasoning
        o Cross Language Knowledge Extraction
        o Machine Learning from Multilingual Data
        o Cross Language Lexicon Construction and Application
        o Cross Language Dialogue Management
        o Cross Language Topic Tracking
        o The suitability of current AI techniques for a cross-language
          environment
        o Cross Language (insert your favourite AI technique here!)
     We urge participants to submit bold and creative ideas and
     applications.

Participation and Submission of Papers

     To maintain a genuine workshop atmosphere, participation is
limited to at most 30 persons. Participants will be selected by the
organizing committee (see below), based on submitted abstracts and/or
papers.

     Participants will be expected to actively contribute to the
workshop by either presenting a talk or taking part in panel and/or
open discussions.

     Researchers interested in participating in the workshop are
invited to submit abstracts (up to 2 pages) on related research or
interest in cross-language issues in AI. Submissions may be sent by
e-mail (self-contained LaTex or PostScript files) or as hardcopies (in
triplicate) to the workshop organizer (address see below). E-mail
submission is highly encouraged except in the case where there are any
non-Roman fonts used, in which case hardcopies are preferred (due to
difficulty of viewing and printing).

     The submissions will be reviewed by members of the organizing
committee. Accepted papers will be published in the form of official
workshop notes. Participants selected for giving a talk at the
workshop will be asked to submit a full-length paper for the workshop
notes (deadlines see below).

     For more information about the workshop, please contact the
Workshop Organiser.

Important Dates

   * Abstracts/Papers due by: July 25, 1998
   * Notification of Acceptance: September 15, 1998
   * Camera-ready version of Final Paper due: October 15, 1998
   * Date of Workshop: Workshops will be held 22 November 1998 to 24
     November 1998. Final date of this workshop to be announced.
   * Main PRICAI-98 Conference: 22 November to 27 November, 1998

Organising Committee

     Kim-Teng Lua
     Dept of Information Science and Computer Science
     National University of Singapore
     Singapore

     Von-Wun Soo
     Dept of Computer Science
     National Tsing Hua University
     Taiwan

     Sung-Hyon Myaeng
     Dept of Computer Science
     Chungnam National University
     Taejon,Korea

     Jun-ichi Tsujii
     Dept of Information Science
     University of Tokyo, Japan
     Dept of Language Engineering
     UMIST, United Kingdom

     Vilas Wuwongse
     Asian Institute of Technology
     Bangkok, Thailand

     Mun-Kew Leong
     Kent Ridge Digital Labs
     Singapore

Workshop Organiser

     Please send abstracts/papers or any questions to

     Mun-Kew Leong
     Kent Ridge Digital Labs
     21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace
     Singapore 119613

     Phone: +65 874-7864
     Fax:   +65 774-4998

     E-mail: mkleong@krdl.org.sg