********************************************************* TSD 2006 - FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS ********************************************************* Ninth International Conference on TEXT, SPEECH and DIALOGUE (TSD 2006) Brno, Czech Republic, 11-15 September 2006 http://www.tsdconference.org/ The conference is organized by the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno, and the Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen. The conference is supported by International Speech Communication Association. VENUE: Brno, Czech Republic TSD SERIES TSD series evolved as a prime forum for interaction between researchers in both spoken and written language processing from the former East Block countries and their Western colleagues. Proceedings of TSD form a book published by Springer-Verlag in their Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. TOPICS Topics of the conference will include (but are not limited to): text corpora and tagging transcription problems in spoken corpora sense disambiguation links between text and speech oriented systems parsing issues, especially parsing problems in spoken texts multi-lingual issues, especially multi-lingual dialogue systems information retrieval and information extraction text/topic summarization machine translation semantic networks and ontologies semantic web speech modeling speech segmentation speech recognition search in speech for IR and IE text-to-speech synthesis dialogue systems development of dialogue strategies prosody in dialogues emotions and personality modeling user modeling knowledge representation in relation to dialogue systems assistive technologies based on speech and dialogue applied systems and software facial animation visual speech synthesis Papers on processing of languages other than English are strongly encouraged. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Frederick Jelinek, USA (general chair) Hynek Hermansky, Switzerland (executive chair) Eneko Agirre, Spain Genevieve Baudoin, France Jan Cernocky, Czech Republic Attila Ferencz, Romania Alexander Gelbukh, Mexico Louise Guthrie, GB Eva Hajicova, Czech Republic Jaroslava Hlavacova, Czech Republic Eduard Hovy, USA Ivan Kopecek, Czech Republic Steven Krauwer, The Netherlands Siegfried Kunzmann, Germany Vaclav Matousek, Czech Republic Hermann Ney, Germany Elmar Noeth, Germany Karel Oliva, Czech Republic Karel Pala, Czech Republic Nikola Pavesic, Slovenia Vladimr Petkevic, Czech Republic Josef Psutka, Czech Republic James Pustejovsky, USA Leon Rothkrantz, The Netherlands E.G. Schukat-Talamazzini, Germany Pavel Skrelin, Russia Pavel Smrz, Czech Republic Taras Vintsiuk, Ukraine Yorick Wilks, GB Victor Zakharov, Russia KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Eduard Hovy, USA Louise Guthrie, GB James Pustejovsky, USA FORMAT OF THE CONFERENCE The conference program will include oral presentations and poster/demonstration sessions with sufficient time for discussions of the issues raised. Papers will be presented in plenary or topic oriented sessions. The conference will welcome three keynote speakers - Eduard Hovy, Louise Guthrie and James Pustejovsky, and it will offer two special panels devoted to Emotions and Search in Speech. Social events including a trip in the vicinity of Brno will allow for additional informal interactions. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS Authors are invited to submit a full paper not exceeding 8 pages formatted in the LNCS style (see below). Those accepted will be presented either orally or as posters. The decision about the presentation format will be based on the recommendation of the reviewers. The authors are asked to submit their papers using the on-line form accessible from the conference website. Papers submitted to TSD 2006 must not be under review by any other conference or publication during the TSD review cycle, and must not be previously published or accepted for publication elsewhere. As reviewing will be blind, the paper should not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...". Papers that do not conform to the requirements above are subject to be rejected without review. The authors are strongly encouraged to write their papers in TeX or LaTeX formats. These formats are necessary for the final versions of the papers that will be published in the Springer Lecture Notes. Authors using a WORD compatible software for the final version must use the LNCS template for WORD and within the submit process ask the Proceedings Editors to convert the paper to LaTeX format. For this service a service-and-license fee of CZK 1500 will be levied automatically. The paper format has to be either PDF or PostScript file with all required fonts included. Upon notification of acceptance, presenters will receive further information on submitting their camera-ready and electronic sources (for detailed instructions on the final paper format see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html#Proceedings.) Authors are also invited to present actual projects, developed software or interesting material relevant to the topics of the conference. The presenters of the demonstration should provide the abstract not exceeding one page. The demonstration abstracts will not appear in the conference proceedings. IMPORTANT DATES March 15 2006 ............ Submission of abstract March 22 2006 ............ Submission of papers May 15 2006 .............. Notification of acceptance May 31 2006 .............. Final papers (camera ready) and registration July 23 2006 ............. Submission of demonstration abstracts July 30 2006 ............. Notification of acceptance for demonstrations sent to the authors September 11-15 2006 ..... Conference date Submission of abstract serves for better organization of the review process only - for the actual review a full paper submission is necessary. The contributions to the conference will be published in proceedings that will be made available to participants at the time of the conference. OFFICIAL LANGUAGE The official language of the conference is English. CONFERENCE FEES The conference fee depends on the date of payment and on your status. It includes one copy of the proceedings, refreshments, social events and organizing costs. The fee does not include accommodation. Full participant: Early payment (by May 31): CZK 8500 Late payment (by August 15): CZK 10500 On-site payment: CZK 12000 Student: Early payment (by May 24): CZK 5500 Late payment (by August 15): CZK 6500 On-site payment: CZK 8000 The payment may be refunded up until August 15, at the cost of CZK 1500. No refund is possible after this date. All costs are in Czech Crowns (Czech Koruna, CZK), see e.g. http://www.xe.com/ucc/ for the current exchange rate. One of the authors has to register and to pay the registration fee by June 16, 2006 to be included in the conference proceedings. Only one paper of up to 8 pages is included in the regular registration fee. The additional paper and page charge is CZK 1000 per page. An author with more than one paper pays the additional paper(s) rates unless a co-author has also registered and paid the full registration fee. The organizing committee will provide discounts and grants for participants from East European countries (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, ...). To apply for a grant, send an email to tsd2006@tsdconference.org with subject 'Grant Application', in which you briefly describe the reasons for your application. Each applicant must send a separate e-mail. ACCOMMODATION The organizing committee will arrange discounts on accommodation in a 3-star hotel and student dormitories at reasonable prices. The current list of available accommodation and prices will be accessible at the conference website. ADDRESS All correspondence regarding the conference should be addressed to Dana Hlavackova, TSD 2006 Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University Botanicka 68a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic phone: +420-5-49 49 33 29 fax: +420-5-49 49 18 20 email: tsd2006@tsdconference.org The official TSD 2006 homepage is: http://www.tsdconference.org/ LOCATION Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic with a population of almost 400.000. The city is the country's judiciary and trade-fair center. Brno is the capital of Moravia, which is in the south-east part of the Czech Republic. Brno had been a Royal City since 1347 and with its six universities it forms also a cultural center of the region. Brno can be reached easily by direct flights from Prague, London and Munich and by trains or buses from Prague (200 km) or Vienna (130 km). For the participants with some extra time, some nearby places may also be of interest. Local ones include: Brno Castle now called Spilberk, Veveri Castle, the Old and New City Halls, the Augustine Monastery with St. Thomas Church and crypt of Moravian Margraves, Church of St. James, Cathedral of St. Peter & Paul, Cartesian Monastery in Kralovo Pole, the famous Villa Tugendhat designed by Mies van der Rohe along with other important buildings of between-war Czech architecture. For those willing to venture out of Brno, Moravian Karst with Macocha Chasm and Punkva caves, battlefield of Battle of three emperors (Napoleon, Russian Alexander and Austrian Franz - Battle by Austerlitz), Chateau of Slavkov (Austerlitz), Pernstejn Castle, Buchlov Castle, Lednice Chateau, Buchlovice Chateau, Letovice Chateau, Mikulov with one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Central Europe, Telc - a town on the UNESCO heritage list, and many others are all within easy reach.