[Controlled-languages] COLING 2008 First Call For Demonstration

[Allan Ramsay]

# Apologies for cross-postings


          COLING 2008 First Call For Demonstrations

      The 22nd International Conference on Computational Linguistics
                                  
                           18th-22nd August 2008
                            Manchester, UK
                           
                         http://www.coling2008.org.uk/
                     
                  *** Submision deadline: APRIL 28, 2008 ***

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The COLING 2008 Program Committee invites proposals for
demonstrations.  This forum will allow developers of implemented
software systems and libraries the opportunity to describe the design,
development and functionality of their work in an interactive setting.
It is also an opportunity to gain feedback from users and exchange
ideas.

The committee encourages submission of early or experimental
prototypes but will also consider mature systems, particularly those
with novel or experimental features.

Demonstration Chairs:
Allan Ramsay (University of Manchester) and Kalina Bontcheva
(Sheffield University)

Areas of Interest
-----------------

We encourage proposals for the interactive presentation of software
systems and libraries related to any area of computational
linguistics.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

    * pragmatics, semantics, syntax, grammars and the lexicon;
    * lexical semantics and ontologies;
    * word segmentation, tagging and chunking;
    * parsing, generation and summarization;
    * paraphrasing and textual entailment;
    * language models, spoken language recognition and understanding;
    * linguistic, psychological and mathematical models of language;
    * information retrieval, question answering, information
      extraction and text mining;
    * machine learning for natural language;
    * corpus-based modelling of language, discourse and dialogue;
    * multilingual processing, machine translation and translation aids;
    * multimodal and natural language interfaces and dialogue systems;
    * applications, tools and language resources;
    * system evaluation.

Demonstration sessions
----------------------

Each demo will be allocated a session which will overlap a
morning/afternoon tea or lunch break for maximum exposure. The
interactive presentations will be setup in a room with a (220 volt UK)
power supply, computer screen for each presentation and a cluster of
chairs.

This environment will allow for presenters to communicate with many
people at once but still encourage interactive engagement in the
presentation. Questions and comments should be strongly encouraged
during the presentation.

Presenters will be expected to provide their own laptops and/or other
hardware unless otherwise arranged with the demonstration
chairs when it is absolutely necessary.

We cannot confirm internet access will be available at this point.

Format for Submission
---------------------

Demonstration proposals must consist of a detailed 4 page
description of the system or library being presented, and a
(maximum) two page script of the demonstration itself.

* System/Library description (4 pages)

The system or library description will be included in a companion
volume to the COLING 2008 proceedings. It should be typeset using the
standard COLING 2008 guidelines including the title, authors,
contact information, references and acknowledgements.

The 4 pages should describe the purpose, functionality and
applications of the system or library. It should also contain
information about the design, implementation, testing and evaluation
of system. The description should also compare the work to existing
work and highlight the novel functionality/techniques of the
system/library.

* Demonstration script (2 pages)

The presentation script will not appear with the system description
in the companion proceedings.

The presentation script should describe the aim of the presentation,
a narrative or script of the presentation itself and a description of
any other visual aids to be used during the presentation: live demos,
websites, screenshots, diagrams etc. It should also describe how the
audience will be able interact during the presentation.

The 2 pages should conclude with a description of any other hardware
or software required for the presentation to be provided by the local
organiser. Please remember that we cannot guarantee any other
equipment other than the power supply and computer screen.

Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of their relevance to
computational linguistics, innovation, scientific contribution,
presentation, and user friendliness, as well as potential logistical
constraints.

Submission Style Files
----------------------

Submissions should follow a two-column format and should not exceed
four (4) pages, including references. We strongly recommend the use
of the Coling 2008 LaTeX style files or Microsoft Word Style
files tailored for this year's conference - available here:

http://www.coling2008.org.uk/style.html

A description of the format is also available, in case you are unable
to use these style files directly. Papers must conform to the official
Coling 2008 style guidelines, and we reserve the right to reject
submissions that do not conform to these styles, including font size
restrictions.

As reviewing will be blind, the paper should not include the authors'
names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-citations and other
references (e.g. to projects, corpora, or software) that could reveal
the author's identity should be avoided. For example, instead of
"We previously showed (Smith, 1991)...", write "Smith previously
showed (Smith, 1991)...". Papers that do not conform to these requirements
will be rejected without review.

Submission Procedure
--------------------

These 6 pages in total should be submitted as a single PDF document
with the system description coming first.  The presentation script
should follow and use the same font size and margins.
Single column format may be used for the presentation script part
if it is more convenient.

Proposals should be submitted by 28 April 2008, to the COLING 2006
Demonstration Chairs using the START Conference Management
system:

https://www.softconf.com/coling08/main/submit.html

Submission will be electronic. The only accepted format for submitted
papers is Adobe PDF. Authors are responsible for ensuring their PDF
documents print correctly, e.g. all of the necessary fonts are
embedded in the PDF document.

The papers must be submitted no later than
April 28, 2008 23:59pm GMT. Papers submitted after that
time will not be reviewed.

Important Dates
---------------

Submission Deadline:   28 April 2008
Notification:          9 June 2008
Camera Ready:          3 July 2008
Conference Dates:      18-22 August 2008