From rnitendra at in.ibm.com Mon Jun 11 15:05:36 2007 From: rnitendra at in.ibm.com (Nitendra Rajput) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:35:36 +0530 Subject: [I18n-sig] [CfP] 2nd International Workshop on Speech in Mobile and Pervasive Environments (SiMPE) with ACM Mobile HCI 2007 Message-ID: We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for papers: Workshop on Speech in Mobile and Pervasive Environments (in conjunction with ACM Mobile HCI '07) Singapore September 9, 2007 http://research.ihost.com/SiMPE/index.html Organisers * Amit A. Nanavati, IBM India Research Laboratory, India. * Nitendra Rajput, IBM India Research Laboratory, India. * Alexander I. Rudnicky, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. * Markku Turunen, University of Tampere, Finland. Programme Committee * Abeer Alwan, UCLA, USA. * P?ter Boda, Nokia Research Center, Finland. * Nick Campbell, ATR, Japan. * Nobuo Hataoka, Tohuko Inst. of Tech., Japan. * Matt Jones, Swansea University, UK. * Gary Marsden, Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa. * David Pearce, Motorola, UK. * Shrikanth S. Narayanan, USC, USA. * Yaxin Zhang, Motorola, China. Theme Traditionally, voice-based applications have been accessed using unintelligent telephone devices through Voice Browsers that reside on the server. The proliferation of pervasive devices and the increase in their processing capabilities, client-side speech processing is emerging as a viable alternative. As in SiMPE 2006, we will further explore the various possibilities and issues that arise while enabling speech processing on resource-constrained, possibly mobile devices. In particular, this year's theme will be SiMPE for developing regions. There are three compelling reasons for this: (1) The penetration of mobile phone in emerging economies, (2) The importance of speech for semi-literate and illiterate users, and, (3) The completely novel HCI issues that arise when the target population is not tech savvy. The workshop will highlight the many open areas that require research attention, identify key problems that need to be addressed, and also discuss a few approaches for solving some of them --- not only to build the next generation of conversational systems, but also help create the next generation of IT users, thus extending the benefits of technology to a much wider populace. Topics of Interest All areas that enable, optimise or enhance Speech in mobile and pervasive environments and devices. Possible areas include, but are not restricted to: * Speech interfaces/applications for Developing Regions * Multilingual Speech Recognition * Robust Speech Recognition in Noisy and Resource-constrained Environments * Memory/Energy Efficient Algorithms * Multimodal User Interfaces for Mobile Devices * Protocols and Standards for Speech Applications * Distributed Speech Processing * Mobile Application Adaptation and Learning * Prototypical System Architectures * User Modelling Intended Audience This cross-disciplinary burgeoning area requires that the people from various disciplines -- speech, mobile applications, user interface design, solutions for emerging economies -- meet and discuss the way forward. It would be particularly relevant and interesting to have lively discussions between the two communities -- researchers working on technologies for developing regions and those working on SiMPE areas. We hope that a fruitful collaboration will take place: the former will articulate the needs of the population for the latter to address and jointly solve. SiMPE 2006 was a common meeting ground to bring together small isolated groups of people working in SiMPE-related areas. To continue exchanges further beyond SiMPE 2006, we created the SiMPE wiki, which currently has 27 participants. A follow-up in SiMPE 2007 will further strengthen this community and pave the way for more fruitful exchanges and collaborations. The focus on developing regions and its relevance to SiMPE is timely and compelling. Submissions We invite position papers (upto 8 pages - shorter papers are also welcome). Electronic submission is required. Submissions should be formatted according to ACM SIG style. All submissions should be in PDF (preferred) or Postscript format. If any of these requirements is a problem for you, please feel free to contact the workshop organisers. We also welcome participation without paper submission. Position papers must be submitted via the conference submission web site, http://www.easychair.org/SiMPE07. We are in the process of trying to publish the proceedings of the workshop as a special issue. For any comments regarding submissions and participation, contact: namit AT in DOT ibm DOT com, rnitendra AT in DOT ibm DOT com Note: Registration for this workshop is included in the MobileHCI'07 conference registration fee. Alternatively, participants can register only for the workshop - one day registration fee. Seed Questions * How to do speech recognition in noisy environments ? * How to make voice UIs flexible and adaptive ? * Are there any novel and easier ways to handle multiple languages and dialects ? * How do we construct speech systems with small footprints of memory and power consumption ? * How can we distribute processing more efficiently given the increased available computing power on handhelds ? How do we trade this off with a remote server to conserve energy ? * Do we need shorthand languages for the mobile speech UI ? * How do we make such devices adapt automatically to the user, task and environment ? * What novel applications and services can be deployed on such devices ? * What are the right learning models for such settings ? * What does the architecture of future systems looks like ? * How can we design scalable speech applications ? * How can we leverage context (such as location) to make more intelligent UIs that reduce the cognitive burden of semi-literate/illiterate users ? * What are the acoustic implications ? The major challenge in deploying ubiquitous ASR is that the operating environments may change rapidly leaving the ASR system very vulnerable. To increase ASR system robustness in varying environmental noise context, we discuss schemes that are applicable to a specific environment context. Key Dates * Position Paper Submission Deadline: July 1, 2007 (11:59 PM Singapore Time) * Notification of Acceptance: July 15, 2007 * Early Registration Deadline: July 31, 2007 * Workshop: 8:45AM -- 5:00PM, September 9, 2007. Websites * SiMPE Workshop: http://research.ihost.com/SiMPE/index.html * ACM Mobile HCI '07 : http://www.mobilehci.org/ From rnitendra at in.ibm.com Mon Jun 25 13:23:13 2007 From: rnitendra at in.ibm.com (Nitendra Rajput) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:53:13 +0530 Subject: [I18n-sig] Final CFP: Workshop on Speech in Mobile and Pervasive Environments (SiMPE) with ACM Mobile HCI 2007 Message-ID: We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for papers: Workshop on Speech in Mobile and Pervasive Environments (in conjunction with ACM Mobile HCI '07) Singapore September 9, 2007 http://research.ihost.com/SiMPE/index.html Organisers * Amit A. Nanavati, IBM India Research Laboratory, India. * Nitendra Rajput, IBM India Research Laboratory, India. * Alexander I. Rudnicky, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. * Markku Turunen, University of Tampere, Finland. Programme Committee * Abeer Alwan, UCLA, USA. * P?ter Boda, Nokia Research Center, Finland. * Nick Campbell, ATR, Japan. * Nobuo Hataoka, Tohuko Inst. of Tech., Japan. * Matt Jones, Swansea University, UK. * Gary Marsden, Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa. * David Pearce, Motorola, UK. * Shrikanth S. Narayanan, USC, USA. * Yaxin Zhang, Motorola, China. Theme Traditionally, voice-based applications have been accessed using unintelligent telephone devices through Voice Browsers that reside on the server. The proliferation of pervasive devices and the increase in their processing capabilities, client-side speech processing is emerging as a viable alternative. As in SiMPE 2006, we will further explore the various possibilities and issues that arise while enabling speech processing on resource-constrained, possibly mobile devices. In particular, this year's theme will be SiMPE for developing regions. There are three compelling reasons for this: (1) The penetration of mobile phone in emerging economies, (2) The importance of speech for semi-literate and illiterate users, and, (3) The completely novel HCI issues that arise when the target population is not tech savvy. The workshop will highlight the many open areas that require research attention, identify key problems that need to be addressed, and also discuss a few approaches for solving some of them --- not only to build the next generation of conversational systems, but also help create the next generation of IT users, thus extending the benefits of technology to a much wider populace. Topics of Interest All areas that enable, optimise or enhance Speech in mobile and pervasive environments and devices. Possible areas include, but are not restricted to: * Speech interfaces/applications for Developing Regions * Multilingual Speech Recognition * Robust Speech Recognition in Noisy and Resource-constrained Environments * Memory/Energy Efficient Algorithms * Multimodal User Interfaces for Mobile Devices * Protocols and Standards for Speech Applications * Distributed Speech Processing * Mobile Application Adaptation and Learning * Prototypical System Architectures * User Modelling Intended Audience This cross-disciplinary burgeoning area requires that the people from various disciplines -- speech, mobile applications, user interface design, solutions for emerging economies -- meet and discuss the way forward. It would be particularly relevant and interesting to have lively discussions between the two communities -- researchers working on technologies for developing regions and those working on SiMPE areas. We hope that a fruitful collaboration will take place: the former will articulate the needs of the population for the latter to address and jointly solve. SiMPE 2006 was a common meeting ground to bring together small isolated groups of people working in SiMPE-related areas. To continue exchanges further beyond SiMPE 2006, we created the SiMPE wiki, which currently has 27 participants. A follow-up in SiMPE 2007 will further strengthen this community and pave the way for more fruitful exchanges and collaborations. The focus on developing regions and its relevance to SiMPE is timely and compelling. Submissions We invite position papers (upto 8 pages - shorter papers are also welcome). Electronic submission is required. Submissions should be formatted according to ACM SIG style. All submissions should be in PDF (preferred) or Postscript format. If any of these requirements is a problem for you, please feel free to contact the workshop organisers. We also welcome participation without paper submission. Position papers must be submitted via the conference submission web site, http://www.easychair.org/SiMPE07. We are in the process of trying to publish the proceedings of the workshop as a special issue. For any comments regarding submissions and participation, contact: namit AT in DOT ibm DOT com, rnitendra AT in DOT ibm DOT com Note: Registration for this workshop is included in the MobileHCI'07 conference registration fee. Alternatively, participants can register only for the workshop - one day registration fee. Seed Questions * How to do speech recognition in noisy environments ? * How to make voice UIs flexible and adaptive ? * Are there any novel and easier ways to handle multiple languages and dialects ? * How do we construct speech systems with small footprints of memory and power consumption ? * How can we distribute processing more efficiently given the increased available computing power on handhelds ? How do we trade this off with a remote server to conserve energy ? * Do we need shorthand languages for the mobile speech UI ? * How do we make such devices adapt automatically to the user, task and environment ? * What novel applications and services can be deployed on such devices ? * What are the right learning models for such settings ? * What does the architecture of future systems looks like ? * How can we design scalable speech applications ? * How can we leverage context (such as location) to make more intelligent UIs that reduce the cognitive burden of semi-literate/illiterate users ? * What are the acoustic implications ? The major challenge in deploying ubiquitous ASR is that the operating environments may change rapidly leaving the ASR system very vulnerable. To increase ASR system robustness in varying environmental noise context, we discuss schemes that are applicable to a specific environment context. Key Dates * Position Paper Submission Deadline: July 1, 2007 (11:59 PM Singapore Time) * Notification of Acceptance: July 15, 2007 * Early Registration Deadline: July 31, 2007 * Workshop: 8:45AM -- 5:00PM, September 9, 2007. Websites * SiMPE Workshop: http://research.ihost.com/SiMPE/index.html * ACM Mobile HCI '07 : http://www.mobilehci.org/