Dear ISCA Members,

First, a Happy New Year to all and welcome to the next installment of the ISCApad for January 2018! As we move into 2018, there are a number of activities underway for ISCA and the speech & language science/processing/technology community. ISCA has made great strides in 2017, and we hope to see continued enthusiasm in the field for 2018!

Interspeech-2018: [http://www.interspeech2018.org/] will take place September 2-6, 2018, at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad, India, with the theme being: Speech Research for Emerging Markets in Multilingual Societies. March 23^rd is the deadline for full paper submissions (this is really the deadline! - note that initial titles/abstracts are due by March 16^th as placeholders). This is the first time Interspeech will be held in India, and it promises to be a great opportunity to experience the diversity of speech and language processing in a country that manages daily life with 122 major languages! I visited the HICC in Hyderabad last summer while participating in an ISCA sponsored summer school and I can say that the HICC is one of the most technically designed conference venues you will experience. Excellent space, with soundproofed movable walls between all oral and poster sessions. There is a hotel (Novotel) connected to the HICC and many food options (most set up in a buffet style if you are wanting to sample various Indian as well as western/non-Indian food options). The Interspeech-2018 Organizing Committee has made great progress on organizational details (logistics, technical program overview, etc). There are a number of informative videos they have included on their website, which give you an idea of the culture, location, and logistics of getting to and around Hyderabad and the conference site. As an example, there will be Interspeech-2018 representatives to greet you when you arrive at the Hyderabad airport, and help with transportation logistics to your hotels.

Also, I would also like to encourage industry to consider both Interspeech Sponsorship, and participation as an Interspeech Exhibitor. ISCA is a non-profit organization and conference Sponsorship is critical for supporting the meeting and especially to help allow as many students and young scientists to participate (there are great spots to highlight your company Logo on the Interspeech-2018 website!).

Organizers have already secured a number of industrial sponsors, and I would like to specifically thank Amazon, Microsoft, Tencent, Google, and Qualcomm who have already committed to sponsorship. If you have interest in sponsorship, please let the organizing committee or ISCA know.

ISCA Website: [ http://www.isca-speech.org/] Next, we have a number of announcements on the ISCA Website. These are (1) Nominations for ISCA Distinguished Lecturers (DL) for 2018-19, (2) Nominations for ISCA Fellows for 2018. Consider nominating you feel is worthy of recognition as an ISCA DL or ISCA Fellow!

Also, note that ISCA Online Archive has now open access, so all conferences and workshops are freely available to speech and language community.

ISCA DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS:As a reminder from recent ISCApads, Professors Jennifer Cole, (Linguistics, Northwestern University, USA) and Laurence Devillers, (Artificial Intelligence and Human-Machine Interaction, University of Paris-Sorbonne IV, LIMSI-CNRS, France) have been named as the ISCA Distinguished Lecturers 2017-2018. So, if you have interest in having them visit your institution as part of the ISCA DL Lecture series, please see the ISCA DL website for DL Topics and logistics. They are available for lecture tours upon request from host institutions (many of the past ISCA DL reports are available on this page – so review some of these to see the impact ISCA DL is having). [ http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/distinguished-lecturers ]

As always, we welcome feedback and input from the ISCA community – if you have suggestions on our society or want to be involved, please let us know!

We look forward to your participation in ISCA and Interspeech-2018!

John H.L. Hansen,

ISCA President

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At the start of this new year 2018, we invite you to update your contact and
 professional information on the ISCA Membership Portal:
   http://www.isca-speech.org/iscamember/member.php

 This is of particular importance for reviewers since the new Reviewer Portal
 retrieves informatil from the Membership Portal. If you are one of the people
 who have multiple START IDs with different emails, please let us know your
 preferred username and we will see about cleaning this up.

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Dear ISCA Member,

We are now open for nominations for ISCA’s Distinguished Lecturers for the period 2018-19.  Details of the scheme are available at http: //www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/distinguished-lecturers

Each nomination should include the following information:
  - a short biography of the candidate
  - selected publications
  - a website, or a resume that provides this information
  - topics/titles of up to three possible lectures that the nominee co uld give

Please note that the nominator must ensure the candidate is willing to s erve if elected.  Also, nominations from previous years will be only c onsidered if updated.  Finally, self-nominations are permitted, but mu st include a letter of support from an ISCA Fellow or Board Member.

Nominations should be sent to dl_nominations@isca-speech.org before 31 J anuary 2018.

Thank You

Roger K. Moore
Chair: ISCA Distinguished Lecturers  Selection Committee

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Opening of nominations for ISCA Fellows 2018

The ISCA Fellows Program recognizes and honors outstanding members who have made significant contributions to the science and technology of speech communication. To qualify for this distinction, a candidate must have been an ISCA member for five years or more with a minimum of ten years experience in the field. Nominations may be made by any ISCA member.  A nomination should be supported by 4 references from ISCA Fellows or ISCA Board members. Current ISCA Board members are not eligible for nomination. The Fellows nomination form can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/2lwjfFr and the reference form from http://bit.ly/2iMJUNo. Nominations should be sent to fellows_nomination@isca-speech.org by February 10 2018. Those who plan to make a nomination are strongly advised to send a brief email to fellows_nomination@isca-speech.org. giving their candidate's name and affiliation before January 10.

More information can be found on the ISCA Honors webpages:  http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/honors

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SCOOT - Speech Communication On-line Training

The ISCA board is planning to set up an on-line portal, SCOOT,  on the ISCA web site to help and encourage students to enter the Speech Communication area. The goal is to provide students with an easy route to high-quality, up-to date learning resources which can be tailored to their individual needs.

The multidisciplinary nature of speech research raises problems for how students are introduced to our field. Students of various backgrounds may become interested in speech: while there are very few, if any, degree programmes centred on speech, speech modules are taught in a wide variety of curricula: in phonetics and linguistics, speech therapy, perceptual psychology, electrical engineering, computer science, communications and mathematics. Students come to these modules from different backgrounds and with different skills, requiring different training resources.

Many institutions do not have established speech research groups but nevertheless offer speech modules, and few speech groups are active across the entire axis from phonetics to speech technology. Consequently, many speech modules are not delivered as well as they might be, and teachers as well as students may need refreshing on new techniques (DNNs for example).

SCOOT will point students to material of all kinds: tutorials, lectures, videos, toolkits, interactive software, databases and so on. The only condition is that the material is freely available on the internet. SCOOT will be organised within a software platform which is designed to help students to learn,

At the moment we are collecting suggestions for items which should be available within SCOOT. You can make a suggestion using the google form on

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-o6GOiADoJ4Xtik3AvFckonHBdTpcFnSHhpoDz0OhmdroMQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

and you can see the responses so far on

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13uLM63MqITXOsAlUIa-rC6d6O50zGzEnRxTJbz0X8lE/edit#responses

We hope to launch SCOOT at Interspeech 2018.

Phil Green (p.green@sheffield.ac.uk) for the ISCA Board.

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ISCA Distinguished Lecturers for 2017-2018 are as follows.

For invitations, please take a look at http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/distinguished-lecturers and contact s-nakamura@is.naist.jp)

(1)   Professor Jennifer S. Cole, Linguistics, Northwestern University, USA

1. Individual differences and attentional effects on cue weighting for prosody perception
2. Prosodic entrainment and its relation to dialogue conditions
3. Memory for Prosody

(2)    Professor Laurence Devillers, Artificial Intelligence and Human-Machine Interaction, University of Paris-Sorbonne IV, LIMSI-CNRS, France

1. Towards social and affective relations with a robot : Joke and Empathy of a Robot/ECA
2. Affective and social robotics: engagement and evaluation
3. Affective and social Robotics aligned with Human Values : ethics by design

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Video archives are available in 

http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/archive/video-archive 

where keynote speeches from IS 2010 can be seen. You will also find video archives 

of many other conferences.

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ISCA Online Archive is now accessible directly from ISCA Web main page.

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APPEL A CANDIDATS

Prix de thèse AFCP 2016 - 2017

Depuis 2004, l'Association Francophone de la Communication Parlée (AFCP) décerne tous les
deux ans un prix scientifique pour une excellente thèse francophone du domaine (ou
anglophone issue d?un laboratoire francophone), afin de promouvoir les recherches en
communication parlée, fondamentales ou appliquées, en STIC, SHS ou SDV. Ce prix permet de
soutenir et diffuser les travaux de jeunes chercheurs du domaine.

Le prix est décerné par un jury composé des chercheurs élus du CA de l?AFCP. Il sera
officiellement remis lors des prochaines Journées d?Etudes sur la Parole, en 2018.

Le lauréat se verra remettre la somme de 500 euros et sera invité à présenter ses travaux
à la communauté de la communication parlée lors des JEPs 2018 (inscription offerte à la
conférence). Il se verra également offrir l?opportunité de publier  sa thèse sous la
forme d?un livre dans la collection « Parole » (éditions CIPA).

*** ATTENTION : changement de périodicité du Prix de Thèse AFCP ***
Depuis l?édition précédente, le prix de thèse est attribué tous les deux ans. Le prix de
thèse 2016-2017 sera attribué à une thèse soutenue entre le 1er janvier 2016 et le 31
décembre 2017, soit sur une période de 2 ans. Mais, dans un souci de comparaison
équitable des dossiers, l?AFCP conserve le principe d?un appel à candidature par an. Le
présent appel vaut pour les thèses soutenues entre le 1er janvier 2017 et le 31 décembre
2017.

CALENDRIER
Date limite de dépôt du dossier : 31 janvier 2018
Décision du jury AFCP : avril-mai 2018
Remise officielle du prix : JEPs 2018

CONDITIONS DE CANDIDATURE A CET APPEL
Peut candidater au présent appel : tout docteur dont la thèse, préparée dans un
laboratoire francophone, et rédigée en français ou en anglais, a été soutenue entre le
1er janvier et le 31 décembre 2017. Toute candidature est limitée à une seule édition du
prix. Seuls les dossiers complets de candidature seront examinés.

CANDIDATURE
Pour candidater, il suffit de :
(1)    Envoyer un e-mail déclarant votre intention de candidater, avec vos nom, prénom,
titre de la thèse, directeur de thèse, et date de la soutenance à:
camille.guinaudeau@limsi.fr. Vous recevrez un accusé de réception.
(2)    Déposer votre manuscrit de thèse en PDF sur le serveur du site web de l?AFCP :
http://www.afcp-parole.org/spip.php?page=depot_these
(3)    Envoyer votre dossier complet via un courrier électronique à l?adresse
camille.guinaudeau@limsi.fr. La pièce jointe sera constituée d?un fichier unique (nommé
VOTRENOM.pdf), contenant dans l?ordre : (i) le résumé de la thèse (2 pages) ; (ii) la
liste des publications ; (iii) les rapports scannés du jury et des rapporteurs de
soutenance de thèse ; (iv) une lettre de recommandation scannée du directeur de thèse ;
(v) un CV (avec coordonnées complètes dont e-mail).

_____________Date de dépôt du dossier : 31 janvier 2018____________

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