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ISCApad #283 |
| Monday, January 10, 2022 by Chris Wellekens |
2 ISCA News
| 2-1 | Message from ISCA president Prof. Sebastian Möller
Dear friends of ISCA, I hope that you had a good start into the new year. 2022 will be the third year affected by the Covid19 pandemic, which already has – and will continue to have – a significant impact on our scientific life. Visibly, 2020 was the first year with a fully virtual Interspeech conference, and 2021 the first year with a fully hybrid Interspeech. While both experiences were very satisfactory (given the circumstances), the dynamic situation does not allow us to disentangle pandemic effects from the general development of our community, such as the rise in paper submissions. During the preparation of Interspeech 2021 in Brno, the organisers identified a strong need for more constant support of the technical program of Interspeech. To address this aim, the ISCA board has decided to create a new position, part time but open ended. As soon as this position is advertised, we hope that you will circulate it to persons who might be qualified and willing to take over this task. In addition, a task force will review the electronic tools which are currently used by ISCA, and propose new structures and tools. If you are interested to join the task force, feel free to contact me. In the last issue of ISCApad, we started a new series highlighting the activities of our SIGs. Below, you will find an introduction to the language-related SIGs by the board member who is responsible, Nobuaki Minematsu, as well as a message from Nigel Ward on the Speech Prosody Special Interest Group (SproSIG). I wish you all the best for the new year, and hope that you manage to navigate successfully through these unstable times, both on a professional and a personal level. Have a good read of ISCApad, as usual very nicely compiled by Chris Wellekens.
Sebastian Möller ISCA president
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| 2-2 | ISCA Language SIGS ISCA supports speech communication research activities in various languages. The individual languages have equal interest, but they may involve have different technical or scientific problems. For example, some languages are tonal, while others are not; Some languages have only one writing system, while others have several. In the ISCA community, we have 6 language Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for Chinese, French, Italian, Iberian, Indian, and Russian. Each SIG is organised by researchers who speak the language of interest as L1 and others who have a technical or scientific interest in the language. Each SIG sponsors domestic and international research activities, and representative members of the SIGs attend a Lang SIG meeting every year during the INTERSPEECH conference. In this meeting, recent activities of each SIG are reported, and new ideas are exchanged. We also review what ISCA can do for the SIGs and what the SIGs can do for ISCA. Each SIG has its own web page, and you can visit the pages here. Prof. Nobuaki MINEMATSU The University of Tokyo Japan
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| 2-3 | SProSIG Beyond words, the prosody of speech is a important channel in human-to-human communication. Among other functions, it reinforces lexical and syntactic information, conveys paralinguistic information, and supports pragmatic functions such as turn taking, topic organization, the expression of stance, and the management of interpersonal relations. With advances in the core technologies of speech recognition and speech synthesis, the ability to effectively process prosodic information is increasingly critical for the development of truly effective human-machine dialogue systems.
The Speech Prosody special interest group (SproSIG) was recognized as an official ISCA SIG in 2000. Since then we have held the flagship Speech Prosody conference every two years, with Speech Prosody 11 upcoming in Lisbon this May. Typically attracting over 300 attendees, this covers all areas of prosody: scientific, descriptive, and applied. Beyond speech synthesis and other engineering applications, topics include linguistic theory, psycholinguistics, language education, forensic science, medical science, and sociolinguistics. The SIG has also sponsored or endorsed other conferences, notably Tone and Intonation, and other workshops and events.
Call for Participation: We welcome participation in Speech Prosody 2022 in Lisbon, and encourage all to join our low volume mailing list, following the links and instructions at www.sprosig.org. ? The officers of SProSIG: Plinio Barbosa, Aoju Chen, Hongwei Ding, Martine Grice, Nigel Ward (Chair)
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| 2-4 | ISCA hires a Conference coordinator The International Speech Communication (ISCA) [www.isca-speech.org) seeks application for a :
Conference Coordinator (f/m/d)
For a limited-term contract with 18h/week, with the perspective of extension towards an unlimited-term contract.
The International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) is a scientific non-profit organization according to the French law 1901. The purpose of the association is to promote, in an international world-wide context, activities and exchanges in all fields related to speech communication science and technology. The association is aimed at all persons and institutions interested in fundamental research and technological development that aims at describing, explaining and reproducing the various aspects of human communication by speech, e.g. phonetics, linguistics, computer speech recognition and synthesis, speech compression, speaker recognition, aids to medical diagnosis of voice pathologies.
One of the core activities of ISCA is to ensure the continuous organization of its flagship conference, Interspeech. The conference is organized each year in a different country by a different team; it typically attracts 1500 or more participants from all over the world. The role of this newly-created position of conference coordinator is to ensure a smooth organization of the conference over the years, according to well-established standards, and taking into account the aims ISCA has with the conference.
The role requires – amongst others – to take over the lead for the following activities:
Required competences:
We are looking for a self-motivated person who is enthusiastic about the organization of international scientific events, and has excellent organizational and communication skills (mostly in English). The person does not need to have a scientific background in speech communication and technology, but should be able to understand the scientific background, as well as the aims ISCA has with the organization of Interspeech conferences. A proven expertise in the organization of large-scale events is a must, and of scientific events is a plus.
The job can be carried out remotely from any location. A flexible allocation of time over the year is required, depending on the status of preparations (the conference is typically organized in September, and there is an expected increase in activity from March to September). The willingness to physically attend preparatory meetings and the conference is required.
Deadline : 15 March 2022.
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| 2-5 | ISCA needs your help! ISCA needs your help!
For the smooth running of our organization and our flagship conference Interspeech, we’ve been relying on lots of different electronic tools. Unfortunately, many of these tools are outdated and/or did not scale up with the growth of our community. Moreover, our website and communication channels get do with a make-over.
In order to improve the services for the benefit of the entire community, we are looking for volunteers who would like to help with the task of planning a new IT infrastructure for ISCA. This infrastructure might include the review system, the reviewer database, membership administration, web site, communication tools, as well as other administrative IT infrastructures still to be defined. Requirements should be collected from members of the ISCA board, past and present Interspeech organisers, and our community, and they should be mapped to the possibilities ISCA has, considering also personal issues such as frequently-changing board members, absence of continuous IT support, etc.
Would you like to help in the planning of the new IT infrastructure? Please send an email to president@isca-speech.org indicating why you are interested, and a little bit of your personal background relevant to this activity.
Thanks! Odette & Sebastian
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| 2-6 | Call for Bids for Interspeech 2025 We would like to emphasize this as we actively seek bids for Interspeech 2025. Details on the bidding process can be found on the ISCA web site. The most important part of a bid is an enthusiastic and diverse team from our research community, willing to invest effort into the organization of such a conference over a period of 3-4 years. Having experience with organizing smaller-scale events (such as ITRWs or other ISCA-endorsed workshops) is a plus, as well as some visibility within our community. However, as part of the process, the ISCA board ? and in particular the conference coordinators ? are eager to offer support and feedback for the preparation of a successful bid. In fact, many bids which were not successful on their first submission are continuously improved in order to produce the best possible conference in the end.
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| 2-7 | ISCA-PEDRAC: a new service of ISCA. ISCA-PECRAC (Postdoc & Early Career Researcher Advisory Committee) is pleased to invite postdoc & early career researchers to participate in the 1st Early Career Researcher Annual Gathering @ Interspeech 2021 (online this year).
The Early Career Researcher Annual Gathering aims to provide an opportunity for postdoc & early career researchers to meet and communicate at INTERSPEECH. In the framework of ISCA-PECRAC, we would like:
1st Early Career Researcher Annual Gathering @ Interspeech 2021 Time : August 30 at 18:00 - Brno time (preliminary slot) Location : Online Program :
Contacts: Yaru Wu (yaru.wu@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr) Berrak Sisman (berrak_sisman@sutd.edu.sg)
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| 2-8 | Call for DL nominations for 2022-2023
Nominations for ISCA distinguished lecturers.
Please note that the nominator must ensure the candidate is willing to serve if elected. Also, nominations from previous years will be only considered if updated. Finally, self-nominations are permitted, but must include a letter of support from an ISCA Fellow or Board Member.
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| 2-9 | Announcement from the ISCA Distinguished Lecturer Program
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| 2-10 | ISCA Distinguished Lecturer for 2021-2022 ISCA Distinguished Lecturer for 2021-2022
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| 2-11 | ISCA social networks We encourage all members tokeep contact with ISCA via our social nets. Also you will bde kept informed about all events on our website. This is particularly important in this time where due to the coronavirus, many modifications may be brought to the conference.
ISCA Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/iscaspeech/ ISCA Twitter : https://twitter.com/ISCAFOX ISCA SAC Student Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/groups/98794207409/ website : www.isca-speech.org
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| 2-12 | Women in Speech Research
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| 2-13 | Code-of-Conduct for Conference and Workshop Attendees Code-of-Conduct for Conference and Workshop Attendees
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| 2-14 | Code-of-Ethics for Authors (updated) Code of Ethics for Authors
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| 2-15 | Reminder ISCA International virtual seminars REMINDER: ISCA INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL SEMINARS Now's the time of year to start organising your seminar programme for the coming academic year. Don't forget that ISCA has recruited 17 leading researchers in Speech Communication prepared to give seminars on line. For instance, Gustav Henter of KTH Stockholm comments: As the person responsible for seminars at the Division of Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, Sweden, I would like to thank you for the excellent initiative to set up ISCA international virtual seminars during the pandemic. Thus far our division has made use of this scheme on three occasions: The idea to invite distinguished speakers virtually has been widely appreciated by the department. It is likely that we may schedule further virtual seminar from your pool for our autumn semester seminars as well. For details, follow the entry Online Seminars in the left menu on the ISCA home page, https://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb
-- ************************ Professor Phil Green SpandH Computer Science University of Sheffield ************************
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| 2-16 | IEEE SPS ME-UYR (Mentoring Experiences for Underrepresented Young Researchers)
Friends, The IEEE SPS ME-UYR (Mentoring Experiences for Underrepresented Young Researchers) steering committee is proposing a new mentoring program for young IEEE SPS researchers and would like to invite you to join as potential student mentors. The program has been started this year to address a critical diversity issue in IEEE as well as other spoken language processing and signal processing organizations: the low percentage of women and underrepresented minorities. The number of female researchers in spoken language processing and signal processing within the IEEE community is about 10%. The numbers for other underrepresented minorities in other technical areas within signal processing are similar or even worse. To address this imbalance, this new program will connect young researchers from underrepresented groups with established researchers in signal processing to support a student research project coordinated with the mentor which is of significant interest to both. Each project will last for 9 months. The young researchers will also be supported with travel funds to attend one conference or workshop after the project. An event in conjunction with the annual ICASSP conference will also be supported for the students to bring students and mentors together to share their experiences. In this message, the ME-UYR committee is first recruiting potential mentors interested in increasing diversity within IEEE SPS and identifying their areas of research interest. We will send out a call to potential student participants asking them to sign up for an online 'students meet mentors' event which we will also invite you to. This online event will be designed to match students with mentors in their field. Once you have accepted one of the students as your mentee the two of you will write a one-page proposal together describing a research plan of interest to you both and submit it to our evaluation committee for review (the deadline is December 1, 2021). This event will be held on October 28 at 11am Eastern Time. Please send an email to sp-me-uyr@listserv.ieee.org to register for the event. Once mentors and students have been connected, the 9-month research mentoring projects will begin. We expect the first ME-UYR program to support about 12 projects in IEEE-SPS. A more detailed description of the program can be found here: https://signalprocessingsociety.org/community-involvement/me-uyr-mentoring-experiences-underrepresented-young-researchers-program . As a highly respected researcher in IEEE SPS organizations, we would very much like you to participate with us in this program. The lasting benefits to young diversity students themselves as well as to IEEE itself and the signal processing societies are extremely significant, so we would really appreciate your acceptance! Please respond by October 20 if you can join. Sincerely yours, IEEE SPS ME-UYR Committee Irene Amerini Oliver Cossairt Mark Hasegawa-Johnson Julia Hirschberg Ina Kodrasi Arvind Rao Tirza Routtenberg Odette Scharenborg
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| 2-17 | Publications and Videos of Speech Prosody 2020 The papers are already publicly available, at https://www.isca-speech.org/archive/SpeechProsody_2020/ . To also see the videos, you can register for the conference, for only 4000 Yen, at https://www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sp2020_registration/vp/ .
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| 2-18 | Appel à candidatures Prix de thèse AFCP 2021 Prix de thèse AFCP 2021
Depuis 2004, l'Association Francophone de la Communication Parlée (AFCP) décerne un prix scientifique récompensant la grande qualité d'un travail de thèse francophone du domaine (ou anglophone issue d’un laboratoire francophone), afin de promouvoir les recherches en communication parlée, fondamentales ou appliquées, dans le domaine des technologies de la communication, des sciences humaines et de la vie. 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 conseil d'administration de l’AFCP. Il sera officiellement remis lors des prochaines Journées d’Etudes sur la Parole, en 2022. Le ou la lauréat(e) se verra remettre la somme de 500 euros et sera invité(e) à présenter ses travaux à la communauté de la communication parlée lors des prochaines JEP (inscription offerte à la conférence). Il/elle se verra également offrir l’opportunité de publier sa thèse sous la forme d’un livre dans la collection « Recherches en PArole » (éditions CIPA). CALENDRIER Date limite de dépôt du dossier : 31 janvier 2022 Décision du jury AFCP : avril-mai 2022 Remise officielle du prix : JEP 2022 CONDITIONS DE CANDIDATURE À 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 1 er janvier et le 31 décembre 2021. 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.afcpparole.org/soumettre-une-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 des rapporteurs autorisant la soutenance et le rapport 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 2022____________
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| 2-19 | ISCA Medals and Fellows Nominations 2022 ISCA Medals and Fellows Nominations 2022 Nominations are open for the following ISCA Awards: The ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement recognizes and honours an individual each year who has made extraordinary contributions to the field of speech communication science and technology. Any ISCA member can make a nomination. All nominations for ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement should be submitted to the ISCA Secretary at secretariat@isca-speech.org by 5 January 2021 using the nomination form. The ISCA Board will select the winner by 1 February and announce the winner in the March 2020 ISCApad. Unsuccessful candidates of the previous year(s) must be re-nominated to qualify for candidacy. The ISCA Service Medal recognizes an ISCA member who has provided extraordinary service to ISCA and/or the Speech Communication community. Any ISCA Board or Advisory Council member can make a nomination. All nominations for ISCA Service Medal should be submitted to the ISCA Secretary at secretariat@isca-speech.org by 5 January 2021 using the nomination form. Unsuccessful candidates of the previous year(s) must be re-nominated to qualify for candidacy. The ISCA Fellows Program recognises and honours 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 except for those on the Fellows Selection Committee.. Fellows may be recognized by their outstanding scientific and/or technical contributions and/or continued significant service to ISCA. The supporting case for the candidate's nomination should include up to 3 major contributions which have had impact on the speech community and/or society in general. A nomination should be supported by 3 references from senior scientists/technologists in the Speech Communication community, for instance ISCA Fellows and ISCA Board members. Current ISCA Board members are not eligible for nomination. Members of the Fellows Seection Committee may not nominate candidates or provide references. All nominations for ISCA Fellow should be sent to fellows_nomination AT isca-speech.org by 10 February using the nomination form. Those who plan to nominate are strongly advised to send brief information on candidates (candidate's name and affiliation) to the above email address before January 10 with your name and contact email address. More information can be found on the ISCA Honours webpage.
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| 2-20 | Reminder: Nominations for ISCA Medals and Fellowship. REMINDER: ISCA Fellow Nominations
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| 2-21 | Call for reviewers Interspeech 2022 Nominations to be a reviewer for Interspeech 2022 are now open. If you would like to review for Interspeech, or if you have a colleague or former student who would be qualified, please nominate yourself, your colleague, or your former student at https://isca-speech.org/iscareviewers/reviewer.php.
Interspeech reviewers must have a Ph.D. in an area of research related to speech science and/or speech technology. Nominations must include a link to an online CV; nominations will be reviewed by the ISCA Technical Committee.
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| 2-22 | Prix de thèse AFCP 2021 APPEL A CANDIDATURES
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| 2-23 | Videos at Interspeech 2021 The video recordings of Interspeech 2021 were processed and are currently being uploaded online. You can find all the videos at
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