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ISCApad #254 |
| Saturday, August 10, 2019 by Chris Wellekens |
4 Academic and Industry Notes
| 4-1 | Master Informatique en Apprentissage et Traitement Automatique de la Langue : ATAL. Universités du Maine et de Nantes France Les Universités du Maine et de Nantes propose un parcours conjoint de Master Informatique en Apprentissage et Traitement Automatique de la Langue : ATAL !
Le parcours ATAL forme des étudiants issus de filières informatiques à un ensemble de techniques d'apprentissage automatique et de traitement automatique de la langue qui sont au c?ur des applications en ingénierie des langues telles que la traduction automatique, la fouille d?opinions, la recherche d?information, la reconnaissance de la parole et du locuteur? Il s'agit donc de former des étudiants hautement spécialisés qui seront capables de mettre en ?uvre des applications prenant en compte des masses de données complexes et hétérogènes. Au terme de la formation les étudiants seront reconnus comme DataScientist, Chef de projet en ressources linguistiques, Cadre en technologies et services de l?information? La formation s?appuie sur des chercheurs issus des laboratoires du LS2N (Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes) et du LIUM (Laboratoire d'Informatique de l'Université du Maine) et sur des acteurs économiques dont les applications nécessitent des connaissances sur le traitement de données langagières. En outre, la formation est très ancrée dans son écosystème régional et les étudiants seront invités à participer à des Meetup et sensibilisés au monde de l?entrepreneuriat. Il est possible d?accéder à la formation en M1 comme en M2 selon les acquis du candidat. - le M1 peut être indifféremment réalisé au Mans ou à Nantes selon la préférence de l?étudiant.
- l?ensemble des cours du M2 sont mutualisés entre les Universités du Maine et de Nantes et l?étudiant peut librement s?inscrire au Mans ou à Nantes. Le M2 peut être réalisée en présentiel ou en alternance.
Information ---------------- - Nantes : http://www.master-info.univ-nantes.fr/00542841/0/fiche___pagelibre/&RH=1403710895111 - Le Mans: http://www-info.univ-lemans.fr/?page_id=10 Modalités d?accès -------------------------- - Nantes : http://www.sciences-techniques.univ-nantes.fr/72621571/0/fiche___pagelibre/ - Le Mans : http://www-info.univ-lemans.fr/?page_id=211 Contacts ------------- - Nantes : Emmanuel.Morin@univ-nantes.fr - Le Mans : Yannick.Esteve@univ-lemans.fr 
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| 4-2 | Virtual Coaches Modeling Virtual Coaches The European Horizon-2020 project Council of Coaches aims to develop a tool in which virtual embodied coaches form a team of experts that can discuss amongst themselves and with the user how the user could improve his healthy lifestyle behaviors. The project combines state of the art 3D Virtual Avatars with language and reasoning technology and applies this to the area of lifestyle and behavior change coaching. The goal of research is to design, implement and evaluate user interaction with the team of virtual agents, the council of coaches (Home Interface) and one-on-one interaction with a single coach (Mobile Interface). In particular it focuses on
Specific attention will be given to the development of virtual coaches with a wide variety of behavioural characteristics and personality traits. Several studies have shown how low level features such as behaviour expressivity and high level characteristic (e.g. personality traits ) affect user?s involvement in their interaction with the virtual characters and impact his performances (McRorie et al., 2011) (Paiva et al., 2017)). The work in this research will make use of and build upon the GRETA/VIB platform developed at UPMC (Pecune et al., 2014) for multimodal behaviour generation and for visualizing virtual coaches. To apply, send a CV and names of reference to catherine.pelachaud@upmc.fr
H2020 Council of Coaches
Context:
The GRETA/VIB platform is developed at CNRS-ISIR (Pécune et al, 2014). It simulates virtual characters able to communicate with humans in real-time. It is endowed with socio-emotional capabilities. The control of the character is done through two specific languages at the communicative intention level and at the multimodal behavior one. The platform includes several tools to create multimodal behaviors.
The GRETA/VIB platform is used within the European Horizon-2020 project Council of Coaches which aims to develop a tool in which virtual embodied coaches form a team of experts that can discuss amongst themselves and with the user how the user could improve his healthy lifestyle behaviors. The project combines state of the art 3D Virtual characters with language and reasoning technology and applies this to the area of lifestyle and behavior change coaching.
Job Description:
We are looking for an engineer knowledgeable in 3D virtual environment. S/he will participate to Council of Coaches project. Her/his role will be:
- Port the Greta/VIB platform onto Android mobile and VR headset.
- Participate to development of computational model of agent?s multimodal behaviors
- Integrate software modules within the VIB/Greta platform and/or within a bigger software system developed within the H2020 project Coach Council.
- Participate to developers meetings (online and on site) of the H2020 project Coach Council
Profile: Engineer in computer science, Master, PhD
skills:
Mastered skills:
Project Length: 1 year position renewable
Place: ISIR - UPMC
Stipend: depends on applicant qualification
Contact: Catherine Pelachaud, CNRS-ISIR; catherine.pelachaud@upmc.fr
To apply, send a CV, names of reference, master grades (for Master applicants) to catherine.pelachaud@upmc.fr
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| 4-3 | IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (open access). Dear colleagues,
we are happy to announce the release of the latest issue of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (open access). This is a biannual newsletter addressing the sciences of developmental and cognitive processes in natural and artificial organisms, from humans to robots, at the crossroads of cognitive science, developmental psychology, artificial intelligence, machine learning and neuroscience. It is available at: http://goo.gl/pA7WrH Featuring dialog: === 'One developmental architecture to rule them all?' == Dialog initiated by Matthias Rolf, Lorijn Zaadnoordijk and Johan Kwisthout
with responses from: Niels Taatgen, John Spencer, Gary Jones, Gerard Wolff, Clément Moulin-Frier and Paul Verschure
== Topic: Humans have a unique capability to achieve and learn a wide diversity of skills of all kinds, from low-level sensorimotor skills to very abstract linguistic or mathematical skills. Is it possible to develop theories of how general cognitive architectures can display such a general flexibility for skill learning? This dialog adresses this question, and discusses whether and how it would be useful both epistemologically and in practice to aim towards the development of a ?standard integrated cognitive architecture?, akin to ?standard models? in physics, or whether focusing on simple and partial models should be a better approach. In particular, this question is discussed in the context of understanding development in infants, and of building developmental architectures, thus addressing the issue of architectures that not only learn, but that are adaptive themselves. Call for new dialog: === 'Curiosity as Driver of Extreme Specialization in Humans' == Dialog initiated by Celeste Kidd == This dialog asks the question of why and how humans can be driven to extremely specialize. In particular, it proposes the hypothesis that curiosity may play a fundamental role in this process, and highlights many important open questions about how this could happen, and what are the actual mechanisms of curiosity-driven exploration and learning. Those of you interested in reacting to this dialog initiation are welcome to submit a response by May 30th, 2018. The length of each response must be between 600 and 800 words including references (contact pierre-yves.oudeyer@inria.fr). Let us remind you that all issues of the newsletter are all open-access and available at: https://goo.gl/ZjjZNz
I wish you a stimulating reading! Best regards, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Editor of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems Research director, Inria Head of Flowers project-team Inria and Ensta ParisTech, France http://www.pyoudeyer.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/pyoudeyer
and
Fabien Benureau
Assistant Editor
Inria Mnemosyne team
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| 4-4 | new Masters program in Natural Language Processing and Data Science - Computer Science, Speech, Language, and Knowledge Representation at University of Lorraine, Nancy, France The Institute of Digital Sciences, Management and Cognition at the University of Lorraine
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| 4-5 | New board of ELRA Further to the last ELRA General Assembly and the first election of the individual members representative, the ELRA Board has been largely renewed. Khalid Choukri, ELRA Secretary General, is pleased to introduce the new ELRA Board and would like to congratulate all the newly elected Officers and Members. Board Officers
Board Members
Honorary Presidents and Secretary General
Thank you to the outgoing Board Members and Officers for their continuous involvement over the years:
See also : ELRA Board @ https://bit.ly/2CH9hYU & PR on President election (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon) @ https://bit.ly/2FqMNNM
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| 4-6 | M.Sc. Program in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Data Science, Université de Lorraine, Nancy (France) M.Sc. Program in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Data Science
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| 4-7 | Call for proposals SLT 2020 Call for Proposals - SLT 2020
January 2019
Jason Williams, Kyu Jeong Han, Raul Fernandez, Kai Yu 2019 IEEE SLTC Workshop Sub-Committee Following on the success of the bi-annual SLT workshop over the past decade, the IEEE Speech and Language Technical Committee invites proposals to host the 2020 IEEE Workshop on Spoken Language Technology (SLT 2020). Past SLT workshops have fostered a collegiate atmosphere through a thoughtful selection of venues, thus offering a unique opportunity for researchers to interact and learn. The proposal should include the information outlined below.
The deadline for proposals is Friday, June 7, 2019. Send proposals and questions to the workshop sub-committee: Jason Williams (jdw@alumni.princeton.edu), Kyu Jeong Han (kyuhan215@gmail.com), Raul Fernandez (fernanra@us.ibm.com), and Kai Yu (kai.yu@sjtu.edu.cn). In June, the IEEE SLTC will review proposals, and selection results are expected by July 12, 2019. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, we encourage you to contact the workshop sub-committee in advance of submitting a proposal. They can provide an example of a past successful proposal and example budget. Further, proposers who make contact before Friday 26 April 2019 may be invited to briefly present in-person at the annual IEEE SLTC meeting at ICASSP 2019, 12-17 May 2019, in Brighton, England, to obtain feedback from the SLTC (https://2019.ieeeicassp.org). Presentations should be reasonably specific but need not be complete. Note that the SLTC does not have funding available for travel to ICASSP. The organizers of the SLT workshop do not have to be SLTC members, and we encourage submissions from all potential organizers. IEEE SLTC members are welcome to participate on proposals, and the organizing committees of past SLT events have included many SLTC members. To maintain fairness of selection, SLTC members who are affiliated with an SLT 2020 proposal will not participate in the SLT 2020 selection vote. Further, the members of the workshops sub-committee may not be affiliated with any SLT 2020 proposal. Please feel free to distribute this call for proposals far and wide, and invite members of the speech and language community at large to submit a proposal to organize the next SLT workshop. For more information on the most recent workshops, please see: http://slt2018.org for information about SLT 2018 in Athens, Greece http://slt2016.org for information about SLT 2016 in San Diego, California https://www2.securecms.com/SLT2014/default.asp for information about SLT 2014 in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada And feel free to contact the workshops sub-committee with questions. Jason Williams (jdw@alumni.princeton.edu) Kyu Jeong Han (kyuhan215@gmail.com) Raul Fernandez (fernanra@us.ibm.com) Kai Yu (kai.yu@sjtu.edu.cn)
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| 4-8 | General chair and local arrangements chair of SIGDIAL 2020. The SIGDIAL Exec seeks expressions of interest for the positions of general chair and local arrangements chair of SIGDIAL 2020.
GENERAL CHAIR
The general chair is responsible for schedule management, budget, communication, publicity, management of vendors not directly related to the local arrangements, and creation and maintenance of the conference website.
General chairs have typically attended SIGDIAL multiple times, and have some previous conference organization experience.
If you are interested in serving as general chair of SIGDIAL 2020, please email exec@sigdial.org with the following information:
- Name and affiliation
- Short statement of your interest in and qualifications for serving as general chair
- Previous experience with SIGDIAL: attendance, previous service positions, publications
- Previous experience with conference organization (for SIGDIAL or other conferences)
LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS CHAIR
The local arrangements chair is responsible for choosing and contracting with the conference venue for SIGDIAL, and also the Young Researchers? Roundtable on Spoken Dialog Systems (YRRSDS). They are also responsible for arranging/coordinating space and equipment, management of vendors related to local arrangements, catering and refreshments, organizing the banquet, and providing local information.
Local arrangement chairs have typically attended SIGDIAL at least once, and have some previous conference organization experience. Further, local arrangement chairs are usually based in the same local region as the conference itself. SIGDIAL 2020 will be (approximately) co-located with ACL 2020. ACL 2020 will be held in Seattle, USA, July 6-11 2020. SIGDIAL 2020 will be held immediately before or after ACL, also in Seattle, or somewhere readily accessible from Seattle. In the past, SIGDIAL has usually (but not always) been held at a university facility, rather than a private facility.
If you are interested in serving as local arrangements chair of SIGDIAL 2020, please email exec at exec@sigdial.org with the following information:
- Name and affiliation
- Short statement of your interest in and qualifications for serving as local chair
- Previous experience with SIGDIAL: attendance, previous service positions, publications
- Previous experience with conference organization (for SIGDIAL or other conferences)
- Proposed location and venue for SIGDIAL 2020, including description and statement of why it would be attractive for participants
SELECTION CRITERIA
In addition to self-nominations, the SIGDIAL Exec may nominate further candidates when selecting these roles. These roles will be selected considering a range of criteria, including previous experience with SIGDIAL, previous experience with conference management, and the representation of the organizing committee as a whole, including geography, industry/academia, gender, seniority, and other factors. The Exec may contact interested parties to request further information.
As in past years, the SIGDIAL Exec is responsible for selecting the SIGDIAL organizing committee.
Please direct questions to exec@sigdial.org
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| 4-9 | CfProposals: 2021 IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processing (MLSP)Call for Proposals2021 IEEE International Workshop on
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The International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI) is the premier international forum for multidisciplinary research on multimodal human-human and human-computer interaction, interfaces, and system development. We are requesting nominations for two awards which will be presented during ICMI 2019 in Suzhou, China (October 14-18, 2019):
- Sustained Accomplishment Award: This award will be given to a senior scientist who has made innovative, long-lasting, and influential contributions to the field of multimodal interaction, interfaces, and systems. The nominee will have demonstrated vision in shaping the field, had a sustained record of high-impact research, pioneered one or more research directions, and substantially influenced the work of others.
- Community Service Award: This award will be given to scientist who has made invaluable social-organizational contributions that have collectively had a major impact on improving the ICMI community and its annual events. Emphasis will be placed on selecting an individual who has made major contributions over a sustained period of five years or longer, including ones that have diversified and built the community, expanded opportunities for student training and participation, and similarly influential contributions.
Nomination Process: The deadline for Nominations in both categories is *July 9, 2019*. The nomination process this year has been streamlined and simplified. The main requirement is a nomination statement, with a maximum length one page, describing the main achievements and impact of the nominee. A pointer to the personal webpage and CV of the nominee can also be submitted. Nominations may be received from any member of the multimodal interaction research community. Nominations should be emailed to the ICMI Steering Board Chair (Louis-Philippe Morency, morency@cs.cmu.edu).
Selection Process: The 2019 Awards Committee will review nominations for each award category, determine whether it is appropriate to give an award for each of the categories, and make a final decision. The Committee might also determine to give more than one award in a given category. Conflict of interest procedures prohibit that any members of the Awards Committee be considered for an award while serving on the committee, or that they participate in evaluating any candidate with whom they have had significant professional collaborations or from whom they have received financial remuneration.
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