| 2-1 | Obituary Professor John Laver
Dear ISCA Community:
It is with sadness that I share with our community the passing of Prof John Laver on May 6, 2020 (1938-2020), a prominent member of the UK Phonetics and Speech Science community, and someone who has made significant impact to our society. I have also included a number of comments and words of condolences from those who have contacted me, and posted online. Very sorry for this family and our community. John Hansen
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Roger Moore (Univ. of Sheffield): I've just learnt that Prof. John Laver - founder of the Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR) Edinburgh - passed away last week. A phonetician by training, John had a big influence on UK speech technology during the 1980s/90s + he was a lovely soft-spoken guy. RIP John.
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Gerry Docherty, Secretary, International Phonetic Association (IPA): It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that former President of the IPA (1991-5) Professor Emeritus John Laver CBE, FBA, FRSE, passed away in Scotland on 6th May after an extended period of ill health.
John was Professor Emeritus of Speech Science at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, but the large part of his career
was built at the University of Edinburgh where he was based from 1966-2000, becoming Professor of Phonetics in 1985. John’s influence on the field of Phonetics was very significant indeed, in particular his hugely influential work on the phonetic description of voice quality beautifully set out in his eponymous 1980 CUP monograph.
John provided mentoring and support to generations of Phonetics and Speech Science researchers both in Edinburgh and beyond, applying his customary incisive analytic skills, his rigorous approach to phonetic taxonomy, and his unfailing ability to shed new light on the complexities of phonetic theory. John was a relentless advocate for the field of Phonetics, seeing it as occupying a pivotal position at the intersection of a wide range of disciplines. This vision was spectacularly brought to life in 1984 when John established the highly innovative Centre for Speech Technology Research at Edinburgh which he directed from 1984-89, and then chaired until 1994.
In the latter years of his career, John served as Vice Principal of Edinburgh University and held a number of external appointments, including a period as Chair of the British Academy's Humanities Research Board during which he steered its transition into the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. After he was appointed to Queen Margaret University in 2001 John undertook a number of senior academic roles, including a period as Acting Principal, before his retirement in 2004.
John’s loss will be deeply felt by many members of the IPA who have worked or studied with him over the years, or who have had their understanding of the field shaped by reading his work or by hearing one of his inspirational talks. For those of us who knew John very well as a colleague and/or student, it does feel like the end of an era.
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Joseph Mariani (Directeur de Recherche Émérite, LIMSI-CNRS): I've just learned that John Laver passed away. It's a very sad news. John has played a very important role in the structuration of the speech research community in Europe. He has been very influential in
initializing the reflection at a conference in Aarhus and in organizing the European Conference on Speech Technology in Edinburgh in 1987, which resulted in the launching of ESCA, the European Speech Communication Association, in 1988 and in the first Eurospeech in 1989. He was a member of the very first ESCA Board. He was a great scientist, a visionary person and a faithful friend. We will miss him.
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Steve Renals (University of Edinburgh): I am sorry to inform you that Professor John Laver FBA died in hospital in the early hours of Wednesday 6 May. He was Professor of Phonetics at Edinburgh until 2001, and was then Research Professor of Speech Sciences at Queen Margaret University until his retirement in 2004. He made many contributions to phonetics, and also sociolinguistics, include significant work on voice quality. He was the founder of the Centre for Speech Technology Research in 1984, of which he was Director (1984-89) and then Chair (1991-94). He was also instrumental in the foundation of AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) in the 1990s. Amongst many other honours and awards, he was awarded the CBE for services to Phonetics and the Humanities in 1999.
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Isabel Trancoso (Instituto Superior Técnico (IST, Univ. Lisbon)): He was one of our pioneers and our community should be told about this sad news. Some times when I’m teaching my classes and the students are making too much noise I wish I could speak like John Laver did, not loud at all, and yet command all our attention.
- Jean-François Bonastre (and Joe Campbell): John’s pioneering work in phonetics had such profound impact that I recall precisely the place and time when I first read it. His work has lasting impact that continues to this day. For example, the forensic phonetics community occasionally gets off kilter until someone discovers Laver’s pioneering work and all is well again. Thank you John, RIP.
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Bruce Millar (Australian National University): It is a very sad event for those of us in Australia as John was a great supporter of our efforts to establish the field of Speech Science and Technology in our country. He accepted our invitation to be a Keynote Speaker at our inaugural Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology in 1986 when such conferences were a novelty. He then backed our resolve to commence a biennial conference series which continues to this day. The field in Australia owes a lot to his vision, his commitment to assisting us and bringing his characteristic personal encouragement.
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| 2-2 | INTERSPEECH 2020 dates in Shanghai are moved!
The deadline for paper submission is approaching. You are very welcome to submit research articles before May 8 to the Interspeech2020.And the revised version will be postponed to Friday, May 15, 2020. For more details, please refer to the conference website: http://www.interspeech2020.org.
Dear ISCA Members,
The ISCA board has been closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation in Shanghai and considering its ramifications for Interspeech 2020. After discussion with the organizers, we have determined to keep the location in Shanghai, but to shift the dates of the conference and the associated deadlines, in order to allow more time for the situation to settle down, as well as providing the organizers with additional time to make their preparations.
Interspeech will now take place on 26-29 October 2020 at the Shanghai International Convention Center, with tutorials on 25 October.
The submission and review process has also been updated as follows:
May 8, 2020 Paper submission deadline
June 6, 2020 Show and tell submission due
July 24, 2020 Paper acceptance/rejection notification
Aug 10, 2020 Notification about ISCA Travel Grants
Aug 24, 2020 Early-bird registration deadline
Sep 23, 2020 Standard registration deadline
Authors who have a paper accepted to Interspeech 2020 will have the option either to attend physically, or to attend remotely. Remote attendance would also be associated with a reduced registration fee. More information will be provided soon.
The change in dates is likely to have an effect on Satellite Workshops as well as Challenges associated with Interspeech. We will be working with the organizers of these events and will let you know of any updates to key dates ASAP.
Further details regarding the conference will be forthcoming. The board and the organizers will continue to monitor the situation and will communicate any further changes as soon as possible.
Best regards,
John H.L. Hansen, ISCA President
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| 2-3 | Message from the Interspeech 2020 Organizing Committee
The INTERSPEECH2020 Organizers wish to announce that after closely monitoring the situation of COVID-19 and maintaining close communication with ISCA Board, we have decided to postpone IS2020 to October 26-29, 2020 (tutorial day Oct 25) but keep the location in Shanghai. We will work with the organizers of satellite workshops and challenges based on these changes. The NEW IMPORTANT DATES to watch are listed below. We look forward to running IS2020 and related events in Shanghai as a well-attended conference, and will augment with remote participation by a fraction of the attendees. Details related remote participation will be announced in due course. Under all circumstances, the IS2020 Organizers will push forward and complete the process of conference proceedings publication. Shanghai has very pleasant weather in October, and we sincerely hope that the COVID-19 threat will be over by then so we can welcome you all to Shanghai for IS2020! In the meantime, please take care and stay healthy!
NEW IMPORTANT DATES:
April 3, 2020 Tutorial proposals due
April 10, 2020 Satellite workshops/events proposals due
May 3, 2020 Tutorial acceptance/rejection notification
May 8, 2020 Paper submission deadline
June 6, 2020 Show and tell submission due
July 24, 2020 Paper acceptance/rejection notification
Aug 10, 2020 Notification about ISCA Travel Grants
Aug 24, 2020 Early-bird registration deadline
Sep 23, 2020 Standard registration deadline
Please also help us to circulate this email by sending it to your colleagues and friends, who are interested in the conference.
Best Regards,
Interspeech 2020 Organising Committee
http://www.interspeech2020.org/
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| 2-4 | Deadline extension for bids Interspeech 2023
The deadline for bids for Interspeech 2023 has been postponed to February 28, 2020.
The ISCA Conferences team
Odette Scharenborg, Margaret Zellers, Sebastian Möller
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| 2-5 | 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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| 2-6 | Code-of-Ethics for Authors
Code-of-Ethics for Authors
ISCA is committed to publishing high-quality journals and conference
proceedings. To this end, all authors are requested to ensure they
adhere to ethical standards, specifically (but not limited to):
(1) the work does NOT include fabrication, falsification or any kind
of data breach. Authors should keep their code and log data that
produced the results in the paper.
(2) the work does NOT include plagiarism or significant
self-plagiarism. ISCA (and conference organizers or journal editors)
may use tools to detect plagiarism and reject papers without review.
(3) the work does NOT use figures, photographs or any other kind of
content whose copyright is not owned by or granted to the authors,
except for proper quotations allowed by the copyright law. ISCA (and
conference organizers or journal editors) may request authors to
provide evidence of permission to use the content for their work.
(4) the work does NOT include inappropriate content in terms of human
rights. ISCA (and conference organizers or journal editors) may
request authors to provide evidence of approval from the host Ethics
Committee (Institutional Review Board or equivalent) that the work
meets their Institution's ethical requirements, and/or explicit
consent from the human subjects used in the work.
(5) all (co-)authors must be responsible and accountable for the work,
and consent to its submission.
If any concerns relating to this code are raised or reported, ISCA
(and conference organizers or journal editors) will set up a committee
to investigate the matter and decide on appropriate action including
withdrawal of the paper and suspension of future submissions by the
authors.
ISCA also enforces the NO-show policy for conference papers. Any
paper accepted into the technical program, but not presented on-site,
may be withdrawn from the official proceedings. Please refer to
https://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/conferences point 2) and 8).
* Short version: (to be posted in a limited space)
ISCA is committed to publishing high-quality journals and conference
proceedings. Our code-of-ethics for authors can be found at:
http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/about-isca?id=279
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| 2-7 | Code-of-Conduct for Conference and Workshop Attendees
Code-of-Conduct for Conference and Workshop Attendees
ISCA is committed to providing a pleasant conference experience
without harassment and discrimination for anyone, regardless of
gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability and physical
appearance. We do not tolerate any verbal or non-verbal expressions
of harassment or discrimination. Please note that it matters if a
person feels harassed or discriminated regardless of the original
intent of the expressions. In particular, sexual language and imagery
are not appropriate in any conference venue. Conference participants
who engage in inappropriate behavior may be expelled from the
conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference
organizer. These persons may be included in a watchlist for future
ISCA-sponsored events.
If you are troubled by the behavior of another attendee at the
conference, or notice someone is in trouble, please speak immediately
to a member of conference staff or send a message to <ethics@isca-speech.org>.
Your concern will be heard in confidence and taken seriously to solve
the problem.
* Short version: (to be posted in a limited space)
ISCA is committed to a pleasant conference experience without
harassment and discrimination. Our code-of-conduct can be found at:
http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/about-isca?id=278
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| 2-8 | ISCA Archive Analysis: a never ending story!
The article 'Rediscovering 25 Years of Discoveries in Spoken Language Processing: A Preliminary ISCA Archive Analysis', published at Interspeech 2013 on the occasion of the ESCA/ISCA Silver Jubilee, has been extended to the production and analysis of the NLP4NLP corpus containing close to 65,000 articles published in major conferences and journals in speech and language processing over 50 years (1965-2015) on various aspects (publication, collaboration, citation, innovation, plagiarism,...). The results of those analyses have recently been assembled in a series of two papers published in a special issue on 'Mining Scientific Papers: NLP-enhanced Bibliometrics' of the 'Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics' journal :
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2018.00036/full
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2018.00037/full
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| 2-9 | Women in Speech Research
ISCA is committed to supporting diversity in speech communication, and celebrating speech
communication as an exciting and diverse field of research and discovery. Moreover, ISCA
is committed to gender equality.
We are therefore delighted to announce that the database with names, affiliations,
positions, and research topics of women in speech science and speech technology,
originally started by Maxine Eskenazi, is now a wonderful, searchable website, created by
Mark Hasegawa-Johnson.
The website can be found at http://isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/diversity?id=264
The website can be used for, amongst others:
- Workshop and conference organisers to search for keynote and invited speakers,
panelists, and co-organisers
- Nominations for distinguished lecturers
- Norminations for awards, medals, fellowships, and prizes
- Prospective new faculty by faculty search committees
If you identify yourself as female and want to be added to this list, please follow the
instructions on the WomenNspeech website.
We hope this website will be useful to many!
Julia Hirschberg
Mark Hasegawa-Johnson
Odette Scharenborg
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| 2-10 | Proclamation du Prix de thèse AFCP 2019
Prix de thèse AFCP - Edition 2019
Après un examen détaillé des candidatures par le Conseil d?administration de l?AFCP, le prix de thèse 2019 a été attribué à Noémie te Rietmolen, pour sa thèse intitulée : « Neural signature of metrical stress processing in French», réalisée à l?URI Octogone-Lordat de l?Université Toulouse II Jean Jaurès. La thèse est disponible en ligne ici : http://www.afcp-parole.org/spip.php?article1846
Les membres du Conseil d?administration de l?Association Francophone de la communication Parlée félicitent la lauréate et remercient par ailleurs l?ensemble des candidats pour leur participation et la qualité des dossiers qu?ils ont soumis.
Véronique Delvaux, présidente du CA de l?AFCP
Camille Guinaudeau, responsable prix de thèse AFCP
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| 2-11 | Bourses JEP AFCP
L'Association Francophone de la Communication Parlée (AFCP)
attribue des bourses à destination d'étudiants / étudiantes (thèse en
cours) et jeunes chercheurs / jeunes chercheuses (thèse soutenue depuis
2015) francophones dont le laboratoire de rattachement se situe hors
d'europe afin de leur permettre d'assister aux « Journées d'Études sur
la Parole » qui se tiendront du 8 au 12 Juin 2020 (JEP-TALN 2020,
Nancy, France, https://jep-taln2020.loria.fr/). Ces bourses concernent
toute personne étudiant / travaillant et résidant dans un pays
hors-europe, dont les thématiques de recherche sont liées aux thèmes
soutenus par l'AFCP : toute recherche sur la parole et la communication
parlée, fondamentale ou appliquée, s'insérant dans les domaines
scientifiques des technologies de la communication, des sciences
humaines ou des sciences de la vie.
Les candidats / candidates fourniront une lettre de motivation d'une à
deux pages décrivant leur thématique de recherche en lien avec les
thèmes de l'AFCP et l'apport que constituerait pour eux une
participation aux JEP, ainsi qu'un CV. La soumission d'un article aux
JEP sera vue positivement mais n'est pas obligatoire. Le dossier de
candidature sera transmis à olivier.crouzet@univ-nantes.fr au plus tard
le Lundi 17 Février 2020. À l'issue d'un processus de sélection, les
lauréats / lauréates bénéficieront d'une inscription gratuite aux
JEP2020 et se verront rembourser leurs frais de mission à hauteur de
700? maximum.
CALENDRIER
Date limite de dépôt du dossier : Lundi 17 Février 2020
Décision du CA de l'AFCP : Mardi 03 Mars 2020
Date des JEP 2020 : 8-12 Juin 2020
CANDIDATURE
Par mail ayant pour sujet 'Bourses JEP AFCP', envoyé à
olivier.crouzet@univ-nantes.fr et contenant :
(1) Une lettre de motivation au format PDF (le nom du fichier
contenant vos nom et prénoms);
(2) Votre CV au format PDF (2 pages maximum, le nom du fichier
contenant vos nom et prénoms) avec coordonnées complètes
dont votre adresse électronique.
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| 2-12 | Election of SProSig new board officers
Dear Fellow Members of SProSIG,
The constitution of the Speech Prosody SIG calls for election of officers
once every two years. Accordingly, acting on behalf of the the Permanent
Advisory Council (PAC) of SProSIG, I welcome nominations for officers for
the 2020 - 2022 term. The PAC has approved the following schedule and
procedure:
May 1 - June 1: Nominations for SProSIG officers may be sent to me, Past
President of SProSIG, at hirose@gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp and Mark, Past
Secretary jhasegaw@illinois.edu . Please use the nomination form at
http://sprosig.org/assets/nomination-form.doc . Nominations must be
submitted by a SProSIG member (self-nominations are accepted), and must
include a 50-200 words statement of qualifications and vision. The person
being nominated must be a SProSIG member, and must agree to hold the
position if elected.
June 1 - June 8: As the current officers were first elected in 2018 and are
eligible to be re-elected, and since they have all expressed the willingness
to serve another term, if there are no other nominations the Permanent
Advisory Committee will approve the current officers to serve a second term.
The current officers are Plinio Barbosa, Aoju Chen, Hongwei Ding, Martine
Grice, and Nigel Ward (Chair). Otherwise,
June 12 - July 3. The Permanent Advisory Committee will post the candidates'
statements at sprosig.org and an election will be held. The new officers
will then be announced, and decide among themselves their roles.
July 6. The role of the new officers will be decided after election.
Sincerely,
Keikichi Hirose
Past President of SProSIG
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