Dear ISCA members:

Welcome to the next installment of ISCApad for June 2020!   As always, this edition has a number of updates from the community including upcoming meetings, job openings, theses, and announcements.

COVID-19/Coronavirus outbreak is still the in the news and impacting the world – as well as many of our ISCA colleagues, researchers and friends. So, I ask that we all continue to practice safe social distancing – and stay safe and healthy! We know COVID-19 is impacting many logistics for conference/workshops worldwide including INTERSPEECH, as well as all forms of human engagement – including speech communication & interaction.

Unfortunately, other events are also in the news. Here in the USA in recent days, there has been an outpouring of support for protestors who are speaking out for racial justice and police reform. Violence and hate, the use of excessive force, the inequality perpetuated toward people of color and many other communities, must end. If there is to be a better future, especially for our children, this begins with open and continuous communications and striving to recognize and understand all people should be treated with respect and dignity. The ISCA Community recognizes that no person should experience discrimination or be treated unfairly. As teachers, educators, and researchers in the field of speech communication, let’s all bring our compassion, openness, and commitment to promote equal respect for all – both now and those for our next generation.

INTERSPEECH-2020: [http://www.interspeech2020.org/] (Oct. 26-29, 2020), will still take place in Shanghai, China. The ISCA Board, as well as INTERSPEECH-2020 Organizing Committee continue to monitor and track developments of COVID-19, in an effort to ensure all attendees for IS-2020 as well as satellite workshops are safe and able to participate.

With respect to the INTERSPEECH-2020 Technical Program, more than 2200 papers were submitted by the deadline, and the IS-2020 Technical Committee is currently working on the next phase for reviewing and collecting feedback. I ask that if you have been invited to serve as a reviewer, that you please try to complete your reviews on time. Many on the IS-2020 Technical Committee are working extensively to achieve an effective, fair, and comprehensive review process for this conference. If you are reviewing, please provide fair and constructive comments for the authors!

Again, INTERSPEECH will still take place this fall in Shanghai, China. We will keep all updated via emails, postings on ISCA Facebook & Twitter feeds. For this month, we do not have any new information, other than to say that as we move forward with the INTERSPEECH-2020 technical program, all options are being explored and considered. The conference will currently take place on Oct. 26-29, 2020, with tutorials on Oct. 25. The review process timeline is as follows:

• 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.

INTERSPEECH-2020 PROCEEDINGS: In the event that the ISCA INTERSPEECH-2020 physical conference would need to be canceled due to COVID-19, ALL accepted papers will be published in the standard format in the Proceedings of INTERSPEECH-2020 as usual (i.e., including release on ISCA Archive).

2020 ISCA MEDAL FOR SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT:

We again recognize the recipient of the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement:

Prof. Janet Pierrehumbert (Oxford e-Research Centre; Oxford Univ.)! This is the highest ISCA award for science achievement, and certainly well deserved for the remarkable contributions Prof. Pierrehumbert has made to the field of speech communications, and in particular to Phonology.

2020 ISCA FELLOWS Announced:

Again, we recognize and congratulate the following six distinguished researchers will be elevated to the status of ISCA FELLOW for 2020. Their citations as well as affiliations are highlighted below. Please join me in congratulating these well deserving colleagues for their research contributions to the field of speech communications! All will be recognized at ISCA INTERSPEECH-2020 this fall.

• Prof. Paavo Alku (Finland) “For contributions in voice source analysis and its applications.”

• Prof. Catherine Best (Australia) “For contributions to non-native speech perception, bilingualism, and language acquisition.”             

• Prof. Martin Cooke (Spain) “For contributions to speech perception modelling, robust speech recognition and objective intelligibility models.”  

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• Prof. Thomas Hain (United Kingdom) “For leadership in the field of automatic speech recognition.”

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• Prof. Satoshi Nakamura (Japan)  “For contributions to research on multi-lingual and cross-lingual spoken language communication systems”

• Prof. Bjorn Schuller  (United Kingdom) “For contributions to computational paralinguistics, and research and leadership in the speech processing community.”

ISCA INTERSPEECH-2023:

Dublin, Ireland:“Inclusion in Speech & Language Research – does your solution work for me?”

The ISCA Conference Sub-Committee has been working extensively this spring 2020 to collect, review and assess a number of extremely competitive bids, following the call for bids for INTERSPEECH-2023. After extensive discussions, multiple rounds of voting and more discussion, ISCA has reached the decision to hold INTERSPEECH-2023 in Dublin, Ireland (Aug. 20-24, 2023). We are excited to see Interspeech come to Ireland, and are particularly pleased at the overwhelming participation from the country of Ireland, as well as the high quality, diverse, and internationally recognized members of the organizing committee who brought this bid to ISCA. We congratulate the IS-2023 Organizing Team, and look forward to their success as we move forward.

Latest Updates: Please keep informed of the latest events on the ISCA Webpage, INTERSPEECH-2020 webpage, and ISCA Facebook and Twitter feeds (@ISCAFOX). The Board and the IS-20 Organizers will continue to monitor the situation and will communicate any further changes as soon as possible. Our goal is to ensure a safe and technologically invigorating conference experience.

We look forward to your participation in ISCA and INTERSPEECH-2020! Until the next ISCApad, be safe and stay connected to our community!

John H.L. Hansen (ISCA President)

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Dear ISCA Member,

We are very grateful to everyone who has submitted a paper to INTERSPEECH 2020. The organising committee are working hard to put together a great conference despite the difficulties we are all facing. They need your help - we need more reviewers. We're looking for people with a PhD related to speech communication or at least 7 years research experience.

Potential reviewers can self nominate or be nominated through the ISCA Reviewer Portal where they will be reviewed by the ISCA Technical Committee:

Either: have a previously registered reviewer nominate new reviewers through their reviewer account on the ISCA reviewer portal
http://www.isca-speech.org/iscareviewers/

Or: sign-up for an account at
http://www.isca-speech.org/iscareviewers/
and self-nominate

All reviewers must have completed their PhD or have over 7 years of research experience and not be enrolled in a PhD programme.

The following information is required:
 - Username (email address)
 - Last name, First name
 - Gender (M/F/Prefer not to say)
 - Affiliation
 - Website
 - City
 - Country
 - Degree #1
 - Degree #2 (if applicable)
 - Degree #3 (if applicable)
 - Comments: Any additional information to allow the Technical Committee to assess if the nominee meets the requirements to be a reviewer for Interspeech


Thank you for your support.

ISCA Board and INTERSPEECH 2020 Organising Committee

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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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Dear Fellow Members of SProSIG,

Since we have no nominations other than current officers as of June 1, the Permanent Advisory Council (PAC) decided to ask current officers (Plinio Barbosa, Aoju Chen, Hongwei Ding, Martine Grice, and  Nigel Ward
(Chair)) to serve the 2020 - 2022 term.  Thank you for your kind cooperation.

Sincerely,
Keikichi Hirose
Past President of SProSIG

 ?

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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/ .

I encourage you to contact the authors with questions, or just to let them know that you liked their work.  Since we won't be meeting physically this year, let's make the extra effort to stay connected as a community.

Many thanks to Professor Minematsu and the Organizing Committee for putting together an excellent set of papers and talks, in a time of adversity.

Nigel Ward, SProSIG Chair

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