ISCApad number 75

September 1st, 2004

Dear ISCA members,

After the holiday time, we are able to resynchronize our issues so that the regular date of issue is the first week of each month.

Do not forget to send the information you want to display for members in time to be included (last week of each month).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ISCA News
2. Courses, internships, data bases, softwares
3. Job openings
4. Journals and Books
5. Future Interspeech Conferences
6. Future ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshops (ITRW)
7. Forthcoming Events supported (but not organized) by ISCA
8. Future Speech Science and technology events

ISCA NEWS

ISCA Archive:
Professor Wolfgang Hess has started an important archiving process of all publications of ISCA including ICSLP, Eurospeech and ITRW proceedings. Access to full papers is restricted to ISCA members on our website http://www.isca-speech.org/archive.html.
Recently ICSLP 2002 and Eurospeech 2003 have been added to the collection.

ISCA Annual General Meeting
The next ISCA General Assembly will take place on Wednesday 6 October from 6 to 7 pm in Jeju during ICSLP 2004. An agenda will be sent by email to all members in early September.

-New development on membership services :
It is now possible to apply forISCA membership and renew online. Members benefit a discounted rate for Speech Communication subscription.
The online subscription gives members access not only to the current year's Speech Communication volumes but also to the Speech Communication archive dating back to 1995.
If you are interested in subscribing either to the paper version alone or to the paper version+online access, please indicate this on the renewal form (http://www.isca-speech.org/index_VIP.html) ) and it will be billed directly by Elsevier.
Individual, FULL member and STUDENT : paper version only: 85 EUR
Individual, FULL member and STUDENT : paper version + online access*: 95 EUR
Institutional Member, paper version only : 600 EUR

- A full list of members (including membership numbers and subcription expiry dates) is available online at: http://www.isca-speech.org/member_list.html

-ISCApad publishes now a list of papers
accepted for publication in Speech Communication. These papers can be also viewed on the website of ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com) if your institution has subscribed to Speech Communication.

-ISCA Grants
are available for students attending meetings. Even if no information on the grants is advertised on the conference announcement,students may apply.
For more information: http://www.isca-speech.org/grants

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COURSES, DATABASES, SOFTWARES

- German-French Summerschool on Cognitive and physical models of speech production, perception and perception-production interaction
sponsored by the German French University (DFH) Saarbrucken. 19th-24th of September 2004 in Lubmin, Germany (Baltic Sea).
Contact(see ISCApad 69)

-Information on on-going theses
could be very useful for thesis supervisors, researchers as well as PhD students. A list of speech theses is available under the section HLTheses at http://www.elsnet.org

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JOB OPENINGS

(also have a look at http://www.isca-speech.org/jobs as well as http://www.elsnet.org > Jobs)

POST DOC or RESEARCH ENGINEER POSITION at Institut Eurecom-Sophia Antipolis-France
Department: Multimedia Communications
Eurecom (http://www.eurecom.fr ) is an international teaching and research institute , founded in 1991 as a joint initiative by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications (ENST- Paris). It welcomes students from several engineering schools and universities ENST Paris, ENST Brittany, INT Evry, EPFL, ETHZ (Zurich), Helsinki University of Technology, Politecnico di Torino...They receive an education in Communications Systems (Networking, Multimedia, Security, Mobile Communications, Web services...) Professors, lecturers and PhD students conduct research in these domains. Speech processing is under the responsibility of Professor Chris Wellekens in the Dpt Multimedia Communications.
Spoken languages at the Institute are French end English for the lectures. English is the usual language for research exchanges. Speech research involves speaker identification using speaker clustering or eigenvoices, phonemic variabilities of lexicons, optimal feature extraction, Bayesian networks and variational techniques, navigation in audio databases (segmentation in speakers, wordspotting,...).
Job description: POST DOC or RESEARCH ENGINEER The European project DIVINES, a STREP/6th FP has been accepted by the Commission and will start in January 2004. Eight labs and companies are partners: Multitel (B), Eurecom (F), France Telecom R/D (F), University of Oldenburg (D), Babeltechnologies (B), Loquendo (I), Politecnico di Torino (I), LIA (F). A collaboration with Mac Gill University (Montreal) has also be negotiated. The aim of the project is to analyse the reasons why recognizers are unable to reach the human recognition rates even in the case of lack of semantic content. All weaknesses will be analyzed at the level of feature extraction, phone and lexical models. Focus will be put on intrinsic variabilities of speech in quiet and noisy environment as well as in read and spontaneous speech. The analysis will not be restricted to tests on several databases with different features and models but will go into the detailed behavior of the algorithms and models. Suggestions of new solutions will arise and be experimented. The duration of the project is for 3 years.
The Speech group is looking for a Post-doc or research engineer who acquired a hands-on practice of speech processing. He/she must have an excellent practice of signal and speech analysis as well as a good knowledge of optimal classification using Bayesian criteria. He/she must be open-minded to original solutions proposed after a rigorous analysis of the low level phenomena in speech processing. Fluency in english is mandatory (write, understand and speak). He/she should be able to represent Eurecom at the periodical meetings. Ability to work in a small team is also required.
Application.
-send a detailed resume (give details on your activity since your PhD graduation)
-send a copy of your thesis report (either as a a printed document or as a CDROM) DO NOT attach your thesis in an e-mail!)
-send a copy of your diploma)
-send the names and email addresses of two referees.)
-send the list of your publications (you must have several))
to Professor Chris J. Wellekens, Dpt of Multimedia Communications, 2229 route des Cretes, BP 193, F-06904 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France.
Additional informations
Contact Professor Chris Wellekens (http://www.eurecom.fr/~welleken )

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE AMI TRAINING PROGRAMME AMI (Augmented Multiparty Interaction) is an integrated project funded by the EC Framework 6 programme from January 2004 for 3 years.
AMI is concerned with multimodal technologies to support human interaction, in the context of smart meeting rooms and remote meeting assistants. The project aims to develop new tools for understanding, searching and browsing meetings data captured from a wide range of devices, as part of an integrated multimodal group communication. AMI will thus address a range of multidisciplinary research including natural speech recognition, speaker tracking and segmentation, visual shape tracking, gesture recognition, multimodal dialogue modelling, meeting dynamics, summarisation, browsing and retrieval.
AMI supports a training programme whose objective is to provide opportunites for undergraduates, masters students, Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers to take part in AMI.
* The training programme funds internships and exchanges.
* Visits typically occupy at least 3 months for undergraduates and masters students and at least 6 months for Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers.
* Funding covers travel and living expenses, but not salary. Living expenses will typically be 1250 Euro/month.
* The programme is open to all, but priority is given to researchers who are members of AMI teams, researchers who intend to visit AMI teams, researchers who can demonstrate close connections with AMI research, proposals with an industrial component,.
* A specific programme funds visits of 6 months or more to the International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA.
In this case typical living expenses are 2000 Euro/Month. For Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers, visits to ICSI will typically be at least 6 months. Senior scientists are also encouraged to apply, in which case proposals for shorter visits will also be entertained.

HOSTING SITES AMI's 15 partners and associated companies and institutions (details on http://www.amiproject.org) will act as hosts for the training programme. The project is jointly managed by IDIAP (CH) and The University of Edinburgh (UK). The training programme is managed by the University of Sheffield (UK).

HOW TO APPLY
The application form can be downloaded from http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~linda/AMI/training.htm.
You will need the written support of your home institution and the host institution. You will also need an academic reference.
Enquiries may be addressed to Linda Perna, AMI training programme administrator.

WHEN TO APPLY You can apply at any time but applications will be considered on a quarterly basis, with deadlines of 15th September and 15th December.
Professor Phil Green
AMI Training Manager
Department of Computer Science
University of Sheffield
Regent Court 211 Portobello St., Sheffield S1 4DP UK phone: (44) 114 22 21828 fax: (44) 114 22 21810
Contact person: Phil Green
http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/P.Green/
 

-Papers accepted for future publication in Speech Communication
Full text available on http://www.sciencedirect.com for Speech Communication subscribers and subscribing institutions. Click on Publications, then on Speech Communication and on Articles in press. The list of papers in press is displayed and a .pdf file for each paper is available.

Mark M.J. Houben, Armin Kohlrausch and Dik J. Hermes, Perception of the size and speed of rolling balls by sound, Speech Communication, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 20 August 2004, .

Kalle J. Palomäki, Guy J. Brown and DeLiang Wang, A binaural processor for missing data speech recognition in the presence of noise and small-room reverberation, Speech Communication, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 20 August 2004,

Michael L. Seltzer, Bhiksha Raj and Richard M. Stern, A Bayesian classifier for spectrographic mask estimation for missing feature speech recognition, Speech Communication, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 20 August 2004,

Masataka Goto, A real-time music-scene-description system: predominant-F0 estimation for detecting melody and bass lines in real-world audio signals, Speech Communication, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 20 August 2004,

M.P. Cooke and D.P.W. Ellis, Introduction to the special issue on the recognition and organization of real-world sound, Speech Communication, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 18 August 2004,

Bhiksha Raj, Michael L. Seltzer and Richard M. Stern, Reconstruction of missing features for robust speech recognition, Speech Communication, In Press, Uncorrected Proof, Available online 8 August 2004, . Proof, Available online 6 August 2004,

Hiroshi G. Okuno, Kazuhiro Nakadai and Hiroaki Kitano, Effects of increasing modalities in recognizing three simultaneous speeches, Speech Communication, In Press, Uncorrected Proof, Available online 3 August 2004,

Geoffrey L. Collier, A comparison of novices and experts in the identification of sonar signals, Speech Communication, In Press, Uncorrected Proof, Available online 30 July 2004, .

Akiko Kusumoto, Takayuki Arai, Keisuke Kinoshita, Nao Hodoshima and Nancy Vaughan, Modulation enhancement of speech by a pre-processing algorithm for improving intelligibility in reverberant environments, Speech Communication, In Press, Uncorrected Proof, Available online 23 July 2004, .

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FUTURE CONFERENCES

Publication policy: Hereunder, you will find very short announcements of future events. The full call for participation can be accessed on the conference websites
See also our Web pages (http://www.isca-speech.org) on conferences and workshops.

FUTURE INTERSPEECH CONFERENCES

-Interspeech (ICSLP)-2004 , Jeju, KOREA, OCTOBER 5-9, 2004 (see CFP in ISCApad 71)
http://www.icslp2004.org

-Interspeech (Eurospeech)-2005, Lisbon, Portugal,September 4-8, 2005
http://www.interspeech2005.org

-Interspeech (ICSLP)-2006, Pittsburg, PA, USA
http://www.interspeech2006.org

-Interspeech (Eurospeech)-2007, Antwerp, Belgium

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FUTURE ISCA TUTORIAL AND RESEARCH WORKSHOP (ITRW)

-Statistical and Perceptual Audio Processing
October 2-3, 2004 Jeju, Korea
(see ISCApad 71)

- NOLISP'05: Non linear speech processing
April 19-22 April 2005, Barcelona, Spain
organized by Cost 277 Contact person: Marcos Faundez-Zanuy(see ISCApad 66)

-ISCA Workshop on Plasticity in Speech Perception
Organized by: UCL Centre for Human Communication, UCL, London, UK
co-sponsored by the Acoustical Society of America
15-17 June 2005; London, UK
INVITED SPEAKERS:
Anne Cutler, Max Planck Institute, Netherlands
James Flege, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Patricia Kuhl, University of Washington, USA
David Moore, MRC Institute of Hearing Research, UK
Christophe Pallier, Inserm Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, France
David Pisoni, Indiana University, USA
Franck Ramus, CNRS Cognitive and Psycholinguistic Sciences Laboratory, France
Stuart Rosen, UCL, UK
Jenny Saffran, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA
Glenn Schellenberg, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada
Sophie Scott, UCL, UK
http://www.psp2005.org.uk
Contact: Valerie Hazan

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS SUPPORTED (but not organized) by ISCA

- Workshop on Nonlinear Speech Processing: Algorithms and Analysis September 13-18 2004 Vietri sul Mare (Salerno), ITALY Supported by: The Management Committee (MC) Members of COST ACTION 277: Non linear speech processing. Additional information are available on the web site: http://www.iiass.it/school2004/index.htm� 

- German-French Summerschool on "Cognitive and physical models of speech production, perception and perception-production interaction"
September 19-24, 2004,Lubmin, Germany http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/events/sommer_org/

- International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation Evaluation campaign on spoken language translation
A satellite event of Interspeech-ICSLP 2004 September 30 - October 1, 2004, Kyoto, Japan (see ISCApad 71)

-4th International Symposium on Chinese Spoken Language Processing (ISCSLP'04)
December 16-18, 2004, Hong Kong, China

Pan European Voice Conference (PEVOC 6) http://www.pevoc6.com/home.htm
August 31 - September 3, 2005, London, UK

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FUTURE SPEECH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EVENTS

- SHEFFIELD MACHINE LEARNING WORKSHOP
Sheffield, United Kingdom
September 7-10, 2004
http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/ml/workshop/
Confirmed invited speakers: Chris Bishop (Microsoft Research, UK)
Andrew Blake (Microsoft Research, UK)
Herve Bourlard (IDIAP, Switzerland)
Jerry Eriksson (Umea, Sweden)
Zoubin Ghahramani (University College London, UK)
Gene Golub (Stanford, USA)
Josef Kittler (Surrey University, UK)
David Lowe (Aston University, UK)
David Mackay (Cambridge University, UK)
Ian Nabney (Aston University, UK)
Manfred Opper (Southhampton University, UK)
David Lowe (Aston University, UK)
John Platt (Microsoft Research, USA)
Stephen Roberts (Oxford University, UK)
Bernard Schoelkopf (Max Planck Institute, Germany)
Michael Tipping (Microsoft Research, UK)
Chris Williams (Edinburgh University, UK)
The workshop is supported by grants from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the London Mathematical Society and Sheffield University.
Organisers:
Joab Winkler
Mahesan Niranjan
Neil Lawrence
Contact: mlworkshop at dcs.shef.ac.uk

- EUSIPCO 2004
12th European Signal Processing Conference. September 7-10, 2004 Vienna, Austria http://www.nt.tuwien.ac.at/eusipco2004/
Chair: Prof. Wolfgang Mecklenbrauker, Institute of Communications and Radio-Frequency Engineering Vienna University of Technology Gusshausstrasse 25/389 A-1040 Vienna (see ISCApad 63)

-Third International Workshop on DICTIONARY WRITING SYSTEMS (DWS 2004)
THIRD ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Brno, Czech Republic, 6-7 September 2004 http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/dws2004/

- Seventh International Conference on TEXT, SPEECH and DIALOGUE (TSD 2004)
http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/tsd2004/ (see ISCApad71) Brno, Czech Republic, 8-11 September 2004

- CLEF 2004 Workshop
16-17 september 2004 (see ISCApad 68)
Evaluation campaign.
http://www.clef-campaign.org Contact:Carol Peters

- Arabic Language Resources and Tools Conference
22-23 September 2004, Cairo, Egypt
The main organizer of the conference is the NEMLAR consortium. The local organizer is RDI Egypt. Venue: Hotel Helnan Shepheard, Cairo, Egypt Project and conference web site: http://www.nemlar.org

- 2004 IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP 04)
September 29-October 1 2004 Sienna Italy
http://mmsp.unisi.it

- ACM Multimedia 2004
October 10-15, New York, NY USA
http://www.mm2004.org (see ISCApad68)

-6th International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces(ICMI'04)
October 13-15, 2004 The Atherton Hotel/State College, PA, USA http://www.icmiplace.org (see ISCApad70)

-Workshop MIDL 2004, Language and dialectal variety identification by humans and machines
organised by the MIDL consortium of the Modelling for the Identification of Languages project supported by the interdisciplinary STIC-SHS program of CNRS.
Partners are LIMSI-CNRS, ILPGA/LPP Paris3, TELECOM PARIS (ENST) and DGA, with the support of AFCP.
Place and date: Paris, 29-30 November 2004
http://www.limsi.fr/MIDL

Tenth Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology
Macquarie University, Sydney, 8th-10th December, 2004
For details: http://www.assta.org/sst/2004
Steve Cassidy,Conference Chair

-Conference on A Century of Experimental Phonetics: Its History and Development from Theodore Rosset to John Ohala
Universite Stendhal, Grenoble, France on February 24-25, 2005.
Conference room Jacques Cartier, Maison des Langues et de la Culture.
Contributions of 20 minutes or posters are welcome
Send a 200 word abstract at 100ans at icp.inpg.fr

Beyond HMM
IEICE/IPS/ATR workshop on statistical modeling approach for speech recognition
Kyoto, Japan, December 20, 2004
http://www.ieice.org/iss/sp/eng/workshop/beyondHMM.html

-ICASSP 2005
Philadelphia, PA, USA, March 19-23, 2005
http://www.icassp2005.com

-NODALIDA 2005
the 15th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics
Joensuu, Finland, May 20-21, 2005
http://phon.joensuu.fi/ nodalida2005/
1000 word abstract before January 31,2005 to be mailed to nodalida2005
Registration before March 31,2005
Contact: Stefan Werner

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