Subject: ESCApad #6 Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 13:53:02 +0100 From: Isabel Trancoso To: esca_list@speech.inesc.pt ============================================================================ ESCApad number 6 September 28, 1998 ============================================================================ Dear ESCA members, Welcome to ESCApad #6. NEW WEBSITE: Please place a bookmark with the new domain name for the ESCA website: www.esca-speech.org and notice the new e-mail address for the Secretariat: info@esca-speech.org Not everything ran as smoothly as we wished with the move of the ESCA Secretariat from Grenoble to Bonn. We do apologize for all the delays and inconveniences caused by this move, and assure you that all 624 e-mails which were "forgotten" for a while in Grenoble will be answered as soon as possible :-) Many thanks to our colleagues at ICP for all their help and cooperation during all the years in which they hosted the ESCA Secretariat and also in this difficult transition period. Thank you! The new website is currently undergoing some reconstruction. We'd like to draw your attention to some recently included items: the Terms of Reference for the Board Members, the ESCA By-laws and the Minutes of our last General Assembly (Rhodes, September 1997). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESCA BOARD Since no other nominations for the vacant position in the ESCA Board were received by the deadline, the Board has appointed Frederic Bimbot as the new Board member, at the last Board meeting which took place during the past weekend in Utrecht. As a result of this nomination, some responsibilities were reshuffled: Wolfgang Hess has assumed the role of Secretary which he had kindly assumed on a temporary basis, and Frederic Bimbot will be the 'Grants & Awards' Coordinator. Good luck to both! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DEADLINES - EUROSPEECH'99 (Budapest, Hungary) Deadline for abstract submission: January 15 Notification of acceptance: March 20 Camera ready papers: May 1 Advance payment: June 15. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIGS: The Board has approved ESCA's second Special Interest Group, on audio-visual speech [AVISA: Audio-VIsual Speech Association]. The application was supported by 41 colleagues. The SIG brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines and will create a link between them. The SIG wishes to stimulate research into a better understanding of the cognitive processes involved in production and perception of audio-visual speech communication, and research into the modelling of these processes for realistic animation and use in automatic recognition of linguistic and communicative gestures. Workshops, publications and a website will provide the ideal means for dissemination of knowledge. As a satelite of ICSLP, in December 1998 the second ESCA ETRW on Audio-Visual Speech Processing will be organised near Sydney. The interim steering committee of AVISA will consist of * Philip Rubin, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven (president) * Christian Abry, ICP, Grenoble (liaison representative in ESCA) * Denis Burnham, School of Psychology, Sydney * Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, ATR, Kyoto If you are interested to join the SIG please contact Denis Burnham (email: d.burnham@unsw.edu.au) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEB-SLS As of September 1st, the new Editor in Chief of the Student Journal of Language and Speech is Nikos Fakotakis (U. Patras, Greece). As the former Editor, I wish him all the best in this new position and feel sure that he will take on this responsibility with the same enthousiasm and competence that helped to make the last Eurospeech conference such a success. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last but not the least, we'd like to ask all ESCA members to disseminate this bulletin through your students and colleagues that may be potentially interested in our activities, emphasizing the new website location. ESCA Greetings, Isabel Trancoso ============================================================================= All additional information at the ESCA web-site: http://www.esca-speech.org =============================================================================