Multilingual and Mixed-language Named Entity Recognition:
Combining Statistical and Symbolic Models

ACL 2003 Workshop
Sapporo, Japan
July 12, 2003

NEW: Preliminary Workshop Program

NEW: Student Assistance Grants – Application Form

Invited Speaker

David Yarowsky (Johns Hopkins University)

Call for papers

Named Entity (NE) Recognition systems vary widely, from high-speed bulk methods optimized for indexing, to deep semantic parsers tuned for specific domains. Optimal ways to combine statistical and symbolic models also vary, depending on applications and tasks. Is it possible to:

· maximize use of knowledge-rich resources (e.g. lexicons, NE grammars, parsing) while permitting corpus-based training for domain or language?

· acquire and share resources (including lexicons and grammars) across languages?

· balance performance speed with reasonable accuracy?

· use specific language patterns while permitting rapid transfer to another language?

· minimize variability in results across language types?

We welcome research on combined models, in which these tradeoffs are calculated in particular ways. We hope that the workshop will bring together work on robust and deep multilingual and mixed language NE recognition from different perspectives. Possible topics include:

· the role of the lexicon vs. dynamic processing information

· grammars and lexicons shared (or ported) across languages

· acquisition of multilingual resources (e.g. from corpora)

· translating NEs across multiple languages

· domain tuning

Papers may cover one or more of these (or related) areas.

Demonstrations of implemented NE systems are also welcome.

Paper Submission

Authors should use the main ACL conference format (anonymous papers, maximum 8 pages including references): http://www.ec-inc.co.jp/ACL2003/callforpapers.html

Papers should be submitted electronically in Word, PDF or PostScript format. Assign a filename based on the paper’s title, transfer to ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/incoming/josephp then email an identification page with title, author(s), contact details, and filename to molsen@microsoft.com

Important Dates

· Submission deadline: 4 April 2003

· Notification of acceptance: 14 May 2003

· Deadline for final papers: 28 May 2003

· Workshop date: 12 July 2003

Program Committee
Roberto Basili (University of Roma Tor Vergata)
Robert Gaizauskas (University of Sheffield)
Ralph Grishman (New York University)
Lauri Karttunen (Parc, Inc.)
Kevin Knight (USC ISI)
Gary Geunbae Lee (Pohang University of Science and Technology)
Dekang Lin (University of Alberta)
Boyan Onyshkevich (Department of Defense)
John Prager (IBM Corp.)
Jeff Reynar (Microsoft Corp.)
Mila Ramos-Santacruz (SRA International, Inc.)
Ellen Riloff (University of Utah)
Beth Sundheim (SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego)
Janine Toole (Gavagai Technology)
Benjamin Tsou (City University of Hong Kong)
Marc Vilain (MITRE Corp.)
Sornlertlamvanich Virach (Thailand National Electronics and Computer Technology)

Organizing Committee

(Microsoft Corp.)

Kevin Humphreys

Mari Broman Olsen

Joseph Pentheroudakis

Robert Stumberger

Hajime Wada

Contact

Mari Broman Olsen

Natural Language Group

Microsoft Corporation

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052, USA

Email: molsen@microsoft.com

Tel: +1-425-705-5019

Fax: +1-425-936-7329