The eighth Machine Translation Summit, organized by the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT), will be held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, from 18 to 22 September 2001. MT Summit VIII, which is the first conference of the century in the premier series of conferences on machine translation, will provide a forum for discussing the prospect of MT and related areas in the coming century. MT Summit VIII will feature an expanded programme including research papers, reports on users' experiences, discussions of policy issues, invited talks, panels, exhibitions, tutorials, and workshops. EAMT invites all who are interested in any aspect of machine translation and tools for translation support - researchers, developers, providers, users, and watchers - to participate in the conference.

Conference Schedule

18-19 September 2001 Tutorials, workshops, excursions

20-22 September 2001 Papers, panels and exhibitions

Papers

MT Summit VIII seeks original papers in all aspects of machine translation. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to:

• MT for the Web

• Practical MT systems (MT for professionals, MT for multilingual eCommerce, MT for localization, etc.)

• Translation aids (translation memory, terminology databases, etc.)

• Translation environments (workflow, support tools, conversion tools for lexica etc.)

• Methodologies for MT

• Human factors in MT and user interfaces

• Speech and dialogue translation

• Natural language analysis and generation techniques geared towards MT

• Dictionaries and lexicons for MT systems

• Text and speech corpora for MT and knowledge extraction from corpora

• MT evaluation techniques and evaluation results

• Standards in text and lexicon encoding for MT

• Cross-lingual information retrieval

• MT and related technologies (information retrieval, text categorization, text summarization, information extraction, etc.)

There will be three categories of papers:

(R) Research papers: Submissions are invited for reports of significant research results in any aspect of machine translation and related areas. Such reports should include a substantial evaluative component. Papers should be in English, not longer than 3,000 words.

(U) User studies: Submissions are invited for reports on users' experiences with applying MT. Reports should be in English, not longer than 3,000 words.

(S) System presentations (with demos): Submissions are invited for reports on the design, implementation, operation and evaluation of operational and prototype systems. Reports should be in English, not longer than 3,000 words.

All types of papers should be submitted to the address below, preferably by e-mail, and must be received by the indicated date. Papers should include a cover page with the following information:

• paper title,

• paper type: R, U or S

• author(s)' name(s), affiliation(s), address(es), and e-mail address(es),

• 100 word abstract,

• up to 5 keywords,

• for system presentations with demos: the hardware, software and network requirements for the demonstration.

Please submit electronically to MT-Summit@cst.ku.dk, in rtf-format and following the guidelines for authors provided on the MT Summit homepage at www.eamt.org.

If you cannot submit electronically, please mail 4 hardcopies of the paper to:

MT Summit VIII

Center for Sprogteknologi

Njalsgade 80

DK-2300 Copenhagen S

Denmark

Important Dates

15 Dec. 2000 Workshop and tutorial proposals

15 Jan. 2001 Notification

31 Jan. 2001 Speaker and panel suggestions

15 April 2001 Paper submission deadline

15 April 2001 Exhibition registration

30 May 2001 Notifications

1 July 2001 Final camera-ready copy deadline

Call for Exhibits and demos

In the tradition of MT Summits, there will be an exhibition area showcasing commercial products and near to market prototypes throughout the conference. Exhibits will not be restricted to machine translation systems and support tools, but include a variety of language technology enabled applications. If you would like to exhibit, please contact Jörg Schütz, joerg@iai.uni-sb.de, by April 15, 2001.

Call for Panel / Special Session / Invited Speaker Proposals

Submissions are invited for panel sessions dealing with significant, controversial and timely issues in machine translation. Proposals should include the description of the topic, and preferably the names and affiliations of panelists who could present diverse positions or approaches to the topic. Proposals for special sessions and invited speakers are also welcome. These proposals should be sent to the Programme Chair (e-mail: MT-Summit@cst.ku.dk) by January 31, 2001.

Call for Tutorial Proposals

Proposals are solicited for tutorials on both technological and practical issues in machine translation. Submissions should be made to the General Chair (e-mail: WJHutchins@compuserve.com) by December 15, 2000. They should include (1) the length of the tutorial (half day or full day); (2) an outline of the tutorial; (3) the intended audience (introductory, intermediate, advanced); (4) complete contact information for the contact person; and (5) brief biographies of the presenters.

Call for Workshop Proposals

Proposals are solicited for one-day workshops which bring together group of people involved in a specific problem area of machine translation, to advance the state of the art in that area. Submissions should be made to the Workshop Chair (e-mail: Harold.Somers@umist.ac.uk) by December 15, 2000. They should include the theme and goal of the workshop, the planned activities, and an estimate of the number of participants.

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About Santiago and the Venue

Santiago de Compostela in North West Spain (Galicia) was the most visited pilgrimage shrine in the Middle Ages, and to this day the æRoad to SantiagoÆ is a popular route for walkers through France and northern Spain. The goal is the imposing 11th century cathedral containing the relics of St James the Great. But the well preserved historical centre of the city offers much more: medieval streets, excellent restaurants, ancient churches, monasteries, palaces, etc. The venue for the conference is the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, founded in 1499 as a Royal hospital for pilgrims, a magnificent building in the Spanish Renaissance style, and now a hotel (the oldest and one of the most beautiful in the world). Those staying at the Hostal will have a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but there is also accommodation nearby in many other good hotels, all within easy walking distance of the centre and the Hostal. Santiago de Compostela has its own airport with daily direct flights from Barcelona, Madrid, Brussels, and London.

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Conference Organization

General Chair

John Hutchins, Univ. of East Anglia, UK

Local arrangements

Carlos Paz, European Commission, Translation Service

Dimitri Theologitis, European Commission, DG TREN

Belgium

Exhibition

Jörg Schütz, IAI, Saarbrücken, Germany

Workshops

Harold Somers, UMIST, United Kingdom

Programme Committee

Chairpersons:

Bente Maegaard, Center for Sprogteknologi, Denmark

Jo Lernout, Lernout and Hauspie Systems, Belgium

Members:

Harri Arnola, Kielikone, Finland

Annelise Bech, Lingtech, Denmark

Nuria Bel, Univ. Barcelona, Spain

David Carter, SpeechMachines, United Kingdom

Herman Caeyers, Lant, Belgium

Key-Sun Choi, KORTERM, KAIST, Korea

Daniel Grasmick, SAP, Germany

Anna Sågvall Hein, Univ. Uppsala, Sweden

Ed Hovy, ISI, USA

Hitoshi Iida, Sony, Japan

Ian Johnson, Lexiquest, France

Maghi King, ETI, Univ. Geneva, Switzerland

Steven Krauwer, Univ. Utrecht, Netherlands

Elliot Macklovitch, Univ. Montreal, Canada

Harold Somers, UMIST, United Kingdom

Keh-Yih Su, Behavior Design Corporation, Taiwan

Gregor Thurmair, SAIL Labs, Germany

Jun-ichi Tsujii, Univ. Tokyo, Japan

Anne Tucker, European Parliament, Luxembourg

Nino Varile, EC, DG INFSO, Luxembourg

Wolfgang Wahlster, DFKI, Germany

John White, Litton PRC, USA

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Further Information

For more details, please visit the Web-site: http://www.eamt.org. You may also send a request for information to summitVIII@eamt.org.