CALL FOR PAPERS and PARTICIPATION

Workshop on Intelligent Multimodal Systems

in connection with
15th Int'l Joint Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-97)

Nagoya, Japan, August 23-24, 1997

The use of multimodality holds promise to enhance human-computer interaction. Since human perception is based largely upon multimodality, it is an important factor in the realization of human-friendly interfaces.

Multimedia is a closely related term to the multimodality; it can be said that the 'multimodality' is used mainly to refer to multiple interface channels related to human cognitive process, whereas the 'multimedia' is used widely to refer to various computer-related technologies for building multimodal/multimedia systems. Furthermore, recent advances in virtual reality and devices promise interesting possibilities of human perception unified with synthesized environments.

In addition to media technologies such as image, graphics, sound, voice, and natural language processing, etc., artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are now expected to enhance the flexibility and friendliness of the multimodal interfaces and to provide intelligent support, thus broadening the application spectrum of human-computer interaction. Recent progress of media and computer technologies allows us to build interactive multimodal information systems, and early implementations promise exciting possibilities. However, systems with intelligent functions are few to date. At present, we don't know exactly which areas of intelligent multimodal systems will be the most promising and we don't know yet what are the key factors to practical success. Since many technologies have to be integrated into a multimodal system, it is important to clarify research foci.

To this end, this workshop is being organized in order to exchange ideas obtained from various experimental studies on this field. Rather than discussing component technologies, we wish to emphasize the practical or experimental implementations of intelligent multimodal systems.

New multimedia technologies such as intelligent multimedia interfaces are included in the topics of the workshop. Also, systems in virtual reality environments can be a topic. In response to emerging new network-based information environments, papers on multimodal systems based on the Internet are welcome. The topics of the workshop include (but are not limited to);

System architectures and implementations of intelligent multimodal systems,
Interactive multimodal systems,
Generating coordinated multimodal/multimedia presentations,
Cognitive studies of multimodal interfaces,
Intelligent functions in multimodal interfaces,
Learning in multimodal interfaces,
Internet-based multimodal systems,
Anthropomorphic interface agents,
Intelligent interfaces to multimedia data,
New promising applications of multimodal systems.

IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline for paper indication: March 5, 1997
Deadline for full paper: March 10, 1997
Author Notification: March 31, 1997
Camera-ready version of papers: April 20, 1997
Deadline for statements of interest: April 25, 1997
Workshop (One and half days): during August 23-25, 1997

PAPER SUBMISSION

Papers on the above topics are welcome. Send four (4) copies of your paper by conventional mail (airmail from outside Japan) or send the URL of a postscript file (make sure it is accessible and printable) by March 10, 1997 to the following address:

: Mitsuru Ishizuka
Dept. of Information & Commun. Eng.
School of Eng., Univ. of Tokyo
7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan
Phone:+81-3-3812-2111 ext.6347 Fax:+81-3-5802-2990
Email: ishizuka@miv.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

The camera-ready style of full papers is the same as IJCAI-97 papers. The length of the paper should be no more than 8 printing pages.

Before the submission of a full paper, please send the title and abstract of the paper via email to "ishizuka@miv.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp" by March 5, 1997. It will be used to speed-up the review process by the program committee.

STATEMENT OF INTEREST

For those who are interested in participating in the workshop without paper presentation, please send the statement of interest by conventional mail or email by April 25, 1997 to Dr. M. Ishizuka shown above.

WORKSHOP FORMAT

The workshop will be one and half days during August 23-25, 1997, and consist of paper presentations and invited talks. The presentation may accompany with video demonstration. Ample time will be allotted for discussion to clarify important research issues and promising application areas.

A working note of the workshop will be published by the IJCAI-97 organizer. A WWW page for the workshop is at "http://www.miv.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ijcai97-IMS/", which will include HTML and/or postscript versions of the accepted papers. The publication of selected papers will be considered as workshop proceedings.

FURTHER INFORMATION

See IJCAI-97 information.

The workshop participation is limited based on the selection of the workshop organizers. All workshop participants are requested to register for the IJCAI-97 conference.