Ir-L Digest, Vol.XVI, No.15, Issue 451

[Nancy Gusack Crawford <nancy.gusack@ucop.edu>]

IRLIST Digest                                       ISSN 1064-6965
April 20, 1999
Volume XVI, Number 15
Issue 451

******************************************************************
 II. JOBS
        1. U. Glasgow: CS: Lectureship in IR
        2. NASA Ames: Adaptive Information Management: Scientist
III. NOTICES
     A. Publications
        1. [WASHINGTON-UPDATE] EDUCAUSE Washington Update 4-16-99
        2. JASIS TOC, Volume 50, N. 7
     B. Meetings
        1. GLDV ´99
        2. AIMDM '99 Tutorials/Workshops
        3. SOFSEM 99
        4. Evolution of Language 2000
     C. Miscellaneous
        1. Rare Book School 1999
******************************************************************
II. JOBS
II.1.
Fr: Ian Ruthven <igr@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Re: U. Glasgow: CS: Lectureship in IR

UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING SCIENCE
LECTURESHIP in INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
LECTURER A/B - £16,655-=£29,048 PER ANNUM
REF 177/99AA

To strengthen an existing major research group within the Department. Visit
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/. Expected to contribute to the Department's
undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, and make a significant
contribution to research. In exceptional circumstances an appointment may
be made at a higher level than advertised. Informal enquiries to Professor
Keith van Rijsbergen, keith@dcs.gla.ac.uk.

For an application pack visit http://www.gla.ac.uk/ or write quoting Ref:
177/99AA to the Recruitment Section, Personnel Services, University of
Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ.  Closing date: 21 May 1999.

The Post
The University invites applications for a lectureship in Information
Retrieval within the Department of Computing Science. The Department has
demonstrated the highest standards in both teaching and research. We are
actively developing new courses, at both undergraduate and postgraduate
levels, and have a thriving research community. Applicants must possess the
enthusiasm and ability to fit into a dynamic academic environment, together
with appropriate experience in teaching and research.

The Department of Computing Science is seeking a lecturer in Information
Retrieval to join a strong existing research group led by Professor Keith
van Rijsbergen. The successful applicant will be expected to contribute to
the Department's teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, in
addition to making a significant contribution to research. In exceptional
circumstances an appointment may be made at a higher level than advertised.

Applicants should preferably have a strong research interest in one of the
following areas: theoretical development of probabilistic and logic-based
models for IR; design of multimedia IR systems based on Computer Vision and
Image Processing technology; evaluation and usability of IR systems in the
context of large scale experimentation.

The ideal candidate will have the following attributes:
* a PhD in Computing Science, preferably in one of the research areas
identified above;
* the ability to teach some computing science topics outwith their
specialist area;
* willing to undertake an active role in research student supervision
within the IR group;
* keen to develop their own research by seeking external research funding
from the Research Councils, the EU or industry.

For background about the Department's activities see
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/.
14/4/99

Ian Ruthven                      Email: igr@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Editorial Assistant              Phone: +44 (0)141 330 6292
The Computer Journal             Fax:   +44 (0)141 330 4913
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~igr/ http://www.oup.co.uk/computer_journal
**********
II.2.
Fr: Jim R. Chen <jchen@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
Re: NASA Ames: Adaptive Information Management: Scientist

Research Opening at NASA Ames

The Adaptive Information Management (AIM) project team at NASA Ames
Research Center has an immediate full-time opening for a scientist with
research experience in one or more of the following areas:
Agents & Assistants  
Collaboration
Digital Libraries
Information Retrieval
Intelligent Interfaces
Knowledge Infrastructure
Metadata

The candidate should have a Ph.D. (or expect to receive one this year) in
Computer Science or related discipline. A strong background in web
technologies and artificial intelligence is essential, as is an interest in
collaborative work. Good development skills in Java, and familiarity with
agent communication protocols are also desirable.

The AIM project team is part of the Intelligent Collaboration and Assistant
Systems group in the Computational Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research
Center (http://ic-www.arc.nasa.gov/ic/projects/aim/). We have developed a
Java prototype of a collaborative multi-agent system called DIAMS, which
supports dynamic organization of personal or group information
repositories, distributed over the WWW. These repositories in turn enable
information sharing and exchange between users. We're exploring further
research and development in knowledge-based indexing, intelligent user
interface and integration with science data and database applications.

Please send your resume to 
Dr. Jim Chen
MS 269-2
Computational Sciences Division
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000
chen@mail.arc.nasa.gov
******************************************************************
III. NOTICES
III.A.1.
Fr: EDUCAUSE <EDUCAUSE@EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Re: [WASHINGTON-UPDATE] EDUCAUSE Washington Update 4-16-99

EDUCAUSE: Transforming Education Through Information Technologies
http://www.educause.edu

EDUCAUSE WASHINGTON UPDATE --- APRIL 16, 1999

IN THIS ISSUE:

BROADBAND AND OPEN ACCESS: SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE ON THE DEPLOYMENT OF
ADVANCED DATA SERVICES

FCC ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL ADVISORY COUNCIL

NEW BIPARTISAN ENCRYPTION BILL SIGNIFIES SHIFT AWAY FROM ADMINISTRATION
POLICY

UPCOMING EVENTS: REED HUNDT TO SPEAK AT NET '99
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Written from EDUCAUSE'S Washington office, "The EDUCAUSE Washington Update"
is a free service of EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association
dedicated to transforming higher education through information technologies.

Anyone may subscribe to the Update by sending e-mail to
listserv@listserv.educause.edu with "subscribe update firstname lastname"
in the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send a "signoff update" command
to the same address. If you would like more information about the Update or
would like to offer comments or suggestions, please contact Garret Sern at
gsern@educause.edu.
**********
III.A.2.
Fr: Richard Hill <rhill@asis.org>
Re: JASIS TOC, Volume 50, N. 7

Journal of the American Society for Information Science
JASIS
VOLUME 50, NUMBER 7

[Note: below are URLs for viewing contents of JASIS from past issues.
Below the contents of Bert Boyce's "In This Issue" has been cut into the
Table of Contents as well as material from the introduction to the special
section.]

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

In This Issue
Bert R. Boyce
555

RESEARCH

H.G. Wells's Idea of a World Brain: A Critical Reassessment  
W. Boyd Rayward
557
    
Literature-Based Discovery by Lexical Statistics 
Robert K. Lindsay and Michael D. Gordon
574
 
Jumpstarting the Information Design for a Community Network
Misha W. Vaughan and Nancy Schwartz
588

Searching Scientific Information on the Internet: A Dutch Academic User
Survey
Henk J. Voorbij 
598
 
SENTINEL: A Multiple Engine Information Retrieval and Visualization System
Kevin L. Fox, Ophir Frieder, Margaret M. Knepper, and Eric J. Snowberg
616
 
BRIEF COMMUNICATION
Systematic Weighting and Ranking: Cutting the Gordian Knot
Charles H. Davis and Geoffrey W. McKim
626
 
BOOK REVIEWS
Ink into Bits: A Web of Converging Media, by Charles T. Meadow
Jeff White
629

Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape, edited by Philip E. Agre and
Marc Rotenberg
Marc Lampson
631

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
634

Erratum
635 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The ASIS home page <http://www.asis.org> contains the Table of Contents and
brief abstracts as above from January 1993 (Volume 44) to date.

The John Wiley Interscience site <http://www.interscience.wiley.com>
includes issues from 1986 (Volume 37) to date.  Guests have access only to
tables of contents and abstracts.  Registered users of the interscience
site have access to the full text of these issues and to preprints.  We are
still working on restoring access for ASIS members as "registered users."
**********
III.B.1.
Fr: Bernhard Schroeder <B.Schroeder@uni-bonn.de>
Re: GLDV ´99

C A L L   F O R   P A P E R S
"Multilingual Corpora: Encoding, Structuring, Analysis"

The 11th Annual Meeting of the Society for Computational Linguistics and
Language Technology (GLDV) will take place in July 8-10, 1999. 

Main topic: "Multilingual Corpora: Encoding, Structuring, Analysis".

The meeting will be hosted by the Institute of Comparative Linguistics of
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet, Frankfurt am Main (Germany).

Papers can be offered for plenary sessions as well as sessions of the
Special Interest Groups (Arbeitskreise) of GLDV. Papers that are NOT
related to the main topic (e.g. Computational Linguistics, Language
Technology, Linguistic Data Processing, etc.) are ALSO welcome!

Extended abstracts must be sent in by April 30 via mail to
titus@em.uni-frankfurt.de

* Size: 2-3 pages (2000 words maximum);
* Format: RTF, HTML, ASCII.

The program committee will decide about acceptance of the papers on May 28,
1999.

For details go to:   
http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/curric/gldv99e.htm
**********
III.B.2.
Fr: Steve Rees <sr@vision.auc.dk>
Re: AIMDM '99 Tutorials/Workshops

AIMDM'99
TUTORIALS AND WORKSHOPS

As you might have already heard this years joint meeting of the societies
of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Europe (AIME) and the European
Society of Medical Decision Meking (ESMDM), entitled AIMDM'99, will take
place in Aalborg, Denmark, 20th-24th June 1999.

AIMDM'99 includes a day of tutorials and workshops that have now been
finalised. These will take place on Sunday 20th June at Hotel Hvide 
Hus,Vesterbro 2, 9000-Aalborg. Tutorials will be run in parallel and last
for a half a day, with morning tutorials taking place from 9 am to 
12:30 pm and afternoon tutorials from 1:30 pm to 5pm. Workshops will also
be run in parallel, each workshop lasting the whole day. Registration for a
single tutorial costs 400 DKK. Registration for a workshop costs 500 DKK
for AIMDM'99 participants or 750 DKK otherwise. Registration for a workshop
includes lunch. 

Please note that tutorials are only open to those registering for the main
AIMDM'99 conference. Registration for AIMDM'99 (excluding tutorials and
workshops) costs 2550 before May 15th and 3000 DKK after, or for students
1400 DKK before May 15th or 1800 DKK after.

Details of the tutorials and workshops are now given, followed by a
registration form. Please send your completed form to: 

AIMDM99
Aalborg Turist og Kongres Bureau A/S
Østerågade 8, Postbox 1862
DK-9100 Aalborg, Denmark

For further details of other activities occurring as part of the 
AIMDM`99 conference please visit our web site at: 
http://www.miba.auc.dk/AIMDM99/  

TUTORIALS

1) NATURAL LANGUAGE GENERATION
Audience: Researchers and software developers who are interested in
improving the quality of documents and other written materials produced by
software systems. 

Description:
Many medical IT systems need to produce documents or other types of written
texts, such as discharge reports, letters to patients, and explanations of
expert-system reasoning.  The quality and readability 
of such texts is not always as high as it could be, unfortunately.

This tutorial will discuss some of the linguistic problems that
computer-generated texts can suffer from, such as poor rhetorical
structure, inappropriate anaphors, false implicatures, and grammatical
mistakes. Natural-language generation (NLG) technology is introduced, and
it is discussed how it can be used to automatically produce texts that
satisfy linguistic constraints and hence do not suffer from these problems.
The tutorial will be illustrated with examples from
NLG systems developed at Aberdeen and elsewhere.

Attendees do not need any background in linguistics or natural-language
processing, but they should be familiar with basic AI concepts.  I hope
that even people who do not intend to use NLG technology will still benefit
from the tutorial, by becoming more aware of potential linguistic problems
in computer-generated texts and how they can be resolved.

Tutorial Presenter
Ehud Reiter 
Dept of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE,
UK. Phone +44-1224-273443, Fax  +44-1224-273422, email:
ereiter@csd.abdn.ac.uk

2) THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MEDICAL DECISION MAKING 
This course is intended for clinicians, and others who wish to gain insight
into the psychological factors influencing their decision making under
uncertainty.

The aim of this tutorial is to increase understanding of the psychological
processes involved in medical decision making. This knowledge is useful in
trying to improve decision making. Additionally it is a fruitful area for
research. The course assumes the attendee has only a basic knowledge of the
subject matter.

The clinician's reasoning is a partial cause of non-optimal medical
decisions. The cognitive psychology of judgment and decision making offers
explanations of how some of these reasoning errors are made. The course
will review the basic nature of expert medical reasoning, to discover
possibilities for capitalizing on its strengths and supporting its
weaknesses.  The participant will learn why the human cognitive system,
with its large memory, limited attention span, and powerful pattern
recognition ability, seems destined to operate by
automatic "scripted" response rather than thoughtful deliberation. 

We will demonstrate the implications of clinicians' cognitive processes for
two basic activities of rational decision making: diagnosis and choosing a
course of action. Clinicians' reasoning strategies, motivations, habits,
and cognitive limitations can lead them to make errors of diagnosis, and
define the methods they can use to seek and use information more
rationally. Clinicians' strategies for predicting what will happen can lead
to misjudgments of probability and their methods of evaluating things can
lead to misjudgments of treatment consequences. Understanding the
psychological processes involved will suggest methods for helping
clinicians reason better about the probabilities of outcomes and about
their own or their patients' preferences.

Tutorial presenters
Robert M. Hamm
Clinical Decision Making Program, Department of Family and Preventive
Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 900 NE 10th
St, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, U.S.A. Telephone: 405/271-8000 ext
3-2302, Fax: 405/271-2784, e-mail:robert-hamm@ouhsc.edu

Clare Harries 
Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street,
London, WC1E 6BT, U.K.Telephone: +44 171 504 5389, Fax: +44 171 436
4276, e-mail: clare.harries@ucl.ac.uk

Jack Dowie, PhD
Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Open University, Milton
Keynes, MK7 6AA, U.K. Telephone: +44 171 254 7576, Fax: +44 171 254
7576, e-mail: j.a.dowie@open.ac.uk

3) DATA MINING TECHNIQUES AND APPLICATIONS IN MEDICINE
With the widespread use of medical information systems that include
databases that have recently featured explosive growth in their sizes,
physicians and medical researchers are faced with a problem of making use
of the stored data. The traditional manual data analysis has become
insufficient, and methods for efficient computer-assisted analysis
indispensable, in particular those of data mining and other related
techniques of knowledge discovery in databases and intelligent data analysis.

This tutorial will address current techniques and applications of data
mining in medicine. We will provide an overview of data mining methods,
including symbolic data mining (mining of decision rules, association
rules, decision trees, inductive logic programming, hierarchical concept
discovery, etc.) and subsymbolic data mining (instance based learning,
neural nets, Naive Bayesian classifier, etc). Specific evaluation
techniques and statistical criteria suited for medical applications will be
discussed. Selected data preprocessing and data visualization methods will
also be presented. 

The participants of tutorial will get familiar with * fundamental concepts
data mining and knowledge discovery in data bases * an overview of data
mining methods, * specific data mining methods, including decision trees
and rules, association rules, and naive Bayesian classifier * metrics that
can be used to assess the quality and interestingness of discovered
relationships * how intelligent data analysis is different from common
statistical approaches and how it can complement it * what features should
be supported by a particular data mining tool to be useful for medical data
analysis * how to successfully integrate data mining techniques within
existing medical information system

Intended audience:
This tutorial will be of interest to clinicians, medical researchers,
information technology professionals, information systems developers and
managers, data analysts  and institutional decision makers, and anyone else
interested in applying modern data analysis methods to extract useful
knowledge from medical data bases.


Tutorial presenters
Blaz Zupan (1,2) and Nada Lavrac (2)

(1) University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information
Sciences Trzaska 25, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. phone: +386 61 177 
3380, fax: +386 61 125 1038 e-mail: blaz.zupan@fri.uni-lj.si (2) J.
Stefan Institute, Department of Intelligent Systems Jamova 39, SI-1000
Ljubljana, Slovenia. phone: +386 61 177  3272, fax: +386 61 125 1038.
e-mail: nada.lavrac@ijs.si

4) HOW TO BUILD A CAUSAL PROBABILISTIC NETWORK
A Causal Probabilistic Network, also called Bayesian network is a flexible
and efficient framework for reasoning under uncertainty, and it has
established itself as a practical method for knowledge representation and
inference in a number of medical areas. The framework consists of a
structural part, where the domain in question is modelled through a
directed acyclic graph, and a quantitative part, where the impact between
nodes in the graph are represented as conditional probabilities.  This
tutorial will through examples give an informal introduction to theory and
use of CPNs in connection with decision theory. The participants will
obtain hands-on experience with the construction of a small CPN, including
the acquisition of structure and conditional probabilities. 

Tutorial presenters
Finn V. Jensen
Dept. of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7,
DK-9000 Aalborg Øst, Denmark. Phone: +4596358903, email: fvj@cs.auc.dk

Steen Andreassen
Dept. of Medical Informatics and Image Analysis, Aalborg University,
Fredrik Bajers Vej 7D, DK-9000 Aalborg Øst, Denmark. Phone:
+4596358812, Fax: +4598154008, email: sa@miba.auc.dk

5) FOUNDATIONS OF PREFERENCE THEORY AND QUALITY OF LIFE ADJUSTMENT.
The methods of preference assessment and quality of life adjustment are
widely applied in the medical decision making and cost-effectiveness
literature. Yet, the theory and assumptions that underlie the use of these
methods are poorly understood. The objectives of this short course are to
provide experienced practioners with a quick and accessible introduction to
the underpinnings of utility theory, with an emphasis on the relevance,
power, and limitations of these assumptions in health and medical contexts.
Topics to be covered will include: the theory of choice and preference;
traditional models of individual decision making under uncertainty,
including the von-Neumann - Morgenstern expected utility framework; the
additional assumptions that support the use of multi-attribute utility
functions and quality-adjusted life-years; and the difficulties encountered
when the theory is extended beyond the individual to represent choice at
the societal level.

Tutorial presenter
Jospeh S. Pliskin, Ph.D.
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management and Department of
Health Policy and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev,Beer-Sheva, Israel. P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel.Tel:
972-7-6472219,Fax: 972-7-6472958 email: jpliskin@bgumail.bgu.ac.il

6) HOW TO READ (AND MAYBE PERFORM) A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW (METAANALYSIS)
Physicians are committed to manage their patients according to the best
available evidence. Systematic reviews are about asking the relevant
questions; obtaining the published material (all of it); and extracting the
evidence. In the tutorial we will address the following questions:
1. Why do we need systematic reviews?
2. How to put the questions?
3. How to formulate a relevant protocol?
4. How to collect the pertinent studies?
5. How to evaluate the methodological soundness of the studies? Does it
matter?
6. How to obtain data from the studies and how to combine it? 
7. How to explore heterogeneity and why is it so important?
8. How to check for biases? 
9. How to present results?
10. Does metaanalysis work?

Tutorial presenters
Karla Soares Weiser, Leonard Leibovici
Department of Medicine E, Beilinson Hospital, Petah-tiqva 49100,
Israel; Tel 972 3 9376501; fax 972 3 9376505; e-mail
leibovic@post.tau.ac.il

AIMDM99 - Workshops 

1) COMPUTERS IN ANAESTHESIA AND INTENSIVE CARE
The care of critically ill patients in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and
during Anaesthesia is becoming increasingly complex. Clinicians are
required to rapidly interpret and respond to a large number of clinical
parameters, selecting appropriate treatment for the patient among many
different options. New measurement technology has increased the demand for
improved information management, as has the need to monitor and assess the
quality of care provided. This workshop presents "State of the art"
applications of information technology for clinicians, researchers and
industry working in Anaesthesia and Intensive care. · Topics of particular
interest include those related to supporting clinical decision making,
including · Decision support systems: clinical guidelines and protocols;
model based advisory systems; monitoring and intelligent alarming; and the
application of Artificial Intelligence methodology in Anaesthesia and
Intensive care. Computer systems for control and assessment of quality of
care. · Information management: visualization and interpretation of
clinical data; planning and scheduling of critical care resources. In
addition patient Data Management systems will be presented by
representatives from industry. Scientific  committee: Silvia Miksch
(Chair) (A),  Steen Andreassen (DK), Michel Dojat (F), Jim Hunter (UK),
Christian Popow (A), Steve Rees (DK), Per Thorgaard (DK).

2) PROGNOSTIC MODELS IN MEDICINE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND 
DECISION ANALYTIC APPROACHES.
Prognostic models are increasingly used in medicine to predict the natural
course of disease, or the expected outcome after treatment. Prognosis forms
an integral part of systems for treatment selection and treatment planning.
In evaluating quality of care, prognostic models are used for predicting
outcome, such as mortality, which is compared with the actual measured
outcome. Furthermore, prognostic models may play an important role in
guiding diagnostic problem solving, e.g. by only requesting information
concerning tests, of which the outcome affects knowledge of the prognosis.

In recent years several methods and techniques from the fields of
artificial intelligence, decision theory and statistics have been
introduced into models of the medical management of patients (diagnosis,
treatment, follow-up); in some of these models, assessment of the expected
prognosis constitutes an integral part. Typically, recent prognostic
methods rely on explicit (patho)physiological models, which may be combined
with traditional models of life expectancy. Examples of such domain models
are causal disease models, and physiological models of regulatory
mechanisms in the human body. Such model-based approaches have the
potential to facilitate the development of actual systems, because the
medical domain models can be (partially) obtained from the medical literature.

Various methods have been suggested for the representations of such domain
models ranging from quantitative and probabilistic approaches to symbolic
and qualitative ones. Semantic concepts such as time, e.g. for modelling
the progressive changes of regulatory mechanisms, have formed an important
and challenging modelling issue. Moreover, automatic learning techniques of
such models have been proposed. When model construction is hard, less
explicit domain models have been studied such as the use of case-based and
neural network representations and their combination with more explicit
domain models. In medical decision analysis, where the theories of
probability and utility are combined, various representations and
techniques are suggested such as decision trees, regression models, and
representations in which advantage is taken from the Markov assumption
(such as in Markov decision problems).

This workshop aims at bringing together various theoretical and practical
approaches to computational prognosis that comprise the state of the art in
this field. This workshop is a follow up on the initiative started with the
successful invited session on "Intelligent Prognostic Methods in Medical
Diagnosis and Treatment Planning" in 1998 during the conference
"Computational Engineering in Systems Applications 1998" (cesa'98)
(http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~lucas/ipm-cesa98.html) which has resulted in a
special issue on prognosis of the journal Artificial Intelligence in Medicine.

Scientific committee: Ameen Abu-Hanna (Co-Chair) (H), Peter Lucas
(Co-Chair) (H), S. Andreassen (DK), P.M.M. Bossuyt (H), J. Fox (UK),
J.D.F. Habbema (H), P. Haddawy (USA), P. Hammond (UK), E. Keravnou
(Cyprus), N. Lavrac (Slovenia), J. van der Lei (H), L. Ohno-Machado
(USA), M. Ramoni (UK), M. Stefanelli (I), Th.Wetter (D), J.Wyatt (UK)
**********
III.B.3.
Fr: Jan Staudek <staudek@informatics.muni.cz>
Re: SOFSEM 99

SOFSEM'99
XXVI-th Seminar on Current Trends
in Theory and Practice of Informatics
November 27 - December 4, 1999
Devet-skal hotel, Milovy
Czech Republic
URL: http://www.sofsem.cz

Organized by
CSCS, Czech Society for Computer Science
DCIT, Prague
Institute of Computer Science, Academy of Sciences, Prague
Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno
Utrecht University

in co-operation with
ERCIM - the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics

Subject
SOFSEM (SOFtware   SEMinar) is  an  eight-day  international  conference
devoted to the theory and the practice of  software systems. Its program
consists of a series of invited talks given by prominent academic
professionals and researchers. Contributed talks and posters of
participants are also included in the program of SOFSEM. The working
language is English.

Invited talks and contributed talks are published by Springer-Verlag in the
 "Lecture Notes in Computer Science" series and distributed at the seminar.

Sofsem'99 is the 26th in the series of Sofsem seminars held annually
It is intended to foster cooperation among people working in various areas
of computer science. Its scientific program offers a unique opportunity to
gain a relatively quick and representative overview about the selected
parts of computer science, presented by top researchers. Its social program
provides an optimum framework for discussions, meetings, establishing
contacts, and socializing. Especially suited for young computer scientists.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topics
Committees
Program of Invited Talks
Submissions
   Contributed Talks
   Posters
   Deadlines
Contact Addresses, Sofsem www-page
Fees
   Cancellation
   Financial support
Exhibitions
Sponsors
Local Arrangements, Venue, History
Registration
REGISTRATION FORM AND PAYMENT NOTICE

Topics
        Trends in Theory
        Core Technologies
        Software and Information Engineering
        From Data to Knowledge
        Applications

Committees
Advisory Board
  D. Bjorner, (UN University, IIST, Macau),
  P. van Emde Boas, (CWI Amsterdam, NL),
  M. Broy, (TU Munich, DE),
  M. Chytil, (ANIMA Praha, Prague, CZ),
  G. Gottlob, (TU Vienna, A),
  K. G. Jeffery, (CLRC RAL, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, UK),
  M. Zemankova, (NSF, Washington DC, USA)

Steering Committee
  J. Wiedermann, Chair (Academy of Sciences, Prague, CZ)
  B. Rovan, Vice-Chair (Comenius University, Bratislava, SK)
  K. G. Jeffery (CLRC RAL, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, UK)
  J. Pavelka (DCIT, Prague, CZ)
  F. Plasil (Charles University, Prague, CZ)
  I. Privara (Institute of Informatics and Statistics, Bratislava, SK)
  J. Staudek (Masaryk University, Brno, CZ)

Invited Talks 

Trends in Theory
-Jozef Gruska, Masaryk University, Brno, CZ
 Quantum Challenges
-Juraj Hromkovic, University of Aachen, DE
 Stability of approximation algorithms for hard optimization problems
-Wojciech Rytter, Warsaw University, PL
 Algorithms on compressed strings and arrays

Core Technologies
-Wolfgang Appelt,GMD, Sankt Augustin, DE
 WWW based collaboration with the BSCW System
-Christian Bac, Guy Bernard, Didier Le Tien, INT Evry, FR
 Middleware and Quality of Service
-Jean-Marie Rifflet, Universite Paris 7, FR
 Chorus internals
-Noemi Rodrigues, Catholic University Rio de Janeiro, BR
 Dynamic Reconfiguration of CORBA-based Applications
-Doaitse Swierstra, University Utrecht, NL
 Parsing
-Ghica van Emde Boas, IBM Nederland N.V., NL IBM
 San Francisco: Java based business application components and
 new ways to develop them

Software and Information Engineering
-Paolo Atzeni, University of ROMA III, IT
 Data bases and the World Wide Web, accomplishments and challenges
-Juan Biccaregui, CLRC-RAL, UK
 Exploiting formality in software engineering
-Ronald Cramer, ETH Zurich, CH
 Secure Multi-Party Computation
-Max Garzon, University Memphis, US
 Biocomputing
-Vaclav Rajlich, Wayne State University, Detroit, US
 Software change and evolution
-Peter Sloot, WINS, NL
 Distributed Simulation with Cellular Automata:
 Applications and Architecture

>From Data to Knowledge
-Alejandro P. Buchmann, T. University, Darmstadt, DE
 Data warehousing
-Max Garzon, University Memphis, US
 Knowledge applications on human-computer interactions

Applications
-Martin Bogdan, Wolfgang Rosenstiel, University of Tuebingen, DE
 Application of artificial neural networks for different
 engineering problems
-Maxime Crochemore, University of Marne-la-Vallie, FR
 String algorithms and text compression
-Emil Pelikan, Czech Academy of Science, CZ
 Principles of Forecasting
-Dan Roth, University of Illinois, US
 Neural Nets Applications
-Willy Schilders, Philips Labs, NL
 Electronics design
-Stephan Tschoeke, University Paderborn, DE
 Real Life Project with Lufthansa

Submissions
The categories for submissions include Contributed Talks and Posters. Each
submission should have a title giving the following information:

- name, address, e-mail address, and phone/fax number of each author;
- specification of one of the authors as the contact person.

To submit, please send a postscript file of your contribution via e-mail.
With each submission, please e-mail also an abstract in plain ASCII. Any
other form of electronic submission should be consulted in advance with the
PC sectretary.

Contributed Talks
8-page  drafts in English are  expected. A full camera-ready copy of
contributed talks on current topics in Computer Science should be no longer
than 8-pages. Presentation time for contributed talks is 25 minutes.
Contributed talks will be included in the Proceedings of SOFSEM '99,
published in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series by Springer-Verlag.

The Organizing Committee will supply the authors of accepted contributed
talks with detailed technical instructions and the LaTeX style file for the
preparation of the camera-ready copy.

Posters
We actively encourage posters describing work in progress.
Final versions of two A4 page poster are expected.

Deadlines
Submission of the contributed talk/poster      May 7, 1999
Notification of acceptance / rejection         June 30, 1999
Camera-ready copy of the talks                 August 25, 1999

Contact Addresses
Sofsem www-page
http://www.sofsem.cz

Communications and enquires should be adressed to:
sofsem@ics.muni.cz

Submissions should be adressed to:
sochor@fi.muni.cz

or

Jiri Sochor
Faculty of Informatics
Masaryk University
Botanicka 68a,
602 00 Brno
Czech Republic
**********
III.B.4.
Fr: Conference Evolang <evolang@inf.enst.fr>
Re: Evolution of Language 2000
 
Preliminary CALL FOR PAPERS
[deadline: November 8, 1999]
T H E   E V O L U T I O N   O F   L A N G U A G E 
Paris April 3-6, 2000
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications
Paris - France
http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/

ORGANISED BY: Professor Jean Aitchison (Oxford University), 
Dr. Jean-Louis Dessalles (ENST Paris), Professor Jim Hurford 
(Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh), 
Dr. Chris Knight (Department of Sociology, University of 
East London), Professor Luc Steels (Sony CSL and Vrije 
Universiteit Brussel).

LOCAL ORGANISATION: Jean-Louis Dessalles (ENST), Laleh Ghadakpour (CREA),
Frédéric Kaplan (Sony CSL), Luc Steels (Sony CSL), François Yvon (ENST). 

This will be the third conference in a series concerned with the
evolutionary emergence of speech. From a wide range of disciplines, we seek
to attract researchers willing to integrate their perspectives with those
of modern Darwinism.

The aim is to bring together linguists, computer scientists,
anthropologists, palaeontologists, ethologists, geneticists,
neuroscientists, and other scientists who are concerned with the question
of the origin and evolution of language. 

Provisional PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: 
Jean Aitchison (Worcester College), Robert C. Berwick (M.I.T.), 
Derek Bickerton (Univ. Hawaï), Melissa Bowerman* (Max Planck Institute 
for Psycholinguistics), Ted Briscoe (University of Cambridge Computer 
Laboratory), René Carré (ENST), Bernard Comrie (University of Southern 
California), Jean-Louis Dessalles (ENST), Jean-Marie Hombert* (MSH 
Rhône-Alpes), James R. Hurford (University of Edinburgh), Judy Kegl* 
(University of Southern Maine), Simon Kirby (University of Edinburgh), 
Chris Knight (University of East London), André Langaney (Musée de l'Homme), 
Frederick J. Newmeyer (University of Washington), Michael Studdert-Kenedy* 
(Haskins Laboratories), Luc Steels (Sony CSL & Vrije Universiteit Brussel), 
Bernard Victorri (ENS Ulm).
                                         * [to be confirmed]
Submission Instructions
Prospective authors are invited to submit extended abstracts or short
papers (from 1 to 4 pages, max. 2000 words). Submitted papers will be
refereed and selected for oral presentation (25/30 min) on the basis of
quality and relevance to the Conference topics. Accepted abstracts and
papers will be included in the Conference Proceedings and will be made
accessible through the web. Copies of the proceedings will be available at
the Conference. Authors of accepted contributions will be asked to submit
full length papers for a volume to be published after the Conference by an
international publisher.

Authors are strongly encouraged to submit their papers electronically 
(MS Word preferred, but most formats will be recognised).

Please email your submission to evolang@infres.enst.fr
Don't forget to include the submission form in your message.

The deadline for submission is November 8th, 1999.

If you cannot send your submission through email, please send four copies
(and the submission form) to:

        J-L Dessalles
        ENST / Dep. InfRes 
        46 rue Barrault 
        F-75013 Paris - France

If you are planning to submit a paper or abstract, or if you simply plan to
attend the Conference, please send a mail to 
evolang@infres.enst.fr

You will be kept informed through e-mail of further useful information.
  
Conference web site: http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/
Call for papers:     http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/cfp.html
EMAIL:               evolang@infres.enst.fr
**********
III.C.1.
Fr: Book Arts Press <fac-fbap@virginia.edu>
Re: Rare Book School 1999

RARE BOOK SCHOOL 1999 (RBS): Rare Book School is pleased to announce its
schedule of courses for the summer of 1999, consisting of 27 five-day,
non-credit courses on topics concerning the history of books and printing,
manuscripts, and special collections, to be offered on the grounds of the
University of Virginia 12 July - 6 August.  Tuition per course for the RBS
1999 Summer Session is $640.  The complete brochure, expanded course
descriptions, and applications are available at our website:
<http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks>

Readers of IR-L may find the courses featured below to be of particular
interest:

17. IMPLEMENTING ENCODED ARCHIVAL DESCRIPTION.
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) provides standardized machine-readable
access to primary resource materials. This course is aimed at archivists,
librarians, and museum personnel who would like an introduction to EAD that
includes an extensive supervised hands-on component. Students will learn
SGML encoding techniques in part using examples selected from among their
own institution's finding aids. Topics: the context out of which EAD
emerged; introduction to the use of SGML authoring tools and browsers; the
conversion of existing finding aids to EAD. Offered in both weeks 1 and 3.
Instructor: Daniel Pitti.

DANIEL PITTI became Project Director at the University of Virginia's
Institute for Advanced Technology in 1997, before which he was Librarian
for Advanced Technologies at the University of California, Berkeley. He was
the Coordinator of the Encoded Archival Description initiative.

27. ELECTRONIC TEXTS AND IMAGES.
A practical exploration of the research, preservation, editing, and
pedagogical uses of electronic texts and images in the humanities. The
course will center around the creation of a set of archival-quality etexts
and digital images, for which we shall also create an Encoded Archival
Description guide. Topics include: SGML tagging and conversion; using the
Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines; the form and implications of XML;
publishing on the World Wide Web; and the management and use of on-line
texts. See for details about last year's course. Some experience with HTML
is a pre-requisite for admission to the course. Offered in both weeks 2 and
4. Instructor: David Seaman.

DAVID SEAMAN is the founding director of the nationally-known Electronic
Text Center and on-line archive at the University of Virginia. He lectures
and writes frequently on SGML, the Internet, and the creation and use of
electronic texts in the humanities.

Book Arts Press                      ph: 804/924-8851
114 Alderman Library                fax: 804/924-8824
University of Virginia            email: oldbooks@virginia.edu
Charlottesville, VA  22903      website: <http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks>
******************************************************************
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 Cliff Lynch (emeritus) cliff@cni.org

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