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Call for Extended Abstracts

CNL 2010
2nd Workshop on Controlled Natural Languages

http://staff.um.edu.mt/mros1/cnl2010

Marettimo Island, Sicily (Italy)
13-15 September 2010
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Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of natural languages,
obtained by restricting the grammar and vocabulary in order to reduce or
eliminate ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages
fall into two major types: those that improve readability for human
readers (e.g. non-native speakers), and those that enable reliable
automatic semantic analysis of the language.

Languages of the first type (often called "simplified" or "technical"
languages), for example ASD Simplified Technical English, Caterpillar
Technical English, IBM's Easy English, are used in industry to
increase the quality of technical documentation, and possibly simplify
the (semi-) automatic translation of the documentation. These languages
restrict the writer by general rules such as "write short and
grammatically simple sentences", "use nouns instead of pronouns", "use
determiners", and "use active instead of passive".

Languages of the second type have a formal logical basis, i.e. they have
a formal syntax and semantics, and can be mapped to an existing formal
language, such as first-order logic. Thus, those languages can be used
as knowledge-representation languages, and writing of those languages is
supported by fully automatic consistency and redundancy checks, query
answering, etc.

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language)


TOPICS

CNL 2010 will address issues connected to controlled natural languages
including the following topics

Nature and Purpose of CNLs:
- design of CNLs and comparison between CNLs
- lexical and Syntactic issues for CNLs
- CNL semantics and knowledge representation
- expressivity within CNLs
- reasoning in CNLs
- theoretical results for CNLs

Applications:
- CNLs for specifications
- CNLs and the semantic web
- CNLs for user interfaces
- CNLs for interaction, communication and dialogue
- CNL in the context of Linked Open Data (LOD) content creation and
annotation
- CNL and Information Extraction
- tool support architectures for CNLs
- linking text mining to CNLs
- CNLs for business rules
- CNLs and mobile computing
- use cases of CNLs

The workshop will be informal with plenty of time for presentations and
discussions in the fashion of the seminars organised at Dagstuhl in
Germany (www.dagstuhl.de/programm/dagstuhl-seminare). To ensure the
informal atmosphere the number of participants will be limited.


SUBMISSION DETAILS

We invite researchers to submit extended abstracts of exactly 4 pages
(including references). These extended abstracts will be intensively
reviewed by several members of the programme committee. Authors of
accepted extended abstracts will be invited to present their research at
the workshop. Revised versions of the accepted abstracts will be
published before the workshop as a technical report of the Department of
Intelligent Computer Systems at the University of Malta. During the
workshop authors will have ample time to present their work and to have
it discussed by the participants. All authors are then invited to submit
a full paper of up to 20 pages (including references) that takes the
discussions during the workshop into account. Full papers will again be
reviewed by the programme committee. Revised versions of the full papers
will be published by Springer in their LNCS/LNAI series.

Extended abstracts and full papers should use the Springer LNCS format.
Extended abstracts must be submitted electronically in PDF format. For sub-
missions we use EasyChair
(http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cnl2010).


VENUE

The workshop will take place on the Italian island Marettimo at the
Marettimo Residence (www.marettimoresidence.com/inglese/home.php) that
consists of a set of two-storey houses within a beautiful garden. On top
of the garden of the residence there is a large lecture hall with
wireless internet.

Marettimo is the outermost of the Egadian Islands to the west of Sicily,
and is easily reached from the airports of Palermo and Trapani.
Marettimo offers the simple and relaxed life of southern Italy, unspoilt
landscape, stupendous views, hiking, swimming, diving, boat trips, and
excursions on donkeys. There are several restaurants and bars, and some
shops. What the island does not offer: traffic - there are practically
no roads - fancy shops and restaurants, night life, and sandy beaches.


REGISTRATION FEE

There is no registration fee for CNL 2010.


ACCOMMODATION

The Marettimo Residence (www.marettimoresidence.com/inglese/home.php)
offers one- and two-bedroom apartments with fully equipped kitchens. A
number of apartments for the participants of CNL 2010 will be reserved
until early July 2010 at a price 10% below the regular price. Parti-
cipants should in time get into direct contact with the Marettimo
Residence to organise their accommodation. Alternative accommodations on
Marettimo can be found via the internet.


WORKSHOP DINNER

A workshop dinner will be arranged during the workshop, and will be paid
individually by the participants.


IMPORTANT DATES

First call for abstracts 14 April 2010
Deadline for submissions of extended abstracts: 21 May 2010
Notification of acceptance of extended abstracts: 25 June 2010
Participants contact Marettimo Residence for accommodation: end of June 2010
Final versions of extended abstracts: 23 July 2010
Workshop: 13-15 September 2010


PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Johan Bos (University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy)
Peter E. Clark (Boeing, Seattle, USA)
*Hamish Cunningham (University of Sheffield, UK)
Danica Damljanovic (University of Sheffield, UK)
Norbert E. Fuchs (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Albert Gatt (University of Malta)
Siegfried Handschuh (DERI, University of Galway)
*Pat Hayes (IHMC, Florida)
*Jerry R. Hobbs (USC/ISI, USA)
Stefan Hoefler (University of Zurich)
Kaarel Kaljurand (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
*Peter Koepke (University of Bonn, Germany)
Tobias Kuhn (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Paola Monachesi (University of Utrecht)
Gordon Pace (University of Malta)
*Stephen Pulman (University of Oxford, UK)
Mike Rosner (University of Malta, Malta) (chair)
Aarne Ranta (Chalmers University, Sweden)
Rolf Schwitter (Macquarie University, Australia)
Donia Scott (University of Sussex)
Harold Somers (Dublin City University)
*John Sowa (VivoMind, USA)
Geoff Sutcliffe (University of Miami)
Silvie Spreeuwenberg (LibRT, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Uta Schwertel (imc, Germany)
Yorick Wilks (University of Sheffield, UK)
Adam Wyner (University of London UK)

*awaiting confirmation


FURTHER INFORMATION

http://staff.um.edu.mt/mros1/cnl2010/


ORGANISATION

Michael Rosner (University of Malta) mike.rosner@um.edu.mt
Norbert E. Fuchs (University of Zurich, Switzerland) fuchs@ifi.uzh.ch