HCSNet Update Newsletter Volume 3 Number 46

Friday, 23rd November 2007
HCSNet Update
Friday 23 November 2007

Participant Spotlight

Graciela Tesan, Macquarie University

Research area: - Psycholinguistics

My research interests extend from first language acquisition to online language processing. I am currently working at MACCS (http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au) where I am pursuing two main research projects: the study of functional categories in child language and the study of syntactic and semantic online processing using Magnetoencephalography (MEG). I am mainly interested in children's implicit (innate) knowledge of principles and parameters and how this innate knowledge unfolds from the initial stage to the steady stage (i.e. the adult stage). I am working with Dr Rosalind Thornton on the development of the morphosyntactic properties of inflectional items and negative items in English-speaking children. My research interests also include the study of how this innate knowledge is realized in the brain. Under Prof. Stephen Crain’s supervision, I am using MEG, a neuroimaging technique, to uncover the temporal and topographical distribution of neural indicators of language processing in the adult population. MEG is a device capable of detecting the fluctuation of magnetic fields that are produced by synchronous postsynaptic activity of neurons in the brain cortex. This technique offers excellent temporal resolution of cortical activity down to a millisecond scale. One of the major advantages of using MEG (as compared with EEG) is that magnetic fields generated by neuronal activity are not affected by the different homogeneities of the brain and can travel through space without being distorted. Thus, brain events can be observed directly outside the brain using MEG, providing greater comfort to the subject and researchers with a clearer representation of the temporal and topographical activation of the brain cortex as it processes incoming stimuli. Our aim is to develop an accurate functional map of the language computational system and its interfaces, which we will use as a baseline for future research with children. In the near future, I will merge my two research areas and study children's syntactic and semantic processing using MEG techniques (http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/laboratories/meg/).

Contact:
Graciela Tesan
Macquarie University
Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science
email: gtesan@maccs.mq.edu.au     www: www.maccs.mq.edu.au/members/profile.htm?memberID=115

News

SummerFest '07: Full Program now available

The full program of events for both SummerFest '07 and ICoMCS is now available for download here. A reminder that the components of SummerFest are open to everyone - staff, students and industry and community participants. For registration information, please visit: http://www.hcsnet.edu.au/summerfest07/registration. We look forward to seeing you there!

FSI not CSI: Perspectives in State-of-the-Art Forensic Speaker Recognition

How well can you identify the voice of a criminal? In our technological age, more and more offenders are being recorded while committing crimes, and expert opinion is being increasingly sought in the legal process as to whether two or more recordings are from the same speaker. The way forensic speaker recognition is done in real life departs considerably from its depiction in film and popular TV crime shows like Law and Order and Crime Scene Investigation. To be held on 6 and 7 December 2007 as part of SummerFest '07, the HCSNet Forensic Speaker Recognition Workshop will bring together leading practitioners and experts to present State-of-the-Art Forensic Speaker Recognition from several of its most important perspectives, including examples from real case-work. For more information, please visit: http://www.hcsnet.edu.au/summerfest07/workshops/fsrworkshop.

Upcoming Submission Deadlines

We list here upcoming submission deadlines that fall in the next month. A more complete list of submission deadlines can be found here. Please note that any enquiries regarding these events should be directed to the event organisers, typically identified on the event's website which you can reach from the link below.

Mixing Approaches to MACHINE TRANSLATION

Donostia - San Sebastián, Spain
Due date: 26 Nov 2007
URL: http://ixa2.si.ehu.es/matmt08-2008

Language, Communication and Cognition

Brighton, United Kingdom
Due date: 26 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.languageandcognition.net

SIGWriting 2008 The 11th International EARLI SIG Writing Conference

Lund, Sweden
Due date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://sigwriting2008.sol.lu.se

IADA 2008 Milano Word Meaning in Argumentative Dialogue

Milan, Italy
Due date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.unicatt.it/IADA

CADAAD'08 Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines

Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Due date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://cadaad.org/cadaad08

ALA 2008 9th International Conference of the Association for Language Awareness

Hong Kong, China
Due date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.hku.hk/clear/ala

LPRG08 Face, Culture and Social Interaction

Budapest, Hungary
Due date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.nytud.hu/lprg/

The International Gender & Language Association 5th Biennial Conference

Wellington, New Zealand
Due date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/igala5/

GCLA-08/DGKL-08 3rd Intl Conf German Cognitive Linguistics Assoc

Leipzig, Germany
Due date: 1 Dec 2007
URL: http://webapp.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/~DGKL/GCLA_08/

RaAM 7 Researching and Applying Metaphor

Cáceres, Spain
Due date: 1 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.unex.es/eweb/raam7

Third International Conference on Cognitive Science

Moscow, Russian Federation
Due date: 1 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.cogsci2008.ru

ICAD '07 The 13th International Conference on Auditory Display

Montréal, Canada
Due date: 2 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.music.mcgill.ca/icad2007/

NorConfClinLing2008 The First Nordic Conference of Clinical Linguistics

Joensuu, Finland
Due date: 3 Dec 2007
URL: http://cc.joensuu.fi/linguistics/NorConfClinLing2008/

Second International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media

Washington, United States
Due date: 3 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.icwsm.org/2008/

OPEN REPOSITORIES 2008

University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Due date: 7 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.openrepositories.org/2008

ECAI 2008 18th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Patras, Greece
Due date: 10 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.ece.upatras.gr/ecai2008/

SALT Semantics and Linguistic Theory 18

Amherst, United States
Due date: 15 Dec 2007
URL: http://umass.edu/linguist/events/salt18/

Brain Talk. Discourse with and in the Brain

Lund, Sweden
Due date: 15 Dec 2007
URL: http://conference.sol.lu.se/BrainTalk/

Exploring Crash-Proof Grammars

Jefferson City, TN, United States
Due date: 20 Dec 2007
URL:

ICMPC10 10th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition

Sapporo, Japan
Due date: 20 Dec 2007
URL:

Upcoming Conferences

We list here upcoming conferences and workshops that fall in the next month. A more complete list of events can be found here. Please note that any enquiries regarding these events should be directed to the event organisers, typically identified on the event's website which you can reach from the link below.

NS2007 New Sounds 2007

Santa Catarina, Brazil
Date: 25 Nov 2007
to 28 Nov 2007 URL: http://www.nupffale.ufsc.br/newsounds/

Large-scale XML Corpora in Language and Literature

Oxford, United Kingdom
Date: 26 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/workshop/

SALC First Conference of the Swedish Association for Language and Cognition

Lund, Sweden
Date: 29 Nov 2007
to 1 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.salc-sssk.org/

CoPaLaSt Computational Paradigms and Language Structure

Berlin, Germany
Date: 30 Nov 2007
to 1 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/events/copalast/index.html?home

SyMi How Language Influences Thought

Berlin, Germany
Date: 30 Nov 2007
URL: http://www.angl.hu-berlin.de/denken

The Fourth Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, 2007

Melbourne, Australia
Date: 3 Dec 2007
to 5 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.ie.rmit.edu.au

TeMA-2007 Workshop on Text Mining and Applications

Guimarães, Portugal
Date: 3 Dec 2007
to 7 Dec 2007 URL: http://epia2007.appia.pt/

HCSNet SummerFest '07

Sydney, Australia
Date: 3 Dec 2007
to 7 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.hcsnet.edu.au/summerfest07

SOLE'07 Seventh Conference on Language Engineering

Cairo, Egypt
Date: 5 Dec 2007
to 6 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.esole.org

Inaugural International Conference on Music Communication Science

Sydney, Australia
Date: 5 Dec 2007
to 7 Dec 2007 URL: http://marcs.uws.edu.au/links/ICoMusic

Collaboration and Communicative Tools for Distributed Communities

Sydney, Australia
Date: 6 Dec 2007
to 7 Dec 2007 URL: www.hcsnet.edu.au

FSI not CSI: Perspectives in State-of-the-Art Forensic Speaker Recognition

Sydney, Australia
Date: 6 Dec 2007
to 7 Dec 2007 URL: www.hcsnet.edu.au

SYNLAC Workshop 2007: Language & Culture

Sydney, Australia
Date: 6 Dec 2007
to 7 Dec 2007 URL:

TLT 2007 Workshop on Treebanks and Linguistic Theories

Bergen, Norway
Date: 7 Dec 2007
to 8 Dec 2007 URL: http://tlt07.uib.no

Coarticulation: Cues, Direction, and Representation

Montpellier, France
Date: 7 Dec 2007
URL: http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/praxiling/spip.php?rubrique35

NIPS 07: Music, Brain & Cognition Workshop

Whistler, Canada
Date: 7 Dec 2007
to 8 Dec 2007 URL: http://homepage.mac.com/davidrh/MCBworkshop07/

iicall2 2007 Interfaces of Intelligent CALL

Ontario, Canada
Date: 7 Dec 2007
to 8 Dec 2007 URL: http://purl.org/i-call/

ALTW 2007 Australasian Language Technology Workshop 2007

Melbourne, Australia
Date: 10 Dec 2007
to 11 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.alta.asn.au/events/altw2007

Workshop on New Techniques for Consuming, Managing, and Manipulating Interactive Digital Media at Homeg

Taichung, Taiwan
Date: 10 Dec 2007
to 12 Dec 2007 URL: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~garcia/ism2007_workshop

ADCS 2007 The Twelfth Australasian Document Computing Symposium

Melbourne, Australia
Date: 10 Dec 2007
URL: http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~aht/adcs2007/index.html

XPRAG 2007 Experimental Pragmatics 2007

Berlin, Germany
Date: 13 Dec 2007
to 16 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/xprag

ELU2007 Extended Lexical Units

Leiden, Netherlands
Date: 14 Dec 2007
to 15 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.lucl.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=2&c=549

AC2007 Sixteenth Amsterdam Colloquium

Amsterdam, Netherlands
Date: 17 Dec 2007
to 19 Dec 2007 URL: http://www.illc.uva.nl/AC2007/
HCSNet Update is a weekly electronic publication of HCSNet, the ARC Research Network in Human Communication Science, and is emailed to all Network participants. If you have received this newsletter by some other means, or you'd like to find out more about HCSNet, visit our website at www.hcsnet.edu.au. For enquiries about this newsletter or to stop receiving it, please email newsletter@hcsnet.edu.au.