***** CALL FOR PAPERS *****
The Second International Workshop on Evaluating Information Access (EVIA
2008),
A Satellite Workshop of NTCIR-7
http://ntcir.nii.ac.jp/index.php/EVIA-2008/
December 16, 2008 at NII, Tokyo, Japan.
***************************

Evaluation of Information Retrieval, Question Answering and Text
Summarisation systems
has been central to Information Access research for decades.
As retrieval becomes more pervasive and diverse, the need for effective and
efficient
evaluation has never been more important. Recognising a need to provide a
forum for
discussing the evaluation issues intensively,
The First International Workshop on Evaluating Information Access (EVIA
2007)
was held on May 15, 2007 -- Day 1 of the NTCIR-6 Workshop Meeting --
at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan.
The EVIA 2007 Workshop consisted of invited paper sessions,
a regular paper session and a poster session,
and attracted participants from Asia, Europe and America.
All the papers are available online:
http://research.nii.ac.jp/ntcir/workshop/OnlineProceedings6/EVIA/
A SIGIR Forum report on EVIA 2007 is available at:\\
http://sigir.org/forum/2007D/2007d_sigirforum_sanderson.pdf

Following the success of EVIA 2007, The Second International Workshop on
Evaluating Information Access (EVIA 2008) will be held on December 16,
2008 --
Day 1 of the NTCIR-7 Workshop Meeting -- at NII again.
We will welcome papers addressing one or more of the following topics:
- Test collections, their formation, evaluation metrics and evaluation
environments
- Cross-conference comparison: NTCIR, CLEF, TREC, DUC and others
- Evaluation of specific information access tasks, e.g., for education and
training
- Evaluation of query-specific approaches
- Evaluation of multilingual, multimedia and/or mobile information access
- Real-world search topics and/or evaluation in vivo
- Novel information access tasks and their evaluation

Submission instructions can be found on the EVIA 2008 webpage:
http://ntcir.nii.ac.jp/index.php/EVIA-2008/

*** IMPORTANT DATES ***

September 1, 2008 Submissions due
October 10, 2008 Notification of acceptance
November 1, 2008 Final manuscripts due
December 2008 EVIA 2008 / NTCIR-7

*** EVIA 2008 PROGRAM COMMITTEE ***

Iadh Ounis
Diane Kelly
Norbert Fuhr
James Allan
Nicholas Belkin
Noriko Kando
Akiko Aizawa
Javed Aslam
Jaana Kekalainen
Maarten de Rijke
Djoerd Hiemstra
Gareth Jones
Gary Geunbae Lee
Mun-Kew Leong
Ian Ruthven
Ian Soboroff
Andrew Turpin
Ross Wilkinson
Carol Peters
Fred Gey
Mounia Lalmas
Donna Harman
Ben Carterette
Mark Sanderson
Tetsuya Sakai

*** EVIA 2008 CO-CHAIRS ***

Mark Sanderson (University of Sheffield, UK) and Tetsuya Sakai (NewsWatch,
Inc.)

If you have any questions, please contact \\
m.sanderson
at
sheffield.ac.uk
or
tetsuyasakai
at
acm.org

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

The 2nd BCS IRSG Symposium: Future Directions in Information Access 2008 (FDIA 2008)
London, UK, September 22, 2008

http://irsg.bcs.org/fdia2008

OVERVIEW
At the first symposium held last year, the aim was to provide a forum where future directions of information access can be presented and discussed in an open and friendly environment. The focus of the 2nd Symposium on Future Directions in Information Access will be to continue this theme by dedicating an entire day to the discussion and promotion of such research in a fun, entertaining and exciting way.

Why future directions,, because we want to encourage submission that focus on the early research such as pilot studies, presenting challenges and future opportunities, conceptual and theoretical work, and the contributions from doctoral work.

Why Information Access, because it captures the broader ideas of information retrieval, storage and management to include interaction and usage.

SYMPOSIUM AIMS
The objectives of the IRSG FDIA Symposium are:
* To provide an accessible forum for new researchers to share and discuss their research and projects:
particularly PhD students, researchers new to the field, and post doctoral researchers
* To help foster formative and tentative research ideas.
* To encourage discussion and successful progression.
* To share outcomes of doctoral work.

CALL FOR PAPERS
This symposium calls for research papers to be submitted on topics about Information Access. We especially encourage early research which presents initial work that survey and present future challenges and opportunities, present pilot studies, explore conceptual or theoretical models, etc.

Submission focusing on new directions and emerging work in Information Access/Retrieval which create discussion and provoke reaction are strongly encouraged. Submissions should provide the necessary background and motivation of the topic, so as to maximize the benefit to the author and fellow participants.

A paper should aim to include the following:
* Motivation for the research
* Background and related work (with key references)
* Particular issues highlighted for discussion and main research questions/challenges

A paper may also wish to include:
* Description of proposed or performed research
* Outline of Conceptual/Theoretical Models
* Research methodology and experiments

Areas of research include, but are not limited to:
Databases
Information Retrieval
Human Computer Interaction
Multimedia and Multimodal
Knowledge Management
Bio, Chemo, Med, Eco, etc. Informatics

All papers will be peer reviewed by at least one senior researchers on the Programme Committee. Papers should be around 4-8 pages in length in eWics Format using the Word or Latex templates (submitted in PDF).

IMPORTANT DATES
Papers submission: July 1st, 2008
Notification of acceptance: August 4th, 2008
Camera-ready papers: August 25th, 2008
Symposium: September 22nd, 2008

ORGANIZATION
Leif Azzopardi, University of Glasgow
Ayse Goker, City University
Andy MacFarlane, City University
Murat Yakici, University of Glasgow

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Alex Bailey, Google
Nick Craswell, Microsoft Research
Juan Manuel Fernandez Universidad de Granada
Norbert Fuhr Universitat Duisburg Essen
Gareth Jones Dublin City University
Gabriella Kazai Microsoft Research
Udo Kruschwitz, Univesity of Essex
Monica Landoni, University of Strathclyde
David Losada Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
Andy MacFarlane City University
Massimo Melucci University of Padua
Micheal Oakes University of Sunderland
Steve Roberston Microsoft Research
Stefan Rueger Open University
Ian Ruthven University of Strathclyde
Mark Sanderson University of Sheffield
Dawei Song Open University
Jun Wang University College London
Maarten de Rijke University of Amsterdam

This message has been sent to you because you are a member of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group (IRSG).

いつのまにやら検索メイニアック!連載開始から一年以上経過。
今は何も書く気力がないので例によって娘に代筆をお願いする。

蛍光ピンクを使った美しい作品なのだが、スキャナだと蛍光色がうまく取り込めない。
本当は今日撮った下の写真と同じくらい華やかなんです。

SIGIR 2008に投稿していた論文は不採録となった。採択率は17%。
今回は評価がかなり低かった。しゃーない。
とりあえず情報学基礎研究会(6/19-20小樽)かどこかで発表しておいて、のちにjournalに投稿しよう。

一方、ポスターのほうは採録となった。採択率は53%。
単著のものとは別に、オーストラリア人と共著のものも採録となったので合計2件。
それから、東芝の元同僚のポスターも採録になったそうでよかった。

というわけで、Singapore在住の元バンド仲間M氏よ、7月はまたお邪魔しまっせ。

それはそうと、飛行機の中でHaruki MurakamiのA Wild Sheep Chaseを読んだ。
「羊をめぐる冒険」をAlfred Birnbaumという人が訳したもの。うまい翻訳者というのはうまく訳すものだ。
そもそも村上春樹の日本語は米文学の和訳のような文体で訳しやすいのかも知れないが。
やっぱり昔の村上春樹はおもしろかった。最近読んだ2冊の短編集は何故あんなにぱっとしなかったのか。

英訳を原文と比べてみるのもいとおかし。例えば：

何人かの若い社員は彼女と寝たいと思っているようだった。 二枚のガラスと一本の通りごしに彼らのそんな性欲が僕につたわってきた。
(村上春樹: 羊をめぐる冒険)

Several of the junior staff seemed to have designs on her. Their sex drive came across two panes of glass and the street in between.
(Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase Translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum)

ちなみに「羊をめぐる冒険」の主人公の口癖「やれやれ」は"Just great"と訳されている。
というか、そもそも「やれやれ」と肩をすくめる日本人なんていないよな。

ときに、村上春樹「走ることについて語るときに僕の語ること」という本が最近売れたようだが、
Raymond Carverの"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" (愛について語るときに我々の語ること)
という短編集を家の中で拾ったのでこちらも読んでいる。いまいちピンと来ないのだが。

Glasgowの空港で最後の地ビールを味わう。

ムール貝。美味。

さよならGlasgow。

昨夜はKelvingrove Art Gallery and MuseumでECIR 2008のbanquetが開催された。
こんなところ。

せっかくなのでシャンパン片手に展示物を見ていたら、ダリのおもしろい絵があった。
十字架にかかったキリストを頭上から見下ろしたもので、俯いているキリストの表情は見えない。

Best Paper Awardは検索評価指標nDCG(*)の発明者Kal Jarvelinが受賞。
初日に一緒に飲んでいたフィンランド人というのは実はこの人のこと。

(*)nDCGについてはこちらをご参照ください:
酒井哲也: チュートリアル: 情報検索テストコレクションと評価指標,
情報処理学会研究報告, 2008-FI-89 / 2008-NL-183, pp.1-8, 2008.

料理は絶対まずいだろうと思っていたらとてもおいしかった。

このあとパブに行ってスコッチを飲んだ。飲み方を聞かれたりはしない。
ストレートで飲むのである。一杯2ポンド60ペンス。500円くらい。

今日は帰国日。午前中のGoogleのAmit Singhalの講演と言語横断検索のセッションだけ聴講した。
Googleは相変わらず、検索アルゴリズムに"secret sauce"を使っているなどと言って
詳しいことを教えてくれなかったが、スパムに苦労していること、
クリックスルーは信頼性が低いと考えていること、
それからクエリの意図理解に取り組んでいることはわかった。
しかしスパム作成者をDarth Vader (Sith) に、GoogleをYoda (Jedi) になぞらえたスライドは
ものすごく違和感あったぞ。誰がGalactic Empire (銀河帝国) かよく考えてみよう。