Technical

Ontologies for MPEG 7

The MPEG-7 initiative is a new step towards multimedia content indexing. As such, it brings new interdisciplinary problems which span across single media indexing and content description techniques. The former often deal with Digital Signal Processing while the latter are concerned with symbolic techniques and Artificial Intelligence techniques.

The definition of appropriate ontologies and the proper techniques to support their implementation are thus a central research issue for MPEG-7. This workshop aims at specifically addressing directions towards the integration of content description in automatic indexing:

• high-level description of content features
• mapping signal processing features to symbolic features
• cross-modal indexing and querying (such as Natural Language querying of an image database)
• real-world media indexing (e.g., movies, broadcast)

Committee:
Marc Cavazza, University of Bradford - UK
Bruno Bachimont, INA - F
Eric Badique, European Commission DG XIII-B, BE
Fabio Bellifemine, CSELT - I
Riccardo Leonardi, University of Brescia  - I
Toyoaki Nishida, NIST, JP
Masahiro Shibata, NHK, JP

20 November

Speech and Natural Language Processing in Virtual Reality

As Virtual Reality Systems get to model more complex real-world situations, there is an increasing need for handling abstract information processing while still preserving their Human-Centered nature.

Natural Language is the media of choice for conveying abstract information in a user-friendly fashion. This explains the growing interest in Speech and Natural Language Technology for speech-based interfaces, conversational virtual assistants and animating Virtual Worlds from Natural Language Descriptions.

The workshop will address the following topics:

• Speech understanding for controlling Virtual Worlds
• Conversational agents and avatars
• Building and/or animating Virtual Worlds from Natural Language Descriptions
• Any applications of the above techniques in VR projects
  

Committee:
Marc Cavazza, University of Bradford - UK
Steve Benford, Nottingham University - UK
Adam Cheyer, SRI - USA
Stephanie Everett, Naval Research Laboratory - USA
Luc Julia, SRI - USA
Larry Rosenblum, Naval Research Laboratory - USA
Daniel Thalmann, EPFL - CH

Virtual World Heritage Workshops

Workshops will be held to establish an international group, consortia, or subcommittee, responsible for the strategic development of technical, economic, political, human-relation factors and environmental procedures. This group will work directly with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and will assist in the development of WH VR applications. Any individual, organization or country interested in virtual world heritage is highly encouraged to attend or participate, as all ideas, thoughts and experiences are gladly welcomed. It is anticipated that the outcomes of this symposium will produce a group capable of presenting information or demonstrations at many international meetings and conferences, and work towards an institute or research centre for virtual world heritage.

Number of participants: 10-20
Duration: One session

Committee
Ms. Minja Yang, UNESCO
Ms. Joanna Sullivan, UNESCO
Mr. Peter Stott, UNESCO