EUROLAN'95

The theme of the School was "Language and Perception: Representations and Processes". The program will cover the connections that can be established between language/speech and vision at the level of perceptual and semantic mechanisms, whether cognitive or computational. The School was dedicated to young researchers working in language engineering and who wish to configure a realistic view on the correlation that the research on language processing could have with other subfields of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, mainly perceptual machinery and vision interpretation. The School was also attained by computer science and linguistics students that had already a certain background in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics.

The School benefited by the presence of 8 invited speakers:

• Prof. Dr. Thierry Baccinno - University of Nice
• Dr. Dominique Estival - ISSCO, Geneva
• Dr. Wolfgang Maass - University of Saarlandes, Saarbrucken
• Dr. Elsa Pascual - IRIT, University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse.
• Prof. Dr. Jean-Gerard Postaire - University of Lille
• Prof. Dr. Pieter Seuren - University of Nijmegen
• Nikolay Vazov - University of Sofia
• Prof. Dr. Wietske Vonk - Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

The School was concentrated on three levels at which language and perception are linked:

1. the level of mental mechanisms:

"Cognitive Processes During Reading"

by Prof. Dr. Wietske Vonk

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

2. the level of representational formalisms:

"Natural Language and Graphical Representations For Itineraries Descriptions"

by Dr. Wolfgang Maass

University of Saarlandes, Saarbrucken, Germany

3. the level of computational methods:

"Language And Vision: Integration Of Visual Information For Language Understanding"

by Dr. Dominique Estival

ISSCO Geneva

"Formatting And Meaning In Text Processing: A Model For Representing Text Architecture"

by Dr. Elsa Pascual

IRIT, University Paul Sabatier, Narbonne

4. A unifying view on the matter, from the cognitive psychology point of view, will be given:

"Image, Sound And Language"

by Prof. Dr. Pieter A.M.Seuren

Nijmegen University

The school also intended to give the opportunity to a young researcher that is a stage of preparing his/her Ph.D. dissertation for giving his/her first talk in an international Summer School (this is called the First Talk Position). The First Talk Position was:

by Nikolay Vazov

University of Sofia

An additional conference was presented in the first day of the School:

by Prof. Dr. N.Postaire

University of Lille

Some round tables and a student session was organised.

Site and timetable

The site of the School was the French Cultural Center in Iaºi. Disposing of a modern conference room, as well as a library and more classrooms, all perfectly equipped (head projectors, sonorization, white tables, computers, videos, telephone, fax, copying machines), the French Cultural Center was an ideal place for the EUROLAN’95 Summer School, well appreciated by the professors and the participants.

Academic Staff - USD 100

Full-time students - USD 60

Researchers in industry - USD 150

All fees were payable at the time of registration and included a set of course notes, all day-time refreshement and a reception. The EUROLAN Summer School runned on very restricted budget: low costs make it possible for participants from Eastern Europe, who cannot pay high fees, to take part. Therefore, all negotiations with invited professors were conducted on the basis of their providing their teaching services without any honorarium. However the teachers were reimbursed for travel and accomodation. The entire organisation of the School and the secretariat also runned on a volunteer basis, i.e. without any remuneration. The University of Iasi was able to offer very low accommodation prices (no matter whether they are from Eastern of from Western countries). A limited number of reduced fee registrations was available on the base of demands addressed to the organisers.

The participants were housed in the University hostels and in hotels. Meals were taken at the University's Mensa and at the University's Restaurant.

University "A.I.Cuza" of Iasi

University of Lille I

Romanian Academy

French Cultural Services in Romania

Organising Committee

Dan Cristea - University "Al.I.Cuza" of Iasi

Christian Duhamel - French Cultural Services in Romania

Gheorghe Grigoras - University "Al.I.Cuza" of Iasi

Henri Luchian - University "Al.I.Cuza" of Iasi

Daniel Memmi - LIMSI, Orsay

Pieter Seuren - University of Nijmegen

Jean-Pierre Steen - University of Lille I

Amalia Todirascu - Institute of Theoretical Computer Science Iasi

Dan Tufis - Romanian Academy