SIGIR 2007

Amit Singhal reveales exact formula of Google's ranking at Retrieval Conference in Glasgow

info@sigir2007.org (Djoerd Hiemstra) — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:45:33 +0100

Amit Singhal, the main architect of Google's search algorithms, revealed the exact formulas of Google's ranking this morning at the European Conference of Information Retrieval in Glasgow, UK. (http://ecir2008.dcs.gla.ac.uk)

The ranking formula, consisting of 263 different features contains apart from the well-known pagerank formula, a number of until now highly secret components, such as the keyword stuffing to cloaking ratio, the normalized adscraping log-likelihood, the expected conditional link farm probability, and a factor for geometrically maximized noun phrase replacement discounting.

Amit's bewildering keynote speech announces a new era of internet search. As common in other fields of computer science, most notably cryptography, all Google's algorithms will be completely open and transparant to their users. Inspired by the public key algorithm developed by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman at MIT in the 1970's, Google has established sever safeguards that make it virtually impossible for spammers to take advantage of Google's new open policy. Safeguards use incredibly large prime numbers computed on Google's large data centers that are impossible to break for any other company or organisation in the upcoming 20 years. Only the US government will get access to these large prime numbers.

The full ranking formula, which takes over 100 lines of pseudo code, will be published later today on the official Google blog at http://googleblog.blogspot.com.

Karen Spärck Jones video online

info@sigir2007.org (Arjen P. de Vries) — Thu, 2 Aug 2007 16:45:33 +0200

Many have asked for an online version of the Athena Lecture by Karen Spärck Jones. The video can be found in the ACM Digital Library and on the Cambridge Computer Laboratory page.

SIGIR 2007 conference a major success

info@sigir2007.org (Djoerd Hiemstra) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:03:33 +0200

The SIGIR conference is over. Many thanks to all participants for making SIGIR in the Netherlands a major success. See you in Singapore in 2008!

SIGIR best paper awards announced today

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:55:48 +0200

The SIGIR 2007 best paper awards were handed today at the SIGIR banquet. This year's best paper is written by Ryen White, Mikhail Bilenko, and Silviu Cucerzan: Studying the Use of Popular Destinations to Enhance Web Search Interaction. The best student paper is written by D. Sculley and Gabriel Wachman: Relaxed online Support Vector Machines for spam filtering.

White, Bilenko, and Cucerza present a novel Web search interaction feature which, for a given query, provides links to websites frequently visited by other users with similar information needs. These popular destinations complement traditional search results, allowing direct navigation to authoritative resources for the query topic.

In the best student paper, Sculley and Wachman developed a fast online Support Vector Machine variant called Relaxed Online SVMs. The method gives state of the art performance on spam classification, at greatly reduced computational cost.

Farcast Reporter at SIGIR 2007

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:21:54 +0200

Registration is open! Interested parties will be able to follow the events at SIGIR 2007 on a multimedia weblog at sigir.farcast.nl, provided by Farcast.

Farcast is a subsidiary of TNO (one of the organizers of the conference). For the duration of SIGIR 2007, a reporter will be providing updates of the conference activities by means of a mobile phone and the Farcast Reporter service. Farcast Reporter enables users to create and publish a weblog posting consisting of text, photos, video or audio annotated with location coordinates directly from a mobile phone at the press of a button. The service is currently in use by a number of major newspapers in the Netherlands and Belgium. For more information on Farcast, please visit www.farcast.nl.

Follow SIGIR 2007 on Flickr

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:05:12 +0200

Wish you were here in Amsterdam? See what's happening right now on Flickr: Go to http://www.flickr.com / photos / sigir2007.

Recommended routes between conference locations

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:30:24 +0200

Finding your way in Amsterdam can be tricky, due to the circular pattern of its streets and canals. To assist you in finding your way between conference locations, please print out the Route overview with recommended routes.

All SIGIR 2007 conference locations in old center of Amsterdam

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:30:41 +0200

All SIGIR conference locations are situated in the old centre of Amsterdam. We have placed the locations conveniently on one map of the Amsterdam city centre to be downloaded from: http://www.sigir2007.org / download / SIGIR07map.pdf.

The numbers below can be found on the map.

UvA Building: The tutorials on Monday 23 July, and workshops on Friday 27 July will be held at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) Building A, Roetersstraat 15, Amsterdam
UvA Building E: The Doctoral Consortium on Monday 23 July will be held at UvA Building E, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam
Agora, UvA Building H: Lunch for Tutorial, Doctoral Consortium, and Workshop participants is served at the Agora, UvA Building H, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam
City Hall/The Stopera: The Welcoming reception on Monday 23 July is held at the City Hall, Amstel 1, Amsterdam
Hotel Krasnapolsky: The main conference from Tuesday 24 July to Thursday 26 July is held at Hotel Krasnapolsky, Dam 9, Amsterdam (phone: +31 20 5549111)
Binnengasthuis/Atrium: Lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday is served at the Binnengasthuis / Atrium, Oudezijds Achterburgwal 237, Amsterdam
Het Paviljoen: The Industry Event on Friday 27 July is held at Het Paviljoen, Sarphatistraat 410, Amsterdam
Beurs van Berlage: The Banquet on Wednesday is held at the Beurs van Berlage Beursplein 1, Amsterdam

See: http://www.sigir2007.org / download / SIGIR07map.pdf.

SIGIR 2007 banquet to be held in the famous 'Beurs van Berlage'

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 0:52:58 +0200

The SIGIR banquet will be held in the big hall of the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam on Wednesday at 19:00 - 23:00.

The Beurs van Berlage was designed as a commodity exchange by architect Berlage and constructed between 1896 and 1903. It influenced many modernist architects, in particular functionalists and the Amsterdam School. Recently, the location has been used for the civil wedding of the marriage between the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his Argentine bride Maxima...

SIGIR 2007 welcoming reception takes place at the Amsterdam City Hall

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 9:14:17 +0200

The SIGIR 2007 welcoming reception takes place at The Foyer of Amsterdam's City Hall the "Stopera" on Monday 23 July at 18:00 h. The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Amsterdam request the pleasure of your company at a reception on the occasion of the 30th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference.

The Stopera houses both the city hall ("Stadhuis" in Dutch) of Amsterdam and the Opera, hence its name "Stopera". The Stopera is located between Waterlooplein square, the Amstel river and the Zwanenburgwal canal. The building is located on a bend of the river Amstel. The opera house building is shaped like a huge, massive block, with a curved front facing the city. Its glass facade provides panoramic views of the river from the curved interior foyers. People in Amsterdam either love the building or hate it...

SIGIR 2007 Press release: Search experts gather in Amsterdam

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:02:01 +0200

SIGIR 2007 released the following announcement to the Dutch press today (in Dutch).

Hommage aan overleden toponderzoekster Spärck Jones op SIGIR 2007
Experts in zoeken en vinden bijeen in Amsterdam

Dit jaar doet ACM SIGIR - de belangrijkste internationale wetenschappelijke conferentie over information retrieval - Amsterdam aan. Van 23 juli tot en met 27 juli 2007 komt toptalent uit dit onderzoeksgebied bijeen om informatie uit te wisselen over de fundamentele inzichten achter de snelle ontwikkelingen in de wereld van zoekmachines, blogs, communities, social tagging en multimedia.

Sprekers van wereldwijd vermaarde instellingen zoals MIT, University of Cambridge en Carnegie Mellon University zijn vertegenwoordigd. Een bijzondere lezing komt van prof. Karen Spärck Jones, die afgelopen april overleed. Vlak voor haar dood maakte zij een video naar aanleiding van de aan haar toegekende ACM Athena Award. Spärck Jones wordt geroemd om haar fundamentele bijdragen aan onder meer document retrieval en computationele linguïstiek. De proceedings van de conferentie zijn aan haar opgedragen.

Op de slotdag van de conferentie wordt voor het eerst het 'Industry Event' georganiseerd. Succesvolle bedrijven als SAP, Elsevier en IBM geven hun visie op mobile search, enterprise search en e-commerce. Wereldspelers Google, Yahoo! en Microsoft, maar ook het Chinese Baidu, spreken over recente ontwikkelingen in web search.

SIGIR 2007 vindt plaats in hotel Krasnapolsky en wordt bijgewoond door tal van wetenschappers, gebruikers en vertegenwoordigers die gespecialiseerd zijn in zoektechnologie. Het 'Industry Event' wordt gehouden in Het Paviljoen. De organisatie van SIGIR 2007 is tot stand gekomen door een intensieve samenwerking van onderzoekers van het Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, TNO, Thaesis, Universiteit Twente en Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Noot voor de redactie:
- Meer informatie: Association for Computing Machinery's Special
Interest Group on Information Retrieval, www.sigir2007.org
- Pers is na aanmelding via e-mail van harte welkom. Contactpersoon
organisatie: dr. ir. Arjen de Vries, Centrum voor Wiskunde en
Informatica, tel. 020-592 4306, Arjen.de.Vries@cwi.nl
- Contactpersoon Industry Event: Bernd Wondergem, Thaesis, tel. 0318-649
671, Bernd.Wondergem@thaesis.nl
- Het Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) is het nationale
onderzoeksinstituut voor wiskunde en informatica, gelieerd aan de
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO). Science
Park Amsterdam, Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, www.cwi.nl.
- Behandeld door: Martine Roeleveld, afdeling Communicatie & Informatie,
tel. 020-592 4092, Martine.Roeleveld@cwi.nl

SIGIR 2007 provides a free breakfast to newcomers

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:41:37 +0200

The ACM SIGIR conferences have the tradition of inviting first-time SIGIR participants for a free breakfast: the Newcomers Breakfast. Here you can meet your fellow newcomers and some veteran attendees as well. Join us in Hotel Krasnapolsky's St. John's Rooms on Tuesday 24 July at 7:30 - 8:45.

Download the SIGIR 2007 poster

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 22:08:08 +0200

Download now the SIGIR 2007 poster that you've seen in so many university buildings: Print it on A3 paper, and - for perfectionists only - cut off the white edges. Done!

Registration for SIGIR 2007 may reach maximum capacity soon

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Sat, 7 Jul 2007 0:50:43 +0200

Yesterday, SIGIR 2007 reached more than 90% of the total number of registrations that we can handle for the main conference. As soon as the maximum is reached, we will close the registration for the main conference. In that case, on-site registration for the main conference will not be possible. Registration for tutorials and workshops will remain open in any case.

SIGIR 2007 merchandise now for sale

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 6 Jul 2007 22:25:27 +0200

SIGIR 2007 T-shirts are now available from http://sigir2007.shirtcity.com. Order the cool baseball shirt, the distinguished polo shirt, or the casual premium shirt: both for men and for women. And if you think T-shirt are only useful as pyjamas, you can always order the coffee mug.

Final programme for SIGIR 2007 Industry Event on-line

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 6 Jul 2007 22:22:59 +0200

The final programme for the SIGIR Industry Event can be found at http://www.sigir2007.org / industryevent.html with speakers from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Collexis, Q-Go, IBM, Textkernel, SAP, Endeca, Fredhopper, and more...
Participation to the SIGIR Industry Event is on invitation only.

SIGIR 30th Anniversary Search Demo

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:05:37 +0200

SIGIR will have its 30^th conference this year. To celebrate this, we created some fun search applications that search the abstracts of 30 years of SIGIR proceedings at: http://www.sigir2007.org / search.

Enter your favorite IR topic to search in the abstracts of 30 years of SIGIR and find experts, periods and geographical locations associated with your search. The "mystery link" will be revealed at the conference in Amsterdam.

SIGIR 2007 to break all time registration record

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:45:04 +0200

With the early registration closed on 15 June, 422 people have registered for SIGIR in Amsterdam.

This number (422 registered participants on June 15th) is more than the early registrations of the record year in 2006 in Seattle. If people keep on registering in the same pace, wel will break last year's record, which is a surprise considering that the non-US SIGIR conferences tend to be a bit smaller than the conferences in the US.

Reminder: Book your accommodation soon!

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:42:09 +0200

We want to remind you to book your Amsterdam accommodation as soon as possible.

The online reservation service had to reduce the allotment in the conference hotel because only a low number of bookings has been made so far. As accommodation may run out quickly, we recommend to book today rather than tomorrow.

Q-go supports SIGIR Amsterdam at the gold level!

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 23 May 2007 11:31:11 +0200

We happily announce that Q-go has decided to support ACM SIGIR as a gold sponsor! Q-go is a fast-growing international software company based in the Netherlands.

Q-go’s unique Natural Language Search technology supports all major European languages and allows people to formulate questions in their own words through interactive channels. As a result, Q-go’s Customer Interaction Management software offers organisations optimum insight in their clients’ or employees’ real information needs and patterns. Q-go runs branch offices in Amsterdam, Bonn, Munich, Zürich, Madrid and Barcelona and supports a variety of major organisations, including ING Postbank, PGGM, Deutsche Telekom, UWV, Deutsche Postbank, Unigarant, Fortis, La Caixa, BBVA and Telefonica.

Preliminary Conference Schedule On-line

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 14 May 2007 22:59 +0200

The complete perliminary conference schedule is now on-line at http://www.sigir2007.org/schedule.html.

Preliminary Programme Industry Event

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:45 +0200

The first Industry Event is proud to announce an excellent preliminary programme of speakers.

Omar Alonso from SAP discusses sensemaking in the enterprise, where the Orcatec LCC speaker presents on legal discovery and litigation support.
Hugh Williams from Microsoft and Byron Dom from Yahoo! will discuss topics in search for end-users.
Vertical search is treated by Thomas Mandl, who assesses 54 website search applications, while Craig Scott from Elsevier Scirus explains how web data has been integrated within Scopus.
Daniel Tunkelang from Endeca puts the user experience in the spotlight, where Fredhopper's Ronny Roeller dives into search result relevancy beyond linguistics for e-commerce.
Collexis speaks on linguistic analysis appplied in practical cases in the language technology session, and Jakub Zavrel from Textkernel will talk on information extraction and web mining.
Our practitioner's panel discusses with the audience their challenges in applying search solutions.

We expect to finalize the programme with more contributions on mobile search, web search and e-commerce.

The event combines limited attendance from mixed backgrounds (industry, practitioners and academics) with the time in breaks, lunch and a closing reception to create the right atmosphere for networking with fellow delegates and presenters.

TNO-ICT sponsors Industry Event

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 9 May 2007 14:38 +0200

TNO Information and Communication Technology sponsors the SIGIR 2007 Industry Event.

TNO Information and Communication Technology is a unique centre of innovation in the Netherlands. TNO helps companies, government bodies and (semi-)public organisations to realise successful innovations in ICT. Value creation for clients is TNO's priority, and their added value lies in the combination of innovative strength and in-depth knowledge. TNO's approach to innovation is integrated and practical. Where necessary, TNO also focuses on user-friendliness, financial aspects, and business processes. TNO supports the implementation process by carrying out technical and market trials. TNO is also a specialist in innovation strategy and policy. For more information please visit www.tno.nl.

Fredhopper is SIGIR's new bronze sponsor

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 9 May 2007 14:37 +0200

Fredhopper will sponsor SIGIR 2007 at the bronze level.

Fredhopper is the No.1 provider of onsite search & merchandising solutions for online business in Europe and behind the scenes of many of the largest online businesses. Customers include many of the largest online businesses such as B&Q, Neckermann, Quelle, Philips Electronics, Littlewoods Shop Direct Group, Thomas Cook, Waitrose and Woolworths. Fredhopper has product development centers in Amsterdam and Sofia.

WCC sponsors SIGIR

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 9:01:55 +0200

WCC Smart Search & Match will sponsor SIGIR 2007 at the bronze level.

WCC is a high-end software company, based in Utrecht, NL and Palo Alto, USA. WCC automates the search and match process by providing more accurate and intelligent results. WCC's flagship product ELISE helps businesses and governments let their customers find the people, products, or services that best fit their requirements. WCC's technology is typically used in the employment arena, content management, eCommerce and Identity Matching (biometrics).

What makes ELISE unique is its ability to search both structured data, unstructured text and multi media content much like the human mind would, using bi-directional matching and ranking the results in a meaningful order. By combining 'guided search' with flexible boundaries and query personalization, WCC gives the authority back to the user, allowing them to quicker find what they are looking for. Customers, like the Departments of Labor of the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, and commercial enterprises such as Adecco, Randstad, Washington Post, USG People, Robert Half International and Concentra confirm that.

SIGIR provides opportunities for student volunteers

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 9:00:01 +0200

SIGIR 2007 will need a group of volunteers to help out with the local arrangements. You will be assigned 4 shifts of approx. 5 hours and be able to attend the remainder of the conference free of charge. Submit your application on our volunteer form.

SIGIR 2007 opens on-line registration

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:39:26 +0200

On-line registration for SIGIR 2007 in Amsterdam is possible now. SIGIR offers reduced registration fee if registration and payment is received before 15 June 2007. Register now.

SIGIR Preliminary tutorial and workshop programme on-line

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:10:26 +0200

We have put preliminary programmes on-line for the SIGIR tutorials on Monday 23 July and the SIGIR workshops on Friday 27 July. We hope to publish the full preliminary programme later this week, after which on-line registration can be opened. Please watch this site.

SIGIR 2007 Student and New Researcher Travel Support

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:55:42 +0200

SIGIR invites applications for small awards to help cover the cost of travel, subsistence, and registration to the SIGIR 2007 conference. The deadline for applying for student travel support is May 7.

Preference will be given to a) an applicant who is the principal author of a paper and will be presenting the paper at SIGIR, or b) an applicant who is attending of the doctoral consortium. Principal authors of posters or demos who are presenting their work may also receive funding if budget permits. Authors who are not presenting will not be funded. It is assumed that applicants have only limited alternative travel support. The deadline for applying for travel support is May 7. Decisions will be announced by May 21. See the Travel Support Application Form for details.

SIGIR 2007 opens My SIGIR community portal

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:45:42 +0200

SIGIR 2007 offers its MySIGIR community portal at http://my.sigir2007.org to all registered participants. Students that wish to share a room may find fellow students on MySIGIR.

MySIGIR is a community portal where you can find tips on visiting Amsterdam, create and maintain a personal SIGIR blog/notebook, post questions, look for travelmates, discuss various aspects of the conference, download slides and pictures, get travel directions and much much more. All registered participants receive an account to access the forum.

Pascal Network to fund SIGIR 2007

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 9 Apr 2007 23:59:17 +0200

The Pascal Network will fund SIGIR 2007.

The PASCAL network is the European Commission's IST-funded Network of Excellence for Multimodal Interfaces. There are 54 other sites in the network. The objective is to build a Europe-wide Distributed Institute which will pioneer principled methods of pattern analysis, statistical modelling and computational learning as core enabling technologies for multimodal interfaces that are capable of natural and seamless interaction with and among individual human users.

At each stage in the process, machine learning has a crucial role to play. It is proving an increasingly important tool in Machine Vision, Speech, Haptics, Brain Computer Interfaces, Information Extraction and Natural Language Processing; it provides a uniform methodology for multimodal integration; it is an invaluable tool in information extraction; while on-line learning provides the techniques needed for adaptively modelling the requirements of individual users. Though machine learning has such potential to improve the quality of multimodal interfaces, significant advances are needed, in both the fundamental techniques and their tailoring to the various aspects of the applications, before this vision can become a reality.

The institute will foster interaction between groups working on fundamental analysis including statisticians and learning theorists; algorithms groups including members of the non-linear programming community; and groups in machine vision, speech, haptics, brain-computer interfaces, natural language processing, information-retrieval, textual information processing and user modelling for computer human interaction, groups that will act as bridges to the application domains and end-users.

Professor Karen Sparck Jones died

info@sigir2007.org (Jamie Callan) — Thu, 5 Apr 2007 9:05 +0100

Karen Sparck Jones, who was invited to give a keynote speech at SIGIR 2007, died yesterday morning aged 71.

Karen was a good friend to many within the information retrieval community, and a leader in the best sense of the word. She was known for a commitment to excellence, support of junior researchers, and an influential and productive research career that spanned six decades. She was a Fellow of the British Academy, the AAAI, and the ECAAI and received numerous awards for her research, including in the last year two awards from ACM (Athena Lecturer, ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award) and one from the BCS (Lovelace Medal). She was the second recipient of ACM SIGIR's Gerard Salton Award.

Karen Sparck Jones (26 August 1935 - 4 April 2007)

For additional information about Karen's life and distinguished research career, please see her personal web page), and the announcement of her death from Cambridge University).

Matrixware: SIGIR's new silver sponsor

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:48:52 +0100

Matrixware information services is SIGIR's new silver sponsor.

Founded in Vienna in 2005, Matrixware, currently employs 25 people. A team consisting of computer scientists, mathematicians, linguists and other specialists is developing cutting-edge solutions for the field of intellectual property research. For the first time, new indexing technologies facilitate automatization of large parts of the information retrieval process, from data processing to information extraction in both structured and unstructured documents. A pilot study in cooperation with the European Patent Organisation (EPO) found a significant reduction in labour can be achieved by using automated processes. Furthermore, the adoption of recent insights from the field of computational linguistics enables the introduction of new functions and services. For her pioneer achievements in this area, Matrixware has been granted substantial funding from the Austrian Ministry of Science in 2005.

On-line hotel reservations open

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:08:09 +0100

You can now book your Amsterdam accommodation online - and we recommend strongly to book early for your visit to the 2007 conference.

Online reservations are managed by RAI Hotel & Travel Service. They can book a room for you at the conference hotel, the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky. If you prefer not to stay there, RAI Hotel & Travel Service has carefully selected different hotels in the city centre of Amsterdam, at the best rates. We offer hotels for every budget - including 4-person rooms at one of Amsterdam's famous youth hostels.

Endeca sponsors SIGIR Amsterdam

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:06:09 +0100

SIGIR Amsterdam announces Endeca as its new bronze sponsor

Endeca, a leading search and information access platform provider, combines cutting-edge search with discovery and analysis capabilities to help answer high-value questions with unprecedented ease and confidence. The Endeca Information Access Platform unites disparate data sources, providing information in context, while featuring the security, performance, reliability and scalability required of the most demanding enterprise and Web environments. Customers like ABN AMRO, Boeing, Cox Newspapers, IBM, The Home Depot, John Deere, The Library of Congress, and Wal-Mart rely on Endeca to support information-intensive business processes, ranging from regulatory compliance to e-commerce to knowledge management to strategic sourcing to human capital management.

Stichting MultimediaN sponsors SIGIR Industry Event

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 23:15:21 +0100

MultimediaN has decided to sponsor the new SIGIR Industry Event.

MultimediaN is a public-private non-profit organization where the scientific world cooperates with industrial and other non-profit institutions. Its management team encourages the organization of the SIGIR Industry Event in their efforts to bring together practitioner's, industry and academics.

Ask.com golden sponsor of SIGIR Amsterdam

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 14:40:40 +0100

We are excited to announce our third golden sponsor: Ask.com. Ask.com's innovative search technologies deliver fast and relevant information for millions of people every day.

Two more days to submit a Doctoral Consortium paper

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 14:32:40 +0100

The ACM SIGIR Doctoral Consortium provides doctoral students with a unique opportunity to have substantive interaction with other researchers regarding their proposed dissertation research. Consortium papers must be submitted electronically via the submission web page. Deadline: 11 March 2007.

SIGIR Amsterdam considers providing childcare

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 8 Mar 2007 22:15:38 +0100

The SIGIR 2007 organisers are considering to arrange childcare facilities at the conference.

As this requires various steps, including ACM approval and contracting a professional organisation, we first like to find out how much real interest there would be. Please email Arjen de Vries, detailing the age of your children, how many and which hours you would like to use childcare facilities, and an indication of your budget. We will decide how to proceed based on the response to this inquiry.

IBM sponsors the SIGIR best paper award

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 8 Mar 2007 13:44:21 +0100

As in previous editions, SIGIR silver sponsor IBM will sponsor the SIGIR best paper award.

Nokia sponsors SIGIR in Amsterdam

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 8 Mar 2007 12:52:21 +0100

Nokia will support SIGIR 2007 in Amsterdam at the bronze level.

Nokia is a world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia connects people to each other and the information that matters to them with easy-to-use and innovative products like mobile phones, devices and solutions for imaging, games, media and businesses. Nokia provides equipment, solutions and services for network operators and corporations.

Google: SIGIR's new diamond sponsor!

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 9:22:00 +0100

Great news: Google has agreed to sponsor SIGIR at the diamond level! Google's generosity will help us to expand SIGIR's program and events.

Collexis sponsors SIGIR

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 0:00:21 +0100

It is our pleasure to announce Collexis as the new golden sponsor of SIGIR 2007 in Amsterdam.

Collexis is a global company with worldwide headquarters in the Netherlands and US headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina. In addition Collexis has office locations throughout the United States and Europe. Collexis' mission is to develop software that supports knowledge extraction and discovery across multiple industries.

Keynote speech by ACM Athena Lecturer Karen Spärck Jones

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 9:53 +0100

The ACM named Karen Spärck Jones the 2007 ACM Athena Lecturer. Athena Lectures celebrate women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. We are proud to announce that Karen Spärck Jones will give an invited talk at SIGIR 2007 in Amsterdam.

Karen Spärck Jones is emeritus professor in Computers and Information at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK. She has worked in automatic language and information processing research since the late fifties, beginning her career at the then Cambridge Language Research Unit. She has many publications including several books: her 1964 thesis, Synonymy and semantic classification was published by Edinburgh University Press in 1986, and she is joint author with J.R. Galliers of Evaluating natural language processing systems, Springer, 1996. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, was President of the Association for Computational Linguistics in 1994, and has received two awards for information retrieval research. She has been a member of the DARPA/NIST Text Retrieval Conferences Programme Committee since 1994, and involved with other US evaluation programmes, notably the Document Understanding Conferences on automatic summarising. Her work in the last decade has been on document retrieval including speech applications, database querying, user and agent modelling, summarising, and information and language system evaluation. She taught for the MPhil in Computer Speech and Language Processing, on language systems, and for the Computer Science Tripos on information retrieval.

Each year the ACM's Committee on Women in Computing honors a preeminent woman computer scientist as the Athena Lecturer. Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom; with her wisdom and sense of purpose, and her willingness to enter the fray, Athena epitomizes the strength, determination, and intelligence of the "Athena Lecturers."

Record number of poster and demo submissions

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:00:53 +0100

The SIGIR 2007 programme committee received an amazing number of 236 submissions for poster papers and 26 submissions for demonstrations at SIGIR. The poster and demonstration session, which will probably take place on Tuesday evening 24 July, will be a great happening.

New Industry Day at SIGIR

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:59:33 +0100

ACM SIGIR 2007 introduces a new Industry Day event, held on Friday, July 27th. Industry Day targets an audience interested in industrial strength indexing and search technology with a program comprised of a mix of in-depth expert talks, vendor presentations and IR challenge case descriptions presented by IR practitioners.

Vendors and industry people who would like to propose a presentation or request a particular topics to be addressed are invited to email the Industry Day Program Chair, including "Industry Day Program" in the subject line.

SAP bronze sponsor

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 11:20:21 +0100

We are happy to announce that SAP has offered to sponsor the conference at the bronze level. Thank you, SAP!

Submit a poster, demo, workshop or tutorial

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Tue, 12 Feb 2007 23:45:55 +0100

Deadline: 25 February
To submit your proposal, please read the submission guidelines for posters, demonstrations, workshops, or tutorials. Posters and demonstrations can be submitted via the submission page.

More paper submissions than ever

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:06:39 +0100

The SIGIR program chairs reported 491 paper submissions, an increase of 92 compared to last year, and a new record for this conference. The program committee will prepare a program with more papers than last year to keep the acceptance rates at a reasonable level.

Microsoft - the first Diamond Sponsor

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Fri, 2 Feb 2007 12:00:00 +0100

Today, we received the great news that Microsoft supports SIGIR in Amsterdam at the Diamond level!

Keynote speaker: Edwin van Huis

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 24 Jan 2007 2:36:21 +0100

We are pleased to announce that Edwin van Huis will give a keynote speech at SIGIR 2007. Edwin J.F.B. van Huis (1958) is the Director General of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid) since 1996. Before that he was Managing Director of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and worked for the Ministry of Culture in the Netherlands.

Edwin van Huis is a Master of Science in Business Administration from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a Master of Science in Biology from the University of Florida (USA) and the University of Utrecht. He is also the president of FIAT\IFTA, the world organization of broadcast- and national AV-archives.

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision was established in 1997 as the result of a merger between three large audiovisual archives and the Broadcast Museum. Substantial collections of radio and television programmes, documentaries, commercials, amateur films, photographs and music are all to be found at this institute. The (total) archival holdings include materials dating from the earliest days of cinema right up to current news broadcasts. The size of the archive is estimated at 700,000 hours worth of viewing and listening. The major collection currently held is that of the (Dutch) public broadcasters, the magnitude of which increases daily.

The institute is a private foundation and has almost 200 employees. Based in Hilversum, the heart of the Dutch media landscape, its primary function is to service the Dutch public and commercial broadcasters. Together with them, we aim to shape the future of producing programmes (on TV, internet and radio) in the digital age. However, the actual user base of this institute's (rich) archival holdings is much broader, including all levels of researchers, documentary programme makers, and the visiting public at the integral (state of the art) museum. These various user groups all have their own specific requirements regarding audiovisual programme content, and in order to meet these the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision provides a wide, efficient and professional, range of services.

On December 1st, 2006, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision opened a futuristic building which houses the Beeld en Geluid Experience. It is a hands on exhibition for the general public and for schools to experience the position and the power the media hold in our society.

Read more on: The Beeld en Geluid Portal.

Submit your paper (deadline: 28 January)

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:30:01 +0100

Authors are invited to submit research papers representing original, previously unpublished work to SIGIR 2007. Read the submission guidelines or go directly to the submission page.

Textkernel bronze sponsor

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:30:00 +0100

The new year starts great with a new Bronze sponsor.

Textkernel has agreed to support the conference. Textkernel is a company based in Amsterdam that translates text mining and information extraction research into effective business solutions.

Yahoo! gold sponsor

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 14:30:00 +0100

Yahoo! has been confirmed as the first Gold sponsor of SIGIR 2007!

Requests for mentoring closed

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:25:09 +0100

The deadline for entering the SIGIR 2007 mentoring programme passed. Our mentoring chair, Mark Sanderson, received around 40 requests: about 25 % more than last year. Experience from past conferences shows that 1 or 2 mentored papers are accepted as full papers each year.

A mentor is someone who helps with preparing the mentee's SIGIR submission through one-on-one advising, usually via e-mail. The mentor can also familiarize the mentee with the standards of SIGIR submissions. Mentors are volunteers familiar with successful submissions and experts in the field of information retrieval. The deadline for submitting a mentoring request was 15 November 2006.

Don't dare to submit? Take a mentor!

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:18:18 +0200

Want to submit to SIGIR, but don't know how? SIGIR 2007 is making an effort to attract papers from junior researchers and researchers from fields other than IR by establishing a "mentoring" or "pre-review" option.

Authors who want to submit a paper to SIGIR 2007, and have not presented a full-length paper at a past SIGIR meeting, have the option of being matched up with an experienced SIGIR reviewer. The volunteer mentor will offer comments on a draft paper or description of the work in advance of the SIGIR deadline (and of course will not be one of the official reviewers for the final submitted paper, if any).

Stay up-to-date on SIGIR'07: subscribe to our RSS feed

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 8:34 +0200

Don't want to miss any news on SIGIR 2007? Subsribe to our RSS feed. Take your favorite news reader, click on the little orange RSS button below, copy the url, and subscribe to this url.

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It is an XML-based format for content distribution, consisting of headlines and short descriptions of information.

Less than one year to SIGIR'07

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:58 +0200

With SIGIR'06 yet to start in two weeks in Seattle, yesterday it was exactly 365 days to SIGIR'07 in Amsterdam. We're ready to proceed with countdown.

From now on, we will regularly update you on our progress in organizing SIGIR'07. But first, we meet at SIGIR'06 Seattle!

CWI designer Tobias Baanders presents the SIGIR'07 logo

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Wed, 18 May 2005 15:47 +0200

The SIGIR'07 logo was designed by Tobias Baanders who combined primary colours and basic shapes of the Dutch art movement De Stijl with the dynamics of '007' James Bond.

De Stijl (Dutch; pronounced 'duh-stile'; literally the style in English) was an art movement in the 1920s. The movement is also known as the new plastic art (or 'Nieuwe Beelding' in Dutch). (From Wikipedia)

SIGIR Forum news announces SIGIR 2007 in the Netherlands

info@sigir2007.org (SIGIR 2007) — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 17:12 +0200

From the chair, Jamie Callan: "SIGIR 2007 will be located in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam. Wessel Kraaij, Arjen de Vries, and Djoerd Hiemstra will lead the effort (and of course many of you will help).

Amsterdam is known for its relaxed atmosphere, excellent museums, scenic canals, diverse restaurants, and good international travel connections. It should be fun!"