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{\LARGE\bf Advance Call for Papers}\\[3ex]
{\Huge\bf SIGIR'98}\\[2ex]
{\LARGE\bf Melbourne, Australia\\[0.5ex]
24--28 August 1998}\\[3ex]
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\noindent 
The Twenty-First Annual International ACM-SIGIR Conference on
Research and Development in Information Retrieval, jointly hosted by
the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
and the University of Melbourne, will be held in Melbourne,
Australia, from 24 to 28 August 1998.


\quad SIGIR'98 seeks original papers (that is, not previously
published) in the broad field of information storage and retrieval,
covering the handling of all types of information, user behavior
in information systems, and theories, models, and implementations of
IR systems.
We encourage discussions of experimental studies, tests of
usability, explorations of IR behavior, reports on
the performance of large scale systems, and demonstrations of advanced
approaches. We prefer theoretical contributions to have sufficient
proof of utility to demonstrate their applicability to information
retrieval problems. Similarly, reports on small scale experiments
should include convincing arguments or simulations to show their
likelihood of generalization.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
\begin{description}
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\item[{\rm\em IR Theory\/}:] statistical and logical
IR models, data fusion, cognitive modeling.

\item[{\rm\em Experimentation\/}:] test collections, evaluation measures,
experimental design, testing methodology, scalability.

\item[{\rm\em Systems and Implementation Issues\/}:] integration with database
systems, networked systems and the internet, compression, efficient
query evaluation.

\item[{\rm\em User Interaction and Behavior\/}:] models of information
seeking, interface design and experiment, visualization.

\item[{\rm\em Natural Language Processing\/}:] word sense disambiguation,
discourse analysis, cross-lingual IR systems,
summarization, dialog management, use of linguistic resources for
IR.

\item[{\rm\em Multimedia IR\/}:] audio, video, and image
retrieval, links, composite documents.

\item[{\rm\em Information Filtering\/}:]
user models,
similarity heuristics, implementation, evaluation.

\item[{\rm\em Applications\/}:] task-embedded IR, electronic
publishing, digital libraries, text data mining.
\end{description}

\quad Papers (4 copies) of at most 5,000 words
should be submitted in English to the Program
Chair responsible for the geographic region of the first author
and must be {\bf received} by the indicated date.
The first
page must contain the title of the paper and an abstract of not more
than 150 words, but no indication as to the authors or their
affiliations. A separate cover
page should be provided with the title, the author names, and the author
affiliations, plus complete contact information (postal,
fax, e-mail)
for the corresponding author.
The cover page should also indicate if the paper is to be considered for
the Best Student Paper Award.
Papers are eligible if the first and
primary author is a full-time student at time of submission.

\quad The full Call for Papers will include further details
for submission of posters and demonstrations,
and for tutorial, workshop, and panel proposals.

\quad For further details see
{\em http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/sigir98/\/}.
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{\bf General Chairs:\/}\\[0.5ex]
Alistair Moffat (Melbourne),\\
Justin Zobel (RMIT)
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{\bf Program Committee Chair,\\
Regional Chair (Asia/Pacific):\/}\\[0.5ex]
Ross Wilkinson,\\
Department of Computer Science,\\
RMIT,\\
723 Swanston Street,\\
Carlton, Victoria 3053,\\
Australia.\\
ross@mds.rmit.edu.au\\
+61 3 92822400
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{\bf Regional Chair (Americas):\/}\\[0.5ex]
W. Bruce Croft,\\
Lederle Graduate Research Center,\\
Department of Computer Science,\\
University of Massachusetts,\\
Amherst, MA 01003-4610,\\
United States of America.\\
croft@cs.umass.edu\\
+1 413 5450463
\medskip

{\bf Regional Chair (Europe):\/}\\[0.5ex]
Keith van Rijsbergen,\\
Department of Computing Science,\\
University of Glasgow,\\
17 Lilybank Gardens,\\
Glasgow, G12\,8RZ,\\
Scotland.\\
keith@dcs.gla.ac.uk\\
+44 141 3304463
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{\bf Important Dates:\/}\\[0.5ex]
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28 Jan 1998 & Paper submissions.\\
28 Feb 1998 & Tutorial, poster\\
	    & demonstrations,\\
	    & panels, and workshop\\
	    & submissions.\\
30 Mar 1998 & All notifications.\\
15 May 1998 & Final camera-ready\\
	    & copy for all papers,\\
	    & posters, and panels.\\
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{\bf Conference Schedule:\/}\\[0.5ex]
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23 Aug 1998 & Excursion.\\
24 Aug 1998 & Tutorials.\\
25--27 Aug, & Submitted papers,\\
\quad 1998  & posters, panels, and\\
	    & demonstrations.\\
28 Aug 1998 & Workshops.\\
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