[CfP] HSCMA 2024 (ICASSP 2024 Satellite Workshop)

[Minje Kim]

(Apologies for cross-posting)

Introduction

The Workshop on Hands-free Speech Communication and Microphone Arrays (HSCMA) invites contributions. Established in 2005, HSCMA has evolved into a pivotal platform for sharing breakthrough ideas and solutions in hands-free speech communication and microphone arrays. Recently, both speech and audio communities have faced challenges and opportunities in making powerful neural network models available for "efficient" on-device processing, while adapting to each individual user's "personal" speech traits (e.g., dialects and non-nativeness) and acoustic environments, which are the two main themes of this year's workshop. In addition, the tradeoff between performance improvement and increased use of personal data becomes trickier, too, from the privacy preservation perspective. The workshop will be a great opportunity to push the limits of speech processing systems in various hands-free application scenarios.

HSCMA 2024 will be held as a satellite workshop of ICASSP 2024, which will be held in Seoul, Korea (Apr. 14-19). There will be two keynote talks and a panel discussion on privacy and efficiency issues of speech processing. In addition, we call for paper contributions from the audio and speech research communities. The workshop is sponsored by the IEEE SPS Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Technical Committee, Speech and Language Processing Technical Committee, and Data Science Initiative. 

Keynote Speakers

• Yi Luo, Tencent
• Nancy F. Chen, A*STAR

Panel Discussion on Privacy and Efficiency of Speech Processing

• Berrak Sisman, University of Texas at Dallas
• Athanasios Mouchitaris, Amazon Alexa
• Bhiksha Raj, CMU LTI

Topics of Interest

• Hands-free speech communication
• Microphone arrays
• Speech recognition and synthesis
• Voice conversion in noisy environments
• Voice-controlled assistants and teleconferencing systems
• Beamforming techniques, acoustic echo cancellation, source separation
• Multi-modal speech processing and enhancement
• Personalization and privacy preservation

Important Dates

• Submission Deadline: December 20, 2023
• Review Assignment: January 8, 2024
• Review Submission Deadline: January 22, 2024
• Author Notification: January 29, 2024
• Camera-Ready Submission Deadline: February 8, 2024
• Workshop Date: TBD (it will be either right before the main ICASSP technical programs or after)

Information for Authors

This year, publications will be in a two-track structure: the archival and non-archival tracks. 

• Archival Track: The archival track will accept novel paper contributions, which will be published at IEEE Xplore. Please submit your paper using this link. The papers must follow ICASSP 2024's formatting guideline (4 pages + 1 additional page for references) to be published in IEEE Xplore. All submissions will go through a peer-review process. 
• Non-Archival Track: We accept non-archival track papers, which will NOT be published through IEEE Xplore, although we will still post them on our website. The non-archival track accepts work-in-progress, already published works, or demonstrations of systems, for those who want to socialize the research ideas with like-minded audiences. Please note that the papers should still be technically sound and follow  ICASSP 2024's formatting guideline, while we allow longer page limitations of up to 8 pages (plus one references-only page). For this track, please submit the paper using this link. 

Final Note

The HSCMA 2024 is a unique opportunity to push the boundaries in hands-free speech processing systems. We encourage interdisciplinary work and welcome demonstrations of experimental systems and prototypes. Join us in shaping the future of hands-free speech communication!

For more details, visit HSCMA 2024 website.

Sincerely,

Minje Kim (mi...@indiana.edu)

Paola Garcia (lgar...@jhu.edu)

Jonah Casebeer (jonah.c...@ieee.org)

HSCMA 2024 Organizers