SYNOPSIS

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) will host a Proposers' Day Conference for the Metaphor Program on April 13, 2011, in anticipation of the release of a new solicitation in support of the program. The Conference will be held from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The purpose of the conference will be to provide information on the Metaphor Program to address questions from potential proposers and to provide a forum for potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities.

This announcement serves as a pre-solicitation notice and is issued solely for information and planning purposes. The Proposers' Day Conference does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals or proposal abstracts. Conference attendance is voluntary and is not required to propose to future solicitations (if any) associated with this program.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND GOALS

The Metaphor Program seeks to provide a novel source of deep insights into human cultures via analysis of how language is used. The perspectives shared within a culture play a significant role in determining how the people who comprise that culture view and respond to events. These perspectives are not necessarily explicitly referenced within the culture and the people of the culture may not even be consciously aware of them. In order for an analyst to accurately interpret the actions of people who belong to another culture, he needs to understand the shared perspectives of that culture and also of his own culture. To acquire the requisite level of understanding normally requires substantive personal interactions over an extended period of time.

A metaphor is a linguistic device used within a culture to efficiently communicate a perspective or viewpoint. Metaphors have been studied extensively and have been found to be pervasive in the everyday use of language within a culture. The Metaphor Program will explore the extent to which the linguistic metaphors used within a culture can provide valuable insights into that culture's shared perspectives, and to support cross-cultural analysis.

The first phase of the program will develop and test methods for automating metaphor discovery, semantic definition, mapping and categorization processes. The second phase of the program will apply these methods to produce and compare structured representations of the shared perspectives in multiple cultures and languages. All processing will be in the languages of interest, no processing will be performed on translated materials.

Multidisciplinary teams will be required, with expertise in many technical areas, including but not limited to: social and cognitive psychology, metaphorical language research, natural language processing, cognitive anthropology, cultural analysis, semantics and ontologies. In addition each team will need native language and cultural understanding in each of the cultures and languages addressed in the program.

IARPA anticipates that universities and companies from around the world will participate in this program. Researchers will be able to and are encouraged to publish their findings in publicly available, academic journals.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Attendees must register no later than 5:00pm Eastern 6 April 2011 at https://conference.brtrc.com/Metaphor_pd/overview.aspx. Directions to the conference facility and other materials are available on the website. No walk-in registrations will be allowed.

Due to space limitations, attendance will be limited to the first 140 registrants and to no more than 2 representatives per organization. All attendees will be required to present a government-issued photo identification to enter the conference. Non-US citizens will be required to submit a visit request form for Foreign Nationals at least 5 business days prior to the conference. The form and submission instructions can be found on the registration website.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Attendees who wish to present organization capabilities for potential teaming opportunities may request to do so by sending an e-mail along with their presentation to [email protected]. Presentations will be limited to 5 minutes with a maximum of 5 slides (MS PowerPoint or PDF format). Opportunities to present will be limited by time and will therefore be on a first-to-ask basis. Deadline for requests is close of business (5:00pm Eastern) 6 April 2011. It is the presenter's responsibility to ensure that all materials briefed are appropriately marked and approved for presentation by their organization. The IARPA Program Manager will review and approve all presentations.

This Proposers' Day is intended for participants who are eligible to compete on the anticipated BAA. Other Government Agencies, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) will not be eligible to submit proposals to the anticipated BAA nor participate as team members under proposals submitted by eligible entities. While such entities are not prohibited from attending the Proposers' Day, due to space limitations, preference will be given first to those organizations that are eligible to compete.

IARPA will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred to participate in this conference.

Questions concerning conference & registration can be sent to [email protected].

Questions regarding the program can be sent to [email protected].