# IAPR TC-11 (Reading Systems) Newsletter ## May, 2025 **Online, phone-friendly version:** [May 2025 Newsletter](http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=IAPR_TC11_Newsletter_2025_05) **TC-11:** [TC-11 Homepage](http://www.iapr-tc11.org)    **X (Twitter):** [iapr_tc11](https://twitter.com/iapr_tc11) ### TABLE OF CONTENTS - Message from the Editor - Dates and Deadlines - Deadlines - Upcoming Conferences and Events - Open Call for Organizing DAR Events *(repost)* - Job Offers - PhD Position in Machine Learning - PostDoc Position in Machine Learning - ACPR 2025 - Call for Papers for the Asian Conference on Pattern Recognition *(repost)* - Datasets - TC11 Datasets Repository - Where to share datasets Message from the Editor ======================= Dear TC11 members, This newsletter issue contains two new job offers (a PhD and a post-doc position) with very interesting topics in machine learning and document analysis. Both posts are in Switzerland. Find also reposts of our open call for organizing the major DAR events that will be held in the coming years, and the call for papers for ACPR 2025. Enjoy reading! **Nibal Nayef, TC11 Communication Officer** ( ) **Join us!** If you are not already a member of the TC11 community, please consider joining the [TC11 mailing list](https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=iapr-tc11&A=1). **Follow us on X (Twitter) (iapr\_tc11):** Dates and Deadlines =================== Deadlines --------- **2025** - **June 03** ACPR abstract submission - **June 10** ACPR full paper submission Upcoming Conferences and Events ------------------------------- **2025** - [IGS 2025](https://www.igs2025.org/en). Polytechnique Montréal, Canada (June 2-5, 2025) - [ICDAR 2025](https://www.icdar2025.com/). Wuhan, Hubei, China (September 16-21, 2025) - [ACPR 2025](https://acpr2025.com/). Gold Coast, Australia (November 10-13, 2025) Open Call for Organizing DAR Events *(repost)* ============================================== The IAPR technical committees on graphics recognition (TC10) and reading systems (TC11) are regularly organizing scientific events for the Document Analysis and Recognition (DAR) community, including the ICDAR flagship conference. In addition to specific calls for bids to host one of the events, we encourage teams to announce their interest in organizing one of the following events: - **ICDAR**: International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (annually; next possibility in **2029**) - **DAS**: International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (satellite event of ICDAR in even years; next possibility in **2026**) - **HIP**: International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (satellite event of ICDAR in odd years; next possibility in **2026**) - **GREC**: International Workshop on Graphics Recognition (satellite event of ICDAR in odd years; next possibility in **2027**) - **SSDA**: Summer School on Document Analysis (biannually in odd years; next possibility in **2027**) You may find the details of each specific call in the previous or future issues of this newsletter or in the respective websites of each event. Anyone interested in hosting one of these events is invited to announce their interest via email to and , in order to receive feedback and support for preparing a proposal. **Jean-Christophe Burie (Chair, TC10)** **Andreas Fischer (Chair, TC11)** Job Offers ========== PhD Position in Machine Learning -------------------------------- **Topic:** Integration of Visual Aspects of Documents into Large Language Models **Placement:** University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland **Duration:** 3 years **Starting date:** September 1, 2025 (or by arrangement) **Application deadline:** June 15, 2025 **Project description:** Large language models (LLMs) have a high potential for analyzing, recognizing, and validating scanned documents. However, they are mainly focused on the OCR text and do not take into account visual aspects such as layout, illustrations, etc. that are of fundamental importance for document understanding. The successful candidate will perform basic research and develop novel methods for efficient integration of visual aspects into LLMs for document understanding. A particular focus will be to obtain explainable results with respect to both visual and textual contents of the documents. **Your profile:** - Master of Science in Computer Science (or almost finished) - Strong background in machine learning - Very good programming skills - Very good oral and written communication skills in English; French and/or German are a plus but not a requirement **Application:** Please provide in a single PDF file the following items: - Motivation letter (max. 1 page) - CV - Contact information of 1 reference person (possibility to include a letter of reference) - Download link to your Master thesis (can be a draft version if not finished yet) Submit your application to Dr. Anna Scius-Bertrand: anna.scius-bertrand\@hefr.ch PostDoc Position in Machine Learning ------------------------------------ **Topic:** Machine learning and document analysis **Placement:** University of Fribourg, Switzerland **Duration:** 1 year **Starting date:** September 1, 2025 (or by arrangement) **Application deadline:** June 23, 2025 **Project description:** The successful candidate will work on two projects both linked to machine learning and document analysis. The first project aims to address the limitation of annotated data for handwriting recognition. The key objective is to develop deep learning models for handwriting analysis that require minimal to no manual labeling. This goal is pursued by combining structural and statistical machine learning approaches. The second project aims to recognize symbols and functional units in technical plans for heating ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). Poorly designed, implemented, and maintained HVAC infrastructure can waste up to 30% of a building's energy consumption. Automatically analyzing technical plans can help to significantly improve the energy efficiency. **Your profile:** - PhD in Computer Science - Strong background in machine learning - Very good programming skills - Very good oral and written communication skills in English; French and/or German are a plus but not a requirement **Application:** Please provide in a single PDF file the following items: - Motivation letter (max. 1 page) - CV - Contact information of 2 reference persons (possibility to include a letter of reference) - Download link to your PhD thesis Submit your application to Prof. Andreas Fischer: andreas.fischer\@unifr.ch ACPR 2025 - Call for Papers for the Asian Conference on Pattern Recognition *(repost)* ====================================================================================== The 8th Asian Conference on Pattern Recognition (ACPR 2025) will be hosted on the stunning Gold Coast of Australia, from November 10 to 13, 2025. The Gold Coast is a vibrant and diverse city, offering a wealth of opportunities for academic and professional development. With over 150 events and conferences already scheduled, it serves as a dynamic hub for global collaboration and innovation. The Asian Conference on Pattern Recognition (ACPR) is supported by the International Association of Pattern Recognition and covering a wide range of research domains, including computer vision, image, speech, sensor pattern processing and machine intelligence. It is a 4-day single track event that comprises the main conference, Tutorials, and Workshops. ACPR2025 provides a great opportunity to nurture new ideas and collaborations for students, academics and industry researchers. **Main Topics of Interest** Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) pattern recognition, computer vision, signal processing and ***DAR-related topics*** such as handwriting recognition, document analysis and understanding and multimedia analysis and retrieval (under the topic of "media processing and interaction"). The full call for papers can be found [here](https://acpr2025.com/conference-information). - Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning - Computer Vision and Robot Vision - Signal Processing - Media Processing and Interaction **Conference Dates** - November 10, 2025: Workshops and Tutorials - November 11-13, 2025: Main Conference **Important Dates** - Abstract Submission: June 3, 2025 - Full Paper Submission: June 10, 2025 - Notification to Authors: August 10, 2025 - Camera-ready Submission: August 31, 2025 **Submission and Review** ACPR 2025 will follow a single-blind review process. Authors can include their names and affiliations in the manuscript. Also, the authors can submit their arXiv papers in ACPR-2025. Paper format and length: Springer LNCS format with maximum 15 pages (including references) during paper submission. There is no minimum page limit. To take care of reviewers' comments, one more page is allowed (without any charge) during revised/camera ready submission. Moreover, authors may purchase up to 2 extra pages. Extra page charges must be paid at the time of registration. All accepted papers will be published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) and indexed by ISI, Scopus, EI, Google Scholar, DBLP, etc. Springer LNCS. **Contact:** For any enquiry please contact the ACPR2025 Secretariat via email at acprau2025\@gmail.com You may find other information from the website of the conference (https://acpr2025.com/). Datasets ======== TC11 Datasets Repository ------------------------ ### Where to share datasets Did you know it? We have two official places for datasets: - Our historical platform for storage and listing: http://datasets.iapr-tc11.org - A Zenodo community (if you choose to submit your datasets there): https://zenodo.org/communities/iapr-tc11 TC11 maintains a collection of datasets that can be found online in the [TC11 Datasets Repository](http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php/Datasets). If you have new datasets (e.g., from competitions) that you wish to share with the research community, please use the [online upload form](http://tc11.cvc.uab.es/upload/). For questions and support, please contact the TC11 Dataset Curator (contact information is below). **Joseph Chazalon (TC11 Dataset Curator)** ( ) Contributions and Subscriptions ================================== **Call for Contributions:** To contribute news items, please send a short email to the editor, [Nibal Nayef](mailto:n.nayef@gmail.com). Contributions might include conference and workshop announcements or reports, job opportunities, book reviews, or anything else of interest to the TC11 community. **Subscription:** This newsletter is sent to subscribers of the IAPR TC11 mailing list. To join the TC11 mailing list, please click on [this link](https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=iapr-tc11&A=1). To manage your subscription, please visit the [mailing list homepage](https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=IAPR-TC11). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IAPR TC11 HOMEPAGE: [http://www.iapr-tc11.org](http://www.iapr-tc11.org) The IAPR is the International Association for Pattern Recognition. IAPR's Technical Committee No. 11 (TC11) includes researchers and practitioners working with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and more generally the analysis and recognition of information in documents.