I thought this might be of interest to some of the CLASS-L subscribers, so I am forwarding it on.  James Allan spoke at the 1996 CSNA meeting in a session that David Dubin and I organized.  I am not sure if has been more recently.

--stephen hirtle, u of pittsburgh

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User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research (UMUAI) is pleased to announce that the paper

       Interactive Information Retrieval Using Clustering and Spatial Proximity
       by Anton Leuski and James Allan
       UMUAI 14(2-3), pp. 259-288, June 2004

has been elected as the winner of the 2004 James Chen Annual Award for Best Journal Article. It was selected based on nominations from journal reviewers, editorial board members and guest editors, and a subsequent comparative review of the shortlisted papers by an award committee.

The UMUAI annual best paper award has been donated by the Chen family in commemoration of James R. Chen, a creative researcher in the area of user modeling and information retrieval, and twice a UMUAI author. It carries a cash prize of U.S. $1,000.

UMUAI provides an interdisciplinary forum for the dissemination of new research results on interactive computer systems that can be adapted or adapt themselves to their current users, and on the role of user models in the adaptation process. Based on the ISI impact factor, the journal currently ranks #6 among 451 Computer Science journals. More information including a free electronic copy of the Tenth Anniversary Issue is available from http://www.umuai.org or the publisher's website at http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0924-1868

Alfred Kobsa, Editor
User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction:
The Journal of Personalization Research
http://www.umuai.org