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From: nayak@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (P. Pandurang Nayak)
Subject: CFP: SARA-95 Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation, & Approximation
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                      CALL FOR PAPERS & PARTICIPATION

         -------------------------------------------------------
         |                     SARA-95                         |
         |                                                     |
         |                    Symposium on                     |
         |      Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation  |
         |                                                     |
         ------------------------------------------------------

          Ville d'Esterel, Quebec,Canada     August 17-19,1995
          ==============================    ===================


Program Co-Chairs:
------------------
Alon Levy (Co-chair) -  AT&T Bell Laboratories
Pandurang Nayak (Co-chair) - NASA Ames Research Center

Program Committee:
------------------
Thomas Ellman, Rutgers University
Boi Faltings, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Fausto Giunchiglia, IRST and University of Trento
Robert Holte, University of Ottawa
Craig Knoblock, USC Information Sciences Institute
Michael Lowry, NASA Ames Research Center
Hiroshi Motoda, Hitachi Ltd.
Bart Selman, AT&T Bell Laboratories
Jeffrey Van Baalen, University of Wyoming
Toby Walsh, IRST

Local arrangements chair:
-------------------------
Robert Holte, University of Ottawa


From the inception of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research it has
been recognized that abstractions, problem reformulations, and
approximations are central to human common-sense reasoning and problem
solving, and to the ability of systems to reason effectively in
complex domains.  Abstractions, reformulations, and approximations
(AR&A) have been used in a variety of problem-solving settings
including automatic programming, constraint satisfaction, design,
diagnosis, machine learning, planning, qualitative reasoning,
scheduling, and theorem proving.  The primary use of AR&A in such
settings has been to overcome computational intractability by
decreasing the combinatorial costs associated with searching large
spaces.  In addition, AR&A techniques are also useful for knowledge
acquisition and explanation generation in complex domains.

The considerable interest in AR&A has led to a series of successful
workshops over the last few years.  AAAI workshops in 1990 and 1992
focused on selecting, constructing, and using abstractions and
approximations, while a series of workshops in 1989, 1990, and 1992
focused on problem reformulations.  There was considerable
intersection in the set of attendees and topics of the two separate
workshop series, and this lead to holding a  workshop in
1994, which merged the two series.  The present symposium is the
second in this new series.  The aim of this symposium is to provide a
forum for intensive interaction among researchers in all areas of AI
with an interest in the different aspects of AR&A.  The diverse
backgrounds of participants of previous workshops has lead to a rich
and lively exchange of ideas, allowed the comparison of goals,
techniques, and paradigms, and helped identify important research
issues and engineering hurdles.  We hope and expect that the upcoming
symposium will include an equally diverse group of participants.  To
encourage wide participation, we have scheduled the symposium in
Montreal right before IJCAI-95 (though this is not an IJCAI workshop).
Submissions are requested in all aspects of AR&A, including, but not
limited to, the following:

o New techniques for automatically constructing and selecting
appropriate AR&A.

o Methods for selecting which of several applicable AR&A techniques is
best for a given problem.

o AR&A Frameworks that unify and classify AR&A techniques.

o Empirical and/or theoretical studies of the costs and benefits of
AR&A.

o  Applications of AR&A to: 

  -  search, constraint satisfaction, scheduling, planning;

  -  theorem proving, logic-programming, databases;

  -  simulation, design, diagnosis, and control of physical systems;

  -  automatic programming, knowledge-compilation, knowledge
     acquisition, machine learning, and speedup learning.


o  Fielded applications demonstrating the benefits of AR&A,
including applications where using AR&A is crucial to success


Attendance is limited and is by invitation only.  Persons wishing to
attend the workshop should submit three copies of a 1--2 page research
summary including a list of relevant publications.  Persons wishing to
make presentations at the workshop should, in addition, submit three
copies of an extended abstract, not exceeding 5000 words.  Accepted
participants will be invited to submit full papers for the workshop
proceedings. The proceedings will be distributed to the workshop
participants.  Limited financial assistance may be available for
students interested in attending.

All submissions should be received by April 11, 1995 at the address
below. Submissions will also be accepted by electronic mail in
PostScript format.  Please include several ways of contacting the
principal author: electronic mail addresses and telephone numbers are
preferred, in that order.  In case of multiple authors, please
indicate which authors wish to participate.  Notification of
acceptance or rejection will be mailed to authors by May 26, 1995.
Camera ready copies of papers accepted for inclusion in the
proceedings will be due July 11, 1995.


Pandurang Nayak 
NASA Ames Research Center 
Bldg. 269, Room 273, MS 269-2
Moffett Field, CA 94035. 
Email: nayak@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov 
Tel: (415) 604-4756 
Fax: (415) 604-3594

