From nayak@kronos.arc.nasa.gov Thu Oct 13 21:04:59 EDT 1994 Article: 24618 of comp.ai Newsgroups: comp.ai Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!haven.umd.edu!ames!kronos.arc.nasa.gov!nayak From: nayak@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (P. Pandurang Nayak) Subject: CFP: SARA-95 Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation, & Approximation Message-ID: <1994Oct11.163839.5530@ptolemy-ethernet.arc.nasa.gov> Sender: usenet@ptolemy-ethernet.arc.nasa.gov (usenet@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov) Nntp-Posting-Host: ramanujan.arc.nasa.gov Organization: NASA ARC/ Information Science Division Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 16:38:39 GMT Lines: 128 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