Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation and Approximation (SARA-2000)
Lago Vista on Lake Travis, Texas
July 26-29, 2000 (just prior to AAAI-2000)
URL: sara2000.unl.edu
INVITED TALKS
Patrick Cousot, �cole Normale Sup�rieure, Paris.
Tom Dietterich, Oregon State University.
Rich Korf, University of California, Los Angeles.
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: March 20, 2000
Notification of acceptance: May 2, 2000.
Camera ready copies: June 9, 2000.
__________________________________________________________________________
PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS
>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 merged workshops in 1994,
1995 and 1998. The present symposium is the fourth 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.
Submissions are requested in all aspects of abstraction, reformulation
and approximation, including but not limited to the following:
* New techniques for automatically constructing and selecting
appropriate AR&A.
* Methods for selecting which of several applicable AR&A
techniques is best for a given problem.
* Frameworks that unify and classify AR&A techniques.
* Empirical and/or theoretical studies of the costs and benefits of AR&A.
* Applications of AR&A:
- Search, constraint satisfaction, planning, theorem-proving,
logic programming.
- Distributed data and knowledge bases, Internet search
and navigation, context, knowledge-compilation, knowledge
acquisition.
- Simulation, design, diagnosis and control of physical
systems.
- Automatic programming, analogical-reasoning , case-based
reasoning, machine learning and speedup learning.
* Fielded applications demonstrating the benefits of AR&A.
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.
All submissions should be received by March 20, 2000 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 2, 2000.
Camera ready copies of papers accepted for inclusion in the
proceedings will be due June 9, 2000.
Additional information may be obtained from the symposium home page on
the World Wide Web: SARA2000.unl.edu
Berthe Y. Choueiry
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Ferguson Hall 115
University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0115
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: +1(402)472-5444
Fax: +1(402)472-7767
Program Co-Chairs
-----------------
Berthe Y. Choueiry, University of Nebraska Lincoln
Toby Walsh, University of York
Program Committee
-----------------
Ralph Bergmann, University of Kaiserlautern
Karl Branting, University of Wyoming
Marco Cadoli, Universit� di Roma, La Saprienza
Berthe Y. Choueiry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Tom Ellman, Vassar College
Boi V. Faltings, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Eugene C. Freuder, University of New Hampshire
Mike Genesereth, Stanford University
Lise Getoor, Stanford University
Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento and ITC-IRST
Robert Holte, University of Ottawa
Michael Lowry, NASA Ames Research Center
Hiroshi Motoda, Osaka University
Peter Revesz, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Marco Schaerf, Universit� di Roma, La Sapienza
Bart Selman, Cornell University
Joseph Sifakis, VERIMAG
Divesh Srivastava, AT&T Labs-Research
Jeffrey Van Baalen, University of Wyoming
Toby Walsh, University of York
Qiang Yang, Simon Fraser University
Steering Committee
------------------
Berthe Y. Choueiry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Tom Ellman, Vassar College
Mike Genesereth, Stanford University
Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento and ITC-IRST
Robert Holte, University of Ottawa
Alon Levy, University of Washington
Michael Lowry, NASA Ames Research Center
Pandurang Nayak, NASA Ames Research Center
Jeffrey Van Baalen, University of Wyoming
Toby Walsh, University of York
Student support
---------------
We have limited funds to support student travel. Students wishing to
be considered for travel awards should send a research summary, and an
estimate of their expected travel costs.
Venue
-----
Lago Vista Clubs & Resort is a full service conference center set in
the scenic, pollution-free Central Rolling Hill Country, on the
preferred north shore of beautiful Lake Travis in Lago Vista.
Recreational activities include, but are not limited to: tennis,
swimming, volleyball, fishing, deer feeding, horseshoes, washers,
softball, and picnics in the park. For a small additional fee, other
activities are available such as: golf (two 18-hole courses and one
nine-hole course), boating, guided fishing tours, jet skis,
waverunners, mountain biking, therapeutic massage, cocktail cruise, or
day excursions to points of interest.
We will try our best to organize transportation from Austin-Bergtrom
International Airport on July 26, 2000, and back to downtown Austin on
July 29, 2000.
Sponsors
--------
The American Association of Artificial Intelligence.
The Office of Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Center for Communication and Information Science (CCIS),
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), University
of Nebraska-Lincoln.
