ESSLLI-98 Workshop on 
	 REASONING ABOUT ACTIONS: FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS
                           August 17 - 21, 1998

                       A workshop held as part of the 
        10th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information 
                               (ESSLLI-98) 
                August 17 - 28, 1998, Saarbrueken, Germany

                        ** FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS **


Workshop Web Page: http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/esslli98-actions

BACKGROUND:
The research on Reasoning about Actions in Artificial Intelligence has
recently made substantial progress in both foundational problems and on
applications.  From the theoretical side, issues such as complex actions,
nonterminating behaviors, online planning and execution, reactivity,
multiple agents, have been investigated, uncovering connections (but also
differences) with other research areas in Computer Science such as
Semantics of Programs, Formal Specification and Verification of Programs,
and Discrete Control Theory.  From the applications side, progresses made
in Robotics allow for mapping high level actions into complex low level
behaviors that blend the high-level commands with sophisticated reactive
mechanisms. In this way the high level representation can avoid to deal
with low level details, thus making reasoning about actions feasible in
practice.

Topics of interest include:

    o modeling aspects of dynamic systems: complex actions, concurrent
      actions, nonterminating behaviors, action refinement, use of 
      epistemic agent's state, sensing, etc;

    o formalisms to specify and reason about actions: situation
      calculus, event calculus, action-languages, dynamic logics, 
      process algebras, etc;

    o reasoning techniques both based on theorem proving and model
      checking;

    o control aspects of dynamic systems: online and offline execution and
      planning, monitoring execution, control strategies, failure recovery,
      etc;

    o cognitive robotics: application of reasoning about actions on actual
      robots, mapping high-level actions to low-level robot behaviors,
      practical aspects of sensing, etc;

    o other applications of reasoning about actions: workflows, business
      process modeling, transaction processing, WWW navigation, etc.

Contributions on the connections with other fields of Computer Science such
as Semantics of Programs, Formal Specification and Verification of
Programs, Concurrency, Discrete Control Theory, etc., are especially
welcome.

WORKSHOP AIMS:
This workshop aims at:

    o fostering the discovery of connections between Reasoning about
      Actions in Artificial Intelligence and other fields of Computer Science;

    o providing a setting for PhD students and other young researchers to
      present and discuss their work in a broad perspective and stimulating
      environment; 

    o facilitating the exchange of ideas on Reasoning about Actions between
      researchers working in different areas or employing different
      techniques;


CALL FOR PAPERS:
All researchers in the area, and especially PhD students and young
researchers, are invited to submit extended abstracts (up to 8 pages long)
describing their research. Summary of PhD thesis are welcome, as well as
overviews of research project related to reasoning about actions, and
presentations of ongoing research.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: February 15, 1998

Paper submissions should be sent to:

  Giuseppe De Giacomo & Daniele Nardi
  Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
  Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza"
  Via Salaria 113
  OO198 Roma, Italy
  email: degiacomo@dis.uniroma1.it, nardi@dis.uniroma1.it

Electronic submission, in the form of either PostScript or self-contained
LaTex, are strongly encouraged.

Authors of will be notified by April 15th 1998. The deadline for receipt of
revised papers to appear in the workshop proceedings is May 15th 1998.

WORKSHOP FORMAT:
The workshop will consist of five sessions of 90 minutes each.  There will
be either two or three presentations at each session with time for
questions and discussion.  It is planned to have invited presentations from
senior researchers working in the field of Reasoning about Actions and
related fields of Computer Science.

REGISTRATION:
Workshop contributors will be required to register for ESSLLI-98, but they 
will be eligible for a reduced registration fee.

IMPORTANT DATES:
        Feb 15, 98: Deadline for submissions
        Apr 15, 98: Notification of acceptance
        May 15, 98: Deadline for final copy
        Aug 17, 98: Start of workshop

ORGANIZERS: 
Giuseppe De Giacomo & Daniele Nardi (Univ. Roma "La Sapienza")
        
FURTHER INFORMATION:
To obtain further information about ESSLLI-98 please visit the ESSLLI-98
home page at http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/esslli