******************************************************************** ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ON REASONING ABOUT ACTIONS AND CHANGE Issue 97030 Editor: Erik Sandewall 3.12.1997 Back issues available at http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/etai/actions/njl/ ******************************************************************** ********* TODAY ********* After a long period of no conference announcements, several have arrived during the last few days. The present newsletter contains a list of all four of them, and then their full call-for-papers in plaintext variant (the same as has been circulated by email). The webpages of these conferences can be accessed by either visiting the web version of the present Newsletter, or directly through the conference calendar in the Colloquium page. ********* CALENDAR ********* --- FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS --- LAP-98: Language Action Perspective on Communication Modelling. Stockholm, 25.6-26.6, 1998. Papers due: 10.3 1998. Call for papers: http://www.ida.liu.se/labs/vits/lap98/ Broadcast message: http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/brs/confi/cfp/LAP-98.txt Workshop on Action and Causality at KR-98. Trento, Italy, 30.5 - 1.6, 1998. Papers due: 23.2 1998. Call for papers: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/nmr98.html Broadcast message: http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/brs/confi/cfp/002-98.txt Belief Revision Workshop at KR-98. Trento, Italy, 30.5 - 1.6, 1998. Papers due: 23.2 1998. Call for papers: http://infosystems.newcastle.edu.au/belief.revision/br@kr.html Broadcast message: http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/brs/confi/cfp/003-98.txt ESSLI-98 Workshop on Reasoning about Actions: Foundations and Applications. Saarbruecken, Germany, 17-21.8, 1998. Papers due: 15.2 1998. Call for papers: http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/esslli98-actions Broadcast message: http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/brs/confi/cfp/004-98.txt ==================================================================== Call for papers The Third International workshop on the Language Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP98) Stockholm June 25-26, 1998 The Language Action Perspective (LAP) is a theoretical orientation for studying modelling, design, implementation and usage of information systems in organizational contexts. LAP is based on an action view on language and communication, emphasizing what people DO while communicating. It has its theoretical roots in speech act theory (Austin, Searle) and communication action theory (Habermas). Since 1980 there has been a growing interest in the Language Action Perspective among scholars in information systems and computer science. Pioneering work was done by Flores and Winograd. In the 90īs the Language Action approach has reached a mature level with several frameworks and methods for communication modelling as e.g. Action Workflow, DEMO, SAMPO and BAT. Two international workshops (LAP96, LAP97) have been performed in the Netherlands. (http://infolabwww.kub.nl:2080/infolab/lap97/) The third International Workshop will be arranged in Stockholm, Sweden June 25-26, 1998. This workshop will be connected to a large international conference in Stockholm on communication/information technology "Beyond convergence. Communication into the next millenium" June 21-24 (http://www.its98.org). The aim of LAP98 is to bring together researchers from information systems, computer science, linguistics, communication studies, organizational behavior, marketing and sociology sa well as interested practitioners. In LAP98 we would like to emphasize contributions concerning empirical studies using Language Action Perspective modelling methods based on Language Action Perspective modelling and design of information systems as communication and action different types of applications/technologies, as e.g. electronic commerce, work flow systems groupware, intranet, in the view of language action attempts to relate Language Action Perspective to contemporary theories and frameworks on business networks, relationship marketing, business process innovation, quality improvement But other contributions concerning language/action and communication modelling are also welcome. Selected papers from the workshop will be fast tracked for review in "Accounting, Managment and Information Technologies" to be included in a special issue on "Doing things with information systems". Important dates (all 1998): March 10: Submitting full papers (max 15 pages) electronically May 2: Notification of acceptance June 1: Revised papers delievered electronically June 25-26: The Workshop in Stockholm Information about LAP98 will be present at http://www.ida.liu.se/labs/vits/lap98/ Instructions how to submit papers will be present here. Program chair: Prof Goran Goldkuhl, Jonkoping International Business School and Linkoping University (e-mail ggo@ida.liu.se). Program committee members: Esa Aurama"ki, Jyvaskyla University Jan Dietz, Delft University of Technology Owen Eriksson, Dalarna University Ralph Holbein, University of Zurich Heinz K Klein, SUNY, Binghampton Ronald Lee, Erasmus University Kalle Lyytinen, Georgia State University & Jyvaskyla University Raul Medina-Mora, Action Technologies Victor van Reijswoud, Delft University of Technology James Taylor, ERE, Montreal Hans Weigand, Tilburg University Guy Widdershoven, University of Limburg Carson Woo, University of British Columbia More members to be announced Organizing chair: Mikael Lind, University of Boras (e-mail Mikael.Lind@hb.se) Please forward this Call for Papers!! ==================================================================== ==================================================================== Workshop on Action and Causality (http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/nmr98.html) The Workshop on Action and Causality is a part of the Seventh International Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning to be held in Trento, Italy from May 30 until June 1, in conjunction with the Sixth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The study of nonmonotonic reasoning has been motivated to a large degree by the problem of representing properties of actions and by interest in the formalization and automation of reasoning about actions. In recent years, the investigation of difficult cases of the frame problem has led to the development of several nonmonotonic theories of causality. High-quality original research papers on the nonmonotonic aspects of reasoning about action and causality are invited for presentation at the workshop. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, * formalizations of new action domains, * action languages, * theories of causality and their applications to formalizing action, * probabilistic approaches to actions, * relations between action formalisms, * automated reasoning about actions, * planning in domains described in logic-based formalisms, * challenging problems. Submission Information A paper of up to 6000 words, excluding the bibliography, either hardcopy (4 copies) or electronic (postscript files only) should be sent to Vladimir Lifschitz at the address below, to arrive on or before February 23, 1998. Electronic submissions are preferred. Final papers will be distributed at the meeting. Organizers Hector Geffner (hector@usb.ve) Departamento de Computacion Universidad Simon Bolivar Aptdo 89000, Caracas 1080-A Venezuela Vladimir Lifschitz (vl@cs.utexas.edu) Department of Computer Sciences University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA Timetable February 23, 1998: Submission deadline March 31: Notification of acceptance April 27: Final papers due May 30 - June 1: Workshop ==================================================================== ==================================================================== B E L I E F R E V I S I O N W O R K S H O P Trento, Italy May 30 - June 1, 1998 http://infosystems.newcastle.edu.au/belief.revision/br@kr.html CALL FOR PAPERS The Seventh International Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning will be held in conjunction with the International Conference on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in Trento, Italy, May 30 - June 1, 1998. It will consist of plenary sessions and several specialized workshops, one of which is on Belief Revision. The actual timetable will be made available at a later date. Modeling incompleteness, uncertainty and change are critically important, yet difficult and problematical, tasks in the design of intelligent systems. Typically, information in real application domains exhibits at least one of these tantalizingly troublesome properties. Initially Belief Revision operations were used to model change, i.e. the incorporation of new information into an existing corpus of knowledge. Later however, connections with nonmonotonic reasoning and possibilistic reasoning were established. As a consequence techniques in Belief Revision can be used to model the incompleteness and the uncertainty of information, as well as change itself. Our understanding of Belief Revision has been significantly strengthened over the last twenty years, and this workshop is intended to improve our understanding even further by investigating the process of Belief Revision as a theoretical operation, and as a practical intelligent reasoning tool. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to: theoretical advances computational strategies multi-agent models implementations applications Invited Speaker --------------- Professor Isaac Levi from Columbia University USA is will give an invited presenation. Paper Submission ---------------- Authors are invited to submit either four hard copies or an electronic copy of their paper. Previously accepted papers, or papers under review are not acceptable. Submissions should be limited to 15 pages formatted on an area of (approx.) 140 x 210 mm (5.75 x 8.5 in.) in 12 point type (single-spaced and single column). Submissions should arrive no later than February 23, 1998. No copyright claims will be made, therefore accepted papers may be submitted elsewhere after the workshop reviewing period. The format of the papers may be in either hardcopy form (send 4 copies) or electronic form (post-script only). The Programme Committee has a preference for electronic submissions. We also welcome suggestions for panels. Those accepted papers in electronic format will be available on the web page three weeks before the workshop, and hardcopies of all papers will be available at the workshop. All submissions should include an email address, and a postal address of the author(s). Hardcopy papers should be sent to: Mary-Anne Williams Information Systems School of Management University of Newcastle NSW 2308, Australia Post-Script files should be sent to: emonk@infosystems.newcastle.edu.au Important Dates --------------- Deadline for Submission: February 23, 1998 Notification of Acceptance: April 1, 1998 Camera Ready Copy Due: May 4, 1998 Workshop Date: May 30 - June 1, 1998 Programme Committee ------------------- Didier Dubois, IRIT, CNRS, France Aldofranco Dragoni, University of Ancona, Italy Konstantinos Georgatos, University of Newcastle, Australia Sven-Ove Hansson, Uppsala University, Sweden Pavlos Peppas, Macquarie University, Australia Henri Prade, IRIT, CNRS, France Hans Rott, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (co-chair) Krister Segerberg, Uppsala University, Sweden Mary-Anne Williams, University of Newcastle, Australia (co-chair) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr Mary-Anne Williams /--_|\ Head of Information Systems Office: +61-2-49-215009 / \ School of Management School: +61-2-49-216644 \_.--._* The University of Newcastle Fax: +61-2-49-216911 v Newcastle, NSW 2308 Email: maryanne@infosystems.newcastle.edu.au Australia http://infosystems.newcastle.edu.au/maryanne ==================================================================== ==================================================================== 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 ==================================================================== ******************************************************************** This Newsletter is issued whenever there is new news, and is sent by automatic E-mail and without charge to a list of subscribers. To obtain or change a subscription, please send mail to the editor, erisa@ida.liu.se. Contributions are welcomed to the same address. Instructions for contributors and other additional information is found at: http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/etai/actions/njl/ ********************************************************************