From: rewari@aiag.enet.dec.com (Anil Rewari)
Newsgroups: news.announce.conferences
Subject: IEEE EXPERT - Call for Articles
Date: 31 Jul 92 18:30:57 GMT
Organization: (none)


                              Call for Articles
                                 IEEE EXPERT

             Special Series on AI in Corporate Service and Support

IEEE EXPERT  announces  a  special  series  on  AI in Corporate Service and
Support,  edited  by Anil Rewari. This special series will feature articles
reporting   the   application  of  artificial  intelligence  techniques  in
corporate service and support organizations.

Many corporations  are  applying  AI  techniques  to  significantly improve
performance in service and support areas, including
- diagnosis,
- advisory activities,
- information retrieval,
- workforce planning and dispatch,
- resource and inventory management,
- hardware and software configuration management,
- automated knowledge acquisition,
- call management,
- order processing, packaging, and delivery,
- billing and account servicing, and
- various value-added services.

Corporate service   organizations  often  consist  of  many  geographically
dispersed groups whose work is intertwined. Supporting such an organization
requires
- frequent collection, validation, and distribution of knowledge across
    geographically dispersed centers;
- integration  of  many  expert  systems  that exist as point applications,
    perhaps using distributed AI;
- knowledge  sharing  between functional groups, such as services, billing,
    and engineering;
- learning capabilities to augment or adapt knowledge;
- natural-language  translation  for  service  groups that are dispersed in
    many different countries but use the same underlying tools or
    applications; and
- designing systems for serviceability.

Articles submitted  for  this  series should clearly explain the approaches
and   techniques   used  and  their  impact  on  the  service  and  support
organization.  Articles that address some of the complexities of deployment
and   coordination   across   multiple   functional  groups  in  a  service
organization are encouraged.

Audience

IEEE Expert  takes  the  ideas  and  tools  that  come  out of research and
development  and  transfers  them  to the user community. Clear, not overly
formal  writing  is essential. The magazine's readers use, develop, manage,
research,  and  purchase databases, expert systems, and AI tools. They want
to  learn about tools, techniques, concepts, and systems with potential for
real-world  applications.  Conceptual  or theoretical articles are welcome,
provided   they  clarify  or  present  ideas  of  potential  importance  to
applications.

Special series

A special  series is a collection of articles united by a theme; it is just
like a special issue except that the articles appear over several issues.

Submissions

All manuscripts  submitted  for  publication  should  be original. Articles
published   in   other  magazines  or  journals  will  not  be  considered.
Submissions  should  run  8 to 10 magazine pages, with 10 to 12 references.
Six  copies  of the full manuscript (hard copy only) should be submitted to
the  guest  editor  by October 30, 1992. Manuscripts will be reviewed by at
least  three  reviewers. For full submission guidelines, please contact the
guest editor:

Anil Rewari
Digital Services Research Group
Digital Equipment Corporation
111 Locke Drive, LMO2-1/E12
Marlboro, MA 01752-1187

email: rewari@aiag.enet.dec.com