From: amruth@acsu.buffalo.edu (Amruth Kumar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: CFP: AAAI-93 Workshop on "Reasoning About Function"
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:56:17 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci


                    Call for Participation
                    ----------------------
                     AAAI-93 Workshop on
                   Reasoning About Function
                   ========================
                   Washington D.C., July '93

Description of Workshop: 
-----------------------

The explicit representation and use of the function (purpose) of an object,
either as intended by its designer or as interpreted by its user, is
emerging as a focal point of problem solving in fields as diverse as
Device Invention, Redesign, Diagnosis, Explanation Generation and
Automatic Debugging.  Explicit treatment of function has proven to be
very useful because of its potential to organize and provide access to
causal knowledge of the object (eg., focuses on missing causality
during redesign), because of the improved resolution it brings
to the reasoning process (eg., discriminates among suspects
during diagnosis) and because of its utility in addressing the scaling
problem. To date, function-based knowledge has been successfully
applied in several domains, including Software Engineering, Human
Physiology, and various fields of engineering such as Electrical,
Aerospace and Chemical Engineering.
 
The objectives of this workshop are: 1) to examine current techniques
used to represent and reason about function; 2) to present a forum to
develop a shared framework for reasoning about function, and 3) to
identify the trends and future directions for this emerging field.

Topics
------

The workshop will focus on the following issues:

1) Terminology: theoretical analyses yielding an appropriate
vocabulary for function; disambiguating function from other terms such
as behavior and teleology: what are the interactions and dependencies
between them? How do form, use, experience, etc. relate to function?

2) Representation: What are the issues in acquisition of function
knowledge? What are the ontological bases of an adequate function
representation: processes, states, flows, parameters? How can
representational primitives be chosen in a given ontology? What impact
does the intended use of a function model have on its construction?
How is knowledge of function related to behavioral, structural and
heuristic knowledge?

3) Reasoning: What are the sorts of tasks/domains for which Functional
Reasoning is particularly well suited?  What are the AI processes
involved in exploiting function knowledge during reasoning? How can
reasoning about function, behavior, teleology, etc. be integrated into
a coherent system?

4) Applications: An examination of implemented systems, i.e.,
representation and reasoning techniques used, evaluation of the system
and lessons learned from the experience.

Format of Workshop:
----------------------

The workshop will address the work of participants in the form of
moderated presentations and discussions. Where appropriate,
participants will be invited to display posters describing their work.
Separate sessions will be devoted to terminology, representation
issues, reasoning and application issues. The workshop will conclude
with a summarizing panel discussion.

Attendance: 
-----------

Participation is by invitation only, and will be limited to
approximately 35 people. See Submission Requirements below for the
criteria to be invited.

Submission Requirements: 
-------------------------

Those who wish to attend the workshop should submit four copies of a
1-2 page research summary including a list of relevant publications,
regular and email address (where possible) and phone and FAX number.
Those who wish to present their work at the workshop should submit
four copies of a short paper (6-8 pages) in addition to the research
summary. If the work has been published or submitted for consideration
elsewhere, please specify the journal or conference.  Note that,
unpublished work is preferred for presentation. Electronic submissions
will not be accepted. All submissions will be reviewed by the Workshop
Committee.

In order to facilitate interaction among participants, you are
requested to specify the following with regard to your work: topic
(terminology/representation/reasoning/application), field
(redesign/diagnosis/explanation generation etc.) and domain
(electrical/chemical/physiology etc.). In submitted papers, you are
urged to either define or relate to existing literature, all
terminology used.  Also, please include a two-line description of the
main contribution of your paper.

Submission Deadline: March 12, 1993
--------------------

Notification Date: April 2, 1993
------------------

Final date for camera-ready copies to organizers: April 30,1993
-------------------------------------------------

Submit to:
----------
Amruth N. Kumar
(Reasoning About Function Workshop)
 
226 Bell Hall
Department of Computer Science
SUNY Buffalo, NY 14260
Ph: (716) 645 2193 Fax: (716) 645 3464
(amruth@cs.buffalo.edu)

Workshop Committee:
-------------------
Dean Allemang 
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
(allemang@lia.di.epfl.ch)

David Franke 
Trilogy Development Group
(franke@trilogy.com)

Jack Hodges
San Francisco State University
(hodges@huckleberry.sfsu.edu)

Amruth N. Kumar (Coordinator)
SUNY Buffalo
(amruth@cs.buffalo.edu)

James K. McDowell
Michigan State University
(mcdowelj@pleiades.cps.msu.edu)

Jon Sticklen
Michigan State University
(sticklen@cps.msu.edu)

Shambhu J. Upadhyaya
SUNY Buffalo