***************************************************************** 4. Fourth International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems ***************************************************************** FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT / CALL FOR PAPERS FQAS 2000 Fourth International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems October 25 - 27, 2000, Warsaw, Poland http://viking.ibspan.waw.pl/fqas2000 Paper submission deadline: March 20, 2000 FQAS is the premier conference focusing on the key issue in the information society of providing easy, flexible, intuitive access to information for everybody. In targeting this issue, the conference draws on several research areas, such as information retrieval, knowledge representation, soft computing, databases, multimedia, and human-computer interaction. The conference provides a unique opportunity for researchers, developers and practitioners to explore new ideas and approaches in a multidisciplinary forum. The previous FQAS events were held in 1994, 1996, and 1998, all in Roskilde, Denmark. ================================== ORGANIZERS ================================== >>>> GENERAL CHAIRMEN Henrik Legind Larsen, Computer Science, bldg. 42.1, Roskilde University, P.O. Box 260, DK 4000 Roskilde, Denmark Email: hll@ruc.dk Phone: +45 4674 3841 Janusz Kacprzyk Systems Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences ul. Newelska 6 01-447 Warszawa, Poland e-mail: kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl Phone: +48 22 8364414 >>>> EXECUTIVE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Henrik Legind Larsen (co-chair), Roskilde University, Denmark Janusz Kacprzyk (co-chair), Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Amihai Motro (program co-chair) George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA Patrick Bosc (program co-chair) IRISA/ENSSAT, Lannion Cedex, France Gabriella Pasi (program co-chair), ITIM-CNR, Milan, Italy Slawomir Zadrozny (local chair), Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland >>>> INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Patrick Bosc, France, Jesus Cardenosa, Spain Bruce Croft, USA Jack Minker, USA Hendrik Decker, Germany Robert Demolombe, France Jorgen F.Nilsson, Denmark Norbert Fuhr, Germany Patric J. Hayes, USA Janusz Kacprzyk, Poland Don Kraft, USA Henrik L. Larsen, Denmark (chair) Amihai Motro, USA Gabriella Pasi, Italy Annelise Mark Pejtersen, Denmark Henri Prade, France Ronald R. Yager, USA >>>> INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE J. Allan, USA C. Marsala, France R. Baeza-Yates, Chile J. Minker, USA M.J. Bautista, Spain S. Miyamoto, Japan G. Bordogna, Italy A. Morris, USA B. Bouchon-Meunier, France N. Mouaddib, France Z. Bubnicki, Poland F.L. Neves, Portugal G.Q. Chen, P.R. China J.F. Nilsson, Denmark L. Cholvy, France V. Novak, Czech Republic F. Crestani, UK P. Paggio, Denmark V. Cross, USA Z. Pawlak, Poland J.C. Cubero, Spain A. Mark Pejtersen, Denmark E. Damiani, Italy F. Petry, USA R. De Caluwe, Belgium O. Pivert, France G. De Tré, Belgium O. Pons, Spain H. Decker, Germany H. Prade, France R. Demolombe, France A. Ramer, Australia M. Detyniecki, France Z. Ras, USA D. Dubois, France G. Raschia, France C. Enguehard, France E. Sanchez, France D. Escorial, Spain D. Seipel, Germany R. Felix, Germany J. Shanahan, UK N. Fuhr, Germany A. Skowron, Poland T. Gedeon, Australia R. Slowinski, Poland R. George, USA H.E. Thomsen, Denmark F. Giannotti, Italy M. Umano, Japan O. Hryniewicz, Poland M. Vila, Spain A.H. Jorgensen, Denmark P. Vojtas, Slovakia J. Kacprzyk, Poland G. Wetzel, USA N. Kasabov, New Zealand S.T. Wierzchoń, Poland L.T. Koczy, Hungary R.R. Yager, USA D. Kraft, USA A. Yazici, Turkey W. Kurutach, Thailand S. Zadrozny, Poland >>>> GEOGRAPHICAL AREA COORDINATORS · Americas: Ashley Morris, University of Idaho, USA, e-mail: amorris@cs.uidaho.edu · Asia, Australia and New Zealand: Werasak Kurutach, Mahanakorn University of Technology, Thailand e-mail: werasak@mut.ac.th · Europe and Africa: Ernesto Damiani, Universita di Milano, e-mail: edamiani@telnetwork.it ================================== TOPICS OF INTEREST ================================== As a metaphor for flexible query answering we may consider a human intermediary that has expertise in the topic of the query, and is experienced in identifying the user's information needs and answering the needs from the available information resources. Using knowledge on relevant context, available information resources, etc., enables the expert to respond rather precisely to the needs, though the query, per se, may be imprecise, incomplete, etc. Thus, a key issue for flexible query answering system is to obtain, maintain, represent, and utilize such knowledge. This comprises domain knowledge and metaknowledge, its representation and organization in ontologies, terminologies, etc., its creation through dictionaries, lexicons, learning, knowledge discovery, data mining, etc., and its utilization for context recognition, disambiguation, needs identification, etc. Natural language and speech access, multimedia information, and the Internet give rise to new problems and solutions in FQAS. Other important issues in FQAS include information access modes (such as querying and navigation, and answer presentation), human-computer interaction (including modalities and usability factors), and evaluation of FQAS. We invite submission of original research contributions, and proposals for invited sessions, panels, and tutorials. Contributions are encouraged from all areas, as long as it addresses central issues in flexible query answering systems. Topics areas include the following, as listed with keywords for subtopics, as long as their relevance to the theme of the conference is clear: -- KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION Formalisms (description logics and algebra, etc.). Terminological knowledge. Ontologies: representation, engineering, fusion and merging. Epistemology. Philosophical issues. -- REASONING, AND PROBLEM SOLVING Inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning. Approximate reasoning. Aggregation methods. Matching. Subsumption. Generic tasks. Classificatory problem solving. -- KNOWLEDGE EXTRACTION Text classification. Data and text mining. Discovery of association rules, semantic and causal relationships. Data warehousing. -- SEMANTIC MODELS IN FQAS Semantics of similarity, association, matching, relevance, context, etc. -- DATA MODELS IN FQAS Models of data, information, knowledge, and their meta. -- QUERY ANSWERING MODELS Query expansion. Adaptive QA. Context and disambiguation. Ontology-based querying. Evolutionary and genetic algorithms. -- SPEECH AND NATURAL LANGUAGE QUERY ANSWERING Speech recognition. NL queries. NL information bases. NL answers. Cross language querying and retrieval. -- INFORMATION BASES ACCESS TECHNIQUES Text and multimedia indexing. Enveloping for database access. Data structures. Search algorithms. -- ANSWER GENERATION Summary information. Meta information. Level of information. -- HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION Information visualization, paradigms and models. Man-machine interaction. User-system dialogues for needs identification. Interaction modes. Navigation in information spaces. -- INTERNET INFORMATION ACCESS AGENTS Adaptive and specialized information agents. Information retrieval and filtering agents. Robot and crawlers. Search and metasearch engines. Intra/extra net systems. Privacy & security. -- MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION SYSTEMS Content-based querying and retrieval. Spatio-temporal information. Image processing. Multimedia data analysis. Pattern recognition and matching in multimedia information access. -- APPLICATION DOMAINS E-commerce, finance and banks, real estate, cars, classified, tourism, libraries, research, medicine, transportation, enterprises, government, defense, entertainment. Digital libraries. Geographical Information Systems. -- QUALITY MEASURES IN FQAS Quality of information objects and answers. Precision and recall. Usability. User and needs satisfaction. Quality assurance & evaluation methodology. -- VISIONS FOR FQAS FQAS in the globally connected world. Intelligent homes, cars, and work environments. Trends in market, product, and research. Interfaces, and human-computer interaction. FQAS in years 2000+x. ================================== SUBMISSION OF PAPERS ================================== Prospective authors should submit full papers either electronically (Postscript or PDF file, as attachment) or hard copies, up to 10 pages, before March 20, 2000 to the address of the Conference Secretariat given below. Please use the e-mail address for the electronic submission of the papers. FQAS'2000 Secretariat Systems Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences ul. Newelska 6 01-447 Warsaw, Poland Phone: + (48)(22) 37 05 21, 836 81 50 Fax: + (48)(22) 37 27 72 e-mail: fqas2000@ibspan.waw.pl Upon acceptance, the authors will be requested to submit the final camera-ready manuscript following typing instructions to be provided (Word and Latex styles). ================================== PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS ================================== The conference proceedings (including all accepted papers) will be published by the Springer-Verlag group in the series "Advances in Soft Computing", and distributed to all registered authors at the conference. Some selected papers, in extended versions, are planned to appear in post-conference volumes to be published by Kluwer and other publishers as well as in special issues of respected journals. ================================== PROPOSALS FOR INVITED SESSIONS ================================== Prospective organizers are invited to send a proposal with the title and a short statement of the purpose of the session, plus the recommended sessions chair and co-chair. Invited sessions should comprise 4-5 invited papers. The session should preferable start with a tutorial like paper. The session organizer's registration fee is waived if at least 3 authors of papers in the session register to the conference. Proposals should be sent to the general chair or the co-chair before February 1, 2000. ================================== PROPOSALS OF PANEL DISCUSSIONS ================================== Prospective organizers of panels are invited to send a proposal with the title and a short statement of the purpose of the panel. A panel should include 6-10 people. Proposals should be sent to the general chair or the co-chair before March 15, 2000. ======================================= PROPOSALS OF DEMONSTRATIONS/EXHIBITONS ======================================= Proposals for demonstrations/exhibitions should be sent to the demonstration/exhibition chair: Dr. Rudolf Felix, Germany e-mail: felix@fuzzy.de by March 30, 2000. ================================== CONFERENCE PROGRAM ================================== FQAS will include: · invited, keynote and plenary talks by leading experts, · topic-oriented technical sessions, regular and invited, · panel discussions, and · exhibitions. ================================== CONFERENCE VENUE ================================== The conference venue will be the historic main office of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in the very center of Warsaw, near to the Old Town, hotels, restaurants, and main sightseeing attractions. ================================== CONFERENCE FEE ================================== The registration fee (including the attendance, a copy of the proceedings volume, conference materials, coffee breaks, welcome reception, and banquet) is: · Early registration (until June 15, 2000) - USD 250, · Late registration (until August 31, 2000) - USD 280, · On-site registration - USD 320. It is planned to have low student registration fees as well as some reductions for members of some professional and scholarly societies. This information will be provided in the next announcement. ================================== SOCIAL PROGRAM ================================== The conference venue and main hotels will be within the walking distance of virtually all sightseeing attractions of Warsaw, commercial zones, the opera house and theaters, etc. so that the participants and accompanying persons will be able to easily organize a sightseeing program by themselves. The conference organizers will provide an opportunity to arrange excursions, guided tours, etc. to other places of interest (e.g. to Chopin's birthplace). Moreover, since all reduced price airfares require that passengers stay the Saturday/Sunday night, a group excursion to Cracow, the historic and artistic capital of Poland will be organized on Saturday, October 28, 2000. ================================== IMPORTANT DATES ================================== · Preregistration (email or WWW) as soon as possible · Paper submission deadline March 20, 2000 · Notification of acceptance May 1, 2000 · Camera-ready papers due May 20, 2000 (with the payment of the registration fee) · FQAS'2000 Conference October 25-27, 2000 · Invited sessions proposals: February 1, 2000 · Panel discussions proposals: March 15, 2000 · Demonstrations proposals: March 30, 2000 ================================== FURTHER INFORMATION ================================== Further information on hotels, flights, etc. will be provided in the next announcement to be send to those participants who have filled out the below pre-registration form: PREREGISTRATION FORM Yes, I am interested in (please check the appropriate item): O The participation at FQAS'2000 O Receiving further information Name: Affiliation: Address: Phone: Fax: Email: Please fill out the above pre-registration form and send it, preferably by e-mail to: fqas2000@ibspan.waw.pl or by mail to the Conference Secretariat as given below. ================================== CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT ================================== K. Warzywoda A. Józwiak FQAS'2000 Secretariat Systems Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences ul. Newelska 6 01-447 Warsaw, Poland Phone: + (48)(22) 37 05 21, 836 81 50 Fax: +(48)(22) 37 27 72 e-mail: fqas2000@ibspan.waw.pl