***************************************************************** 2. Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation and Approximation (SARA-2000) ***************************************************************** Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation and Approximation (SARA-2000) Lago Vista on Lake Travis, Texas July 26-29, 2000 (just prior to AAAI-2000) URL: sara2000.unl.edu INVITED TALKS Patrick Cousot, École Normale Supérieure, Paris. Tom Dietterich, Oregon State University. Rich Korf, University of California, Los Angeles. IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline: March 20, 2000 Notification of acceptance: May 2, 2000. Camera ready copies: June 9, 2000. __________________________________________________________________________ PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS >From the inception of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research it has been recognized that abstractions, problem reformulations and approximations are central to human common-sense reasoning and problem solving and to the ability of systems to reason effectively in complex domains. Abstractions, reformulations and approximations (AR&A) have been used in a variety of problem-solving settings including automatic programming, constraint satisfaction, design, diagnosis, machine learning, planning, qualitative reasoning, scheduling and theorem proving. The primary use of AR &A in such settings has been to overcome computational intractability by decreasing the combinatorial costs associated with searching large spaces. In addition, AR&A techniques are also useful for knowledge acquisition and explanation generation in complex domains. The considerable interest in AR&A has led to a series of successful workshops over the last few years. AAAI workshops in 1990 and 1992 focused on selecting, constructing and using abstractions and approximations, while a series of workshops in 1989, 1990 and 1992 focused on problem reformulations. There was considerable intersection in the set of attendees and topics of the two separate workshop series, and this lead to holding merged workshops in 1994, 1995 and 1998. The present symposium is the fourth in this new series. The aim of this symposium is to provide a forum for intensive interaction among researchers in all areas of AI with an interest in the different aspects of AR&A. The diverse backgrounds of participants of previous workshops has lead to a rich and lively exchange of ideas, allowed the comparison of goals, techniques and paradigms, and helped identify important research issues and engineering hurdles. We hope and expect that the upcoming symposium will include an equally diverse group of participants. Submissions are requested in all aspects of abstraction, reformulation and approximation, including but not limited to the following: * New techniques for automatically constructing and selecting appropriate AR&A. * Methods for selecting which of several applicable AR&A techniques is best for a given problem. * Frameworks that unify and classify AR&A techniques. * Empirical and/or theoretical studies of the costs and benefits of AR&A. * Applications of AR&A: - Search, constraint satisfaction, planning, theorem-proving, logic programming. - Distributed data and knowledge bases, Internet search and navigation, context, knowledge-compilation, knowledge acquisition. - Simulation, design, diagnosis and control of physical systems. - Automatic programming, analogical-reasoning , case-based reasoning, machine learning and speedup learning. * Fielded applications demonstrating the benefits of AR&A. Attendance is limited and is by invitation only. Persons wishing to attend the workshop should submit three copies of a 1--2 page research summary including a list of relevant publications. Persons wishing to make presentations at the workshop should, in addition, submit three copies of an extended abstract, not exceeding 5000 words. Accepted participants will be invited to submit full papers for the workshop proceedings. The proceedings will be distributed to the workshop participants. All submissions should be received by March 20, 2000 at the address below. Submissions will also be accepted by electronic mail in PostScript format. Please include several ways of contacting the principal author: electronic mail addresses and telephone numbers are preferred, in that order. In case of multiple authors, please indicate which authors wish to participate. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be mailed to authors by May 2, 2000. Camera ready copies of papers accepted for inclusion in the proceedings will be due June 9, 2000. Additional information may be obtained from the symposium home page on the World Wide Web: SARA2000.unl.edu Berthe Y. Choueiry Department of Computer Science and Engineering Ferguson Hall 115 University of Nebraska at Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0115 Email: choueiry@cse.unl.edu Tel: +1(402)472-5444 Fax: +1(402)472-7767 Program Co-Chairs ----------------- Berthe Y. Choueiry, University of Nebraska Lincoln Toby Walsh, University of York Program Committee ----------------- Ralph Bergmann, University of Kaiserlautern Karl Branting, University of Wyoming Marco Cadoli, Università di Roma, La Saprienza Berthe Y. Choueiry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Tom Ellman, Vassar College Boi V. Faltings, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Eugene C. Freuder, University of New Hampshire Mike Genesereth, Stanford University Lise Getoor, Stanford University Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento and ITC-IRST Robert Holte, University of Ottawa Michael Lowry, NASA Ames Research Center Hiroshi Motoda, Osaka University Peter Revesz, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Marco Schaerf, Università di Roma, La Sapienza Bart Selman, Cornell University Joseph Sifakis, VERIMAG Divesh Srivastava, AT&T Labs-Research Jeffrey Van Baalen, University of Wyoming Toby Walsh, University of York Qiang Yang, Simon Fraser University Steering Committee ------------------ Berthe Y. Choueiry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Tom Ellman, Vassar College Mike Genesereth, Stanford University Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento and ITC-IRST Robert Holte, University of Ottawa Alon Levy, University of Washington Michael Lowry, NASA Ames Research Center Pandurang Nayak, NASA Ames Research Center Jeffrey Van Baalen, University of Wyoming Toby Walsh, University of York Student support --------------- We have limited funds to support student travel. Students wishing to be considered for travel awards should send a research summary, and an estimate of their expected travel costs. Venue ----- Lago Vista Clubs & Resort is a full service conference center set in the scenic, pollution-free Central Rolling Hill Country, on the preferred north shore of beautiful Lake Travis in Lago Vista. Recreational activities include, but are not limited to: tennis, swimming, volleyball, fishing, deer feeding, horseshoes, washers, softball, and picnics in the park. For a small additional fee, other activities are available such as: golf (two 18-hole courses and one nine-hole course), boating, guided fishing tours, jet skis, waverunners, mountain biking, therapeutic massage, cocktail cruise, or day excursions to points of interest. We will try our best to organize transportation from Austin-Bergtrom International Airport on July 26, 2000, and back to downtown Austin on July 29, 2000. Sponsors -------- The American Association of Artificial Intelligence. The Office of Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Center for Communication and Information Science (CCIS), University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), University of Nebraska-Lincoln.