CFP: Belief Change Workshop at NMR2000
Maurice Pagnucco
--------------------------------
International Workshop on Belief Change: Theory and Practice
April 10th, 2000
Special Track at NMR-2000 (April 9-11)
Co-located with KR'2000, Breckenridge, Colorado, April 12-15
URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~sc57/belief_change.htm
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
--------------------
Research in belief change has largely remained theoretical (with the notable
exception of work in truth maintenance systems). However, the motivation
behind much of this work has been practical in nature: the design of systems
to maintain evolving sets of formal descriptions such as databases, software
repositories, and knowledge bases. Moreover, the ability to maintain and
modify beliefs is deemed crucial for any intelligent agent architecture. The
ultimate objective for belief change researchers then is focused on
establishing effective models for achieving these aims.
This workshop will provide a forum for interaction among researchers engaged
in the implementation of belief change systems and those concerned with the
formal modeling of the belief change process. The intent is to study the
modeling, design and implementation of theoretically plausible yet
computationally feasible architectures for belief representation and
reasoning. Both aspects are crucial to the further development and viability
of research in belief change, and for the prospects of intelligent agents in
general. It aims to bridge the gap that currently separates the techniques
and implementations of 'real' belief change from idealized logical models.
In so doing, each community will gain a closer understanding of the other's
needs and achievements with the ability to pose challenges and goals that
can focus each group on charting future directions.
Traditionally, "belief change" has been associated with the AGM school (of
belief revision) and the KM school (of belief update). But as we know,
approaches to logics of action and change constitute a central application
area of belief change. For instance, recent work in reasoning about action
has shifted from the mainly theoretic to practical implementations (giving
birth to the area of
cognitive robotics). As well, work in the area of nonmonotonic reasoning,
broadly construed, has had much to say about belief revision and properties
of belief revision systems. Not only will feedback from these allied
researchers be welcome but it will provide an excellent opportunity to
foster a collaboration that is long overdue. Accordingly, instead of
restricting workshop attendance to its traditional attendees, we welcome
researchers from allied areas.
The workshop is centered around a novel schedule designed with the aim of
fostering lively and informed discussion among all workshop participants. To
this end, each 90 minute workshop session will commence with 3x15min paper
presentations with the aim of generating vibrant discussion in the remaining
45 minutes. Reports on the state-of-the-art in theory and practice will be
presented, existing implementations will be demonstrated, and participants will
be encouraged to provide test cases for plausibility and tractability of systems.
In summary, the objective is to provide an active forum that brings together
parties interested in contributing to the whole gamut of belief change
research, from practice through to theory. The primary value of the workshop
lies in initiating a feedback loop: providing theory with achievable
benchmarks and practice with a guiding direction, thereby ensuring that
progress in all camps keeps apace and is adequately synchronized.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND SYSTEM DEMOS
--------------------------------
We solicit papers for the workshop on the themes listed above. Work reported
should have not appeared elsewhere. Papers submitted to or appearing at the
KR conference or NMR workshop (regular stream) are acceptable, but this fact
should be noted on the title page. Format requirements for regular
submissions are:
12 double-spaced pages excluding title page and bibliography
On-line submissions are *strongly encouraged* (Postscript, PDF or DVI files)
Running system demonstrations are invited, as are proposals for systems in
the stages of final design and implementation. In case of system
demonstrations, please provide a URL for a test-bed or demo version if
possible.
If electronic submission is not possible, please send
hard copies to (any of ) the following:
Samir Chopra (sch...@gc.cuny.edu)
523, East 5th Street,
Apartment #1
New York, NY 10009
USA
Andreas Herzig (Andreas...@irit.fr)
IRIT, Universite Paul Sabatier
118 route de Narbonne
F-31062 Toulouse Cedex 4
France
Maurice Pagnucco (mo...@ics.mq.edu.au)
Knowledge Systems Group, Department of Computing
Macquarie University,
NSW, 2109, Australia
Renata Wasserman (ren...@wins.uva.nl)
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
Plantage Muidergracht 24
1018-TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
IMPORTANT DATES
---------------
Submission of papers: January 5, 2000
Acceptance decision by: February 10, 2000
Camera ready copy due: March 1, 2000
WORKSHOP ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
-----------------------------
Alexander Bochman (Holon, Israel)
Samir Chopra (CUNY, USA)
Jim Delgrande (Simon Fraser, Canada)
Patrick Doherty (Linkoping, Sweden)
Norman Foo (UNSW, Australia)
Randy Goebel (Alberta, Canada)
Aditya Ghose (Wollongong, Australia)
Sven Ove Hansson (Stockholm, Sweden)
Andreas Herzig (Toulouse, France)
Paolo Liberatore (Rome, Italy)
Abhaya Nayak (Macquarie, Australia)
Maurice Pagnucco (Macquarie, Australia)
Rohit Parikh (CUNY, USA)
Pavlos Peppas (Macquarie, Australia)
Abdul Sattar (Griffith, Australia)
Renata Wassermann (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Dongmo Zhang (UNSW, Australia)
CONTACT MEMBER
--------------
Samir Chopra (sch...@gc.cuny.edu)
CUNY Graduate Center
Phone: 212.995.9282
http://pages.nyu.edu/~sc57
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