AAAI Fall Symposium Series 1998
FRVDR
Formalizing Reasoning
with
Visual and Diagrammatic Representations
To be held in
Orlando, Florida
October 23-25, 1998
Aims of the Symposium
Visual and diagrammatic notations hold huge potential for many areas
of computer science. However, since computer science has traditionally
focused on sequential linguistic or textual representations, this
potential is, as yet, largely unrealized. Despite a revived and
growing interest in visual representations in many applied and
theoretical areas of computer science, the theoretical foundations of
such notations are not well developed. In particular, reasoning with
visual representations can serve as a touchstone for our understanding
of such notations, because here a synthesis of cognitive aspects and
complex representational and computational aspects is required.
As yet, visual representations in computer science have only rarely
been treated as a theoretical research topic in their own right,
rather they have been looked at from an application point of view. In
applications, however, visual representations are mostly used in an
ad-hoc fashion with little or no underlying formal support. Due to
this, no common methodology for handling visual and diagrammatic
representations has emerged and formal techniques for their support
are underdeveloped. In fact, many of the basic concepts underlying
visual representations are not well understood.
In part this is because many different groups are working on
particular aspects of visual representations being largely unaware of
activities in the other groups. The primary aim of this symposium is
to strengthen the dialogue among the diverse communities involved in
the theory of visual representations and to unite closely related
streams of research from the various communities, such as diagrammatic
reasoning, visual language theory, qualitative spatial reasoning, and
related subfields of HCI, logic, and linguistics.
TOPICS of INTEREST
* Foundational issues
o essential characteristics of visual representations
o classification of visual representations
o diagram understanding and interpretation
o cognitive aspects of visual processing
o spatial knowledge representation
o qualitative versus quantitative visual information
o properties of animated and changing diagrams
o integration of multi-modal information
* Formal methods
o diagram specification techniques
o diagrammatic knowledge representation and inference
o visual reasoning with diagrammatic programming languages
o modelling interaction with diagrams
o sound logical reasoning with diagrams
o mathematics of diagrams
o combination of diagrammatic knowledge and domain knowledge
* Applications
o specification of visual languages
o automatic generation of visual language environments
o diagrammatic reasoning in AI applications
o spatial information systems
o design criteria for visual languages
o tools for developing visual arguments or proofs
o tools for programming with visual representations
Program Committee
Gerard Allwein co-chair Indiana University USA
Kim Marriott co-chair Monash University Australia
Bernd Meyer co-chair University of Munich Germany
Michael Anderson University of Hartford USA
Alan Blackwell MRC UK
B. Chandrasekaran Ohio State University USA
Janice Glasgow Queen's University Canada
Volker Haarslev University of Hamburg Germany
Patrick Olivier University of Wales UK
Atsushi Shimojima ATR Labs Japan
Organization and Submission
Authors are required to send an extended abstract of not more than
5000 words by April 15 as a Postscript, PDF, or plain text file to
bernd.meyer@acm.org. Papers on recent results as well as on work in
progress are solicitated. Contributions that provide an overview of
some subfield are particularly invited.
In addition to paper presentations and ample time for discussions a
system session centered around defined challenge tasks will be
organized. Submissions for demos must be accomanied by a one page
description for the workshop notes. Please watch the web site for
details regarding the demo session. A letter of intent to submit a
demo should be sent by April 15th.
All submissions should be send electronically by April 15 as
PostScript or plain text files to bernd.meyer@acm.org. If you are
unable to submit electronically, hardcopies can be sent to:
Bernd Meyer,
Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen,
Institut fuer Informatik,
Oettingenstrasse 67,
D-80538 Muenchen, Germany
Important Dates
April 15 Deadline for extended abstracts
May 15 Letters of acceptance/rejection sent
July 1 Deadline for demonstration submissions
August 1 Letters of acceptance/rejection for demos sent
August 21 Camera ready copies for workshop notes due
September 9 Deadline for invited participants registration
September 23 Open registration deadline
October 23-25 Symposium in Orlando, Florida
Further Information
For all questions and further information visit the symposium's web site at
http://www.pst.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/~bmeyer/FRVDR98/
or mail to
bernd.meyer@acm.org