----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We apologize if you receive this more than once. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1997 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL'97) September 27-29, 1997 Gif sur Yvette (Paris), FRANCE CALL FOR PAPERS *************** The 1997 International Workshop on Description Logics continues the tradition of international workshops devoted to discussing developments and applications of knowledge representation formalisms based on description logics. In addition to the traditional panels and paper presentations, the first day of the workshop will be dedicated working group discussions of small groups of participants. A working group will spend the day discussing a specific set of problems identified ahead of time. Demonstrations of systems will be possible and people interested are encouraged to get in touch with the organizers. We call for two types of contributions: proposals for working groups and paper submissions. 1) CALL FOR PROPOSAL OF WORKING GROUPS ************************************** A working group proposal should contain a short description of the problem being addressed by the group. In particular, it should identify the possible accomplishments the group can obtain. The objective should be one that can be reasonably met in a one-day meeting. The proposal should name a group leader (or co-leaders),who will be responsible for setting the agenda, and participants who may possibly be interested in the group. We encourage group leaders to contact at least a few of participants before submitting the proposal. Three brief examples of working-group topics are given in the end of the call for paper. The deadline for proposals of working groups is March 30. The acceptance of working groups will be notified by April 30. 2) CALL FOR PAPERS ****************** Subjects to be addressed include the following: -- Foundations of Description Logics, including distinguishing features of Description Logics with respect to other formalisms, expressive power of Description Logics, decidability and complexity results of reasoning -- Extensions of Description Logics, including, but not limited to, closed world reasoning, defaults, epistemic reasoning, temporal and spatial reasoning, procedural knowledge. -- Integration of Description Logics with other formalisms, such as object-oriented languages, constraint-based programming, logic programming, rule-based systems, etc. -- Use of Description Logics in applications or areas such as natural language, planning, learning, databases, software engineering, information management systems, ontology design, etc, with special emphasis on justifying the choice of DL compared to other formalisms. -- Building systems based on Description Logics with special emphasis on optimization, storage and implementation techniques. PAPER SUBMISSION **************** Interested parties should prepare a short paper on some aspect of their current work in Description Logics for inclusion in the proceedings (no more than 5 LaTeX 12-point article-style pages), or a short position paper indicating interest in description logics and the workshop. Please prepare a version of your submission (preferably as a self-contained LaTeX 12-point article style file) and send it to by e-mail, to arrive by May 30th 1997. We will determine participation in the workshop by June 30th 1997 based on the proceedings papers, position papers, and contributions to working groups. Revised versions of accepted proceedings papers should be sent by September 1st 1997 . The revised position papers will be electronically distributed to participants. The proceedings consisting of revised versions of the position papers will be produced and distributed after the workshop, and made available to other researchers. IMPORTANT DATES *************** Working group proposal deadline: March 30, 1997 Notification of acceptance for working groups: April 30, 1997 Paper submission deadline: May 31, 1997 Notification of acceptance: June 30, 1997 Camera ready papers due: September 1, 1997 Workshop: September 27-29, 1997 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ******************** Chair: Marie-Christine Rousset LRI, CNRS & University of Paris-Sud Building 490, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France mcr@lri.lri.fr Ron Brachman AT&T Laboratories, 600 Mountain Ave, Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636, USA rjb@research.att.com Francesco Donini Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica University of Roma "La Sapienza", Via Salaria 113, I-00198 Roma, Italy donini@dis.uniroma1.it Enrico Franconi Knowledge Representation and Reasoning group Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (IRST) I-38050 Povo TN, Italy franconi@irst.itc.it Ian Horrocks Department of Computer Science University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK horrocks@cs.man.ac.uk Alon Levy AT&T Laboratories, 600 Mountain Ave, Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636, USA levy@research.att.com RESOURCES ********* Enquiries about the workshop can be made by mailing to . Information regarding costs, travel information, hotels, etc. will be distributed later. Check the web page at for updates. The official Description Logics WWW home page is at . EXAMPLE WORKING GROUPS ********************** The following are example topics of working groups already proposed: WORKING GROUP "Description Logics and Object-Oriented Databases" The goal of this working group is to study the question of increasing the modeling power of object-oriented schemas by importing techniques of description logics. Traditionally, object-oriented schemas have enforced very considerable restrictions on the structure of the class hierarchy. The main reasons for these restrictions are in order to allow efficient access to objects and to guarantee a unique representation for objects. The working group will try to identify ways in which we can relax some of the restrictions on object-oriented schemas while still keeping in mind the efficiency considerations. This discussion should also shed light on the issue of defining object-oriented views. WORKING GROUP "Description Logics as a modeling tool for applications" This working group will study the effectiveness of description logics in real applications. Of particular interest will be the use of description logics in ontological engineering, an application area which has seen a recent growth in interest and one which seems naturally amenable to description logics. Topics to be considered will include the practical aspects of modeling, such as methodologies, tools and environments, as well as the relevant benefits and restrictions of description logics. The working group will try to identify key application requirements and how they might influence future description logic research. WORKING GROUP "Coordinated effort towards an Open Architecture for KR systems based on DL" Presently, a KR-DL system is a somewhat monolithic object: a part of an existing KR-DL system can not be taken out of the system and used in another system, and adding new modules in a principled way - e.g., enriching some reasoning capabilities - is almost impossible. The group will constructively discuss on a coordinated effort for building "next-generation" modular DL systems. Developers, theoreticians, users, experienced people can discuss how should be the functionalities, the modules, the services that next generation systems should have. The group may then suggest some common architectures and - perhaps - protocols, in the spirit of enriching the KRSS specifications. The effort of developing a good DL system is enormous - and still it does not satisfy many potential users. A goal of this group is to better satisfy the different points of view of the community. Moreover, this can lead to some common effort in really developing together a common system.