1998 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL'98) Trento, Italy Saturday June 6 - Monday June 8, 1998 (coordinated event with KR'98 -- Sixth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning) WWW: http://dl.kr.org/dl/dl98/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS The 1998 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL'98) continues the tradition of international workshops devoted to discussing developments and applications of knowledge representation formalisms based on Description Logics. We call for two types of contributions: paper submissions, and DL systems for comparison. Indipendently from the DL systems comparison effort, demonstrations of systems and DL-based applications will be possible and people interested are encouraged to get in touch with the organizers. DL'98 will immediately follow KR'98 (Sixth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning) which will be held in Trento, Italy, June 2-5, 1998. DL'98 will not clash with SIGMOD/PODS'98, which will be held in Seattle WA, USA, June 1-4, 1998: people willing attend both SIGMOD/PODS'98 and DL'98 will have one day and a half for traveling from USA to Italy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCOPE 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 an extended abstract on some aspect of their current work in Description Logics (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 dl98@dl.kr.org by e-mail, to arrive by Friday March 6, 1998. We will determine participation in the workshop by Monday April 20, 1998 on the basis of the submitted papers. Some authors will be asked to prepare a longer version of their paper for inclusion in the proceedings. Revised versions of accepted proceedings papers should be sent by Friday May 8, 1998. 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 Paper Submission Paper submission deadline: March 6, 1998 Notification of acceptance: April 20, 1998 Camera ready papers due: May 8, 1998 DL'98 Workshop: Saturday June 6 - Monday June 8, 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DL SYSTEMS COMPARISON DL'98 will host a DL systems comparison session. Systems will be compared on the basis of benchmarks which will be prepared in order to emphasize the best out of each system. This first round of the comparison at DL'98 will serve mostly as an evaluation of the benchmark testing set, and it is not intended to be the last word on a possible ranking. We have four aims: * To reach a consensus on a corpus of benchmarks for DL systems, which may become an agreed standard. * Bringing people together with a common interest in implementation work on various DLs. * Giving the implementors of reasoners for the considered logics the opportunity to demonstrate their systems and to make them better known. (There also exists the possibility to submit system descriptions to DL'98). * There are many reasoning methods for DL. We propose a comparison, with no winners or prizes, of these approaches. CRITERIA A fair comparison is very difficult, since different computers are used, systems are implemented in different programming languages, and expressivity of the different logics varies considerably. We hope to overcome these problem to a certain extent by using different families of parametrized knowledge bases. The time to decide the provability of these KBs is expected to be exponential in the parameter for most reasoners. The participants will determine the largest parameter value that their system can handle within a given time limit. Consequently, the results can only be slightly improved by using a faster computer or a better programming language. Moreover, we believe that expressivity and efficiency are not the only qualities of a reasoner. Even if reasoner B is `really' considerably less expressive or slower than reasoner A, one may prefer B to A, e.g. if: * B is very comfortable to use. * B is very small and simple, and thus more secure. * B is written is a standard language and easily portable. * B can deal with many logics. * The correctness and completeness of B have been verified. * B requires little space for the computation. * B is tailored for specific applications. * ... Such advantages can be stated in entries. For example, the number of lines of the source code of of a system could be mentioned (if the small size is an advantage for that system), or so could the storage required to process certain KBs (if the system requires little space). WHO CAN TAKE PART? Everybody who has written a reasoner for DL which accepts a reasonable subset of the language specified by the KRSS document can submit an entry. All the knowledge bases interchanges will be done using the neutral syntax specified by the KRSS document. We prefer reasoners that are easily available to everybody or can be used by some means (e.g., over the WWW). Everybody who takes part automatically accepts the procedure of the comparison. PROCEDURE The benchmark KBs will be available via the comparison home page at http://dl.kr.org/dl/dl98/comparison/. People willing to participate must confirm their participation to Peter Patel-Schneider at pfps@research.bell-labs.com or to Ian Horrocks at horrocks@cs.man.ac.uk by Friday March 6, 1998. We encourage participants to indicate their interest as soon as possible and to participate in the selection of benchmarks. Participants may additionally submit a set of benchmarks which possibly show where their systems excel. These benchmarks should be written in the neutral KRSS syntax, and should be representable in at least one other available DL system. If these benchmarks are submitted early enough, they may be used as the basis of a parameterized set. Important: The participants time their systems at their site before the workshop. The result should contain the following information: * Name of the system, if possible a WWW address or a reference to the literature. * Some information about the algorithms. * Advantages of your system besides efficiency * The programming language used to implement the system. * The hardware used for the timings. * The results of the timings, plus a note if you deviated from the limits in the specified procedure. * Optional comments on the various results. The result should be submitted as a self-contained postscript document to Peter Patel-Schneider at pfps@research.bell-labs.com or to Ian Horrocks at horrocks@cs.man.ac.uk by Friday April 17, 1998. PUBLICATION/PRESENTATION OF RESULTS The organisers will compile short summaries of these results. If the organisers want to check the results of some participants, then the participants are responsible for providing sufficient support. They must give the organisers the possibility to check the results at the participant's site. The summaries will appear in the proceedings of the DL'98 workshop. At the workshop, the participants will have the possibility to demonstrate their systems either on site or over the internet to another site. Posters describing the systems may be displayed. Everybody is welcome to submit for evaluation by the PC of DL'98 either full papers describing any new approaches or system descriptions describing new implementations (or both). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DATES DL Systems Comparison Preliminary disclosure of the basic benchmarks: February 16, 1998 Identification of the DL systems willing to partecipate: March 6, 1998 Optional submission of partecipants' benchmarks: March 6, 1998 Disclosure of the official comparison benchmarks: March 23, 1998 Deadline for the submission of the results: April 17, 1998 Summaries of the results available: May 18, 1998 Meeting at DL'98: June 6 - 8, 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Enrico Franconi (chair) Knowledge Representation and Reasoning group Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (IRST) I-38050 Povo TN, Italy franconi@irst.itc.it Giuseppe De Giacomo Robert M. MacGregor DIS, Universit` di Roma La Sapienza University of Southern California Via Salaria 113, I-00198 Roma, Italy Information Sciences Institute degiacom@dis.uniroma1.it 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292, USA macgregor@isi.edu Werner Nutt Christopher A. Welty German Research Center for AI (DFKI) Vassar College Computer Science Dept. currently visiting: Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0462, USA Institute of Computer Science weltyc@cs.vassar.edu Ross Building, Givat Ram Campu The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem 91904, Israel nutt@cs.huji.ac.il Fabrizio Sebastiani Istituto di Elaborazione dell'Informazione (IEI) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Via S. Maria, 46, I-56126 Pisa, Italy fabrizio@iei.pi.cnr.it DL SYSTEMS COMPARISON COMMITTEE: Peter F. Patel-Schneider Ian Horrocks Bell Labs Research (currently visiting IRST) 600 Mountain Ave, 2A-409 Department of Computer Science Murray Hill, NJ 07974; USA University of Manchester pfps@research.bell-labs.com Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK horrocks@cs.man.ac.uk WINE COMMITTEE: Paolo Bresciani (chair) Deborah L. McGuinness (sommelier **) AT&T Labs Research IRST 180 Park Ave. Bldg 103, Room A215 I-38050 Povo TN, Italy Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971, USA brescian@irst.itc.it dlm@research.att.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- RESOURCES * Enquiries about the DL'98 workshop can be made by mailing to dl98@dl.kr.org. * Information regarding costs, travel information, hotels, etc. will be distributed later. Check the WWW page of the workshop at http://dl.kr.org/dl/dl98/ for updates. * The DL'98 systems comparison home page is at http://dl.kr.org/dl/dl98/comparison/ * The official Description Logics WWW home page is at http://dl.kr.org/dl/.