Machine Learning List: Vol. 16, No. 2 Sunday, January 25, 2004 Contents Meeting Announcements IEEE/WIC/ACM Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04) AGENTS and AUTONOMOUS COMPUTING for BUSINESS AUTOMATION Business Agents and the Semantic Web (BASeWEB'04) Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2004) ICMLA '04: 3rd Int'l Conf. on Machine Learning and Applications 2nd Workshop on CBR in the Health Sciences @ ECCBR 2004 CASA2004: Computer Animation and Social Agents 2004 ECAI 2004 Workshop on Symbolic Networks COMPSAC 2004 Workshop on Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems First IFIP Conference on AI Applications and Innovations KI2004 - Call for Workshop Proposals ITS 2004: 7th Int'l Conf. on Intelligent Tutoring Systems CEC'2004 DEADLINE SUBMISSION EXTENSION UNTIL FEBRUARY 7, 2004 CEC 2004: Learning and Approximation in Design Optimization CEC 2004: Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization CEC 2004: Theoretical Foundations of Evolutionary Computation CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computing in Finance and Economics CEC 2004: Evolutionary Design Automation CEC 2004: Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments CEC 2004: Biomolecular Computation CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computation in Bioinformatics and Computational ... CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computation and Games CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computation in Cryptology and Computer Security CEC 2004: Evolutionary Design CEC 2004: Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments Career Opportunities [Imageworld] PhD positions at ITU Copenhagen Miscellaneous Announcements Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop Call for Applications Artificial Immune Systems Network Knowl & Inform Sys: Volume 5 Contents (4 Issues) The Machine Learning List is moderated. Contributions should be relevant to the scientific study of machine learning. Please send submissions for distribution to: ml@isle.org. For requests to be added, removed, or to change your email address, send email to: ml-request@isle.org. To keep mailings to a manageable size, please keep submissions brief. For meeting announcements, do highlight the meeting Web site and the goals of the event but omit information such as the program committee and talk schedules. Also, only first calls for papers/participation and brief change of deadline announcements will be included. The ML List moderator reserves the right to omit/edit submissions to meet these criteria. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "IEEE/WIC/ACM WI/IAT Conference Secretariat" Subject: IEEE/WIC/ACM Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:44:14 +0900 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT 2004) Conference Name: IEEE/WIC/ACM Intelligent Agent Technology 2004 Date: September 20-24, 2004 Location: Bejing, China Sponsors: IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee, Web Intelligence Consortium (WIC), and ACM-SIGART. Conference Web Site URL: http://www.maebashi-it.org/IAT04/ The 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM WI/IAT Conference Secretariat wi-iat@maebashi-it.org The 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM Web Intelligence (WI'04) http://www.maebashi-it.org/WI04/ The 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04) http://www.maebashi-it.org/IAT04/ ------------------------------ From: ABA Subject: AGENTS and AUTONOMOUS COMPUTING for BUSINESS AUTOMATION Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 19:34:59 -0500 (EST) Call for Papers The 2004 International Conference-Crossing Workshop AGENTS and AUTONOMOUS COMPUTING for BUSINESS AUTOMATION June - October, 2004 Las-Vegas (USA), Wellington (New Zealand), The Hague (The Netherlands) http://www.aba-rd.org/ http://cs.newpaltz.edu/~pham/ABA/all/index.html SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR DRAFT PAPERS IS FEBRUARY 23, 2004 TOPICS: AUTONOMOUS COMPUTING and particularly AGENT technology can help us to process information, knowledge, manufacturing data, and business transactions in an automatic, flexible, intelligent, and efficient way. The goals of this International Workshop are to gather ACADEMIC and INDUSTRIAL researchers to exchange new ideas and experiences, to initialize new contacts or to strengthen existing collaborations. We hope to create a dynamic forum and effective connections among RESEARCHERS, USERS, and DEVELOPERS in this field. This year we plan to have the following tracks: + Track-A: "Agents for Autonomous Information and Knowledge Processing" (at IKE) June 21 - 24, Las Vegas, USA. + Track-B: "Distributed & Parallel Computing Techniques for Agents" (at PDPTA) June 21 - 24, Las Vegas, USA. + Track-C: "Intelligent Agents for Autonomous Processing" (at IC-AI) June 21 - 24, Las Vegas, USA. + Track-D: "Internet Agents for Autonomous Processing" (at IC) June 21 - 24, Las Vegas, USA. + Track-E: "Agents for Business and Engineering Systems" (at KES) September 20-24, Wellington, New Zealand. + Track-G: "Agent-based Systems for Autonomous Processing" (at IEEE SMC) October 10-13, The Hague, The Netherlands We welcome papers on architectures, protocols, algorithms, design, evaluation, implementation techniques, and applications of autonomous and agent-based systems. Technical issues to be addressed include, but are not limited to: SPECIAL INTERESTS Autonomous Computing and Agents for Business Automation in: + Interface to Human Users + Data Retrieval and Automatic Formation of Demands and Supplies + Matching Demands/Supplies and Transaction Formation + Transaction Implementation & Validation + Logistics & Workflow Management + Monitoring, Control, and Visualization of Agent-based Business Automation + Modeling, Simulation, Design, & Evaluation of Agent-based Business Systems + Problems Statements/Descriptions of Challenging Scenarios in Business Automation APPLICATIONS Autonomous Computing and Agents for: + Virtual Offices + Processing Multimedia and Heterogeneous Information + Personal and Professional Assistants + E-Marketing and E- Advertising + E-Management and E-Control + E-Trade and E-Marketplace + E-Payment and E-Banking + E-Government and E-Administration + Financial & Investment Management + Supply Chains & B2B systems + Games on the Internet + Wireless Systems + Semantic Webs + Large-Scale Heterogeneous and Distributed Systems METHODOLOGIES & IMPLEMENTATION TECHNIQUES + Agent Architectures and Multi-agent Infrastructures + Agent Learning + Agent Negotiation + Agent Trusts & Trust-based Actions + Agent Cooperation/Competition + Soft Computing (Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, GA ...) for Agents + Agent Communication + Agent Interaction/Coordination + Agent Mobility + Real-Time Agents + Agent Security and Authentication + Agent Reliability and Fault Tolerance + Agent Visualization + Distributed and Parallel Techniques for Agents and Autonomous Computing SUBMISSION: You are invited to submit papers through the http://www.aba-rd.org/ site. If the files are more than 10Mb even after zipping then please email them to the contact address below. Please use the IEEE-format with less than 7 pages for draft papers. After being reviewed, papers may be accepted in the following categories: + RESEARCH Papers for presentations (7 pages) and for posters (4 pages); + REPORT Papers for System/Software/Product descriptions, analysis, and demos (7 or 4 pages); + POSITION Papers for stating problems and issues of Challenging business scenarios (2 pages). Accepted papers of all categories will be published in the conference proceedings. FORMAT & PUBLICATION: This International Workshop consists of Technical Tracks held at several International Conferences. Our workshop papers will be published in those corresponding Conference Proceedings in hard copy (ISBN). In addition to that, we also plan to publish the revised versions of papers of ALL tracks in a book. In the past, selected papers from our previous workshops were extended and published in two journal issues: + "ASPECTS of INTERNET AGENT-BASED E-BUSINESS SYSTEMS", Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Volume 3:3-4, July-October 2003, Kluwer Publisher; http://cs.newpaltz.edu/~pham/ABA/papers/J1/ + "SOFTWARE AGENTS for BUSINESS AUTOMATION", Journal of E-commerce Research and Applications, Vol.2, N.3, July-October 2003, Elsevier Publisher. http://cs.newpaltz.edu/~pham/ABA/papers/J2/ CONFERENCE EVENTS: Our technical tracks are planned to be held at the following conferences: IKE: The 2004 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Engineering (*) IT: The 2004 International Conference on Internet Computing (*) PDPTA: The 2004 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (*) IC-AI: The 2004 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (*) KES: The 8th International Conference on Knowledge-Based & Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems, KES, September 20-24, Wellington, New Zealand. IEEE SMC: The 2004 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man & Cybernetics, October 10-13, The Hague, The Netherlands ( Conferences with (*) are among the 18 Conferences of the 2004 International MultiConference IMCSCE, June 21 - 24, Las Vegas, USA) PARTICIPATION: For the authors who may not be able to present their papers at the conference site, we plan to make post-conference on-line interactive forums & presentations (all other authors will also be invited to participate). This is for introduction, questions/answers about papers and related projects, discussions about possible cooperation ... Minutes of all discussions will be distributed to the participants. IMPORTANT DATES: February 23, 2004: Draft papers March 27, 2004: Notification of acceptance April 21, 2004: Camera-Ready papers PROGRAM COMMITTEE: ( Please visit http://www.aba-rd.org/ for an update list ) CONTACT: Dr. Hanh Pham Department of Computer Science State University of New York 75 S. Manheim Blvd. Suite 6, FOB-08 New Paltz, NY 12561, USA E-mail: aba cs newpaltz edu phamh newpaltz edu URL: http://cs.newpaltz.edu/~pham/ Tel: 1-845-257-3574 Fax: 1-845-257-3996 ------------------------------ From: "Buffett, Scott" Subject: Business Agents and the Semantic Web (BASeWEB'04) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 11:18:16 -0400 CALL FOR PAPERS Business Agents and the Semantic Web (BASeWEB'04) May 16, 2004 - London, Ontario, Canada A workshop held in conjunction with The Seventeenth Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence http://www.cs.unb.ca/baseweb/baseweb04/CFP-2004.htm Theme E-business increasingly uses Web Services or agents acting on behalf of human buyers and sellers. Such Business Agents can profit from the machine-interpretable product and service descriptions provided by the Semantic Web. Cross-fertilized techniques from AI (e.g., Intelligent Agents) and the Internet (e.g., the Semantic Web) are thus explored by numerous organizations world-wide, including W3C, OASIS, DARPA, NRC, IST, and INTAP. Web ontologies - consisting of taxonomies and/or rules - constitute the centerpiece of the new AI-Internet synthesis. This workshop addresses researchers extending Web techniques by using AI methods, or transferring AI techniques to the Web in an attempt to create intelligent business agents. The current workshop builds on previous workshops such as BASeWEB'03 and '02, Novel E-Commerce Applications of Agents and Semantic Web-based E-Commerce and Rules Markup Languages. The main goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers working on E-business, Agents, Web Systems and the Semantic Web to explore novel uses of AI techniques in the Web. Panel In addition, a panel session on "Machine Learning for Intelligent Business Agents: Successes and Challenges" will be held. This is an open session which will feature three or four leading researchers in the field. More details to follow. Topics of interest All topics related to agents and e-business are welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to: * Semantic Web approaches and architectures * Semantic Web services * Web agents for producers and consumers * E-business architectures in the Semantic Web * Business agent architectures * Knowledge management and e-business agents * Product and service codes/registries (e.g., UNSPSC/UDDI) * Description logics and web ontologies * Extended Horn logics and rule markup techniques (e.g., RuleML) * Application areas for rules (e.g., P3P, XACML, ebXML, DRM, etc.) * Belief logics and planning for multiple agents * Negotiation (bargaining, auctions and trust) * Inference engines: deduction and induction * Distributed deduction for the Semantic Web * Natural language interfaces for business agents * Adaptive business agents * Web service composition and choreography * Machine learning for adaptive systems and user modeling * Human-business agent interaction/cooperation * Lessons learned from implemented systems Workshop format The workshop will commence with some short introductory remarks by the organizers, followed by an invited talk. The main part of the session will then be devoted to presentations of submitted works. The workshop will then conclude with a panel session on issues dealing with agents in machine learning. Participation and Submissions Participation in this workshop is by invitation only and invitees must be registered for the AI2003 conference. Also attendance is limited. Therefore, in case that a selection becomes necessary, we ask researchers that just want to attend the workshop without contributing a paper to send a short email to baseweb@unb.ca expressing their particular interest in the workshop. Researchers interested in contributing a paper should send it to baseweb@unb.ca (in PDF format ONLY), up to 10 pages. Papers may already be prepared in one of the Elsevier formats. The papers will be reviewed by the program committee members. All accepted papers will be included into the workshop notes and their authors will be invited to the workshop. The objective is to cover a broad variety of concepts and contributions to the goals stated above. To facilitate a lively and interesting discussion, we will try to make all the papers available to the participants of the workshop before the workshop takes place. Workshop organizers can submit paper(s) subject to the following extra conditions: Papers will be submitted blind, i.e. given a double-blind review. None of the reviewers of those papers will be organizers of the workshop. Any decisions regarding those papers will be in camera, not including the author. After workshop activities A special issue of Computational Intelligence is being planned to feature revised workshop papers. Only authors of accepted papers will be invited to resubmit their work to this special issue. Important dates Submissions/Requests for Participation: Feb 20, 2004 Notifications of Acceptance/Invitations: Mar 17, 2004 Camera-ready paper due: April 9, 2004 Workshop: May 16, 2004 For more information, visit: http://www.cs.unb.ca/baseweb/baseweb04/CFP-2004.htm ------------------------------ From: "Jeanny S. Ryffel" Subject: Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2004) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 19:16:22 -0700 Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2004): August 29 September 1, 2004, University of Stirling, Scotland UPCOMING PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE January 31, 2004 NEW: Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their paper for publication in a special issue of the Neurocomputing Journal, published by Elsevier Science B.V. (http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/neucom) Why This Conference, and who should Attend: The science of neural computation focuses on mathematical aspects for solving complex practical problems. It also seeks to help neurology, brain theory and cognitive psychology in the understanding of the functioning of the nervous system by means of computational models of neurons, neural nets and sub-cellular processes. BICS2004 aims to become a major point of contact for research scientists, engineers and practitioners throughout the world in the fields of cognitive and computational systems inspired by the brain and biology. Participants will share the latest research, developments and ideas in the wide arena of disciplines encompassed under the heading of BICS2004: First International ICSC Symposium on Cognitive Neuro Science (CNS 2004) (from computationally inspired models to brain-inspired computation) Chair: Prof. Igor Aleksander, Imperial College London, U.K Second International ICSC Symposium on Biologically Inspired Systems (BIS 2004) Chair: Prof. Leslie Smith, University of Stirling, U.K. Third International ICSC Symposium on Neural Computation (NC'2004) Chair: Dr. Amir Hussain, University of Stirling, U.K. http://www.icsc-naiso.org/conferences/bics2004/bics-cfp.html ------------------------------ From: Lukasz Kurgan Subject: ICMLA '04: 3rd Int'l Conf. on Machine Learning and Applications Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 19:45:04 -0700 Call for Papers ICMLA '04: The Third International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications Sponsored/Co-sponsored by the IEEE SMC, the ACM SIGKDD, Association for ML and Applications, and University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky December 16-18 2004 http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~icmla/icmla04/ (Papers Due: June 4, 2004) AIMS AND SCOPE ICMLA'04 aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to present the latest achievements and innovations in the area of machine learning (ML). The conference provides a leading international forum for the dissemination of original research in ML, with emphasis on applications, novel algorithms, software and systems. For the third time the conference attracts researchers and application developers from a wide range of ML related areas such as statistical, probabilistic, fuzzy, evolutionary, inductive, and other kinds of learning, data mining, knowldge discovery, pattern recognition, knowledge acquisition and retrieval, databases, data warehousing and visualization, knowledge-based systems and high performance computing. The main goal of the conference is to advance the state of the art in ML via promotion of high quality and novel research. TOPICS Topics related to the design, development, analysis, implementation of ML theory, systems, and applications are of interest. These include, but are not limited to the following areas: - multistrategy learning - statistical learning - neural network learning - learning through fuzzy logic - learning through evolution - evolutionary algorithms) - bayesian network - case-based reasoning - evolutionary computation - reinforcement learning - ML of natural language - grammatical inference - knowledge discovery in DBs - knowledge intensive learning - knowledge representation - knowledge reasoning - information retrieval&learning- plausible reasoning - cooperative learning - planning and learning - multi-agent learning - web navigation and mining - learning through mobile DM - online and incremental learning - inductive learning - inductive logic programming - support vector machines - computational learning theory - cognitive-modeling - hybrid algorithms - knowledge acquisition and learning - scalability of learning algorithms - learning through text and multimedia mining - distributed and parallel learning algorithms and applications - feature extraction and classification - machine learning in science and engineering, game playing and problem solving, intelligent virtual environments, medicine, biology and bioinformatics, homeland security applications, and industrial applications IMPORTANT DATES Regular Research Papers due : June 4, 2004 Notification of acceptance : September 4, 2004 Camera-ready papers & Pre-registration : October 1, 2004 The ICMLA Conference : December 16-18, 2004 All paper submissions will be handled electronically. Detailed instructions are provided on the conference home page at http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~icmla/icmla04/ SUBMISSIONS High quality papers in all ML areas are solicited. Papers that present new directions will receive especially careful and supportive reviews. Authors are expected to ensure that their final manuscripts are original and are not appearing in the other publications. Paper submissions should be limited to a maximum of 8 pages, and will be reviewed by the Program Committee on the basis of technical quality, originality, significance, and clarity. All submissions will be handled electronically. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, as a hardcopy. A selected number of accepted papers will be invited for possible inclusion, in an expanded and revised form, in a journal. ICMLA'04 Best Paper Awards will be conferred at the conference on the authors of the best research paper. SPECIAL SESSIONS, WORKSHOPS and TUTORIALS We invite the submission of proposals for special sessions, workshops and tutorials. Proposals to organize such sessions should include the following information: - name and address of the proposer(s) - title of the session - description of the session (see further details below) Each special session will have at least six paper presentations. The special session chairs will be responsible for soliciting the papers, reviewing, and making final decisions, in consultation with the conference chairs. The description of the session should include a short description on how the session will be advertised. Proposals to organize tutorials or workshops should be 1-5 pages long and should include a definition of the scope of coverage. Special sessions will be open to all participants. Due date for the submission of proposals: - Special sessions May 7, 2004 - Workshops and Tutorials May 7, 2004 Email your proposal to the Workshops, Tutorials & Special Sessions Chair Dr. Alan Sprague (sprague@cis.uab.edu). FURTHER INFORMATION Dr. Mariofanna (Fani) Milanova, Progaram Chair Associate Professor Donaghey College of Information Science and Systems Engineering Computer Science Department Dickinson Hall, Room 515 University of Arkansas at Little Rock 2801 S. University Ave., Little Rock, Arkansas 72204-1099 E-mail: mgmilanova@ualr.edu For up-to-date information consult the conference web site at http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~icmla/icmla04/ ------------------------------ From: Isabelle Bichindaritz Subject: 2nd Workshop on CBR in the Health Sciences @ ECCBR 2004 Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 21:45:51 -0800 (PST) Workshop on CBR in the Health Sciences The Seventh European Conference on Case-Based Reasoning (ECCBR-04) Madrid, Spain August 31, 2004 Call for Papers Health sciences applications have been central to CBR ever since its early days. New directions, including CBR integration, synergies between CBR and knowledge discovery, enabling home health care technologies, and bioinformatics applications, keep this a vital and exciting domain for CBR research. The goals of this workshop are to: * provide a forum for identifying important contributions and opportunities for research on the application of CBR to the health sciences * promote the systematic study of how to apply CBR to the health sciences * showcase applications of CBR in the health sciences Some of the technical issues addressed, and potential outcomes of the workshop, are to identify preferred types and domains of applications, challenges specific to applying CBR to the health sciences, and guidelines to better develop CBR systems in this domain. This workshop builds upon progress made at the First Workshop on CBR in the Health Sciences, which was held at ICCBR-03, in Trondheim, Norway. In addition, the authors of the best submissions will be invited to expand and refine their papers for publication in a special issue of the journal Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (Elsevier) on Case-Based Reasoning in the Health Sciences. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Integration of CBR in health care environments * CBR in medical decision-support systems * CBR in medical imaging * CBR in enabling technologies for those with physical disabilities or chronic health problems * CBR and knowledge discovery in medicine and the health sciences * Cognitive approaches to applying CBR to medicine * Theoretical framework for CBR in medical reasoning * CBR in bioinformatics * CBR and evidence-based medicine Paper presentations will be interspersed with discussions in which we characterize, categorize, and discuss the benefits of specific CBR applications in the health sciences. A wrap-up round table discussion will summarize the lessons learnt, issues identified, and future directions. Review Process Papers will be reviewed by the organizing committee for relevance, significance, technical soundness and depth, and readability. We will not accept papers that are exact duplicates of others, but we welcome papers that are modifications of them that focus on CBR in the Health Sciences. For example, submissions summarizing previously published material relating to this workshop's topic are welcomed. In your submissions and finalized papers, please cite the other publication and indicate clearly its relationship to this workshop's paper. Submission Requirements PostScript (compressed and uuencoded) or PDF paper submissions should be formatted according to Springer LNCS format, with a maximum of ten pages. Author's instructions along with LaTeX and Word macro files are available on the web at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html Please upload submissions to the electronic submission site: http://faculty.washington.edu/ibichind/eccbr04wk/submission or Email submissions to: Isabelle Bichindaritz at ibichind@u.washington.edu. Important Dates * Submission Deadline: May 7, 2004 * Notification Date: June 7, 2004 * Camera-Ready Deadline: July 9, 2004 * Workshop Date: August 31, 2004 Workshop Web Site Information about this Workshop is available at http://oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu/~marling/eccbr04/workshop.html ------------------------------ From: "Casa2004" Subject: CASA2004: Computer Animation and Social Agents 2004 Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:23:43 +0100 COMPUTER ANIMATION AND SOCIAL AGENTS 2004 CALL FOR PAPERS Geneva-Switzerland: July 7-9, 2004 Important Dates: April 9, 2004 Paper Submission Deadline May 7, 2004 Papers Notification May 17, 2004 Camera Ready Papers to the Publisher July 7-9, 2004 Start of CASA2004 The COMPUTER GRAPHICS SOCIETY (CGS) is pleased to announce the 17th annual conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA2004), held at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, July 7-9, organized by MIRALab with the support of IFIP WG5.10 (Computer Graphics and Virtual Worlds). http://casa2004.miralab.unige.ch/ The topics of interest in Computer Animation and Social Agents 2004 Animation Techniques a. Motion Control b. Motion capture and retargeting c. Path planning d. Physics-based animation e. Vision techniques in animation f. Behavioral animation g. Artificial life h. Image rendering in animation i. Deformable Models j. Facial Animation Social agents a. Social agents and avatars b. Emotions and personality c. Simulation involving Virtual Humans d. Autonomous characters and actors e. A.I. - based animation f. Social and Conversational agents g. Interagent communication h. Modeling of groups and crowds i. Social behavior j. Autonomous Virtual Humans in games Virtual Environments a. Medical 3D simulation b. Simulation involving Virtual Humans c. Virtual Cultural Heritage d. Autonomous characters and actors e. VCE (Virtual Collaborative Environments) f. A.I. - based animation g. Virtual reality h. Interaction with Virtual Humans i. Augmented Reality j. Perceptual models k. Virtual Sensors Paper Submission Procedures Submissions are made electronically, in PDF format only (no paper copy will be accepted) at casa2004.miralab.unige.ch/submit.html. All accepted papers will appear in a special issue of the Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds (formally JVCA) published by John Wiley. Paper Format Original unpublished papers of up to 12 pages (single-spaced, 12 point, including figures, tables and references) are invited. Manuscripts must be written in English. The first part of the paper should include a title, an abstract, keywords, and author's information (name, title, affiliation, address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address). Submission will be online and there will be instructions on the web Any animation sequences should be uploaded as an archive .zip file with your manuscript. Send Queries to Secretariat CASA2004 Email: casa2004@miralab.unige.ch Fax: +41 22 7057780 Website: casa2004.miralab.unige.ch ------------------------------ From: Damian Lopez Subject: ECAI 2004 Workshop on Symbolic Networks Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:39:11 +0100 (CET) ECAI 2004 Workshop on Symbolic Networks Valencia (Spain) August 22-24, 2004 Call for Papers (http://www.dsic.upv.es/users/tlcc/wsn.html) Scope and areas of interest Symbolic networks are mathematic constructions in which the information is represented mainly by strings or multisets of abstract symbols and it is processed in a cooperative, distributed, and/or parallel manner. The interest of this kind of architectures in Artificial Intelligence has been always maintained in different research areas such as temporal logics, belief networks or generalized semantic networks, with special emphasis in applications such as natural language processing and pattern recognition. Here, we propose a workshop focused in this kind of formal architectures inspired by different theories ( mainly biology, computability and control processing). The scope of this workshop is summarized in different topics such as, but not restricted to: - "Bioinspired" architectures (tissue P systems and other variants of P system networks, DNA based networks, etc) - Networks of evolutionary processors - Neural networks (specially Siegelmann's artificial recurrent neural networks and McCulloch-Pitts neural networks) - Other architectures and related topologies. Interest of the workshop Recent advances in symbolic networks, mainly motivated by biological computation and further research in formal language and complexity theory, make them a front-end topic in computation theory and of increasing interest in AI. For instance, membrane computing, as a branch of natural computing, is a fast developing area (see http://psystems.disco.unimib.it), with motivations coming both from cell biology and from neural nets structure and functioning. The topics that we propose in the workshop and its scope have been part of several conferences devoted to Artificial Intelligence, Evolutionary computation, Unconventional computing, DNA computing, etc. We mention only a few of these conferences: International Work-conference on Artificial and Natural Neural Networks (IWANN), Genetic Computation Conference (GECCO), International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN), DNA Based Computing, Unconventional Models of Computation (UMC), the series of Workshops on Membrane Computing (WMC), not to speak about the many conferences on theoretical computer science. There also are several journals where these topics have been exposed in many papers: Future Generation Computer Systems, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, New Generation Computing, Natural Computing, Soft Computing are only some of them. Important dates Submission deadline: April 5, 2004 Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2004 Final version for the Pre-Proceedings: May 17, 2004 Workshop: August 22,23 or 24, 2004 Submission Procedure Interested participants are requested to submit their papers in PDF or Postscript. Papers should not exceed 15 pages according to a4paper, 11pt, article LaTeX style. Submissions should be electronically made to the workshop chair: Dr. José M. Sempere. Departamento de Sistemas Informáticos y Computación Universidad Politécnica de Valencia Valencia (Spain) email: jsempere@dsic.upv.es ------------------------------ From: Massimo Felici Subject: COMPSAC 2004 Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 17:06:07 GMT COMPSAC 2004 The 28th IEEE Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference September 27-30, 2OO4 Hong Kong http://rachel.utdallas.edu/compsac COMPSAC is a major international forum for researchers, practitioners, managers, and policy makers interested in computer software and applications. It was first held in Chicago in 1977, and since then it has been one of the major forums for academia, industry, and government to discuss the state of art, new advances, and future trends in software technologies and practices. The technical program includes keynote addresses, research papers, industrial case studies, panel discussions and fast abstracts. It also includes a number of workshops on emerging important topics. The major theme will be DEVELOPING TRUSTWORTHY SOFTWARE SYSTEMS IMPORTANT DATES January 15, 2004: Deadline for workshop and panel proposals January 30, 2004: Notification for workshop/panel organizers March 15, 2004: Deadline for regular and workshop paper submissions May 20, 2004: Notification for authors of regular and workshop papers June 30, 2004: Deadline for camera-ready copies of accepted regular For more detailed information of the program, including the submissions of various proposals and papers, please refer to http://rachel.utdallas.edu/compsac ------------------------------ From: Martin Butz Subject: Workshop on Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 09:32:09 -0600 (CST) C A L L F O R P A P E R S ABiALS Workshop 2004 Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems July 17th 2004 Los Angeles, CA, USA http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/ABiALS to be held during the eighth international conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'04) http://www.isab.org/sab04/ ABiALS is an interdisciplinary workshop investigating the influence of anticipations on behavior and learning. ABiALS is designed to help understand how anticipations can influence and guide behavior and learning as well as how anticipatory influences can be implemented in an adaptive behavior system. Submission deadline: 31. March 2004 Objectives Anticipatory behavior is a mechanism, or a behavior, that does not only depend on the past and present but also on predictions, expectations, or beliefs about the future. The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers that are interested in such anticipatory mechanisms and essentially anticipatory adaptive behavior. It is aimed for an interdisciplinary gathering that brings together researchers from distinct areas so as to discuss the different guises that anticipation takes in these different perspectives. After a very successful workshop on Anticipatory Behavior at SAB 2002, resulting in the Springer-Verlag LNCS 2684 State-of-the-Art survey named after the workshop, we are interested in building upon that initiative emphasizing the exploitation of anticipations in learning and planning. Previous work on anticipatory behavior has concentrated more on the learning of environmental models, especially online generalized model learning. Up to now though, exploitation of the model has been done mainly to show that exploitation is possible or that an appropriate model exists in the first place. Only very few applications exist that show the utility of the model for the simulation of anticipatory processes and consequent adaptive behavior. However, the exploitation of the model and the interaction of learning and behavior by the means of the model is the most promising and important area for future research. Essential Questions - How can anticipations be exploited to improve planning? - How can anticipations be exploited to direct or speed-up learning? - Which social agent interactions can be improved by the means of anticipatory behavior? - How do anticipations influence attention? - How can anticipations improve the adaptive behavior of an artificial learning system? - How can anticipatory adaptive behavior be implemented in an artificial learning system? - How does an incomplete predictive model influence anticipatory behavior? - How do anticipations guide further model learning? - Can anticipations be used for the detection of special environmental properties? - What role do anticipations play for the implementation of motivations and emotions? - What is the trade-off between simple bottom-up stimulus-response driven behavior and more top-down anticipatory driven behavior? - In what respect does anticipation mediate between low-level environmental processing and more complex cognitive simulation? - Which anticipatory mechanisms can be distinguished? Which are the benefits/drawbacks of the different mechanisms? Submission: Submissions for the workshop should address or at least be related to one of the questions listed above. However, other approaches to anticipatory adaptive behavior are encouraged as well. The workshop is not limited to one particular type of anticipatory learning system or a particular representation of anticipations. However, the learning system should learn its anticipatory representation online rather than being provided by a model of the world beforehand. Since this is a full day workshop, we hope to be able to provide more time for presentations and discussions. In that way, the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning systems should become clearer. It is also aimed for several discussion sessions in which anticipatory influences will be discussed in a broader sense. Papers will be reviewed for acceptance by the program committee and the organizers. Papers should be submitted electronically to one of the organizers via email in pdf or ps format. Electronic submission is strongly encouraged. If you cannot submit your contribution electronically, please contact one of the organizers. Submitted papers should have a maximal length of ten pages in 10pt, one-column format. Please use the LNCS Springer-Verlag style as specified at http://www.springeronline.com/comp/lncs/authors.html (LATEX utilities can be found in the file llncs2e.zip). Submission deadline is the 31st of MARCH 2004. Dependent on the quality and number of contributions we will publish Post Workshop proceedings as either a Springer LNAI volume or a special issue of a journal. For more information please refer to http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/ABiALS/ Important Dates: 31.March 2004: Deadline for Submissions 15. May 2004: Notification of Acceptance 10. June 2004: Camera Ready Version for SAB Workshop Proceedings 17. July 2004: Workshop ABiALS ------------------------------ From: "Max Bramer" Subject: First IFIP Conference on AI Applications and Innovations Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:25:10 -0000 AIAI 2004 First IFIP Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations http://www.ifiptc12.org/ Toulouse, France August, 22-27, 2004 The AIAI Conference is an integral session in the IFIP World Computer Congress program. All submissions will be reviewed by an international Program Committee. All accepted papers will appear in the official IFIP Conference Proceedings published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. AIAI will bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners. AIAI will interest researchers, IT professionals and consultants by examining technologies and applications of demonstrable value. AIAI will focus on profitable intelligent systems and technologies. Submission [1] February 9th 2004 -- Email a plain text abstract of your paper including the title, authors, abstract and email contact to: abstracts@ifiptc12.org [2] February 16, 2004 -- Submit your full paper to the conference web site: http://www.wcc2004.org/ Submitted papers must be original, unpublished, and not submitted to another journal or conference for consideration of publication. Papers must be written in English; they should be at most 10 pages long in total, including bibliography, in the Kluwer format [http://www.wkap.com/ifip/styles/]. [NB: some copies of the printed IFIP brochure ask for 16 pages - that is a misprint.] Accepted papers will be presented at the conference, as either oral or poster presentations, and published in the official IFIP conference proceedings by Kluwer Academic Publishers. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register with the conference and to present the paper. Call for Papers [Deadlines: abstracts February 9, 2004; full papers February 16, 2004] AIAI focuses on real world applications; therefore authors should highlight the benefits of AI technology for industry and services. Novel approaches to solving business and industrial problems, using AI, will emerge from this conference. Papers describing advanced prototypes, systems, tools and techniques and general survey papers indicating future directions are also encouraged. Papers describing original work are invited in any of the areas listed below. Acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality, and, above all, on the practical value of the work. Both full research papers and professional work-in-progress reports are welcome. There will be both oral and poster presentations. - Industrial Applications of Artificial Intelligence - Intelligent Decision Support Systems - Integration of AI with other Technologies - Evaluation of AI Systems - AI Languages, Programming Techniques and Tools - Knowledge Acquisition - Expert Knowledge-based Systems - Fuzzy Logic and Plausible Inference - Neural Networks - Evolutionary Computation and Algorithms - Speech and Natural Language Interfaces - Machine Vision - Intelligent Information Retrieval - Genetic Algorithms - Planning and Scheduling - Bayesian Networks and Stochastic Reasoning - Evolutionary Programming - Learning and Adaptive Systems - Intelligent Agents - Distributed AI Algorithms, Techniques, and Applications - Distributed AI Systems and Architectures - Intelligent Tutoring Systems - Structured and Unstructured Datamining - Case-Based Reasoning Systems - Hardware and Robotics - Social Impact, Acceptance and Implications of AI - Intelligent Systems Engineering and Design Methodologies - Ontologies and Semantic Web - Knowledge and Information Management - Business Process Management and Enterprise Portals - Organisational Memory Knowledge Systems - Inter-organisational KM portals - KM, E-Learning and Enterprise Portals For more information, visit http://www.ifiptc12.org/ ------------------------------ From: kuenstliche.intelligenz@informatik.uni-ulm.de (Dept AI Uni Ulm) Subject: KI2004 - Call for Workshop Proposals Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:24:10 +0100 (CET) 27th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence KI2004 CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS September 20-24, Ulm, Germany The Programme Committee invites proposals for workshops to be held at KI-2004. The workshops are intended to offer the opportunity for the in-depth discussion of specific topics and the informal exchange of novel ideas in an inspiring atmosphere. Workshop proposals from all subfields of Artificial Intelligence are invited. Workshops may be held in German or English. Proposal Submission: Anyone wishing to organize a workshop is asked to email a proposal (in plain text or pdf format and up to three pages) not later than by February 16, 2004, to the Workshop Chair. Proposals should provide the following information: * TITLE of the proposed workshop. * Description of the workshop CONTENTS (the issues on which it concentrates, its main goals, its relevance, and its target audience). * Description of workshop FORMAT (plans for the workshop agenda, intended workshop length - typically half-day or full-day -, and planned events such as invited talks, panels and discussion forums). * Description of the workshop ORGANIZATION (organizational schedule, plans for encouraging submissions and selecting papers, strategies for recruiting participants, and other ideas on how to increase the workshop's attractiveness). * Full contact address of the PRIMARY WORKSHOP ORGANIZER (name, email address, postal address, phone, and fax number). * Members of the ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, if available (names, email addresses, and postal addresses). * ESTIMATED NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS and, if available, list of TENTATIVELY CONFIRMED ATTENDEES. Contact: Please send any inquiries concerning workshop proposals to the Workshop Chair: PD Dr. Michael Beetz Institut für Informatik IX Technische Universität München Boltzmannstr. 3 85748 Garching b. München Tel: 089 289-17759 Fax: 089 289-17757 E-mail: beetzm@in.tum.de Further information is available on the conference website: http://ki2004.uni-ulm.de ------------------------------ From: "Its" Subject: ITS 2004: 7th Int'l Conf. on Intelligent Tutoring Systems Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:19:56 -0500 Call for Participation www.itsconference.org/2004/ ITS 2004 The Seventh International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems August 30 - September 3, 2004 Maceio, Brazil FIRST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Submissions Due: March 15, 2004 www.itsconference.org/2004/ The Seventh International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2004) provides a leading international forum for the dissemination of original results in the design, implementation,and evaluation of intelligent tutoring systems. The conference draws researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from artificial intelligence and cognitive science to pedagogy and educational psychology. Continuing in the rich tradition of previous ITS conferences, ITS 2004 will bring togethe scientists, developers, and parishioners from all areas of intelligent tutoring systems. ITS 2004 will be held in Macei=F3, Brazil, which is known as "The Wate Paradise" of Brazil's beautiful northeastern coastline. The conference site will be the Meli=E1 Hotel, which is located by the Jatiuca Beach sea shore. The week's events consist of tutorials, workshops, advanced seminars, open forums, tasks forces and plenary lectures, in addition to the daily presentation of accepted manuscripts describing innovative research and development in ITS. Areas of Interest Original papers related to the design, implementation, and evaluation of intelligent tutoring systems are solicited. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following: * Adaptive Hypermedia * Affect and Models of Emotion * Agent-based Tutoring Systems * Architectures * Assessment * Authoring Systems * Case-Based Reasoning Systems * Cognitive Modeling * Collaborative Learning * Distributed Learning Environments * Electronic Commerce and Learning * Evaluation of Instructional Systems * Human Factors and Interface Design * Instructional Design * Instructor Networking * Intelligent Agents * Intelligent Web-Based Learning * Intelligent Multimedia Systems * Internet Environments * Knowledge Acquisition * Knowledge Construction * Knowledge Representation * Learning Environments * Machine Learning in ITS * Natural Language and Discourse * Pedagogical Planning * Situated Learning * Speech and Dialogue Systems * Student Modeling * Training * Virtual reality * Wireless and Mobile Learning Conference Proceedings and Paper Submission Guidelines Proceedings of the conference will be published by Springer Verlag in its Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Papers must describe original and unpublished work; papers currently under review at other conferences or journals cannot be considered for publication at ITS 2004. Papers may not exceed 5000 words. All submissions will be handled electronically. Complete submission guidelines will be provided on the conference website: www.itsconference.org/2004/ Submissions are due March 15, 2004. For more information, visit http://www.itsconference.org/2004/ ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC'2004 DEADLINE SUBMISSION EXTENSION UNTIL FEBRUARY 7, 2004 Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 06:10:30 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. *CEC'2004 DEADLINE SUBMISSION EXTENSION UNTIL FEBRUARY 7th, 2004* Because of many requests, the deadline for the CEC'2004 submission has been extended until Saturday, February 7th, 2004. This applies both to regular and special session submissions. Please submit your (regular or special session) paper electronically through http://cec2004.org 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation June 19-23, 2004 Portland, Oregon, USA General Chair: Garrison Greenwod, Portland State University Program Chair: Gary Fogel, Natural Selection, Inc. Check out http://cec2004.org for the latest information on the 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation Conference held right here in Portland, Oregon! ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Learning and Approximation in Design Optimization Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:23:22 -0500 CEC Special Session: Learning and Approximation in Design Optimization More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#LADO Bernhard Sendhoff and Yaochu Jin Honda Research Institute Europe Carl-Legien-Str.30 63073 Offenbach/Main Germany Design optimization has become one of the primary areas of application of evolutionary computation in recent years. One of the essential difficulties in applying evolutionary algorithms to design optimization of complex systems is the time-consuming fitness evaluations. To alleviate this difficulty, computationally efficient approximate models, also known as meta-models have successfully been employed to assist evolutionary algorithms. Domain knowledge acquired by learning, a priori expert knowledge as well as human decisions have been incorporated in evolutionary optimization for performance and efficiency improvement. Hybrid approaches combining traditional methods like design of experiments with evolutionary algorithms have also shown promising results. This special session is dedicated to learning and approximation in evolutionary computation, and applications of evolutionary computation to design optimization. Topics include but are not limited to: * off-line and on-line learning for approximate model construction, * domain knowledge extraction and reuse, * comparison of different modeling and learning techniques, * design of 2D or 3D aerodynamic structures, mechanical structures, * and multi-disciplinary and multi-physics processes, * important issues arisen in design optimization, such as choice of representation, search for robust solutions, handling of noise, and multi-objectivity, * multi-level evolutionary optimization, experimental design * optimization * parallelization of existing algorithms for design optimization ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:21:13 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization Carlos A. Coello Coello More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#EMOO Most real-world problems have several (and normally conflicting) objectives that have to be satisfied at the same time. Problems involving the simultaneous optimization of two or more objective functions are called "multiobjective" and are very common in practical applications. Vilfredo Pareto stated in 1896 a concept (known today as "Pareto optimum") that constitutes the origin of research in multiobjective optimization (although the original concept of "compromise" solution can be traced back to the work of Edgeworth). According to this concept, the solution to a multiobjective optimization problem is normally not a single value, but instead a set of values (also called the Pareto set). The interest of applying evolutionary computation techniques to multiobjective optimization dates back to the 1960s, with Rosenberg's doctoral dissertation, although the first actual implementations are relatively recent (from the mid 1980s). One of the reasons why evolutionary algorithms are so suitable for multiobjective optimization is because they can generate a whole set of solutions (the Pareto optimal set) in a single run rather than requiring an iterative process like traditional mathematical programming techniques. The interest on Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization (EMO) is reflected by the high volume of publications in this topic in the last few years (almost 70 PhD theses, more than 320 journal papers, and more than 840 conference papers). The main aim of this special session is to bring together both experts and newcomers working on EMO to discuss different issues including (among others) the following: * Real-world applications of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms * Test functions for EMOO algorithms * New EMO techniques (either evolutionary or based on other heuristics such as particle swarm optimization, differential evolution, cultural algorithms, etc.) * Metrics for EMO algorithms * Techniques to keep diversity in the population of a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm * Comparative studies * Theoretical aspects of EMO algorithms * Hybrid techniques (e.g., with mathematical programming approaches) * Parallel issues of EMO algorithms * Dimensionality analysis (e.g., techniques to deal with a high number of objectives and/or decision variables) Carlos A. Coello Coello Seccion de Computacion Depto. de Ing. Electrica Av. IPN No. 2508 Col. San Pedro Zacatenco Mexico, D.F. 07300 MEXICO email: ccoello@cs.cinvestav.mx Phone: +52 55 5061 3800 x 6564 Fax: +52 55 5061 3757 ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Theoretical Foundations of Evolutionary Computation Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 06:14:42 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session: Theoretical Foundations of Evolutionary Computation Dr. Jun He , Dr. Xin Yao , and Dr. Qingfu Zhang More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#TFEC It has been recognised in the evolutionary computation (EC) community that EC theory is lagging behind applications. However, progresses have been made in recent years on a number of theoretical topics, e.g., convergence of evolutionary algorithms (EAs), (local) convergence rate of EAs, computational complexity of EAs, modified schema theorems, fitness landscape analysis, etc. This special session aims at bringing researchers who are interested in the theory of EAs together to review the current state-of-art, exchange the latest ideas and explore future directions. The major topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * Time complexity of EAs. * Impact of different genetic operators (crossover, mutation, selection, etc.) on the performance of EAs. * Impact of population size on the computational time of EAs. * Convergence analysis of EAs for optimisation problems. * Any other theoretical issues in EAs. Dr. Jun He and Dr. Xin Yao School of Computer Science The University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK Dr. Qingfu Zhang Department of Computer Science University of Essex Wivenhoe Park, Colchester C04 3SQ, UK ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computing in Finance and Economics Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 06:12:07 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session: Evolutionary Computing in Finance and Economics Edward Tsang, Shu-Heng Chen, Jerry Korczak, and Sheri Markose More information at: http://cswww.essex.ac.uk/CSP/finance/Call_for_submissions-CEC2004.html Evolutionary computation has been established as a useful tool for studying economics and finance. Example applications include financial forecasting, real and artificial stock markets creation, micro-behaviour analysis, stock trading and portfolio optimization, market dynamics, game theory, risk analysis and many other areas. All of these areas are built on firm economic foundations. However, the applicability of most economic theories is limited by their simplifying assumptions. Advances in computing, in both hardware and algorithms, enable researchers to study economics and finance with a completely different approach. For example, one can seriously attempt to recognize patterns in complex systems, simulate complex agents' behaviour in market environments, study the interaction of complex strategies, study algorithmic strategies in game theory, analyze volatility in financial markets, etc. This session will accept papers in evolutionary computation applications in economics and finance, including, but not limited to, the above mentioned areas. Edward Tsang Dept. of Computer Science The University of Essex Colchester, UK Email: edward@essex.ac.uk Phone: +44 1206 872774 Fax: +44 1206 872788 Shu-Heng Chen AI-Econ Research Center, Dept. of Economics Nationall Chengchi University, Taiwan Email: chchen@nccu.edu.tw Jerzy Korczak Laboratoire des science de l'image de l'informatique et de la teledetection (LSIIT), France Email: jjk@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Design Automation Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:48:33 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Design Automation Dr. Giovanni Squillero More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#EDA The special session would show the developments in the field of evolutionary algorithms applied to hardware optimization. This will be highlighted from different perspectives like the use of simulation based optimization in design automation, or evolvable hardware. The topic is considered very relevant in these days. IEEE publishes more than 20 papers each year where evolutionary techniques are exploited to solve design automation problems. Concurrently, the field of evolutionary computation reveals a significant interest in evolvable hardware and problems such as routing, placement, or test pattern generation. The session would cover all evolutionary computation techniques applied to design automation, including (but not limited to): * Analog circuit design * Automatic test pattern generation * Built-in self test * Evolvable hardware * Floorplanning * Hardware/Software codesign * Logic synthesis * Routing * Test program generation Dr. Giovanni Squillero Politecnico di Torino Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 10129 Torino ITALY Tel: +39-011564.7092 Fax: +39-011564.7099 ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:51:05 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments Dr. Shengxiang Yang and Juergen Branke More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#EODE Many real-world optimization problems are non-deterministic and subject to changes over time, either with respect to the objective function, the decision variables, some environmental parameters, or a combination thereof. For dynamic optimization problems, the goal of an optimization algorithm is no longer to find a (stationary) optimal solution, but instead to continuously track the optimum in the dynamic environment. This presents serious challenges to traditional optimization techniques as well as conventional evolutionary algorithms. In recent years, solving dynamic optimization problems has received an increasing interest from the evolutionary computation community. A variety of approaches have been developed to address this issue. The special session aims at bringing together researchers from academia and industry to review the most recent advances, exchange latest ideas and explore future directions in the field of EAs for dynamic optimization problems. Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to): * Benchmark problems and performance measures * Dynamic multi-objective optimization * Adaptation, learning, and anticipation * Search for robust solutions * Comparative studies * Hybrid approaches * Theoretical analysis * Real-world applications Dr. Shengxiang Yang Department of Computer Science University of Leicester University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, U.K. Tel: +44(0)116 252 5341 Fax: +44(0)116 252 3915 WWW: http://www.cs.le.ac.uk/~syang Juergen Branke Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany Tel: +49 (721) 608-6585 Fax: +49 (721) 693717 WWW: http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/~jbr/ ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Biomolecular Computation Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:53:16 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Biomolecular Computation John A. Rose and Max H. Garzon and Byoung-Tak Zhang More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#BC Biomolecular computing is a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field, which focuses on the development, application, and discovery of biopolymer-based techniques for applications in computation, biotechnology and bioinformatics. Papers are sought in all areas relating to biomolecular computing, including (but not restricted to) * Applications of biomolecular algorithms * Biotechnology and other applications * Computational processes in vivo and in vitro * DNA machines and bio-devices * DNA self-assembly * Error estimation and control * Information encoding on DNA (e.g., sequence design) * Software tools for simulation, analyses, and evaluation * Theoretical models and analyses Of particular interest are submissions reporting experimental and/or simulation results and papers exploring applications, both in vitro and in vivo. All submissions will be peer reviewed by referees expert in the topic. Accepted papers will be invited for presentation, and will be included for publication in the CEC 2004 proceedings. Publication requires at least one author to register for and attend CEC 2004 in order to present the accepted work. People with little experience in the field can benefit from a companion tutorial, where an introduction to the field and recent developments will be surveyed. John A. Rose Computer Science/Bioinformatics University of Tokyo 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunko-ku Tokyo, Japan email: johnrose@is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp Max H. Garzon Computer Science The University of Memphis Memphis, TN 38152 USA email: mgarzon@memphis.edu Byoung-Tak Zhang School of Comptuter Science and Engineering Seoul National University Seoul 151-742, Korea E-mail: btzhang@cse.snu.ac.kr ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computation in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:51:09 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Computation in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Dr René Thomsen More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#ECBCB Bioinformatics and computational biology present a number of difficult optimization problems with large search spaces. Recent applications of evolutionary computation in this area suggest that they are well-suited to this area of research. This special session will highlight applications of evolutionary computation to a broad range of topics including drug docking, protein folding, sequence alignment, genomics, proteomics, metabolics, medicine, and ecological modeling. Particular interest will be directed towards novel applications of evolutionary computation to problems in these areas. Dr René Thomsen BiRC - Bioinformatics Research Center Department of Computer Science University of Aarhus Ny Munkegade, Building 540 DK-8000 Aarhus C Denmark Tel: (+45) 89423130 Fax: (+45) 89423077 ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computation and Games Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 08:56:22 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Computation and Games Graham Kendall and Simon Lucas More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#ECG Games provide an ideal environment for the study of evolutionary algorithms as they provide competitive and dynamic environments and are interesting to observe. Games also represent an important application of evolutionary computation, and there are fascinating challenges between various classes of player, such as human, pre-programmed, and evolved. Papers are invited for this special session which aims to bring together leading researchers and practitioners in the study of this area. Topics include (but are not limited to) evolutionary aspects of the following: * Co-Evolution in Games * Comparative studies: e.g. evolved players versus human-designed players versus other learning algorithms. * Cooperative Learning in Games * Theoretical or empirical analysis of evolutionary algorithms and Representations * Evolutionary Game Theory * Games involving control of physical objects (e.g. Remote Control Car Racing) * Evolutionary Multi-Agent and Multi-Strategy Learning * Games involving complex physics (e.g. Tennis) * Prey / Predator games (e.g. Pacman) * Economics or mathematical games (e.g. Auctions, Prisoners Dilemma) * Games involving chance (e.g. Backgammon, Poker) * Evolutionary games for mobile platforms (phones, PDAs) * Evolving AI for console games Submission: Papers should follow the formatting guidelines for CEC2004 regular papers, and should be submitted through the conference website (http://cec2004.org). Submissions should be in PDF format and should not exceed 8 pages in length. This includes all figures, tables, graphs, photos, and bibliography entries. However, they will be treated in the same way as regular papers, and included in the conference proceedings. Please double check the printed appearance of your paper before sending it. Graham Kendall, University of Nottingham, UK gxk@cs.nott.ac.uk Simon Lucas, University of Essex, UK sml@essex.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Computation in Cryptology and Computer Security Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:16:16 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Computation in Cryptology and Computer Security Julio Cesar Hernandez and Pedro Isasi More information at: http://tracer.uc3m.es/cec2004ss.html Techniques taken from the field of Evolutionary Computation (specially Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming, but also others) are steadily becoming more and more present in the area of cryptology and computer security. In recent years, algorithms which take advantage of approaches based on Evolutionary Computation have been proposed, for example, in the design and analysis of a number of new cryptographic primitives, ranging from pseudorandom number generators to block ciphers, in the cryptanalysis of state-of-the-art cryptosystems, and in the detection of network attacking patterns, to name a few. There is a growing interest from the computer security community towards Evolutionary Computation techniques, as a result of these recent successes, but there still are a number of open problems in the field that should be addressed. This special session will try to do it by asking for submissions in all areas of evolutionary computation dealing with applications to computer security, and by giving the interested researchers an opportunity to review the current state-of-art of the topic, exchange recent ideas, and explore promising new directions. Pedro Isasi Artificial Intelligence Group Carlos III University Avda. Universidad, 30 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain Tel: +34 91 624 94 55 Fax: +34 91 624 91 29 Julio Cesar Hernandez Computer Security Group Carlos III University Avda. Universidad, 30 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain Tel: +34 91 624 94 99 Fax: +34 91 624 91 29 ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Design Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:14:21 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Design Ian Parmee More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#ED The intention of the Special Session is to explore the integration of evolutionary search, exploration and optimization across a wide spectrum of design activities. The session intends to investigate the manner in which evolutionary computation can be utilized to generate design concepts and achieve meaningful designs in addition to more standard evolutionary optimization processes. The manner in which EC can be utilized to support decision-making and innovation during preliminary design and novel EC strategies and problem representations that best handle design complexity and support of human-centred aspects are also of interest. It is likely that the development and integration of appropriate evolutionary computing strategies may focus upon engineering and architectural design. However, papers relating to other areas such as drug design and discovery; software design; the design of foodstuffs etc are also of significant interest. Papers which identify and address generic design aspects that can particularly benefit from EC application / integration and illustrate EC potential in these areas are particularly encouraged. The following areas would be of interest although the call is not limited to them: * The integration of more deterministic design approaches and / or other Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques with an evolutionary design environment; * The extraction and processing of evolutionary design data and its visualization within appropriate designer interfaces; * The application of novel evolutionary computing techniques and strategies that address specific design / analysis problems of high complexity; * Human-centred aspects and interactive evolutionary design systems; * Evolutionary search and exploration across uncertain / poorly-defined design environments; * Supporting innovative and creative design . * Development and integration of aesthetic fitness measures. * Multi-objective design satisfaction and optimization. * Search and optimization within heavily constrained design domains; * Reducing computational expense during detailed design, analysis and optimisation. * Evolutionary design systems involving high-performance and distributed computing, problem-solving environments and grid-based application; Ian Parmee Tel: ++44 117 344 3137 fax: ++44 117 344 2587 Advanced Computation in Design and Decision-making CEMS Frenchay Campus University of the West of England Bristol BS16 1QY UK ------------------------------ From: Eugene Eberbach Subject: CEC 2004: Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:18:10 -0500 CEC 2004 Special Session Announcement Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments Dr. Shengxiang Yang and Juergen Branke More information at: http://www.cs.unr.edu/~sushil/cec/#EODE Many real-world optimization problems are non-deterministic and subject to changes over time, either with respect to the objective function, the decision variables, some environmental parameters, or a combination thereof. For dynamic optimization problems, the goal of an optimization algorithm is no longer to find a (stationary) optimal solution, but instead to continuously track the optimum in the dynamic environment. This presents serious challenges to traditional optimization techniques as well as conventional evolutionary algorithms. In recent years, solving dynamic optimization problems has received an increasing interest from the evolutionary computation community. A variety of approaches have been developed to address this issue. The special session aims at bringing together researchers from academia and industry to review the most recent advances, exchange latest ideas and explore future directions in the field of EAs for dynamic optimization problems. Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to): * Benchmark problems and performance measures * Dynamic multi-objective optimization * Adaptation, learning, and anticipation * Search for robust solutions * Comparative studies * Hybrid approaches * Theoretical analysis * Real-world applications Dr. Shengxiang Yang Department of Computer Science University of Leicester University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, U.K. Tel: +44(0)116 252 5341 Fax: +44(0)116 252 3915 WWW: http://www.cs.le.ac.uk/~syang Juergen Branke Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany Tel: +49 (721) 608-6585 Fax: +49 (721) 693717 WWW: http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/~jbr/ ------------------------------ From: Mads Nielsen Subject: [Imageworld] PhD positions at ITU Copenhagen Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 16:05:06 +0100 The IT University of Copenhagen has open PhD-scholarships with application deadline March 1st in, among others, the areas: Image analysis, Computer vision, Medical Image analysis Salary for applicants holding a M.Sc degree is approximately 2.900 Euro/month taxable. The full vacancy notice can be found at http://www.itu.dk/English/vacancies/ Mads Nielsen malte@itu.dk Professor ph +45 38 16 88 88/23 IT University Of Copenhagen mb +45 40 58 04 52 Glentevej 67, DK-2400 NV fx +45 38 16 88 99 ------------------------------ From: Giacomo Indiveri Subject: Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop Call for Applications Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 14:08:29 +0100 Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop Call for Applications Sunday, JUNE 27 - Saturday, JULY 17, 2004 TELLURIDE, COLORADO Avis COHEN (University of Maryland) Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Ralph ETIENNE-CUMMINGS (Johns Hopkins University) Timmer HORIUCHI (University of Maryland) Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Christof KOCH (California Institute of Technology) Terrence SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute and UCSD) Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland) We invite applications for a three week summer workshop that will be held in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, June 27 to Saturday, July 17, 2004. The application deadline is Friday, March 19, and application instructions are described at the bottom of this document. The 2003 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Whitaker Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, and by the Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, was an exciting event and a great success. We strongly encourage interested parties to browse through the previous workshop web pages. GOALS: Carver Mead introduced the term "Neuromorphic Engineering" for a new field based on the design and fabrication of artificial neural systems, such as vision systems, head-eye systems, and roving robots, whose architecture and design principles are based on those of biological nervous systems. The goal of this workshop is to bring together young investigators and more established researchers from academia with their counterparts in industry and national laboratories, working on both neurobiological as well as engineering aspects of sensory systems and sensory-motor integration. The focus of the workshop will be on active participation, with demonstration systems and hands on experience for all participants. Neuromorphic engineering has a wide range of applications from nonlinear adaptive control of complex systems to the design of smart sensors. Many of the fundamental principles in this field, such as the use of learning methods and the design of parallel hardware (with an emphasis on analog and asynchronous digital VLSI), are inspired by biological systems. However, existing applications are modest and the challenge of scaling up from small artificial neural networks and designing completely autonomous systems at the levels achieved by biological systems lies ahead. The assumption underlying this three week workshop is that the next generation of neuromorphic systems would benefit from closer attention to the principles found through experimental and theoretical studies of real biological nervous systems as whole systems. FORMAT: The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on systems neuroscience (in particular learning, oculo-motor and other motor systems and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI design, small mobile robots (Koalas, Kheperas, LEGO robots), hands-on projects, and special interest groups. Participants are required to take part and possibly complete at least one of the projects proposed. They are furthermore encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities proposed as interest and time allow. There will be two lectures in the morning that cover issues that are important to the community in general. Because of the diverse range of backgrounds among the participants, the majority of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by invited speakers. Participants will be free to explore and play with whatever they choose in the afternoon. Projects and interest groups meet in the late afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there will be tutorial on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, mobile robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective attention mechanisms, etc. Projects that are carried out during the workshop will be centered in a number of working groups, including: * active vision * audition * motor control * central pattern generator * robotics * multichip communication * analog VLSI * learning The active perception project group will emphasize vision and human sensory-motor coordination. Issues to be covered will include spatial localization and constancy, attention, motor planning, eye movements, and the use of visual motion information for motor control. The central pattern generator group will focus on small walking and undulating robots. It will look at characteristics and sources of parts for building robots, play with working examples of legged and segmented robots, and discuss CPG's and theories of nonlinear oscillators for locomotion. It will also explore the use of simple analog VLSI sensors for autonomous robots. The robotics group will use rovers and working digital vision boards as well as other possible sensors to investigate issues of sensorimotor integration, navigation and learning. The audition group aims to develop biologically plausible algorithms and aVLSI implementations of specific auditory tasks such as source localization and tracking, and sound pattern recognition. Projects will be integrated with visual and motor tasks in the context of a robot platform. The multichip communication project group will use existing interchip communication interfaces to program small networks of artificial neurons to exhibit particular behaviors such as amplification, oscillation, and associative memory. Issues in multichip communicationwill be discussed. This year we will also have some new robots kindly donated by the WowWee Toys division of Hasbro in Hong Kong. This will permit us to carry out experiments with WooWee/Hasboro hardware through Mark Tilden. LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS: The summer school will take place in the small town of Telluride, 9000 feet high in Southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive away from Denver (350miles). Great Lakes Aviation and America West Express airlines provide daily flights directly into Telluride. All facilities within the beautifully renovated public school building are fully accessible to participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in ski condominiums, within walking distance of the school. Participants are expected to share condominiums. The workshop is intended to be very informal and hands-on. Participants are not required to have had previous experience in analog VLSI circuit design, computational or machine vision, systems level neurophysiology or modeling the brain at the systems level. However, we strongly encourage active researchers with relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories to apply, in particular if they are prepared to work on specific projects, talk about their own work or bring demonstrations to Telluride (e.g. robots, chips, software). Internet access will be provided. Technical staff present throughout the workshops will assist with software and hardware issues. We will have a network of PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows for the workshop projects. We also plan to provide wireless internet access and encourage participants to bring along their personal laptop. No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend that you do not rent a car. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes, rain gear, and a backpack, since Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains. Unless otherwise arranged with one of the organizers, we expect participants to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop. FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT: Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around mid April 2004. Participants are expected to pay a $275.00 workshop fee at that time in order to reserve a place in the workshop. The cost of a shared condominium will be covered for all academic participants but upgrades to a private room will cost extra. Participants from National Laboratories and Industry are expected to pay for these condominiums. Travel reimbursement of up to $500 for US domestic travel and up to $800 for overseas travel will be possible if financial help is needed (please specify on the application). HOW TO APPLY: Applicants should be at the level of graduate students or above (i.e.postdoctoral fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff and the equivalent positions in industry and national laboratories). We actively encourage qualified women and minority candidates to apply. Application should include: * First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address. * Curriculum Vitae. * One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop. * Two letters of recommendation. Complete applications should be sent to: Terrence Sejnowski The Salk Institute 10010 North Torrey Pines Road San Diego, CA 92037 e-mail: telluride@salk.edu FAX: (858) 587 0417 The application deadline is March 19, 2004. Applicants will be notified by e-mail around mid April. ------------------------------ From: "Uwe Aickelin" Subject: Artificial Immune Systems Network Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:46:52 -0000 Announcement of New EPSRC Network for Artificial Immune Systems (ARTIST) An EPSRC network has recently been launched for the area of Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). This is a new and exciting area of research, that uses ideas from immunology to solve complex problems in computing and engineering. If you are interested in learning more about AIS, then we would like to invite you to join the network - this can be done via the ARTIST webpage at: http://www.artificial-immune-systems.org/artist.htm On this webpage you will find out about: * Opportunities that ARTIST are providing for workshop. * Funding mechanisms for researchers. * Collation of AIS expertise, e.g. code repositories and test data. * An on-line forum for the exchange of ideas. * etc. There are a number of workshops planned throughout the lifetime of ARTIST, with the first one in May 2004. This workshop will focus on how to get immunologists, mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers all talking and working together. Financial support for travel etc to the workshop will be available from ARTIST. All are welcome to join, no matter what your area of research, or your job. ARTIST is designed to be a truly interdisciplinary network. PhD students are partially encouraged to join. Please do visit the network website to learn more. ------------------------------ From: Xindong Wu Subject: Knowl & Inform Sys: Volume 5 Contents (4 Issues) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:43:37 -0500 (EST) Knowledge and Information Systems: An International Journal ISSN: 0219-1377 (printed version) ISSN: 0219-3116 (electronic version) by Springer-Verlag Home Page: http://www.cs.uvm.edu/~kais Abstracts and PDF Files: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/10115/tocs.htm or http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/10115/tocs.htm VOL. 5 ISSUE 4 A General Approach to Clustering in Large Databases with Noise pp. 387 - 415 Alexander Hinneburg, Daniel A. Keim An Approximate Median Polish Algorithm for Large Multidimensional Data Sets pp. 416 - 438 Daniel Barbará, Xintao Wu HDM: A Client/Server/Engine Architecture for Real-Time Web Usage Mining pp. 439 - 465 Florent Masseglia, Maguelonne Teisseire, Pascal Poncelet A Method for Developing Component-Oriented Applications: A Use-Context Driven Approach Toward Component Coordination pp. 466 - 502 Mathee Olarnsakul, Dentcho N. Batanov A Heuristic Genetic Algorithm for Solving Resource Allocation Problems pp. 503 - 511 Zne-Jung Lee, Shun-Feng Su, Chou-Yuan Lee, et al. VOL. 5 ISSUE 3 Web Site Synthesis Based on Computational Logic pp. 263 - 287 João M. B. Cavalcanti, David Robertson Database Technologies for L-System Simulations in Virtual Plant Applications on Bioinformatics pp. 288 - 314 Yi-Ping Phoebe Chen, Robert M. Colomb Cell Histograms Versus Color Histograms for Image Representation and Retrieval pp. 315 - 336 Renato O. Stehling, Mario A. Nascimento, Alexandre X. Falcão Compositional Verification of Knowledge-Based Task Models and Problem-Solving Methods pp. 337 - 367 Frank Cornelissen, Catholijn M. Jonker, Jan Treur Modeling Spatial-Temporal Data with a Short Observation History pp. 368 - 386 Dragoljub Pokrajac, Reed L. Hoskinson, Zoran Obradovic VOL. 5 ISSUE 2 An Agenda- and Justification-Based Framework for Discovery Systems pp. 133 - 161 Gary R. Livingston, John M. Rosenberg, Bruce G. Buchanan Necessary and Sufficient Pre-processing in Numerical Range Discretization pp. 162 - 182 Tapio Elomaa, Juho Rousu Discovering Similar Patterns for Characterizing Time Series in a Medical Domain pp. 183 - 200 Fernando Alonso, Juan P. Caraça-Valente, Loïc Martínez, et al. Feature Weighting and Instance Selection for Collaborative Filtering: An Information-Theoretic Approach* pp. 201 - 224 Kai Yu, Xiaowei Xu, Martin Ester, et al. A Methodology for Structural Conflict Resolution in the Integration of Entity-Relationship Schemas pp. 225 - 247 Mong Li Lee, Tok Wang Ling Data Mining: How Research Meets Practical Development? pp. 248 - 261 Xindong Wu, Philip S. Yu, Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, et al. VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 Online First publication p. 1 Xindong Wu and Christiane Notarmarco Knowledge-Based System Explanation: The Ripple-Down Rules Alternative pp. 2 - 25 Debbie Richards Cost Estimation for Queries Experiencing Multiple Contention States in Dynamic Multidatabase Environments pp. 26 - 49 Qiang Zhu, Satyanarayana Motheramgari, Yu Sun Maintaining Views in Object-Relational Databases pp. 50 - 82 Jixue Liu, Millist W. Vincent, Mukesh Mohania The Unified Problem-Solving Method Development Language UPML pp. 83 - 131 Dieter Fensel, Enrico Motta, Frank van Harmelen, et al. ------------------------------ End of ML-LIST Digest Vol 16, No. 2 ***********************************