[topicmapmail] CFP: MRC2004 - Modelling And Retrieval Of Context

[Kal Ahmed]

Hi all,

In view of the recent discussion on this list about modelling context in
topic maps, I suspect that this workshop might be of interest to some.
There are a couple of list members on the organising committee - not
that this should influence you one way or another ;-)

My apologies if you have already received a copy of this announcement on
another list.

Cheers,

Kal

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                          CALL FOR PAPERS
                     for the KI 2004 Workshop on
             MODELING AND RETRIEVAL OF CONTEXT (MRC2004)

         20. - 24. September 2004, University of Ulm (Germany)
                      http://www.mrc2004.de.ms/

             Paper submission deadline: April 26th, 2004


OBJECTIVES

Context and context-awareness are two of the most stressed but never-
theless important concepts for modern information and communication
systems. Determination and assignment of context is a necessary factor
to provide services and applications that are suited to a user and the
user=E2=80=99s current situation. Beginning with the idea of location-based
services some years ago, in the age of mobility and mobile devices,
context-awareness became a crucial point for IT applications.

Information on context is important for supporting and automating
decisions. Further, it is expected that users get informed about the
operations of intelligent IT applications such as, e.g., shopping
adviser and support systems. Applied methods and given advices have
to be explained, so the user can understand the process and agree on
decisions.

An important prerequisite for using context information is an
appropriate management. To operate within context, models and tools are
needed providing mechanisms and models for structured storage of context
information, an effective way for retrieving it, and the possibility to
connect context to depending knowledge.

Early models for context representation come from Artificial Intelli-
gence. Contexts are mostly represented in a logical notation. Functions
and predicates are given for each of the aspects (dimensions) of the
environment. This results in a rule system having stand-alone context
objects with concrete characteristics in their aspects. Hence, abstract
and detailed requests for matching context information are possible.
But it will be difficult to compare contexts or to retrieve similar or
related contexts. Other approaches describe context as named, aggregated
structure, where simple contexts consist of a descriptor-state-pair and
complex contexts consist of aggregations of simple and complex contexts.
These are mainly application focused and difficult to generalize to a
common model.

With the use of mobile devices and current research on ubiquitous
computing, the topic of context-awareness is a major issue for upcoming
IT applications. Modeling and retrieving context provide means to be
integrated in modern knowledge management processes. Intelligent
solutions are needed to apply context, e.g., to cope with the fuzziness
of context information and, especially because of mobility, rapidly
changing environments and unsteady information sources. Advanced
methodologies for concluding on or assigning a context to a situation
are to be applied, which introduces the main fields of Artificial
Intelligence mechanisms into context-aware applications.

The major goal of the workshop is to bring researchers, scientists from
both industry and academics, and representatives from different communi-
ties together to study, understand, and explore the handling of context
in IT applications. Besides contributions and invited talks, this
workshop will offer organized and open spaces for targeted discussions.
As a result, a common understanding on the topic of modeling context
and ways of retrieving it within such models shall originate.


TOPICS OF INTEREST

The areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
  * Generic context models
  * Retrieval of context
  * Matching context and situation
  * Context-awareness in applications
  * Context and explanation
  * Mobile context


SUBMISSIONS

Conference submission is electronic, in pdf or postscript format.
The submission system will be available on the workshop website in
Mid-April.

Papers must be written in English. Submitted papers must not exceed
12 pages in length. Members of the Program Committee will review the
papers.

At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the
workshop and present the contribution in order to be published in
the workshop proceedings.

Formatting

The submissions should conform to Springer LNCS style. Authors are
strongly encouraged to use LaTeX and the Springer llncs class files
available at:
               http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.
While the pages in the final camera-ready form of a paper must be
unnumbered (this is the default in llncs style), numbered pages are
preferred for reviewing. Page numbering can be turned on using the
LaTeX command \pagestyle{plain}.


IMPORTANT DATES

  Submission of papers: April 26th, 2004
  Notification: May 28th, 2004
  Camera ready copies: June 25th, 2004
  (Preliminary) Workshop date: Sept. 20th, 2004


WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

The schedule will be published on the workshop's website.


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS

  Thomas Roth-Berghofer, mailto:Thomas.Roth-Berghofer@dfki.de
  DFKI GmbH / TU Kaiserslautern, Germany

  Stefan Schulz, mailto:schulz@ivs.tu-berlin.de
  IVS, TU Berlin, Germany


PROGRAM COMMITTEE

  Kal Ahmed, Techquila, UK
  Hans-Dieter Burkhard, Humboldt University, Berlin
  Andreas Dengel, DFKI, Kaiserslautern
  Babak Esfandiari, Carleton University, Canada
  Kurt Geihs, TU Berlin
  Mehmet H. G=C3=B6ker, Kaidara, USA
  Heiko Maus, DFKI, Kaiserslautern
  Keith Mitchell, Lancaster University, UK
  Albrecht Schmidt, LMU, Munich
  Thomas Strang, DLR
  Ralph Traph=C3=B6ner, empolis, Kaiserslautern


--=20
Kal Ahmed <kal@techquila.com>
techquila