AAAI Fall Symposium Series 1998

FRVDR

Formalizing Reasoning
with
Visual and Diagrammatic Representations

To be held in Orlando, Florida
October 23-25, 1998

Extended Deadline: April 30, 1998

Aims of the Symposium

Visual and diagrammatic notations hold huge potential for many areas of computer science. However, since computer science has traditionally focused on sequential linguistic or textual representations, this potential is, as yet, largely unrealized. Despite a revived and growing interest in visual representations in many applied and theoretical areas of computer science, the theoretical foundations of such notations are not well developed. In particular, reasoning with visual representations can serve as a touchstone for our understanding of such notations, because here a synthesis of cognitive aspects and complex representational and computational aspects is required.

As yet, visual representations in computer science have only rarely been treated as a theoretical research topic in their own right, rather they have been looked at from an application point of view. In applications, however, visual representations are mostly used in an ad-hoc fashion with little or no underlying formal support. Due to this, no common methodology for handling visual and diagrammatic representations has emerged and formal techniques for their support are underdeveloped. In fact, many of the basic concepts underlying visual representations are not well understood.

In part this is because many different groups are working on particular aspects of visual representations being largely unaware of activities in the other groups. The primary aim of this symposium is to strengthen the dialogue among the diverse communities involved in the theory of visual representations and to unite closely related streams of research from the various communities, such as diagrammatic reasoning, visual language theory, qualitative spatial reasoning, and related subfields of HCI, logic, and linguistics.

Topics of Interest

Foundational issues

essential characteristics of visual representations
classification of visual representations
diagram understanding and interpretation
cognitive aspects of visual processing
spatial knowledge representation
qualitative versus quantitative visual information
properties of animated and changing diagrams
integration of multi-modal information

Formal methods

diagram specification techniques
diagrammatic knowledge representation and inference
visual reasoning with diagrammatic programming languages
modelling interaction with diagrams
sound logical reasoning with diagrams
mathematics of diagrams
combination of diagrammatic knowledge and domain knowledge

Applications

specification of visual languages
automatic generation of visual language environments
diagrammatic reasoning in AI applications
spatial information systems
design criteria for visual languages
tools for developing visual arguments or proofs
tools for programming with visual representations

Program Committee

Gerard Allwein	co-chair	Indiana University	USA
Kim Marriott	co-chair	Monash University	Australia
Bernd Meyer	co-chair	University of Munich	Germany
Michael Anderson		University of Hartford	USA
Alan Blackwell		MRC	UK
B. Chandrasekaran		Ohio State University	USA
Janice Glasgow		Queen's University	Canada
Volker Haarslev		University of Hamburg	Germany
Patrick Olivier		University of Wales	UK
Atsushi Shimojima		ATR Labs	Japan

Organization and Submission

Authors are required to send an extended abstract of not more than 5000 words by April 30 as a Postscript, PDF, or plain text file to bernd.meyer@acm.org. Papers on recent results as well as on work in progress are solicitated. Contributions that provide an overview of some subfield are particularly invited.

In addition to paper presentations and ample time for discussions a system session centered around defined challenge tasks will be organized. Submissions for demos must be accomanied by a one page description for the workshop notes. Please watch the web site for details regarding the demo session. A letter of intent to submit a demo should be sent by April 30th.

All submissions should be send electronically by April 30 as PostScript or plain text files to bernd.meyer@acm.org. If you are unable to submit electronically, hardcopies can be sent to:

Bernd Meyer,
Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen,
Institut fuer Informatik,
Oettingenstrasse 67,
D-80538 Muenchen, Germany

Important Dates

April 30	Deadline for extended abstracts
May 30	Letters of acceptance/rejection sent
July 1	Deadline for demonstration submissions
August 1	Letters of acceptance/rejection for demos sent
August 21	Camera ready copies for workshop notes due
September 9	Deadline for invited participants registration
September 23	Open registration deadline
October 23-25	Symposium in Orlando, Florida

For all questions and further information mail to
bernd.meyer@acm.org

Back to the symposium's home page.

last updated 9/4/98 Bernd Meyer