International Workshop
on Theory of Visual Languages
To be held in conjunction with AVI'96
May 30, 1996 Gubbio, Italy
Call for Papers
The main aim of the workshop is to strengthen dialogue between
the diverse communities involved in visual language theory
inside the traditional visual language community and outside
communities such as the artificial intelligence, algebraic
specification and graph grammar communities. It will be devoted
to discussions about different views of visual languages and visual
language theory. More details of the general questions the workshop
will address are:
- What is the role of a theory of visual languages?
- What sort of theoretical results would we like from such a theory
or theories?
- How can the theory be used in practical applications?
- What are the essential characteristics of visual languages?
Which, if any, visual and geometric properties do
visual languages have which distinguish them from
other members of the general class of multidimensional
languages?
- What is the role of interaction and dynamics in visual language
theory?
- Is it useful to distinguish syntax from semantics in a theory of
visual
languages?
- What type of theory will help in the general classification of
existing visual languages? Such a theory should help to understand
the differences and similarities between maps, musical notation,
chemical structure formulae etc in terms of their formal properties.
- What are the relationships between current formalisms for visual
languages? These formalisms include:
- grammatical approaches such as relational grammars, constraint
multiset grammars, unification grammars, and graph grammars;
- logical approaches;
- algebraic approaches;
- semantic based approaches.
What is each formalism's perspective on visual languages and area
of application? Can we identify some common kernel?
- What can we learn from related fields such as pattern recognition,
natural language parsing and understanding, diagrammatic reasoning,
and formal language and automata theory?
Papers are encouraged which address some of the issues above. We
particularly encourage survey and tutorial papers which provide
a critical overview of some group of visual language formalisms,
such as (but not limited to) those mentioned above.
Format of Workshop
The workshop will be held as a one day post AVI event on
the 30th of May, at the same conference site as AVI'96.
There will be a
single invited talk by Ugo Montanari (Uni. Pisa), pioneer in syntax
directed recognition and graph grammars, followed by conference style
presented papers but with lots of time for discussion.
Presentations will
be selected on the basis of extended abstracts of around 3000
words. We will
distribute the abstracts at the workshop and will collect the full
papers into a technical report. We are considering publication of the
proceedings.
Program Committee
Kim Marriott (Program co-chair) (Monash University, Australia)
Bernd Meyer (Program co-chair) (Monash University, Australia)
Hari Narayanan (Georgia Tech., USA)
Jan Rekers (Leiden University, The Netherlands)
Genoveffa Tortora (University of Salerno, Italy)
Susan Üsküdarli (University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands)
Kent Wittenburg (Bellcore, USA)
Important Dates
Extended abstracts are due on January 26th as an electronic
submission. Notification of acceptance will be sent on February
23rd,
and the full paper will be due just after the workshop.
Extended abstracts should be sent to avitvl@cs.monash.edu.au
as PostScript files or by mail with 6 copies to:
Workshop on Visual Language Theory,
Department of Computer Science,
Clayton Campus,
Monash University,
Wellington Rd,
Clayton Vic. 3168
AUSTRALIA.
This page will always contain the most recent information on the workshop.
Up to date information about AVI'96 can be found at the AVI home page.
All enquiries to avitvl@cs.monash.edu.au.