[PlanetKR] ECAI 2010: Workshop on Spatio-Temporal Dynamics at ECAI 2010. Lisbon, Portugal.

[Mehul Bhatt]

++++++++++++++FIRST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION++++++++++++++

We invite contributions for the workshop on:

        "Spatio-Temporal Dynamics"

       at ECAI 2010, Lisbon, Portugal.

URL: http://www.cosy.informatik.uni-bremen.de/events/ecai10


Important Dates
---------------------

Full paper submission: 7 May 2010
Notification of acceptance: 7 June 2010
Camera-Ready copy due: 15 June 2010


Description
---------------

The field of qualitative spatial representation and reasoning has evolved as a sub-division in its own right within the broader field of Artificial Intelligence -- recent years have witnessed remarkable advances in some of the long-standing problems of the field. For instance, new results about tractability for spatial calculi, explicit construction of models, characterisation of important subclasses of relations, as well as in the development of new areas such as the emergence of integrated spatio-temporal calculi and the importing of non-monotonic techniques for dealing with various aspects intrinsic to dynamic spatial systems. Inextricably linked to space is time, i.e., spatial configurations change over time. Spatial change may also be perceived as being spatio-temporal and recent work has been devoted to providing useful and well-grounded models to be used as high level qualitative description of spatio-temporal change. Reasoning about space and spatial dynamics also involves reasoning about changing spatial configurations, and in more realistic scenarios, integrated reasoning about space, actions and change. Recent work supporting this paradigm has also explicitly addressed the formal modelling of dynamic spatial systems and ensuing interactions between the spatial reasoning domain and the field of reasoning about actions and change, and commonsense reasoning.

Driven by cognitive approaches that characterise the processing of spatial information within qualitative spatial reasoning, there has been considerable influx of people from other areas within AI such as computer vision, robotics etc, working on qualitative representation and reasoning about spatial change, spatio-temporal interactions, and the formal modelling of dynamic spatial systems in general. Qualitative conceptualisations of space and tools/techniques for efficiently reasoning with them being well-established, there is now a clear felt need within the community to utilise the tools and formalisms that have been constructed in the recent years in novel application scenarios.


Workshop Scope and Format
--------------------------------------

The workshop on Spatio-Temporal Dynamics at ECAI 2010 aims to achieve a balance between both theory and application-centric research in the spatial and temporal reasoning area. At the foundational level, of special interest to this session is research that focusses on the integration of the specialisation of qualitative spatial reasoning with general logic-based approaches for reasoning about action and change. Some of the topics deemed important include:

	• Representing and reasoning about dynamic spatial systems
	• Non-monotonic reasoning in dynamic spatial systems
	• Commonsense ontologies of spatio-temporal dynamics
	• Abduction for knowledge discovery in spatial systems
	• Concurrency in the spatial domain
	• Unified approaches for the formal modelling of space, actions and change
	• Unified approaches for the formal modelling of space, actions and change
	• Integrated spatial and terminological reasoning
	• Integrated ontologies for spatial scene descriptions of indoor environments (e.g., in room-space)
	• Grounding of perceptual environmental data with spatial ontologies
	• Qualitative abstractions of low-level motion control tasks in robotics (e.g., in robotic grasping)

At the application-level, we encourage the submission of research that demonstrates the utility of well-established qualitative spatial and temporal calculi, tools and systems in novel domains including, but not limited to, the following:

	• Planning, explanation and simulation within dynamic spatial systems
	• Use of qualitative space-time methods in cognitive robotics
	• Qualification techniques of quantitative data sources
	• Qualitative spatial modelling and reasoning in ambient intelligence systems
	• Reasoning with qualified spatio-temporal data (e.g., abduction with S-T data streams, applications in spatial/architectural design, sketch recognition and understanding)
	• Exploting qualitative spatio-temporal continuity (e.g., in learning behaviour from video)

Although the content of the proposals that are submitted is open-ended, the session categorically invites submission of papers highlighting prototypical and complete systems. It is expected that the proposed systems, or parts thereof, in this category will involve spatial and/or temporal reasoning in some form. Of special interest to the aims of the session are systems where the application of formal qualitative spatial calculi or the application of existing reasoning tools is highlighted. In addition to the thematic requirements, selections will be made on the basis of how closely the illustrated techniques utilize existing formalizations developed in the area of qualitative spatial representation and reasoning.

We encourage interested authors to contact the organisers if in doubt about the scope or the relevance of a potential submission.


Workshop Keynote
-------------------------

Speaker: Antony Galton
University of Exeter
United Kingdom

A title and summary for the invited talk will be advertised on the workshop website in due time.


Submission Requirements
----------------------------------

Electronic submissions are solicited in PDF format. Papers should be submitted using the Easychair Online submission system. Contributions should be no longer than 6 pages, formatted as per the guidelines applicable to ECAI 2010 -- please look up ECAI 10 Formatting Guidelines (or look up the workshop site for a direct link). Please feel free to contact the organisers if in doubt about any aspect of the session or its requirements or if your submission is not acknowledged.


Program and Advisory Committee
--------------------------------------------

	• Christophe Claramunt (Naval Academy Research Institute, France)
	• Debasis Mitra (Florida Institute of Technology, USA)
	• Ernest Davis (New York University, USA)
	• Hans Guesgen (Massey University, New Zealand)
	• John Stell (University of Leeds, UK)
	• Kathleen-Stewart Hornsby (University of Iowa, USA)
	• Mehul Bhatt (University of Bremen, Germany)
	• Nico van de Weghe (Ghent University, Belgium)
	• Paolo Santos (Technical University FEI, Brazil)
	• Shyamanta Hazarika (Tezpur University, India)
	• Stefan Woelfl (University of Freiburg, Germany)
	• Thomas Bittner (SUNY at Buffalo, USA)


Workshop Co-Chairs
----------------------------

Mehul Bhatt (primary contact)
SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition
Universität Bremen
P.O. Box 330 440, 28334 Bremen, GERMANY
bhatt (@) informatik.uni-bremen.de

Hans W. Guesgen 
School of Engineering and Advanced Technology
Massey University, Private Bag 11222
Palmerston North, NEW ZEALAND
h.w.guesgen (@) massey.ac.nz

Shyamanta M Hazarika 
Computer Science and Engineering 
School of Engineering, Tezpur University 
Tezpur - 784028, Assam, INDIA 
smh (@) tezu.ernet.in


+++++Apologies for cross-posting. Your assistance in forwarding this far and wide shall be appreciated+++++


--

SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition
(FB3) Informatics, University of Bremen
P.O. Box 330 440
Bremen 28334, Germany
Fone  +49-421-218-64-237
Fax  +49-421-218-98-64-237