rsb@mcc.com (Richard S. Brice) (04/16/89)
CALL FOR PAPERS AND REFEREES
HAWAII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEM SCIENCES - 23
Massive Databases and Ill-defined Objects
KAILUA-KONA, HAWAII - JANUARY 2-5
The Software Track of HICSS-23 will contain a session focusing on the
problems associated with searching through massive databases for ill-
defined objects, or objects that may be well-defined but whose
signatures are spread over large areas, that arise in a broad spectrum
of disciplines. Example application areas include the sciences
(measurements from experiments, satellite data, genome structure,
simulations), engineering and design (wind tunnel test results, CAD
databases), business (financial transactions, cost accounting for
large enterprises), military (traces of battlefield simulations, SDI
model results analysis), demographics from census data, and so forth.
The goal of this style of data analysis is the discovery of high-
level, abstract knowledge from the low-level signature which the
databases usually contain. In most cases, any particular question
that an analyst may have about the high-level abstract objects which
are embedded in the databases can be answered today, given enough time
and money. A common method is to use existing programming tools to
create procedural application programs which compute or reason with
the low-level data. Such programs are seldom useful in answering a
question other than the one for which they were designed and are
always difficult to modify or validate. Still, this approach is
useful when the objects under study are well defined and the ad hoc
programs will be used frequently.
In many cases, the concepts to be discovered are only intuitively, and
often vaguely, understood and man-machine interaction is required to
help crystallize and firm-up the definitions. Under these
circumstances, ad hoc procedural programs will almost always provide
unacceptable results and numerous modifications will be required. An
alternative to ad hoc procedural programs is the use of rules, or
knowledge-based systems which allow a precise specification of the
object of interest, and hide the mechanics of database search.
However, this approach works well only when a human expert exists who
can articulate his knowledge, the objects under study have crisp
definitions, and the databases are not too large.
The purpose of this session, therefore, is to explore techniques for
conducting searches in the face of very large databases, uncertainty
in the targets of the searches, and the possible need for man-machine
interaction to crystallize definitions of the objects. These
techniques may require such things as procedural programming for
stream-processing, declarative programming for integrated deductive
analysis and database access, graphical I/O for the investigation of
visual formalisms, animation capabilities, and queries by graphical
example, and an environment for integrating these and other tools.
Papers are invited that may help better define the problem, present
approaches to solving selected aspects of the problem, and detail
solutions to practical problems. Those papers selected for
presentation will appear in the Conference Proceedings, which are
published by the Computer Society of the IEEE, and, possibly, later
also in a special issue of a professional society periodical. HICSS-
23 is sponsored by the University of Hawaii in cooperation with the
ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and the Pacific Research Institute for
Information Systems and Management (PRIISM).
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING PAPERS
Manuscripts should be 22-26 typewritten, double-spaced pages in
length. Do not send submissions that are significantly shorter or
longer than this. Papers must not have been previously presented or
published, nor currently submitted for journal publication. Each
manuscript will be subjected to a rigorous refereeing process
involving at least five reviewers. Manuscript papers should have a
title page that includes the title of the paper, full name(s) of its
author(s), affiliation(s), complete mailing and electronic
address(es), telephone number(s), and a 300-word abstract of the
paper.
DEADLINES
* A 300-word abstract is due by April 15, 1989
* Feedback to author concerning abstract by May 1, 1989
* Six copies of the manuscript are due by June 5, 1989
* Notice of accepted papers by August 31, 1989
* Accepted manuscripts, camera-ready, are due by October 2, 1989
SEND SUBMISSIONS AND QUESTIONS TO
Wayne Anderson Richard Brice
C-10, MS B296 MCC
Los Alamos National Laboratory 3500 West Balcones Center Dr.
Los Alamos, NM 87545 Austin, TX 78759
Tel: (505) 667-1977 Tel: (512) 338-3429
E-mail: jwa@lanl.gov E-Mail: rsb@mcc.com