rajd@cel.fmc.COM (Rajendra Dodhiawala) (03/11/88)
Workshop Announcement -- Call For Participation THE SECOND WORKSHOP ON BLACKBOARD SYSTEMS Sponsored by AAAI Congress Suite, Radisson St. Paul Hotel, St. Paul, Minnesota Wednesday, August 24, 1988 (Parallel activity during AAAI '88) (Note change in date from previous announcements of the workshop) The Second Workshop on Blackboard Systems will address issues that pertain to the design, implementation and applications of blackboard systems. Emergence of blackboard systems as practical tools to implement a diversity of applications has raised some important questions about the various aspects that need further investigation. The focus of the workshop will be to discuss the following interest areas in blackboard systems: 1. Control and Organization Issues: What is the approach taken to control the problem solving and the rationale for the choice? What is the ramifications on performance? What are the mechanisms available for organizing knowledge in such systems? What is the ramifications of organization in control? Moderator: Vic Lesser 2. Real-time Issues: What is the applicability of blackboard systems to real-time problems? How is the architecture enhanced or reduced to meet the needs of real-time problem-solving? There is increasing interest on the role of parallelism at the system level to achieve real-time performance. How can parallelism or distribution be exploited to provide for real-time performance? Moderator: Roberto Bisiani 3. Applications: In what innovative ways can the blackboard system be used to address particular problems or classes of problems? Comparisons with alternate approaches and paradigms, why they fail, and distinctive features of the blackboard paradigm that had the greatest impact should be highlighted. Moderator: Bob Engelmore To encourage vigorous interaction and exchange of ideas between those attending, the workshop will be limited to approximately 30 participants. There will be three panel sessions, one for each of the three subject areas listed above. There will also be a free form discussion session to address unanswered questions. The format of the panels will be decided by the respective moderators. All submitted papers will be refereed with respect to how well they identify and discuss the factors affecting the design and implementation of blackboard systems. Authors should discuss their design decisions (why a particular approach was selected); what worked, what did not and why; the advantages, disadvantages and limitations of their approach; and what they would recommend to others developing such systems. Preference will be given to those papers that discuss approaches that have been demonstrated in real applications. Workshop planning committee and referees: Roberto Bisiani, Carnegie Mellon University Harold Brown, Stanford University Dan Corkill, University of Massachusetts Robert Engelmore, Stanford University Lee Erman, Teknowledge, Inc. Barbara Hayes-Roth, Stanford University Victor Lesser, University of Massachusetts Penny Nii, Stanford University D. Sriram, MIT Submission Details: Five copies of an extended abstract, double spaced up to 4000 words, should be submitted to either of the workshop co-chairs before May 10, 1988. Acceptances will be mailed by June 30, 1988. Final copies of the papers will be required by July 31, 1988. Title Page: The extended abstract must have a title page which lists the names and addresses, including electronic addresses if any, of all the authors. All communication will be with the first author, unless indicated otherwise. Since there may be overlaps in the subject areas of this workshop, authors are encouraged to mention on the title page the area in which they think their work best contributes. Edited Volume: Academic Press (HBJ Publishers) have agreed to publish an edited volume of the current and outstanding papers in the subject areas of this workshop. The papers for this volume will be selected from the submissions to this workshop and the proceedings of the first workshop. However, there will be an additional review process to select the final set of papers for the edited volume. Workshop Co-chairs: V. Jagannathan, M/S 7L-64 R. T. Dodhiawala Boeing Advanced Technology Center FMC Central Engineering Labs Boeing Computer Services 1205 Coleman Avenue, Box 580 P. O. Box 24346 Santa Clara, CA 95052 Seattle, WA 98124-0346. (408) 289-3303 (206)865-3240. rajd@cel.fmc.com juggy@boeing.com Important dates: May 10, 1988: Extended Abstracts due (5 copies) June 30, 1988: Notification of acceptance July 31, 1988: Final versions of papers and abstracts due. August 24, 1988: Workshop - rajendra