duncan@cs.strath.ac.uk (Duncan N Smeed) (04/25/91)
This is the second attempt at posting. The first one didn't seem to make it onto the net. Apologies if you see this announcement twice. This is the follow up to the preliminary notice I posted to a number of newsgroups several months ago. A number of people responded then and this posting will be forwarded to them in person. It has taken some time to select and organise the final programme from submissions to EKAW91, hence the short notice given here. Even if the timing of this event means that you will not be able to attend you might like to know that the Registration Form at the end of this message contains check boxes to register your interest for the Proceedings of the Fifth European Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems Workshop (EKAW91) [to be published by Springer-Verlag in their Workshop in Computing Series] and/or next year's event - EKAW92 to be held in Germany. Please forward this posting to colleagues who may be involved in the area of Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems if they are not regular readers of the 'net'. Duncan Smeed, EKAW91 Organiser Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems IEE/BCS Supported Colloquium Monday, 20th May 1991, University of Strathclyde Court/Senate Suite, Collins Building Richmond St., Glasgow INTRODUCTION This colloquium is being held to coincide with the first day of the Fifth European Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems Workshop (EKAW91). Leading practitioners in Knowledge Acquisition and Machine Learning will be presenting the latest developments in these fields. The presentations will be based on the some of the best papers submitted for the EKAW91 event. It is the objective of EKAW91 to assemble theoreticians and practitioners of AI who recognise the need for developing methods and systems to assist the process of acquiring and modelling knowledge for knowledge-based systems. These techniques and methods include, for example: o Transfer/modelling of expertise-systems that obtain and model knowledge from experts. o Transfer/modelling of expertise-manual KA methods and techniques. o Apprenticeship, explanation-based, and other learning systems; integration of such systems with other KA techniques. o Issues of cognitive psychology and expertise that affect the KA process. o Extracting and modelling knowledge from text. o Integration of KA techniques within a single system; integration of KA systems with other systems (hyper- media, DBMS, simulators, spreadsheets...) o KA methodology and training. o Validation of KA techniques; the role of KA techniques in validating KBS. o Methods of capturing design knowledge and requirements. o Theoretical framework for KA. o Philosophical issues concerning knowledge and technol- ogy. o Results from Project SISYPHUS; the objective of the project is to compare different methods and techniques of KA. Two test bed domains have been chosen: 1. Text Analysis, 2. Models of Problem Solving. SPEAKERS Prof Tom Addis Knowledge Systems Group Department of Computer Science University of Reading Dr Brian Gaines Director, Knowledge Science Institute University of Calgary Dr Marc Linster Expert System Research Group German National Research Center for Computer Science (GMD) Dr Guus Schreiber Department of Social Science Informatics University of Amsterdam Dr Mildred Shaw Knowledge Systems Group University of Calgary Prof Derek Sleeman Department of Computing Science Aberdeen University Dr Nigel Shadbolt Artificial Intelligence Group Department of Psychology University of Nottingham Dr Thomas Wetter IBM Germany Heidelberg Dr Brian Woodward Knowledge Science Institute University of Calgary COLLOQUIUM PROGRAMME 08.45-09.15 Registration 09.15-09.30 Welcome and Introductory Remarks Dr Brian Gaines 09.30-10.15 Expertise Transfer: Supporting the Knowledge Acquisition Process Dr Nigel Shadbolt 10.15-11.00 Machine Learning Prof Derek Sleeman 11.00-11.30 Coffee break 11.30-12.15 The KADS Methodology Dr Guus Schreiber 12.15-13.00 Group Processes in Elicitation Dr Mildred Shaw 13.00-14.00 Lunch break 14.00-14.45 Methodological Foundations Dr Marc Linster 14.45-15.30 Knowledge Engineering and Software Engineering Dr Thomas Wetter 15.30-16.00 Coffee/tea break 16.00-17.00 Project SISYPHUS: Challenging the Community Prof Tom Addis, Dr Brian Woodward, Dr Marc Linster 17.00-17.45 Open Discussion with Speakers as Panel 17.45-18.00 Departure of EKAW91 delegates to Crieff Hydro PROJECT SISYPHUS At EKAW90 there was general agreement that a major focus of knowledge acquisition research is the explicit representation of problem-solving methods. As quite a few tools, techniques and methodologies are currently being developed and used it would be of great interest to create a situation where these different approaches could be compared, contrasted and assessed. It was decided to choose three or four task domains that introduce considerable scope for knowledge acquisition. These task domains would then provide a test bed for comparison of techniques. It was proposed that researchers and practitioners (preferably those belonging to a team or group) who were currently involved in knowledge elicitation and acquisition analyze one sample problem and make their analysis of this problem widely available. The results of the analysis of each group (each using its own approach) will be published in the proceedings of EKAW91 and will be discussed during the workshop at special set sessions. Of the task domains that were put forward for analysis, two project champions (Dr Brian Woodward and Dr Marc Linster) coordinated the efforts within their own domains of expertise; (1) Text Analysis and (2) Models of Problem Solving, respectively. (1) Text Analysis Text-based material is a common source of information for knowledge engineers when building knowledge-based systems. Text may be generated from interviews, verbatim protocols and/or textbooks and scientific or technical papers. Identifying meaningful information and then developing useful knowledge structures from text is the goal of text analysis for knowledge- based development. The call for submissions was directed to those researchers and practitioners who have developed methods, techniques or tools for text analysis. The goal was to identify and select representative approaches to text analysis and then to offer the same textual material for analysis. The submission was to contain brief but clear statements about: 1. the underlying assumptions of the approach 2. the method for parsing text passages 3. the method(s) and underlying assumptions for analysis of the parsed text 4. the knowledge representation formalism resulting from the analysis 5. potential uses for the method to knowledge engineers (2) Models of Problem Solving Many research groups tackle the problem of explicit modelling of problem-solving (see Karbach, Linster & Voss: "Models of Problem- Solving: One Label - One Idea" in Proceedings of EKAW90). They all use different examples to illustrate their work. We wanted to encourage the members of the community to illustrate their approaches using one test bed example selected from a set of common examples that the organizers of Project SISYPHUS would provide for the participants. The problem to be modelled was to be a realistic synthesis type problem. We were mainly interested in the explicit modelling of problem solving methods. There was no implication that the results must be or directly result in an operational knowledge base. Mediating representations or specifications that were not directly executable would be welcome. The descriptions of the models would make the approaches comparable and this comparison would hopefully help answer questions such as: 1. How do the building blocks of each of the approaches correspond? 2. Which problem-solving steps does an approach use and are there common steps amongst the different approaches? 3. What grain size is there? 4. Which part of the knowledge is generic to all task domains? 5. What is task dependent in the approaches? 6. What is the role of the knowledge engineer? The descriptions of the models would be the basis of the discussion at EKAW91 and these discussions would hopefully result in a common terminology as a first step towards a theory of problem-solving in Knowledge-based Systems. COLLOQUIUM FEES The fees for this Colloquium are: Non-members of the BCS or IEE: 75 pounds Members of the BCS or IEE: 50 pounds Full-time post-graduate students: 25 pounds These fees include: (a) A copy of the papers/reports presented at the Colloquium. (b) Lunch and refreshements. REGISTRATION A copy of the following form should be completed for each person wishing to attend. Completed forms should be returned (by mail or FAX) by WEDNESDAY, 15th MAY, 1991 AT THE LATEST. Early registration is advised. A limited number of full-time postgraduate student places are available at the specially discounted rate of 25 pounds. These will be allocated on a first come first served basis. Please also return an acknowledgement (ideally by completing the relevant sections on the form and replying to this message) of your intention to attend. Any enquiries should, preferably, be made by e-mail to: duncan@uk.ac.strath.cs SECRETARIAT Please return the following registration details to: Duncan Smeed EKAW91 Organiser Department of Computer Science University of Strathclyde 26 Richmond Street GLASGOW G1 1XH Tel: (041) 552 4400 Ext 3587/3522 Fax: (041) 552 5330 REGISTRATION FORM Please register the following participant for the Colloquium at Strathclyde University on Monday 20th May 1991. NAME: _________________________________________________ ORGANISATION: _________________________________________________ ADDRESS: _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ POST CODE _______________________ TEL NO _______________________ FAX NO _______________________ E-MAIL _________________________________ Tick [ ] I am not a member of the IEE/BCS - Colloquium fee: 75 pounds [ ] I am a member of the IEE/BCS* - Colloquium fee: 50 pounds [ ] I am a full-time p/g student - Colloquium fee: 25 pounds [ ] Please invoice me [ ] I enclose a cheque made payable to: University of Strathclyde for the amount of: _______ pounds [ ] I have special dietary requirements as follows: [ ] I cannot attend but would like details of the EKAW-91 Proceedings to be sent to me. [ ] Please send details of the 6th European Knowledge Acquisition Workshop (EKAW92). SIGNED: _______________________ DATE: ___________________ *Delete as appropriate. Membership No. _________________________ -- UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!duncan | Dept. Computer Science ARPA: duncan%cs.strath.ac.uk@ucl-cs.arpa | Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond St JANET: duncan@uk.ac.strath.cs | University of Strathclyde Tel: +41 552 4400 Ext 3587, Fax: +41 552 5330| Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. G1 1XH -- UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!duncan | Dept. Computer Science ARPA: duncan%cs.strath.ac.uk@ucl-cs.arpa | Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond St JANET: duncan@uk.ac.strath.cs | University of Strathclyde Tel: +41 552 4400 Ext 3587, Fax: +41 552 5330| Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. G1 1XH