[uk.ikbs] Colloquium: Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems

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. _________________________


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