SECOND call for papers International conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS'98 13-15 May, 1998 Roskilde University, Denmark http://www.dat.ruc.dk/fqas98 Submission deadline: 1 February 1998 Objectives ========== The area of Flexible Query Answering System, FQAS, is related to enhancements of inquiring or query-answering systems into technology that can be experienced as being "intelligent" or "flexible". The emphasis of this conference is on problems in users posing queries and systems producing answers. This focus has become highly relevant as the amount of information available from local and distributed information bases has increased drastically and so have the capacity and speed of ordinary office computer. This makes it obvious to search for more advanced techniques for analyzing and processing user queries than those normally used in database systems and search engines. A human intermediary with expertise in the domain of interest can often be considered an ideal for a flexible query-answering system. Typically, the friendly human expert attempts to interpret also in-correctly posed questions and tries to compose an answer not reflecting precisely what's in question, but rather what the expert understands to be the intention with the question. The recent interest in Internet search engines, and the increasing needs for adding quality - in terms of flexibility, performance, precision and recall - to such engines, has further added to the importance of FQAS. Moreover, the current demand for flexible querying into information sources of diverse nature and structure, such as the World Wide Web, and data and knowledge bases, calls for a cross-disciplinary approach from computer science and information sciences, as intended by this conference. Previous FQAS arrangements and more background are described ar the www address mentioned. Dates ===== Submission deadline: 1 February 1998 Notification: 1 March 1998 Camera-ready papers: 1 April 1998 Conference: 13-15 May 1998 Topics ====== Original papers are solicited on different aspects of flexible query answering systems. Topics of interest for this conference include, but are not limited to, the following. Intelligent, flexible, cooperative approaches or systems that are - based on fuzzy logic, including fuzzy aggregation and fuzzy querying, - inhancing expressibility in query language using, e.g., modal or natural language constructs, - based on logic formalisms, applying non-standard interpretation to model query processing, - applying knowledge discovery to obtain domain knowledge useful in enhancing query-answering, - capturing and refining models of users and user behaviour. Underlying theoretical aspects related to such approaches within areas such as - knowledge representation formalisms, semantics, - formal logic, - fuzzy logic, - artificial intelligence, - database technology, - deductive databases and non-standard derivations, - information retrieval. Invited speakers ================ Jack Minker, University of Maryland: An Overview of Cooperative Answering in Databases Patrick Bosc, IRISA/ENSSAT, France: On diverse answers issued from flexible queries (perhaps one more; to be announced) Submissions and proceedings =========================== Papers should describe original, previously unpublished work, and should not be simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere. The proceedings will be published in a volume of Springer's Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI). Submitted papers must be written in English and should not exceed 12 pages using the format for LNAI. Authors should follow the guidelines provided by Springer and are strongly encouraged to use the LaTeX format defined by the LaTeX2e class file llncs.cls; see http://www.dat.ruc.dk/fqas98/cfpdates.html. Electronic submissions (preferably postscript or dvi) are strongly encouraged, and should be sent to fqas98@ruc.dk. If electronic submission is not possible, send 3 hard-copies or by fine-resolution telefax to the conference chairman. All submissions must be received by 1. February 1998. Program Committee ================= Amihai Motro ami@aviv.isse.gmu.edu Amparo Vila vila@robinson.ugr.es Bernadette Bouchon-Menuier bouchon@laforia.ibp.fr Derrick Kheden hdecker@informatik.uni-muenchen.de Didier Dubois dubois@irit.fr Fosca Gianotti f.giannotti@cnuce.cnr.it Henning Christiansen (Chair) henning@ruc.dk Henri Prade Henri.Prade@irit.fr Henrik Legind Larsen hll@ruc.dk Janusz Kacprzyk kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl Jonas Barklund jonas@csd.uu.se Jorgen Fischer-Nilsson jfn@id.dtu.dk Laurence Cholvy Laurence.Cholvy@cert.fr Olga Pons opc@decsai.ugr.es Olivier Pivert pivert@merlin.enssat.fr Rita De Caluwe Rita.DeCaluwe@rug.ac.be Robert Demolombe Robert.Demolombe@cert.fr Ronald R. Yager Yager@Panix.Com Troels Andreasen troels@ruc.dk FQAS'98 Organizers ================== Troels Andreasen, Henning Christiansen, Henrik Legind Larsen, Roskilde University, Denmark. For more information contact ============================ FQAS'98 Conference Chair Henning Christiansen Department of Computer Science Roskilde University, bldg. 20.1 P.O. Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark Phone: (+45) 4674 2576 Fax: (+45) 4674 3072 E-mail: henning@ruc.dk Conference Web Pages: http://www.dat.ruc.dk/fqas98 - which will be kept up to date with fresh information.