ACM SIGIR 2003 WORKSHOP 

ON 

MATHEMATICAL/FORMAL METHODS IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL 

MF/IR 2003 

August 1, 2003, Toronto, Canada 
  
  
  

OBJECTIVE 

The previous three workshops (ACM SIGIR 2000 MF/IR 2000, Athens, Greece,
ACM SIGIR 2001 MF/IR 2001, New Orleans, USA, and ACM SIGIR MF/IR 2002,
Tampere, Finland) showed that the mathematical/formal results achieved in
Information Retrieval (IR) could be organized into a coherent theoretical
framework, that they brought new knowledge to IR, and that
mathematical/formal research in IR can stand as a specialized research area of
IR. 

The purpose of the MF/IR 2003 workshop is, on the one hand, to continue and
enhance the results obtained so far, and on the other hand, to present, discuss,
analyze, the newer/newest results. Therefore MF/IR 2003 aims at promoting
discussion and interaction among those with theoretical and applicative
research interests in mathematical/formal aspects of Information Retrieval,
and also at being a forum for the presentation of both theoretical and
applicative results (e.g., foundational issues; description and/or integration of
models; retrieval applications; mathematical/formal techniques, properties and
structures in IR; existing and/or new theories and theoretical aspects). 

There will be paper presentations, and it is planned to have an invited speaker.
Although the presentations will follow a conference style, interaction and
discussion shall be of primary importance. The presentations will be followed
by a Discussion Panel, since this form of interaction has been very successful
in the previous MF/IR workshops. 

Due to high interest in this workshop in previous years, paper presentations
will be selected on a peer review basis, just as in previous workshops. 

TOPICS OF INTEREST 

Contributions are solicited dealing with, but not limited to, the following areas:

Digital Libraries 
Evaluation 
Hypermedia 
Indexing and Retrieval 
Information Filtering 
Information Mining 
Information Retrieval 
Link Analysis 
Semantic Web and Ontologies 
User Modeling, User Tasks, and Context 
World Wide Web Retrieval 

where the different entities involved (e.g., documents, queries, relevance,
effectiveness, users, etc.) are modeled using any of, but not necessarily limited
to, the following approaches: 

Algebra 
Artificial Intelligence 
Boolean Logic 
Classical Sets 
Complexity Theory 
Euclidean Geometry 
Functional Analysis 
Fuzzy Logic 
Fuzzy Sets 
Graph Theory 
Information Theory 
Linear Space 
Matroid Theory 
Metric Spaces 
Non-Euclidean Geometries 
Non-standard Logics 
Probability 
Quantum Logic 
Quantum Mechanics 
Recursion Theory 
Rough Sets 
Similarity Functions 
Statistical Mechanics 
Theory of Computation 
Theory of Uncertainty 
Topology 
Vectors 
  

WORKSHOP CHAIRS 

· Sandor Dominich (University of Veszprem, Hungary) 
· Mounia Lalmas (Queen Mary, University of London, England, U.K.) 
· Keith van Rijsbergen (University of Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.) 

PROGRAM COMMITTEE 
· Peter  Bruza (Distr. Sys. Tech. Centre, Queensland, Australia) 
· Steven  Cater (Kettering University, U.S.A.) 
· Fabio  Crestani (University of Strathclyde, Scotland) 
· Leo  Egghe (Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Belgium) 
· Norbert  Fuhr (University of Duisburg, Germany) 
· Donald  H. Kraft (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, U.S.A.) 
· Eduard  Hoenkamp (University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands) 
· Theo  Huibers (KPMG Bus. Adv. Serv., the Netherlands) 
· David  Losada (University of Madrid, Spain) 
· Jian-Yun  Nie (University of Montreal, Canada) 
· Gabriella  Pasi (ITIM-CNR, Milan, Italy) 
· Vijay  Raghavan (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, U.S.A.) 
· Michael  Wong (University of Regina, Canada) 
  

SUBMISSION 

Submitted papers should be of at most 15 normal (A4) pages in length. Please
submit the paper in PDF or PS by e-mail to the following e-mail address 

dominich@dcs.vein.hu 

using "MF/IR 2003 Submission" as the e-mail subject line. The format for the
paper should follow a usual format in IR publishing. All submissions will be
reviewed by two referees. All accepted papers will be made available in a
printed and/or electronic proceedings. It is planned that a selected number of
accepted papers, once expanded and revised, will be included in a
post-workshop journal issue. 
  

CORRESPONDENCE 

Direct correspondence, inquires and submissions relating to this workshop
should be addressed to: 

Sandor Dominich, e-mail: dominich@dcs.vein.hu 

IMPORTANT DATES 

Submission (paper, summary):  1 June 2003 
Notification of acceptance:   20 June 2003 
Final submission:    30 June 2003 
Workshop:     1 August 2003 

FURTHER INFORMATION 

Further information can be found on the SIGIR 2003 Web pages
http://www.sigir2003.org/.