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[Paul Mc Kevitt]

            CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS

                  AISB-95:  Hybrid Problems, Hybrid Solutions.
                  ============================================

                      Monday 3rd -- Friday 7th April 1995

            Halifax Hall of Residence & Computer Science Department
                            University of Sheffield
                               Sheffield, ENGLAND

           The Tenth Biennial Conference on AI and Cognitive Science
       organised by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence
                        and the Simulation of Behaviour

Programme Chair:     John Hallam (University of Edinburgh)

Programme Committee: Dave Cliff (University of Sussex)
                     Erik Sandewall (University of Linkoeping)
                     Nigel Shadbolt (University of Nottingham)
                     Sam Steel (University of Essex)
                     Yorick Wilks (University of Sheffield)

Local Organisation:  Paul  Mc Kevitt (University of Sheffield)

The past few years have seen an increasing tendency for diversification in
research into Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Artificial
Life.  A number of approaches are being pursued, based variously on
symbolic reasoning, connectionist systems and models, behaviour-based
systems, and ideas from complex dynamical systems.  Each has its own
particular insight and philosophical position.

This variety of approaches appears in all areas of Artificial Intelligence.
There are both sybmolic and connectionist natural language processing, both
classical and behaviour-based vision research, for instance.

While purists from each approach may claim that all the problems of
cognition can in principle be tackled without recourse to other methods, in
practice (and maybe in theory, also) combinations of methods from the
different approaches (hybrid methods) are more successful than a pure
approach for certain kinds of problems.  The committee feels that there is
an unrealised synergy between the various approaches that an AISB
conference may be able to explore.

Thus, the focus of the tenth AISB Conference is on such hybrid methods.  We
particularly seek papers that describe novel theoretical and/or
experimental work which uses a hybrid approach or papers from purists,
arguing cogently that compromise is unnecessary or unproductive.  While
papers such as those are particularly sought, good papers on any topic in
Artificial Intelligence will be considered: as always, the most important
criteria for acceptance will be soundness, originality, substance and
clarity.  Research in all areas is equally welcome.

The AISB conference is a single track conference lasting three days, with a
two day tutorial and workshop programme preceding the main technical event,
and around twenty high calibre papers will be presented in the technical
sessions.  It is expected that the proceedings of the conference will be
published in book form in time to be available at the conference itself,
making it a forum for rapid dissemination of research results.


SUBMISSIONS:

High quality original papers dealing with the issues raised by mixing
different approaches, or otherwise related to the Conference Theme, should
be sent to the Programme Chair.  Papers which give comparative experimental
evaluation of methods from different paradigms applied to the same problem,
papers which propose and evaluate mixed-paradigm theoretical models or
tools, and papers that focus on hybrid systems applied to real world
problems will be particularly welcome, as will papers from purists who
argue cogently that the hybrid approach is flawed and a particular pure
approach is to be preferred.

Papers being submitted, whether verbatim or in essence, to other
conferences whose review process runs concurrently with AISB-95 should
indicate this fact on their title page.  If a submitted paper appears at
another conference it must be withdrawn from AISB-95 (this does not apply
to presentation at specialist workshops).  Papers that violate these
requirements may be rejected without review.


SHEFFIELD:

Sheffield is one of the friendliest cities in the UK and is situated well
having the best and closest surrounding countryside of any major city in
the UK. The Peak District National Park is only minutes away. It is a good
city for walkers, runners, and climbers.  It has two theatres, the Crucible
and Lyceum. The Lyceum, a beautiful Victorian theatre, has recently been
renovated.  Also, the city has three 10 screen cinemas.  There is a library
theatre which shows more artistic films. The city has a large number of
museums many of which demonstrate Sheffield's industrial past, and there
are a number of Galleries in the City, including the Mapping Gallery and
Ruskin.  A number of important ancient houses are close to Sheffield such
as Chatsworth House. The Peak District National Park is a beautiful site
for visiting and rambling upon.  There are large shopping areas in the City
and by 1995 Sheffield will be served by a 'supertram' system: the line to
the Meadowhall shopping and leisure complex is already open.

The University of Sheffield's Halls of Residence are situated on the
western side of the city in a leafy residential area described by John
Betjeman as ``the prettiest suburb in England''.  Halifax Hall is centred
on a local Steel Baron's house, dating back to 1830 and set in extensive
grounds. It was acquired by the University in 1830 and converted into a
Hall of Residence for women with the addition of a new wing.


ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT SHEFFIELD:

Sheffield Computer Science Department has a strong programme in Cognitive
Systems and is part of the University's Institute for Language, Speech and
Hearing (ILASH).  ILASH has its own machines and support staff, and
academic staff attached to it from nine departments. Sheffield Psychology
Department has the Artificial Intelligence Vision Research Unit (AIVRU)
which was founded in 1984 to coordinate a large industry/university Alvey
research consortium working on the development of computer vision systems
for autonomous vehicles and robot workstations.


FORMAT AND DEADLINES:

Four copies of submitted papers must be received by the Programme Chair no
later than 24 OCTOBER 1994 to be considered.  Papers should be at most 12
pages in length and be produced in 12 point, with at most 60 lines of text
per A4 page and margins at least 1 inch (2.5cm) wide on all sides (default
LaTeX article style is OK).  They should include a cover sheet (not counted
in the 12 page limit) giving the paper title, the abstract, the authors and
their affiliations, including a contact address for both electronic and
paper mail for the principal author.  Papers should be submitted in
hard-copy, not electronically.  Papers that do not adhere to this format
specification may be rejected without review.

Notification of acceptance will be sent to authors by 7 DECEMBER 1994 and
full camera-ready copy will be due in early JANUARY 1995 (publishers'
deadlines permitting).


CONFERENCE ADDRESS:

Correspondence relating to the conference programme, submissions of papers,
etc.  should be directed to the conference programme chair at the address
below.

        John Hallam,
        Department of Artificial Intelligence,
        University of Edinburgh,
        5 Forrest Hill,
        Edinburgh EH1 2QL,
        SCOTLAND.

        Phone:  + 44 31 650 3097
        FAX:    + 44 31 650 6899
        E-mail: john at aifh.edinburgh.ac.uk

Correspondence concerning local arrangements should be directed to the
local arrangements organiser at the following address.

        Paul  Mc Kevitt,
        Department of Computer Science,
        University of Sheffield,
        Regent Court,
        211 Portobello Street,
        Sheffield S1 4DP,
        ENGLAND.

        Phone:  + 44 742 825572
        FAX:    + 44 742 780972
        E-mail: p.mckevitt at dcs.sheffield.ac.uk