CFP: ECAI-94 WS on Combining Symbolic and Connectionist Processing

[Hilario Melanie]

Dear People,

Please distribute the following CFP via the connectionists mailing list.
Many thanks,

Melanie Hilario

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                              Call for Papers


	      COMBINING SYMBOLIC AND CONNECTIONIST PROCESSING
	
	         Workshop held in conjunction with ECAI-94
                August 9, 1994 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
			


Until a few years ago, the history of AI has been marked by two parallel, 
often antagonistic streams of development -- classical or symbolic AI and 
connectionist processing. A recent research trend, premissed on the 
complementarity of these two paradigms, strives to build hybrid systems 
which combine the advantages of both to overcome the limitations of each. 
For instance, attempts have been made to accomplish complex tasks by blending 
neural networks with rule-based or case-based reasoning. This workshop will 
be the first Europe-wide effort to bring together researchers active in the 
area in view of laying the groundwork for a theory and methodology of 
symbolic/connectionist integration (SCI). 

The workshop will focus on the following topics:

   o   theoretical (cognitive and computational) foundations of SCI

   o   techniques and mechanisms for combining symbolic and neural 
       processing methods (e.g. ways of improving and going beyond
       state-of-the-art rule compilation and extraction techniques)

   o   outstanding problems encountered and issues involved in SCI 
       (e.g. Which symbolic or connectionist representation schemes 
       are best adapted to SCI? The vector space used in neural nets 
       and the symbolic space have fundamental mathematical differences;
       how will these differences impact SCI? Do we have the conceptual 
       tools needed to cope with this representation problem?)

   o   profiles of application domains in which SCI has been (or can be) 
       shown to perform better than traditional approaches

   o   description, analysis and comparison of implemented 
       symbolic/connectionist systems


SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Prospective participants should submit an extended abstract to the contact
person below, either via email in postscript format or via regular mail, 
in which case 3 copies are required. Each submission should include a
separate information page containing the title of the paper, author 
names and affiliations, and the complete address (including telephone, 
fax and email) of the first author.  The paper itself should not exceed
12 pages. Submission deadline is April 1, 1994.

Each paper will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee.
Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to first authors by 
May 1, 1994. Camera-ready copies of accepted papers are due on June 1st and 
will be reproduced for distribution at the workshop.

Those who wish to participate without presenting a paper should send a
request describing their research interests and/or previous work in the
field of SCI. Since attendance will be limited to ensure effective 
interaction, these requests will be considered after screening of submitted
papers. All workshop participants are required to register for the main 
conference.


PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Bernard Amy (LIFIA-IMAG, Grenoble, France)
Patrick Gallinari (LAFORIA, University of Paris 6, France)
Franz Kurfess (Dept. Neural Information Processing, University of Ulm, Germany)
Christian Pellegrini (CUI, University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Alessandro Sperduti (CSD, University of Pisa, Italy)


IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline				April 1, 1994
Notification of acceptance/rejection		May 1, 1994
Final papers due				June 1, 1994
Date of the workshop				August 9, 1994	


CONTACT PERSON

Melanie Hilario
CUI - University of Geneva
24 rue General Dufour
CH-1211 Geneva 4
Voice:	+41 22/705 7791
Fax:	+41 22/320 2927
Email:	hilario at cui.unige.ch