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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