ECAI-2000 Workshop: Connectionist-symbolic integration

[Paolo Frasconi]

		  CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION

			ECAI-2000 Workshop on

	  Foundations of connectionist-symbolic integration:
	      representation, paradigms, and algorithms

	       http://www.dsi.unifi.it/~paolo/ECAI2000

		Humboldt University, Berlin (Germany)
			   August 21, 2000

BACKGROUND

In recent years much attention has been paid to the integration of
connectionist systems with symbol based techniques. Whereas such an
approach has clear advantages, it also encounters serious difficulties
and challenges. Various models and ideas have been proposed to address
various problems and aspects in this integration. The few unified
approaches that have been proposed are still very limited, showing
both the lack of a full understanding of the relevant aspects of this
new discipline and the broad complexity in scope and tasks.

In this workshop, we aim at fostering a deep discussion about at least
three topics that we believe to be fundamental for the development of
a successful theory of Connectionist-Symbolic Integration:
representation, paradigms, and algorithms. Concerning representation,
it is fully recognized that structured representations are ubiquitous
in different fields such as knowledge representation, language
modeling and pattern recognition. The interest in developing
connectionist architectures capable of dealing with these rich
representations (as opposed to "flat" or vector-based representations)
can be traced back to the end of the 80's. Today, after more than ten
years since the explosion of interest in connectionism, research in
architectures and algorithms for learning structured representations
still has a lot to explore and no definitive answers have
emerged.

Different integration paradigms have also been proposed: these are
the unified and the hybrid approaches to integration. Whereas the
purely connectionist ("connectionist-to-the-top") approach claims that
complex symbol processing functionalities can be achieved via neural
networks alone, the hybrid approach is premised on the complementarity
of the two paradigms and aims at their synergistic combination in
systems comprising both neural and symbolic components. In fact, these
trends can be viewed as two ends of an entire spectrum. 

Topics of interest include:

- Algorithms for extraction, injection and refinement of structured
  knowledge from, into and by neural networks.
- Inductive discovery/formation of structured knowledge.
- Classification, recognition, prediction, matching and manipulation
  of structured information.
- Neural models to infer hierarchical categories.
- Applications of hybrid symbolic-connectionist models to real world
  problems. 

All these topics are usually investigated and probed independently
from each other and making use of different assumptions and
techniques. The organizers believe it is necessary to enforce a higher
level of cross-interaction among these issues, making use of all the
computational tools we have available, such as deterministic and
probabilistic approaches, event-based modeling, computational logic,
computational learning theory, and so on. Moreover, special attention
will be given to applications domains, with the aim to devise a
taxonomy that may be useful to the selection of the most suited
integration paradigms and techniques to be used. We hope, also, to be
able to discuss some application cases where to verify the basic ideas
emerged in the literature and in the workshop's discussion itself. 


PARTICIPATION

Participation in the workshop is open to all members of the AI
community. Participants are expected to register for the main ECAI-2000
conference (please see http://www.ecai2000.hu-berlin.de for details).
The number of participants is limited. The workshop will feature
invited talks, contributed presentations, and open discussion. 
Submitted papers will be reviewed by at least two referees. Articles
reporting work in progress are encouraged. However, papers should be
original and not already submitted for publication. All submissions
should be sent to the organizers by e-mail, in PostScript or PDF
format, to the address ecai2000 at mcculloch.ing.unifi.it. Common
compression utilities (such as gzip, compress, or winzip) can be
used. Submitted papers should not exceed 10 pages.  Other researchers
interested in attending the workshop without contributing a paper
should send a position paper of 1-2 pages describing their interest in
the mentioned topics. 


IMPORTANT DATES

Submission Deadline: March 31, 2000
Submission Notification: May 15, 2000
Final Submission Due: June 10, 2000
Workshop Held: August 21, 2000


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS:

Paolo Frasconi, University of Florence, Italy (paolo at dsi.unifi.it)
Marco Gori, University of Siena, Italy, (marco at ing.unisi.it)
Franz Kurfess, Concordia University, Canada (franz at cs.concordia.ca)
Alessandro Sperduti, University of Pisa, Italy (perso at di.unipi.it)