Fourth Workshop on Automated Reasoning:

Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice

April 7-8, 1997, University of Manchester, U.K.

AISB 97 Workshop Series

Following in a highly successful series of Workshops on Automated Reasoning, this workshop will provide an informal forum for the automated reasoning community. This workshop series aims to bring together researchers from all areas of automated reasoning in order to foster links and facilitate cross-fertilization of ideas among researchers from various disciplines; among researchers from academia, industry and government; and between theoreticians and practitioners.

Themes:

Although there will be a number of `pre-arranged' items to be discussed during the workshop, it will cover the full breadth and diversity of automated reasoning, including topics such as logic and functional programming; equational reasoning; deductive databases; unification and constraint solving; the application of formal methods to specifying, deriving, transforming and verifying computer systems and in particular safety-critical systems; deductive and non-deductive reasoning, including abduction, induction, nonmonotonic reasoning, and analogical reasoning; commonsense reasoning; and the wide range of topics that fall under the heading of knowledge representation and reasoning.

Format: The workshop will be structured around a number of panel/discussion sessions over two days. These will not only comprise invited panelists on specific topics, but will be generated from submissions received. While these panels may cover a range of areas, such as "practical reasoning" and "hardware verification", we encourage panelists to consider fundamental questions relating to their area, rather than just promoting their own approach. Thus, when submitting an abstract (see below), feel free to suggest key questions for your area of research. In addition to panel sessions there will also be an open poster session.

This is intended to be an inclusive workshop, with participants encouraged from the broad spectrum covered by the field of automated reasoning. We encourage the participation of experienced researchers as well as those new to the field, especially students.

Required Background:

Some understanding of the pure or applied problems in any sub-area of automated reasoning.

Submission Requirements:

Anyone interested in participating in this workshop should submit a short abstract by February 5th, 1997, to the programme chair at the address below. The abstract should concisely outline the author's interests in this area and, if possible, should address one or more key questions in the author's area of automated reasoning, identifying the problems and possible solutions.

Submissions must be a maximum of 2 pages of A4 paper with one inch margins, though short abstracts (as little as one paragraph) are welcome. Authors are encouraged to email a postscript version of their submission (uuencoded and gzipped if possible) to the programme chair. Alternatively, hardcopies (unstapled) may be submitted.

On the basis of these submissions, invitations to the workshop will be issued by February 20th, 1997. The abstracts of all participants, together with key questions that the panels are to consider, will be assembled into an informal proceedings distributed to all participants but not published. Participants wishing to revise their contributions, may do so by March 7th, 1997.

A poster session will be held, supported by very short talks by the participants of this session. Potential participants interested in giving a poster should mention this when sending their submissions. Please note that invitations to the workshop will be made independently of whether or not the participant wishes to give a poster. After invitations have been decided a selection will be made of those wishing to present a poster.

If there is sufficient interest, we hope to have demonstrations of automated reasoning systems, especially as applied to real problems. If possible these will be run remotely from an X terminal. Anyone interested in giving a demonstration should contact the programme chair.

Registration

Registration for the workshop is handled by the AISB'97 workshop organisers, see http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/ai/AISB97/

Important Dates:


Submission deadline:                        5th February 1997
Notification of Acceptance:                 20th February 1997
Revised contributions required:             7th March 1997
Cheap Rate Registration:                    until 1st March 1997
Workshop:                                   7th - 8th April 1997

Workshop Series Organizing Committee:

Alan Bundy (University of Edinburgh)
Tony Cohn (University of Leeds)
Michael Fisher (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Alan Frisch (chair, University of York)
Ian Gent (University of Strathclyde)
Mike Gordon (University of Cambridge)
Andrew Ireland (Heriot Watt University)
Ursula Martin (St. Andrews University)
Chris Priest (HP Labs).

All submissions and correspondence should be sent to the programme chair:

Michael Fisher Department of Computing, Manchester Metropolitan University Chester Street, Manchester M1 5GD United Kingdom email M.Fisher@doc.mmu.ac.uk tel (+44 1 61) 247 1488 fax (+44 1 61) 247 1483

WWW http://www.doc.mmu.ac.uk/STAFF/M.Fisher