ECAI-09

Call for Participation

Workshop on Spatio-Temporal Dynamics

ECAI 2010 , Lisbon (Venue), Portugal

Workshop 21. Monday 16 August 2010.

New: [Workshop Programme and Proceedings]

Description

The field of qualitative spatial representation and reasoning has evolved as a sub-division in its own right within the broader field of Artificial Intelligence -- recent years have witnessed remarkable advances in some of the long-standing problems of the field. For instance, new results about tractability for spatial calculi, explicit construction of models, characterisation of important subclasses of relations, as well as in the development of new areas such as the emergence of integrated spatio-temporal calculi and the importing of non-monotonic techniques for dealing with various aspects intrinsic to dynamic spatial systems. Inextricably linked to space is time, i.e., spatial configurations change over time. Spatial change may also be perceived as being spatio-temporal and recent work has been devoted to providing useful and well-grounded models to be used as high level qualitative description of spatio-temporal change. Reasoning about space and spatial dynamics also involves reasoning about changing spatial configurations, and in more realistic scenarios, integrated reasoning about space, actions and change. Recent work supporting this paradigm has also explicitly addressed the formal modelling of dynamic spatial systems and ensuing interactions between the spatial reasoning domain and the field of reasoning about actions and change, and commonsense reasoning.

Driven by cognitive approaches that characterise the processing of spatial information within qualitative spatial reasoning, there has been considerable influx of people from other areas within AI such as computer vision, robotics etc, working on qualitative representation and reasoning about spatial change, spatio-temporal interactions, and the formal modelling of dynamic spatial systems in general. Qualitative conceptualisations of space and tools/techniques for efficiently reasoning with them being well-established, there is now a clear felt need within the community to utilise the tools and formalisms that have been constructed in the recent years in novel application scenarios.

[Workshop Programme]


Workshop Scope and Format

The workshop on Spatio-Temporal Dynamics at ECAI 2010 aims to achieve a balance between both theory and application-centric research in the spatial and temporal reasoning area. At the foundational level, of special interest to this session is research that focusses on the integration of the specialisation of qualitative spatial reasoning with general logic-based approaches for reasoning about action and change. Some of the topics deemed important include:

At the application-level, we encourage the submission of research that demonstrates the utility of well-established qualitative spatial and temporal calculi, tools and systems in novel domains including, but not limited to, the following:

Although the content of the proposals that are submitted is open-ended, the session categorically invites submission of papers highlighting prototypical and complete systems. It is expected that the proposed systems, or parts thereof, in this category will involve spatial and/or temporal reasoning in some form. Of special interest to the aims of the session are systems where the application of formal qualitative spatial calculi or the application of existing reasoning tools is highlighted. In addition to the thematic requirements, selections will be made on the basis of how closely the illustrated techniques utilize existing formalizations developed in the area of qualitative spatial representation and reasoning.

We encourage interested authors to contact the organisers if in doubt about the scope or the relevance of a potential submission.


Workshop Keynote


The Formalities of Affordance

It is an obvious truth that the possibilities for action and movement are conditioned by the physical spatial environment. In the terminology of J. J. Gibson, these possibilities are defined by the "affordances" of environmental features, and the key to being a successful agent in the physical world is being able to perceive and exploit these affordances. In this talk I want to explore to what extent it is possible to characterise different types of affordance in terms of familiar spatial and temporal logics such as the RCC systems and the interval calculus, e.g., to characterise formally such notions as "container", "passageway", "entrance", and "barrier", and the types of action or movement that are afforded (or "disafforded") by environmental features having these properties.

Speaker: Antony Galton, University of Exeter, United Kingdom


Submission Requirements

Electronic submissions are solicited in PDF format. Papers should be submitted using the Easychair Online submission system. Contributions should be no longer than 6 pages, formatted as per the guidelines applicable to ECAI 2010 -- please look up ECAI 10 Formatting Guidelines.

Please feel free to contact the organisers if in doubt about any aspect of the session or its requirements or if your submission is not acknowledged .


Attendance and Publication

The workshop aims to bring together researchers in spatial and temporal reasoning in specific and artificial intelligence in general. Up to 40 participants will be selected to attend the workshop, contributing and participating in discussions. Accepted papers will be included in the workshop proceedings to be distributed at ECAI 2010 and will also be available online after the conference. Screening will be based on reviews and relevance to the workshop goals. Each paper will be peer reviewed by at least two experts in the topical area. Sumitted full-length papers may also possibly be accepted as posters.


Important Dates

Full paper submission: 7 May 2010
Notification of acceptance: 7 June 2010
Camera-Ready copy due: 15 June 2010


Registration

All accepted authors and interested participants are required to register for the workshop. Registrations will be part of the main registration process for ECAI 2010 and will be announced in due time at the main conference website at http://ecai2010.appia.pt/.

Program and Advisory Committee


Workshop Co-Chairs

Mehul Bhatt (primary contact)
SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition
Universität Bremen
P.O. Box 330 440, 28334 Bremen, GERMANY
bhatt@informatik.uni-bremen.de

Hans W. Guesgen
School of Engineering and Advanced Technology
Massey University, Private Bag 11222
Palmerston North, NEW ZEALAND
h.w.guesgen@massey.ac.nz

Shyamanta M Hazarika
Computer Science and Engineering
School of Engineering, Tezpur University
Tezpur - 784028, Assam, INDIA
smh@tezu.ernet.in




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Last modified on Sun May 23 2010.