[FOM] CFP: FOCA - Formal Ontologies for Communicating Agents

[Carlos Areces]

FOCA (Formal Ontologies for Communicating Agents)
July 31 - August 4, 2006

Workshop organized as part of ESSLLI 2006, European Summer
School on Logic, Language and Information
July 31 - August 11, 2006 in Malaga

Workshop Organizers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roberta Ferrario, 
Laboratory of Applied Ontology , ISTC-CNR,
Trento (Italy):(ferrario at loa-cnr.it) 

Nicola Guarino, 
Laboratory of Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR,
Trento (Italy): (guarino at loa-cnr.it) 

Laurent Prévot, 
Academia Sinica, 
Taipei (Taiwan): (prevotlaurent at gmail.com) 

Workshop Purpose
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In recent years lots of efforts have been devoted to formal studies of
human and artificial agent communication. Research advancements have
been achieved along three main lines: (i) agent's internal states and
dynamics, (ii) social interaction and conventional communicative
patterns, (iii) semantics-pragmatics interface - especially in the
dialogue context (i.e. the interplay between the semantic content of
messages and the communicative acts themselves). There is a recent trend
of studies trying to integrate these approaches in many ways. On the
other hand, formal ontology has been consecrated as a good solution for
comparing and integrating information and thus its application to this
specific domain is very promising . More precisely, an ontological
analysis of the fundamental ingredients of interaction and communication
will make explicit the hidden ontological assumptions underlying all
these proposals. Ontology has also proven to be a very powerful means to
address issues related to the exchange of meaningful communication
across autonomous entities, which can organize and use information
heterogeneously. The purpose of the workshop is therefore to gather
contributions that (i) take seriously into account the ontological
aspects of communication and interaction and (ii) use formal ontologies
for achieving a better semantic coordination between interacting and
communicating agents.

Workshop Topics
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We encourage contributions concerning the two main areas listed below
with a particular attention to explore the interplay between ontological
analysis and its applications in practical cases.

    * Ontological aspects of interaction and communication
          o Ontological analysis of interaction and communication
          o Studies of the structure and coherence of interaction
          o Logical models for communicative acts
          o Primitives of interaction and communication
          o Formal semantics of dialogue
    * Semantic coordination through formal ontologies
          o Dialogue semantics and formal ontology
          o Dynamic ontology sharing
          o Ontological primitives for meaning negotiation, ontological
            alignment and semantic interoperability
          o Ontology evolution through communication
          o   Concrete problems and experiences about terminological
            disambiguation and integration

Submission Details
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract describing original
contributions to the workshop topics. Submissions should range between 3
and 5 pages. The following formats are accepted: .doc, .tex, .pdf
(please always include source files). Please send your submission
electronically the following email address:
                 
                 esslli06(at)loa-cnr.it 

by the deadline listed below. The submissions will be reviewed by the
workshop's programme committee and additional reviewers. The accepted
papers will appear in the workshop proceedings published by ESSLLI. The
format for the final version will be pdf. A selection of the best papers
accepted at the workshop will be considered for publication in the
international journal Applied Ontology www.applied-ontology.org

Workshop Format
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The workshop is part of ESSLLI and is open to all ESSLLI participants.
It will consist of five 90-minute sessions held over five consecutive
days in the first week of ESSLLI. There will be 2 or 3 slots for paper
presentation and discussion per session. On the first day the workshop
organizers will give an introduction to the topic or, if the topic is
relatively new, an extended lecture to familiarize the audience with the
topic.

Important Dates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Submissions: * March 8, 2006
*Notification:* April 21, 2006
*Full paper deadline:* May 1st, 2006
*Final programme:* June 21, 2006
*Workshop Dates: * July 31 - August 4, 2006

Workshop Program Committee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thomas ADDIS (University of Portsmouth)
Nicholas ASHER (University of Texas, Austin, USA and IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France)
John BATEMAN (University of Bremen, Germany)
Guido BOELLA (University of Torino, Italy) 
Paolo BOUQUET (University of Trento, Italy) 
Herbert CLARK (Stanford University, USA)
Marco COLOMBETTI (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
Scott FARRAR (University of Bremen, Germany)
Roberta FERRARIO (LOA-ISTC, CNR, Trento, Italy)
Aldo GANGEMI (LOA-ISTC, CNR, Roma, Italy)
Nicola GUARINO (LOA-ISTC, CNR, Trento, Italy)
Andreas HERZIG (IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France)
Joris HULSTIJN (Utrecht University, the Nehterlands)
Kepa KORTA (Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain)
Nicolas MAUDET (University of Paris Dauphine, France)
Massimo POESIO (University of Essex, UK and University of Trento, Italy)
Laurent PREVOT (Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan)
Matt PURVER (CSLI, Stanford, USA) 
Johan VAN BENTHEM (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Rogier VAN EIJK (Utrecht University, the Netherlands)
Laure VIEU (IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France) 

Local Arrangements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All workshop participants including the presenters will be required to
register for ESSLLI. The registration fee for authors presenting a paper
will correspond to the early student/workshop speaker registration fee.
Moreover, a number of additional fee waiver grants might be made
available by the local organizing committee on a competitive basis and
workshop participants are eligible to apply for those. There will be no
reimbursement for travel costs or accommodation. Workshop speakers who
have difficulty in finding funding should contact the local organizing
committee to ask for the possibilities of a grant.

Further Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About ESSLLI: http://esslli2006.lcc.uma.es/