Contents :

Introduction
Topics of Interest
Participation and Submission of Papers
Important Dates
Workshop Organisers
Program Committee
Preliminary Program (Papers are downloadable.)

The objective of this workshop is to assemble theoreticians and practitioners concerned with developing methods and systems that assist the knowledge acquisition process and assessing the suitability of such methods. Thus, the workshop includes all aspects of eliciting, acquiring, modeling and managing knowledge, and their role in the construction of knowledge-intensive systems. Knowledge acquisition still remains the bottleneck for building a knowledge based system. Reuse and sharing of knowledge bases are major issues and no satisfactory solutions have been agreed upon yet. There is a wide range of research. Much of the work in this field has been knowledge acquisition from human experts. The advent of the age of digital information has brought the problem of data overload. Our ability to analyze and understand massive datasets lags far behind our ability to gather and store the data. A new generation of computational techniques and tools is required to support the acquisition of useful knowledge from the rapidly growing volume of data. All of these are to be discussed in this workshop.

This workshop offers an opportunity to draw together both aspects of dealing with the situated nature of human knowledge and expertise and of developing methods that depend more on their algorithmic adequacy than on the expertise of the knowledge engineer.

Topics of Interest

Papers are invited in all aspects of knowledge acquisition for knowledge-based systems, including (but not restricted to):

• Fundamental views on knowledge that affect the knowledge acquisition process and the use of knowledge in knowledge engineering
• Algorithmic approaches to knowledge acquisition
• Tools and techniques for knowledge acquisition, knowledge maintenance and knowledge validation
• Evaluation of knowledge acquisition techniques, tools and methods
• Knowledge acquisition, machine learning and knowledge discovery
• Languages and frameworks for knowledge and knowledge modeling
• Integration of knowledge acquisition techniques with wider information systems or decision support systems
• Methods and techniques for sharing and reusing knowledge
• Distributed knowledge acquisition through infrastructures such as the Internet

Participation and Submission of Papers

Despite the more open nature of this workshop the major goal remains to encourage vigorous interaction and exchange of ideas. Consequently, the workshop participation will be kept small - less than 40 participants. Persons not submitting papers can also request to participate. Authors are invited to formulate an issue that would be useful to discuss. Software demonstrations related to presented papers are also encouraged.

The submissions may be sent by e-mail (self-contained LaTex or PostScript or PDF files) or as hardcopies (in triplicate) to Hiroshi Motoda (address see below). E-mail submission is highly encouraged. To ensure a uniform look for the final proceedings, authors are requested to follow the paper format (up to 15 page) for the PRICAI'98 main conference. Style format for LaTeX2e can be downloaded from http://www.springerde/comp/lncs/authors.html.

The submissions will be reviewed by members of the program committee. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings and distributed at the workshop. Authors will retain copyright of their papers.

For more information abouttheworkshop,pleasecontact the Workshop Organisers.

Important Dates

• Papers due by: July 31,1998
• Notification of Acceptance: September 10,1998
• Camera-ready version of Final Paper due: October 10, 1998
• Date of Workshop: November 22-23,1998

Workshop Organisers

Hiroshi Motoda
Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research
Osaka University
8-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki 567-0047, Japan
motoda@sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp

Riichiro Mizoguchi
Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research
Osaka University
8-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki 567-0047, Japan
miz@ei.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp

Paul Compton
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
School of Computer Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales, Australia
compton@cse.unsw.edu.au

Huan Liu
Department of Information Systems and Computer Science
National University of Singapore
Singapore 119260
liuh@iscs.nus.edu.sg

Program Committee

Dai Araki(Toshiba, Japan)
Bob Colomb (University of Queensland)
Paul Compton (University of New South Wales, Australia)
John Debenham (CSIRO and University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
Brian Gaines (University of Calgary, Canada)
Masahiro Hori(IBM Japan, Japan)
Yves Kodratoff (CNRS and University of Paris-Sud, France)
Huan Liu (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
Tim Menzies (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Riichiro Mizoguchi (Osaka University, Japan)
Katharina Morik (University Dortmund, Germany)
Hiroshi Motoda (Osaka University, Japan)
Enrico Motta (Open University, UK)
Mark Musen (Stanford University, USA)
Cecile Paris (CSIRO, Australia)
Debbie Richards (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Takao Terano (Tsukuba Univiersity, Japan)
Katsuhiko Tsujino (Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Japan)
Yoshiyuki Koseki (NEC Corporation, Japan)
Geoff Webb (Deakin University, Australia)