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Volume: 8, Issue: 3, Fri Mar 17 09:48:37 EST 1989

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| TODAY'S TOPICS |
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(1) Call for Papers: IFIP Working Conference
(2) IJCAI: Fourth AI and Simulation Workshop
(3) Univ. of Arizona: AI & Simulation Group

* Moderator: Paul Fishwick, Univ. of Florida
* Send topical mail to: simulation@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu
* Archives available via FTP to bikini.cis.ufl.edu, login as
  'anonymous', use your last name as the password, change
  directory to pub/simdigest.



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Posted-Date: 14 Mar 89 17:13:14 GMT
To: uunet!comp-simulation@uunet.UU.NET
Path: cs.utexas.edu!misra
From: misra@cs.utexas.edu (Jayadev Misra)
Newsgroups: comp.simulation,comp.theory
Subject: IFIP Working Conference 1990:  "Programming Concepts and Methods"
Keywords: formal methods, semantics, concurrency & parallelism, program design
Date: 14 Mar 89 17:13:14 GMT
Sender: news@cs.utexas.edu
Followup-To: comp.simulation


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                            Call for Papers
                        IFIP Working Conference

                    Programming Concepts and Methods
                               April 1990

The IFIP Technical Committee 2 Working Conference on "Programming Concepts and
Methods" is jointly organized by IFIP's Working Group 2.2 ("Formal Description
of Programming Concepts") and Working Group 2.3 ("Programming Methodology").
Apart from the authors of accepted papers and members of both working groups,
attendance at the conference is by invitation only.  The conference is to be
hosted by Amir Pnueli and will be in Israel at Sea Gallilee on April 2-5, 1990.
The main topics on which submissions are sought are:

	* Formal description and verification methods
	* Semantics of programming languages
	* Systematic program design methods
	* Concurrency and parallelism
	* Theoretical foundations of programming concepts
	* Descriptions of support tools for programming concepts

Please submit 5 copies of a complete paper by September 10, 1989, to:

	Prof. Dr. Manfred Broy
	Fakultat fur Mathematik und Informatik
	Universitat Passau
	Postfach 2540
	D-8390 Passau
	West Germany

MEMBERS OF THE PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

J.W. de Bakker		D. Gries		G. Kahn
D. Bjorner		E.C.R. Hehner		J. Misra
A. Blikle		J.J. Horning		P.D. Mosses
M. Broy (chair)		S. Igarashi		E.J. Neuhold
R.M. Burstall		M.A. Jackson		M. Sintzoff
O.-J. Dahl		C.B. Jones (cochair)

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Date: Tue, 14 Mar 89 18:08 MST
From: ROZENBLIT%ECEVAX@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu
Subject: Please POST on SImulation DIgest
To: fishwick@bikini.cis.ufl.edu
X-Vms-To: IN::"fishwick@bikini.cis.ufl.edu"

                           Please Post

                     Call for Participation
                 Fourth AI & Simulation Workshop

 11th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
            Detroit, Michigan, Monday August 21, 1989


     The   workshop   will   bring   together   researchers   and 
practitioners  who  are interested in exploring the  benefits  of 
merging methods and techniques offered by Artificial Intelligence 
and  Simulation  Modelling. Research and practical  results  that 
mutually enhance the domains will be discussed. 

     This  meeting will be the fourth in a series  of  Artificial 
Intelligence  and  Simulation  Workshops  that  have  been   held 
annually at the AAAI conferences since 1986. Whereas the previous 
workshops  spanned  a  wide range  of  topics  including  general 
paradigms,  methodologies,  and a number of application  problems 
(mainly  utilization of AI techniques in  simulation  modelling), 
this  time  the  scope  of discussion  will  be  focused  on  the 
following  three  major  areas:  1.)  reasoning  about   physical 
systems: simulation-based approaches and qualitative methods; 2.) 
interfaces  of  simulation  with  planning  and  scheduling;  3.) 
applications.
   
     Ample time will be left for debate in the afternoon  session 
with round table group discussions covering each of the topics. 

     Abstracts describing your research should be sent to:

                   Dr.  Jerzy  W.  Rozenblit,  
        Dept.  of  Electrical  and   Computer Engineering 
            University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, 
                      tel.  (602) 621-6177, 
                e-mail: rozenblit@arizevax.bitnet               

     Please  send  six  copies of your  abstract.  Include  name, 
address,  phone  number, and e-mail address.  Abstracts  must  be 
received  by  May 15, 1989. Please do not exceed a limit  of  800 
words. Abstracts should include key figures and references. 

     Each  abstract  will be refereed by panel  members.  Authors 
will be notified about acceptance or rejection by June 15,  1989. 
The accepted abstracts will be placed in the workshop  proceeding 
to  be  distributed at the meeting. The workshop will  feature  9 
presentations  selected  by  the panel members  and  round  table 
discussions. 

Workshop Chairman: Dr. Jerzy W. Rozenblit, University of Arizona

Panel  Members: 
     Dr. Paul A. Fishwick, University of Florida;  
     Dr. Richard  B.  Modjeski, U.S. Army Concepts  Analysis  Agency;  
     Dr. Norman  R.  Nielsen, Stanfrod Research Institute; 
     Dr.  Tuncer  I. Oren, University of Ottawa; 
     Dr. Bernard P. Zeigler, University of Arizona     



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Date: Thu, 16 Mar 89 15:27 MST
From: ROZENBLIT%ECEVAX@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu
To: fishwick@bikini.cis.ufl.edu

                     THE AI-SIMULATION GROUP
        Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
                    The University of Arizona

RESEARCH PROJECTS:

1. Unified Simulation Knowledge Representation

     The  object oriented paradigms of discrete event  simulation 
are   highly  compatible  with  the  representation  schemes   of 
Artificial  Intelligence (AI).  It is not  surprising  therefore, 
that  languages are being developed to express both  the  dynamic 
knowledge of discrete event formalisms and the declarative  know-
ledge of AI frame paradigms.  Our research objectives has been to 
unify  these  developments in a more fundamental  paradigm  which 
stems  from  the system theoretic  representation  of  simulation 
models.

     As a step toward a complete knowledge representation scheme, 
we  have  combined  the decomposition,  taxonomic,  and  coupling 
concepts of systems in a representation scheme called the  system 
entity structure.  This is a declarative scheme related to frame-
theoretic and object-based representations. We developed a set of 
tools to faciliate operations on system entity structures.


2.  Use of the System Entity Structure in Simulation Model    
    Synthesis.

     A primary application of the above knowledge  representation 
scheme is to automate the construction of simulation models.   In 
this approach, a simulation model is synthesized from  components 
in  a  model  base  following  the  user's  requirements.   These 
objectives  guide  a  pruning process which  reduces  the  entity 
structure to one or more composition trees from which models  may 
be  hierarchically built up from atomic components.   Constraints 
placed on the aspects of the entity structure restrict the family 
of  possible  pruned structures for more  informed  search.   The 
approach  requires  that the model base be  populated  by  models 
expressed  in the DEVS formalism, a modular discrete event  model 
representation  enabling hierarchical assembly.   DEVS-SCHEME,  a 
simulation  environment  written in Scheme (a LISP  dialect)  was 
developed for this purpose.

     Such  knowledge based design is being applied to the  domain 
of local area networks.  Eventually a designer should be able  to 
rapidly  assess the performance of a wide variety of  alternative 
network designs via model synthesis and simulation.

3. Application to Distributed Simulation.

     Research in distributed simulation has concentrated thus far 
on execution of a single model on a network of processors. Yet in 
practice,   simulation   experimentation  most   often   involves 
exploration of the behaviors of a related female of models.   Our 
research  aims to develop a methodology, centered on  the  entity 
structure/model  base concepts, to map a family of models onto  a 
hierarchical multiprocessor.  Several Ph.D. theses have developed 
the  ground work for this approach supported by a series  of  NSF 
grants.  The DEVS-SCHEME environment mentioned above is  actually 
a virtual hierarchical simulator.


4. Laboratory Management by Robot Organizations.

     Several  projects in the ECE Department involve the  planned 
orbiting  space station.  In work funded by the NASA AI  Research 
Branch,  we  are  building a simulation  environment  capable  of 
supporting  design of robot organizations for managing  chemical, 
or  similar, laboratories on the space station.  The  environment 
should   facilitate  thorough  study  of  the  problems   to   be 
encountered  in assigning the responsibility of managing  a  non-
life-critical,  but  mission valuable, process  to  an  organized 
group  of  robots.  In the first phase of the work,  we  seek  to 
develop  congnitive systems and strategies for  effective  multi-
management  of chemical experiments.  Later phases  will  explore 
human-robot interaction and development of robot autonomy.


5. Other Projects. 

     Students and faculty also participate in other projects with 
the  University.  Design of the AI and Simulation Systems  within 
the Biosphere II project to replicate the earth's ecosystem is  a 
notable example.


FACILITIES:

     The  AI-Simulation  Group  is located  within  the  Computer 
Engineering  Research Laboratory.  We have access to an array  of 
computing  facilities including high performance AI  workstations 
linked to powerful mainframe.


COURSES:

     Several  courses are offered by faculty members of  the  AI-
Simulation Group:

       ECE 474   Continuous Systems Simulation
       ECE 479   Introduction to Knowledge Engineering
       ECE 574   Distributed Discrete Event Simulation
       ECE 576   Knowledge Based System Design
       ECE 579   Simulation Based Expert Systems

     There  are  many  other courses related  to  simulation  and 
artificial intelligence offered on campus which students can take 
as part of their minor programs.

PERSONNEL:

     Bernard P. Zeigler, Professor and Group Leader
     (Expert Systems, Hierarchical Simulation Environments).

     Jerzy W. Rozenblit, Assistant Professor
     (Knowledge-Based System Design, Simulation Methodology).

     Francois E. Cellier, Associate Professor
     (Rule-Based Control Systems, Simulation Language Design).

     Some thirty graduate students are currently working on their 
Masters  and Ph.D. degrees as Research Assistants,  partially  or 
fully supported by AI-Simulation projects. Normally, such support 
is  offered  only after the student has  attained  the  requisite 
background.



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