AID'02 Workshop

Semantic Web Technology
for
Intelligent Design and Engineering Support

13.7.2002, Cambridge, UK

Introduction

The Semantic Web is one of the main trends in ongoing Internet development directed to a more intelligent Web. A key issue here is to make the meaning of the information presented explicit and clear - in a way that it can be used by humans and by computers. Neither HTML nor XML are expressive enough for this purpose. Web languages with a clear semantic foundation are needed. A first proposal was RDF(S) - based on entity relationship models. But in order to capture meaning in its full extent a Web language with a clear logical fondation is necessary. This is just under discussion within various W3C groups. The problem arises how such a major development of Web technology can influence and be influenced by application areas like intelligent design, intelligent CAD, etc. The main directions of these developments can be summarized as follows:

The Semantic Web will allow us to represent the meaning of design and engineering information on the Web - at least to some degree;
For this purpose, especially the relevant notions in a domain and their relations have to be represented on a formal basis : ontologies build the backbone of semantic information. Ontological definitions of notions and relations allow us to make their meaning explicit and comprehensible to information systems.
in collaborative problem solving, and for reuse of information (esp. ontologies) in various applications.

Main issues to be addressed at the workshop

The main points to be discussed at the workshop can be outlined as follows:

expressiveness of the semantic language: what is needed in design and engineering applications? What is realistic taking decidibility and tractability issues into account?
engineering ontologies: state of the art, perspectives
special purpose ontologies in design and engineering: for CAD, for electrical engineering, etc.
problem solving ontologies: how can we formally describe the design and engineering problem solving process - in a well defined and reusable way?

The workshop should contribute to assessing the state of the art, the bottlenecks and the future role that Semantic Web technologies will play in engineering processes.
Besides case studies of practical problems and theoretical contributions relevant to applications in engineering, we also welcome descriptions of implemented systems for ontologies in engineering. We hope this will stimulate the co-operation between research and industry and the technology transfer into industry. We especially encourage the authors to address the following issues:

Engineering tasks addressed and requirements for ontologies, knowledge representation and reasoning;
Arguments for the AI technologies used, experiences and best-practices;
Key strategies used in order to face complexity, scalability, maintainability;
Costs and benefits of the solutions, limitations and bottlenecks;
Process integration aspects, including: knowledge acquisition and maintenance, relation with the currently used engineering tools such as CAD/CAE, PDM, etc;
The envisioned engineering process of the future and realistic ways to achieve it.

The workshop will consist of presentations of selected papers and discussions. A limited number of papers will be selected after being reviewed by the Program Committee to be presented during the workshop.

Attendance

All workshop participants must also register for the main AID'02 conference. Workshop attendance will be limited to at most 30 people who are asked to submit a paper and / or a one-page statement of interest.

Publication

The abstracts of all submitted papers will be available on the workshop page. The accepted papers and the statements of interest will be published in the workshop notes. The accepted papers will also be available from the workshop page.

Submissions

Submit an electronic abstract and your paper before May 1, 2002. Sent the abstract of your paper by email to Ruediger.Klein@DaimlerChrysler.com. It is recommended to submit papers using the final camera-ready formatting style of the AID'02 except for the blind reviewing and submission procedure instructions. Papers should not exceed six pages in camera-ready format, statements of interest must not exceed one page. Guidelines on the AID'02 Style are available on the WWW AID'02 homepage. Papers should be sent electronically as PDF (preferred) or Postscript, or in printed form to:

ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSION

Ruediger Klein
DaimlerChrysler AG
Research and Technology
Alt-Moabit 96A
10559 Berlin, Germany
Ruediger.Klein@DaimlerChrysler.com

Important dates

IMPORTANT DATES
May 1, 2002		Submission of electronic abstracts and of workshop papers
May 20, 2002		Submission of statement of interest by workshop attendees
May 20, 2002		Notification of acceptance / rejection
May 31, 2002		Camera-ready copies of papers
July 13, 2002		Workshop in conjunction with AID 2002 in Cambridge, UK

Workshop organizer

Rüdiger Klein, DaimlerChrysler Research, Berlin, Germany

Program committee

Hans Akkermans, Free University Amsterdam, NL
John Clarkson, Cambridge University, UK
Ruediger Klein, DaimlerChrysler Research, Germany
Alexander Maedche, University of Karlsruhe, FZI, Germany
Enrico Motta , Open University, UK
Charles Petrie, Stanford University, USA
Markus Stumptner, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia