Diagrams is an international and interdisciplinary conference series, covering all aspects of research on the theory and application of diagrams.

Recent technological advances have enabled the large-scale adoption of diagrams in a diverse range of areas. Increasingly sophisticated visual representations are emerging and, to enable effective communication, insight is required into how diagrams are used and when they are appropriate for use. The pervasive, everyday use of diagrams for communicating information and ideas serves to illustrate the importance of providing a sound understanding of the role that diagrams can, and do, play. Research in the field of diagrams aims to improve our understanding of the role of diagrams, sketches and other visualisations in communication, computation, cognition, creative thought, and problem solving. These concerns have triggered a surge of interest in the study of diagrams.

The study of diagrammatic communication as a whole must be pursued as an interdisciplinary endeavour. Diagrams 2008 is the fifth event in this conference series, which was launched in Edinburgh during September 2000. Diagrams attracts a large number of researchers from virtually all related fields, placing the conference as a major international event in the area.

Diagrams is the only conference that provides a united forum for all areas that are concerned with the study of diagrams: for example, architecture, artificial intelligence, cartography, cognitive science, computer science, education, graphic design, history of science, human-computer interaction, linguistics, logic, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, and software modelling.

For the first time in its history, Diagrams will be co-located, running in conjunction with the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing and the ACM Symposium on Software Visualization as part of Visual Week. This co-location will provide a lively and stimulating environment, enabling researchers from related communities to exchange ideas and more widely disseminate research results. Cross-conference participation is encouraged and the program will include joint keynote speakers.

Diagrams 2008 will consist of sessions including presentations of refereed papers, posters and tutorial sessions. We invite submissions of

* long research papers (15 pages)
* short research papers (7 pages)
* posters (3 pages)
* tutorial proposals (1 page; see the conference web page for full details)

that focus on any aspect of diagrams research. Long papers should present original research results. Short papers and posters should present original research contributions, position or problem statements, summarise software to support the use of diagrams, or integrate results published elsewhere which are of interest to the Diagrams community.

All submissions will be fully peer reviewed. The proceedings will be published by Springer in their Lecture Notes in Computer Science series, www.springer.com/lncs.

Full details on the preparation of submissions can be found on the conference web site www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/diagrams2008.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

* applications of diagrams
* computational models of reasoning with, and interpretation of, diagrams
* design of diagrammatic notations
* diagram understanding by humans or machines
* diagram aesthetics and layout
* educational uses of diagrams
* graphical communication
* heterogeneous notations involving diagrams
* history of diagrammatic notations
* information visualization using diagrams
* novel uses of diagrams
* psychological issues pertaining to perception, comprehension or production of diagrams
* reasoning with diagrams
* software to support the use of diagrams
* theoretical aspects of diagrams including, for example, classification and formalization
* usability issues concerning diagrams