14th Workshop on Configuration (ConfWS)
http://confws-12.cis.unisa.edu.au/

Co-located with the 20th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2012), August 27-31, 2012, in Montpellier, France.
http://www2.lirmm.fr/ecai2012/


Introduction:

The main goal of the workshop is to promote high-quality research in all technical areas related to configuration. The workshop is of interest for both researchers working in the various fields of applicable AI technologies mentioned below as well as for industry representatives interested in the relationship between configuration technology and the business problem behind configuration and mass customization. It provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, evaluations and experiences especially in the use of AI techniques within these application and research areas.


Topics of interest:

* Configuration problems and models: structure of configuration problems, knowledge representation, fuzzy and incomplete knowledge, knowledge base verification, validation and diagnosis, standardization of catalog exchange formats, configuration problems, including discrete, continuous and mixed constraints; product and process configuration; product design and configuration; software product line configuration.

* Techniques for obtaining and/or maintenance of configuration models: knowledge acquisition methods, cognitive approaches, machine learning, data extraction methods, ontology integration, reconciliation of knowledge bases, knowledge elicitation.

* Reasoning methods: constraint satisfaction problems and extensions, preference based reasoning, description logics, rules, case-based reasoning, SAT-solving, local search, genetic algorithms, neural networks, problem decomposition, optimization, multi-criteria optimization, symmetry breaking, cooperative configuration processes, reconfiguration of existing systems, explanations, distributed problem solving, benchmark proposals, knowledge-based recommendation.

* Interactivity and e-business: personalization, ontology, intelligent human computer interaction, machine learning, client/server architecture, configuration web service, distributed configuration, configuration process modeling.

* Applications and tools: configuration tools, design tools, application reports, case studies, real-world challenges, test environments for configuration knowledge bases, configuration in related fields like software configuration, service composition, Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), Model Transformation, Model Satisfaction and Test Case generation for component-based software construction


Submission:

We invite original contributions in form of a full paper of no more than 8 pages. Position statements and problem instances can be submitted as short papers limited to 4 pages. Both regular and short papers should be formatted according to ECAI guidelines. At least one author should attend the workshop to present the paper.

Submissions are via EasyChair at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=confws12


Important Dates:

Paper submission: May 28, 2012
Notification: June 28, 2012
Camera-ready papers due: July 16, 2012
Workshop held: (TBA. Monday 27 or Tuesday 28 August, 2012)


Workshop Chairs:

Wolfgang Mayer, University of South Australia, Australia
Patrick Albert, IBM, France


Program Committee:

Tomas Axling, Tacton Systems AB, Sweden Claire Bagley, Oracle Corporation, USA
Conrad Drescher, University of Oxford, UK
Alexander Felfernig, TU Graz, Austria
Gerhard Friedrich, Alpen-Adria Universitaet Klagenfurt, Austria
Albert Haag, SAP AG, Germany
Alois Haselboeck, Siemens AG, Austria
Lothar Hotz, Universit�t Hamburg, Germany
Tomi M�nnist�, Aalto University, Finland
Klas Orsvarn, Tacton System AB, Sweden
Markus Stumptner, University of South Australia, Australia
Barry O?Sullivan, Cork Constraint Computation Centre, Ireland
Juha Tiihonen, Aalto University, Finland