callforpapers

FUZZ-IEEE 2001

CALL FOR WORKSHOPS

The 10^th IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems

Meeting the grand challenge: Machines that serve people

Workshop 1
Fuzzy/soft computing based virtual characters and agents for virtual worlds, e-agents, and computer gaming

Fuzzy/soft virtual characters and agents are a new concept that is starting to make its way out of research and into the commercial world. The area brings together two main disciplines, the field of computer graphics and visualization covering areas such as 3D graphics, virtual reality, computer animation, and multimedia, and the field of fuzzy logic/soft computing based agents, which is based on the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life. The automation of virtual characters and agents may be implemented include the use of fuzzy logic/soft computing. Fuzzy logic may be used to make varied decisions depending on the situation encountered. By using fuzzy logic the character or agent's decision-making ability will be enhanced in such a way that avatars will gain some ability to function in an almost human like fashion.

Recently the low price and high power of computers made virtual agents a viable option to explore scientifically. Thus, there has been a marked increase in interest with virtual agents in diverse industries such as entertainment, education, engineering, and film. Furthermore, the computer gaming industry has always been, and continues to be, an early adopter of AI techniques such as fuzzy/soft virtual characters and agents.

It would be useful for the computer gaming industry to be more directly involved with the fuzzy/soft computing research community. Conversely, as an application area, entertainment provides new challenges for the fuzzy/soft computing research community. This special session is intended to bring together fuzzy/soft computing researchers and professionals from the entertainment software industry involved in Fuzzy/Soft Virtual Characters and Agents. It will provide a forum to explore mutual interests, including (but not limited to) new AI techniques for entertainment software, research avenues that might benefit the entertainment industry, and ways to more easily transfer technology.

Activities will include presentations and demonstrations on the following topics (longer research presentations / demonstrations are encouraged, furthermore there will be a 1 hour open forum): Fuzzy/soft computing applied to the topics of:

Potential participants should submit a paper (3-6 pages) describing a work recently completed or in progress For all submissions, participants should include a CV or resume highlighting their work in this area.

Send submissions to Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore, adriancheok@nus.edu.sg in postcript or PDF format before August 1 2001. Demonstrations are also encouraged; please contact us before the submission date for details.

The application of fuzzy techniques in image processing is a promising research field. Among the different topics, this workshop will focus on the construction and application of fuzzy filters for image processing. It is well known that fuzzy filters have a more robust performance than classical filters. For example, most classical filters that remove noise simultaneously blur the edges, while fuzzy filters have the ability to combine edge-preservation and smoothing. Compared to other non-linear techniques, fuzzy filters are able to represent the knowledge in a comprehensible way. Several researchers have already presented interesting fuzzy filters with promising results. The aim of this workshop is to give a survey of the current state-of-the-art and indicate future keypoints for research. Furthermore, it is a unique opportunity for researchers in this area to meet and to exchange ideas.

Topics of this workshop include:
Fuzzy filters for image enhancement
Fuzzy filters for noise reduction of various noise types, such as gaussian noise, salt & pepper noise, ....
Fuzzy filters for and edge detection.

Call for papers
Authors are invited to submit one or more full papers for review. Papers should be written in English, not exceeding 7 single-sided pages on A4 or letter-size paper, in one-column format with 1-inch margin on all four sides, in Times or a similar font of 10 points or larger. Electronic submission is allowed (only postscript or Word documents). The first page of each paper should include the following information: title of the paper, the author's names and affiliations, complete address (including email, fax and phone) of the corresponding author, abstract of the paper, and maximum 5 keywords.

Please send papers to one of the workshop organisers; postal and email addresses can be found at the bottom of this page. All papers will be reviewed by at least two referees.

Important dates
Submission deadline (extended): Friday, June 15, 2001
Notification of acceptance: August 2001
Final manuscripts: Friday, 14 September 2001

Workshop Organizers
Mike Nachtegael, Dietrich Van der Weken, Etienne Kerre
Ghent University
Department of Applied Mathematics & Computer Science Fuzziness and Uncertainty Modelling Research Unit
Krijgslaan 281 (Building S9), B-9000 Gent, Belgium
Phone: +32 9 264.47.65 Fax: +32 9 264.49.95
E-mail: etienne.kerre@rug.ac.be, mike.nachtegael@rug.ac.be, dietrich.vanderweken@rug.ac.be

Dimitri Van De Ville
Ghent University Department of Electronics and Information Systems
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41 B-9000 Gent Belgium
Phone: +32 9 264.89.17 Fax: +32 9 264.35.94
E-mail: dimitri.vandeville@rug.ac.be

SCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTION
This workshop will provide a forum to share research on the emerging field of "modelling with words", a field at the intersection of fuzzy information granulation and machine learning. This field has built upon the computing with words paradigm originally introduced by Zadeh to capture the idea of computation based on linguistic terms rather than numerical quantities. However, where computing with words has focused on inference from linguistic knowledge bases, the focus of modelling with words has been in acquiring/learning such models. One of the distinguishing features of this new field is that it decomposes information spaces into imprecise regions or fuzzy granules that are subsequently used to model systems. These models may either be learnt from example data or provided by human experts or a combination of both. In fact, the fusion of these sources of information plays a central role in modelling with words. Typically, the acquired systems aggregate the granular information using probabilistic or fuzzy logic reasoning techniques.

Recent work has demonstrated (with approaches such as fuzzy decision trees, Cartesian granule feature modelling, weighted rules and fuzzy prototyping) that the modelling with words paradigm enhances both model tractability and transparency on the one hand and generalisation power on the other. To-date, however, this work has typically been limited to small world problems (with tens of features/attributes/variables). One of the key challenges that lies ahead for this paradigm is the issue of scalability to large problem domains (such as text categorisation). In scaling these approaches, how can transparency be maintained and possibly enhanced? The need to model larger scale and more complex systems in a transparent way necessitates the development of feature selection techniques as well as other methods of finding appropriate sub-models and then combining them. Other issues that need further research include which words can be used to partition information spaces? Are there limits on the granularity? How can granular models be merged? Can this paradigm accommodate incremental learning? What is the best formal framework for learning and representing linguistic models?

It is hoped that the submissions to this workshop will address these and other issues that provide not only a challenge for the paradigm modelling with words, but also an interesting future for this field. Both theoretical and applied contributions are welcome (examples of problem domains include information retrieval, computer vision, decision support systems, profiling etc.)

The IEEE-FUZZ'2001 Organising Committee invites proposals for the workshop program of the Tenth IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems.

Workshops will be held from 2nd to 3rd December 2001 in parallel with the Conference. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to meet and discuss issues with a selected focus - providing an informal setting for active exchange among researchers, developers and users on topics of current interest. To foster interaction and exchange of ideas, the workshops will be kept small, with attendance limited to active participants only. The format of workshops will be determined by their organisers, who are encouraged to leave ample time for general discussion. Workshops will typically be one full day in length, although half-day and one-and-a-half-day proposals will also be considered. Because the workshops will be focused on exploration of special topics (e.g. E-commerce, Internet application systems, image/video compression, and database applications), topics that are already the subject of regular meetings are not appropriate.

Proposals for workshops should be about two pages in length, and should contain:

A description of the workshop topic, identifying the specific issues on which the workshop will focus.

A brief description of the proposed workshop format, regarding the mix of events such as paper presentations, invited talks, panels, and general discussion.

An indication as to whether the workshop should be considered for a half-day, one or one-and-a-half-day meeting.

The names and full contact information (e-mail and postal addresses, fax and telephone numbers) of the organising committee - around 3 people knowledgeable in the field - and short descriptions of their relevant expertise. (Proposers are encouraged to include organisers who will bring differing perspectives to the workshop topic.)

Workshop proposals should be submitted as soon as possible and must be received no later than Friday, 17 November 2000. Plain text e-mail submissions are preferred. Organisers will be notified of the Committee's decision by August 2001.

Accepted workshop papers will be published in a special section of the Conference Proceedings. Excellent papers will be invited for publication in special issues of an established journal and/or books (particulars to be decided).

Dr Qiang Shen
Division of Informatics
University of Edinburgh
80 South Bridge Edinburgh
EH1 1HN UK

Email: qiangs@dai.ed.ac.uk
Tel: +44 131 650 2705
Fax: +44 131 650 6516 or +44 131 650 6513