Call for Contributions

This year the biannual ICKEPS will focus on a specific aspect of knowledge engineering technology: tools, translators and techniques that are aimed at outputting solver-ready domain models from formal languages used in application areas.

In the Planning and Scheduling Community there exist now mature solvers which input models encoded in a domain - independent language, both common and widely used in the P&S community (such as the PDDL family) and newer or more specific. It is vital that these solvers are visible and accessible to potential users out of the community to spread the P&S culture and to broaden their catchment area: translators are one way of achieving these goals.

We are interested in KE tools based on a language that is in active use in some distinct application community and outputs a domain model (operators, methods, goals, states, heuristics) which is input-ready for a solver (a planner or scheduler). The solver's output should be useful within (and, perhaps, translatable back into the language of) the application area.

The competition seeks tools and translators that work with models used in application languages like (but not limited to):

• a web service language (eg OWL-S, DAML),
• a workflow language,
• a business modelling or processing language (eg BPEL),
• a software requirements language (eg B, UML),
• an E-learning metadata language

and translate the models into a well-defined planner or scheduler input language (such as PDDL for instance).

Entry to ICKEPS will be in two stages:

• a paper describing an implemented translator, the application area and formal language in which the input to the translator is encoded, and the level of tool support for translation as well as use of plans and schedules returned by a solver.
• a demonstration given in a workshop-like format, in one of the workshop days at ICAPS 2009.

All accepted papers will be published in the ICKEPS proceedings. Additionally, a prize will be given to the best tool, based on the evidence given in the submitted paper and at the workshop demonstration. This will be announced at the ICAPS best paper award ceremony. Evidence will take into account both user related issues, such as:

• spread of use of the translator by application experts
• perceived added value to the application area
• robustness, usability, originality and ingenuity of the translator
• comprehensiveness of the translation process, including translation of output plan or schedule back into the application domain.

as well as planning and scheduling related issues, such as:

• the challenges involved in the translation process
• availability of solvers to input the translated domain model
• performances of the planner and/or schedule (when available) with the translated domains
• quality of the solutions produced with the P&S wrt usual practice in the application area (robustness, reusability, flexibility).

The participants are kindly requested to send the paper to the organizers at e-mail address ickeps09@ktiml.mff.cuni.cz by June 18, 2009. Submissions must be in PDF using the AAAI format (the same format used for ICAPS) - see the author instructions at the AAAI web site for detailed formatting instructions. Thought we do not impose strict restrictions on the paper length, the expected length is 8 pages (if the length differs significantly from 8 pages, please contact the organizers). Content of the paper should address the aims of the competition as stated above.

Submissions closed!

In conjunction with the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-09)