Logic Programming and Distributed Knowledge Management
(ALP-UK tutorial/workshop at PA Expo)

Tuesday 20th April 1999

ALP-UK is organizing a one day tutorial/workshop on the contribution of
Logic Programming to Knowledge Management, with emphasis on the case
where the knowledge is heterogeneous and distributed across different
systems
and departments in an organization.

The event is co-sponsored by ALP-UK, ALP and Compulog-net.

The speakers will include:

M R Genesereth, Stanford University
Semantic Integration of Heterogeneous Databases: The Relational Logic
Approach

V S Subramanian, University of Maryland
"IMPACT: Interactive Maryland Platform for Agents Collaborating
Together"

Additional contributions will also be organized; proposals are welcome,
in the first place to

Bob Kowalski
Department of Computing
Imperial College of Science, Engineering and Medicine
180 Queen's Gate
London SW7 2BZ
UK
[log in to unmask]

More detailed information of the two contibutions listed above:

Michael R. Genesereth
Stanford University

Semantic Integration of Heterogeneous Databases: The Relational Logic
Approach

Abstract: In recent years there has been a marked increase in the amount

of "structured" data available on the world's computer networks, and all

indicators suggest that this trend will continue in the years to come.
Unfortunately, accessing this information in an integrated way is
complicated by "semantic heterogeneity" among the data sources, i.e.
differences in their schemas and vocabulary.  In this presentation, we
will look at this problem in detail.  We will see why relational algebra

is inadequate for the task and why relational logic, being more
expressive, solves the problem.  We will look at one particular data
integration system, called Infomaster, and a variety of its
applications.  Finally, we will discuss some of the practical problems
in developing large scale "datawebs", and we will examine the prospects
for building a fully integrated "World Information Network", essentially

a World Wide Web for databases.



Bio: Michael Genesereth is an associate professor in the Computer
Science Department at Stanford University.  He received his Sc.B. in
Physics
from M.I.T. and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathemetics from Harvard
University.
Prof. Genesereth is most known for his work on computational logic and
applications of that work in enterprise computing.  He was program
chairman for the 1983 AAAI conference and the 1997 International World
Wide Web Conference.
He is the current director of the Center for Information
Technology at Stanford.

V.S.Subrahmanian
University of Maryland

IMPACT: Interactive Maryland Platform for Agents Collaborating Together

I will present an overview of the IMPACT Project that provides a
platform and environment for agent and software interoperability.
After the quick overview, I will go into details about a concept called
Agent Programs using which, the
way an agent should act in various situations can be declaratively
specified by the creator of that agent.   Agent Programs may be built on

top of arbitrary pieces of software code and may be used to specify
what an agent is obliged to do, what an agent may do, and
what an agent may not do.

I will define several successively more sophisticated and
epistemically satisfying declarative semantics for agent programs, and
study the computation price to be paid (in terms of complexity) for such

epistemic desiderata.  We further show that agent programs cleanly
extend well understood semantics for logic programs, and thus are
clearly linked provide a demonstration.

I will briefly describe two major ongoing applications --- one for the
US Army's "Virtual Operations Center" logistics effort, and the other
with a leading aircraft manufacturer to avoid the "Controlled Flight
into Terrain" phenomenen which is the leading cause of airline
fatalities.

(This talk reflects joint work with Thomas Eiter).


Bio: V.S. SUBRAHMANIAN  received his PhD in Computer
Science from Syracuse University in 1989.  Since then, he has been on
the faculty of the Computer Science Department at the University of
Maryland, College Park, where he currently holds the rank of Associate
Professor.
He received the NSF Young Investigator Award in 1993 and the
Distinguished Young Scientist Award from the Maryland Academy of Science

in 1997. He has worked extensively in knowledge bases,
bringing together techniques in
artificial intelligence and databases. Prof. Subrahmanian has over 100
published/accepted papers,
He has edited two books, one on nonmonotonic reasoning
(MIT Press) and one on multimedia databases (Springer).  He has
co-authored an advanced database textbook (Morgan Kaufman, 1997), and
has written a a textbook on multimedia databases (Morgan Kaufman, Jan.
1998).
He has given invited talks and served on invited panels at several
national and international conferences.  In addition, he has served on
the program
committees of various conferences. Engineering, AI Communications,
Multimedia Tools and Applications, Journal of Logic Programming and
Distributed and Parallel Database Journal.
He serves on DARPA's Executive Advisory Council for the Advanced
Logistics Program.

--
Francesca Toni
Department of Computing, Imperial College
180 Queen's Gate,  London SW7 2BZ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)171 594 8228    Fax: +44 (0)171 589 1552
URL: http://www-lp.doc.ic.ac.uk/UserPages/staff/ft/ft.html





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