ACM SIGIR 2004 WORKSHOP



ON



MATHEMATICAL/FORMAL METHODS IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL



MF/IR 2004







OBJECTIVE



The previous four workshops (ACM SIGIR MF/IR 2000, Athens, Greece; ACM
SIGIR MF/IR 2001, New Orleans, USA; ACM SIGIR MF/IR 2002, Tampere, Finland;
ACM SIGIR MF/IR 2003, Toronto, Canada) showed that the mathematical/formal
results achieved in Information Retrieval (IR) could be organized into a
coherent theoretical framework, that they brought new knowledge to IR, and
that mathematical/formal research in IR has established itself as a
specialized research area of IR. The increased attendance and rising
interest indicate that MF/IR is viable.



The purpose of the MF/IR 2004 workshop is, on the one hand, to continue and
enhance the results obtained so far, and on the other hand, to present,
discuss, analyze, integrate the newer/newest results. Therefore MF/IR 2004
aims at promoting discussion and interaction among those with theoretical
and applicative research interests in mathematical/formal aspects of
Information Retrieval coming from a ¾ potentially and relatively ¾ large
spectrum of different IR fields, and also at being a forum for the
presentation of both theoretical and applicative results (e.g.,
foundational issues; description and/or integration of models; retrieval
applications; mathematical/formal techniques, properties and structures in
IR; existing and/or new theories and theoretical aspects).



There will be paper presentations, and it is planned to have an invited
speaker. Although the presentations should follow a conference style,
however, interaction and discussion are also of primary importance. The
presentations will be followed by a Discussion Panel, which has been very
successful in the previous MF/IR workshops.



Due to high interest in this workshop in previous years, paper
presentations will be selected on a peer review basis, just as in previous
workshops. Due to time constraints (one day workshop), the number of
presentations seems to be limited to around 15 papers, whereas the number
of participants between 30 and 40. The members of the PC usually attend the
workshop. It was also very important to see in previous workshops that more
and more young researchers attended, and also more and more new research
groups seemed to establish themselves in the field of MF/IR.



The previous MF/IR workshops have been successful also financially, and got
good rating from participants. The best papers from the four previous MF/IR
events, once enhanced and revised, were selected for publication in special
topic issues by the Journal of the American Society of Information Science
and Technology, Journal of Information Retrieval, and Information
Processing & Management.



TOPICS OF INTEREST



Contributions are solicited dealing with, but not limited to, the following
areas:



Information Retrieval

Information Filtering

Information Mining

Indexing and Retrieval

Hypermedia

World Wide Web Retrieval

Digital Libraries

Evaluation

User Modeling, and User Tasks

Semantic Web and Ontologies

Web Link Topology



where the different entities involved (e.g., documents, queries, relevance,
effectiveness, users, etc.) are modeled using any of, but not necessarily
limited to, the following approaches:



Classical Sets

Fuzzy Sets

Rough Sets

Vectors

Linear Space

Similarity Functions

Probability

Theory of Uncertainty

Functional Analysis

Algebra

Topology

Metric Spaces

Euclidean Geometry

Non-Euclidean Geometries

Boolean Logic

Non-standard Logics

Fuzzy Logic

Quantum Logic

Matroid Theory

Graph Theory

Theory of Computation

Recursion Theory

Information Theory

Artificial Intelligence

Statistical and Physical Methods



WORKSHOP CHAIRS



·        Sandor Dominich (University of Veszprém, Hungary)

·        C.J. “Keith” van Rijsbergen (University of Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.)



PROGRAM COMMITTEE

·        Peter       Bruza (Distr. Sys. Tech. Centre, Queensland, Australia)

·        Steven       Cater (Kettering University, U.S.A.)

·        Fabio       Crestani (University of Strathclyde, Scotland)

·        Sandor       Daranyi (University of Gothenburg, Boras, Sweden)

·        Leo       Egghe (Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Belgium)

·        Norbert       Fuhr (University of Dortmund, Germany)

·        Donald       H. Kraft (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge,
U.S.A.)

·        Eduard      Hoenkamp (A.C.M., the Netherlands)

·        Theo       Huibers (KPMG Bus. Adv. Serv., the Netherlands)

·        April       Konthostathis (Ursinus College, U.S.A.)

·        Mounia      Lalmas (Queen Mary London, U.K.)

·        David       Losada (University of Corunna, Spain)

·        Jian-Yun       Nie (University of Montreal, Canada)

·        Gabriella       Pasi (ITIM-CNR, Milan, Italy)

·        Vijay       Raghavan (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, U.S.A.)

·        Michael       Wong (University of Regina, Canada





SUBMISSION



Submitted papers should be of at most 15 normal (A4) pages in length.
Please submit the paper in PDF or PS by e-mail to the following e-mail
address



[log in to unmask]



using "MF/IR 2004 Submission" as the e-mail subject line. The format for
the paper should follow a usual format in IR publishing. All submissions
will be reviewed by two referees. All accepted papers will be made
available in a printed and/or electronic proceedings. It is planned that a
selected number of accepted papers, once expanded and revised, be included
in a post-workshop journal issue.















CORRESPONDENCE



Direct correspondence, inquires and submissions relating to this workshop
should be addressed to:



Sandor Dominich, e-mail: [log in to unmask]



IMPORTANT DATES



Submission of papers:                                     31 May 2004

Notification of acceptance:                              15 June 2004

Final submission:                                           30 June 2004







FURTHER INFORMATION



Further information can be found on the SIGIR 2004 Web site at
http://www.sigir2004.org/