Foundations of Information and Knowledge Systems (FoIKS)

Call for Papers   (PDF)

The FoIKS symposia provide a biennial forum for presenting and discussing theoretical and applied research on information and knowledge systems. The goal is to bring together researchers with an interest in this subject, share research experiences, promote collaboration and identify new issues and directions for future research.

FoIKS 2008 solicits original contributions dealing with any foundational aspect of information and knowledge systems, including submissions from researchers working in fields such as discrete mathematics, logic and algebra, model theory, information theory, complexity theory, algorithmics and computation, statistics and optimisation who are interested in applying their ideas, theories and methods to research on information and knowledge systems.

Previous FoIKS symposia were held in Budapest (Hungary) in 2006, Vienna (Austria) in 2004, Schloß Salzau near Kiel (Germany) in 2002, and Burg/Spreewald near Berlin (Germany) in 2000. FoIKS took up the tradition of the conference series Mathematical Fundamentals of Database Systems (MFDBS), which initiated East-West collaboration in the field of database theory. Former MFDBS conferences were held in Rostock (Germany) in 1991, Visegrad (Hungary) in 1989, and Dresden (Germany) in 1987.

The FoIKS symposia are a forum for intensive discussions. Speakers are given sufficient time to present their results, expound relevant background information and put their research into context. Furthermore, participants are asked in advance to prepare as correspondents to a contribution of another author.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• Database Design: formal models, dependency theory, schema translations, desirable properties;
• Dynamics of Information and Knowledge Systems: models of transactions, models of interaction, updates, consistency preservation, concurrency control;
• Information Integration: heterogeneous data, views, schema dominance and equivalence;
• Integrity and Constraint Management: verification, validation, and enforcement of consistency, triggers;
• Intelligent Agents: multi-agent systems, autonomous agents, foundations of software agents, cooperative agents;
• Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval: machine learning, data mining, text mining, information extraction;
• Knowledge Representation: planning, reasoning techniques, description logics, knowledge and belief, belief revision and update, non-monotonic formalisms, uncertainty;
• Logics in Databases and AI: non-classical logics, spatial and temporal logics, probabilistic logics, deontic logic, logic programming;
• Mathematical Foundations: discrete structures and algorithms, graphs, grammars, automata, abstract machines, finite model theory, information theory;
• Security and Risk Management in Information and Knowledge Systems: privacy, trust, cryptography, steganography, information hiding;
• Semi-Structured Data and XML: data modelling, data processing, data compression, data exchange;
• Social and Collaborative Computing: symbiotic intelligence, self-organisation, knowledge flow, decision making;
• The Semantic Web and Knowledge Management: languages, ontologies, agents, adaption, intelligent algorithms; and
• The WWW: models of web databases, web dynamics, web services, web transactions and negotiations.

Submission of Papers

Papers must be typeset using the Springer-Verlag LaTeX2e style llncs for Lecture Notes in Computer Science, which is available for download as the file llncs2e.zip here. The suggested number of pages is 16, and the maximum number of pages is 18. Submissions which deviate substantially from these guidelines may be rejected without review. Initial submissions must be in PDF format, but authors should keep in mind that the LaTeX2e source must be submitted for the final versions of accepted papers. Submissions in alternate formats, such as Microsoft Word, cannot be accepted for either initial or final versions. The submissions will be judged for scientific quality and for suitability as a basis for broader discussion. The proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series and will be available at the symposium.

After the symposium authors of selected papers will be asked to prepare extended versions of their papers for publication in a special issue of the journal Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence.

Electronic Submission

Submission to FoIKS 2008 will be electronically only. Authors are asked to create a submission system account first. Subsequently, this account can be used to submit one or more abstracts and upload corresponding papers.
Paper submission is closed!

Important Dates

Conference Chairs

Program Committee Co-Chairs

Sven Hartmann
Massey University, New Zealand
Email:   s.hartmann@massey.ac.nz
WWW:   http://infosys.massey.ac.nz/~shartman/

Gabriele Kern-Isberner
University of Dortmund, Germany
Email:   gabriele.kern-isberner@cs.uni-dortmund.de
WWW:   http://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/~kisberne/index.html.en

Local Arrangements Chair

Carlo Meghini
Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione, Italy
Email:   Meghini@isti.cnr.it
WWW:   http://www.nmis.isti.cnr.it/meghini/

Publicity Chair

Markus Kirchberg
Massey University, New Zealand
Email:   Markus@theKirchbergs.info
WWW:   http://work.theKirchbergs.info/

Program Committee