8-10 June 2009
Marettimo Island, Italy
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Call for Submissions
CNL 2009
Workshop on Controlled Natural Languages
http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/cnl2009/
Marettimo Island, Sicily (Italy)
8-10 June 2009
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Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of natural languages,
obtained by restricting the grammar and vocabulary in order to reduce or
eliminate ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages
fall into two major types: those that improve readability for human
readers, and those that enable reliable automatic semantic analysis of the
language. [...] The second type of languages has a formal logical basis,
i.e. they have a formal syntax and semantics, and can be mapped to an
existing formal language, such as first-order logic. Thus, those languages
can be used as knowledge representation languages, and writing of those
languages is supported by fully automatic consistency and redundancy
checks, query answering, etc.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language)
Various controlled natural languages of the second type have been
developed by a number of organisations, and have been used in many
different application domains, most recently within the semantic web.
This workshop is dedicated to discussing the similarities and differences
of existing controlled natural languages of the second type, possible
improvements to these languages, relations to other knowledge
representation languages, tool support, existing and future applications,
and further topics of interest.
Topics
---------
CNL 2009 will address the following aspects of controlled natural
languages (CNLs):
- design of CNLs
- parsing of CNLs
- CNLs for knowledge representation
- CNLs for specifications
- CNLs and the semantic web
- CNLs as user interface
- CNLs for interaction and communication
- tool support for CNLs
- reasoning in CNLs
- comparisons of CNLs
- applications of CNLs
- business rules
- user studies
- theoretical results
- etc.
The workshop will be informal with lots of time for presentations and
discussions in the fashion of the seminars organised at Dagstuhl in
Germany (http://www.dagstuhl.de/programm/dagstuhl-seminare). To ensure the
informal atmosphere the number of participants will be limited.
Submission Details
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We invite researchers to submit extended abstracts of exactly 4 pages
(inclusive references). These extended abstracts will be intensively
reviewed by several members of the programme committee. Authors of
accepted extended abstracts will be invited to present their research at
the workshop. Revised versions of the accepted abstracts will be published
before the workshop as a technical report of the Department of Informatics
of the University of Zurich. During the workshop authors will have one
full hour to present their work and to have it discussed by the
participants. All authors are then invited to submit a full paper of up to
20 pages (inclusive references) that takes the discussions during the
workshop into account. Full papers will again be reviewed by the
programme committee. Revised versions of the full papers will be published
by Springer in their LNCS/LNAI series.
Extended abstracts and full papers should use the Springer LNCS format.
Extended abstracts must be submitted electronically in PDF format. For
submissions we use EasyChair
(http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cnl2009).
Venue
---------
The workshop will take place on the Italian island Marettimo at the
Marettimo Residence (http://www.marettimoresidence.com/inglese/home.php)
that consists of a set of two-storey houses within a beautiful garden. On
top of the garden of the residence there is a large lecture hall with
wireless internet.
Marettimo is the outermost of the Egadian Islands to the west of Sicily,
and is easily reached from the airports of Palermo and Trapani. Marettimo
offers the simple and relaxed life of southern Italy, unspoilt landscape,
stupendous views, hiking, swimming, diving, boat trips, and excursions on
donkeys. There are several restaurants and bars, and some shops. What the
island does not offer: traffic - there are practically no roads - fancy
shops and restaurants, night life, and sandy beaches.
Accommodation
----------------------
The Marettimo Residence
(http://www.marettimoresidence.com/inglese/home.php) offers one- and
two-bedroom apartments with fully equipped kitchens. A number of
apartments for the participants of CNL 2009 will be reserved until early
2009 at a price 10% below the regular price. Participants should get into
direct contact with the Marettimo Residence to organise their
accommodation. Alternative accommodations on Marettimo can be found via
the internet.
Conference Dinner
--------------------------
A conference dinner will be arranged during the workshop, and will be paid
individually by the participants.
Important Dates
---------------------
Deadline for submissions of extended abstracts: 14 November 2008
Notification of acceptance of extended abstracts: 9 January 2009
Participants contact Marettimo Residence concerning accommodation: end of
January 2009
Revised versions of extended abstracts: 13 March 2009
Workshop: 8-10 June 2009
Deadline of submission of full papers: 4 August 2009
Feedback on full papers: 2 October 2009
Revised versions of full papers: 6 November 2009
Program Committee
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Piero Bonatti (University of Naples, Italy)
Johan Bos (University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy)
Peter E. Clark (Boeing, Seattle, USA)
Hamish Cunningham (University of Sheffield, UK)
Enrico Franconi (University of Bolzano, Italy)
Norbert E. Fuchs (University of Zurich, Switzerland) (chair)
Glen Hart (Ordnance Survey, Southampton, UK)
Jerry R. Hobbs (USC/ISI, USA)
Kaarel Kaljurand (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Peter Koepke (University of Bonn, Germany)
Tobias Kuhn (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Ian Pratt-Hartmann (University of Manchester, UK)
Stephen Pulman (University of Oxford, UK)
Mike Rosner (University of Malta, Malta)
Rolf Schwitter (Macquarie University, Australia)
John Sowa (VivoMind, USA)
Silvie Spreeuwenberg (LibRT, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Uta Schwertel (imc, Germany)
Yorick Wilks (University of Sheffield, UK)
Further Information
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http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/cnl2009/
Organisation
------------------
Norbert E. Fuchs (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
fuchs@ifi.uzh.ch