Submission Date: Nov 20th.

Function may be treated as an abstraction of behavior. It relates behavior to human notions of utility, i.e., purpose/goal. It forms a useful bridge between objective and quantifiable knowledge about a component (of a device/organization/organism/environment/argument), and subjective notions of its use/purpose. Hence, function is being increasingly used in diverse fields such as diagnosis, design and vision.

Function has been used to motivate decisions, discriminate among choices at hand, or explain an observation. Functional knowledge is being used in addition to knowledge about structure and behavior in domains as varied as Electrical, Aerospace, Industrial and Chemical Engineering, Mechatronics, Architecture, Law, Medicine, Human Physiology, and Software Engineering.

Papers are invited for the special track from researchers in all fields/domains on topics including:

• Reasoning techniques that use function
• Representation formalisms for function
• Applications of reasoning about function: reports, results

Click here for the Submission Procedure

• The Knowledge Engineering Review, Vol. 9(3), 9/94, pp 301-304.
• Special Issues of `International Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence', Vol 8(2), 8/94 and Vol9(1), 1/95.
  
• Special issue of 'Artificial Intelligence in Engineering Journal', Vol 12(4), 10/98.

• Reasoning About Function Web Site
• STRAF Series Web Site

Please direct enquiries to any of the co-chairs:
    Luca Chittaro ( chittaro@dimi.uniud.it )
    Amruth Kumar ( amruth@ramapo.edu)
    James McDowell ( maddog@grafix-net.com)