Fifth International Conference on Fuzzy Sets Theory and Its Applications January 30 -February 4, 2000 - Liptovský Mikuláš, The Slovak Republic Special Session/Workshop on FUZZY QUERYING Call for abstract and participation Fuzzy querying turns out to be one of the most promising areas of fuzzy sets theory and fuzzy logic theory application. So far, most popular lines of research include fuzzy querying of (conventional) databases and the use of fuzzy concepts in information retrieval. Due to a rapidly growing amount of information collected in companies, public administration, private resources, etc., querying becomes a daily activity of more and more people. These information resources contain neither strictly well structured data (best suited to be dealt with using databases) nor, on the other extreme, almost unstructured bodies of text. The Internet, a global container of information, with its plethora of semi- structured documents is here a good example. Multimedia and HTML files, e-mail message boxes etc. pose a challenge for efficient querying techniques. Moreover, the source of querying criteria and the ultimate user of the querying results is a human being. Thus, it seems to be a vital imperative to provide for human consistency of the querying techniques. In practical terms, it refers to the use of natural language based concepts in querying. In the simplest setting, it may consist in the maintenance of a dictionary of well-defined terms and operations to be used in a query language. Then, often it would be advantageous if the results of a query were described using the very same set of linguistic terms. That opens the door for the application of several relevant techniques like data mining and summarisation, linguistic approximation, etc. In fact, putting the whole topic in a broader perspective we can consider a kind of natural language based data processing or computing with words postulated recently by Lotfi Zadeh. The Fifth International Conference on Fuzzy Sets Theory and Its Applications (FSTA) seems to be a very convenient forum for an open discussion of the subject of fuzzy querying, roughly depicted above. The conference, recognised by EUSFLAT as the very first "fuzzy event" of the new millennium, precedes some other similar events including FQAS’2000 (Flexible Query Answering Systems) conference in Warsaw, Poland (October 2000), Special Session on Intelligent Techniques for Internet Resources at Fourth International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems & Allied Technologies in Brighton, UK (August/September 2000) or special session on database and information retrieval systems at IFSA Congress/ NAFIPS, in Vancouver, Canada (July 2001), to quote just a few. The special session at FSTA is conceived as a less formal forum for the exchange of ideas relevant for the concept of fuzzy querying, including, but not limited to, the following topics (practical implementations and experiences as well as theoretical advances): ? Fuzzy querying languages ? Fuzzy relational algebra ? Use of fuzzy concepts in information retrieval ? Linguistic data mining techniques ? Fuzzy approaches for dealing with various data formats, as, e.g., multimedia, HTML, XML A short abstract (of about 300 words) of the proposed contribution is to be sent by e-mail to organizers of this workshop Slawomir Zadrozny (e-mail: zadrozny@ibspan.waw.pl) and Peter Vojtas (e- mail: vojtas@kosice.upjs.sk) by November 30, 1999 . Proceedings with selected papers will be published after the conference. Attached please find informations about FSTA; please register for FSTA by organizers. F I F T H I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O N F E R E N C E O N F U Z Z Y S E T S T H E O R Y A N D I T S A P P L I C A T I O N S January 30 -- February 4, 2000 L I P T O V S K Y M I K U L A S T H E S L O V A K R E P U B L I C The fifth Conference on Fuzzy Sets Theory and Its Applications will take place under the auspices of the Military Academy in Liptovsky Mikulas, the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava, and Working Group for Fuzzy Set Theory and Applications by Slovak Mathematical and Physical association, in co-operation with E U S F L A T, E U R O F U S E and the action COST 15 "Many Valued Logics for Computer Science Applications". S c i e n t i f i c P r o g r a m m e C o m m i t t e e Chair: Erich Peter KLEMENT (Austria) Vice-chair: Radko MESIAR (the Slovak Republic) W o r k s h o p s - Several special workshops will be organized: 1) Many Valued Logics (Godo, Hajek) 2) Many Valued Algebras (Chovanec, Mundici, Riecan) 3) Triangular Norms (Klement, Mesiar, Pap) 4) Non-additive Measures and Integrals (Grabisch, Denneberg, Pap) 5) Aggregation Operators (De Baets, Grabisch, Mesiar) 6) Quantum Structures (Dvurecenskij, Kopka, Pykacz) 7) Fuzzy Querying Knowledge Bases (Vojtas, Zadrozny) Rooms can be provided for workshops during the conference. Please send all suggestions for topics of workshops to the O r g a n i z i n g C o m m i t t e e (for address see the enclosed registration form). O r g a n i z i n g C o m m i t t e e Eva RYBARIKOVA, Pavel DEDERA, Maria JURECKOVA, Military Academy, Liptovsky Mikulas Magda KOMORNIKOVA, Jozef KOLLAR, Peter VICENIK, Slovak Technical University,Bratislava V e n u e Lectures and sessions will take place at the Hotel Bystra in the Janska valley. The opening ceremony will begin on Monday morning,January 31, 2000 at 9 a.m. The conference is expected to close on Friday afternoon,February 4, 2000. A c c o m m o d a t i o n The conference, including accommodation of the participants and accompanying persons, will take place at the Hotel Bystra in the Janska valley. Room and board (five nights lodging, breakfasts, lunches and dinners from Sunday evening, January 30, 2000 till Friday afternoon, February 4, 2000) are covered by the conference fee. S o c i a l a n d c u l t u r a l e v e n t s The conference fee includes a short excursion, concert and a reception for the participants and accompanying persons. The Janska valley is a starting point for visiting different parts of the central Slovakia. There will be several possibilities to go for individual trips to the High or Low Tatras. The hotel swimming pool and sauna will be open for all conference participants. C O N F E R E N C E F E E S Participant fee: ......................................................................................................... 400,- USD Accompanying person fee: ...................................................................................... 300,- USD The Organizing Committee of FSTA 2000 realizes the ful conference fee may be prohibitive for some participants. Since it is scientific criteria only that should matter and since we appreciate their taking part in the conference, we would like to offer them R e d u c e d f e e: .................................................................................................. 300,- USD Applications for the reduced fee should be accompanied with an abstract of the talk,the list of publications, or a supervisor's endorsement and sent to the organizing Committee by November 30, 1999 (for address see the enclosed registration form). If a participant wants to have a room without a roommate, There is an extra charge of ...... 70,- USD P l e a s e p a y i n o u r f a v o u r Account No: 106 548-349 / 0900 with bank Slovenska statna sporitelna, a.s. Bratislava, the Slovak Republic (SWIFT: SLSPSKBX) details of payment: invoice No. (payment for FSTA 2000) b e f o r e N o v e m b e r 3 0, 1 9 9 9 Personal checks and credit cards cannot be accepted for the payment of the conference fee. All participants are recommended to keep a copy of the payment confirmation and to bring this to the registration desk (it will be situated in the hotel building and will be open on Sunday, January 30, 2000 from 4 p.m.). Only in exceptional cases can participants pay the conference fee in cash at the registration desk. F S T A 2 0 0 0 R E G I S T R A T I O N F O R M (Please, return by e-mail. If not, type or use block letters.) A c t i v e P a r t i c i p a n t Surname .................................................... First name(s) .............................................. Title: Prof./Dr./Mrs./Miss/Ms./Mr. ......................... Institution ................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ Mailing address ............................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ Country ........................ Code ...................... Telephone ...................... Telex ..................... Fax ............................ E-mail .................... I wish to present a paper ......................... Yes / No If yes, title of paper ..................................... ............................................................ Preferred accommodation ............................. Double (paying an extra charge of 70,- USD)................. Single Please return this form by N o v e m b e r 3 0 , 1 9 9 9 to the chair of the Organizing Committee: RNDr. Eva RYBARIKOVA FSTA 2000 Katedra matematiky Vojenska akademia 031 19 L i p t o v s k y M i k u l a s S L O V E N S K A R E P U B L I K A Telephone: (++421 849) 522 234, 522 235, 252 41, 252 42 (extension 42 3332 or 42 2710) Fax: (++421 849) 522 237 E-mail: fsta2000@valm.sk or rybarike@valm.sk