# IJCAI-99 Workshop on
Ontologies and Problem-Solving Methods:
Lessons Learned and Future Trends

Held on August 2, 1999 in conjunction with the
Sixteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
City Conference Center, Stockholm, Sweden

Ontologies and Problem-Solving Methods (PSMs) are widely used instruments for knowledge sharing and reuse. Ontologies are generally used to specify domain knowledge in a generic and consensual way. PSMs do the same for reasoning knowledge.

In the last decade, we have learned a great deal about ontologies and PSMs, and have seen views on many issues change and evolve. Issues of all sorts have arisen, most persist, a few have gone away. However, there is yet no well-formed coherent framework which summarizes what we have learned, characterizes the widespread agreement, or that is available for wider consumption.

The goal of this workshop is to make a significant step towards a framework that captures a thorough understanding of the overall field of ontologies and problem-solving methods. That is, what the key issues are, what we have learned, what the synergies and overlaps are between different aspects in the field, as well as to focus attention on what research issues are likely to be fruitful. We discuss these issues for ontologies, problem-solving methods and for their integration.

One aim of the framework to be developed is to make explicit the relation with such areas as object-oriented systems, databases, knowledge bases and knowledge-based systems. It is generally felt that there are several similar notions used in these different areas, and that it would be good to make that knowledge explicit and widely available.

These proceedings contain 13 papers about different aspects of ontologies and PSMs ranging from fundamental issues, overviews and comparisons to application oriented work. It also contains one statement of interest.

International Program Committee

We are grateful to the International Program Committee for helping us to make this a high quality workshop. Members are: Ashok Goel, Georgia Tech (USA), Bill Swartout, University of Southern California/ISI (USA), Bob Wielinga, University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Chantal Reynaud, Lab of Research in Informatics (France), Chris Welty (Vassar College), Cristiano Castelfranchi (Italy), Derek Sleeman, University of Aberdeen (UK), Dieter Fensel, University of Karlsruhe (Germany), Ed Hovy, University of Southern California (USA), Enric Plaza, IIIA-CSIC (Spain), Enrico Motta, Open University (UK), Frank Puppe, University of Wuerzburg (Germany), Gertjan van Heijst, Knowledge Centre CIBIT (the Netherlands), Guus Schreiber, University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Hans Akkermans, Free University Amsterdam (Netherlands), John Bateman, Steling University (United Kingdom), John Gennari, UC-Irvine (USA), Joost Breuker, University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Jose Cuena, Technical University Madrid (Spain), Klas Orsvarn, Tacton Systems (Sweden), Kris Van Marcke, Bolesian (Belgium), Mark A. Musen, Stanford (USA), Masahiro Hori, IBM, (Japan), Michael Gruninger, University of Toronto (Canada), Nathalie Aussenac, University of Toulouse (France), Nigel Shadbolt, University of Nottingham (UK), Riichiro Mizoguchi, Osaka University (Japan), Vipul Kashyap, Applied Research at Bellcore, (USA), Yolanda Gil, University of Southern California/ISI (USA).

Previous related workshops

This workshop is the next edition in a series of workshops on Ontologies and/or PSMs, as can be seen from the list below.

- Joint workshops on Ontologies and PSMs:
  - Ontologies and Problem-Solving Methods: Lessons Learned and Future Trends, IJCAI-99
  - Applications of Ontologies and Problem-Solving Methods, ECAI-98
  - Shareable and Reusable Components for Knowledge Systems, KAW-98
- Workshops on Ontologies:
  - Formal Ontologies in Information Systems, FOIS-98, Italy
  - Ontological Engineering, Spring Symposium Series, Stanford, 1997
  - Ontological Engineering, ECAI-96, Budapest
  - Practical Aspects of Ontology Development, AAAI-96
  - Basic Ontological Issues In Knowledge Sharing, IJCAI-95
  - Implemented Ontologies, ECAI-94, Amsterdam
  - Knowledge Sharing and Information Interchange, IJCAI-93, France
  - Formal Ontology, Italy, 1993
- Workshops on PSMs:
  - Problem-Solving Methods, IJCAI-97, Japan
  - Sharable and Reusable Problem-Solving Methods, KAW-94, 96, Canada
  - PSMs at EKAW workshops (93, 94, 96, 97)

Amsterdam, May 1999

V. R. Benjamins, University of Amsterdam
B. Chandrasekaran, Ohio State University
A. Gómez Pérez, Technical University of Madrid
N. Guarino, Italian National Research Council
M. Uschold, The Boeing Company
(co-chairs)