Call For Participation: Workshop on Developing AI Applications for the Disabled

held in conjunction with

The 14th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

Tentative Date: 19 AUGUST 1995

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

Our goal in this workshop is to explore the application of AI technologies to help alleviate perceptual, cognitive or motor based challenges routinely faced by many people. In this workshop, we hope to gather together AI researchers working with the disabled, as well as others whose work may be applicable to the special needs of the disabled.

Although there is interest in applying AI techniques to systems that assist disabled people, the area is not yet a well-defined field of application. We expect many of our discussions to be exploratory, and will focus on the following points in particular:

1. 1. Description of AI techniques or methods that have proven useful in designing applications for the disabled.
2. 2. Characterization of applications in which AI techniques are likely to be of significant use.
3. 3. Analyses of novel interfaces that can be used by the disabled.
4. 4. Empirical studies of successes or failures, documenting the effect of AI techniques in designing applications.
5. 5. The applicability of already established work in other related areas (such as robotics, computational linguistics, speech generation, etc) to such applications.

It is clear that there needs to be an understanding of what is needed in the disabled community as well as what is possible with the current AI technology. We are at a point in time when AI technology is advanced enough to make a significant difference in the lives of disabled people. A workshop at this time can identify matches between researchers' work and needs of special populations. Discussions of what has been done, what can be done, and what needs to be done will provide the necessary impetus to help make AI applications for disabled people a viable application area.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

SUBMISSIONS:

Papers may be submitted in either electronic (LaTeX, Postscript, ASCII) or paper form. Electronic submission is preferred. Paper submissions (5 copies) may be sent to:

Papers are limited to 15 pages, each page having no more than 45 lines with 1 inch margins, using 12 point type. Titlepage, abstract, figures, and references are included in the 15 page limit. Submissions must be received by 15 March 1995 for consideration. Electronic submissions are subject to the same page limitations (when printed) as hard copy submissions.

We encourage people with demonstrations or videotapes to contact Dr. Mittal directly.

Depending on the number of people registered, it may also be possible for us to have participants who do not submit a paper. Please contact us for more details.

REGISTRATION:

Please note that you must be registered for the main conference to register for and attend workshops at IJCAI-95. The workshop program for IJCAI-95 is 19-21 August, and the main conference is 21-25 August. Send email to ijcai@aaai.org for registration, travel, and housing information.