The IJCAR 2008 Workshop on
          
          Evaluation of Systems for Higher Order Logic
          (ESHOL)
          will be held 
          10-11th August 2008,
          as part of
          
          
          
          The 4th International Joint Conference on
          Automated Reasoning
          Sydney, Australia,
          10th-15th August 2008
          
This workshop brings together practitioners and researchers who are involved 
in the development of reasoning systems based on higher-order logic. 
The workshop will stimulate and foster the build-up of an infrastructure that 
supports research, development, and deployment of higher-order reasoning 
systems. 
A particular focus is on means to evaluate higher-order reasoning systems. 
Advances in these aspects of reasoning in higher-order logic will make 
higher-order reasoning system easier to use in applications, e.g., hardware 
and software verification, knowledge based reasoning, and computer aided 
mathematics. 
The workshop's notion of higher-order includes, but is not limited to, 
ramified type theory, simple type theory, intuitionistic and constructive 
type theory, and logical frameworks. 
The workshop's notion of reasoning systems includes automated and 
semi-automated provers, model generators, as well as proof and model checkers.
The workshop will have three parts:
-  Evaluation of Higher-Order Reasoning Systems
     
     -  Frameworks and tools for evaluation
     
-  Collections of test problems
     
-  Problem representation languages
     
-  Evaluation of automated higher-order reasoning systems, in 
          particular, higher-order theorem provers
     
-  Evaluation of interactive higher-order reasoning systems
     
-  Evaluation of systems working for different higher-order logics and 
          varying semantics
     
 
 
-  Descriptions of Successful Higher-Order Reasoning Systems
     
     -  Logical frameworks
     
-  Higher-order automated theorem provers
     
-  Interactive proof assistants supporting the partial automation of 
          higher-order logic
     
-  Higher-order model checkers and higher-order model generators
     
-  Systems that automate natural fragments of higher-order logic, such 
          as monadic second-order logic
     
 Due to the evaluative character of the workshop, descriptions of both 
     existing and novel systems are welcomed. 
     Descriptions of existing systems should stress successful applications and 
     evaluations.
 
-  System Demonstration and System Competition
     
     The systems described in the second part will be demonstrated. 
     Moreover, a first competition "happening" for automated theorem provers 
     for simple type theory is planned. 
     This competition will be similar to the CASC competition for first-order 
     reasoning systems. 
     It will exploit and test the TPTP problem representation language for 
     simple type theory, which was recently developed by the organizers. 
 
We envision attendees that are interested in fostering the development and 
visibility of reasoning systems for higher-order logics, and the connection 
between research on the various flavors of higher-order logic. 
We are particularly interested in comparisons of the practical strengths of 
higher-order reasoning systems and in a discusssion on the development of a 
higher-order version of the TPTP. 
Due to the intricate nature of higher-order logic, we are also interested 
in a discussion on what practical strength means in the context of 
higher-order logic and how it can be measured.
 
 Organization 
The workshop will be a one-and-a-halfday workshop, organized as follows:
-  Day 1: 9:00-10:00am - Evaluation of Higher-Order Reasoning Systems
     
-  Day 1: 10:30-12:30pm - Evaluation of Higher-Order Reasoning Systems
     
-  Day 1: 2:00-3:00pm - Descriptions of Successful Higher-Order Reasoning Systems
     
-  Day 1: 3:30-5:30pm - Descriptions of Successful Higher-Order Reasoning Systems
     
-  Day 1: 5:30-End - Panel Discussion: 
-  Day 2: 9:00-12:00am - System Demonstration and System Competition
 Program Committee 
The workshop organizers are
Christoph Benzmüller,
Florian Rabe,
Carsten Schürmann,
and
Geoff Sutcliffe,
If you have any questions about the workshop, please email the organizers.
 
 Journal Publication 
A special issue of the 
Journal of Applied Logic, based around around the topic of the ESHOL 
workshop, is planned (the JAL has agreed), provided there are sufficiently 
many strong submissions.
The special issue will target ESHOL participants, but will also also accept
submissions from the broader community.
 
 Submission 
Submission of papers for presentation at the workshop, and
proposals for system and application demonstrations at the workshop,
are now invited.
Submissions will be reviewed, and a balanced program of high-quality 
contributions will be selected. 
Submissions must be in PDF, and must conform to the format
produced by LaTeX with this template
(this is what the PDF should look like).
There is a 20 page limit.
Long listings of problems or computer output should be relegated to a 
referenced WWW site.
Submission is via 
EasyChair 
(thanks to Andrei Voronkov).
The selected contributions will be printed as workshop proceedings, and
will also be published as 
CEUR Workshop Proceedings.
Important dates
-  Abstract submission deadline - 19th May
-  Submission deadline - 26rd May
-  Papers distributed to PC - 30th May
-  Reviews due in from PC - 23rd June
-  Notification of acceptance - 27th June
-  Final versions due - 14th July
-  Workshop - 10-11th August