A conference on the topic of Pike and the Semantic Web will be held at Linköping University, Sweden, on August 22-24 2002 (Thursday to Saturday). The programme will consists of roughly equal parts of presentations, panels and workshops.

The Pike focus of the conferences centres around language development, application development, and the open software and standards approach.

The `Semantic Web' focus of the conference includes areas such as metadata handling, information structuring, and E-learning.

Call for contributions

The conference will accept submission of papers, presentations and workshop topics until the 31st of July. Papers should be about 4-8 pages when printed, but submissions should preferably be made in the form of plain text, simple HTML, PDF or PostScript files. (PDF and PS files should be formatted for an A4 page, have 3-4 cm margins, have no headers or footers, and use a font such as Times Roman or Computer Modern for the main text.)

For presentations and workshops, send an abstract of the topic. See the contact information section below for the submission address. You may also read the full conference announcement that we posted to some newsgroups on July 11, 2002.

Preliminary programme

The preliminary plan for the conference is to start after lunch (1 pm) on Thursday, August 22, and that the afternoon will be devoted mainly to presentations of and discussions about Pike-related projects. The Friday will focus on the Semantic Web, integrated software environments, and related matters. The Saturday will mainly consist of workshops, and include a workshop on the future development of Pike.

More details about the programme are available at http://pike.ida.liu.se/conferences/2002/program.

Location

The conference will be held at Linköping University, building B, with the lecture hall "Visionen" as the primary location. Go to entrance 27 of building B and proceed to an open cafeteria area, where one of the entrances to Visionen can be found. (It is also possible to enter through entrance 27 of building E, which is at the other end of the same corridor as entrace 27 of building B.)

From the train station, take bus 202 towards the university area (watch for "Universitetet-Lambohov" at the front of the bus, or you'll risk a one-hour detour while the bus goes to the opposite terminus before heading towards the university). There are three bus stops in the university area, and the middle one--"Vallfarten"-- is the closest one to building B.

Taxis, of course, can take you directly to the University.

Registering

The conference will charge a small fee (20 Euro). Payment can be made in cash on arrival if no other means of payment turns out to be practical. Registration can be submitted by email (see Contact information below).

Meals

The conference will probably not be arranging for meals, but lunch is available at the university cafeterias for about 5-6 Euro on Thursday and Friday, and from various local restaurants at prices ranging from 5-10 Euro for simple meals.

Lodgings

The conference committee will be happy to help you find suitable lodgings in Linköping, but you will have to make the actual reservations yourself. There is a hotel, Scandic Linköping Väst, within walking distance of Linköping University. Various other lodgings, ranging from plain bed-and-breakfast inns to full-service hotels, are available in central Linköping, at a distance of a 10-minute bus ride or a 30-minute walk.

Please note that it can be difficult to find hotel rooms on short notice.

Scandic Linköping Väst hotel, which is the one closest to where the conference will be held, as the following contact information: phone: +46 13 495 50 00, fax: +46 495 50 11, email: linkoping@scandic-hotels.com.

Travel arrangements

Much as with lodgings, the conference committee can help you find suitable ways of getting to and from Linköping, but you may have to make the actual reservations yourself. Most ways of getting to Linköping by means of public transportations will bring you to the combined train/bus station near central Linköping, from which buses can take you to the university in some 15 minutes.

The nearest airports are Linköping airport, Norrköping airport (30-40 minutes from Linköping), Nyköping/Skavsta airport (also known as Stockholm South, some 90 minutes from Linköping), and Stockholm/Arlanda airport (2.5 hours from Linköping). The airports at Linköping and Norrköping are small airports with only a few international flights each day.

(People travelling from the UK or Ireland may note that Ryanair offers fairly frequent and wallet-friendly flights to Nyköping/Skavsta.)

About Linköping

Linköping is a town in central Sweden, with a population of about 130 000 people. Linköping University has about 20 000 students and some 3 000 employees (including graduate students).

Popular tourist sights in Linköping include a 15th-century cathedral and an airforce museum.

Contact information

Questions, comments, contributions, and preliminary registration can be mailed to stensson@pike.ida.liu.se.

For paper submissions, please include a plain-text abstract in the email if the paper itself is not a plain-text document.