CALL  FOR  PROPOSALS
                X M L   FORMAT  FOR  (FINITE)  AUTOMATA
                          AT    C I A A  2005

    The definition of an XML format for finite automata, which could be
used by a large part of the community of people interested in the
implementation of automata and in the writing of algorithms on automata,
has been the subject of recurrent discussions during the last CIAA
meetings.

    The subject was at least touched on at Tours in 2002. In 2003
at Santa Barbara, a first draft circulated. In 2004 at Kingston, a
special session was organized, where two proposals were presented and a
discussion followed.

    We think that this is an important subject and worthwhile to be
pushed forward. We thus plan to organize a special session at the next
CIAA meeting in Nice, on the model of the last year's session.

    On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we thus invite everyone who is
interested to prepare a proposal which will be presented and discussed
during that session. In order to organize the session, we would like
to receive by June 13 from the participants an abstract (at most two A4
or letter pages) in pdf or postscript by email to us describing the main
features of their proposal. And we advice them to bring handout of a
draft of their proposal at the conference.

    We are looking forward to a lively XML session.

                              Jacques Sakarovitch  and  Sheng Yu
                              sakarovitch@enst.fr       syu@csd.uwo.ca