Machine Learning List: Vol. 16, No. 16 Friday, December 10, 2004
Contents Calls for Papers/Participation AI-2004, December 2004: Call for Participation ICML 2005, Germany - call for tutorial and workshop proposals AAMAS 2005 Conference: Final Call for Tutorial and Workshop CFP: Workshops at SIAM Data Mining MLJ special issue on Machine Learning and Games CFP: 2nd IEEE International Conf. on Autonomic Computing AKRR'05 - Adaptive Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Euro-Par 2005 Topic 5 - Call for Papers CALL FOR PAPERS - COLT 2005 ICCS-05 Cognitive Science Congress (San Sebastian, Spain) IDEAL-05: Call for Papers Special issue of Pattern Recognition Letters on ROC Analysis CfP 2005 ISF - Forecasting with Neural Networks A Special Journal Issue on Life Science Automation ICNC'05-FSKD'05 Call for Papers: Changsha China UAI 2005 Call for Papers IDA 2005 CFP UK-KDD Symposium'05 in Liverpool, UK JMLR Special Issue on Learning in Large Probabilistic Environments IICAI-05 Call for Papers Career Opportunities Machine learning position at Santa Cruz Research Fellowship Available PhD positions at ITU Copenhagen Miscellaneous Announcements CNS Graduate Programs Announcement Data Mining of Political Data Online version of GEP book: Chapter 4 The Machine Learning List is moderated. Contributions should be relevant to the scientific study of machine learning. Please send submissions for distribution to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For requests to be added, removed, or to change your email address, send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To keep mailings to a manageable size, please keep submissions brief. For meeting announcements, do highlight the meeting Web site and the goals of the event but omit information such as the program committee and talk schedules. Also, only first calls for papers/participation and brief change of deadline announcements will be included. The ML List moderator reserves the right to omit/edit submissions to meet these criteria. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Max Bramer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: AI-2004, December 2004: Call for Participation Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:43:08 +0100 SGAI: The British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (an ECCAI Member Society) AI-2004: Cambridge, England, December 13th-15th 2004 http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2004/ AI-2004 is the Twenty-fourth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence. The conference will begin with a preliminary day of tutorials on 'Intelligent Forecasting' (Andrew Ware and Hasan Al-Madfai), 'Untangling the Semantic Web' (Alun Preece), 'Recent Developments in Reinforcement Learning' (Eduardo Alonso) and 'An Introduction to the Constraint Paradigm' (Marc van Dongen and Barry O'Sullivan), plus the ninth UK Case-Based Reasoning Workshop. This will be followed by two days of refereed papers in two streams. The technical stream aims to present the best of recent developments in AI, covering a wide range of technical areas. There will be sessions on AI techniques, case-based and recommender systems, intelligent agents and scheduling systems, knowledge discovery in data and spatial reasoning, image recognition and hypercubes. The application stream is the largest annual showcase in Europe of real applications using AI technology. This year's papers are divided into sessions on synthesis and prediction, scheduling and search, diagnosis and monitoring, classification and design, and analysis and evaluation. There will be invited keynote lectures by Noel Sharkey and Peter Astheimer, as well as poster sessions and the third British Computer Society's annual competition on 'progress towards machine intelligence'. There are reduced registration fees for students, members of SGAI and other ECCAI member societies and members of NCAF. Further details can be found on the conference website at http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2004 or by emailing [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ From: Ina Lauth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: ICML 2005 - call for tutorial and workshop proposals Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:40:02 +0100 ICML 2005 call for workshop and tutorial proposals below. Submission deadlines: Dec 17, 2004 (workshops) - Feb 11, 2005 (tutorials) http://icml2005.ais.fraunhofer.de/call_for_proposals.php The 22nd International Conference On Machine Learning (ICML 2005) August 7-11, 2005, Bonn, Germany http://icml2005.ais.fraunhofer.de Call for Workshop and Tutorial Proposals The ICML 2005 Organizing Committee invites proposals for workshops and tutorials to be held at the 22nd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2005), which will take place August 7-11, 2005, in Bonn, Germany. ICML 2005 will be co-located with ILP 2005 (15th International Conference on Inductive Logic Programming, August 10-13) and will closely follow the 19th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh, July 30-August 5). The ICML 2005 workshops and tutorials will be held on August 7 and 11. Workshops provide organizers and participants with an opportunity to focus intensively on a specific topic in machine learning. Workshops can choose to concentrate on emerging research topics, but can also be devoted to application issues, or to questions concerning the economic and social aspects of machine learning. Proposals that aim at a cross-fertilization between machine learning and one of the topics of the co-located conferences are particularly welcome. Tutorials should provide an introduction and/or a review of the state-of-the-art of a topic that is of interest to attendants of a machine learning conference. These could be on particular research topics within the two fields, but could also be on topics from other research fields if the proposal makes clear why this is considered to be an important topic for researchers from other areas. A tutorial must be broad enough to cover a research area in which there is a significant publication activity in the community. Presentations that focus on the presenters' own research results or commercial presentations are not eligible. For practical information on the workshops and tutorials, and for details on the submission procedure, see below or refer to the detailed calls for workshops and tutorials that are available at http://icml2005.ais.fraunhofer.de/call_for_proposals.php Workshop and tutorial proposals should be submitted in electronic form to Hendrik Blockeel ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Important Workshop Dates Dec 17, 2004 Proposal deadline Jan 7, 2005 Acceptance notification Jan 21, 2005 Publicity Materials Due Apr 1, 2005 WS Paper submission deadline Apr 22, 2005 Notification of participants May 13, 2005 WS final paper deadline May 20, 2005 Workshop notes due (on-line) Important Tutorial Dates Feb 11, 2005 Proposal deadline Feb 28, 2005 Acceptance notification Mar 7, 2005 Tutorial abstracts due May 20, 2005 Tutorial notes due http://icml2005.ais.fraunhofer.de/call_for_proposals.php ------------------------------ From: Matthias Klusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: AAMAS 2005 - Call for Tutorial and Workshop Proposals Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 18:24:57 +0200 FINAL CALL for Workshop and Tutorial Proposals, and Special Industry Track Papers 4th International Joint Conference AAMAS on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems July 25 - 29, 2005 Utrecht University, The Netherlands http://www.aamas2005.nl Important dates Workshop and Tutorial proposals due: DECEMBER 20, 2004 Industry track contributions due: FEBRUARY 28, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for TUTORIAL PROPOSALS -------------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorials should serve one or more of the following objectives: * Introduce novices to major topics of AAMAS research. * Provide instruction in established practices and methodologies. * Survey a mature area of AAMAS research and/or practice. * Motivate and explain an AAMAS topic of emerging importance. * Introduce expert non-specialists to an AAMAS subarea. * Survey an area of agent research especially relevant for people from industry Proposals should be from two to four pages in length (for further details see the Web page). All proposals should be submitted by electronic mail to the Tutorial Chair, Onn Shehory <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, in plain ASCII text. Proposal Submission Deadline: December 20, 2004 Acceptance Notification: January 10, 2005 Deadline for submitting tutorial materials: April 10, 2005 AAMAS-05 Tutorials: July 25 - 26, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for WORKSHOP PROPOSALS -------------------------------------------------------------------- The main goal of the AAMAS-2005 workshops is to stimulate and facilitate an active exchange, interaction and comparison of approaches, methods, and ideas about specific (both theoretical and applicative) topics on the Agents and Multi-Agent Systems domain. Workshops should be organized so that an informal and participated discussion among attendees is guaranteed. Members from all areas of the AAMAS community are invited to submit workshop proposals for review. Workshops on new emerging topics or specific relevant aspects of consolidated ones are particularly encouraged. Workshops can vary in length, but most will last a full day. Workshop organizers and attendees must register for their workshop and possibly for the main AAMAS conference. Proposals for workshops should be from two to four pages in length. All proposals should be submitted by electronic mail to the Workshop Chair, Rino Falcone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, in plain ASCII text. Proposal Submission Deadline: December 20, 2004 Acceptance Notification: January 10, 2005 Submitting of contributions to workshops: March 14, 2005 Acceptance Notifications of contrib. to workshops: April 18, 2005 AAMAS-05 Workshops: July 25 - 26, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for INDUSTRY TRACK PAPERS -------------------------------------------------------------------- The AAMAS-05 conference will, for the first time, feature a track specifically intended for industrial participants: the AAMAS Industry Track. The industry track is being organised in cooperation with AgentLink, Europe's IST-funded coordination activity for autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (see http://www.agentlink.org/). Whereas in the regular conference track the overriding refereeing criterion is clearly scientific excellence, the industry track focuses primarily on the industrial relevance and technological significance of the contribution. Preference will be given to mature work demonstrating concrete industrial/commercial results and business value. Deadline for Submission of Contributions: 28 February 2005 Notification of acceptance: 28 March 2005 CONTACT for the industry track: Michal Pechoucek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ------------------------------ From: Philip Chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: CFP: Workshops at SIAM Data Mining Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:51:23 -0500 (EST) CALL FOR WORKSHOP PAPERS SIAM International Conference on Data Mining Newport Beach, CA April 21-23, 2005 http://www.siam.org/meetings/sdm05/workshops.htm Submission deadline: January 7, 2005 Paper submissions are sought for the following workshops to be held at SDM05: 1. Data Mining in Sensor Networks 2. Link Analysis, counterterrorism and Security 3. High Performance and Distributed Mining 4. Feature Selection for Data Mining - Interfacing Machine Learning and Statistics 5. Clustering High Dimensional Data and its Applications 6. Mining Scientific and Engineering Data Sets (will include sessions on bio-info and collaborative problem solving) ------------------------------ From: Ron Musick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: MLJ special issue Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:08:46 -0800 Call for Papers Machine Learning Journal Special Issue on Machine Learning and Games http://www.aicml.cs.ualberta.ca/_MLJ/cfp.htm Authors are invited to submit full papers presenting original results on any aspect of machine learning and games. An ideal contribution to this special issue would be strongly motivated by applications to commercial or classical games and focused on research issues relevant to the topics described below. Papers specific to game theory, however, should be submitted to a forthcoming special issue. Games, whether created for entertainment, simulation, or education, provide great opportunities for machine learning. The variety of possible virtual worlds and the subsequent ML-relevant problems posed for the agents in those worlds is limited only by the imagination. Furthermore, not only is the games industry large and growing (having surpassed the movie industry in revenue a few years back), but it is faced with a tremendous demand for novelty that it struggles to provide. Against this backdrop, machine learning driven successes would draw high-profile attention to the field. Surprisingly however, the more commercial the game to date, the less impact learning has made. This is quite unlike other great matches between application and data-driven analytics such as data mining and OLAP. There is a broad and familiar spectrum of research relevant to games applications, ranging from inference in partially observable worlds to representational issues to faster and more robust methods for speech recognition. There are a few relatively new research thrusts as well. For example, online learning in which models are constructed and used on the fly from data unavailable until gameplay time, is a very rich source of new and interesting problems. Topics of particular importance for successful game applications include the generation of new practical and theoretical tools to help with: * learning to play the game * learning about players * model selection and stability * optimizing for adaptivity * model interpretation * efficiency and speed Each submission will be reviewed according to the standards of the Machine Learning Journal. Important Dates Titles and short abstracts due: January 14, 2005 Papers due: February 11, 2005 Author notification: April 1, 2005 Final versions of accepted papers due: June 3, 2005 Publication: Fall 2005 Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Instructions for submission can be found at http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0885-6125/ In the text of your electronic submission, please explicitly state that the paper is for the special issue on Machine Learning and Games. In addition to submitting the paper to [EMAIL PROTECTED], please also submit to the guest editors: Michael Bowling [EMAIL PROTECTED] Johannes Fuernkranz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thore Graepel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ron Musick [EMAIL PROTECTED] All inquiries regarding this special issue should be directed to the guest editors. ------------------------------ From: Dongyan Xu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: CFP: 2nd IEEE International Conf. on Autonomic Computing Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 01:09:15 -0500 (EST) CALL FOR PAPERS ICAC-05 The 2nd IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing Renaissance Seattle Hotel, Seattle, WA June 13-16, 2005 http://www.autonomic-conference.org To deal with the increasing complexity of large-scale computer and software systems, they must manage themselves, in accordance with high-level guidance from humans - a vision that has been referred to as autonomic computing. Meeting the grand challenges of autonomic computing requires scientific and technological advances in a wide variety of fields, as well as new software and system architectures that support the effective integration of the constituent technologies. The purpose of the 2nd International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC'05) is to bring together researchers from different fields of research who are addressing aspects of self-management in computing systems. In doing so, we hope to develop and nurture a community that can work together to realize the vision of large-scale self-managing systems. Papers are solicited on a broad array of topics of relevance to autonomic computing; particularly those that bear on connections and relationships among different areas of research or report on prototype systems or experiences. PAPER AND POSTER SUBMISSIONS Full papers (up to 8 pages in length) and posters (2 pages) are invited on a wide variety of topics relating to autonomic computing as indicated above. All manuscripts will be reviewed and judged on correctness, originality, technical strength, significance, quality of presentation, and interest and relevance to the conference. Submitted papers may not have appeared in or be under consideration for another conference or a journal, nor may they be under review or submitted to another forum during the ICAC-05 review process. Posters are not subject to any of these restrictions. Authors should submit full papers or posters electronically (PDF or postscript) via the ICAC-05 conference web site at http://www.autonomic-conference.org and should use IEEE CS format. Appropriate style files can be found at ftp://pubftp.computer.org/Press/Outgoing/proceedings/ IMPORTANT DATES (TENTATIVE) Paper submissions: January 17, 2005 Author notification: February 28, 2005 Poster submissions: March 3, 2005 Final manuscripts due: April 1, 2005 Conference: June 17-18, 2005 INFORMATION AND INQUIRIES WWW: www.autonomic-conference.org E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: AKRR'05 - Adaptive Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 16:38:11 +0300 First Call for Papers International and Interdisciplinary Conference on ADAPTIVE KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND REASONING Espoo, Finland, 15-17 June 2005 http://www.cis.hut.fi/AKRR05/ AKRR'05 conference focuses on adaptive approaches of knowledge representation and reasoning. The basic idea is to bring together evidence from various disciplines including computer science, experimental psychology, brain research and cognitive science. Methodogical basis lies in probability theory, statistics, artificial neural networks, dynamical systems theory and related disciplines. Specific symposium and workshop topics in the conference are: * Knowledge Representation of Biological Information * Adaptive Models of Knowledge, Language and Cognition * Emergent Models of Language for Speech Processing and Machine Translation * Adaptive Representations in Agents and Embodied Systems Important dates * Paper submission due: 29 January 2005 * Acceptance notification: 14 March 2005 * Deadline for early registration: 21 March 2005 * Camera-ready paper due: 8 April 2005 * Workshops and tutorials: 14 June 2005 * Symposia and conference: 15-17 June 2005 ------------------------------ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Euro-Par 2005 Topic 5- Call for Papers Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 10:52:39 +0000 Parallel and Distributed Databases, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery August 30 - September 2, 2005 Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Web site: http://europar05.di.fct.unl.pt/ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To manage the very large amount of data today available, computer scientists are working on efficient systems, algorithms and applications that can handle and analyze very large databases. Intensive data consuming applications are running on very large databases (on data warehouses, on multimedia databases) with the task to extract information diamonds. Data mining is one of the key applications here. However, these intensive data consuming applications suffer from performance problems and single database sources. Introducing data distribution and parallel processing help to overcome resource bottlenecks and to achieve guaranteed throughput, quality of service, and system scalability. Distributed architectures, cluster systems and P2P systems, supported by high performance networks and intelligent middleware offer parallel and distributed databases a great opportunity to support cost-effective everyday applications. We especially solicit submissions for either the Experience and Application Section, or the traditional System and Research Section. Focus - Experience and Application Section * data mining, knowledge discovery * multimedia applications * data warehousing and decision support * discovering structures in web data, web data mining * mobile computing and databases * web applications * information retrieval and web search engines * data-intensive grids * case studies - System and Research Section * query optimization and query processing * parallel algorithms for data mining * communication requirements for parallel data mining * data representation and storage for fast access * middleware and architectural issues * transaction processing * distributed knowledge discovery Dates January 31, 2005: Full papers due May 3, 2005: Notification of acceptance May 30, 2005: Camera-ready papers and author registration due Submision Details Authors are invited to submit full papers (10 pages, Springer LNCS style) to this topic, by using the online submission site: http://europar05.di.fct.unl.pt/papersubmission.html Online submission will be open before the end of December 2004. (When submitting, please indicate this topic.) All accepted full papers will be published in the conference proceedings in the Springer Verlag LNCS series. ------------------------------ From: Ron Meir <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS - COLT 2005 Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 22:41:57 +0200 CALL FOR PAPERS The Eighteenth Annual Conference on Learning Theory Bertinoro, Italy, June 27-30, 2005 http://learningtheory.org/colt2005 The Eighteenth Annual COLT (Conference on Learning Theory, formerly Workshop on Computational Learning Theory) will be held in Bertinoro, Italy, June 27-30, 2005 We invite submissions of papers addressing the theoretical modeling and analysis of all aspects of learning and empirical inference. We strongly support a broad definition of learning theory, including: * Analysis of learning algorithms and their generalization ability * Computational complexity of learning * Bayesian analysis * Statistical mechanics of learning systems * Optimization procedures for learning * Inductive inference * Boolean function learning * Inductive logic programming * Unsupervised and semi-supervised learning * On-line learning and relative loss bounds * Learning in planning and control (including reinforcement learning) * Mathematical analysis of learning in related fields (e.g. game theory, neuroscience) We welcome theoretical papers about learning that do not fit into the above categories. We are particularly interested in papers that include viewpoints that are new to the COLT community. While the primary focus of the conference is theoretical, papers can be strengthened by the inclusion of relevant experimental results. We also welcome experimental and algorithmic papers provided they are relevant to the focus of the conference by elucidating theoretical results in learning. All papers will appear in the proceedings, to be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. The proceedings will appear both as a printed book and in a full-text electronic version, thus we require electronic submissions. Papers that have previously appeared in journals or at other conferences, or that are being submitted to other conferences are not appropriate for COLT. OPEN PROBLEMS SESSION: We also invite submission of open problems (see separate call). These should be constrained to two pages using the same formatting as for the full papers. There is a shorter reviewing period for the open problems. Accepted contributions will be allocated short presentation slots in a special open problems session and will be allowed two pages each in the proceedings. ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Will become available in early December at http://learningtheory.org/colt2005 DATES Electronic submission of papers: February 2, 2005 Electronic submission of two-page open problems: April 2, 2005 Notification of acceptance or rejection: March 31, 2005 Final submission of all papers (incl. LaTex files): April 11, 2005 Conference dates: June 27-30, 2005 PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS: Peter Auer (U of Leoben) and Ron Meir (Technion) ------------------------------ From: ICCS-05 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: ICCS-05 Cognitive Science Congress (San Sebastian, Spain) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:49:51 +0100 (MET) Ninth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science Donostia - San Sebastian, May 4-7, 2005 http://www.sc.ehu.es/ilcli FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT ICCS-05 is organized by the Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language and Information (ILCLI) and the Dept. of Logic and Philosophy of Science of the University of the Basque Country. It will take place in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Univ. of the Basque Country at Donostia - San Sebastian, Campus of Ibaeta. MAIN TOPICS: 1. Cognition in Context: Attention and Memory. 2. Know-that and Know-how: Skills and Learning. 3. Thinking and Deciding: Values, Ethics and Moral Reasoning. 4. Cognitive Aspects of New Forms of Communication and Organization. CONTRIBUTED PAPERS: Contributed papers (25-30 minutes) are invited from all areas of Cognitive Science. Authors wishing to submit a paper should send four (4) hardcopies of an extended abstract of 5-6 pages written in English to Luis A. Perez Miranda (address above) by February 18, 2005. Submissions by e-mail are encouraged (only in Microsoft Word Format). A cover page should be added to the abstract including title, all authors names and affiliations, corresponding author's address, fax number and e-mail address. To facilitate blind review by two or more referees all indications of authorship should appear on this detachable cover page only. Papers will be evaluated by the Program Committee on the basis of originality, clarity, correctness and significance of results. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present them at the Colloquium. Notification of acceptance/rejection: April 8, 2005. REGISTRATION The registration fee is 200. (100 for students and accompanying persons) before April 9, 2005. For further information: Luis A. Perez Miranda; Xabier Arrazola. ------------------------------ From: Marcus Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: IDEAL-05: Call for Papers Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:26:04 +1000 Sixth International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning (IDEAL'05) 6th - 8th July, 2005 Brisbane, Australia. http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~ideal05/ IDEAL is an annual conference dedicated to emerging and challenging topics in intelligent data analysis and engineering and their associated learning paradigms. Following the highly successful conferences held in Exeter (2004), Hong Kong (2003) and Manchester (2002), the sixth conference (IDEAL'05) will be held in the subtropical city of Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city. IDEAL'05 provides an opportunity to present the latest theoretical advances and real-world applications in intelligent data engineering and automated learning. Conference Scope Broad technical areas include, but are not limited to: * Learning and Information Processing * Data Mining * Bioinformatics * Agents * Financial Engineering Important Dates * Submission of papers: 21st February, 2005 (firm). * Notification of acceptance: 6th April, 2005. * Camera-ready papers due: 20th April, 2005. * IDEAL 2005 Conference: 6th-8th July, 2005. Contact IDEAL 2005 Secretariat School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering University of Queensland. 4072 Australia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~ideal05/ Phone: +61 7 3365 6197 Fax: +61 7 3365 4999 ------------------------------ From: Peter Flach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Special issue of Pattern Recognition Letters on ROC Analysis Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:04:10 +0000 CALL FOR PAPERS Special Issue of Pattern Recognition Letters on ROC Analysis in Pattern Recognition The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve describes the performance of a two-class classifier (dichotomizer) at different operating points. ROC analysis was first employed in signal detection problems. It is now common in medical diagnosis and medical imaging. In pattern recognition, it is becoming increasingly important in the area of cost-sensitive classification, classification in the presence of unbalanced classes, robust comparison of classifier performance under imprecise class distribution and misclassification costs. The special issue aims at presenting the latest research on the use of ROC curve and other similar tools (Precision/Recall curve, DET curve, Cost curve, ...) in the field of Pattern Recognition. Full electronic manuscripts (Postscript or PDF file) should be sent to the guest editor Francesco Tortorella ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) by February 28, 2005. The names of the authors should not be included in the manuscript, but in a separate page which will contain the title of the paper, abstract, key words, names and affiliations of each author and full address, e-mail, affiliation and fax number of the corresponding author. The rest of the paper including title, abstract and key words should consist of about 10 journal pages, roughly corresponding to around 5000 words plus a few figures and tables. For more details see http://webuser.unicas.it/tortorella/roc Francesco Tortorella Dipartimento di Automazione, Elettromagnetismo, Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Matematica Industriale Universita' degli Studi di Cassino via G. di Biasio, 43 03043 Cassino (ITALY) E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +39 0776 2993605 Fax: +39 0776 2993707 ------------------------------ From: www.neural-forecasting.com <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Forecasting with Neural Networks - Competition & General Track Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:28:49 +0100 CALL FOR PAPERS Special Track on Forecasting with Artificial Neural Networks http://www.neural-forecasting.com/conferences/isf05/isf05_cfp.htm 25th International Symposium on Forecasting 2005, June 12-15, 2005 Hyatt Regency Hotel, San Antonio, Texas, USA http://www.isf2005.org General Call for Papers We invite abstracts related to the theory and practice of forecasting with neural networks that describe new techniques, methods and models, and novel applications. We also encourage submissions from practitioners that document successful AND unsuccessful novel applications of neural networks in practice. Topics of interest includes: Methods - artificial neural networks (all paradigms) - feedforward and recurrent - single methods and ensembles - support vector machines & regression - NN related and hybrid soft computing methods Applications - business forecasting and demand planning - time series prediction and analysis - predictive classification and data mining Forecasting Competition In addition to the general track, we invite submissions to a forecasting competition to derive principles of neural forecasting. We challenge research and practitioner teams to forecast two univariate time series - one being the well known airline passenger data set, the other an unknown data set - to evaluate progress in forecasting practices and established principles. Additional details, including the data sets and the questionnaires will be available from January, 2005, on the meeting Web site. Important Dates February 28th, 2004 Abstracts due March 31st, 2005 Notification of acceptance June 21-24, 2005 International Symposium on Forecasting 2005 July 2005 Post-conference proceedings & publications For more information, contact the track chair, Sven F. Crone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ------------------------------ From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: A Special Issue on Life Science Automation Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:18:56 -0600 Dear Colleagues: The IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering invites your contributions to a Special Issue on Automation for the Life Sciences. The scope of the Special Issue includes, not only laboratory automation, but also pharmaceutical and biotechnology automation. The call for papers can also be found at http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/t-ase/BioAutomation-CFP.pdf Please feel free to contact us, if you have any questions. We look forward to receiving your contributions. Paper submission deadline: March 1, 2005 Sincerely yours, Mingjun (Michael) Zhang Associate Editor IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~ieeetase/ ------------------------------ From: Hepu Deng <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: ICNC'05-FSKD'05 Call for Papers: Changsha China Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:50:50 +1100 2005 International Conference on Natural Computation International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery 27 - 29 August 2005, Changsha, China Home Page: http://www.xtu.edu.cn/nc2005 http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/elpwang/nc2005 CALL FOR PAPERS The 2005 International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC-05) and the 2005 International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD-05) will be jointly held in Changsha, China from 27-29 August 2005. The conferences will feature the most up-to-date research results in computational algorithms inspired from nature, including biological, ecological, and physical systems. It is an exciting and emerging interdisciplinary area in which a wide range of techniques and methods are being studied for dealing with large, complex, and dynamic problems. Specific areas include neural computation, evolutionary computation, quantum computation, DNA computation, chemical computation, information processing in cells and tissues, molecular computation, computation with words, fuzzy computation, granular computation, artificial life, swarm intelligence, ants colony, artificial immune systems, etc., with applications to knowledge discovery, finance, operations research, and more. The joint conferences will also promote cross-fertilization over these exciting and yet closely-related areas. Registration to either conference will entitle a participant to the proceedings and technical sessions of both conferences, as well as the conference banquet and meals. Publications: ------------ The ICNC-05 and FSKD-05 conference proceedings will be published in Springer-Verlag's Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) and Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), respectively. Both the LNCS and LNAI are indexed in SCI-Expanded. A selected number of authors will be invited to expand and revise their papers for possible inclusions in peer-reviewed international journals / edited books. Important Dates --------------- Paper Submission Deadline: 15 March 2005 Notification of Acceptance: 15 April 2005 Camera-Ready Copy Due: 15 May 2005 Contact ------- Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone/Fax: +86 732 829 2201 / 829 3249 Submission of Papers -------------------- Authors are invited to submit a full paper as an electronic file (postscript, pdf or Word format) at the conference website. Templates are available at the Springer website. Sponsorship / Exhibition ------------------------ The conferences will offer product vendors a sponsorship package and/or an opportunity to interact with conference participants. Product demonstration and exhibition can also be arranged. For more information, please visit the conference web page. ------------------------------ From: UAI2005 PC Chairs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: UAI 2005 Call for Papers Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:41:45 -0500 21st Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence UAI-2005 First Call for Papers July 26-29, 2005 http://www.cs.toronto.edu/uai2005/ Conference Details Since 1985, the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI) has been the primary international forum for presenting new results on the use of principled methods for reasoning under uncertainty within intelligent systems. The scope of UAI is wide, including, but not limited to, representation, automated reasoning, learning, decision making and knowledge acquisition under uncertainty. The UAI 2005 conference will be held at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. The main technical session will be on July 26-29, and will be preceded with a tutorial program on July 25. The conference is collocated with IJCAI 2005 that follows immediately after UAI 2005. Paper Submission We encourage submissions that report on theoretical or methodological advances in representation, automated reasoning, learning, decision making and knowledge acquisition under uncertainty. Submissions reporting on other work relevant to uncertainty within intelligent systems are also welcome, as are submissions that report on intelligent systems in which uncertainty plays a key role. Submitted papers will be evaluated on the basis of originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of exposition. Papers submitted for review should represent original, previously unpublished work. A submitted paper should not be under review by any other conference or scientific journal at the time it is submitted to UAI-2005 nor at any time during UAI-2005's reviewing period. Accepted papers will be presentation at the conference in either plenary or poster sessions. At least one of the paper's authors should be present at the conference to present the work. All accepted papers will be included in the Proceedings of the Twenty First Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence. The program committee will select papers for special distinction in two categories at UAI-2005: a best paper award, and an outstanding student paper award. The conference home page will contain instructions for certifying student status with regards to the latter award. Key Dates March 16, 2005, noon EST: Abstract submission March 23, 2005, noon EST: Full paper submission March 23, 2005, noon EST: Student paper certification May 23, 2005, noon EST: Author notification of accepted papers June 5, 2005, noon EST: Camera ready copy of accepted papers These deadlines will be strictly enforced. Conference Organization Please direct general inquiries to the General Conference Chair at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Inquiries about the conference program and submission requirements should be directed to the Program Co-Chairs at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: IDA 2005 CFP Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:52:29 +0100 First Call for Papers IDA 2005 6th International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis Madrid, Spain, September 8-10, 2005 http://www.ida2005.org IDA-2005 will take place in Madrid, September 8-10, 2005, under the auspices of the IDA council. The conference is organized by researchers and professors from the National Research Council of Canada, the Universidad Polit=E9cnica de Madrid, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and the Universiteit Utrecht. It will consist of a stimulating program of invited talks by leading experts in intelligent data analysis, contributed papers, poster sessions, and an exciting social program. Our aim for IDA-2005 is to bring together a wide variety of researchers - academic, industrial, and otherwise - who are concerned with extracting knowledge from data, including researchers from statistics, machine learning, neural networks, computer science, pattern recognition, database management, and other areas. The strategies adopted by people working in these areas are often different, and a synergy results if this is recognised. IDA-2005 is intended to stimulate interaction between these different areas, so that more powerful techniques and tools emerge for extracting knowledge from data and a better understanding is developed for the process of intelligent data analysis. In IDA-2005 conference we propose an interesting agenda of social events that include several tutorial tracks, open panel discussions, and keynote talks. This is the sixth Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis after the successful symposia IDA-2003 (Berlin), IDA-2001 (Lisboa), IDA-99 (Amsterdam), IDA-97 (London), and IDA-95 (Baden-Baden). IDA conferences series intends to provide an international forum for the discussion of the innovative outstanding research results in the field of intelligent data analysis, becoming one of the most significant conferences on this topic world-wide. Contributions in this field deal with either theoretical or applied real-world problems making special effort in introducing novel data analysis techniques. Important Dates April 1, 2005 Deadline for submitting papers May 18, 2005 Notification of acceptance June 6, 2005 Deadline for submission of final papers Publications The proceedings will be published in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series of Springer. We also plan to have a special issue of the Intelligent Data Analysis journal with extended versions of selected papers presented during the symposium. See http://www.iospress.nl/html/1088467x.html for details. ------------------------------ From: Ina Lauth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: UK-KDD Symposium'05 in Liverpool, UK Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:16:32 +0100 UK-KDD Symposium'05 in Liverpool, UK, 6th April 2005 http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~frans/ukkdd2005.html The symposium is intended to provide a forum for discussion, dissemination and exchange of ideas between practitioners and researchers working within the broad field of Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD). To this end a number of key people will be presenting a "state of the art" review of much of the KDD research work currently in progress within UK institutions. It is hoped that the symposium will attract delegates, both national and international, who are either directly involved in KDD or have a significant interest in the subject, and that the meeting will consequently afford an opportunity for lively debate and discussion. The symposium will end with a plenary session to discuss future directions and opportunities. Programme: - Max Bramer - Hypertext categorisation - Peter Flach - Recent developments in ROC analysis for machine learning and data mining - David Hand - Spotting the difference: Detecting anomalies in large data sets - John Keane - Efficient and effective mining - Ross King - Applied inductive logic programming - Paul Leng - Computing association rules from incomplete support-counts - George Smith - Meta-heuristics in the KDD Process For more information, see: http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~frans/ukkdd2005.html and the EU-funded Project KDNet: http://www.kdnet.org ------------------------------ From: Sven Koenig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: JMLR Special Issue on Learning in Large Probabilistic Environments Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:12:34 -0700 (PDT) CALL FOR PAPERS Journal of Machine Learning Research Special Issue on Learning in Large Probabilistic Environments Guest Editors: Sven Koenig, Shie Mannor and Georgios Theocharous http://www.jmlr.org/cfp/llpe.html We invite papers on learning in large probabilistic environments for a special issue of the Journal of Machine Learning Research. One of the fundamental problems of artificial Intelligence is how to enable systems (for example, mobile robots, manufacturing systems, or diagnostic systems) embedded in complex environments to achieve their long-term goals efficiently. A natural approach is to model such systems as agents that interact with their environment through actions, perceptions and rewards. These agents choose actions after every observation, aiming to maximize their long-term reward. Learning allows them to improve their initial strategy based on the history of successful and unsuccessful interactions with the environment. This special issue is intended to serve as an outlet for recent advances in learning in such environments. We welcome both theoretical advances in this field as well as detailed reports on applications of learning in large probabilistic domains. Topics of interest include: * Theoretical foundations of learning in large probabilistic environments. * Completely and partially observable Markov decision process models and similar models. Learning with factored state or action spaces, continuous state spaces, action spaces or time models, hybrid models, relational learning, concurrency. * Heuristics and approximations. Policy and value function approximations, Monte Carlo and advanced simulation methods. * Spatio-temporal abstractions. Dynamic factorization, hierarchy and relational structure. * Interactive learning. Guided exploration, combining supervised and unsupervised learning, shaping, and learning from very few examples. * Learning in complex systems. Function approximation, dimensionality reduction, feature selection for learning, and alternative state representations. * Cooperative and competitive multi-agent reinforcement learning. Learning in nonstationary domains and stochastic, network, and dynamic games. * Real world applications. Medicine, finance, robotics, manufacturing, security, etc. Submit papers to the standard JMLR submission system http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/manudb Please include a note stating that your submission is for the special issue on Learning in Large Probabilistic Environments. Important Dates: * Submission due: April 15th, 2005 * Decision: August 1st, 2005 * Final version due: October 1st, 2005 For further details or enquiries, please contact the guest editors: Sven Koenig ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Shie Mannor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Georgios Theocharous ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ------------------------------ From: Bhanu Prasad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: IICAI-05 Call for Papers Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:58:16 -0400 The 2nd Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI-05) (website: www.iiconference.org) will be held in Pune, INDIA during December 20-22 2005. It is one of the major AI events in the world and focuses on ALL areas of Artificial Intelligence and related topics. The conference consists of keynote speeches, technical sessions, invited talks, paper presentations, workshops, tutorials, local tours, exhibition, and many more. We invite paper submissions for this event. Session proposals are welcome for the topics that are not already covered by the existing sessions. Please see the website for details. Bhanu Prasad IICAI-05 Chair Department of Computer and Information Sciences Florida A &M University, Tallahassee, FL 32307, USA Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ From: Manfred Warmuth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Machine learning position at Santa Cruz Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 20:09:32 -0800 (PST) We have a machine learning position in the Computer Science Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz, at the assistant, associate or full professor level. Current faculty members in related areas include David Helmbold, Manfred Warmuth, and Bob Levinson. David Haussler, one of the main learning researchers in the department, has moved to the university's new Biomolecular Engineering department. There is considerable synergy for machine learning at Santa Cruz: - new department of Applied Math and Statistics with an emphasis on Bayesian methods (http://www.ams.ucsc.edu/) - new department of Biomolecular Engineering (http://www.cbse.ucsc.edu/) - closeness to Silicon Valley - pretty good track record for research in machine learning, especially in the COLT community We are looking for people in all areas of machine learning who would complement the existing expertise in Santa Cruz. The deadline for the applications is Jan 10. Contact Manfred Warmuth or David Helmbold if you have any questions. David will be at NIPS and Manfred will be traveling till the end of Dec. For details see: http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/jobs/faculty/cs/710-05.html ------------------------------ From: Robert Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Research Fellowship Available Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:02:25 -0000 Research Fellowship Available We are pleased to announce the availability of a funded PhD position in the Computing, Engineering, and Mathematical Sciences Faculty of The University of The West of England, Bristol, UK, in a research project sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council entitled "Robust Prediction with Explanatory Power for Protein Structure and Related Prediction Problems." This is a collaborative project with The University of Nottingham, where a similar position will be available. The project intends to develop more general, intelligent and reliable classification and predictive technologies for problems in bioinformatics (particularly, predicting the structure of proteins). We aim to explore and investigate the feasibility of designing and implementing robust classification and predictive systems that can deliver high quality predictions at the same time as human-understandable explanations for those predictions. A successful outcome to this project could lead to a greater understanding of the issues that underpin predictive and classification software systems in general, and perhaps more importantly, those that have an immediate impact on quality of human life: bioinformatics. It is in domains like this where the availability of human-understandable explanations are as important as correct predictions. This project will employ learning classifier systems, an approach based on evolutionary computation. These techniques can yield robust, accurate predictions, with the explanatory power not available in many other methods. The ideal candidate will have an existing understanding of machine learning, particularly evolutionary computation. However, candidates with other relevant experience may be considered. In addition, two EPSRC requirements apply; the student must have: * A "relevant connection with the UK (usually established by residence)." Students inquiring who do not make it clear how they meet this requirement will receive no reply. * An upper second class honours degree, or a combination of qualifications and/or experience equivalent to that level. It is expected that the fellowship would begin in early 2005. For further information, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ From: "Ole Fogh Olsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: PhD positions at ITU Copenhagen Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:27:02 +0100 The IT University of Copenhagen has two open PhD-scholarships with application deadline January 3th 2005 in the areas of Image analysis and Medical Image analysis. Applicants for first position must be a national of a member State of the EC other than Denmark. This position is on generalisation of PDE-based inpainting and motion estimation methods to include the statistical variation of natural images and sequences using stochastic partial differential equations. The other position is open for all applicants. This position is on quantitative assessment of disease progression with focus on measuring cartilage degradation from MRI scans. The salary for applicants holding a M.Sc degree is normally approximately 2.900 Euro/month taxable. Appointment is conditional upon requisite appropriation. The full vacancy notice can be found at http://www1.itu.dk/sw487.asp Information about the Image Analysis group at the ITU can be found at http://www.itu.dk/image ------------------------------ From: Carol Jefferson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: CNS Graduate Programs Announcement Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:50:19 -0500 GRADUATE TRAINING IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS (CNS) AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY The Boston University Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems offers comprehensive graduate training in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underlie human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. The brochure may also be viewed on line at: http://www.cns.bu.edu/brochure/ and application forms at: http://www.bu.edu/cas/graduate/application.html Applications for Fall 2005 admission and financial aid are now being accepted for PhD, MA, and BA/MA degree programs. To obtain a brochure describing CNS programs and a set of application materials, write, telephone, or fax: DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02215 617/353-9481 (phone) 617/353-7755 (fax) or send via email your full name and mailing address to the attention of Mr. Robin Amos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Applications for admission and financial aid should be received by the Graduate School Admissions Office no later than January 15. Late applications will be considered until May 1; after that date applications will be considered only as special cases. Applicants are required to submit undergraduate (and, if applicable, graduate) transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) general test scores. GRE scores may be waived for MA candidates and, in exceptional cases, for PhD candidates, but absence of these scores will decrease an applicant's chances for admission and financial aid. ------------------------------ From: Aleks Jakulin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Data Mining of Political Data Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:13:51 +0200 We have taken the US Senate roll call voting data, which disclose how each of the senators voted in a particular issue. There is a lot of data: there are the 100 senators and there are almost 500 issues per year. Several organizations examine how "friendly" individual senators are to them, but, for an ordinary voter, there is just too much hassle. However, political scientists regularly observe these data sets with special-purpose models. Our objective was to check if the "usual" algorithms we normally use in our field work on them. Data-mining tools are quite complementary to those already used in political science. We can: * cluster senators with hierarchical and discrete mixture methods; * identify "social" networks based on how similarly senators vote; * evaluate the influence of a senator, or a group of senators, or an entire state; * represent senators in a two-dimensional "ideology" space; * use VRML for three-dimensional visualizations; * perform analysis to infer who could have overturned a given bill or whether there was disagreement inside the party. If you are interested, please see: http://www.ailab.si/aleks/Politics/ We have used the general-purpose Orange data mining toolkit (http://www.ailab.si/orange/), which is implemented in Python and GPL. Furthermore, we have used the MPCA discrete probabilistic principal components modeling kit (http://cosco.hiit.fi/search/MPCA), also under GPL, to identify the blocs in the senate. Our scripts and data are all freely available. We also have two working papers there that discuss the work in more detail. Aleks Jakulin Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Faculty of Computer and Information Science University of Ljubljana, Slovenia http://www.ailab.si/aleks/ ------------------------------ From: Candida Ferreira <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Online version of GEP book: Chapter 4 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 11:30:16 +0100 Dear All, The fourth chapter of my book, Gene Expression Programming: Mathematical Modeling by an Artificial Intelligence, can now be browsed online at: http://www.gene-expression-programming.com/gep/Books/index.asp The book has seven chapters, the first four of which are available (1 Introduction; 2 The Entities of Gene Expression Programming; 3 The Basic Gene Expression Algorithm; and 4 The Basic GEA in Problem Solving). The remaining chapters will follow shortly. I hope you enjoy it. Candida Ferreira, Ph.D. Chief Scientist, Gepsoft http://www.gene-expression-programming.com/author.asp ------------------------------ End of ML-LIST Digest Vol 16, No. 16 *************************************