Machine Learning List: Vol. 13, No. 6 Monday, October 22, 2001 Contents Letters letter of resignation from Machine Learning journal Machine Learning journal Kluwer on Machine Learning Calls for Papers and Meeting Announcements CFP: IEEE COMPUTER Special Issue on Web Intelligence 4th WSES/IEEE Conference on NEURAL, FUZZY AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTING Call for Paper (PAKDD-2002) call-for-paper announcement of IJCNN 2002, Honolulu, Hawaii ICANN2002 CfP for distribution ACL'02 Preliminary Call for Papers 24th BCS-IRSG European Colloquium on IR Research CFP: IEEE Data Mining 2002 Special Issue on Learning Automata AAMAS-2 CfP CFP: Special Issue on Self-Reconfigurable Robots. CFP: Haifa Winter Workshop on Computer Science and Statistics (12/17-20/2001) SIGKDD Explorations Special Issue on Online, Interactive, Anytime Data Mining Jobs Gatsby Unit research positions Two Post-Doctoral Research Assistantships Available Computer Science Faculty Positions at Univ of Vermont Other Temporal, unsupervised rule discovery Book announcement: Machine Learning and Its Applications (LNCS2049) book announcement--Hand, Robinson The Machine Learning List is moderated. Contributions should be relevant to the scientific study of machine learning. Please send submissions for distribution to: ml@isle.org. For requests to be added, removed, or to change your email address, send email to: ml-request@isle.org. In general, submissions should be no more than a few full-screens of text. For meeting announcements, highlight the conference or workshop web page and give a summary description of the goals of the event. Information such as the list of program committee members, talk schedules, and registration forms are unnecessary and should not be included. Job adds are usually no more than a few full-screens so they should fit naturally. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Letters ------------------------------ From: Michael Jordan Subject: letter of resignation from Machine Learning journal Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 09:55:10 -0700 (PDT) Dear colleagues in machine learning, The forty people whose names appear below have resigned from the Editorial Board of the Machine Learning Journal (MLJ). We would like to make our resignations public, to explain the rationale for our action, and to indicate some of the implications that we see for members of the machine learning community worldwide. The machine learning community has come of age during a period of enormous change in the way that research publications are circulated. Fifteen years ago research papers did not circulate easily, and as with other research communities we were fortunate that a viable commercial publishing model was in place so that the fledgling MLJ could begin to circulate. The needs of the community, principally those of seeing our published papers circulate as widely and rapidly as possible, and the business model of commercial publishers were in harmony. Times have changed. Articles now circulate easily via the Internet, but unfortunately MLJ publications are under restricted access. Universities and research centers can pay a yearly fee of $1050 US to obtain unrestricted access to MLJ articles (and individuals can pay $120 US). While these fees provide access for institutions and individuals who can afford them, we feel that they also have the effect of limiting contact between the current machine learning community and the potentially much larger community of researchers worldwide whose participation in our field should be the fruit of the modern Internet. None of the revenue stream from the journal makes its way back to authors, and in this context authors should expect a particularly favorable return on their intellectual contribution---they should expect a service that maximizes the distribution of their work. We see little benefit accruing to our community from a mechanism that ensures revenue for a third party by restricting the communication channel between authors and readers. In the spring of 2000, a new journal, the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), was created, based on a new vision of the journal publication process in which the editorial board and authors retain significant control over the journal's content and distribution. Articles published in JMLR are available freely, without limits and without conditions, at the journal's website, http://www.jmlr.org. The content and format of the website are entirely controlled by the editorial board, which also serves its traditional function of ensuring rigorous peer review of journal articles. Finally, the journal is also published in a hardcopy version by MIT Press. Authors retain the copyright for the articles that they publish in JMLR. The following paragraph is taken from the agreement that every author signs with JMLR (see www.jmlr.org/forms/agreement.pdf): You [the author] retain copyright to your article, subject only to the specific rights given to MIT Press and to the Sponsor [the editorial board] in the following paragraphs. By retaining your copyright, you are reserving for yourself among other things unlimited rights of electronic distribution, and the right to license your work to other publishers, once the article has been published in JMLR by MIT Press and the Sponsor [the editorial board]. After first publication, your only obligation is to ensure that appropriate first publication credit is given to JMLR and MIT Press. We think that many will agree that this is an agreement that is reflective of the modern Internet, and is appealing in its recognition of the rights of authors to distribute their work as widely as possible. In particular, authors can leave copies of their JMLR articles on their own homepage. Over the years the editorial board of MLJ has expanded to encompass all of the various perspectives on the machine learning field, and the editorial board's efforts in this regard have contributed greatly to the sense of intellectual unity and community that many of us feel. We believe, however, that there is much more to achieve, and that our further growth and further impact will be enormously enhanced if via our flagship journal we are able to communicate more freely, easily, and universally. Our action is not unprecedented. As documented at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) website, http://www.arl.org/sparc, there are many areas in science where researchers are moving to low-cost publication alternatives. One salient example is the case of the journal "Logic Programming". In 1999, the editors and editorial advisors of this journal resigned to join "Theory and Practice of Logic Programming", a Cambridge University Press journal that encourages electronic dissemination of papers. In summary, our resignation from the editorial board of MLJ reflects our belief that journals should principally serve the needs of the intellectual community, in particular by providing the immediate and universal access to journal articles that modern technology supports, and doing so at a cost that excludes no one. We are excited about JMLR, which provides this access and does so unconditionally. We feel that JMLR provides an ideal vehicle to support the near-term and long-term evolution of the field of machine learning and to serve as the flagship journal for the field. We invite all of the members of the community to submit their articles to the journal and to contribute actively to its growth. Sincerely yours, Chris Atkeson, Peter Bartlett, Andrew Barto, Jonathan Baxter, Yoshua Bengio, Kristin Bennett, Chris Bishop, Justin Boyan, Carla Brodley, Claire Cardie, William Cohen, Peter Dayan, Tom Dietterich, Jerome Friedman, Nir Friedman, Zoubin Ghahramani, David Heckerman, Geoffrey Hinton, Haym Hirsh, Tommi Jaakkola, Michael Jordan, Leslie Kaelbling, Daphne Koller, John Lafferty, Sridhar Mahadevan, Marina Meila, Andrew McCallum, Tom Mitchell, Stuart Russell, Lawrence Saul, Bernhard Schoelkopf, John Shawe-Taylor, Yoram Singer, Satinder Singh, Padhraic Smyth, Richard Sutton, Sebastian Thrun, Manfred Warmuth, Chris Williams, Robert Williamson ------------------------------ From: Robert Holte Subject: Machine Learning journal Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 12:27:02 -0600 (MDT) Dear colleagues, In response to the widely circulated letter of resignation of some members of the Machine Learning journal (MLJ), I would like to make two points: - MLJ articles *are* universally electronically accessible - MLJ seeks your support and input to continue serving the community The accessibility of MLJ papers has been dramatically improved in the past 12 months. The main changes are these: - the copyright agreement gives the author the right to distribute individual copies of an MLJ paper to students and colleagues, physically and electronically, including making the paper available from the author's personal web site. - all MLJ papers are freely available online at Kluwer's web page http://www.wkap.nl/kaphtml.htm/MACHFCP from the time of acceptance until the paper appears in print. - the individual MLJ subscription price has been dramatically reduced. It is excellent value for money: for $120 Kluwer prints, binds, and mails to your door around 1350 pages. As a consequence of the first two points, MLJ articles are universally accessible -- from Kluwer's home page in the first six months or so, and at any time from the author's home page. The primary purpose of paid subscriptions, in this new distribution model, is to enable an individual or institution to obtain a bound archival copy of the journal printed on high-quality paper -- exactly the same role served by the printed version of JMLR sold by MIT Press. Turning to the second point, all members of both editorial boards have the interests of the machine learning community at heart. Our job is to serve you. The current members of the MLJ board, and the new members we are in the process of adding, believe it is in the best interests of the research community to keep MLJ alive and strong at this time. This is not to say we hope JMLR will fail. There is ample excellent research to support two high-quality journals, so it is not necessary for one of the journals to be destroyed in order for the other to succeed. If you agree that MLJ is useful to the community and has a role to play in the future, I would like to hear from you - feedback from the community is the very best way for me to know how to steer MLJ's course so it best serves the community. -- Robert Holte holte@cs.ualberta.ca Executive Editor Machine Learning ------------------------------ From: Journal of Machine Learning Subject: Kluwer on Machine Learning Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:52:20 -0400 In response to the public resignation and subsequent e-mail campaign of some MACHINE LEARNING (MLJ) editorial board members, please allow these facts to be clear. Kluwer Academic Publishers will continue its full support of the artificial intelligence community and MACHINE LEARNING. MLJ has been the premier publication venue for machine learning for 15 years. Its prestige is unequalled; even with a rejection rate of over 55% it publishes 12 full issues-over 1300 pages-per year. Its Science Citation Index ranking rises each year, and is consistently in the top 12 in all of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. MACHINE LEARNING is featured in over 30 abstracting and indexing services, including all of the relevant ISI indexes and those in fields as far-ranging as physics, psychology, and neuroscience. Print subscriptions continue to grow. Its electronic version reaches millions of users worldwide. Kluwer's commitment to the MACHINE LEARNING community includes: * Posting of accepted articles for free on the journal's web site immediately upon acceptance * Encouraging authors to post their papers on their own web site, prior to and after publication * Serving our editors, authors, and reviewers with an electronic reviewing system * Providing services from promotion to copyediting to distribution that ensure their work will reach the community, and reach it with a professional presentation * Representing the journal at conferences across all of computer science, exposing it to communities outside of machine learning * Maintaining the current individual subscription price of $120 * Including in the 2002 volumes over 15% more content with a less than 5% price increase to libraries Kluwer Academic Publishers has made, and continues to make, a very large investment in MLJ. Additionally, journals such as MACHINE LEARNING have paved the way for countless other new journals across all disciplines-its revenue provides a critical component for funding new projects that might not otherwise have been started. In fact, Kluwer publishes over 25 research journals in Artificial Intelligence. We are proud to sponsor targeted journals such as ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LAW and ANNALS OF MATHEMATICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE as a service to the AI community. Publisher revenues also provide the very taxes that universities and other non-profit entities depend on to fund research. Kluwer Academic Publishers will continue our commitment to providing a healthy forum for many journals spanning all areas of academic research. The e-mail contact for MACHINE LEARNING is machine.learning@wkap.com. ------------------------------ Calls for Papers and Meeting Announcements ------------------------------ From: Ning Zhong Subject: CFP: IEEE COMPUTER Special Issue on Web Intelligence Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 19:32:08 +0900 (JST) CALL FOR PAPERS IEEE COMPUTER -- Special Issue on WEB INTELLIGENCE (to appear in October 2002) WHAT IS WEB INTELLIGENCE? Web Intelligence (WI) is a new direction for scientific research and development that explores the fundamental roles as well as practical impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced Information Technology (IT) on the next generation of Web-empowered products, systems, services, and activities. TOPICS AND ISSUES This special issue seeks original, high quality, as well as general interest papers in all aspects of Web Intelligence (WI), such as Web information systems environments and foundations, human-media interaction, Web information management, Web information retrieval, Web agents, Web mining and farming, and emerging Web-based applications. In particular, we are interested in papers on Web agents and Web mining -- the two most important WI related topics for both academic research and industrial demands. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES All submitted papers should be limited to a maximum of 4,000 words (counting figures as 300 words each), and will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, originality, significance, and clarity. Graphical illustrations and minipage summaries are encouraged. All paper submissions will be handled electronically. Please send PostScript (MS-Words, or PDF) versions of your paper by February 1, 2002 to: zhong@maebashi-it.ac.jp IMPORTANT DATES February 1, 2002: Electronic submission of the completed paper June 5, 2002: Notification of acceptance July 1, 2002: Revisions due October 2002: Publication For more information, please visit the WI-2001 home page at http://kis.maebashi-it.ac.jp/wi01/ ------------------------------ From: "WSES ECE Newsletter" Subject: 4th WSES/IEEE Conference on NEURAL, FUZZY AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTING Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 16:29:56 +0300 http://www.worldses.org 6th WSES/IEEE MULTICONFERENCE CSCC composed by nine conferences, one of which is: * * * * * 4th WSES/IEEE Conference on NEURAL, FUZZY AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION (organized by Prof. V.Mladenov) * * * * * 2nd WSES/IEEE Conference on MULTIRATE SYSTEMS AND WAVELET ANALYSIS Technical Co-Sponsorship by IEEE Signal Processing Society Rethymnon Beach, Rethymnon, CRETE ISLAND (GREECE) JULY 7-14, 2002 (Herakleion Airport in Crete has FREQUENT DIRECT Connection with all European Capitals and big Asian and African cities in Summer!). WEB http://www.worldses.org (following appropriate link) OR SEND AN EMAIL to: manolis7@worldses.org THREE IMPORTANT POINTS ! ! ! (1) ALL THE ACCEPTED PAPERS will be published in TWO DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL FORA: a) in the CD-ROM Proceedings (with Search Facilities and Page Numbering) as well as b) in the Electrical and Computer Engineering International Reference Book Series of WSES PRESS as Post-Conference Books (Hard cover, velvet paper, international circulation). These will be different International Editions (with different ISBN). This material will be ready at the opening of the Multiconference and will be distributed to the participants. (2) Also SPECIAL ISSUES have been scheduled for the journals INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER RESEARCH (IJCR) INFORMATICA NEURAL NETWORKS WORLD INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING (3) Social and Cultural Part: Three Nights with the Greek, Cretan and International music (three different live orchesters) and shows Excursions to Minoan Palaces of Knossos, to the Archaeological Museum of Crete and El-Greco's House Festival of the town of Rethymnon DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION: FEBRUARY 5, 2002 NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE: MARCH 5, 2002 MORE DETAILS VISIT THE WEB ------------------------------ From: Ming-Syan Chen Subject: Call for Paper (PAKDD-2002) Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 17:42:54 +0800 Call for Paper The Sixth Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD-02) May 6-8, 2002 Taipei, Taiwan The Sixth Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD-02) will provide an international forum for the sharing of original research results and practical development experiences among researchers and application developers from different KDD related areas such as data mining, data warehousing, machine learning, databases, statistics, knowledge acquisition and discovery, data visualization, and knowledge-based systems. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: * Data and Knowledge Representation * Expanding the Autonomy of Machine Discovers * Scientific Discovery * Machine Learning Methods * Statistical Methods * Inductive Logic Programming * Deduction, Induction and Abduction * Multi-criteria Evaluation and Data Mining Metrics * Models and Framework of New Data Mining Capabilities * Performance Evaluation of Mining Algorithms * Data and Dimensionality Reduction * Preprocessing and Postprocessing * Interestingness Checking of Data and Rules * Management and Refinement for the Discovered Knowledge * Data and Knowledge Visualization * On Line Analytical Processing * KDD Process and Human Interaction * Rough Sets in Data Mining * Neural Networks, Probabilistic Reasoning * Noise Handling and Uncertainty Management * Hybrid Symbolic/Connectionist KDD Systems * Multi-Database Mining * Data Mining in Advanced Databases (OODB, Spatial DB, Multimedia DB) * Integration of Data Warehousing, OLAP and Data Mining * Combining Data Mining with Database Querying * Parallel and Distributed Data Mining * Data Mining in the WWW * Multi-agent, Multi-task KDD Systems * Data Mining from Unstructured and Multimedia Data * Unification of Data Mining with Intelligent Information Retrieval * Security and Privacy Issues * Successful/Innovative KDD Applications in Science, Engineering, Medicine, Business, Education, Government, and Industry PAPER SUBMISSION: (Formatting information for author is available from the Springer-Verlag Web site at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.) Please upload a softcopy of the paper to http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/pakdd02/ (in PostScript or PDF). IMPORTANT DATES: Paper submission due: November 5, 2001 Workshop proposal and tutorial proposal due: November 5, 2001 Author notification: January 15, 2002 Camera ready copy due: February 5, 2002 ------------------------------ From: "Gune Yen/ecen/ceat/Okstate" Subject: call-for-paper announcement of IJCNN 2002, Honolulu, Hawaii Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 10:45:41 -0500 CALL FOR PAPERS May 12-17, 2002 Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, HI held as part of the World Congress on Computational Intelligence http://www.wcci2002.org/ The annual IEEE / INNS International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) , is one of the premier international conferences in the field. It covers all topics in neural networks, including: supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning, hardware implementation, time series analysis, neurooptimization, neurocontrol, hybrid architectures, bioinformatics, neurobiology and neural modeling, embedded neural systems, intelligent agents, image processing, rule extraction, statistics, chaos, learning theory, and a huge variety of applications. The emphasis of the Congress will be on original theories and novel applications of neural networks. The Congress welcomes paper submissions from researchers, practitioners, and students worldwide. IJCNN 2002 will be held in conjunction with the Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) and the IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE) as part of the World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI). Crossfertilization of the three fields will be strongly encouraged. The Congress will feature keynote speeches and tutorials by world-leading researchers. It also will include a number of special sessions and workshops on the latest hot topics. Your registration admits you to all events and includes the World Congress proceedings and banquet. The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2001. Look for more details on paper submission at http://www.wcci2002.org/author/paperform.html. ------------------------------ From: Jose Dorronsoro Subject: ICANN2002 Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 17:42:13 +0200 ICANN 2002 First Call for Papers The 12th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2002, to be held from August 27 to August 31 2002 at the ETS de Informática of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, welcomes contributions on Theory, Algorithms, Applications and Implementations on the following broad Areas: Computational Neuroscience Data Analysis and Pattern Recognition Vision and Image Processing Robotics and Control Signal and Time Series Processing Connectionist Cognitive Science Selforganization Dynamical Systems Suggestions for Tutorials, Workshops and Special Sessions are also welcome. Submissions will be possible by surface mail, e-mail attach or through an upload page to be available at a later time. Concrete submission procedures and other related details will soon appear at the conference's web site, www.ii.uam.es/icann2002. The Proceedings will be published in the "Lecture Notes in Computer Science" series of Springer-Verlag. Paper length is restricted to a maximum of 6 pages, including figures. The final paper layout must adhere strictly to the Author Instructions set out in the page http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html of the LNCS web site. In particular, a LaTeX style file is available to help authors format their contributions according to the LNCS standard. Authors are asked to use that file and, in general, to follow very carefully that page's instructions. IMPORTANT DEADLINES End of submission receptions: February 15, 2002. Notification of acceptance/rejection: April 15, 2002. Final papers due (in hardcopy and electronically): May 15, 2002. Three independent referees will review each submitted paper. Acting on those reviews, the Program Committee will accept papers and assign them to either oral or poster presentation. All accepted papers (either for oral or poster presentation) will be published in the Proceedings under the same length restrictions. Proceedings will be distributed to all registered participants at the beginning of the Conference. e-mail: icann2002@ii.uam.es ------------------------------ From: "Werner Winiwarter" Subject: CfP for distribution Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 09:34:58 +0200 C A L L F O R P A P E R S 4th International Conference on Data Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery DaWaK 2002 September 4-6, 2002 Aix-en-Provence, France http://www.dexa.org Data Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery technology is emerging as a key technology for enterprises that wish to improve their data analysis, decision support activities, and the automatic extraction of knowledge from data. The objective of the Fourth International Conference on Data Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery (DaWaK 2002) is to bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss research issues and experience in developing and deploying data warehousing and knowledge discovery systems, applications, and solutions. The conference is organized by the DEXA Association in parallel with DEXA 2002 (13th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications) and EC-Web 2002 (3rd International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web Technologies). PAPER SUBMISSION DETAILS Authors are invited to submit research and application papers, not exceeding 5000 words, representing original, previously unpublished work. Papers that substantially exceed this limit will be rejected without review. However, it is possible to include additional, clarifying material in an appendix to the paper. Papers which have been submitted in identical form to another scientific event will also be rejected without review. Submitted papers will be carefully evaluated based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of exposition. All papers will be refereed by three members of the program committee. All accepted papers will be published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) by Springer-Verlag. Paper submissions in LNCS format (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) would be highly appreciated. For paper registration and submission, please see http://www.dexa.org. The maximum number of pages for the final version will be 10 pages. Authors are requested to send the abstract of their paper to be received by January 14, 2002. You should submit the file of your paper to be received by January 21, 2002. Alternatively, submit 5 hard copies of your paper to be received by January 21, 2002 to the following address: DAWAK 2002, c/o FAW Secretary, University of Linz, A-4040 Linz, Austria. IMPORTANT DATES * Submission of abstracts: January 14, 2002 * Submission of full papers: January 21, 2002 * Notification of acceptance: April 17, 2002 * Camera-ready copies due: May 20, 2002 ------------------------------ From: Priscilla Rasmussen Subject: ACL'02 Preliminary Call for Papers Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 14:50:27 EDT ACL'02 Preliminary Call For Papers 40th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 7 - 12 July, 2002 Philadelphia, PA, USA http://www.acl02.org The Association for Computational Linguistics invites the submission of papers for its 40th Annual Meeting hosted jointly with the North American Chapter of the ACL. Papers are invited on substantial, original, and unpublished research on all aspects of computational linguistics, including, but not limited to: pragmatics, discourse, semantics, syntax and the lexicon; phonetics, phonology and morphology; interpreting and generating spoken and written language; linguistic, mathematical and psychological models of language; language-oriented information retrieval, question answering, and information extraction; language-oriented machine learning; corpus-based language modeling; multi-lingual processing, machine translation and translation aids; natural language interfaces and dialogue systems; approaches to coordinating the linguistic with other modalities in multi-media systems; message and narrative understanding systems; tools and resources; and evaluation of systems. REQUIREMENTS Papers should describe original work; they should emphasize completed work rather than intended work, and should indicate clearly the state of completion of the reported results. Wherever appropriate, concrete evaluation results should be included. A paper accepted for presentation at the ACL Meeting cannot be presented or have been presented at any other meeting with publicly available published proceedings . Papers that are being submitted to other conferences or workshops must indicate this on the title page. SUBMISSION INFORMATION Submissions should follow the two-column format of ACL proceedings and should not exceed eight (8) pages, including references. We strongly recommend the use of ACL LaTeX style files or Microsoft Word Style files tailored for this year's conference. They are available at http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~lindek/acl02/style/ A description of the format will also be available in case you are unable to use these style files directly. As reviewing will be blind, a separate identification page will be required. The identification page should include the paper title, the paper ID code generated upon paper registration (see below), authors' names, affiliations, and email addresses, one or two general topic areas, up to 5 keywords specifying the subject area, and a short summary (up to 5 lines). The identification page should also specify whether the paper is under consideration for other conferences or workshops, and if so, which ones. The paper should not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...". DEADLINES Paper registration deadline: January 25th, 2002 Paper submissions deadline: February 1st, 2002 Notification of acceptance: April 8th, 2002 Camera ready papers due: May 10th, 2002 ACL'02 Conference: July 6th-11th, 2002 ------------------------------ From: Mark Girolami Subject: 24th BCS-IRSG European Colloquium on IR Research Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 08:35:24 +0100 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The 24th BCS-IRSG European Colloquium on Information Retrieval (IR) Research - which was the precursor of the ACM SIGIR conference - is being held in the city of Glasgow, Scotland and submissions reporting recent research work in this area are welcomed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 24th BCS-IRSG European Colloquium on IR Research March 25-27, 2002, Glasgow, Scotland, UK http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/ECIR02/ The colloquium on information retrieval research provides an opportunity for both new and established researchers to present papers describing work in progress or final results. These Colloquia were established by the BCS IRSG (British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group), and named the Annual Colloquium on Information Retrieval Research. Recently, the location of the colloquium has alternated between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. To reflect the growing European orientation of the event, the Colloquium was renamed "European Annual Colloquium on Information Retrieval Research" from 2001. The previous five colloquia have been held in Darmstadt (2001), Cambridge (2000), Glasgow (1999), Grenoble (1998), and Aberdeen (1997). DETAILS The colloquium on information retrieval research provides an opportunity for both new and established researchers to present papers describing work in progress or final results. Relevant papers should address (at the theoretical, methodological, system or application level) the analysis, design or evaluation of functions like: Indexing Information Extraction Data Mining Browsing Retrieval and Filtering User Interaction for the following types of documents and databases: Monomedia documents (e.g. text, images, audio, voice, video) Composite documents Multimedia documents Hypermedia documents Active documents Distributed documents and databases Digital Libraries the Web ------------------------------ From: icdm02@kis.maebashi-it.ac.jp Subject: CFP: IEEE Data Mining 2002 Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 10:34:54 +0900 ICDM '02: The 2002 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Maebashi TERRSA, Maebashi City, Japan November 26 - 29, 2002 Home Page: http://kis.maebashi-it.ac.jp/icdm02 Mirror Page: http://www.wi-lab.com/icdm02 Call for Papers The 2002 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (IEEE ICDM '02) provides a leading international forum for the sharing of original research results and practical development experiences among researchers and application developers from different data mining related areas such as machine learning, automated scientific discovery, statistics, pattern recognition, knowledge acquisition, soft computing, databases and data warehousing, data visualization, and knowledge-based systems. The conference seeks solutions to challenging problems facing the development of data mining systems, and shapes future directions of research by promoting high quality, novel and daring research findings. As an important part of the conference, the workshops program will focus on new research challenges and initiatives. Topics related to the design, analysis and implementation of data mining theory, systems and applications are of interest. All submitted papers should be limited to a maximum of 6,000 words (approximately 20 A4 pages), and will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance to data mining, originality, significance, and clarity. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings by the IEEE Computer Society Press. A selected number of IEEE ICDM '02 accepted papers will be expanded and revised for possible inclusion in the Knowledge and Information Systems journal (http://kais.mines.edu/~kais/) by Springer-Verlag. IMPORTANT DATES June 5, 2002 Main track paper submissions Industry track paper submissions June 30, 2002 Tutorial submissions Panel submissions Workshop proposals August 9, 2002 Paper acceptance notices September 2, 2002 Final camera-readies November 26-29, 2002 Conference All paper submissions will be handled electronically. Detailed instructions are provided on the conference home page at http://kis.maebashi-it.ac.jp/icdm02 and http://www.wi-lab.com/icdm02 ------------------------------ From: Georgios Papadimitriou Subject: Special Issue on Learning Automata Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 15:35:24 +0300 Special Issue on Learning Automata: Theory, Paradigms, and Applications To appear in the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part B Learning automata have attracted a considerable interest in the last decade. They are adaptive decision-making devices that operate in unknown stochastic environments and progressively improve their performance via a learning process. They have been initially used by psychologists and biologists to describe the human behavior from both psychological and biological viewpoints. Learning automata have made a significant impact in all areas of engineering, and decision science problems. They can be applied to a broad range of modeling and control problems that are nonlinear and with a high degree of uncertainty. Learning automata have some key features, which make them applicable to a broad range of applications: they combine rapid and accurate convergence with a low computational complexity. The applications of learning automata include: process control, pattern recognition, control of service activity, task scheduling, optimization and classification problems, image processing, diagnosis, computer vision, concept learning, and routing and bandwidth allocation in computer communications networks. PROCEDURE: Prospective authors are invited to submit their original and previously unpublished papers to any one of the guest editors by November 1, 2001. The authors are encouraged to submit by e-mail an electronic copy of the paper in word for windows, pdf, or postscript formats. If electronic submission is not possible, six hard copies of the manuscript should be submitted. Contributed papers may not exceed 25 double-spaced single-column pages using font 12 including all figures and illustrations. Submitted papers will undergo the standard review procedures of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics-Part B. SCHEDULE Submission Deadline: November 15, 2001 Author Notification: March 1, 2002 Final Manuscript Due: May 1, 2002 Tentative Publication Date: Late 2002 The above Call-for-Papers can be found at the following address: http://www.isye.gatech.edu/ieee-smc/publications/transactions/special/CFP-TSMC-LA.html ------------------------------ From: EDUARDO Subject: AAMAS-2 CfP Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 11:54:01 +0100 Call for Papers Second Symposium on Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS-2), AISB'02 Convention, April 2002, Imperial College, London. MOTIVATION: In recent years, Intelligent agents and multi-agent systems have become a highly active area of AI research. Intelligent Agents have been developed and applied successfully in many domains, such as e-commerce, human-computer interaction, entertainment, process management and traffic control. When designing agent systems, it is impossible to foresee all the potential situations an agent may encounter and specify an agent behavior optimally in advance. Agents therefore have to learn from and adapt to their environment. This task is even more complex when nature is not the only source of uncertainty, and the agent is situated in an environment that contains other agents with potentially different capabilities, goals, and beliefs. Multi-Agent Learning, i.e., the ability of the agents to learn how to cooperate and compete, becomes crucial in such domains. The goal of this symposium is to increase awareness and interest in adaptive agent research, encourage collaboration between ML experts and agent system experts, and give a representative overview of current research in the area of adaptive agents. The symposium will serve as an inclusive forum for the discussion on ongoing or completed work in both theoretical and practical issues. The proposed symposium is a continuation of the Symposium on Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, held as part of AISB-01 in York, March 2001. The event was a pioneering experience, as no symposium on learning agents had been organised previously in the UK. The success of the symposium has encouraged us to propose AAMAS-2. TOPICS OF INTEREST The proposed symposium will focus on (but is not limited to) the following areas: 1. Learning and adaptation in Multi-Agent Systems 2. Logic-based learning 3. Learning and communication 4. Natural selection, language and learning 5. Evolutionary agents and emergent Multi-Agent structures 6. Industrial applications of learning agents 7. Distributed Learning SUBMISSIONS Initially, we require an extended abstract, up to four pages in length (at least 10pt font). The following formats are acceptable: - Paper: A4, 3 copies - Email: PDF, Postscript, or MS Word Please submit your abstracts on or before 21st December 2001. Please post or email submissions to the programme chair (address given above). Full papers (submitted after the extended abstract has been accepted) should be no longer than 12 pages. Accepted symposium papers will be published by AISB and the proceedings will have an ISBN number. TIMETABLE Abstract submission deadline 21st December 2001 Notification re: extended abstracts 31st January 2002 Submission of full papers 11th March 2002 Convention 2nd - 5th April 2002 ------------------------------ From: Wei-Min Shen Subject: CFP: Special Issue on Self-Reconfigurable Robots. Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 16:01:12 -0700 Call for Papers Self-Reconfigurable Robots and Systems A Special Issue of IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Self-reconfigurable robots are robots that can autonomously change their shape and size to accomplish diverse tasks in complex environments. Typically, such robots consist of swarms of autonomous and configurable modules that can dynamically rearrange their physical connectivity to form structures and capabilities that are beyond those of conventional, fixed-shape robots. These metamorphic robots are ideal for applications such as search and rescue in rubble or unstructured areas, inspection and repair in hazardous environments, fire fighting, space exploration, remote intelligence gathering, or reconnaissance. Due to their potential applications and interesting research challenges, self-reconfigurable robots have attracted in the recent years many researchers in robotics, artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, and related fields. The goal of this special issue is to bring together all updated and related research results, define new challenging tasks and applications, review the history of the field, and discuss the future of self-reconfigurable robots. We welcome papers in all aspects of self- reconfigurable robots, including representations, control theory, novel hardware design, innovative applications and demonstrations. Topics: The papers submitted to this Special Issue should include, but may not be limited to, the investigation of the following research challenges: -- how modules communicate in a network whose topology may change, -- how actions are synchronized without assuming any global real-time clocks, -- how modules use their weak local actions to accomplish global effects that require strong and precise actuators, -- how to design and build connectors so that modules can reconfigure effectively and efficiently, -- how to evaluate, select, plan, and execute configurations for a given task and environment, -- how reconfigurable robots repair themselves, -- how to distribute global control to reconfigurable modules to avoid single point breakdown, -- how to control reconfigurable robots so that they are robust to single point breakdown, -- how self-reconfiguration is accomplished in other types of natural systems such as biological organisms. IMPORTANT DATES: October 2001: Call for Papers March 31, 2002: Deadline for Paper Submission June 15, 2002: Completion of First Review September 15, 2002: Completion of Final Review December, 2002: Publication The format of the papers and submission procedures can be obtained from the web site http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/transactions/tmech.htm ------------------------------ From: Rothschild Institute Subject: CFP: Haifa Winter Workshop on Computer Science and Statistics (12/17-20/2001) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:10:32 +0200 (IST) CALL FOR PAPERS Haifa Winter Workshop on Computer Science and Statistics 17-20 December 2001 The Caesarea Edmond Benjamin de Rothschild Foundation Institute for Interdisciplinary Applications of Computer Science at the University of Haifa, together with the Department of Statistics and the Department of Computer Science, are organizing an international workshop Dec. 17-20, 2001 on Computer Science and Statistics -- with an emphasis on Knowledge Discovery and other AI related topics. Additional funding is provided by co-sponsors the Ministry of Science and the US National Science Foundation. Purpose: The purpose of the workshop is to bring together experts from the fields of computer science and statistics and to explore potential areas of research in order to stimulate collaborative work. Particular areas of interests are (preliminary list): * Bayesian learning * Data mining * Simulation-based computation * Expert systems * Automated learning * Robotics Call-for-Papers: Contributed papers and posters are solicited for presentation. Submissions (extended abstract or full paper) should be sent electronically to libi@cs.haifa.ac.il no later than Nov. 15, 2001. Accepted abstracts will be posted on the workshop website http:// www.rothschild.haifa.ac.il /csstat (Late submissions will be considered on a space available basis.) Dates: 17-20 December ŝ2001 Venue: University of Haifa For further information please contact libi@cs.haifa.ac.il ------------------------------ From: Mohammed Zaki Subject: SIGKDD Explorations Special Issue on Online, Interactive, Anytime Data Mining Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 17:03:25 -0400 SIGKDD Explorations Special Issue on Online, Interactive, Anytime Data Mining Guest Editor: Mohammed J. Zaki SIGKDD Explorations is the official newsletter of ACM's Special Interest Group (SIG) on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. This special issue (Volume 3, Issue 2) will focus on the topic of Online, Interactive, Anytime Data Mining. Discovering interesting nuggets in large databases can be very compute and I/O intensive. This high computational cost may be acceptable when the database is static since the discovery is done off-line, and several approaches to this problem have been presented in the literature. However, many domains with streaming data, such as electronic commerce, web mining, stock analysis, intrusion detection, fault monitoring, etc., impose time and memory constraints on the mining process. In such domains, where the databases are updated continuously and user interactions modify the search parameters, running the discovery program from scratch is unfeasible, and having the user wait inordinately long is unacceptable. Hence, there is a need for techniques that can effectively mine or handle: i) streaming data (online updations/deletions), ii) user interactions (modifying/constraining the search space), iii) anytime response (partial/approximate results). We invite high quality submissions on any of the above topics for this special issue. Submissions should be made to the guest editor at zaki@cs.rpi.edu. Submissions will be reviewed by the guest editor, external reviewers and/or associate editors as appropriate. The previous issues of the SIGKDD Explorations are available online at http://www.acm.org/sigkdd/explorations/index.htm. SIGKDD Explorations newsletter is sent to the ACM SIGKDD membership and to a world-wide network of libraries. Submissions can be made in any one of the following categories. - survey/tutorial articles (short) on important topics not exceeding 20 pages - topical articles on problems and challenges - well-articulated position papers - technical articles not exceeding 15 pages. - news items on the order of 1-3 paragraphs - Brief announcements not exceeding 5 lines in length. - review articles of products and methodologies not exceeding 20 pages - reviews/summaries from conferences, panels and special meetings. - reports on relevant meetings and committees related to the field Important Dates: Submission --- December 7th, 2001 Notification --- January 4th, 2002 Camera Ready --- January 11th, 2002 For more information on SIGKDD visit http://www.acm.org/sigkdd and for more information on the SIGKDD Explorations newsletter, please visit http://www.acm.org/sigkdd/explorations/index.htm ------------------------------ Jobs ------------------------------ From: Peter Dayan Subject: Gatsby Unit research positions Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 13:39:07 +0100 (BST) Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/ Post-doctoral and PhD Research Positions Computational Neuroscience The Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit invites applications for PhD studentships and post-doctoral research positions. Members of the unit are interested in models of all aspects of brain function, especially unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, neural dynamics, population coding and computational motor control. There is the opportunity to conduct psychophysical experiments in motor control. The Unit also has active interests in more general aspects of machine learning. For further details please see: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/research.html Candidates should have a strong analytical background and a keen interest in neuroscience. Competitive salaries and studentships are available. Applicants should send in plain text format a CV (PhD applicants should include details of course work and grades), a statement of research interests, and names and addresses of three referees to admin@gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (email preferred) or to The Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit University College London ** Closing date for applications: 9th November 2001 ** ------------------------------ From: Mark Girolami Subject: Two Post-Doctoral Research Assistantships Available Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 17:35:23 +0100 Two Post-Doctoral Research Assistantships Available Division of Computing and Information Systems University of Paisley A research project which is to be funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and industrial partners, to a total value of over £530K, will be conducted at the University of Paisley in Scotland for a period of three years. The project aims to investigate the technologies required in software systems which will be able to provide effective detection and subsequent analysis of fraudulent activity within the general framework required of emerging fixed and mobile telecommunications applications such as electronic and mobile commerce. Two postdoctoral positions are now available to investigate the application of machine learning and advanced data mining methods in the detection and analysis of anomalous and possibly fraudulent usage of fixed and mobile telecommunications applications such as electronic and mobile commerce. The project will involve the design and implementation of novel algorithms and systems to both discover and analyse emerging patterns of anomalous telecommunication system user activity. Highly motivated candidates who have a publication record in, ideally, machine learning, data mining or artificial intelligence applications are encouraged to apply. Applicants should have, or shortly expect to obtain, a PhD in Computer Science. State-of-the-art computer hardware and software will be made available to the selected candidates, as will ample funding for travel to international conferences and meetings. Salaries will be on the R1A scale, starting at £20,066pa to £27,550pa. The Applied Computational Intelligence Research Unit (ACIRU) is a young, ambitious and growing interdisciplinary research group within the University of Paisley. Within Scotland ACIRU have active and funded research collaborations with the University of Edinburgh, University of Stirling (http://www.cn.stir.ac.uk/incite/), the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde and it forms part of a rich network of research establishments within which to work. For further information and informal enquiries please contact Mark Girolami (mark.girolami@paisley.ac.uk, http://cis.paisley.ac.uk/giro-ci0) in the first instance. EPSRC & DTI Project Data mining Tools for Fraud Detection in M-Commerce * DETECTOR http://cis.paisley.ac.uk/giro-ci0/projects.html M.A.Girolami School of Communication and Information Technologies University of Paisley Email: mark.girolami@paisley.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: Xindong Wu Subject: Computer Science Faculty Positions at Univ of Vermont Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 08:26:44 -0400 (EDT) University of Vermont Faculty Positions in Computer Science After a successful search for two faculty members in 2001, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Vermont invites applications for two additional tenure-track faculty (pending final funding approval). These positions commence with the 2002-03 academic year. The University of Vermont, one of the top public national universities (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/natudoc/natudoc_pubs.htm), is located in Burlington, Vermont. It offers a supportive research environment in a relatively small city that repeatedly has drawn national attention for offering a high quality of life. The greater Burlington area includes 125,000 people, and is situated on the shores of Lake Champlain between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Burlington and the surrounding area provide an environment rich in cultural, family, and sporting activities. The Department of Computer Science offers programs in the College of Engineering and Mathematics and the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as a joint program with the School of Business Administration. Position 1: Associate or Assistant Professor. Candidates in networking and systems, software engineering, programming languages, human-computer interaction or parallel/distributed computing are most sought. Candidates in any area of computer science will be considered seriously. Our faculty are involved in the forefront of research in knowledge and data engineering, software engineering, and computational sciences. We are seeking to complement and further strengthen our existing research and teaching activities in these areas. Position 2: Assistant Professor in COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY. A new concentration in computational biology has been established in the Colleges of Medicine, Agricultural and Life Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics, and Arts and Sciences. Candidates with research interests or experience in computational biology or bioinformatics are invited to apply. Through a major Department of Energy grant that commenced in July 2000, the startup package includes summer support, seed research grant, and reduced teaching obligations. Candidates for either position should have a strong research record, hold a doctorate in Computer Science or a closely related field, and have broad teaching abilities and interests. Current teaching responsibilities typically consist of three computer science courses per year with average enrollments of 25 students. These responsibilities will be reduced to two courses per year for the first two years for successful position 2 candidates. Please send a letter of interest indicating the position sought, a curriculum vitae, a statement of teaching experience and interests, a statement of research interests and aspirations to, and arrange for at least three letters of reference to be sent to Chair, Faculty Search, Position (1 or 2), Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. Complete applications received by January 21, 2002 will be fully considered. For more information about the Department and the University please see http://www.cs.uvm.edu or send email to cssearch@cs.uvm.edu. The University of Vermont is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer and encourages applications from women and members of minority groups. ------------------------------ Other ------------------------------ From: Kamran Karimi Subject: Temporal, unsupervised rule discovery Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:15:03 -0600 (CST) RFCT 2.0 is a tool for the unsupervised discovery of temporal rules. It is based on C4.5 and extends its abilities by allowing it to understand and respect temporal order among the input data. RFCT's different methods of presentating the results help the user discover relationships among the variables. The user can experiment with different scenarios concerning the passage of time between the variable observations, and thus see if the value of one variable is not only determined by other variables observed at the same time, but also by variables observed before. The package, including full source code, example files, and online help, is available freely from http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~karimi/downloads.html . RFCT is written in Java, and is runnable any where with a java interpreter and a graphical user interface. This includes Microsoft Windows and X Window. There is no special installation necessary. Use softrware such as WinZip under windows and (gzip -d rfct.tgz; tar -xf rfct.tar) under UNIX to unpack the package. In the resulting RFCT-2.0 directory, just type rfct.bat to start the program. You will need a properly installed C4.5 package for RFCT to function. To fully use RFCT's abilities, you need to patch C4.5 Release 8 and recompile it. Microsoft Windows users can download patched and compiled C4.5 files from the same page as the RFCT package. For others, the patch file is included in the package, and you can get C4.5's sources freely from http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~quinlan . RFCT can still be used as a graphical user interface for C4.5 if you don't patch it. Once the application in running, use the online help and follow the "sample session" link to get started with the program. Kamran Karimi karimi@cs.uregina.ca http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~karimi ------------------------------ From: George Paliouras Subject: Book announcement: Machine Learning and Its Applications (LNCS2049) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 19:08:54 +0300 We would like to inform you of the availability of the LNAI volume 2049: "Machine Learning and Its Applications". The idea for this book was conceived during the Advanced Course in Artificial Intelligence (ACAI '99), which was attended by a large number of research students, professionals and researchers from around the world. Details about ACAI '99 can be found at: http://www.iit.demokritos.gr/skel/eetn/acai99/ The book is primarily based on material that was presented in ACAI '99, but it goes beyond that by containing several position papers on open research issues of machine learning. Among the authors of the book are most of the lecturers in ACAI '99: Ivan Bratko, Ramon Lopez de Mantaras, Luc De Raedt, Yves Kodratoff, Pat Langley, Ryszard S. Michalski, Jonathan Shapiro, Sergios Theodoridis, Maarten van Someren and other machine learning researchers. You can find more information about the volume in the following addresses: http://link.springer.de/link/service/series/0558/tocs/t2049.htm http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/series/0558/tocs/t2049.htm If you (or your institution) have a subscription to LNAI you can find the chapters of the book at the above addresses. Best regards, George Paliouras ------------------------------ From: Jud Wolfskill Subject: book announcement--Hand, Robinson Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 14:57:30 -0400 Principles of Data Mining David J. Hand, Heikki Mannila, and Padhraic Smyth For more information, please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/026208290X The growing interest in data mining is motivated by a common problem across disciplines: how does one store, access, model, and ultimately describe and understand very large data sets? Historically, different aspects of data mining have been addressed independently by different disciplines. This is the first truly interdisciplinary text on data mining, blending the contributions of information science, computer science, and statistics. Jud Wolfskill Associate Publicist MIT Press ------------------------------ End of ML-LIST Digest Vol 13, No. 6 ***********************************