Machine Learning List: Vol. 15, No. 8 Saturday, May 28, 2003 Contents Calls for Papers and Other Meeting Announcements AIEDAM Special Issue, November 2004, Vol.18 No.5 CFP: WEBKDD 2003 (@ ACM SIGKDD 2003) KCAP03 workshop Intelligent Systems, Island of Madeira 2004 Career Opportunities Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Research Assistant RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS (Australian Research Council) Postdoc positions Misc. Other Announcements a new book: Duality of the Mind 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 ads are usually no more than a few full-screens so they should fit naturally. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alex Duffy Subject: AIEDAM Special Issue, November 2004, Vol.18 No.5 Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 22:45:27 +0100 AIEDAM Special Issue, November 2004, Vol.18 No.5 Learning and Creativity in Design Edited by: A. H. B. Duffy and F.M.T. Brazier Learning and creativity in design are two related activities. Can the interrelations between the activities be defined? What is the nature of these inter-relationships? Does creativity necessarily result in new knowledge and/or learning? Can creativity be supported by computational means? Can learning be supported by computational means? IF so, can such computational systems support design practice? Can automated design be considered to be creative? Can learning from past design manipulations be considered to be creative? The Learning and Creativity in Design Workshop at AID'02, held at Cambridge University, provided a forum to discuss and attempt to answer some of these questions, together with identifying the latest trends, and challenge areas of learning to support design creativity. The goal of this special issue is to further this area of research by presenting answers to some of the above questions through a snapshot of the latest research to produce an insightful understanding of the subject of learning and creativity in design. The state-of-the-art of research in the area, and its computational support, can also be obtained through identifying the key challenges and issues. Related papers are invited, but not limited to, one or more of the areas listed below: * The links between learning and creativity in design. * The nature of creativity and learning. * Creativity and learning in team design. * Techniques, knowledge and approaches to computationally supported creativity and learning. All submissions will be anonymously reviewed by at least two reviewers, and a selection for publication made on the basis of these reviews. Further details about registration of interest, submission, etc, can be found at the Special Issue information page: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~aiedam/SpecialIssues/Duffy-Brazier.html Information about the format and style required for AIEDAM papers can be found at www.cs.wpi.edu/~aiedam/Instructions/ Important dates: Submission deadline for full papers: 1 September 2003 Notification and reviews to authors: 9 January 2004 Revised version submission deadline: 1 March 2004 Final notification and re-reviews: 3 May 2004 Final version submission deadline: 7 June 2004 Publication: November 2004 Guest editors: Please direct enquiries to the guest editors: Alex Duffy Computer Aided Design Centre Dept. Design Manufacture and Engineering Management University of Strathclyde Email: alex@cad.strath.ac.uk Frances Brazier Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems Group Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Email: frances@cs.vu.nl ------------------------------ From: Osmar Zaiane Subject: CFP: WEBKDD 2003 (@ ACM SIGKDD 2003) Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 17:07:09 -0600 (MDT) WEBKDD 2003 Call for Papers The Fifth WEBKDD Workshop: Web Mining as a Premise to Effective and Intelligent Web Applications http://db.cs.ualberta.ca/webkdd03/ In conjunction with The Ninth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining August 24-27, 2003 - Washington, DC, USA Important Dates --------------- Abstracts due: Tuesday May 27th, 2003 Papers due: Tuesday June 3rd, 2003 Notification: Friday June 27th, 2003 Camera Ready: Thursday July 17th, 2003 WEBKDD'03 is the 5th of a successful series of workshops on knowledge discovery in the Web. The Web presents a key driving force for a large spectrum of applications, in which a user or even an application can interact with a company, a governmental authority, a non-governmental organization or a non-profit institution. To develop effective and intelligent web-applications and web services, it is essential to analyse patterns hidden in the usage of web resources, their contents and their interconnections. User preferences and expectations together with usage patterns form the basis for personalized, user-friendly and business-optimal services. Contents, and link structures as well as the semantic web are paramount for the development of good wrappers for intelligent web agents. Enabling technologies include data mining, document analysis and classification, user modelling and quality evaluation models for them. The WEBKDD'03 workshop aims at bringing together practitioners on web-commerce, portals and ASPs, decision-makers in [MSOffice1]non-commercial institutions that exploit web technologies to optimize their services, technology providers, and data mining researchers to foster the exchange of ideas and the dissemination of emerging solutions on user and usage modelling for effective and intelligent web-based applications using web usage, structure and content mining. Workshop Co-Chairs: ------------------- * Ronny Kohavi (Blue Martini Software, USA) * Bing Liu (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) * Brij Masand (Data Miners Inc., USA) * Jaideep Srivastava (University of Minnesota, USA) * Osmar R. Zaïane (University of Alberta, Canada) For inquiry, send e-mail to webkdd03@cs.ualberta.ca Topics of interest: ------------------- WEBKDD '03 calls for contributions related to data mining of web log data, site information, document contents, user records and preferences; the exploitation of the mining results for user profiling, user modeling, web structure and content mining, and web usage metrics and intelligent web applications. These include the following subjects: -Web Usage based Business Metrics * Relationship of appropriate web usage data capture and pre-processing methods to business metrics * Reliability and consistency of Metrics * Integration of click stream data with back end data and related metrics * Intelligent summarization/explanation of changes in key web usage metrics. -Enabling technologies: (limitations and strengths) * Data warehousing (both web and non-web data) * Data collection including event streams, such as click streams, call center streams, and transactional data * Techniques for web data preparation, including cleansing, transformation, and sampling * Classification of web page texts and multimedia content -Modeling users and usage: * Profile establishment upon declared and derived preferences * Deriving profiles from usage * Discovering misuse and fraud * Recommendation systems * Student profiles in e-learning * Alert systems * Permission marketing -Web content and structure mining: * Wrapper generation and information extraction * Web content and/or structure mining * Semantic Web mining * Web mining for business intelligence and for security -Applications: * Recommendation systems, such as travel assistants * E-learning, such as collectors of personalized teaching materials * Alert systems, such as personalized delivery of news and journals * Fraud and misuse detection, such as credit-card fraud and network intrusion detection * Web log (and other types of log) analysis for security applications Paper Submission: ----------------- Papers should be up to 5000 words long (aprox. a maximum of 15 pages). Only electronic submissions are accepted. Either PDF or PS format is strongly encouraged. MS Word format is also acceptable. Submissions should be done via the on-line submission system. See the workshop web site http://db.cs.ualberta.ca/webkdd03/ For further details, see http://db.cs.ualberta.ca/webkdd03/ ------------------------------ From: D Sleeman Subject: KCAP03 workshop Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 18:20:26 +0100 KCAP-03 WORKSHOP CAPTURING KNOWLEDGE FROM DOMAIN EXPERTS: PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS To be linked with the Workshop on "Distributed & Collaborative Knowledge Capture" (Please also see their announcement) In the early days of Expert Systems, knowledge engineers were given a very prominent role in interviewing domain experts and then formalising and implementing a knowledge base which captured what they thought an expert had said and/or how they had solved selected problems. This approach is both very expensive and open to many potential communication problems between the domain expert and the knowledge engineer. Role-limiting approaches took a substantial step forward, by viewing domain-level knowledge acquired from an expert by a knowledge acquisition tool as playing certain roles within a domain-independent problem solving method (PSM). Today's experts are avid computer users who can envision the potential of knowledge bases in their fields of expertise. This is clearly the case in many areas of science, where experts are eager and committed to undertake long-term knowledge capture and dissemination to improve their fields and benefit related ones. Many are already developing what can be considered skeletal ontologies and already using them to support relatively simple tasks. There is clear interest in moving towards more sophisticated knowledge bases that support complex problem solving activity. One of the functions of this workshop is to have an in-depth look at the current state-of-the-art and in particular to see how the WWW has changed our thinking about these issues. The issue of whether it is necessary to superimpose a knowledge model on information acquired before it can be used to solve meaningful & novel tasks is one of the points of contention between this workshop & the one with which it is linked, namely, the "Distributed & Collaborative Knowledge Capture" workshop. Additionally, some groups of domain experts, who are now more computationally sophisticated, are asking for tools which will enable them to maintain collaboratively their own Knowledge Bases. Some of the problems of maintaining knowledge bases overlap with acquisition, others are quite distinct. Clearly, this is a very inter-disciplinary activity and we very much hope that the contributions for the workshop will reflect this. These are some of the topics which we hope papers will address; - Systems which have been used by domain experts to develop KBs - Systems which have been used by domain experts to maintain KBs - Techniques to help domain experts visualise and debug their KBs - Detailed requirements from domain experts for the tools they would like to use when developing & maintaining KBs /Ontologies - Detailed case histories of the development of particular topic-specific KBs etc Workshop format: - There will be an opening Invited talk/position paper. - Where possible talks should include appropriate demos. - If there is a need we will also organize a longer demo/posters session. - We plan to have at least one panel - this will be with the Linked Workshop as the grand finale. It is desirable that persons attending this workshop should also attend the linked workshop: "Distributed & Collaborative Knowledge Capture" as this is on a related topic & we are planning at least to have a joint panel as a Grand Finale for the 2 workshops. Co-chairs: Derek Sleeman, Aberdeen, UK dsleeman@csd.abdn.ac.uk Yolanda Gil, ISI, USA gil@isi.edu Submissions We invite short papers, limited to 8 pages, which describe ongoing work or new ideas within the scope of the workshop. Papers may also be in the form of a position statement, indicating a writer's particular opinion on a subject related to the workshop. Submission procedure: Please email submissions, in PDF format only, to dsleeman@csd.abdn.ac.uk before 20th July (2003). Submission format: Please use this Word template: http://sern.ucalgary.ca/ksi/K-CAP/K-CAP2003/templates/KCAP-Examp03.doc This template is based on the official ACM templates for proceedings. In accordance with requirements of the ACM digital library, please include categories and subject descriptors that best describe your submission. The hierarchy of descriptors can be found here. You may include optional keywords. Note that reviewer assignments will be based on the contents of the abstract, as well as these descriptors and keywords. Accepted papers will be published as part of the KCAP 2003 workshop proceedings. Timetable: May 19, 2003: Publications of Call for Participation July 19, 2003: Papers to be submitted to Chair of Workshop Committee, Derek Sleeman August 19, 2003: Feedback to Authors on submitted papers September 1, 2003: Publication of K-CAP 2003 workshop program September 12, 2003: Revised papers to be submitted to Workshop Chair, Derek Sleeman October 25-26, 2003: K-CAP 2003 workshops Contributions & general queries should be sent to: Derek Sleeman, Department of Computing Science, The University, ABERDEEN AB24 3FX Phone: +44 (0)1224 272296/88 FAX +44 (0)1224 273422 Email: dsleeman@csd.abdn.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: "Jeanny S. Ryffel" Subject: Intelligent Systems, Island of Madeira 2004 Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 15:02:13 -0600 ENGINEERING in INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS (EIS 2004) in collaboration with the University of Madeira, Funchal Island of Madeira, Portugal And the University of Maribor, Slovenia February 29 - March 3, 2004 Honorary Chairman: Erkki Oja, Finland Fourth International ICSC Symposium on (Preliminary Announcement) The problem of engineering of intelligent systems is in fact the science of transferring the methodologies, the knowledge and the experiences from the area of artificial intelligence into the daily life, either directly through the applications or indirectly through basic or applied research. The conference originated in order to provide a wide forum in which the latest developments in the field could be discussed; so the participants from all countries are warmly welcome. The scope of the conference as indicated by its topics has been updated to reflect the recent rapid development of the intelligent systems, such as in the area of control systems, decision support systems or artificial life, to mention only a few. The previous very successful conferences in the series were held in 1998 on Tenerife Island, Spain, in 2000 in Paisley, Scotland, and in 2002 in Malaga, Spain. The success of the previous conferences and the achieved high standard will be reflected also in the coming conference. TOPICS THEORY Artificial Immune Systems; Artificial Life; Case based Reasoning; Data Mining; Chaos; Clustering; Constraint Satisfaction and Constraint Programming; Expert Systems; Evolutionary Computation; Fuzzy Clustering; Fuzzy Control; Fuzzy learning; Fuzzy Modelling; Hybrid Systems; Intelligent Agents; Reasoning with Intervals; Knowledge Extraction; Machine Learning; Model based Reasoning; Multi Agent Systems; Neural Networks; Qualitative Reasoning; Wavelets TOPICS APPLICATIONS Concurrent Engineering; Condition Monitoring and Control; Damage Assessment; Data Mining and Knowledge Extraction; Design; Emerging Organizational Forms; Fault Detection; Hardware Implementations; Image Processing and Computer Vision; Industrial Diagnostics; Management; Medicine Robotics; Mobile robots; Monitoring and Control; Multimedia; Natural Language Processing; Pattern Recognition; Product Development; Resource Allocation; Remote Sensing; Robotics; Security; Sensors fusion; Signal Processing; Speech Processing and Recognition; Teledetection; Teleoperation Important Dates Submission Deadline August 15,, 2003 Notification September 15, 2003 Early registration September 20 - October 10, 2003 Final Manuscripts + registration by October 15, 2003 Conference: February 29 - March 3, 2004 ISMC 2004: Fourth Workshop on Information Systems for Mass Customization More information and URL will be available soon. Other Special Events: A list of very interesting events, speakers and organizers will be publicized in our next announcement. Suggestions are welcome until June 30, 2003. Additional information will be available on our home page http://www.icsc-naiso.org/ Conference Organizers: University of Madeira, Portugal University of Maribor, Slovenia ICSC Canada/USA/Europe ------------------------------ From: Jon Sporring Subject: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Research Assistant Date: 15 May 2003 16:07:01 +0200 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Research Assistant DIKU Department of Computer Science University of Copenhagen Application deadline: June 15, 2003 Start: August 1, 2003 The successful applicant will be member of a European team working on advanced feature extraction techniques and analysis tools for Earth observation data. The applicant is to perform a survey of methods in close collaboration with DIKU's scientific staff and to participate in the design and development of prototypes in three selected areas. The project is a 1 year pilot project with the possibility for extension pending successful future applications. Applicants are expected to have a strong knowledge of statistical methods in computer vision and pattern recognition. Salary will be approximately 32000 DKK per month depending on qualifications. Foreign researchers at Ph.D. level may further qualify for reduced tax through the Danish 25% Tax Scheme. Applications to be sent by email to peterjo@diku.dk or by mail to Professor Peter Johansen, DIKU, Universitetsparken 1, 2100 Denmark. The investigation is carried out by a consortium which consists of ROVSING A/S(http://www.rovsing.dk/), DIKU(http://www.diku.dk/forskning/image/), GRAS(Geographic Resource Analysis and Science A/S, http://www.gras.ku.dk/) and DTU(Ørsted, Danish Technical University, http://www.emi.dtu.dk/) ------------------------------ From: Claude Sammut Subject: RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS (Australian Research Council) Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 11:37:03 +1000 RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS (up to 10 positions) Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems The University of Sydney The University of New South Wales The University of Technology, Sydney The new Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems (CAS) is seeking to appoint up to ten new Research Fellows in the broad area of robotics and autonomous systems. The Centre is seeking highly qualified applicants with broad backgrounds robotics, machine learning, vision and image processing, control systems, signal processing, modelling of dynamical systems, physics, electrical engineering or mechatronics. CAS brings together, in a single Centre, The University of Sydney Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR), The University of New South Wales School of Computer Science and Engineering (AI group) and the University of Technology, Sydney Faculty of Engineering (Mechatronics and Intelligent Systems). The partners have a world-class track record in both fundamental and applied research. CAS currently comprises some 70 staff and PhD students with an expectation that this will grow to around 120 staff and students in the next five years.CAS provides a world-leading environment for research and development of autonomous systems including a large number of land, air and indoor robots for experimental research, specialist laboratories in areas such as sensing and human-machine interaction, extensive computing and field test facilities, and has an active collaboration programme with a range of national and overseas research institutes. For position descriptions and application procedures, please visit: http://www.cas.edu.au/jobs.html Closing date: 19 June 2003 ------------------------------ From: "Conseil de la Recherche de l'Institut" Subject: Postdoc positions Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 10:47:18 +0200 (MEST) Postdoctoral Research Positions at the University of Namur, Belgium ----------------------------------- Five postdoctoral research positions are be available in six research areas at the University of Namur, among which, two are in computer science: - Cognitive and semantic approaches to building large concept graphs - Agent-oriented features All the details concerning these positions are available at http://www.fundp.ac.be/recherche/PostDoc_FUNDP_CERUNA_2003.pdf Note in particular that the application deadline is June 6 2003. ------------------------------ From: Ron Sun Subject: a new book: Duality of the Mind Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 13:24:00 -0500 Announcing a new book published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. http://www.erlbaum.com/ D U A L I T Y O F T H E M I N D A Bottom-up Approach toward Cognition by Ron Sun Synthesizing situated cognition, reinforcement learning, and hybrid connectionist models, a cognitive architecture focused on situated involvement and interaction with the world is developed in this book. The architecture notably incorporates the distinction between implicit and explicit processes. The work described in the book demonstrates the cognitive validity of the architecture, by ways of capturing a wide range of human learning data. Computational properties of the architecture is explored with experiments that manipulate implicit and explicit processes to optimize performance in a range of domains. Philosophical implications of the approach, on situated cognition, intentionality, symbol grounding, and consciousness, are also explored in detail. In a nutshell, this book motivates and develops a framework for studying human cognition, based on an approach that is characterized by its focus on the dichotomy of, and the interaction between, implicit and explicit cognition. -------------------------------------------------------------------- For more details, go to http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/book6-ann.html To order the book, go to https://www.erlbaum.com/shop/tek9.asp?pg=products&specific=0-8058-3880-5 ------------------------------ End of ML-LIST Digest Vol 15, No. 8 ***********************************