_______________________________________________________________________________ Machine Learning List: Volume 17, Number 5 Tuesday, November 14, 2005 ************************************************************************ Contents Calls for Papers & Participation EvoOpt 2006 - Special Track at FLAIRS'06 IEEE Data Mining 2005 Pattern Recognition Competition S+SSPR 2006 International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems UK KDD Symposium IEEE Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition EACL2006 Workshop on Adaptive Text Extraction and Mining ADMA'06 ICML2007 Call for Site Proposals Career Opportunities PhD Student Positions in Machine Learning at IDIAP Research Position in Machine Learning at ULB, Brussels Postdoctoral Positions at Oregon State University Tenure-track Faculty Position at Colorado State ************************************************************************ 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. 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. ************************************************************************ Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:02:51 +0100 From: Jorge Tavares To: ml@isle.org Subject: EvoOpt 2006 - Special Track at FLAIRS'06 CALL FOR PAPERS EvoOpt 2006 - Special Track at FLAIRS '06 Special Track on Evolutionary Optimization at the 19th International FLAIRS Conference (in cooperation with AAAI) 11th-13th May, 2006, Melbourne, Florida, USA Submission Deadline: November 21, 2005 EvoOpt 2006 website: http://evoopt2006.dei.uc.pt FLAIRS 2006 website: http://www.indiana.edu/~flairs06/ EvoOpt-2006 will focus on the application of evolutionary algorithms to complex optimization problems. In the past few years, these algorithms have been successfully applied to a large number of optimization problems. Some of the most relevant examples belong to the class of combinatorial optimization problems such as the traveling salesperson, scheduling, packing, planning or routing. Additionally, there are many other situations appearing in various industrial, economical, and scientific domains that have also been solved using evolutionary methods. The topics of interest of the track include (although not limited to): * Application of evolutionary algorithms and related nature-inspired techniques, such as ant colony optimization, particle swarm algorithms or memetic [sic] algorithms, to optimization problems * Representation techniques and evolutionary operators * Hybridization of evolutionary algorithms with other search methods * Multi-objective optimization * Application to dynamic optimization problems * Constraint handling techniques * Search space analysis * Neighborhoods and efficient algorithms for searching them ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 2005 06:20:35 +0900 From: icdm@wi-lab.com To: ml@isle.org Subject: IEEE Data Mining 2005 IEEE Data Mining 2005: Call for Participation http://www.cacs.louisiana.edu/~icdm05/ 2005 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) Inter-Continental Hotel, 2222 West Loop South Houston, TX 77027, USA November 27th - 30th, 2005 On-line registration (and other information) is available at: http://www.cacs.louisiana.edu/~icdm05/ Register by October 22nd to get the early-bird rate! Be sure to book hotel rooms by November 17, 2005 for discounted rates. Hotel Website: http://www.houston.intercontinental.com/ The three letter code to get special rate, during online booking is 'S07'. The code for phone booking is 'ICDM 2005' or 'IEEE ICDM 2005' Conference highlights include: * Four Invited Talks (November 28 - 30, 2005) * Five Tutorials (Sunday, November 27, 2005) * Ten Workshops (Sunday, November 27, 2005): * One Panel (2:00 pm ~ 3:00 pm, Tuesday, November 29, 2005) * 141 Technical Paper Presentations (November 28 - 30, 2005) More information available at ICDM'05 Website at: http://www.cacs.louisiana.edu/~icdm05/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 10:13:57 +0200 From: Isabelle Guyon To: ml@isle.org Subject: Pattern Recognition Competition Dear colleagues, We are organizing a new pattern recognition challenge entitled Performance Prediction Challenge. http://www.modelselect.inf.ethz.ch/ How good are you at predicting how good you are? Find out: compete to predict accurately your generalization performance. This problem, which is of great practical importance, e.g. in pilot studies, poses theoretical and computational challenges. Is cross- validation the best solution? What should k be in k-fold? Can one use theoretical performance bounds to better assess generalization? You will have opportunities to publish at WCCI 2006 (Vancouver, July 2006) and in a special issue of JMLR. Check the web site! Isabelle Guyon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 18:38:35 +0800 (HKT) From: ssspr06@cs.ust.hk To: ml@isle.org Cc: ssspr06@cs.ust.hk Subject: S+SSPR 2006 FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT and CALL FOR PAPERS Joint IAPR International Workshops On Structural and Syntactic Pattern Recognition (SSPR 2006) and Statistical Techniques in Pattern Recognition (SPR 2006) August 17-19, 2006 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China http://www.ssspr.org/2006/ Paper submission deadline: January 31, 2006 The International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) and its Technical Committees on Statistical Pattern Recognition (TC1) and Structural and Syntactical Pattern Recognition (TC2) will organize the next joint workshops at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) prior to ICPR 2006 which will also be held in Hong Kong. The joint workshops aim at promoting interaction and collaboration not only among researchers working directly in areas covered by TC1 and TC2 but also among those in other fields who use statistical, structural or syntactical techniques extensively. We welcome mathematicians, statisticians, researchers in machine learning and practitioners alike who, at present, work outside the pattern recognition community. SSPR Topics: Structural matching; Syntactic pattern recognition; Image understanding; Shape analysis; Graphical models; Graph-based methods; Spectral methods for graph-based representations; Probabilistic and stochastic structural models for PR; Structural learning in spatial or spatio-temporal signals; Kernel methods for structured data; Image and video analysis; Intelligent sensing systems; Spatio-temporal pattern recognition; SSPR methods in computer vision; Multimedia signal analysis; Image document analysis; Structured text analysis and understanding; Novel applications SPR Topics: Density estimation; Large margin classifiers; Kernel methods; Ensemble methods and multiple classifiers; Bayesian methods; Gaussian processes; Dimensionality reduction; Independent component analysis; Cluster analysis and unsupervised learning; Data visualization; Semi-supervised learning; Model selection; Hybrid methods; Comparative studies; Speech and image analysis; Novel applications ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 13:16:03 +0200 From: ISMIS 2006 To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems 16th International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems ISMIS 2006 Preliminary Call for Papers Bari, Italy, September 27-29, 2006 http://www.di.uniba.it/ismis2006/imsis2006@di.uniba.it ISMIS has established a prestigious tradition by organizing a leading international conference on intelligent systems. Paper submission:.................. March 18 Notification of acceptance:........ May 15 Camera-ready copy due:............. June 30 ISMIS is intended to represent a wide range of topics of concern to scholars applying advanced techniques to areas as diverse as decision support, automated deduction, reasoning, knowledge based systems, machine learning, computer vision, robotics, planning, databases, information retrieval, etc. The focus of the work is on research in Intelligent systems. The conference addresses issues involving solutions of problems which are complex to be solved through conventional approaches and which require the simulation of intelligent thought processes, heuristics and applications of knowledge. The integration of these multiple approaches in solving complex problems is of particular importance. ISMIS provides a forum and a means for exchanging information for those interested purely in theory, those interested primarily in implementation, and those interested in specific research and industrial applications. ISMIS 2006 invites submissions of original research contributions, as well as proposals for panels and workshops. The conference covers a broad range of topics, including the use of conventional approaches, as well as new challenges for advanced techniques for intelligent systems in any possible domain. This Symposium is intended to attract individuals who are actively engaged both in theoretical and practical aspects of intelligent systems. The goal is to provide a platform for a useful exchange between theoreticians and practitioners, and to foster the cross-fertilization of ideas in the following areas: - Active Media Human-Computer Interaction - Autonomic and Evolutionary Computation - Intelligent Agent Technology - Intelligent Information Retrieval - Intelligent Information Systems - Intelligent Interfaces - Knowledge Representation and Integration - Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining - Logic for AI and Logic Programming - Machine Learning - Soft Computing - Text Mining - Web Intelligence In addition, we solicit papers dealing with Applications of Intelligent Systems in complex/novel domains, e.g. bioinformatics, global change, manufacturing, health care, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:11:27 -0000 From: Alex Freitas To: ml@isle.org Subject: UK KDD Symposium UK KDD Symposium (UKKDD'06) http://www2.cmp.uea.ac.uk/Research/kdd/ukkdd06/ukkdd06.html Wednesday 26 April 2006 John Innes Conference Centre, Norwich Sponsors: The University of East Anglia and The British Computer Society's Specialist Group on AI This one day symposium, which will be hosted by UEA, Norwich and held in the prestigious John Innes Conference Centre, 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 and Data mining (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. Following the success of UK KDD'05, hosted by the University of Liverpool, it is hoped that the symposium will once again 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. Organising Committee: George Smith (Chair) University of East Anglia Frans Coenen University of Liverpool Alex Freitas University of Kent ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 09:29:55 -0600 From: Doina Caragea To: ml@isle.org Subject: IEEE Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition IEEE Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition from Distributed, Autonomous, Semantically Heterogeneous Data and Knowledge Sources Half-day workshop from 1:15 to 6pm on November 27, 2005, Houston, Texas http://www.cild.iastate.edu/events/ICDM2005Workshop.html In conjunction with The Fifth IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, Houston, Texas, USA, November 27-30, 2005 http://www.cacs.louisiana.edu/~icdm05/ Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to: - Challenges presented by emerging data-rich application domains such as bioinformatics, health informatics, security informatics, social informatics, environmental informatics. - Knowledge discovery from distributed data (assuming different types of data fragmentation, e.g., horizontal or vertical data fragmentation; different hypothesis classes, e.g., na?ve Bayes, decision tree; different performance criteria, e.g., accuracy versus complexity versus reliability of the model generated, etc.). - Making semantically heterogeneous data sources self-describing (e.g., by explicitly associating ontologies with data sources and mappings between them) in order to help collaborative science. - Representation, manipulation, and reasoning with ontologies and mappings between ontologies. - Learning ontologies from data (e.g., attribute value taxonomies). - Learning mappings between semantically heterogeneous data source schemas and between their associated ontologies. - Knowledge discovery in the presence of ontologies (e.g., attribute value taxonomies) and partially specified data (data described at different levels of abstraction within an ontology)? - Online query relaxation when an initial query posed to the data sources fails (i.e., returns no tuples), or equivalently, query-driven mining of the individual sources that will result in knowledge that can be used for query relaxation. For more information, please visit the workshop page at: http://www.cild.iastate.edu/events/ICDM2005Workshop.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 15:46:16 +0100 From: Alberto Lavelli To: ml@isle.org Subject: EACL2006 Workshop on Adaptive Text Extraction and Mining EACL2006 Workshop on Adaptive Text Extraction and Mining (ATEM 2006) April 4, 2006, Trento, Italy http://tcc.itc.it/events/atem2006/ The EACL 2006 Workshop on Adaptive Text Extraction and Mining will be hosted in conjunction with the 11th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics that will take place April 3-7, 2006, in Trento, Italy. Adaptive extraction and mining from texts is an active area of research that lies at the intersection of diverse fields such as information extraction, text mining, machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, and knowledge capture. As developments in any of these fields have an immediate effect on the other ones, the workshop's goal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from these communities, so that they can discuss recent results and foster new directions of research. IMPORTANT DATES January 6, 2006 - Deadline for workshop papers January 27, 2006 - Notification of acceptance February 10, 2006 - Camera-ready papers due April 4, 2006 - ATEM 2006 ORGANISING COMMITTEE Fabio Ciravegna (University of Sheffield, UK) Claudio Giuliano (ITC-irst, Italy) Nicholas Kushmerick (University College Dublin, Ireland) Alberto Lavelli (ITC-irst, Italy) Ion Muslea (Language Weaver, USA) ATEM 2006 web page http://tcc.itc.it/events/atem2006/ Conference web page http://eacl06.itc.it/ EACL 2006 Workshops site http://www.science.uva.nl/~mdr/EACL2006Workshops/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Yonghong Peng To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: ADMA'06 Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:47:41 -0000 Call for Papers The Second International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications 14-16 August 2006, Xi'An China, http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~adma06/ Following that the 1st International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications was successfully held in Wuhan University, China and the proceedings were published in LNAI-3584 by Springer, ADMA has become a major international and multidisciplinary event, and we are now looking for another success of the Second International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications (ADMA'06) to be held in Xi'An, China, 14-16 August, 2006. Xi'An is one of the most ancient cities in China. It has one of the world wanders of Terra Cotta Warriors buried in Qin Dynasty, more than 2000 years ago, and was uncovered in 1970s. The main themes of the ADMA conference are Machine Learning, Data Mining, Information Processing and Knowledge Engineering, and Bioinformatics. The conference will bring together scientists, researchers and practitioners from different disciplines to share research results, exchange novel ideas, establish collaborations, and make new frontiers. A number of distinguished leaders of the fields will be invited to give keynote speeches. More details of the conference can be found from the ADMA conference Web site http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~adma06/ KEY DATES Full paper submission deadline: 2 March, 2006 Acceptance notification: 6 May, 2006 Conference: August 14-16, 2006 PUBLICATIONS 1) The conference proceedings will be published by Springer in its Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. 2) Selected papers of the conference will be invited for inclusion in special issues of international journals. We look forward to your participation in ADMA'06 in Xi'An China. Yours sincerely, ADMA'06 Program and Organising Committees ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 21:41:33 -0800 From: Thomas Dietterich To: ml@isle.org Subject: ICML2007 Call for Site Proposals INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MACHINE LEARNING 2006 CALL FOR SITE PROPOSALS In the summer of 2007, the International Conference on Machine Learning will be held. The purpose of this call is to invite groups interested in hosting the conference to submit proposals. The group selected to host the conference will work with a Program Chair and Conference Chair chosen by the Board of the International Machine Learning Society (IMLS). Proposals should address the following issues: 1. Proposed Dates. The conference should be scheduled for four days (one day reserved for workshops and tutorials; three days for paper sessions, poster sessions, and invited talks). The conference prefers dates between June 15 to July 15, but other dates will be considered, particularly if they permit co-location with other conferences. 2. Locale Parameters. - Accessibility. Is it easy and inexpensive for people (especially graduate students) to travel to the conference site? (Compute mean airfares from Europe, North America, and Asia. Include ground transportation from relevant airports to the site.) - Meeting Rooms, AV Equiment, etc. What are the physical facilities like? Consider rooms for plenary sessions, parallel sessions, workshops, tutorials, and poster sessions. What are the charges, if any, for using them? - Meals and Lodging. Is there low-cost, quality housing available for attendees (especially graduate students)? How far from the meeting rooms? Where will attendees eat? Please estimate costs for meals and lodging. - Demo facilities. Will there be computing equipment and space available to support demos? - Internet access. Is wired or wireless internet access available? At what cost? - Other features. You may mention any other aspects of the site or the region that are relevant. 3. Local Machine Learning Community. Is there a local ML group/ community that can help with organization and funding? 4. Opportunities to co-locate with other conferences. In the past, we have co-located with COLT, UAI, and KDD. There is strong interest in co-locating with these conferences and also with other conferences including ISMB (Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology), EMNLP (Empirical Methoers in Natural Language Processing), CoNLL (Conference on Natural Language Learning), IUI (Intelligent User Interfaces), and CVPR (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition). 5. Organizational and Institutional Support. Is there a conference office that can help with local arrangements? Proposals (postscript or PDF) should be sent before December 15, 2005 to Tom Dietterich , President IMLS Proposals will be ranked according to cost and accessibility, proposed dates, opportunities for co-location, attractiveness of the location, and experience of the host group. Preference will be given to locations in western North America and Asia. However, proposals from other regions will be considered, especially if they offer good opportunities for co-location with other relevant conferences. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 08:29:28 +0200 (CEST) From: Samy Bengio To: ml@ics.uci.edu Subject: PhD Student Positions in Machine Learning at IDIAP The IDIAP Research Institute seeks two qualified candidates for PhD student positions in machine learning. The objective of the first project is to develop novel kernel based algorithms for the analysis of sequences of high level events, such as automatic speech recognition. State-of-the-art systems are based on generative Hidden Markov Models. On the other hand, recent machine learning research have shown promising results in kernel based large margin discriminant models such as Support Vector Machines which maximize the margin between positive and negative examples. More recently, new kernels were proposed for various time-series tasks. The objective of this project is to study how these kernels could be modified in the context of more complex temporal tasks such as speech and video understanding. The objective of the second project is to develop novel machine learning algorithms for multi-channel sequence processing. Modeling jointly several sources of information (recorded from several cameras, microphones, etc) has several practical applications, including audio-visual speech recognition, multimodal person tracking, or complex scene analysis. Several machine learning models have already been proposed for such task, mainly for the case of two channels. The goal of this project is to propose theoretical and applied solutions for the case of more than two (potentially asynchronous) channels. Generative (Markovian based) models as well as margin-based models will be considered for the task. The ideal candidates will hold a degree in computer science, statistics, or related fields. She or he should have strong background in statistics, linear algebra, signal processing, C++, Perl and/or Python scripting languages, and the Linux environment. Knowledge in statistical machine learning and speech processing is an asset. Appointment for a PhD position is for a maximum of 4 years, provided successful progress, and should lead to a dissertation. Annual gross salary ranges from 36,000 Swiss Francs (first year) to 40,000 Swiss Francs (last year). Starting date is immediate. Although IDIAP is located in the French part of Switzerland, English is the main working language. Free English and French lessons are provided. Interested candidates should send a letter of motivation, along with their detailed CV and names of 3 references to jobs@idiap.ch. More information can also be obtained by contacting Samy Bengio. Samy Bengio Senior Researcher in Machine Learning IDIAP, CP 592, rue du Simplon 4, 1920 Martigny, Switzerland tel: +41 27 721 77 39, fax: +41 27 721 77 12 http://www.idiap.ch/~bengio ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 14:43:03 +0200 From: Gianluca Bontempi To: ml@isle.org Subject: Research Position in Machine Learning at ULB, Brussels A junior research position is available at the Machine Learning Group, ULB, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. The research project will focus on the development of statistical machine learning algorithms for facilitating knowledge discovery in medical data. Details available at http://www.ulb.ac.be/di/mlg/researchPosition.html For more information, contact Gianluca Bontempi at gbonte@ulb.ac.be. Gianluca Bontempi Universite Libre de Bruxelles Departement d'Informatique Machine Learning Group Boulevard du Triomphe - CP212 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium Office Phone: +32-2-650 55 91 Fax: +32 2 650.56.09 web: http://www.ulb.ac.be/di/mlg ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:05:27 -0700 From: Thomas G. Dietterich To: ml@isle.org Subject: Postdoctoral Positions at Oregon State University Postdoctoral Positions at Oregon State University School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science One or more Research Associate positions in the machine learning, computer graphics, and computer vision groups starting January 2006. Required qualifications include a Ph.D. in computer science or related field; strong mathematical background; experience with at least 3 of the following: (a) knowledge representation frameworks (logical and probabilistic) (b) reasoning methods (logical and probabilistic) (c) experimental machine learning research (d) planning and reasoning algorithms (e) virtual environments for training (f) computer vision for object recognition and tracking (g) augmented reality AND -excellent written and spoken communication skills; -excellent programming and software engineering skills; -excitement about computer science research; -and the ability to manage graduate and undergraduate students working on research projects Position is full-time, 12 month, fixed term with reappointment at the discretion of the hiring official. For full consideration, applications must be received by 11/15/05. Send resume, letter of interest, evidence of 2 relevant publications and 3 professional references with address and phone number to: Research Associate Search 1148 Kelly Engineering Center Corvallis, OR 97331-5501. For full position announcement see: http://oregonstate.edu/jobs For other inquires contact Thomas G. Dietterich (tgd@cs.orst.edu). OSU is an AA/EOE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 12:46:22 -0700 From: Chuck Anderson To: ml@isle.org Subject: Tenure-track Faculty Position at Colorado State University Tenure-track faculty position in Department of Computer Science at Colorado State The candidate is expected to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science, advise undergraduate and graduate students, perform research, and make a service contribution to the department, university, and professional community. A successful candidate must: - Have earned a doctorate in computer science, computer engineering, or a related field. - Have the potential for excellence in research and teaching. - Have a research perspective that is consistent with the department's emphasis on collaborative and interdisciplinary research. - Have a research specialty that is consistent with the department's needs and interests. Candidates for appointments above the level of assistant professor must demonstrate a strong connection to ongoing department research. This nine-month, full-time position will carry a salary commensurate with qualifications. This appointment will be preferably made at the level of assistant professor. The department has 18 tenure-track faculty, 150 M.S. and Ph.D. students, and 275 undergraduate majors. Areas of research emphasis include artificial intelligence (bioinformatics, computer vision, evolutionary computation, machine learning, planning), software engineering (formal methods, program comprehension, reliability, testing), networks, parallel and distributed computing (embedded systems, reconfigurable architectures), and security. Colorado State University with an enrollment of 25,000 students is located in Fort Collins, Colorado, an attractive community of over 134,000 people, at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, 65 miles north of Denver. The northern Front Range offers a wide range of outdoor recreational activities. More information about the department, its research programs, and applying for this position can be obtained from the department's home page at: http://www.cs.colostate.edu. ------------------------------------ End of ML-LIST Digest Vol 17, No. 5 ************************************