CALL FOR OPEN PROBLEMS

Conference On Learning Theory (COLT 04)


Continuing last year's successful practice, COLT 2004 will include a session devoted to the presentation of open problems. A short (1-2 page) description of these problems will also appear in the COLT proceedings. The idea is to facilitate collaborations and to encourage new people to get into the field.

The writeup of an open problem should include:
  1. A clear, self-contained description of a single open problem.
  2. Motivation for the study of this problem.
  3. The current state of understanding for this problem, including known partial solutions and citations of published work.
The deadline for submission of open problems is April 2, 2004. The review process for them will be quick.

Format and submission details:
  1. The open problems should be 1-2 pages, in the COLT proceedings format. (see submission instructions)
  2. Please submit them electronically to me, at (my-last-name) at cs dot ucsd dot edu.
  3. On the subject line please include: open problem for colt2004.
  4. The submissions themselves should be attached to the email, in postscript or pdf.
  5. DEADLINE: April 2, 2004.
Ideally, your open problems should be well-defined mathematical questions that you have struggled with in the past, and which can be explained without requiring too much specialized background knowledge.

Associating a monetary prize with the solution of a problem is optional but from past experience, can be an effective way to motivate people!

Yours,
Sanjoy Dasgupta
COLT 2004 Open Problems Chair

CALL FOR PAPERS

Conference On Learning Theory (COLT 04)

Banff, Canada
July 1 - 4, 2004

http://learningtheory.org/colt2004


The Seventeenth Annual COLT (Conference on Learning Theory, formerly Workshop on Computational Learning Theory) will be held with ICML and UAI in Banff, Canada (see http://www.banff04.org).

We invite submissions of papers addressing the theoretical modeling and analysis of all aspects of learning and empirical inference. We strongly support a broad definition of learning theory, including analysis of learning algorithms and their generalization ability, computational complexity of learning, Bayesian analysis, statistical mechanics of learning systems, optimisation procedures for learning, inductive inference, Boolean function learning, inductive logic programming, learning in planning and control, on-line learning and relative loss bounds. We welcome theoretical papers about learning that do not fit into the above categories. We are particularly interested in papers that include viewpoints that are new to the COLT community. While the primary focus of the conference is theoretical, papers can be strengthened by the inclusion of relevant experimental results. We also welcome experimental and algorithmic papers provided they are relevant to the focus of the conference by elucidating theoretical results in learning.

The last morning of the conference will be reserved for a kernel methods session, linking with a similar session that will start the ICML conference on the afternoon of the same day. Papers making contributions in the area of kernel methods are welcomed: the choice of conference should be made according to the suitability of the paper. Authors should indicate if their paper is intended for the kernel methods session.

All papers will appear in the proceedings, to be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series (see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/index.html). The proceedings will appear both as a printed book and in a full-text electronic version, thus we require electronic submissions. All papers will receive the same amount of space in the proceedings. Papers that have previously appeared in journals or at other conferences, or that are being submitted to other conferences are not appropriate for COLT.

PAPER FORMAT: Submissions should include the title, authors' names, postal and email addresses, indication if the paper is intended for the kernel methods section and a 200-word summary of the paper suitable for the conference program. They should be no longer than 15 pages using the Springer LNCS style file (see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). Your paper should include a clear definition of the theoretical model used and a clear description of the results, as well as a discussion of their significance, including comparison to other work. Submit papers electronically in pdf or ps format (for details see conference website).

OPEN PROBLEMS SESSION: We also invite submission of open problems. These should be constrained to two pages using the same formatting as for the full papers. There is a shorter reviewing period for the open problems. Accepted contributions will be allocated short presentation slots in a special open problems session and will be allowed two pages each in the proceedings.

PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS: John Shawe-Taylor (Univ. of Southampton) and Yoram Singer (Hebrew Univ.)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Shai Ben-David (Cornell), Stephane Boucheron (Paris-Sud), Olivier Bousquet (Max Plank), Sanjoy Dasgupta (UC San Diego), Victor Dalmau (Pompeu Fabra), Andre Elisseeff (Max Plank), Thore Graepel (Microsoft), Peter Grunwald (CWI), Michael Jordan (UC Berkeley), Adam Kalai (Toyota Technological Inst.), David McAllester (Toyota Technological Inst.), Manfred Opper (Aston Univ.), Alon Orlitsky (UC San Diego), Rob Schapire (Princeton), Matthias Seeger (UC Berkeley), Satinder Singh (Univ. of Michigan), Eiji Takimoto (Tohoku Univ.), Nicolas Vayatis (Univ. Paris 6), Bin Yu (UC Berkeley), Thomas Zeugmann (Luebeck Univ.)

CONFERENCE AND LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS CHAIRS: Rob Holte (University of Alberta) and Dale Schuurmans (University of Alberta).

MARK FULK AND MLJ AWARDS: These awards are for the best paper authored or coauthored by a student. Eligible authors who wish to be considered for these prizes should indicate this on their submission's title page.

DATES:
Electronic submission of papersFebruary 24
Electronic submission of two-page open problemsApril 2
Notification of acceptance or rejectionApril 16
Final submission of all papers (incl. LaTex files)April 27
Conference registrationSee website
Conference datesJuly 1-4, 2004