The Eighteenth Annual Conference on Learning Theory

Bertinoro, Italy, June 27-30, 2005

Submission deadline: February 2, 2005

The Eighteenth Annual COLT (Conference on Learning Theory, formerly Workshop on Computational Learning Theory) will be held in Bertinoro, Italy, June 27-30, 2005

We invite submissions of papers addressing the theoretical modeling and analysis of all aspects of learning and empirical inference. We strongly support a broad definition of learning theory, including:

We welcome theoretical papers about learning that do not fit into the above categories. We are particularly interested in papers that include viewpoints that are new to the COLT community. While the primary focus of the conference is theoretical, papers can be strengthened by the inclusion of relevant experimental results. We also welcome experimental and algorithmic papers provided they are relevant to the focus of the conference by elucidating theoretical results in learning.

All papers will appear in the proceedings, to be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. The proceedings will appear both as a printed book and in a full-text electronic version, thus we require electronic submissions. Papers that have previously appeared in journals or at other conferences, or that are being submitted to other conferences are not appropriate for COLT.

PAPER FORMAT: Submissions should include the title, authors' names, postal and email addresses, 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).

While it is not expected that all full proofs can be included in the paper, authors should strive to at least present partial proofs which will enable the reviewers to understand the main ideas and methods used. The paper should also attempt to be as self-contained as possible.

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

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Will become available in early December at http://learningtheory.org/colt2005

PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS: Peter Auer (U of Leoben) and Ron Meir (Technion)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Shai Ben-David (Waterloo), Avrim Blum (Carnegie Mellon), Peter Bartlett (Berkeley), Nader Bshouty (Technion), Ran El-Yaniv (Technion), Yoav Freund (Columbia), Ralf Herbrich (Microsoft), Marcus Hutter (IDSIA), Tony Jebara (Columbia), Balazs Kegl (Montreal), Vladimir Koltchinskii (New Mexico), Phil Long (Columbia), Gabor Lugosi (Barcelona), Shie Mannor (McGill), Shahar Mendelson (ANU), Massimiliano Pontil (University College), Daniel Reidenbach (U Kaiserslautern), Dan Roth (U Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Michael Schmitt (Ruhr University Bochum), Rocco Servedio (Columbia), Hans Ulrich Simon (Ruhr University Bochum), Volodya Vovk (Royal Holloway), Manfred Warmuth (UC Santa Cruz), Tong Zhang (IBM)

CONFERENCE AND LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS CHAIRS: Nicolò Cesa Bianchi (Università di Milano) and Claudio Gentile (Università dell’Insubria)

OPEN PROBLEMS CO-CHAIRS: Adam Klivans (Toyota Institute) and Rocco Servedio (Columbia)

MARK FULK AWARD: This awards is for the best paper authored or coauthored by a student. Eligible authors who wish to be considered for this prize should indicate this on their submission's title page.

INVITED SPEAKERS: Sergiu Hart (Hebrew University), Wulfram Gerstner (EPFL), Satinder Singh (Michigan)

DATES: