Received: from ics.uci.edu by paris.ics.uci.edu id aa01776; 17 Mar 94 19:51 PST Received: from ics.uci.edu by q2.ics.uci.edu id aa29716; 17 Mar 94 19:51 PST To: ML-LIST: ; Subject: Machine Learning List: Vol. 6 No. 8 Reply-to: ml@ics.uci.edu Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 19:30:42 -0800 From: Michael Pazzani Message-ID: <9403171951.aa29716@q2.ics.uci.edu> Machine Learning List: Vol. 6 No. 8 Thursday, March 17, 1994 Contents: U.S. Census Bureau Internet Site Announcement JAIR articles CALL FOR PAPERS: Issue on Robot Learning, Machine Learning Journal UNIPEN project of data exchange and recognizer benchmarks Informatica --> Special Issue on Machine Learning --> Table of Content Postdoctoral Fellowship available AAAI Fall Symposium - PLANNING AND LEARNING: ON TO REAL APPLICATIONS AI Planning Systems 94 - Call for Participation EKAW-94 CFP: "Relevance" (AAAI Fall Symposium) The Machine Learning List is moderated. Contributions should be relevant to the scientific study of machine learning. Mail contributions to ml@ics.uci.edu. Mail requests to be added or deleted to ml-request@ics.uci.edu. Back issues may be FTP'd from ics.uci.edu in pub/ml-list/V/ or N.Z where X and N are the volume and number of the issue; ID: anonymous PASSWORD: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dietterich Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 08:07:19 PST Subject: U.S. Census Bureau Internet Site Announcement Readers of ML-LIST might be interested in this: From: "Brian Monsell (SRD)" *** BETA TEST *** BETA TEST *** BETA TEST *** The United States Bureau of the Census has opened an information server on the internet. Please explore our service and tell us what you think. Connect to our beta site by pointing your client software to our universal resource locators (URL's): http://www.census.gov/ # use with mosaic, lynx, etc gopher://gopher.census.gov # use with gopher ftp://ftp.census.gov/pub # use with ftp Also, we plan to offer a majordomo mail server in the near future. If you have problems, questions, suggestions, etc, send email to: gatekeeper@census.gov Please broadcast, netcast, and publish this information widely. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Mar 94 15:50:39 PST From: Steve Minton Subject: JAIR articles (Note that in early February I sent a note two other JAIR papers, one by Ling and one by Koppel, Feldman and Segre.) Thanks! - S Minton Readers of this newsgroup may be interested in the following two ML papers recently published in JAIR. Cook, D.J. and Holder, L.B. (1994) "Substructure Discovery Using Minimum Description Length and Background Knowledge", Volume 1, pages 231-255. PostScript: volume1/cook94a.ps (750K) compressed, volume1/cook94a.ps.Z (266K) Online Appendix: volume1/cook94a-appendix.tar.Z (36K), SUBDUE source code Abstract: The ability to identify interesting and repetitive substructures is an essential component to discovering knowledge in structural data. We describe a new version of our SUBDUE substructure discovery system based on the minimum description length principle. The SUBDUE system discovers substructures that compress the original data and represent structural concepts in the data. By replacing previously-discovered substructures in the data, multiple passes of SUBDUE produce a hierarchical description of the structural regularities in the data. SUBDUE uses a computationally-bounded inexact graph match that identifies similar, but not identical, instances of a substructure and finds an approximate measure of closeness of two substructures when under computational constraints. In addition to the minimum description length principle, other background knowledge can be used by SUBDUE to guide the search towards more appropriate substructures. Experiments in a variety of domains demonstrate SUBDUE's ability to find substructures capable of compressing the original data and to discover structural concepts important to the domain. Description of Online Appendix: This is a compressed tar file containing the SUBDUE discovery system, written in C. The program accepts as input databases represented in graph form, and will output discovered substructures with their corresponding value. Murphy, P.M. and Pazzani, M.J. (1994) "Exploring the Decision Forest: An Empirical Investigation of Occam's Razor in Decision Tree Induction", Volume 1, pages 257-275. PostScript: volume1/murphy94a.ps (868K) compressed, volume1/murphy94a.ps.Z (215K) Abstract: We report on a series of experiments in which all decision trees consistent with the training data are constructed. These experiments were run to gain an understanding of the properties of the set of consistent decision trees and the factors that affect the accuracy of individual trees. In particular, we investigated the relationship between the size of a decision tree consistent with some training data and the accuracy of the tree on test data. The experiments were performed on a massively parallel Maspar computer. The results of the experiments on several artificial and two real world problems indicate that, for many of the problems investigated, smaller consistent decision trees are on average less accurate than the average accuracy of slightly larger trees. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 11:03-EST From: Sebastian.Thrun@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS: Issue on Robot Learning, Machine Learning Journal Special Issue on ROBOT LEARNING Journal MACHINE LEARNING (edited by J. Franklin and T. Mitchell and S. Thrun) This issue focuses on recent progress in the area of robot learning. The goal is to bring together key research on machine learning techniques designed for and applied to robots, in order to stimulate research in this area. We particularly encourage submission of innovative learning approaches that have been successfully implemented on real robots. Submission deadline: October 1, 1994 Papers should be double spaced and 8,000 to 12,000 words in length, with full-page figures counting for 400 words. All submissions will be subject to the standard review procedure. It is our goal to also publish the issue as a book. Send three (3) copies of submissions to: Sebastian Thrun Universitaet Bonn Institut fuer Informatik III Roemerstr. 164 D-53117 Bonn Germany phone: +49-228-550-373 Fax: +49-228-550-382 E-mail: thrun@cs.bonn.edu, thrun@cmu.edu Also mail four (5) copies of submitted papers to: Karen Cullen MACHINE LEARNING Editorial Office Kluwer Academic Publishers 101 Philip Drive Norwell, MA 02061 USA phone: (617) 871-6300 E-mail: karen@world.std.com Note: Machine Learning is now accepting submission of final copy in electronic form. There is a latex style file and related files available via anonymous ftp from world.std.com. Look in Kluwer/styles/journals for the files README, smjrnl.doc, smjrnl.sty, smjsamp.tex, smjtmpl.tex, or smjstyles.tar (which contains them all). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 94 13:49:44 EST From: Isabelle Guyon Subject: UNIPEN project of data exchange and recognizer benchmarks - > - > - > - > - > - > - > - > - < - < - < - < - < - < - < - < - < - - > UNIPEN project of data exchange and recognizer benchmarks < - - > - > - > - > - > - > - > - > - < - < - < - < - < - < - < - < - < - Isabelle Guyon and Lambert Schomaker - > - > - > - > - > - < - < - < - < - < - < - March 1994 Content: I - UNIPEN ftp site. II - Scrib-L mailing list. III - Tentative schedule for the first UNIPEN benchmark. IV - Information on the IAPR and the Technical Committee 11. V - Information on the Linguistic Data Consortium. VI - Information on the US National Institute of Standards and Technologies. VII - Wish list. Abstract: UNIPEN is a project of data exchange and benchmarks for on-line handwriting recognition, started at the initiative of the technical committee 11 of the IAPR. The data of concern may include handprint and cursive from various alphabets, signatures and gestures captured by a digitizing device providing the pen trajectory. Several tens of companies and universities have already joined UNIPEN and participated in defining a standard data format. These data will be provided by the participants in this common data format and distributed by the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) We have the pleasure to confirm that a benchmark organized by the US National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) will take place this year. It will be restricted to the Latin alphabet. Subscription: To subscribe to this news letters, please the following information to: isabelle@neural.att.com Name: Affiliation: Address: Phone: Fax: Email: ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 21:36:42 -0600 From: paprzycki_m@gusher.pb.utexas.edu Subject: Informatica --> Special Issue on Machine Learning --> Table of Content Enclosed you will find the table of content of Informatica Vol. 17, No. 4. SPECIAL ISSUE edited by: Gheorghe Tecuci MULTISTRATEGY LEARNING For more information about the journal, please contact: Marcin Paprzycki paprzycki_m@gusher.pb.utexas.edu %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% INFORMATICA an International Journal of Computing and Infornatics Volume 17 Number 4 --> Multistrategy Learning Table of contents: Profiles: Gheoghe Tecuci 325 Multistrategy Approaches to Learning: Gheorghe Tecuci 327 Why and How A Multistrategy Learning Scheme for D. Gordon 331 Agent Knowledge Acquisition D. Subramanian Multistrategy Learning in Reactive A. Ram 347 Control Systems for Autonomous J.C. Santamaria Robotic Navigation Combining Knowledge-based and G. Widmer 371 Instance-based Learning to Exploit Qualitative Knowledge Extending Theory Refinement of P.T. Baffes 387 M-of-N Rules R.J. Mooney Multitype Inference in Multistrategy M.R. Hieb 399 Task-Adaptive Learning: Dynamic R.S. Michalski Interlaced Hierarchies Reports and Announcements 413 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 94 14:48:36 MST From: Melanie Mitchell Subject: Postdoctoral Fellowship available JOB AVAILABLE: INTERVAL RESEARCH POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP IN ADAPTIVE COMPUTATION AT THE SANTA FE INSTITUTE The Santa Fe Institute has an opening for a Postdoctoral Fellow in Adaptive Computation beginning in September, 1994. The position is sponsored by Interval Research Corporation. The fellowship will last for one-to-two years. The Institute's research program is devoted to the study of complex systems, especially complex adaptive systems. SFI's Adaptive Computation program is an interdisciplinary effort focusing on computational aspects of the study of complex adaptive systems. Its purpose is to make fundamental progress on issues in computer science that are related to complex adaptive systems, and to export the results to researchers in other fields. These issues include both computational models of complex adaptive systems and theory and application of adaptive algorithms inspired by natural systems. Systems and techniques currently under study at the Santa Fe Institute include genetic algorithms, classifier systems, neural networks, and other adaptive computation techniques; the immune system; biomolecular sequence and structure; the origin of life; artificial life; models of evolution; the physics of information; nonlinear modeling and prediction; the economy; and others. Candidates should have a Ph.D. (or expect to receive one before September, 1994) and should have backgrounds in computer science, mathematics, economics, theoretical physics or chemistry, game theory, cognitive science, theoretical biology, dynamical systems theory, or related fields. A strong background in computational approaches is essential, as is an interest in interdisciplinary work. Evidence of these interests, in the form of previous research experience and publications, is helpful. Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, list of publications, and statement of research interests, and arrange for three letters of recommendation to be sent. Incomplete applications will not be processed. All application materials must be received by April 15, 1994. Decisions will be made in early May. Send applications to: Interval Research Postdoctoral Committee, Santa Fe Institute, 1660 Old Pecos Trail, Suite A, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501. Applications or inquiries may also be sent by electronic mail to: postdoc@santafe.edu. SFI is an equal opportunity employer. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 18:28:06 -0800 From: Yolanda Gil Subject: AAAI Fall Symposium - PLANNING AND LEARNING: ON TO REAL APPLICATIONS CALL FOR PAPERS 1994 AAAI Fall Symposium November 4-6, 1994 New Orleans, LA Planning and learning research has been progressing in parallel over the past several years, but very few research projects have bridged the two areas. However, there is a great deal of benefit from their interaction, especially when they are concerned with real applications. As the complexity of planning problems increases, it becomes of particular interest to identify learning opportunities in order to automate the acquisition of a planner's knowledge in new applications. At the same time, planning problems are a useful testbed and a source of challenges for learning research. The goal of this symposium is to discuss the implications of practical planning applications on both learning and planning research. The symposium will highlight empirical work on practical problems as an invaluable source for understanding the complexity of the planning task. We expect the analysis and discussion of practical domains to be a solid basis for turning formal planning and learning algorithms into efficient practical ones. As a desirable side effect of the symposium, we also envision the emergence of an initial comparative insight into different planning and learning algorithms from a practical standpoint. In particular we would like to discuss characterizations of application domains, comparisons of performance of different planners on the same task, and practical limitations or power of an approach. Specific topics of interest for the symposium include: - Practical problems: What makes practical real problems different from simplified simulated tasks? What are the implications of practical problems for specific planning algorithms? What are the learning opportunities for specific planning algorithms to handle practical problems efficiently? - Learning and knowledge acquisition: What learning algorithms were developed or extended to address needs of the application? What tools help extend and maintain planning knowledge? - Learning, planning efficiency, and plan quality: What are learning opportunities for a planning algorithm? How can a planner improve its efficiency based on its past experience? What are measures of plan quality in real applications? How can a planner improve the quality of the solutions it generates? - Scaling up: How well does the approach behave in tasks and problems of increasing size and complexity? What issues need to be addressed and what extensions to the framework are demanded by particular applications? - Domain features: What features of a practical domain stretch the representation language of a planner? What dimensions can be used to characterize and compare application domains? How can search spaces be characterized in terms of the application? We encourage submissions and participation of theoretical planning researchers interested in understanding more practical planning problems and the impact of learning in their algorithms, as well as contributions on practical planning applications that shed light on the challenging issues for learning, knowledge acquisition, and representation in planning domains. We especially welcome position papers that present discussions of issues relevant to the workshop as well as those written by teams with complementary research interests. The symposium will consist of presentations, invited talks, and discussion sessions. In order to encourage participation in the discussions, the organizing committee will put together a list of issues of concern from the submissions, and distribute it to the participants in advance. To participate, please submit an extended abstract (up to five pages). Abstracts should be received by April 15, 1994. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited (but not required) to submit a longer paper for publication in the working notes. Those interested in attending should submit a one- to two-page research statement and a list of relevant publications. Please include your email address in all submissions. Submit four hard copies to: Yolanda Gil Information Sciences Institute University of Southern California 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292 (310) 822-1511 (310) 823-6714 (fax) gil@isi.edu Organizing Committee: Steve Chien, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, chien@aig.Jpl.Nasa.Gov; Yolanda Gil (co-chair), USC/Information Sciences Institute, gil@isi.edu; Drew McDermott, Yale University, mcdermott-drew@cs.yale.edu; Dana Nau, University of Maryland, nau@cs.umd.edu; Manuela Veloso (co-chair), Carnegie Mellon University, veloso@cs.cmu.edu. Important dates: April 15, 1994 Extended abstracts due May 17, 1994 Notification of acceptance mailed September 1, 1994 Final versions of accepted papers due November 4-6, 1994 Symposium ------------------------------ From: AIPS-94@cs.uchicago.edu Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 16:08:28 CST Subject: AI Planning Systems 94 - Call for Participation ************* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ************* SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AI PLANNING SYSTEMS The University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois June 13th - 15th, 1994 *** NOTE DATE CHANGE *** ******************************************* CONFERENCE CHAIR Austin Tate - University of Edinburgh PROGRAM CHAIR Kristian Hammond - University of Chicago INVITED SPEAKERS Ken Forbus - Institute of Learning Sciences Drew McDermott - Yale University INVITED PANELS Planning and Learning - Manuela Veloso, CMU Planning and Perception - Michael Swain, U Chicago Planning and Understanding - Bonnie Webber, U. Penn ******************************************* We are pleased to invite participation in the Second International Conference on AI Planning Systems, to be held at The University of Chicago, June 13th - 15th, 1994. This conference will be aimed at bringing together researchers attacking different aspects of the planning problem and related issues. The conference will include talks, demonstrations, and posters relating to a wide variety of issues in planning and execution. This year's conference will also include panels aimed at illuminating the links between planning systems and other areas of AI. TIME AND PLACE The Conference will take place Monday, June 13th - Wednesday, June 15th, 1994, at The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. There will also be a reception at the Conference Hotel during registration on the evening of Sunday the 12th. REGISTRATION FORM NAME: ___________________________________________________________ AFFILIATION: ____________________________________________________ STREET ADDRESS: _________________________________________________ CITY: _____________________ STATE: _____________ ZIP:________ COUNTRY: ________________ PHONE: _________________ EMAIL: _______________________________ AAAI MEMBERSHIP NUMBER: ________________ (needed for AAAI discount) Full payment in U.S. dollars must accompany the registration form. Credit cards can not be accepted. Make checks payable to the The University of Chicago/AIPS-94. Payment and the completed registration form should be sent to: AIPS-94 c/o Kristian Hammond Department of Computer Science University of Chicago 1100 East 58th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Check Appropriate Fee: STATUS Before 5/20 After 5/20 AAAI Member $160 $190 Non-Member $180 $210 Student $ 75 $ 95 Students must include photocopies of student IDs to qualify for student status. The registration fee covers conference attendance, a copy of the proceedings, and all receptions and breaks. HOTEL REGISTRATION AIPS-94 is using the Ramada Inn Lake Shore for conference housing. The hotel is close to campus and transportation between the hotel to the conference site will be provided. A block of rooms for the conference has been reserved from Sunday, June 12th through Wednesday, June 15th. Rooms must be booked before May 22nd to guarantee availability. Rates are as follows: SINGLE: $62 per night. QUAD: 82 per night. DOUBLE: 62 per night. SUITE: 135 per night. TRIPLE: 72 per night. Reservations can be made directly by calling the Hotel directly at: (800) 237-4933 or (312) 288-5800. Conference attendants should identify themselves as being with the "Planning Conference". INFORMATION For any further information, write to: AIPS-94 c/o Kristian Hammond Department of Computer Science University of Chicago 1100 East 58th Street Chicago, IL 60637 or send email to: AIPS-94@cs.uchicago.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 94 12:19:33 +0100 From: Walter Van De Velde Subject: EKAW-94 FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS 8th European Knowledge Acquisition Workshop EKAW-94 Hoegaarden, Belgium September 26 - 29, 1994 The European Knowledge Acquisition Workshops are concerned with all aspects of elliciting, acquiring and modeling knowledge, its role in the construction of knowledge systems and for enhancing knowledge use in organizations. Papers are invited on relevant topics, including but not restricted to: * Languages and frameworks for knowledge and knowledge modeling * Tools and techniques for knowledge modeling * Tools and techniques for sustained knowledge acquisition, knowledge refinement and knowledge validation. * Integration of knowledge acquisition with other techniques, such as learning systems. * Fundamental views on knowledge that affect the knowledge acquisition process and the use of knowledge in knowledge engineering. * Integration of knowledge acquisition techniques within a single system; integration of knowledge acquisition systems with other systems (hypermedia, database management systems, simulators, spreadsheets). * Methods and techniques for reuse of knowledge and knowledge models, in particular related to the construction, maintenance and use of supporting libraries. Workshop attendance will be limited to 40 participants, one author for each paper accepted. The duration of the workshop will be 4 days. It consists of invited talks, plenary sessions and working groups on selected issues. Authors are invited to formulate an issue that would be useful to discuss. Software demonstrations related to presented papers are also encouraged. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS Paper submission: ***** Four copies of a full-length paper (up to 20 pages) should be sent to Luc Steels (see address below) before March 28, 1994. Electronic submission: ********** A Postscript version of a full-length paper (up to 20 pages) should be sent to ekaw@arti.vub.ac.be, before March 28, 1994. mentioning 'paper submission' as subject. Authors are encouraged to use LaTeX or TeX for the preparation of their manuscript. They may obtain the style files llncs (LaTeX) or plncs (TeX) corresponding to the instructions of the publisher from the server svserv@vax.ntp.springer.de: sending h e l p or g e t /tex/latex/llncs.zip (or get /tex/plain/plncs.zip) prompts either advice on how to use the mail server or direct transmission of the LaTeX (or TeX) style files. In case of problems in getting or UU-decoding the style files compressed for transmission please contact spinger@vax.ntp.springer.de Both paper and electronic submission should be NOTIFIED by a mailmessage (cfr. form below). Authors who intend to submit a paper are encouraged to notify the organizing committee by returning the form below. Acceptance notices will be mailed by May 30,1994. Camera-ready copies should be prepared preferably in LaTeX using the llcn style file (cfr. editor's instructions). This final manuscript should be returned in electronic form before July 7, 1994. The proceedings will be published by Springer Verlag and distributed at the workshop. CHAIRS and ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Luc STEELS Guus SCHREIBER AI Laboratory SWI Vrije Universiteit Brussel University of Amsterdam Axel van Lamsweerde Unite Informatique Universite Catholique Louvain-la-Neuve Walter VAN DE VELDE Sabine GELDOF Brigitte HOENIG Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels Tel: +32 2 641 37 00 Fax: +32 2 641 37 29 Email: ekaw@arti.vub.ac.be INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE Thomas R. ADDIS, University of Reading (GB) Klaus-Dieter ALTHOFF, University Kaiserslautern (G) Nathalie AUSSENAC, IRIT- CNRS, Toulouse (F) John BOOSE, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle (USA) Guy BOY, EURISCO, Toulouse (F) Jeffrey BRADSHAW, Boeing Comp. Services, Seattle (USA) I. BRATKO, University of Ljubljana, Ljubjljana (Yu) B. CHANDRASEKARAN, Ohio Univ., Columbus (USA) William CLANCEY, Inst. for Res. on Learning (USA) John DEBENHAM, Univ. of Technology, Sydney (Australia) Michael FREILING, Tektronix Inc. (USA) Jean-Gabriel GANASCIA, LAFORIA-Univ. Paris VI (F) Thomas GRUBER, Stanford Univ., Stanford (USA) Yves KODRATOFF, LRI - Univ. Paris Sud, Orsay (F) Marc LINSTER, Digital Equipment Corp. (USA) John Mc DERMOTT, Digital Equipement Corp. (USA) Ryszard MICHALSKI, George Mason University (USA) Riichiro MIZOGUSHI, Osaka University, Osaka (Japan) Katharina MORIK, University of Dortmund (G) Hiroshi MOTODA, Hitachi Advanced Research Lab. (Japan) Mark MUSEN, Stanford University (USA) Bruce PORTER, Univ. Of Texas, Austin (USA) Ross QUINLAN, Sydney University, Sidney (Australia) Alain RAPPAPORT, Neuron Data (USA) Franz SCHMALHOFER, DFKI, Kaiserslautern (G) Nigel SHADBOLT, Univ. of Nottingham (GB) Mildred SHAW, Univ. of Calgary, Calgary (CA) Ingeborg SOLVBERG, Trondheim (N) Hirokazu TAKI, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Japan) Hans VOSS, GMD, Sankt Augustin (G) Masanobu WATANABE, NEC Corporation (Japan) Bob WIELINGA, Univ. of Amsterdam, Amsterdam (NL) ________________________________________________________ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Notification of submission of a paper to EKAW'94: I intend to / I submit a paper to EKAW'94. The subject / title of the paper is: I suggest the following topic for discussion: I can give a demonstration related to the presentation of my paper for which I need the following equipment: NAME: ORGANIZATION: ADDRESS: TEL/FAX: EMAIL: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<>>>> ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 18:12:17 -0500 From: Russell Greiner Subject: CFP: "Relevance" (AAAI Fall Symposium) AAAI 1994 Fall Symposium RELEVANCE 4-6 November 1994 The Monteleone Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana == Call for Participation == With too little information, reasoning and learning systems cannot work effectively. Surprisingly, too much information can also cause the performance of these systems to degrade, in terms of both accuracy and efficiency. It is therefore important to determine what information must be preserved, or more generally, to determine how best to cope with superfluous information. The goal of this workshop is a better understanding of this topic, relevance, with a focus on techniques for improving a system's performance (along some dimension) by ignoring or de-emphasizing irrelevant and superfluous information. These techniques will clearly be of increasing importance as knowledge bases, and learning systems, become more comprehensive to accommodate real-world applications. There are many forms of irrelevancy. In many contexts (including both deduction and induction), the initial theory may include more information than the task requires. Here, the system may perform more effectively if certain irrelevant *facts* (or nodes in a neural net or Bayesian network) are ignored or deleted. In the context of learning, certain *attributes* of each individual sample may be irrelevant in that they will play essentially no role in the eventual classification or clustering. Also, the learner may choose to view certain *samples* to be irrelevant, knowing that they contain essentially no new information. Yet another flavor of irrelevance arises during the course of a general computation: A computing process can ignore certain *intermediate results*, once it has established that they will not contribute to the eventual answer; consider alpha-beta pruning or conspiracy numbers in game-playing and other contexts, or control heuristics in derivation. == Submission Information == Potential attendees should submit a one-page summary of their relevant research, together with a set of their relevant papers (pun unavoidable). People wishing to present material should also submit a 2000 word abstract. We invite papers that deal with any aspect of this topic, including characterizations of irrelevancies, ways of coping with superfluous information, ways of detecting irrelevancies and focusing on relevant information, and so forth; and are particularly interested in studies that suggest ways to improve the efficiency or accuracy of reasoning systems (including question-answerers, planners, diagnosticians, and so forth) or to improve the accuracy, sample complexity, or computational or space requirement of learning processes. We encourage empirical studies and cognitive theories, as well as theoretical results. We prefer plain-text, stand-alone LaTeX or Postscript submissions sent by electronic mail to greiner@learning.scr.siemens.com. Otherwise, please mail three copies to Russell Greiner "Relevance Symposium" Siemens Corporate Research, Inc 755 College Road East Princeton, NJ 08540-6632 In either case, the submission must arrive by 15 Apr 1994. == Important Dates == - Submissions due 15 April 1994 - Notification of acceptance 17 May 1994 - Working notes mailed out 20 Sept 1994 - Fall Symposium Series 4-6 Nov 1994 == Organizing Committee == Russ Greiner (co-chair, Siemens Corporate Research, greiner@learning.scr.siemens.com) Yann Le Cun (AT&T Bell Laboratories) Nick Littlestone (NEC Research Institute) David McAllester (MIT) Judea Pearl (UCLA) Bart Selman (AT&T Bell Laboratories) Devika Subramanian (co-chair, Cornell, devika@cs.cornell.edu) == Attendance == The symposium will be limited to between forty and sixty participants. In addition to invited participants, a limited number of other interested parties will be able to register on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration will be available by mid-July 1994. To obtain registration information, contact AAAI at fss@aaai.org; (415) 328-3123; or 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025. == Sponsored by == American Association for Artificial Intelligence as part of the AAAI 1994 Fall Symposium Series. ------------------------------ End of ML-LIST (Digest format) ****************************************