Call for papers: ALT 2011

The 22nd International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory
Aalto University, Espoo, Helsinki
October 5-7, 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS – ALT 2011

The 22nd International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT
2011, http://www-alg.ist.hokudai.ac.jp/~thomas/ALT11/alt11.jhtml) will
be held at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, October 5-7, 2011. The
conference is on the theoretical foundations of machine learning. The
conference will be co-located with the 14th International Conference
on Discovery Science (DS 2011, http://ds2011.org/).

Topics of Interest: We invite submissions that make a wide variety of
contributions to the theory of learning, including the following:
* Comparison of the strength of learning models and the design and
evaluation of novel algorithms for learning problems in
established learning-theoretic settings such as
o statistical learning theory,
o on-line learning,
o inductive inference,
o query models,
o unsupervised, semi-supervised and active learning.
* Analysis of the theoretical properties of existing algorithms:
o families of algorithms could include
+ boosting,
+ kernel-based methods, SVM,
+ Bayesian networks,
+ methods for reinforcement learning or learning in
repeated games,
+ graph- and/or manifold-based methods,
+ methods for latent-variable estimation and/or clustering,
+ MDL,
+ decision tree methods,
+ information-based methods,
o analyses could include generalization, convergence or
computational efficiency.
* Definition and analysis of new learning models. Models might
o identify and formalize classes of learning problems
inadequately addressed by existing theory or
o capture salient properties of important concrete applications.

Invited Talks. The two distinguished invited speakers for ALT 2011
are professor Peter Auer (University of Leoben) and professor Jorma
Rissanen (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology). In addition
there will be one invited speaker jointly with DS 2011.

Submission. Authors can submit their papers electronically.
Detailed instructions will be available on the conference web page.

Important Dates.
* Submission deadline: May 18, 2011 (you may submit for as long as
it is May 18, 2011 anywhere in the world)
* Notification of acceptance or rejection will be emailed to the
submitting author by June 30, 2011.
* The camera-ready copy of accepted papers will be due July 10, 2011.

Format. The submitted paper should be no longer than 15 pages in the
standard format for Springer-Verlag’s Lecture Notes in Artificial
Intelligence series. The 15 page limit includes title, abstract,
acknowledgments, references, illustrations and any other parts of the
paper; appendices bypassing the page limit are not allowed.

Policy. Each submitted paper will be reviewed by the members of the
program committee and be judged on clarity, significance and
originality. Joint submissions to other conferences with published
proceedings are not allowed. Papers that have appeared in journals or
other conferences are not appropriate for ALT 2011.

Proceedings. All accepted papers will be published as a volume in the
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Springer-Verlag, and will be
available at the conference. Full versions of selected papers of ALT
2011 will be invited to a special issue of the journal Theoretical
Computer Science.

E.M. Gold Award. One scholarship will be awarded to a student author
of an excellent paper (please mark student submissions on the title
page).

Conference Chair: Esko Ukkonen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Programme Committee:
Jyrki Kivinen (Chair), University of Helsinki, Finland
Csaba Szepesvari (Chair), University of Alberta, Canada
Dana Angluin, Yale University
Jean-Yves Audibert, Universite Paris Est
Shai Ben-David, University of Waterloo
Avrim Blum, Carnegie Mellon University
Nader Bshouty, Technion
John Case, University of Delaware
Ricard Gavalda, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
Andras Gyorgy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Sanjay Jain, National University of Singapore
Gabor Lugosi, Pompeu Fabra University
Remi Munos, INRIA
Ronald Ortner, University of Leoben
John Shawe-Taylor, University College London
Hans Ulrich Simon, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum
Frank Stephan, National University of Singapore
Eiji Takimoto, Kyushu University
Vladimir Vovk, Royal Holloway, University of London
Akihiro Yamamoto, Kyoto University
Sandra Zilles, University of Regina

Local Arrangement Chair: Olli Simula, Aalto University, Finland