Probabilistic Automata learning Competition

PAutomaC is a competition about learning probabilistic finite state models (PFA, HMM, WA, …), where participants are to build algorithms that can learn rational distribution over strings.

On its web page (http://snowball.cs.umbc.edu/icgi2012/challenge/), PAutomaC will allow users to download data samples corresponding to several kind of targets : some are deterministic, some not, the size of the alphabet is varying, and so is the complexity of the model.

There will be two kind of data: artificial ones that are obtained from a randomly generated machine; real data from different fields.

Schedule:

– End of January: PAutomaC is open, anyone may register, develop and test their algorithms on training data sets
– May 20th: Competition data sets are available
– June 30th: Competition is over
– July 20th: Short papers are submitted
– September 12-15th: special session at ICGI’12 in Washington, DC, USA (http://www.coral-lab.org/icgi2012/ )

Prizes and publications:

We are quite confident to find a sponsor that will award a prize to the winner of PAutomaC.
Participants are encouraged to submit an extended abstract and to present their innovations at the PAutomaC special session that will be organised during ICGI.

A submission to a journal special issue is also being considered.

Scientific committee:

– Peter Adriaans, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

– Dana Angluin, Yale University, USA

– Pierre Dupont, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

– Ricard Gavalda, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain

– Colin de la Higuera, University of Nantes, France

– Jean-Christophe Janodet, University of Evry, France

– Tim Oates, University of Maryland, USA

– Jose Oncina, University of Alicante, Spain

– Menno van Zaanen, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

A further call for participation will detail the running and the technical aspects of the competition.

New mailing list dedicated to Machine Listening

The list aims to attract members from diverse research communities united by an interest in building robust Machine Listening applications, be it for speech, music or environmental sounds.

The list will serve as a place for announcing events (workshops, challenges, journal special issues, etc), publicising opportunities (jobs, PhD places, etc) and we hope it will also serve as a valuable discussion forum for people working in the field.

We have decided to use Google Groups as the platform for the list. In order to subscribe, please follow the link below.

http://groups.google.com/group/machinelistening

3 PhD/Postdoc positions at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

t: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Web: http://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/ml/jobs

Data Mining, Machine Learning and Constraint Programming

The Machine Learning group of the department of computer science at the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven has several open positions (at the Ph.D. or
post-doc level) in the area of data mining and its combination with constraint
satisfaction and constraint programming.

The research questions that will be tackled are related to
* how to mine for pattern sets?
* how to mine for patterns interactively and instantly?
* how to combine / integrate constraint programming with data mining?
* how to learn constraints from data?
* how to adapt constraint programming solvers for use in data mining?
(see http://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/CP4IM/ for earlier work)

The research will be carried in the context of two projects funded by the
Research Foundation — Flanders (in collaboration with Prof. Bart Goethals
(University of Antwerp)) and the European FET Project ICON (Inductive
Constraint Programming, 2012-2014, in collaboration with the Cork Constraint
Computation Centre, University of Pisa, and CNRS-LIRMM Montpellier).

The successful applicants will work under the direction of Prof. Luc De Raedt
and Dr. Siegfried Nijssen.

Applicants should have a strong background in computer science, with knowledge
of areas such as algorithmics, data mining, constraint programming, discrete
optimization, and artificial intelligence. Ph.D. candidates should satisfy the
requirements imposed by the Arenberg Doctoral School (see
http://set.kuleuven.be/phd/). Post-docs should have a good publication record
in the areas of interest, that is, data mining or constraint programming, or a
very closely related area. This implies that post-docs will have published in
journals such as Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Machine Learning,
Artificial Intelligence, Journal of AI Research, and/or conferences such as
KDD, ICDM, ECML/PKDD, SDM, CP, AAAI, IJCAI, ECAI, ICML, …

The Machine Learning group is part of the laboratory on Declarative Languages
and Artificial Intelligence, and has expertise in machine learning, data
mining, constraint programming and constraint satisfaction. The Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven is located in the old city of Leuven, close to Brussels,
the capital of Belgium.

The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is an equal opportunity employer.

For more information, please contact
Luc.DeRaedt@cs.kuleuven or Siegfried.Nijssen@cs.kuleuven.be

MACHINE LEARNING SUMMER SCHOOL, LA PALMA, SPAIN, APRIL 11-20, 2012

The 19th Machine Learning Summer School will be held in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, from April 11 till April 20 2012 and will be collocated with AISTATS 2012.

The school will provide tutorials and lectures on basic and advanced core topics of machine learning by leading researchers in the field. The summer school is intended for students, researchers and industry practitioners with an interest in machine learning.

The school will address the following topics: Learning Theory, Kernel Methods, Bayesian Machine Learning, Monte Carlo Methods, Bayesian Nonparametrics, Optimization, Graphical Models, Information theory and Dimensionality Reduction.

Key Information
———————-
URL: http://mlss2012.tsc.uc3m.es
Dates: Wednesday 11 April to Friday 20 April, 2012
Application deadline: 31 January 2012
Location: La Palma, Spain
Email contact: mlss2012[at]tsc.uc3m.es

Confirmed Speakers
—————————-
– Zoubin Ghahramani (University of Cambridge)
– Mark Girolami (University College London)
– Neil Lawrence (University of Sheffield)
– Gabor Lugosi (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
– Peter Orbanz (University of Cambridge)
– Fernando Perez-Cruz (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)
– Bernhard Schölkopf (Max Plank Institute Tübingen)
– Robert Vanderbei (Princeton University)

Organizers
—————-
Fernando Perez-Cruz, Bernhard Schölkopf, Neil Lawrence and Emilio Parrado-Hernandez

MLSS La Palma is co-organized by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University of Sheffield, Max Plank Institute Tübingen and PASCAL2.

See http://mlss2012.tsc.uc3m.es for details.

The School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL invites applications for faculty positions in computer science

http://professeurs.epfl.ch/page-73299-fr.html

The School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL invites applications for faculty positions in computer science. We are primarily seeking candidates for tenure-track assistant professor positions, but suitably qualified candidates for senior positions will also be considered.

Successful candidates will develop an independent and creative research program, participate in both undergraduate and graduate teaching, and supervise PhD students.

Candidates from all areas of computer science will be considered, but preference will be given to candidates with interests in

* computer science theory
* machine learning
* foundation of computing
* visualisation of large data sets

EPFL offers internationally competitive salaries, significant start-up resources, and outstanding research infrastructure.

To apply, please follow the application procedure at http://icrecruiting.epfl.ch. The following documents are requested in PDF format: curriculum vitae, including publication list, brief statements of research and teaching interests, names and addresses (including e-mail) of 3 references for junior positions, and 6 for senior positions. Screening will start on January 13, 2012. Further questions can be addressed to :

Professor Martin Vetterli
Dean, School of Computer and Communication Sciences
recruiting.ic@epfl.ch

For additional information on EPFL, please consult http://www.epfl.ch or http://ic.epfl.ch

EPFL is an equal opportunity employer.

Two Postdoc Positions in Computer Vision and Machine Learning

http://www.ist.ac.at/~chl/Postdoc-CV.html
http://www.ist.ac.at/~chl/Postdoc-ML.html

Two postdoc positions in Computer Vision and Machine Learning are available immediately at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) in the group of Christoph Lampert.

Applicants should hold a PhD and have experience in machine learning, optimization and/or computer vision. Prior knowledge of discriminative machine learning techniques (in particular kernel methods, structured output learning, and/or probabilistic approaches) will be an advantage, a strong analytical background is a must. We are looking a for highly motivated and creative individuals who enjoy working in an excellent research environment including adequate funding for equipment and conference travel. The successful candidates will have no mandatory teaching or adminstrative duties, but they should be motivated to take an active role in the further development of the newly established research group. Good communication skills and fluency in English are required. German language skills are not required.

Conditions of employment: The post-doctoral positions is provided for one or two years with the possibility for extension. Salaries are very competitive. The starting dates are flexible. There is no fixed deadline, applications will be considered until the positions are filled.

Application procedure: Formal applications should include CV, a statement of research experience and interests, list of publications, academic transscripts, as well as the contact details of three references. Please send applications as single PDF document to Prof.
Christoph Lampert .

About the institute: IST Austria (www.ist.ac.at) is a new institute that opened its campus near Vienna in 2009. It is dedicated to basic research in the natural sciences and related disciplines (http://www.ist.ac.at/research). Established by the Austria Government, IST Austria has substantial funding, allowing for over 500 employees and graduate students by 2016. The language of the Institute is English.

Researcher Position in Machine Learning for Neuroscience is available in the Neuroinformatics Laboratory (NiLab) at Fondazione Bruno Kessler

The Neuroinformatics Laboratory (NILab) is a joint initiative between Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) and the Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC) of the University of Trento in order to promote interdisciplinary research in cognitive neuroscience. Neuroinformatics stands at the intersection of neuroscience and information science and it provides methods and technologies for managing, analyzing, and modeling neuroimaging data.

The NILab mission spans from scientific to technological aspects. The scientific research activity covers the design and the development of novel methods for the integration, the analysis and the interpretation of unimodal and multimodal neuroimaging data. The laboratory is co-located with the Neuroimaging Laboratory (LNIF) of CIMeC, which provides several facilities for cognitive neuroscience investigations such as MR (4T Brucker Medspec Scanner), MEG/EEG (Electa Neuromag), TMS and EyeTracking.

The successful candidate will work on the development of computational methods for brain data analysis approaching challenging tasks such as brain decoding, brain mapping and brain connectivity.

For further information, please contact info.nilab@fbk.eu.

Due to the FBK’s attempt to promote equal opportunity and gender balance, in case of equal applications, female candidates will be given preference.

The ideal candidate should have:
* Ph.D. in Computer Science or related fields.
* Solid background in Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition.
* Outstanding publication record.
* At least basic knowledge of the neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, dMRI, MEG, EEG).
* Good skills in scientific programming with Python.
* Proficient English both written and spoken.

Additional requirements / desiderata:
* Attitude to work in a multidisciplinary environment.
* Ability to quickly learn and use new technologies and tools.
* Ability to acquire knowledge from different application domains.

Type of Contract: research position is available immediately until December 2014. The gross salary offer will range between € 39,000.00 and € 44,000.00, depending on seniority and expertise.

Useful Links:
Neuroinformatics Laboratory – nilab.fbk.eu
Fondazione Bruno Kessler – www.fbk.eu
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences – www.cimec.unitn.it

To apply online please send your detailed CV with two references to jobs@fbk.eu.
Emails should have Ref.Code: NILAB_2011

Last call for ECAI 2012 Workshops – Deadline: 6 Jan 2012

Last call for ECAI 2012 Workshops
www.lirmm.fr/ecai2012
Deadline: 6 Jan 2012

ECAI, the biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence organized by the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI), is the premier forum for presenting Artificial Intelligence results in Europe. The twentieth conference in this series, ECAI 2012, will take place in the beautiful city of Montpellier (France) August 27-31.

ECAI 2012 will gather researchers and practitioners of Artificial Intelligence from all over the world; they will present the latest results and identify new trends and challenges in all subfields of Artificial Intelligence as well as demonstrate innovative applications and uses of advanced Artificial Intelligence technology. In addition to the main technical track, the ECAI 2012 program will feature keynote and invited talks, invited tutorials, an elaborate workshop program, and a system-demonstration track.

Workshops
———–

All workshop proposals are welcome on any topic related to AI, ranging from robotics to games, from knowledge modelling to reasoning to constraints, from machine learning to planning and scheduling, from uncertainty to perception to language, from multi-agents to interactions and user modelling (non-exhaustive list).

The goal of the workshops is to provide an informal forum for researchers to discuss focused and/or emerging research questions and challenges. Workshops can come in several flavors:

* presentations of peer-reviewed papers (standard workshop format), including discussions and possibly panels;
* AI competitions or challenges;
* Position papers and discussion on open or controversial problems.
* any other format aimed at investigating new AI trends.
What a workshop should *not* be: a mini-conference packed with short talks and with no time for discussion and interaction. We therefore encourage workshop organizers to include invited talks, short tutorials, panel-discussions and representation of alternative viewpoints in their workshop program in addition to the regular submissions.

The typical duration for a workshop is one day; two-day workshops can also be accommodated.

For any question, any intention to submit, please contact Jérôme Lang and Michèle Sebag (lang at lamsade.dauphine.fr, sebag at lri.fr).

The deadline for workshop proposals is January 6, 2012.

Dates:
6 Jan 2012: workshop proposals due (early submissions are welcome!)
1 Feb 2012: workshop proposal notifications sent
19 Feb 2012: 1st call for papers sent; workshop websites ready; announcement of all ECAI-2012 workshops at the main conference site
28 May 2012 (suggested): workshop paper submission deadline
28 Jun 2012 (suggested, and subject to modification): notification on workshop paper submissions
22 Jul 2012: workshop proceedings to be sent to workshop chair

Notes that the workshop submission deadline should preferably take place after ECAI notification (21 May 2012) and workshop paper notifications *must* be sent before the ECAI early registration deadline (which will be announced later).

Workshop proposal submission:

Please submit your proposal at
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecai2012ws

Each workshop proposal (pdf file) must include:
(1) Title and acronym.

(2) Names, affiliations, and contact details of all organizers (please
indicate a primary contact person to whom correspondence should be
directed).

(3) Short description (workshop format and duration, tentative call for
papers, tentative invited speakers and members of the program committee).

(4) Audience: research groups working in the field; (if applicable)
details about previous editions of the workshop; related workshops
in other venues; expected number of submissions.

(5) One paragraph about each organizer (scientific profile, previous
events you have organized).

(6) Every information you deem to be relevant.

Policy:

* all workshop participants, including the organizer, are required to register for both the workshop and the main conference. For up to three invited speakers per workshop the workshop registration will be waived, though they must still register for the main conference. Unfortunately, ECAI cannot provide any other support for these speakers.
* Due to budget reasons, a workshop might be cancelled if there are not enough submissions or registrations.
* Proceedings: The organizers will provide a single pdf file to be posted on the website.

Call for Papers – ECAI-2012

######################################################################
## ECAI-2012 ## Call for Papers ## ECAI-2012 ##
######################################################################

The Twentieth European Conference on Artificial Intelligence

27-31 August 2012

Montpellier, France

http://www2.lirmm.fr/ecai2012/

Deadline for submission of papers: 6 March 2012

######################################################################
## INTRODUCTION ##
######################################################################

ECAI is the biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence
organized by the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial
Intelligence (ECCAI); it is the premier forum for presenting
Artificial Intelligence results in Europe. The twentieth conference in
this series, ECAI 2012, will take place in Montpellier (France) August
27-31.

ECAI 2012 will gather researchers and practitioners of Artificial
Intelligence from all over the world; they will present the latest
results and identify new trends and challenges in all subfields of
Artificial Intelligence as well as demonstrate innovative applications
and uses of advanced Artificial Intelligence technology. In addition
to the main technical track, ECAI 2012 will feature keynote and
invited talks, invited tutorials, an elaborate workshop program, a
system demonstration track, a Turing centenary celebration, in which
we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing
and his influence on Artificial Intelligence, and a special session on
Highlights of European AI, to celebrate the 20th ECAI conference and
25 years of AI Communications. ECAI 2012 will also feature the 6th
STAIRS (STarting AI Researcher Symposium) and the 6th PAIS (Conference
on Prestigious Applications of Intelligent Systems) as sub-conferences.

ECAI-2012 will be held in the beautiful city of Montpellier, France.
With excellent opportunities for sightseeing and gastronomy,
Montpellier promises to be a wonderful venue for a memorable
conference.

######################################################################
## SUBMISSIONS ##
######################################################################

ECAI 2012 welcomes submissions of technical papers to the main track.
Submitted papers should present original, high-quality and previously
unpublished results on Artificial Intelligence.
Submissions are welcome from all areas of AI; the following list of
topics is indicative only.

* Agents & Multiagent Systems
* Case-Based Reasoning
* Cognitive Modeling & Interaction
* Constraints & Search
* Knowledge Representation & Reasoning
* Machine Learning & Data Mining
* Model-Based Reasoning
* Natural Language Processing
* Perception & Sensing
* Planning & Scheduling
* Robotics
* Uncertainty in AI
* Applications of AI

ECAI 2012 especially encourages submissions that cross discipline
boundaries within Artificial Intelligence, and between Artificial
Intelligence and other disciplines.

Both long (6-page) and short (2-page) papers can be submitted.
Whereas long papers should report on substantial research results,
short papers are intended for highly promising but possibly more
preliminary work. Short papers will be presented in poster form.
Rejected long papers will not be considered for the short paper track.

ECAI 2012 also welcomes submissions of proposals for workshops,
descriptions of system-demonstrations, papers on prestigious
applications of AI for PAIS, and contributions of starting researchers
in AI for STAIRS; cf. the separate calls for these tracks.

######################################################################
## IMPORTANT DATES ECAI Technical Program ##
######################################################################

Paper submission deadline:
Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Author response period between(indicative):
18-23 April 2012

Notification of acceptance/rejection:
Monday, 21 May 2012

Camera-ready paper due:
Sunday, 3 June 2012

Conference:
27-31 August 2012

######################################################################
## PAPER FORMATTING & SUBMISSION INFORMATION ##
######################################################################

Long papers must not exceed SIX (6) and short papers must not exceed
TWO (2) pages in camera-ready format for ECAI. Over-length submissions
will be rejected without review. Papers for ECAI should be submitted
using the ECAI formatting style; details of the style are available
at:

http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~luc.deraedt/ecai2012-style.zip

This file unpacks to a directory “ecai2012”, and contains LaTeX and
other style files. The file “ecai2012.tex” is an example paper in
LaTeX format using the appropriate styles, and can be used as a
template for ECAI submissions. A Microsoft Word template is also
available.

Reviewing for ECAI 2012 will be blind: reviewers will not be presented
with the identity of paper authors. To allow for blind review, author
names in a submitted paper or poster should be replaced by the unique
tracking number assigned by the conference website at the submission
of an electronic abstract. Authors should avoid writing anything that
makes their identity obvious in the text.

Submissions should be original, and in particular should not
previously have been formally published. (Any publication venue with
an ISBN or ISSN number counts as a formal publication; this includes
LNCS/LNAI volumes, for example.) Submissions should not be submitted
elsewhere during the ECAI 2012 review phase.

The proceedings of the ECAI conference, together with those of the PAIS
symposium will be published and distributed by IOS Press as an online
open access book. (The proceedings of some past ECAI conferences are
freely available on the IOS website). The authors will be responsible
for producing camera-ready copies of papers, conforming to the ECAI
formatting guidelines for inclusion in the proceedings. At least one
author of each accepted long or short paper is required to attend the
conference to present the contribution.

Submission and review of papers for ECAI-2012 will be managed via the
ConfMaster system. Confmaster may be live for ECAI submissions before
31 January. Prior to this date, the site will be used for configuration
and testing. All data uploaded or registered before this date will be
deleted and will not be considered for the conference. Do NOT register
or upload papers before 31 January 2012!

All submissions will be subject to peer review by the ECAI 2012
Programme Committee, and evaluated on the basis of: relevance;
significance of contribution; technical quality; scholarship; and
quality of presentation.

The authors of the best papers of ECAI 2012 will be invited to submit
an extended version of their paper to the Artificial Intelligence
Journal.

The primary authors of submitted papers will be offered the
opportunity to respond to the reviews for their papers before the
final decision on acceptance or otherwise is made. The author feedback
phase is currently planned between 18-23 April 2012.

######################################################################
## ORGANISATION ##
######################################################################

Conference Chair : Didier Dubois

ECAI Program Chair : Luc De Raedt

Organizing Committee Chair: Christian Bessiere

ECCAI Chair: Gerhard Brewka

Workshop Chairs: Jérôme Lang and Michèle Sebag

System-Demonstration Chairs: Patrick Doherty and Fredrik Heintz

STAIRS Program Chair: Kristian Kersting and Marc Toussaint

PAIS Program Chairs: Paolo Frasconi and Peter Lucas

Turing Centenary Celebration Chair: Michael Wooldridge

######################################################################
## LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ##
######################################################################

LIRMM supervisor: Christophe Dhenaut

Logistics: Elisabeth Greverie, Justine Landais, Eric Bourreau

Treasurer: Michel Leclere, Laetitia Megual

Technical support: Remi Coletta

Web site: Michel Liquiere

Sponsoring: Remi Coletta

Publicity: Marie-Laure Mugnier, Madalina Croitoru

Other members: Stefano Cerri, Abdel Gouaich, Joel Quinqueton

AFIA contacts: Patrick Albert, Yves Demazeau, Thomas Guyet,
Eunika Mercier-Laurent, Jean-Denis Muller

######################################################################
## AREA CHAIRS ##
######################################################################

Area chairs currently confirmed include:

Michael Beetz [Germany]
Ronen Brafman [Israel]
Fabio Cozman [Brazil]
James Cussens [UK]
Thomas Eiter [Austria]
Johannes Fuernkranz [Germany]
Hector Geffner [Spain]
Marco Gori [Italy]
Udo Hahn [Germany]
Malte Helmert [Switzerland]
Manfred Jaeger [Denmark]
Sarit Kraus [Israel]
Andreas Krause [Switzerland]
Jerome Lang [France]
Pierre Marquis [France]
John-Jules Meyer [The Netherlands]
Bernhard Nebel [Germany]
Ann Nowé [Belgium]
Barry O’Sullivan [Ireland]
Francesca Rossi [Italy]
Michele Sebag [France]
Carles Sierra [Spain]
Steffen Staab [Germany]
Peter Struss [Germany]
Michael Thielscher [Australia]
Hannu Toivonen [Finland]
Antal van den Bosch [The Netherlands]
Pascal Van Hentenryck [US]
Michael Wooldridge [UK]
Frank Wolter [UK]

######################################################################
## KEYNOTE SPEAKERS ##
######################################################################

The ECAI-2012 programme will include plenary talks from
internationally leading researchers in AI and cognate
disciplines. Keynote speakers so far confirmed include:

* Wofram Burgard [Freiburg, Germany]
* Adnan Darwiche [UCLA, US]
* Tom Mitchell [CMU, US]

######################################################################

Post-doc position (computational linguistics) at Saarland University, Germany

The Department of Computational Linguistics at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany, invites applications for the position of a scientific staff member (“Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter”).

The successful candidate will have a strong background in natural language processing and
computational semantics, and preferably hold a PhD in computational linguistics or a related
field. He/she will contribute to project work on the integration of natural language processing and knowledge management within the Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” (www.coli.uni-saarland.de/projects/codis, www.coli.uni-saarland.de/projects/smile). Experience in data-intensive methods is essential. A background in deep linguistic processing is a definite plus. He/she will join a young, creative research team and should have good teamwork skills.

Saarland University is one of the leading European research sites in computational linguistics and offers an active, stimulating research environment. Close working relationships are maintained between the Departments of Computational Linguistics and Computer Science. Both are part of the Cluster of Excellence, which also includes the Max Planck Institutes for Informatics (MPI-INF) and Software Systems (MPI-SWS) and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

Salary and social benefits are according to Germany’s public sector TV-L 13 scale, ranging from 3100 to 4500 EUR (before taxes), depending on prior experience. The appointment is initially for 2 years.

Saarland University is an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with its policy of increasing the proportion of women in this type of employment, the University actively encourages applications from women.

Physically handicapped persons will be preferred if they are equally qualified.

Please send applications (including CV and list of publications) in electronic form to jobs-comsem@coli.uni-saarland.de (Professor Manfred Pinkal).

Deadline is January 31, 2012.

Informal inquiries can be addressed to the above email address as well.