Research Group Leaders, Multimodal Computing and Interaction, Saarland University, Germany

Saarland University is seeking to establish several new Junior Research Groups (W1/W2) within the Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” which was established within the framework of the German Excellence Initiative in 2007

The term “multimodal” describes the different types of digital information such as text, speech, images, video, graphics, and high-dimensional data, and the way it is perceived and communicated, particularly through vision, hearing, and human expression. The challenge is now to organize, understand, and search this multimodal information in a robust, efficient and intelligent way, and to create dependable systems that allow natural and intuitive multimodal
interaction. We are looking for highly motivated young researchers with a background in the research areas of the cluster, including algorithmic foundations, secure and autonomous networked systems, open science web, information processing in the life sciences, visual
computing, large-scale virtual environments, synthetic virtual characters, text and speech processing and multimodal dialog systems. Additional information on the Cluster of Excellence is
available on http://www.mmci.uni-saarland.de. Group leaders will receive junior faculty status at Saarland University, including the right to supervise Bachelor, Master and PhD students. Positions are limited to five years.

Saarland University has leading departments in computer science and computational linguistics, with more than 200 PhD students working on topics related to the cluster (see http://www.informatik-saarland.de for additional information), and
the Cluster additionally comprises the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems — all co-located on the same campus.

Job requisites:
===============

Obligatory
———-
Applicants for W1 positions (phase I of the program) must have completed an outstanding PhD. Upon successful evaluation after two years, W1 group leaders are eligible for promotion to W2. Direct applicants for W2 positions (phase II of the program) must have completed a postdoc stay and must have demonstrated outstanding research potential and the ability to successfully lead their own research group. Junior research groups are equipped with a budget of 80k to 100k Euros per year to cover research personnel and other costs.

Candidates should submit their application (curriculum vitae, photograph, list of publications, short research plan, copies of degree certificates, copies of the five most important publications,
list of five references) to the coordinator of the cluster, Prof. Hans-Peter Seidel, MPI for Informatics, Campus E1 4, 66123 Saarbruecken, Germany.

Please, also send your application as a single PDF file to
applications@mmci.uni-saarland.de.

Applications stating the reference number W490 will be accepted until April 30, 2012. Final decisions will be made following a candidate symposium that will be held in the week June 19 – 21, 2012.

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. For candidates with equal qualification, preference will be given to people with physical disabilities.

The official job ad can be found here:
http://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Campus/Service/Stellenausschreibung/Wissenschaftliches_Personal/W490.pdf

ChaLearn Gesture Dataset (CGD2011)

http://gesture.chalearn.org/data

Sponsored by Pascal2

We are pleased to release the complete dataset CGD2011 of gestures recorded as RGB and depth videos with a Kinect(TM) camera:

* 50,000 gestures,
* with image sizes 240 x 320 pixels,
* at 10 frames per second,
* recorded by 20 different users,
* grouped in 500 batches of 100 gestures,
* each batch including 47 sequences of 1 to 5 gestures drawn from various small gesture
vocabularies of 8 to 15 gestures,
* from over 30 different gesture vocabularies.

The data are used in the Pascal2-sponsored gesture challenge presently on-going, for which Microsoft is offering large prizes. Visit http://gesture.chalearn.org.

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.