Funded PhD position in Information Retrieval and Social Networks – University of Saint-Étienne, France

The “Data Mining and Information Retrieval of structured data” group from the University of Saint-Étienne (France) invites applications for a *fully funded 3-year PhD position* at the Hubert-Curien lab.

Title: Impact of social networks on the Information Retrieval Process

Starting date of the thesis: October, 1st 2010.

Short abstract:
The explosion of Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, sharing sites, social networks, etc.) opens up new perspectives for sharing and managing information.
In this context, this thesis deals with the impact of Social Networks on the Information Retrieval (IR) Process.
The IR models and algorithms, originally developed to represent and retrieve flat and homogeneous documents, are evolving in order to handle new types of documents: structured (XML), multimedia, Web, etc. This thesis aims at developping a theoretical IR model integrating the social dimension of social networks in focusing on two issues:
1) identification and representation of social relations (extracted from: user profiles, readings, clicks, bookmarks, tags, votes, links, etc.).
2) impact of these social relations on the IR process (document and query model, user profile, weighting function, matching function), and particularly on the one hand on the content representation by improving the document model, and on the other hand, on the selection of relevant information by improving the matching model.

Applicants should have or be in the process of getting a *Master’s degree in Computer Science*.
Skills in information retrieval and data mining would be appreciated. Good programming capabilities are required!
A good level in English is also required.

The selected candidate will join the “Machine Learning” group composed of 20 researchers working at the crossroads of information retrieval, data mining, social networks and machine learning.

Applications (including CV, motivation letter, grades of the last two academic years) should be sent to:
mathias.gery(at)univ-st-etienne.fr and christine.largeron(at)univ-st-etienne.fr
by April, 22th 2010 at the latest.

Some links:
– Research team: http://labh-curien.univ-st-etienne.fr/MachineLearning/
– Saint-Étienne is a medium size city near Lyon, France.
– Some facts about Saint-Étienne can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Étienne
– The University of Saint-Étienne is a member of the University of Lyon consortium.
– Paris can be reached from Saint-Étienne in less than 3 hours via a direct train. Saint-Étienne has a small Airport connected by RyanAir (http://www.saint-etienne.aeroport.fr). The closest international airport is Lyon Saint-Exupéry (http://www.lyon.aeroport.fr).
– The city is surrounded by the “Pilat Regional Parc” in which almost any outdoor activity can be practiced (http://www.parc-naturel-pilat.fr/en.html).
– The art museum in Saint-Étienne holds the second national contemporary art collection, and classical music concerts, dance shows, and operas are performed at the Saint-Étienne “Massenet Opera”.

Open Postdoc position in Machine Learning

Open Postdoc position in Machine Learning

Lab: Imagine, Université Paris Est, France
Contact: Jean-Yves Audibert (audibert at imagine.enpc.fr)

Numerous problems linked to the exploration-exploitation trade-off remain open (even in the well-known *multi-armed bandit* problem). We want to address them, i.e. propose algorithms solving them and study their theoretical properties. In spirit, this is related to (i) the recent works on policies based on upper confidence bounds and (ii) the nice book: Prediction, learning, and games by Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi and Gábor Lugosi. The work is mainly theoretical but, as far as possible, we also intend to address some of the energy minimization problems that arise in Computer Vision, in particular combinatorial problems of 3D reconstruction, by using the proposed algorithms.

The position requires strong theoretical skills in probability and statistics. An ability to implement algorithms working on real-world data is also desirable.
To apply, please email CV and a brief description of research interests to Jean-Yves Audibert (audibert at imagine.enpc.fr) before May 15th, 2010.

The position is funded by a grant from the French National Research Agency (ANR). The successful candidate will have no mandatory teaching or administrative duties.

ICCLA 2011 – Call for Participation

International Conference on Computational Learning for Aerospace 2011 (ICCLA’11)
10-14 January 2011 Biopolis, Singapore

http://c2inet.sce.ntu.edu.sg/conference
http://c2inet.sce.ntu.edu.sg/conference/CFP_ICCLA.pdf

The conference addresses development of novel computational learning techniques for the analysis/application in aerospace and related industries. The goal is to identify prominent areas within the domain of aerospace where developments in computational learning can improve on current techniques and/or answer new interesting questions. The conference will bring together researchers from machine learning, data mining, optimization, and other computational learning topics, as well as researchers and engineers from industry to discuss problems in aerospace where computational learning may provide an edge over existing approaches. The conference also aims to promote discussion on recent progresses and challenges as well as on methodological issues and applied research problems. The em- phasis will be on practical problem solving involving novel algorithmic approaches.

Call For Papers:
Prospective authors are cordially invited to submit high-quality papers to ICCLA 2011. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. The conference topics include, but not limited to:

 Optimization Methods
 Autonomous Systems
 Intelligent Agents
 Reinforcement Learning
 Supervised and Semi-supervised Learning
 Bayesianand Generative Modeling
 Evolutionary Computing
 Memetic Computing
 Recurrentand State Space Models
 Kernel Methods
 Support Vector Machines
 Neural Networks
 SwarmIntelligence
 Boosting
 Multi-agent Simulation
 Multi-view/Multi-task Learning
 Online Methods
 Information Retrieval
 Multi-objective Design
 Robotics
 Radar
 Diagnostics
 Automation
 Surface Reconstruction

Paper Submission:
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the standard format of LNCS papers and be restricted to a maximum of 8 pages. All accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings by Springer publisher. Please follow instruction on the submission page at the conference’s website http://c2inet.sce.ntu.edu.sg/conference .

Important Dates
Paper Submission: Jul 15, 2010
Decision Notification: Sep 15, 2010
Camera-ready Submission: Oct 15, 2010
Special Session/Tutorial/ Workshop Proposals: July 15, 2010

General Chair:
Dr. David R. Hardoon

Conference chairs:
Dr. Ong Yew Soon
Dr. Lim Meng Hiot
Dr. Ivor Tsang Wai Hung
Dr. Daisuke Sasaki
Dr. Emilio Parrado-Hernandez

Program Co-Chairs:
Dr. Song Wenbin
Dr. Partha S. Dutta

Finance Chair
Dr. Sintiani Dewi Teddy

Publication & Publicity Chairs
Dr. Dudy Lim
Dr. Daisuke Sasaki

Tutorial Chair
Dr. Li Xiaoli

Registration & Competition Chair
Dr. Zhang Jie

Local Chair
Dr. Li Xiang

Sponsors:
Nanyang Technological University
Boeing Phantom Works
PASCAL Network of Excellence
Global COE program at Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University

UAI 2010 Approximate Inference Evaluation – Preliminary Call for Participation

=========================================
PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE
2010 UAI APPROXIMATE INFERENCE EVALUATION
=========================================

We are pleased to announce an upcoming evaluation of probabilistic
inference algorithms, as part of the UAI conference this July.
All researchers working on inference in graphical models are
encouraged to participate.

The evaluation will focus on the following computational tasks: calculating
MAP/MPE assignments, calculating partition functions (i.e., probability of
evidence), and calculating marginals. Submitted algorithms can compete in
some or all of these tasks.

NEW FEATURES in this year’s competition:

* There will be separate tracks for approximate algorithms that
provide upper or lower bound guarantees and those that do not.
Exact algorithms are of course invited to participate in any
of these tracks.

* A special track will assess the merit of the submitted inference
algorithms when used as a black box for parameter learning.

* Participants will receive automated performance reports
and will be able to submit improvements during the
entire competition period.

We look forward to your participation,

The organizers

DATES
====
May 3 – Dataset and submission format announced.
May 10 – Submissions accepted on website.
June 25 – Final deadline for submissions.
July 1 – Final results and winners announced.
July 8-11 – Results reported at the UAI conference.

ORGANIZERS
========
Gal Elidan – Hebrew University
Amir Globerson – Hebrew University

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
==============
Jeff Bilmes – Univ. of Washington
Rina Dechter – UC Irvine
Peter Grunwald – CWI
Isabelle Guyon – Clopinet
Peter Spirtes – CMU

Funded PhD position in Data Mining and e-health — University of Saint-Etienne, France (+ Univ of Tokyo)

The University of Saint-Etienne (France) invites applications for a *fully funded 3-year PhD position* at the Hubert-Curien lab.

Main points of the studentship:
*Data mining on stress and emotion information and e-health communities
*Starting date is about October, 1st 2010.
*In cooperation with the University of Tokyo (Living Environment Laboratory)

This project concerns the design of new data mining algorithms to exploit the symbolic data resulting from stress and emotion data transformation, in order to make discoveries (abnormal evolution signs, regular patterns, etc.). This knowledge will be used in e-health community services to implement scenarios such as user support, group debriefing, emergency processes.

The selected candidate will join the machine learning group composed of about 20 researchers working at the crossroads of data mining, machine learning, information retrieval and social networks.

Candidates must have demonstrable interest and expertise in data mining as well as in knowledge modeling and e-health. A background in psychology is highly desirable but not essential. A good level in English is also essential. Some interest in the Japanese culture is also desirable. Applicants should have or be in the process of getting a *Master’s degree in Computer Science*.

Applications with a CV (including grades of the last two academic years) should be sent to:
pierre.maret@univ-st-etienne.fr and fabrice.muhlenbach@univ-st-etienne.fr
by April, 18th 2010 at the latest.

*Some links:*
-Research team : http://labh-curien.univ-st-etienne.fr/MachineLearning/index.php
-Some facts about Saint-Etienne can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Étienne.
-Saint Etienne is a medium size city near Lyon, France.
-The University of Saint Etienne is a member of the University of Lyon consortium.
-The closest airport is Lyon Saint Exupéry (http://www.lyon.aeroport.fr).
-The city is surrounded by the Pilat Regional Parc in which almost any outdoor activity can be practiced (http://www.parc-naturel-pilat.fr/eng/).
-From a cultural point of view, the art museum in Saint-Etienne holds the second national contemporary art collection, and classical music concerts, dance shows, and operas are performed at the Saint-Etienne “Massenet Opera” (http://www.decouvrez-le-votre.com/).

ECML PKDD 2010 INDUSTRIAL SESSION – Call For Participation

ECML PKDD 2010 INDUSTRIAL SESSION – Call For Participation

The European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles
and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases

September 24, 2010
Barcelona, Spain
http://www.ecmlpkdd2010.org/

ECML PKDD is among the premier scientific forums in machine learning
and data mining: we invite you to participate in the
ECML PKDD 2010 Industrial Session, consisting of invited presentations
on selected topics in machine learning and data mining from industry
perspective, and a panel on the future research challenges and
opportunities in data mining and machine learning from leading
experts in industry.

Invited Speakers
—————-
Rakesh Agrawal (Microsoft Search Labs)
Mayank Bawa (Aster Data)
Ignasi Belda (Intelligent Pharma)
Michael Berthold (KNIME)
Thore Graepel (Microsoft Research)
Alejandro Jaimes (Yahoo! Research)

Chairs
——
Taneli Mielikainen (Nokia)
Hugo Zaragoza (Yahoo! Research)

Follow ECML PKDD news on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ecmlpkdd10

2 Job offers at the Berlin BCI group

The Machine Learning Dept. (headed by Klaus-Robert Müller) at TU Berlin offers
two research positions in a EU-funded project (“TOBI”) centered around topics of
Brain-Computer Interfaces. The positions are for PhD students or a Postdoc
researcher.

Key words: Berlin Brain-Computer Interface, Machine Learning, EEG Analysis,
Mental State Monitoring, Gaming.

From: now
To: October 2012

Please find more detailed information under

* (PhD or Postdoc)

* (PhD)

PASCAL Bootcamp – First call for participation

Pascal2 Machine Learning Bootcamp – Marseille France
First call for participation

The LIF-Marseille organises the second machine learning bootcamp of the European Network of Excellence PASCAL (Pattern Analysis, Statistical modelling and ComputAtional Learning) . This school will be held during summer 2010, from July 5th (afternoon) to July 13th (morning), on the campus of Saint Charles in Marseille.

Objective and Targeted Audience
——————————-
The bootcamp is an international event which consists in a week of course (lectures, practical and lab sessions) designed for Master students or students just about to start a PhD. It aims at training good-level students from various scientific fields to major thematics of PASCAL network, particularly machine learning.

Preliminary Program
————————-
* Introduction to Machine Learning
* Probability and Mathematical Needs
* Graphical Models
* Kernel Methods
* Machine Learning for Natural Language Processing
* Clustering
* On-Line Learning

Accommodation
————
We have booked 10 shared rooms with 4 beds each in an hotel in the centre of Marseilles (close to the port), the hotel is totally reserved for the bootcamp participants during one week. The hotel, Breakfasts and lunches (except the lunch of Sunday 11) are included and covered by our sponsors, only the dinners are at your own expense.

Inscription
————
Due to the limited number of available rooms, we may select the candidates, see the website for more details.
Application deadline: 15th May 2010.

Website
——-
http://bootcamp.lif.univ-mrs.fr

Previous Bootcamp
—————–
Barcelona during summer 2007.
http://lsi.epsevg.upc.es/~bootcamp07

Program Committee
—————————
* John Shawe-Taylor, University College London
* Colin de la Higuera, Université de Nantes
* François Denis, Université de Provence
* José Luis Balcázar, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
* Alexis Nasr, Université de la Méditerranée
* Rémi Eyraud, Université de Provence

Sponsors
——–
PASCAL2 Network of Excellence
Laboratoire d’Informatique Fondamentale de Marseille
Université de la Méditerannée
Université de Provence

Pattern recognition challenges in neuroimaging

1st ICPR workshop on brain decoding:
Pattern recognition challenges in neuroimaging
In conjunction with the 20th International Conference on Pattern Recognition
August 22, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey

http://miplab.unige.ch/icpr2010/

Many of the challenges facing brain decoding are also highly relevant to
the field of pattern recognition at large – classification of multivariate
time-series, dimensionality reduction, and causal modelling to name a few.

This workshop wants to bring together researchers in pattern recognition
and neuroimaging for fruitful exchanges of experiences and recent
developments in brain decoding, both on the methodological side and the
application side. The temporal and spatial proximity with the leading
pattern recognition conference ICPR is a great opportunity to learn about
newest scientific developments in order to expand brain decoding methodology.

SCOPE
The topics of interest include:
* Data representations for brain decoding
– Voxel and feature selection
– Linear and non-linear dimensionality reduction
– Sparse timecourse representations
* Classifiers for high-dimensional learning
– Regularisation schemes
– Subspace methods
– Interpretability and validation
* Applications of brain decoding
– Visual processing
– Man-machine interfaces
– Clinical applications
– Deception detection

SUBMISSION AND PROCEEDINGS
Authors should prepare full 4-pages papers (double-column, IEEE style).
Manuscripts will be evaluated by 2 reviewers.

Proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Science Society in electronic
format. They will be permantently available on the IEEExplore and IEEE CS
Digital Library online repositories, and indexed in IEE INSPEC, EI
Compendex (Elsevier), and others.

DATES AND DEADLINES
– April 8, 2010: Paper submission deadline (extended)
– May 8, 2010: Acceptance Notification
– May 14, 2010: Early registration deadline
– June 1, 2010: Camera-ready paper due
– August 22, 2010: Workshop

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Rafeef Abugharbieh, University of British Columbia (Canada)
Tulay Adali, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (USA)
John Ashburner, University College London (UK)
Mick Brammer, King’s College London (UK)
Vince Calhoun, Yale University (USA)
Thomas Ethofer, University of Tübingen (Germany)
Christian Gaser, University of Jena (Germany)
Ghassan Hamarneh, Simon Fraser University (Canada)
David Hardoon, Institute for Infocomm Research (Singapore)
Krzysztof Kryszczuk, IBM Research Zürich (Switzerland)
Raghu Machiraju, Ohio State University (USA)
Andre Marquand, King’s College London (UK)
Julien Meynet, Yahoo! research (France)
Torsten Möller, Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Joao Sato, Federal University of ABC (Brazil)
Sophie Schwartz, University of Geneva (Switzerland)
Stephen Strother, University of Toronto (Canada)
Bertrand Thirion, NeuroSpin Paris (France)
Marc Van Hulle, K.U. Leuven (Belgium)
Patrik Vuilleumier, University of Geneva (Switzerland)

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Jonas Richiardi, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
and University of Geneva (Swizerland)
Dimitri Van De Ville, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
and University of Geneva (Switzerland)
Christos Davatzikos, University of Pennsylvania (USA)
Janaina Mourão-Miranda, University College London and King’s College
London (UK)
contact: wbd2010 _AT_ listes.epfl.ch

CLEF-Lab on Plagiarism Detection and Wikipedia Vandalism Detection, PAN’10

Call for Participation:
Evaluation Campaign on Plagiarism Detection and Wikipedia Vandalism Detection

held in conjunction with the CLEF’10 conference
in Padua, Italy, September 20-23
http://pan.webis.de

About the Campaign:

Plagiarism detection in text documents is a challenging retrieval task:
today’s detection systems are faced with intricate situations, such as
obfuscated plagiarism or plagiarism within and across languages.
Moreover, the source of a plagiarism case may be hidden in a large
collection of documents, or it may not be available at all. Informally,
the respective CLEF-Lab task can be described as follows:

1. Plagiarism Detection. Given a set of suspicious documents and a set
of source documents, the task is to find all plagiarized sections
in the suspicious documents and, if available, the corresponding
source sections.

Following the success of the 2009 campaign and based on our experience
we will provide a revised evaluation corpus consisting of artificial and
simulated plagiarism.

Vandalism has always been one of Wikipedia’s biggest problems. However,
the detection of vandalism is done mostly manually by volunteers, and
research on automatic vandalism detection is still in its infancy.
Hence, solutions are to be developed which aid Wikipedians in their
efforts. Informally, the respective CLEF-Lab task can be described as
follows:

2. Wikipedia Vandalism Detection. Given a set of edits on Wikipedia
articles, the task is to identify all edits which are vandalism,
i.e., all edits whose editors had bad intentions.

Participants are invited to submit results for one or both of the tasks.

Important Dates:

open Registration
Jun 01, 2010 Result submission deadline
Jun 15, 2010 Notification of performance
Jul 15, 2010 Paper submission deadline
Aug 02, 2010 Notification of reviews
Sep 01, 2010 Final paper deadline
Sep 20-23, 2010 Evaluation lab at CLEF conference

Campaign Organization:

Webis @ Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
http://www.webis.de

NLEL @ Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
http://www.dsic.upv.es/grupos/nle

University of the Aegean
http://www.icsd.aegean.gr/lecturers/stamatatos

Bar-Ilan University
http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~koppel

Contact:

E-mail: pan(at)webis.de
Campaign Web page: http://pan.webis.de