NEWSLETTER ON DECISION AND REASONING UNDER UNCERTAINTY Issue 01-0002 Editors: Salem Benferhat, Henri Prade 20.07.2001 Back issues available at http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/etai/dru/index.html ****************************************************************** This newsletter contains links to the programs of the main uncertainty conferences of this summer: 1. ISIPTA '01 2. IFSA-NAFIPS'01 3. UAI-2001 4. ECSQARU-2001 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. ISIPTA '01 THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON IMPRECISE PROBABILITIES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA 26 - 29 June 2001 http://ippserv.rug.ac.be/isipta01 Encouraged by the success of the First International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications (ISIPTA '99, Ghent, Belgium, 30 June - 2 July 1999, see the web site http://ippserv.rug.ac.be/~isipta99 for more detailed information; see http://decsai.ugr.es/~smc/isipta99/proc/proceedings.html for an electronic version of the proceedings), we have decided to create a biennial series of ISIPTA conferences on imprecise probabilities, each to take place at a different location. The Second International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications (ISIPTA '01), has been held at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, from 26 till 29 June 2001. What is imprecise probability? ------------------------------ Imprecise probability is a generic term for the many mathematical models which measure chance or uncertainty without sharp numerical probabilities. These models include belief functions, Choquet capacities, comparative probability orderings, convex sets of probability measures, fuzzy measures, interval-valued probabilities, possibility measures, plausibility measures, and upper and lower expectations or previsions. Such models are needed in inference problems where the relevant information is scarce, vague or conflicting, and in decision problems where preferences may also be incomplete. See the IPP web site for introductory articles about imprecise probabilities, an extensive bibliography, and a collection of survey articles on special types of imprecise probability models. -------------- 2. IFSA / NAFIPS 2001 Vancouver, Canada July 25-28, 2001 Joint 9th IFSA World Congress and 20th NAFIPS International Conference of NAFIPS, the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society and IFSA, the International Fuzzy Systems Association http://morden.csee.usf.edu/Nafipsf/ifsanafips2001/home.html The past few years have witnessed a crystallization of soft computing as a distinct body of concepts and techniques oriented toward the conception and design of intelligent systems. Soft Computing is a partnership of fuzzy logic, neurocomputing and probabilistic reasoning, with the latter subsuming genetic algorithms, chaotic systems, belief networks and parts of learning theory. Within soft computing, the principal contribution of fuzzy logic is a methodology for exploiting the tolerance for imprecision to achieve tractability, robustness, low solution cost and better rapport with reality. Given the maturation of fuzzy logic, it is appropriate that this conference, the first international joint conference of NAFIPS and IFSA, is held in the new millennium to explore the future breakthroughs in fuzzy sets, fuzzy logic, and soft computing. PROGRAM: There will be excellent research talks, panels, and invited plenaries by Michio Sugeno, Burhan Turksen, and Lotfi Zadeh. The conference program will also include focused special sessions and general papers. Contributed papers will be reviewed based on content relevant to the theme of the conference. Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to: o Fuzzy Systems / sets / mathematics / control / databases / theory o Soft Computing / fuzzy neural networks / fuzzy pattern recognition o Learning / data mining / image processing o Applications for the new millennium / successful applications ---------------------- 3. UAI-2001: August 2-5, 2001 University of Washington Seattle, WA USA Conference hompage: http://robotics.stanford.edu/~uai01/ Uncertainty management is a key enabling technology for the development of intelligent systems. Since 1985, the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI) has been the primary international forum for exchanging results on the use of principled uncertain-reasoning methods in intelligent systems. The conference has catalyzed advances in fundamental theory, efficient algorithms, and practical applications. Theory and technology first presented at UAI have been proven by their wide application in the scientific, commercial, and industrial communities. The UAI Proceedings have become a fundamental reference for researchers and practitioners who want to know about both theoretical advances and the latest applied developments in the field. The scope of UAI is wide, covering a broad spectrum of approaches to automated reasoning, learning, decision making and knowledge acquisition under uncertainty. Contributions range from those that that advance theoretical principles to those that provide insights through the empirical study of applications, from quantitative to qualitative approaches, from traditional to non-classical paradigms for uncertain reasoning, and from autonomous systems to those designed to support human decision making. The Seventeenth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, UAI-2001, will be held from August, at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. The main technical program will be run from August 3-5, with UAI's regular tutorial program to be held on August 2nd. This year the conference will be co-located with IJCAI-01 - International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (http://www.boeing.com/nosearch/ijcai/index.html). ------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Sixth European Conference on Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with Uncertainty ECSQARU-2001 September 19th - 21th, 2001, Toulouse, France http://www.irit.fr/ECSQARU-2001/Ecsqaru-2001.html Reasoning under uncertainty is pervasive in all areas of Artificial Intelligence. The ECSQARU Conferences are, every two years, a major forum for advances in the theory and practice of reasoning under uncertainty. Contributions come both from researchers interested in advancing the technology and from practitioners who are using uncertainty techniques in applications. The previous Ecsqaru conferences that have been held in Marseille (1991), Granada (1993), Fribourg (1995), Bonn (1997), and London (1999). The 2001 ECSQARU Conference will be devoted to methods for reasoning and decision making under uncertainty, including both qualitative and numeric methods, as applied to problems in artificial intelligence. Workshops September 17th - 18 th, 2001 . Spatio-Temporal Reasoning and Geographic Information Systems . Management of uncertainty and imprecision in multimedia information systems . Adventures in Argumentation Inquiries: Salem Benferhat IRIT, Université Paul Sabatier 118 route de Narbonne 31062 Toulouse Cedex 04, France Tel: +33 5 61 55 85 51 Fax: +33 5 61 55 62 39 Email: benferhat@irit.fr Philippe Besnard IRIT, Université Paul Sabatier 118 route de Narbonne 31062 Toulouse Cedex 04, France Tel: +33 5 61 55 81 23 Fax: +33 5 61 55 62 39 Email: besnard@irit.fr Technical progrom and registration are available at: http://www.irit.fr/ECSQARU-2001/Ecsqaru-2001.html Proceedings are available as a LNCS-LNAI (Number 2143) volume, published by Springer Verlag.