December 2012 - SIPTA News - lists.sipta.org

[SIPTA] FW: IFSA/NAFIPS 2013

by Kreinovich

Dec. 29, 2012

[SIPTA] Progic 2013: Combining probability and logic to solve philosophical problems, Munich, 17-18 Sept. 2013

by Niki Pfeifer

Call for papers --------------- Progic 2013: The Sixth Workshop on Combining Probability and Logic "Combining probability and logic to solve philosophical problems" Workshop website: www.pfeifer-research.de/progic/ Introduction ------------ The Sixth Workshop on Combining Probability and Logic (progic 2013) continues the progic workshop series (www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/jw/progic.htm) Progic 2013 takes place on September 17 and 18, 2013. The workshop location is the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, which is located at the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich. The workshop is financially supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and hosted by the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Progic 2013 focuses on "Combining probability and logic to solve philosophical problems". Topics include but are not restricted to -) acceptability -) argument strength -) belief revision -) conditionals -) conditionalization -) counterfactuals -) information -) probability logic Scholars who combine probability and logic to elaborate new solutions to philosophical problems are invited to submit an extended abstract (two pages) for presentation at the workshop (40 min. talk, 10 min. discussion). Contributors should indicate if they are prepared to submit a paper to the progic 2013 special issue in the Journal of Applied Logic. Invited speakers are Igor Douven (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen), Alan Hájek (School of Philosophy, Australian National University), Kevin T. Kelly (Center for Formal Epistemology, Carnegie Mellon University), Hannes Leitgeb (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich), and Peter Milne (Department of Philosophy, University of Stirling). Invited talks ------------- -) Igor Douven: Conditionals and closure. Abstract: www.pfeifer-research.de/progic/abstracts.html#douven -) Alan Hájek: Probabilities of counterfactuals and counterfactual probabilities. Abstract: www.pfeifer-research.de/progic/abstracts.html#hajek -) Kevin T. Kelly and Hanti Lin: Qualitative reasoning that tracks Jeffrey conditioning. Abstract: www.pfeifer-research.de/progic/abstracts.html#kelly -) Hannes Leitgeb Belief: and stable probability. Abstract: www.pfeifer-research.de/progic/abstracts.html#leitgeb -) Peter Milne: Information, confirmation, and conditionals. Abstract: www.pfeifer-research.de/progic/abstracts.html#milne Important dates --------------- Deadline for extended abstracts: April 15, 2013 Notification of acceptance of extended abstracts: May 1, 2013 Deadline for full papers: September 1, 2013 Workshop dates: September 17-18, 2013 Notification of acceptance of full papers: November 15, 2013 Deadline for final versions of full papers: December 15, 2013 The extended abstracts (max. two pages) should be sent in PDF format to niki(dot)pfeifer(at)lrz(dot)uni-muenchen(dot)de Local organizer --------------- Niki Pfeifer (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich) Steering committee ----------------- Jeff Helzner (Department Philosophy, Columbia University) Niki Pfeifer (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich) Jan-Willem Romeijn (Department of Philosophy, University of Groningen) Gregory Wheeler (Centre for Research in Artificial Intelligence, New University of Lisbon) Jon Williamson (Department of Philosophy & Centre for Reasoning, University of Kent) -- Dr.Dr. Niki Pfeifer www.pfeifer-research.de Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (Germany)

Dec. 26, 2012

[SIPTA] REGISTRATION - BFAS Spring School on Belief Functions Theory and Applications

by Arnaud Martin

Dec. 22, 2012

[SIPTA] Workshop: SIMRIDE 2013 - 1st Announcement

by Matthias Troffaes

Dear SIPTA colleagues, Durham is organising a workshop on simulation and decision making - see announcement below. Contributions linking imprecise probability to simulation are obviously also very welcome. Registration is not open yet, but if you are interested, please drop me an email. Cheers, Matthias --- [Apologies for cross-posting] http://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/users/matthias.troffaes/simride2013/ The Department of Mathematical Sciences and the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Durham University, organise a workshop on uncertainty quantification and data assimilation in numerical simulation of physical systems for risk-informed decision making; in short, simulation for risk-informed decisions, or SIMRIDE. The workshop will run from Monday 18 March until Thursday 21 March 2013. Key to solving many large industrial scale problems is assimilation of data along with real-time simulation of a physical system, combined with uncertainty quantification to allow risk-informed decisions to be made. Often these systems are highly non-linear and require vast computing power, which presents a serious challenge to assimilation of data in real-time, and to quantify uncertainty bounds resulting from model uncertainty and measurement error. A major aim of SIMRIDE is to facilitate the link between industry and academia. The workshop will consist of talks by people from both camps, with ample time for discussion in a relaxed environment. The themes of each day are as follows: * Monday: Risk & Decision (keynote by Simon Blake, ECS, UK) * Tuesday: Extreme Events (keynote by David Randell, Shell, UK) * Wednesday: Simulation (keynote by Michael Goldstein, Maths, Durham) * Thursday: Energy (keynote by Robert Jeffers, Idaho National Laboratory, US) A list of currently confirmed speakers and titles of talks is at: http://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/users/matthias.troffaes/simride2013/programme.ht… There will be a formal workshop dinner on Tuesday 19 March. Everyone, including PhD students, is welcome to participate and/or to present their views. Registration for the first 25 places on this workshop is free, as these places are funded by an EPSRC grant. Once these places have been used up, a fee of around 150 GBP will be charged. Registration covers coffee & biscuits during breaks, buffet lunch, the workshop dinner and conference materials. If you require any further information, then please do not hesitate to contact one of the organisers. Best wishes, Matthias Troffaes (matthias.troffaes(a)gmail.com) Grant Ingram (grant.ingram(a)durham.ac.uk)

Dec. 21, 2012

[SIPTA] PhD studentship on Belief Theory - EXTENDED TO JANUARY 15

by Fabio Cuzzolin

The Department of Computing and Communications Technologies at Oxford Brookes University is pleased to announce that it is able to offer a Doctoral Bursary to a new PhD student in for full time study commencing in January 2013. The successful applicant will have course fees waived and will be awarded a bursary of £10,000 per annum for three years (with no inflation increase). The PhD project will be focus on decision making and estimation. These are central problems in most applied sciences, as both people and machines need to make inferences about the state of the external world, and take appropriate actions. Traditionally, the (uncertain) state of the world is assumed to be described by a probability distribution over a set of alternative, disjoint hypotheses. Sometimes, however, as in the case of extremely rare events (e.g., a volcanic eruption), few statistics are available to drive the estimation. Part of the data can be missing. Furthermore, under the law of large numbers, probability distributions are the outcome of an infinite process of evidence accumulation, drawn from an infinite series of samples: in all practical cases, instead, the available evidence only provides some sort of constraint on the unknown probabilities governing the process. All these issues have led to the recognition of the need for a coherent mathematical theory of uncertainty. Shafer’s theory of belief functions, in particular, allows us to express partial belief by providing lower and upper bounds to probability values. It is appealing because it addresses all the above mentioned issues; its rationale is neat and simple; it is a straightforward generalization of probability theory; it does not require abandoning the notion of event. The widespread influence of uncertainty at different levels explains why belief functions are being increasingly applied to fields as diverse as robotics, fault analysis, decision making, sensor fusion, machine vision, and many more. Mathematically, a belief function is a random set, i.e. a probability distribution on the power set (the collection of all subsets). Equivalent alternative interpretations can be given in terms of compatibility relations, inner measures, and sum functions. However, the necessary mathematical tools for prediction and estimation in this framework have only partially been developed yet, due to their inherent complexity: this is the case, in particular, for the generalization of the classical total probability theorem to belief functions. The aim of this studentship is to study the mathematical properties of belief functions, and give a contribution towards the development of crucial tools such as the total belief theorem. Informal requests: fabio.cuzzolin(a)brookes.ac.uk Formal applications: follow the instructions here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AFL096/phd-studentship/ and contact jheaton(a)brookes.ac.uk -- Best, Fabio Dr Fabio Cuzzolin Head of Artificial Intelligence Group Department of Computing and Communication Technologies Oxford Brookes University Oxford, UK http://cms.brookes.ac.uk/staff/FabioCuzzolin/ +44 (0)1865 484526

Dec. 13, 2012

[SIPTA] IUKM 2013: Paper Submission Deadline Extension (24 Dec 2012)

by Thierry Denoeux

We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this message. Just a friendly reminder to those interested participants, due to numerous requests and for giving opportunity for more participation, the deadline of paper submission has been extended to 24th December 2012. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ IUKM2013 3rd International Symposium on Integrated Uncertainty in Knowledge Modelling and Decision Making Beijing, 10-12 May, 2013 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Important dates: -------------------- -Paper Submission (Full Paper): 24 December 2012 -Notification of Acceptance: 20 January 2013 -Final Paper Submission: 15 February 2013 -Authors' Registration: 1 April 2013 -IUKM 2013 Conference Dates: 10-12 May 2013 Website: http://icmll.buaa.edu.cn/IUKM2013/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Following IUM 2010 in Ishikawa (Japan) and IUKM 2011 in Hangzhou (China), IUKM 2013 will be held at Beihang University, Beijing ,China between 10th and 12th of May 2013.IUKM 2013 aims to bring together worlds' specialists in the field of uncertainty management who will have an opportunity to debate throughout the conference and exchange research results, ideas as well as their experience towards developing applications. Objectives: -------------- Solving complex practical problems often requires the integration of data and knowledge from different relevant sources and further takes uncertainty and impreciseness into account. This gives rise to the demand for innovative methodologies and efficient techniques of managing and integrating various types of data and knowledge with uncertainty/imprecision so as to ultimately improve the solution to any such complex problems in practice. This symposium aims to provide a forum for exchanges of research results, ideas for and experience of application among researchers and practitioners involved with all aspects of uncertainty management and application. Its objectives are outlined as follows: -to bring together researchers working on uncertainty formalisms in information and knowledge systems; -to attract researchers working in social sciences (economics, business, management and environmental sciences) who are interested in applying uncertainty-related tools and techniques; -to bring together researchers and practitioners in order to foster the collaboration on research and application involving uncertainty management; and -to present and discuss open research problems and novel applications. Topics: --------- IUKM2013 calls for papers that report original research results on (but are is limited to) the following topics: Theory and Methodology: -Uncertainty formalisms: Bayesian probability, Dempster-Shafer theory, imprecise probability, random sets, rough sets, fuzzy sets and interval methods; logics for uncertainty reasoning -Information fusion and knowledge integration in uncertain environments -Decision making under various types of uncertainty -Aggregation operators -Copulas for dependence modelling -Granular and soft computing -Type-2 Fuzz set Applications: -Data mining and knowledge discovery -Ontology engineering and Semantic Web -Software engineering -Medical informatics and bioinformatics -Ranking and recommendation systems -Kansei engineering and evaluation -Engineering management -Supply chain management -Management of services -Environmental and economics sciences -Social Network Analysis -Social Network Mining Abstract and Paper Submission: --------------------------------------- Electronic abstract and paper should be submitted through the IUKM 2013 submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iukm2013. If you can't login the submission system, please try to submit through email: Email: iukm2013(a)gmail.com (.pdf and .doc) The proceedings of IUKM 2013 will be published by Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence from Springer. The Best Paper Award of IUKM 2013 is sponsored by Elsevier and after the Symposium, the authors of the best ranked papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their work for consideration in a special issue of International Journal of Approximate Reasoning from Elsevier.

Dec. 6, 2012

[SIPTA] ISIPTA'13: Call for papers and posters

by ISIPTA2013

============================================================================= ISIPTA '13 - CALL FOR PAPERS ============================================================================= Your help with circulating this announcement locally is much appreciated. Apologies for multiple postings. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ISIPTA '13 8th International Symposium on Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications Tuesday 2 to Friday 5 July 2013 Monday 1st: tutorials Université de Technologie de Compiegne Compiegne, France http://www.sipta.org/isipta13 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear colleague(s), We would like to draw your attention to the 8th International Symposium on Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications, which be held at the Université de Technologie de Compiegne from July 2 to July 5, 2013. In addition, a tutorial afternoon is organized the 1st july, with the following speakers: - Thierry Denoeux, université de Technologie de Compiègne - Matthias Troffaes, Durham university The ISIPTA meetings are one of the primary international forums to present and discuss new results on the theories and applications of imprecise probability. Imprecise probability is a generic term for the many mathematical or statistical models which allow us to measure chance or uncertainty without using sharp numerical probabilities. These models include lower and upper expectations or previsions, interval valued probabilities, sets of probability measures, belief functions, Choquet capacities, fuzzy measures, comparative probability orderings, possibility measures, plausibility measures, and sets of desirable gambles. Imprecise probability models are needed in inference and decision problems where the relevant information is scarce, vague or conflicting, and where preferences may be incomplete. In this edition, we are particularly interested in contributions dealing with the connection between belief functions and other imprecise probabilistic models, as well as by contributions concerning real-world applications emphasizing the advantages and challenges of using imprecise probability theories in them. CALL FOR PAPERS and POSTERS ONLY ABSTRACTS For your convenience, a detailed call. It can also be found at http://www.sipta.org/isipta13/isipta13_call_for_papers.pdf Two kinds of submission can be done to ISIPTA: - full reviewed papers who will be included in the proceedings - abstract of posters presenting preliminary work or possible applications For further details about (pre)registration, paper submission, program committee, scientific and social program visit the ISIPTA '13 web site at http://www.sipta.org/isipta13/. IJAR SPECIAL ISSUE Following the conference, a selection of extended papers will appear in a special issue of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning. IJAR YOUNG RESEARCHER AWARD We invite applications for the "IJAR Young Researcher Award", which is granted by the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning (IJAR), elsevier. The award is open to Master students, PhD students and young post-doc researchers who received their PhD after ISIPTA'11 and who have demonstrated excellence in research on imprecise probabilities (Career stage is taken into account in the judgment). More details will be found soon on the website. IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission deadline: 3 February 2013. Posters only abstract submission deadline: 21 April 2013 Symposium: July 2-5, 2013. ISIPTA/ECSQARU JOINT ACTIONS The ECSQARU 2013 conference (http://www.projects.science.uu.nl/ecsqaru/index.html) will be held in Utrecht from Sunday 7 to Wednesday 10 July 2013. As some of the themes of the two conferences are closely related, we propose the following joint actions: - a reduced fee to attend both conferences, including the travel from Compiegne to Utrecht by bus; - in each conference, tutorial and talks concerning themes; - a workshop on sunday 7th July about bridges and connections between topics usually treated in one (but not both) of the conferences. More information can be found on the respective websites of the conferences. INVITED SPEAKERS The following invited speakers have confirmed their venue: - Alessio Benavoli, IDSIA, Lugano - Linda van der Gaag, Utrecht Universiteït - Christophe Labreuche, Thales industry - Jean-Marc Tallon, Sorbonne STEERING COMMITTEE Fabio Cozman (Sao paulo University, Brazil) Thierry Denoeux (Université de Technologie de Compiegne, France) Sébastien Destercke (Université de Technologie de Compiegne, France) Thomas Fetz (Innsbruck University, Austria) Serafin Moral (Granada University, Spain) Teddy Seidenfeld (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) Matthias Troffaes (Durham University, UK) QUESTIONS If you have any questions about the symposium and/or about related events, please send an email to isipta13(a)hds.utc.fr, or at the following address: Sébastien Destercke, Université de Technologie de Compiegne, Centre de recherche de Royallieu, 60200 Compiègne, France. For more information about SIPTA, the international organisation responsible for organizing both the ISIPTA meetings and the SIPTA Schools on Imprecise Probabilities, please consult the SIPTA web site at http://www.sipta.org. The ISIPTA 2013 Steering Committee

Dec. 5, 2012

[SIPTA] ECSQARU 2013 in Utrecht, The Netherlands (Call for Papers)

by Gaag

Dec. 3, 2012