November 2023 - SIPTA News - lists.sipta.org

Re: The 8th International Conference on Belief Functions (BELIEF 2024)
by Kreinovich, Vladik Nov. 28, 2023

Nov. 28, 2023

FYI, belief functions are an important particular case of imprecise probabilities From: Thierry Denoeux <thierry.denoeux(a)utc.fr<mailto:thierry.denoeux@utc.fr>> Sent: Monday, November 27, 2023 10:49 PM -- ****** Call for Papers ****** https://bfasociety.org/Belief2024/<https://antiphishing.vadesecure.com/v4?f=ZURHSDhnY0huQ2tPS3VZai6lZy1SHhe47J…> The 8th International Conference on Belief Functions (BELIEF 2024) Dates: September 4th-6th, 2024 Location: Belfast, Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK * April 15, 2024: Paper submission deadline * May 31, 2024: Author notification * June 30, 2024: Camera-ready copy due ================================================================ The theory of belief functions, also referred to as evidence theory or Dempster-Shafer theory, was first introduced by Arthur P. Dempster in the context of statistical inference, and was later developed by Glenn Shafer as a general framework for modeling epistemic uncertainty generalizing Bayesian probability theory. These early contributions have been the starting points of many important theoretical and practical developments. The theory of belief functions is now well established as a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, and with applications in machine learning, statistical inference, information fusion, knowledge representation, risk analysis, etc. It has well understood connections with other frameworks such as probability, possibility and imprecise probability theories. The biennial BELIEF conferences (sponsored by the Belief Functions and Applications Society https://www.bfasociety.org/<https://antiphishing.vadesecure.com/v4?f=ZURHSDhnY0huQ2tPS3VZai6lZy1SHhe47J…>) are dedicated to the confrontation of ideas, the reporting of recent achievements and the presentation of the wide range of applications of this theory. Previous editions of this conference series were held in Brest, France (2010); in Compiègne, France (2012); in Oxford, UK (2014); in Prague, Czech Republic (2016); in Compiègne, France (2018); in Shanghai, China (2021); and in Paris, France (2022). The Eighth International Conference on Belief Functions (BELIEF 2024) will be held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, on September 4th-6th, 2024. To support cross-fertilization among researchers working in different subfields of AI and related disciplines, tutorials and special sessions will be proposed and dedicated to the links between machine learning and uncertain reasoning, including topics such as quantification of prediction uncertainty, fusion rules for ensemble learning, belief propagation over deep neural networks, links with explainable and symbolic AI, etc. Submissions of papers combining several of these topics, or more generally at the cross-road of belie functions and other AI methods or uncertainty theories, along with relevant applications, are welcome. =========== Proceedings =========== Proceedings of the previous editions of BELIEF have been published by Springer-Verlag as volumes of the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI) series and indexed by: ISI Web of Science; EI Engineering Index; ACM Digital Library; dblp; Google Scholar; IO-Port; MathSciNet; Scopus; Zentralblatt MATH. The Springer-Verlag has confirmed that the BELIEF2024’s proceedings will be continually published in the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI). ================== IJAR Special issue ================== Authors of selected papers from the BELIEF 2024 conference will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for possible inclusion in a special issue of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning. ======================================= BELIEF 2024 Program Committee co-chairs ======================================= Dr Yaxin Bi (y.bi(a)ulster.ac.uk<mailto:y.bi@ulster.ac.uk>), Ulster University, UK Dr Anne-Laure Jousselme (anne-laure.jousselme(a)csgroup.eu<mailto:anne-laure.jousselme@csgroup.eu>), CS Group, France ---------- ---------- Prof. Thierry Denoeux Université de technologie de Compiègne Institut universitaire de France Rue Roger Couttolenc, CS 60319 60203 Compiègne cedex, France https://www.hds.utc.fr/~tdenoeux

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SIPTA seminar on the 28th November: Causality and credal networks.
by sdesterc Nov. 22, 2023

Nov. 22, 2023

Dear colleagues, We are delighted to announce our upcoming SIPTA online seminar on imprecise probabilities (IP). These monthly events are open to anyone interested in IP, and will be followed by a Q&A and open discussion. They also provide an occasion for the community to meet, keep in touch and exchange between in-person events. The next seminar will take place on the 28th of November (Tuesday). The zoom link for this seminar is https://utc-fr.zoom.us/j/85152847934 For this new seminar, we are very happy to have Alessandro Antonucci as our speaker. Alessandro Antonucci is a senior researcher at IDSIA (Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale) in Lugano. Alessandro is a very strong expert in uncertainty reasoning, focusing on graphical models, their inference and interpretation. Very well-known for his work on graphical models using imprecise probabilities, some of his most recent works explore the links between the notion of causality and imprecise probabilistic models. On the 28h of November, at 15:00 Paris time (up to 17:00, with a talk duration of 45min/1h), he will talk about "Structural Causal Models are (Solvable by) Credal Networks”. Curious? Then check out the abstract on the webpage of the SIPTA seminars: sipta.org/events/sipta-seminars. The zoom link for attending the seminar can be found on that same page. So please mark your calendars on the 28th of November, and join us for the occasion. And for those who missed the previous seminar and want to catch up, or simply want to see it again and again, it is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhKYP8BMQNM&t See you at the seminar! Sébastien, Enrique and Jasper

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Falsifiability
by Marco Zaffalon Nov. 21, 2023

Nov. 21, 2023

Dear SIPTAnts, I’m not sure this is “news”, but I’d still like to raise a point. It’s for those of you who care to connect probability to the real world. The point is that science needs falsifiability. And purely probabilistic models aren’t really falsifiable, they’re at most improbable. This appears to be a major reason why we have all these theories of probability, and the related communities, and there’s no way to prove anyone wrong. Which is good for our careers, and less so with regard to progress. Contrast this with structural causal modelling. When we put forward a causal graph (a theory), any of its arcs is either right or wrong. This we can often test experimentally, or by other means. We correct the model, re-test and iterate, eventually consolidating our model of the world. Probability still plays a role there, although one of secondary importance. So it seems to me that the scientific method is based on causality rather than probability. I guess I’m not saying anything new. I just wanted to make the point; to me it seemed something worth reflecting on. Bests Marco

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Fwd: GAMM Annual meeting 2024 - section on uncertainty quantification, call for abstracts
by Enrique Miranda Nov. 15, 2023

Nov. 15, 2023

Dear Siptians, They send me information about a section on uncertainty quantification at the GAMM annual meeting organised by Kerstin Lux from TU Eindhoven and Lorenzo Tamellini from CNR in Pavia, telling me that they welcome the participation of researchers on imprecise probabilities. Information can be found below. Best wishes, Quique ==================== Dear colleagues, We are happy to announce that the submission of abstracts to the uncertainty quantification section of the upcoming GAMM annual meeting**has opened: https://jahrestagung.gamm.org/annual-meeting-2024/94th-annual-meeting/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://jahrestagung.gamm.org/annual-meeting-20…> * *When? *March 18-22, 2024. * *Where?* Magdeburg, Germany. * *Deadline for submission of abstracts?* December 1st, 2023. We are excited to announce our four keynote speakers: * *Omar Knio (KAUST, Saudi Arabia):* “Dynamical and neural network approaches to downscaling of noisy and partial observations” * *Linus Seelinger (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany):* “UM-Bridge: Bridging the Gap between Advanced UQ and Advanced Models from Prototype to HPC” * *Elisabeth Ullmann (TU Munich, Germany):* "Rare event estimation with PDE-based models" * *Carlo Marcati (University of Pavia, Italy):* "Neural network surrogates for elliptic PDEs" We are looking forward to seeing many of you in Magdeburg. It will be a great chance to connect to the GAMM Activity Group on uncertainty quantification and discuss the latest advances in the field. Best regards, Kerstin Lux-Gottschalk (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands), Lorenzo Tamellini (CNR IMATI, Italy)

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European Workshop on Uncertainty in Machine Learning (WUML 2024)
by Yusuf Sale Nov. 4, 2023

Nov. 4, 2023

Dear colleagues, on February 19-21, 2024, we are organizing the European “Workshop on Uncertainty in Machine Learning” (WUML 2024) in Munich, Germany. The last two editions of this workshop were held in Ghent in 2023 and Compiegne in 2021 with the last edition in Ghent attracting roughly 60 participants. With this email, we kindly invite you to attend WUML 2024. Like the previous workshop in Ghent, this is an informal event without a paper submission system. Every participant will have the choice to give a talk, present a poster, or just attend the workshop without a presentation. We have been able to collect some funding to cover the costs for coffee breaks and lunches, so we are happy to announce that attending the workshop will not involve any registration fee. Preliminary information about WUML 2024 can be found under the following link: https://sites.google.com/view/wuml2024/ We start on February 19th around noon and finish on February 21st with lunch. After lunch, the rooms will still be available for informal discussions and project meetings. If you like to attend, we ask you to confirm your presence before January 19th, 2024, using the following form: https://sites.google.com/view/wuml2024/registratio <https://sites.google.com/view/wuml2024/registration>n In case of any further questions at this stage, please contact us! Finally, do not hesitate to forward this invitation to any of your colleagues or PhD students who might be interested in attending. Kind regards, Eyke Hüllermeier Viktor Bengs Yusuf Sale Marcel Wever

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