###################################################################### SECOND CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Machine Learning for Assistive Technologies a workshop in conjunction with 24th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2010) December 10 2010 Whistler, BC, Canada http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~jhoey/mlat-nips2010 Deadline for Submissions: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 Notification of Decision: Wednesday, November 3, 2010 ##################################################################### Workshop Goals ------------------------ This workshop will expose the research area of assistive technology to machine learning specialists, will provide a forum for machine learning researchers and medical/industrial practitioners to brainstorm about the main challenges, and will lead to developments of new research ideas and directions in which machine learning approaches are applied to complex assistive technology problems. The workshop will discuss important open questions aimed at the next five years of research in a number of key areas. More details follow below. Invited Talks ------------------ Prasad Tadepalli, Oregon State University will speak from the machine learning perspective Matthai Philipose, Intel Corp, will speak from the industrial perspective Overview: --------------- This workshop will expose the research area of assistive technology to machine learning specialists, will provide a forum for machine learning researchers and medical/industrial practitioners to brainstorm about the main challenges, and will lead to developments of new research ideas and directions in which machine learning approaches are applied to complex assistive technology problems. The workshop will discuss important open questions aimed at the next five years of research in a number of key areas, for example 1) What are the main bottlenecks that are currently holding back complex assistive technologies from being widely deployed/used? The argument to be presented and discussed at the workshop is that the application of adaptivity and machine learning is one of these bottlenecks. However, other viewpoints will be presented and discussed. 2) Do assistive technologies need some new type of machine learning? Are there any new machine learning problems or is it mostly a matter of adapting existing machine learning techniques to assistive technologies? A key challenge for assistive technologies is the detection of novel or changing patterns of behavior. Are existing novelty detection, feature selection and unsupervised learning techniques sufficient to handle this challenge? 3) What are the bottlenecks for the scaling of machine learning techniques for the assistive technology domain? More precisely, how can ML algorithms scale to large domains both in terms of state, action and observation spaces, and in terms of temporal extent? Unsupervised learning, feature selection, distributivity, and hierarchy are obvious choices. However, user adaptability and customizability, the appropriate integration of prior knowledge, and the rapid and inexpensive deployment of large sensor networks (including cameras) also play a significant role. Workshop Format --------------- Participants will be machine learning specialists with an interest in expanding their research profile into the area of assistive technology, existing researchers in AT, practitioners in occupational therapy with an interest in machine learning, and technology developers with an interest in further developing their application area into this novel field of research. The main focus of the workshop will be on discussions and brainstorming sessions of breakout groups with the explicit goal of identifying demands from the field of AT, and ML related research topics that will help to overcome current bottlenecks for successful AT approaches. The workshop will consist of invited talks from two perspectives (medical/industrial and academic/research) to be given by experts from the field. Participants of the workshop will be asked to submit short or long papers. Accepted papers will briefly be presented orally in short (spotlight) sessions. Accompanying posters will be displayed throughout the whole workshop. The workshop will then define breakout discussion topics, and will allocate participants to groups for brainstorming sessions, closing with presentations and discussions. Significant time will be allocated to these breakout discussions and the presentations of their findings. Submissions: ------------------- We welcome the following types of papers: 1. 6-8 page research papers that describe research in machine learning as applied to assistive technology 2. 6-8 page research papers that describe studies of assistive technology, emphasising the role (or potential role) of learning. 3. 2 page position statements or research abstacts from academia or industry describing particular approaches or research techniques and tools Accepted papers will be presented as posters. Exceptional work will be considered for oral presentation. Papers do not need to be blinded and will be reviewed by the organising committee for suitability in the workshop. Papers will be collected and distributed as workshop notes (non-archival) at the conference. If the papers are of sufficient quantity and quality, we will seek to publish them as an edited book or journal special issue. All submissions should adhere to NIPS format (http://nips.cc/PaperInformation/StyleFiles). Please email your submissions to: mlat.nips2...@gmail.com Deadline for Submissions: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 Notification of Decision: Wednesday, November 3, 2010 Organizers: ----------- Jesse Hoey, University of Waterloo, jh...@cs.uwaterloo.ca Pascal Poupart, University of Waterloo, ppoup...@cs.uwaterloo.ca Thomas Plotz, Newcastle University, t.plo...@ncl.ac.uk We look forward to receiving your submissions! _______________________________________________ uai mailing list uai@ENGR.ORST.EDU https://secure.engr.oregonstate.edu/mailman/listinfo/uai