The 7th Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Finance will take place at at the School of Management and Law of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in Winterthur, Switzerland on September 28, 2022.

The conference is organized by the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Physics (IAMP), the Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAI), the Institute of Data Analysis and Process Design (IDP) at the School of Engineering, and the Institute of Wealth & Asset Management (IWA) at the School of Management and Law of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).

The aim of this conference is to bring together academics, young researchers, students and industrial practitioners to discuss the application of Artificial Intelligence in Industry and Finance.

The conference consists of three streams of presentations that focus on the following fields:

• Artificial Intelligence in Finance
  Artificial Intelligence and Fintech challenges for the European banking and insurance industry.
• Artificial Intelligence in Industry
  Artificial Intelligence challenges of European companies from the mechanical and electrical industry, but also life sciences.
• Ethical Questions in Artificial Intelligence
  Issues arising in AI applications such as trust, explainability, neutrality, responsibility, moral consequences of algorithmic decisions.
• Academia-Industry Best Practices: General discussion of issues arising in academia-industry cooperations, and the role of Innosuisse in supporting these cooperations

If you want to find out more about the program or register, visit the conference homepage.

We are pleased to announce the outline of the sixth event in our TAILOR WP7 seminar series.

Please let us know if you plan to participate by entering your name in this Seminar 6 main doc [TAILOR WP7].

The seminar will consist of two parts: a scientific and a social part. Below you can find a detailed overview of each part for the fourth seminar on 27 September from 15:30-17:00.

Scientific part: Zoom meeting: https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/j/61008083679?pwd=TjNXcHN5RnllYjRLS3ovY1ZxMUZaUT09 – Meeting ID: 610 0808 3679 – Passcode: i!&gA1Xn

15:30-16:00 — Talk by Dragi Kocev—Meta learning from a comprehensive empirical study of multi-label classification methods

Abstract:

We present our recent work on understanding and explaining the performance of multi-label classificaion (MLC) methods across a wide range of MLC datasets. Essentially, we perform a comprehensive meta-learning study of MLC methods and datasets. Several studies provide surveys of methods and datasets for MLC, and a few provide empirical comparisons of MLC methods. However, they are limited in the number of methods and datasets considered. Here, we analyze 40 MLC data sets by using 50 meta features describing different properties of the data. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, the results of the analysis identify RFPCT, RFDTBR, ECCJ48, EBRJ48, and AdaBoost.MH as the best-performing methods across the spectrum of performance measures. Second, the most prominent meta features that describe the space of MLC data sets are the ones assessing different aspects of the label space. Third, the meta models show that the most important meta features describe the label space, and, the meta features describing the relationships among the labels tend to occur a bit more often than the meta features describing the distributions between and within the individual labels. Fourth, the optimization of the hyperparameters can improve the predictive performance, however, quite often the extent of the improvements does not always justify the resource utilization.

16:00-16:30 — Round table updates for all WP7 tasks

the expectation is that each TAILOR partner with funding allocated under WP7 sends at least one representative who can give a brief update. It is understood that there may not be a substantive update on each task at every meeting. Each update should focus on highlighting the following:

• Recent and ongoing work, potential collaborations
• Collaboration between different tasks;
• Collaboration with other work packages;
• New collaborations (with people with whom that group has never worked with before).

Social part: GatherTown 16:30-17:00

Submit a PDF by email to a.w.bosman@liacs.leidenuniv.nl if what you want to present something)

• Suggestions for improving the seminar format
• Informal chats about possible collaborations
• Brainstorm/discuss ideas and mechanism for making our WP7 more impactful, more efficient and/or more enjoyable
• Chat about anything else you feel worthwhile!

Hope to see you at the seminar!

Adem, Holger, Koen and Manuel (the TAILOR WP7 Seminar Organising Committee)

The “AI Mellontology Symposium” will be on 23 September 2022, and is focused on debating futuristic topics on AI research and social/industrial impact. The event is organized by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and CERTH and it is sponsored by AI4Media and ELISE. 

Symposium page

The symposium program, panel topic descriptions, and registration links can be found at http://icarus.csd.auth.gr/ai-mellontology-e-symposium-2022/

Venue & participation

The 2022 AI Mellontology Symposium will take place in the Meteoroscopy Auditorium, AUTH Campus, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Hybrid (local and remote) participation is foreseen. Registration is required – you can register here. 
Remote participation is free. For remote participants, a Zoom link & password will be sent after registration.
There is a very small registration fee (20 €) for in person participation or for remote participation (in case a participation certificate is requested) for people outside the AI4Media consortium.

Sponsorship

Horizon2020 AI flagship R&I projects AI4Media and ELISE, together with the International AI Doctoral Academy (AIDA) joined forces in sponsoring this event.

Format

There will be 7 sessions (4 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon) where participants will debate the ‘AI future ’, namely hot AI research issues with diverse scientific, societal, legal, ethical, industrial and economic aspects. The 7 sessions will focus on the following topics:

• AI-based recommender systems: social and legal perspectives
• Collaborative AI
• Human – AI Symbiosis
• AI studies: AI PhD Excellence. AI Curriculum. AI Science and Engineering?
• Latent brain
• How AI meets human in media houses? Recommendation systems and Media
• AI Act: key elements and state of play

Session panelists will make their short statements during each panel to initiate discussion by the audience. Discussion will be informal, hopefully lively and hot, aiming to debate contrasting views (thesis-antithesis) on each issue.

You are welcome to a) watch panelist and other views and voice your own views on any panel topic, by using the ‘Voice your views’ area, b) propose your own AI grand challenge, and c) actively participate in each panel discussion. The more innovative, futuristic, even provocative your views are, the better. The discussion will be conducted though in a scientific way and in good faith.

The entire discussion and contributions will be compiled later on in a public ‘AI research white paper’ that will be used to guide R&I anywhere in the world, notably in the framework of AIDA and Horizon2020 ICT48 R&I projects.

The end of September is a very nice time to visit Thessaloniki and its surroundings (for cultural sightseeing, swimming, grape harvesting). An optional cultural trip is foreseen on the 24th of September 2022 to visit the Royal Macedonian Tombs and Museum in Vergina and a winery in Naoussa.

For any questions, you can contact the Symposium secretary Mrs. Ioanna Koroni koroniioanna@csd.auth.gr (for organizational matters) or Prof. Ioannis Pitas pitas@csd.auth.gr  (for scientific matters).

The workshop on Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence will take place within the next European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECMLPPKDD), which will be held in Grenoble, France from the 19th to the 23rd of September 2022.

It will be on site, but remote connections will be available for those who cannot travel. This workshop is endorsed by TAILOR and the CONFIANCE.AI program.

The extended deadline for submission of abstracts is on June 20th, 2022. The main topics are:

• AI based Critical Systems, 
• Auditability & Accountability,  
• Explainability and quantitative evaluation of Explainable AI methods, 
• Non-discrimination & Fairness,  
• Operational Domain Definition with AI, 
• Out of Distribution Detection, 
• Safety & Robustness,  
• Social Acceptance of Trustworthy AI Systems  
• System Monitoring,  
• Trustworthy AI 
• Trustworthy Human-Computer Interactions

Know more on how to register and objectives of the workshop here: https://trustworthy-ai-22.sciencesconf.org. 

The second TAILOR conference will be the first real opportunity for the TAILOR Network to meet IRL, and all partners and network members are very welcome! The conference will be about Trustworthy AI, our project and plans for the future.
Conference host is prof. Roman Bartàk at the Charles University of Prague, while prof. Fredrik Heintz is the head of the program committee.

Programme

See detailed programme.

Venue

Both the welcome reception and the conference will be held at the lovely historic building of Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Malostranské náměstí 25, Praha 1, Czech Republic (link to Google map) The welcome reception and main sessions will be in Lecture Room S9, on the first floor.

The conference dinner is at the newly renovated and magnificent Art Nouveau Restaurant Obecní dům, (the Municipal House Restaurant) at nám. Republiky 1090/5, Praha 1, for modern Czech cuisine and well-treated Pilsner beer.

Accomodation

The conference hotel is Hotel Pyramida. The conference venue can be reached from the hotel by a nice downhill walk (about 30 minutes) or by tram #22 (direct connection).
Prague has a very good public transport (https://www.dpp.cz/en), it covers airport as well (by a bus). The major attractions in city center are in walking distance from the conference venue.

These meetings are organized to share and discuss the work that have been done by the WP teams. All partners and network members of TAILOR are welcome to participate! 

This seventh meeting will offer two presentations. WP5 (see WP description) scientist Hector Geffner (UPF) will talk about “Top-down representation learning for acting and planning”.
Abstract: Recent breakthroughs in AI have shown the remarkable power of deep learning and deep reinforcement learning. These developments, however, have been tied to specific tasks, and progress in out-of-distribution generalization has been limited. While it is assumed that these limitations can be overcome by incorporating suitable inductive biases in neural nets, this is left vague and informal, and does not provide  meaningful guidance. In this talk, I articulate a different learning approach where representations are learned over domain-independent target languages without requiring background knowledge, and illustrate the general approach by considering three key learning problems in AI planning: learning general actions models, learning general policies, and learning general subgoal structures (“intrinsic rewards”).

Joaquin Vanshoren (TU/e) will present work from WP10 “Connectivity Fund” (link to more information on WP page).

Q&A time should be available after each presentation.

The meeting will end with 20 minutes for general topics, on any aspect of the TAILOR project. 

No registration is needed, and the meeting link will be sent by email. (Project partners can find the link here. )

Not sure if you are a member of the TAILOR Network? Not a member yet? More information can be found on the network page.

IJCAI-ECAI22 is coming up and TAILOR will be there!

• On Monday 25 July, 9.10-10.40, TAILOR will chair a session at the AISafety workshop, on Trustworthy AI. TAILOR scientists Fosca Gianotti and Francesca Pratesi are in charge.
• During the conference, 26-29 July, we will have a booth where you can come and meet us,
• On Thursday 28, at 6 pm, we’ll have a meetup by the booth, followed by a social dinner starting around 8 pm. This event is only for the TAILOR project partners and network members, and by registration only: https://www.lyyti.fi/reg/TAILOR-meet-up-IJCAI

We look very much forward to meeting you in Vienna!

TAILOR and AI4EU support the fifth edition of DSO workshop that will be held at Messe Wien, Vienna (Austria) on July 23-29, 2022 in the context of IJCAI-22.

The workshop’s selected topic is the intertwine between Data Science and Optimisation, considered as closely related research domains. Indeed, on the one hand, many problems in data science can be solved using optimizers, on the other hand optimization problems stated through classical models such as those from mathematical programming cannot be considered independent of historical data. The aim of the workshop is to organize an open discussion and exchange of ideas by researchers from data science, constraint optimization and operations research in order to identify how techniques from these fields can benefit each other.

The deadline to submit any contribution is on May 13, 2022 (AOE); notifications of acceptance will be sent by June 3, 2022.

The workshop date will be in the 23-25 July 2022 window. You can know more about aims, topics, and how to submit your application by visiting the event webpage https://sites.google.com/view/ijcai2022dso/home?authuser=0

The workshop co-chairs are:

Tias Guns (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, BE) <tias.guns@vub.be>

Michele Lombardi (University of Bologna, IT) <michele.lombardi2@unibo.it>

Neil Yorke-Smith (TU Delft, NL) <n.yorke-smith@tudelft.nl>

Yingqian Zhang (TU Eindhoven, NL) <yqzhang@tue.nl>

Get prepared for the “Cross-Domain MetaDL” Challenge!

Join the Cross-Domain MetaDL challenge, https://codalab.lisn.upsaclay.fr/competitions/3627 open until September 1, 2022.

Special 4-hour bootcamp webinar:  https://bit.ly/3ypnGnB Saturday, July 16, 2022 at noon UTC (7 am Bogota, 2 pm Paris)

Find all the information about the challenge on the dedicated TAILOR webpage, and on the Codalab webpage of the event.

These meetings are organized to share and discuss the work that have been done by the WP teams. All partners and network members of TAILOR are welcome to participate! 

This sixth meeting will offer two presentations. WP4 leader Luc De Readt (KU Leuven) will talk about “Unifying Paradigms” (see WP description). Peter Flach (UNIVBRIS) will present work from WP9 “Network Collaboration” (link to more information in this post). Q&A time should be available after each presentation.

The meeting will end with 20 minutes for general topics, on any aspect of the TAILOR project. 

No registration is needed, and the meeting link will be sent by email. (Project partners can find the link here. )

Not sure if you are a member of the TAILOR Network? Not a member yet? More information can be found on the network page.

The fifth event of WP7 seminar series will be on Tuesday June 21st, from 15.30 to 17.00 (CET). The seminar will consist of two parts: a scientific and a social part. The seminar talk is hosted by Manh Hung Nguyen (Chalearn/Inria) and its on Meta-learn 22.

Meta-learning aims to leverage experience from previous tasks to solve new tasks using only little training data, train faster and/or get better performance. TAILOR has been sponsoring two challenges in meta-learning, described in this presentation: “Meta-learning from Learning Curves” (AutoML-Conf’22, ending July 4) and “Cross-Domain Meta-learning” (NeurIPS’22, ending Sept 1). For both challenges, we will summarize the results of past rounds, explain lessons learned and the new settings, then present our baseline results for the new versions. There is no need for you to have entered past editions, and the code of the winners has been open-sourced!

The first challenge aims to push the state-of-the-art in meta-learning from one of the most essential model evaluation data, the learning curve. The setting is similar to that of algorithm recommendation, in a black-box setting, i.e. using as information only performances of models (no access to the training algorithm). However, use is made of performances of partially trained models. The goal is to rapidly find the best solution to a given classification problem, without training all algorithms/models to convergence. This problem can be treated with conventional black-box optimization methods or with reinforcement learning. The first round was held for IJCNN’22 and the second round will be part of AutoML-Conf’22, the first conference on automated machine learning https://automl.cc/, Baltimore, USA, July 25-27, 2022.

The second challenge focuses on cross-domain meta-learning for few-shot image classification using a novel “any-way” and “any-shot” setting. The setting is similar to the classical N-way k-shot meta-learning setting that has attracted much attention recently, with the appearance of episodic algorithms such as MAML and Prototypical Networks. In this setting, tasks consist of small classification problems with N classes (ways) and k training examples (shots). During meta-training, the algorithms are exposed to many pairs of training and test sets (called support and query sets) for such tasks. Then, during meta-testing, new tasks are provided, for which test labels are withdrawn, and the goal is to make predictions on such test examples. While in our previous few-shot challenge, meta-training and meta-test tasks were drawn from the same domain, in this new challenge they are drawn from 10 different domains, making the problem more challenging and realistic. Also in the previous challenge, we addressed only 5-way 5-shot problems. In the new challenge, we vary the number of ways and shots in the ranges [2-20] and [1-20]. The previous round was held for NeurIPS’21 and the second round will be part of NeurIPS’22 https://neurips.cc/Conferences/2022/CompetitionTrack, New Orleans, USA, Nov 28-Dec 9 2022.

If you want to participate to the seminar, just contact the TAILOR WP7 Seminar Organising Committee on Mattermost or by sending an email to Annelot Bosman (a.w.bosman@liacs.leidenuniv.nl).

These meetings are organized to share and discuss the work that have been done by the WP teams. All partners and network members of TAILOR are welcome to participate! 

This fifth meeting will offer two presentations. WP3 leader Umberto Straccia (ISTI-CNR) will talk about “Trustworthy AI” (see WP description). Michela Milano (UNIBO) will present work from WP12 “Dissemination and Outreach”. Q&A time should be available after each presentation.

The meeting will end with 20 minutes for general topics, on any aspect of the TAILOR project. 

No registration is needed, and the meeting link will be sent by email. (Project partners can find the link here. )

Not sure if you are a member of the TAILOR Network? Not a member yet? More information can be found on the network page.