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Spring News from the Association for the Advancement of Artiﬁcial Intelligence

Congratulations to the AAAI Congratulates Congratulations 2015 AAAI Fellows! New Senior Members! to the 2015 AAAI Each year a small number of fellows are AAAI announced its new class of AAAI Award Winners! recognized for their unusual distinc - Senior Members at the recent AAAI-15 Tom Dietterich, AAAI President, tion in the profession and for their sus - Conference in Austin. Senior Member Manuela Veloso, AAAI Past President tained contributions to the field for a status is designed to recognize AAAI and Awards Committee Chair, and Rao decade or more. An official dinner and members who have achieved signifi - Kambhampati, AAAI President-Elect, ceremony was held in their honor dur - cant accomplishments within the field presented the AAAI Awards in January ing AAAI-15 in Austin, Texas. The hon - of artificial intelligence. To be eligible at AAAI-15 in Austin. orees for 2015 were as follows. for nomination for Senior Member, Rama Chellappa ( University of Mary - candidates must be consecutive mem - The 2015 AAAI land) bers of AAAI for at least five years and Classic Paper Award For significant contributions to Markov random fields, 3D recovery have been active in the professional The 2015 AAAI Classic Paper Award from single and mutiple images and arena for at least ten years. AAAI con - was given to the author(s) of the most image/video-based recognition gratulates the new Senior Members: influential paper(s) from the Four - Marco Dorigo ( Université Libre de Susan Craw (Robert Gordon Universi - teenth National Conference on Artifi - Bruxelles) ty, Aberdeen, UK) cial Intelligence, held in 1997 in Prov - For seminal contributions to the foun - Stan Franklin (University of Mem - idence, Rhode Island, USA. The 2015 dations of swarm intelligence, includ - phis, USA) recipient of the AAAI Classic Paper ing ant colony optimization and Award is Eugene Charniak, who was swarm robotics Yong Gao (University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada) honored for his paper, Statistical Pars - Holger H. Hoos ( University of British ing with a Context-Free Grammar and Columbia) Helen M. Gigley , Ph.D. (Central Intel - Word Statistics, and its significant con - For significant contributions to the ligence Agency (retired), USA) tributions to sentence parsing and lan - field of automated reasoning and the David B. Leake (Indiana University, guage models based on probabilities of development of widely used methods USA) for algorithm selection and configura - possible alternative parses. In addition, Mausam (Indian Institute of Technol - tion honorable mention was presented to ogy Delhi, India) Adele E. Howe (Colorado State Uni - Roberto J. Bayardo Jr. and Robert C. versity) Yi L. Murphey (University of Michi - Schrag for their paper, Using CSP Look- For significant contributions to the gan Dearborn, USA) Back Techniques to Solve Real-World theory, practice and evaluation of Leo J. Obrst (The MITRE Corporation, SAT Instances, for its significant con - automated planning, scheduling and USA) other AI technologies, as well as serv - tributions to enhance proof procedures Doina Precup (McGill University, ice to the AI community for propositional satisfiability on large Canada) Thorsten Joachims (Cornell Universi - instances of real-world problems. ty) David S. Touretzky (Carnegie Mellon Eugene Charniak is a professor of com - For significant contributions to the University, USA) puter science. and cognitive science at theory and practice of machine learn - Franz Wotawa (Technische Univer - Brown University. He received an A.B. ing and information retrieval sität Graz, Austria) degree in physics from University of

reasoning under uncertainty, and learning. Over the last few years he 2015 AAAI Feigenbaum Prize has been interested in statistical tech - Awarded to Eric Horvitz niques for language understanding. His research in this area has included AAAI is delighted to announce that Eric Horvitz, Distinguished Scientist work in the subareas of part-of-speech and Managing Director, Microsoft Research, has been selected as the recip - tagging, probabilistic context-free ient of the 2015 AAAI Feigenbaum Prize. Dr. Horvitz is being recognized in grammar induction, and, more recent - particular for sustained and high-impact contributions to the field of artifi - ly, syntactic disambiguation through cial intelligence through the development of computational models of per - word statistics, efficient syntactic pars - ception, reflection and action, and their application in time-critical deci - ing, and lexical resource acquisition sion making, and intelligent information, traffic and healthcare systems. through statistical means. Eric Horvitz, MD, PhD is a distinguished sci - Roberto Bayardo joined Google as a entist and managing director of the Redmond research scientist in 2005, and is cur - Lab at Microsoft Research. He pursues princi - rently an engineering director in the ples and applications of machine learning and search ads quality group. Prior to intelligence — with forays into decision sci - Google, he worked as a research staff ence, human-computer interaction, and cog - member at IBM Almaden following nitive psychology. His research includes efforts his graduation from the University of to harness large-scale data resources to build Texas at Austin. Bayardo’s current systems that predict outcomes, and methods research interests reside primarily in for using these predictions to guide decisions the areas of data mining, big data and policies in healthcare and other domains. analysis, and computational advertis - A major thread of Dr. Horvitz’s work centers ing. He regularly serves on the pro - on using machine intelligence to complement gram committees for conferences and augment human intellect. His work and related to these areas including KDD, collaborations have led to fielded systems in ICDM, WSDM, and WWW. multiple domains, including systems in use at hospitals across the world for predicting patient outcomes based on data drawn from electronic health Robert Schrag is a scientist at Haystax records. Beyond traditional sources of health data, Dr. Horvitz is interested in Technology, where he leads develop - methods for making crisp inferences about health and well-being from noisy ment of semantically based risk assess - signals drawn from social media and logs of web searching and browsing. Dr. ment solutions. His work has included Horvitz has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, implementations and applications of as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), temporal and probabilistic representa - AAAI, and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He was recently elect - tion and reasoning, and he has led ed to ACM SIGCHI’s CHI Academy for contributions at the intersection of several program-wide evaluations of machine intelligence and human-computer interaction. He has served on mul - government-sponsored research. He tiple academic and governmental advisory boards, including the advisory com - has held research positions at Global mittee for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) CISE Directorate, the Com - InfoTek, Information Extraction and puting Community Consortium (CCC), and DARPA’s ISAT study group. Dr. Transport, the Honeywell Systems and Horvitz has also served as president of the AAAI and is now serving as the chair Research Center, and Rome Air Devel - of the AAAS Section on Information, Computing, and Communication. Eric opment Center. Schrag earned his Horvitz and his wife Mary recently funded the AI100 which is an effort hosted doctorate in computer science at the by Stanford University which invites leading thinkers from several institutions University of Texas at Austin, where to begin a 100-year effort to study and anticipate the effects of artificial intelli - he met collaborator Roberto Bayardo. gence will have on our lives. Dr. Horvitz received his MD and PhD degrees at For more information about nomina - Stanford University. tions for AAAI 2016 Awards, please The AAAI Feigenbaum Prize was established in 2010 and is awarded bien - contact Carol Hamilton at hamil - nially to recognize and encourage outstanding Artificial Intelligence [email protected] or +1-650-328-3123. research advances that are made by using experimental methods of com - puter science. The associated cash prize of $10,000 is provided by the AAAI-15 Program Feigenbaum Nii Foundation. Committee Awards AAAI-15 program cochairs Blai Bonet and Sven Koenig recognized the fol - lowing members of the AAAI-15 Pro - Chicago and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. in Intelligence with Drew McDermott gram Committee for their distin - Computer Science. He has published (1985); and Statistical Language Learn - guished service on the committee. four books: Computational Semantics, ing (1993). He is a Fellow of AAAI and These individuals went above and with Yorick Wilks (1976); Artificial was previously a Councilor of the beyond the expectations for the role, Intelligence Programming (now in a sec - organization. His research has always showing exceptional judgment, clarity, ond edition) with Chris Riesbeck, been in the area of language under - knowledgeability, and leadership in Drew McDermott, and James Meehan standing or technologies that relate to reaching a consensus decision while (1980, 1987); Introduction to Artificial it, such as knowledge representation, serving on the committee.

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Outstanding Senior Program Committee Members The 2015 AAAI Distinguished Vincent Conitzer (Duke University, USA) Service Award Presented to Robert Holte (University of Kenneth Ford Alberta, Canada) The 2015 AAAI Distinguished Service Award recognizes one individual for Francesca Rossi (University of extraordinary service to the AI community. The AAAI Awards Committee is Padova, Italy) pleased to announce that this year’s recipient is Kenneth M. Ford, Florida Outstanding Program Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Dr. Ford is being recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of artificial intelligence Committee Members through sustained service, including the founding of the Florida Institute Christopher Amato (Massachusetts for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), leadership roles at NASA, and Institute of Technology, USA) his work on the advisory boards of federal science and technology research Travis Mandel (University of Wash - organizations. ington, USA Kenneth Ford is the founder and chief execu - Nicholas Mattei (NICTA and Univer - tive officer of the Florida Institute for Human sity of New South Wales, Australia) & Machine Cognition (IHMC) — a not-for- Ingo Pill (Graz University of Technol - profit research institute located in Pensacola, ogy, Austria) Florida investigating a broad range of topics Erik Talvitie (Franklin & Marshall related to building technological systems College, USA) aimed at amplifying and extending human Paul Vernaza (Carnegie Mellon Uni - cognitive and perceptual capacities. The versity, USA) author of hundreds of scientific papers and six books, Ford is emeritus editor-in-chief of AAAI Xinhua Zhang (University of Alberta, / The MIT Press, a AAAI Fellow, and a charter Canada) Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. In January 1997, Kenneth Ford was asked by AAAI-15 Outstanding NASA to develop and direct its new Center of Paper Awards Excellence in Information Technology at the Ames Research Center in California. He served as associate center director and This year, AAAI’s Conference on Artifi - director of NASA’s Center of Excellence in Information Technology. Ford has cial Intelligence honored the following received many awards and honors, including the Doctor Honoris Causas from two papers, which exemplify high the University of Bordeaux, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, the NASA standards in technical contribution Distinguished Public Service Medal, and the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial and exposition by regular and student Award for his work in artificial intelligence. In 2002, Ford was appointed by the authors. In addition, the program president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve on the National Science Board. In 2005, Ford was appointed and sworn in as a mem - committee selected one paper for hon - ber of the Air Force Science Advisory Board. In 2007, he became a member of orable mention in each category, based the NASA Advisory Council and on October 16, 2008, he was named as chair - on their overall high quality and out - man – a capacity in which he served until October 2011. In August 2010, ord standing contribution. was awarded NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal – the highest honor the agency confers. Kenneth Ford received his Ph.D. in computer science from AAAI-15 Outstanding Paper Award Tulane University. In 2012, Tulane University named Ford its Outstanding From Non-Negative to General Opera - Alumnus in the School of Science and Engineering. tor Cost Partitioning (Florian Pom - merening, Malte Helmert, Gabriele Röger, Jendrik Seipp) Honorable Mention: Predicting the Demographics of Twitter Users from Website Traffic Data (Aron Culotta, IAAI-15 Innovative use by its final end-users for sufficient - Nirmal Kumar Ravi, Jennifer Cutler) Application Awards ly long so that the experience in use can be meaningfully collected and AAAI-15 Outstanding Each year the AAAI Conference on reported. The 2015 winners are: Student Paper Award Innovative Applications selects the Activity Planning for a Lunar Orbital Surpassing Human-Level Face Verifica - recipients of the IAAI Innovative Mission (John L. Bresina) tion Performance on LFW with Gaus - Application Award. These deployed sianFace (Chaochao Lu, Xiaoou Tang) Robust System for Identifying Pro - application case study papers must curement Fraud (Amit Dhurandhar, Honorable Mention: Sparse Bayesian describe deployed applications with Multiview Learning for Simultaneous Rajesh Ravi, Bruce Graves, Gopikrish - Association Discovery and Diagnosis measurable benefits that include some nan Maniachari, Markus Ettl) of Alzheimer’s Disease (Shandian Zhe, aspect of AI technology. The applica - Position Assignment on an Enterprise Zenglin Xu, Yuan Qi, Peng Yu) tion needs to have been in production Level Using Combinatorial Optimiza -

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tion (Leonard Kinnaird-Heether, Chris Dorman) Graph Analysis for Detecting Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Healthcare Data (Juan Liu, Eric Bier, Aaron Wilson, Tomo Honda, Sricharan Kumar, Leilani Gilpin, John Guerra-Gomez, Daniel Davies) Planned Protest Modeling in News and Social Media (Sathappan Muthi - ah, Bert Huang, Jaime Arredondo, David Mares, Lise Getoor, Graham Katz, Naren Ramakrishnan) Process Diagnosis System (PDS) — A 30 Year History (Edward D. Thomp - I C WSM son, Ethan Frolich, James C. Bellows, Benjamin E. Bassford, Edward J. Skiko, Mark S. Fox) Special Computing Community Please Join Us for ICWSM-15! Consortium Blue Sky Awards he Ninth International AAAI Conference on Webl and Social Media AAAI-15, in cooperation with the CRA (ICWSM) will be held at Oxford University in Oxford, United King - Computing Community Consortium Tdom from May 26–29. This interdisciplinary conference is a forum for (CCC), honored three papers in the researchers in computer science and social science to come together to share Senior Member track that presented knowledge, discuss ideas, exchange information, and learn about cutting- ideas and visions that can stimulate edge research in diverse fields with the common theme of online social the research community to pursue new media. This overall theme includes research in new perspectives in social directions, such as new problems, new theories, as well as computational algorithms for analyzing social media. application domains, or new method - ICWSM is a singularly fitting venue for research that blends social science ologies. The recipients of the 2015 Blue and computational approaches to answer important and challenging ques - Sky Idea travel awards, sponsored by tions about human social behavior through social media while advancing the CCC, were: Sarit Kraus for Intelli - computational tools for vast and unstructured data. gent Agents for Rehabilitation and ICWSM-15 will include a lively program of technical talks and posters, Care of Disabled and Chronic Patients, invited presentations, and keynote talks from prominent social scientists Michela Milano and Pascal Van Hen - and technologists. The ICWSM Workshop program will return in 2016 and tenryck for Emerging Architectures for will be held on the first day of the conference, May 26. The program Global System Science, and Xiaojin includes the following seven workshops: Zhu for Machine Teaching: An Inverse W1: Auditing Algorithms From the Outside: Methods and Implications. Organ - Problem to Machine Learning and an izers: Mike Ananny, Karrie Karahalios, Christian Sandvig, Christo Wilson Approach toward Optimal Education. W2: Digital Placemaking: Augmenting Physical Places with Contextual Social Data. Organizers: Germaine Halegoua, Raz Schwartz, Ed Manley 2015 AI Video W3: Modeling and Mining Temporal Interactions. Organizers: Bruno Gonçalves, Competition Winners Márton Karsai, Nicola Perra The ninth annual AI video competi - W4: Religion on Social Media . Organizers: Yelena Mejova, Ingmar Weber, Lu tion was held during AAAI-15 and sev - Chen, Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn eral winning videos were honored dur - W5: The ICWSM Science Slam. Organizers: David Garcia, Ingmar Weber, Aniko ing the awards presentation. Videos Hannak were nominated for awards in three W6: Wikipedia, a Social Pedia: Research Challenges and Opportunities. Organ - categories, and winners received a izers: Robert West, Leila Zia, Jure Leskovec “Shakey” award during a special award W7: Workshop on Standards and Practices in Large-Scale Social Media Research. ceremony at the conference. Our Organizers: Derek Ruths, Juergen Pfeffer thanks go to Sabine Hauert and Mauro Please see individual websites for workshop submission deadlines. Registra - Birattari for all their work on this tion information will be available at the ICWSM-15 website in March. The event. The winners of the three awards early registration deadline is April 10, and the late registration deadline is were as follows: May 1. For full details about the conference program, please visit the Best Video: A Robot Which Children ICWSM-15 website (icwsm.org) or write to [email protected]. Can Teach to Write - The CoWriter Project (Deanna Hood, Séverin Lemaignan, Pierre Dillenbourg) Best Student Video: Self-Organized Col -

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lective Decisions in a Robot Swarm (Gabriele Valentini, Heiko Hamann, Marco Dorigo) People’s Choice: Mario Lives! An Adap - tive Learning AI Approach for Gener - ating a Living and Conversing Mario Agent (Stephan Ehrenfeld, Fabian Schrodt, Martin Butz) AAAI gratefully acknowledges the gen - AAAI-16 erous contributions of AI Journal, which Phoenix, Arizona USA made this competition possible. We would also like to acknowledge AI Jour - nal Review Board for its donation and Save the Date for AAAI-16 the Bristol Robotics Laboratory for help Mark your calendars now for the Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial with the manufacturing of the awards. Intelligence (AAAI-16) and the Twenty-Eighth Conference on Innovative Congratulations to all the winners! Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-16), which will be held in sun - ny Phoenix, Arizona, February 12-17, 2016! Please note the change in day Minutes, AAAI Executive pattern from the traditional AAAI model. Workshops and tutorials will be held Friday and Saturday, February 12-13, with the main conference start - Council Meeting ing on Sunday, February 14. The technical conference will run 3.5 days, as The AAAI Executive Council meeting it did in 2015. Phoenix is the gateway to the Grand Canyon, and its histo - was held July 28, 2014, in Quebec City, ry is a testament to the spirit of puebloans, ranchers, miners, and visionar - Canada. Attending: Manuela Veloso, ies. Projected against this rich backdrop is a panorama of urban sophistica - Tom Dietterich, Henry Kautz, Rao tion, with a host of museums (be sure to visit the Pueblo Grande Museum Kambhampati, Ted Senator, Sonia and Archaeological Park and the Heard Museum), sports stadiums, restau - rants, and shopping. Nearby Tempe is the site of Arizona State University, Chernova, Vincent Conitzer (via home of a leading AI research community. The 2016 program cochairs are Skype), Boi Faltings, Kate Larson, Julia Dale Schurmanns and Michael Wellman. The Call for Papers will be avail - Hirschberg, Eduard Hovy, Henry able soon (www.aaai.org/aaai16). Please join us in 2016 in America’s sunni - Lieberman, Sven Koenig, Francesca est metropolis! Rossi, Stephen Smith, Sylvie Thiebaux, Brian Williams, Shlomo Zilberstein, Tony Cohn, David Leake, Toby Walsh. Not attending: Carla Gomes President Manuela Veloso convened the meeting at 9:00 AM . AAAI Secretary- AAAI Executive Council Elections Treasurer Ted Senator reviewed the The link to the electronic version of the annual AAAI Ballot will be mailed legal responsibilities of each councilor to all regular individual AAAI members in the spring. The membership will including the duties of care, loyalty vote for four new councilors, who will each serve three-year terms. The and obedience. He recommended that online voting system is expected to close on June 22. Please note that the each councilor review the bylaws of ballot will be available via the online system only. If you have not provid - AAAI. Finally, he noted that each ed AAAI with an up-to-date email address, please do so immediately by writ - councilor is required to participate in ing to [email protected]. at least two committees of the Execu - tive Council and to regularly attend all meetings of the Council. Veloso reviewed the agenda, and themselves and what they hope to missions by Committees for programs welcomed new councilors Sonia Cher - accomplish during their service on the in their areas and approval by the nova, Vincent Conitzer, Boi Faltings, AAAI Executive Council. Sven Koenig entire Council at a meeting to be and Stephen Smith. She alerted new gave a brief preview of some of the scheduled in November 2014. He also Councilors to the annual meeting, dur - planned features of AAAI-15, which reviewed the Association’s investment ing which they will begin their tenure address many of the priorities men - policies and practices. on the Council. After the annual meet - tioned, and welcomed ideas about how Awards: Henry Kautz reviewed the ing, the incoming councilors will vote to incorporate more. activities of the Awards, Fellows, and on any motions that are put forth. Nominating Committees. He congrat - Councilors will also be given an oppor - Standing Committee Reports ulated David Leake on his selection as tunity to sign up for committees. Part I the winner of the Distinguished Serv - Veloso asked the new councilors, as Finance: Ted Senator reviewed the 2014 ice award, and noted that one paper well as incoming President Tom Diet - budget and the process to develop the from 1996 was selected as the Classic terich, to make a brief statement about 2015 budget, which consists of sub - Paper (Pazzani et al.), with two honor -

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AAAI continued its women’s mentoring initiative at AAAI-15 with the Breakfast with Champions: A Women's Mentoring Event, January 28.

able mentions awarded (Burgard et al., participating in the AAAI Conference to an increase in attendance of over 25 and Kautz and Selman). In addition, Outreach Program, and noted that IUI percent, and over 30 percent in paid the Awards Committee selected 25 should be added to the list. The Coun - technical attendance. 245 papers were new senior members. The Fellows cil discussed several other conferences presented orally, with 205 in tradition - Committee had a very strong set of that might also be of interest, and Hen - al 15-minute slots in parallel sessions candidates from which to select the ry suggested that the committee reach and 40 as 2.5-minute talks in three ple - final nine new Fellows for 2014. Kautz out to mathematics conferences as nary sessions. The 2014 submissions noted that it is difficult to find people well. In the past year, AAAI has also that were not ready for acceptance in to serve on the Fellows Committee, expanded this program to include a 2014 will be pipelined for review again and would like to see a set of objective membership incentive for attendees at by the 2015 program committee if the measures developed by which the cooperating conferences who have not authors opt to have this done. This committee can evaluate publication been AAAI members in the past. There new process is likely to be repeated in and service contributions. Veloso not - was strong support for encouraging some form as a cooperative effort ed that it would be helpful to have periodic collocation by cooperating or between AAAI and the IJCAI-15 pro - more international members, who affiliated conferences, and also estab - gram chair. would be aware of contributions by the lishing more co-sponsored activities, researchers in their respective coun - such as those already undertaken with AI Summit Report tries. The Council also discussed the SIGAI. Manuela Veloso reported on the AI possibility of adding more awards Conference: Rao Kambhampati Summit held in February in Brooklyn, geared at mid-career researchers. thanked Carla Brodley and Peter Stone New York as a cooperative effort Symposium: On behalf of Kate Lar - for there hard work, and reviewed between IJCAI and AAAI. Forty-five son, Carol Hamilton thanked Matt some of the innovations of the 2014 leaders of subdisciplines in artificial Taylor and Gita Sukthankar for all their conference, including plenary session work with the Symposium Series. The 2.5-minute lightning talks, posters for intelligence came together to discuss Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 both have all papers, a conference banquet ways to bridge communities and work strong line-ups, and recent iterations included in the registration fee, speed cooperatively. Representatives from of the series have been well-attended. dating, and games night. He noted IJCAI, ECAI, AAAI, and PRICAI were Good proposals are always an issue, that there were no special tracks in also included. One of the suggestions and the Council suggested one way to 2014, but that they would be reestab - being discussed is a federated confer - deal with this would be to make the lished in 2015. There were Senior ence, possibly as early as 2018. Anoth - most successful workshops from the Member and What’s Hot tracks. All of er alternative is collocation, such as annual or other AAAI conferences into the traditional affiliated events were IJCAI and ECAI in 2018. The Council symposia. The Council also discussed held, such as IAAI, EAAI, Student held a discussion about ways to reach the idea of converting to just one sym - Abstracts, the Doctoral Consortium, out to subareas to participate in AI, but posium per year, but the timing of workshops, and tutorials. also maintain the cohesiveness of their when to hold this was not clear. The conference had more than twice own subcommunities. The group Conference Outreach: Henry Lieber - the number of full technical submis - hopes to meet every four years to keep man reviewed the list of conferences sions as that in 2013. This contributed this initiative going.

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Standing Committee Reports Part II International: Toby Walsh reported on the recent efforts of the committee to reach out to the international AI com - munity, including regional chapters and a column in the AI Magazine. The goal is to heighten awareness of AI research internationally and to 2015 Fall Symposium Series — November 12 –14 increase international membership in AAAI. The committee hopes to The 2015 AAAI Fall Symposium Series will be held Thursday through Sat - strengthen the chapter program by urday, November 12–14, at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Vir - providing better incentives to form ginia, adjacent to Washington, DC. Proposals are due March 20, and accept - chapters, including more support and ed symposia will be announced in April. Submissions will be due June 19, cooperation, such as hosting an inter - 2015. For more information, please see the 2015 Fall Symposium Series web - national conference. Matthias Spaan site (www.aaai.org/Symposia/ Fall/fss15.php). has agreed to be the editor of the inter - national column in AI Magazine. The column will focus more on specific labs allow all groups to maintain their inde - AAAI Annual Business Meeting or research efforts in a given country, pendence, but would heighten cooper - During the Annual Business Meeting, rather than trying to highlight all ation and provide opportunities for research in one country in each issue. jointly sponsored programs. incoming officers and councilors took The committee would also like to see Publications: David Leake reported office, and outgoing officers and coun - more of an international flavor on the on the current and upcoming issues of cilors were acknowledged for their website and a reduction in member - AI Magazine, including computational service. ship fees to encourage international sustainability and space applications of There was a brief discussion about membership. AI. AI Magazine also publishes reports the lack of participation by members Walsh suggested that the focus start on AAAI workshops, symposia, compe - in the Annual Business Meeting. This with current grad students, and pro - titions, and affiliated events, such as meeting currently takes place during a posed a deep discount for student RoboCup. The AI Magazine app was break in the Council Meeting to memberships, as well as a half-price launched earlier in 2014, and has been encourage both incoming and outgo - membership during the first year of a very well received. Plans to incorporate ing Councilors to participate in the post-doc. The committee would like to video are in the works. AAAI Press has Council meeting. It was suggested that significantly increase the size of the published 19 technical reports, and 8 this meeting be moved to a time dur - doctoral consortium, and host a job proceedings since the last report. In ing the main conference to encourage fair at AAAI. Walsh is also organizing addition, the AAAI-14/IAAI-14 was just greater participation by the member - the first research speed dating event at published and the 4-volume set is the ship. AAAI, designed to give younger re - largest in the series at 3,280 pages. The Standing Committee searchers an opportunity to connect new AAAI Press printer will offer the with senior researchers and lab direc - capability of ordering AAAI Press titles Reports Part III tors. Other suggested incentives for to nearly 39,000 wholesale and retail Strategic Planning Board: Henry Kautz students might be an international stu - partners in 220 countries and territo - reported on the November 2013 meet - dent chapter, a student reception, ries around the world. AAAI proceed - ing of the Strategic Planning Board. AAAI email addresses, seats on the ings are also now offered as download - The Board discussed future directions Executive Council, a best thesis award, able PDFs at a very reasonable price. for AAAI and how new initiatives and student conferences travel funds The Publications Committee will be might be funded. He noted that all but for the conference as well as to visit meeting later in the week to discuss the two living past presidents attended the research labs. The committee will work future of monographs. meeting. Tom Dietterich will be fol - with the conference committee for lowing up on an examination of cur - 2015 on some of these issues, and with Outgoing Council Reports rent operating costs to see if further the membership committee on a pro - Outgoing Council members Kate Lar - efficiencies can be instituted to help posal for reduced student fees in select son, Makoto Yokoo, and Shlomo Zil - fund future projects. countries. berstein presented their reflections on The Council discussed the idea of their tenure as Executive Council Ongoing Business establishing an international organiza - members, and Manuela Veloso CRA Report: Henry Kautz reported that tion with a federated conference. How - thanked them for their time on the the CRA is seeking $50K in funding to ever, the alternative model of a rotat - Council. help support staff members in the ing group of collocated conferences The Council then adjourned to the Office of Science and Technology Poli - was more appealing. This model would AAAI Annual Business Meeting. cy. The Council suggested recruiting

SPRING 2015 109 AAAI News people in the community to work with considered experimental. As a result, the University of Texas team playing the CRA to help with a fundraising the following Amendment to the against another team, to be effort. The CRA continues to publish bylaws was unanimously approved by announced. The RoboCup Federation the Taulbee Survey, the principal the Executive Council. This wording will cosponsor this event. source of information on the enroll - will be reviewed by our legal counsel AAAI Membership Fees/Growth: ment, production, and employment of before implementation. Manuela Veloso reported on several Ph.D.s in computer science and com - Proposed Resolution for Change in initiatives taken in the past year to puter engineering and in providing Bylaws : stimulate membership growth, and salary and demographic data for facul - Whereas (1) the change in scheduling asked the Council to consider other ty in computer science and computer of the Annual Conference for 2015 creative ideas. AAAI has offered com - engineering in North America. and 2016 has created an inconsistent plimentary memberships to all atten - AI Topics: Bruce Buchanan (via writ - situation between the specified time dees of sister conferences who are new ten report) noted that he and Reid of the Annual Meeting of the Corpo - to AAAI (not a current member and ration and the terms of office of Offi - Smith have started a company (i2k have not been a member in the last 10 cers and Councilors, (2) said change in years). In addition, the promotional Connect), which will provide services scheduling is considered to be a two- silver rate has been established at the using a technology developed for AI year experiment, and (3) the bylaws Topics, namely categorizing large col - strictly prohibit the Council from main conference, which offers mem - lections of documents using arbitrary extending any terms of office, and bership at a reduced rate of $99 (regu - taxonomies and unlabeled documents desiring to resolve said inconsistencies lar) and $49 (student). This member - for training classifiers. Buchanan while maintaining the terms of office ship does not include the hard copy reported that they are partially operat - as specified in the bylaws, the Execu - version of the magazine. There is no ing AI Topics on a grant from NSF, tive Council hereby approves and longer a nonmember rate at the main adopts the following amendment to which enables them to hire a summer conference. All attendees at the confer - the bylaws under the authorities ence must be members through the intern. They are working on being able granted to it by Article XVII, as an selection of the silver or platinum reg - to crawl online AI journals and collec - addition to Article XI, Election of tions to pick out overview articles and Councilors and Officers. istration options. The Council dis - book reviews that summarize work in cussed the idea of extending the pro - Section 3. Period of Incumbency. all areas of AI. They are trying to repli - motional rate as an option for all In years in which the corporation’s cate what the NewsFinder program is members. The membership committee Annual Conference does not take will study this idea, as well as ways to already doing with automated crawl, place in the summer, a Special Meet - make membership in the association a selection of interesting articles, and ing of the Executive Council shall be automatic posting on the web. It is held during the summer at a time and value proposition, and report back to likely that the running of AI Topics place designated by the President or the Council. A survey of nonrenewing will need to taken over by the Publica - by one-third of its Councilors. In these members may be conducted. tions Committee or another group years, this special meeting of the Exec - Outstanding Educator Award: Man - within AAAI when the NSF funds are utive Council shall replace the Annu - uela Veloso reported that Kiri Wagstaff al meeting of members with respect to exhausted. has proposed the establishment of the all other provisions of these bylaws Outstanding Educator Award for New Business relating to elections and terms of $1,000. The Council requires more office of Officers and Councilors, with detail on this award before final action Executive Council Election Changes: Ted the purpose of maintaining the regu - can be taken. Senator noted that the move of the lar terms of office as specified in Arti - conference from July to January result - cles VIII and X of these bylaws. Before adjournment, Council mem - bers signed up to serve on various com - ed in the AAAI election cycle to be out AAAI-15 Budget Request: Sven mittees, and the meeting adjourned at of sync with the conference, and the Koenig, AAAI-15 Program Cochair, 4:30 PM . annual business meeting. The bylaws requested $30K in temporary funds to prohibit the Council from extending support additional robotics activity at the terms of officers and therefore Ted the conference. A proposal has been Minutes, AAAI Executive proposed two alternative approaches submitted to NSF for funding of these Council Meeting that would resolve this situation, one activities, and it is expected to be fund - of which would align terms of office ed. However, the calls for participation The AAAI Executive Council meeting with the new conference schedule by need to issued immediately, and a was held November 10, 2014 via tele - reducing the term of office for current guarantee of funding is needed. Robot - com. The meeting convened at 12:00 office holders, and the other of which ics activities are also being sponsored noon PST. Tom Dietterich welcomed retained the terms of office but decou - by several other organizations, includ - all to the meeting and roll call was tak - pled them from the annual conference ing IEEE RSS. The grant of $30K was en. and meeting of members. The Council approved unanimously by the Coun - Attending: Thomas Dietterich, was strongly in favor of the latter cil. Koenig also noted that one of the Manuela Veloso, Subbarao Kambham - approach, especially considering that robotics activities at AAAI-15 will be a pati, Ted Senator, Sonia Chernova, the change in Conference time is still special RoboCup exhibition, featuring Vincent Conitzer, Boi Faltings, Carla

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Gomes, Julia Hirschberg, Eduard Hovy, mittee will discuss and propose at the mittee has decided to suspend future Sven Koenig, Henry Lieberman, January meeting. Zilberstein noted monograph publishing activity, as this Francesca Rossi, Stephen Smith, Sylvie that survey participants were over - cannot be done efficiently, and there is Thiebaux, Brian Williams, David whelmingly supportive of the addi - little demand for it. Leake, Carol Hamilton. tional half-day if it would increase par - Executive: President Tom Dietterich ticipation, and the Council agreed to announced that Lise Getoor has agreed 2015 Budget Overview leave this decision for 2015 up to the to serve as the AAAI liaison for Com - Prior to the Council meeting, a copy of program cochairs. However, a decision puting Research Association activities. the 2015 budget was circulated, along should be made immediately in order with several documents providing to allow people to make their travel She will attend the annual summit and overviews of select budget items, such plans. board meetings on AAAI’s behalf. The as the conference, membership, opera - Membership: Ed Hovy, Membership motion to approve her appointment tions, and the general budgeting Committee Chair, noted that the com - passed unanimously. Tom is also form - process. The purpose of these docu - mittee is investigating the possibility ing a Media Working Group that will ments was to provide top-level guide - of setting a low fee for students in examine AAAI social media and web - lines for interpreting the AAAI budget - developing countries. In order to do site activities, and make suggestions on ing process and larger budget cost this, they will be examining in depth how to improve our outreach in that centers. Tom Dietterich noted that the current membership base, with area. In response to recent media activ - 2015 will be a challenging transition special attention to the student num - ity, AAAI has organized a number of year from a North American summer bers. The Council discussed various activities to address ethical issues in AI, conference schedule to a winter sched - methods of approaching the issue, including a workshop at the 2015 con - ule, especially with the short time - with some proposing less benefits for ference, a debate, and other forums to frame between the 2014 conference less money, and some supporting the educate the public. David Leake would and the 2015 conference. With the examination and enhancement of decision to move the conference, the benefits to attract more members. It is like to organize a follow-up article in Council accepted a certain amount a hoped that a balance of these two the AI Magazine. The Council dis - risk and should anticipate a loss if reg - views can be achieved through a cre - cussed AAAI’s role in responding to istration is lower than normal. After ative new approach to the membership questions and assertions about the eth - discussing the following standing com - fee structure. Both Manuela Veloso and ical use of AI. Although no consensus mittee reports, the Council moved to Rao Kambhampati expressed the view was reached, the Council did agree accept the budget as proposed, and that we should seek to be competitive that AAAI should continue to hold that the principles outlined in the with ACM in our membership fees. forums for the exchange of ideas, and overview documents would be fol - In response to a question from to respond to the press via AI experts. lowed for any additional or unantici - Manuela Veloso about the possibility There was resistance to the idea of pre - pated expenses. The motion was unan - of publishing AI Magazine at Ama - senting one voice representing all imously ap proved. zon.com, David Leake noted that the AAAI members. AI Magazine is currently printed in as Standing Committee Reports efficient and eco-friendly manner as AAAI-16 Overview Conference: Tom Dietterich announced possible, and that this provides a that Shlomo Zilberstein has agreed to strong incentive for authors to publish Carol Hamilton presented proposals serve as the new Conference Commit - their work in the magazine, which is from several venues for AAAI-16, tee Chair. Shlomo and cochair Vince mailed to many libraries and govern - which will again be held in the North Conitzer had conducted a survey of all ment agencies. Our current publica - American winter timeframe. In light of 2014 participants, and the results will tion method integrates well with our the preferences gathered in the recent be used to help shape the conference mailing list of members and sub - conference survey, the Council decid - in the coming years. The Council was scribers, which would not be the case ed that the best option would be very supportive, including financially, at Amazon. The membership commit - Phoenix, Arizona, both for the time of new ideas to help reach out to new tee will have a proposal at the January period available and its proximity to communities, and Toby Walsh noted meeting for review. Arizona State University. Other advan - that additional financial support may Publications: David Leake, Publica - tages include accessibility, warmth, be needed in 2016 with the location of tions Committee Chair, reported that student accommodations, and flexibil - IJCAI-16 in North America. Shlomo proceedings publishing and technical ity of meeting space. The conference had two items for discussion, includ - report publishing remained a very ing a request to make the conference important and thriving service for will be held February 12–17, which is a more family-friendly and to possibly AAAI, as well as the publication of the shift in the traditional day pattern for add an additional half-day to the 2015 AI Magazine each quarter. In addition AAAI. conference. The Council was very sup - to AAAI conferences, AAAI publishes There being no further business, the portive of adopting a family-friendly several proceedings for other affiliated meeting adjourned at 1:45 PM PST. policy, which the Conference Com - conferences. The Publications Com -

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