A report on the fourth international workshop on environmental applications of machine learning (EAML 2004)

Abstract

The Fourth International Workshop on Environmental Applications of Machine Learning (EAML) was organized in Bled, Slovenia, during the week of September 27 – October 1, 2004, jointly with the Fourth European Conference on Ecological Modelling (ECEM). The aim of these events was to bring together researchers from the areas of ecology, ecological modelling and environmental sciences, on one hand, and the areas of data analysis, data mining and machine learning, on the other. In many respects, they were treated as a single event, namely ECEM/EAML 2004. As environmental concerns grow and information technology develops, more and more data on the different aspects (physical, chemical, biological, ecological) of the environment are gathered. There is an increasing need to analyse the collected environmental data for different purposes, which include the support for environmental management decisions. Machine learning methods can be used to discover knowledge in environmental data, as well as construct ecological models in an automated fashion, thus providing support for environmental management. The International Workshop on Environmental Applications of Machine Learning provided a forum for presenting recent advances in applying machine learning and data mining techniques for the analysis of environmental data. EAML 2004 was the fourth workshop on the topic, with previous workshops mainly attracting researchers in ecological modeling interested in the use of machine learning. The ECEM/EAML 2004 conference brought together participants from both communities, including many prominent figures, such as the founders/first editors of the journals of Ecological Modelling and Machine Learning. The scientific program of ECEM/EAML 2004 consisted of invited lectures as well as oral and poster presentations of accepted contributions. The conference brought together two separate communities which have overlapping research topics. Both events have had separate advisory committees and invited speakers. However, the program chairs and organizing committee as well as the program committee and review process were joint for both events. Also, a single registration fee allowed access to both events. In addition to the scientific program, each day was concluded with a social event which facilitated the interaction and communication between the two communities. Each of ECEM and EAML lasted for three days (EAML September 27-29, ECEM September 29 to October 1). Wednesday September 29 was a joint/overlap day, with a joint invited speaker, technical sessions of interest to both communities and a joint poster session. A total of 110 abstracts were submitted until March 20. Each submitted abstract was sent to three members of the program committee for review. The program committee members themselves did the majority of reviews, assisted by some additional reviewers appointed by the committee members. Classification of accepted presentations for oral or poster sessions was based on the reviewers’ evaluation of their quality and generality of interest. Revised versions of accepted abstracts were published in two separate proceedings, one for ECEM 2004 (ISBN:961-6303-60-0) and another for EAML 2004 (ISBN: 961-6303-59-7). Both proceedings are available on-line from the website of ECEM/EAML. Of the 110 submissions, 90 were accepted. Of these, 29 went to EAML and 61 to ECEM. Authors of accepted abstracts (for both oral and poster presentation) were invited to submit full versions of their papers by June 20. About 60 full papers have been already submitted, and they are currently being reviewed by members of the program committee and additional reviewers. The accepted papers will be published in two special issues of the journal Ecological Modelling (one for ECEM 2004, one for EAML 2004). At ECEM/EAML, opening addresses were given by distinguished guests. These included Zoran Stancic (State secretary, Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport) and Nada Lavrac (Head of the Department of Knowledge Technologies, Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana), who spoke at the opening of EAML 2004 on September 27. Tarzan Legovic (President of European Chapter of ISEM, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia) spoke at the opening of ECEM 2004 on September 29. The program of EAML 2004 included three invited talks, given by Joseph C. Coughlan (NASA Ames, USA), Cesare Furlanello (ITC-irst, Trento, Italy), and Jacqueline McGlade (European Environment Agency), as well as 22 oral and 7 poster presentations of accepted contributions.