Get ready for the premier European Artificial Intelligence event in 2006. ECAI-06 (http://ecai2006.itc.it/) will offer a set of excellent talks, plenty of most recent progress work presented in workshops, and the pleasant atmosphere of late summer evenings at lake Garda. Early registration is welcome until May 28th, 2006. As a member of a national AI society you will receive a registration discount which will in many cases be more than your annual AI society membership fee. Lets meet in Riva del Garda from Aug 28th to Sept 1st, 2006.

Werner Horn, ECCAI Chair

ECAI-06 : ECAI Travel Awards 2006

ECAI is pleased to announce a Travel Award Scheme for students, young researchers and faculty who are members of an ECCAI affiliated society participating in ECAI 06. The awards, valued at 400 Euros each, are for reimbursement of travel and part payment of registration fees. The ECAI Travel Award Scheme is sponsored by ECCAI and Savannah Simulations.

The purpose of these awards is to help young people at an early stage in their career. Research students, young teaching faculty or young research staff in need of financial help to attend. Grants to reimburse 75% of total costs are available, to a limit of 400 Euros. Recipients must be members of an ECCAI affiliated society. A basic understanding of the field is expected so that attendance should enrich existing knowledge, rather than being used for training. Only one applicant per institution and per paper can be funded, provided she has not received the travel grant in previous years. If you accept the ECAI Travel award you must include an acknowledgement to the ECAI sponsors in your presentation at the conference.
Applicants should follow the electronic submission procedure (see here http://www.eccai.org/travelaw.shtml)

Notification deadline: 22 May 2006

ECCAI Journals

- IEEE Intelligent systems (http://www.computer.org/intelligent/) :

March/April 2006 : Self-Managing Systems

We’re surrounded by natural self-managing systems, such as multicellular organisms, social insects, and ecosystems. Incorporating the key ideas from these systems into information systems could lead to cheap, straightforward, and highly robust solutions. Also in this issue: computational humor, an Internet-based content recommender, and more

Feature Article : Self-Organization Patterns in Wasp and Open-Source Communities, by Sergi Valverde, Guy Theraulaz, Jacques Gautrais, Vincent Fourcassié, and Ricard V. Solé
Examining both software developers and social insects as agents interacting in a complex network reveals common organization patterns. It also reveals that different reinforcement mechanisms clearly distinguish a few core members from the rest of the open-source community.
- Artificial Intelligence Communications: Volume 19, Number 1 / 2006
http://iospress.metapress.com/link.asp?id=c4qymcykuhpr

Artificial Intelligence Genealogy Project (see http://aigp.csres.utexas.edu/):

Ben Kuipers invite ECCAI members to contribute to the Artificial Intelligence Project in the current issue of AI Communications, volume 19. You can find the text here. The main idea is to create and maintain a database collecting the doctoral student-advisor relationships among researchs in the field. The inspiration is the Mathematical Genealogy Project (see http://www.genealogy.ams.org/).

ECCAI conferences and ECCAI sponsored Conferences

Call for ACAI-07 organization:

Deadlines:
    1 May 2006 : submission of draft detailed bids
    30 June 2006 : end of the discussion between the candidates and the ECCAI board
    August2006 : presentation of the bids and selection by the ECCAI General Assembly at Lago de Garda (ECAI-06) Information can be obtained by Ulises Cortes (email: ia@lsi.upc.edu ) or see the web page http://www.eccai.org/acai.shtml

Calls for ECAI-08 (PC Chair) and ECAI-10 (organization)

Call for Program Committee (PC) Chair position for ECAI-2008 in Patras (2008)

The national societies and the General Conference Chair should nominate a possible candidate and the next ECCAI General Assembly will elect the ECAI-2008 PC chair. Such nominations should be accompanied by appropriate supporting material including a curriculum vitae, letters of support and a statement by the candidate that s/he will have the time necessary and secretarial assistance to serve as a PC Chair for ECAI-2008.

Deadlines:
The nominations can be submitted for 1st May 2006 via email to Silvia Codareschi (silvia.coradeschi@tech.oru.se).
The discussion will take place during summer 2006 and the selection announced at Lago de Garda (ECAI-06).

Call for ECAI-10 Organisation

Deadlines:
    1 May 2006 : submission of draft detailed bids
    30 June 2006 : end of the discussion between the candidates and the ECCAI board
    August2006 : presentation of the bids and selection by the ECCAI General Assembly at Lago de Garda (ECAI-06) Guidelines for organizing ECAI. See also the map of the last ECAIs and the content of the last ECCAI General Assembly
For information, please contact Silvia Codareschi (email: silvia.coradeschi@tech.oru.se)

IJCAI-07 :

Twentieth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
6-12 January, 2007 Hyderabad, India www.ijcai-07.org
Theme: Artificial Intelligence and Its Benefits to Society…
Conference Chair : Ramon Lopez de Mantaras confchair07@ijcai.org
CALL FOR TECHNICAL PAPERS, TUTORIALS PROPOSALS, WORKSHOPS PROPOSALS : see www.ijcai-07.org/

ECCAI Conferences
28 Aug - 1 Sep 2006	ECAI-06	17th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Riva del Garda (Italy)
6-12 January, 2007	IJCAI-07	www.ijcai-07.org Hyderabad, India Theme: Artificial Intelligence and Its Benefits to Society…
ECCAI Sponsored Conferences
27 - 30 Jun 2006	IEA/AIE-2006	19th International Conference on Industrial and Enginering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Annecy (France)
26-28 Sept. 2006	AIC-2006	10th RUSSIAN CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION (AIC-2006), held in Obninsk, Moscow region. General Contacts: Gennady Osipov (chair)e-mail: gos@isa.ru Oleg Kuznetsov (vice-chair) e-mail: olkuznes@ipu.rssi.ru Vadim Stefanuk (vice-chair) e-mail: stefanuk@iitp.ru

Bulletin #2, March 2006

Editorial