Jacek Koronacki - Böcker

The two premier annual European conferences in the areas of machine learning and data mining have been collocated ever since the ?rst joint conference in Freiburg, 2001. The European Conference on Machine Learning (ECML) traces its origins to 1986, when the ?rst European Working Session on Learning was held in Orsay, France. The European Conference on Principles and Practice of KnowledgeDiscoveryinDatabases(PKDD) was?rstheldin1997inTrondheim, Norway. Over the years, the ECML/PKDD series has evolved into one of the largest and most selective international conferences in machine learning and data mining. In 2007, the seventh collocated ECML/PKDD took place during September 17–21 on the centralcampus of WarsawUniversityand in the nearby Staszic Palace of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The conference for the third time used a hierarchical reviewing process. We nominated 30 Area Chairs, each of them responsible for one sub-?eld or several closely related research topics. Suitable areas were selected on the basis of the submission statistics for ECML/PKDD 2006 and for last year’s International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2006) to ensure a proper load balance amongtheAreaChairs.AjointProgramCommittee(PC)wasnominatedforthe two conferences, consisting of some 300 renowned researchers, mostly proposed by the Area Chairs. This joint PC, the largest of the series to date, allowed us to exploit synergies and deal competently with topic overlaps between ECML and PKDD. ECML/PKDD 2007 received 592 abstract submissions. As in previous years, toassistthereviewersandtheAreaChairsintheir?nalrecommendationauthors had the opportunity to communicate their feedback after the reviewing phase.

The two premier annual European conferences in the areas of machine learning and data mining have been collocated ever since the ?rst joint conference in Freiburg, 2001. The European Conference on Machine Learning (ECML) traces its origins to 1986, when the ?rst European Working Session on Learning was held in Orsay, France. The European Conference on Principles and Practice of KnowledgeDiscoveryinDatabases(PKDD) was?rstheldin1997inTrondheim, Norway. Over the years, the ECML/PKDD series has evolved into one of the largest and most selective international conferences in machine learning and data mining. In 2007, the seventh collocated ECML/PKDD took place during September 17–21 on the centralcampus of WarsawUniversityand in the nearby Staszic Palace of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The conference for the third time used a hierarchical reviewing process. We nominated 30 Area Chairs, each of them responsible for one sub-?eld or several closely related research topics. Suitable areas were selected on the basis of the submission statistics for ECML/PKDD 2006 and for last year’s International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2006) to ensure a proper load balance amongtheAreaChairs.AjointProgramCommittee(PC)wasnominatedforthe two conferences, consisting of some 300 renowned researchers, mostly proposed by the Area Chairs. This joint PC, the largest of the series to date, allowed us to exploit synergies and deal competently with topic overlaps between ECML and PKDD. ECML/PKDD 2007 received 592 abstract submissions. As in previous years, toassistthereviewersandtheAreaChairsintheir?nalrecommendationauthors had the opportunity to communicate their feedback after the reviewing phase.

Professor Richard S. Michalski passed away on September 20, 2007. Once we learned about his untimely death we immediately realized that we would no longer have with us a truly exceptional scholar and researcher who for several decades had been inf- encing the work of numerous scientists all over the world - not only in his area of expertise, notably machine learning, but also in the broadly understood areas of data analysis, data mining, knowledge discovery and many others. In fact, his influence was even much broader due to his creative vision, integrity, scientific excellence and exceptionally wide intellectual horizons which extended to history, political science and arts. Professor Michalski’s death was a particularly deep loss to the whole Polish sci- tific community and the Polish Academy of Sciences in particular. After graduation, he began his research career at the Institute of Automatic Control, Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. In 1970 he left his native country and hold various prestigious positions at top US universities. His research gained impetus and he soon established himself as a world authority in his areas of interest – notably, he was widely cons- ered a father of machine learning.

Professor Richard S. Michalski passed away on September 20, 2007. Once we learned about his untimely death we immediately realized that we would no longer have with us a truly exceptional scholar and researcher who for several decades had been inf- encing the work of numerous scientists all over the world - not only in his area of exp- tise, notably machine learning, but also in the broadly understood areas of data analysis, data mining, knowledge discovery and many others. In fact, his influence was even much broader due to his creative vision, integrity, scientific excellence and excepti- ally wide intellectual horizons which extended to history, political science and arts. Professor Michalski’s death was a particularly deep loss to the whole Polish sci- tific community and the Polish Academy of Sciences in particular. After graduation, he began his research career at the Institute of Automatic Control, Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. In 1970 he left his native country and hold various prestigious positions at top US universities. His research gained impetus and he soon established himself as a world authority in his areas of interest – notably, he was widely cons- ered a father of machine learning.

Professor Richard S. Michalski passed away on September 20, 2007. Once we learned about his untimely death we immediately realized that we would no longer have with us a truly exceptional scholar and researcher who for several decades had been inf- encing the work of numerous scientists all over the world - not only in his area of expertise, notably machine learning, but also in the broadly understood areas of data analysis, data mining, knowledge discovery and many others. In fact, his influence was even much broader due to his creative vision, integrity, scientific excellence and exceptionally wide intellectual horizons which extended to history, political science and arts. Professor Michalski’s death was a particularly deep loss to the whole Polish sci- tific community and the Polish Academy of Sciences in particular. After graduation, he began his research career at the Institute of Automatic Control, Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. In 1970 he left his native country and hold various prestigious positions at top US universities. His research gained impetus and he soon established himself as a world authority in his areas of interest – notably, he was widely cons- ered a father of machine learning.

Professor Richard S. Michalski passed away on September 20, 2007. Once we learned about his untimely death we immediately realized that we would no longer have with us a truly exceptional scholar and researcher who for several decades had been inf- encing the work of numerous scientists all over the world - not only in his area of exp- tise, notably machine learning, but also in the broadly understood areas of data analysis, data mining, knowledge discovery and many others. In fact, his influence was even much broader due to his creative vision, integrity, scientific excellence and excepti- ally wide intellectual horizons which extended to history, political science and arts. Professor Michalski’s death was a particularly deep loss to the whole Polish sci- tific community and the Polish Academy of Sciences in particular. After graduation, he began his research career at the Institute of Automatic Control, Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. In 1970 he left his native country and hold various prestigious positions at top US universities. His research gained impetus and he soon established himself as a world authority in his areas of interest – notably, he was widely cons- ered a father of machine learning.