ICML 2014 Workshop on Divergence Methods for Probabilistic Inference
Submission Deadline: April 13, 2014
Beijing, June 25/26, 2014
http://ml-thu.net/~dmpi-icml2014-workshop/home

Call for Participation
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Researchers in various sub-fields of machine learning and statistics such as natural language processing, collaborative filtering and neuroinformatics regularly employ probabilistic methods for analyzing data. Probabilistic inference is the process of updating a-priori uncertainty with new information such as new data samples and constraints, and is a cornerstone of modern machine learning and applied statistics. The workshop aims to explore divergence methods for probabilistic inference, considering issues such as the choice of divergence, the choice of constraints, efficient and scalable inference, and applications to big data. The workshop will provide a venue for researchers in disparate fields to interact, map out the state of the art in the field, and encourage discussion to stimulate new theoretical and practical developments.

Topics of interest include:
* Analysis: Analysis of the properties of different divergence functionals. Properties of the divergence based posterior estimates such as consistency, sample complexity and risk.
* Novel constraints: Development of novel approaches for incorporating constraints such as online constraint generation. Complex structured regularizers and graph regularizers such as wordnet for semantic relationships between name entities.
* Scalable inference for big data and complex data: Novel scalable inference methods for modern big data applications including parallel, distributed and streaming architectures for large scale inference. Novel models and inference methods for multi-relational and multi-modal data with complex interactions.
* Applications: Applications to various problem domains such as constrained clustering, natural language processing and scientific applications.

Submissions
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We invite submissions for original papers that introduce new research developments, directions, frameworks, results, etc. in these and related areas. We also invite submissions of recently published high-quality work. Though, we note that preference will be given to original contributions. Potential participants may submit full papers (up to 8 pages in length in ICML format) or short papers (extended abstracts, 2-4 pages in length) by April 11, 2014 sent electronically via the online submission site: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/DMPI2014/.

The workshop is non-archival and the authors retain the copyrights to the entries and the rights to resubmit and publish at other venues.

Organizing Committee
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Sanmi Koyejo (University of Texas at Austin)
Jun Zhu (Tsinghua university)
Mark Reid (Australian National University)
Eric Xing (Carnegie Mellon University)