ICML '98

(larger version of cover)

The Fifteenth International Conference on Machine Learning

The on-line schedule for ICML-98 contains links to many of the papers. You can order a paper copy of the proceedings from Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

The Fifteenth International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML-98) was held July 24-27, 1998 in Madison, Wisconsin USA. It was collocated with several other AI-related conferences, including AAAI-98. In particular, ICML-98 was held in the same building as, and concurrently with, the Computational Learning Theory (COLT-98) and Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI-98) conferences. It also overlapped one-day with the the Inductive Logic Programming (ILP-98) conference.

The 'big picture' of all the conference-related sites can be seen with this map. Most of ICML will be held in the UW Business School (Grainger Hall), though plenary events will take place in Mills Concert Hall in the Humanities Building. Here is a map between the two nearby campus sites. (Copies of both maps will be available at the registration desk.) Evening events on Friday and Saturday will be held at the Madison Convention Center; buses will be shuttling between Grainger Hall and the convention center Friday and Saturday 6pm to midnight.

Registrants to any of COLT, ICML, or UAI were allowed to attend, without additional costs, the technical sessions of the other two conferences. There are joint invited speakers, pre-conference reception, banquet, poster session, and panel session for the three conferences. (NOTE: YOU ONLY NEED TO REGISTER FOR ONE OF COLT, ICML, and UAI.)

Conference Schedule

Includes abstracts of accepted papers and links to some final papers (postscript or pdf). A merged schedule for COLT, ICML, UAI, and ILP (Friday only) is available in postscript.

Guest admission for Friday's banquet ($40) and Saturday's poster session ($20) will be available at the registration desk. Extra copies of the ICML proceedings and the conference t-shirt will also be for sale.

Registering for ICML-98

The advance registration deadline has passed, and you will need to register on-site ($250 regular and $170 student). Mastercard and Visa, as well as cash and checks, will be accepted.

AAAI will be handling advance registrations for ICML-98, even if you only wish to attend the ICML meeting. You can get a registration form and a conference brochure (in pdf), as well as various other information, from the AAAI-98 web site.
( Adobe's Acrobat Reader, a pdf reader, is available for free for a wide range of platforms)

Invited Speakers

Reinforcement Learning: How Far Can It Go?
Richard Sutton, University of Massachusetts

Crossing the Chasm: From Academic Machine Learning to Commercial Data Mining
Ron Kohavi, Silicon Graphics

2.5 Millennia of Directed Graphs (joint banquet talk)
David Spiegelhalter, Medical Research Council (Cambridge, England)

There will also be invited speakers from the COLT, UAI, and ILP conferences.

Tutorials and Workshops

There will not be a separate tutorial and workshop program for ICML. Instead, ICML will be jointly sponsoring some of the AAAI tutorials and workshops. These joint ICML-AAAI events will be held on Monday, July 27, 1998 at the Inn at the Park hotel, located at the corner of Main & Carroll, two blocks from the Madison Convention Center.

AAAI has agreed to allow ICML attendees to attend AAAI workshops and tutorials without requiring attendance at AAAI. However, there will be a fee for attending the tutorials.

Conference Location

The Thursday reception and most of the technical sessions will be held at Grainger Hall (UW School of Business). Plenary sessions and some other events will be held in Mills Concert Hall in the Humanities Building. Friday's banquet and Saturday's poster session will be held at the Madison Convention Center; bus service will be provided. See this map for the full picture.

Campus Map | Campus-to-Capitol Map | City Map | Regional Map

Conference Chair

Jude Shavlik
Department of Computer Sciences
University of Wisconsin - Madison

icml98@cs.wisc.edu

Advisory and Program Committees

Sponsors

Lodging

 Short reviews of various Madison hotels are available from the Insider's Guide to Madison.

Blocks of rooms have been reserved at the Howard Johnson Plaza-Hotel at 525 West Johnson Street, which is about three blocks away from the Business School; The Madison Inn at 601 Langdon Street, which is about four blocks from the Business School and one block from Lake Mendota; the Inn on the Park - Capitol Square at 22 S. Caroll Street, which is two blocks from the site of AAAI-98 on Lake Monona. Attendees will be able to stay for both ICML and AAAI. (The rates below are good after the cut-off dates, but after those dates the room blocks will be opened to the general public.)

Howard Johnson Plaza-Hotel

Inn on the Park - Capitol Square

The Madison Inn

A small number of rooms (20; 12 left as of June 18) have also been reserved at the UW's Lowell Hall (608-256-2621). The rates are $52 single and $62 double, breakfast and parking included. This is a hotel-like facility run by the Univ. of Wisconsin for conferences. It is located at 610 Langdon Street and has a pool, sauna, and exercise room. You'll need to take a cab from the airport to Lowell Hall (about $10-12). After July 1, the ICML allotment of rooms will be released to other university-related visitors. (It's at the corner of Langdon & Frances on this map [#7].)

Air-conditioned dorm rooms are available (over 500 still remaining) about one block from the Business School; these are also the AAAI dorm rooms. (See building #199 - Witte Hall [#8 on this map]; the Business School is building #51.) The daily per-person cost (breakfast included) is $27 double and $40 single. A form for the dorm reservations is in the AAAI conference brochure and is also available as either a pdf file or a ps file. Please send the completed form directly to the address shown on it. You'll need to take a cab from the airport to the dorms (about $10-12). The official deadline for dorm reservations is June 24, but if you fax [608-262-5576] something you should be ok; you should call the housing office at 608-262-5576 (or email sumconf@housing.wisc.edu).

The Regent Apartments (1-608-258-4900; 1-800-456-0223), 1402 Regent St, accepts short-term stays at their furnished apartments during the summer. Their rates are $55/night for a two-bedroom (four single beds) and $45/night for an efficiency (one single bed), both with kitchens and private bathrooms (parking and linens included). They are located about seven blocks southwest of Grainger Hall, at the corner of Regent and Monroe just south of the Camp Randall football stadium. (Via this slow site you can reach a page for these apartments, including floor plans, but I don't know how to directly get there ... [try this])

The Madison Concourse Hotel (1-608-257-6000; 1-800-356-8293) is the AAAI Headquarters Hotel (AAAI rates are $99 single, $109 double). It is located near the Capitol (1 W. Dayton Street), three blocks from the convention center. As of June 20, they have about 30 rooms available during COLT/ICML/UAI, all in their Governor's Club at $139/night. They have a complimentary airport shuttle.

Another convenient hotel has about a dozen rooms as of June 18: University Inn (1-608-257-4881; 1-800-279-4881), near corner of State & Frances Sts. Rates are $54 single and $64 double, parking & breakfast included.

Madison has a small hostel; skipnis5@ssc.wisc.edu, 1-608-251-5873. It is conveniently located but doesn't have many rooms.

Additional downtown hotels include:

The Edgewater (1-608-256-9071; 1-800-922-5512)
On Lake Mendota where Wisconsin Ave. and Langdon St. meet. (as of June 20 filled July 25; some $175/night rooms left for other days)

Sheraton (1-608-251-2300; 1-800-325-3535) and ExcelGrand (1-608-255-7400; 1-800-574-3935)
Near the Dane County Coliseum, which is about 1 1/2 miles south of the capitol.

As of June 20, lots of room at the Sheraton ($89 single and $99 double - these are the AAAI rates); however, you'd probably need a rental car (they have an airport shuttle, but don't have enough capacity for travel to and from the conference sites).

The ExcelGrand also has available rooms ($61 single; $66 double). They don't have an airport shuttle, but do have a free breakfast. You'd probably need a rental car if you stay in this hotel.

(You might also wish to rent a bicycle instead of a car. See information on Budget Bicycle Center below.)

There are also some hotels on the west end of campus, on University Avenue south of the WARF building on this map:
Best Western InnTowner (1-608-238-7878; 1-800-258-8321) at 2424 University Avenue
and the Ivy Inn (1-608-233-9717) at 2355 University Avenue.

Finally, see the Chamber of Commerce's travel & lodging page for more information. There is a bed & breakfast page; though they are likely to be full, especially on summer weekends. (If you wish to splurge, try the Mansion Hill Inn at $300/night.)

Additional campus maps, information about other hotels, and general information about the area are available on another page.

Parking

Parking after 5pm (eg, for the Thursday reception) and on the weekend should be pretty easy, because many of the university lots are unrestricted at those times. University parking locations and nearby city lots can be seen via this map (the conference site is building 51; lot 51 is a large lot that is open to the general public after 5pm and on weekends). Alternatively, by going south several blocks from the Business School you should be able to find on-street parking.

If you would like to purchase a parking pass for Friday, please send before July 10 a check for $5 (made out to UW Transportation Services) to:

Jude Shavlik
Department of Computer Sciences
University of Wisconsin
1210 W. Dayton Street
Madison, WI 53706
You can pick up your pass at the Thursday reception. Passes will be for lot 48 (notice that this lot requires a parking pass until 10pm Mon-Sat, so you should use another lot Thursday night and Saturday).

Additional Information

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