The DA2PL workshop has been launched with the goal of bringing together researchers from operations research and the decision sciences with scholars from machine learning. It aims at providing a forum for discussing recent advances and identifying new research challenges in the intersection of both fields, which is marked by the growing field of preference learning, thereby supporting a cross-fertilisation of these disciplines.

Following the three previous editions of this workshop, which took place in Mons in 2012, Paris in 2014 and Paderborn in 2016, DA2PL’2018 will be held at the Poznan University of Technology, Poland, at November 22-23, 2018.

DA2PL’2018 solicits contributions to the usage of theoretically supported preference models and formalisms in preference learning as well as communications devoted to innovative preference learning methods in decision analysis and multicriteria decision aiding. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to

• quantitative and qualitative approaches to modelling preferences, user feedback and training data;
• preference representation in terms of graphical models, logical formalisms, and soft constraints;
• dealing with incomplete and uncertain preferences;
• preference aggregation and disaggregation;
• learning utility functions using regression-based approaches;
• preference elicitation and active learning;
• preference learning in combinatorial domains;
• learning relational preference models and related regression problems;
• classification problems, such as ordinal and hierarchical classification;
• inducing monotonic decision models for preference representation;
• comparison of different preference learning paradigms (e.g., monolithic vs. decomposition);
• ranking problems, such as object ranking, instance ranking and label ranking;
• complementarity of preference models and hybrid methods;
• explanation of recommendations;
• applications of preference learning, such as web search, information retrieval, electronic commerce, games, personalization, recommender systems

Submissions

We solicit full research papers as well as extended abstracts reporting on more preliminary results. Submissions must be written in English and formatted according to the electronic template. The LaTeX template and an example tex file are available at the following link: da2pl2018.zip. The page limit is 8 for full papers and 2 for extended abstracts. Submissions must be submitted through EasyChair and will be reviewed by at least two referees.

This year, DA2PL will provide a special opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests. A special session at the conference will be devoted for PhD students to present and discuss their ongoing research work. Therefore, we specifically encourage young researchers to submit their work (as full paper or extended abstract, depending on the maturity of the PhD project); the submission site will offer a possibility to mark a submission as a student paper.

Important dates

Submission site opens: May 1, 2018

Paper submission: September 1, 2018

Author notification: September 30, 2018

Camera-ready version: November 3, 2018

Conference: November 22-23, 2018