Sarkar Lab

Mini-Symposium: Research at the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge

We are organising a mini-symposium about research at the Balcones Canyonlands NWR on the University of Texas--Austin campus for Friday, 25 January 2008, from 2.30 -6.00 p.m. at the Atrium (FAC 419). There will be 15-minute talks followed by general discussion. All researchers are invited to present their projects and we will try to accommodate as many talks as possible. Even if you do not wish to present a talk, please try to attend.

The audience will include several students who are considering doing research or otherwise volunteering at the Refuge. At the end we will retire to the Scholz Beer Garden.

If you wish to present some work, please send me a title as soon as possible (even if it is tentative). In any case, I would like to hear from everyone who plans to come. It will be a great occasion for those working at the Refuge to interact with each other. With luck, it will spur more research across disciplines and universities.

Annual Formal Epistemology Workshops

We are in the process of organizing our fifth annual formal epistemology workshop (the first, second, third, and fourth workshops were all great successes). The purpose of these workshops is to bring together individuals, both faculty and graduate students, using mathematical methods in epistemology in small focused meetings.

Topics treated will include but are not limited to: Ampliative inference (including inductive logic); Game theory and decision theory; Formal learning theory; Formal theories of coherence: Foundations of probability and statistics; Formal approaches to paradoxes of belief and/or action; Belief revision; Causal discovery.

Besides papers with respondents, each workshop will typically include short introductory tutorials (three or four topically related presentations) on formal methods. These tutorials will be oriented particularly to graduate students.

The fifth workshop is scheduled for May 14–18, 2008 and will be held at UW–Madison. We are now accepting submissions for FEW 2008. Please send submissions by email to Peter Vranas. Submissions are due — in the form of full papers — by Friday, February 15 2008; notifications of acceptance either as definite presenters or as alternates will be sent out by Friday, March 14, 2008.

Those interested in participating, either by presenting papers, responding, or providing tutorials, or in helping with organization, should contact one of the local organizers listed below.

We can contribute $500 in travel funds for every graduate student who presents or comments on a paper.

Peter Vranas
Malcolm Forster
UW–Madison