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<p><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-58fcbd3e-7fff-0502-9e57-c5e3f243072c">
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><b
style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-58fcbd3e-7fff-0502-9e57-c5e3f243072c"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Dear members of AI Inference and Machine Learning Communities,</span></b></p>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-58fcbd3e-7fff-0502-9e57-c5e3f243072c"> <br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">After several years of slumber, we are pleased to announce the resurrection of the UAI inference competition. This year we introduce a new </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">machine learning</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> component to the competition (read more below). </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The goal of this competition is to explore our communities’ various approaches to approximating quantities of graphical models such as the partition function or probability of evidence, the MAP and the marginal MAP values, evaluating the algorithms on an array of problems with varying difficulties. As alluded to, this year we also include a new category that hosts the machine learning challenge: multi-label classification (MLC), extending the competition to exploring various learning algorithms. We hope this event will continue to stimulate algorithms development and especially assess the state of the art in solvers for inference and learning in graphical models. </span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The timeline for the competition is as follows:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-left:
36pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">June, 2022</span></p>
<ul
style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;">
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 36pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">sample benchmarks to be released</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 36pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">solver submission opens (June 15th)</span></p></li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-left:
36pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">July, 2022</span></p>
<ul
style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;">
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 36pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">solver evaluations begin</span></p></li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-left:
36pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">August, 2022</span></p>
<ul
style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;">
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 36pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">mid-competition update (to be announced at UAI-2022)</span></p></li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">October, 2022</span></p>
<ul
style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;">
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 36pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">solver submissions close</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 36pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">final competition results announced!</span></p></li>
</ul>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">More information can be found on this year’s competition website: </span><a
href="https://uaicompetition.github.io/uci-2022/"
style="text-decoration:none;" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">https://uaicompetition.github.io/uci-2022/</span></a></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">We encourage anyone interested - whether new to the field or veterans - to join! Please reach out to us via </span><a
href="mailto:uaicompetition@gmail.com"
style="text-decoration:none;" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">uaicompetition@gmail.com</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> with any questions.</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">We look forward to hearing from you and including your solvers in the competition!</span></p>
<br>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">UAI-2022 Competition Organizers</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Rina Dechter (University of California, Irvine)</span><br>
<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight:normal;" id="docs-internal-guid-58fcbd3e-7fff-0502-9e57-c5e3f243072c"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Vibhav Gogate (University of Texas, Dallas)</span></b></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Alexander Ihler (University of California, Irvine)</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Junkyu Lee (IBM Research)</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Bobak Pezeshki (University of California, Irvine</span><span style="font-size:16.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#343434;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">)</span></p>
</b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Rina Dechter
Distinguished Professor, Department of Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425
(949) 824-6556
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:dechter@ics.uci.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">dechter@ics.uci.edu</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dechter" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dechter</a></pre>
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