Preface

This volume contains the technical papers presented at The Fourteenth International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML-97). The conference was held at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee from July 8 to 12. ICML-97 was co-located with the Tenth Annual Conference on Computational Learning Theory (COLT-97), which was held from July 6 to 9. The two conferences shared a tutorial program on July 8, a day of joint technical sessions on July 9, and various social activities. ICML-97's technical presentations continued on July 10 and 11, and ICML-affiliated workshops capped the week's activities on Saturday, July 12.

The 49 papers in this volume were selected from among 147 papers that were submitted to ICML-97. One paper was withdrawn from a total of 50 papers that were accepted. The Program Committee did an excellent job of reviewing and electronically discussing the submissions. Review followed a "blind" format in which author identification was removed from each submission prior to review, and reviewers did not know the identity of other reviewers prior to submission of an initial review. The Advisory Committee provided early input on the membership of the Program Committee, as well as the issues involved in coordinating with COLT-97.

Beyond the conference committees and authors, many others have contributed to the conference. In particular, I thank:

Sally Goldman, the joint COLT/ICML Tutorials Chair, who expertly managed tutorial-program development and execution;

Diana Gordon, the ICML-97 Workshops Chair, for a wonderful job soliciting and evaluating workshop proposals and interfacing with Workshop organizers;

Vijay Raghavan, my colleague at Vanderbilt and General Chair of COLT-97, for convincing me several years ago that co-located COLT and ICML conferences at Vanderbilt were worth the effort, and for helping with many aspects of ICML-97, as well as COLT-97;

Yoav Freund and Rob Schapire, the Program Co-chairs of COLT-97, for help in coordinating many aspects of COLT and ICML, including tutorials and scheduling;

ICML-97's distinguished keynote speakers, Steve Minton and Ray Mooney, for agreeing to serve;

Workshop organizers and tutorial presenters, listed on the following pages, for contributing to the intellectual excitement of ICML-97;

Auxiliary reviewers Peter Bartlett, James Cussens, Giuseppe Lo Bello, Chris Meek, David Page, Roberto Piola, Giancarlo Ruffo, and Paul Stolorz, for coming through in a pinch;

Libby Magill, Director of Vanderbilt's Office of Conferences, who administered many aspects of the conference, including registration and campus housing;

Bob Evans, Jungsoon Yoo, and student volunteers including Lewis Frey, Peixin Han, and Cen Li who helped at various points leading up to ICML-97;

Stefanos Manganaris, Krishnan Pillaipakkamnatt, Doug Talbert, Jerry Weinberg, and Dawn Wilkins, who helped with Web page development;

Jeremiah Locanas for help with cover art;

Rob Schapire and Martins Krikis for updates on the LaTex style file used to format papers;

Daimler-Benz Research and Technology Center for financial support that benefitted every ICML attendee;

Vanderbilt University and the Department of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University for contributing staff and faculty time, and covering "hidden" expenses;

Vanderbilt's University Research Council, headed by Dean Russell Hamilton, for contributions towards the support of our keynote speakers.

Doug Fisher