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https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2259/preface.pdf
Preface: The 26th AIAI Irish Conference on Artificial
Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS 2018)
Rob Brennan1*, Joeran Beel2*, Ruth Byrne3 and Jeremy Debattista2*
1 Dublin City University, School of Computing, ADAPT Centre, Ireland
2 Trinity College Dublin, School of Computer Science & Statistics, ADAPT Centre, Ireland
2 Trinity College Dublin, School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Ireland
rob.brennan@dcu.ie, joeran.beel@tcd.ie, ruth.byrne@tcd.ie,
jeremy.debattista@adaptcentre.ie
Abstract. The 26th AIAI Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive
Science (AICS) celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2018 and is hosted by Trinity
College Dublin on behalf of AIAI, the Artificial Intelligence Association of Ire-
land, on the 6-7th of December of that year. AICS features 29 presentations, 12
posters and 2 keynotes. Researchers from sixteen Irish institutions and companies
submitted to AICS 2018. The paper acceptance rate was 62%, and the most sub-
missions were made by University College Dublin (UCD), Trinity College Dub-
lin (TCD), Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Ulster University (UU), and
Dublin City University (DCU), National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)
and University College Cork (UCC).
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cognitive Science, Ire-
land, Conference, AICS
1 Introduction
“Artificial intelligence gets real” was the title in Forbes magazine in 1998 [1]. A few
years later, reports on artificial intelligence had become less enthusiastic and questions
were asked like “Artificial Intelligence: Hype or Reality?” [2]. Nowadays, twenty years
later, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing at a fast pace (again), and has received
enormous attention from industry, academia and politics. Many companies go for ‘AI
first’ when it comes to new products and research; international conferences about ar-
tificial intelligence and machine learning are sold out within minutes; and political pow-
ers such as the USA, China or Europe invest billions to secure, or achieve, a leadership
role in artificial intelligence.
The Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS) has
experienced the ups and downs of Artificial Intelligence first hand. Thirty years ago, in
1988, the 1st Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science was or-
ganized by Henry McLoughlin, Arthur Cater, Gabriel McDermott, and Ronan Reilly at
the University College Dublin, UCD. AICS quickly became Ireland’s premier forum
* This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation
Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number 13/RC/2106.
for research in these fields, and has been held almost every year, at varying Irish uni-
versities. However, in the mid-90’s as well as the early 2010’s, AICS organisation
stalled for a couple of years.
This year, the 26th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science 1
is celebrating its 30th anniversary and is hosted by Trinity College Dublin’s School of
Computer Science and Statistics, the School of Psychology and Institute of Neurosci-
ence. AICS will take place on the Trinity campus at the Trinity Long Room Hub, Trin-
ity's interdisciplinary arts and humanities research institute from 6-7th December 2018.
While once a niche area, the fields of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence,
which encompass Data Analytics, Information Retrieval, and Machine Learning, are
now at the forefront of Irish computing research and industry.
AICS is as alive as the general field of artificial intelligence these days and received
almost double the number of submissions as last year. The packed programme contains
29 presentations and 12 posters. The topics of the presentations and posters reflect the
wide range of artificial intelligence and cognitive science research.
2 The Main Themes of AICS 2018
We are particularly delighted to have two international keynote speakers, namely Tor-
sten Schaub (University of Potsdam, Germany) and Monica Bucciarelli (University of
Turin, Italy). Torsten Schaub addresses artificial intelligence solutions to solving
knowledge-intense combinatorial problems. Monica Bucciarelli presents new cognitive
science discoveries about how adults and children reason algorithmically. A leading
computer scientist and a leading cognitive scientist, reflecting the balance of the con-
ference.
The primary themes that emerged from the successful submissions to this year’s
conference include AI and Cognitive Science research on numerical reasoning, reason-
ing applications, big data and machine learning, and speech processing, reflected in the
conference thematic sessions.
Papers on the thematic session on numerical reasoning include AI developments in
time-series classification discussed by Badiane et al., and Mahato et al.; as well as pa-
pers on algorithm selection by Collins et al., and on defeasible argumentation by Rizzo
& Longo. Cognitive science advances in understanding mathematical skills and visuo-
spatial mapping are considered by Morsanyi et al., and Cooney et al.
Papers on the theme of reasoning applications include AI applications to infectious
disease epidemiology, traffic flow density, autonomous driving, and smart-home de-
vices by Hunter et al., Saliba et al., Viswanath et al., and Furey & Blue. Cognitive
science developments in understanding how people reason in the domain of moral judg-
ments are presented by Parkinson & Byrne and by McHugh et al.
The Big Data theme focuses on AI developments in dealing with data in meetup
networks, stock forecasting, bibliographic referencing, curriculum learning, and cloud
servers, by Pakrashi et al., Shehin et al., Tkaczyk et al., Collier & Beel and Izima et al.
1 http://aics2018.scss.tcd.ie/
Applications to cognitive functioning in multiple sclerosis patients are discussed by
Kinski et al.
Further developments in understanding data are described in papers on traffic lights
control, R2RML mappings, scholarly recommendations, and captioning by Carlo et al.,
Mathur et al., Beel et al., and Lindh et al.
The speech processing and reasoning session includes papers on AI advances in
speech separation and speech quality monitoring by Ragano & Hines and by Jaiswal &
Hines. Cognitive science advances in understanding narrative speech and joint speech
are discussed by Broderick et al., and by Cummins. Sensor data and detecting adverts
are considered in papers by Hossari et al., and Brophy et al. Cognitive processes in
reasoning about scientific theories are discussed by Feeney & Travers.
3 AICS 2018 in Numbers
We received 55 submissions describing new research for AICS 2018, made up of 37
full papers and 18 student submissions. There was also a large number (14) of Nectar
submissions giving an opportunity to spotlight the work of leading Irish-based research-
ers that has already been published in highly ranked international fora. The acceptance
rate for full papers was 59% (22 accepted papers) and for student papers 67% (12 pa-
pers). The quality of submissions overall was very high, so that even submissions with
relatively positive reviews had to be rejected. To accommodate as many presentations
as possible, presentation slots were shortened this year from 20 to 15 minutes as it was
not possible to secure additional space in the venue once the large number of submis-
sions was known.
We are particularly delighted that a large number of Irish universities and companies
as well as international institutions submitted their manuscripts to AICS. The list of
Irish institutions includes:
• Bray Institute of Further Education (BIFE)
• Cork Institute of Technology (CIT)
• Dublin City University (DCU)
• Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT)
• Huawei Ireland
• Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT)
• Maynooth University (NUIM)
• National College of Ireland (NCI)
• National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)
• Queen’s University Belfast
• Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
• Ulster University (UU)
• University College Cork (UCC)
• University College Dublin (UCD)
• University of Limerick (UL)
• Valeo Vision Systems Ltd
Most of the AI submissions come from departments of computer science, and most of
the cognitive science submissions come from departments of psychology or computer
science. About three quarters of the successful submissions are AI papers and about
one-quarter are Cognitive Science papers.
The most full-paper submissions were made by the University College Dublin
(22%), Trinity College Dublin (19%) and Dublin Institute of Technology (16%) (Table
1). The most student-paper submissions were made by the University College Dublin
(22%), National University of Ireland, Galway (17%) and Trinity College Dublin
(17%) (Table 2).
Table 1. Top-Institutions (Submitted Full Papers, n=37)
Institute Submissions Submissions
(Absolute) 2 (Relative)2
University College Dublin (UCD) 8 22%
Trinity College Dublin (TCD) 7 19%
Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) 6 16%
Ulster University (UU) 3 8%
Dublin City University (DCU) 2 5%
Others (15 Institutes) 15 41%
Table 2. Top-Institutions (Submitted Student Papers, n=18)
Institute Submissions Submissions
(Absolute)2 (Relative)2
University College Dublin (UCD) 4 22%
National University of Ireland, Galway 3 17%
(NUIG)
Trinity College Dublin (TCD) 3 17%
University College Cork (UCC) 2 11%
Others (7 Institutes) 7 39%
4 Acknowledgements
4.1 Sponsors & Supporters
The 26th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science is grateful
for the support received by its sponsors Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Long Room
Hub, ADAPT Centre, the StandICT.eu H2020 project and the French Embassy. We are
further grateful for the help of Robbie Gallagher (ADAPT), Olivia Waters (ADAPT),
Ademar Crotti (TCD), Jennifer Edmond (TCD), Emily Johnson (The Long Room Hub),
Ciaran Conneely (Trinity Institute of Neuroscience), Brian Mac Namee (UCD, AIAI),
John McAuley (DIT), Marc Daumas (French Embassy in Ireland) and Ailee Burke
2 A few submissions were made by authors from two institutions. In this case, we counted the
submission twice. Hence, numbers do not add up to 100%.
* This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation
Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number 13/RC/2106.
(O’Callaghan Collection). ADAPT is funded under the SFI Research Centres Pro-
gramme (Grant 13/RC/2106) and co-funded by the European Regional Development
Fund.
4.2 Program Committee & Reviewers
• Fred Cummins (University College Dublin)
• Susan McKeever (Dublin Institute of Technolgy)
• John McAuley (Dublin Institute of Technology)
• Derek Bridge (University College Cork)
• Ken Brown (University College Cork)
• Arthur Cater (University College Dublin)
• Sarah Jane Delany (Dublin Institute of Technology)
• Pierpaolo Dondio (Dublin Institute of Technology)
• Derek Greene (University College Dublin)
• Conor Hayes (National University of Ireland Galway)
• Georgiana Ifrim (University College Dublin)
• Gareth Jones (Dublin City University)
• Mark Keane (University College Dublin)
• Seamus Lawless (Trinity College Dublin)
• Luca Longo (Dublin Institute of Technology)
• Brian MacNamee (University College Dublin)
• Paul Mc Kevitt (Ulster University)
• Diarmuid O'Donoghue (National University of Ireland Maynooth)
• Colm O'Riordan (National University of Ireland Galway)
• Bianca Schoen Phelan (Dublin Institute of Technology)
• Alan Smeaton (Dublin City University)
• Carl Vogel (Trinity College Dublin)
• Aidan Feeney (Queens University Belfast)
• Fiona Newell (Trinity College Dublin)
• Mary Parkinson (University College Dublin)
• Suzanne Egan (University of Limerick)
• Tony Veale (University College Dublin)
• Fintan Costello (University College Dublin)
• Declan O'Sullivan (Trinity College Dublin)
• Jennifer Edmond (Trinity College Dublin)
• Bojan Bozic (Dublin Institute of Technology)
• Eoghan Furey (Letterkenny Institute of Technology)
• Christophe Debruyne (Trinity College Dublin)
• Annalina Caputo (Trinity College Dublin)
• Piyush Arora (Dublin City University)
• Rozenn Dahyot(Trinity College Dublin)
• M.Atif Qureshi (University College Dublin)
• Susan Leavy (University College Dublin)
• Kevin McGuinness (Dublin City University)
• Owen Corrigan (Trinity College Dublin)
• Feiyan Hu (Dublin City University)
• Yvette Graham (Dublin City University)
• Nic Wilison (University College Cork)
• Svetlana Hensman (Dublin Instituite of Technology)
• Natalia Resende (Dublin City University)
• Luis Pechuan (University College Dublin)
• Quan Le (University College Dublin)
• Shen Wang (University College Dublin)
• Brian Davis (Maynooth University)
• Karla Munoz (University of Ulster)
• Alan Meehan (Trinity College Dublin)
• Lucy McKenna (Trinity College Dublin)
• Brendan Spillane (Trinity College Dublin)
• Peru Bhardwaj (Trinity College Dublin)
• Majid Latifi (Trinity College Dublin)
• Harshvardhan J Pandit (Trinity College Dublin)
References
[1] D. Lyons, “Artificial intelligence gets real,” Forbes MAgazine, 1998.
[2] A.A. Hopgood, “Artificial Intelligence: Hype or Reality?,” Computer, vol. 36,
2003, pp. 24–28.