Dear Colleague,

It is a pleasure for me to invite you to the Workshop on Inductive Databases and Constraint Based Mining, which is to take place in Hinterzarten (in the heart of the Black Forest, close to Freiburg, Germany) from 11 to 13 March 2004.

The workshop will mark the end of the European IST project cInQ (Consortium on Inductive Querying). At the workshop, the latest results in inductive databases, inductive querying and constraint based mining will be presented and future directions will be discussed. In this way, the result will be a state-of-the-art overview of this new emerging field at the intersection of data mining and database research. One of the ideas that we are considering is to use the results of the workshop and the project as the basis for editing a book on inductive databases and constraint based mining.

To enable genuine interaction and assure a high quality scientific program, workshop participation is by invitation only; we aim at 40 participants. It is expected that Roberto Bayardo, Johannes Gehrke and Mohammed Zaki will deliver keynote talks at the workshop. Further participants will come from the groups involved in the cInQ consortium (the groups of Heikki Mannila, Jean-François Boulicaut, Sašo Džeroski, Rosa Meo, Stefano Ceri, and Luc De Raedt) as well as other groups active in the field.

We would very much appreciate if you would be able to participate in this workshop. If you are interested in delivering a talk on this occasion, please send us an email with a title and a short abstract before 30 January. On the basis of the inputs received, we will produce the program. In assembling this program, we will try to find the right balance between the different groups and topics, as well as between long presentations (for the senior researchers) as well as short ones (for the more junior researchers).

The workshop will take place in Hotel Schwarzwaldhof next to the Railway Station of Hinterzarten, a small village at 20 minutes from Freiburg in the heart of the Black Forest. In March, it is in any case possible to take a hike in the Black Forest, and perhaps, depending on snow conditions, also of ski-ing (on Feldberg, at 10 km). We do not intend to charge a registration fee for participating in the workshop. However, every participant has to pay for the costs of the hotel, coffee breaks and a banket that we plan. This will not be more than 75€ a night (full board + coffee breaks) + something extra for the banket. Please let us know by email before 19 January whether you will participate in the workshop or not. As there is a limited capacity of around 40 participants, we will process the registration requests on a first come first serve basis. Once registered, we will send you further information and instructions for booking the hotel. Also, should you be unable to participate, please let us know.

Looking forward to your reply,

A merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Sincerely yours,

Luc De Raedt (also on behalf of Heikki Mannila and Jean-François Boulicaut, co-organisers of this event)

December 2003.