The AI*IA Doctoral Consortium (DC) is offered as part of the Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA), that will take place at University of Ferrara on 23rd-25th September, 2015.

The Consortium is designed for students currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program, though we are also open to exceptions (e.g., students currently in a Master’s program and interested in doctoral studies).
Students at any stage in their doctoral studies are encouraged to apply, since contributions describing both mature and preliminary work are welcome.
The Consortium will provide doctoral students in AI with the opportunity to present their research directions and being involved into state-of-the-art research, through discussion sessions.

*Topics of Interest*

Applicants are expected to be conducting research in the field of Artificial Intelligence; topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

AI and digital entertainment
AI applications
AI architectures
AI in Learning Environments
Big Data
Cognitive modeling
Cognitive Robotics
Constraint Satisfaction
Experimentation of Combinatorial Algorithms
Human Computer Interaction
Information Agents
Information Retrieval and Extraction
Knowledge Acquisition
Knowledge Engineering
Knowledge Representation
Learning in adaptive systems
Machine Consciousness
Machine learning
Mathematical Foundations
Metacognition in Artificial Agents
Multiagent Systems, Distributed AI
Natural Language Processing
Ontologies
Philosophical Foundations
Planning and Scheduling
Reasoning
Robotics
Search
Semantic Web
Smart Cities
Soft and Evolutionary Computing
Temporal Reasoning
Uncertainty
Vision
Web and Data Mining

*Submission Instructions*

We invite the submission of research papers, where a special attention should be dedicated towards the contextualization of the contribution within the research area it belongs to, as well as to how the contribution fits within the Ph.D. programme.
We accept original, unpublished works not submitted elsewhere, as well as papers already published.
All submissions must be written in English and must be formatted according to the Springer Publications format for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), please refer to http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs/lncs+authors?SGWID=0-40209-0-0-0.
The only accepted format for submitted papers is PDF. The maximum submission length is 6 pages (A4).

Paper submission will be handled electronically by means of the Easychair system. The submission page is available at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aixia2015dc.

Accepted papers based on original work will be included in the DC proceedings published on-line by CEUR.
Already published papers will appear as a link to the previous publication in the DC proceedings published by CEUR.
The authors of the accepted papers must attend the DC and must be registered to the AI*IA Conference.

*Best Student Paper Award*

The Best Student Paper award will be conferred at the conference on the author of the Doctoral Consortium best paper.

*Grants for students attending AI*IA*

Scholarships to participants to partially cover registration and/or accommodation fees will be available.
For details visit the Call for Scholarships page at http://aixia2015.unife.it/call-for-scholarships/.

*Doctoral Consortium Co-Chairs*

Elena Bellodi
Department of Engineering (ENDIF), University of Ferrara

Alessio Bonfietti
Department of Computer Science and Engineering (DISI), University of Bologna

Any question concerning the DC can be addressed to the co-chairs at: dc2015_AT_unife.it

*Program Committee*

Stefania Bandini, CSAI - Complex Systems & Artificial Intelligence Research Center
Nicola Basilico, University of Milano
Federico Bergenti, University of Parma
Francesco Buccafurri, University of Reggio Calabria
Stefano Cagnoni, University of Parma
Luigia Carlucci Aiello, University of Roma La Sapienza
Antonio Chella, University of Palermo
Stefania Costantini, University of L'Aquila
Nicola Di Mauro, University of Bari
Francesco Donini, Tuscia University
Floriana Esposito, University of Bari
Stefano Ferilli, University of Bari
Nicola Guarino, ISTC-CNR
Luca Iocchi, University of Roma La Sapienza
Nicola Leone, University of Calabria
Chendong Li, Dell
Sara Manzoni, CSAI - Complex Systems & Artificial Intelligence Research Center
Paola Mello, University of Bologna
Alfredo Milani, University of Perugia
Michela Milano, University of Bologna
Stefania Montani, University of Piemonte Orientale
Alessandro Moschitti, University of Trento
Angelo Oddi, ISTC-CNR
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna
Maria Teresa Pazienza, University of Roma Tor Vergata
Roberto Pirrone, University of Palermo
Gian Luca Pozzato, University of Torino
Luca Pulina, University of Sassari
Daniele P. Radicioni, University of Torino
Francesco Ricca, University of Calabria
Andrea Roli, University of Bologna
Salvatore Ruggieri, University of Pisa
Ken Satoh, National Institute of Informatics, Sokendai
Andrea Schaerf, University of Udine
Floriano Scioscia, Politecnico of Bari
Giovanni Semeraro, University of Bari
Eloisa Vargiu, Barcelona Digital Technology Center
Marco Villani, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia