Sunrise over Aachen (© Jonas Reiher)

Aachen Symposium

on Representation Learning to Act and Plan

Vaals,

Sept. 16th – 18th, 2024

 Goals

The aim of the symposium is to get together, on-site, an active group of prominent researchers in the area of representation learning for acting and planning, with the purpose of exchanging ideas in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Each researcher will have a chance to present their work, to listen and learn from the work of others, and to engage in discussions and activities.

The topics include but are not limited to learning action models, policies, and other high-level representations for acting and planning, using either combinatorial or deep learning approaches, with an emphasis on structure, generalization, transparency, and understanding. Work on reinforcement learning aimed at learning and exploiting structure for generalization is definitely in the scope of the meeting, like neurosymbolic methods applied in the setting of acting and planning.

 Impressions

Thank you to all the participants for making this symposium happen!

Here you can find links to a library with all photos from the symposium and to a folder with presentation slides from all the talks. A few selected photos are also embedded below.

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 Program

For those arriving on Sunday, Sept. 15th, dinner is included and is scheduled at 9:00 PM like the other days.

The program starts with an opening and welcome on Monday, Sept. 16th, at 8:45 AM.

The talks are 25+5, 25 minutes of presentation and 5 minutes for questions, and are organized into 10 sessions. Each day before lunch, there is a 30-minute slot for further Q&A.

Click on any session in the schedule below to see more details.

9 AM

10 AM

11 AM

Noon

1 PM

2 PM

3 PM

4 PM

5 PM

6 PM

7 PM

8 PM

9 PM

10 PM

Monday, Sept. 16th
George Konidaris
Sheila McIlraith
Blai Bonet
Coffee break
Miguel Lázaro-Gredilla
Aske Plaat
Aviv Tamar
Q&A + Discussion
Lunch
Forest Agostinelli
Anders Jonsson
Dennis Soemers
Coffee break
Siddharth Srivastava
Beomjoon Kim
Marc Toussaint
Violin duet
Dinner
Tuesday, Sept. 17th
Vincent François-Lavet
Herke van Hoof
Matthew E. Taylor
Coffee break
Benjamin Rosman
Alfonso Emilio Gerevini
Scott Sanner
Q&A + Discussion
Lunch
Levi Lelis
Sebastijan Dumancic
Giuseppe De Giacomo
Aachen tour
Free time in Aachen
Dinner
Wednesday, Sept. 18th
Sylvie Thiébaux
Dominik Drexler
Charles Gretton
Coffee break
Erez Karpas
Luciano Serafini
Vicenç Gómez
Q&A + Discussion
Lunch
Simon Ståhlberg
Gustav Šír
Dillon Ze Chen
Coffee + Discussion

 Participants

Participation is by invitation only. The organizers cover the expenses for hotel and meals but not travel. The current list of participants is:

 Organization

 Venue

The meeting will be held at Kasteel Bloemendal, where the participants will stay. This is in Vaals, near Aachen, but across the border in the Netherlands (Aachen is in Germany but next to the border with both Belgium and the Netherlands).

 Travel

For attendees traveling by air, there are four international airports from which Aachen can conveniently be reached by train in 1.5 hours with at most one change. These are:

Alternatively, Aachen or Maastricht can be reached in around 2.5 hours from these airports, respectively:

Possible connections from each airport are listed below.
Train tickets to Aachen can be purchased from Deutsche Bahn. From there, the venue in Vaals is only 15 minutes by taxi or 30 minutes by bus, with tickets available from the driver or via the Naveo app.
Train tickets to Maastricht are available at Nederlandse Spoorwegen. Here, it takes 45 minutes to the venue by bus and tickets can be bought via the Glimble app.

To visit Aachen during the symposium, you can leave from the venue at the bus stop Vaals, Sint Jozefplein and target the bus stop Aachen, Elisenbrunnen, which is right in the center of Aachen. Bus tickets are available from the driver or via the Naveo app again (“Einzelticket Erwachsene Preisstufe 1” for 3.40 €).

Aachen

Hauptbahnhof

Vaals

Sint Jozefplein

 350

FRA

Frankfurt am Main

Flughafen Fernbahnhof

 ICE

 ICE

 RE 1 / RE 9

DUS

Düsseldorf

Flughafen Terminal

 SkyTrain

 RE 1

 S 11

 RE 1 / RE 4

CGN

Köln/Bonn

Flughafen

 S 19

 RE 1 / RE 9

BRU

Brussels

Airport – Zaventem

 IC

 ICE

NRN

Weeze

Airport Terminal 1

 SW 1

 RE 10

 RB 33

AMS

Amsterdam

Schiphol Airport

Maastricht

Station

 IC

 IC

 350

 Brochure

Below you can find a brochure, handed out at the symposium, that includes the program and a list of participants with short bios for everyone.

Aachen Symposium


on Representation
Learning to Act and Plan

Vaals,

Sept.
16th – 18th, 2024

 Welcome

Welcome to the 2024 Aachen Symposium on Representation Learning to Act and Plan at Hotel Kasteel Bloemendal in Vaals.

Glad you’re here!

 Aachen by bus

To visit Aachen, you can take the bus 350 for a 25-minute ride.
It leaves from Vaals, Sint Jozefplein, 200 meters from the venue,
and arrives at Aachen, Elisenbrunnen, right in the city center.
Buy tickets from the bus driver or through the Naveo app.

Vaals,

Sint Jozefplein

Aachen,

Elisenbrunnen

 350

 Funding