Tuomas’s guide for his incredible Agent-Mediated Electronic Marketplaces Research Group

 


How to write and present?

 

Some links to the students on how to write papers, present them in conferences, etc.

As general material, read Phil Rogaway's Frank advice for UC Davis students in CS/CSE.


Group principles & policies

 

Research is #1.  You activities should be geared toward making research progress, as measured by top-quality conference and journal publications.  This is what will determine your career success.

 

Unlike in undergraduate studies, there is no one to prod you along in your PhD program and career.  You have to be self-motivated, and make goals and plans with schedules.  Tuomas can help you make these.

 

Think creatively about trends in the world and computing.  What technology will be useful in the future?  What technology will make the world a better place?  Where is technology headed?  What new technologies will emerge?  What technologies will become obsolete?

 

Think out of the box.

 

Research is 5% ideas, 95% execution (proving, implementing, writing, presenting).  While an individual makes research progress in spurts with slower periods in between, in the long run (2-5 year horizon), success does come to those who work hardest.

 

Great AI conferences: IJCAI, AAAI, UAI, ICML.  Other very good places to publish: TARK and AAMAS conferences, as well as DIMACS and Dagstuhl workshops.  Second tier of AI conferences: KR, CP, NIPS, AIPS.  Some great CS theory conferences: FOCS, STOC, SODA, (in machine learning theory, COLT is also good).  Second tier of CS theory conferences: ICALP, ISAAC, ESA, SWAT.  Best ecommerce conference: ACM-EC. 

 

If you get a paper accepted to a good conference, your trip to the conference will generally be paid for from grants.  However, do apply for a student travel scholarship for the conference (these are usually available at least for IJCAI, AAAI, ICMAS, and AGENTS).

 

Two weeks of vacation per year (conference trips are in addition).  You don’t have to take it all.  Please talk to Tuomas well in advance about your vacation plans so that your plans are coordinated with the group’s activities.

 

When questions, issues, tradeoffs, etc., pop up, talk to Tuomas.  He’ll be happy to help.

 


Journals where to publish

 

Different people rank journals differently, but here are some rough guidelines that are probably helpful.

Artificial Intelligence

 

1. AIJ

2. JAIR – fast turnaround (2-3 months); potentially as high quality as AIJ

 

Machine Learning

Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) – fast turnaround, also excellent

J. of Automated Reasoning (JAR)

Computational Intelligence

IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence

Journal of Heuristics

IEEE SMC

Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence

JETAI

(International Journal of Approximate Reasoning)

(Decision Support Systems)

AI Magazine – widely read & cited; really a magazine rather than a journal

CS Theory

 

  1. JACM – they promise a tentative review in a month, and a review in another month (this is probably not quite true, but they have sped up their review process considerably).  They have interest in decision theory (Eric Horvitz on the editorial board) and in AI (Stuart Russell on the editorial board) starting 2000.  Michael Kearns (Machine Learning and Computational Learning Theory) and Nimrod Megiddo (Operations Research) are also on the editorial board.
  2. SIAM Journal on Computing
  3. J. of Algorithms (faster than Algorithmica)
  4. Algorithmica (editorial board has Papadimitriou, Ming Kao, Nimrod Megiddo)

 

Theoretical Computer Science – 2nd tier, but one of three areas mentions games as a topic (H. van den Herik is on the editorial board, so they may mean search algorithms for adversarial games, but they have also published other game theory work, and a special issue around 2004).

Information and Computation.

Information Processing Letters (IPL) - fast turnaround, 2nd tier.

OR and ecommerce

 

1. Operations Research (an INFORMS journal)

2. Management Science (an INFORMS journal)

 

Annals of Operations Research

Journal of the Operational Research Society

 

European Journal of Operations Research

Mathematics of OR (an INFORMS journal)

 

Journal of Electronic Commerce Research (JECR)

International Journal of Electronic Commerce (IJEC)  (copyedited, uphill battle to

                                                            get it right; they cannot really handle latex)

Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (new journal started 2/2002 by Andrew Whinston, Jae Kye Lee, etc.)

Group Decision & Negotiation

(Negotiation Journal)

Marketing Science (an INFORMS journal)

Theory & Decision

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

ORish CS journals

 

J. of Combinatorial Theory

Networks

 

INFORMS Journal on Computing (does a lot of AI-related stuff too)

 

(SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics )

(SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization )

(SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics )

(SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis )

(SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications )

(SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis )

(SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis )

(SIAM Journal on Optimization )

(SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing )

(SIAM Review )

General Computer Science

 

J. of  Logic and Computation

ACM Journal of Experimental Algorithmics – I don’t know how good this is

 

CACM (copyedited, uphill battle to get it right; really a magazine)

IEEE Internet Computing (copyedited, uphill battle to get it right)

IEEE Computer

 

Real-time Systems

 

Elsevier Science Journal on Computational Science - this is a new journal that started in 2010.

Economics

 

1. Econometrica

2. JPE (J. of Political Economy) - no theory; Chicago clique?

3. AER

4. QJE  - only a little theory; Harvard clique?

5. RES (Review of Economic Studies)

 

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (more respected in economics than Computational Economics).

Computational Economics.

 

A social choice theorist (at Union College) suggested the following ranking in that area:

GEB > Math and Social Science = IJGT > Theory & Decision = Social Choice and Welfare

Specialty journals in economic theory

 

1. JET (= Journal of Economic Theory)

2. GEB (#1 specialty journal in game theory)

3. International J. of Game Theory (#2 specialty journal in game theory) – can take years to get a review

 

ET (= Economic Theory) – 2nd tier, but good.

JME (= Journal of Mathematical Economics) – 2nd tier, but good.

Economics Letters – 3rd tier.

Specialty journals in industrial organization

 

RAND J. of Economics