Holger's Miscellanea

Event Organisation - conferences, worskops and symposia I've helped organise Reviewing, Editing and Paper Selection - including special issues and PC membership Other Professional Activities - steering committees, SATLIB Outside the Ivory Tower - my non-academic life (yes, I have one!) Odds and Ends - a collection of interesting, unusual and amusing items

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Event Organisation: Recently, served as co-chair of SAT 2004, the 7th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, and as programme co-chair for ISMIR 2003 (the 4th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval). I was also a co-organiser of the IJCAI-03 Workshop "Stochastic Search Algorithms". I am a member of the Steering Committee of the International Conferences on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) and a member of the standing Organising Committee of the International Conferences on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT). Reviewing, Editing and Paper Selection: I am a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Artificial Intelligenc Research (JAIR) and of the new Journal on Satisfiability, Boolean Modeling and Computation (JSAT). I currently serve on the programme committees of the 20th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-05) and the 2005 IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium; I am also a reviewer for IJCAI-05, the 19th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Recently, I have been a programme committee member of AAAI 2004, the 19th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, and AIMA 2004, the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics. Together with Thomas Stützle I am editing a special issue on stochastic search algorithms of Annals of Operations Research; and together with David Bainbridge, I was a guest editor for a special issue on music information retrieval of Computer Music Journal. Other Professional Activities: I am a member of the Steering Committee of the International Conferences on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) and a member of the standing Organising Committee of the International Conferences on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT). Also, together with Thomas Stützle I maintain SATLIB, an online repository of benchmark problems, solvers, and tools for SAT-related research. Outside the Ivory Tower: As one might guess from my computer music interests, music is generally one of my favourite occupations, including both passive and active aspects, theory and practice. I've been playing the bassoon for many years now and have been member of several amateur and semi-professional ensembles (orchestral and chamber music) in the Frankfurt area (in Germany) for most of that time. I love the instrument's woody sound and flexible character, and have a great time playing together with others. If you'd like to share some of my musical experience and taste, or if you are simple curious, have a look at my little Music Cabinet, a special collection from my favourite pieces. Also, a while ago, I have composed some small pieces of music, two of which - along with brief explanations and comments - can be found here. Some years ago, I began creating pictures using a process that is mainly based on digital manipulation of specific kinds of photographic material. A little gallery these works can be found on my art page. When I arrived in Vancouver, I started SCUBA diving, which is now one of my main outdoor activities. Diving in British Columbia can be quite spectacular, although the water is rather cold. I also started to cave dive a few years ago. Why do I like diving? It opens the door to another world, full of life, adventure, relaxation, and discovery. It also lets me escape from the gravity of life, both in a metaphorical and literal sense. If this sounds interesting to you, I have a collection of diving related links which you might want to check out. More recently, I started snowboarding, and although I am probably still a rather pathetic boarder, I love doing it. I used to dread the rainy winters in Vancouver, but now I can hardly wait for the rainy season to begin ... ;-) I also enjoy reading and a good cup of tea; especially after a dive or a hike in a beautiful or exciting natural environment (which is not hard to find in British Columbia where I presently live). Finally I regard meeting interesting people and discussing intriguing ideas as one of the best ways to spend my time. There's a lot more - but if you really want to find out you have to meet me in person ... :-) Odd and Ends: Wikipedia - an extremely useful, free encyclopedia, and very much worth supporting. I have contributed some (short) articles on the piccolo heckelphone, local search and DIR diving - of course, by now, these have taken on a life of their own. Hessian - suppressed for decades, the German dialect of Hessian has become fashionable again. If you plan to visit the region between Hessian Siberia (Kassel) and Hessian Kongo (Darmstadt), or for your next stop-over at Frankfurt International Airport, you may want to learn at least the basics of Hessian - this Hessian-English Dictionary will get you started. Alexander Graham Bell - did not really invent the telephone, Philipp Reiss did, and he also introduced the name "telephone". Decimal time - sometimes also referred to as "metric time", this is an interesting approach to bringing our somewhat dated system for measuring time up to modern standards. While not convinced that it will widely adopted anytime soon, I am a dedicated supporter of decimal time. Some information on decimal time can be found here. The end of the internet - can be found here.

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