The IFCS 2022 – Classification and Data Science in the Digital Age, 17th conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), took place in Porto, from 19th to 23rd July, in a joint organization of the Portuguese Association of Classification and Data Analysis (CLAD) and the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto – see https://ifcs2022.fep.up.pt/ .
The IFCS (https://ifcs.boku.ac.at/site/doku.php), of which CLAD is a member, is a federation of classification societies on a national, regional or linguistic basis, and organises a biennial international conference. IFCS 2022 was its first edition in Portugal.
The conference brought together 330 participants from 32 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Americas, including more than 70 students. The Keynote Speakers’ talks raised great interest:
- Charles Bouveyron (Université Côte d’Azur, France): Statistical Learning with Dynamic Interaction Data for Public Health
- Dianne Cook (Monash University, Australia): A Showcase of New Methods for High Dimensional Data Viewing with Linear Projections and Sections
- Genevera Allen (Rice University, USA): Fast Minipatch Ensemble Strategies for Learning and Inference
- João Gama (University of Porto, Portugal): Trends in Data Stream Mining
Other Keynote Speakers were Edwin Diday (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, France), who was awarded the IFCS Medal of Scientific Merit, and Rebecca Nugent (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), President-Elect of IFCS.
The scientific programme also featured semi-plenary invited sessions on current topics in Data Science: Categorical Data Analysis and Visualization, Clustering and Classification of Time Series, Covid Data Analysis, Dimension Reduction and Explainable Machine Learning. Sixty-seven thematic sessions and two poster sessions took place.
A varied Social Programme provided opportunities for informal meetings and discussion among the participants. It started with an Ice-Breaker kindly offered by Comissão de Viticultura da Região dos Vinhos Verdes (CVRVV); followed by a Cocktail in Praia da Luz where everybody could admire a magnificent sunset over the Atlantic. On the third day a boat trip on the Douro River was a moment of conviviality and relaxation. On the last evening, the conference dinner at Taylor Cellars, preceded by a visit to the Port Wine Cellars, certainly left good memories to all participants.
The Local Organizing Committee was chaired by Prof. Paula Brito.
For more information, visit: http://ifcs2022.fep.up.pt/.