From hendrik.neumann at unibw.de Mon Mar 10 11:17:48 2008 From: hendrik.neumann at unibw.de (Hendrik Neumann) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:17:48 +0100 Subject: [ACT-R-users] threaded cognition problem Message-ID: <001d01c882c1$e955c330$3051c189@LBPC28> Hello, Has anyone tried to run ACT-R 6 with the threaded cognition module provided by D. Salvucci and N. Taatgen (http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~salvucci/threads/) in a different lisp than MCL? I just loaded ACT-R (r222 and r370) in Allegro CL with the threads.lisp file in the /modules subfolder, but when I tried to start a simple model with two goals to test the threaded cognition approach, only one thread (the last to be put into the goal buffer) was working. The buffer trace showed just one goal, too. Is there any way I can make sure the extra module was loaded correctly? I tried different models built in the same fashion as the sample provided on the website mentioned above, so I think the problem lies with the threads-module. Any help in getting this to work correctly would be great, as I am fairly new to lisp/ACT-R. Regards, Hendrik -- Dipl.-Psych. Hendrik Neumann Institut f?r Arbeitswissenschaft Fakult?t f?r Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik Universit?t der Bundeswehr M?nchen Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39 D-85579 Neubiberg Telefon: +49 089 - 6004 3497 Fax: +49 089 - 6004 2564 E-Mail: hendrik.neumann at unibw.de -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From db30 at andrew.cmu.edu Mon Mar 10 11:39:00 2008 From: db30 at andrew.cmu.edu (Dan Bothell) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:39:00 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] threaded cognition problem In-Reply-To: <001d01c882c1$e955c330$3051c189@LBPC28> References: <001d01c882c1$e955c330$3051c189@LBPC28> Message-ID: <5D679DE08FD0F9B1EB596A1A@DHL8KLC1.psy.cmu.edu> --On Monday, March 10, 2008 4:17 PM +0100 Hendrik Neumann wrote: > > Hello, > > Has anyone tried to run ACT-R 6 with the threaded cognition module > provided by D. Salvucci and N. Taatgen > (http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~salvucci/threads/) in a different lisp than > MCL? I just loaded ACT-R (r222 and r370) in Allegro CL with the > threads.lisp file in the /modules subfolder, but when I tried to start a > simple model with two goals to test the threaded cognition approach, only > one thread (the last to be put into the goal buffer) was working. The > buffer trace showed just one goal, too. Is there any way I can make sure > the extra module was loaded correctly? I tried different models built in > the same fashion as the sample provided on the website mentioned above, > so I think the problem lies with the threads-module. Any help in getting > this to work correctly would be great, as I am fairly new to lisp/ACT-R. > I've never used the threads.lisp code, so someone else may have more experience with it, but it looks to me like the issue is probably the line endings in the threads.lisp file. When I get the file from that site it has Mac-style line endings and ACL doesn't properly handle those (even on a Mac if I remember correctly). So, if you convert that file to use either Unix or Windows style line endings it should load properly and then do what it's supposed to do. Hope that helps, Dan From zhang at cis.uab.edu Tue Mar 11 12:48:08 2008 From: zhang at cis.uab.edu (IEEE-IRI-Publicity) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:48:08 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [ACT-R-users] Deadline Approaching: [CFP] IEEE IRI-2008 Message-ID: *** Paper submission deadline: March 18, 2008 (FIRM) [Apologies if you received multiple copies because of cross-posting] ----------------------------------------------------------------- The 2008 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IEEE IRI-2008) Sponsored by: The IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society July 13-15, 2008 Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas, USA http://iri2008.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- The increasing volumes and dimensions of information have dramatic impact on effective decision-making. To remedy this situation, Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) seeks to maximize the reuse of information by creating simple, rich, and reusable knowledge representations and consequently explores strategies for integrating this knowledge into legacy systems. IRI plays a pivotal role in the capture, representation, maintenance, integration, validation, and extrapolation of information; and applies both information and knowledge for enhancing decision-making in various application domains. This conference explores three major tracks: information reuse, information integration, and reusable systems. Information reuse considers optimizing representation methodologies; information integration studies strategies for creatively applying models in novel domains; and reusable systems focus on ontological opportunities for deploying models and corresponding processes. The IEEE IRI conference serves as a forum for researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and government to present, discuss, and exchange ideas that address real-world problems with real-world solutions. The conference feature contributed and invited papers. Theoretical and applied papers are both included. The conference program will include special sessions, open forum workshops, and keynote speeches. A forum will be conducted with the intent of bridging IRI and Systems of Systems and why the future of intelligent computing - including computing applications - will lie at the juxtaposition of these two topical areas. The best papers from IRI 2008 will be invited to submit extended versions to a special issue of the Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering Journal. The conference includes, but is not limited to, the areas listed below: - Large Scale Data and System Integration - Component-Based Design and Reuse - Unifying Data Models (UML, XML, etc.) and Ontologies - Database Integration - Structured/Semi-structured Data - Middleware & Web Services - Reuse in Software Engineering - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery - Sensory and Information Fusion - Reuse in Modeling & Simulation - Automation, Integration and Reuse across Various Applications - Information Security & Privacy - Survivable Systems & Infrastructures - AI & Decision Support Systems - Heuristic Optimization and Search - Knowledge Acquisition and Management - Fuzzy and Neural Systems - Soft Computing - Evolutionary Computing - Case-Based Reasoning - Natural Language Understanding - Knowledge Management and E-Government - Command & Control Systems (C4ISR) - Human-Machine Information Systems - Space and Robotic Systems - Biomedical & Healthcare Systems - Homeland Security & Critical Infrastructure Protection - Manufacturing Systems & Business Process Engineering - Multimedia Systems - Service-Oriented Architecture - Autonomous Agents in Web-based Systems - Information Integration in Grid Computing Environments - Information Integration in Mobile Computing Environments - Information Integration in Ubiquitous Computing Environments - Systems of Systems - Semantic Web and Emerging Applications - Information Reuse, Integration and Sharing in Collaborative Environments Instructions for Authors: ------------------------- Papers reporting original and unpublished research results pertaining to the above and related topics are solicited. Full paper manuscripts must be in English of length 4 to 6 pages (using the IEEE two-column template). Submissions should include the title, author(s), affiliation(s), e-mail address(es), tel/fax numbers, abstract, and postal address(es) on the first page. Papers should be submitted at the conference web site: http://iri2008.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/. If web submission is not possible, manuscripts should be sent as an attachment via email to either of the Program Chairs (mailing address available on the conference website) on or before the deadline date of March 18, 2008. The attachment must be in .pdf (preferred) or word.doc format. The subject of the email must be IEEE IRI 2008 Submission. Papers will be selected based on their originality, timeliness, significance, relevance, and clarity of presentation. Authors should certify that their papers represent substantially new work and are previously unpublished. Paper submission implies the intent of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper, if accepted. Important Dates: ---------------- February 4, 2008 Workshop/Special session proposal March 18, 2008 New paper submission deadline (FIRM) TBA Notification of acceptance TBA Camera-ready paper due TBA Presenting author registration due June 9, 2008 Advance (discount) registration for general public and other co-author June 30, 2008 Hotel reservation (special discount rate) closing date July 13-15, 2008 Conference events Orgizing Committee: ------------------- Honorary General Chair Lotfi Zadeh Univ. of California, Berkeley, USA zadeh at cs.berkeley.edu General Chairs Stuart Rubin SPAWAR Systems Center, USA stuart.rubin at navy.mil Shu-Ching Chen Florida International University, USA chens at cs.fiu.edu Program Chairs Kang Zhang University of Texas at Dallas, USA kzhang at utd.edu Reda Alhajj University of Calgary, Canada alhajj at ucalgary.ca Program Vice-Chairs Mei-Ling Shyu University of Miami, USA shyu at miami.edu Gary D. Boetticher University of Houston Clear Lake boetticher at uhcl.edu Workshop Chairs Du Zhang California State University, USA zhangd at ecs.csus.edu Taghi M. Khoshgoftaar Florida Atlantic University, USA taghi at cse.fau.edu Eric Grgoire Universit d'Artois, France gregoire at cril.univ-artois.fr Publicity Chairs Chengcui Zhang UAB, USA zhang at cis.uab.edu James B. D. Joshi University of Pittsburgh, USA jjoshi at mail.sis.pitt.edu Finance/Registration/Local Arrangement Chair Suresh Vadhva California State University, USA vadhva at ecs.csus.edu Publications Chair Min-Yuh Day NTU, Taiwan, R.O.C. myday at iis.sinica.edu.tw Asian Liaison Wen-Lian Hsu Academia Sinica, Taiwan, R.O.C. hsu at iis.sinica.edu.tw Althea Liang Qianhui SMU, Singapore althealiang at smu.edu.sg Industry/Canadian Liaison, Editor June R. Massoud Genesis Consulting Inc., Canada junermassoud at hotmail.com Entertainment Chair Louellen McCoy SPAWAR Systems Center, USA louellen.mccoy at navy.mil Webmaster Reda Alhajj University of Calgary, Canada alhajj at ucalgary.ca --------------------------- Chengcui Zhang Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Computer and Information Sciences University of Alabama at Birmingham Birmingham, USA 35294 _______________________________________________ ieeeauthors mailing list ieeeauthors at cis.uab.edu http://crier.cis.uab.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieeeauthors From conffe23 at gmail.com Thu Mar 13 03:17:27 2008 From: conffe23 at gmail.com (you jia) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:17:27 +0800 Subject: [ACT-R-users] ICNC'08-FSKD'08: Jinan, China; Papers due 25 March Message-ID: Dear Colleague, We would appreciate your forwarding this announcement to those who may be interested. If you wish to unsubscribe, in which case we apologize, please email icnc.fskd.2 at gmail.com with "unsubscribe" in your email subject. If you receive it more than once, kindly copy-and-paste in the email body all email addresses at which you received this announcement. Thank you, Organizing Committee ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 4th International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC'08) The 5th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'08) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 25-27 August 2008, Jinan, China *** Submission Deadline: 25 March 2008 *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.icnc-fskd2008.sdu.edu.cn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call for Papers, Invited Sessions & Sponsorship The joint ICNC'08-FSKD'08 will be held in Jinan, China. Jinan is the capital of Shandong Province, which is known for the home of Confucius, the Taishan Mountain, and the Baotu Spring. ICNC'08-FSKD'08 aims to provide an international forum for scientists and researchers to present the state of the art of intelligent methods inspired from nature, including biological, ecological, and physical systems, with applications to data mining, manufacturing, design, and more. It is an exciting and emerging interdisciplinary area in which a wide range of techniques and methods are being studied for dealing with large, complex, and dynamic problems. Previously, the joint conferences in 2005, 2006 and 2007 each attracted over 3000 submissions from more than 30 countries. All accepted papers will appear in conference proceedings published by the IEEE and will be indexed by both EI and ISTP. Furthermore, extended versions of selected papers will be published in a special issue of Soft Computing: An International Journal (SCI indexed). To promote international participation of researchers from outside the country/region where the conference is held (i.e., China), foreign experts are encouraged to propose invited sessions. Each invited session should have at least 4 papers. Invited session organizers will solicit submissions, conduct reviews and recommend accept/reject decisions on the submitted papers. All invited session organizers will be acknowledged in the conference proceedings. Each invited session proposal should include the following information: (1) the name(s) and contact information of invited session organizer(s); (2) the title and a short synopsis of the invited session. Please send your proposal to nc2008 at sdu.edu.cn For more information, visit the conference web page. If you have any questions after visiting the conference web page, please email the secretariat at nc2008 at sdu.edu.cn Join us at this major event in historic Jinan !!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schooler at mpib-berlin.mpg.de Fri Mar 14 05:40:59 2008 From: schooler at mpib-berlin.mpg.de (Schooler, Lael) Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:40:59 +0100 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Postdoctoral Fellowships References: Message-ID: Postdoctoral Positions in Cognitive Science/Reasoning on the Semantic Web The Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, under the direction of Gerd Gigerenzer, is seeking applicants for postdoctoral fellow positions for a period of 3 years. All positions can begin as soon as May 1st 2008, but later or earlier start dates are possible. Candidates should be interested in studying the cognitive mechanisms underlying bounded, social, and ecological rationality in real-world domains. Current and past researchers in our group have backgrounds in psychology, cognitive science, economics, mathematics, biology, and computer science to name but a few. These positions are associated with a multi-institution grant from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme, entitled The Large Knowledge Collider (LarKC): a platform for large scale integrated reasoning and Web-search. In this project, our role is to study how human cognition can be used as a model for information retrieval and reasoning on the semantic web. For example, by using computational models of how people search for information in literature databases we can learn not only about how humans solve the task, but also how this understanding can suggest novel approaches to automated reasoning on the semantic web. The center provides excellent resources, including support staff and equipment for conducting experiments and computer simulations, generous travel support for conferences, and, most importantly, the time to think. For more information about our group please visit our homepage at www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/abc and www.larkc.eu to learn more information about the project. The fellows will work under the direction of Henry Brighton, Joerg Rieskamp, & Lael Schooler. If you have questions, please email larkc2008 (at) mpib-berlin.mpg.de. The working language of the center is English, and knowledge of German is not necessary for living in Berlin and enjoying the active life and cultural riches of this city. We strongly encourage applications from women, and members of minority groups. The Max Planck Society is committed to employing more individuals with disabilities and especially encourages them to apply. Please submit applications (consisting of a cover letter describing research interests, curriculum vitae, up to five reprints, and 3 letters of recommendation) by April 1st 2008, when the review of applications will begin. However, applications will be accepted until the position is filled. The preferred method of submission is a single PDF file for the cover letter and CV, plus PDF copies of the reprints e-mailed to larkc2008 (at) mpib-berlin.mpg.de. Referees should send letters of recommendation directly to the email address given above. Alternatively, under exceptional circumstances, they can be mailed to Ms. Ilona Prodeus Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition Max Planck Institute for Human Development K?nigin-Luise-Strasse 5 14195 Berlin Germany -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: larkc_add.doc Type: application/msword Size: 38912 bytes Desc: larkc_add.doc URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: larkc_add.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 15983 bytes Desc: larkc_add.pdf URL: From rsun at rpi.edu Fri Mar 14 14:46:43 2008 From: rsun at rpi.edu (Professor Ron Sun) Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:46:43 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] INNS Award nominations Message-ID: **** INNS Award nominations **** INNS (International Neural Networks Society; http://www.inns.org) has a well established awards program, designed to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of Neural Networks. Up to three awards, one in each of the following categories, are presented annually at IJCNN to senior individuals for outstanding contributions made to the field of Neural Networks. The Hebb Award - recognizes achievement in biological learning. The Helmholtz Award - recognizes achievement in sensation/perception. The Gabor Award - recognizes achievement in engineering/application. In addition, there is the Young Investigator Award: up to two awards are presented annually to individuals with no more than five years postdoctoral experience and who are under forty years of age, for significant contributions in the field of Neural Networks. The INNS Awards Committee is now inviting nominations for the 2009 Hebb, Helmholtz, and Gabor awards as well as the Young Investigator awards. You can find the details of the nomination procedure on the INNS Web page: http://www.inns.org; please click on "awards program". I would urge you to think of highly qualified candidates and send in formal nominations for them (see the INNS web page for the instructions). Please email the nominations (along with attachments) directly to the chair of the Awards Committee at rsun at rpi.edu by May 1, 2008. Ron Sun Chair, Awards Committee ======================================================== Professor Ron Sun Cognitive Science Department Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 Eighth Street, Carnegie 302A Troy, NY 12180, USA phone: 518-276-3409 fax: 518-276-3017 email: rsun at rpi.edu web: http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~rsun ======================================================= From bill22226 at gmail.com Sat Mar 15 07:49:48 2008 From: bill22226 at gmail.com (Bill Kearn) Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:49:48 +0800 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Papers due 25 March; ICNC'08-FSKD'08: Jinan, China Message-ID: <6e2c83400803150449h186b6988ube08252baf638d8c@mail.gmail.com> ** Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 4th International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC'08) The 5th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'08) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 25-27 August 2008, Jinan, China *** Submission Deadline: 25 March 2008 *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.icnc-fskd2008.sdu.edu.cn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call for Papers, Invited Sessions & Sponsorship The joint ICNC'08-FSKD'08 will be held in Jinan, China. Jinan is the capital of Shandong Province, which is known for the home of Confucius, the Taishan Mountain, and the Baotu Spring. ICNC'08-FSKD'08 aims to provide an international forum for scientists and researchers to present the state of the art of intelligent methods inspired from nature, including biological, ecological, and physical systems, with applications to data mining, manufacturing, design, and more. It is an exciting and emerging interdisciplinary area in which a wide range of techniques and methods are being studied for dealing with large, complex, and dynamic problems. Previously, the joint conferences in 2005, 2006 and 2007 each attracted over 3000 submissions from more than 30 countries. All accepted papers will appear in conference proceedings published by the IEEE and will be indexed by both EI and ISTP. Furthermore, extended versions of selected papers will be published in a special issue of Soft Computing: An International Journal (SCI indexed). For more information, visit the conference web page. If you have any questions after visiting the conference web page, please email the secretariat at nc2008 at sdu.edu.cn Join us at this major event in historic Jinan !!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zhang at cis.uab.edu Mon Mar 17 11:15:17 2008 From: zhang at cis.uab.edu (Chengcui Zhang) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:15:17 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [ACT-R-users] Deadline Approaching - IEEE IRI-2008 Message-ID: *** Paper submission deadline: March 18, 2008 [Apologies if you received multiple copies because of cross-posting] ----------------------------------------------------------------- The 2008 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IEEE IRI-2008) Sponsored by: The IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society July 13-15, 2008 Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas, USA http://iri2008.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- The increasing volumes and dimensions of information have dramatic impact on effective decision-making. To remedy this situation, Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) seeks to maximize the reuse of information by creating simple, rich, and reusable knowledge representations and consequently explores strategies for integrating this knowledge into legacy systems. IRI plays a pivotal role in the capture, representation, maintenance, integration, validation, and extrapolation of information; and applies both information and knowledge for enhancing decision-making in various application domains. This conference explores three major tracks: information reuse, information integration, and reusable systems. Information reuse considers optimizing representation methodologies; information integration studies strategies for creatively applying models in novel domains; and reusable systems focus on ontological opportunities for deploying models and corresponding processes. The IEEE IRI conference serves as a forum for researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and government to present, discuss, and exchange ideas that address real-world problems with real-world solutions. The conference feature contributed and invited papers. Theoretical and applied papers are both included. The conference program will include special sessions, open forum workshops, and keynote speeches. A forum will be conducted with the intent of bridging IRI and Systems of Systems and why the future of intelligent computing - including computing applications - will lie at the juxtaposition of these two topical areas. The best papers from IRI 2008 will be invited to submit extended versions to a special issue of the Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering Journal. The conference includes, but is not limited to, the areas listed below: - Large Scale Data and System Integration - Component-Based Design and Reuse - Unifying Data Models (UML, XML, etc.) and Ontologies - Database Integration - Structured/Semi-structured Data - Middleware & Web Services - Reuse in Software Engineering - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery - Sensory and Information Fusion - Reuse in Modeling & Simulation - Automation, Integration and Reuse across Various Applications - Information Security & Privacy - Survivable Systems & Infrastructures - AI & Decision Support Systems - Heuristic Optimization and Search - Knowledge Acquisition and Management - Fuzzy and Neural Systems - Soft Computing - Evolutionary Computing - Case-Based Reasoning - Natural Language Understanding - Knowledge Management and E-Government - Command & Control Systems (C4ISR) - Human-Machine Information Systems - Space and Robotic Systems - Biomedical & Healthcare Systems - Homeland Security & Critical Infrastructure Protection - Manufacturing Systems & Business Process Engineering - Multimedia Systems - Service-Oriented Architecture - Autonomous Agents in Web-based Systems - Information Integration in Grid Computing Environments - Information Integration in Mobile Computing Environments - Information Integration in Ubiquitous Computing Environments - Systems of Systems - Semantic Web and Emerging Applications - Information Reuse, Integration and Sharing in Collaborative Environments Instructions for Authors: ------------------------- Papers reporting original and unpublished research results pertaining to the above and related topics are solicited. Full paper manuscripts must be in English of length 4 to 6 pages (using the IEEE two-column template). Submissions should include the title, author(s), affiliation(s), e-mail address(es), tel/fax numbers, abstract, and postal address(es) on the first page. Papers should be submitted at the conference web site: http://iri2008.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/. If web submission is not possible, manuscripts should be sent as an attachment via email to either of the Program Chairs (mailing address available on the conference website) on or before the deadline date of March 18, 2008. The attachment must be in .pdf (preferred) or word.doc format. The subject of the email must be IEEE IRI 2008 Submission. Papers will be selected based on their originality, timeliness, significance, relevance, and clarity of presentation. Authors should certify that their papers represent substantially new work and are previously unpublished. Paper submission implies the intent of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper, if accepted. Important Dates: ---------------- February 4, 2008 Workshop/Special session proposal March 18, 2008 Paper submission deadline TBA Notification of acceptance TBA Camera-ready paper due TBA Presenting author registration due June 9, 2008 Advance (discount) registration for general public and other co-author June 30, 2008 Hotel reservation (special discount rate) closing date July 13-15, 2008 Conference events Orgizing Committee: ------------------- Honorary General Chair Lotfi Zadeh Univ. of California, Berkeley, USA zadeh at cs.berkeley.edu General Chairs Stuart Rubin SPAWAR Systems Center, USA stuart.rubin at navy.mil Shu-Ching Chen Florida International University, USA chens at cs.fiu.edu Program Chairs Kang Zhang University of Texas at Dallas, USA kzhang at utd.edu Reda Alhajj University of Calgary, Canada alhajj at ucalgary.ca Program Vice-Chairs Mei-Ling Shyu University of Miami, USA shyu at miami.edu Gary D. Boetticher University of Houston Clear Lake boetticher at uhcl.edu Workshop Chairs Du Zhang California State University, USA zhangd at ecs.csus.edu Taghi M. Khoshgoftaar Florida Atlantic University, USA taghi at cse.fau.edu Eric Grgoire Universit d'Artois, France gregoire at cril.univ-artois.fr Publicity Chairs Chengcui Zhang UAB, USA zhang at cis.uab.edu James B. D. Joshi University of Pittsburgh, USA jjoshi at mail.sis.pitt.edu Finance/Registration/Local Arrangement Chair Suresh Vadhva California State University, USA vadhva at ecs.csus.edu Publications Chair Min-Yuh Day NTU, Taiwan, R.O.C. myday at iis.sinica.edu.tw Asian Liaison Wen-Lian Hsu Academia Sinica, Taiwan, R.O.C. hsu at iis.sinica.edu.tw Althea Liang Qianhui SMU, Singapore althealiang at smu.edu.sg Industry/Canadian Liaison, Editor June R. Massoud Genesis Consulting Inc., Canada junermassoud at hotmail.com Entertainment Chair Louellen McCoy SPAWAR Systems Center, USA louellen.mccoy at navy.mil Webmaster Reda Alhajj University of Calgary, Canada alhajj at ucalgary.ca --------------------------- Chengcui Zhang Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Computer and Information Sciences University of Alabama at Birmingham Birmingham, USA 35294 _______________________________________________ ieeeauthors mailing list ieeeauthors at cis.uab.edu http://crier.cis.uab.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieeeauthors From taatgen at cmu.edu Tue Mar 18 09:36:19 2008 From: taatgen at cmu.edu (Niels Taatgen) Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:36:19 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] ACT-R summer school and workshop 2008 Message-ID: <2718399A-6FDD-4ED5-8AD4-C99A52592150@cmu.edu> Fifteenth annual ACT-R Summer School and Workshop Carnegie Mellon University July 9-20, 2008 Note: Application deadline for the summer school is April 1 ACT-R is a cognitive theory and simulation system for developing cognitive models for tasks that vary from simple reaction time to air traffic control. The most recent advances of the ACT-R theory were detailed in the following paper: Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., and Qin, Y . (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological Review 111, (4). 1036-1060, available online: http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/publications/pubinfo.php?id=526 and in the following book: Anderson, J. R. (2007) How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? New York: Oxford University Press. Each year, a summer school is held to train researchers in the use of the ACT-R system. The summer school is followed by a three-day ACT-R workshop. Summer School The summer school will take place from Wednesday July 9 to Thursday July 17. This intensive 9-day course is designed to train researchers in the use of ACT-R for cognitive modeling. It is structured as a set of six units, with each unit lasting a day and involving a morning theory lecture, an afternoon discussion session and an assignment which participants are expected to complete during the day and evening. In addition, participants are expected to bring a project of their own to the summer school on which they can work during the remaining three days. Computing facilities will be provided or attendees can bring their own laptop on which the ACT-R software will be installed. To provide an optimal learning environment, admission is limited to a dozen participants, who must submit by April 1 an application consisting of a curriculum vitae, a statement of purpose, and a description of the project they would like to do during the summer school. This project can be based on data from the applicant's own research, or an experimental study from the literature. We encourage applicants to browse through the tutorial texts to get a sense of the kind of experiments that are appropriate for a successful project (the tutorial text is part of the ACT-R distribution, which can be downloaded from http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/actr6/). Demonstrated experience with a modeling formalism similar to ACT-R will strengthen the application, as well as general programming experience. Applicants will be notified of admission by May 4. Admission to the summer school is free. Housing will be provided in the CMU dormitories for approximately $60/day (single) or $30/day (shared). More information, including papers published by the ACT-R community, can be found on the ACT-R web site (http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/). ACT-R Workshop The ACT-R workshop will take place from Friday July 18 to Sunday July 20. Mornings will be devoted to research presentations, each lasting about 20 minutes plus questions. Participants are invited to present their ACT-R research by submitting a one-page abstract with their registration. Afternoons will feature discussion sessions and instructional tutorials. Suggestions for the topics of the tutorials and discussion sessions are welcome. Friday afternoon will feature a presentation by an invited speaker. Admission to the workshop is open to all. The early registration fee (before July 1) is $100 and the late registration fee (after July 1) is $125. Informal proceedings of past workshops can be found on the ACT-R web site (http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/workshops/). Requests for presentations should be submitted before July 1 to receive full consideration for inclusion in the workshop program. A preliminary program of presentations will be made available in early July. The workshop is scheduled to just precede the Cognitive Science conference which takes place in Washington, DC from July 23 to 26. (http://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/cogsci.html ). Housing and computing facilities will be provided at CMU during the workshop, and from July 20 to 23 for workshop participants who wish to stay on to work on their ACT-R projects and collaborate with other researchers until the start of Cogsci. Further details on how to register for the workshop will follow. An application form for the summer school is appended below. ________________________________________________________ Fifteenth Annual ACT-R Summer School July 9 to 17, 2008 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh REGISTRATION ============ Name : .................................................................. Address : .................................................................. Tel/ Fax: .................................................................. Email : .................................................................. Send this form, curriculum vitae, statement of purpose and a description of the project by email (preferred) or regular mail to: 2008 ACT-R Summer School Psychology Department Niels Taatgen Baker Hall 345B Fax: +1 (412) 268-2844 Carnegie Mellon University Tel: +1 (412) 268-2815 Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Email: taatgen at cmu.edu =================================================== Niels Taatgen - Carnegie Mellon University, Psychology, BH 345B Also (but not now): University of Groningen, Artificial Intelligence web: http://www.ai.rug.nl/~niels email: taatgen at cmu.edu Telephone: +1 412-268-2815 =================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ja+ at cmu.edu Wed Mar 19 10:46:53 2008 From: ja+ at cmu.edu (John Anderson) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:46:53 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Summer Workshop Message-ID: Let me add some information to the ACT-R workshop announcement First, I am pleased to say that our invited speaker will be John Laird and the title of his presentation will be "The future of cognitive architecture: up, down, and sideways" This is particularly apt as we will be facing an issue at the workshop which we need to decide about as a group and perhaps I can start your thinking about this now: The issue is that ICCM will be in the summer for both 2009 (Manchester) and 2010 (Drexel) and we have traditionally not had ACT-R workshops when there is a summer ICCM. This is because the overlap in presentations at the two is too great. Moreover, one might expect that this will prove to be the transition to yearly summer ICCM's permanently bringing to question the ACT-R workshop. There are at least 5 responses to this: 1. Just have the Summer Workshops independent of ICCM. 2. Drop the workshops with no replacements but this means that there will be no good opportunities for community discussion. 3. Have a 1-day special interest meeting before ICCM like we did last year (but probably not a tutorial) but this is a rather rushed opportunity for discussion. 4. Have a retreat focused on discussion like the 2001 Post Graduate School but this is very demanding of people's time right before ICCM. 5. Move to another time like a Winter workshop (perhaps on the beach or ski slope) but there are lots of problems of venue, timing, and cost. Rather than unilaterally deciding the matter this will be a point of discussion at this summer's workshop. Maybe some of you have other ideas or relevant information. -- ========================================================== John R. Anderson Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Phone: 412-268-2788 Fax: 412-268-2844 email: ja at cmu.edu URL: http://act.psy.cmu.edu/ From wi-iat at maebashi-it.org Tue Mar 18 22:46:18 2008 From: wi-iat at maebashi-it.org (WI-IAT08) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:46:18 +0900 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Call for WI-IAT 2008 Workshop Proposal Message-ID: <200803191146180361259@maebashi-it.org> [Apologies if you receive this more than once] ============================================================== Call for Workshop Proposals 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT'08) Sydney, Australia, December 9-12, 2008. http://datamining.it.uts.edu.au/wi08/html/wi/?index=about http://datamining.it.uts.edu.au/wi08/html/iat/?index=about ******************************************************************* Workshop Proposals Due: ** April 10 **, 2008 All papers accepted for workshops will be included in the Workshop Proceedings published by the IEEE Computer Society Press, which are indexed by EI. =================================================================== The Program Committees of the 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT'08) invite proposals for Workshops. The Workshops will be held within the Conference, December 9-12, 2008 at Sydney, Australia. The workshop organizers will be responsible for advertising the workshop, forming the program committees, reviewing and selecting the papers, and guaranteeing a high quality worthy of the prestige and range of the Conference. All papers accepted for workshops will be included in the Workshop Proceedings published by the IEEE Computer Society Press and will be available at the workshops. The workshop organizers will also have the discretion of editing selected papers (after their expansion and revision) into books or special journal issues. Workshops may be full-day or half-day. A full-day workshop should select 20-25 regular papers, while a half-day workshop should select 10-13 regular papers, from a large number of submissions. The workshop organizers should ensure the presence of authors of accepted papers at the workshops. I. Workshop Topics Each workshop subject will focus on new research challenges and initiatives in Web Intelligence (WI) and Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT). The workshops should provide an informal and vibrant forum for researchers and industry practitioners to share their research results and practical development experiences in these two fields. Suggested, but not limited to, workshop topics include: - Web Intelligence, Brain Informatics and Bio Technology - Intelligent E-Technology (including E-Science, E-Business, E-Learning, E-Finance, E-Government, E-Community) - Intelligent Web Interaction - Knowledge Grids and Grid Intelligence - Semantics and Ontology Engineering - Social Networks and Social Intelligence - Web Agents - Web Information Filtering and Retrieval - Web Mining and Farming - Web Personalization and Recommendations - Web Security, Integrity, Privacy and Trust - Web Services and Grid Services - Web Support Systems - World Wide Wisdom Web (W4) - Agent Systems Modeling and Methodology - Autonomous Knowledge and Information Agents - Autonomous Auctions and Negotiation - Autonomy-Oriented Computing (AOC) - Learning and Self-Adapting Agents - Agents and Data Mining Interaction - Multiagent Systems in E-business II. Workshop Proposal Submission Workshop proposals should include the following elements: - Title of the workshop - The organizers name, affiliation, mailing address and e-mail address - A description of the topic of the workshop (not exceeding 200 words) - Type of the workshop (full-day or half-day) - A description of how the workshop will contribute to the field of Web Intelligence and/or Intelligent Agent Technology - A short description on how the workshop will be advertised so as to ensure a sufficiently wide range of authors and high quality papers After the acceptance of a workshop proposal the organizer(s) should: - Create a "Call for papers/participation" for the workshop - Create a Web page for the workshop, the link of which will be published on the Conference Web site - Create a Board of Reviewers (Program Committee) - Review and select papers - Schedule the workshop activities Those papers selected by the organizer(s) will also be reviewed by the Workshop Co-Chairs for final acceptance. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance, and clarity. We will provide an online paper submission and review system to support the workshops. Please submit your Proposals to both Workshop Co-Chairs by emails. III. Important Dates - Workshop proposal submission: April 10, 2008 - Electronic submission of full papers: July 10, 2008 - Workshop paper submission: July 30, 2008 - Notification of paper acceptance: September 3, 2008 - Camera-ready of accepted papers: September 30, 2008 - Workshops: December 9, 2008 - Conference: December 9 - 12, 2008 We look forward to your support in making 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM WI-IAT workshops an exciting event. Workshop Co-Chairs: A/Prof. Yuefeng Li, Queensland University of Technology, Australia E-mail: y2.li at qut.edu.au Prof. Gabriella Pasi, University of Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy E-mail: pasi at disco.unimib.it Note: we will not have a separate workshop registration fee this year (i.e., only one conference registration covers everything). From reder at cmu.edu Wed Mar 19 16:32:51 2008 From: reder at cmu.edu (Lynne Reder) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:32:51 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] post-doctoral fellowships available Message-ID: <77AF3066-2414-4D99-BE58-020224946F0C@cmu.edu> The NIH training program in "Combined Computational and Empirical approaches to the study of Cognitive Neuroscience" has two fellowships available for US citizens or nationals (must have green card). Before starting, a trainee must have completed his/her PhD. The training program provides two years of support with a stipend that is determined (by NIH) as a function of the number of years since PhD. For more information about the faculty associated with this training grant, please visit http://www.psy.cmu.edu/home/training/combinedcomputational.html If you know someone who would be interested and is qualified to participate, please have him/her contact me at the address below, including a statement of interests and vita. Thanks, Lynne Reder ================================== Lynne Reder Professor Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412-268-3792 (office) 412-268-2844 (fax) reder at cmu.edu (email) http://memory.psy.cmu.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robert.lischke at googlemail.com Thu Mar 20 13:12:48 2008 From: robert.lischke at googlemail.com (Robert Lischke) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:12:48 +0100 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Retrieving a Chunk from DM (Module development) Message-ID: <7ee9d37a0803201012j33e1c373m7557efd71d6b1fb0@mail.gmail.com> Hello everybody, I am currently working on a module for ACT-R and I want it to retrieve a chunk from the DM into a buffer (preferably it's own). I am looking for a way to do this in Lisp. Is there a preferred way to do this? Can I simply use a scheduled call to 'start-retrieval' from the declarative-memory module (/core-modules/declarative-memory.lisp)? Best Greetings, Robert Lischke From db30 at andrew.cmu.edu Thu Mar 20 13:47:22 2008 From: db30 at andrew.cmu.edu (Dan Bothell) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:47:22 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Retrieving a Chunk from DM (Module development) In-Reply-To: <7ee9d37a0803201012j33e1c373m7557efd71d6b1fb0@mail.gmail.com> References: <7ee9d37a0803201012j33e1c373m7557efd71d6b1fb0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: --On Thursday, March 20, 2008 6:12 PM +0100 Robert Lischke wrote: > Hello everybody, > > I am currently working on a module for ACT-R and I want it to retrieve > a chunk from the DM into a buffer (preferably it's own). I am looking > for a way to do this in Lisp. > > Is there a preferred way to do this? > > Can I simply use a scheduled call to 'start-retrieval' from the > declarative-memory module (/core-modules/declarative-memory.lisp)? > The short answer is that there isn't a preferred way to do that and start-retrieval is specific to the declarative module/retrieval buffer. If you provide me with more context as to what you're trying to accomplish with the module and model (things like why another buffer, will it use the same activation equation and parameters, do you want it work in parallel with the existing declarative module, etc) I can provide more info as to possible solutions. Dan From robert.lischke at googlemail.com Fri Mar 21 06:09:20 2008 From: robert.lischke at googlemail.com (Robert Lischke) Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:09:20 +0100 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Retrieving a Chunk from DM (Module development) In-Reply-To: References: <7ee9d37a0803201012j33e1c373m7557efd71d6b1fb0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7ee9d37a0803210309w4684e170ga8f7aeaa9e49c3f1@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 6:47 PM, Dan Bothell wrote: > > > --On Thursday, March 20, 2008 6:12 PM +0100 Robert Lischke > > > wrote: > > > Hello everybody, > > > > I am currently working on a module for ACT-R and I want it to retrieve > > a chunk from the DM into a buffer (preferably it's own). I am looking > > for a way to do this in Lisp. > > > > Is there a preferred way to do this? > > > > Can I simply use a scheduled call to 'start-retrieval' from the > > declarative-memory module (/core-modules/declarative-memory.lisp)? > > > > The short answer is that there isn't a preferred way to do that > and start-retrieval is specific to the declarative module/retrieval > buffer. > > If you provide me with more context as to what you're trying to > accomplish with the module and model (things like why another buffer, > will it use the same activation equation and parameters, do you want > it work in parallel with the existing declarative module, etc) I can > provide more info as to possible solutions. > > Dan > Thanks for your answer! The module in question is a temporal-module to estimate (long) time intervals. It is loosely based on Taatgen's module. As in Taatgen's module, temporal chunks are stored in the DM. We want to explain errors in time-estimation by using the activation levels of the chunks (base-line learning). One of the differences is, that our module starts counting from 0 again, whenever a temporal-chunk is created. The model shall be able (upon a request) to add-up a temporal-chunk in the DM with the elapsed time since the last creation of a temporal-chunk. Therefore it needs to retrieve chunks stored in the DM, calculate a new time and add this new chunk to the DM. We thought about using an algorithm like this: - retrieve chunk from DM into temporal buffer (!) - modify chunk in the buffer by adding elapsed ticks to ticks in the buffer (the generated chunk will be stored "automatically" in the DM) - start counting ticks from 0 again This means we need the same activation equation and parameters from the declarative module. It might be interesting to have the module work in parallel with the existing declarative module, though I never thought of this before. Robert From r.m.young at acm.org Fri Mar 21 18:32:40 2008 From: r.m.young at acm.org (Richard M Young) Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:32:40 +0000 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Summer Workshop In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello John, (Privately to you, but to feed into discussion at your discretion.) Let me take a consistent line, even if I don't necessarily fully believe it: 6. There is a 6th possibility, which is that ICCM *doesn't* go annual but remains on its present twice-in-3-years cycle. That means that the problem arises only when ICCM in Europe coincides with Cog Sci in Europe, which is why the time of ICCM has shifted for 2009. With the 3-year cycle for ICCM and the 4-year cycle for Cog Sci, this means (I think) that the situation won't arise again for another 12 years, so we can simply deal with 2009/2010 as a one-off event and not change the present policy. Best, ~ Richard At 10:46 -0400 19/3/08, John Anderson wrote: >Let me add some information to the ACT-R workshop announcement > >First, I am pleased to say that our invited speaker will be John >Laird and the title of his presentation will be > >"The future of cognitive architecture: up, down, and sideways" > >This is particularly apt as we will be facing an issue at the >workshop which we need to decide about as a group and perhaps I can >start your thinking about this now: > >The issue is that ICCM will be in the summer for both 2009 >(Manchester) and 2010 (Drexel) and we have traditionally not had >ACT-R workshops when there is a summer ICCM. This is because the >overlap in presentations at the two is too great. Moreover, one >might expect that this will prove to be the transition to yearly >summer ICCM's permanently bringing to question the ACT-R workshop. >There are at least 5 responses to this: > >1. Just have the Summer Workshops independent of ICCM. >2. Drop the workshops with no replacements but this means that there >will be no good opportunities for community discussion. >3. Have a 1-day special interest meeting before ICCM like we did last >year (but probably not a tutorial) but this is a rather rushed >opportunity for discussion. >4. Have a retreat focused on discussion like the 2001 Post Graduate >School but this is very demanding of people's time right before ICCM. >5. Move to another time like a Winter workshop (perhaps on the beach >or ski slope) but there are lots of problems of venue, timing, and >cost. > >Rather than unilaterally deciding the matter this will be a point of >discussion at this summer's workshop. Maybe some of you have other >ideas or relevant information. >-- From kirlik at uiuc.edu Sat Mar 22 16:48:29 2008 From: kirlik at uiuc.edu (Alex Kirlik) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:48:29 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [ACT-R-users] Post-doc positions at U. Illinois: Cognition & Technology Message-ID: <20080322154829.BDS07713@expms1.cites.uiuc.edu> We are searching for applicants for 3 post-doc positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in areas at the intersection of cognition and technology. Please see the attached announcement for more information, and note the May 1, 2008 closing date for applications. Alex Kirlik ---------------------------------- Alex Kirlik Acting Head, Human Factors Division Professor, Human Factors, Psychology, and Beckman Institute for Advanced Sci & Tech Affliate, Computer Science, Industrial Engr University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign http://www.humanfactors.uiuc.edu/fac_Kirlik (+1) 217-244-8972 Ofc (+1) 217-244-8647 Fax -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: UIUC_Post-Docs.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 34994 bytes Desc: not available URL: From grayw at rpi.edu Tue Mar 25 10:07:18 2008 From: grayw at rpi.edu (Wayne Gray) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:07:18 -0400 Subject: [ACT-R-users] YouTube Video Message-ID: <3341A2B8-5C07-4248-8755-92C1E17FAB03@rpi.edu> Greetings. With John Senders' encouragement and permission, I have posted his mid-1960's video of him driving a test car down I-495 outside of Boston while the visor of the helmet he is wearing goes up and down, occluding his vision. You can access the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOguslSPpqo There are links to the right of the video that will take you back to my lab where you can download Senders, J. W., Kristofferson, A. B., Levison, W. H., Dietrich, C. W., & Ward, J. L. (1967). The attentional demand of automobile driving. Highway Research Record(195), 15-33. And view stills of the relay boxes in the back sit that control the visor. This is great stuff. I encourage you all to view, rate, and comment on the video. (Can we make this the next YouTube sensation??) As the paper notes, the empirical part of the study (driving on I-495) was merely done to collect data needed to validate the modeling side of the study. Although these were not ACT-R models, I think it is noteworthy to document the extent to which modelers will go to collect empirical data to test their models. (Dario -- don't get any ideas about doing this on I-95 in Philly! Times have changed.) Wayne **Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer** Wayne D. Gray; Professor of Cognitive Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Carnegie Building (rm 108) ;;for all surface mail & deliveries 110 8th St.; Troy, NY 12180 EMAIL: grayw at rpi.edu, Office: 518-276-3315, Fax: 518-276-3017 for general information see: http://www.rpi.edu/~grayw/ for On-Line publications see: http://www.rpi.edu/~grayw/pubs/downloadable_pubs.htm for the CogWorks Lab see: http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/cogworks/ If you just have formalisms or a model you are doing "operations research" or" AI", if you just have data and a good study you are doing "experimental psychology", and if you just have ideas you are doing "philosophy" -- it takes all three to do cognitive science. **Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ELPWang at ntu.edu.sg Thu Mar 27 07:59:09 2008 From: ELPWang at ntu.edu.sg (Lipo WANG) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:59:09 +0800 Subject: [ACT-R-users] Extended Deadline 10 April; ICNC'08-FSKD'08: Jinan, China Message-ID: * Due to numerous requests, the submission deadline is now extended * * to 10 April. * * * Kindly forward to your colleagues or students who may be interested * * Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement. * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 4th International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC'08) The 5th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'08) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 25-27 August 2008, Jinan, China *** Extended Submission Deadline: 10 April 2008 *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.icnc-fskd2008.sdu.edu.cn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call for Papers, Invited Sessions & Sponsorship The joint ICNC'08-FSKD'08 will be held in Jinan, China. Jinan is the capital of Shandong Province, which is known for the home of Confucius, the Taishan Mountain, and the Baotu Spring. ICNC'08-FSKD'08 aims to provide an international forum for scientists and researchers to present the state of the art of intelligent methods inspired from nature, including biological, ecological, and physical systems, with applications to data mining, manufacturing, design, and more. It is an exciting and emerging interdisciplinary area in which a wide range of techniques and methods are being studied for dealing with large, complex, and dynamic problems. Previously, the joint conferences in 2005, 2006 and 2007 each attracted over 3000 submissions from more than 30 countries. To promote international participation of researchers from outside the country/region where the conference is held (i.e., China), foreign experts are encouraged to propose invited sessions. Each invited session should have at least 4 papers. Invited session organizers will solicit submissions, conduct reviews and recommend accept/reject decisions on the submitted papers. All invited session organizers will be acknowledged in the conference proceedings. Each invited session proposal should include the following information: (1) the name(s) and contact information of invited session organizer(s); (2) the title and a short synopsis of the invited session. Please send your proposal to nc2008 at sdu.edu.cn For more information, visit the conference web page. If you have any questions after visiting the conference web page, please email the secretariat at nc2008 at sdu.edu.cn Join us at this major event in historic Jinan !!! ----- Lipo WANG School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Nanyang Technological University Block S1, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/elpwang Phone: +65 6790 6372 Fax +65 6793 3318 elpwang at ntu.edu.sg