From dwang at cis.ohio-state.edu Sun Dec 1 12:22:20 2002 From: dwang at cis.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 12:22:20 -0500 Subject: Tenure-track positions at Ohio State References: <200211220021.gAM0LdU25878@purkinje.salk.edu> Message-ID: <3DEA454C.8D004531@cis.ohio-state.edu> The Department of Computer and Information Science at the Ohio State University invites applications for several tenure-track/tenured positions. A priority area of recruiting for 2003 is artificial intelligence, particularly speech, vision, and machine learning. Appointments at all ranks will be considered. Applicants for an assistant professor position should hold or be completing a Ph.D. in computer science and engineering or a closely related field, and have a commitment to excellent research and quality teaching. Applicants for a senior position should also demonstrate a strong record of external funding and impact on their field. More information is available at www.cis.ohio-state.edu/department/CIS-Faculty-positions.html To apply, send a curriculum vita (including names and addresses of at least three references) and a statement of research and teaching interests, by e-mail to: fsearch at cis.ohio-state.edu (Faculty Search) or by mail to: Chair, Faculty Search Committee Department of Computer and Information Science The Ohio State University 2015 Neil Avenue, DL395 Columbus, OH 43210-1277 USA From Zoubin at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Mon Dec 2 09:32:00 2002 From: Zoubin at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Zoubin Ghahramani) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 14:32:00 +0000 Subject: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Machine Learning, Gatsby Unit, London Message-ID: <15851.28384.365754.469875@cajal.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> The following position is available. If you are interested and are planning to attend the NIPS conference in Vancouver (Dec 9-14) please email me and we can arrange to meet there. Sincerely, -Zoubin Ghahramani ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Postdoctoral Fellowship Machine Learning Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit University College London, UK http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk The Gatsby Unit is looking for an exceptional postdoc to work in any area of machine learning. We are especially interested in people working on Bayesian methods, graphical models, approximate inference, Gaussian processes and other kernel methods, reinforcement learning, decision theory, or game theory. Other areas which complement the machine learning and computational neuroscience work at the Gatsby Unit will also be welcome. The Gatsby Unit offers an attractive environment for doing basic research in machine learning. Postdocs are given freedom to develop their research interests. The Unit is located in central London and benefits from interactions with the larger machine learning community at UCL, in London, and Cambridge. For more information about the Gatsby Unit please see: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Prospective candidates should apply with a cover letter, CV, and names and email addresses of 2-3 referees. This should be sent by email to: admin at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk, preferably using plain text, postscript or pdf formats only. The closing date for applications is 15 Jan 2003. From ericwan at ece.ogi.edu Mon Dec 2 15:18:28 2002 From: ericwan at ece.ogi.edu (Eric Wan) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 12:18:28 -0800 Subject: Research associate position available In-Reply-To: <3DA4612B.7776324@sunderland.ac.uk> Message-ID: <008501c29a3f$fa4ea370$a85a5f81@magaju> ********************* JOB OPENING **************************** RESEARCH ASSOCIATE The OGI School or Science and Engineering at OHSU has an opening for a post doctoral research associate or post-MS graduate to participate in an interdisciplinary UAV neural controls project. Project overview: This project involves the design and implementation of nonlinear controllers using neural networks applied to agile maneuvering of Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The control approach is based on a model predictive control framework implemented with a neural network feedback controller. An inner-loop state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) controller is also used for trajectory initialization and increased stability. The UAV platform consists of an X-Cell-60 R/C helicopter that has been instrumented with custom avionics. The current effort is focused on control design and optimization for real-time implementation necessary to perform flight demonstrations. The successful candidate will work closely with an interdisciplinary team of software and control engineers, with specific responsibility for various aspects pertaining to control design, testing, and system integration. Home page: http://www.cse.ogi.edu/PacSoft/projects/sec/ Requirements: Candidate should have a Ph.D. or M.S. with an expertise in nonlinear controls, neural networks, and flight dynamics. Salary range $35,000 - $55,000 plus benefits. Location: OHSU's OGI School of Science and Engineering campus is in Hillsboro, Oregon, approximately 11 miles west of downtown Portland. Sponsor: DARPA Oregon Health & Science University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Please e-mail inquiries and background information to both Prof. Eric A. Wan and Prof. Richard Kieburtz . From nik.kasabov at aut.ac.nz Mon Dec 2 20:27:54 2002 From: nik.kasabov at aut.ac.nz (Nik Kasabov) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 14:27:54 +1300 Subject: Research positions in neurocomputing, bioinformatics, knowledge discovery, and speech Message-ID: The Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute (KEDRI), Auckland, New Zealand, is looking for applicants for several research positions, a Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2 Research Assistantship, and 2 PhD scholarships, in the following research areas: 1) Novel neurocomputing methods and systems 2) Computational intelligence in bioinformatics 3) Data mining and knowledge discovery 4) Advanced speech and image processing More information can be received from the KEDRI's Web site (www.kedri.info), from Prof. Nik Kasabov (nkasabov at aut.ac.nz) or from Joyce D'Mello (joyce.dmello at aut.ac.nz). The deadline for submitting applications is 31st of January 2003. Prof. Nik Kasabov, MSc, PhD Fellow RSNZ, NZCS, Sr Member IEEE Director, Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute Chair of Knowledge Engineering, School of IT Auckland University of Technology (AUT) phone: +64 9 917 9506 ; fax: +64 9 917 9501 mobile phone: +64 21 488 328 WWW http://www.kedri.info email: nkasabov at aut.ac.nz From bciuser at essex.ac.uk Tue Dec 3 05:01:26 2002 From: bciuser at essex.ac.uk (bciuser) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 10:01:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CFP: Brain Computer Interfaces at SCI2003 Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings We are organising an invited session on Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) within the 7th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI2003) to be held July 27-30 in Orlando, Florida (please see http://www.iiisci.org/sci2003/). The aim of this invited BCI session is to gather researchers in the field to present, discuss, and promote their research in this exciting and quickly growing area. Authors are invited to submit their original and unpublished works in the field of Brain Computer Interfaces. This may include but is not limited to: * Signal acquisition and processing. * Single trial analysis. * Signal interpretation. * invasive and non-invasive systems. * Real-time BCI. Please reply to (E-mail: bciuser at essex.ac.uk) at your earliest convenience to register your intention of submitting a paper. If you decide to join us in Orlando, a tentative title and a brief abstract will be due by December 15, 2002. Here are some important dates: 16 Dec 2002 Intention of submission 13 Jan 2003 Submission of extended abstracts (electronically) 24 Feb 2003 Notification of acceptance 14 April 2003 Submission of Camera-ready papers (electronically) Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Looking forward to meeting you in Orlando Most sincerely, Heba Lakany & Francisco Sepulveda Department of Computer Science University of Essex United Kingdom BCI session E-mail: bciuser at essex.ac.uk From Mary.Li at asu.edu Tue Dec 3 13:19:13 2002 From: Mary.Li at asu.edu (Mary Li) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 11:19:13 -0700 Subject: Jung Ad_revised Message-ID: <7D2FB294FA311F4299D03CC8D3904370049D41F7@mainex5.asu.edu> HARRINGTON DEPARTMENT OF BIOENGINEERING Neuromotor Control Research Positions A new research focus area in neuromotor therapy is being established through a partnership between The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Harrington Department of Bioengineering and the newly formed Arizona BioDesign Institute at ASU and Banner Health Systems (Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center). Laboratories co-directed by Professor Ranu Jung in Center for Rehabilitation Neuroscience and Rehabilitation Engineering (RNRE) offer several opportunities to work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design and computational modeling. The following full time academic professional positions are available as part of this new joint research program starting in October 2002. Assistant/Associate Research Professional: The position requires MS in Life Science, Bioengineering or a related field. A PhD is desired. The person in this position should have good writing and communication skills. S/he will work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design, and computational modeling, contribute to studies related to motor control/biomechanics/neurophysiology, perform lab management tasks, coordinate multiple studies, and supervise and train students in the lab if needed. Appointment at the associate level requires 2 or more years experience beyond MS or a PhD degree. Continuation of this position is contingent upon funding. Assistant/Associate Research Technologist: This position requires a BS in Life Science, Bioengineering or a related field. An MS is desired. This person will work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design and computational modeling. Experience with vertebrate animal care, surgical and routine laboratory procedures, histology and neurochemistry procedures will be beneficial. Appointment at the associate level requires 2 or more years experience beyond BS or an MS degree. Continuation of this position is contingent upon funding. Post-doctoral Research Associates (2): This position requires a PhD in Life Science, Bioengineering or a related field. The person should have appropriate training with interests/experience in one or more of the following: neuromotor control, mathematical modeling, electrical stimulation, neurochemistry, electrophysiology, kinematics, control systems, and experimental skills with vertebrate in-vivo/chronic spinal injury animal models. The person will work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design and computational modeling. Continuation of these positions is contingent upon funding. Arizona State University enrolls more than 49,000 students, 6,000 of them within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Located within the thriving Phoenix metropolitan area, the College is on the leading edge of innovations in engineering education and continuously works to build stronger alliances with the many high technology industrial partners located nearby. Submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, and contact information (name, address, phone number and email address) for three references to Ranu Jung, PhD, Harrington Department of Bioengineering, Arizona State University, P O Box 879709, Tempe, AZ 85278-9709. Telephone: 480-965-9052, FAX: 480-727-7624; email: jung at asu.edu Arizona State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer institution. From gbugmann at soc.plym.ac.uk Wed Dec 4 07:27:28 2002 From: gbugmann at soc.plym.ac.uk (Guido.Bugmann xtn 2566) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 12:27:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Special issue of Biosystems on Neural Coding Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, selected papers of the 4th Workshop on Neural Coding (NCWS'2001) have appeared in a special issue of Biosystems. http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/biosystems Hereafter is the table of contents. ------------------------- Table of Contents for BioSystems Volume 67, Issue 1-3, October - December 2002 Foreword Roman Borisyuk and Guido Bugmann 1-2 Oscillatory activity in the neural networks of spiking elements Roman Borisyuk 3-16 Synaptic depression increases the selectivity of a neuron to its preferred pattern and binarizes the neural code Guido Bugmann 17-25 Input-output behaviour of a model neuron with alternating drift Aniello Buonocore, Antonio Di Crescenzo and Elvira Di Nardo 27-34 A neuronal modeling paradigm in the presence of refractoriness A. Buonocore, V. Giorno, A.G. Nobile and L.M. Ricciardi 35-43 Synchronization in a network of fast-spiking interneurons Angelo Di Garbo, Michele Barbi and Santi Chillemi 45-53 Quantification of sensory information transmission using timeseries decorrelation techniques Marcus Eger and Reinhard Eckhorn 55-65 A modelling study on discrimination tasks Jianfeng Feng and Feng Liu 67-73 Effects of random jumps on a very simple neuronal diffusion model Maria Teresa Giraudo, Laura Sacerdote and Roberta Sirovich 75-83 Temporal uncertainty in reading the neural code (proportional noise) Christopher M. Harris 85-94 Resonance and selective communication via bursts in neurons having subthreshold oscillations Eugene M. Izhikevich 95-102 Object selection by an oscillatory neural network Yakov Kazanovich and Roman Borisyuk 103-111 Optimality in the encoding/decoding relations of motoneurones and muscle units Andre F. Kohn and Marcus F. Vieira 113-119 Coding of periodic pulse stimulation in chemoreceptors Vlastimil Krivan, Petr Lansky and Jean Pierre Rospars 121-128 A new bursting model of CA3 pyramidal cell physiology suggests multiple locations for spike initiation Maciej T. Lazarewicz, Michele Migliore and Giorgio A. Ascoli 129-137 Firing coincidences between neighboring retinal ganglion cells: inside information or epiphenomenon? Michael W. Levine, Kristen Castaldo and M. Baris Kasapoglu 139-146 Noise-induced divisive gain control in neuron models Andr Longtin, Brent Doiron and Adi R. Bulsara 147-156 Electrophysiological correlates of synchronous neural activity and attention: a short review Ernst Niebur 157-166 On the location-specific positional and extra-positional information in the discharge of rat hippocampal cells A.V. Olypher, P. Lansky and A.A. Fenton 167-175 A critical assessment of different measures of the information carried by correlated neuronal firing Stefano Panzeri, Gianni Pola, Filippo Petroni, Malcolm P. Young and Rasmus S. Petersen 177-185 The role of individual spikes and spike patterns in population coding of stimulus location in rat somatosensory cortex Rasmus S. Petersen, Stefano Panzeri and Mathew E. Diamond 187-193 Isotropic sequence order learning using a novel linear algorithm in a closed loop behavioural system B. Porr and P. Woergoetter 195-202 Modelling spatiotemporal olfactory data in two steps: from binary to Hodgkin-Huxley neurones Brigitte Quenet, Rmi Dubois, Sevan Sirapian, Grard Dreyfus and David Horn 203-211 Interspike interval statistics in the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck neuronal model with signal-dependent noise Laura Sacerdote and Petr Lansky 213-219 Spike independency in feed-forward networks Yutaka Sakai 221-227 Why do olfactory neurons have unspecific receptive fields? Manuel A. Snchez-Montas and Tim C. Pearce 229-238 Rapid adaptation and efficient coding Lars Schwabe and Klaus Obermayer 239-244 A unifying theory on the relationship between spike trains, EEG, and ERP based on the noise shaping/predictive neural coding hypothesis Jonghan Shin 245-257 Recording site dependence of the neuronal spiking statistics Shigeru Shinomoto, Yutaka Sakai and Hiroshi Ohno 259-263 Visualisation of synchronous firing in multi-dimensional spike trains L. Stuart, M. Walter and R. Borisyuk 265-279 Study of synaptic plasticity via random graphs Tatyana S. Turova 281-286 Stochastic fluctuations of the synaptic function Francesco Ventriglia and Vito Di Maio 287-294 Model based decoding of spike trains Matthew C. Wiener and Barry J. Richmond 295-300 ----------------------------- Dr. Guido Bugmann Senior Research Fellow Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems School of Computing University of Plymouth Plymouth PL4 8AA United Kingdom ----------------------------- Tel: (+44) 1752 23 25 66 / 41 Fax: (+44) 1752 23 25 40 Email: gbugmann at soc.plymouth.ac.uk or gbugmann at plymouth.ac.uk http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/soc/Staff/GuidBugm/Bugmann.htm ----------------------------- From jose at psychology.rutgers.edu Wed Dec 4 22:31:17 2002 From: jose at psychology.rutgers.edu (Stephen Hanson) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 22:31:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: FACULTY POSITION AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-NEWARK CAMPUS--COGNITIVE SCIENCE, COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Message-ID: <200212050331.gB53VHQ17930@psychology.rutgers.edu> Rutgers University _Newark Campus, Psychology Department, Cogntive Science, Cognitive Neuroscience The Department of Psychology anticipates making one tenure track, Assistant or Associate Professor level appointment in area of COGNITIVE SCIENCE. In particular we are seeking individuals from one of any of the following THREE areas: LEARNING (Cognitive Modeling), COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE, or SOCIAL COGNITION (interests in NEUROIMAGING in any of these areas would also be a plus, since the Department in conjunction with UMDNJ has recently acquired a 3T Neuroimaging Center (see http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/fmri/)). The successful candidate is expected to develop and maintain an active, externally funded research program, and to teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Review of applications will begin JANUARY 30th 2003, pending final budgetary approval from the administration. Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Qualified women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Please send a CV, a statement of current and future research interests, and three letters of recommendation to COGNITIVE SCIENCE SEARCH COMMITTEE, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102. Email enquires can be made to cogsci at psychology.rutgers.edu. From doug.leith at may.ie Fri Dec 6 04:24:50 2002 From: doug.leith at may.ie (Douglas Leith) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 09:24:50 -0000 Subject: Postdoctoral & Postgraduate Positions in Machine Learning, Hamilton Institute, Ireland Message-ID: <002401c29d09$55d62800$06000001@hamilton.local> Postdoctoral and postgraduate positions in machine learning are available at the Hamilton Institiute. If you are interested and are planning to attend the NIPS conference in Vancouver (Dec 9-14) please email Rod Murray-Smith (rod at dcs.gla.ac.uk) and you can arrange to meet there. Regards. Doug Leith ************************* Postdoctoral Position & Postgraduare Position in Statistical Machine Learning Applications are invited for postdoctoral and postgraduate research positions at the Hamilton Institute in the area of statistical machine learning, particularly in the context of time series analysis and probabilistic reasoning, human-computer interaction, hybrid systems. The successful candidates will have demonstrated an outstanding level of academic achievement at undergraduate/post-graduate level. The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. These posts offer an exciting opportunity for successful candidates to tackle fundamental research problems within a stimulating multi-disciplinary research environment with state of the art facilities and strong links to the international research community. For further details visit www.hamilton.may.ie Applications with cv including details of three referees to hamilton at may.ie. For informal enquiries please contact Prof. D.J. Leith at doug.leith at may.ie From benjamin.blankertz at first.fhg.de Fri Dec 6 05:10:44 2002 From: benjamin.blankertz at first.fhg.de (Benjamin Blankertz) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 11:10:44 +0100 Subject: BCI Competition 2003 Message-ID: <200212061110.44932.benjamin.blankertz@first.fhg.de> [/ Appologies for multiple messages /] Dear collegues, we are happy to announce december 6th 2002 as the start of the * BCI Competition 2003 * on classifying single-trial electroencephalography (EEG) data in the context of brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. There are six different data sets of four BCI groups (Albany, Berlin, Graz, Tuebingen, see below). For each data set there is one labeled part (training set) that can be used to calibrate analysis systems and one part for which the labels are kept secret (test set). The competition is evaluated on each data set separately according to the participants' submissions (labels resp. continuous feedback signals) for the test set. Deadline for submissions is may 1st 2003. For each data set the competition winners get a chance to publish their algorithm in an article devoted to the competition that will appear in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. For more information please visit http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/~blanker/competition/ The competition organizers, Albany: Theresa M. Vaughan, Gerwin Schalk, Jonathan R. Wolpaw Berlin: Benjamin Blankertz, Gabriel Curio, Klaus-Robert Mueller Graz: Alois Schloegl, Christa Neuper, Gernot Mueller, Bernhard Graimann, Gert Pfurtscheller Tuebingen: Thilo Hinterberger, Michael Schroeder, Niels Birbaumer Contact: Dr. Benjamin Blankertz, +49.30.6392-1875 Fraunhofer FIRST.IDA Kekulestr. 7, D-12489 Berlin, Germany benjamin.blankertz at first.fraunhofer.de From E.Koning at elsevier.nl Fri Dec 6 08:41:41 2002 From: E.Koning at elsevier.nl (Koning, Esther (ELS)) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 13:41:41 -0000 Subject: CFP Neurocomputing - Special Issue on Spiking Neural Systems Message-ID: <4D56BD81F62EFD49A74B1057ECD75C06057D3941@elsamsvexch01.elsevier.nl> CALL FOR PAPERS NEUROCOMPUTING An International Journal published by Elsevier Science B.V., vol. 49-55, 28 issues, in 2003 ISNN 0925-2312, URL: Special Issue on Spiking Neural Systems Paper Submission Deadline: March 31, 2003 Spiking neural systems are based on biologically-inspired neural models of computation. Accordingly, individual neurons communicate with each other by means of short electrical pulses called action potentials or spikes, which are generated by a threshold process and generally as elements of spike sequences or trains. These systems can remarkably process time-varying signals, are more elaborated than simple neuron models found in artificial neural systems, and attempt to more closely approach biophysical models of neurons, synapses, and related elements, that describe neuronal activity by ionic currents that pass through specialized channels in dendritic branches and somatic compartments. Spiking neural systems are suitable to analyze dynamical aspects of neuronal signal transmission and due to their simplicity, they are useful for large-scale implementation of cell ensembles and neural circuitry.... The Neurocomputing journal invites original contributions for the forthcoming special issue on Spiking Neural Systems from a broad scope of areas. Some topics relevant to this special issue include, but are not restricted to: -- Theoretical foundations, neural circuitry, cell ensembles, systems -- Modeling of neurons, synapses, dendrites, spike trains including biophysical, biochemical, integral and differential equations, integrate-and-fire, IFB, ... -- Spike-based learning including Hebbian, temporal difference, etc. -- Effects of architecture, single-neuron properties, and network dynamics. -- Issues in chaos, coding, correlation, decoding, firing rate, latency, noise, oscillations, plasticity, synchrony, timing variability, etc. -- Connections to biophysics, brain research, computer science, pattern recognition, etc. -- Realization of spiking neurons as software simulation and VLSI hardware. -- Applications including memory, information processing, learning, ... Please send two hardcopies of the manuscript before March 31, 2003, to: V. David S?nchez A., Neurocomputing - Editor in Chief - Advanced Computational Intelligent Systems P.O. Box 60130, Pasadena, CA 91116-6130, U.S.A. Street address: 1149 Wotkyns Drive Pasadena, CA 91103, U.S.A. Fax: +1-626-796-9458 Email: vdavidsanchez at earthlink.net including abstract, keywords, a cover page containing the title and author names, corresponding author name's complete address including telephone, fax, and email address, and clear indication to be a submission to the Special Issue on Spiking Neural Systems. Guest Editors Kazuyuki Aihara University of Tokyo Department of Mathematical Engineering 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-8656 Tokyo Japan Phone: +81-3-5841-6910 Fax: +81-3-5841-8594 Email: Aihara at sat.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Prof. Walter J. Freeman University of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-3200 USA tel: +1-510-643-8896 fax: +1-510-643-6791 email: wfreeman at socrates.berkeley.edu Wulfram Gerstner Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience, DI-LCN CH-1015 Lausanne EPFL Switzerland Phone: +41-21-693-6713 Fax: +41-21-693-5263 Email: wulfram.gerstner at epfl.ch G?nther Palm University of Ulm, Department of Neural Information Processing Oberer Eselsberg D-89069 Ulm Germany Phone: +49-731-502-4151 Fax: +49-731-502-4156 Email: palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de V. David S?nchez A., Neurocomputing - Editor in Chief - Advanced Computational Intelligent Systems P.O. Box 60130 Pasadena, CA 91116-6130, U.S.A. Fax: +1-626-796-9458 Email: vdavidsanchez at earthlink.net From yury.petrov at physiol.ox.ac.uk Fri Dec 6 10:48:16 2002 From: yury.petrov at physiol.ox.ac.uk (Yury Petrov) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 15:48:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: paper announcement: Local correlations, information redundancy, and the sufficient pixel depth in natural images Message-ID: I would like to post the following article here. This paper will be published in the Journal of Optical Society of America A in January. The manuscript is available from http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~yp/DOCS/InfRedNatSc.pdf and http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~yp/DOCS/InfRedNatSc.ps Thank you, Yury Petrov ------------------ Local correlations, information redundancy, and the sufficient pixel depth in natural images Yury Petrov University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK L. Zhaoping Department of Psychology, UCL, London, WC1H 0AP, UK A mathematical framework which enables the factorisation of a joint probability distribution into its localised components for a two-dimensional array of pixels is presented. The factorisation was used to estimate the contribution to mutual information due to two- (I2) and three-pixel (I3) luminance correlations for a large ensemble of natural images analysed at various spatial scales and pixel depths b. It is shown that both I2 and I3 saturate around b = 6 bits/pixel. Three-pixel correlations are shown to produce only a marginal increase of information redundancy (4%) over two- pixel correlations (50%). Implications for neural representation in visual cortex are discussed. From David.Cohn at acm.org Fri Dec 6 12:01:03 2002 From: David.Cohn at acm.org (David 'Pablo' Cohn) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 09:01:03 -0800 Subject: jmlr-announce: A Robust Minimax Approach to Classification Message-ID: The Journal of Machine Learning Research is pleased to announce the availability of yet another new paper online at http://www.jmlr.org. ---------------------------------------- A Robust Minimax Approach to Classification Gert R.G. Lanckriet, Laurent El Ghaoui, Chiranjib Bhattacharyya and Michael I. Jordan JMLR 3(Dec):555-582, 2002 Abstract When constructing a classifier, the probability of correct classification of future data points should be maximized. We consider a binary classification problem where the mean and covariance matrix of each class are assumed to be known. No further assumptions are made with respect to the class-conditional distributions. Misclassification probabilities are then controlled in a worst-case setting: that is, under all possible choices of class-conditional densities with given mean and covariance matrix, we minimize the worst-case (maximum) probability of misclassification of future data points. For a linear decision boundary, this desideratum is translated in a very direct way into a (convex) second order cone optimization problem, with complexity similar to a support vector machine problem. The minimax problem can be interpreted geometrically as minimizing the maximum of the Mahalanobis distances to the two classes. We address the issue of robustness with respect to estimation errors (in the means and covariances of the classes) via a simple modification of the input data. We also show how to exploit Mercer kernels in this setting to obtain nonlinear decision boundaries, yielding a classifier which proves to be competitive with current methods, including support vector machines. An important feature of this method is that a worst-case bound on the probability of misclassification of future data is always obtained explicitly. ---------------------------------------- This paper and all previous papers are available electronically at http://www.jmlr.org/ in PostScript and PDF formats. Many are also available in HTML. The papers of Volume 1 and 2 are also available in hardcopy from the MIT Press; please see http://mitpress.mit.edu/JMLR for details. -David Cohn, Managing Editor, Journal of Machine Learning Research From becker at mcmaster.ca Fri Dec 6 14:01:24 2002 From: becker at mcmaster.ca (S. Becker) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:01:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Faculty Positions in Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Apologies if you receive this posting more than once. The department of Psychology at McMaster University has two open faculty positions, one in higher-order cognition and one in behavioural neuroscience. Both job ads are included below. If you know of any suitable candidates for either position, I would be grateful if you could pass this on to them. Please note that the rules re: Canadian searches have changed so that ALL applicants (Canadian and non-Canadian) should apply at the same time. Sincerely, Sue Becker -- Sue Becker, Associate Professor Department of Psychology, McMaster University becker at mcmaster.ca Building 34, Room 312 Fax: (905)529-6225 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton,Ont. L8S 4K1 Tel: 525-9140 ext. 23020 www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/sb.html **************************************************************************** Faculty Position in Human Cognition at McMaster University The Department of Psychology at McMaster University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professorship in the area of human cognition to commence July 1, 2003. We seek an individual with research interests in higher-order cognition (e.g., memory, categorization, reasoning and judgment, language processing, decision making). The Department of Psychology at McMaster University has a rich tradition in experimental psychology and particular strengths in the areas of perception and cognition, development, behavioural neuroscience, behavioural endocrinology, evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology, animal behavior and animal learning (www.science.mcmaster.ca/psychology). McMaster has excellent facilities for behavioural, neurocomputational and neuroimaging research. Candidates should have a Ph.D. and will need to show evidence of a vigorous research program, promise of leadership in his or her field, and commitment to both undergraduate and graduate teaching. Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, statement of research interests, copies of representative papers, and a brief statement of teaching philosophy and interests to: Dr. Allison Sekuler Chair, Search Committee for Cognitive Psychology Department of Psychology McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4K1 They should also arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent to Dr. Sekuler. Review of applications will begin on February 1, 2003, and continue until the position is filled. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be considered first for this position. McMaster University if strongly committed to employment equity within its community, and to recruiting a diverse faculty and staff. The University encourages applications from all qualified candidates, including women, members of visible minorities, Aboriginal persons, members of sexual minorities, and persons with disabilities. **************************************************************************** Faculty Position in Behavioral Neuroscience at McMaster University The Department of Psychology at McMaster University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professorship in Behavioral Neuroscience to begin July 1, 2003. We seek an individual with researchers interests in learning, memory, and/or plasticity. We are interested in candidates who are using state-of-the-art neuroscience approaches and animal models. The Department of Psychology at McMaster University has a rich tradition in Behavioral Neuroscience and strengths in the areas of animal learning and behaviour, evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology, neuroscience, development, perception and cognition (www.science.mcmaster.ca/psychology). Candidates should have a Ph.D. and send a curriculum vitae, a statement of research and teaching interests, representative publications, and 3 letters of reference to: Behavioral Neuroscience Search Committee Chair Department of Psychology McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4K1 All applications received by January 15, 2003 will receive full consideration. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority. McMaster University is strongly committed to employment equity within its community, and to recruiting a diverse faculty and staff. The University encourages applications from all qualified candidates, including women, members of visible minorities, Aboriginal persons, members of sexual minorities, and persons with disabilities. From lyle at cogni.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr Fri Dec 6 17:35:14 2002 From: lyle at cogni.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr (Lyle Graham) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 23:35:14 +0100 Subject: Postdoctoral Positions in Experimental and Theoretical Cortical Neurophysiology - Paris Message-ID: <002b01c29d77$e2dd2cd0$1e52fea9@lylegraham> Postdoctoral Positions in Experimental and Theoretical Cortical Neurophysiology - Paris I am looking to fill two postdoctoral positions, one experimental and one theoretical, for a project aimed at characterizing the functional impact of stochastic mechanisms in cortical physiology, funded by HFSP. The experimental position will focus on in-vivo whole cell patch recordings in the cat and rat, including the development of several novel protocols and methods. The theoretical position will focus on developing both analytical methods for the analysis of the stochastic component of evoked and background activity from intracellular recordings, as well as biophysically-detailed models of neurons and networks. Experience required. Interested candidates may send their c.v. and two letters of recommendation to Dr. Lyle J. Graham, Neurophysique et Physiologie du Systeme Moteur, CNRS, Universite Rene Descartes, 45 rue des Saint-Peres 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France. Informal inquiries also welcome at lyle at cogni.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr For those planning to attend the NIPS Workshops at Whistler (Dec 12-14) you can arrange to meet me there. From piuri at elet.polimi.it Sat Dec 7 05:26:24 2002 From: piuri at elet.polimi.it (Vincenzo Piuri) Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 11:26:24 +0100 Subject: IEEE Neural Networks Society welcomes you! Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021207112537.0289c3a0@mail.elet.polimi.it> Dear Colleague As Vice-President-elected for the Membership Activities of the IEEE Neural Networks Society (NNS), I am pleased to inform you that application to our Society is now open. The IEEE NNS is one of 37 societies under the IEEE umbrella. The IEEE NNS field of interest spans "the theory, design, application, and development of biologically and linguistically motivated computational paradigms emphasizing neural networks, including connectionist systems, genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, fuzzy systems, and hybrid intelligent systems in which these paradigms are contained." These topics are sometimes included in broader frameworks, usually referred to as Computational Intelligence or Soft Computing. For more information please visit: http://www.ieee-nns.org The NNS was formed in 2002 and is now able to accept new members: therefore, I would like to warmly invite you to join us in playing an active role in the our areas of interest. To join the new society, please visit http://www.ieee.org/join The NNS is the publisher of the following three transactions: - IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks (TNN) - IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (TEC) - IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems (TFS) NNS Membership Cost: $10 US (for IEEE members) NNS Membership will allow you to: o Receive the printed version of the NNS (member-only) Newsletter o Participate to IEEE NNS governance activities by running for an Administrative Committee representative position, nominating candidates, and voting for the candidates o Be eligible for any IEEE NNS-sponsored technical and educational activity, such as recognition awards o Organize an IEEE NNS chapter to benefit from IEEE and NNS funding for local events o Access to all current and archival NNS electronic publications -- including TNN, TEC, and TFS (additional $ 15 US over membership fee) o Subscribe to all three transactions (TNN, TEC, TFS) in print (additional $50 US over membership fee) -- a savings of $24 US over individual print subscriptions o Subscribe to the IEEE Transactions of NanoBioscience and IEEE Transaction of Nanotechnology at a special discounted rate (for co-sponsoring society members) NNS Student Membership Cost: $5 US (for IEEE student members) NNS Student Membership will allow you to: o Receive the printed version of the NNS (member-only) Newsletter o Organize an IEEE NNS student chapter in your university, so you may invite distinguished lecturers o Compete for the Walter Karplus Student Summer Research Support Award o Compete for an IEEE NNS-sponsored conference travel grant and other IEEE NNS sponsored technical and educational activities o Access to all current and archival NNS electronic publications - including TNN, TEC, and TFS (additional $ 8 US over membership fee) o Subscribe to all three transactions (TNN, TEC, TFS) in print (additional $25 US over membership fee) -- a savings of $12 US over individual transaction print subscriptions o Subscribe to the IEEE Transactions of NanoBioscience and IEEE Transaction of Nanotechnology at a special discounted rate (for co-sponsoring society members) I look forward to see you at one of the conferences organized by our Society! Best regards Vincenzo Piuri IEEE Neural Networks Society Vice-President (elected) for Membership Activities Vincenzo Piuri University of Milan, Department of Information Technologies Advanced Research Center on Evolutionary Knowledge for Design Innovation by High-Performance Computing via Bramante 65, 26013 Crema (CR), Italy phone: +39-02-5033-0066 or +39-0373-898-066 secretary: +39-02-5033-0011 or +39-0373-898-011 fax: +39-02-5033-0010 email: piuri at elet.polimi.it secondary address: Politecnico di Milano, Department of Electronics and Information piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy phone: +39-02-2399-3606 secretary: +39-02-2399-3623 fax: +39-02-2399-3411 email: piuri at elet.polimi.it From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Dec 8 06:02:43 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 03:02:43 -0800 Subject: Machine Learning Positions at Amazon.com Message-ID: <32E915AF61D33346B5C80A9707C3DD4401A6776E@ex-mail-02.ant.amazon.com> From wsom at brain.kyutech.ac.jp Tue Dec 10 00:30:26 2002 From: wsom at brain.kyutech.ac.jp (WSOM'03 Secretariat) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:30:26 +0900 Subject: Call For Papers: WSOM'03 Message-ID: <002501c2a00d$3eccbfa0$ca37ce83@drpc2> CALL FOR PAPERS ================================================================= Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps (WSOM'03) Hibikino, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan, 11-14 September 2003 http://www.brain.kyutech.ac.jp/~wsom/ ================================================================= Workshop Objectives: ===================== The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) with its related extensions is the most popular artificial neural algorithm for use in unsupervised learning and data visualization. Over 5,000 publications have been reported in the open literature, and many commercial projects employ the SOM as the tool for solving hard real-world problems. WSOM'03 is the discussion forum where your ideas and techniques are polished, and aims to unveil the results of hot researches and popularize the use of the SOM for technical public. Following the highly successful meetings held in 1997 (WSOM'97), 1999 (WSOM'99), and 2001 (WSOM'01), a further workshop in this established series, will bring together researchers and users of the SOM and related techniques. Important Dates: ================= Paper Submission: 15 May, 2003 Notification of Acceptance: 15 June, 2003 Final Paper Submission: 15 July, 2003 Topics: ======== Technical areas include, but are not limited to: *Self-organization *Unsupervised learning *Theory and extensions *Optimization *Hardware and architecture *Signal processing, image processing and vision *Time-series analysis *Text and document analysis *Financial analysis *Data visualization and mining *Bioinformatics *Robotics *Medical Engineering Conference Committee: ====================== Honorary Conference Chair Teuvo Kohonen, Finland Organizing Chair Takeshi Yamakawa, Japan Organizing Committee Members Erkki Oja, Finland Heizo Tokutaka, Japan Program Chair Masumi Ishikawa, Japan Program Committee Members Marie Cottrell, France Guido Deboeck, USA Shinto Eguchi, Japan Kikuo Fujimura, Japan Colin Fyfe, UK Masafumi Hagiwara, Japan Jaakko Hollmen, Finland Keiich Horio, Japan Marc M. Van Hulle, Belgium Toshimichi Ikemura, Japan Samuel Kaski, Finland Gerhard Kranner, Austria Thomas Martinetz, Germany Kiyotoshi Matsuoka, Japan Dieter Merkl, Austria Risto Miikkulainen, USA Yoshikazu Miyanaga, Japan Tsutomu Miyoshi, Japan Takashi Morie, Japan Junichi Murata, Japan Ikuko Nishikawa, Japan Klaus Obermayer, Germany Aiko Shibata, Japan Wataru Shiraki, Japan Olli Simula, Finland Eiji Uchino, Japan Alfred Ultsch, Germany Michel Verleysen, Belgium Thomas Villmann, Germany Lei Xu, China Shozo Yasui, Japan Hujun Yin, UK ----------------------------------------------- Organizing Chair Takeshi Yamakawa Professor Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering Kyushu Institute of Technology 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu 808-0186 Japan Tel: +81-93-695-6123 E-mail: yamakawa at brain.kyutech.ac.jp From bowlby at bu.edu Tue Dec 10 14:06:25 2002 From: bowlby at bu.edu (Brian Bowlby) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:06:25 -0500 Subject: Graduate Training in the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) at Boston University Message-ID: <7AB56A01-0C72-11D7-8F12-0003933DD294@bu.edu> PLEASE POST ******************************************************************* GRADUATE TRAINING IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS (CNS) AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY ******************************************************************* The Boston University Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems offers comprehensive graduate training in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underlie human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. The brochure may also be viewed on line at: http://www.cns.bu.edu/brochure/ and application forms at: http://www.bu.edu/cas/graduate/application.html Applications for Fall 2003 admission and financial aid are now being accepted for both the MA and PhD degree programs. To obtain a brochure describing the CNS Program and a set of application materials, write, telephone, or fax: DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02215 617/353-9481 (phone) 617/353-7755 (fax) or send via email your full name and mailing address to the attention of Mr. Robin Amos at: amos at cns.bu.edu Applications for admission and financial aid should be received by the Graduate School Admissions Office no later than January 15. Late applications will be considered until May 1; after that date applications will be considered only as special cases. Applicants are required to submit undergraduate (and, if applicable, graduate) transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. The Advanced Test should be in the candidate's area of departmental specialization. GRE scores may be waived for MA candidates and, in exceptional cases, for PhD candidates, but absence of these scores will decrease an applicant's chances for admission and financial aid. Non-degree students may also enroll in CNS courses on a part-time basis. ******************************************************************* Description of the CNS Department: The Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) provides advanced training and research experience for graduate students and qualified undergraduates interested in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underlie human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. The department's training and research focus on two broad questions. The first question is: How does the brain control behavior? This is a modern form of the Mind/Body Problem. The second question is: How can technology emulate biological intelligence? This question needs to be answered to develop intelligent technologies that are well suited to human societies. These goals are symbiotic because brains are unparalleled in their ability to intelligently adapt on their own to complex and novel environments. Models of how the brain accomplishes this are developed through systematic empirical, mathematical, and computational analysis in the department. Autonomous adaptation to a changing world is also needed to solve many of the outstanding problems in technology, and the biological models have inspired qualitatively new designs for applications. During the past decade, CNS has led the way in developing biological models that can quantitatively simulate the dynamics of identified brain cells in identified neural circuits, and the behaviors that they control. This new level of understanding is leading to comparable advances in intelligent technology. CNS is a graduate department that is devoted to the interdisciplinary training of graduate students. The department awards MA, PhD, and BA/MA degrees. Its students are trained in a broad range of areas concerning computational neuroscience, cognitive science, and neuromorphic systems. The biological training includes study of the brain mechanisms of vision and visual object recognition; audition, speech, and language understanding; recognition learning, categorization, and long-term memory; cognitive information processing; self-organization and development, navigation, planning, and spatial orientation; cooperative and competitive network dynamics and short-term memory; reinforcement and motivation; attention; adaptive sensory-motor planning, control, and robotics; biological rhythms; consciousness; mental disorders; and the mathematical and computational methods needed to support advanced modeling research and applications. Technological training includes methods and applications in image processing, multiple types of signal processing, adaptive pattern recognition and prediction, information fusion, and intelligent control and robotics. The foundation of this broad training is the unique interdisciplinary curriculum of seventeen interdisciplinary graduate courses that have been developed at CNS. Each of these courses integrates the psychological, neurobiological, mathematical, and computational information needed to theoretically investigate fundamental issues concerning mind and brain processes and the applications of artificial neural networks and hybrid systems to technology. A student's curriculum is tailored to his or her career goals with an academic advisor and a research adviser. In addition to taking interdisciplinary courses within CNS, students develop important disciplinary expertise by also taking courses in departments such as biology, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and psychology. In addition to these formal courses, students work individually with one or more research advisors to learn how to do advanced interdisciplinary research in their chosen research areas. As a result of this breadth and depth of training, CNS students have succeeded in finding excellent jobs in both academic and technological areas after graduation. The CNS Department interacts with colleagues in several Boston University research centers or groups, and with Boston-area scientists collaborating with these centers. The units most closely linked to the department are the Center for Adaptive Systems and the CNS Technology Laboratory. Students interested in neural network hardware can work with researchers in CNS and at the College of Engineering. Other research resources include the campus-wide Program in Neuroscience, which includes distinguished research groups in cognitive neuroscience, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, neuropharmacology, and neural modeling across the Charles River Campus and the Medical School; in sensory robotics, biomedical engineering, computer and systems engineering, and neuromuscular research within the College of Engineering; in dynamical systems within the Mathematics Department; in theoretical computer science within the Computer Science Department ; and in biophysics and computational physics within the Physics Department. Key colleagues in these units hold joint appointments in CNS in order to expedite training and research interactions with CNS core faculty and students. In addition to its basic research and training program, the department organizes an active colloquium series, various research and seminar series, and international conferences and symposia, to bring distinguished scientists from experimental, theoretical, and technological disciplines to the department. The department is housed in its own four-story building, which includes ample space for faculty and student offices and laboratories (computational neuroscience, visual psychophysics, psychoacoustics, speech and language, sensory-motor control, neurobotics, computer vision), as well as an auditorium, classroom, seminar rooms, a library, and a faculty-student lounge. The department has a powerful computer network for carrying out large-scale simulations of behavioral and brain models and applications. Below are listed departmental faculty, courses and labs. FACULTY AND STAFF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS AND CENTER FOR ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS Jelle Atema Professor of Biology Director, Boston University Marine Program (BUMP) PhD, University of Michigan Sensory physiology and behavior Helen Barbas Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Sargent College PhD, Physiology/Neurophysiology, McGill University Organization of the prefrontal cortex, evolution of the neocortex Jacob Beck Research Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Psychology, Cornell University Visual perception, psychophysics, computational models of vision Daniel H. Bullock Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems, and Psychology PhD, Experimental Psychology, Stanford University Sensory-motor performance and learning, voluntary control of action, serial order and timing, cognitive development Gail A. Carpenter Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Mathematics Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems Director, CNS Technology Laboratory PhD, Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison Learning and memory, synaptic processes, pattern recognition, remote sensing, medical database analysis, machine learning, differential equations Michael A. Cohen Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Computer Science PhD, Psychology, Harvard University Speech and language processing, measurement theory, neural modeling, dynamical systems, cardiovascular oscillations physiology and time series H. Steven Colburn Professor of Biomedical Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Audition, binaural interaction, auditory virtual environments, signal processing models of hearing Howard Eichenbaum Professor of Psychology PhD, Psychology, University of Michigan Neurophysiological studies of how the hippocampal system mediates declarative memory William D. Eldred III Professor of Biology PhD, University of Colorado, Health Science Center Visual neuralbiology John C. Fiala Research Assistant Professor of Biology PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University Synaptic plasticity, dendrite anatomy and pathology, motor learning, robotics, neuroinformatics Jean Berko Gleason Professor of Psychology PhD, Harvard University Psycholinguistics Sucharita Gopal Associate Professor of Geography PhD, University of California at Santa Barbara Neural networks, computational modeling of behavior, geographical information systems, fuzzy sets, and spatial cognition Stephen Grossberg Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering Chairman, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems Director, Center for Adaptive Systems PhD, Mathematics, Rockefeller University Vision, audition, language, learning and memory, reward and motivation, cognition, development, sensory-motor control, mental disorders, applications Frank Guenther Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University MSE, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University Speech production, speech perception, biological sensory-motor control and functional brain imaging Catherine L. Harris Assistant Professor of Psychology PhD, Cognitive Science and Psychology, University of California at San Diego Visual word recognition, psycholinguistics, cognitive semantics, second language acquisition, computational models of cognition Michael E. Hasselmo Associate Professor of Psychology Director of Graduate Studies, Psychology Department PhD, Experimental Psychology, Oxford University Computational modeling and experimental testing of neuromodulatory mechanisms involved in encoding, retrieval and consolidation Allyn Hubbard Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin Peripheral auditory system (experimental and modeling), chip design spanning the range from straightforward digital applications to exotic sub-threshold analog circuits that emulate the functionality of the visual and auditory periphery, BCS/FCS, the mammalian cochlea in silicon and MEMS, and drug discovery on silicon Thomas G. Kincaid Professor of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Signal and image processing, neural networks, non-destructive testing Mark Kon Professor of Mathematics PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Neural network theory, complexity theory, wavelet theory, mathematical physics Nancy Kopell Professor of Mathematics PhD, Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley Dynamics of networks of neurons Jacqueline A. Liederman Associate Professor of Psychology PhD, Psychology, University of Rochester Dynamics of interhemispheric cooperation; prenatal correlates of neurodevelopmental disorders Ennio Mingolla Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Psychology Acting Chairman 2002-2003, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Psychology, University of Connecticut Visual perception, mathematical modeling of visual processes Joseph Perkell Adjunct Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Senior Research Scientist, Research Lab of Electronics and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Motor control of speech production Adam Reeves Adjunct Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University PhD, Psychology, City University of New York Psychophysics, cognitive psychology, vision Bradley Rhodes Research Associate, Technology Lab, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University Motor control, learning, and adaptation, serial order behavior (timing in particular), attention and memory Michele Rucci Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Scuola Superiore S.-Anna, Pisa, Italy Vision, sensory-motor control and learning, and computational neuroscience Elliot Saltzman Associate Professor of Physical Therapy, Sargent College Research Scientist, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT Assistant Professor in Residence, Department of Psychology and Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT PhD, Developmental Psychology, University of Minnesota Modeling and experimental studies of human sensorimotor control and coordination of the limbs and speech articulators, focusing on issues of timing in skilled activities Robert Savoy Adjunct Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Experimental Psychologist, Massachusetts General Hospital PhD, Experimental Psychology, Harvard University Computational neuroscience; visual psychophysics of color, form, and motion perception Teaching about functional MRI and other brain mapping methods Eric Schwartz Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems; Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering; and Anatomy and Neurobiology PhD, High Energy Physics, Columbia University Computational neuroscience, machine vision, neuroanatomy, neural modeling Robert Sekuler Adjunct Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, BioMolecular Engineering Research Center Frances and Louis H. Salvage Professor of Psychology, Brandeis University Consultant in neurosurgery, Boston Children's Hospital PhD, Psychology, Brown University Visual motion, brain imaging, relation of visual perception, memory, and movement Barbara Shinn-Cunningham Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Biomedical Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Psychoacoustics, audition, auditory localization, binaural hearing, sensorimotor adaptation, mathematical models of human performance David Somers Assistant Professor of Psychology PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University Functional MRI, psychophysical, and computational investigations of visual perception and attention Chantal E. Stern Assistant Professor of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, Boston University Assistant in Neuroscience, MGH-NMR Center and Harvard Medical School PhD, Experimental Psychology, Oxford University Functional neuroimaging studies (fMRI and MEG) of learning and memory Malvin C. Teich Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Physics PhD, Cornell University Quantum optics and imaging, photonics, wavelets and fractal stochastic processes, biological signal processing and information transmission Lucia Vaina Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Professor of Neurology, School of Medicine PhD, Sorbonne (France); Dres Science, National Politechnique Institute, Toulouse (France) Computational visual neuroscience, biological and computational learning, functional and structural neuroimaging Takeo Watanabe Associate Professor of Psychology PhD, Behavioral Sciences, University of Tokyo Perception of objects and motion and effects of attention on perception using psychophysics and brain imaging (f-MRI) Jeremy Wolfe Adjunct Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School Psychophysicist, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Surgery Department Director of Psychophysical Studies, Center for Clinical Cataract Research PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visual attention, pre-attentive and attentive object representation Curtis Woodcock Professor of Geography Chairman, Department of Geography Director, Geographic Applications, Center for Remote Sensing PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara Biophysical remote sensing, particularly of forests and natural vegetation, canopy reflectance models and their inversion, spatial modeling, and change detection; biogeography; spatial analysis; geographic information systems; digital image processing CNS DEPARTMENT COURSE OFFERINGS CAS CN500 Computational Methods in Cognitive and Neural Systems CAS CN510 Principles and Methods of Cognitive and Neural Modeling I CAS CN520 Principles and Methods of Cognitive and Neural Modeling II CAS CN530 Neural and Computational Models of Vision CAS CN540 Neural and Computational Models of Adaptive Movement Planning and Control CAS CN550 Neural and Computational Models of Recognition, Memory and Attention CAS CN560 Neural and Computational Models of Speech Perception and Production CAS CN570 Neural and Computational Models of Conditioning, Reinforcement, Motivation and Rhythm CAS CN580 Introduction to Computational Neuroscience GRS CN700 Computational and Mathematical Methods in Neural Modeling GRS CN720 Neural and Computational Models of Planning and Temporal Structure in Behavior GRS CN730 Models of Visual Perception GRS CN740 Topics in Sensory-Motor Control GRS CN760 Topics in Speech Perception and Recognition GRS CN780 Topics in Computational Neuroscience GRS CN810 Topics in Cognitive and Neural Systems: Visual Event Perception GRS CN811 Topics in Cognitive and Neural Systems: Visual Perception GRS CN911,912 Research in Neural Networks for Adaptive Pattern Recognition GRS CN915,916 Research in Neural Networks for Vision and Image Processing GRS CN921,922 Research in Neural Networks for Speech and Language Processing GRS CN925,926 Research in Neural Networks for Adaptive Sensory-Motor Planning and Control GRS CN931,932 Research in Neural Networks for Conditioning and Reinforcement Learning GRS CN935,936 Research in Neural Networks for Cognitive Information Processing GRS CN941,942 Research in Nonlinear Dynamics of Neural Networks GRS CN945,946 Research in Technological Applications of Neural Networks GRS CN951,952 Research in Hardware Implementations of Neural Networks CNS students also take a wide variety of courses in related departments. In addition, students participate in a weekly colloquium series, an informal lecture series, and student-run special interest groups, and attend lectures and meetings throughout the Boston area; and advanced students work in small research groups. LABORATORY AND COMPUTER FACILITIES The department is funded by fellowships, grants, and contracts from federal agencies and private foundations that support research in life sciences, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and engineering. Facilities include laboratories for experimental research and computational modeling in visual perception; audition, speech and language processing; and sensory-motor control and robotics. Data analysis and numerical simulations are carried out on a state-of-the-art computer network comprised of Sun workstations, Silicon Graphics workstations, Macintoshes, and PCs. A PC farm running Linux operating systems is available as a distributed computational environment. All students have access to X-terminals or UNIX workstation consoles, a selection of color systems and PCs, a network of SGI machines, and standard modeling and mathematical simulation packages such as Mathematica, VisSim, Khoros, and Matlab. The department maintains a core collection of books and journals, and has access both to the Boston University libraries and to the many other collections of the Boston Library Consortium. In addition, several specialized facilities and software are available for use. These include: Active Perception Laboratory The Active Perception Laboratory is dedicated to the investigation of the interactions between perception and behavior. Research focuses on the theoretical and computational analyses of the effects of motor behavior on sensory perception and on the design of psychophysical experiments with human subjects. The Active Perception Laboratory includes extensive computational facilities that allow the execution of large-scale simulations of neural systems. Additional facilities will soon include instruments for the psychophysical investigation of eye movements during visual analysis, including an accurate and non-invasive eye tracker, and robotic systems for the simulation of different types of behavior. Computer Vision/Computational Neuroscience Laboratory The Computer Vision/Computational Neuroscience Laboratory is comprised of an electronics workshop, including a surface-mount workstation, PCD fabrication tools, and an Alterra EPLD design system; a light machine shop; an active vision laboratory including actuators and video hardware; and systems for computer aided neuroanatomy and application of computer graphics and image processing to brain sections and MRI images. The laboratory supports research in the areas of neural modeling, computational neuroscience, computer vision and robotics. The major question being address is the nature of representation of the visual world in the brain, in terms of observable neural architectures such as topographic mapping and columnar architecture. The application of novel architectures for image processing for computer vision and robotics is also a major topic of interest. Recent work in this area has included the design and patenting of novel actuators for robotic active vision systems, the design of real-time algorithms for use in mobile robotic applications, and the design and construction of miniature autonomous vehicles using space-variant active vision design principles. Recently one such vehicle has successfully driven itself on the streets of Boston. Neurobotics Laboratory The Neurobotics Laboratory utilizes wheeled mobile robots to study potential applications of neural networks in several areas, including adaptive dynamics and kinematics, obstacle avoidance, path planning and navigation, visual object recognition, and conditioning and motivation. The laboratory currently has three Pioneer robots equipped with sonar and visual sensors; one B-14 robot with a moveable camera, sonars, infrared, and bump sensors; and two Khepera miniature robots with infrared proximity detectors. Other platforms may be investigated in the future. Psychoacoustics Laboratory The Psychoacoustics Laboratory in the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) is equipped to perform both traditional psychoacoustic experiments as well as experiments using interactive auditory virtual-reality stimuli. The laboratory contains approximately eight PCs (running Windows 98 and/or Linux), used both as workstations for students and to control laboratory equipment and run experiments. The other major equipment in the laboratory includes special-purpose signal processing and sound generating equipment from Tucker-Davis Technologies, electromagnetic head tracking systems, a two-channel spectrum analyzer, and other miscellaneous equipment for producing, measuring, analyzing, and monitoring auditory stimuli. The Psychoacoustics Laboratory consists of three adjacent rooms in the basement of 677 Beacon St. (the home of the CNS Department). One room houses an 8 ft. x 8 ft. single-walled sound-treated booth as well as space for students. The second room is primarily used as student workspace for developing and debugging experiments. The third space houses a robotic arm, capable of automatically positioning a small acoustic speaker anywhere on the surface of a sphere of adjustable radius, allowing automatic measurement of the signals reaching the ears of a listener for a sound source from different positions in space, including the effects of room reverberation. Sensory-Motor Control Laboratory The Sensory-Motor Control Laboratory supports experimental and computational studies of sensory-motor control. A computer controlled infrared WatSmart system allows measurement of large-scale (e.g. reaching) movements, and a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet allows studies of handwriting and other fine-scale movements. A second major component is a helmet-mounted, video-based, eye-head tracking system (ISCAN Corp, 1997). The latter's camera samples eye position at 240Hz and also allows reconstruction of what subjects are attending to as they freely scan a scene under normal lighting. Thus the system affords a wide range of visuo-motor studies. The laboratory is connected to the department's extensive network of Linux and Windows workstations and Linux computational servers. Speech and Language Laboratory The Speech Laboratory includes facilities for analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog software conversion. Ariel equipment allows reliable synthesis and playback of speech waveforms. An Entropic signal-processing package provides facilities for detailed analysis, filtering, spectral construction, and formant tracking of the speech waveform. Various large databases, such as TIMIT and TIdigits, are available for testing algorithms of speech recognition. The laboratory also contains a network of Windows-based PC computers equipped with software for the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, including region-of-interest (ROI) based analyses involving software for the parcellation of cortical and subcortical brain regions in structural MRI images. Technology Laboratory The Technology Laboratory fosters the development of neural network models derived from basic scientific research and facilitates the transition of the resulting technologies to software and applications. The Lab was established in July 2001, with a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research: "Information Fusion for Image Analysis: Neural Models and Technology Development." Initial projects have focused on multi-level fusion and data mining in a geospatial context, in collaboration with the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing. This research and development has built on models of opponent-color visual processing, boundary contour system (BCS) and texture processing, and Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) pattern learning and recognition, as well as other models of associative learning and prediction. Other projects include collaborations with the New England Medical Center and Boston Medical Center, to develop methods for analysis of large-scale medical databases, currently to predict HIV resistance to antiretroviral therapy. Associated basic research projects are conducted within the joint context of scientific data and technological constraints. Visual Psychophysics Laboratory The Visual Psychophysics Laboratory occupies an 800-square-foot suite, including three dedicated rooms for data collection, and houses a variety of computer controlled display platforms, including Macintosh, Windows and Linux workstations. Ancillary resources for visual psychophysics include a computer-controlled video camera, stereo viewing devices, a photometer, and a variety of display-generation, data-collection, and data-analysis software. Affiliated Laboratories Affiliated CAS/CNS faculty members have additional laboratories ranging from visual and auditory psychophysics and neurophysiology, anatomy, and neuropsychology to engineering and chip design. These facilities are used in the context of faculty/student collaborations. ******************************************************************* DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS GRADUATE TRAINING ANNOUNCEMENT Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02215 Phone: 617/353-9481 Fax: 617/353-7755 Email: inquiries at cns.bu.edu Web: http://www.cns.bu.edu/ ******************************************************************* From uttam at deepview.com Tue Dec 10 16:09:48 2002 From: uttam at deepview.com (Uttam Mukhopadhyay) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 16:09:48 -0500 Subject: search for technical leader Message-ID: We are looking for a highly creative research professional with exceptional technical prowess and the proven ability to find innovative new solutions for real-world problems, primarily in the area of statistical pattern recognition for financial applications. Our company, Deep View, is compact and agile (fewer than 10 full-time people) with robust, long-term contracts that give us high stability without the hidebound culture of a large corporation. We use Neural Networks, AI techniques, statistical methods and anything else that might provide measurably better solutions to a problem. The position is in West Bloomfield, within reach of the great recreational opportunities of Michigan with its beautiful lakes and woods. Housing is moderately priced and "quality of life" exceptionally high by most measures. Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, is a thirty-minute drive. I believe we have a uniquely satisfying position available for the right candidate. We are looking for technical leadership and are prepared to handsomely compensate the right person. Please contact me by e-mail or call me at (248)865-9080 during the day or (248)723-4025 in the evenings. We are on Eastern Time. Sincerely, Uttam Mukhopadhyay, PhD Chairman and co-founder Deep View Systems, LLC 6960 Orchard Lake Road, Suite 302 West Bloomfield, MI 48322 From niebur at jhu.edu Wed Dec 11 12:06:54 2002 From: niebur at jhu.edu (niebur@jhu.edu) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 12:06:54 -0500 Subject: Graduate studies in Systems Neuroscience at the Mind/Brain Institute Message-ID: <200212111706.gBBH6sD27411@russell.mindbrain> PLEASE DO NOT USE 'REPLY'; FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT ADDRESSES ON WEB PAGES GIVEN BELOW ******************************************************************* Graduate Training in Systems Neuroscience in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute of Johns Hopkins University ******************************************************************* The Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute is dedicated to the study of the neural mechanisms of higher brain functions using modern neurophysiological, anatomical, and computational techniques. Applications are invited for graduate fellowships by students with a strong interest in systems neuroscience. In addition to students with training in neuroscience or neurobiology, we particularly encourage students with a background in quantitative or computational sciences who show a strong commitment to combine theoretical and experimental techniques to understanding brain function. Faculty in the Mind/Brain Institute include: Guy McKhann (emeritus) Vernon Mountcastle (emeritus) Gian Poggio (emeritus) Ken Johnson (Director): Neural Mechanisms of Tactile Perception and Object Recognition Ed Connor: Shape Processing in Higher Level Visual Cortex Stewart Hendry: Functional Organization of the Primate Visual System Rudiger von der Heydt: Neural Mechanisms of Visual Perception Steven Hsiao: Neurophysiology of Tactile Shape and Texture Perception Alfredo Kirkwood: Mechanisms of Cortical Modification Ernst Niebur: Computational Neuroscience Michael Steinmetz: Neurophysiological Mechanisms in Selective Attention Takashi Yoshioka: Neural Mechanisms of Tactile Perception and Object Recognition The neuroscience graduate program includes over sixty faculty members in both clinical and academic departments. In addition, students from other graduate programs including Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Psychology and Biophysics are part of the Mind/Brain Institute. For more details about the Institute visit the webpage www.mb.jhu.edu Information about the neuroscience graduate program, including online and off-line application, is available from neuroscience.jhu.edu/gradprogram.asp From pli at richmond.edu Wed Dec 11 12:24:36 2002 From: pli at richmond.edu (Ping Li) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 12:24:36 -0500 Subject: PatPho: A phonological pattern generator for neural networks Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The following recent paper might be of interest to those of you who work on neural network models of language: Li, P., & MacWhinney, B. (2002). PatPho: A phonological pattern generator for neural networks. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 34, 408-415. A pdf file of the paper can be requested from the author's website at http://cogsci.richmond.edu/publications.html C source codes or Windows' applications are available under: http://cogsci.richmond.edu/patpho/ Comments are welcome. With best wishes, Ping Li Department of Psychology, University of Richmond Richmond, VA 23173, USA Email: pli at richmond.edu Phone: (804) 289-8125 (O), 287-1236 (lab); Fax: (804) 287-1905 From steve at cns.bu.edu Fri Dec 13 13:25:44 2002 From: steve at cns.bu.edu (Stephen Grossberg) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:25:44 -0500 Subject: laminar cortical dynamics of stereopsis and 3D surface perception Message-ID: The following article is now available at http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg in PDF. Grossberg, S. and Howe, P.D.L. (2002). A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and three-dimensional surface perception. Vision Research, in press. ABSTRACT: A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and later stages of 3D surface perception is developed and simulated. The model describes how initial stages of monocular and binocular oriented filtering interact with later stages of 3D boundary formation and surface filling-in in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and cortical areas V1, V2, and V4. In particular, it details how interactions between layers 4, 3B, and 2/3A in V1 and V2 contribute to stereopsis, and clarifies how binocular and monocular information combine to form 3D boundary and surface representations. Along the way, the model modifies and significantly extends the disparity energy model. Neural explanations are given for psychophysical data concerning: contrast variations of dichoptic masking and the correspondence problem, the effect of interocular contrast differences on stereoacuity, Panum's limiting case, the Venetian blind illusion, stereopsis with polarity-reversed stereograms, da Vinci stereopsis, and various lightness illusions. By relating physiology to psychophysics, the model provides new functional insights and predictions about laminar cortical architecture. From gomezramirezm at mville.edu Fri Dec 13 10:29:14 2002 From: gomezramirezm at mville.edu (Manuel O. Gomez-Ramirez ) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 10:29:14 -0500 Subject: three postdoc positions: Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research Message-ID: <200212131029.AA11403756@mail.mville.edu> Three post-doctoral positions are available at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in New York: 1) multielectrode (LFP, CSD, action potential) studies of visual processing in awake monkeys, 2) computational analysis of interareal communication, using single trial LFP, CSD and action potential measures (in collaboration with Drs. Bressler, Ding (FAU) and Knuth (NASA-Ames)), 3) integrated fMRI (BOLD, Perfusion) and electrophysiological (LFP, CSD, action potential) studies of primate somatosensory system (in collaboration with Drs. Dale and Ulbert (MGH). Contact: C.E. Schroeder, NKI and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, schrod at nki.rfmh.org From aude.billard at epfl.ch Mon Dec 16 06:26:48 2002 From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Aude Billard) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 12:26:48 +0100 Subject: PhD positions in Robotics & Computational Neuroscience at EPFL Message-ID: Applications for two Research Assistant positions (PhD studentships) in the fields of Computational Neuroscience and Robotics are invited. The successful applicants will join the Autonomous Systems Laboratory 3: (ASL3), http://asl.epfl.ch. The group is part of the School of Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). http://www.epfl.ch/Eindex.html Position I: Neural Modeling of Human Imitation and Early Language Acquisition This project investigates human ability for imitation learning and gesture recognition, and its role in early language acquisition. This project will build neural models of the brain mechanisms involved in visual-auditory-motor learning. The models will be driven by data from brain imaging studies of human imitation and behavioral studies of language acquisition in children. The neural models will be implemented and validated on physical platforms (two humanoid robots), using kinematics data of human motion and data on children's verbal and gestural expressions. This work will be conducted in close collaboration with the departments of Computer Science, Biokinesiology and Linguistics at the University of Southern California. Prerequisites: This position requires a BSc + MSc in Physics or Mathematics (other engineering degrees can be considered if the candidate shows a strong background in mathematics), prior knowledge of Artificial Neural Network theory, good programming skills in C/C++ and Matlab, a strong interest in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, and fluency in any two of the following: English, French or German. Position II: Robot Programming Through Demonstration Biological principles can improve the design of learning systems for robot programming through demonstration. The core idea is that imitation learning does not replace but complements motor learning techniques by restricting the search space to a computationally tractable subset. Imitation learning finds the key features of a task through a comparative analysis of the multi-dimensional data set (e.g. joint space, Cartesian space, visual space). This project is concerned with the design of robust and flexible controllers to drive learning of abstract and goal-directed imitation tasks in a multi-degrees of freedom humanoid robot. The imitation tasks include manipulation of objects, reproduction of abstract and communicative gestures, and learning of sport movements. Prerequisites: This position requires a BSc + Msc in Physics, MicroEngineering, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering (computer science degrees can be considered if the candidate has a strong background in mathematics and excellent algorithmic skills), prior knowledge of Artificial Neural Network theory, good programming skills in C/C++ and Matlab, a strong interest in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, and fluency in any two of the following: English, French or German. DURATION 48 months (4 years). The preferred starting date is April 1, 2003. The deadline for applications is January 31, 2003. APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Applicants should send a copy of their curriculum vitae, a copy of their diploma, a copy of their publications (master thesis, diploma thesis and any other available scientific publication), and the names of three references. Applications should specifically refer by NUMBER and NAME to the project, in which the candidate is interested. Applications should be sent to the attention of: Prof. Aude Billard, Autonomous Systems Laboratory 3 STI - I2S - ASL3 - Batiment ME EPFL - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne, CH- Lausanne 1015 - Switzerland Informal inquiries are also welcome and can be directed via email at: aude.billard at epfl.ch billard at usc.edu From Wulfram.Gerstner at epfl.ch Mon Dec 16 10:45:40 2002 From: Wulfram.Gerstner at epfl.ch (Wulfram Gerstner) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 16:45:40 +0100 Subject: two workshops in Lausanne (Feb 2003) Message-ID: <3DFDF524.14FE2E58@epfl.ch> Dear connectionists, in order to mark the opening of the new `Brain and Mind Institute' at the EPFL in Lausanne, two conferences will be hosted by the institute: (i) `The 2003 EPFL Latsis Symposium on Neural Coding and Modeling' (Feb 17-19), with an emphasis of theory (ii) The `Brain in Motion' conference (Feb 19-22) with a focus on experiments. Participation is free, but registration via FAX is mandatory. More details are available on the conference WEB pages (i) Neural Coding and Modeling http://diwww.epfl.ch/~gerstner/LATSIS03/index.html (ii) Brain in Motion http://www2.epfl.ch/sv/page12922.html INVITED SPEAKERS (i) The 2003 Latsis Symposium on Neural Coding and Modeling H.D.I Abarbanel, L. Abbott, W. Bialek, N. Brunel, C. Chow, P. Dayan, A. Destexhe, P. Goodman, J.L. van Hemmen J. Hertz, A. Herz, P. Konig, A. Longtin, W. Maass, E. Niebur K. Obermayer, K. Pawelzik, J. Rinzel, W. Senn, A. Treves, M. Tsodyks (ii) Brain in Motion M. Abeles, P. Aebischer, G. Buzsaki, S. Catsicas, M. Cuenod, P. de Camilli J. Defelipe, R. Douglas, Y. Dudai, G. Edelman, Y. Fregnac, T. Freund, S. Grillner, A. Grinvald, M. Hausser, P. Jonas, N. Logothetis, P. Magistretti, H. Markram, K. Martin, A. Matus, M. Merzenich, D. Monard, H. Monyer, D. Muller, M. Nicolelis, C. Peterson, K. Rockland, E. Rouiller, B. Sakmann, M. Schwab, M. Segal, W. Singer, P. Somogyi, M. Sur, A. Thompson, S. Tongawa, E. Welker, R. Yuste Looking forward to seeing you in Lausanne, H. Markram and W. Gerstner From hammer at informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de Mon Dec 16 03:19:11 2002 From: hammer at informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de (Barbara Hammer) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:19:11 +0100 Subject: paper announcement Message-ID: <3DFD8C7F.2080205@informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de> Dear Colleagues, the following recent papers might be of interest to the readers of connectionists: > B.Hammer, T.Villmann, Generalized Relevance Learning Vector Quantization, > Neural Networks 15, 1059-1068, 2002 (http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/barbara/papers/postscripts/grlvq_color.ps.gz) which proposes an intuitive extension of LVQ to an automatically adaptive metric with mathematical precise gradient dynamics and > B.Hammer, M.Strickert, T.Villmann, Learning vector quantization for multimodal data, > in: J.R.Dorronsoro (Ed.), Artificial Neural Networks - ICANN 2002, Springer, 370-375, 2002. (http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/barbara/papers/postscripts/icannsrng_02.ps.gz) which integrates neighborhood cooperation thus low sensitivity to initialization. Best regards Barbara Hammer -- Barbara Hammer, Department of Mathematics/Computer Science University of Osnabrueck, D-49069 Osnabrueck Phone: +49 (0)541 / 969-2488, Fax: +49 (0)541 / 969-2770 http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/barbara/ From lazzaro at CS.Berkeley.EDU Tue Dec 17 14:30:03 2002 From: lazzaro at CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 11:30:03 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212171930.LAA05916@snap.CS.Berkeley.EDU> > Neil Lawrence writes: > > If there is a strong counter argument to the implementation of these > procedures I would like to hear it. Well, I get asked to do implementation reviews for NIPS from time to time. Let's say I get a double-blind paper for organic transistor implementations of neural networks. And I look at the data and the text, and it seems high quality, so I give it a high score. The paper gets in, the double-blind is removed, and I find out Jan Hendrik Schon wrote the paper: http://www.nature.com/nsu/020923/020923-9.html Do I need to say more? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Lazzaro -- Research Specialist -- CS Division -- EECS -- UC Berkeley lazzaro [at] cs [dot] berkeley [dot] edu www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk Tue Dec 17 05:46:37 2002 From: neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk (Neil Lawrence) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:46:37 -0000 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <000001c2a5b9$939c44e0$1e01a8c0@tom> Thanks to the NIPS program committee and the organising committee for another successful meeting. While the conference is on all our minds it seems an appropriate time to open a debate on whether the reviewing process should be double blind. One of the major vision conferences (ICCV) takes this approach, and now that NIPS submissions are handled electronically one would expect it would be easy to implement for NIPS. Whilst this could be brought up directly with the program committee I think the debate is of wider interest, and I've therefore posted to this list. If there is a strong counter argument to the implementation of these procedures I would like to hear it. Neil Lawrence From murphyk at ai.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 16:57:02 2002 From: murphyk at ai.mit.edu (Kevin Patrick Murphy) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:57:02 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212171930.LAA05916@snap.CS.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <3DFF9DAE.A85EBB03@ai.mit.edu> There was a long thread on the UAI list last year discussing the pros and cons of double-blind reviewing: http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~dambrosi/uai-archive-00-01/0905.html As far as I know, UAI decided to stay single blind, I think because the committee decided the benefits did not outweigh the costs. Kevin From wahba at stat.wisc.edu Tue Dec 17 17:03:37 2002 From: wahba at stat.wisc.edu (Grace Wahba) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:03:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Have you ever tried to write a paper without giving any clue to your identity? ("In xxx we proved yyy and in this paper we extend those results"). It can seriously distort the paper. Furthermore, many (most?) people submitting to NIPS put their paper on their home page and even circulate it on this list, so a reviewer would have no trouble finding out who the author was by using, for instance, google. I fail to see any positives to blind reviewing and a lot of negatives. From odowns at analyticalinsights.com Tue Dec 17 17:29:42 2002 From: odowns at analyticalinsights.com (Olly Downs) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 14:29:42 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <008701c2a61b$cba12a60$757ba8c0@Analytical1> I think what is being fought here, is the perception (and in fact admission by one of this year's NIPS Program Committee Members) that in some cases there has been bias against papers submitted by authors affiliated with specific institutions. John Lazzaro's point suggests bias in the opposite direction - does the fact that Jan Hendrik Schon's name is known mean that his work has less integrity than a previously unknown yet equally disreputable author? I believe strongly that double-blind reviewing should be introduced at NIPS. At the same time John's point indicates how thorough reviewers need to be, irrespective of whether they know who wrote the paper they are reviewing, or not. ---- Oliver B. Downs Analytical Insights, Inc. & Princeton University http://www.analyticalinsights.com From jfk at well.com Tue Dec 17 19:07:33 2002 From: jfk at well.com (Jan F Kreider) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 17:07:33 -0700 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <3DFFBC45.E51F5A1B@well.com> I agree with Grace - blindness is costly and worth little. A number of professional societies - ASME, ASHRAE, ISES - that I am familiar with have considered and not adopted this cumbersome and ineffective feature of peer reviewing. Prof. Jan Kreider University of Colorado From bogus@does.not.exist.com Tue Dec 17 20:02:55 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 17:02:55 -0800 Subject: re. double blind reviewing Message-ID: <9805B5E65CD0D0479D08B7EB832B369F06F030B1@red-msg-08.redmond.corp.microsoft.com> From jlm at cnbc.cmu.edu Tue Dec 17 20:16:01 2002 From: jlm at cnbc.cmu.edu (Jay McClelland) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:16:01 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <3DFFBC45.E51F5A1B@well.com> Message-ID: <3DFFCC51.721197D7@cnbc.cmu.edu> For what it is worth, the American Psychological Association, which publishes many journals, allows authors the option to submit their papers 'blinded' if they choose, in case the authors are concerned about bias. I don't know the details on how many papers are in fact submitted that way. I occasionally review for APA journals, and have never seen one that was blinded. My own opinion is that the prior record of the individuals whose papers are being reviewed provides information that on balance improves the review process. Unfortunately there's no doubt that bias is involved and worthy papers are sometimes adversely affected. The bias includes cultural standards of evaluation that may not be objectively optimal along with more specific biases based on reactions to the work of particular individuals or labs. It is difficult for blinding to remove all of this sort of bias, and sometimes as others have said author identity is still apparent. As far as I can tell these issues can only be addressed by keeping them in mind and carefully considering them in the selection of reviewers (and of course in selecting those who select the reviewers!). A reputation for fair and open mindedness is a crucial consideration in editor/reviewer selection. Also, those who have concerns should feel they have the opportunity to have their concerns taken into consideration. -- Jay McClelland From bogus@does.not.exist.com Tue Dec 17 22:16:53 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 19:16:53 -0800 Subject: re. NIPS and double blind reviewing Message-ID: <9805B5E65CD0D0479D08B7EB832B369F06F030B3@red-msg-08.redmond.corp.microsoft.com> From rushi_bhatt at yahoo.com Wed Dec 18 00:00:19 2002 From: rushi_bhatt at yahoo.com (Rushi Bhatt) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:00:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <3DFFCC51.721197D7@cnbc.cmu.edu> Message-ID: <20021218050019.71785.qmail@web20001.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Colleagues, I think Prof. McClelland and Dr. Burges have raised some very valid points. If nothing else, as (I think) pointed out in the UAI discussion thread referred to earlier, an explicitly double-blind review process will re-affirm the requirement that the review process needs to be as bias free as possible. Now to add my $0.02 worth: One might want to look at JAMA 1994 Jul 13;272(2):147-9 (abstract pasted at the end of this message) which suggests that double-blind reviewed journal papers are cited more often. Of course, the analysis has a bunch of caveats and the analysis should have been more rigorous. Also, it seems that citation patterns are different in different scientific fields, so the conclusions may not translate. Perhaps one could perform a similar (but more rigorous) analysis using data from conferences that already have a double-blind reveiw process in our field. Would any ex-conference chairs be willing to contribute some data and help me set up the analysis? Let me know :-) Regards, Rushi Bhatt PhD student CNS, Boston University. _____________________ JAMA 1994 Jul 13;272(2):147-9 A citation analysis of the impact of blinded peer review. Laband DN, Piette MJ. Department of Economics and Finance, Salisbury State University, Md. OBJECTIVE--To determine whether articles published in journals using blinded peer review receive significantly more or fewer citations than those published in journals using nonblinded peer review. DESIGN--Drawing from a sample of 1051 full articles published in 28 economics journals during 1984, we used nonlinear regression and ordered probit techniques to estimate the impact of blinded peer review on citations of these articles in 1985 through 1989. OUTCOMES--Citations of articles. RESULTS--Articles published in journals using blinded peer review were cited significantly more than articles published in journals using nonblinded peer review, controlling for a variety of author, article, and journal attributes. CONCLUSIONS--Nonblinded peer review apparently suffers from type I error to a greater extent than blinded peer review. That is, journals using nonblinded peer review published a larger fraction of papers that should not have been published than do journals using blinded peer review. When reviewers know the identity of the author(s) of an article, they are able to (and evidently do) substitute particularistic criteria for universalistic criteria in their evaluative process. PMID: 8015128 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] --- Jay McClelland wrote: > > For what it is worth, the American Psychological > Association, > which publishes many journals, allows authors the > option to submit > their papers 'blinded' if they choose, in case the > authors > are concerned about bias. I don't know the details > on how > many papers are in fact submitted that way. I > occasionally > review for APA journals, and have never seen one > that was > blinded. > > My own opinion is that the prior record of the > individuals > whose papers are being reviewed provides information > that > on balance improves the review process. > Unfortunately there's no > doubt that bias is involved and worthy papers are > sometimes > adversely affected. The bias includes cultural > standards of > evaluation that may not be objectively optimal along > with > more specific biases based on reactions to the work > of > particular individuals or labs. It is difficult > for blinding > to remove all of this sort of bias, and sometimes as > others have > said author identity is still apparent. As far as I > can > tell these issues can only be addressed by keeping > them in > mind and carefully considering them in the selection > of > reviewers (and of course in selecting those who > select the > reviewers!). A reputation for fair and open > mindedness > is a crucial consideration in editor/reviewer > selection. Also, > those who have concerns should feel they have the > opportunity > to have their concerns taken into consideration. > > -- Jay McClelland __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From bap at cs.unm.edu Wed Dec 18 00:30:47 2002 From: bap at cs.unm.edu (Barak Pearlmutter) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 22:30:47 -0700 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: I've heard three objections to blinded reviews. To my mind, none of them quite hold water. OBJECTION 1: It is hard to conceal the authors' identity against the industrious/perceptive/clueful reviewer. Sometimes clues are unavoidable. WHY IT DOESN'T HOLD WATER: So what? In that case blinding isn't any different from the current situation, so why are you objecting? Not all reviewers have these abilities, so blinding will work completely on them. Besides, even the most perceptive reviewer won't figure it out for all papers, only for some. And even when they think they've figured it out, being 80% sure of the author is, psychologically, very different from being 100% sure. Plus, starting an active search for the author's identity might give a reviewer pause ... OBJECTION 2: Sometimes the reviewer actually needs to know the author, eg for theory papers where whether a proof sketch is believable depends on the author. WHY IT DOESN'T HOLD WATER: Err, really? Well, if the reviewer feels themselves to be in that situation, they can either say so in the review, or ask the program committee for the author's name with a brief explanation as to why. It certainly seems healthy, particularly in this (surely quite rare, and therefore low amortized overhead) situation, to have the first pass through the paper be blind! OBJECTION 3: The author might be a well known plagiarist/crackpot/liar. WHY IT DOESN'T HOLD WATER: This is the program committee's job. Anyway it would be easy enough to reveal the authors' names to the reviewers *after* they have their reviews in, so they can bring such an extraordinary situation to the program committee's attention. From dale at ai.uwaterloo.ca Wed Dec 18 00:46:59 2002 From: dale at ai.uwaterloo.ca (Dale Schuurmans) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:46:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212180546.AAA11763@ai0.uwaterloo.ca> Oh this debate again. I just thought I would save everyone a bunch of time by summarizing the standard arguments for and against double blind refereeing. There is no point in seeing it all come out piecemeal yet again. (I know we've all seen these arguments before, but it is kind of interesting to see them collected in one place.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Standard arguments against double-blind refereeing -------------------------------------------------- 1. It does not work anyway (it is still not double blind). a) A referee can usually identify the author(s) by recognizing the work or the writing style, or noticing the self-references. b) Most authors post their submitted papers on their homepages which makes it easy to discover their identities using Google or Citeseer. c) Double blind refereeing can therefore be thought of as slightly fraudulent because it is not nearly as blind or objective as outsiders would perceive it to be. 2. Knowing the author and institution can help to write a better review. a) The credibility and reputation of the author can help to assess whether a complex piece of theoretical or experimental work has been properly conducted. b) Someone who has already been publically convicted of scientific fraud can falsify their data, write a convincing paper, and still get accepted under double blind refereeing. 3. It implicitly accuses referees of being biased. a) The double blind proposal suggests that referees are currently influenced inappropriately by knowing the identity of authors and their institutions. This shows a lack of trust in one's peers. b) Any potential bias that favors well known authors and institutions is counter-balanced by an opposing bias against such authors and institutions. 4. It is too much extra work for the author to mask their identity. a) Authors should not have to refer to themselves in the third person when writing a scientific paper. This requires additional effort beyond simply reporting their scientific ideas, which seems to be needless and wasteful. b) Authors can circumvent the system by divulging their identity anyway. 6. It is too expensive and time consuming to set up. a) There is a lot of extra effort required on the part of a program committee to set up a double blind reviewing system. b) It requires extra effort for referees to assess a paper if they do not know who's work they are assessing. 7. The current system is already working well. a) Everything is going fine with the single blind reviewing system just the way it is. Submissions are up. Attendance is up. Everybody is happy. Why fix it if it isn't broken? Standard conclusion against: The benefits are debatable and do not justify the costs. Standard arguments for double blind refereeing ---------------------------------------------- 1. It objectively improves the reviews and the review system. a) Referees are relieved of the distraction of knowing who performed the work and where it was performed, which allows them to focus more clearly on the science instead of the scientist. b) The assessment of quality is based on exposition rather than reputation. c) The benefit of the doubt is handed out more fairly to insiders and outsiders alike, based only on what was said---not who said it. d) Review quality is improved because it is harder for a referee to be careless and dismissive when they do not actually know the identity of the author(s) or the institution they submitted from. 2. It greatly improves the perception of fairness. a) Authors of rejected papers are more likely to take the referees comments at face value and not presume that they were mistreated on the basis of who they were as opposed to what they said. b) This leads to less overall complaining, less emotionally charged email sent to program chairs, and more effort spent on improving the basic research and expository capabilities. 3. It allows easier access to outsiders and their ideas. a) It helps researchers from other communities cross disciplinary boundaries because they can immediately establish their credibility based on relevant knowledge, rather than have their viewpoints dismissed merely because their prior reputation has not yet reached the target community. This can encourage cross fertilization between research communities, and mitigate the over-convergence effects of small social groups. b) It helps young researchers who are just starting out, again because reputation is factored out of the assessment. c) It helps researchers at lesser known institutions for the same reason. 4. It does not necessarily accuse referees of cognizant bias. a) No serious experimental science ignores the effect of subject and experimenter bias in experimental design. The point is not that subjects and experimenters consciously thwart objective investigation, but that they cannot avoid affecting the outcome, even unconsciously, if they know what is being investigated. Similarly, referees are subject to the same unconscious effects, whether they would like to be or not. 5. Communities that adopt double blind refereeing system do not go back. a) Several high quality communities have adopted double blind refereeing in the past decade (e.g. SIGGRAPH, SIGMOD, ICCV, ACL, AAAI, IJCAI). None of these communities have ever contemplated reverting to a single blind refereeing system. This suggests that double blind refereeing has conferred a perceived tangible improvement to these communities---at least in their eyes. Standard conclusion for: The only reasons why this isn't standard practice in every scientific community are inertia and the fact that the main beneficiaries of the single blind refereeing system are exactly the ones responsible for changing it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope I haven't misrepresented these arguments or missed any significant ones. Dale From tishby at cs.huji.ac.il Wed Dec 18 01:57:40 2002 From: tishby at cs.huji.ac.il (Naftali Tishby) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:57:40 +0200 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> I completely agree with Grace. In the NIPS community in particular we have several leading research groups, that are familiar to everyone, for which authors identity can be very easily revealed. On the other hand, no one can argue that NIPS is not open to new ideas and new authors - this has been and still is the most fresh and open minded scientific community I know. In fact I am much more concerned with the fact that the NIPS program committee is getting younger and inexperienced every year. I am aware of several cases where the committee - which knows the identities of both authors and reviewers - has overridden the reviewers. This NIPS tradition is certainly OK, but it requires much more experienced program committee members. Tali Tishby ----- Original Message ----- From cyril.goutte at xrce.xerox.com Wed Dec 18 03:15:36 2002 From: cyril.goutte at xrce.xerox.com (Cyril Goutte) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:15:36 +0100 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212180815.gBI8FbGo024915@meije.grenoble.xrce.xerox.com> Dear connectionists, This seems like a good time to point to one of Luc Devroye's "musings": The case against blind refereeing http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/blindreferee.html which actually contains some amusing new arguments in addition to the old stuff. Would it be conceivable that NIPS take an innovative step in the opposite direction by becoming one of the first conferences to adopt fully open refereeing ? (ie publicising also referees identities) Cyril. -- Cyril.Goutte at xrce.xerox.com http://www.xrce.xerox.com Xerox Research Center Europe - 6 ch. de Maupertuis - F-38240 Meylan From z.li at ucl.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 05:48:09 2002 From: z.li at ucl.ac.uk (Li Zhaoping) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 10:48:09 -0000 Subject: roles and ... RE: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000b01c2a682$f54fc440$b07ba8c0@dhcp4> I support Barak's point of view. Once we clearly separate the roles of the reviewers, editors, and program committees, such that reviewers do not try to assume the jobs of the editors and the program committees, the only cost of blind reviewing is the cost of implementing it, which the editors and program committees can decide whether it is very easy or too difficult to implement. The authors and the reviewers can both influence the degree of benefit of the blind reviewing, by making the author identity apparent or not apparent. Li Zhaoping -----Original Message----- From rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 06:15:52 2002 From: rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bob Damper) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:15:52 +0000 (GMT) Subject: double blind reviewing Message-ID: Some anecdotes from personal experience: * When I was a young researcher, my first ever submission to IEEE Transactions was rejected with the following parting shot from one of the reviewers: ``I have never heard of this author''. It was clear (given what had gone before) that this was intended to be the clinching criticism. The paper was finally accepted and published after a lengthy appeal to the Editor in Chief and comprehensive re-reviewing which delayed publication beyond even the IEEE Transaction's usual two year span. * A recent (accepted) submission to a journal elicited the response from one reviewer that ``... this author has worked with some of the best people in the field''. Ignoring the fact that this is a form of damning with faint praise, what does it tell you about this reviewer's perceptions of the process? A friend and colleague once offered the opinion ``... the trouble with peer reviewing is that it's done by PEOPLE, like you and me''. OK, so these look, de facto, like arguments for double-blind reviewing. Yet I accept that there are cons as well as pros (as detailed by other contributers to this debate) and, as an editor and workshop chair, I have never opted for it. Bob. *************************************************************** * R I Damper PhD * * Reader and Head: * * Image, Speech and Intelligent Systems (ISIS) * * Research Group * * Building 1 * * Department of Electronics and Computer Science * * University of Southampton * * Southampton SO17 1BJ * * England * * * * Tel: +44 (0) 23 8059 4577 (direct) * * FAX: +44 (0) 23 8059 4498 * * Email: rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk * * WWW: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~rid * * * *************************************************************** From michael at jupiter.chaos.gwdg.de Wed Dec 18 06:33:38 2002 From: michael at jupiter.chaos.gwdg.de (Michael Herrmann) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 12:33:38 +0100 (CET) Subject: double blind review Message-ID: Another objection contra double blind review and a reason pro triple blind review (the reviewer does not know whether the identity of the author is hidden): Even if authors are not allowed to explicitely mention their names they cannot be prevented from revealing their identity indirectly. They will be able to do so if they are well known to the community, and they will tend to do so if they believe this increases the probability of acceptance. Therefore double blind reviewing could introduce a bias against younger scientists and researchers from other fields. One may even suspect that the reason that journals or conferences stay with double blind reviewing once it was adopted, is that people of influence are quite happy with this bias. On the other hand, history of science tells that many now famous scholars used pseudonyms if they had reasons to be afraid of an unjust acceptance by the community. The program committee should thus consider to allow for fake identities during the review process. Authors who wish to make use of this opportunity should be willing to take some extra effort and to manage to arrange things such that the paper does not need to be rewritten when the true identity is revealed after acceptance of the manuscript. This would also help to reduce the bias in favor of well-known authors because the very famous names are likely to have been hijacked by someone else. It is unlikely that such an opportunity will be overused also because there is always a chance that the reviewer realizes that the identity is faked and tends to be more critical in such cases. Michael (?) ********************************************************************* * Dr. J. Michael Herrmann Georg August University Goettingen * * Tel. : +49 (0)551 5176424 Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics * * Fax : +49 (0)551 5176439 Bunsenstr. 10, D-37073 Goettingen * * EMail: michael at chaos.gwdg.de http://www.chaos.gwdg.de * ********************************************************************* From irezek at robots.ox.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 06:52:54 2002 From: irezek at robots.ox.ac.uk (Iead Rezek) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:52:54 +0000 Subject: NCAF Meeting Announcement, Aston 22-23 January 2003 Message-ID: <3E006196.1C0391C@robots.ox.ac.uk> Dear All, NCAF is UK group with interests in Natural Computing Applications and Research. NCAF holds three times a year discussing recent developments in Academia as well as Industry: talks range form high theoretical to completely applied. All interested parties are welcome, and we encourage students in particular to attend. Registration is now open for the next NCAF meeting at Aston University, 22-23 January 2003. The special theme for this meeting is Applications in Medicine and Biology. The NCAF AGM will also take place after lunch on the second day. Please refer to the web site at http://ncaf.org.uk (or http://www.ncaf.co.uk) for further information. The "Meetings" page (accessible from the home page and menu bar) contains the full programme. >From the "Meetings" page you can get to the "Venue Details" for information on location, maps, parking, accommodation and full social programme. There is also a link to the on-line registration form. There will be a poster session for students at lunchtime on the second day. See the website for more details or contact Ian Nabney (i.t.nabney at aston.ac.uk). PLEASE TRY TO REGISTER BY 14 JANUARY 2003, although we can deal with bookings after this date. We would always rather take a late booking than have you miss the meeting! However, reserving catering in case of late bookings can leave us financially exposed. The alternative is to keep guarantees at a conservative level and hope that the venue can cope with late additions. It's a delicate balancing act which we have to do at every meeting. We appreciate any help you can give us to minimise the stress and uncertainty that this process routinely brings. Book as early as possible and you'll be helping us out a great deal. As further encouragement to book in good time, all those registered by 8 January 2003 will be entered into a free prize draw for a bottle of quality wine! The draw and award will take place at the meeting. [NCAF Officers are not eligible for this draw.] Also, there is an upcoming one day discussion meeting on "Independent Component Analysis: Generalisations, Algorithms and Applications" to be held at Queen Mary, University of London on Fri 20 Dec 2002. This meeting is supported by IEE, NCAF and QMUL. Details are appended to this email. Many thanks, Graham Hesketh NCAF Chairman email: graham.hesketh at rolls-royce.com phone: 01332 246989 NB - Please pass this email on to anyone you think may be interested. If this is a redundant reminder, please ignore it. If you want to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to this message with "remove" as the message body. Independent Component Analysis: Generalisations, Algorithms and Applications A one day discussion meeting supported by IEE, NCAF and QMUL. At Department of Electronic Engineering Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS UK Friday 20th December 2002 http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/ica Overview Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a new field of research emerging from the areas of nonGaussian Signal Processing, Neural Networks and probabilistic modelling. It has been heralded by some as the new Principal Component Analysis (PCA) but, in stark contrast to traditional 2nd order methods, it has been able to effectively solve the Blind Signal Separation Problem (BSS). Recent research has generated a number of classic algorithms for this purpose and these are already being applied to a broad range of problems from telecommunications to analysing medical data. Current research is concentrating on generalizations of the basic ICA model: more sources than sensors, convolutive and nonlinear mixing, the effects of noise, etc., and there is also a growing body of emerging applications aiming to exploit ICA. The purpose of this one day discussion meeting is to bring together practitioners from the various different disciplines interested in ICA and to explore the future directions of this field. The programme will comprise a series of seminars on aspects of ICA, its generalisations and applications. The day will conclude with a discussion on future research directions. The event will take place in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary, University of London. We have detailed travel instructions and a 3D map indicating the department's location on campus. There is a nominal attendence fee of 25 to cover food and administration. To register please complete the registration form by 6th December 2002. Attendees interested in presenting a poster are encouraged to contact Mike Davies for details. Provisional Programme 09:30 Registration and coffee: foyer of Peoples Palace ICA Theory & Generalizations 10:00 Blind Source Separation with convolutive mixtures, John McWhirter, Qinetiq 10:30 Extensions of Hebbian Learning which perform ICA Colin Fyfe, Paisley University 11:00 Coffee: foyer of Peoples Palace 11:30 Non-negative ICA Mark Plumbley, QMUL 12.00 The Generative Topographic Mapping for nonlinear ICA Richard Everson, Exeter University 12:30 Lunch: foyer of Peoples Palace Applications 14:00 Has the permutation problem in Transform Domain BSS been solved? Jonathon Chambers, Kings College London 14.30 The cocktail party problem: solutions and problems Mike Davies, Queen Mary University of London 15:00 Tea: Foyer of Peoples Palace 15:30 Application of BSS to Space Time Coded Wireless Communications Darren Ward, Imperial College London 16:00 Application of BSS to blind identification and equalization of digital communication channels Asoke Nandi, Liverpool University 16:30 Discussion: "Future Directions in ICA" 17:00 Close The data contained in, or attached to, this e-mail, may contain confidential information. If you have received it in error you should notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail, delete the message from your system and contact +44(0)1332 248119 (the Rolls-Royce IT Security Director) if you need assistance. Please do not copy it for any purpose, or disclose its contents to any other person. An e-mail response to this address may be subject to interception or monitoring for operational reasons or for lawful business practices. (c) 2002 Rolls-Royce plc From ebaum at rcn.com Wed Dec 18 09:03:28 2002 From: ebaum at rcn.com (Eric Baum) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:03:28 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> Message-ID: <15872.32816.175241.184261@rcn.com> There is at least one historical precedent where evidence indicates that bias was influencing selection, in spite of the fact that such bias was denied by the referees, and where the bias was subsequently ameliorated through blind reviewing. From sandro at northwestern.edu Wed Dec 18 09:08:48 2002 From: sandro at northwestern.edu (Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:08:48 -0600 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> Message-ID: <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> I have had my fair share of accepted and rejected papers. So, I speak out of experience. When your paper is rejected it hurts. You worked hard and you get canned with some dismissing comments. It hurts. So, thank god, we have a resource that helps us not to hang ourselves at the nearest post. Conspiracy theories. If you are young and unknown: the paper was rejected because you dont belong to that old boys network. If you are more seasoned and famous: the paper was rejected because evidently the reviewer hates my guts. Both way it hurts. But it is far better than: my paper was rejected because it was a bunch of bull. Which comes right before suicide. True, reviewers are human. But there is something funny about human perception of human behavior. We are all absolutely convinced of being fair. I do not know of a single person that, when asked about her/his ability to exercise fair judgment will say: when I review a paper I dont really mind the quality, what count are my preexisting feelings about the author. Nobody says or thinks so. But we all are more than willing to assume that our colleagues do just this. Perhaps (or certainly) there is some bias when it comes to reviewing. It is a human thing, after all. Double blinding seems to be just a tenuous band-aid. It may give the impression that the problem has been fixed (if there is really a problem). But this can make the process even more misleading. Because, as it was pointed out by some, in many cases it will simply be impossible to conceal the identity of the authors. And it will not prevent those devious reviewers (I mean, not me, the others) from making hypotheses and speculations about the authors identity and to apply the bias perhaps against the wrong target. Would this make the process any better? Cheers Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi From steve at cns.bu.edu Wed Dec 18 09:43:27 2002 From: steve at cns.bu.edu (Stephen Grossberg) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:43:27 -0500 Subject: modeling cerebral cortical dynamics Message-ID: The following article is now available at http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg in PDF: Raizada, R. and Grossberg, S. (2003). Towards a Theory of the Laminar Architecture of Cerebral Cortex: Computational Clues from the Visual System. Cerebral Cortex One of the most exciting and open research frontiers in neuroscience is that of seeking to understand the functional roles of the layers of cerebral cortex. New experimental techniques for probing the laminar circuitry of cortex have recently been developed, opening up novel opportunities for investigating how its six-layered architecture contributes to perception and cognition. The task of trying to interpret this complex structure can be facilitated by theoretical analyses of the types of computations that cortex is carrying out, and of how these might be implemented in specific cortical circuits. We have recently developed a detailed neural model of how the parvocellular stream of the visual cortex utilizes its feedforward, feedback and horizontal interactions for purposes of visual filtering, attention and perceptual grouping. This model, called LAMINART, shows how these perceptual processes relate to the mechanisms that ensure the stable development of cortical circuits in the infant, and to the continued stability of learning in the adult. The present article reviews this laminar theory of visual cortex, considers how it may be generalized towards a more comprehensive theory that encompasses other cortical areas and cognitive processes, and shows how its laminar framework generates a variety of testable predictions. From D.Palmer-Brown at lmu.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 10:28:09 2002 From: D.Palmer-Brown at lmu.ac.uk (Palmer-Brown, Dominic [IES]) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:28:09 -0000 Subject: re. double blind reviewing Message-ID: Double blind reviewing can't, in my view, do any harm. If people want it, they should have it. On the other hand, it doesn't really address the issue of bias. When i was an editor, the most pervasive form of bias i encountered was for/against ideas and paradigms. Any fair system must take this into account. Double-blind reviewing is no guarantee of that. Dominic Palmer-Brown. From s.geva at qut.edu.au Tue Dec 17 20:43:21 2002 From: s.geva at qut.edu.au (Shlomo Geva) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:43:21 +1000 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212171930.LAA05916@snap.CS.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20021218105013.00bfa9c0@mail.qut.edu.au> At 11:30 17/12/02 -0800, John Lazzaro wrote: > > Neil Lawrence writes: > > > > If there is a strong counter argument to the implementation of these > > procedures I would like to hear it. > >Well, I get asked to do implementation reviews for NIPS from time to >time. Let's say I get a double-blind paper for organic transistor >implementations of neural networks. And I look at the data and the >text, and it seems high quality, so I give it a high score. > >The paper gets in, the double-blind is removed, and I find out Jan >Hendrik Schon wrote the paper: > >http://www.nature.com/nsu/020923/020923-9.html > >Do I need to say more? Sure. * Did the above-mentioned physicist get through a double-blind review loophole - I think not! * There is the case of William McBride who discovered the link between Thalidomide and its genetic effects : http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s248519.htm. Again, ordinary review processes did not uncover the problem. Did eminence and fame let a publication in through the eminence and fame review loophole? Did eminence and fame make it more tempting to engage in less than perfect research practices? Regards, Shlomo Shlomo Geva, PhD Centre for Information Technology Innovation QUT, Australia From tbreuel at parc.com Wed Dec 18 04:57:46 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 01:57:46 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <20021218095746.GD16422@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 02:03:37PM -0800, Grace Wahba wrote: > Have you ever tried to write a paper without giving any > clue to your identity? I try to write all my papers that way. > ("In xxx we proved yyy and in this paper we extend those results"). You presumably cite papers by other authors all the time without using personal pronouns. So, you can treat reference "xxx" the way you would treat it as if it had been written by any other author: "Xxx proved yyy. This paper extends those results." What need is there to indicate, in addition to this, that you personally were the author of the paper that proved "yyy"? > Furthermore, many (most?) people submitting to > NIPS put their paper on their home page and even circulate > it on this list, so a reviewer would have no trouble > finding out who the author was by using, for instance, > google. Well, blind review isn't always possible, but in some disciplines and publications, undermining blind review unnecessarily may lead to rejection. This might be the use of phrases like "In xxx we proved yyy" or putting a draft copy of a paper on a public web site or some other action. And a reviewer that knows who the author of a paper is may be expected to excuse himself. > I fail to see any positives to blind reviewing > and a lot of negatives. Open reviewing is clearly fine for workshops or conferences that aren't very competitive. But many long-established academic disciplines have decided that blind reviewing is necessary for key conferences or journals, even though it isn't perfect and even though it is more work. I think NIPS may have reached the level of importance where blind reviewing may be desirable. Thomas. From glen at salk.edu Wed Dec 18 20:00:04 2002 From: glen at salk.edu (Glen D. Brown) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:00:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212180815.gBI8FbGo024915@meije.grenoble.xrce.xerox.com> Message-ID: <20021218165121.E25314-100000@wald.salk.edu> how about on the specified day, everyone post their papers on the internet and put links (or the papers themselves) at the nips site. reviews may be done by anyone. then use the consensus process to decide which are the most deserving. if the group cannot decide by discussion, then a choice voting system could be used to select the best papers. authors could agree to review at least three papers choosen at random within their area of expertise. who votes? authors? + big shots? + anybody who seems qualified? glen On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Cyril Goutte wrote: > > > Dear connectionists, > > This seems like a good time to point to one of Luc Devroye's > "musings": > > The case against blind refereeing > http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/blindreferee.html > > which actually contains some amusing new arguments in addition > to the old stuff. > > > Would it be conceivable that NIPS take an innovative step in > the opposite direction by becoming one of the first conferences > to adopt fully open refereeing ? > (ie publicising also referees identities) > > > Cyril. > > -- > Cyril.Goutte at xrce.xerox.com http://www.xrce.xerox.com > Xerox Research Center Europe - 6 ch. de Maupertuis - F-38240 Meylan > From tbell at rni.org Wed Dec 18 16:53:25 2002 From: tbell at rni.org (Tony Bell) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:53:25 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <000001c2a6df$e44685a0$7201a8c0@rni.org> Two more arguments FOR. 1. It will be even more fun trying to guess the authors than it is trying to guess your reviewers. 2. We can pretend to be other people. This would broaden our research and our empathy functions. Next year I hope to submit something apparently co-authored by Martin Wainwright, Jonathan Yedidia and Ilya Nemenman. Any abuses of this new freedom can be easily caught by the Program Committee with minimal extra effort. Tony tony at salk.edu or tbell at rni.org 650-321-8282 x238 From meyoung at siu.edu Thu Dec 19 00:43:52 2002 From: meyoung at siu.edu (Michael Young) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 23:43:52 -0600 Subject: double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As someone who is very familiar with the research on human judgment and decision making, it's clear that bias does exist in reviewing because it clearly exists in every facet of human judgment. There are halo effects related to authors and institutions as well as paradigms. Being at Harvard, CMU, etc., gives you a boost in reputation that people at more obscure institutions do not get. The people in power typically come from the strong institutions and thus have little incentive to change a system that benefits them. A band-aid solution is always available - allow submitters to opt for double-blind review. The problem, of course, is that this creates a stigma for the ms - the authors must have something to hide. There's no easy solution, but pretending that scientists are somehow immune to normal human decision making biases simply isn't tenable. Too much evidence exists to the contrary. Cheers, Mike -- Dr. Michael E. Young http://www.siu.edu/~psycho/bcs/young.html Southern Illinois University 618/453-3567 271F Life Sciences II Carbondale, IL 62901-6502 From jdc at Princeton.EDU Wed Dec 18 21:18:24 2002 From: jdc at Princeton.EDU (Jonathan D. Cohen) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 21:18:24 -0500 Subject: Postdoctoral positions available Message-ID: <26EB1380-12F8-11D7-9716-000393B622EC@princeton.edu> Postdoctoral Fellowship in Quantitative Neuroscience, Princeton University. Positions are available under support from a training grant from the National Inistitute of Mental Health for training in quantitative neuroscience. The purpose of this training grant is to provide neuroscience trainees with the quantitative skills needed to keep pace with the rapid advances in neuroscientific theory and methodology, and to make progress in understanding the complexity of systems-level function in the brain. Information about the training program is available at http://neuroscience.princeton.edu/neurotraininggrant.html. Applicants should have strong quantitative skills and a Ph.D. in neuroscience, psychology, biology, or a related discipline. Areas of research include the mathematical analysis and/or development of computational models of neural network functioning, the development of new methods for signal processing and statistical analysis of complex neuroscientific data (e.g., multiunit neuronal recordings, neuroimaging datasets, etc.), and the application of these methods to system-level studies of brain function. Opportunities available immediately; stipend commensurate with experience. Applications should consist of a brief statement of research interests (2-3 pages), three letters of reference, and may also include an indication of the faculty member(s) with whom the candidate would like to work. Applications should be sent to Wendy Morelock (morelock at princeton.edu) with "POSTDOC QUANT NEURO" in the subject heading. PU/EO/AAE From isbell at cc.gatech.edu Thu Dec 19 12:21:06 2002 From: isbell at cc.gatech.edu (isbell@cc.gatech.edu) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 12:21:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> Message-ID: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> Well, it's a good thing that life isn't fair. What a horrible burden to carry, knowing that you deserve everything that ever happens to you. Anyway, it strikes me that bias need not be a bad thing (insert bias v variance joke in here), but it's probably best kept at the editor/PC level, not at the reviewer level. The only real cost of blind reviewing for the author is that it's a pain to make a good faith effort to hide one's identity. The only real cost to the reviewer is that the author's identity might actually be genuinely relevant... but how often is that the case? Peace. -- Charles L. Isbell Georgia Tech College of Computing @: CRB 380 801 Atlantic Avenue W: 404 385 4304 Atlanta GA 30332-0280 F: 404 894 2970 Don't just adopt opinions develop them From eliasmith at uwaterloo.ca Thu Dec 19 11:44:38 2002 From: eliasmith at uwaterloo.ca (Chris Eliasmith) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 11:44:38 -0500 Subject: Neural Engineering, A new book from MIT Press Message-ID: Eliasmith, C. and C. H. Anderson (2003). Neural Engineering: Computation, Representation, and Dynamics in Neurobiological Systems. MIT Press. See also http://compneuro.uwaterloo.ca/bookinfo.html From jason at cs.jhu.edu Thu Dec 19 13:32:57 2002 From: jason at cs.jhu.edu (Jason Eisner) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:32:57 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212180546.AAA11763@ai0.uwaterloo.ca> (message from Dale Schuurmans on Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:46:59 -0500 (EST)) References: <200212180546.AAA11763@ai0.uwaterloo.ca> Message-ID: <538-Thu19Dec2002133257-0500-jason@cs.jhu.edu> > I just thought I would save everyone a bunch of time > by summarizing the standard arguments for and against > double blind refereeing. There is no point in seeing > it all come out piecemeal yet again. > > (I know we've all seen these arguments before, but it is > kind of interesting to see them collected in one place.) > ... > I hope I haven't misrepresented these arguments > or missed any significant ones. Hi Dale! Very cogent and balanced summary. Your benefit #2, "perception of fairness," does have a couple of other subbenefits worth mentioning: - Grad students are much heartened by the assurance that the game is really about research and not politics. I can't overstate this. - Outsiders also want this assurance -- especially outsiders from neighboring communities where double-blind conference reviewing is so much the norm that it seems like a basic matter of academic ethics. While I've been on Connectionists since 1990, and often read NIPS papers, I have never yet attended NIPS or submitted to it. So I was surprised to read here that NIPS does *not* use double-blind reviewing. It does lower the prestige I attach to a NIPS citation. -best, jason From gutkin at cnbc.cmu.edu Thu Dec 19 11:14:30 2002 From: gutkin at cnbc.cmu.edu (Boris Gutkin) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 16:14:30 +0000 Subject: Announcement for Les Houches Summer School in Neurophysics (August 2003) Message-ID: <3E01F066.40603@cnbc.cmu.edu> * NATO Advanced Study Institute * METHODS AND MODELS IN NEUROPHYSICS METHODES ET MODELES EN NEUROPHYSIQUE July 28 - August 29, 2003 *Scientific Direction:* C. C. Chow (Pittsburgh, USA) B. Gutkin (London, UK) D. Hansel (Paris, France) C. Meunier (Paris, France) I. Segev (Jerusalem, Israel) *Opening lecture: * E. Marder (Waltham, USA) /Why would a self-respecting experimental biologist be susceptible to theory?/ *Lecture series:* L. Abbott (Waltham, USA): /Synaptic plasticity and learning/. P. Bressloff (Salt Lake City, USA): /Pattern formation and visual cortex./ E. Brown (Boston, USA): /Statistical analysis of data./ J. Rinzel (New York, USA): /Non-linear dynamics of neurons./ H. Sompolinsky (Jerusalem, Israel): /Theory of large networks: from spikes to behavior./ D. Terman (Colombus, USA): /Singular perturbations analysis of neuronal dynamics./ T. Tishby (Jerusalem, Israel): /Biological information processing - an information theoretic perspective/ *Shorter Lectures and seminars:* N. Brunel (Paris, France): /Stochastic dynamics of neurons. /W. Gerstner (Lausanne, Switzerland): /Models of synaptic plasticity./ D. Golomb (Beersheva, Israel): /Propagating activity in cortical circuits./ G. Mato (Bariloche, Argentina): /Theory of neural synchrony./ C. Pouzat (Paris, France): /Techniques for spike sorting./ M. Shelley (New York, USA): /Large scale models of primary visual cortex./ A. Treves (Trieste, Italy):/ Information-theoretic approach to the evolution of the mammalian cortex/ M. Tsodyks (Rehovot, Israel): /Synaptic dynamics/. C. van Vreeswijk (Paris, France): /Balancing excitation and inhibition in large networks./ F. Wolf (Gottingen, Germany): /A theory of cortical maps./ These lectures will be complemented by short topical workshops dedicated to specific neurophysiological issues and experimental aspects. *Scientific Program: ** * Many concepts and methods borrowed from Theoretical Physics, Dynamical Systems Theory, Signal Processing and Information Theory have been introduced, elaborated and used over the past years to study the nervous system. This school will focus largely on analytical approaches with a strong emphasis on the underlying physical concepts and on the mathematical techniques. It will provide the participants with the appropriate background for research in Neurophysics. In parallel, through the talks given by experimentalists during the workshops, the participants will become acquainted with some of the open issues in Neuroscience, particularly those in the somatosensory and the motor systems. This summer school is aimed at young researchers and established scientists with a background in Physics or Mathematics. *Registrations:* Applications must be received by the School before March 7, 2003 in order to be considered by the selection committee. The full cost per participant, including housing, meals and the lectures book, is 1500 euros. Thanks to financial support by various funding agencies, a contribution of only 900 euros/participant is requested. A few additional grants are available. Application forms and additional information are available from the School at Ecole d'?t? de Physique th?orique La C?te des Chavants 74310 Les Houches, France Phone: +33 -4 50 54 40 69 - Fax: +33 -4 50 55 53 25 Email: secretariat.houches at ujf-grenoble.fr Web:http://www-houches.ujf-grenoble.fr/ You can also download the registration forms (format A4 pdf rtf ; US Letter pdf rtf ) Les Houches is a resort village in the Chamonix valley in the French Alps. Established in 1951, the Physics School is located in a group of chalets surrounded by meadows and woods, at an altitude of 1150 m facing the Mont-Blanc range - a very favourable environment for intellectual activity in ideal surroundings for hiking, mountaineering and sight-seeing. The Physics School is affiliated with Universit? Joseph Fourier of Grenoble and Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble , and is supported by the Minist?re de la Jeunesse, de l'Education Nationale et de la Recherche , by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS ) and by the Direction des Sciences de la Mati?re du Commissariat ? l'Energie Atomique (CEA/DSM ). This session is supported by the NATO Advanced Study Institute program (ASI 979042), by IBRO and by CNRS From becker at mcmaster.ca Thu Dec 19 15:57:55 2002 From: becker at mcmaster.ca (S. Becker) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 15:57:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> Message-ID: Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. -- Sue Becker, Associate Professor Department of Psychology, McMaster University becker at mcmaster.ca Building 34, Room 312 Fax: (905)529-6225 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ont. L8S 4K1 Tel: 525-9140 ext. 23020 www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/sb.html From pelillo at dsi.unive.it Fri Dec 20 09:08:31 2002 From: pelillo at dsi.unive.it (Marcello Pelillo) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 15:08:31 +0100 (MET) Subject: NIPS and rebuttals? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Let me digress a little bit from the current discussion about double- vs. single-blind reviews. This year at CVPR there's a chance for authors to view the reviews before the PC meeting and submit a brief "rebuttal": --- FROM THE CVPR WEB PAGE --- New for CVPR 2003: Author Response to Reviewer Comments Authors of all submitted papers will have the opportunity to view the (anonymous) reviews for their papers and submit a brief 'rebuttal' statement prior to the CVPR Area Chairs' Meeting where final decisions will be made. Note that the time window where such statements can be submitted will be limited to 4 days, as the schedule will be tight. ------------------------------ I think it's a good idea. Although difficult to implemet (I can well imagine lots of people complaining about their "bad" reviews...), it would make the decision process fairer. After all, this is what happens in journal submissions: when one is unhappy with some review, he/she can always complain with the AE/EiC and point out its flaws. ________________________________________________________________________ Marcello Pelillo Dipartimento di Informatica Universita' Ca' Foscari di Venezia Via Torino 155, 30172 Venezia Mestre, Italy Tel: (39) 041 2348.440 Fax: (39) 041 2348.419 E-mail: pelillo at dsi.unive.it URL: http://www.dsi.unive.it/~pelillo From anand at speech.sri.com Fri Dec 20 12:47:04 2002 From: anand at speech.sri.com (Anand Venkataraman) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 09:47:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: (becker@mcmaster.ca) Message-ID: <200212201747.JAA03777@clara> > Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a > paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS > that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous > work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another > conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have > often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess > the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind > reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. Sorry, but this is not a valid objection to the double blind review procedure. Reviewers are supposed to be familiar and up-to-date with the research in the area and are not supposed to have to look up the author's web page to see what the "most recent" published work on the topic is. & From chrisb at prgm.net Fri Dec 20 09:51:08 2002 From: chrisb at prgm.net (Christine Bolbirer) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 09:51:08 -0500 Subject: double blind review Message-ID: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> If what the author is communicating in his or her paper is truly ground breaking and worthy of recognition then with enough effort it will be recognized (if not by the NIPS reviewers then the scientific community in general). This process of bind, double blind for the sake of "fairness" is nothing but an ego trip on both sides. Call me naive or worse but that's just how it seems to me. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Fri Dec 20 15:29:53 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 12:29:53 -0800 Subject: Re. NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <9805B5E65CD0D0479D08B7EB832B369F06F030BC@red-msg-08.redmond.corp.microsoft.com> From tgd at cs.orst.edu Fri Dec 20 17:20:30 2002 From: tgd at cs.orst.edu (Thomas G. Dietterich) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:20:30 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> (tbreuel@parc.com) References: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> Message-ID: <41-Fri20Dec2002142030-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> >>>>> "t" == tbreuel writes: t> On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 12:57:55PM -0800, S. Becker wrote: >> Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a >> paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS >> that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous >> work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another >> conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have >> often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess >> the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind >> reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. t> Originality needs to be judged relative to the entire published t> literature anyway. If the reviewer is familiar with the literature, t> that determination should not require knowing who the author is. t> In different words, it doesn't matter whether Smith's submission to NIPS t> is very similar to Smith's previous submission to some other conference t> or merely very similar to Jones's submission to some other conference, t> and a reviewer familiar with the literature should know both Smith's t> and Jones's prior work. t> If the reviewer needs to know the identity of the author in order to t> find prior work in the area, I think the reviewer is not sufficiently t> qualified to review the paper in the first place. I don't think this last remark is fair. There is a huge potentially relevant literature out there! Do you know every paper published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE PAMI, Machine Learning, Journal of Machine Learning Research, Statistical Science, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Computatational and Graphical Statistics, Technometrics, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, as well as the proceedings of all of the relevant conferences? I don't! t> Thomas. I'm not opposed to blind reviewing, but I think you must admit that knowing the author's name makes it much easier to check whether they have previously published a similar article! --Tom From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 03:08:28 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:08:28 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> Message-ID: <20021220080828.GA14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 06:08:48AM -0800, Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi wrote: > If you are young and unknown: the paper was rejected because you > dont belong to that old boys network. If you are more seasoned and famous: > the paper was rejected because evidently the reviewer hates my guts. Both way > it hurts. But it is far better than: my paper was rejected because it was a > bunch of bull. Which comes right before suicide. Actually, I think a far more common situation is that the paper was rejected because the reviewer didn't understand it despite making a reasonable effort. Often, this is because I, the author, didn't explain things well enough. That's fine, I can live with that. I do expect enough feedback from the reviewer to be able to fix things, however. But frequently, it is also because either the reviewer has only a superficial knowledge of the subject, because the reviewer has a pet theory and will reject any theory that doesn't agree with it, or because he just didn't bother reading the paper very well. Well-known researchers in a field are given the benefit of the doubt, so reviewers will try harder to understand their papers, while papers by less well-known researchers are dismissed quickly. In fact, people on this list have even expressed the opinion that this is the way things should be done--taking account the reputation of the researcher in the assessment of the strength and validity of results. I strongly disagree with that view. Double blind reviewing addresses this specific problem because reviewers have less opportunity to take into account the reputation of the authors in their evaluation. Double blind reviewing doesn't fix many other problems, though. Reviewers who just don't know the particular subject well, or reviewers who have a pet theory and dislike any other theory, simply cannot perform a good review, double blind or not. Addressing those issues is the responsibility of editors. Editors should examine the reviews returned by the reviewers, and they should look carefully at the feedback from authors in response to a review. Based on those, a responsible editor can spot problems with reviewers help the reviewer to improve his approach to reviewing, or avoid using the same reviewer again in the future. While that approach isn't feasible for a conference, CVPR this year, in addition to using double-blind reviewing, is soliciting feedback from authors on their reviews (but not revised manuscripts); those are used to identify out particularly problematic or sloppy reviewers and remove their recommendations from consideration. Incidentally, the stated rule of CVPR is also that any papers that attempt to sneak in identifications of their authors will be rejected; I assume that also refers to usage like "In my previous paper [3]..." or posting the paper on a web site prior to reviewing. It would seem sensible to me for NIPS to adopt the same rules. Thomas. From tbreuel at parc.com Thu Dec 19 22:13:47 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 19:13:47 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: References: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> Message-ID: <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 12:57:55PM -0800, S. Becker wrote: > Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a > paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS > that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous > work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another > conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have > often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess > the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind > reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. Originality needs to be judged relative to the entire published literature anyway. If the reviewer is familiar with the literature, that determination should not require knowing who the author is. In different words, it doesn't matter whether Smith's submission to NIPS is very similar to Smith's previous submission to some other conference or merely very similar to Jones's submission to some other conference, and a reviewer familiar with the literature should know both Smith's and Jones's prior work. If the reviewer needs to know the identity of the author in order to find prior work in the area, I think the reviewer is not sufficiently qualified to review the paper in the first place. Thomas. From qian at brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu Fri Dec 20 16:27:17 2002 From: qian at brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu (Ning Qian) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 16:27:17 -0500 Subject: paper: model of orientation learning and adaptation Message-ID: <3E038B35.8010500@brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu> Dear colleagues, The following paper on modeling orientation learning and adaptation is available at: http://brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu/publications/learn-adapt.ps.gz or http://brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu/publications/learn-adapt.pdf Best regards and happy holidays, Ning --------------------------------------------------------- Learning and Adaptation in a Recurrent Model of V1 Orientation Selectivity Andrew F. Teich and Ning Qian, J. Neurophysiol. (in press) Abstract Learning and adaptation in the domain of orientation processing are among the most studied topics in the literature. However, little effort has been devoted to explaining the diverse array of experimental findings via a physiologically based model. We have started to address this issue in the framework of the recurrent model of V1 orientation selectivity, and found that reported changes in V1 orientation tuning curves after learning and adaptation can both be explained with the model. Specifically, the sharpening of orientation tuning curves near the trained orientation after learning can be accounted for by slightly reducing net excitatory connections to cells around the trained orientation, while the broadening and peak shift of the tuning curves after adaptation can be reproduced by appropriately scaling down both excitation and inhibition around the adapted orientation. In addition, we investigated the perceptual consequences of the tuning curve changes induced by learning and adaptation using signal detection theory. We found that in the case of learning, the physiological changes can account for the psychophysical data well. In the case of adaptation, however, there is a clear discrepancy between the psychophysical data from alert human subjects and the physiological data from anesthetized animals. Instead, human adaptation studies can be better accounted for by the learning data from behaving animals. Our work suggests that adaptation in behaving subjects may be viewed as a short-term form of learning. -- Ning Qian, Ph. D. Associate Professor Ctr. Neurobiology & Behavior Columbia University / NYSPI Kolb Annex Rm 730 1051 Riverside Drive New York, NY 10032, USA http://brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu nq6 at columbia.edu 212-543-5213 (Office) 212-543-5161 (Lab/fax) From zhigulin at caltech.edu Fri Dec 20 22:17:28 2002 From: zhigulin at caltech.edu (Valentin Zhigulin) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 19:17:28 -0800 Subject: proposal: archival NIPS technical report series (Re: double blind review) References: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> <20021221020723.GC14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> Message-ID: <3E03DD48.1090004@caltech.edu> You don't need to create an archive, it was put up long time ago by physics community at www.arxiv.org. At some point they even had a section on ANN, cognitive science, etc but it was removed, don't know the reason. Probably they can restore it easily if the number of interested people will be high -Valentin tbreuel at parc.com wrote: > On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 06:51:08AM -0800, Christine Bolbirer wrote: > >>If what the author is communicating in his or her paper is truly ground >>breaking and worthy of recognition then with enough effort it will be >>recognized (if not by the NIPS reviewers then the scientific community in >>general). >> > > It may be recognized, but there is a good chance that the original author > will not be getting the credit. > > The reality is that most ideas, even ground breaking ones, are "in the > air", and given a year or two, several people will come up with them. > Each rejection introduces a publication delay of several months. > And rejections are more likely the more ground breaking a new idea is. > > If we have a system (and to some degree we do), where unknown researchers > have to live with a couple of rejections for their papers describing > new ideas while well-known researchers get their papers accepted right > away on the strength of their reputation, you really stack the deck very > strongly against unknown researchers being able to make a splash > with something new. > > And that's the key problem: a rejection not only deprives authors > of the chance to add a publication to their resumes, more importantly, > it deprives them of the opportunity to establish precedence for their > ideas. The latter is far worse than the former. > > In practice, people try to get around this these days and establish > precedence for their ideas by putting drafts or memos on their web sites, > but that creates its own set of problems. Those papers are not archival, > they can't be referenced, and their publication dates are not verifiable. > And if nobody cites them, even if such informal publications were to > establish precedence, what would be the point? > > The way to address this problem traditionally has been to create archival > publications that do not require a review. The National Academy of > Sciences has something like that for its members. And larger universities > and research labs used to have archival technical report series, but many > of them have become non-archival (an archival publication is one with > a verifiable publication date and content, and expected to be available > indefinitely, usually established by having printed copies archived at > multiple libraries). > > Since few people these days have the ability to publish in archival > technical report series, maybe what we need is to establish a NIPS > technical report series: something that is archival, searchable, and > has verifiable publication dates but is not peer reviewed and would not > preclude later publication in a peer reviewed conference or journal. > > NIPS technical reports would replace informal and non-archival publication > of drafts and memos. They would establish precedence for good and novel > ideas until reviewers are ready to accept them into a peer-reviewed > publication. And unlike "Joe's memo with an uncertain publication > date on http://webhosting.com/~joe/memo.pdf", they would have a > persistent and verifiable citation and publication date. > > Here at PARC, we have built something like that for internal publications. > We use cryptographic signatures to ensure the validty of publication > dates and document contents. Abstracts and signatures (and, if desired, > content) are disseminated via an E-mail list so that many people will > have a record of the publication and its signature. I don't know whether > it's completely tamper-proof, but it's probably no worse than the > traditional paper-based systems. > > Thomas. > > . > > From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 23:28:00 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 20:28:00 PST Subject: you're right: let's use Arxiv more (Re: proposal: archival NIPS...) In-Reply-To: <3E03DD48.1090004@caltech.edu> References: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> <20021221020723.GC14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> <3E03DD48.1090004@caltech.edu> Message-ID: <20021221042800.GB23099@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 07:17:28PM -0800, Valentin Zhigulin wrote: > You don't need to create an archive, it was put up long time ago by > physics community at www.arxiv.org. At some point they even had a > section on ANN, cognitive science, etc but it was removed, don't know > the reason. Probably they can restore it easily if the number of >interested people will be high You are right: Arxiv is a good choice that is here right now. I had thought of it as only a Physics resource, but i does have a computing section. As far as I can tell, nothing has been removed from it either; removing papers from Arxiv would seem to defeat its purpose. The Computing Science part of Arxiv is at: http://arxiv.org/archive/cs/intro.html Browsing the recent submissions, however, suggests that many sections are underused. What Arxiv provides is a time stamp for your report, mirroring, and backup. You can submit revisions, which will be stamped properly. So, if you are thinking about posting a technical note on your web page or creating a non-archival "technical report" at your institution, submit it to Arxiv. Then, people can give a URL to it that is likely to be around. Of course, for papers that have already been published in some other archival medium, submitting to Arxiv is less important. Thomas. PS: Note that while Citeseer is enormously useful and also retains copies, it does not primarily function as an archive. From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 20:09:22 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 17:09:22 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <41-Fri20Dec2002142030-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> References: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> <41-Fri20Dec2002142030-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> Message-ID: <20021221010922.GB14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 02:20:30PM -0800, Thomas G. Dietterich wrote: > t> If the reviewer needs to know the identity of the author in order to > t> find prior work in the area, I think the reviewer is not sufficiently > t> qualified to review the paper in the first place. > > I don't think this last remark is fair. There is a huge potentially > relevant literature out there! Do you know every paper published in > IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, [...] The reviewer doesn't have to know every paper from memory--a reviewer can still do a literature search on the subject of the paper. If they are familiar with the subject, they can concentrate on recent publications and scan and interpret the results from such a search quickly and efficiently. I do this for pretty much every paper I review and find it to be one of the most useful aspects of reviewing. > I'm not opposed to blind reviewing, but I think you must admit that > knowing the author's name makes it much easier to check whether they > have previously published a similar article! Well, I still think that it is the obligation of reviewers to make sure that they are up to date with all the latest developments related to the paper they are reviewing, and that may include literature searches. If they are doing a good enough job at that, I believe knowing the author's name shouldn't make a difference. To me, using the author's name looks like it invites shortcuts. Thomas. From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 21:07:23 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 18:07:23 PST Subject: proposal: archival NIPS technical report series (Re: double blind review) In-Reply-To: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> References: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> Message-ID: <20021221020723.GC14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 06:51:08AM -0800, Christine Bolbirer wrote: > If what the author is communicating in his or her paper is truly ground > breaking and worthy of recognition then with enough effort it will be > recognized (if not by the NIPS reviewers then the scientific community in > general). It may be recognized, but there is a good chance that the original author will not be getting the credit. The reality is that most ideas, even ground breaking ones, are "in the air", and given a year or two, several people will come up with them. Each rejection introduces a publication delay of several months. And rejections are more likely the more ground breaking a new idea is. If we have a system (and to some degree we do), where unknown researchers have to live with a couple of rejections for their papers describing new ideas while well-known researchers get their papers accepted right away on the strength of their reputation, you really stack the deck very strongly against unknown researchers being able to make a splash with something new. And that's the key problem: a rejection not only deprives authors of the chance to add a publication to their resumes, more importantly, it deprives them of the opportunity to establish precedence for their ideas. The latter is far worse than the former. In practice, people try to get around this these days and establish precedence for their ideas by putting drafts or memos on their web sites, but that creates its own set of problems. Those papers are not archival, they can't be referenced, and their publication dates are not verifiable. And if nobody cites them, even if such informal publications were to establish precedence, what would be the point? The way to address this problem traditionally has been to create archival publications that do not require a review. The National Academy of Sciences has something like that for its members. And larger universities and research labs used to have archival technical report series, but many of them have become non-archival (an archival publication is one with a verifiable publication date and content, and expected to be available indefinitely, usually established by having printed copies archived at multiple libraries). Since few people these days have the ability to publish in archival technical report series, maybe what we need is to establish a NIPS technical report series: something that is archival, searchable, and has verifiable publication dates but is not peer reviewed and would not preclude later publication in a peer reviewed conference or journal. NIPS technical reports would replace informal and non-archival publication of drafts and memos. They would establish precedence for good and novel ideas until reviewers are ready to accept them into a peer-reviewed publication. And unlike "Joe's memo with an uncertain publication date on http://webhosting.com/~joe/memo.pdf", they would have a persistent and verifiable citation and publication date. Here at PARC, we have built something like that for internal publications. We use cryptographic signatures to ensure the validty of publication dates and document contents. Abstracts and signatures (and, if desired, content) are disseminated via an E-mail list so that many people will have a record of the publication and its signature. I don't know whether it's completely tamper-proof, but it's probably no worse than the traditional paper-based systems. Thomas. From norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk Sat Dec 21 11:29:30 2002 From: norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk (Norbert Krueger) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 16:29:30 +0000 Subject: Ph.D. Studentships at the University of Stirling Message-ID: <3E0496EA.F8DBBFC3@cn.stir.ac.uk> ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ph.D. Studentships at the University of Stirling (Scotland) ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Department of Psychology at the University of Stirling wishes to encourage potential Ph.D. students with a background in human or computer vision to apply for doctorate stipends. We offer interesting projects in the domain visual scene analysis. The goal of our studies is to design a machine vision system of superior performance. To this end principles of distributed cognitive reasoning shall be implemented in software and tested with artificial and real visual scenes. You shall develop this software in cooperation with other members of the group. Good software knowledge of C++ is required. It would also be helpful if you have a background in computer- and camera-equipment hardware. We also offer good access to industrially relevant machine vision problems through co-operations with our industrial partners. It may well be that also additional sources of funding will be available. Please direct inquiries to Norbert Krueger University of Stirling, Computational Neuroscience, Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland, UK or email to norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk. -- Dr. Norbert Krueger University of Stirling Computational Neuroscience Computer Vision Group Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland, UK Tel: ++44 (0) 1786 466378 Fax: ++44 (0) 1786 467641 Email: norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk http://www.cn.stir.ac.uk/~norbert From raetsch at axiom.anu.edu.au Sat Dec 21 18:26:19 2002 From: raetsch at axiom.anu.edu.au (Gunnar Raetsch) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 10:26:19 +1100 (EST) Subject: Review Paper on Boosting available Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, we are pleased to announce that our new review paper entitled "An Introduction to Boosting and Leveraging" by Ron Meir & Gunnar R"atsch is now available at http://www.boosting.org/papers/MeiRae03.ps.gz (and .pdf) (Copyright by Springer Verlag Heidelberg) It will appear as a chapter of the Springer LNCS series book ``Advanced Lectures on Machine Learning'' at the beginning of next year. Please find a summary and table of contents below. Seasonal Greetings, Ron & Gunnar Abstract ======== We provide an introduction to theoretical and practical aspects of Boosting and Ensemble learning, providing a useful reference for researchers in the field of Boosting as well as for those seeking to enter this fascinating area of research. We begin with a short background concerning the necessary learning theoretical foundations of weak learners and their linear combinations. We then point out the useful connection between Boosting and the Theory of Optimization, which facilitates the understanding of Boosting and later on enables us to move on to new Boosting algorithms, applicable to a broad spectrum of problems. In order to increase the relevance of the paper to practitioners, we have added remarks, pseudo code, ``tricks of the trade'', and algorithmic considerations where appropriate. Finally, we illustrate the usefulness of Boosting algorithms by giving a brief overview of some existing applications. The main ideas are illustrated on the problem of binary classification, although several extensions are discussed. Table of contents: ================== 1 A Brief History of Boosting 2 An Introduction to Boosting and Ensemble Methods 2.1 Learning from Data and the PAC Property 2.2 Ensemble Learning, Boosting and Leveraging 3 Learning Theoretical Foundations of Boosting 3.1 The Existence of Weak Learners 3.2 Convergence of the Training Error to Zero 3.3 Generalization Error Bounds 3.4 Margin based Generalization Bounds 3.5 Consistency 4 Boosting and Large Margins 4.1 Weak learning, Edges and Margins 4.2 Geometric Interpretation of p-Norm Margins 4.3 AdaBoost and Large Margins 4.4 Relation to Barrier Optimization 5 Leveraging as Stagewise Greedy Optimization 5.1 Preliminaries 5.2 A Generic Algorithm 5.3 The Dual Formulation 5.4 Convergence Results 6 Robustness, Regularization and Soft-margins 6.1 Reducing the Influence of Examples 6.2 Optimization of the Margins 6.3 Regularization Terms and Sparseness 7 Extensions 7.1 Single Class 7.2 Multi-Class 7.3 Regression 7.4 Localized Boosting 7.5 Other extensions 8 Evaluation and Applications 8.1 On the choice of weak learners for Boosting 8.2 Evaluation on Benchmark Data Sets 8.3 Applications 9 Conclusions +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ Gunnar R"atsch http://mlg.anu.edu.au/~raetsch Australian National University mailto:Gunnar.Raetsch at anu.edu.au Research School for Information Tel: (+61) 2 6125-8647 Sciences and Engineering Fax: (+61) 2 6125-8651 Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia Mob: (+61) 401 10-2235 From steve_kemp at unc.edu Sun Dec 22 01:26:22 2002 From: steve_kemp at unc.edu (Steven M. Kemp) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 01:26:22 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: I have located a second bit of empirical evidence about the effects of open reviewing. The study was done in a realm even *more* removed from NIPS than orchestral music. This was a study conducted by psychologists about peer reviewing in psychological journals. B-) Peters, D. P., & Ceci, S. J. (1982). Peer-review practices of psychological journals: The fate of published articles submitted again. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5, 187-255. I take the following synopsis from Bordens & Abbott (1996). Research Design and Methods: A process approach. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield). Apparently, Peters and Ceci took 12 already published articles, changed the author names and affiliations to fake (and hence unknown) ones, and added a few cosmetic alterations to hide the fact that it was the same paper. All 12 had originally had at least one prestige author from a prestige institution. All were re-typed and sent back in to the very same journals that had originally published the journal (often to the same editor). Three of the 12 were detected as copies of already published papers and rejected. Of the 9 that were left undetected, all but one were rejected by the very same journals that had published them earlier! And NONE of those 8 were rejected because they duplicated already published research. At a very minimum, the fact that the only substantive change in the manuscripts submitted was the replacement of known authors from prestigious institutions with names of complete unknowns raises serious questions about biases in open review. If folks are concerned that this was psychology and not computer science, for a modest fee I and some of my fellow psychologists will be delighted to perform the same experiment on some NIPS volunteers. B-) steve kemp At 9:03 AM 12/18/02, Eric Baum wrote: >There is at least one historical precedent where evidence indicates >that bias was influencing selection, in spite of the fact >that such bias was denied by the referees, and where the bias was >subsequently ameliorated through blind reviewing. > > >From http://reason.com/9711/ci.ng.orchestral.shtml > > > >REASON * November 1997 > >Orchestral Maneuvers > >By Nick Gillespie > >A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research applies >the concept of a level playing field to the symphonic stage. In >"Orchestrating Impartiality," economists Claudia Goldin and Cecelia >Rouse demonstrate that female orchestra musicians have benefitted >hugely from the use of "blind" auditions, in which candidates perform >out of the sight of evaluators. > >In 1970 female musicians made up only 5 percent of players in the >country's top orchestras... > >But beginning in the '70s and '80s, more and more of the orchestras >switched to blind auditions, partly to avoid charges of such bias. >Female musicians currently make up 25 percent of the "Big Five." >Through an analysis of orchestral management files and audition >records, Goldin and Rouse conclude that blind auditions increased by >50 percent the probability that a woman would make it out of early >rounds. And, they say, the procedure explains between 25 percent >and 46 percent of the increase in women in orchestras from 1970 to >1996. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Steven M. Kemp | Department of Psychology | email: steve_kemp at unc.edu Davie Hall, CB# 3270 | University of North Carolina | Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270 | fax: (919) 962-2537 Visit our WebSite at: http://www.unc.edu/~skemp/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< The laws of mind [are] themselves of so fluid a character as to simulate divergences from law. -- C. S. Peirce (Collected Papers, 6.101). From poznan at iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu Sun Dec 22 12:09:44 2002 From: poznan at iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu (R. R. Poznanski) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 12:09:44 -0500 Subject: JIN, vol.1, No.2 Message-ID: <3E05F1D8.2030502@iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu> JOURNAL OF INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE Vol. 1, No. 2, December 2002 CONTENTS Short Communications pp.117-128 Neuroinformatics: The Integration of Shared Databases and Tools Towards Integrative Neuroscience S.-I. Amari, F. Beltrame, J. G. Bjaalie, T. Dalkara, E. D. Schutter, G. F. Egan, N. H. Goddard, C. Gonzalez, S. Grillner, A. Herz, K.-P. Hoffmann, I. Jaaskelainen, S. H. Koslow, S.-Y. Lee, L. Matthiessen, P. L. Miller, F. M. D. Silva, M. Novak, V. Ravindranath, R. Ritz, U. Ruotsalainen, V. Sebestra, S. Subramaniam, Y. Tang, A. W. Toga, S. Usui, J. V. Pelt, P. Verschure, D. Willshaw and A. Wrobel pp. 129-144 Controller-Regulator Model of the Central Nervous System Masao Ito pp.145-156 Towards an Integrative Theory of Cognition R. R. Poznanski Research Reports pp.157-194 On the Mathematical Integration of the Nervous Tissue Based on the S-propagator Formalism: II. Numerical Simulations for Molecular-dependent Activity P. Chauvet and G. A. Chauvet pp.195-216 Investigating Shape and Function Relationship in Retinal Ganglion Cells Z. Li and L. D. F. Costa pp.217-240 Neuronal Integrative Analysis of the "Dumbbell" Model for Passive Neurons W. Krzyzanski, J. Bell and R. R. Poznanski -- Roman R. Poznanski, PhD Associate Editor, JIN Department of Psychology Indiana University 1101 E. 10th St. Bloomington, IN 47405-7007 email: poznan at iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu phone (Office): (812) 856-0838 http://www.worldscinet.com/jin/jin.shtml From Sebastian_Thrun at heaven.learning.cs.cmu.edu Sun Dec 22 15:07:12 2002 From: Sebastian_Thrun at heaven.learning.cs.cmu.edu (Sebastian Thrun) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 15:07:12 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: I have followed the recent public discussion on double blind reviewing with great interest. Many valid points were made. In many ways, this discussion parallels a similar (but not so public) discussion that took place a year ago, when I was elected to serve as the program chair for NIPS 2002. At the time, I talked to dozens of people, students, colleagues, NIPS attendees, and researchers in other communities. I received a large number of suggestions as to how to improve NIPS, and my policy was to run them by as many people as I could, to get a general sense of what to do. I also received a number of unsolicited Emails which I very much appreciated (and still very much do). Double blind reviewing was one of these items that came up repeatedly, and which made it quickly to the top of my list. Early on, I was quite determined to just do it, not because I believe there is anything major broken with the current system, but because it would have helped alleviating a perception that has been voiced repeatedly in the present debate. However, I ended up not implementing double blind reviewing, primarily for two reasons. First, in individual conversations quite a few people were opposed to it. I'd say about half of the people I asked were in favor, half were against it. The arguments in favor were pretty much covered in the debate of the last days, and I believe many of them are very valid. Those against included the one articulated by Sue Becker (this is a very important point: every year we receive several previously published papers, and sometimes we end up comparing those word-by-word). They also included voices from the theory community, who told me that properly checking a proof can take days. The author identity helps them to determine the rigor necessary in verifying a new theoretical result, because there's no way they can afford to spare several weeks for reviewing. I've never reviewed a lengthy proof myself, so I took this advice for face value. The second reason, however, ended up the determining factor: The present NIPS software does not support double blind reviewing. I don't want to bore this list with technical details, but the change to the software would have been major and would have incurred major costs. I felt the money was better spent with student travel stipends, of which we gave quite a few this year. So in the end, I ended up putting my time into innovations that received nearly unanimous support. Those included a later deadline, the online pre-proceedings, the anonymous circulation of reviews among other reviewers of the same paper, and the acquisition of external funds used to draw in more students into our community. One thing that might be less known to the community at large is that NIPS has policies in place that effectively penalize insiders. Just look at this year's program: Not a single oral presentation was co-authored by a program committee member. Most invited talks over the past years were given by people outside the NIPS community (5 out of 6 this year). You rarely find a person presenting orally in two consecutive years. You rarely find a person serving on the program committee for more than 3 years. I've never participated in a NIPS PC where an author's name or affiliation was cited as a reason to reject a paper. For obvious reasons we don't make rejections public, but I can assure you there we rejected quite a number of papers by some of the best known researchers in the field - you'd be surprised! And honestly, from all the conferences I attend, NIPS has been the singly most successful meeting in terms of drawing in outsiders, at least in my opinion. I don't mean this list to suggest that we should not consider going to a double blind reviewing system. But I really believe that NIPS strives to actively counter some of the concerns voiced in the discussion of the past days. I really appreciate the discussion of the past days. As in the past, I very much welcome any suggestion as to how to improve NIPS, with or without public debate. I believe NIPS has been a successful meeting. ..Okay, I might be a bit biased here ;-). But I probably speak for all organizers when I say that we are committed to do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Happy Holiday Season! Sebastian Thrun From neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk Mon Dec 23 04:08:45 2002 From: neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk (Neil Lawrence) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:08:45 -0000 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002201c2aa62$e5fc9d90$1e01a8c0@tom> >They also included voices from the theory community, >who told me that properly checking a proof can take days. The author >identity helps them to determine the rigor necessary in verifying a >new theoretical result, because there's no way they can afford to >spare several weeks for reviewing. I've never reviewed a lengthy proof >myself, so I took this advice for face value. If a proof is so lengthy that it can take days to verify, e.g. Fermat's last theorem, perhaps it should be submitted to a journal, because even Andrew Wiles's proofs need rigorous checking sometimes. Personally I am amazed, and disturbed, that reviewers are consciously taking the author's name into account. Is this recommended practice? If so, I suggest that it is placed in the guidelines for reviewers so that authors are forewarned. Neil Lawrence From robbie at bcs.rochester.edu Fri Dec 27 10:13:17 2002 From: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu (Robert Jacobs) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:13:17 -0500 Subject: postdoctoral position available Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20021227101200.030cfa28@bcs.rochester.edu> A postdoctoral position is available in the lab of Robert Jacobs, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester. The lab focuses on: (1) the development of new machine learning architectures and algorithms, and (2) computational studies of the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception. The postdoctoral fellow will be part of a larger community dedicated to the study of learning and developmental plasticity. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Applicants should send a vita, research statement, recent publications, and the names of three individuals who can write letters of recommendation to: LDB Postdoctoral Search Committee Brain and Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0268 More information about our lab can be obtained at http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/robbie.html Information about the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences can be obtained at http://www.bcs.rochester.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Jacobs Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0268 phone: 585-275-0753 fax: 585-442-9216 email: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu web: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/robbie.html From dwang at cis.ohio-state.edu Sun Dec 1 12:22:20 2002 From: dwang at cis.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 12:22:20 -0500 Subject: Tenure-track positions at Ohio State References: <200211220021.gAM0LdU25878@purkinje.salk.edu> Message-ID: <3DEA454C.8D004531@cis.ohio-state.edu> The Department of Computer and Information Science at the Ohio State University invites applications for several tenure-track/tenured positions. A priority area of recruiting for 2003 is artificial intelligence, particularly speech, vision, and machine learning. Appointments at all ranks will be considered. Applicants for an assistant professor position should hold or be completing a Ph.D. in computer science and engineering or a closely related field, and have a commitment to excellent research and quality teaching. Applicants for a senior position should also demonstrate a strong record of external funding and impact on their field. More information is available at www.cis.ohio-state.edu/department/CIS-Faculty-positions.html To apply, send a curriculum vita (including names and addresses of at least three references) and a statement of research and teaching interests, by e-mail to: fsearch at cis.ohio-state.edu (Faculty Search) or by mail to: Chair, Faculty Search Committee Department of Computer and Information Science The Ohio State University 2015 Neil Avenue, DL395 Columbus, OH 43210-1277 USA From Zoubin at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Mon Dec 2 09:32:00 2002 From: Zoubin at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Zoubin Ghahramani) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 14:32:00 +0000 Subject: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Machine Learning, Gatsby Unit, London Message-ID: <15851.28384.365754.469875@cajal.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> The following position is available. If you are interested and are planning to attend the NIPS conference in Vancouver (Dec 9-14) please email me and we can arrange to meet there. Sincerely, -Zoubin Ghahramani ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Postdoctoral Fellowship Machine Learning Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit University College London, UK http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk The Gatsby Unit is looking for an exceptional postdoc to work in any area of machine learning. We are especially interested in people working on Bayesian methods, graphical models, approximate inference, Gaussian processes and other kernel methods, reinforcement learning, decision theory, or game theory. Other areas which complement the machine learning and computational neuroscience work at the Gatsby Unit will also be welcome. The Gatsby Unit offers an attractive environment for doing basic research in machine learning. Postdocs are given freedom to develop their research interests. The Unit is located in central London and benefits from interactions with the larger machine learning community at UCL, in London, and Cambridge. For more information about the Gatsby Unit please see: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Prospective candidates should apply with a cover letter, CV, and names and email addresses of 2-3 referees. This should be sent by email to: admin at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk, preferably using plain text, postscript or pdf formats only. The closing date for applications is 15 Jan 2003. From ericwan at ece.ogi.edu Mon Dec 2 15:18:28 2002 From: ericwan at ece.ogi.edu (Eric Wan) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 12:18:28 -0800 Subject: Research associate position available In-Reply-To: <3DA4612B.7776324@sunderland.ac.uk> Message-ID: <008501c29a3f$fa4ea370$a85a5f81@magaju> ********************* JOB OPENING **************************** RESEARCH ASSOCIATE The OGI School or Science and Engineering at OHSU has an opening for a post doctoral research associate or post-MS graduate to participate in an interdisciplinary UAV neural controls project. Project overview: This project involves the design and implementation of nonlinear controllers using neural networks applied to agile maneuvering of Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The control approach is based on a model predictive control framework implemented with a neural network feedback controller. An inner-loop state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) controller is also used for trajectory initialization and increased stability. The UAV platform consists of an X-Cell-60 R/C helicopter that has been instrumented with custom avionics. The current effort is focused on control design and optimization for real-time implementation necessary to perform flight demonstrations. The successful candidate will work closely with an interdisciplinary team of software and control engineers, with specific responsibility for various aspects pertaining to control design, testing, and system integration. Home page: http://www.cse.ogi.edu/PacSoft/projects/sec/ Requirements: Candidate should have a Ph.D. or M.S. with an expertise in nonlinear controls, neural networks, and flight dynamics. Salary range $35,000 - $55,000 plus benefits. Location: OHSU's OGI School of Science and Engineering campus is in Hillsboro, Oregon, approximately 11 miles west of downtown Portland. Sponsor: DARPA Oregon Health & Science University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Please e-mail inquiries and background information to both Prof. Eric A. Wan and Prof. Richard Kieburtz . From nik.kasabov at aut.ac.nz Mon Dec 2 20:27:54 2002 From: nik.kasabov at aut.ac.nz (Nik Kasabov) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 14:27:54 +1300 Subject: Research positions in neurocomputing, bioinformatics, knowledge discovery, and speech Message-ID: The Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute (KEDRI), Auckland, New Zealand, is looking for applicants for several research positions, a Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2 Research Assistantship, and 2 PhD scholarships, in the following research areas: 1) Novel neurocomputing methods and systems 2) Computational intelligence in bioinformatics 3) Data mining and knowledge discovery 4) Advanced speech and image processing More information can be received from the KEDRI's Web site (www.kedri.info), from Prof. Nik Kasabov (nkasabov at aut.ac.nz) or from Joyce D'Mello (joyce.dmello at aut.ac.nz). The deadline for submitting applications is 31st of January 2003. Prof. Nik Kasabov, MSc, PhD Fellow RSNZ, NZCS, Sr Member IEEE Director, Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute Chair of Knowledge Engineering, School of IT Auckland University of Technology (AUT) phone: +64 9 917 9506 ; fax: +64 9 917 9501 mobile phone: +64 21 488 328 WWW http://www.kedri.info email: nkasabov at aut.ac.nz From bciuser at essex.ac.uk Tue Dec 3 05:01:26 2002 From: bciuser at essex.ac.uk (bciuser) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 10:01:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CFP: Brain Computer Interfaces at SCI2003 Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings We are organising an invited session on Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) within the 7th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI2003) to be held July 27-30 in Orlando, Florida (please see http://www.iiisci.org/sci2003/). The aim of this invited BCI session is to gather researchers in the field to present, discuss, and promote their research in this exciting and quickly growing area. Authors are invited to submit their original and unpublished works in the field of Brain Computer Interfaces. This may include but is not limited to: * Signal acquisition and processing. * Single trial analysis. * Signal interpretation. * invasive and non-invasive systems. * Real-time BCI. Please reply to (E-mail: bciuser at essex.ac.uk) at your earliest convenience to register your intention of submitting a paper. If you decide to join us in Orlando, a tentative title and a brief abstract will be due by December 15, 2002. Here are some important dates: 16 Dec 2002 Intention of submission 13 Jan 2003 Submission of extended abstracts (electronically) 24 Feb 2003 Notification of acceptance 14 April 2003 Submission of Camera-ready papers (electronically) Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Looking forward to meeting you in Orlando Most sincerely, Heba Lakany & Francisco Sepulveda Department of Computer Science University of Essex United Kingdom BCI session E-mail: bciuser at essex.ac.uk From Mary.Li at asu.edu Tue Dec 3 13:19:13 2002 From: Mary.Li at asu.edu (Mary Li) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 11:19:13 -0700 Subject: Jung Ad_revised Message-ID: <7D2FB294FA311F4299D03CC8D3904370049D41F7@mainex5.asu.edu> HARRINGTON DEPARTMENT OF BIOENGINEERING Neuromotor Control Research Positions A new research focus area in neuromotor therapy is being established through a partnership between The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Harrington Department of Bioengineering and the newly formed Arizona BioDesign Institute at ASU and Banner Health Systems (Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center). Laboratories co-directed by Professor Ranu Jung in Center for Rehabilitation Neuroscience and Rehabilitation Engineering (RNRE) offer several opportunities to work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design and computational modeling. The following full time academic professional positions are available as part of this new joint research program starting in October 2002. Assistant/Associate Research Professional: The position requires MS in Life Science, Bioengineering or a related field. A PhD is desired. The person in this position should have good writing and communication skills. S/he will work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design, and computational modeling, contribute to studies related to motor control/biomechanics/neurophysiology, perform lab management tasks, coordinate multiple studies, and supervise and train students in the lab if needed. Appointment at the associate level requires 2 or more years experience beyond MS or a PhD degree. Continuation of this position is contingent upon funding. Assistant/Associate Research Technologist: This position requires a BS in Life Science, Bioengineering or a related field. An MS is desired. This person will work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design and computational modeling. Experience with vertebrate animal care, surgical and routine laboratory procedures, histology and neurochemistry procedures will be beneficial. Appointment at the associate level requires 2 or more years experience beyond BS or an MS degree. Continuation of this position is contingent upon funding. Post-doctoral Research Associates (2): This position requires a PhD in Life Science, Bioengineering or a related field. The person should have appropriate training with interests/experience in one or more of the following: neuromotor control, mathematical modeling, electrical stimulation, neurochemistry, electrophysiology, kinematics, control systems, and experimental skills with vertebrate in-vivo/chronic spinal injury animal models. The person will work with animal models of neurotrauma, engineering design and computational modeling. Continuation of these positions is contingent upon funding. Arizona State University enrolls more than 49,000 students, 6,000 of them within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Located within the thriving Phoenix metropolitan area, the College is on the leading edge of innovations in engineering education and continuously works to build stronger alliances with the many high technology industrial partners located nearby. Submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, and contact information (name, address, phone number and email address) for three references to Ranu Jung, PhD, Harrington Department of Bioengineering, Arizona State University, P O Box 879709, Tempe, AZ 85278-9709. Telephone: 480-965-9052, FAX: 480-727-7624; email: jung at asu.edu Arizona State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer institution. From gbugmann at soc.plym.ac.uk Wed Dec 4 07:27:28 2002 From: gbugmann at soc.plym.ac.uk (Guido.Bugmann xtn 2566) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 12:27:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Special issue of Biosystems on Neural Coding Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, selected papers of the 4th Workshop on Neural Coding (NCWS'2001) have appeared in a special issue of Biosystems. http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/biosystems Hereafter is the table of contents. ------------------------- Table of Contents for BioSystems Volume 67, Issue 1-3, October - December 2002 Foreword Roman Borisyuk and Guido Bugmann 1-2 Oscillatory activity in the neural networks of spiking elements Roman Borisyuk 3-16 Synaptic depression increases the selectivity of a neuron to its preferred pattern and binarizes the neural code Guido Bugmann 17-25 Input-output behaviour of a model neuron with alternating drift Aniello Buonocore, Antonio Di Crescenzo and Elvira Di Nardo 27-34 A neuronal modeling paradigm in the presence of refractoriness A. Buonocore, V. Giorno, A.G. Nobile and L.M. Ricciardi 35-43 Synchronization in a network of fast-spiking interneurons Angelo Di Garbo, Michele Barbi and Santi Chillemi 45-53 Quantification of sensory information transmission using timeseries decorrelation techniques Marcus Eger and Reinhard Eckhorn 55-65 A modelling study on discrimination tasks Jianfeng Feng and Feng Liu 67-73 Effects of random jumps on a very simple neuronal diffusion model Maria Teresa Giraudo, Laura Sacerdote and Roberta Sirovich 75-83 Temporal uncertainty in reading the neural code (proportional noise) Christopher M. Harris 85-94 Resonance and selective communication via bursts in neurons having subthreshold oscillations Eugene M. Izhikevich 95-102 Object selection by an oscillatory neural network Yakov Kazanovich and Roman Borisyuk 103-111 Optimality in the encoding/decoding relations of motoneurones and muscle units Andre F. Kohn and Marcus F. Vieira 113-119 Coding of periodic pulse stimulation in chemoreceptors Vlastimil Krivan, Petr Lansky and Jean Pierre Rospars 121-128 A new bursting model of CA3 pyramidal cell physiology suggests multiple locations for spike initiation Maciej T. Lazarewicz, Michele Migliore and Giorgio A. Ascoli 129-137 Firing coincidences between neighboring retinal ganglion cells: inside information or epiphenomenon? Michael W. Levine, Kristen Castaldo and M. Baris Kasapoglu 139-146 Noise-induced divisive gain control in neuron models Andr Longtin, Brent Doiron and Adi R. Bulsara 147-156 Electrophysiological correlates of synchronous neural activity and attention: a short review Ernst Niebur 157-166 On the location-specific positional and extra-positional information in the discharge of rat hippocampal cells A.V. Olypher, P. Lansky and A.A. Fenton 167-175 A critical assessment of different measures of the information carried by correlated neuronal firing Stefano Panzeri, Gianni Pola, Filippo Petroni, Malcolm P. Young and Rasmus S. Petersen 177-185 The role of individual spikes and spike patterns in population coding of stimulus location in rat somatosensory cortex Rasmus S. Petersen, Stefano Panzeri and Mathew E. Diamond 187-193 Isotropic sequence order learning using a novel linear algorithm in a closed loop behavioural system B. Porr and P. Woergoetter 195-202 Modelling spatiotemporal olfactory data in two steps: from binary to Hodgkin-Huxley neurones Brigitte Quenet, Rmi Dubois, Sevan Sirapian, Grard Dreyfus and David Horn 203-211 Interspike interval statistics in the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck neuronal model with signal-dependent noise Laura Sacerdote and Petr Lansky 213-219 Spike independency in feed-forward networks Yutaka Sakai 221-227 Why do olfactory neurons have unspecific receptive fields? Manuel A. Snchez-Montas and Tim C. Pearce 229-238 Rapid adaptation and efficient coding Lars Schwabe and Klaus Obermayer 239-244 A unifying theory on the relationship between spike trains, EEG, and ERP based on the noise shaping/predictive neural coding hypothesis Jonghan Shin 245-257 Recording site dependence of the neuronal spiking statistics Shigeru Shinomoto, Yutaka Sakai and Hiroshi Ohno 259-263 Visualisation of synchronous firing in multi-dimensional spike trains L. Stuart, M. Walter and R. Borisyuk 265-279 Study of synaptic plasticity via random graphs Tatyana S. Turova 281-286 Stochastic fluctuations of the synaptic function Francesco Ventriglia and Vito Di Maio 287-294 Model based decoding of spike trains Matthew C. Wiener and Barry J. Richmond 295-300 ----------------------------- Dr. Guido Bugmann Senior Research Fellow Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems School of Computing University of Plymouth Plymouth PL4 8AA United Kingdom ----------------------------- Tel: (+44) 1752 23 25 66 / 41 Fax: (+44) 1752 23 25 40 Email: gbugmann at soc.plymouth.ac.uk or gbugmann at plymouth.ac.uk http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/soc/Staff/GuidBugm/Bugmann.htm ----------------------------- From jose at psychology.rutgers.edu Wed Dec 4 22:31:17 2002 From: jose at psychology.rutgers.edu (Stephen Hanson) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 22:31:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: FACULTY POSITION AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-NEWARK CAMPUS--COGNITIVE SCIENCE, COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Message-ID: <200212050331.gB53VHQ17930@psychology.rutgers.edu> Rutgers University _Newark Campus, Psychology Department, Cogntive Science, Cognitive Neuroscience The Department of Psychology anticipates making one tenure track, Assistant or Associate Professor level appointment in area of COGNITIVE SCIENCE. In particular we are seeking individuals from one of any of the following THREE areas: LEARNING (Cognitive Modeling), COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE, or SOCIAL COGNITION (interests in NEUROIMAGING in any of these areas would also be a plus, since the Department in conjunction with UMDNJ has recently acquired a 3T Neuroimaging Center (see http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/fmri/)). The successful candidate is expected to develop and maintain an active, externally funded research program, and to teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Review of applications will begin JANUARY 30th 2003, pending final budgetary approval from the administration. Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Qualified women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Please send a CV, a statement of current and future research interests, and three letters of recommendation to COGNITIVE SCIENCE SEARCH COMMITTEE, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102. Email enquires can be made to cogsci at psychology.rutgers.edu. From doug.leith at may.ie Fri Dec 6 04:24:50 2002 From: doug.leith at may.ie (Douglas Leith) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 09:24:50 -0000 Subject: Postdoctoral & Postgraduate Positions in Machine Learning, Hamilton Institute, Ireland Message-ID: <002401c29d09$55d62800$06000001@hamilton.local> Postdoctoral and postgraduate positions in machine learning are available at the Hamilton Institiute. If you are interested and are planning to attend the NIPS conference in Vancouver (Dec 9-14) please email Rod Murray-Smith (rod at dcs.gla.ac.uk) and you can arrange to meet there. Regards. Doug Leith ************************* Postdoctoral Position & Postgraduare Position in Statistical Machine Learning Applications are invited for postdoctoral and postgraduate research positions at the Hamilton Institute in the area of statistical machine learning, particularly in the context of time series analysis and probabilistic reasoning, human-computer interaction, hybrid systems. The successful candidates will have demonstrated an outstanding level of academic achievement at undergraduate/post-graduate level. The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. These posts offer an exciting opportunity for successful candidates to tackle fundamental research problems within a stimulating multi-disciplinary research environment with state of the art facilities and strong links to the international research community. For further details visit www.hamilton.may.ie Applications with cv including details of three referees to hamilton at may.ie. For informal enquiries please contact Prof. D.J. Leith at doug.leith at may.ie From benjamin.blankertz at first.fhg.de Fri Dec 6 05:10:44 2002 From: benjamin.blankertz at first.fhg.de (Benjamin Blankertz) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 11:10:44 +0100 Subject: BCI Competition 2003 Message-ID: <200212061110.44932.benjamin.blankertz@first.fhg.de> [/ Appologies for multiple messages /] Dear collegues, we are happy to announce december 6th 2002 as the start of the * BCI Competition 2003 * on classifying single-trial electroencephalography (EEG) data in the context of brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. There are six different data sets of four BCI groups (Albany, Berlin, Graz, Tuebingen, see below). For each data set there is one labeled part (training set) that can be used to calibrate analysis systems and one part for which the labels are kept secret (test set). The competition is evaluated on each data set separately according to the participants' submissions (labels resp. continuous feedback signals) for the test set. Deadline for submissions is may 1st 2003. For each data set the competition winners get a chance to publish their algorithm in an article devoted to the competition that will appear in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. For more information please visit http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/~blanker/competition/ The competition organizers, Albany: Theresa M. Vaughan, Gerwin Schalk, Jonathan R. Wolpaw Berlin: Benjamin Blankertz, Gabriel Curio, Klaus-Robert Mueller Graz: Alois Schloegl, Christa Neuper, Gernot Mueller, Bernhard Graimann, Gert Pfurtscheller Tuebingen: Thilo Hinterberger, Michael Schroeder, Niels Birbaumer Contact: Dr. Benjamin Blankertz, +49.30.6392-1875 Fraunhofer FIRST.IDA Kekulestr. 7, D-12489 Berlin, Germany benjamin.blankertz at first.fraunhofer.de From E.Koning at elsevier.nl Fri Dec 6 08:41:41 2002 From: E.Koning at elsevier.nl (Koning, Esther (ELS)) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 13:41:41 -0000 Subject: CFP Neurocomputing - Special Issue on Spiking Neural Systems Message-ID: <4D56BD81F62EFD49A74B1057ECD75C06057D3941@elsamsvexch01.elsevier.nl> CALL FOR PAPERS NEUROCOMPUTING An International Journal published by Elsevier Science B.V., vol. 49-55, 28 issues, in 2003 ISNN 0925-2312, URL: Special Issue on Spiking Neural Systems Paper Submission Deadline: March 31, 2003 Spiking neural systems are based on biologically-inspired neural models of computation. Accordingly, individual neurons communicate with each other by means of short electrical pulses called action potentials or spikes, which are generated by a threshold process and generally as elements of spike sequences or trains. These systems can remarkably process time-varying signals, are more elaborated than simple neuron models found in artificial neural systems, and attempt to more closely approach biophysical models of neurons, synapses, and related elements, that describe neuronal activity by ionic currents that pass through specialized channels in dendritic branches and somatic compartments. Spiking neural systems are suitable to analyze dynamical aspects of neuronal signal transmission and due to their simplicity, they are useful for large-scale implementation of cell ensembles and neural circuitry.... The Neurocomputing journal invites original contributions for the forthcoming special issue on Spiking Neural Systems from a broad scope of areas. Some topics relevant to this special issue include, but are not restricted to: -- Theoretical foundations, neural circuitry, cell ensembles, systems -- Modeling of neurons, synapses, dendrites, spike trains including biophysical, biochemical, integral and differential equations, integrate-and-fire, IFB, ... -- Spike-based learning including Hebbian, temporal difference, etc. -- Effects of architecture, single-neuron properties, and network dynamics. -- Issues in chaos, coding, correlation, decoding, firing rate, latency, noise, oscillations, plasticity, synchrony, timing variability, etc. -- Connections to biophysics, brain research, computer science, pattern recognition, etc. -- Realization of spiking neurons as software simulation and VLSI hardware. -- Applications including memory, information processing, learning, ... Please send two hardcopies of the manuscript before March 31, 2003, to: V. David S?nchez A., Neurocomputing - Editor in Chief - Advanced Computational Intelligent Systems P.O. Box 60130, Pasadena, CA 91116-6130, U.S.A. Street address: 1149 Wotkyns Drive Pasadena, CA 91103, U.S.A. Fax: +1-626-796-9458 Email: vdavidsanchez at earthlink.net including abstract, keywords, a cover page containing the title and author names, corresponding author name's complete address including telephone, fax, and email address, and clear indication to be a submission to the Special Issue on Spiking Neural Systems. Guest Editors Kazuyuki Aihara University of Tokyo Department of Mathematical Engineering 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-8656 Tokyo Japan Phone: +81-3-5841-6910 Fax: +81-3-5841-8594 Email: Aihara at sat.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Prof. Walter J. Freeman University of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-3200 USA tel: +1-510-643-8896 fax: +1-510-643-6791 email: wfreeman at socrates.berkeley.edu Wulfram Gerstner Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience, DI-LCN CH-1015 Lausanne EPFL Switzerland Phone: +41-21-693-6713 Fax: +41-21-693-5263 Email: wulfram.gerstner at epfl.ch G?nther Palm University of Ulm, Department of Neural Information Processing Oberer Eselsberg D-89069 Ulm Germany Phone: +49-731-502-4151 Fax: +49-731-502-4156 Email: palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de V. David S?nchez A., Neurocomputing - Editor in Chief - Advanced Computational Intelligent Systems P.O. Box 60130 Pasadena, CA 91116-6130, U.S.A. Fax: +1-626-796-9458 Email: vdavidsanchez at earthlink.net From yury.petrov at physiol.ox.ac.uk Fri Dec 6 10:48:16 2002 From: yury.petrov at physiol.ox.ac.uk (Yury Petrov) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 15:48:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: paper announcement: Local correlations, information redundancy, and the sufficient pixel depth in natural images Message-ID: I would like to post the following article here. This paper will be published in the Journal of Optical Society of America A in January. The manuscript is available from http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~yp/DOCS/InfRedNatSc.pdf and http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~yp/DOCS/InfRedNatSc.ps Thank you, Yury Petrov ------------------ Local correlations, information redundancy, and the sufficient pixel depth in natural images Yury Petrov University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK L. Zhaoping Department of Psychology, UCL, London, WC1H 0AP, UK A mathematical framework which enables the factorisation of a joint probability distribution into its localised components for a two-dimensional array of pixels is presented. The factorisation was used to estimate the contribution to mutual information due to two- (I2) and three-pixel (I3) luminance correlations for a large ensemble of natural images analysed at various spatial scales and pixel depths b. It is shown that both I2 and I3 saturate around b = 6 bits/pixel. Three-pixel correlations are shown to produce only a marginal increase of information redundancy (4%) over two- pixel correlations (50%). Implications for neural representation in visual cortex are discussed. From David.Cohn at acm.org Fri Dec 6 12:01:03 2002 From: David.Cohn at acm.org (David 'Pablo' Cohn) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 09:01:03 -0800 Subject: jmlr-announce: A Robust Minimax Approach to Classification Message-ID: The Journal of Machine Learning Research is pleased to announce the availability of yet another new paper online at http://www.jmlr.org. ---------------------------------------- A Robust Minimax Approach to Classification Gert R.G. Lanckriet, Laurent El Ghaoui, Chiranjib Bhattacharyya and Michael I. Jordan JMLR 3(Dec):555-582, 2002 Abstract When constructing a classifier, the probability of correct classification of future data points should be maximized. We consider a binary classification problem where the mean and covariance matrix of each class are assumed to be known. No further assumptions are made with respect to the class-conditional distributions. Misclassification probabilities are then controlled in a worst-case setting: that is, under all possible choices of class-conditional densities with given mean and covariance matrix, we minimize the worst-case (maximum) probability of misclassification of future data points. For a linear decision boundary, this desideratum is translated in a very direct way into a (convex) second order cone optimization problem, with complexity similar to a support vector machine problem. The minimax problem can be interpreted geometrically as minimizing the maximum of the Mahalanobis distances to the two classes. We address the issue of robustness with respect to estimation errors (in the means and covariances of the classes) via a simple modification of the input data. We also show how to exploit Mercer kernels in this setting to obtain nonlinear decision boundaries, yielding a classifier which proves to be competitive with current methods, including support vector machines. An important feature of this method is that a worst-case bound on the probability of misclassification of future data is always obtained explicitly. ---------------------------------------- This paper and all previous papers are available electronically at http://www.jmlr.org/ in PostScript and PDF formats. Many are also available in HTML. The papers of Volume 1 and 2 are also available in hardcopy from the MIT Press; please see http://mitpress.mit.edu/JMLR for details. -David Cohn, Managing Editor, Journal of Machine Learning Research From becker at mcmaster.ca Fri Dec 6 14:01:24 2002 From: becker at mcmaster.ca (S. Becker) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:01:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Faculty Positions in Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Apologies if you receive this posting more than once. The department of Psychology at McMaster University has two open faculty positions, one in higher-order cognition and one in behavioural neuroscience. Both job ads are included below. If you know of any suitable candidates for either position, I would be grateful if you could pass this on to them. Please note that the rules re: Canadian searches have changed so that ALL applicants (Canadian and non-Canadian) should apply at the same time. Sincerely, Sue Becker -- Sue Becker, Associate Professor Department of Psychology, McMaster University becker at mcmaster.ca Building 34, Room 312 Fax: (905)529-6225 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton,Ont. L8S 4K1 Tel: 525-9140 ext. 23020 www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/sb.html **************************************************************************** Faculty Position in Human Cognition at McMaster University The Department of Psychology at McMaster University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professorship in the area of human cognition to commence July 1, 2003. We seek an individual with research interests in higher-order cognition (e.g., memory, categorization, reasoning and judgment, language processing, decision making). The Department of Psychology at McMaster University has a rich tradition in experimental psychology and particular strengths in the areas of perception and cognition, development, behavioural neuroscience, behavioural endocrinology, evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology, animal behavior and animal learning (www.science.mcmaster.ca/psychology). McMaster has excellent facilities for behavioural, neurocomputational and neuroimaging research. Candidates should have a Ph.D. and will need to show evidence of a vigorous research program, promise of leadership in his or her field, and commitment to both undergraduate and graduate teaching. Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, statement of research interests, copies of representative papers, and a brief statement of teaching philosophy and interests to: Dr. Allison Sekuler Chair, Search Committee for Cognitive Psychology Department of Psychology McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4K1 They should also arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent to Dr. Sekuler. Review of applications will begin on February 1, 2003, and continue until the position is filled. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be considered first for this position. McMaster University if strongly committed to employment equity within its community, and to recruiting a diverse faculty and staff. The University encourages applications from all qualified candidates, including women, members of visible minorities, Aboriginal persons, members of sexual minorities, and persons with disabilities. **************************************************************************** Faculty Position in Behavioral Neuroscience at McMaster University The Department of Psychology at McMaster University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professorship in Behavioral Neuroscience to begin July 1, 2003. We seek an individual with researchers interests in learning, memory, and/or plasticity. We are interested in candidates who are using state-of-the-art neuroscience approaches and animal models. The Department of Psychology at McMaster University has a rich tradition in Behavioral Neuroscience and strengths in the areas of animal learning and behaviour, evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology, neuroscience, development, perception and cognition (www.science.mcmaster.ca/psychology). Candidates should have a Ph.D. and send a curriculum vitae, a statement of research and teaching interests, representative publications, and 3 letters of reference to: Behavioral Neuroscience Search Committee Chair Department of Psychology McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4K1 All applications received by January 15, 2003 will receive full consideration. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority. McMaster University is strongly committed to employment equity within its community, and to recruiting a diverse faculty and staff. The University encourages applications from all qualified candidates, including women, members of visible minorities, Aboriginal persons, members of sexual minorities, and persons with disabilities. From lyle at cogni.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr Fri Dec 6 17:35:14 2002 From: lyle at cogni.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr (Lyle Graham) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 23:35:14 +0100 Subject: Postdoctoral Positions in Experimental and Theoretical Cortical Neurophysiology - Paris Message-ID: <002b01c29d77$e2dd2cd0$1e52fea9@lylegraham> Postdoctoral Positions in Experimental and Theoretical Cortical Neurophysiology - Paris I am looking to fill two postdoctoral positions, one experimental and one theoretical, for a project aimed at characterizing the functional impact of stochastic mechanisms in cortical physiology, funded by HFSP. The experimental position will focus on in-vivo whole cell patch recordings in the cat and rat, including the development of several novel protocols and methods. The theoretical position will focus on developing both analytical methods for the analysis of the stochastic component of evoked and background activity from intracellular recordings, as well as biophysically-detailed models of neurons and networks. Experience required. Interested candidates may send their c.v. and two letters of recommendation to Dr. Lyle J. Graham, Neurophysique et Physiologie du Systeme Moteur, CNRS, Universite Rene Descartes, 45 rue des Saint-Peres 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France. Informal inquiries also welcome at lyle at cogni.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr For those planning to attend the NIPS Workshops at Whistler (Dec 12-14) you can arrange to meet me there. From piuri at elet.polimi.it Sat Dec 7 05:26:24 2002 From: piuri at elet.polimi.it (Vincenzo Piuri) Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 11:26:24 +0100 Subject: IEEE Neural Networks Society welcomes you! Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021207112537.0289c3a0@mail.elet.polimi.it> Dear Colleague As Vice-President-elected for the Membership Activities of the IEEE Neural Networks Society (NNS), I am pleased to inform you that application to our Society is now open. The IEEE NNS is one of 37 societies under the IEEE umbrella. The IEEE NNS field of interest spans "the theory, design, application, and development of biologically and linguistically motivated computational paradigms emphasizing neural networks, including connectionist systems, genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, fuzzy systems, and hybrid intelligent systems in which these paradigms are contained." These topics are sometimes included in broader frameworks, usually referred to as Computational Intelligence or Soft Computing. For more information please visit: http://www.ieee-nns.org The NNS was formed in 2002 and is now able to accept new members: therefore, I would like to warmly invite you to join us in playing an active role in the our areas of interest. To join the new society, please visit http://www.ieee.org/join The NNS is the publisher of the following three transactions: - IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks (TNN) - IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (TEC) - IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems (TFS) NNS Membership Cost: $10 US (for IEEE members) NNS Membership will allow you to: o Receive the printed version of the NNS (member-only) Newsletter o Participate to IEEE NNS governance activities by running for an Administrative Committee representative position, nominating candidates, and voting for the candidates o Be eligible for any IEEE NNS-sponsored technical and educational activity, such as recognition awards o Organize an IEEE NNS chapter to benefit from IEEE and NNS funding for local events o Access to all current and archival NNS electronic publications -- including TNN, TEC, and TFS (additional $ 15 US over membership fee) o Subscribe to all three transactions (TNN, TEC, TFS) in print (additional $50 US over membership fee) -- a savings of $24 US over individual print subscriptions o Subscribe to the IEEE Transactions of NanoBioscience and IEEE Transaction of Nanotechnology at a special discounted rate (for co-sponsoring society members) NNS Student Membership Cost: $5 US (for IEEE student members) NNS Student Membership will allow you to: o Receive the printed version of the NNS (member-only) Newsletter o Organize an IEEE NNS student chapter in your university, so you may invite distinguished lecturers o Compete for the Walter Karplus Student Summer Research Support Award o Compete for an IEEE NNS-sponsored conference travel grant and other IEEE NNS sponsored technical and educational activities o Access to all current and archival NNS electronic publications - including TNN, TEC, and TFS (additional $ 8 US over membership fee) o Subscribe to all three transactions (TNN, TEC, TFS) in print (additional $25 US over membership fee) -- a savings of $12 US over individual transaction print subscriptions o Subscribe to the IEEE Transactions of NanoBioscience and IEEE Transaction of Nanotechnology at a special discounted rate (for co-sponsoring society members) I look forward to see you at one of the conferences organized by our Society! Best regards Vincenzo Piuri IEEE Neural Networks Society Vice-President (elected) for Membership Activities Vincenzo Piuri University of Milan, Department of Information Technologies Advanced Research Center on Evolutionary Knowledge for Design Innovation by High-Performance Computing via Bramante 65, 26013 Crema (CR), Italy phone: +39-02-5033-0066 or +39-0373-898-066 secretary: +39-02-5033-0011 or +39-0373-898-011 fax: +39-02-5033-0010 email: piuri at elet.polimi.it secondary address: Politecnico di Milano, Department of Electronics and Information piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy phone: +39-02-2399-3606 secretary: +39-02-2399-3623 fax: +39-02-2399-3411 email: piuri at elet.polimi.it From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Dec 8 06:02:43 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 03:02:43 -0800 Subject: Machine Learning Positions at Amazon.com Message-ID: <32E915AF61D33346B5C80A9707C3DD4401A6776E@ex-mail-02.ant.amazon.com> From wsom at brain.kyutech.ac.jp Tue Dec 10 00:30:26 2002 From: wsom at brain.kyutech.ac.jp (WSOM'03 Secretariat) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:30:26 +0900 Subject: Call For Papers: WSOM'03 Message-ID: <002501c2a00d$3eccbfa0$ca37ce83@drpc2> CALL FOR PAPERS ================================================================= Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps (WSOM'03) Hibikino, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan, 11-14 September 2003 http://www.brain.kyutech.ac.jp/~wsom/ ================================================================= Workshop Objectives: ===================== The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) with its related extensions is the most popular artificial neural algorithm for use in unsupervised learning and data visualization. Over 5,000 publications have been reported in the open literature, and many commercial projects employ the SOM as the tool for solving hard real-world problems. WSOM'03 is the discussion forum where your ideas and techniques are polished, and aims to unveil the results of hot researches and popularize the use of the SOM for technical public. Following the highly successful meetings held in 1997 (WSOM'97), 1999 (WSOM'99), and 2001 (WSOM'01), a further workshop in this established series, will bring together researchers and users of the SOM and related techniques. Important Dates: ================= Paper Submission: 15 May, 2003 Notification of Acceptance: 15 June, 2003 Final Paper Submission: 15 July, 2003 Topics: ======== Technical areas include, but are not limited to: *Self-organization *Unsupervised learning *Theory and extensions *Optimization *Hardware and architecture *Signal processing, image processing and vision *Time-series analysis *Text and document analysis *Financial analysis *Data visualization and mining *Bioinformatics *Robotics *Medical Engineering Conference Committee: ====================== Honorary Conference Chair Teuvo Kohonen, Finland Organizing Chair Takeshi Yamakawa, Japan Organizing Committee Members Erkki Oja, Finland Heizo Tokutaka, Japan Program Chair Masumi Ishikawa, Japan Program Committee Members Marie Cottrell, France Guido Deboeck, USA Shinto Eguchi, Japan Kikuo Fujimura, Japan Colin Fyfe, UK Masafumi Hagiwara, Japan Jaakko Hollmen, Finland Keiich Horio, Japan Marc M. Van Hulle, Belgium Toshimichi Ikemura, Japan Samuel Kaski, Finland Gerhard Kranner, Austria Thomas Martinetz, Germany Kiyotoshi Matsuoka, Japan Dieter Merkl, Austria Risto Miikkulainen, USA Yoshikazu Miyanaga, Japan Tsutomu Miyoshi, Japan Takashi Morie, Japan Junichi Murata, Japan Ikuko Nishikawa, Japan Klaus Obermayer, Germany Aiko Shibata, Japan Wataru Shiraki, Japan Olli Simula, Finland Eiji Uchino, Japan Alfred Ultsch, Germany Michel Verleysen, Belgium Thomas Villmann, Germany Lei Xu, China Shozo Yasui, Japan Hujun Yin, UK ----------------------------------------------- Organizing Chair Takeshi Yamakawa Professor Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering Kyushu Institute of Technology 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu 808-0186 Japan Tel: +81-93-695-6123 E-mail: yamakawa at brain.kyutech.ac.jp From bowlby at bu.edu Tue Dec 10 14:06:25 2002 From: bowlby at bu.edu (Brian Bowlby) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:06:25 -0500 Subject: Graduate Training in the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) at Boston University Message-ID: <7AB56A01-0C72-11D7-8F12-0003933DD294@bu.edu> PLEASE POST ******************************************************************* GRADUATE TRAINING IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS (CNS) AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY ******************************************************************* The Boston University Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems offers comprehensive graduate training in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underlie human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. The brochure may also be viewed on line at: http://www.cns.bu.edu/brochure/ and application forms at: http://www.bu.edu/cas/graduate/application.html Applications for Fall 2003 admission and financial aid are now being accepted for both the MA and PhD degree programs. To obtain a brochure describing the CNS Program and a set of application materials, write, telephone, or fax: DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02215 617/353-9481 (phone) 617/353-7755 (fax) or send via email your full name and mailing address to the attention of Mr. Robin Amos at: amos at cns.bu.edu Applications for admission and financial aid should be received by the Graduate School Admissions Office no later than January 15. Late applications will be considered until May 1; after that date applications will be considered only as special cases. Applicants are required to submit undergraduate (and, if applicable, graduate) transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. The Advanced Test should be in the candidate's area of departmental specialization. GRE scores may be waived for MA candidates and, in exceptional cases, for PhD candidates, but absence of these scores will decrease an applicant's chances for admission and financial aid. Non-degree students may also enroll in CNS courses on a part-time basis. ******************************************************************* Description of the CNS Department: The Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) provides advanced training and research experience for graduate students and qualified undergraduates interested in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underlie human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. The department's training and research focus on two broad questions. The first question is: How does the brain control behavior? This is a modern form of the Mind/Body Problem. The second question is: How can technology emulate biological intelligence? This question needs to be answered to develop intelligent technologies that are well suited to human societies. These goals are symbiotic because brains are unparalleled in their ability to intelligently adapt on their own to complex and novel environments. Models of how the brain accomplishes this are developed through systematic empirical, mathematical, and computational analysis in the department. Autonomous adaptation to a changing world is also needed to solve many of the outstanding problems in technology, and the biological models have inspired qualitatively new designs for applications. During the past decade, CNS has led the way in developing biological models that can quantitatively simulate the dynamics of identified brain cells in identified neural circuits, and the behaviors that they control. This new level of understanding is leading to comparable advances in intelligent technology. CNS is a graduate department that is devoted to the interdisciplinary training of graduate students. The department awards MA, PhD, and BA/MA degrees. Its students are trained in a broad range of areas concerning computational neuroscience, cognitive science, and neuromorphic systems. The biological training includes study of the brain mechanisms of vision and visual object recognition; audition, speech, and language understanding; recognition learning, categorization, and long-term memory; cognitive information processing; self-organization and development, navigation, planning, and spatial orientation; cooperative and competitive network dynamics and short-term memory; reinforcement and motivation; attention; adaptive sensory-motor planning, control, and robotics; biological rhythms; consciousness; mental disorders; and the mathematical and computational methods needed to support advanced modeling research and applications. Technological training includes methods and applications in image processing, multiple types of signal processing, adaptive pattern recognition and prediction, information fusion, and intelligent control and robotics. The foundation of this broad training is the unique interdisciplinary curriculum of seventeen interdisciplinary graduate courses that have been developed at CNS. Each of these courses integrates the psychological, neurobiological, mathematical, and computational information needed to theoretically investigate fundamental issues concerning mind and brain processes and the applications of artificial neural networks and hybrid systems to technology. A student's curriculum is tailored to his or her career goals with an academic advisor and a research adviser. In addition to taking interdisciplinary courses within CNS, students develop important disciplinary expertise by also taking courses in departments such as biology, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and psychology. In addition to these formal courses, students work individually with one or more research advisors to learn how to do advanced interdisciplinary research in their chosen research areas. As a result of this breadth and depth of training, CNS students have succeeded in finding excellent jobs in both academic and technological areas after graduation. The CNS Department interacts with colleagues in several Boston University research centers or groups, and with Boston-area scientists collaborating with these centers. The units most closely linked to the department are the Center for Adaptive Systems and the CNS Technology Laboratory. Students interested in neural network hardware can work with researchers in CNS and at the College of Engineering. Other research resources include the campus-wide Program in Neuroscience, which includes distinguished research groups in cognitive neuroscience, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, neuropharmacology, and neural modeling across the Charles River Campus and the Medical School; in sensory robotics, biomedical engineering, computer and systems engineering, and neuromuscular research within the College of Engineering; in dynamical systems within the Mathematics Department; in theoretical computer science within the Computer Science Department ; and in biophysics and computational physics within the Physics Department. Key colleagues in these units hold joint appointments in CNS in order to expedite training and research interactions with CNS core faculty and students. In addition to its basic research and training program, the department organizes an active colloquium series, various research and seminar series, and international conferences and symposia, to bring distinguished scientists from experimental, theoretical, and technological disciplines to the department. The department is housed in its own four-story building, which includes ample space for faculty and student offices and laboratories (computational neuroscience, visual psychophysics, psychoacoustics, speech and language, sensory-motor control, neurobotics, computer vision), as well as an auditorium, classroom, seminar rooms, a library, and a faculty-student lounge. The department has a powerful computer network for carrying out large-scale simulations of behavioral and brain models and applications. Below are listed departmental faculty, courses and labs. FACULTY AND STAFF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS AND CENTER FOR ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS Jelle Atema Professor of Biology Director, Boston University Marine Program (BUMP) PhD, University of Michigan Sensory physiology and behavior Helen Barbas Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Sargent College PhD, Physiology/Neurophysiology, McGill University Organization of the prefrontal cortex, evolution of the neocortex Jacob Beck Research Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Psychology, Cornell University Visual perception, psychophysics, computational models of vision Daniel H. Bullock Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems, and Psychology PhD, Experimental Psychology, Stanford University Sensory-motor performance and learning, voluntary control of action, serial order and timing, cognitive development Gail A. Carpenter Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Mathematics Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems Director, CNS Technology Laboratory PhD, Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison Learning and memory, synaptic processes, pattern recognition, remote sensing, medical database analysis, machine learning, differential equations Michael A. Cohen Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Computer Science PhD, Psychology, Harvard University Speech and language processing, measurement theory, neural modeling, dynamical systems, cardiovascular oscillations physiology and time series H. Steven Colburn Professor of Biomedical Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Audition, binaural interaction, auditory virtual environments, signal processing models of hearing Howard Eichenbaum Professor of Psychology PhD, Psychology, University of Michigan Neurophysiological studies of how the hippocampal system mediates declarative memory William D. Eldred III Professor of Biology PhD, University of Colorado, Health Science Center Visual neuralbiology John C. Fiala Research Assistant Professor of Biology PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University Synaptic plasticity, dendrite anatomy and pathology, motor learning, robotics, neuroinformatics Jean Berko Gleason Professor of Psychology PhD, Harvard University Psycholinguistics Sucharita Gopal Associate Professor of Geography PhD, University of California at Santa Barbara Neural networks, computational modeling of behavior, geographical information systems, fuzzy sets, and spatial cognition Stephen Grossberg Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering Chairman, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems Director, Center for Adaptive Systems PhD, Mathematics, Rockefeller University Vision, audition, language, learning and memory, reward and motivation, cognition, development, sensory-motor control, mental disorders, applications Frank Guenther Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University MSE, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University Speech production, speech perception, biological sensory-motor control and functional brain imaging Catherine L. Harris Assistant Professor of Psychology PhD, Cognitive Science and Psychology, University of California at San Diego Visual word recognition, psycholinguistics, cognitive semantics, second language acquisition, computational models of cognition Michael E. Hasselmo Associate Professor of Psychology Director of Graduate Studies, Psychology Department PhD, Experimental Psychology, Oxford University Computational modeling and experimental testing of neuromodulatory mechanisms involved in encoding, retrieval and consolidation Allyn Hubbard Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin Peripheral auditory system (experimental and modeling), chip design spanning the range from straightforward digital applications to exotic sub-threshold analog circuits that emulate the functionality of the visual and auditory periphery, BCS/FCS, the mammalian cochlea in silicon and MEMS, and drug discovery on silicon Thomas G. Kincaid Professor of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Signal and image processing, neural networks, non-destructive testing Mark Kon Professor of Mathematics PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Neural network theory, complexity theory, wavelet theory, mathematical physics Nancy Kopell Professor of Mathematics PhD, Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley Dynamics of networks of neurons Jacqueline A. Liederman Associate Professor of Psychology PhD, Psychology, University of Rochester Dynamics of interhemispheric cooperation; prenatal correlates of neurodevelopmental disorders Ennio Mingolla Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Psychology Acting Chairman 2002-2003, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Psychology, University of Connecticut Visual perception, mathematical modeling of visual processes Joseph Perkell Adjunct Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Senior Research Scientist, Research Lab of Electronics and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Motor control of speech production Adam Reeves Adjunct Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University PhD, Psychology, City University of New York Psychophysics, cognitive psychology, vision Bradley Rhodes Research Associate, Technology Lab, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University Motor control, learning, and adaptation, serial order behavior (timing in particular), attention and memory Michele Rucci Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems PhD, Scuola Superiore S.-Anna, Pisa, Italy Vision, sensory-motor control and learning, and computational neuroscience Elliot Saltzman Associate Professor of Physical Therapy, Sargent College Research Scientist, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT Assistant Professor in Residence, Department of Psychology and Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT PhD, Developmental Psychology, University of Minnesota Modeling and experimental studies of human sensorimotor control and coordination of the limbs and speech articulators, focusing on issues of timing in skilled activities Robert Savoy Adjunct Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Experimental Psychologist, Massachusetts General Hospital PhD, Experimental Psychology, Harvard University Computational neuroscience; visual psychophysics of color, form, and motion perception Teaching about functional MRI and other brain mapping methods Eric Schwartz Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems; Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering; and Anatomy and Neurobiology PhD, High Energy Physics, Columbia University Computational neuroscience, machine vision, neuroanatomy, neural modeling Robert Sekuler Adjunct Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, BioMolecular Engineering Research Center Frances and Louis H. Salvage Professor of Psychology, Brandeis University Consultant in neurosurgery, Boston Children's Hospital PhD, Psychology, Brown University Visual motion, brain imaging, relation of visual perception, memory, and movement Barbara Shinn-Cunningham Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Biomedical Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Psychoacoustics, audition, auditory localization, binaural hearing, sensorimotor adaptation, mathematical models of human performance David Somers Assistant Professor of Psychology PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University Functional MRI, psychophysical, and computational investigations of visual perception and attention Chantal E. Stern Assistant Professor of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, Boston University Assistant in Neuroscience, MGH-NMR Center and Harvard Medical School PhD, Experimental Psychology, Oxford University Functional neuroimaging studies (fMRI and MEG) of learning and memory Malvin C. Teich Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Physics PhD, Cornell University Quantum optics and imaging, photonics, wavelets and fractal stochastic processes, biological signal processing and information transmission Lucia Vaina Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Professor of Neurology, School of Medicine PhD, Sorbonne (France); Dres Science, National Politechnique Institute, Toulouse (France) Computational visual neuroscience, biological and computational learning, functional and structural neuroimaging Takeo Watanabe Associate Professor of Psychology PhD, Behavioral Sciences, University of Tokyo Perception of objects and motion and effects of attention on perception using psychophysics and brain imaging (f-MRI) Jeremy Wolfe Adjunct Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School Psychophysicist, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Surgery Department Director of Psychophysical Studies, Center for Clinical Cataract Research PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visual attention, pre-attentive and attentive object representation Curtis Woodcock Professor of Geography Chairman, Department of Geography Director, Geographic Applications, Center for Remote Sensing PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara Biophysical remote sensing, particularly of forests and natural vegetation, canopy reflectance models and their inversion, spatial modeling, and change detection; biogeography; spatial analysis; geographic information systems; digital image processing CNS DEPARTMENT COURSE OFFERINGS CAS CN500 Computational Methods in Cognitive and Neural Systems CAS CN510 Principles and Methods of Cognitive and Neural Modeling I CAS CN520 Principles and Methods of Cognitive and Neural Modeling II CAS CN530 Neural and Computational Models of Vision CAS CN540 Neural and Computational Models of Adaptive Movement Planning and Control CAS CN550 Neural and Computational Models of Recognition, Memory and Attention CAS CN560 Neural and Computational Models of Speech Perception and Production CAS CN570 Neural and Computational Models of Conditioning, Reinforcement, Motivation and Rhythm CAS CN580 Introduction to Computational Neuroscience GRS CN700 Computational and Mathematical Methods in Neural Modeling GRS CN720 Neural and Computational Models of Planning and Temporal Structure in Behavior GRS CN730 Models of Visual Perception GRS CN740 Topics in Sensory-Motor Control GRS CN760 Topics in Speech Perception and Recognition GRS CN780 Topics in Computational Neuroscience GRS CN810 Topics in Cognitive and Neural Systems: Visual Event Perception GRS CN811 Topics in Cognitive and Neural Systems: Visual Perception GRS CN911,912 Research in Neural Networks for Adaptive Pattern Recognition GRS CN915,916 Research in Neural Networks for Vision and Image Processing GRS CN921,922 Research in Neural Networks for Speech and Language Processing GRS CN925,926 Research in Neural Networks for Adaptive Sensory-Motor Planning and Control GRS CN931,932 Research in Neural Networks for Conditioning and Reinforcement Learning GRS CN935,936 Research in Neural Networks for Cognitive Information Processing GRS CN941,942 Research in Nonlinear Dynamics of Neural Networks GRS CN945,946 Research in Technological Applications of Neural Networks GRS CN951,952 Research in Hardware Implementations of Neural Networks CNS students also take a wide variety of courses in related departments. In addition, students participate in a weekly colloquium series, an informal lecture series, and student-run special interest groups, and attend lectures and meetings throughout the Boston area; and advanced students work in small research groups. LABORATORY AND COMPUTER FACILITIES The department is funded by fellowships, grants, and contracts from federal agencies and private foundations that support research in life sciences, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and engineering. Facilities include laboratories for experimental research and computational modeling in visual perception; audition, speech and language processing; and sensory-motor control and robotics. Data analysis and numerical simulations are carried out on a state-of-the-art computer network comprised of Sun workstations, Silicon Graphics workstations, Macintoshes, and PCs. A PC farm running Linux operating systems is available as a distributed computational environment. All students have access to X-terminals or UNIX workstation consoles, a selection of color systems and PCs, a network of SGI machines, and standard modeling and mathematical simulation packages such as Mathematica, VisSim, Khoros, and Matlab. The department maintains a core collection of books and journals, and has access both to the Boston University libraries and to the many other collections of the Boston Library Consortium. In addition, several specialized facilities and software are available for use. These include: Active Perception Laboratory The Active Perception Laboratory is dedicated to the investigation of the interactions between perception and behavior. Research focuses on the theoretical and computational analyses of the effects of motor behavior on sensory perception and on the design of psychophysical experiments with human subjects. The Active Perception Laboratory includes extensive computational facilities that allow the execution of large-scale simulations of neural systems. Additional facilities will soon include instruments for the psychophysical investigation of eye movements during visual analysis, including an accurate and non-invasive eye tracker, and robotic systems for the simulation of different types of behavior. Computer Vision/Computational Neuroscience Laboratory The Computer Vision/Computational Neuroscience Laboratory is comprised of an electronics workshop, including a surface-mount workstation, PCD fabrication tools, and an Alterra EPLD design system; a light machine shop; an active vision laboratory including actuators and video hardware; and systems for computer aided neuroanatomy and application of computer graphics and image processing to brain sections and MRI images. The laboratory supports research in the areas of neural modeling, computational neuroscience, computer vision and robotics. The major question being address is the nature of representation of the visual world in the brain, in terms of observable neural architectures such as topographic mapping and columnar architecture. The application of novel architectures for image processing for computer vision and robotics is also a major topic of interest. Recent work in this area has included the design and patenting of novel actuators for robotic active vision systems, the design of real-time algorithms for use in mobile robotic applications, and the design and construction of miniature autonomous vehicles using space-variant active vision design principles. Recently one such vehicle has successfully driven itself on the streets of Boston. Neurobotics Laboratory The Neurobotics Laboratory utilizes wheeled mobile robots to study potential applications of neural networks in several areas, including adaptive dynamics and kinematics, obstacle avoidance, path planning and navigation, visual object recognition, and conditioning and motivation. The laboratory currently has three Pioneer robots equipped with sonar and visual sensors; one B-14 robot with a moveable camera, sonars, infrared, and bump sensors; and two Khepera miniature robots with infrared proximity detectors. Other platforms may be investigated in the future. Psychoacoustics Laboratory The Psychoacoustics Laboratory in the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) is equipped to perform both traditional psychoacoustic experiments as well as experiments using interactive auditory virtual-reality stimuli. The laboratory contains approximately eight PCs (running Windows 98 and/or Linux), used both as workstations for students and to control laboratory equipment and run experiments. The other major equipment in the laboratory includes special-purpose signal processing and sound generating equipment from Tucker-Davis Technologies, electromagnetic head tracking systems, a two-channel spectrum analyzer, and other miscellaneous equipment for producing, measuring, analyzing, and monitoring auditory stimuli. The Psychoacoustics Laboratory consists of three adjacent rooms in the basement of 677 Beacon St. (the home of the CNS Department). One room houses an 8 ft. x 8 ft. single-walled sound-treated booth as well as space for students. The second room is primarily used as student workspace for developing and debugging experiments. The third space houses a robotic arm, capable of automatically positioning a small acoustic speaker anywhere on the surface of a sphere of adjustable radius, allowing automatic measurement of the signals reaching the ears of a listener for a sound source from different positions in space, including the effects of room reverberation. Sensory-Motor Control Laboratory The Sensory-Motor Control Laboratory supports experimental and computational studies of sensory-motor control. A computer controlled infrared WatSmart system allows measurement of large-scale (e.g. reaching) movements, and a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet allows studies of handwriting and other fine-scale movements. A second major component is a helmet-mounted, video-based, eye-head tracking system (ISCAN Corp, 1997). The latter's camera samples eye position at 240Hz and also allows reconstruction of what subjects are attending to as they freely scan a scene under normal lighting. Thus the system affords a wide range of visuo-motor studies. The laboratory is connected to the department's extensive network of Linux and Windows workstations and Linux computational servers. Speech and Language Laboratory The Speech Laboratory includes facilities for analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog software conversion. Ariel equipment allows reliable synthesis and playback of speech waveforms. An Entropic signal-processing package provides facilities for detailed analysis, filtering, spectral construction, and formant tracking of the speech waveform. Various large databases, such as TIMIT and TIdigits, are available for testing algorithms of speech recognition. The laboratory also contains a network of Windows-based PC computers equipped with software for the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, including region-of-interest (ROI) based analyses involving software for the parcellation of cortical and subcortical brain regions in structural MRI images. Technology Laboratory The Technology Laboratory fosters the development of neural network models derived from basic scientific research and facilitates the transition of the resulting technologies to software and applications. The Lab was established in July 2001, with a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research: "Information Fusion for Image Analysis: Neural Models and Technology Development." Initial projects have focused on multi-level fusion and data mining in a geospatial context, in collaboration with the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing. This research and development has built on models of opponent-color visual processing, boundary contour system (BCS) and texture processing, and Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) pattern learning and recognition, as well as other models of associative learning and prediction. Other projects include collaborations with the New England Medical Center and Boston Medical Center, to develop methods for analysis of large-scale medical databases, currently to predict HIV resistance to antiretroviral therapy. Associated basic research projects are conducted within the joint context of scientific data and technological constraints. Visual Psychophysics Laboratory The Visual Psychophysics Laboratory occupies an 800-square-foot suite, including three dedicated rooms for data collection, and houses a variety of computer controlled display platforms, including Macintosh, Windows and Linux workstations. Ancillary resources for visual psychophysics include a computer-controlled video camera, stereo viewing devices, a photometer, and a variety of display-generation, data-collection, and data-analysis software. Affiliated Laboratories Affiliated CAS/CNS faculty members have additional laboratories ranging from visual and auditory psychophysics and neurophysiology, anatomy, and neuropsychology to engineering and chip design. These facilities are used in the context of faculty/student collaborations. ******************************************************************* DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS GRADUATE TRAINING ANNOUNCEMENT Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02215 Phone: 617/353-9481 Fax: 617/353-7755 Email: inquiries at cns.bu.edu Web: http://www.cns.bu.edu/ ******************************************************************* From uttam at deepview.com Tue Dec 10 16:09:48 2002 From: uttam at deepview.com (Uttam Mukhopadhyay) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 16:09:48 -0500 Subject: search for technical leader Message-ID: We are looking for a highly creative research professional with exceptional technical prowess and the proven ability to find innovative new solutions for real-world problems, primarily in the area of statistical pattern recognition for financial applications. Our company, Deep View, is compact and agile (fewer than 10 full-time people) with robust, long-term contracts that give us high stability without the hidebound culture of a large corporation. We use Neural Networks, AI techniques, statistical methods and anything else that might provide measurably better solutions to a problem. The position is in West Bloomfield, within reach of the great recreational opportunities of Michigan with its beautiful lakes and woods. Housing is moderately priced and "quality of life" exceptionally high by most measures. Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, is a thirty-minute drive. I believe we have a uniquely satisfying position available for the right candidate. We are looking for technical leadership and are prepared to handsomely compensate the right person. Please contact me by e-mail or call me at (248)865-9080 during the day or (248)723-4025 in the evenings. We are on Eastern Time. Sincerely, Uttam Mukhopadhyay, PhD Chairman and co-founder Deep View Systems, LLC 6960 Orchard Lake Road, Suite 302 West Bloomfield, MI 48322 From niebur at jhu.edu Wed Dec 11 12:06:54 2002 From: niebur at jhu.edu (niebur@jhu.edu) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 12:06:54 -0500 Subject: Graduate studies in Systems Neuroscience at the Mind/Brain Institute Message-ID: <200212111706.gBBH6sD27411@russell.mindbrain> PLEASE DO NOT USE 'REPLY'; FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT ADDRESSES ON WEB PAGES GIVEN BELOW ******************************************************************* Graduate Training in Systems Neuroscience in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute of Johns Hopkins University ******************************************************************* The Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute is dedicated to the study of the neural mechanisms of higher brain functions using modern neurophysiological, anatomical, and computational techniques. Applications are invited for graduate fellowships by students with a strong interest in systems neuroscience. In addition to students with training in neuroscience or neurobiology, we particularly encourage students with a background in quantitative or computational sciences who show a strong commitment to combine theoretical and experimental techniques to understanding brain function. Faculty in the Mind/Brain Institute include: Guy McKhann (emeritus) Vernon Mountcastle (emeritus) Gian Poggio (emeritus) Ken Johnson (Director): Neural Mechanisms of Tactile Perception and Object Recognition Ed Connor: Shape Processing in Higher Level Visual Cortex Stewart Hendry: Functional Organization of the Primate Visual System Rudiger von der Heydt: Neural Mechanisms of Visual Perception Steven Hsiao: Neurophysiology of Tactile Shape and Texture Perception Alfredo Kirkwood: Mechanisms of Cortical Modification Ernst Niebur: Computational Neuroscience Michael Steinmetz: Neurophysiological Mechanisms in Selective Attention Takashi Yoshioka: Neural Mechanisms of Tactile Perception and Object Recognition The neuroscience graduate program includes over sixty faculty members in both clinical and academic departments. In addition, students from other graduate programs including Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Psychology and Biophysics are part of the Mind/Brain Institute. For more details about the Institute visit the webpage www.mb.jhu.edu Information about the neuroscience graduate program, including online and off-line application, is available from neuroscience.jhu.edu/gradprogram.asp From pli at richmond.edu Wed Dec 11 12:24:36 2002 From: pli at richmond.edu (Ping Li) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 12:24:36 -0500 Subject: PatPho: A phonological pattern generator for neural networks Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The following recent paper might be of interest to those of you who work on neural network models of language: Li, P., & MacWhinney, B. (2002). PatPho: A phonological pattern generator for neural networks. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 34, 408-415. A pdf file of the paper can be requested from the author's website at http://cogsci.richmond.edu/publications.html C source codes or Windows' applications are available under: http://cogsci.richmond.edu/patpho/ Comments are welcome. With best wishes, Ping Li Department of Psychology, University of Richmond Richmond, VA 23173, USA Email: pli at richmond.edu Phone: (804) 289-8125 (O), 287-1236 (lab); Fax: (804) 287-1905 From steve at cns.bu.edu Fri Dec 13 13:25:44 2002 From: steve at cns.bu.edu (Stephen Grossberg) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:25:44 -0500 Subject: laminar cortical dynamics of stereopsis and 3D surface perception Message-ID: The following article is now available at http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg in PDF. Grossberg, S. and Howe, P.D.L. (2002). A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and three-dimensional surface perception. Vision Research, in press. ABSTRACT: A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and later stages of 3D surface perception is developed and simulated. The model describes how initial stages of monocular and binocular oriented filtering interact with later stages of 3D boundary formation and surface filling-in in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and cortical areas V1, V2, and V4. In particular, it details how interactions between layers 4, 3B, and 2/3A in V1 and V2 contribute to stereopsis, and clarifies how binocular and monocular information combine to form 3D boundary and surface representations. Along the way, the model modifies and significantly extends the disparity energy model. Neural explanations are given for psychophysical data concerning: contrast variations of dichoptic masking and the correspondence problem, the effect of interocular contrast differences on stereoacuity, Panum's limiting case, the Venetian blind illusion, stereopsis with polarity-reversed stereograms, da Vinci stereopsis, and various lightness illusions. By relating physiology to psychophysics, the model provides new functional insights and predictions about laminar cortical architecture. From gomezramirezm at mville.edu Fri Dec 13 10:29:14 2002 From: gomezramirezm at mville.edu (Manuel O. Gomez-Ramirez ) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 10:29:14 -0500 Subject: three postdoc positions: Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research Message-ID: <200212131029.AA11403756@mail.mville.edu> Three post-doctoral positions are available at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in New York: 1) multielectrode (LFP, CSD, action potential) studies of visual processing in awake monkeys, 2) computational analysis of interareal communication, using single trial LFP, CSD and action potential measures (in collaboration with Drs. Bressler, Ding (FAU) and Knuth (NASA-Ames)), 3) integrated fMRI (BOLD, Perfusion) and electrophysiological (LFP, CSD, action potential) studies of primate somatosensory system (in collaboration with Drs. Dale and Ulbert (MGH). Contact: C.E. Schroeder, NKI and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, schrod at nki.rfmh.org From aude.billard at epfl.ch Mon Dec 16 06:26:48 2002 From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Aude Billard) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 12:26:48 +0100 Subject: PhD positions in Robotics & Computational Neuroscience at EPFL Message-ID: Applications for two Research Assistant positions (PhD studentships) in the fields of Computational Neuroscience and Robotics are invited. The successful applicants will join the Autonomous Systems Laboratory 3: (ASL3), http://asl.epfl.ch. The group is part of the School of Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). http://www.epfl.ch/Eindex.html Position I: Neural Modeling of Human Imitation and Early Language Acquisition This project investigates human ability for imitation learning and gesture recognition, and its role in early language acquisition. This project will build neural models of the brain mechanisms involved in visual-auditory-motor learning. The models will be driven by data from brain imaging studies of human imitation and behavioral studies of language acquisition in children. The neural models will be implemented and validated on physical platforms (two humanoid robots), using kinematics data of human motion and data on children's verbal and gestural expressions. This work will be conducted in close collaboration with the departments of Computer Science, Biokinesiology and Linguistics at the University of Southern California. Prerequisites: This position requires a BSc + MSc in Physics or Mathematics (other engineering degrees can be considered if the candidate shows a strong background in mathematics), prior knowledge of Artificial Neural Network theory, good programming skills in C/C++ and Matlab, a strong interest in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, and fluency in any two of the following: English, French or German. Position II: Robot Programming Through Demonstration Biological principles can improve the design of learning systems for robot programming through demonstration. The core idea is that imitation learning does not replace but complements motor learning techniques by restricting the search space to a computationally tractable subset. Imitation learning finds the key features of a task through a comparative analysis of the multi-dimensional data set (e.g. joint space, Cartesian space, visual space). This project is concerned with the design of robust and flexible controllers to drive learning of abstract and goal-directed imitation tasks in a multi-degrees of freedom humanoid robot. The imitation tasks include manipulation of objects, reproduction of abstract and communicative gestures, and learning of sport movements. Prerequisites: This position requires a BSc + Msc in Physics, MicroEngineering, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering (computer science degrees can be considered if the candidate has a strong background in mathematics and excellent algorithmic skills), prior knowledge of Artificial Neural Network theory, good programming skills in C/C++ and Matlab, a strong interest in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, and fluency in any two of the following: English, French or German. DURATION 48 months (4 years). The preferred starting date is April 1, 2003. The deadline for applications is January 31, 2003. APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Applicants should send a copy of their curriculum vitae, a copy of their diploma, a copy of their publications (master thesis, diploma thesis and any other available scientific publication), and the names of three references. Applications should specifically refer by NUMBER and NAME to the project, in which the candidate is interested. Applications should be sent to the attention of: Prof. Aude Billard, Autonomous Systems Laboratory 3 STI - I2S - ASL3 - Batiment ME EPFL - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne, CH- Lausanne 1015 - Switzerland Informal inquiries are also welcome and can be directed via email at: aude.billard at epfl.ch billard at usc.edu From Wulfram.Gerstner at epfl.ch Mon Dec 16 10:45:40 2002 From: Wulfram.Gerstner at epfl.ch (Wulfram Gerstner) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 16:45:40 +0100 Subject: two workshops in Lausanne (Feb 2003) Message-ID: <3DFDF524.14FE2E58@epfl.ch> Dear connectionists, in order to mark the opening of the new `Brain and Mind Institute' at the EPFL in Lausanne, two conferences will be hosted by the institute: (i) `The 2003 EPFL Latsis Symposium on Neural Coding and Modeling' (Feb 17-19), with an emphasis of theory (ii) The `Brain in Motion' conference (Feb 19-22) with a focus on experiments. Participation is free, but registration via FAX is mandatory. More details are available on the conference WEB pages (i) Neural Coding and Modeling http://diwww.epfl.ch/~gerstner/LATSIS03/index.html (ii) Brain in Motion http://www2.epfl.ch/sv/page12922.html INVITED SPEAKERS (i) The 2003 Latsis Symposium on Neural Coding and Modeling H.D.I Abarbanel, L. Abbott, W. Bialek, N. Brunel, C. Chow, P. Dayan, A. Destexhe, P. Goodman, J.L. van Hemmen J. Hertz, A. Herz, P. Konig, A. Longtin, W. Maass, E. Niebur K. Obermayer, K. Pawelzik, J. Rinzel, W. Senn, A. Treves, M. Tsodyks (ii) Brain in Motion M. Abeles, P. Aebischer, G. Buzsaki, S. Catsicas, M. Cuenod, P. de Camilli J. Defelipe, R. Douglas, Y. Dudai, G. Edelman, Y. Fregnac, T. Freund, S. Grillner, A. Grinvald, M. Hausser, P. Jonas, N. Logothetis, P. Magistretti, H. Markram, K. Martin, A. Matus, M. Merzenich, D. Monard, H. Monyer, D. Muller, M. Nicolelis, C. Peterson, K. Rockland, E. Rouiller, B. Sakmann, M. Schwab, M. Segal, W. Singer, P. Somogyi, M. Sur, A. Thompson, S. Tongawa, E. Welker, R. Yuste Looking forward to seeing you in Lausanne, H. Markram and W. Gerstner From hammer at informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de Mon Dec 16 03:19:11 2002 From: hammer at informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de (Barbara Hammer) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:19:11 +0100 Subject: paper announcement Message-ID: <3DFD8C7F.2080205@informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de> Dear Colleagues, the following recent papers might be of interest to the readers of connectionists: > B.Hammer, T.Villmann, Generalized Relevance Learning Vector Quantization, > Neural Networks 15, 1059-1068, 2002 (http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/barbara/papers/postscripts/grlvq_color.ps.gz) which proposes an intuitive extension of LVQ to an automatically adaptive metric with mathematical precise gradient dynamics and > B.Hammer, M.Strickert, T.Villmann, Learning vector quantization for multimodal data, > in: J.R.Dorronsoro (Ed.), Artificial Neural Networks - ICANN 2002, Springer, 370-375, 2002. (http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/barbara/papers/postscripts/icannsrng_02.ps.gz) which integrates neighborhood cooperation thus low sensitivity to initialization. Best regards Barbara Hammer -- Barbara Hammer, Department of Mathematics/Computer Science University of Osnabrueck, D-49069 Osnabrueck Phone: +49 (0)541 / 969-2488, Fax: +49 (0)541 / 969-2770 http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/barbara/ From lazzaro at CS.Berkeley.EDU Tue Dec 17 14:30:03 2002 From: lazzaro at CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 11:30:03 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212171930.LAA05916@snap.CS.Berkeley.EDU> > Neil Lawrence writes: > > If there is a strong counter argument to the implementation of these > procedures I would like to hear it. Well, I get asked to do implementation reviews for NIPS from time to time. Let's say I get a double-blind paper for organic transistor implementations of neural networks. And I look at the data and the text, and it seems high quality, so I give it a high score. The paper gets in, the double-blind is removed, and I find out Jan Hendrik Schon wrote the paper: http://www.nature.com/nsu/020923/020923-9.html Do I need to say more? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Lazzaro -- Research Specialist -- CS Division -- EECS -- UC Berkeley lazzaro [at] cs [dot] berkeley [dot] edu www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk Tue Dec 17 05:46:37 2002 From: neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk (Neil Lawrence) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:46:37 -0000 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <000001c2a5b9$939c44e0$1e01a8c0@tom> Thanks to the NIPS program committee and the organising committee for another successful meeting. While the conference is on all our minds it seems an appropriate time to open a debate on whether the reviewing process should be double blind. One of the major vision conferences (ICCV) takes this approach, and now that NIPS submissions are handled electronically one would expect it would be easy to implement for NIPS. Whilst this could be brought up directly with the program committee I think the debate is of wider interest, and I've therefore posted to this list. If there is a strong counter argument to the implementation of these procedures I would like to hear it. Neil Lawrence From murphyk at ai.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 16:57:02 2002 From: murphyk at ai.mit.edu (Kevin Patrick Murphy) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:57:02 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212171930.LAA05916@snap.CS.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <3DFF9DAE.A85EBB03@ai.mit.edu> There was a long thread on the UAI list last year discussing the pros and cons of double-blind reviewing: http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~dambrosi/uai-archive-00-01/0905.html As far as I know, UAI decided to stay single blind, I think because the committee decided the benefits did not outweigh the costs. Kevin From wahba at stat.wisc.edu Tue Dec 17 17:03:37 2002 From: wahba at stat.wisc.edu (Grace Wahba) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:03:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Have you ever tried to write a paper without giving any clue to your identity? ("In xxx we proved yyy and in this paper we extend those results"). It can seriously distort the paper. Furthermore, many (most?) people submitting to NIPS put their paper on their home page and even circulate it on this list, so a reviewer would have no trouble finding out who the author was by using, for instance, google. I fail to see any positives to blind reviewing and a lot of negatives. From odowns at analyticalinsights.com Tue Dec 17 17:29:42 2002 From: odowns at analyticalinsights.com (Olly Downs) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 14:29:42 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <008701c2a61b$cba12a60$757ba8c0@Analytical1> I think what is being fought here, is the perception (and in fact admission by one of this year's NIPS Program Committee Members) that in some cases there has been bias against papers submitted by authors affiliated with specific institutions. John Lazzaro's point suggests bias in the opposite direction - does the fact that Jan Hendrik Schon's name is known mean that his work has less integrity than a previously unknown yet equally disreputable author? I believe strongly that double-blind reviewing should be introduced at NIPS. At the same time John's point indicates how thorough reviewers need to be, irrespective of whether they know who wrote the paper they are reviewing, or not. ---- Oliver B. Downs Analytical Insights, Inc. & Princeton University http://www.analyticalinsights.com From jfk at well.com Tue Dec 17 19:07:33 2002 From: jfk at well.com (Jan F Kreider) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 17:07:33 -0700 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <3DFFBC45.E51F5A1B@well.com> I agree with Grace - blindness is costly and worth little. A number of professional societies - ASME, ASHRAE, ISES - that I am familiar with have considered and not adopted this cumbersome and ineffective feature of peer reviewing. Prof. Jan Kreider University of Colorado From bogus@does.not.exist.com Tue Dec 17 20:02:55 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 17:02:55 -0800 Subject: re. double blind reviewing Message-ID: <9805B5E65CD0D0479D08B7EB832B369F06F030B1@red-msg-08.redmond.corp.microsoft.com> From jlm at cnbc.cmu.edu Tue Dec 17 20:16:01 2002 From: jlm at cnbc.cmu.edu (Jay McClelland) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:16:01 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <3DFFBC45.E51F5A1B@well.com> Message-ID: <3DFFCC51.721197D7@cnbc.cmu.edu> For what it is worth, the American Psychological Association, which publishes many journals, allows authors the option to submit their papers 'blinded' if they choose, in case the authors are concerned about bias. I don't know the details on how many papers are in fact submitted that way. I occasionally review for APA journals, and have never seen one that was blinded. My own opinion is that the prior record of the individuals whose papers are being reviewed provides information that on balance improves the review process. Unfortunately there's no doubt that bias is involved and worthy papers are sometimes adversely affected. The bias includes cultural standards of evaluation that may not be objectively optimal along with more specific biases based on reactions to the work of particular individuals or labs. It is difficult for blinding to remove all of this sort of bias, and sometimes as others have said author identity is still apparent. As far as I can tell these issues can only be addressed by keeping them in mind and carefully considering them in the selection of reviewers (and of course in selecting those who select the reviewers!). A reputation for fair and open mindedness is a crucial consideration in editor/reviewer selection. Also, those who have concerns should feel they have the opportunity to have their concerns taken into consideration. -- Jay McClelland From bogus@does.not.exist.com Tue Dec 17 22:16:53 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 19:16:53 -0800 Subject: re. NIPS and double blind reviewing Message-ID: <9805B5E65CD0D0479D08B7EB832B369F06F030B3@red-msg-08.redmond.corp.microsoft.com> From rushi_bhatt at yahoo.com Wed Dec 18 00:00:19 2002 From: rushi_bhatt at yahoo.com (Rushi Bhatt) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:00:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <3DFFCC51.721197D7@cnbc.cmu.edu> Message-ID: <20021218050019.71785.qmail@web20001.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Colleagues, I think Prof. McClelland and Dr. Burges have raised some very valid points. If nothing else, as (I think) pointed out in the UAI discussion thread referred to earlier, an explicitly double-blind review process will re-affirm the requirement that the review process needs to be as bias free as possible. Now to add my $0.02 worth: One might want to look at JAMA 1994 Jul 13;272(2):147-9 (abstract pasted at the end of this message) which suggests that double-blind reviewed journal papers are cited more often. Of course, the analysis has a bunch of caveats and the analysis should have been more rigorous. Also, it seems that citation patterns are different in different scientific fields, so the conclusions may not translate. Perhaps one could perform a similar (but more rigorous) analysis using data from conferences that already have a double-blind reveiw process in our field. Would any ex-conference chairs be willing to contribute some data and help me set up the analysis? Let me know :-) Regards, Rushi Bhatt PhD student CNS, Boston University. _____________________ JAMA 1994 Jul 13;272(2):147-9 A citation analysis of the impact of blinded peer review. Laband DN, Piette MJ. Department of Economics and Finance, Salisbury State University, Md. OBJECTIVE--To determine whether articles published in journals using blinded peer review receive significantly more or fewer citations than those published in journals using nonblinded peer review. DESIGN--Drawing from a sample of 1051 full articles published in 28 economics journals during 1984, we used nonlinear regression and ordered probit techniques to estimate the impact of blinded peer review on citations of these articles in 1985 through 1989. OUTCOMES--Citations of articles. RESULTS--Articles published in journals using blinded peer review were cited significantly more than articles published in journals using nonblinded peer review, controlling for a variety of author, article, and journal attributes. CONCLUSIONS--Nonblinded peer review apparently suffers from type I error to a greater extent than blinded peer review. That is, journals using nonblinded peer review published a larger fraction of papers that should not have been published than do journals using blinded peer review. When reviewers know the identity of the author(s) of an article, they are able to (and evidently do) substitute particularistic criteria for universalistic criteria in their evaluative process. PMID: 8015128 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] --- Jay McClelland wrote: > > For what it is worth, the American Psychological > Association, > which publishes many journals, allows authors the > option to submit > their papers 'blinded' if they choose, in case the > authors > are concerned about bias. I don't know the details > on how > many papers are in fact submitted that way. I > occasionally > review for APA journals, and have never seen one > that was > blinded. > > My own opinion is that the prior record of the > individuals > whose papers are being reviewed provides information > that > on balance improves the review process. > Unfortunately there's no > doubt that bias is involved and worthy papers are > sometimes > adversely affected. The bias includes cultural > standards of > evaluation that may not be objectively optimal along > with > more specific biases based on reactions to the work > of > particular individuals or labs. It is difficult > for blinding > to remove all of this sort of bias, and sometimes as > others have > said author identity is still apparent. As far as I > can > tell these issues can only be addressed by keeping > them in > mind and carefully considering them in the selection > of > reviewers (and of course in selecting those who > select the > reviewers!). A reputation for fair and open > mindedness > is a crucial consideration in editor/reviewer > selection. Also, > those who have concerns should feel they have the > opportunity > to have their concerns taken into consideration. > > -- Jay McClelland __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From bap at cs.unm.edu Wed Dec 18 00:30:47 2002 From: bap at cs.unm.edu (Barak Pearlmutter) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 22:30:47 -0700 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: I've heard three objections to blinded reviews. To my mind, none of them quite hold water. OBJECTION 1: It is hard to conceal the authors' identity against the industrious/perceptive/clueful reviewer. Sometimes clues are unavoidable. WHY IT DOESN'T HOLD WATER: So what? In that case blinding isn't any different from the current situation, so why are you objecting? Not all reviewers have these abilities, so blinding will work completely on them. Besides, even the most perceptive reviewer won't figure it out for all papers, only for some. And even when they think they've figured it out, being 80% sure of the author is, psychologically, very different from being 100% sure. Plus, starting an active search for the author's identity might give a reviewer pause ... OBJECTION 2: Sometimes the reviewer actually needs to know the author, eg for theory papers where whether a proof sketch is believable depends on the author. WHY IT DOESN'T HOLD WATER: Err, really? Well, if the reviewer feels themselves to be in that situation, they can either say so in the review, or ask the program committee for the author's name with a brief explanation as to why. It certainly seems healthy, particularly in this (surely quite rare, and therefore low amortized overhead) situation, to have the first pass through the paper be blind! OBJECTION 3: The author might be a well known plagiarist/crackpot/liar. WHY IT DOESN'T HOLD WATER: This is the program committee's job. Anyway it would be easy enough to reveal the authors' names to the reviewers *after* they have their reviews in, so they can bring such an extraordinary situation to the program committee's attention. From dale at ai.uwaterloo.ca Wed Dec 18 00:46:59 2002 From: dale at ai.uwaterloo.ca (Dale Schuurmans) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:46:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212180546.AAA11763@ai0.uwaterloo.ca> Oh this debate again. I just thought I would save everyone a bunch of time by summarizing the standard arguments for and against double blind refereeing. There is no point in seeing it all come out piecemeal yet again. (I know we've all seen these arguments before, but it is kind of interesting to see them collected in one place.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Standard arguments against double-blind refereeing -------------------------------------------------- 1. It does not work anyway (it is still not double blind). a) A referee can usually identify the author(s) by recognizing the work or the writing style, or noticing the self-references. b) Most authors post their submitted papers on their homepages which makes it easy to discover their identities using Google or Citeseer. c) Double blind refereeing can therefore be thought of as slightly fraudulent because it is not nearly as blind or objective as outsiders would perceive it to be. 2. Knowing the author and institution can help to write a better review. a) The credibility and reputation of the author can help to assess whether a complex piece of theoretical or experimental work has been properly conducted. b) Someone who has already been publically convicted of scientific fraud can falsify their data, write a convincing paper, and still get accepted under double blind refereeing. 3. It implicitly accuses referees of being biased. a) The double blind proposal suggests that referees are currently influenced inappropriately by knowing the identity of authors and their institutions. This shows a lack of trust in one's peers. b) Any potential bias that favors well known authors and institutions is counter-balanced by an opposing bias against such authors and institutions. 4. It is too much extra work for the author to mask their identity. a) Authors should not have to refer to themselves in the third person when writing a scientific paper. This requires additional effort beyond simply reporting their scientific ideas, which seems to be needless and wasteful. b) Authors can circumvent the system by divulging their identity anyway. 6. It is too expensive and time consuming to set up. a) There is a lot of extra effort required on the part of a program committee to set up a double blind reviewing system. b) It requires extra effort for referees to assess a paper if they do not know who's work they are assessing. 7. The current system is already working well. a) Everything is going fine with the single blind reviewing system just the way it is. Submissions are up. Attendance is up. Everybody is happy. Why fix it if it isn't broken? Standard conclusion against: The benefits are debatable and do not justify the costs. Standard arguments for double blind refereeing ---------------------------------------------- 1. It objectively improves the reviews and the review system. a) Referees are relieved of the distraction of knowing who performed the work and where it was performed, which allows them to focus more clearly on the science instead of the scientist. b) The assessment of quality is based on exposition rather than reputation. c) The benefit of the doubt is handed out more fairly to insiders and outsiders alike, based only on what was said---not who said it. d) Review quality is improved because it is harder for a referee to be careless and dismissive when they do not actually know the identity of the author(s) or the institution they submitted from. 2. It greatly improves the perception of fairness. a) Authors of rejected papers are more likely to take the referees comments at face value and not presume that they were mistreated on the basis of who they were as opposed to what they said. b) This leads to less overall complaining, less emotionally charged email sent to program chairs, and more effort spent on improving the basic research and expository capabilities. 3. It allows easier access to outsiders and their ideas. a) It helps researchers from other communities cross disciplinary boundaries because they can immediately establish their credibility based on relevant knowledge, rather than have their viewpoints dismissed merely because their prior reputation has not yet reached the target community. This can encourage cross fertilization between research communities, and mitigate the over-convergence effects of small social groups. b) It helps young researchers who are just starting out, again because reputation is factored out of the assessment. c) It helps researchers at lesser known institutions for the same reason. 4. It does not necessarily accuse referees of cognizant bias. a) No serious experimental science ignores the effect of subject and experimenter bias in experimental design. The point is not that subjects and experimenters consciously thwart objective investigation, but that they cannot avoid affecting the outcome, even unconsciously, if they know what is being investigated. Similarly, referees are subject to the same unconscious effects, whether they would like to be or not. 5. Communities that adopt double blind refereeing system do not go back. a) Several high quality communities have adopted double blind refereeing in the past decade (e.g. SIGGRAPH, SIGMOD, ICCV, ACL, AAAI, IJCAI). None of these communities have ever contemplated reverting to a single blind refereeing system. This suggests that double blind refereeing has conferred a perceived tangible improvement to these communities---at least in their eyes. Standard conclusion for: The only reasons why this isn't standard practice in every scientific community are inertia and the fact that the main beneficiaries of the single blind refereeing system are exactly the ones responsible for changing it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope I haven't misrepresented these arguments or missed any significant ones. Dale From tishby at cs.huji.ac.il Wed Dec 18 01:57:40 2002 From: tishby at cs.huji.ac.il (Naftali Tishby) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:57:40 +0200 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> I completely agree with Grace. In the NIPS community in particular we have several leading research groups, that are familiar to everyone, for which authors identity can be very easily revealed. On the other hand, no one can argue that NIPS is not open to new ideas and new authors - this has been and still is the most fresh and open minded scientific community I know. In fact I am much more concerned with the fact that the NIPS program committee is getting younger and inexperienced every year. I am aware of several cases where the committee - which knows the identities of both authors and reviewers - has overridden the reviewers. This NIPS tradition is certainly OK, but it requires much more experienced program committee members. Tali Tishby ----- Original Message ----- From cyril.goutte at xrce.xerox.com Wed Dec 18 03:15:36 2002 From: cyril.goutte at xrce.xerox.com (Cyril Goutte) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:15:36 +0100 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <200212180815.gBI8FbGo024915@meije.grenoble.xrce.xerox.com> Dear connectionists, This seems like a good time to point to one of Luc Devroye's "musings": The case against blind refereeing http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/blindreferee.html which actually contains some amusing new arguments in addition to the old stuff. Would it be conceivable that NIPS take an innovative step in the opposite direction by becoming one of the first conferences to adopt fully open refereeing ? (ie publicising also referees identities) Cyril. -- Cyril.Goutte at xrce.xerox.com http://www.xrce.xerox.com Xerox Research Center Europe - 6 ch. de Maupertuis - F-38240 Meylan From z.li at ucl.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 05:48:09 2002 From: z.li at ucl.ac.uk (Li Zhaoping) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 10:48:09 -0000 Subject: roles and ... RE: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000b01c2a682$f54fc440$b07ba8c0@dhcp4> I support Barak's point of view. Once we clearly separate the roles of the reviewers, editors, and program committees, such that reviewers do not try to assume the jobs of the editors and the program committees, the only cost of blind reviewing is the cost of implementing it, which the editors and program committees can decide whether it is very easy or too difficult to implement. The authors and the reviewers can both influence the degree of benefit of the blind reviewing, by making the author identity apparent or not apparent. Li Zhaoping -----Original Message----- From rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 06:15:52 2002 From: rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bob Damper) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:15:52 +0000 (GMT) Subject: double blind reviewing Message-ID: Some anecdotes from personal experience: * When I was a young researcher, my first ever submission to IEEE Transactions was rejected with the following parting shot from one of the reviewers: ``I have never heard of this author''. It was clear (given what had gone before) that this was intended to be the clinching criticism. The paper was finally accepted and published after a lengthy appeal to the Editor in Chief and comprehensive re-reviewing which delayed publication beyond even the IEEE Transaction's usual two year span. * A recent (accepted) submission to a journal elicited the response from one reviewer that ``... this author has worked with some of the best people in the field''. Ignoring the fact that this is a form of damning with faint praise, what does it tell you about this reviewer's perceptions of the process? A friend and colleague once offered the opinion ``... the trouble with peer reviewing is that it's done by PEOPLE, like you and me''. OK, so these look, de facto, like arguments for double-blind reviewing. Yet I accept that there are cons as well as pros (as detailed by other contributers to this debate) and, as an editor and workshop chair, I have never opted for it. Bob. *************************************************************** * R I Damper PhD * * Reader and Head: * * Image, Speech and Intelligent Systems (ISIS) * * Research Group * * Building 1 * * Department of Electronics and Computer Science * * University of Southampton * * Southampton SO17 1BJ * * England * * * * Tel: +44 (0) 23 8059 4577 (direct) * * FAX: +44 (0) 23 8059 4498 * * Email: rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk * * WWW: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~rid * * * *************************************************************** From michael at jupiter.chaos.gwdg.de Wed Dec 18 06:33:38 2002 From: michael at jupiter.chaos.gwdg.de (Michael Herrmann) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 12:33:38 +0100 (CET) Subject: double blind review Message-ID: Another objection contra double blind review and a reason pro triple blind review (the reviewer does not know whether the identity of the author is hidden): Even if authors are not allowed to explicitely mention their names they cannot be prevented from revealing their identity indirectly. They will be able to do so if they are well known to the community, and they will tend to do so if they believe this increases the probability of acceptance. Therefore double blind reviewing could introduce a bias against younger scientists and researchers from other fields. One may even suspect that the reason that journals or conferences stay with double blind reviewing once it was adopted, is that people of influence are quite happy with this bias. On the other hand, history of science tells that many now famous scholars used pseudonyms if they had reasons to be afraid of an unjust acceptance by the community. The program committee should thus consider to allow for fake identities during the review process. Authors who wish to make use of this opportunity should be willing to take some extra effort and to manage to arrange things such that the paper does not need to be rewritten when the true identity is revealed after acceptance of the manuscript. This would also help to reduce the bias in favor of well-known authors because the very famous names are likely to have been hijacked by someone else. It is unlikely that such an opportunity will be overused also because there is always a chance that the reviewer realizes that the identity is faked and tends to be more critical in such cases. Michael (?) ********************************************************************* * Dr. J. Michael Herrmann Georg August University Goettingen * * Tel. : +49 (0)551 5176424 Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics * * Fax : +49 (0)551 5176439 Bunsenstr. 10, D-37073 Goettingen * * EMail: michael at chaos.gwdg.de http://www.chaos.gwdg.de * ********************************************************************* From irezek at robots.ox.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 06:52:54 2002 From: irezek at robots.ox.ac.uk (Iead Rezek) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:52:54 +0000 Subject: NCAF Meeting Announcement, Aston 22-23 January 2003 Message-ID: <3E006196.1C0391C@robots.ox.ac.uk> Dear All, NCAF is UK group with interests in Natural Computing Applications and Research. NCAF holds three times a year discussing recent developments in Academia as well as Industry: talks range form high theoretical to completely applied. All interested parties are welcome, and we encourage students in particular to attend. Registration is now open for the next NCAF meeting at Aston University, 22-23 January 2003. The special theme for this meeting is Applications in Medicine and Biology. The NCAF AGM will also take place after lunch on the second day. Please refer to the web site at http://ncaf.org.uk (or http://www.ncaf.co.uk) for further information. The "Meetings" page (accessible from the home page and menu bar) contains the full programme. >From the "Meetings" page you can get to the "Venue Details" for information on location, maps, parking, accommodation and full social programme. There is also a link to the on-line registration form. There will be a poster session for students at lunchtime on the second day. See the website for more details or contact Ian Nabney (i.t.nabney at aston.ac.uk). PLEASE TRY TO REGISTER BY 14 JANUARY 2003, although we can deal with bookings after this date. We would always rather take a late booking than have you miss the meeting! However, reserving catering in case of late bookings can leave us financially exposed. The alternative is to keep guarantees at a conservative level and hope that the venue can cope with late additions. It's a delicate balancing act which we have to do at every meeting. We appreciate any help you can give us to minimise the stress and uncertainty that this process routinely brings. Book as early as possible and you'll be helping us out a great deal. As further encouragement to book in good time, all those registered by 8 January 2003 will be entered into a free prize draw for a bottle of quality wine! The draw and award will take place at the meeting. [NCAF Officers are not eligible for this draw.] Also, there is an upcoming one day discussion meeting on "Independent Component Analysis: Generalisations, Algorithms and Applications" to be held at Queen Mary, University of London on Fri 20 Dec 2002. This meeting is supported by IEE, NCAF and QMUL. Details are appended to this email. Many thanks, Graham Hesketh NCAF Chairman email: graham.hesketh at rolls-royce.com phone: 01332 246989 NB - Please pass this email on to anyone you think may be interested. If this is a redundant reminder, please ignore it. If you want to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to this message with "remove" as the message body. Independent Component Analysis: Generalisations, Algorithms and Applications A one day discussion meeting supported by IEE, NCAF and QMUL. At Department of Electronic Engineering Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS UK Friday 20th December 2002 http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/ica Overview Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a new field of research emerging from the areas of nonGaussian Signal Processing, Neural Networks and probabilistic modelling. It has been heralded by some as the new Principal Component Analysis (PCA) but, in stark contrast to traditional 2nd order methods, it has been able to effectively solve the Blind Signal Separation Problem (BSS). Recent research has generated a number of classic algorithms for this purpose and these are already being applied to a broad range of problems from telecommunications to analysing medical data. Current research is concentrating on generalizations of the basic ICA model: more sources than sensors, convolutive and nonlinear mixing, the effects of noise, etc., and there is also a growing body of emerging applications aiming to exploit ICA. The purpose of this one day discussion meeting is to bring together practitioners from the various different disciplines interested in ICA and to explore the future directions of this field. The programme will comprise a series of seminars on aspects of ICA, its generalisations and applications. The day will conclude with a discussion on future research directions. The event will take place in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary, University of London. We have detailed travel instructions and a 3D map indicating the department's location on campus. There is a nominal attendence fee of 25 to cover food and administration. To register please complete the registration form by 6th December 2002. Attendees interested in presenting a poster are encouraged to contact Mike Davies for details. Provisional Programme 09:30 Registration and coffee: foyer of Peoples Palace ICA Theory & Generalizations 10:00 Blind Source Separation with convolutive mixtures, John McWhirter, Qinetiq 10:30 Extensions of Hebbian Learning which perform ICA Colin Fyfe, Paisley University 11:00 Coffee: foyer of Peoples Palace 11:30 Non-negative ICA Mark Plumbley, QMUL 12.00 The Generative Topographic Mapping for nonlinear ICA Richard Everson, Exeter University 12:30 Lunch: foyer of Peoples Palace Applications 14:00 Has the permutation problem in Transform Domain BSS been solved? Jonathon Chambers, Kings College London 14.30 The cocktail party problem: solutions and problems Mike Davies, Queen Mary University of London 15:00 Tea: Foyer of Peoples Palace 15:30 Application of BSS to Space Time Coded Wireless Communications Darren Ward, Imperial College London 16:00 Application of BSS to blind identification and equalization of digital communication channels Asoke Nandi, Liverpool University 16:30 Discussion: "Future Directions in ICA" 17:00 Close The data contained in, or attached to, this e-mail, may contain confidential information. If you have received it in error you should notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail, delete the message from your system and contact +44(0)1332 248119 (the Rolls-Royce IT Security Director) if you need assistance. Please do not copy it for any purpose, or disclose its contents to any other person. An e-mail response to this address may be subject to interception or monitoring for operational reasons or for lawful business practices. (c) 2002 Rolls-Royce plc From ebaum at rcn.com Wed Dec 18 09:03:28 2002 From: ebaum at rcn.com (Eric Baum) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:03:28 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> Message-ID: <15872.32816.175241.184261@rcn.com> There is at least one historical precedent where evidence indicates that bias was influencing selection, in spite of the fact that such bias was denied by the referees, and where the bias was subsequently ameliorated through blind reviewing. From sandro at northwestern.edu Wed Dec 18 09:08:48 2002 From: sandro at northwestern.edu (Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:08:48 -0600 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> Message-ID: <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> I have had my fair share of accepted and rejected papers. So, I speak out of experience. When your paper is rejected it hurts. You worked hard and you get canned with some dismissing comments. It hurts. So, thank god, we have a resource that helps us not to hang ourselves at the nearest post. Conspiracy theories. If you are young and unknown: the paper was rejected because you dont belong to that old boys network. If you are more seasoned and famous: the paper was rejected because evidently the reviewer hates my guts. Both way it hurts. But it is far better than: my paper was rejected because it was a bunch of bull. Which comes right before suicide. True, reviewers are human. But there is something funny about human perception of human behavior. We are all absolutely convinced of being fair. I do not know of a single person that, when asked about her/his ability to exercise fair judgment will say: when I review a paper I dont really mind the quality, what count are my preexisting feelings about the author. Nobody says or thinks so. But we all are more than willing to assume that our colleagues do just this. Perhaps (or certainly) there is some bias when it comes to reviewing. It is a human thing, after all. Double blinding seems to be just a tenuous band-aid. It may give the impression that the problem has been fixed (if there is really a problem). But this can make the process even more misleading. Because, as it was pointed out by some, in many cases it will simply be impossible to conceal the identity of the authors. And it will not prevent those devious reviewers (I mean, not me, the others) from making hypotheses and speculations about the authors identity and to apply the bias perhaps against the wrong target. Would this make the process any better? Cheers Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi From steve at cns.bu.edu Wed Dec 18 09:43:27 2002 From: steve at cns.bu.edu (Stephen Grossberg) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:43:27 -0500 Subject: modeling cerebral cortical dynamics Message-ID: The following article is now available at http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg in PDF: Raizada, R. and Grossberg, S. (2003). Towards a Theory of the Laminar Architecture of Cerebral Cortex: Computational Clues from the Visual System. Cerebral Cortex One of the most exciting and open research frontiers in neuroscience is that of seeking to understand the functional roles of the layers of cerebral cortex. New experimental techniques for probing the laminar circuitry of cortex have recently been developed, opening up novel opportunities for investigating how its six-layered architecture contributes to perception and cognition. The task of trying to interpret this complex structure can be facilitated by theoretical analyses of the types of computations that cortex is carrying out, and of how these might be implemented in specific cortical circuits. We have recently developed a detailed neural model of how the parvocellular stream of the visual cortex utilizes its feedforward, feedback and horizontal interactions for purposes of visual filtering, attention and perceptual grouping. This model, called LAMINART, shows how these perceptual processes relate to the mechanisms that ensure the stable development of cortical circuits in the infant, and to the continued stability of learning in the adult. The present article reviews this laminar theory of visual cortex, considers how it may be generalized towards a more comprehensive theory that encompasses other cortical areas and cognitive processes, and shows how its laminar framework generates a variety of testable predictions. From D.Palmer-Brown at lmu.ac.uk Wed Dec 18 10:28:09 2002 From: D.Palmer-Brown at lmu.ac.uk (Palmer-Brown, Dominic [IES]) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:28:09 -0000 Subject: re. double blind reviewing Message-ID: Double blind reviewing can't, in my view, do any harm. If people want it, they should have it. On the other hand, it doesn't really address the issue of bias. When i was an editor, the most pervasive form of bias i encountered was for/against ideas and paradigms. Any fair system must take this into account. Double-blind reviewing is no guarantee of that. Dominic Palmer-Brown. From s.geva at qut.edu.au Tue Dec 17 20:43:21 2002 From: s.geva at qut.edu.au (Shlomo Geva) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:43:21 +1000 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212171930.LAA05916@snap.CS.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20021218105013.00bfa9c0@mail.qut.edu.au> At 11:30 17/12/02 -0800, John Lazzaro wrote: > > Neil Lawrence writes: > > > > If there is a strong counter argument to the implementation of these > > procedures I would like to hear it. > >Well, I get asked to do implementation reviews for NIPS from time to >time. Let's say I get a double-blind paper for organic transistor >implementations of neural networks. And I look at the data and the >text, and it seems high quality, so I give it a high score. > >The paper gets in, the double-blind is removed, and I find out Jan >Hendrik Schon wrote the paper: > >http://www.nature.com/nsu/020923/020923-9.html > >Do I need to say more? Sure. * Did the above-mentioned physicist get through a double-blind review loophole - I think not! * There is the case of William McBride who discovered the link between Thalidomide and its genetic effects : http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s248519.htm. Again, ordinary review processes did not uncover the problem. Did eminence and fame let a publication in through the eminence and fame review loophole? Did eminence and fame make it more tempting to engage in less than perfect research practices? Regards, Shlomo Shlomo Geva, PhD Centre for Information Technology Innovation QUT, Australia From tbreuel at parc.com Wed Dec 18 04:57:46 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 01:57:46 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <20021218095746.GD16422@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 02:03:37PM -0800, Grace Wahba wrote: > Have you ever tried to write a paper without giving any > clue to your identity? I try to write all my papers that way. > ("In xxx we proved yyy and in this paper we extend those results"). You presumably cite papers by other authors all the time without using personal pronouns. So, you can treat reference "xxx" the way you would treat it as if it had been written by any other author: "Xxx proved yyy. This paper extends those results." What need is there to indicate, in addition to this, that you personally were the author of the paper that proved "yyy"? > Furthermore, many (most?) people submitting to > NIPS put their paper on their home page and even circulate > it on this list, so a reviewer would have no trouble > finding out who the author was by using, for instance, > google. Well, blind review isn't always possible, but in some disciplines and publications, undermining blind review unnecessarily may lead to rejection. This might be the use of phrases like "In xxx we proved yyy" or putting a draft copy of a paper on a public web site or some other action. And a reviewer that knows who the author of a paper is may be expected to excuse himself. > I fail to see any positives to blind reviewing > and a lot of negatives. Open reviewing is clearly fine for workshops or conferences that aren't very competitive. But many long-established academic disciplines have decided that blind reviewing is necessary for key conferences or journals, even though it isn't perfect and even though it is more work. I think NIPS may have reached the level of importance where blind reviewing may be desirable. Thomas. From glen at salk.edu Wed Dec 18 20:00:04 2002 From: glen at salk.edu (Glen D. Brown) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:00:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212180815.gBI8FbGo024915@meije.grenoble.xrce.xerox.com> Message-ID: <20021218165121.E25314-100000@wald.salk.edu> how about on the specified day, everyone post their papers on the internet and put links (or the papers themselves) at the nips site. reviews may be done by anyone. then use the consensus process to decide which are the most deserving. if the group cannot decide by discussion, then a choice voting system could be used to select the best papers. authors could agree to review at least three papers choosen at random within their area of expertise. who votes? authors? + big shots? + anybody who seems qualified? glen On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Cyril Goutte wrote: > > > Dear connectionists, > > This seems like a good time to point to one of Luc Devroye's > "musings": > > The case against blind refereeing > http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/blindreferee.html > > which actually contains some amusing new arguments in addition > to the old stuff. > > > Would it be conceivable that NIPS take an innovative step in > the opposite direction by becoming one of the first conferences > to adopt fully open refereeing ? > (ie publicising also referees identities) > > > Cyril. > > -- > Cyril.Goutte at xrce.xerox.com http://www.xrce.xerox.com > Xerox Research Center Europe - 6 ch. de Maupertuis - F-38240 Meylan > From tbell at rni.org Wed Dec 18 16:53:25 2002 From: tbell at rni.org (Tony Bell) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:53:25 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <000001c2a6df$e44685a0$7201a8c0@rni.org> Two more arguments FOR. 1. It will be even more fun trying to guess the authors than it is trying to guess your reviewers. 2. We can pretend to be other people. This would broaden our research and our empathy functions. Next year I hope to submit something apparently co-authored by Martin Wainwright, Jonathan Yedidia and Ilya Nemenman. Any abuses of this new freedom can be easily caught by the Program Committee with minimal extra effort. Tony tony at salk.edu or tbell at rni.org 650-321-8282 x238 From meyoung at siu.edu Thu Dec 19 00:43:52 2002 From: meyoung at siu.edu (Michael Young) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 23:43:52 -0600 Subject: double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As someone who is very familiar with the research on human judgment and decision making, it's clear that bias does exist in reviewing because it clearly exists in every facet of human judgment. There are halo effects related to authors and institutions as well as paradigms. Being at Harvard, CMU, etc., gives you a boost in reputation that people at more obscure institutions do not get. The people in power typically come from the strong institutions and thus have little incentive to change a system that benefits them. A band-aid solution is always available - allow submitters to opt for double-blind review. The problem, of course, is that this creates a stigma for the ms - the authors must have something to hide. There's no easy solution, but pretending that scientists are somehow immune to normal human decision making biases simply isn't tenable. Too much evidence exists to the contrary. Cheers, Mike -- Dr. Michael E. Young http://www.siu.edu/~psycho/bcs/young.html Southern Illinois University 618/453-3567 271F Life Sciences II Carbondale, IL 62901-6502 From jdc at Princeton.EDU Wed Dec 18 21:18:24 2002 From: jdc at Princeton.EDU (Jonathan D. Cohen) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 21:18:24 -0500 Subject: Postdoctoral positions available Message-ID: <26EB1380-12F8-11D7-9716-000393B622EC@princeton.edu> Postdoctoral Fellowship in Quantitative Neuroscience, Princeton University. Positions are available under support from a training grant from the National Inistitute of Mental Health for training in quantitative neuroscience. The purpose of this training grant is to provide neuroscience trainees with the quantitative skills needed to keep pace with the rapid advances in neuroscientific theory and methodology, and to make progress in understanding the complexity of systems-level function in the brain. Information about the training program is available at http://neuroscience.princeton.edu/neurotraininggrant.html. Applicants should have strong quantitative skills and a Ph.D. in neuroscience, psychology, biology, or a related discipline. Areas of research include the mathematical analysis and/or development of computational models of neural network functioning, the development of new methods for signal processing and statistical analysis of complex neuroscientific data (e.g., multiunit neuronal recordings, neuroimaging datasets, etc.), and the application of these methods to system-level studies of brain function. Opportunities available immediately; stipend commensurate with experience. Applications should consist of a brief statement of research interests (2-3 pages), three letters of reference, and may also include an indication of the faculty member(s) with whom the candidate would like to work. Applications should be sent to Wendy Morelock (morelock at princeton.edu) with "POSTDOC QUANT NEURO" in the subject heading. PU/EO/AAE From isbell at cc.gatech.edu Thu Dec 19 12:21:06 2002 From: isbell at cc.gatech.edu (isbell@cc.gatech.edu) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 12:21:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> Message-ID: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> Well, it's a good thing that life isn't fair. What a horrible burden to carry, knowing that you deserve everything that ever happens to you. Anyway, it strikes me that bias need not be a bad thing (insert bias v variance joke in here), but it's probably best kept at the editor/PC level, not at the reviewer level. The only real cost of blind reviewing for the author is that it's a pain to make a good faith effort to hide one's identity. The only real cost to the reviewer is that the author's identity might actually be genuinely relevant... but how often is that the case? Peace. -- Charles L. Isbell Georgia Tech College of Computing @: CRB 380 801 Atlantic Avenue W: 404 385 4304 Atlanta GA 30332-0280 F: 404 894 2970 Don't just adopt opinions develop them From eliasmith at uwaterloo.ca Thu Dec 19 11:44:38 2002 From: eliasmith at uwaterloo.ca (Chris Eliasmith) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 11:44:38 -0500 Subject: Neural Engineering, A new book from MIT Press Message-ID: Eliasmith, C. and C. H. Anderson (2003). Neural Engineering: Computation, Representation, and Dynamics in Neurobiological Systems. MIT Press. See also http://compneuro.uwaterloo.ca/bookinfo.html From jason at cs.jhu.edu Thu Dec 19 13:32:57 2002 From: jason at cs.jhu.edu (Jason Eisner) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:32:57 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <200212180546.AAA11763@ai0.uwaterloo.ca> (message from Dale Schuurmans on Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:46:59 -0500 (EST)) References: <200212180546.AAA11763@ai0.uwaterloo.ca> Message-ID: <538-Thu19Dec2002133257-0500-jason@cs.jhu.edu> > I just thought I would save everyone a bunch of time > by summarizing the standard arguments for and against > double blind refereeing. There is no point in seeing > it all come out piecemeal yet again. > > (I know we've all seen these arguments before, but it is > kind of interesting to see them collected in one place.) > ... > I hope I haven't misrepresented these arguments > or missed any significant ones. Hi Dale! Very cogent and balanced summary. Your benefit #2, "perception of fairness," does have a couple of other subbenefits worth mentioning: - Grad students are much heartened by the assurance that the game is really about research and not politics. I can't overstate this. - Outsiders also want this assurance -- especially outsiders from neighboring communities where double-blind conference reviewing is so much the norm that it seems like a basic matter of academic ethics. While I've been on Connectionists since 1990, and often read NIPS papers, I have never yet attended NIPS or submitted to it. So I was surprised to read here that NIPS does *not* use double-blind reviewing. It does lower the prestige I attach to a NIPS citation. -best, jason From gutkin at cnbc.cmu.edu Thu Dec 19 11:14:30 2002 From: gutkin at cnbc.cmu.edu (Boris Gutkin) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 16:14:30 +0000 Subject: Announcement for Les Houches Summer School in Neurophysics (August 2003) Message-ID: <3E01F066.40603@cnbc.cmu.edu> * NATO Advanced Study Institute * METHODS AND MODELS IN NEUROPHYSICS METHODES ET MODELES EN NEUROPHYSIQUE July 28 - August 29, 2003 *Scientific Direction:* C. C. Chow (Pittsburgh, USA) B. Gutkin (London, UK) D. Hansel (Paris, France) C. Meunier (Paris, France) I. Segev (Jerusalem, Israel) *Opening lecture: * E. Marder (Waltham, USA) /Why would a self-respecting experimental biologist be susceptible to theory?/ *Lecture series:* L. Abbott (Waltham, USA): /Synaptic plasticity and learning/. P. Bressloff (Salt Lake City, USA): /Pattern formation and visual cortex./ E. Brown (Boston, USA): /Statistical analysis of data./ J. Rinzel (New York, USA): /Non-linear dynamics of neurons./ H. Sompolinsky (Jerusalem, Israel): /Theory of large networks: from spikes to behavior./ D. Terman (Colombus, USA): /Singular perturbations analysis of neuronal dynamics./ T. Tishby (Jerusalem, Israel): /Biological information processing - an information theoretic perspective/ *Shorter Lectures and seminars:* N. Brunel (Paris, France): /Stochastic dynamics of neurons. /W. Gerstner (Lausanne, Switzerland): /Models of synaptic plasticity./ D. Golomb (Beersheva, Israel): /Propagating activity in cortical circuits./ G. Mato (Bariloche, Argentina): /Theory of neural synchrony./ C. Pouzat (Paris, France): /Techniques for spike sorting./ M. Shelley (New York, USA): /Large scale models of primary visual cortex./ A. Treves (Trieste, Italy):/ Information-theoretic approach to the evolution of the mammalian cortex/ M. Tsodyks (Rehovot, Israel): /Synaptic dynamics/. C. van Vreeswijk (Paris, France): /Balancing excitation and inhibition in large networks./ F. Wolf (Gottingen, Germany): /A theory of cortical maps./ These lectures will be complemented by short topical workshops dedicated to specific neurophysiological issues and experimental aspects. *Scientific Program: ** * Many concepts and methods borrowed from Theoretical Physics, Dynamical Systems Theory, Signal Processing and Information Theory have been introduced, elaborated and used over the past years to study the nervous system. This school will focus largely on analytical approaches with a strong emphasis on the underlying physical concepts and on the mathematical techniques. It will provide the participants with the appropriate background for research in Neurophysics. In parallel, through the talks given by experimentalists during the workshops, the participants will become acquainted with some of the open issues in Neuroscience, particularly those in the somatosensory and the motor systems. This summer school is aimed at young researchers and established scientists with a background in Physics or Mathematics. *Registrations:* Applications must be received by the School before March 7, 2003 in order to be considered by the selection committee. The full cost per participant, including housing, meals and the lectures book, is 1500 euros. Thanks to financial support by various funding agencies, a contribution of only 900 euros/participant is requested. A few additional grants are available. Application forms and additional information are available from the School at Ecole d'?t? de Physique th?orique La C?te des Chavants 74310 Les Houches, France Phone: +33 -4 50 54 40 69 - Fax: +33 -4 50 55 53 25 Email: secretariat.houches at ujf-grenoble.fr Web:http://www-houches.ujf-grenoble.fr/ You can also download the registration forms (format A4 pdf rtf ; US Letter pdf rtf ) Les Houches is a resort village in the Chamonix valley in the French Alps. Established in 1951, the Physics School is located in a group of chalets surrounded by meadows and woods, at an altitude of 1150 m facing the Mont-Blanc range - a very favourable environment for intellectual activity in ideal surroundings for hiking, mountaineering and sight-seeing. The Physics School is affiliated with Universit? Joseph Fourier of Grenoble and Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble , and is supported by the Minist?re de la Jeunesse, de l'Education Nationale et de la Recherche , by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS ) and by the Direction des Sciences de la Mati?re du Commissariat ? l'Energie Atomique (CEA/DSM ). This session is supported by the NATO Advanced Study Institute program (ASI 979042), by IBRO and by CNRS From becker at mcmaster.ca Thu Dec 19 15:57:55 2002 From: becker at mcmaster.ca (S. Becker) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 15:57:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> Message-ID: Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. -- Sue Becker, Associate Professor Department of Psychology, McMaster University becker at mcmaster.ca Building 34, Room 312 Fax: (905)529-6225 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ont. L8S 4K1 Tel: 525-9140 ext. 23020 www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/sb.html From pelillo at dsi.unive.it Fri Dec 20 09:08:31 2002 From: pelillo at dsi.unive.it (Marcello Pelillo) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 15:08:31 +0100 (MET) Subject: NIPS and rebuttals? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Let me digress a little bit from the current discussion about double- vs. single-blind reviews. This year at CVPR there's a chance for authors to view the reviews before the PC meeting and submit a brief "rebuttal": --- FROM THE CVPR WEB PAGE --- New for CVPR 2003: Author Response to Reviewer Comments Authors of all submitted papers will have the opportunity to view the (anonymous) reviews for their papers and submit a brief 'rebuttal' statement prior to the CVPR Area Chairs' Meeting where final decisions will be made. Note that the time window where such statements can be submitted will be limited to 4 days, as the schedule will be tight. ------------------------------ I think it's a good idea. Although difficult to implemet (I can well imagine lots of people complaining about their "bad" reviews...), it would make the decision process fairer. After all, this is what happens in journal submissions: when one is unhappy with some review, he/she can always complain with the AE/EiC and point out its flaws. ________________________________________________________________________ Marcello Pelillo Dipartimento di Informatica Universita' Ca' Foscari di Venezia Via Torino 155, 30172 Venezia Mestre, Italy Tel: (39) 041 2348.440 Fax: (39) 041 2348.419 E-mail: pelillo at dsi.unive.it URL: http://www.dsi.unive.it/~pelillo From anand at speech.sri.com Fri Dec 20 12:47:04 2002 From: anand at speech.sri.com (Anand Venkataraman) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 09:47:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: (becker@mcmaster.ca) Message-ID: <200212201747.JAA03777@clara> > Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a > paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS > that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous > work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another > conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have > often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess > the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind > reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. Sorry, but this is not a valid objection to the double blind review procedure. Reviewers are supposed to be familiar and up-to-date with the research in the area and are not supposed to have to look up the author's web page to see what the "most recent" published work on the topic is. & From chrisb at prgm.net Fri Dec 20 09:51:08 2002 From: chrisb at prgm.net (Christine Bolbirer) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 09:51:08 -0500 Subject: double blind review Message-ID: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> If what the author is communicating in his or her paper is truly ground breaking and worthy of recognition then with enough effort it will be recognized (if not by the NIPS reviewers then the scientific community in general). This process of bind, double blind for the sake of "fairness" is nothing but an ego trip on both sides. Call me naive or worse but that's just how it seems to me. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Fri Dec 20 15:29:53 2002 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 12:29:53 -0800 Subject: Re. NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: <9805B5E65CD0D0479D08B7EB832B369F06F030BC@red-msg-08.redmond.corp.microsoft.com> From tgd at cs.orst.edu Fri Dec 20 17:20:30 2002 From: tgd at cs.orst.edu (Thomas G. Dietterich) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:20:30 -0800 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> (tbreuel@parc.com) References: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> Message-ID: <41-Fri20Dec2002142030-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> >>>>> "t" == tbreuel writes: t> On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 12:57:55PM -0800, S. Becker wrote: >> Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a >> paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS >> that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous >> work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another >> conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have >> often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess >> the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind >> reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. t> Originality needs to be judged relative to the entire published t> literature anyway. If the reviewer is familiar with the literature, t> that determination should not require knowing who the author is. t> In different words, it doesn't matter whether Smith's submission to NIPS t> is very similar to Smith's previous submission to some other conference t> or merely very similar to Jones's submission to some other conference, t> and a reviewer familiar with the literature should know both Smith's t> and Jones's prior work. t> If the reviewer needs to know the identity of the author in order to t> find prior work in the area, I think the reviewer is not sufficiently t> qualified to review the paper in the first place. I don't think this last remark is fair. There is a huge potentially relevant literature out there! Do you know every paper published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE PAMI, Machine Learning, Journal of Machine Learning Research, Statistical Science, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Computatational and Graphical Statistics, Technometrics, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, as well as the proceedings of all of the relevant conferences? I don't! t> Thomas. I'm not opposed to blind reviewing, but I think you must admit that knowing the author's name makes it much easier to check whether they have previously published a similar article! --Tom From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 03:08:28 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:08:28 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> References: <200212172203.QAA29510@juno.stat.wisc.edu> <07de01c2a662$c1a02920$11284184@Tishbyoffice> <3E008170.760E9276@northwestern.edu> Message-ID: <20021220080828.GA14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 06:08:48AM -0800, Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi wrote: > If you are young and unknown: the paper was rejected because you > dont belong to that old boys network. If you are more seasoned and famous: > the paper was rejected because evidently the reviewer hates my guts. Both way > it hurts. But it is far better than: my paper was rejected because it was a > bunch of bull. Which comes right before suicide. Actually, I think a far more common situation is that the paper was rejected because the reviewer didn't understand it despite making a reasonable effort. Often, this is because I, the author, didn't explain things well enough. That's fine, I can live with that. I do expect enough feedback from the reviewer to be able to fix things, however. But frequently, it is also because either the reviewer has only a superficial knowledge of the subject, because the reviewer has a pet theory and will reject any theory that doesn't agree with it, or because he just didn't bother reading the paper very well. Well-known researchers in a field are given the benefit of the doubt, so reviewers will try harder to understand their papers, while papers by less well-known researchers are dismissed quickly. In fact, people on this list have even expressed the opinion that this is the way things should be done--taking account the reputation of the researcher in the assessment of the strength and validity of results. I strongly disagree with that view. Double blind reviewing addresses this specific problem because reviewers have less opportunity to take into account the reputation of the authors in their evaluation. Double blind reviewing doesn't fix many other problems, though. Reviewers who just don't know the particular subject well, or reviewers who have a pet theory and dislike any other theory, simply cannot perform a good review, double blind or not. Addressing those issues is the responsibility of editors. Editors should examine the reviews returned by the reviewers, and they should look carefully at the feedback from authors in response to a review. Based on those, a responsible editor can spot problems with reviewers help the reviewer to improve his approach to reviewing, or avoid using the same reviewer again in the future. While that approach isn't feasible for a conference, CVPR this year, in addition to using double-blind reviewing, is soliciting feedback from authors on their reviews (but not revised manuscripts); those are used to identify out particularly problematic or sloppy reviewers and remove their recommendations from consideration. Incidentally, the stated rule of CVPR is also that any papers that attempt to sneak in identifications of their authors will be rejected; I assume that also refers to usage like "In my previous paper [3]..." or posting the paper on a web site prior to reviewing. It would seem sensible to me for NIPS to adopt the same rules. Thomas. From tbreuel at parc.com Thu Dec 19 22:13:47 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 19:13:47 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: References: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> Message-ID: <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 12:57:55PM -0800, S. Becker wrote: > Two of the key factors NIPS reviewers are asked to comment on are a > paper's significance and originality. Very often work is submitted to NIPS > that is only a marginal advancement over the author's previous > work, or worse yet, the same paper has already appeared at another > conference or in a journal. In the course of reviewing for NIPS I have > often looked at an author's web page, past NIPS proceedings etc to assess > the closeness to the author's previously published work. Double-blind > reviewing would make it much more difficult to detect this sort of thing. Originality needs to be judged relative to the entire published literature anyway. If the reviewer is familiar with the literature, that determination should not require knowing who the author is. In different words, it doesn't matter whether Smith's submission to NIPS is very similar to Smith's previous submission to some other conference or merely very similar to Jones's submission to some other conference, and a reviewer familiar with the literature should know both Smith's and Jones's prior work. If the reviewer needs to know the identity of the author in order to find prior work in the area, I think the reviewer is not sufficiently qualified to review the paper in the first place. Thomas. From qian at brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu Fri Dec 20 16:27:17 2002 From: qian at brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu (Ning Qian) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 16:27:17 -0500 Subject: paper: model of orientation learning and adaptation Message-ID: <3E038B35.8010500@brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu> Dear colleagues, The following paper on modeling orientation learning and adaptation is available at: http://brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu/publications/learn-adapt.ps.gz or http://brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu/publications/learn-adapt.pdf Best regards and happy holidays, Ning --------------------------------------------------------- Learning and Adaptation in a Recurrent Model of V1 Orientation Selectivity Andrew F. Teich and Ning Qian, J. Neurophysiol. (in press) Abstract Learning and adaptation in the domain of orientation processing are among the most studied topics in the literature. However, little effort has been devoted to explaining the diverse array of experimental findings via a physiologically based model. We have started to address this issue in the framework of the recurrent model of V1 orientation selectivity, and found that reported changes in V1 orientation tuning curves after learning and adaptation can both be explained with the model. Specifically, the sharpening of orientation tuning curves near the trained orientation after learning can be accounted for by slightly reducing net excitatory connections to cells around the trained orientation, while the broadening and peak shift of the tuning curves after adaptation can be reproduced by appropriately scaling down both excitation and inhibition around the adapted orientation. In addition, we investigated the perceptual consequences of the tuning curve changes induced by learning and adaptation using signal detection theory. We found that in the case of learning, the physiological changes can account for the psychophysical data well. In the case of adaptation, however, there is a clear discrepancy between the psychophysical data from alert human subjects and the physiological data from anesthetized animals. Instead, human adaptation studies can be better accounted for by the learning data from behaving animals. Our work suggests that adaptation in behaving subjects may be viewed as a short-term form of learning. -- Ning Qian, Ph. D. Associate Professor Ctr. Neurobiology & Behavior Columbia University / NYSPI Kolb Annex Rm 730 1051 Riverside Drive New York, NY 10032, USA http://brahms.cpmc.columbia.edu nq6 at columbia.edu 212-543-5213 (Office) 212-543-5161 (Lab/fax) From zhigulin at caltech.edu Fri Dec 20 22:17:28 2002 From: zhigulin at caltech.edu (Valentin Zhigulin) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 19:17:28 -0800 Subject: proposal: archival NIPS technical report series (Re: double blind review) References: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> <20021221020723.GC14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> Message-ID: <3E03DD48.1090004@caltech.edu> You don't need to create an archive, it was put up long time ago by physics community at www.arxiv.org. At some point they even had a section on ANN, cognitive science, etc but it was removed, don't know the reason. Probably they can restore it easily if the number of interested people will be high -Valentin tbreuel at parc.com wrote: > On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 06:51:08AM -0800, Christine Bolbirer wrote: > >>If what the author is communicating in his or her paper is truly ground >>breaking and worthy of recognition then with enough effort it will be >>recognized (if not by the NIPS reviewers then the scientific community in >>general). >> > > It may be recognized, but there is a good chance that the original author > will not be getting the credit. > > The reality is that most ideas, even ground breaking ones, are "in the > air", and given a year or two, several people will come up with them. > Each rejection introduces a publication delay of several months. > And rejections are more likely the more ground breaking a new idea is. > > If we have a system (and to some degree we do), where unknown researchers > have to live with a couple of rejections for their papers describing > new ideas while well-known researchers get their papers accepted right > away on the strength of their reputation, you really stack the deck very > strongly against unknown researchers being able to make a splash > with something new. > > And that's the key problem: a rejection not only deprives authors > of the chance to add a publication to their resumes, more importantly, > it deprives them of the opportunity to establish precedence for their > ideas. The latter is far worse than the former. > > In practice, people try to get around this these days and establish > precedence for their ideas by putting drafts or memos on their web sites, > but that creates its own set of problems. Those papers are not archival, > they can't be referenced, and their publication dates are not verifiable. > And if nobody cites them, even if such informal publications were to > establish precedence, what would be the point? > > The way to address this problem traditionally has been to create archival > publications that do not require a review. The National Academy of > Sciences has something like that for its members. And larger universities > and research labs used to have archival technical report series, but many > of them have become non-archival (an archival publication is one with > a verifiable publication date and content, and expected to be available > indefinitely, usually established by having printed copies archived at > multiple libraries). > > Since few people these days have the ability to publish in archival > technical report series, maybe what we need is to establish a NIPS > technical report series: something that is archival, searchable, and > has verifiable publication dates but is not peer reviewed and would not > preclude later publication in a peer reviewed conference or journal. > > NIPS technical reports would replace informal and non-archival publication > of drafts and memos. They would establish precedence for good and novel > ideas until reviewers are ready to accept them into a peer-reviewed > publication. And unlike "Joe's memo with an uncertain publication > date on http://webhosting.com/~joe/memo.pdf", they would have a > persistent and verifiable citation and publication date. > > Here at PARC, we have built something like that for internal publications. > We use cryptographic signatures to ensure the validty of publication > dates and document contents. Abstracts and signatures (and, if desired, > content) are disseminated via an E-mail list so that many people will > have a record of the publication and its signature. I don't know whether > it's completely tamper-proof, but it's probably no worse than the > traditional paper-based systems. > > Thomas. > > . > > From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 23:28:00 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 20:28:00 PST Subject: you're right: let's use Arxiv more (Re: proposal: archival NIPS...) In-Reply-To: <3E03DD48.1090004@caltech.edu> References: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> <20021221020723.GC14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> <3E03DD48.1090004@caltech.edu> Message-ID: <20021221042800.GB23099@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 07:17:28PM -0800, Valentin Zhigulin wrote: > You don't need to create an archive, it was put up long time ago by > physics community at www.arxiv.org. At some point they even had a > section on ANN, cognitive science, etc but it was removed, don't know > the reason. Probably they can restore it easily if the number of >interested people will be high You are right: Arxiv is a good choice that is here right now. I had thought of it as only a Physics resource, but i does have a computing section. As far as I can tell, nothing has been removed from it either; removing papers from Arxiv would seem to defeat its purpose. The Computing Science part of Arxiv is at: http://arxiv.org/archive/cs/intro.html Browsing the recent submissions, however, suggests that many sections are underused. What Arxiv provides is a time stamp for your report, mirroring, and backup. You can submit revisions, which will be stamped properly. So, if you are thinking about posting a technical note on your web page or creating a non-archival "technical report" at your institution, submit it to Arxiv. Then, people can give a URL to it that is likely to be around. Of course, for papers that have already been published in some other archival medium, submitting to Arxiv is less important. Thomas. PS: Note that while Citeseer is enormously useful and also retains copies, it does not primarily function as an archive. From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 20:09:22 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 17:09:22 PST Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: <41-Fri20Dec2002142030-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> References: <8533956.1040318466921.JavaMail.isbell@isbell.org> <20021220031347.GB895@kurve.parc.xerox.com> <41-Fri20Dec2002142030-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> Message-ID: <20021221010922.GB14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 02:20:30PM -0800, Thomas G. Dietterich wrote: > t> If the reviewer needs to know the identity of the author in order to > t> find prior work in the area, I think the reviewer is not sufficiently > t> qualified to review the paper in the first place. > > I don't think this last remark is fair. There is a huge potentially > relevant literature out there! Do you know every paper published in > IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, [...] The reviewer doesn't have to know every paper from memory--a reviewer can still do a literature search on the subject of the paper. If they are familiar with the subject, they can concentrate on recent publications and scan and interpret the results from such a search quickly and efficiently. I do this for pretty much every paper I review and find it to be one of the most useful aspects of reviewing. > I'm not opposed to blind reviewing, but I think you must admit that > knowing the author's name makes it much easier to check whether they > have previously published a similar article! Well, I still think that it is the obligation of reviewers to make sure that they are up to date with all the latest developments related to the paper they are reviewing, and that may include literature searches. If they are doing a good enough job at that, I believe knowing the author's name shouldn't make a difference. To me, using the author's name looks like it invites shortcuts. Thomas. From tbreuel at parc.com Fri Dec 20 21:07:23 2002 From: tbreuel at parc.com (tbreuel@parc.com) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 18:07:23 PST Subject: proposal: archival NIPS technical report series (Re: double blind review) In-Reply-To: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> References: <23E61A212CF6D311BBA8009027E041B60D5DAE@SERVER> Message-ID: <20021221020723.GC14074@kurve.parc.xerox.com> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 06:51:08AM -0800, Christine Bolbirer wrote: > If what the author is communicating in his or her paper is truly ground > breaking and worthy of recognition then with enough effort it will be > recognized (if not by the NIPS reviewers then the scientific community in > general). It may be recognized, but there is a good chance that the original author will not be getting the credit. The reality is that most ideas, even ground breaking ones, are "in the air", and given a year or two, several people will come up with them. Each rejection introduces a publication delay of several months. And rejections are more likely the more ground breaking a new idea is. If we have a system (and to some degree we do), where unknown researchers have to live with a couple of rejections for their papers describing new ideas while well-known researchers get their papers accepted right away on the strength of their reputation, you really stack the deck very strongly against unknown researchers being able to make a splash with something new. And that's the key problem: a rejection not only deprives authors of the chance to add a publication to their resumes, more importantly, it deprives them of the opportunity to establish precedence for their ideas. The latter is far worse than the former. In practice, people try to get around this these days and establish precedence for their ideas by putting drafts or memos on their web sites, but that creates its own set of problems. Those papers are not archival, they can't be referenced, and their publication dates are not verifiable. And if nobody cites them, even if such informal publications were to establish precedence, what would be the point? The way to address this problem traditionally has been to create archival publications that do not require a review. The National Academy of Sciences has something like that for its members. And larger universities and research labs used to have archival technical report series, but many of them have become non-archival (an archival publication is one with a verifiable publication date and content, and expected to be available indefinitely, usually established by having printed copies archived at multiple libraries). Since few people these days have the ability to publish in archival technical report series, maybe what we need is to establish a NIPS technical report series: something that is archival, searchable, and has verifiable publication dates but is not peer reviewed and would not preclude later publication in a peer reviewed conference or journal. NIPS technical reports would replace informal and non-archival publication of drafts and memos. They would establish precedence for good and novel ideas until reviewers are ready to accept them into a peer-reviewed publication. And unlike "Joe's memo with an uncertain publication date on http://webhosting.com/~joe/memo.pdf", they would have a persistent and verifiable citation and publication date. Here at PARC, we have built something like that for internal publications. We use cryptographic signatures to ensure the validty of publication dates and document contents. Abstracts and signatures (and, if desired, content) are disseminated via an E-mail list so that many people will have a record of the publication and its signature. I don't know whether it's completely tamper-proof, but it's probably no worse than the traditional paper-based systems. Thomas. From norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk Sat Dec 21 11:29:30 2002 From: norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk (Norbert Krueger) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 16:29:30 +0000 Subject: Ph.D. Studentships at the University of Stirling Message-ID: <3E0496EA.F8DBBFC3@cn.stir.ac.uk> ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ph.D. Studentships at the University of Stirling (Scotland) ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Department of Psychology at the University of Stirling wishes to encourage potential Ph.D. students with a background in human or computer vision to apply for doctorate stipends. We offer interesting projects in the domain visual scene analysis. The goal of our studies is to design a machine vision system of superior performance. To this end principles of distributed cognitive reasoning shall be implemented in software and tested with artificial and real visual scenes. You shall develop this software in cooperation with other members of the group. Good software knowledge of C++ is required. It would also be helpful if you have a background in computer- and camera-equipment hardware. We also offer good access to industrially relevant machine vision problems through co-operations with our industrial partners. It may well be that also additional sources of funding will be available. Please direct inquiries to Norbert Krueger University of Stirling, Computational Neuroscience, Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland, UK or email to norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk. -- Dr. Norbert Krueger University of Stirling Computational Neuroscience Computer Vision Group Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland, UK Tel: ++44 (0) 1786 466378 Fax: ++44 (0) 1786 467641 Email: norbert at cn.stir.ac.uk http://www.cn.stir.ac.uk/~norbert From raetsch at axiom.anu.edu.au Sat Dec 21 18:26:19 2002 From: raetsch at axiom.anu.edu.au (Gunnar Raetsch) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 10:26:19 +1100 (EST) Subject: Review Paper on Boosting available Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, we are pleased to announce that our new review paper entitled "An Introduction to Boosting and Leveraging" by Ron Meir & Gunnar R"atsch is now available at http://www.boosting.org/papers/MeiRae03.ps.gz (and .pdf) (Copyright by Springer Verlag Heidelberg) It will appear as a chapter of the Springer LNCS series book ``Advanced Lectures on Machine Learning'' at the beginning of next year. Please find a summary and table of contents below. Seasonal Greetings, Ron & Gunnar Abstract ======== We provide an introduction to theoretical and practical aspects of Boosting and Ensemble learning, providing a useful reference for researchers in the field of Boosting as well as for those seeking to enter this fascinating area of research. We begin with a short background concerning the necessary learning theoretical foundations of weak learners and their linear combinations. We then point out the useful connection between Boosting and the Theory of Optimization, which facilitates the understanding of Boosting and later on enables us to move on to new Boosting algorithms, applicable to a broad spectrum of problems. In order to increase the relevance of the paper to practitioners, we have added remarks, pseudo code, ``tricks of the trade'', and algorithmic considerations where appropriate. Finally, we illustrate the usefulness of Boosting algorithms by giving a brief overview of some existing applications. The main ideas are illustrated on the problem of binary classification, although several extensions are discussed. Table of contents: ================== 1 A Brief History of Boosting 2 An Introduction to Boosting and Ensemble Methods 2.1 Learning from Data and the PAC Property 2.2 Ensemble Learning, Boosting and Leveraging 3 Learning Theoretical Foundations of Boosting 3.1 The Existence of Weak Learners 3.2 Convergence of the Training Error to Zero 3.3 Generalization Error Bounds 3.4 Margin based Generalization Bounds 3.5 Consistency 4 Boosting and Large Margins 4.1 Weak learning, Edges and Margins 4.2 Geometric Interpretation of p-Norm Margins 4.3 AdaBoost and Large Margins 4.4 Relation to Barrier Optimization 5 Leveraging as Stagewise Greedy Optimization 5.1 Preliminaries 5.2 A Generic Algorithm 5.3 The Dual Formulation 5.4 Convergence Results 6 Robustness, Regularization and Soft-margins 6.1 Reducing the Influence of Examples 6.2 Optimization of the Margins 6.3 Regularization Terms and Sparseness 7 Extensions 7.1 Single Class 7.2 Multi-Class 7.3 Regression 7.4 Localized Boosting 7.5 Other extensions 8 Evaluation and Applications 8.1 On the choice of weak learners for Boosting 8.2 Evaluation on Benchmark Data Sets 8.3 Applications 9 Conclusions +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ Gunnar R"atsch http://mlg.anu.edu.au/~raetsch Australian National University mailto:Gunnar.Raetsch at anu.edu.au Research School for Information Tel: (+61) 2 6125-8647 Sciences and Engineering Fax: (+61) 2 6125-8651 Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia Mob: (+61) 401 10-2235 From steve_kemp at unc.edu Sun Dec 22 01:26:22 2002 From: steve_kemp at unc.edu (Steven M. Kemp) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 01:26:22 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: I have located a second bit of empirical evidence about the effects of open reviewing. The study was done in a realm even *more* removed from NIPS than orchestral music. This was a study conducted by psychologists about peer reviewing in psychological journals. B-) Peters, D. P., & Ceci, S. J. (1982). Peer-review practices of psychological journals: The fate of published articles submitted again. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5, 187-255. I take the following synopsis from Bordens & Abbott (1996). Research Design and Methods: A process approach. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield). Apparently, Peters and Ceci took 12 already published articles, changed the author names and affiliations to fake (and hence unknown) ones, and added a few cosmetic alterations to hide the fact that it was the same paper. All 12 had originally had at least one prestige author from a prestige institution. All were re-typed and sent back in to the very same journals that had originally published the journal (often to the same editor). Three of the 12 were detected as copies of already published papers and rejected. Of the 9 that were left undetected, all but one were rejected by the very same journals that had published them earlier! And NONE of those 8 were rejected because they duplicated already published research. At a very minimum, the fact that the only substantive change in the manuscripts submitted was the replacement of known authors from prestigious institutions with names of complete unknowns raises serious questions about biases in open review. If folks are concerned that this was psychology and not computer science, for a modest fee I and some of my fellow psychologists will be delighted to perform the same experiment on some NIPS volunteers. B-) steve kemp At 9:03 AM 12/18/02, Eric Baum wrote: >There is at least one historical precedent where evidence indicates >that bias was influencing selection, in spite of the fact >that such bias was denied by the referees, and where the bias was >subsequently ameliorated through blind reviewing. > > >From http://reason.com/9711/ci.ng.orchestral.shtml > > > >REASON * November 1997 > >Orchestral Maneuvers > >By Nick Gillespie > >A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research applies >the concept of a level playing field to the symphonic stage. In >"Orchestrating Impartiality," economists Claudia Goldin and Cecelia >Rouse demonstrate that female orchestra musicians have benefitted >hugely from the use of "blind" auditions, in which candidates perform >out of the sight of evaluators. > >In 1970 female musicians made up only 5 percent of players in the >country's top orchestras... > >But beginning in the '70s and '80s, more and more of the orchestras >switched to blind auditions, partly to avoid charges of such bias. >Female musicians currently make up 25 percent of the "Big Five." >Through an analysis of orchestral management files and audition >records, Goldin and Rouse conclude that blind auditions increased by >50 percent the probability that a woman would make it out of early >rounds. And, they say, the procedure explains between 25 percent >and 46 percent of the increase in women in orchestras from 1970 to >1996. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Steven M. Kemp | Department of Psychology | email: steve_kemp at unc.edu Davie Hall, CB# 3270 | University of North Carolina | Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270 | fax: (919) 962-2537 Visit our WebSite at: http://www.unc.edu/~skemp/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< The laws of mind [are] themselves of so fluid a character as to simulate divergences from law. -- C. S. Peirce (Collected Papers, 6.101). From poznan at iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu Sun Dec 22 12:09:44 2002 From: poznan at iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu (R. R. Poznanski) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 12:09:44 -0500 Subject: JIN, vol.1, No.2 Message-ID: <3E05F1D8.2030502@iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu> JOURNAL OF INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE Vol. 1, No. 2, December 2002 CONTENTS Short Communications pp.117-128 Neuroinformatics: The Integration of Shared Databases and Tools Towards Integrative Neuroscience S.-I. Amari, F. Beltrame, J. G. Bjaalie, T. Dalkara, E. D. Schutter, G. F. Egan, N. H. Goddard, C. Gonzalez, S. Grillner, A. Herz, K.-P. Hoffmann, I. Jaaskelainen, S. H. Koslow, S.-Y. Lee, L. Matthiessen, P. L. Miller, F. M. D. Silva, M. Novak, V. Ravindranath, R. Ritz, U. Ruotsalainen, V. Sebestra, S. Subramaniam, Y. Tang, A. W. Toga, S. Usui, J. V. Pelt, P. Verschure, D. Willshaw and A. Wrobel pp. 129-144 Controller-Regulator Model of the Central Nervous System Masao Ito pp.145-156 Towards an Integrative Theory of Cognition R. R. Poznanski Research Reports pp.157-194 On the Mathematical Integration of the Nervous Tissue Based on the S-propagator Formalism: II. Numerical Simulations for Molecular-dependent Activity P. Chauvet and G. A. Chauvet pp.195-216 Investigating Shape and Function Relationship in Retinal Ganglion Cells Z. Li and L. D. F. Costa pp.217-240 Neuronal Integrative Analysis of the "Dumbbell" Model for Passive Neurons W. Krzyzanski, J. Bell and R. R. Poznanski -- Roman R. Poznanski, PhD Associate Editor, JIN Department of Psychology Indiana University 1101 E. 10th St. Bloomington, IN 47405-7007 email: poznan at iub-psych.psych.indiana.edu phone (Office): (812) 856-0838 http://www.worldscinet.com/jin/jin.shtml From Sebastian_Thrun at heaven.learning.cs.cmu.edu Sun Dec 22 15:07:12 2002 From: Sebastian_Thrun at heaven.learning.cs.cmu.edu (Sebastian Thrun) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 15:07:12 -0500 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing Message-ID: I have followed the recent public discussion on double blind reviewing with great interest. Many valid points were made. In many ways, this discussion parallels a similar (but not so public) discussion that took place a year ago, when I was elected to serve as the program chair for NIPS 2002. At the time, I talked to dozens of people, students, colleagues, NIPS attendees, and researchers in other communities. I received a large number of suggestions as to how to improve NIPS, and my policy was to run them by as many people as I could, to get a general sense of what to do. I also received a number of unsolicited Emails which I very much appreciated (and still very much do). Double blind reviewing was one of these items that came up repeatedly, and which made it quickly to the top of my list. Early on, I was quite determined to just do it, not because I believe there is anything major broken with the current system, but because it would have helped alleviating a perception that has been voiced repeatedly in the present debate. However, I ended up not implementing double blind reviewing, primarily for two reasons. First, in individual conversations quite a few people were opposed to it. I'd say about half of the people I asked were in favor, half were against it. The arguments in favor were pretty much covered in the debate of the last days, and I believe many of them are very valid. Those against included the one articulated by Sue Becker (this is a very important point: every year we receive several previously published papers, and sometimes we end up comparing those word-by-word). They also included voices from the theory community, who told me that properly checking a proof can take days. The author identity helps them to determine the rigor necessary in verifying a new theoretical result, because there's no way they can afford to spare several weeks for reviewing. I've never reviewed a lengthy proof myself, so I took this advice for face value. The second reason, however, ended up the determining factor: The present NIPS software does not support double blind reviewing. I don't want to bore this list with technical details, but the change to the software would have been major and would have incurred major costs. I felt the money was better spent with student travel stipends, of which we gave quite a few this year. So in the end, I ended up putting my time into innovations that received nearly unanimous support. Those included a later deadline, the online pre-proceedings, the anonymous circulation of reviews among other reviewers of the same paper, and the acquisition of external funds used to draw in more students into our community. One thing that might be less known to the community at large is that NIPS has policies in place that effectively penalize insiders. Just look at this year's program: Not a single oral presentation was co-authored by a program committee member. Most invited talks over the past years were given by people outside the NIPS community (5 out of 6 this year). You rarely find a person presenting orally in two consecutive years. You rarely find a person serving on the program committee for more than 3 years. I've never participated in a NIPS PC where an author's name or affiliation was cited as a reason to reject a paper. For obvious reasons we don't make rejections public, but I can assure you there we rejected quite a number of papers by some of the best known researchers in the field - you'd be surprised! And honestly, from all the conferences I attend, NIPS has been the singly most successful meeting in terms of drawing in outsiders, at least in my opinion. I don't mean this list to suggest that we should not consider going to a double blind reviewing system. But I really believe that NIPS strives to actively counter some of the concerns voiced in the discussion of the past days. I really appreciate the discussion of the past days. As in the past, I very much welcome any suggestion as to how to improve NIPS, with or without public debate. I believe NIPS has been a successful meeting. ..Okay, I might be a bit biased here ;-). But I probably speak for all organizers when I say that we are committed to do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Happy Holiday Season! Sebastian Thrun From neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk Mon Dec 23 04:08:45 2002 From: neil at dcs.shef.ac.uk (Neil Lawrence) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:08:45 -0000 Subject: NIPS & double blind reviewing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002201c2aa62$e5fc9d90$1e01a8c0@tom> >They also included voices from the theory community, >who told me that properly checking a proof can take days. The author >identity helps them to determine the rigor necessary in verifying a >new theoretical result, because there's no way they can afford to >spare several weeks for reviewing. I've never reviewed a lengthy proof >myself, so I took this advice for face value. If a proof is so lengthy that it can take days to verify, e.g. Fermat's last theorem, perhaps it should be submitted to a journal, because even Andrew Wiles's proofs need rigorous checking sometimes. Personally I am amazed, and disturbed, that reviewers are consciously taking the author's name into account. Is this recommended practice? If so, I suggest that it is placed in the guidelines for reviewers so that authors are forewarned. Neil Lawrence From robbie at bcs.rochester.edu Fri Dec 27 10:13:17 2002 From: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu (Robert Jacobs) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:13:17 -0500 Subject: postdoctoral position available Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20021227101200.030cfa28@bcs.rochester.edu> A postdoctoral position is available in the lab of Robert Jacobs, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester. The lab focuses on: (1) the development of new machine learning architectures and algorithms, and (2) computational studies of the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception. The postdoctoral fellow will be part of a larger community dedicated to the study of learning and developmental plasticity. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Applicants should send a vita, research statement, recent publications, and the names of three individuals who can write letters of recommendation to: LDB Postdoctoral Search Committee Brain and Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0268 More information about our lab can be obtained at http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/robbie.html Information about the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences can be obtained at http://www.bcs.rochester.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Jacobs Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0268 phone: 585-275-0753 fax: 585-442-9216 email: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu web: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/robbie.html