Call for special sessions: ESANN'2003 European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks

----------------------------------------------------
|                                                  |
|                    ESANN'2003                    |
|                                                  |
|              11th European Symposium             |
|           on Artificial Neural Networks          |
|                                                  |
|      Bruges (Belgium) - April 23-24-25, 2003     |
|                                                  |
|  First announcement & call for special sessions  |
----------------------------------------------------


The ESANN'2003 conference European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks)
will take place in Bruges (Belgium), on April 23-25, 2003.  Please have a
look to http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann for details.

Proposals for special sessions are solicited. Details on special sessions
(what are the role, advantages and duties of special session organizers) are
available at http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann/callforspecialsessions.htm.

We try as much as possible to avoid multiple sendings of this call for
papers; however please apologize if you receive this e-mail twice, despite
our precautions.

You will find below a short version of this call for special sessions.


What are special sessions ?
---------------------------

A "special session" is a session that focuses on a particular topic in the
artificial neural networks field.  It is organized by a renowned scientist
who solicits (but does not "invite") potential contributors.  During the
conference, the session begins with an introduction (or tutorial) to the
session topic by the session organizer, making it easier for the
participants to follow the subsequent talks.
The following are examples of special sessions organized during ESANN'98 to
2002 conferences:

 Radial basis networks
 Neural networks for control
 Self-organizing maps for data analysis
 ANN for speech processing
 Cellular neural networks
 ANN for the processing of facial information
 Adaptive computation of data structures
 Remote sensing spectral image analysis
 Support vector machines
 Information extraction using unsupervised neural networks
 Spiking neurons
 Artificial neural networks and robotics
 Neural networks in medicine
 Time series prediction
 ANN for energy management systems
 Dedicated hardware implementations: perspectives on systems and
applications
 Novel neural transfer functions
 ANN and evolutionary/genetic algorithms: hybrid approaches
 ANN in finance
 ANN and early vision processing
 Perspectives on Learning with Recurrent Networks
 Representation of high-dimensional data
 Neural Network Techniques in Fault Detection and Isolation
 Hardware and Parallel Computer Implementations of Neural Networks
 Exploratory Data Analysis in Medicine and Bioinformatics
 Neural Networks and Cognitive Science


Who can organize special sessions ?
-----------------------------------

Any  scientist in the neural networks field is welcome to submit his/her
proposal to organize a special session.  He/she should first check is he/she
is able to contact enough potential contributors in order to organize a
sound session.


How to organize special sessions ?
----------------------------------

We see the role of a session organizer as follows:

 to contact about 7-10 potential authors among specialists in the field and
to ask them to submit a paper to the conference;
 to make sure that each paper is evaluated by 3 reviewers (including the
session organizer);
according to the reviews, to decide the final contents of the session, in
agreement with the program committee;
 to chair the session during the conference;
 to present a tutorial (typically 30 minutes) at the beginning of the
session.  This tutorial should both introduce the topic to non-specialists,
and make the link between the state-of-the-art and the papers presented in
the session.
 to write a paper for the proceedings, with the contents of the tutorial.

The following aspects must be taken into account:

 The session can include oral and poster presentations.  Posters
presentations are introduced by a 2-minutes spotlight during the oral
session.  There should be between 4 and 6 oral presentations during the
session (including the introduction/tutorial), and between 0 and 6 posters.
 Soliciting contributors does NOT mean that their contributions are
automatically accepted.  Solicited contributions are submitted to a review
process and will be rated according to their scientific value.  This must be
clearly explained by the session organizer when he/she first contacts the
potential contributors.
 Soliciting contributors does NOT mean too that these contributors are
invited to the conference.  Even in case of acceptation of their submission,
they will have to register to the conference and pay the registration fee,
as any other participant.   This must be clearly explained too by the
session organizer when he/she first contacts the potential contributors.


What are the advantages for special session organizers ?
--------------------------------------------------------

 Session organizers benefit from a 50% reduction of their own registration
fees.  However, travel and subsistence expenses must be taken in charge by
the session organizers.
 Their article in the ESANN proceedings are limited to 12 pages instead of
6 pages.
 Depending on public funding obtained to organize the conference, the hotel
costs of session organizers could be taken in charge.  Nevertheless, we will
not have the confirmation of this possibility before having to decide which
special sessions will be organized.  Those who submit a proposal to organize
a special session must be aware that they could have to take in charge their
hotel expenses.


Deadlines
---------
 August 1, 2002: submission of proposals to organize a special session
 August 15, 2002: selection of special sessions for ESANN'2002
 September 1, 2002: availability of the ESANN'2002 call for papers on this
Web site
 end of September, 2002: contacts (by session organizer) with potential
contributors
 December 6, 2002: deadline submission of papers (including special
sessions)
 around December 15, 2002: dispatching of submissions to reviewers
 January 17, 2003: end of review process
 January 29, 2003: decision on the contents of the special sessions
 February 6, 2003: notification of acceptance/reject of submissions
 February 28, 2003: deadline for final versions of papers (including the
introduction/tutorial by the session organizer)


How to submit a proposal to organize a special session ?
--------------------------------------------------------
Simply send an e-mail to the conference secretariat with

 the title of the session
 a brief description (+- 10 lines, to be published on the ESANN Web site)
 your affiliation, address, phone and fax number, e-mail address
 a description of your expertise in the field of the session (or a link to
your personal Web page where this information can be found)

Proposals are expected until August 1, 2002.  Special sessions to be
organized during the ESANN'2003 conference will be selected around August
15, 2002.  Please mention in your e-mail if we will be able to contact you
between August 1 and August 15, 2002.


========================================================
ESANN - European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks
http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann

* For submissions of papers, reviews,...
Michel Verleysen
Univ. Cath. de Louvain - Microelectronics Laboratory
3, pl. du Levant - B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve - Belgium
tel: +32 10 47 25 51 - fax: + 32 10 47 25 98
mailto:esann at dice.ucl.ac.be

* Conference secretariat
d-side conference services
24 av. L. Mommaerts - B-1140 Evere - Belgium
tel: + 32 2 730 06 11 - fax: + 32 2 730 06 00
mailto:esann at dice.ucl.ac.be
========================================================