From bob at ph.tn.tudelft.nl Thu Feb 1 08:29:19 2007 From: bob at ph.tn.tudelft.nl (bob@ph.tn.tudelft.nl) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 14:29:19 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure track position in pattern recognition Message-ID: <20070201132919.GA28487@edison.et.tudelft.nl> There is a position for an assistant professor in pattern recognition available at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands: http://vacatures.ewi.tudelft.nl/index.php?taal=&m_id=50&record=126 This position has a temporary employment basis of 2 years, with the intention of appointing the candidate permanently. Bob Duin -- R.P.W. Duin Phone: (31) 15 2786143 Elect. Eng., Maths and Comp. Sc. Secr: (31) 15 2786052 Delft University of Technology Fax: (31) 15 2781843 P.O. Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft mailto: r.duin at ieee.org The Netherlands http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/~duin From BerndPorr at f2s.com Thu Feb 1 11:59:13 2007 From: BerndPorr at f2s.com (Bernd Porr) Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:59:13 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: paper: self influencing synaptic plasticity Message-ID: <45C21C61.4070202@f2s.com> We are pleased to announce the paper (apologies if you've received this announcement twice): Self-influencing synaptic plasticity: Recurrent changes of synaptic weights can lead to specific functional properties Minija Tamosiunaite, Bernd Porr and Florentin W?rg?tter Abstract: Recent experimental results suggest that dendritic and back-propagating spikes can influence synaptic plasticity in different ways (Holthoff, 2004; Holthoff et al., 2005). In this study we investigate how these signals could interact at dendrites in space and time leading to *changing plasticity properties at local synapse clusters*. Similar to a previous study (Saudargiene et al., 2004) we employ a *differential Hebbian learning rule to emulate spike-timing dependent plasticity* and investigate how the interaction of dendritic and back-propagating spikes, as the post-synaptic signals, could influence plasticity. Specifically, we will show that local synaptic plasticity driven by spatially confined dendritic spikes can lead to the *emergence of synaptic clusters* with different properties. If one of these clusters can drive the neuron into spiking, plasticity may change and the now arising global influence of a back-propagating spike can lead to a further segregation of the clusters and possibly the dying-off of some of them leading to more functional specificity. These results suggest that through plasticity being a spatial and temporal local process, the computational properties of dendrites or complete neurons can be substantially augmented. http://www.berndporr.me.uk/self_influ/ -- Mobile: +44 (0)7840 340069 Work: +44 (0)141 330 5237 University of Glasgow Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering Room 519, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8LT From wduch at is.umk.pl Thu Feb 1 13:04:55 2007 From: wduch at is.umk.pl (Wlodzislaw Duch) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 19:04:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: IJCNN 2007: Extended deadline for paper submissions: 12 February 2007!! Message-ID: <005801c7462b$7bb11790$0a01a8c0@duchnote> Extended deadline for paper submissions: 12 February 2007!! We have received many requests from authors in the last few days to extend the deadline for their submissions. As a consequence the deadline for submissions is being extended to 12 February 2007, but please submit as soon as possible to help us minimize delays to the paper review process. Please refer to the conference web site for details on paper submissions. http://www.ijcnn2007.org/ This summer is the 20th anniversary of the IJCNN, and based on our paper submissions to date, our awesome plenary speakers, special sessions, workshops, and tutorials, we're confident that it will meet your expectations as the premier neural network conference. Orlando Florida is also an exciting destination for you and your family. The Renaissance Orlando Resort hotel is close to the Kennedy Space Center, Seaworld, Disney World, Winter Park and many other attractions, as you can see from the hotel and local attractions webpage! Please submit your papers during the extended grace period, and join your friends and the international neiural network community in Orlando this summer ! Jennie Si, General Chair Ron Sun, Program Chair From doya at irp.oist.jp Fri Feb 2 02:36:55 2007 From: doya at irp.oist.jp (Kenji Doya) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 08:36:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course 2007: Call for Applications In-Reply-To: <611A8B41-E982-4F6D-9F1A-040735D50CEE@tnb.ua.ac.be> References: <629C9560-4409-4A20-AB78-D3C17D3613E0@tnb.ua.ac.be> <45658221.1080302@oist.jp> <624004DA-7BD9-4E5C-B6F4-6F09C538316A@oist.jp> <11F3046E-428E-4435-A3E7-7DDEFFFE5EB0@tnb.ua.ac.be> <75012139-467B-48F8-A71A-9CF00F39E5E6@tnb.ua.ac.be> <16B623B0-EDDD-48C7-A70C-5E7F86BD65DE@stonebow.otago.ac.nz> <4AB326D8-24AB-4546-812D-D96A83C8BD42@oist.jp> <18556722-DCFF-4A66-B644-737B08A02D51@tnb.ua.ac.be> <7919C31A-7797-41CF-83F6-1CAF1ED525F9@oist.jp> <2594E28D-438E-4DA0-BB70-FCB879205E21@tnb.ua.ac.be> <98F7DA1D-51D1-49E3-A651-5C473982E54A@oist.jp> <64C221F9-D90E-4145-9E54-627115708DB7@stonebow.otago.ac.nz> <61DA876D-1D84-4767-8BE5-8CFE47D20D66@oist.jp> <8B37B6CB-F461-4E36-A93E-AAE9257FFEB7@oist.jp> <425E6789-8B7D-43D2-8EAD-E3F2D07D3C8E@oist.jp> <611A8B41-E982-4F6D-9F1A-040735D50CEE@tnb.ua.ac.be> Message-ID: <4CD9866A-114A-476A-AFB5-D178DB1C733B@irp.oist.jp> Call for Applications OKINAWA COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE COURSE 2007 Neurons, Networks and Behaviors June 26 - July 13, 2007. Okinawa, Japan. http://www.irp.oist.jp/ocnc/2007 Application Deadline: APRIL 5TH, 2007 The aim of the Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course is to provide opportunities for young researchers with theoretical backgrounds to learn the latest advances in neuroscience, and for those with experimental backgrounds to have hands-on experience in computational modeling. We invite graduate students and postgraduate researchers to participate in the course, held from June 26th through July 13th at an oceanfront seminar house of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Those interested in attending the course should send the materials below by e-mail or through the course web page by APRIL 5th, 2007. In the previous three years, OCNC focused on the brain's computation at different levels: Bayesian computation by neural populations (2004), learning and prediction for behavior (2005), and single neurons as computational devices (2006). This year, OCNC will be a comprehensive three-week course covering single neurons, networks, and behaviors with more time for student projects. We invite those who are interested in integrating experimental and computational approaches at each level, as well as in bridging different levels of complexity. The sponsor will provide lodging and meals during the course and support travel for those without funding. We hope that this course will be a good opportunity for theoretical and experimental neuroscientists to meet each other and to explore the attractive nature and culture of Okinawa, the southernmost island prefecture of Japan. Lectures: Tutorial 1: math and computing for experimentalists Markus Diesmann (RIKEN) Kenji Doya (OIST) Tutorial 2: neurobiology for theoreticians Gordon Arbuthnott (OIST) Jeff Wickens (OIST) Single Neuron Computation Tom Bartol (Salk Institute) Dieter Jaeger (Emory University) Klaus Stiefel (OIST) Network Dynamics and Information Coding Eve Marder (Brandeis University) Erik De Schutter (U Antwerp & OIST) Hagai Bergman (Hebrew University) Behavior and Cognition Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Kenji Doya (OIST) Nathaniel Daw (New York University) Read Montague (Baylor College of Medicine) (more to be announced) Student Projects: a) Single neuron modeling and analysis b) Psychophysics experiments and modeling c) Behavioral experiments and modeling Students will present posters on their current works early in the course and the results of their projects at the end of the course. Sponsors: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Nara Institute of Science and Technology Japanese Neural Network Society Co-organizers: Erik De Schutter: University of Antwerp & OIST Kenji Doya, OIST Jeffery Wickens, OIST Klaus Stiefel, OIST Advisors: Sydney Brenner, OIST Mitsuo Kawato, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories Terrence Sejnowski, Salk Institute Torsten Wiezel, Rockefeller University ******* Application ******* Please send the following by e-mail (ocnc2007 at oist.jp) or the web application page by APRIL 5TH, 2007. 1) First name, 2) Middle initial (if any), 3) Family name, 4) Degree, 5) Date of birth, 6) Gender, 7) Nationality, 8) Affiliation, 9) Position, 10) Advisor, 11) Postal address, 12) Nearest airpot, 13) Phone, 14) Fax, 15) E-mail, 16) Web page (if any), 17) Educational background, 18) Work experience, 19) List of publications, 20) Research interests (up to 500 words), 21) Motivations for attending the course (up to 500 words), 22) Two referees whom we can ask recommendations (names, affiliations, e-mail addresses), 23) Need for travel support, 24) How you learned about the course. We will accept 30 students based primarily on their research interests (20) and motivations (21). We will also consider the balance of members' research disciplines, geographic origins, and genders. The result of selection will be informed to applicants via e-mail by April 20th. For more information, please visit the web page: http://www.irp.oist.jp/ocnc/2007 ******* Secretariat ******* Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology 12-22 Suzaki, Uruma Okinawa 904-2234, Japan Phone: +81-98-921-3933 Fax: +81-98-921-3873 Email: ocnc2007 at oist.jp ---- Kenji Doya Initial Research Project, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology 12-22 Suzaki, Uruma, Okinawa 904-2234, Japan Phone:+81-98-921-3843; Fax:+81-98-921-3873 http://www.oist.jp/ From valenti at dsi.unimi.it Fri Feb 2 13:15:30 2007 From: valenti at dsi.unimi.it (Giorgio Valentini) Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:15:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: SUEMA workshop Message-ID: <45C37FC2.7020701@dsi.unimi.it> ************************** Call for Papers ************************ Workshop on Supervised and Unsupervised Ensemble Methods and Their Applications (SUEMA), in conjunction with IbPRIA'2007 Gerona, Spain, 4-5 June, 2007. http://ibpria2007.udg.cat http://suema07.dsi.unimi.it **************************************************************** Ensembles of supervised learning machines and, in particular, ensembles of classifiers have been established as one of the main research topics in machine learning. Recently, methods for combining unsupervised clusterings have been proposed to improve the reliability and to assess the validity of discovered clusters. The main goal of this workshop is to provide a forum open to researchers from pattern recognition and related disciplines to present and discuss problems related to unsupervised and supervised ensemble methods with a particular focus on their applications to real-world problems, but considering also the theoretical reasons of the practical success of several widely used ensemble methods. Possible topics of the workshop include (but are not limited to): - New ensemble methods raised from new real world supervised and unsupervised learning problems. - Application of ensemble methods in various branches of science and technology with a particular focus on: - bioinformatics, - computer security, - medical informatics, - ecology, - economics, - meteorology and weather forecast, - satellite image analysis. - Fusion of multiple-source/multi-sensor data. - Unsupervised ensemble methods for discovering structures in unlabeled real data. - Unsupervised ensemble approaches to assess the reliability/validity of clusters discovered in real data. - Combination techniques and methods to generate multiple base learners from different features and data. - Classifier selection strategies for ensemble. - Heterogeneous ensembles of base learners. - Variants of resampling-based methods (bagging, boosting). - Ensemble methods for supervised multi-class classification and regression. *** Workshop Chairs ************************************************** Oleg Okun Machine Vision Group Infotech Oulu and Department of Electrical and Information Engineering P.O.Box 4500, 90014 University of Oulu, Oulu - FINLAND Email address: oleg at ee.oulu.fi Phone: +358 8553 2898 Fax: +358 8 553 2612 Giorgio Valentini Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione Universita` degli Studi di Milano Via Comelico 39, 20135 Milano - ITALY Email address: valentini at dsi.unimi.it Phone: +39 (02) 503 16225 Fax: +39 (02) 503 16373 ******* Workshop Program Committee ********************************* Carlotta Domeniconi (George Mason University, USA) Robert Duin (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands) Mark Embrechts (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA) Ana Fred (Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal) Joao Gama (University of Porto, Portugal) Giorgio Giacinto (University of Cagliari, Italy) Larry Hall (University of South Florida, USA) Ludmila Kuncheva (University of Wales, UK) Francesco Masulli (University of Genova, Italy) Petia Radeva (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain) Juan Jose` Rodriguez (University of Burgos, Spain) Fabio Roli (University of Cagliari, Italy) Paolo Rosso (University of Valencia, Spain) Carlo Sansone (University of Naples, Italy) Jose` Salvador Sanchez (University Jaume I, Spain) Jordi Vitria`(Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain) Terry Windeatt (University of Surrey, UK) ******** Submission Procedure **************************************** Prospective authors should submit the full paper written in English to one of the workshop chairs by email (preferably as a PDF file). Authors are encouraged to use LATEX for the preparation of their articles together with the corresponding class file llncs.cls. This file as well as other relevant files can be downloaded from the IbPRIA 2007 web site (http://ibpria2007.udg.cat). Each submitted paper not exceeding 15 A4 pages will be reviewed by at least two members of the program committee. Submission implies that at least one of the authors has to register and to present the paper at workshop. CD proceedings with accepted papers will be distributed to the registered workshop participants. The organizers of the workshop are working for a post-proceedings publication of the accepted papers with an international journal or an international computer science book series. **************** Registration **************************************** Workshop registration fee is 200 per participant. A reduction of 30 is applied to participants also registered to IbPRIA'2007. *****************Important Dates ************************************* Submission of papers : March 16, 2007 Notification of acceptance : April 13, 2007 Camera ready : April 20, 2007 Early Registration : April 10, 2007 Workshop : June 4 or 5, 2007 From sharpee at phy.ucsf.edu Sun Feb 4 19:19:25 2007 From: sharpee at phy.ucsf.edu (sharpee@phy.ucsf.edu) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 16:19:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral Positions in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: PostDoctoral Positions in Computational Neuroscience Full-time postdoctoral positions are available at the Crick-Jacobs Center for Theoretical Biology, within the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, CA. Projects will involve work at the interface between physics and biology, on theories of neural coding and computation. Specifically, the goals of these projects will include: (1) formulating optimal coding strategies in neuronal populations, and (2) developing statistical and information-theoretical methods for charaterizing invariant neural feature selectivity (such as that of face-selective neurons or neurons in the song bird brain selective for its own song). Environment: The Crick-Jacobs Center at the Salk Institute and the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at UCSD together offer a first-class research and training envirnoment in the theoretical physics and computational biology. The Salk Institute offers exposure to cutting-edge experimental biological research in genetics, neuroscience, and cellular biological networks. For more information, please see http://keck.ucsf.edu/~sharpee and http://www.cnl.salk.edu/. Candidates should have a strong quantitative background in Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Computer Science or Computational Neuroscience. Completion of the PhD degree in any of these fields is required before the start date. The start date is flexible, and could be as early as April 1st, 2007. The initial appointments will be for 1 year, and are renewable. Ability to program in C or Fortran, Mathematica/Matlab, and some knowledge of neuroscience is a plus, but is not required. To apply, please send a cv, brief statement of research interests, and three letters of reference to me by email (sharpee at phy.ucsf.edu) in PDF or text format. Review of applications will begin on March 1st, 2007, and continue until positions are filled. Best regards, Tatyana Sharpee From Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu Mon Feb 5 03:44:23 2007 From: Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu (Eugene M. Izhikevich) Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:44:23 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Gyorgy Buzsaki elected author/curator of "Hippocampus" in Scholarpedia Message-ID: <45C6EE67.7050600@nsi.edu> The election of authors for the article "Hippocampus" in the Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience is completed. The letter below was sent to Gyorgy Buzsaki from Rutgers University. If Dr. Buzsaki accepts the invitation, he will be the first elected author/curator of Scholarpedia. -- Dear Dr. Gyorgy Buzsaki, As you might know, Scholarpedia, the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia, conducted election of authors for the article "Hippocampus" with the goal to identify the best living expert to invite to write such an article. The nominees (in the order of nomination) were 1. Gyorgy Buzsaki 2. Bruce McNaughton 3. Lynn Nadel 4. David Redish 5. Douglas A. Nitz 6. Richard G. M. Morris 7. Menno P. Witter As the editor-in-chief, it is my great privilege to let you know that you were elected to write this article for Scholarpedia (http://www.scholarpedia.org). The election started on 3 May 2006 and ended on 5 February 2007, engaging 103 participants. Rules of the election are described in http://scholarpedia.org/article/Scholarpedia:Election In summary, each participant can vote for no more than 3 candidates. Each vote is multiplied by the participant's Scholar Index, which reflects the expertise and usefulness of contributions of that person to Scholarpedia. (So that experts have greater weight in the election). Then, the weighted sum of the votes and a soft-max procedure is used to select the future author of the article. I am sending you a short explanation of this project and the instructions to reserve the article in a separate letter. Please, let me know whether you could write this article withing a reasonable period of time. Sincerely yours, Eugene M. Izhikevich ? Editor-in-Chief of Scholarpedia, the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia. The Neurosciences Institute, Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu 10640 John J. Hopkins Drive tel:(858) 626-2063 San Diego, CA, 92121, USA fax:(858) 626-2099 From dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de Tue Feb 6 06:02:15 2007 From: dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de (Florence Dancoisne) Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:02:15 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Announcement for the Advanced Course in Computational Neurosience 2007 in Arcachon, France Message-ID: <45C86037.9080107@bccn.uni-freiburg.de> ------------------------------------------------ ADVANCED COURSE IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE (A PENS NEUROSCIENCE SCHOOL) August 6th - 31st 2007, ARCACHON, FRANCE DIRECTORS: N. Brunel (Paris, France) P. Dayan (UCL, UK) I. Nelken (Jerusalem, Israel) J. Rinzel (NYU, USA) LOCAL ORGANIZER: Gwendal Le Masson (INSERM Bordeaux, France) The Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience is for advance graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in learning the essentials of the field. We seek students of any nationality from a variety of disciplines including neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics and psychology. Students are expected to have a keen interest and basic background in neurobiology as well as some computer experience. The course has two complementary parts. Mornings are devoted to lectures given by distinguished international faculty on topics across the breadth of experimental and computational neuroscience. During the rest of the day, students are given practical training in the art and practice of neural modelling, by pursuing a project of their choosing under the close supervision of expert tutors. The first week of the course introduces students to essential neurobiological concepts and to the most important techniques in modelling single cells, networks and neural systems. Students learn how to solve their research problems using software packages such as MATLAB, NEST, NEURON, XPP, etc. During the following three weeks the lectures cover specific brain areas and functions. Topics range from modelling single cells and subcellular processes through the simulation of simple circuits, large neuronal networks and system level models of the brain. The course ends with project presentations by the students. A maximum of 30 students will be accepted. Although we are actively raising money to reduce the fees as far as possible, the current tuition for the course will be EUR 750; and there will be an additional contribution of EUR 750 towards the costs of lodging, breakfast and dinner. There will be a limited number of tuition fee scholarships, lodging waivers and travel stipends available for students who need financial help for attending the course. We specifically encourage applications from researchers who work in the developing world. These students will be selected according to the normal submission procedure. Applications, including a description of the target project must be submitted electronically (see below) and should be accompanied by the names and email details of two referees who have agreed to furnish references. Applications will be assessed by a committee, with selection being based on the following criteria: the scientific quality of the candidate (CV) and of the project, the recommendation letters, and evidence that the course will afford substantial benefit to the candidate. More information and application forms can be obtained from: http://www.neuroinf.org/courses/EUCOURSE/A07/index.shtml Please apply electronically using a web browser. Contact address: - mail: Florence Dancoisne, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Freiburg Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg Hansastrasse 9A 79104 Freiburg, Germany - e-mail: dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 13th, 2007 DEADLINE FOR LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION: April 13th, 2007 Applicants will be notified of the results of the selection procedures by the middle of May 2007. FACULTY (most of whom have confirmed their attendance): Faculty: L. Abbott (Columbia, USA) A. Aertsen (Freiburg, Germany) E. Ahissar (Weizmann, Israel) M. Ahissar (Jerusalem, Israel) A. Arieli (Weizmann, Israel) E. De Schutter (Antwerp, Belgium) A. Destexhe (Gif, France) Y. Fregnac (Gif, France) P. Latham (UCL, UK) R. Malach (Weizmann, Israel) D. McAlpine (UCL, UK) A. Pouget (Rochester, USA) I. Segev (Jerusalem, Israel) A. Thomson (UCL, UK) E. Vaadia (Jerusalem, Israel) C. van Vreeswijk (Paris, France) L. Zhaoping (UCL, UK) Tutors: J. Best (Ohio State, USA) H. Cuntz (UCL, UK) A. Kumar (Brown, USA) M. Rudolph (Gif, France) T. Vogels (Columbia, USA) From s.crone at lancaster.ac.uk Sat Feb 3 13:42:13 2007 From: s.crone at lancaster.ac.uk (Crone, Sven) Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 18:42:13 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: IJCNN'07 Competition - Deadline Extension Message-ID: <84C837A579BB6B41993A00F52567675901C750C2@exchange-be3.lancs.local> ************************************** IJCNN'07 Forecasting Competition NN3 ************************************** You have 9 days left to participate in the IJCNN'07 Forecasting Competition NN3, using any method from computational intelligence! The competition is held at the International Conference on Neural Networks, Orlando, USA, August 12-17, 2007. Your opportunities: conference publication & presentation, invitation to journal & book publications, cash prices & awards! ******************************** Objectives ******************************** Forecast 11 or 111 time series as accurately as possible, using methods from computational intelligence and a consistent methodology. We hope to evaluate progress in modelling neural networks for forecasting & to disseminate knowledge on "best practices". The competition is for academic purposes and supported by a grant from SAS & the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF). ******************************** Methods ******************************** The prediction competition is open to all methods of computational intelligence, incl. feed-forward and recurrent neural networks, fuzzy predictors, decision & regression tress, support vector regression, hybrid approaches etc. used in financial forecasting, statistical prediction, time series analysis ******************************** Publication of Results ******************************** The paper submitted to the IJCNN'07 in Orlando, USA, will be presented at a dedicated workshop on 17 August 2007 of the main conference. All accepted IJCNN'07 submissions will be - considered for a special issue of the International Journal of Forecasting (IJF, Elsevier) on "Neural Networks for Forecasting" (ISI SCI, DBLP, EBSCO, ScienceDirect etc. indexed). - invited for submission of extended versions in an edited book "Advances in Forecasting wit Neural Networks and Computational Intelligence", Springer (ISI SCI, DBLP etc. indexed), (pending) - guaranteed publication as full papers in the IEEE IJCNN'07 conference proceedings (indexed by ISI SCI etc.) ******************************** IJCNN'07 Dates & deadlines ******************************** 12 February 2007 Draft IJCNN'07 paper submission due 14 May 2007 Submission of final prediction values due 17 August 2007 IJCNN'07 Workshop 15 October 2007 Submissions to full publications Please visit the NN3 website at http://www.neural-forecasting-competition.com/ for further instructions. GOOD LUCK! Sven F. Crone & Konstantinos Nikolopoulos _____________________________________________________ Sven F. Crone Deputy Director, Lancaster Centre for Forecasting Lecturer (Ass. Prof.), Department of Management Science Lancaster University Management School Lancaster LA1 4YX United Kingdom Internet http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk eMail s.crone at lancaster.ac.uk _______________________________________________ From oby at cs.tu-berlin.de Tue Feb 6 03:35:21 2007 From: oby at cs.tu-berlin.de (Klaus Obermayer) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:35:21 +0100 (MET) Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position Message-ID: Postdoctoral Position Adaptive Algorithms for the Detection and Discrimination of Spikes in Multi-Tetrode Recordings 3 years, salary level BAT IIa, starting date: immediate Berlin University of Technology and Bernstein Center, Berlin, Germany A postdoctoral position is available within a government (BMBF) funded collaborative research project. Goal of the project is the development of an adaptive, on-line spike sorting method for multi-tetrode arrays. The new technology will then be applied for the study of neural representations during working memory tasks in primate prefrontal cortex (in collaboration with Dr. M. Munk, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt). The successful candidate should have a strong background in signal processing and machine learning, and should ideally already have research experience with the analysis of multielectrode recordings and with spike sorting applications. Please send applications to (preferably by email): Prof. Dr. Klaus Obermayer, Neural Information Processing Group, FR 2-1, Franklinstrasse 28/29, 10587 Berlin, Germany, email: oby at cs.tu-berlin.de Applications will be considered until position is filled. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Klaus Obermayer phone: 49-30-314-73442 FR2-1, NI, Fakultaet IV 49-30-314-73120 Technische Universitaet Berlin fax: 49-30-314-73121 Franklinstrasse 28/29 e-mail: oby at cs.tu-berlin.de 10587 Berlin, Germany http://ni.cs.tu-berlin.de/ From litin at iont.ru Tue Feb 6 05:24:30 2007 From: litin at iont.ru (Litinskii) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 13:24:30 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: from Leonid Litinskii, CONT RAS Message-ID: <1877766562.20070206132430@iont.ru> Dear colleagues, let us start from well-known conceptions. The one-level perceptron with one output neuron is defined by n weights w_i and by a threshold b. At first, the output neuron creates an induced local field v=sum (w_i x_i) -b. (1) Then an activation function f transforms the induced local field v into an output signal y=f(v). We take an interest in topics that are related with the induced local field v only. This field defines completely the form of the separating surface. The ability of a perceptron to separate the given set of points into two classes depends on the form of the separating surface. For example, a hyperplane is the separating surface corresponding to the local field (1). Hyper-planes allow us to separate linearly separable sets of the input points only. This is well-known as well as the learning algorithms in this case. If we take the induced local field in the form v=sum(x_i -w_i)^2 -b, the separating surface is n-dimensional sphere whose center is in the point W and whose radius is defined by the constant b. In this case we deal with radial basic functions. The theory of these functions is also well-known. It is found out that when the local field is only slightly differ from the form (1), v = cos(X,W)-b, (2) the separating surface is an angular sector, whose orientation and the corner angle are defined by the values of the parameters W and b. Such separating surface allows us to solve the XOR-problem. We find out that a minor modification of the expression (2) allows us to vary significantly the structure of the separating surface. In all the cases the choosing of the parameters in Eq.(2) is realized uniformly with the aid the gradient descent method. In other words, with the aid of one-level perceptron and in the framework of the uniform approach, it is possible to separate a set of the input points into two classes. The points are distributed nearly arbitrarily in the space. We would like to know, if anybody studied this problem previously? It is impossible that nobody analyzed this problem. For example, Wl. Duch in "K-Separability" (S.Kollias et al. (Eds.): ICANN 2006, Part I, LNCS 4131, pp. 188-197, 2006) mentions the connection between the form of the local field (2) and the solution of the XOR-problem. But there were no further explanations. We'll be very grateful for any references on this topic. Leonid Litinskii, Center of Optical-Neural Technologies Russian Academy of Sciences -- Best regards, Litinskii mailto:litin at iont.ru From ftupindr at ti.uni-bielefeld.de Wed Feb 7 09:25:04 2007 From: ftupindr at ti.uni-bielefeld.de (Ralf Moeller) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:25:04 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD student / postdoc: Visually guided behavior (Bielefeld) Message-ID: <45C9E140.2040801@ti.uni-bielefeld.de> The Computer Engineering Group at the Faculty of Technology of Bielefeld University offers a temporary position as doctoral or postdoctoral researcher (salary BAT IIa, for two years three months, starting April 1st, 2007) in a DFG-funded research project "Visually guided behavior in complex 3D environments". In this project, we will develop models of visual motion perception and of the corresponding sensorimotor control strategies in insects, transfer them into technical solutions, and test these systems in a gantry setup. The goal is not only to imitate biological behavioral strategies in technical systems, but also to use these systems as a testbed for the verification of biological models in complex, three-dimensional environments. The project runs in close cooperation with the Dept. of Neurobiology (Prof. Dr. Martin Egelhaaf). The details of the offer can be found at: http://www.ti.uni-bielefeld.de/html/offers/index.html From vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk Wed Feb 7 10:37:49 2007 From: vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Vassilis Cutsuridis) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 15:37:49 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: CNS 07 workshop Message-ID: <000c01c74acd$ec2f6a70$6ffd998b@cs.ad.stir.ac.uk> ************************** Call for participation ************************ Workshop on Cortical Microcircuits: Structure, Function and Theory Toronto, Canada, 11-12 July, 2007 http://www.cnsorg.org/cns_meeting_workshops.htm Description: ============ To understand how perception, action, learning and memory work, we need to gather data from multiple levels of complexity and from various brain states (normal and diseased). We need to identify the neuronal groups involved in these functions, identify their different types of neurons, draw detailed circuit diagrams, determine the forms of synaptic transmission and plasticity between different neurons and study the dynamics of the cortical microcircuits at the cellular and synaptic level that comprise these neuronal groups. Mathematical and computer models are then essential in exploring how these microcircuits can account for a given function. The goal of the present workshop is to bring together experts from experimental and computational neuroscience in order to review some of the ongoing experimental and theoretical research concerning cortical microcircuits with particular emphasis on the functional roles of the various inhibitory interneurons in the pertinent information processing. Topics: ======= Specific topics will include (but are not limited to): a.. Microcircuit architectures a.. Neocortex b.. Hippocampus c.. Sensory and motor systems b.. Cross-comparison of architectures from different brain areas c.. Identified functionality of specific microcircuits d.. Identified functionality of specific neuronal types e.. Plasticity and learning Format and Attendance: ================= The workshop will consist of: Short Presentations: A number of selected speakers will be invited to give short presentations of their work and/or ideas to be followed by extensive discussion. Panel Discussion: Our invited speakers will be asked to engage each other on the various issues concerning cortical microcircuits at the end of the workshop. The audience will be strongly encouraged to participate in the discussion. Workshop will run for either one half or a whole day, depending on interest. Attendance is open to all CNS attendees, whether or not an abstract is submitted (see below). Submission: =========== Prospective attendees are invited to submit a short abstract (100-200 words) on the topics outlined above or other related issues. Speakers will be selected by the organisers on the basis of these abstracts. Both position and technical reports will be considered for this workshop. To promote a lively event, with plenty of discussion, the organizers are very interested in papers taking strong positions on the issues listed above. Submissions should be made electronically in plain text, PDF or Postscript format and should be sent (no later than May 1st) by email to Vassilis Cutsuridis or Bruce Graham: vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk or b.graham at cs.stir.ac.uk Organizers: =========== Vassilis Cutsuridis Department of Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA U.K. Email: vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk Bruce P. Graham Department of Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA U.K. Email: b.graham at cs.stir.ac.uk Workshop Website: ================= http://www.cnsorg.org/cns_meeting_workshops.htm -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. From becker at mcmaster.ca Wed Feb 7 15:23:03 2007 From: becker at mcmaster.ca (S. Becker) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 15:23:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Connectionists: CVR Conference 2007: Cortical Mechanisms of Vision Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, This constitutes the first announcement and call for posters for the York University Centre for Vision Research Conference to be held June 19-23, 2007. A list of speakers and titles appears below. To view abstracts and access registration and poster submission forms, please visit our web site: On behalf of the CVR, I hope you will be able to attend and participate. Sue Becker, Professor Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University Adjunct Member, Centre for Vision Research, York University ***** CVR Conference 2007: Cortical Mechanisms of Vision Schedule Organizers: Hugh R. Wilson & Doug Crawford Tuesday, June 19 Evening reception and registration Wednesday, June 20 Morning: Cortical Mechanisms of Object Recognition (Wilkinson) Kari Hoffman (York): The ontology of "objects in the temporal lobe" Bruno Rossion (Université Catholique de Louvain): Clarifying the functional neuro- anatomy of face processing by combining lesion studies and neuroimaging Kalanit Grill-Spector (Stanford): Fine-scale functional organization of the human ventral stream Galia Avedan (Ben Gurion University, Israel): An integrative approach towards understanding the psychological and neural basis of congenital prosopagnosia Afternoon: Cortical Mechanisms of Visual Attention (Tsotsos) Max Hopf (Magdeburg, Germany): Neuromagnetic investigations of feature and space based attentional selection in visual search John Maunsell (Baylor): Attention and the Gain of Neuronal Responses in Monkey Visual Cortex Leonardo Chelazzi (Verona): One or multiple forms of feature-based attention? Maurizio Corbetta (Washington University, St. Louis): Functional significance of attentional control signals Poster Sessions Evening Free Thursday, June 21 Morning: Cortical Mechanisms of Motion Processing (Wilson) J. Anthony Movshon (NYU): How cortical cells analyze visual motion David Bradley (U of Chicago): Pattern Velocity Computation in the Primate Visual System Charles Duffy (U of Rochester): Cortical Neuronal Mechanisms of Spatial Orientation and Self-Movement Perception Greg DeAngelis (Washington University, St. Louis): Neural mechanisms of heading perception: integration of visual and vestibular signals Afternoon: Transformations for Visually Guided Reach (Sergio) Lauren Sergio (York): When what you see isn't where you get: Cortical mechanisms of vision for complex action Alexandra Battaglia-Mayer (La Sapienza, Rome): Motor functions of the parietal lobe Bijan Pessaran (NYU): A relative position code in dorsal premotor cortex Steve Wise (NIH): Primate prefrontal cortex and visual knowledge: Vision for perception, action, attention, memory, strategies, and previous or future goals Poster Sessions Evening Free Friday, June 22 Morning: Cortical Mechanisms for Eye Movements (Crawford) Jeff Schall (Vanderbilt): On the contributions of the frontal eye field, supplementary eye field and anterior cingulate cortex to the guidance and control of saccades Steve Lisberger (UCSF): Precise encoding of smooth eye movement in macaque frontal pursuit area Martin Pare (Queens U): Contributions of parietal cortex area LIP to visual behavior Dora Angelaki (Washington University, St. Louis): Optic flow, vestibular and eye position signals in visual area MSTd Afternoon: Top-down Influences of Fronto-Parietal Cortex on Vision (Fallah) Maz Fallah (York): Oculomotor Control of Spatial Attention James Bisley (UCLA): Top-down suppression of a distracting popout stimulus Joe DeSouza (York): Neural correlates of response suppression in prefrontal cortex Lab tours Conference Banquet Saturday, June 23 Morning: Visual Integration and Consciousness (Wilson & Crawford) Frank Tong (Vanderbilt): Deciphering the contents of perception from activity in the human visual cortex Mel Goodale (U of Western Ontario): A low road to consciousness, a high road to action Afternoon Free Evening: Conference Barbeque & Party -- From retienne at jhu.edu Wed Feb 7 16:20:57 2007 From: retienne at jhu.edu (Ralph Etienne-Cummings) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:20:57 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Telluride Neuromorphic Workshop 2007 Announcement Message-ID: <45CA42B9.7090100@jhu.edu> ======================================================================== Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop Call for Applications Sunday, JULY 1st - Saturday, JULY 21st, 2007 TELLURIDE, COLORADO Avis COHEN (University of Maryland) Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Ralph ETIENNE-CUMMINGS (Johns Hopkins University) Paul HASLER (Georgia Institute of Technology) Timmer HORIUCHI (University of Maryland) Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Christof KOCH (California Institute of Technology)- Past Organization Board Member Terrence SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute and UCSD) Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland) Andre van SCHAIK(University of Sydney) We invite applications for a three week summer workshop that will be held in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, July 1st to Saturday, July 21st, 2007. The application deadline is Friday, March 23rd, and application instructions are described at the bottom of this document. The 2007 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering, Airforce Research Office, Eglin Airforce Research Lab, Institute for NeuroInfomatics - ETHZ, Geogia Institute of Technology, University of Maryland - College Park, Johns Hopkins University, and The Salk Institute. Last year's workshop was an exciting event and a great success. We strongly encourage interested parties to browse through the previous workshop web pages at: http://ine-web.org/workshops/past-workshops GOALS: Carver Mead introduced the term "Neuromorphic Engineering" for a new field based on the design and fabrication of artificial neural systems, such as vision systems, head-eye systems, and roving robots, whose architecture and design principles are based on those of biological nervous systems. The goal of this workshop is to bring together young investigators and more established researchers from academia with their counterparts in industry and national laboratories, working on both neurobiological as well as engineering aspects of sensory systems and sensory-motor integration. The focus of the workshop will be on active participation, with demonstration systems and hands on experience for all participants. Neuromorphic engineering has a wide range of applications from nonlinear adaptive control of complex systems to the design of smart sensors. Many of the fundamental principles in this field, such as the use of learning methods and the design of parallel hardware (with an emphasis on analog and asynchronous digital VLSI), are inspired by biological systems. However, existing applications are modest and the challenge of scaling up from small artificial neural networks and designing completely autonomous systems at the levels achieved by biological systems lies ahead. The assumption underlying this three week workshop is that the next generation of neuromorphic systems would benefit from closer attention to the principles found through experimental and theoretical studies of real biological nervous systems as whole systems. FORMAT: The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on systems neuroscience (in particular learning, oculo-motor and other motor systems and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI design, small mobile robots (Koalas, Kheperas, LEGO robots), hands-on projects, and special interest groups. Participants are required to take part and possibly complete at least one of the projects proposed. They are furthermore encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities proposed as interest and time allow. There will be two lectures in the morning that cover issues that are important to the community in general. Because of the diverse range of backgrounds among the participants, the majority of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by invited speakers. Participants will be free to explore and play with whatever they choose in the afternoon. Projects and interest groups meet in the late afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there will be tutorial on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, mobile robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective attention mechanisms, etc. Projects that are carried out during the workshop will be centered in a number of working groups, including: * active vision * audition * motor control * central pattern generator and locomotion * robotics * multichip communication * analog VLSI * learning * neuroprosthetic systems The active perception project group will emphasize vision and human sensory-motor coordination. Issues to be covered will include spatial localization and constancy, attention, motor planning, eye movements, and the use of visual motion information for motor control. The central pattern generator group will focus on small walking and undulating robots. It will look at characteristics and sources of parts for building robots, play with working examples of legged and segmented robots, and discuss CPG's and theories of nonlinear oscillators for locomotion. It will also explore the use of simple analog VLSI sensors for autonomous robots. The robotics group will use rovers and working digital vision boards as well as other possible sensors to investigate issues of sensorimotor integration, navigation and learning. The audition group aims to develop biologically plausible algorithms and aVLSI implementations of specific auditory tasks such as source localization and tracking, and sound pattern recognition. Projects will be integrated with visual and motor tasks in the context of a robot platform. The multichip communication project group will use existing interchip communication interfaces to program small networks of artificial neurons to exhibit particular behaviors such as amplification, oscillation, and associative memory. Issues in multichip communicationwill be discussed. LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS: The summer school will take place in the small town of Telluride, 9000 feet high in Southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive away from Denver (350miles). Great Lakes Aviation and America West Express airlines provide daily flights directly into Telluride. All facilities within the beautifully renovated public school building are fully accessible to participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in ski condominiums, within walking distance of the school. Participants are expected to share condominiums. The workshop is intended to be very informal and hands-on. Participants are not required to have had previous experience in analog VLSI circuit design, computational or machine vision, systems level neurophysiology or modeling the brain at the systems level. However, we strongly encourage active researchers with relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories to apply, in particular if they are prepared to work on specific projects, talk about their own work or bring demonstrations to Telluride (e.g. robots, chips, software). Internet access will be provided. Technical staff present throughout the workshops will assist with software and hardware issues. We will have a network of PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows for the workshop projects. We also plan to provide wireless internet access and encourage participants to bring along their personal laptop. No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend that you do not rent a car. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes, rain gear, and a backpack, since Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains. Unless otherwise arranged with one of the organizers, we expect participants to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop. FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT: Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around mid April 2007. Participants are expected to pay a $800.00 workshop fee at that time in order to reserve a place in the workshop. The cost of a shared condominium will be covered for all academic participants but upgrades to a private room will cost extra. Participants from National Laboratories and Industry are expected to pay for these condominiums. Travel reimbursement of up to $500 for US domestic travel and up to $800 for overseas travel will be possible if financial help is needed (please specify on the application). HOW TO APPLY: Applicants should be at the level of graduate students or above (i.e.postdoctoral fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff and the equivalent positions in industry and national laboratories). We actively encourage women and minority candidates to apply. The application website is (after February 12th, 2007): http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2007/apply/ Application will include: * First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address. * Curriculum Vitae. * One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop. * Two letters of recommendation (to be sent by references directly to "Ralph Etienne-Cummings" ). The application deadline is Friday, March 23, 2007. Applicants will be notified by e-mail by the end of April. From malchiodi at dsi.unimi.it Wed Feb 7 05:42:37 2007 From: malchiodi at dsi.unimi.it (Dario Malchiodi) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 11:42:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd CFP: Learning from uncertain data References: <7EB73180-8E61-4D8E-A48A-9BF001230BE9@dsi.unimi.it> Message-ID: <891B9F9D-DFFA-41EF-8762-C999BD36DC5D@dsi.unimi.it> Apologies for cross-posting. Please note the modified submission procedure and the opportunity of publishing a post-proceedings edited volume. ------------------------------------ 2nd CFP: Invited session on Learning from uncertain data KES2007: 11th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems in conjunction with WIRN07: 17th Italian Workshop on Neural Networks September 12-14, 2007 - Vietri sul Mare (SA), Italy http://homes.dsi.unimi.it/~malchiod/WIRN07/ ------------------------------------ The session will focus on research activities in the field of learning from data when a quantitative measure of the uncertainty affecting each data item is available, as a counterpart of the usual samples in input to learning algorithms, gathering data to be considered homogeneously. ------------------------------------ Topics The session will welcome (although not limiting to) contributions on theoretical analysis of the problem, design of machine learning algorithms, as well as real-world applications. A non exhaustive list of topics to focus on is the following: * Learning algorithms * Integration between learning and fuzzy sets * Soft computing methods for classification and model selection * Support vector machines and kernel methods * Integration between optimization and learning * Statistical methods for dealing with uncertainty * Real-world applications of uncertainty-based learning algorithms ------------------------------------ Paper submissions Participants are encouraged to submit papers (up to eight pages in length) in the Springer LNCS/LNAI format. The conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the LNAI series. The accepted papers for this session will also be considered for publication in a post-proceedings edited volume. All submissions should be uploaded through the web page http://www.kes2007is.prosemanager.com/submitpaper.asp specifying "IS20: Learning form uncertain data" as session name. ------------------------------------ Important dates Paper deadline: February 28th, 2007 Notification of acceptance: April 1st, 2007 Camera-ready papers: April 30th, 2007 ------------------------------------ Session chair Dario Malchiodi Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione Universit? degli Studi di Milano Via Comelico 39/41 20135 Milano ITALY T: +39 02 503 16338 F: +39 02 503 16276 E: malchiodi(AT)dsi.unimi.it W: http://homes.dsi.unimi.it/~malchiod ------------------------------------ Conference venue The conference will be organized in the beautiful town of Vietri sul Mare, near Salerno. Please refer to the official KES2007 web site for details on the conference and for travel informations. From C.Campbell at bristol.ac.uk Wed Feb 7 10:14:47 2007 From: C.Campbell at bristol.ac.uk (ICG Campbell, Engineering Mathematics) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:14:47 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Lectureship/Readership available: Bristol University, UK Message-ID: <13855583.1170861287@ems-iggs.enm.bris.ac.uk> Lecturership or Readership available in the: Department of Engineering Mathematics University of Bristol United Kingdom Based in the Department of Engineering Mathematics, two permanent posts are available following recent research successes including a ?1.6M EPSRC grant, a Royal Society Wolfson award, a new doctoral training centre in Complexity Sciences and the Bristol/Bath EngD in Systems Engineering. Appointments will be made at either Lecturer (Grade B) or Reader level. You will join a vibrant and unique Department that is internationally renowned for its research in Applied Nonlinear Mathematics and in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Statistical Learning Theory, with an emerging research group at the Life Sciences Interface. Opportunities exist to engage in collaborative research across a wide spectrum of mathematical, engineering, computational and biomedical topics. You should have an established track record in any area related to the Department's current or emerging interests and a desire to engage in interdisciplinary teaching and research within a dynamic and growing Faculty of Engineering. Grade : Lecturer Grade B - Senior Lecturer Salary : ?30,013 - ?46,295 Vacancy ref: 12972 Contact: Ms E.K. Weeks Department of Engineering Mathematics, Queen's Building, University of Bristol, BS8 1TR United Kingdom E-mail: e.weeks at bristol.ac.uk Tel: 0117 928 9734 Alternative Contact: Prof A Champneys E-mail: a.r.champneys at bris.ac.uk Tel: 0117 928 7510 ***Closing Date : 15 March 2007*** ***Interview Date : 30 April 2007*** Contract : Permanent Further details and an application form can be found at https://www.bris.ac.uk/boris/jobs/ads?ID=61474 Alternatively you can telephone (0117) 954 6947, minicom (0117) 928 8894 or E-Mail Recruitment at bris.ac.uk (stating postal address ONLY), quoting reference number 12972. The departmental website is at: www.enm.bris.ac.uk The university website is at: www.bris.ac.uk The closing date for applications is ***9.00am, 15 March 2007*** The University of Bristol is an Equal Opportunities Employer. From emmanuel.vincent at irisa.fr Wed Feb 7 09:24:56 2007 From: emmanuel.vincent at irisa.fr (Emmanuel Vincent) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:24:56 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position at IRISA, Rennes, France Message-ID: <45C9E138.3030600@irisa.fr> Dear list, We are seeking to recruit a postdoctoral researcher on the statistical modeling of multichannel audio, applied to speaker segmentation and separation (full subject below). The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Drs. Guillaume Gravier and Emmanuel Vincent, in the METISS group at IRISA, which possesses a newly-equipped room dedicated to the exploration of future meeting environments. Prospective candidates should have a background in multichannel signal processing or in speech processing and hold a PhD for less than one year or being about to obtain one. Informal enquiries may be made to Emmanuel Vincent (emmanuel.vincent at irisa.fr) or Guillaume Gravier (guillaume.gravier at irisa.fr). This appointment is for 2 years, starting summer or fall 2007. Salary will be at 28000 euros per annum. Applications must be submitted online before march 31st at http://www.inria.fr/travailler/opportunites/postdoc/postdoc.en.html Joint statistical modeling of spectral, temporal and spatial audio features, applied to speaker segmentation and separation Most audio signals represent complex sound scenes consisting of several overlapping sources (speakers, natural sounds, musical instruments). These sources are usually located at different spatial positions and exhibit different spectro-temporal characteristics. The processing of such documents involves several challenging tasks, such as the separation, the segmentation and more generally the description of each source. Existing description algorithms are mostly designed for one-microphone recordings and rely on statistical modeling of spectral features. Yet, in many application environments, multiple microphones are available thus providing valuable spatial information. Beamforming algorithms are then typically employed to determine at each instant the number of sources and their locations based on spatial features. These algorithms can improve the detection of overlapping sources. However their robustness decreases for small microphone arrays or with moving sources. The goal of this project is to define a unified statistical modeling framework for the joint exploitation of spectral, temporal and spatial information in multichannel audio signals. Dynamic state-based models offer a promising approach for the description of some extracted spectral and spatial features as a function of some hidden states associated with different sources and positions. A first stage of the project could consist of extending the state-of-the-art one-microphone segmentation model developed in our lab (based on GMMs) by incorporating spatial features obtained from classical source localization and separation techniques (e.g. ICA, DUET, beamforming). The proposed framework will be primarily applied to speaker segmentation and separation, which is the task of finding out the structure of a speech recording according to the question "who spoke when and where" and to extract the signal of each speaker. The results will be evaluated on meeting data recorded by small microphone arrays. Data from the NIST meeting evaluation will be used along with data recorded at our lab in a room dedicated to the exploration of future meeting environments. -- Emmanuel Vincent METISS Project IRISA-INRIA Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes cedex, France Phone: +332 9984 7227 - Fax: +332 9984 7171 Web: http://www.irisa.fr/metiss/members/evincent/ From kbp at imm.dtu.dk Sat Feb 10 07:37:53 2007 From: kbp at imm.dtu.dk (Kaare Brandt Petersen) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:37:53 +0100 (MET) Subject: Connectionists: New version of The Matrix Cookbook Message-ID: Dear Colleagues (Apologies for multiple postings) A new and updated version of The Matrix Cookbok is now available at http://www.imm.dtu.dk/pubdb/views/edoc_download.php/3274/pdf/imm3274.pdf The Matrix Cookbook is a desktop reference on identities, relations and approximations regarding matrices. For instance differentiation of determinants, results for multivariate gaussians, expectations of general multivariate distributions, etc. More information at http://matrixcookbook.com/ Best regards, Michael and Kaare -- Kaare Brandt Petersen * http://2302.dk From d.g.heinke at bham.ac.uk Fri Feb 9 12:25:36 2007 From: d.g.heinke at bham.ac.uk (Dietmar Heinke) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 17:25:36 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Research workshop on computational modeling Message-ID: <45CCAE90.3060308@bham.ac.uk> Call for Attendance This workshop is part of a series of published colloquia on 'Advances in cognitive neuroscience', held at the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham. The general aim of the workshop is to bring together leading international researchers either using computational models, or collecting data directly relevant to models, to discuss the current state of the art, and to evaluate new directions in in the interaction between models and data. Title: Closing the gap between neurophysiology and behaviour: A computational modelling approach Organiser: Dietmar Heinke Location: Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom Date: 31.May 2007 to 2.June 2007 Aims and Objective At present modelling approaches range from "neurophysiological processes in details and indifferent to whole-system behaviour" to "modeling a broad range of behavioural data but oblivious to neurophysiological details". However, in order to close the gap between neurophysiological process and human behavior it may be necessary to connect both ends of that spectrum, such as modelling a broad range of behavioral data together with neurophysiological details. This workshop aims at discussing ways of closing the gap, i.e. how to develop an integrative approach, by bringing together computational modelling researchers from different points of the spectrum. A number of internationally renowned researchers have agreed to present a paper at this workshop (see http://comp-psych.bham.ac.uk/workshop.htm for details). Registration For further inquiries and registration please email the conference secretary, Elaine Fox e.fox at bham.ac.uk. Please note that to cover our expenses we will charge a small registration fee of ? 30 per day to be paid at arrival. Satellite workshop Please note that there will be also a satellite workshop with the title "The method of computational modelling: A practical introduction". This workshop aims to give postdocs and postgraduates with a background in psychology a hands-on introduction to computational modelling (see http://comp-psych.bham.ac.uk/sat_workshop.htm for details). Dietmar Heinke -- School of Psychology University of Birmingham Birmingham B15 2TT, UK http://www.psychresearch.bham.ac.uk/dgheinke/ Phone: +44 121-414-4920 FAX: +44 121-414-4897 From nips2007publicity at msn.com Mon Feb 12 21:24:12 2007 From: nips2007publicity at msn.com (Sumit Basu) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:24:12 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: NIPS*2007 - Preliminary Call for Papers Message-ID: PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS -- NIPS*2007 Deadline for Paper Submissions: June 8, 2007 Submissions are solicited for the Twenty-First Annual meeting of an interdisciplinary Conference (December 3-6) which brings together researchers interested in all aspects of neural and statistical processing and computation. The Conference will include invited talks as well as oral and poster presentations of refereed papers. It is single track and highly selective. Preceding the main Conference will be one day of Tutorials (December 3), and following it will be two days of Workshops at Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort (December 7-8). Invited Speakers: To be announced. Tutorial Speakers: To be announced. Submissions: Papers are solicited in all areas of neural information processing and statistical learning, including (but not limited to) the following: · Algorithms and Architectures: statistical learning algorithms, neural networks, kernel methods, graphical models, Gaussian processes, dimensionality reduction and manifold learning, model selection, combinatorial optimization. · Applications: innovative applications or fielded systems that use machine learning, including systems for time series prediction, bioinformatics, text/web analysis, multimedia processing, and robotics. · Brain Imaging: neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience, EEG (electroencephalogram), ERP (event related potentials), MEG (magnetoencephalogram), fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), brain mapping, brain segmentation, brain computer interfaces. · Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence: theoretical, computational, or experimental studies of perception, psychophysics, human or animal learning, memory, reasoning, problem solving, natural language processing, and neuropsychology. · Control and Reinforcement Learning: decision and control, exploration, planning, navigation, Markov decision processes, game-playing, multi-agent coordination, computational models of classical and operant conditioning. · Hardware Technologies: analog and digital VLSI, neuromorphic engineering, computational sensors and actuators, microrobotics, bioMEMS, neural prostheses, photonics, molecular and quantum computing. · Learning Theory: generalization, regularization and model selection, Bayesian learning, spaces of functions and kernels, statistical physics of learning, online learning and competitive analysis, hardness of learning and approximations, large deviations and asymptotic analysis, information theory. · Neuroscience: theoretical and experimental studies of processing and transmission of information in biological neurons and networks, including spike train generation, synaptic modulation, plasticity and adaptation. · Speech and Signal Processing: recognition, coding, synthesis, denoising, segmentation, source separation, auditory perception, psychoacoustics, dynamical systems, recurrent networks, Language Models, Dynamic and Temporal models. · Visual Processing: biological and machine vision, image processing and coding, segmentation, object detection and recognition, motion detection and tracking, visual psychophysics, visual scene analysis and interpretation. Review Criteria: As in the last year, NIPS submissions will be reviewed double-blind: the reviewers will not know the identities of the authors. Submissions will be refereed on the basis of technical quality, novelty, potential impact on the field, and clarity. There will be an opportunity after the meeting to revise accepted manuscripts. We particularly encourage submissions by authors new to NIPS, as well as application papers that combine concrete results on novel or previously unachievable applications with analysis of the underlying difficulty from a machine learning perspective. Submission Instructions: NIPS accepts only electronic submissions at http://nips2007.confmaster.net These submissions must be in PDF format. The Conference web site will accept electronic submissions until midnight June 8, 2007, Pacific daylight time. Demonstrations: There is a separate Demonstration track at NIPS. Authors wishing to submit to the Demonstration track should consult the Conference web site. Program Committee: Francis Bach (Ecole des Mines de Paris) Michael Black (Brown University) Nicolo Cesa-Bianchi (Università degli Studi di Milano) Olivier Chapelle (Yahoo! Research) Sanjoy Dasgupta (UC San Diego) Virginia de Sa (UC San Diego) David Fleet (University of Toronto) Isabelle Guyon (ClopiNet) Bert Kappen (University of Nijmegen) Dan Klein (UC Berkeley) Daphne Koller (Stanford) [Co-Chair] Chih-Jen Lin (National Taiwan University) Kevin Murphy (University of British Columbia) William Noble (University of Washington) Stefan Schaal (University of Southern California) Dale Schuurmans (University of Alberta) Odelia Schwartz (Salk Institute and Albert Einstein College of Medicine) Fei Sha (UC Berkeley) Yoram Singer (Google and Hebrew University) [Co-Chair] Mark Steyvers (UC Irvine) Alan Stocker (New York University) Yee Whye Teh (Gatsby Unit, UCL) Nikos Vlassis (Technical University of Crete) Ulrike von Luxburg (MPI for Biological Cybernetics) Chris Williams (University of Edinburgh) Andrew Zisserman (University of Oxford) Deadline for Paper Submissions: June 8, 2007 From hiro at brain.riken.jp Mon Feb 12 07:19:32 2007 From: hiro at brain.riken.jp (hiroyuki nakahara) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:19:32 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: CFA RIKEN BSI 2007 Summer School Message-ID: <20070212211927.327D.HIRO@brain.riken.jp> Dear colleagues, I forward the following information. - Hiro Nakahara Call for Applications RIKEN Brain Science Institute 2007 Summer Program URL: http://www.brain.riken.jp/english/f_summ/f0_top.html Application deadline; February 28th, 2007 Lecture Course: July 23 - August 3 Internship: July 4 - August 29 Every summer, RIKEN Brain Science Institute (Wako, Japan; nearby Tokyo) organizes the international summer school. The short summary of the summer school this year is attached below. Application guideline, further information of the coming and past summer schools and etc are on the above URL. The summer school program has two types of applications. One is to attend the lecture course (July 23 - August 3). The course has a a nice mixture of experimental and theoeretical lectures. The other is to have a two-months intership in one of laboratories at RIKEN Brain Science Instiute in addition to the attendance at the lecture course. In both types, financial support for travel and accommodation will be considered for those without external funding. For questions, please send any general inquiry not to me but to the adminstration or organizing committee of the summer school on the the summer school URL(http://www.brain.riken.jp/english/f_summ/f0_top.html), while you can send inquiry to me if it is specifically about my laboratory (lab URL: http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp/index_eng.html). 2007 Summer Program Title; Brain Science: Mystery and Mission 2007 is the 10th anniversary of RIKEN BSI. Coinciding with the early years of the 21st century, this is a special occasion for celebrating past achievements in brain science, as well as, importantly, articulating the shape of the field in the decades to come. The theme of this Summer Program, therefore, is deliberately broad. A roster of international researchers will lecture on their area of expertise, and join in considering new directions of brain science and its long-term role in society. We hope students will gain further inspiration for their own mystery and mission in the years ahead. Invited Lecturers Shun-ichi Amari (RIKEN BSI, Japan) Terrence Deacon (UC Berkeley, USA) John Donoghue (Brown University) Aike Guo (Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.R. China) Zhigang He (Children's Hospital, Boston, USA) Masao Ito (RIKEN BSI, Japan) Erich Jarvis (Duke University, USA) Mitsuo Kawato (ATR, Japan) Akihiro Kusumi (Kyoto University, Japan) Klaus-Peter Lesch (Univ. of Wurzburg, Germany) Pierre-Marie Lledo (Institut Pasteur, France) Nikos Logothetis (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Germany) Katsuhiko Mikoshiba (RIKEN BSI, Japan) Carol Mason (Columbia University, USA) Klaus Obermayer (Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin,Germany) Dennis O'Leary (Salk Institute) Noriko Osumi (Tohoku University, Japan) Josh Sanes (Harvard University, USA) Keiji Tanaka (RIKEN BSI, Japan) Charles Weissmann (Scripps Florida, USA) George Yancopoulos (Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., USA) --------------------------------- Hiro Nakahara Lab for Integrated Theoretical Neuroscience RIKEN Brain Science Institute 2-1 Hirosawa Wako Saitama, 351-0198, Japan Email: hn at brain.riken.jp Lab webpage: http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp/index_eng.html -- hiroyuki nakahara http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp From Johan.Suykens at esat.kuleuven.be Mon Feb 12 08:56:52 2007 From: Johan.Suykens at esat.kuleuven.be (Johan Suykens) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:56:52 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Data Visualization and Dimensionality Reduction Message-ID: <45D07224.8010205@esat.kuleuven.ac.be> Dear Connectionists, Please find enclosed a new technical report on data visualization and dimensionality reduction, together with a demo file. Best regards, Johan Suykens J.A.K. Suykens, "Data Visualization and Dimensionality Reduction using Kernel Maps with a Reference Point", Internal Report 07-22, ESAT-SISTA, K.U. Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), Feb. 2007. PDF: http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/lssvmlab/KMref/KMref0722.pdf Matlab demo: http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/lssvmlab/KMref/demoswissKMref.m Abstract- In this paper a new kernel based method for data visualization and dimensionality reduction is proposed. A reference point is considered corresponding to additional constraints taken in the problem formulation. In contrast with the class of kernel eigenmap methods, the solution (coordinates in the low dimensional space) is characterized by a linear system instead of an eigenvalue problem. The kernel maps with a reference point are generated from a least squares support vector machine core part that is extended with an additional regularization term for preserving local mutual distances together with reference point constraints. The kernel maps possess primal and dual model representations and provide out-of-sample extensions e.g. for validation based tuning. The method is illustrated on toy problems and real life data sets. Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm From daniela.pelz at bccn-berlin.de Tue Feb 13 06:19:43 2007 From: daniela.pelz at bccn-berlin.de (Daniela Pelz) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:19:43 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Program and PhD scholarships in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: <45D19ECF.4030605@bccn-berlin.de> PhD program and PhD scholarships in Computational Neuroscience Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Germany The Bernstein Center Berlin solicits applications for an international PhD program in Computational Neuroscience (http://www.bccn-berlin.de). The PhD program is full-time for three years, and will start in October 2007. Course language is English. There are no tuition fees and the program offers a limited number of scholarships of up to ? 1800,- per month initially for two years. The doctoral degree is awarded by the department of the student?s principal thesis advisor. Successful candidates additionally receive a certificate from the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience including a transcript of records. Application deadline is March 15^th 2007 for full consideration. Applications received after the deadline can however be considered until the admission process is completed. Courses start in October 2007. For application details see: http://www.bccn-berlin.de/teaching/program/phd Objective of the PhD Program Computational neuroscience uses a multidisciplinary approach for understanding the brain. It combines experiments with data analysis and computer simulations on the basis of well-defined theoretical concepts and makes a scientific language available that can be used across disciplines and levels for neurobiology, cognitive science, and information technology. Computational Neuroscience may thus help to solve long-standing research questions, contribute to better prevention and treatment strategies for neural disorders, lead to unified concepts about biological processes, advance information technologies and human-machine interactions, and, last but not least, provide new insight for designing efficient strategies for teaching and learning. The PhD program emphasizes a broad, interdisciplinary education with strong interactions between experiment and theory. The programs? faculty is drawn from the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, which represents university departments ranging from biology and medicine to physics and computer science at the three major universities in Berlin, i.e. Humboldt Universit?t zu Berlin, Berlin Technical University, Freie Universit?t Berlin, as well as Charit? Universit?tsmedizin Berlin. Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience The Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin integrates research and teaching activities at the Charit?-Universit?tsmedizin Berlin, Freie Universit?t Berlin, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Berlin University of Technology, Fraunhofer FIRST, the Max-Delbrueck-Center and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. http:// www.bccn-berlin.de For further information please contact daniela.pelz at bccn-berlin.de -- Dr. Daniela Pelz Teaching Coordinator Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Humboldt University Philippstr. 13 House 6 10115 Berlin phone: (030) 2093-6773 fax: (030) 2093-6771 From cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw Tue Feb 13 09:48:48 2007 From: cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw (Chih-Jen Lin) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 22:48:48 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: two papers and one software for NMF Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, We announce two papers and one software package for Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF). Paper: Projected gradient methods for non-negative matrix factorization. To appear in Neural Computation 2007. http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/papers/pgradnmf.pdf Abstract: Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) can be formulated as a minimization problem with bound constraints. Although bound-constrained optimization has been studied extensively in both theory and practice, so far no study has formally applied its techniques to NMF. In this paper, we propose two projected gradient methods for NMF. The proposed methods exhibit strong optimization properties. We discuss efficient implementations and demonstrate that one of the proposed methods converges faster than the popular multiplicative update approach. A simple MATLAB code is also provided. Software: An fast implementation of the proposed method in the above paper is at http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/nmf Paper: On the convergence of multiplicative update algorithms for non-negative matrix factorization. To appear in IEEE TNN 2007 http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/papers/multconv.pdf abstract: Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is useful to find basis information of non-negative data. Currently, multiplicative updates are a simple and popular way to find the factorization. However, for the common NMF approach of minimizing the Euclidean distance between approximate and true values, no proof has shown that that multiplicative updates converge to a stationary point of the NMF optimization problem. Stationarity is important as it is a necessary condition of a local minimum. This paper discusses the difficulty of proving the convergence. We propose slight modifications of existing updates and prove their convergence. Techniques invented in this paper may be applied to prove the convergence for other bound-constrained optimization problems. Your comments are very welcome. Best regards, Chih-Jen Lin Dept. of Computer Science National Taiwan Univ. From becker at mcmaster.ca Mon Feb 12 06:24:39 2007 From: becker at mcmaster.ca (S. Becker) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:24:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Connectionists: papers on hippocampal models of neurogenesis, spatial cognition Message-ID: Dear colleagues, the following two articles may be of interest. Becker, S. and Wojtowicz, J.M. (2007), A model of hippocampal neurogenesis in memory and mood disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(2):70-76. Preprint: http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/becker/papers/BeckerWojtowiczTICSRevisedWFigs.pdf Published article (Science Direct doi) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH9-4MK0J2K-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=0c36226a907589ea1999243d0e501d42 Byrne, P., Becker, S. and Burgess, N. (to appear), Remembering the past and imagining the future: a neural model of spatial memory and imagery. Psychological Review. Preprint: http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/becker/papers/ByrneBeckerBurgess_SingleSpace.pdf Sue Becker, Professor Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour McMaster University www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/sb.html From M.Casey at surrey.ac.uk Thu Feb 15 04:09:55 2007 From: M.Casey at surrey.ac.uk (M.Casey@surrey.ac.uk) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:09:55 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Information Fusion Journal Special Issue: Extended Deadline Message-ID: Due to a number of requests, we are currently still accepting papers for the special issue of the journal Information Fusion on "Biologically Inspired Information Fusion". If you are currently intending to submit a paper then please contact the guest editors as soon as possible. All extensions will be agreed on a case-by-case basis. Full details at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inffus Bringing together research on the biology and psychology of multi-sensory processing, computational neuroscience and theoretical work on mechanisms for combining different information sources. Topics appropriate for this special issue include, but are not limited to: * Biologically inspired fusion schemes * Adaptive information fusion which emphasize biological motivations * Biologically inspired fusion in robotics * Multimodal integration: * Modeling combined sensory processing * Including, but not exclusively, combining vision, audition, olfaction, taste or touch * Combining artificial and biological sensors * Attention or emotional biasing on sensory processing * Biologically motivated applications of multi-sensor integration Our understanding of both natural and artificial cognitive systems is an exciting area of research that is developing into a multi-disciplinary subject with the potential for significant impact on science, engineering and society in general. There is considerable interest in how our understanding of natural systems may help us to apply biological strategies to artificial systems. Of particular interest is our understanding of how to build adaptive information fusion systems by combining knowledge from different domains. In natural systems, the integration of sensory information is learnt at an early stage of development. Therefore, through a better understanding of the structures and processes involved in this natural adaptive integration, we may be able to construct a truly artificial multi-sensory processing system. Here then, psychological and physiological knowledge of multisensory processing, and particularly the low level influence that different modalities have on one another, can be used to build upon existing theoretical work on computational mechanisms, such as self organization and the combination of multiple neural networks, to build systems that can fuse together different information sources. These themes were recently discussed at an International Workshop on Biologically Inspired Information Fusion. As well as presenting the state-of-the-art on multi-sensory processing and information fusion from the life and physical sciences, the workshop provided a forum for researchers to discuss priorities for developing this multi-disciplinary area. This special issue of Information Fusion is therefore aimed at following up from these discussions by focusing on the highlighted priorities, whilst also providing an opportunity for the wider dissemination of relevant themes. For this special issue, papers should either have a biological motivation and/or inspiration, or otherwise be of biological relevance and interest. Manuscripts should make the biological dimension explicit. Information Fusion related papers lacking this dimension are to be submitted to a regular issue of the journal. Manuscripts (which should be original and not previously published or presented even in a more or less similar form under any other forum) covering biologically inspired information fusion methods and their applications as well as the theories and algorithms developed to address these applications are invited. Contributions should be described in sufficient detail to be reproducible on the basis of the material presented in the paper. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically online at http://ees.elsevier.com/inffus. The corresponding author will have to create a user profile if one has not been established before at Elsevier. Simultaneously, please also send without fail an electronic copy (PDF format preferred), to the Guest Editors listed below. Please identify clearly that the submission is meant for this special issue. Guest Editors Dr Matthew Casey, Department of Computing, University of Surrey, UK, m.casey at surrey.ac.uk Professor Robert Damper, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK, rid at ecs.soton.ac.uk Further information can be found at: http://www.cs.surrey.ac.uk/people/academic/M.Casey/biif2006.html http://www.elsevier.com/authored_subject_sections/P05/pdf/cfp_bif.pdf http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inffus From amirhussain007 at aol.com Thu Feb 15 10:10:50 2007 From: amirhussain007 at aol.com (Dr. Amir Hussain) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:10:50 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Call for Papers for 17th ICANN 2007, Porto, Portugal, 9-13 Sep 2007 Message-ID: <001601c75113$7b5476f0$0200a8c0@cs.ad.stir.ac.uk> Please forward the Call below to friends and colleagues... Thank you in advance and please accept our apologies for any cross-postings.. Kind regards, Amir Hussain, PhD Centre for Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience University of Stirling Scotland, UK Email: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk -------------------- International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks - ICANN 2007 9-13 September 2007, Ipanema Park Hotel, Porto, Portugal Web page: http://www.icann2007.org 2nd Call for Papers Deadlines 16 Feb End of submission of special session and workshop proposals. 23 Mar End of submission of full papers. The 17th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2007, will be held from September 9 through September 13 at the Ipanema Park Hotel, Porto, Portugal. ICANN is an annual conference organized by the European Neural Network Society in co-operation with the International Neural Network Society, and is a premier event in all topics related to neural networks. ICANN 2007 welcomes contributions on the theory, algorithms and applications in the following broad areas: - Computational neuroscience; - Connectionist cognitive science; - Data analysis and pattern recognition; - Graphical network models, Bayesian networks; - Hardware implementations and embedded systems; - Intelligent Multimedia and the Semantic Web; - Neural and hybrid architectures and learning algorithms; - Neural control, planning and robotics applications; - Neural dynamics and complex systems; - Neuroinformatics; - Real world applications; - Self-organization; - Sequential and structured information processing; - Signal and time series processing, blind source separation; - Vision and image processing. General-Chair Joaquim Marques de S?, University of Porto, Portugal Co-Chair Lu?s Alexandre, University of Beira Interior, Portugal Program Chairs Wlodzislaw Duch, Torun, PL & Singapore, ENNS President Danilo Mandic, Imperial College London, UK Honorary Chair John G. Taylor, Kings College, London, UK Program Committee Alessandro Sperduti, Univ. Padova, IT Alessandro Villa, Univ. Grenoble, FR Amir Hussain, University of Stirling, UK Andreas Nuernberger, Univ. Magdeburg, DE Andreas Stafylopatis, NTUA, GR Andrzej Cichocki, RIKEN Brain Sci. Inst., JP Bruno Apolloni, Univ. Milano, IT David Miller, Univ. Pennsylvania, USA Dragan Obradovic, Siemens Corp. Res., DE Erkki Oja, Helsinki University, FI Erol Gelenbe, Imperial College London, UK Hojjat Adeli, Ohio State Univ., USA Jacek Mandziuk, Warsaw University, PL Jo?o Lu?s Rosa, Catholic Univ. Campinas, BR Jose Dorronsoro, Univ. Aut. de Madrid, ES Jos? Pr?ncipe, Univ. Florida, USA Juergen Schmidhuber, TU Munich (DE) and IDSIA (CH) Lefteris Tsoukalas, Purdue Univ., USA Marios Polycarpou, Univ.Cyprus, CY Mark Embrechts, Rensselaer Inst., USA Michel Verleysen, Univ. Louvain-la-Neuve, BE Nikola Kasabov, Auckland Univ., NZ Okyay Kaynak, Bogazici University, TR Olli Simula, Helsinki University, FI Peter Andras, Univ. Newcastle, UK P?ter ?rdi, HU & Kalamazoo College, USA Stan Gielen, University of Nijmegen, NL Stefan Wermter, Univ.Sunderland, UK Stefanos Kolias, NTUA, GR Steve Gunn, Univ. Southampton, UK Thomas Martinetz, Univ. Luebeck, DE Conference Proceedings Published by Springer-Verlag (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Neural Networks Special Issue An extended version of selected ICANN 2007 papers will be published in a Special Issue of Elsevier's journal Neural Networks. Sponsors: ENNS, INNS, JNNS, EURASIP, IEEE-CIS, MICROSOFT, INEB, ISEP, UBI Student support available (please see web page) ICANN 2007 Secretariat Gabriela Afonso, INEB, Campus FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, Porto, Portugal (gafonso at fe.up.pt) From pascal.fua at epfl.ch Thu Feb 15 13:57:05 2007 From: pascal.fua at epfl.ch (pascal.fua@epfl.ch) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:57:05 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Opening for a PhD candidate in Computer Vision at EPFL Message-ID: <1171565825.45d4ad0128597@imapwww.epfl.ch> EPFL?s computer vision lab (http://cvlab.epfl.ch/) has an opening for a PhD candidate interested in working on 3D shape and motion recovery from video. For details about our research activities, see http://cvlab.epfl.ch/research/research.html. For practical information about EPFL?s doctoral program and life in Lausanne, see http://acide.epfl.ch/doc-cr/phdguide.pdf. Education: Masters degree in Computer Science or related field with experience in the areas of Computer Vision or Computer Graphics. A strong background in Mathematics is desirable. Applying: 1. Apply to our doctoral program, as explained under http://phd.epfl.ch/page55508.html. 2. Specify in the application form that you are interested by Prof. Fua?s CVLab. There is no need to contact him directly. From ale at sissa.it Fri Feb 16 11:10:25 2007 From: ale at sissa.it (Alessandro Treves) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:10:25 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: EBBS 2007 student travel awards Message-ID: <1171642225.45d5d771928ed@webmail.sissa.it> The European Brain and Behaviour Society offers 10 student fellowships of ? 500,- each to attend its 39th Meeting in Trieste, September 15-19, 2007. Award recipients will be required to present a poster. The award winners will be announced on the web-site by the end of June. The awards will be presented at the Conference Banquet on Tuesday evening. Winners will receive the cash award, a certificate and the banquet fees. Who can apply? EBBS members at the time of registration for the meeting. ? 8 awards: PhD students (EBBS student membership, ? 20) ? 2 awards: post-docs within two years after the thesis (regular, ? 40) To apply for the travel awards, DEADLINE April 1st, 2007, and to apply for EBBS (student) membership: please, see instructions on www.ebbs-science.org Information about the meeting is on http://people.sissa.it/~ale/EBBS2007 -- Alessandro Treves SISSA - Cognitive Neuroscience, now downtown in via Stock 2/2, V fl. BUT NOTE, POSTAL ADDRESS: SISSA - via Beirut 2, 34014 Trieste, Italy tel:39-040-3787623 fax:39-040-3787615 http://people.sissa.it/~ale/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- SISSA Webmail https://webmail.sissa.it/ Powered by Horde http://www.horde.org/ From emmanuel.vincent at irisa.fr Fri Feb 16 12:47:36 2007 From: emmanuel.vincent at irisa.fr (Emmanuel Vincent) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:47:36 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Stereo Audio Source Separation Evaluation Campaign: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Message-ID: <45D5EE38.9090006@irisa.fr> *** SECOND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION *** 1st Stereo Audio Source Separation Evaluation Campaign http://sassec.gforge.inria.fr/ Participation deadline: April 13, 2007 Do you have an algorithm for source separation from few channels? Or are you interested in this challenging issue? Then you should take part in the first campaign for the evaluation of stereo audio source separation algorithms. The task is to estimate from a two-channel speech or music mixture the contribution of each source on each channel, the number of sources being equal to three or more. This campaign complements recent evaluation initiatives conducted by Lucas Parra and the PASCAL network, which focused on different numbers of sources and channels. Three types of mixtures are considered: - instantaneous mixtures, - synthetic convolutive mixtures, - live recordings. All contributions are welcome, including established, novel, blind, non-blind, two-channel or single-channel algorithms. The evaluation will be non-competitive: the results will be made available on the campaign website for listening and evaluated using multiple criteria, possibly proposed by the participants. The results will be summarized in a paper to be discussed at the ICA'07 conference (see http://www.ica2007.org/), during which the participants who wish to present a poster about their algorithm will also have the opportunity to do so. These posters will then be published on the campaign website. For more information about the campaign and to download development/test sets and evaluation criteria, see http://sassec.gforge.inria.fr/ Best regards, Emmanuel Vincent, Hiroshi Sawada, Pau Bofill, Shoji Makino and Justinian Rosca From tmatsui at ism.ac.jp Fri Feb 16 16:06:02 2007 From: tmatsui at ism.ac.jp (Tomoko Matsui) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 06:06:02 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc opportunity Message-ID: <20070217060424.EA5B.TMATSUI@ism.ac.jp> This is an announcement for a job opportunity for a postdoc in the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM), Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS). ---------------------------------- JOB OPPORTUNITY Postdoctoral position: Applicants are invited to apply to the Transdisciplinary Research Integration Center, ISM/ROIS. ISM is one of member institutes of ROIS along with the National Institute of Informatics, the National Institute of Genetics and the National Institute of Polar Research. The ISM mission includes promoting statistical science and developing an innovative methodology for approaching complex problems related to life science, earth science, environmental science and human sciences from the view point of information and systems (http://www.ism.ac.jp/index_e.html). The position will start as soon as possible after 1 April 2007. The postdoctoral researcher will work on the following project ?Discovery of Invariants in Multimodal Data? (http://www.ism.ac.jp/~tmatsui/kinou2_p4/index-en.html). The initial contract is one-year long but could be extended up to three years. Field of work: Machine learning, kernel machines, computational statistics, Bayesian statistics, or multimodal processing Project description: Multimodal data available to us through the Internet and other electronic media are explosively increasing both in number and in variety. To handle such massive data for various purposes, new technologies need to be developed. With this in mind, we have started investigating a new methodology that allows us to discover from multimodal data the information relevant to the purpose at hand (which is referred to as ?invariants?). To achieve this goal, we will study several qualitatively different problems from different research areas, in which multimodal data play a central role (e.g., visual/audio/text processing, cognitive science, auditory perception and robotics). The problems are to be tackled with some of the recently developed inductive learning machines including automatic model selection mechanism (e.g., Penalized Logistic Regression Machines and Support Vector Machines). The results will be analyzed in order to establish a new methodology for discovery of invariants, which will be applicable to problems across different areas of study. Job description: The successful candidate will support and coordinate our efforts in the area of investigation of methods for discovery of invariants with multimodal data. Requirements: Applicants should have a PhD and some knowledge of machine learning and statistics. Applicants must be able to program (C/C++ and Matlab knowledge is an advantage but not requirement) and must also have experience with statistical data analysis. Payment: The salary will be in the range of 4,500,000 yen - 6,000,000 yen (before tax and insurance). Application: Applicants should send their CV, including a list of publications and the names of two potential referees. Contact: Prof. Tomoko Matsui E-mail: tmatsui at ism.ac.jp Tel: +1 604 822 9662 (until 9 March 2007 (Vancouver, Canada)) +81 3 5421 8769 (from 10 March 2007 (Japan)) ---------------------------------- -- Tomoko Matsui The Institute of Statistical Mathematics Tel: +81 3 5421 8769 Fax: +81 3 5421 8796 E-mail: tmatsui at ism.ac.jp HP: http://www.ism.ac.jp/~tmatsui/ From shipeng.yu at siemens.com Mon Feb 19 16:50:01 2007 From: shipeng.yu at siemens.com (Yu, Shipeng (MED US)) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:50:01 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Internship available at Siemens Medical Solutions USA Message-ID: <6E67E19DB8BFD743A688D8A6F82C02B101BDA031@USMLVV1EXCTV03.ww005.siemens.net> *Apologies for cross posting. Please forward to interested people* The Computer-Aided Diagnosis Group at Siemens Medical Solutions USA is looking for summer interns. We are specifically interested in motivated Ph.D. students in diverse areas of machine learning, data mining and natural language processing. Siemens Medical Solutions is one of the largest global suppliers of healthcare equipment, renowned for innovative products, services and solutions including diagnostic imaging systems, therapy equipment, electromedicine, and IT solutions to optimize workflow and increase efficiency in the healthcare industry. The CAD group is committed to building a world-class R&D team in machine learning and data mining. As an intern, you will join CAD's team of scientists in solving exciting and challenging research problems in the medical field. Our research is motivated by decision-support and data processing problems arising in the medical domain and related health areas; experience or interest in these areas is a plus. Our team currently conducts research in Bayesian methods, probabilistic inference, statistical learning theory, optimization, statistics, natural language processing, data mining and works closely with a team of image processing scientists. You will be expected to spend at least 10-12 weeks; however there is much flexibility in the starting and finishing dates (non-summer and longer internships are also considered). We provide competitive salaries and also strongly encourage all interns to publish. In order to apply, please follow these steps: * Email your CV to the address below * Request one letter of recommendation (preferably from your advisor) to be emailed to us * Briefly (e.g., in half a page) tell us about what research and application areas you would prefer to work on and during what dates you wish to join Email the above to shipeng.yu siemens.com, with the subject "CAD ML Internships". Please also send emails if you need further information about the internships. We are located in Malvern, PA, approximately one hour from Center City Philadelphia, on the suburban Main Line area. ---------------------------------------------------------- Shipeng Yu, Ph.D. Staff Scientist Siemens Medical Solutions, MS E51 Computer Aided Diagnosis & Therapy 51 Valley Stream Parkway Malvern, PA 19355 USA Email: shipeng.yu at siemens.com Office: 610-448-4420 Fax: 610-448-4274 ---------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message and any included attachments are from Siemens Medical Solutions and are intended only for the addressee(s). The information contained herein may include trade secrets or privileged or otherwise confidential information. Unauthorized review, forwarding, printing, copying, distributing, or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you received this message in error, or have reason to believe you are not authorized to receive it, please promptly delete this message and notify the sender by e-mail with a copy to Central.SecurityOffice at siemens.com Thank you From astrid.prinz at emory.edu Mon Feb 19 17:44:05 2007 From: astrid.prinz at emory.edu (Astrid Prinz) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:44:05 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in computational neuroscience Message-ID: <20070219174405.rvsrtmdjgoco0k8w@webmail.service.emory.edu> Postdoctoral position in computational neuroscience Emory University, Atlanta We are looking for a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to study homeostatic plasticity in neurons and neuronal circuits through a combination of modeling and experimentation. The ideal candidate has a strong background in neuroscience and computer modeling, and experience with electrophysiology is very desirable. The position is available immediately, and further information on the lab is located at http://www.biology.emory.edu/research/Prinz/index.html. To apply, please submit a CV, description of research interests, and two letters of reference to astrid.prinz at emory.edu or to Astrid Prinz Department of Biology, Emory University O. Wayne Rollins Research Center 1510 Clifton Road Atlanta, GA 30322 From Yann.Guermeur at loria.fr Wed Feb 21 08:53:29 2007 From: Yann.Guermeur at loria.fr (Yann Guermeur) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:53:29 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Special session ASMDA'07 : Extended deadline Message-ID: <45DC4ED9.3090408@loria.fr> Dear Colleagues, Due to many requests, the deadline to submit a paper to the special session "Supervised Prediction with Neural Networks and SVMs" : http://www.loria.fr/~guermeur/ASMDA_CFP.html of the ASMDA'07 international conference is extended to March, 1st 2007. Best regards, Yann Guermeur -- Yann Guermeur Tel: (+33) 03 83 59 30 18 LORIA Fax: (+33) 03 83 41 30 79 Campus Scientifique BP 239 54506 Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy Cedex email: Yann.Guermeur at loria.fr FRANCE http://www.loria.fr/~guermeur From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Thu Feb 22 14:45:41 2007 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:45:41 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: NEURON 2007 Summer Course Message-ID: <45DDF2E5.9060307@yale.edu> COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT What: "The NEURON Simulation Environment" (NEURON 2007 Summer Course) http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/sdsc2007/sdsc2007.html When: Saturday, June 23, through Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Where: The Institute for Neural Computation at the University of California, San Diego, CA Organizers: N.T. Carnevale and M.L. Hines Description: This intensive hands-on course covers the design, construction, and use of models in the NEURON simulation environment. It is intended primarily for those who are concerned with models of biological neurons and neural networks that are closely linked to empirical observations, e.g. experimentalists who wish to incorporate modeling in their research plans, and theoreticians who are interested in the principles of biological computation. The course is designed to be useful and informative for registrants at all levels of experience, from those who are just beginning to those who are already quite familiar with NEURON or other simulation tools. Registration is limited to 20, and the deadline for receipt of applications is Monday, June 4, 2007. For more information see http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/sdsc2007/sdsc2007.html or contact Ted Carnevale Psychology Dept. PO Box 208205 Yale University New Haven, CT 06520-8205 USA phone 203-494-7381 fax 203-432-7172 email ted.carnevale at yale.edu Supported in part by: National Institutes of Health National Science Foundation Institute for Neural Computation http://inc.ucsd.edu/ Contractual terms require inclusion of the following statement: This course is not sponsored by the University of California. --Ted From bhanupvsr at gmail.com Thu Feb 22 19:18:10 2007 From: bhanupvsr at gmail.com (Bhanu Prasad) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:18:10 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Special session on Neuroinformatics Message-ID: <621812f80702221618t16dd1976t6e831d19e65f74b7@mail.gmail.com> Call for papers The 3rd Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI-07) (website: http://www.iiconference.org is offering a special session on *Neuroinformatics*. The topics of interest include but will not be limited to - Neuroscience data and knowledge bases - Analytical and modelling tools and techniques for neural data analysis - Computational models of brain function at multiple levels (from molecular and all the way to behavioral) The webpage: http://www.iiconference.org/iicai07/neuroinformatics.html contains more details of this session. The session/conference will be held in Pune, India during December 17-19 2007. Also you may visit http://www.iiconference.org for more information on the conference. Bhanu Prasad IICAI-07 Chair Department of Computer and Information Sciences Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL 32307, USA Email: bhanupvsr at gmail.com Phone: 850-412-7350 From bdbryant at cse.unr.edu Fri Feb 23 04:06:06 2007 From: bdbryant at cse.unr.edu (Bobby D. Bryant) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:06:06 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: GRAships - neuroevolution for agent control Message-ID: <1172221566l.16120l.2l@localhost> I have two Graduate Research Assistantships in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, for work using neuroevolution to create "brains" for autonomous intelligent agents that operate in the rich environments of videogames and computer simulators. The GRAs will pursue methods, applications, analysis, or theory in that area. Opponent modelling and policy induction from human-generated examples are of particular interest. My colleague Sushil Louis has an additional GRAship in his Evolutionary Computation Systems Laboratory. This GRA will pursue similar topics, though not necessarily with ANNs. Students who come to UNR will also have the opportunity to interact with other professors and students who research computational intelligence methods for human-computer interaction, robotics, vision, and security. We are currently bootstrapping additional interdisciplinary research programs with our colleagues in software engineering, for the role of CI methods in game engine design, and in psychology, for formal analysis of the behavior of autonomous intelligent agents in rich environments. Application instructions for our graduate program can be found at http://www.unr.edu/content/programs/gradprograms.asp The application deadline for the fall semester is April 15. If you wish to be considered for the university's fellowship competition, please apply by March 15. Either way, drop me a line when you have submitted your application so I will know to expect it. For background on the methods I have been using for agent control, see the papers available at http://www.cse.unr.edu/~bdbryant/ For more information about the work in Dr. Louis's ECSL, see http://ecsl.cse.unr.edu/ For the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, see http://www.cse.unr.edu/ For the University of Nevada at Reno, http://www.unr.edu/ -- Bobby Bryant Computational Intelligence / Computer Game Engineering Department of Computer Science & Engineering University of Nevada, Reno From m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk Mon Feb 26 08:07:47 2007 From: m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk (Marcelo Montemurro) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:07:47 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Manchester Neural Coding Workshop Message-ID: Dear all, we are pleased to invite you to attend the Manchester Neural Coding Workshop. The event will bring together a number of leading international speakers to present cutting edge research on neural coding from a multidisciplinary perspective. The date, time and venue for the workshop are as follows: 26 March 2007, from 10:30 to 17:30 The University of Manchester Faculty of Life Sciences Moffat Building, Altrincham St, Lecture Theatre Further details and travel information can be found at http://www.manchester.ac.uk/lifesciences/neuralcodingworkshop Registration and attendance are free. Please, send and email to neuralcoding at gmail.com in order to register for complimentary buffet lunch. Invited speakers * G. Indiveri * N. K. Logothetis * C. Petersen * R. Q. Quiroga * J. Schnupp * J. Victor Some travel support is available for participants traveling within the UK (priority will be given to PhD students and postdocs). Regards, Marcelo Montemurro Stefano Panzeri Rasmus Petersen -- Dr. Marcelo A. Montemurro Faculty of Life Sciences University of Manchester Jackson's Mill, G7 PO Box 88 Sackville St Manchester M60 1QD United Kingdom phone : +44(0)161 306 3883 fax : +44(0)161 306 3887 e-mail: m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk From agutierrez at el.ub.es Tue Feb 27 04:11:44 2007 From: agutierrez at el.ub.es (agutierrez@el.ub.es) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:11:44 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doctoral position at the University of Barcelona Message-ID: <20070227101144.lgee42xiecc8wgcw@webmail.el.ub.es> Post-doctoral position The Intelligent Signal Processing group at the University of Barcelona is looking for a Post-doctoral candidate to conduct research in the area of biologically inspired signal processing for the following 3 years. The funding for this position will be provided by the Culture and Science Ministry of Spain after the candidate passes a national selection process. Research The position will involve research on the area of biologically inspired processing mechanisms applied to machine olfaction. The study and modeling of the olfactory system can provide new mechanisms to process the chemical information provided by a matrix of non-specific gas sensors. Requirements Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the research to be conducted, candidates of multiple backgrounds will be considered, including: Electronics, Signal processing, chemometrics, neural networks, neural computation, and modeling of neural systems. A perfect candidate for this position would be familiar with all this subjects. The candidate is required to have a PhD title obtained before 30th of June 2007 and later than 15th March 2004. So PhD students about that are about to finish are eligible. Funding Juan de la Cierva program: This program provides funding for early stage post-doctoral researchers (max. 3 years after obtention of PhD) to work along with a consolidated research group in Spain. The work of the post-doctoral researcher has to be associated to an on-going, previously funded, project of the research group. The annual salary is of 24.750 ? and the duration of the fellowship of 3 years. The position will be starting around December 2007. More information at (http://wwwn.mec.es/ciencia/jsp/plantilla.jsp?area=delacierva_eng&id=2) Group The Intelligent Signal Processing (ISP) group at the Universitat de Barcelona is currently composed by 14 members: 2 associate professors, 2 postdoctoral scholars, 8 PhD students, and 2 graduate students. Four additional associate professors cooperate in a regular basis with the ISP group (http://isp.el.ub.es). Application Send a CV and a short list of research interests to Dr. Santiago Marco (santi at el.ub.es) and Dr. Agust?n Gutierrez (agutierrez at el.ub.es) IMPORTANT: Deadline 15th of March for the submission of the documents to the Spanish Ministry. Contact us at least 10 days before that deadline (by the 5th) to prepare the documentation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agust?n Guti?rrez, PhD Departament d'Electronica Universitat de Barcelona Mart? i Franqu?s 1 08028-Barcelona Phone: +34 93 4039174 Fax: +34 93 4021148 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From rhaschke at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Wed Feb 28 03:34:58 2007 From: rhaschke at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (WSOM 2007) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:34:58 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: WSOM07 - 2nd Call for Papers Message-ID: <45E53EB2.9030205@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> *********************************************************** 2nd C A L L F O R P A P E R S 6th Int. Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps (WSOM 2007) September 3rd - 6th 2007, Bielefeld, Germany http://www.wsom07.org *********************************************************** The conference website is open for submissions. -- Important Dates -- Manuscript Submission 15th April 2007 Acceptance Notification 8th June 2007 Camera Ready Submission 1st July 2007 Early Registration 15th July 2007 Conference 3rd - 6th Sep 2007 -- About The Workshop -- The 6th International Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps will bring together researchers and practicioners in the field of self-organizing systems, with a particular emphasis on neural networks and self-organizing maps. It will highlight key advances in these and related fields. It is the sixth conference in a series of bi-annual international conferences started with WSOM'97 in Helsinki. The programme committee cordially invites you to attend WSOM 2007 and submit papers on all aspects of self-organizing systems including: * Self-organization * Unsupervised learning (including PCA/NLPCA, ICA/NLICA, Principal Curves/Surfaces) * Signal processing, image processing and vision * Robotics and Intelligent Systems * Data visualization, mining and sonification * Bioinformatics * Text and document analysis * Financial analysis * Time-series analysis * Theory and extensions * Optimization * Hardware and architecture Papers will be peer reviewed by an international program committee according to the criteria pertinence, scientific quality, impact, generality, and innovation. High-quality submissions will be selected for oral or poster presentation during the conference. The conference programme will include invited talks as well as oral and poster presentations of selected papers. It will be enriched by official workshops to allow practitioners and scientists to discuss focussed topics in an atmosphere that fosters the exchange of ideas. Besides the scientific goals of the conference, the organisers strive to provide an accessible meeting by keeping expenses for participants affordable, particularly for young researchers. -- Programme Committee -- Prof. Nigel Allinson (University of Sheffield, UK) Prof. Marie Cottrell (Samos-Matisse Paris, France) Prof. Erkki Oja (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland) Prof. Helge Ritter (Bielefeld University, Germany) Prof. Takeshi Yamakawa (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan) Prof. Hujun Yin (UMIST Manchester, UK) Dr. Barreto, Guilherme (Federal University of Ceara, Brazil) Prof. Estevez, Pablo (University of Chile, Santiago) Dr. Flanagan, Adrian (Nokia Research Center, Finland) Prof. Furukawa, Tetsuo (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan) Prof. Fyfe, Colin (University of Paisley, UK) Prof. Hammer, Barbara (Clausthal University of Technology, Germany) Prof. van Hulle, Marc (KU Leuven, Belgium) Prof. Ishikawa, Masumi (Kyushu Inst. of Technology, Japan) Prof. Kaski, Samuel (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland) Prof. Lampinen, Jouko (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland) Prof. Martinetz, Thomas (University of L?beck, Germany) Prof. Miikkulainen, Risto (University of Texas at Austin, USA) Prof. Pag?s, Gilles (University of Paris, France) Dr. Polani, Daniel (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Prof. Simula, Olli (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland) Prof. Torras, Carme (University of Catalonia, Spain) Prof. Ultsch, Alfred (University of Marburg, Germany) Prof. Verleysen, Michel (Universit? catholique de Louvain, Belgium) Dr. Villmann, Thomas (University of Leipzig, Germany) Prof. Wermter, Stefan (University of Sunderland, UK) -- Special Issue -- The best papers of the conference will be selected for a reviewed special issue of a renowned scientific journal. More specific information will be provided soon. Please watch our website. -- Workshops -- The WSOM07 conference committee cordially invites members of the community to submit proposals for workshops to be held in conjunction with the main conference. Workshops should facilitate a lively discussion about emerging topics or specific aspects in the area of self-organizing systems. If you have any questions regarding workshop topics or organisation, please feel free to contact the conference office via email at info at wsom07.org or have a look at the conference website for further information. -- Instructions for Authors -- Prior to the submission deadline, please connect to the conference web server to enter the title, author names and addresses, abstract and keyword. The paper will then be assigned a paper identification number. Full papers must be submitted according to the style guidelines published on the conference website. For further and updated information, please visit the conference website http://www.wsom07.org -- Organizing Committee -- Honorary Conference Chair Prof. Teuvo Kohonen (Helsinki University of Technology) General Conference Chair Helge Ritter (Bielefeld University, Germany) Steering Committee Nigel Allinson (UMIST, Manchester, UK) Marie Cottrell (SAMOS-MATISSE, Paris 1, France) Erkki Oja (Helsinki Univ. of Tech., Finland) Helge Ritter (Bielefeld University, Germany) Takeshi Yamakawa (Kyushu Inst. of Tech., Japan) Hujun Yin (UMIST, Manchester, UK) Local Chair Robert Haschke (Bielefeld University, Germany) -- Enquiry and Information -- WSOM 2007 Conference Secretariat Neuroinformatics Group Bielefeld University, Germany http://www.wsom07.org/contact.html Email: info at wsom07.org -- Int. Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps 3rd-6th September 2007 http://www.wsom07.org Bielefeld, Germany Robert Haschke, Bielefeld University, Germany _______________________________________________ robotics-worldwide mailing list robotics-worldwide at usc.edu http://duerer.usc.edu/mailman/listinfo/robotics-worldwide From agutierrez at el.ub.es Wed Feb 28 04:54:18 2007 From: agutierrez at el.ub.es (agutierrez@el.ub.es) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:54:18 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Book on bioinspired signal processing. Call for contributions Message-ID: <20070228105418.4blbw3qv28o8cs88@webmail.el.ub.es> CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS Book on Bioinspired Signal Processing "Biologically inspired signal processing for chemical sensing" Springer We are preparing a book that will contain, but is not limited to, selected articles based on the work presented at the Workshop on Bioinspired Signal Processing held in Barcelona last January. The book is entitled "Biologically inspired signal processing for chemical sensing" and will be published in the book series Studies in Computational Intelligence available from Springer. We encourage you to submit your work as a full paper to be considered for publication in the book. Researchers that did not participate on the workshop are equally encouraged to submit their work. Articles received from both workshop and non-workshop participants will equally undergo a peer reviewed process. Submission deadline: 30th April, 2007 Submit to: Dr. Santiago Marco (gospel_bsp at el.ub.es) Minimum page size: 18 pages (in the format specified below) Format: Word file. Format specified at www.gospel-wbsp-2007.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agust?n Guti?rrez, PhD Marie Curie Fellow Departament d'Electronica Universitat de Barcelona Mart? i Franqu?s 1 08028-Barcelona Phone: +34 93 4039174 Fax: +34 93 4021148 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From mark.plumbley at elec.qmul.ac.uk Wed Feb 28 12:40:18 2007 From: mark.plumbley at elec.qmul.ac.uk (Mark Plumbley) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:40:18 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Call for Papers: ICA 2007 - Intl. Conf. on Independent Component Analysis and Signal Separation Message-ID: <3399496864F99445B051FD9556FF3B6F1DACB8@staff-mail1.vpn.elec.qmul.ac.uk> *** 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS *** ICA 2007 7th International Conference on Independent Component Analysis and Signal Separation London, UK 9-12 September 2007 www.ica2007.org The 7th International Conference on Independent Component Analysis and Signal Separation (ICA 2007) will be held at Queen Mary, University of London, from Sunday 9 September to Wednesday 12 September 2007. Independent Component Analysis and Signal Separation is one of the most exciting current areas of research in statistical signal processing and unsupervised machine learning. Following the previous ICA conferences in Aussois (France), Helsinki (Finland), San Diego (CA, USA), Nara (Japan), Granada (Spain) and Charleston (SC, USA), this year the conference is organized and sponsored by the ICA Research Network, an EPSRC-funded network of researchers in over 25 UK institutions. The Conference will include invited talks as well as oral and poster presentations of refereed papers and special sessions. It will be organized in a single track and will be selective. Papers are solicited in all areas of independent component analysis and signal separation, including blind source separation (BSS), as well as semi-blind, non-blind, and model-based signal separation. Topics of interest include (but not limited to) the following: * Algorithms and Architectures: non-linear ICA, probabilistic models, sparse coding, linear & nonlinear models, convolutive & noisy models; * Theory: optimization, complex methods, time-frequency representations; * Applications: audio, bio-informatics, biomedical engineering, communications, finance, image processing, psychology; * Emerging Technologies: analogue and digital VLSI implementations, photonics; * Functional Neuroimaging: EEG, ERP, MEG, fMRI, applications in neuroscience; * Speech and Musical Audio: source separation, denoising, dereverberation, temporal models, computational auditory scene analysis (CASA), beamforming; * Visual and Sensory Processing: image processing and coding, image separation. All contributions must be original, and must not have been previously published, nor be under review for presentation elsewhere. Detailed instructions for submission to ICA?2007, including formatting instructions and templates, will be available from the conference website at http://www.ica2007.org Important Deadlines Special session proposals: 1 March 2007 Paper submission deadline: 23 March 2007 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Mark D Plumbley Department of Electronic Engineering Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 7518 Fax: +44 (0)20 7882 7997 Email: mark.plumbley at elec.qmul.ac.uk http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/people/markp/