From y.demiris at imperial.ac.uk Fri Mar 2 23:44:15 2007 From: y.demiris at imperial.ac.uk (Yiannis Demiris) Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:44:15 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: IEEE ICDL 2007 [Deadline Extension] Message-ID: Dear colleagues, the following CFP, for the IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning 2007, might be of interest to you. Please excuse multiple copies you might receive. Please note that the paper submission deadline has been extended to the 2nd of April 2007, due to numerous requests. All information contained below can be accessed from http://www.icdl07.org With best wishes, Yiannis ---- 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning 2007 Imperial College London, 11-13 July 2007 http://www.icdl07.org http://www.icdl07.org/cfp.pdf Development and Learning are fundamental properties of any cognitive system, whether natural or artificial, and have attracted the attention of psychologists, neuroscientists, roboticists and artificial intelligence researchers. The International Conference on Development and Learning strives to bring together this interdisciplinary audience to encourage understanding and cross-fertilization of ideas from the different disciplines. Now in its 6th year, ICDL 2007 will have the theme of "Assisting Development" to encourage participants to consider the application of their research to the conceptualization, design and implementation of systems that can assist development. Topics of interest include (but are not restricted to): * General Principles of Development and Learning in Humans and Robots * Neural, Behavioral and Computational Plasticity * Biologically Inspired Mental Architectures for Development * Embodied Cognition: Foundations and Applications * Social Development in Humans and Robots * Language Development and Learning * Dynamic Systems Approaches * Emergence of Structures through Development * Development of Perceptual and Motor Systems * Models of Developmental Disorders * Architectures and software/hardware platforms for assisting development. Papers will be peer-reviewed by the international program committee, and will be judged on their originality, scientific rigor, and significance of the results. Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings, published by IEEE Press, and available online on the IEEE Xplore digital library. Paper abstracts will also be indexed by euCognition. Accepted authors will be given the opportunity to submit related data and video demonstrations for inclusion on an accompanying DVD. Call for Contributions Papers are invited in any of the topics detailed above; submissions should follow the instructions on the conference webpage at http://www.icdl07.org Important dates: Please note that due to numerous requests, we have decided to extend the deadline for submissions of papers to the 2nd of April; this is now a firm deadline and will not be extended further. Submissions deadline: April 2, 2007 Decisions to authors: May 11, 2007 Camera ready papers due: June 11, 2007 Conference: 11-13 July 2007 For further information, see www.icdl07.org or contact the organizers below: Chair Dr Yiannis Demiris Department of EEE, Imperial College London y.demiris at imperial.ac.uk http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/yiannis Program chairs Prof. Denis Mareschal School of Psychology Birkbeck College University of London d.mareschal at bbk.ac.uk http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/dmareschal Prof. Brian Scassellati Dept. of Computer Science Yale University scaz at cs.yale.edu http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/scaz/ Prof. John Weng Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering Michigan State University weng at cse.msu.edu http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/ From odelia at salk.edu Sun Mar 4 21:51:41 2007 From: odelia at salk.edu (Odelia Schwartz) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 18:51:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in computational/theoretical neuroscience Message-ID: Postdoctoral position in computational/theoretical neuroscience Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position in computational/theoretical neuroscience, in the lab of Odelia Schwartz at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Our lab employs tools of computational and theoretical neuroscience, to study systems from the neural level through to perception and behavior. For example, we develop models of sensory processing based on the hypothesis that images and sounds have predictable and quantifiable statistical regularities to which the brain is sensitive. The models are constructed through interplay with physiological and psychophysical data. Example projects: (1) Models of how neurons and percepts are affected by contextual information: spatially, what surrounds a given feature or object; and temporally, what has been observed in the past, i.e., adaptation. (2) Models of hierarchical neural processing. (3) Characterizing the statistics of images for classes of scenes and textures, and understanding how manipulating such statistics affect neural responses and perception (experimental collaboration with Adam Kohn). For more information about the lab and recent publications, see: http://neuroscience.aecom.yu.edu/faculty/primary_faculty_pages/schwartz.html The candidate should have a Ph.D. in a relevant discipline, a strong quantitative background, and an interest in neuroscience. Prior experience would ideally include areas such as computational neuroscience, machine learning, statistics and/or signal processing. Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) offers a vibrant interdisciplinary environment, with a growing systems and computational contingent. The position will be in the Department of Neuroscience and Center for Bioinformatics, with opportunities for experimental interactions and collaborations. AECOM is located in a quiet neighborhood of New York, only a short subway ride from Manhattan. Information about working at the AECOM, including housing for postdocs, can be found at: http://www.aecom.yu.edu/home/belfer_institute/ Initial appointments are for one year and renewable for a total period of three years. Salary is competitive and will commensurate with experience. Please send inquiries; or a CV, short statement of research interests, and names and contact information of 3 references to: Odelia Schwartz odelia at salk.edu From vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk Mon Mar 5 10:52:36 2007 From: vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Vassilis Cutsuridis) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 15:52:36 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Call for CNS 07 workshop Message-ID: <000901c75f3e$4bbe4400$6ffd998b@cs.ad.stir.ac.uk> ************************** Second 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. -- 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 ishikawa at brain.kyutech.ac.jp Mon Mar 5 18:40:45 2007 From: ishikawa at brain.kyutech.ac.jp (Masumi Ishikawa) Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:40:45 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: ICONIP2007 2nd Call for Papers Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20070306083507.019e0398@brain.kyutech.ac.jp> ICONIP2007 2nd Call for Papers 14th International Conference on Neural Information Processing Kitakyushu, Japan November 13-16, 2007 http://www.iconip07.org/ Sponsors : Asia Pacific Neural Network Assembly (APNNA) Japanese Neural Network Society (JNNS) 21st Century COE Program, Kyushu Institute of Technology Co-sponsors: RIKEN Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics (SOFT) IEEE CIS Japan Chapter Fuzzy Logic Systems Institute (FLSI) Papers are solicited for, but not limited to, the following five tracks: ?1. Computational Neuroscience ?2. neural network models and learning ??(learning algorithms, ICA, SVM, SOM etc.) ?3. Vision and motor control ??(robot vision, pattern recognition, motor control, visuomotor control etc.) ?4. Hardware and Applications ??(hardware, signal processing, medical applications, fuzzy, robotics etc.) ?5. Novel approaches ??(EC, BMI, cognitive science, hybrid systems, brain-like systems, adaptive intelligent systems) Proceedings: Presented papers will be published as post-conference proceedings by Springer (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS) Length of each paper: 10 pages in the Springer LNCS style Important dates: Deadline for submission : 1 May, 2007 Decision notification : 1 July, 2007 Camera-ready papers due : 1 August, 2007 Deadline for Authors? registration : August 1, 2007 Revision of papers due (if any) : December 15, 2007 Keynote Speech Mitsuo Kawato, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories Title: Cerebellar Long Term Depression as a Supervised Learning Rule with All or Nothing Character at Each Synapse Plenary Talks Shin Ishii, Nara Institute of Science and Technology Title: Modeling decision making in a partially observable domain Yoshiyuki Kabashima, Tokyo Institute of Technology Titie: Statistical mechanical approach to CDMA communication -- an offspring of research on perceptrons and associative memory -- Frederic Kaplan, EPFL, Switzerland Title: Curiosity-driven development Andrew Y. Ng, Stanford University Title: to be announced Rajesh P. N. Rao, University of Washington Title: to be announced Journal Special Issues: Cognitive Neurodynamics Neural Information Processing-Letters and Reviews Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control Neural Networks (Selected papers will be recommended for publication) Call for proposals on Special Organized Sessions and Tutorials Important dates: Deadline for proposal : 1 April, 2007 Decision notification : 15 April, 2007 Call for Demonstrations Important dates: Deadline for proposal :15 July, 2007 Decision notification : 1 August, 2007 Deadline for Demonstrators?registration : 15 August, 2007 Final demonstraction abstract due : 1 September, 2007 Organizing Committees: General Chair: Takeshi Yamakawa (KIT, Japan) Organizing Committee Chair: Shiro Usui (RIKEN, Japan) Steering Committee Chair: Takeshi Yamakawa (KIT,Japan) Program Co-chairs: Masumi Ishikawa (KIT, Japan), Kenji Doya (OIST, Japan) Brain IT Special Sessions Chair: Hatsuo Hayashi (KIT, Japan) Tutorials Chair: Hirokazu Yokoi (KIT, Japan) Exhibitions Chair: Masahiro Nagamatsu (KIT, Japan) Local Arrangement Chair: Satoru Ishizuka (KIT, Japan) Web Master: Tsutomu Miki (KIT, Japan) Publications Chair: Hiroyuki Miyamoto (KIT, Japan) Publicity Chair: Hideki Nakagawa (KIT, Japan) Secretary: Katsumi Tateno (KIT, Japan) For further information: http://www.iconip07.org/ Masumi Ishikawa Department of Brain Science and Engineering Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering Kyushu Institute of Technology 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu, Kitakyushu 808-0196, Japan Tel and Fax: +81-93-695-6106 Email: ishikawa at brain.kyutech.ac.jp URL: http://www.brain.kyutech.ac.jp/~ishikawa URL: http://www.lsse.kyutech.ac.jp/ From retienne at jhu.edu Wed Mar 7 10:28:54 2007 From: retienne at jhu.edu (Ralph Etienne-Cummings) Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:28:54 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Telluride Neuromorphic Workshop 2007 Announcement Message-ID: <45EEDA36.1060707@jhu.edu> Reminder of Approaching Deadline ======================================================================== 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 R.Borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk Wed Mar 7 10:59:12 2007 From: R.Borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk (Roman Borisyuk) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 15:59:12 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: MSc Programme Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, University of Plymouth, UK Message-ID: <52A8091888A23F47A013223014B6E9FE0A244E16@03-CSEXCH.uopnet.plymouth.ac.uk> Dear Post Master, Could you please send an advert of MSc programme (see below) to connectionists? Sincerely, Roman Roman Borisyuk, DSc, PhD Professor of Computational Neuroscience Centre for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience University of Plymouth A224, Portland Sq Plymouth, PL4 8AA UK Phone: +44 (0) 1752 232619 Fax: +44 (0) 1752 233349 E-mail: RBorisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk ________________________an Unique MSc programme Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at University of Plymouth, UK. The course is full time for 12 months, starting in September 2007 The aim of this multidisciplinary programme is to foster a new generation of scientists who have been trained in both mathematical/computational skills and neuroscientific methodologies. Neuroscience is one of the most intensively developing and important sciences of the 21st century. Theoretical neuroscience provides the solid basis necessary to understand the data and shed fresh light on the basic mechanisms underpinning brain function at the cellular, circuit and systems levels. The programme is developed in the Centre for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience (CTCN) . The CTCN is one of the leading centres in the field of theoretical neuroscience. The Centre has bought together a range of international experts from various backgrounds. This rich mix of computational, mathematical and neuroscience expertise provides a unique opportunity for students to acquire multidisciplinary training. Entry requirements A minimum of a lower second class honours degree (2.2) in Maths, Computing, Engineering, or Sciences. A basic knowledge of Mathematics, Computing and Programming. For overseas students: IELTS 6.5 or equivalent. For more information and application see http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/taught/3068/MSc+Theoretic al+and+Computational+Neuroscience From roland.baddeley at bristol.ac.uk Wed Mar 7 12:06:03 2007 From: roland.baddeley at bristol.ac.uk (Roland Baddeley) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 17:06:03 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: New masters in Vision at Bristol University (with some funded places) Message-ID: <005501c760da$fabb1490$c73cde89@psystaff.psy.bris.ac.uk> Dear All, A new masters level research program (an MRes in Vision Science) is now available, subject to validation, at the University of Bristol, U.K. The course is based in the Department of Experimental Psychology but will take an interdisciplinary approach, with significant contribution from the Departments of Biological Sciences, Computer Science and Electronic and Electrical Engineering. These departments form the core of the interdisciplinary Bristol Vision Institute (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/vision-institute/), along with many others within the University of Bristol, plus the Bristol Royal Infirmary Eye Hospital, the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the University of the West of England, and Hewlett-Packard's Bristol-based research labs. The MRes will run for 12 months from October 2007, and includes a range of units providing both a theoretical understanding and practical experience of vision research. Students will spend 2/3 of their time carrying out two research projects, each of which may be undertaken in any of the four core departments listed above. The course offers the opportunity to gain an insight into contemporary vision research from a number of viewpoints, and is an ideal preparation for a PhD. Four studentships, covering fees and maintenance, are available for EU applicants. Applicants should have a good first degree in a relevant discipline (e.g. biology, computer science, engineering, optometry, psychology). For further details (e.g. detailed course content, a list of potential research project supervisors), please consult the course website: http://psychology.psy.bris.ac.uk/pgrad/Vision.htm For an application form, please contact the postgraduate secretary, Janet Woolway-Allen: janet.woolway at bris.ac.uk or +44 117 928 8452 The closing date for applications is 30 April 2007. ======================================================= From s.crone at lancaster.ac.uk Thu Mar 8 11:56:39 2007 From: s.crone at lancaster.ac.uk (Sven F. Crone) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 17:56:39 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: NN3 Forecasting Competition - ISF'07 deadline extension Message-ID: <20070308.QKSFMBLOVVBFLLFM@lancaster.ac.uk> ************************************** ISF'07 Forecasting Competition NN3 ************************************** The DEADLINE for the abstract submission to the NN3 competition session at the 2007 International Symposium on Forecasting, New York City, HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL 16 MARCH 2007! --> Submit your abstract of LESS THEN 300 WORDS by 16 MARCH 2007 --> Submit your full NN3 predictions by 14 MAY 2007! ******************************** Conference ******************************** The 27th International Symposium on Forecasting, 24-27 June 2007 Marriott Marquis, Times Square, New York City, USA. www.isf2007.org The ISF is the premier conference for academics and professionals in forecasting. KEY SPEAKERS include Nobel Price laureate Robert Engle, Charles Manski, M. Hashem Pesaran, Kevin Trenberth, J. Scott Armstrong, Robert Fildes, Paul Goodwin, David Hendry, Stephen Penman, Herman Stekler, Allan Timmermann, Victor Zarnowitz and Arnold Zellner. ******************************** NN3 Objectives & Methods ******************************** 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). 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 Your NN3 opportunities: conference presentation, invitation to journal & book publications, awards! ******************************** Publication of Results ******************************** The abstract submitted to the ISF'07 will be presented at a dedicated workshop of the main conference. All accepted ISF'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) ******************************** ISF'07 Dates & deadlines ******************************** 16 March 2007 Abstract submission to ISF'07 website --> Select Neural Networks 14 May 2007 Submission of final prediction values due 24-27 June 2007 ISF'07 Competition 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 rbunnao at ipam.ucla.edu Thu Mar 8 13:26:16 2007 From: rbunnao at ipam.ucla.edu (Randy Bunnao) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 10:26:16 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Graduate Summer School: Probabilistic Models of Cognition: The Mathematics of Mind, July 9 - 27, 2007 Message-ID: <20070308181512.8D8FEF38DBE@redwood.ipam.ucla.edu> * * * * DEADLINE TO APPLY MARCH 15, 2007 * * * * GRADUATE SUMMER SCHOOL Probabilistic Models of Cognition: The Mathematics of Mind July 9 - 27, 2007 Program Website: http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/gss2007/ Introduction - "Probabilistic Models of Cognition: The Mathematics of Mind" will involve leaders from Cognitive Science and experts from Computer Science, Mathematics and Statistics, who are interested in making bridges to Cognitive Science. The goal is to develop a common mathematical framework for all aspects of cognition, and review how it explains empirical phenomena in the major areas of cognitive science - including vision, memory, reasoning, learning, planning, and language. The summer school is motivated by recent advances which offer the promise of modeling human cognition mathematically. These advances have occurred largely because the mathematical and computational tools developed for designing artificial systems are beginning to make an impact on theoretical and empirical work in Cognitive Science. In turn, Cognitive Science offers an enormous range of complex problems which challenge and test these theories. Registration & Funding - Applications for funding (i.e. travel and housing) will be accepted up until March 15, 2007. Applications received after that date will be considered if funds are still available. For the fullest consideration we urge you to apply as early as possible. You can apply for the entire three-week program, or just a part of it. Those who want to attend and are not applying for funding can register for the program. Please apply/register through the program website. Email questions to: gss2007 at ipam.ucla.edu Contact Information: UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) 460 Portola Plaza Los Angeles CA 90095-7121 P: 310 825-4755 F: 310 825-4756 Website: http://www.ipam.ucla.edu From msteyver at uci.edu Tue Mar 6 12:30:50 2007 From: msteyver at uci.edu (Mark Steyvers) Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:30:50 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology Message-ID: <45EDA54A.6070201@uci.edu> CALL FOR PAPERS 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology Wednesday Evening July 25, 2007 - Saturday Noon July 28, 2007 The Wyndham Hotel Orange County near the University of California, Irvine Conference website: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/mathpsych2007/ Submission deadline for abstracts: April 1, 2007 for spoken presentation & April 20, 2007 for posters Conference Theme: Computational modeling and Inference in Complex Cognitive Models The /40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology/ will follow the usual two and a half day format and will be held at The Wyndham Hotel Orange County near the University of California, Irvine. The conference will feature symposia on fMRI analysis and modeling, modern Monte Carlo techniques, Markov decision processes, and complex decision making. Immediately following the meeting will be a /Special Symposium Celebrating the Career of George Sperling/ (see http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~sperlingfest/ for additional details). Contact the local organizers Mark Steyvers and Michael Lee (mathpsych2007 at gmail.com) for further information. Abstracts for the meetings may be submitted by regular members, student members, and non-members. Any one person may present only one talk, but may be a co-author of other papers, or may be an invited speaker or symposium participant. Papers will be limited to those in which mathematical, statistical, or simulation methods play a significant role in the development of psychological hypotheses or the interpretation of results. Purely theoretical developments should clearly relate to substantive issues or contribute to methodologies of obvious use in psychology, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, and related areas. Experimental results should bear directly on some mathematical or simulation model. Papers will be accepted on the basis of their quality and suitability and not according to the author's affiliation with the Society. Presentations that bridge disciplines, treat issues of mathematical interest in the behavioral and social sciences, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience are highly encouraged. For oral papers, presentation time will be limited to a maximum of 25 minutes including five minutes for discussion. Sessions will be strictly timed. As was the case in past years, we will also have a poster session. Poster presentations have the advantage of longer discussion time, less formality, and closer audience contact. The "status" associated with poster presentations will be equal to that associated with oral presentations. From hava at cs.umass.edu Fri Mar 9 12:50:47 2007 From: hava at cs.umass.edu (Hava Siegelmann) Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:50:47 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doc Position Available Message-ID: <45F19E77.5030804@cs.umass.edu> A Post-doc position is available at UMass Amherst in the BINDS lab. The research will be in computational modeling of memory, possibly including consolidation vs. re-consolidation, learning-unlearning and relapse, context based memory, or emotions. Background in computation is a must, in dynamical systems is preferred and in neuroscience is good. Please contact me directly Hava Siegelmann hava at cs.umass.edu From mtoussai at inf.ed.ac.uk Sat Mar 10 06:20:27 2007 From: mtoussai at inf.ed.ac.uk (Marc Toussaint) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:20:27 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2 PhD/PostDoc positions in Machine Learning and Robotics, TU Berlin Message-ID: <45F2947B.1000706@inf.ed.ac.uk> The Berlin Machine Learning and Robotics group has 2 openings for PhD candidates/PostDocs. Salary will be a full BAT IIa for up to 4 years, starting earliest in May 2007. The group, headed by Dr. Marc Toussaint, is funded by the Emmy Noether excellence programme and is embedded in Prof. Klaus-Robert M?llers' Machine Learning group at the TU Berlin. The group's research focuses on the intersection between the fields of Machine Learning and applications involving the interaction with real world environments. We seek for excellent candidates with a strong own interest in Machine Learning, autonomous robotics, or natural and artificial intelligence in general. The project goal are robotic systems that are able to control and manipulate objects in a physical environment in a planned manner. We are interested in both theoretical and application-driven approaches (e.g. ``probabilistic inference and planning in structured MDPs'', ``relational models of interactive environments with objects'', ``motor primitives and dynamics systems as abstract representations for movement planning''). Collaborations to demonstrate principles on high performance robotic systems (e.g., Honda's Asimo humanoid robot) are possible. Please see http://www.marc-toussaint.net/bmr for more information. Education: Masters (or Dipoma) degree in any of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics. A strong mathematical background is highly desirable. Advantageous is experience in Machine Learning, applied statistics, robotics, excellent programming skills (Matlab or C). Applying: Please send applications via email, including the regular CV, your research interests, and list of publications, preferably in a single pdf. Links to download publications and thesis are also welcome. Applications are send to To: sekr AT ml.cs.tu-berlin.de Cc: mtoussai AT inf.ed.ac.uk subject: application BMR From sunny at sunnybains.com Mon Mar 12 13:41:19 2007 From: sunny at sunnybains.com (Sunny Bains) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:41:19 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Latest version of The Neuromorphic Engineer now online Message-ID: You can download it from http://www.sunnybains.com/NME3-2.pdf currently, or in a few days at: http://www.ine-web.org/ Note: If you have suggestions for contributors for future issues, or would like to write yourself, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. Best, Sunny Bains Editor, The Neuromorphic Engineer From ule at tuebingen.mpg.de Sun Mar 11 13:36:30 2007 From: ule at tuebingen.mpg.de (Ulrike von Luxburg) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:36:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: several open positions Message-ID: <45F43E1E.6070700@tuebingen.mpg.de> The Department of Empirical Inference, headed by Bernhard Sch?lkopf, at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, T?bingen, Germany, intends to fill several open positions, ranging from postdoc to the position of a non-permanent research associate professor (W2). Applications are encouraged in all research areas covered by the department. We are looking for persons with a strong background in one or several of the followings areas: * learning theory * algorithm design * applications of machine learning to computational biology, vision, image processing, and graphics * computational psychology In particular, we have open positions in the learning theory group headed by Ulrike von Luxburg. Applicants should hold a PhD in computer science, mathematics or related fields and have an outstanding publication record at the relevant conferences (e.g., NIPS, ICML, COLT) and journals (e.g., JMLR, Machine Learning). We are looking for highly motivated and creative individuals who enjoy collaborating in a team of researchers with various cultural and scientific backgrounds. Applicants should be capable of conducting independent research, willing to (co-)supervise PhD students, and contribute to the success of our group as a whole. The working language in our group is English. The Department for Empirical Inference is a young and energetic machine learning group. The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetic provides an excellent research environment in all respects. The Max Planck Society is an equal opportunity employer and wishes to increase the proportion of women in areas in which they are underrepresented. Women are strongly encouraged to apply. Applications should include a statement of research experience and interests, a CV, and contact details of at least two referees. Please send your applications in electronic form to sabrina.nielebock at tuebingen.mpg.de From t.heskes at science.ru.nl Mon Mar 12 09:27:30 2007 From: t.heskes at science.ru.nl (Tom Heskes) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:27:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Positions in machine learning/artificial intelligence Message-ID: <45F55542.2030705@science.ru.nl> -- Apologies for cross-posting -- *Postdocs/lecturers and PhD students* *Machine learning and artificial intelligence* *Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands* Several postdoctoral/lecturer and PhD student positions are now available in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning at the Information and Knowledge Systems group of the Radboud University Nijmegen. The focus of the research is on Bayesian machine learning and probabilistic artificial intelligence with applications to (among others) brain-computer interfacing, preference elicitation, and multi-task learning. Excellent candidates with a background in other areas of artificial intelligence are also encouraged to apply. Postdoctoral/lecturer positions range from 2,5 up to 5 years with (negotiable) teaching load between 15% and 40%, salary between 2629 and 4190 euro per month, depending on experience. PhD student positions are for 4 years, salary from 1956 (first year) to 2502 (fourth year) euro per month. Starting dates are negotiable. Funding comes from STW and NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). Applications should contain a full curriculum vitae, list of publications (if applicable, otherwise list of grades), and the names and email addresses of (at least) two referees. Please send your application to Nicole el Moustakim (N.elMoustakim at cs.ru.nl) with a cc to Tom Heskes (t.heskes at science.ru.nl). Informal inquiries are welcome. See http://www.cs.ru.nl/~tomh/vacancies.html for more information. Deadline for applications is April 15, 2007. Review of applications will continue until the positions are filled. From d.mareschal at bbk.ac.uk Mon Mar 12 08:57:07 2007 From: d.mareschal at bbk.ac.uk (Denis Mareschal) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:57:07 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Neuroconstructivism Message-ID: Dear all, Several readers of this list may be interested in the new two volume book described below. Best regards, Denis Mareschal ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What are the processes, from conception to adulthood, that enable a single cell to grow into a sentient adult? The processes that occur along the way are so complex that any attempt to understand development necessitates a multi-disciplinary approach, integrating data from cognitive studies, computational work, and neuroimaging - an approach till now seldom taken in the study of child development. Neuroconstructivism is a major new 2 volume publication that seeks to redress this balance, presenting an integrative new framework for considering development. Further details can be obtained at http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk/neuroconstructivism/ Neuroconstructivism: Vol. 1: How the Brain Constructs Cognition (2007) Denis Mareschal, Mark H. Johnson, Sylvain Sirois, Michael Spratling, Michael S. C. Thomas, and Gert Westermann. Oxford University Press In the first volume, the authors review up-to-to date findings from neurobiology, brain imaging, child development, computer and robotic modelling to consider why children's thinking develops the way it does. They propose a new synthesis of development that is based on 5 key principles found to operate at many levels of descriptions. They use these principles to explain what causes a number of key developmental phenomena, including infants' interacting with objects, early social cognitive interactions, and the causes of dyslexia. The "neuroconstructivist" framework also shows how developmental disorders do not arise from selective damage to normal cognitive systems, but instead arise from developmental processes that operate under atypical constraints. How these principles work is illustrated in several case studies ranging from perceptual to social and reading development. Finally, the authors use neuroimaging, behavioural analyses, computational simulations and robotic models to provide a way of understanding the mechanisms and processes that cause development to occur. Neuroconstructivism: Vol. 2: Perspectives and Prospects (2007) Denis Mareschal, Sylvain Sirois, Gert Westermann and Mark H. Johnson. Oxford University Press Computer and robotic models provide concrete tools for investigating the processes and mechanisms involved in learning and development. Volume 2 illustrates the principles of 'Neuroconstructivist' development, with contributions from 9 different labs across the world. Each of the contributions illustrates how models play a central role in understanding development. The models presented include standard connectionist neural network models as well as multi-agent models. Also included are robotic models emphasizing the need to take embodiment and brain-system interactions seriously. A model of Autism and one of Specific Language Impairment also illustrate how atypical development can be understood in terms of the typical processes of development but operating under restricted conditions. This volume complements Volume 1 by providing concrete examples of how the 'Neuroconstructivist' principles can be grounded within a diverse range of domains, thereby shaping the research agenda in those domains. Contributors to Volume 2: James A Bednar, Institute for Adaptive & Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh; Ira L Cohen, Chairman, Dept of Psychology, NYS Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities; Yiannis Demiris, Dept of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London; Melissa Dominguez, DBK Acoustics Robert A Jacobs, Dept of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester; Marc Joanisse, Dept of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, The University of Western Ontario; Mark H Johnson, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, University of London; Denis Mareschal, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, University of London; Risto Miikkulainen, Dept of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin; Shreesh P Mysore, Control & Dynamic Systems Program, California Insitute of Technology; Domenico Parisi, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council; Steven R Quartz, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and Computation and Neural System Program, California Institute of Technology; Maartje E J Raijmakers, Dept of Psychology, University of Amsterdam; Matthew Schlesinger, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Program, Dept of Psychology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Thomas R Shultz, Dept of Psychology and School of Computer Science, McGill University; Sylvain Sirois, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester; Olaf Sporns, Dept of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington; Gert Westermann, Dept of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University -- ================================================= Professor Denis Mareschal Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development School of Psychology Birkbeck College University of London Malet St., London WC1E 7HX, UK tel +44 (0)20 7079-0751/7631-6582 reception: 7631-6207 fax +44 (0)20 7631-6312 http://www.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/people/academic/mareschal_d/ ================================================= From juergen at idsia.ch Mon Mar 12 13:09:55 2007 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Juergen Schmidhuber) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:09:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Master in Intelligent Systems - Univ. Lugano & IDSIA, Switzerland Message-ID: <6c4428d5239aa8072611436deb15d89a@idsia.ch> New Master Program in Intelligent Systems offered by the University of Lugano in collaboration with IDSIA, Switzerland Topics include artificial intelligence, machine learning, bio-inspired and other types of optimization, probabilistic reasoning, robotics. Details: http://www.mis.unisi.ch/ Enrolment deadline: 1 July 2007 J?rgen Schmidhuber http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/whatsnew.html From matthias.dehmer at univie.ac.at Mon Mar 12 17:35:09 2007 From: matthias.dehmer at univie.ac.at (Matthias Dehmer) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:35:09 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: MLMTA'07 - LAST CALL FOR PAPERS Message-ID: <49722.80.121.62.68.1173735309.squirrel@webmail.univie.ac.at> ##################################################################### CALL FOR PAPERS ##################################################################### MLMTA'07 - The 2007 International Conference on Machine Learning: Models, Technologies & Applications Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA June 25-28, 2007 http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/worldcomp07 ##################################################################### The 2007 International Conference on Machine Learning: Models, Technologies & Applications (MLMTA'07) will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 25-28, 2007. MLMTA'07 aims to bring together researches from computer science, applied statistics, applied mathematics and engineering working in the field of Machine Learning. In addition to traditional topics in development and application of statistical methods in data analysis MLMTA'07 has this year a special focus on methods utilizing the 'systems view' of a problem. Due to the fact that graph-based methods have proven to be an useful mathematical representation of problems in this class submitted papers developing or applying graph-based statistical methods are of utmost interest. TOPICS OF INTEREST include, but are not limited to: o General Machine Learning Theory # Statistical learning theory # Unsupervised and Supervised Learning # Multivariate analysis # Hierarchical learning models # Relational learning models # Bayesian methods # Meta learning # Stochastic optimization # Simulated annealing # Heuristic optimization techniques # Neural networks # Evolutionary algorithms in learning # Reinforcement learning # Multi-criteria reinforcement learning # General Learning models # Multiple hypothesis testing # Decision making # Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods # Non-parametric methods # Graphical models # Gaussian graphical models # Bayesian networks # Sequential Monte Carlo methods # Particle filter # Time series prediction # Fuzzy logic and learning # Inductive learning and applications # Grammatical inference o General Graph-based Machine Learning Techniques # Graph kernel and graph distance methods # Graph-based semi-supervised learning # Graph clustering # Graph learning based on graph transformations # Graph learning based on graph grammars # Graph learning based on graph matchings # General theoretical aspects of graph learning # Statistical modeling of graphs # Information-theoretical approaches of graphs # Motif search # Network inference # General issues in graph and tree mining o Machine Learning Applications # Aspects of knowledge structures # Computational Finance # Computational Intelligence # Knowledge acquisition and discovery techniques # Induction of document grammars # Supervised and unsupervised classification of web data # General Structure-based approaches in information retrieval # General Structure-based approaches in web authoring # General Structure-based approaches in information extraction # General Structure-based approaches in web content mining # Graph and tree mining approaches for analyzing web-based document structures # Analysis of link structures # Latent semantic analysis # Aspects of natural language processing # Categorization of web-based units # Aspects of text technology # Computational linguistics and application # Computational vision # Bioinformatics # Biostatistics # Computational Biology # High-throughput data analysis # Biological network analysis: * protein-protein networks * signaling networks * metabolic networks * transcriptional regulatory networks # Graph Inference based on biological data # Graph-based models in biostatistics # Optimization methods in bioinfomatics and biochemistry # Speech and Signal Processing # Computational Neuroscience # Computational Chemistry # Computational Statistics # Systems Biology # Algebraic Biology # Further applications of ML-methods in chemistry, biomedical analysis # computer vision, and neuroscience IMPORTANT DATES * March 20, 2007 - Draft papers due * April 20, 2007 - Notification of acceptance * May 21, 2007 - Camera ready papers & pre-registration due * June 25-28, 2007 - MLMTA'07 Please visit the conference website at http://www.bio-complexity.com/MLMTA_index.html Conference Organization * Hamid R. Arabnia, University of Georgia, Georgia, USA * Frank Emmert-Streib, University of Washington, Seattle, USA * Matthias Dehmer, Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Vienna Bio Center, Vienna, Austria For more information email: MLMTA || bio-complexity.com or visit the conference website http://www.bio-complexity.com/MLMTA_index.html ############################################################################ From jdc at Princeton.EDU Mon Mar 12 22:30:26 2007 From: jdc at Princeton.EDU (Jonathan D. Cohen) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:30:26 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Position for theorist in cognitive/systems neuroscience in Princeton Neuroscience Institute Message-ID: <89305BC0-E751-477D-9360-BA2038D31432@Princeton.EDU> Faculty Position in Neuroscience at new Princeton Institute Princeton University is seeking to make the first of several anticipated new faculty appointments in neuroscience, as part of its new Institute in this area and its growing focus on quantitative approaches to understanding neural coding and dynamics. The position is at the Assistant Professor level, to begin as soon as September 2007 , for a theorist in systems and/or cognitive neuroscience. The appointment will be joint between the Institute and a department appropriate to the individual's background and interests, with possibilities including (but not limited to) Psychology, Molecular Biology, Mathematics, Physics, Electrical Engineering or Computer Science. Applicants should be prepared to teach both an undergraduate and a graduate level course in neuroscience. Please send a curriculum vitae, a one-page research description, and three letters of recommendation to the Search Committee, Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, or by email to search at neuroscience.princeton.edu. Materials should be submitted as soon as possible. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, and the search will remain open until the position is filled. Princeton is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. For information about applying to Princeton and how to self-identify, please link to http://web.princeton.edu/sites/dof/ApplicantsInfo.htm From l.vandermaaten at micc.unimaas.nl Tue Mar 13 16:18:37 2007 From: l.vandermaaten at micc.unimaas.nl (Laurens van der Maaten) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:18:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Matlab Toolbox for Dimensionality Reduction Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, It is my pleasure to inform you that I recently released a Matlab Toolbox for Dimensionality Reduction. The toolbox contains Matlab implementations of twenty techniques for dimensionality reduction. A number of these implementations were developed from scratch, whereas other implementations are based on software that is already available on the Web. I modified most of these implementations in order to make them faster and/or more conservative in their use of memory. I developed the toolbox while I was working on the following paper: L.J.P. van der Maaten, E.O. Postma, and H.J. van den Herik. Dimensionality Reduction: A Comparative Review. A draft version of this paper is now available online. Any remarks, suggestions, or comments regarding either the paper or the software are very welcome! Both the software and the paper are available from: http:// www.cs.unimaas.nl/l.vandermaaten/dr With best regards, Laurens van der Maaten From erik at tnb.ua.ac.be Wed Mar 14 05:56:16 2007 From: erik at tnb.ua.ac.be (Erik De Schutter) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:56:16 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Research Professorship in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Antwerp Message-ID: The following tenured faculty position is available within the Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences of the University of Antwerp, Belgium: Research Lecturer/Professor (ZAP-BOF) in Computational Neuroscience The successful candidate will develop a computational neuroscience research line that fits within the overall research program of the Laboratory of Theoretical Neurobiology (http://www.tnb.ua.ac.be). In addition the candidate will participate in managing the National Neuroinformatics Node and contribute to teaching in the Master in Biomedical Sciences/Neuroscience. Candidates are expected to have a PhD in a topic related to computational neuroscience but also to be able to interface well with experimental work. Preference is given to candidates with at least 6 years of postdoctoral training and with a strong, international publication record. Appointment is for an evaluation period of 3 years after which it becomes tenured. Starting grade depends on experience and academic qualifications. The special research lecturer/professor mandate can last a maximum of 10 years after which one becomes a lecturer/professor. Application using the specific form of the University of Antwerp together with a 5-10 page research plan for the first 5 years. Application deadline April 28, 2007. Text of the vacancy: http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx? c=*VACATURES&n=42384&ct=42852&e=120939 Application form: http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*VACATURES&n=20319 From peter.andras at newcastle.ac.uk Fri Mar 16 05:45:51 2007 From: peter.andras at newcastle.ac.uk (Peter Andras) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:45:51 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call For INNS SIG Support Applications Message-ID: <7DD36077F4007D429A17CF8B03D6AABE02C33116@moonraker.campus.ncl.ac.uk> Call For INNS SIG Support Applications The International Neural Network Society (INNS) Special Interest Groups Committee (SIGCOM) has limited funds to promote and support topical and regional SIG activities. Such activities may include, but are not limited to: invitation of leading experts to workshops, symposia or conferences; travel fellowships for postdocs and PhD students; support for meetings aimed to develop joint research projects. Applications should be sent to an INNS SIGCOM Financial Sub-Committee member (Soo-Young Lee at sylee at kaist.ac.kr ; Peter Andras at peter.andras at ncl.ac.uk). Each application should include: (1) a brief description of the event, (2) the requested amount, (3) justification of the amount, (4) a budget detailing how the support will be used, (5) and indication how the event will facilitate INNS SIG activity. For more information on INNS SIG, please visit our web page at: cnd.memphis.edu/sig/. Receipt of applications will be acknowledged. Applications are evaluated as they arrive. Decisions will be communicated to applicants within 4 months after the receipt of the application has been acknowledged. From retienne at jhu.edu Sun Mar 18 16:01:39 2007 From: retienne at jhu.edu (Ralph Etienne-Cummings) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:01:39 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: FINAL REMINDER: Telluride Neuromorphic Workshop 2007 Announcement Message-ID: <45FD9AA3.5060002@jhu.edu> ***Deadline for Application: March 23rd, 2007***** ======================================================================== 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 franco at dii.unisi.it Sat Mar 31 06:30:05 2007 From: franco at dii.unisi.it (Franco Scarselli) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:30:05 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline Extended to March 26th: Special Session on "PATTERN RECOGNITION IN GRAPHICAL DOMAINS" - KES2007 Message-ID: <460E382D.7050005@dii.unisi.it> ** Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement ** PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MARCH 26TH. Special Session on "PATTERN RECOGNITION IN GRAPHICAL DOMAINS" 11th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems Vietri sul Mare, Italy 12, 13 and 14 September 2007 Call for papers Traditional machine learning applications usually cope with graphs by a preprocessing procedure that transforms structured data to simpler representations. This approach relies on what is called the "feature extraction" process, but it turns out to be quite unnatural for several situations where data are intrinsically organized as graphs, i.e. relationships exist among atomic sub-entities. Unfortunately, valuable information may be lost during the preprocessing and, as a consequence, classical methods may suffer from poor performance and generalization. Therefore, recursive or nested representations, as opposed to "flat" attribute-value data organizations, seem to be more adequate for many relevant problems arising from chemistry, bioinformatics, and the World Wide Web. Recent studies on statistical pattern recognition and neural networks show possible directions to exploit structural information in problems which are inherently of sub-symbolic nature. This special session is intended to propose a critical re-thinking of the classic learning approaches and to investigate on possible new methodologies and applications of pattern recognition in graphical domains. The scope of this session is, but not limited to: .. Neural Network Models for Graphs .. Support Vector Machines and Kernel Methods for Graphs .. Probabilistic Models for Graphs .. Statistical Relational Learning .. Pattern Recognition Applications Involving Graphical Data Submission Instructions Authors are encouraged to submit high quality, original work that has neither appeared in, nor is under consideration by, other conferences/journals. All submissions will be refereed by experts in the field based on originality, significance, and clarity. The conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in Lecture Notes in AI as part of the LNCS/LNAI series. When formatting papers - that must be no more than eight (8) pages long, including figures and bibliography - please refer to the Springer-Verlag site and strictly follow the instructions for LNCS authors (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). SPECIAL ISSUE ON NEUROCOMPUTING Authors of selected manuscripts will be also invited to submit an extended version of their paper for publication in a special issue of the Neurocomputing Journal, published by Elsevier Science (http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/neucom). Important Dates: March 10, 2007: Deadline for paper submission April 10, 2007: Notification of acceptance May 25, 2007: Camera-Ready paper Organized by: Chair .. Monica Bianchini, University of Siena .. Franco Scarselli, University of Siena Program Committee .. Markus Hagenbuchner, University of Wollongong, Australia .. Barbara Hammer, Clausthal University of Technology, Germany .. Simone Marinai, University of Florence, Italy .. Lionel Prevost, Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie, France .. Jan Ramon, K. U. Leuven, Belgium .. Friedhelm Schwenker, University of Ulm, Germany .. Alessandro Sperduti, University of Padua, Italy .. Peter Tino, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom More information are available at the special session site http://www.dii.unisi.it/~monica/KES2007/CFP.html From sayan at stat.duke.edu Fri Mar 16 11:03:23 2007 From: sayan at stat.duke.edu (Sayan Mukherjee) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 11:03:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Connectionists: nonlinear dimensionality reduction Message-ID: Dear colleagues: We have been developing in a series of papers the use of gradient estimates for variable selection, feature selection, as well as nonlinear dimensionality reduction. All in the supervised setting. This is related to the work in statistics on Sliced Inverse Regression (SIR) and Sliced Average Variance Estimation (SAVE) but for high-dimensional problems. It is also related to work on learning manifolds. An extension to diffusion maps is in progress. The papers are Learning gradients and feature selection on manifolds: http://ftp.stat.duke.edu/WorkingPapers/06-20.pdf Estimation of Gradients and Coordinate Covariation in Classification http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/v7/mukherjee06b.html Learning Coordinate Covariances via Gradients http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/v7/mukherjee06a.html Matlab code can be downloaded at http://www.stat.duke.edu/~sayan/soft.html cheers, sayan -- Dr. Sayan Mukherjee phone: 919 668-4747 Assistant Professor fax: 919 668-0795 Computational Biology, Statistics, www.stat.duke.edu/~sayan & Computer Science Duke Scholar in Genomic Medicine Duke University From renaud.jolivet at epfl.ch Sun Mar 18 07:44:06 2007 From: renaud.jolivet at epfl.ch (RENAUD JOLIVET) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:44:06 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Competition: Predict every spike! Message-ID: <7b38177922.779227b381@imap.epfl.ch> Here is our Challenge, open to everybody in neural modeling, machine learning, or similar fields: - Is it possible to predict the timing of every spike that a neuron emits with 2ms precision? - Is it possible to predict the subthreshold membrane potential with a precision of 2mV for arbitrary input? Annotated training data and test stimuli from several cells under different stimulation conditions are available at http://icwww.epfl.ch/~gerstner//QuantNeuronMod2007/challenge.html Important dates * Data set available by March 16. * Participants must submit their prediction by June 1st. * Winner announced around June 10 . * Winning results will be presented at the workshop June 25/26 Quantitative Neuron Modeling: Predicting every spike? http://icwww.epfl.ch/~gerstner//QuantNeuronMod2007/ Competition and Prizes The competition is organized in several categories, called A,B,C,D. Participants may run in one or several categories * 1st prize : - 4 nights of hotel in Lausanne at the Lake of Geneva, June 23-27. - Free participation in the Quantitative Neuron Modeling workshop June 25/26 - 35-minute-slot for talk as an Invited Speaker at the workshop. * 2nd prize: - Free participation in the Quantitative Neuron Modeling workshop June 25/26 - Poster presentation and poster spotlight in the workshop. Methods and Models: The only aspect that counts for us is the quality of the prediction on the test set. In terms of methods, anything goes (machine learning, compartmental model, integrate-and-fire model, systems identification, etc...) For details, see http://icwww.epfl.ch/~gerstner//QuantNeuronMod2007/challenge.htm We hope that many people will take up the challenge. Let the best model win! The organisation team Renaud Jolivet Arnd Roth Felix Schuermann Wulfram Gerstner From Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu Mon Mar 19 01:53:43 2007 From: Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu (Eugene M. Izhikevich) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:53:43 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Call for nomination of Editors of Scholarpedia Message-ID: <45FE2567.3040804@nsi.edu> Scholarpedia is the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia written by Scholars from around the world. It combined the philosophies of Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia. The 13th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica has "Space-Time" entry written by A. Einstein and "Psychoanalysis" entry written by Z. Freud. If Britannica had the feature of curatorship, physicists and psychologists of today would be fighting each other for the honor to be curators of these articles. The goal of Scholarpedia is to invite today's Einsteins and Freuds to write entries on their major discoveries so that future generation of experts would be willing to maintain these articles via the wiki-style process of curatorship. At present, Scholarpedia hosts Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, Encyclopedia of Computational Intelligence, and Encyclopedia of Dynamical Systems. Most articles in these encyclopedias have already been reserved and many have been written by the original inventors/authors of the topics. For example, T. Kohonen wrote "Kohonen Network", J. Hopfield wrote "Hopfield Network", R. FitzHugh wrote "FitzHugh-Nagumo Model", Ya. Sinai wrote "Kolmogorov-Sinai Entropy", L. Zadeh wrote "Fuzzy Logic", and so on. Within a year, the three encyclopedias will be used as seeds to start Encyclopedia of Cognitive Neuroscience, and then of Neuroscience, Encyclopedia of Computer Science, Encyclopedia of Mathematical Biology, and then of Applied Mathematics. Subsequently, all these encyclopedias will merge to Encyclopedia of Biology, of Engineering, of Physics, and of Mathematics. To achieve this ambitious goal, Scholarpedia establishes a new privilege - "Editor" (in addition to "Scholar" and "Curator"). Editorial responsibilities, explained in http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Scholarpedia:Editor_Help, include (1) identifying and inviting the original inventors/authors/discoverers for the corresponding topics, (2) initiating election of authors when the original author is no longer alive or when many people made comparable contribution, (3) communicating with the authors and helping them with their articles, (4) initiating and supervising peer-review process. Each category in Scholarpedia, like "Reinforcement Learning", "NeuroImaging", "Olfaction", "Pattern Recognition", etc., will have its own Editor. When the majority of articles in a category are published as a part of a printed Encyclopedia, the editor's name appears on the front cover of the Encyclopedia. Editors of Scholarpedia must be elected by the public based on their scholarly achievements and reputation in the field (using the same procedure as election of authors). However, during next few months, Scholarpedia needs to invite a few editors to test-drive the editorial system. If you would like to join this project as an editor, please send your CV or link to your webpage to the Editor-in-Chief at scholarpedia.org. Indicate which category you would like to be considered for. Preference will be given to those experts who have already served on a editorial board of a peer-review journal, those who have already contributed to Scholarpedia (as an author or a reviewer), those who have an equivalent of tenure or tenure-track position, or those who have high Scholar Index. Eugene M. Izhikevich ? Editor-in-Chief of Scholarpedia, the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia. -- Eugene M. Izhikevich, Ph.D., http://www.izhikevich.com 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 terry at salk.edu Mon Mar 19 14:16:08 2007 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:16:08 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - April 2007 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents - Volume 19, Number 4 - April 1, 2007 Article Synergies Between Intrinsic and Synaptic Plasticity Mechanisms Jochen Triesch Letters Distinguishing Causal Interactions in Neural Populations Anil K. Seth and Gerald M. Edelman Model Selection for Convolutive ICA with an Application to Spatiotemporal Analysis of EEG Mads Dyrholm, Scott Makeig, and Lars Kai Hansen Information and Topology in Attractor Neural Network D. Dominguez, K. Koroutchev, E. Serrano, and F.B. Rodriguez Connection Topology Selection in Central Pattern Generators by Maximizing the Gain of Information Marcelo Bussotti Reyes, G.R. Stiesberg, P. Varona, and R.D. Pinto Independent Slow Feature Analysis and Nonlinear Blind Source Separation Tobias Blaschke, Tiziano Zito, and Laurenz Wiskott A maximum-Likelihood Interpretation for Slow Feature Analysis Richard Turner and Maneesh Sahani An Augmented Extended Kalman Filter Algorithm for Complex-Valued Recurrent Neural Networks Danilo Mandic and Su Lee Goh Equilibria of Iterative Softmax and Critical Temperatures for Intermittent Search in Self-Organizing Neural Networks Peter Ti?o Recursive Finite Newton Algorithm for Support Vector Regression in the Primal Liefeng Bo, Ling Wang, and Licheng Jiao State-Space Models: From the EM Algorithm to a Gradient Approach Rasmus Kongsgaard Olsson, Kaare Brandt Petersen, and Tue Lehn-Schiøler Variational Bayes Solution of Linear Neural Networks and its Generalization Performance Shinichi Nakajima and Sumio Watanabe ON-LINE - http://neco.mitpress.org/ SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2007 - VOLUME 19 - 12 ISSUES Electronic only USA Canada* Others USA Canada* Student/Retired $60 $63.60 $114 $54 $57.24 Individual $100 $106.00 $154 $90 $95.40 Institution $782 $828.92 $836 $704 $746.24 * includes 6% GST MIT Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge, MA 02142-9902. Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-orders at mit.edu http://mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp ----- From L.Berthouze at sussex.ac.uk Mon Mar 19 06:50:27 2007 From: L.Berthouze at sussex.ac.uk (Luc Berthouze) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:50:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: EpiRob 2007 Message-ID: Call for Papers: Epigenetic Robotics 2007 5-7 November 2007, Piscataway, NJ, USA Seventh International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org Email: epirob07 at epigenetic-robotics.org Location: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA Submission Deadline: 1 June 2007 Keynote Speakers: ----------------- Hod Lipson Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Computing & Information Science, Cornell University, USA Daniel Messinger Department of Psychology, University of Miami, USA Carolyn Rovee-Collier and Peter Gerhardstein (co-presenter) Department of Psychology, Rutgers, NJ, USA (Rovee-Collier) Department of Psychology, Binghamton University-SUNY, NY, USA (Gerhardstein) Conference Themes: ------------------ In the past 6 years, the Epigenetic Robotics annual conference has established itself as a unique place where original interdisciplinary research from developmental sciences, neuroscience, biology, cognitive robotics, and artificial intelligence is being presented. Epigenetic systems, either natural or artificial, share a prolonged developmental process through which varied and complex cognitive and perceptual structures emerge as a result of the interaction of an embodied system with a physical and social environment. Epigenetic robotics has goals including: (1) understanding biological systems by the interdisciplinary integration of social and engineering sciences and (2) enabling robots and other artificial systems to autonomously develop skills for new environments (instead of programming them to solve problems in fixed environments). Psychological theory and empirical evidence is being used to inform epigenetic robotic models, and these models can be used as theoretical tools to make experimental predictions in developmental psychology. Epigenetic Robotics themes include, but are not limited to: * The development of emotion, imitation, synchrony processing, intersubjectivity, joint attention, intentionality, non-verbal and verbal communication, sensorimotor schemata, shared meaning and symbolic reference, social learning, social relationships, social cognition ("mind reading", "theory of mind"); * The scope and limits of maturation, the mechanisms of open-ended development; * The mechanisms of stage formation and stage transitions; * The epistemological foundations of using robots to study development; * The role of motivations, emotions, and value systems in development; * Interaction between innate structure, ongoing developing structure, and experience; * The interplay between embodiment, learning biases and environment; * The differences between learning and development; * Algorithms for self-supervision, autonomous exploration, representation making, and methods for evolving new representations during ontogeny; * Using robots as theoretical tools (e.g., to make predictions) in experiments with children; * Using robots in applied settings (e.g., autism therapy) with children; * Architectures for autonomous development; * Robots that can undergo morphological changes and how they can be used to study the interplay between cognitive and morphological development; Important Dates: ---------------- 1 June 2007: Deadline for submission of papers & posters 18 July 2007: Notification of acceptance of papers & posters 5 Sept 2007: Deadline for camera-ready papers 5-7 Nov 2007: EpiRob07 @ Rutgers Modes of Submission: -------------------- (1) Regular Submission (8-page max). After review, regular submissions will either be accepted or rejected (no revision as short papers or posters). Regular submissions will be allocated 8 pages in the Proceedings. (2) Abstract Submission (1-page max). After review, selected authors will be invited to present a poster. Abstract submissions will be allocated 1 page in the Proceedings. Submission instructions will be available from the EpiRob website: http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org Related Events: --------------- IROS (Intelligent Robots and Systems) http://www.crim.ncsu.edu/iros2007 29 October - 2 November 2007 (San Diego) Organizing Committee: --------------------- Christian Balkenius (Lund University, Sweden) Luc Berthouze (University of Sussex, UK) Hideki Kozima (NICT, Japan) Michael Littman (Rutgers, USA) Christopher G. Prince (University of Minnesota Duluth, USA) Program Committee: ------------------ Pierre Andry (ENSEA, France) Minoru Asada (Osaka University, Japan) Christian Balkenius (Cognitive Science, Lund University, Sweden) Mark Bickhard (Lehigh University, USA) Alexander Bernardino (Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal) Luc Berthouze (University of Sussex, UK) Nadia Berthouze (University College London, UK) Aude Billard (EPFL, Switzerland) Lola Canamero (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Robert Clowes (University of Sussex, UK) Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Yiannis Demiris (Imperial College, UK) Luciano Fadiga (University of Ferrara, Italy) Simone Fiori (Universit? Politecnica delle Marche, Italy) Paul Fitzpatrick (CSAIL, MIT, USA) Philippe Gaussier (Universite de Cergy-Pointoise & ENSEA, France) Lakshmi Gogate (SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn, USA) Rod Grupen (University of Massachusetts, USA) George Hollich (Purdue University, USA) Fr?d?ric Kaplan (Sony Computer Science Lab Paris, France) Benjamin Kuipers (University of Texas, USA) Hideki Kozima (NICT, Japan) Max Lungarella (University of Tokyo, Japan) Lisa Meeden (Swarthmore college, USA) Giorgio Metta (LIRA-Lab, Genoa, Italy) Jacqueline Nadel (CNRS, France) Yukie Nagai (NICT, Japan) Chrystopher Nehaniv (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris, France) Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich, Switzerland) Christopher G. Prince (University of Minnesota Duluth, USA) Arnaud Revel (CNRS, ENSEA, University of Cergy Pontoise, France) Brian Scassellati (Yale University, USA) Matthew Schlesinger (Southern Illinois University, USA) Sylvain Sirois (Manchester University, UK) Michael Spratling (Birkbeck College, UK) Georgi Stojanov (SS Cyril and Methodius University, Macedonia) Gert Westermann (Oxford Brookes University, UK) Tom Ziemke (University of Skovde, Sweden) For questions or more information, please contact: epirob07 at epigenetic-robotics.org From ntcrook at brookes.ac.uk Mon Mar 19 11:44:41 2007 From: ntcrook at brookes.ac.uk (Nigel Crook) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:44:41 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: IPCAT 2007 - Second call for papers Message-ID: <45FEAFE9.8090502@brookes.ac.uk> Apologies if you have received multiple copies of this message. ================================================================== SECOND C A L L F O R P A P E R S ================================================================== - I P C A T 2 0 0 7 - Seventh International Workshop on INFORMATION PROCESSING IN CELLS AND TISSUES 29, 30, 31 August, Jesus College, Oxford, United Kingdom The IPCAT workshop series is concerned with the nature of biological information and the ways in which it is processed in both biological and artificial cells and tissues. All submitted papers will be refereed by the IPCAT2007 scientific committee based on the criteria of originality, significance, quality, and clarity. Selected papers from the proceedings of IPCAT2007 will be published in a special edition of the Biosystems journal. IMPORTANT DATES - Submission deadline: *15th April 2007 *(Revised) - Notification of acceptance: 15th June 2007 - Workshop dates: 29th - 31st August 2007 Conference Website: http://cms.brookes.ac.uk/computing/IPCAT Submission and Registration : http://sotd.brookes.ac.uk/IPCAT2007/openconf/openconf.php Kindest regards, Nigel Crook (General Chair) ntcrook at brookes.ac.uk Tjeerd olde Scheper (Programme Chair) tvolde-scheper at brookes.ac.uk From jirsa at ccs.fau.edu Mon Mar 19 12:16:39 2007 From: jirsa at ccs.fau.edu (Viktor Jirsa) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:16:39 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Summer School in Luminy France 16-21 July 2007 - Nonlinear Dynamics in Movement and Cognitive Sciences In-Reply-To: <460E382D.7050005@dii.unisi.it> References: <460E382D.7050005@dii.unisi.it> Message-ID: <45FEB767.4030000@ccs.fau.edu> Please note that the website for our summer school is now available. Best wishes, Viktor Jirsa ------------------------------------------------------------------- Nonlinear Dynamics in Movement and Cognitive Sciences International Summer School 2007 in Marseille, France July 16th ? 21st, 2007 The 6-day summer school is intended to provide graduate students and researchers in the fields of behavioral neuroscience and life sciences an exposure to the theory and applications of nonlinear dynamics. In contrast to traditional summer schools in nonlinear dynamics, our school merges theory and experiment in a hands-on manner. During the first few days the participants will be instructed in the theory of low-dimensional dynamic systems with a focus on modeling. In parallel, they will apply their new-found skills in the computational laboratories to develop an intuition for nonlinear concepts. In the second half of the school, various lecturers will provide introductions to the modeling of nonlinear phenomena in movement sciences and cognitive neurosciences. In parallel these phenomena will be experimentally explored in the Movement & Perception laboratories through data collection and analysis. The primary learning objective of our summer school is to gain hands-on insight into the principles of nonlinear dynamics and their transfer to life sciences. Date: July 16th ? 21st, 2007 Location: Luminy, Marseille Target audience: graduate students and researchers in life and neural sciences Objectives: ? Provide a course in nonlinear dynamics which is accessible to scientists with no explicit mathematical training, in particular o Identify key concepts in nonlinear dynamics (fixed points, stability, phase space geometry, bifurcations) o Teach basic tools in analysis of dynamic systems o Teach computational implementation of basic tools ? Identify how concepts in nonlinear dynamics are used in applied research of movement and cognitive sciences ? Provide hands-on expertise in the computational laboratory and experiment ? Provide participants with computational tools for low-dimensional modeling and analysis for use in their home laboratories More information: http://www.laps.univ-mrs.fr/~tng/Ecole.html Contact: Viktor Jirsa, viktor.jirsa at univmed.fr Local Organizers: Theoretical Neuroscience Group (Marseille) Institut Mouvement & Perception UMR6152 http://www.laps.univ-mrs.fr/~tng/ From isabelle at clopinet.com Mon Mar 19 17:23:19 2007 From: isabelle at clopinet.com (Isabelle Guyon) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:23:19 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Win 6 prizes in the ALvsPK challenge Message-ID: <45FEFF47.6000108@clopinet.com> IJCNN 2007 Agnostic Learning vs. Prior Knowledge challenge The ALvsPK challenge(http://www.agnostic.inf.ethz.ch/) is prolonged until August 1st, 2007. The participants may win one of 6 prizes: best overall entry in the "agnostic learning track" and best entry for each dataset in the "prior knowledge track". Initial results (http://clopinet.com/isabelle/Projects/agnostic/ALPK-Results-Mar-07.ppt) indicate that you can get better results by building your domain knowledge into your preprocessing or your prediction algorithm, than if you use provided features and a generic learning machine. But is this really true? Try to compete in your own domain of expertise: marketing, handwriting recognition, drug discovery/QSAR, text classification, ecology. From e.j.izquierdo at sussex.ac.uk Tue Mar 20 03:29:50 2007 From: e.j.izquierdo at sussex.ac.uk (e.j.izquierdo@sussex.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:29:50 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Evolution and Dynamics of Learning Workshop Message-ID: <1174375790.45ff8d6edfddf@webmail.sussex.ac.uk> FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS Evolution and Dynamics of Learning Workshop to be held during ECAL September 10-14, 2007. Lisbon, Portugal. http://www.ecal2007.org/ http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/edl07/ The idea of the workshop will be to review and discuss both the underlying evolutionary conditions and the mechanisms of learning in any sort of evolved agent, biological or artificial preferably using a situated, embodied, dynamical systems approach. IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission deadline: Friday, May 18th, 2007 Notification of acceptance: Friday, June 8th, 2007 Camera-ready submissions: Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Randall Beer Ezequiel Di Paolo Inman Harvey Jun Tani Elio Tuci Peter Todd Takashi Ikegami Stefano Nolfi PAPER SUBMISSION We are seeking papers that deal with the evolution and/or dynamics of learning. We are particularly interested in contributions that deal with learning behavior in an unconventional manner. All papers will be reviewed by a minimum of two members of the scientific programme committee. Submissions should be full papers, following the Springer LNCS format, with a maximum page length of 12 pages. Authors should remain anonymous, as the review process will be double-blind review. Submissions should be sent in PDF format by email to e.j.izquierdo-torres at sussex.ac.uk and eldan.goldenberg at case.edu All selected papers will be published in the proceedings of ECAL 07 workshops, as a CD-ROM, which will be distributed to all delegates of the conference on arrival. In addition to the CD-ROM proceedings, a selection of papers may be chosen to comprise a special issue of the Adaptive Behavior Journal. Further information: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/edl07/submit.html TOPICS OF INTEREST The idea of this workshop is to review and discuss both the underlying evolutionary conditions and the mechanisms of learning in any sort of evolved agent, biological or artificial. Topics will include but are not limited to the following: - Phylogeny of learning: comparing species to understand the evolution of learning - Niche-fitting: how an agent's ecological niche determines whether and what type of learning behaviour will evolve - Memory arising from brain, body, environment interactions - Transient dynamics: in conventional dynamic approaches to learning and other cognitive behaviors emphasis is made on equilibria, what role do transients play? - Multiple timescales: the role of fast and slow dynamics in learning - Sense-making: learning what your sensors are telling you about your interactions with the world - Hebb and homeostatic adaptations: balance between de-stabilizing and stabilizing internal mechanisms - Unusual substrates: learning in systems that do not fit the conventional image of animal-brain-like neural networks Further information: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/edl07/focus.html WORKSHOP FORMAT Our aim is to foster active participation in a broad discussion of these issues. To this end, we will limit the number of accepted papers in order to keep time free for two open discussion sessions during the workshop. Submissions that raise questions and challenge accepted views are strongly encouraged. ORGANISERS Eldan Goldenberg (Case Western Reserve University) http://research.eldan.co.uk/ Eduardo Izquierdo-Torres (University of Sussex) http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/eji21/ From mdorigo at ulb.ac.be Tue Mar 20 05:55:00 2007 From: mdorigo at ulb.ac.be (Marco DORIGO) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:55:00 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Swarm Intelligence: A new journal by Springer Message-ID: Dear all, this short message is to announce "Swarm Intelligence", a new quarterly journal published by Springer. The first issue is forecast for the Summer 2007. Information on the journal, including its aims and scope, is available at http://www.springer.com/11721 Papers can be submitted using Springer's Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/swrm/ All the best, Marco Dorigo From B.Kappen at science.ru.nl Wed Mar 21 07:15:59 2007 From: B.Kappen at science.ru.nl (Bert Kappen) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:15:59 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position in bioinformatics Message-ID: Postdoc position available at Keygene and SNN, the Netherlands. Keygene is a biotechnology company that carries out innovative research to advance commercial plant breeding by using a number of proprietary genetic technologies and know-how. To expedite creation of new varieties by its customers, Keygenes main focus is the analysis, creation and exploitation of genetic variation. SNN is a research group at Nijmegen University dedicated to fundamental research in the areas of machine learning and computational neuroscience. Specific topics are Bayesian networks, approximate inference methods, time-series modeling, bio-informatics, expert systems, stochastic control and collaborative decision making. The group consists currently of 8 researchers and three programmers. Keygene and SNN are collaborating within the area of in silico breeding. Combining favorable alleles by crossing existing well-characterized plant lines with a minimum of efforts is a major challenge in marker-assisted crop breeding. An optimal crossing scenario has to be found that guarantees ending up with the desired combination of alleles in a single new plant line with a predefined probability. At Keygene, some initial research steps have been taken to develop algorithms that avoid calculating all possibilities but still end up with close to optimal solutions. The current project will built further on these initial methods, further improving these and enabling putting constraints on the chosen scenario, defined by demands from the breeding practice. For this novel research topic, we are looking for an ambitious and excellent postdoc quantitative genetics. The requirement for the postdoc position is a PhD and a good track record in the field of bioinformatics or machine learning. The postdoc position is full-time for a period of 3 years and will spend his time equally at both Keygene and SNN. The postdoc will be employed by Keygene as part of the Keygene postdoc program (see attached). For more information see www.snn.kun.nl/nijmegen or contact Prof. dr. H.J. Kappen (b.kappen at science.ru.nl, tlf. +31 24 3614241). -- Prof. dr. H.J. Kappen SNN Radboud University Nijmegen URL: www.snn.ru.nl/~bertk The Netherlands tel: +31 24 3614241 fax: +31 24 3541435 B.Kappen at science.ru.nl mobile: +31 6 520 78 210 From georgios.theocharous at intel.com Wed Mar 21 17:14:49 2007 From: georgios.theocharous at intel.com (Theocharous, Georgios) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:14:49 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Machine learning summer internship at Intel research Santa Clara Message-ID: Machine learning summer internship at Intel research Santa Clara Qualifications: You should be enrolled in a Ph.D. degree granting program in Computer or Information Science. Preference is given to candidates with two to three years experience of practical Ph.D. level research and a publication track record. We are particularly interested in students with a research agenda in one or more of these areas: General supervised and unsupervised machine learning, learning, inference and structure learning algorithms for graphical models such as dynamic Bayesian networks and conditional random fields, planning under uncertainty algorithms for models such as Markov decision processes and online learning and optimization algorithms such as experts algorithms. Additional qualifications include: -Experience working with Power Management for mobile devices would be an added advantage - Experience characterizing user perception, knowledge of Intel(r) architecture would be an added advantage Expectations: In this position as a summer intern, you will be working closely with experienced Ph.D. researchers to define and develop a research concept in their areas of expertise. You will investigate related work, invent and implement major new capabilities, and eloquently describe novel ideas in a publication. To apply: Register and upload your resume from the "applicant home" page at http://www.intel.com/jobs (REQ # 530512 ) sand send a copy of your CV to georgios.theocharous at intel.com From Igor.Aizenberg at tamut.edu Wed Mar 21 18:05:26 2007 From: Igor.Aizenberg at tamut.edu (Igor Aizenberg) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:05:26 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Special Session on Complex-Valued Neural Networks ICANN 2007 Message-ID: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS ICANN-2007 Porto, Portugal, September 9-13, 2007 http://www.icann2007.org/index.php SPECIAL SESSION ON COMPLEX-VALUED NEURAL NETWORKS http://www.icann2007.org/special_sessions.php Organizers: Igor Aizenberg, Texas A&M University-Texarkana, USA, igor.aizenberg(a.t)tamut.edu Akira Hirose, University of Tokyo, Japan, ahirose(a.t)ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Jacek M. Zurada, University of Louisville, USA, jacek.zurada(a.t)Louisville The Extended Deadline for paper submission is 06 April 2007 The conference Proceedings will be published in Springer?s LNCS CALL FOR PAPERS The complex-valued neural networks (CVNNs) is a quickly growing area that attracts more and more researchers. There were several CVNN Special Sessions organized during last years, for example, at ICONIP 2002, ?Singapore, ICANN/ICONIP 2003, Istanbul, ICONIP 2004, Calcutta, IJCNN 2006, Vancouver, "Fuzzy Days 2006", Dortmund. Everywhere these sessions had large audience, many interesting presentations and very productive discussions. There are several new directions in CVNNs development: from formal generalization of the commonly used algorithms to the complex-valued case that are mathematically beautiful to the use of original complex-valued activation functions that can increase significantly the neuron and network functionality. There are also many interesting applications of CVNNs in pattern recognition and classification, image processing, time series prediction, bioinformatics, robotics, etc. One of the most important characteristics of the CVNNs is the proper treatment of amplitude and phase information, e.g., the treatment of wave-related rotation-related phenomena such as electromagnetism, light waves, quantum waves and oscillatory phenomena. Very interesting among other CVNNs are those networks that are based on neurons with the phase-dependent activation functions. This specific phenomenon makes it possible to increase the single neuron's functionality and to design more flexible and more effective networks. It is also very interesting to study how these phenomena can be used in modeling of the biological neural networks. ICANN-2007 in Porto will be a very attractive forum, where it will be possible to organize a systematic exchange of ideas in the area, to present the recent research results and to discuss the future trends. We hope that the proposed session will attract not only the potential speakers, but many researches who can join the CVNNs community. Papers that are, or might be, related to all aspects of the CVNNs are kindly welcomed. We welcome contributions, where a fundamental theory is developed, as well as contributions, where different applied problems are considered. We also welcome potential contributions form other areas that are on the boarders of the proposed scope. Topics include, but are not limited to: ? Theoretical Aspects of CVNNs and Complex-Valued Activation Functions ? Complex-Valued Associative Memories ? Dynamics of Complex-Valued Neurons ? Learning Algorithms for CVCNNs ? Chaos in Complex Domain ? Feedforward CVCNNs ? Pattern Recognition, Classification and Time Series Prediction using CVCNNs ? Spatiotemporal CVNNs Processing ? Frequency Domain CVNNs Processing ? Phase-Sensitive Signal Processing ? Applications of CVNNs in Image Processing, Speech Processing and Bioinformatics ? Quantum Computation and Quantum Neural Networks ? CVNNs in Robotics ? Quaternion and Clifford Networks Proceedings of ICANN will be published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Paper length is restricted to a maximum of 10 pages, including figures. Papers will be blind reviewed. Instructions for authors are given here. An extended version of selected ICANN 2007 papers will be published in a Special Issue of Elsevier's journal Neural Networks. Important Dates: 06 April - Extended Deadline for paper submission 14 May - Acceptance/rejection notification 11 June - Camera ready papers 29 June - Early registration To submit your paper, please follow this link: http://www.icann2007.org/paper_submission.ph p From dmodha at gmail.com Thu Mar 22 03:35:06 2007 From: dmodha at gmail.com (Dharmendra Modha) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:35:06 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Cognitive Computing 2007, May 2-3, Berekely Art Museum, Free Registration! Message-ID: <000001c76c54$9da04ed0$d8e0ec70$@com> Cognitive Computing 2007 May 2-3 Berekely Art Museum Registration is Free! http://www-bisc.eecs.berkeley.edu/CognitiveComputing07/ Speakers: Nobelist Donald Glaser (UC Berkely) James Anderson (Brown) Michael Arbib (USC) Ed Callaway (Salk Institute) Robert Hecht-Nielsen (UCSD) Edgar Koerner (Honda Research) Dharmendra S. Modha (IBM Research) Lofti Zadeh (UC Berekely) Panelists: Jose Carmena (UC Berkely) Paul Rhodes (Stanford) Lloyd Watts (Audience, Inc.) Steve Jurvetson (Draper Fisher Jurvetson) Website: http://www-bisc.eecs.berkeley.edu/CognitiveComputing07/ Sponsors: Office of Naval Research IEEE Computational Intelligence Society CITIRIS - UCB NERSC - LBNL IBM BISC - Berkeley From valenti at dsi.unimi.it Thu Mar 22 06:20:19 2007 From: valenti at dsi.unimi.it (Giorgio Valentini) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:20:19 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: SUEMA workshop: deadline extension Message-ID: <46025863.9080504@dsi.unimi.it> Please, post this message to the connectionists mailing list. With best regards Oleg Okun and Giorgio Valentini. -- Dear colleague, The deadline for the submission of papers to the Workshop on Supervised and Unsupervised Ensemble Methods and Their Applications (SUEMA) is extended to April 12. Please, note that this is a hard deadline. We are looking forward to see you in Girona ! Sincerely, Oleg Okun and Giorgio Valentini. ************************** Call for Papers ************************ Workshop on Supervised and Unsupervised Ensemble Methods and Their Applications (SUEMA), in conjunction with IbPRIA'2007 Girona, 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). Please, add in a tarred and gzipped archive or a in a zipped file all the latex sources and graphic files, together with the pdf version. 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. Accepted papers will be published on an international computer science book series. **************** Registration **************************************** Workshop registration fee is 200 EUR per participant. A reduction of 30 EUR is applied to participants also registered to IbPRIA'2007. *****************Important Dates ************************************ Submission of papers : April 12, 2007 Notification of acceptance : April 20, 2007 Early Registration : April 10, 2007 Workshop : June 4 or 5, 2007 ****************************************************************** From esb at media.mit.edu Thu Mar 22 07:14:52 2007 From: esb at media.mit.edu (Ed Boyden) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:14:52 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Multiple-color, optical activation & silencing of neurons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear All, (Apologies if you receive this twice; I'm still learning all the mailing list identities!) I'm delighted to present a new neurotechnology from my lab, in a paper entitled "Multiple-color optical activation, silencing, and desynchronization of neural activity, with single-spike temporal resolution." You can read about it in the new PLoS journal, PLoSONE, where it appeared yesterday: http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0000299 In this paper, we describe how to use the yellow-light-activated chloride pump, halorhodopsin (abbreviated Halo, in the form we adapted), to safely and effectively make neurons silenceable by millisecond-timescale pulses of light. Furthermore, both yellow-light-activated Halo and the blue-light-activated cation channel channelrhodpsin-2 can be used simultaneously in a single neuron -- enabling bi-directional control of neural voltage, with two colors of light. We demonstrate example uses of this multiple-color toolbox that may open up completely novel genres of experiment ? for example, enabling testing of the role of neural synchrony in neural computation, behavior, and pathology. Best, Ed -- Ed Boyden, Ph. D. Assistant Professor Leader, Neuroengineering & Neuromedia Group MIT Media Lab Room E15-430, 20 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139 Massachusetts Institute of Technology office - (617) 324-3085 cell - (650) 468-5625 fax - (617) 253-7035 email - esb at media.mit.edu web - http://edboyden.org From mark.plumbley at elec.qmul.ac.uk Thu Mar 22 13:14:46 2007 From: mark.plumbley at elec.qmul.ac.uk (Mark Plumbley) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:14:46 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: ICA 2007 - Deadline Extended to 30 March 2007 Message-ID: <3399496864F99445B051FD9556FF3B6F2D6640@staff-mail1.vpn.elec.qmul.ac.uk> Dear Colleague, Following a number of requests, the deadline for ICA 2007 has been extended by a few days, to 30 March 2007 (see updated Call for Papers below). Best wishes, Mark Plumbley (General Chair, ICA 2007) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************** *** Extended Submission Deadline: 30 March 2007 *** *************************************************** 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, text, 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 Paper submission deadline (EXTENDED): 30 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/ From R.Borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk Thu Mar 22 14:26:34 2007 From: R.Borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk (Roman Borisyuk) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:26:34 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentship, University of Plymouth, UK Message-ID: <52A8091888A23F47A013223014B6E9FE0A244E8D@03-CSEXCH.uopnet.plymouth.ac.uk> Applications are invited for 3 year PhD studentship in the Centre for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Plymouth, UK, starting from the 1st of October 2007. The studentship will cover a stipend of ?12,300 per year and tuition fees at the home rate, overseas candidates will be liable for the difference between 'home student fees' and 'foreign student fees'. PhD student will participate in development of new mathematical and statistical methods, and numerical algorithms and software for analysing multiple spike trains. The studentship is funded as a part of CARMEN project grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). CARMEN (Code Analysis, Repository and Modelling for e-Neuroscience) is a neuroinformatics project coordinated by the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University (www.ncl.ac.uk/ion/) which brings together a consortium of 19 investigators from 11 UK Universities with expertise in experimental neuroscience, computing science and statistical data analysis. Some information on CARMEN may be found at http://bioinf.ncl.ac.uk/carmen/index.php/Main_Page. Applicants must normally hold a first or upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification, or a masters degree, in an appropriate discipline (maths, statistics, computer science, physics, engineering), and have a strong interest in studying information processing in the brain and experimental data analysis. Knowledge/experience in Neuroscience and good programming skills will be an advantage. Requests for further particulars and informal enquires may be made to Prof Roman Borisyuk (roman.borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk ). General information about applying for a research degree at the University of Plymouth and application forms are available at http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pghowtoapply or by contacting Ann Treeby (ann.treeby at plymouth.ac.uk ). Applications should be sent direct to Mrs Ann Treeby (ann.treeby at plymouth.ac.uk ) Research Admin Assistant, Faculty of Science, University of Plymouth, PL4 8AA. From Dave_Touretzky at cs.cmu.edu Thu Mar 22 23:52:47 2007 From: Dave_Touretzky at cs.cmu.edu (Dave_Touretzky@cs.cmu.edu) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:52:47 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: call for nominations: David E. Rumelhart Prize (due May 1) Message-ID: <27611.1174621967@ammon.boltz.cs.cmu.edu> CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: For the Eighth Annual David E. Rumelhart Prize for Contributions to the Theoretical Foundations of Human Cognition EXTENDED DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT: MAY 1, 2007 The David E. Rumelhart Prize is awarded annually to an individual or collaborative team making a significant contemporary contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition. As in the past, contributions may be formal in nature: mathematical modeling of human cognitive processes, formal analysis of language and other products of human cognitive activity, and computational analysis of human cognition using symbolic or non-symbolic frameworks all fall within the scope of the award. We hereby call for nominations for the eighth Rumelhart Prize, to be announced at the Cognitive Science Society Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee in August, 2007 and presented at the subsequent Meeting in Washington DC in July, 2008. In an important expansion of the scope of the prize, the prize now encompasses seminal contributions that may not be formal, but that nevertheless make fundamental contributions to theory. We seek to be inclusive and welcome nominations that would increase the diversity (in gender, disciplinary affiliation, geography, and any other relevant dimensions) of the prize winners. The prize consists of a certificate, a citation of the awardee's contribution, and a monetary award of $100,000. Recipients and Prize-Related Activities The recipient of the seventh David E. Rumelhart Prize is Jeff Elman. Elman will receive the prize and deliver the Prize Lecture at the 29th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Nashville, Tennessee on August 3, 2007. Previous winners of the Prize are Geoffrey E. Hinton (2001), Richard M. Shiffrin (2002), Aravind Joshi (2003), John Anderson (2004), Paul Smolensky (2005), and Roger Shepard (2006). Each received the prize and delivered the Prize Lecture at the Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in the year indicated. Funding of the Prize The David E. Rumelhart Prize is funded by the Robert J. Glushko and Pamela Samuelson Foundation, based in San Francisco. Robert J. Glushko is an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who received a Ph. D. in Cognitive Psychology in 1979 under Rumelhart's supervision. Nomination, Selection and Award Presentation Each year, the selection committee will continue to consider nominations previously submitted. The committee invites updates to existing nominations as well as new nominations. Materials should be sent to the Prize Administration address at the end of this announcement. To be considered in the committee's deliberations for the prize that will be announced in 2007 and awarded in 2008, the nomination must be received by May 1, 2007. Materials should be sent to DER Prize Administration, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 115 Mellon Institute, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Nominations should include (1) A statement of nomination (up to 3 pages) (2) a complete curriculum vitae and (3) 5 copies of up to five key publications (for books, 1 or 2 copies will be sufficient). Note that the nominee may be an individual or a team, and in the case of a team, vitae for all members should be provided. The prize selection committee considers both the scientific contributions and the scientific leadership and collegiality of the nominees, so these issues should be addressed in the statement of nomination. Prize Administration The Rumelhart Prize is administered by the Chair of the Prize Selection Committee in consultation with the Glushko-Samuelson Foundation and the Distinguished Advisory Board. Screening of nominees and selection of the prize winner will be performed by the Prize Selection Committee. Scientific members (including the Chair) of the Prize Selection Committee will serve for up to two four-year terms, and members of this committee will be selected by the Glushko-Samuelson Foundation in consultation with the Distinguished Advisory Board. A representative of the Foundation will also serve on the Prize Selection Committee. Members of the Prize Selection Committee are listed at the end of this announcement. Prize Selection Committee Robert J. Glushko Glushko-Samuelson Foundation Robert Goldstone Dept. of Psychology Indiana University James L. McClelland (Chair) Dept. of Psychology Stanford University Linda Smith Department of Psychology Indiana University Paul Smolensky Dept. of Cognitive Science Johns Hopkins University David E. Rumelhart Prize Administration Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition 115 Mellon Institute 4400 Fifth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 http://rumelhartprize.org/ From g.goodhill at imb.uq.edu.au Fri Mar 23 00:51:43 2007 From: g.goodhill at imb.uq.edu.au (Geoffrey Goodhill) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:51:43 +1000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc positions in Neuroscience/Modeling/Robotics Message-ID: <46035CDF.3080406@imb.uq.edu.au> Applications are invited for three Post-Doctoral Fellowships in "Thinking Systems" Research combining Neuroscience, Robotics and Mathematics, based in Sydney, Australia. The ability of humans to manipulate objects with their hands permits a sophisticated interaction with the physical environment. The objective of this interdisciplinary research team is to develop a novel autonomous robotic hand control system using insights from the neurobiology of mammalian sensorimotor systems. This project involves human and animal neuroscience, computational modelling and robot hand implementation. The research team is funded through a special joint "Thinking Systems" initiative by the Departments of Science and Health, Australia. This team consists of neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, psychiatrists, physicists and mathematicians based at the University of New South Wales, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, University of Sydney, University of Queensland and the University of Western Sydney, Australia. For more information please see http://www.thinkingsystems.unsw.edu.au The closing date for applications is April 4th. Informal enquires are welcome, and should be directed to the team leader Michael Breakspear, mbreak at physics.usyd.edu.au. Geoff Geoffrey J Goodhill, PhD Associate Professor Queensland Brain Institute, School of Physical Sciences & Institute for Molecular Bioscience University of Queensland St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia Phone: +61 7 3346 2612 Fax: +61 7 3346 8836 Email: g.goodhill at uq.edu.au http://www.uq.edu.au/qbi/index.html?page=26835 Editor-in-Chief, Network: Computation in Neural Systems http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/0954898X.asp From lemm at first.fraunhofer.de Fri Mar 23 07:30:16 2007 From: lemm at first.fraunhofer.de (Steven Lemm) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:30:16 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PASCAL Workshop 2007 - BCI Meets HCI Message-ID: <4603BA48.8090305@first.fhg.de> [/ Appologies for multiple messages /] Workshop : "BCI Meets HCI" http://www.maia-project.org/pascal-workshop April 16-17, 2007 IDIAP Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a novel augmentative communication system that translates human intentions -- reflected by suitable brain signals -- into a control signal for an output device such as a computer application or a neuroprosthesis. Work in the field has tended to be dominated by the challenge of deriving useful input signals to the computer from the complex sensor data, and in training users how to use such devices, and progress has been made to the point at which some BCI systems can be used with relatively little training. The interaction aspects of such systems have, however, often played a secondary role to the technical challenges of sensor interpretation. This workshop is intended to bring researchers from the broader HCI community together with researchers in the BCI community, to discuss how lessons learned in modern HCI research can improve BCI interfaces, and also how the challenges faced in BCI (e.g., low-bit rates, inherently noisy sensing, no proprioceptive feedback, potentially dangerous control actions) can stimulate a rethink of some core elements of HCI. Poster Submission --------------------------- Please send a one-page abstract (including figures and references, no less than 200 words) using the Registration Form. Use only PDF files!! Posters will be selected depending on relevance to the workshop topic, quality, and novelty. Invited Speakers ----------------------- Prof. Stephen Brewster, Glasgow University, UK Dr. Febo Cincotti, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy Dr. Yves Guiard, CNRS & Univ. de la Mediterran?e, Marseilles, France (TBC) Dr. Andrea Kuebler, University of Tuebingen, Germany Prof. Christa Neuper, University of Graz, Austria Prof. Marnix Nuttin, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (TBC) Prof. Harold Thimbleby, Swansea University, UK Organizing Committee ------------------------------ Prof. Jos? del R. Mill?n, IDIAP Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland Prof. Roderick Murray-Smith, Glasgow University, Scotland Dr. Benjamin Blankertz, Technical University of Berlin & Fraunhofer FIRST, Germany Prof. Klaus-Robert M?ller, Technical University of Berlin & Fraunhofer FIRST, Germany Local Organizers ------------------------------ Jos? del R. Mill?n Cristina de Negueruela Nancy-Lara Robyr Vincent Spano Registration ---------------- Participation is free and open to a limited number of students, researchers and practitioners. Preference will be given to people active or with a keen interest in the field. For this reason you may want to describe, in a few lines, your expertise and interest in the registration form. Sponsors ---------------- The workshop is organized by the EU's 6th Framework Programme PASCAL Network of Excellence, as part of the Thematic Programme on "Computational Neuroscience and BCI". From zoubin at eng.cam.ac.uk Fri Mar 23 17:46:00 2007 From: zoubin at eng.cam.ac.uk (Zoubin Ghahramani) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:46:00 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: JOB: Postdoctoral position in Machine Learning and Bioinformatics, Cambridge University Message-ID: Postdoctoral Research Associate in Statistical Machine Learning and Bioinformatics Department of Engineering University of Cambridge We are seeking a highly creative and motivated postdoctoral Research Associate to work on Bayesian approaches and other statistical machine learning methods with applicability to protein structure prediction. The project is funded by the US N.I.H. and will involve collaboration with Prof David Wild at the University of Warwick, UK. The successful candidate should have a Ph.D. in a relevant quantitative field, a strong publication record in machine learning and Bayesian statistics, and a strong interest in molecular biology. A background in MCMC methods and graphical models is also desirable. The appointment will be for one year starting April, 2007 or as soon as possible thereafter. Salary is in the range ? 24,402 - ? 31,840 p.a. Further details and an application form may be obtained from http://learning.eng.cam.ac.uk/zoubin/nih-postdoc07.html. Applications must be sent by email to Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, zoubin at eng.cam.ac.uk, and must include a brief letter of application, a CV including a list of publications, and names and email addresses of 2-3 referees. Applications should be sent so as to reach him not later than ** April 6th, 2007 ** The University is committed to equality of opportunity Zoubin Ghahramani Professor of Information Engineering University of Cambridge http://learning.eng.cam.ac.uk/zoubin/ From BGabrys at bournemouth.ac.uk Sat Mar 24 16:39:47 2007 From: BGabrys at bournemouth.ac.uk (Bogdan Gabrys) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:39:47 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentship in Computational Intelligence area Message-ID: PhD Studentship Computational Intelligence Research Group (CIRG) School of Design, Engineering and Computing, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom Applications are invited for a 3 year PhD research studentship to work on a project entitled "Physically Inspired Artificial Learning Models" funded by Bournemouth University and to be carried out in collaboration with British Telecommunications (BT) Intelligent Systems Labs, one of the largest industrial R&D labs of this type in UK.. The main aim of the proposed research project is to explore and investigate the tremendous similarities between physical world and artificial intelligence in the context of machine learning in order to find inspirations and design the new breed of nature-inspired classification, clustering and regression techniques that would be capable of learning more efficiently from large sources of uncertain multi-type data and information. This research intends to bridge the gaps between the two sciences and provide more efficient and intelligent means for fuller exploitation of numerical, categorical, and multimedia evidence to the artificial learning problems. Inspirations for the artificial learning modelling are to be sought from the three core interactions between the physical world and information systems grouped around the thermodynamics of information and its implications on the perception of knowledge and complexity, multifaceted information uncertainty modelling based on the analogy with physical energy and the optimisation with intelligent search models based on various data-particles interactions subjected to various physical fields. Within the theoretical part of the project the main effort will be directed towards development of methodologies for broader exploitation of uncertain and imprecise multi-type evidence in the process of learning within which an exercise of evaluation of multidimensional information uncertainty along the typical learning process could be recommended. A combination of statistical modelling and fuzzy sets analysis with the elements of mathematical theory of evidence is expected to be central to this part of the project. The practical part of the project will feed from the newly introduced information theoretical learning and the pioneering work on physical data fields and use numerous physically inspired modelling mechanisms to develop robust classification, clustering and regression techniques. Large part of this work is expected to be dedicated to dynamic data-particle based optimisation processes based on physical fields interaction and possibly including adaptable population characteristics common to swarm intelligence, ant-colony behaviour and deterministic annealing. The student will be joining a Computational Intelligence Research Group and will be primarily based in the School of Design, Engineering & Computing in Bournemouth but will also have an opportunity to frequently visit and work for up to 2 months in each year of the project duration at the BT Intelligent Systems Labs in Ipswich. The studentship carries a basic remuneration of ?12900 pa tax-free and payment of tuition fees at home/EU rate. The successful applicant will normally need to be an EU citizen though a limited number of studentships is available for outstanding non-EU candidates. Applicants should have a strong mathematical background and hold a first or upper second class honours degree or equivalent in computer science, mathematics, physics, engineering, statistics or a similar discipline. Additionally the candidate should have strong programming experience using any or combination of C++, Matlab or Java. For further details please contact Prof Bogdan Gabrys, e-mail: bgabrys at bournemouth.ac.uk or visit the following www pages: http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/staff/bgabrys/PhD_Studentship_2007.html. Interested candidates should follow the application procedure listed on the University of Bournemouth web pages: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/studentships/how_to_apply.html. Further details concerning the studentship and application procedure can be also obtained from the School of DEC Research Administrator - Ms Jo Sawyer, Email: jsawyer at bournemouth.ac.uk. Tel: +44 (0)1202 965985 Best regards, Bogdan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Bogdan Gabrys Computational Intelligence Research Group School of Design, Engineering & Computing Bournemouth University, Poole House Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow Poole, BH12 5BB United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1202 965298 Fax: +44 (0) 1202 965314 E-mail: bgabrys at bournemouth.ac.uk WWW: http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/staff/bgabrys/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Randy.OReilly at colorado.edu Mon Mar 26 14:09:33 2007 From: Randy.OReilly at colorado.edu (Randall C. O'Reilly) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:09:33 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CCNC Conference: Call for Symposium Proposals In-Reply-To: <200610311450.34326.Randy.OReilly@colorado.edu> References: <200604142347.38871.Randy.OReilly@colorado.edu> <200606162346.49042.Randy.OReilly@colorado.edu> <200610311450.34326.Randy.OReilly@colorado.edu> Message-ID: <200703261409.33296.Randy.OReilly@colorado.edu> ========================================================================= ~ Call for Symposium Proposals ~ 3RD ANNUAL COMPUTATIONAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE CONFERENCE (CCNC) to be held in conjunction with DYNAMICAL NEUROSCIENCE XV www.ccnconference.org The 2007 CCNC planning committee is pleased to announce a call for symposium proposals for the 3rd Annual CCNC, which is planned as a satellite in conjunction with Dynamical Neuroscience XV prior to 2007 SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE CONFERENCE (November 3-7, 2007) in San Diego. CCNC will be Thu-Fri November 1 & 2. There will be 3-4 symposia chosen for this year's program. The inaugural CCNC 2005 meeting was also held in conjunction with Dynamical Neuroscience (XIII) prior to SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE (SfN) in Washington, DC and was a great success, as was last year's meeting in conjunction with PSYCHONOMICS in Houston. Also, please look for the Call-for-Abstracts for poster/contributed talk submissions in approximately mid-to-late April. ____________________________________________________________________________ * DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF SYMPOSIUM PROPOSALS: May 1, 2007 * DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: TBA, early summer * CONFERENCE DATES: Thu-Fri November 1 & 2, 2007 Each 2 hour symposium should be discussion oriented and include a mixture of modelers and non-modelers, all focused on a common theme or issue. At least half of the talks should focus on specific results from implemented models. A moderator acts as overall organizer/coordinator, and may also participate as one of 4-5 discussants. Each discussant should present a brief 20-30 minute talk, followed by plenty of time for discussion/Q & A. Symposium topics in years past have included: 2006 ( more info at: http://ccnconference.org/page2.html ): * Face/Object Recognition - Are Faces Special, or Just a Special Case? * Semantics - Development and Brain Organization of Conceptual Knowledge * Emergent Cognitive Control - Computational and Empirical Investigations 2005 ( http://ccnconference.org/page3.html ): * Emergent Effects in Developmental Disorders of Language * Category Learning * Interactions of the Prefrontal Cortex and Hippocampal Formation Involved in Episodic and Working Memory * Decision Making No particular proposal format is required. A 1-2 page description, including potential participants, is sufficient. Send by email (plain text preferred) to the Executive Organizer: Thomas Hazy . Questions regarding potential proposals are welcomed. ____________________________________________________________________________ 2007 Planning Committee: Suzanna Becker, McMaster University Jonathan Cohen, Princeton University Nathaniel Daw, New York University David Noelle, University of California, Merced Maximilian Riesenhuber, Georgetown University Medical Center Randall O'Reilly, University of Colorado, Boulder (ex officio) Executive Organizer: Thomas Hazy, University of Colorado, Boulder Dynamical Neuroscience XV Organizer: Dennis Glanzman, NIMH For more information on prior year symposia and to sign up for the mailing list visit: www.ccnconference.org ========================================================================== From bhanupvsr at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 10:25:29 2007 From: bhanupvsr at gmail.com (Bhanu Prasad) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 09:25:29 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: neuroinformatics session at IICAI-07 Message-ID: <621812f80703250725p67c53b15x91c07ecacb482d2c@mail.gmail.com> See the website for more details: http://www.iiconference.org/iicai07/neuroinformatics.html Draft paper submission deadline is April 2 2007. A special Session on *Neuroinformatics *will be held during the 3rd Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI-07) . Neuroinformatics is a cross-disciplinary scientific field which uses tools and methods from physics, computer science, mathematics and statistics to address problems in neuroscience. The topics covered by the session will include but will not be limited to the following areas: - 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) sincerely Bhanu Prasad From mpoel at cs.utwente.nl Sun Mar 25 11:48:47 2007 From: mpoel at cs.utwente.nl (Mannes Poel) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:48:47 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Position Papers: Playing with your Brain Message-ID: <460699DF.8060108@cs.utwente.nl> Call for Position Papers and Workshop Participation BRAINPLAY ?07: PLAYING WITH YOUR BRAIN Brain-Computer Interfaces and Games Workshop on June 12th in Salzburg, Austria http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/brainplay07 held in conjunction with the 4th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology http://www.ace2007.org/ Aims and goals of the workshop Advances in cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging technologies provide us with the increasing ability to interface directly with activity in the brain. Researchers have begun to use these technologies to build brain-computer interfaces. In these interfaces, humans intentionally manipulate their brain activity in order to directly control a com-puter or physical prostheses. The ability to communicate and control devices with thought alone has especially high impact for individuals with reduced capabilities for muscular response. In fact, applications for patients with severe motor disabilities have been the driving force of most brain-computer interface research. Although removing the need for motor movements in computer interfaces is challenging and rewarding, we believe that the full potential of brain sensing technologies as an input mechanism lies in the extremely rich information it could provide about the state of the user. Having access to this state information is valuable to human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers and opens up at least three distinct areas of research: - direct control by thought, that is, inducing thoughts to manipulate brain activity that can be mapped onto game interaction commands (e.g., move cursor, click buttons, control devices); - determining the cognitive tasks in which the user is involved in order to evaluate (game) interfaces or game environments; - using cognitive or affective state of the user to dynamically adapt the inter-face to the user (e.g., detect frustration or engagement and provide tailored feedback). Currently there is a development from traditional videogames using keyboard, mouse or joystick to games that use all kinds of sensors and algorithms that know about speech characteristics, about facial expressions, gestures, location and identity of the gamer and even physiological processes that can be used to adapt or control the game. The next step in game development is input obtained from the measurement of brain activity. User-controlled brain activity has been used in games that involve moving a cursor on the screen or guiding the movements of an avatar in a virtual environment by imagining these movements. Relaxation games have been designed and also games that adapt to the affective state of the user. BCI game research requires the integration of theoretical research on mul-timodal interaction, intention detection, affective state and visual attention monitoring, and on-line motion control, but it also requires the design of several prototypes of games. These may be games for amusement, but also (serious) games for educational, training and simulation purposes. We encourage participation from a wide range of disciplines including Games & En-tertainment Computing, Cognitive Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Affec-tive Computing, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. Submission Prospective participants will submit a (position) paper outlining their interest in this topic to anijholt at cs.utwente.nl. The position paper should be in the conference format (ACM SIG format), which can be found at http://www.ace2007.org/submissions.html. Recommended length of the position paper is 2-4 pages. Apart from quality and rele-vance criteria, papers will also be selected with the additional aim of having a bal-anced distribution over the themes of the workshop. The workshop format will include a presentation by each participant and discussion. We certainly welcome presentations and demonstrations that can be considered as case studies and experiments. At the end of the workshop we will discuss a possible publication (special issue or book) devoted to the topics of this workshop. Important dates: - 30 March 2007: Submission of position papers - 15 April 2007: Notification of acceptance - 20 April 2007: End of early regestration - June 12th, 2007: workshop Publication All position papers will be made available at http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/brainplay07 . The papers will be distributed during the workshop. During the workshop we will discuss other possibilities for publication. Workshop Co-Chairs: Anton Nijholt, CTIT, University of Twente, the Netherlands, anijholt at cs.utwente.nl Desney Tan, Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA Workshop Programme Committee Brendan Allison, UC San Diego, USA Peter Desain, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands Alan Dix, Lancaster University, UK Robert Jacob, Tufts University, Medford, USA Tan Le, Emotiv Systems Inc., San Francisco, USA Craig Lindley, Gotland University, Sweden Peter Werkhoven, TNO, Soesterberg, Netherlands From nicola.cancedda at xerox.com Mon Mar 26 03:45:02 2007 From: nicola.cancedda at xerox.com (Nicola Cancedda) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 09:45:02 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Research Staff position at Xerox Message-ID: <460779FE.2000209@xerox.com> Permanent Position: Machine Learning for Machine Translation and other Cross-Language Applications The recently formed Cross-Language Technologies (CLT) Group of the Xerox Research Centre Europe has the mission of researching and developing the most effective methods for crossing language barriers. Targeted applications include Statistical Machine Translation (SMT), multilingual terminology extraction, Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR), Categorization and Clustering (CLCC). The team is part of the PASCAL European Network of Excellence, and is coordinating the SMART European project on Machine Learning methods for translation and cross-language textual information access, ensuring a strong network of academic collaboration. We are looking for a researcher with a background in Machine Learning or in Statistical Natural Language Processing to strengthen the CLT group. Responsibilities will include inventing, implementing and evaluating novel cross-language technologies, contributing to government funded and academic research projects, as well as contributing to setting and achieving the group's long-term research goals. Current research directions include: 1. Breakthrough techniques for training translation and language models 2. Model adaptation to new domains and across time 3. Advanced latent-semantic representations of textual data 4. Automatic extraction of multilingual terminologies XRCE maintains a high level of publications and patents: we expect the successful candidate to be part of these efforts. Applicants should possess a Ph. D. or equivalent in Machine Learning, optimization, statistics or statistical Natural Language Processing; experience in Machine Translation is a definite plus. The successful candidate must have a serious interest in real-world applications and an inventive flair, coupled with the flexibility and initiative to pursue a dynamic array of research problems within a fast-working team. Excellent skills in algorithms and programming are required as well as good communication skills, particularly in English. To apply: Please email your CV, a covering letter and sample publications, with message subject "Cross-Language Technologies Researcher" to xrce-candidates at xrce.xerox.com and to Nicola.Cancedda at xrce.xerox.com Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE) is a young, dynamic research organization, which creates innovative new business opportunities for Xerox in the digital and Internet markets. XRCE is a multicultural and multidisciplinary organization set in Grenoble, France. We have renowned expertise in machine learning, work practice studies, image processing, natural language processing and document structure. The variety of both cultures and disciplines at XRCE makes it both an interesting and stimulating environment to work in, leading to often unexpected discoveries! XRCE is part of the Xerox Innovation Group made up of 550 researchers and engineers in four world-renowned research and technology centres. The Grenoble site is set in a park in the heart of the French Alps in a stunning location only a few kilometers from the city centre. The city of Grenoble has a large scientific community made up of national research institutes (CNRS, Universities, INRIA, Minatec) and private industries. Grenoble is close to both the Swiss and Italian borders and is the ideal place for skiing, climbing, hang gliding and all types of mountain sports. -- ---------------------------------------------------------+ Nicola Cancedda, Xerox Research Centre Europe 6, Chemin de Maupertuis, 38240 Meylan France Tel.: +33 (0)4 76.61.51.59 Fax.: +33 (0)4 76.61.50.99 E-mail: Nicola.Cancedda at xrce.xerox.com Home Page: http://www.xrce.xerox.com/people/cancedda/ From t.zito at biologie.hu-berlin.de Mon Mar 26 06:09:47 2007 From: t.zito at biologie.hu-berlin.de (Tiziano Zito) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:09:47 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Modular toolkit for Data Processing 2.1 released! Message-ID: <20070326100947.GC5038@lotka.biologie.hu-berlin.de> MDP version 2.1 and symeig 1.2 have been released! What's new in version 2.1? -------------------------- - Fully compatible with NumpPy 1.0, the first stable release of the descendant of the Numeric python extension module - symeig project resumed and updated - For increased speed, scipy and symeig are automatically used if available - New nodes: Independent Slow Feature Analysis and quadratic forms analysis algorithms - General improvements, several bug fixes, and code cleanups What is it? ----------- Modular toolkit for Data Processing (MDP) is a data processing framework written in Python. From the user's perspective, MDP consists of a collection of trainable supervised and unsupervised algorithms that can be combined into data processing flows. The base of readily available algorithms includes Principal Component Analysis, two flavors of Independent Component Analysis, Slow Feature Analysis, Independent Slow Feature Analysis, and many more. From the developer's perspective, MDP is a framework to make the implementation of new algorithms easier. MDP takes care of tedious tasks like numerical type and dimensionality checking, leaving the developer free to concentrate on the implementation of the training and execution phases. The new elements then seamlessly integrate with the rest of the library. MDP has been written in the context of theoretical research in neuroscience, but it has been designed to be helpful in any context where trainable data processing algorithms are used. Its simplicity on the user side together with the reusability of the implemented nodes make it also a valid educational tool. As its user base is increasing, MDP is becoming a common repository of user-supplied, freely available, Python-implemented data processing algorithms. The optional symeig module contains a Python wrapper for the LAPACK functions to solve the standard and generalized eigenvalue problems for symmetric (hermitian) positive definite matrices. Those specialized algorithms give an important speed-up with respect to the generic LAPACK eigenvalue problem solver used by NumPy. Resources --------- Download: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=116959 Homepage: http://mdp-toolkit.sourceforge.net Mailing list: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=116959 -- Tiziano Zito Institute for Theoretical Biology Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Invalidenstrasse, 43 10115 Berlin, Germany Pietro Berkes Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom From vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk Wed Mar 28 05:14:14 2007 From: vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Vassilis Cutsuridis) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:14:14 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Two papers on neural modeling of decision making Message-ID: <001801c77119$746c1570$6ffd998b@cs.ad.stir.ac.uk> Dear connectionists, my colleagues and I would like to announce the publication of two of our papers on Neural Modeling of Decision Making in an Antisaccade Task Paper 1: A NEURAL MODEL OF DECISION MAKING BY THE SUPERIOR COLICULLUS IN AN ANTISACCADE TASK Published by the Neural Networks journal http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~vcu/papers/CutSmyEvdPer.pdf Abstract: In the antisaccade paradigm subjects are instructed to perform eye movements in the opposite direction from the location of a visually appearing stimulus while they are fixating on a central stimulus. A recent study investigated saccade reaction times (SRTs) and percentages of erroneous prosaccades (towards the peripheral stimulus) of 2006 young men performing visually guided antisaccades. A unimodal distribution of SRTs (ranging from 80ms to 600ms) as well as an overall 25% of erroneous prosaccade responses was reported in that large sample. In this article, we present a neural model of saccade initiation based on competitive integration of planned and reactive saccade decision signals in the intermediate layer of the superior colliculus. In the model the decision processes grow nonlinearly towards a preset criterion level and when they cross it, a movement is initiated. The resultant model reproduced the unimodal distributions of SRTs for correct antisaccades and erroneous prosaccades as well as the variability of SRTs and the percentage of erroneous prosaccade responses. Paper 2: A BIOPHYSICAL NEURAL ACCUMULATOR MODEL OF DECISION MAKING IN AN ANTISACCADE TASK Published by the Neurocomputing journal http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~vcu/papers/neurocomp2007.pdf Abstract: A biophysical cortico-colicular model of saccade initiation based on competitive integration of planned and reactive cortical saccade decision signals in the intermediate layer of the superior colliculus is introduced. The variable slopes of the climbing activities of the input cortical decision signals are produced from variability in the ionic and synaptic conductances of cortical neurons. The model reproduces the unimodal distributions of saccade reaction times for correct antisaccades and erroneous prosaccades as well as the variability of saccade reaction times and the overall error probabilities in a large sample of 2006 young men performing an antisaccade task. Your comments are very welcome. Best regards, Vassilis ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Vassilis Cutsuridis Department of Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA SCOTLAND Tel: +44 1786 467422 Fax: +44 1786 464551 Email: vcu at cs.stir.ac.uk Web: http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~vcu/ -- 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 jjost at mis.mpg.de Wed Mar 28 23:38:43 2007 From: jjost at mis.mpg.de (Juergen Jost) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:38:43 +0200 (MEST) Subject: Connectionists: Deadline Extensions - ECCS - Dresden October 1-6 Message-ID: Dear connectionists, as the track on Cognitive Systems at the European Conference on Complex Systems 07 should be of particular to the field, with special invited addresses by Misha Tsodyks and Paul Verschure, I should like to draw your attention to the deadline extension to Apirl 30 for all submissions. Please circulate this widely. Best Juergen Jost Dear Friends and Colleagues, as the deadline for the submission of papers and posters to the European Conference on Complex Systems is approaching, we have been indicated by several authors that they need more time to finish their contributions. We have, therefore, decided to extend the deadline to April 30, 2007. Of course, earlier submissions are appreciated and strongly encouraged to avoid an overload of servers and referees. Note that selected accepted papers will be published in special issues of the following complex systems journals: * Advances in Complex Systems (socio-eonomic papers) * The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems (physics papers) * Theory in Biosciences (biological papers) * Networks and Heterogeneous Media (network papers) * ComplexUs (papers not included in the other special issues) Authors may also choose to submit their paper to other journals individually. For a list of keynote speakers, Satellite Conferences and other information, see www.trafficforum.org/dresden We would also like to announce the opening lecture on October 1 by Prof. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, the General Secretary of the European Research Council and former president of the German Research Foundation. Please do not miss the deadline for early registration (April 15, 2007), after which the registration fee will go up. The registration page will be opened next week. Best regards, Dirk Helbing and Jürgen Jost. From davrot at uni-bremen.de Tue Mar 27 04:15:15 2007 From: davrot at uni-bremen.de (David Rotermund) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:15:15 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Open Positions: 6 PhD students and 1 Post-Doc - Bernstein Group for Computational Neuroscience Bremen Message-ID: <4608D293.1060607@uni-bremen.de> The new Bernstein research group "Functional adaptation of the visual cortex" funded by the BMBF has been established at the Center for Cognitive Sciences/University of Bremen. This interdisciplinary research group works on selected topics in Computational Neuroscience, joining theory and experiment to understand information processing in the brain. The following institutes participate in the Bernstein group: Institute for Theoretical Neurophysics Brain Research Institute III (Theoretical Neurobiology) Brain Research Institute IV (Human Neurobiology) The aim of this Bernstein Group is to investigate neuronal mechanisms underlying functional adaptations in the visual system by theoretical and experimental approaches. The research program will comprise four projects, investigating (1) theoretical concepts encompassing putative neuronal mechanisms and structures enabling adaptive, selective information processing in the cortex (Prof. Dr. Pawelzik), (2) adaptive mechanisms integrating contextual information, prior knowledge, and on-going cortical activity into coherent percepts (NN), (3) adaptive, task- and stimulus-specific routing of information flow in visual cortex (Prof. Dr. Kreiter), and (4) dynamic integration of temporal signals, and fast control and adaptive learning under closed loop conditions (Prof. Dr. Fahle). Our integrative approach encompasses theoretical investigations and modelling studies on different levels, tightly linked to experimental investigations combining psychophysical experiments with electrophysiological recordings of attentional modulation and inter-areal communication in awake and behaving monkeys, and complemented by psychophysical and fMRI experiments in humans. Open Positions Positions are offered for: Project 1: Mechanisms and structures of adaptive neural information processing 1 PhD student (E13/2 TV?D) will primarily use theoretical approaches to investigate mechanisms of adaptive computation in spiking neuronal networks. The candidate should have a strong background in neural network theory, and be also interested in testing newly developed paradigms in biophysically realistic settings with large-scale computer simulations running on our Linux cluster. Project 2: Adaptive integration of contextual information and prior knowledge into coherent percepts 1 Post-Doc (E 14 TV?D) will lead and shape the research activities in this project. In parallel, this experienced candidate is expected to coordinate the exchange between experimental studies and theoretical work within the whole research group, hereby structuring the collaboration between the different projects, as well as organizing the exchange of ideas with external partners at the Bernstein centers. 1 PhD student (E13/2 TV?D) will perform psychophysical experiments (in Prof. Fahle's Lab) on feature integration in visual cortex, guided by theoretical work of the Post-Doc. Project 3: Adaptive routing of information flow in the visual cortex 1 PhD student (E13/2 TV?D) will investigate attention-dependent signal selection and dynamic routing of information in the visual cortex by electrophysiological multi-electrode recordings in trained monkeys. 1 PhD student (E13/2 TV?D) with a comprehensive background in theory and data analysis will identify basic neuronal mechanisms of signal selection and dynamic routing of information. The candidate is expected to study realistic models of cortical microcircuits based on constraints from monkey experiments and psychophysical studies performed within the Bernstein group. Project 4: Dynamic integration of temporal signals and adaptive learning 1 PhD student (E13/2 TV?D) with a background in psychophysics will investigate temporal factors in figure-ground segregation, object representation and closed loop eye-hand coordination with psychophysical methods in humans. 1 PhD student (E13/2 TV?D) will study multi-modal adaptation on different time scales with spiking neuronal network models. The candidate should be interested in identifying putative mechanisms of fast adaptation and learning, and in establishing cross-links between experimental work, learning theory, up to control problems in technical applications. Ideal candidates would be interested in pursuing research with a strong emphasis on computational questions and their experimental investigation in a tight interdisciplinary network. We also expect and encourage candidates to contribute own ideas in shaping the project. Basis for application is a successful graduation at a university in the field of natural studies. The University of Bremen desires to increase the number of women in research and thus explicitly solicits applications from qualified women. Handicapped applicants will be treated preferentially if their personal and professional qualifications are equivalent. For additional information, contact positions at bernstein.uni-bremen.de or see http://www.bernstein.uni-bremen.de . The project will start from April 2007 onwards. From A.Browne at surrey.ac.uk Tue Mar 27 05:33:14 2007 From: A.Browne at surrey.ac.uk (A.Browne@surrey.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:33:14 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: job in UK Message-ID: Readers of this list may be interested in the post below: University of Surrey, UK SCHOOL OF ELECTRONICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES Department of Computing LECTURER/SENIOR LECTURER IN COMPUTING (Ref: 5839) Salary (UK pounds) 32,795 up to 48,162 per annum (subject to qualifications and experience) Attractive relocation package The University offers high-calibre teaching, a world-class research base, a thriving postgraduate community and a high quality of life in a beautiful campus setting. At the same time we have a strong eye for innovation and enterprise and are at the forefront of developments in teaching and research. The Department consists of three research groups: Formal Methods and Security, Software Systems, and Biologically Inspired Modelling and Applications. We are currently seeking an appointment to complement our existing research strengths and to support our continued growth in our active research areas, in particular: formal methods, security, digital watermarking, software systems, and neural and biologically inspired computing. We are research-led with 46 RAs and PhD students, and are attracting growing research support from the UK Research Councils, the EU-IST, and industry and major IT, telecommunication, and defence organisations are sponsoring our research. The Department has an excellent track record in computing and communications engineering with 5** rated Research Centres in computer vision and mobile communications respectively. At Lecturer level you will have a relevant PhD and some experience of teaching and a growing research profile. Senior Lecturer level will in addition have had experience in a leadership or development role in high quality teaching, and will have achievement in scholarship and research at a national level. Informal enquiries may be made to Prof Steve Schneider, Head of the Department of Computing (s.schneider at surrey.ac.uk, tel: 01483 689637). For an application pack and to apply on-line please go to: www.surrey.ac.uk/vacancies If you are unable to apply on-line please contact Mrs Maria Drew, Assistant HR Officer on Tel:+44 (0) 1483 686106 or email : m.drew at surrey.ac.uk. Please quote Post Reference Number 5839. Closing date for applications is Thursday 26 April 2007, and we anticipate interviewing in early May. The post is to start on 1st September 2007 or as soon as possible thereafter. For further information -- Dr. Antony Browne Department of Computing School of Engineering and Physical Sciences University of Surrey Guildford, SURREY GU2 7XH, UK a.browne at surrey.ac.uk http://www.computing.surrey.ac.uk/personal/st/A.Browne/abrowne.htm From dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de Wed Mar 28 02:55:18 2007 From: dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de (Florence Dancoisne) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 08:55:18 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Second Announcement for the Advanced Course in Computational Neurosience 2007 in Arcachon, France In-Reply-To: <45C85A05.4070606@bccn.uni-freiburg.de> References: <45C85A05.4070606@bccn.uni-freiburg.de> Message-ID: <460A1156.40300@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 advanced 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, loding 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: Florence Dancoisne, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Freiburg Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg Hansastrasse 9A 79104 Freiburg, Germany 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) -- We are currently inviting applications for several PhD and PostDoc positions at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience and in associated projects. more information under: www.bccn.uni-freiburg.de/jobs -- Florence Dancoisne Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Freiburg Project Manager Hansastr. 9A D-79104 Freiburg http://www.bccn.uni-freiburg.de phone: + 49 761 203 9314 fax: + 49 761 203 9559 From angelo.arleo at snv.jussieu.fr Fri Mar 30 06:11:22 2007 From: angelo.arleo at snv.jussieu.fr (Angelo Arleo) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:11:22 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in computational neurobiology at the University Pierre&Marie Curie, Paris Message-ID: <0D6D96E4-A438-4AA1-B9B0-38C0321A8D8A@snv.jussieu.fr> Computational Neurobiology postdoc position available in the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Adaptive Processes (http:// npa.snv.jussieu.fr/npa_eng.htm) * Institution: CNRS - University Pierre&Marie Curie (http:// english.upmc.fr/UK/info/00). * Starting date: June 1, 2007. * Duration: the appointment is for a period of one year (with a renewal for a second year contingent on availability of funding). * The project will promote the collaboration between the "Neural networks and physiopathological rhythms" team led by N. Leresche et R. Lambert and the "Adaptive Neurocomputation" team led by A. Arleo. These two groups explore the mechanisms underlying the thalamo- cortical multisensory integration process by means of experimental and modeling approaches, respectively. The postdoctoral fellow will develop a computational model investigating the thalamic processes of regulation of intrinsic conductances and synaptic responses recently observed in the host lab. The primary objective will be to predict how this thalamic excitability regulation may influence the sensory information transfer/integration to/into the cortex. (see attachment for a more detailed description) * The ideal candidate has a PhD, has good computational modeling skills, and is competent in programming (e.g. using C/C++ language). Some knowledge of neurobiology is more than welcome, although is not a sine qua non condition. Still, because the work will require a tied interaction with experimentalists, the candidate has to be willing to learn the necessary biology background. * Candidates should send - as soon as possible - their application (including a CV, a list of publications, a brief statement of previous research and email addresses and phone numbers of at least two references) as a single pdf file to angelo.arleo at snv.jussieu.fr or regis.lambert at snv.jussieu.fr or nathalie.leresche at snv.jussieu.fr __________________________________________________________ Angelo ARLEO Researcher, Laboratory of Neurobiology of Adaptive Processes CNRS - University Pierre&Marie Curie, Box 14, 9 quai St. Bernard, 75005 Paris, France Phone: +33 (0)1 44 27 32 54 Mobile: +33 (0)6 89 89 07 23 Fax: +33 (0)1 44 27 25 84 email: angelo.arleo at snv.jussieu.fr http://npa.snv.jussieu.fr/localisation.html http://www.angeloarleo.eu __________________________________________________________ ? From clemoal at esf.org Fri Mar 30 11:40:39 2007 From: clemoal at esf.org (Corinne Wininger - Le Moal) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:40:39 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Three Dimensional Sensory and Motor Space, Spain, October 2007 Message-ID: CALL FOR APPLICATIONS Dear Sir or Madam, Please find below information on an ESF Research Conference which may be of particular interest to you: ESF-EMBO Symposium Three Dimensional Sensory and Motor Space: Perceptual Consequences of Motor Action Hotel Eden Roc, Sant Feliu de Guixols (Costa Brava), Spain 6-11 October 2007 Chaired by: Jeroen Smeets (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL) & Frank Bremmer (University Marburg, DE) There is a long tradition of studying perception independent of motor control. The main interaction that has received much attention is the transformation from sensory information to motor output. However, there are some remarkable recent findings in the last decade that suggest that voluntary movement plays a key role in visual perception. Examples are the role of cortical motor areas in perception (mirror neurones), target mislocalisation associated with saccades, and the effect of prism adaptation on hemispatial neglect. Voluntary movements play also an important role in other modalities, such as haptics. The aim of this conference is to bring together experienced and young researchers from various disciplines (psychology, biology, neuroscience, physics) that are interested in the perceptual consequences of motor action. Scientific programme and application form are accessible on-line through www.esf.org/conferences/07226 Closing date for application & abstract submission: 23 July 2007. Some grants available for young researchers to cover the conference fee and possibly part of the travel costs. Grant requests should be made by ticking appropriate field(s) in the paragraph "Grant application" of the application form. Many thanks for passing on the conference flyer (which will follow separately by email) to your colleagues who may be interested in this event. Kind regards, Corinne Wininger Publicity Officer - ESF Communications Unit ? European Science Foundation - Communications Unit 1 quai Lezay-Marn?sia, BP 90015 67080 Strasbourg Cedex, France Phone: +33 (0)388 76 21 50 Fax: +33 (0)388 76 71 80 clemoal at esf.org www.esf.org/conferences From bowlby at bu.edu Fri Mar 30 14:59:18 2007 From: bowlby at bu.edu (Brian Bowlby) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:59:18 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: 11th ICCNS: Call for Registration Message-ID: <5753F98D-BA96-465B-9E8D-1EDB902FA77C@bu.edu> Apologies if you receive more than one copy of this email. ELEVENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS May 16 ? 19, 2007 Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA http://www.cns.bu.edu/meetings/ Sponsored by the Boston University Center for Adaptive Systems, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (http://www.cns.bu.edu/), and Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (http://cns.bu.edu/CELEST/) with financial support from the National Science Foundation CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS: Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Cognitive Architectures: Daniel Bullock, Dario Floreano, Deepak Khosla, John Laird, William Ross, and Patrick Winston Keynote Lecturers: Stephen Grossberg and Joseph LeDoux Invited Speakers: Jorge L. Armony, Gary Aston-Jones, Nelson Cowan, Shimon Edelman, James Enns, Michael Graziano, Jennifer Groh, Stephen Grossberg, Alice Healy, Marcia K. Johnson, Philip Kellman, Bart Krekelberg, Joseph E. LeDoux, Hal Pashler, Luiz Pessoa, Pieter Roelfsema, Deb Roy, Reza Shadmehr, and Frank Tong Please visit the web site for conference details, including: --the registration form (http://cns-web.bu.edu/cns-meeting/ registration.html) --a schedule of the oral and poster presentations (http://cns- web.bu.edu/cns-meeting/schedule.html) --local lodging options (http://cns-web.bu.edu/cns-meeting/hotels.html)