Connectionists: FINAL REMINDER: Telluride Neuromorphic Workshop 2007 Announcement

[Ralph Etienne-Cummings]

***Deadline for Application:  March 23rd, 2007*****

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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" <retienne at jhu.edu>).

The application deadline is Friday, March 23, 2007.
Applicants will be notified by e-mail by the end of April.