From jesus.m.cortes at gmail.com Tue Feb 1 01:05:49 2011 From: jesus.m.cortes at gmail.com (Jesus Cortes) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 07:05:49 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Live Streaming Visit of Prof. Sejnowski to University of Granada In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri Feb 4 The Prof. Terrence Sejnowski will give a talk in University of Granada titled "Convergence and Divergence between Biological and Artificial Intelligence" Following the talk, there will be a panel discussion, each panelist will have 5 min to ask Prof. Sejnowski two questions on their topics. List of panelists include: Pio Tudela. The NeuroImaging and the Brain. UGR Joaquin Marro. Non-equilibrium Phenomena and the Brain. UGR Miguel Angel Mu?oz. Critical Phenomena and the Brain. UGR Rafael Molina. Computer Vision and the Brain. UGR Juan Lupia?ez. Attentional Mechanisms and the Brain. UGR Francisco Herrera. Artificial Intelligence and the Brain. UGR Sabine Hilfiker. The Biophysics and Biomedicine of the Brain. CSIC Eduardo Ros. In-Silicon Architectures and the Brain. UGR Joaquin J. Torres. Attractor Networks and the Brain. UGR The event can be followed in live streaming from 10.30am to 2.30pm at the link ?http://cevug.ugr.es/livevideo/sejnowski.html The event has been financially supported by GENIL: Granada Excellence Network of Innovation Laboratories MSc in Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems. UGR MSc in Multimedia Systems. UGR MSc in Computer and Network Engineering. UGR MSc in Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience. UGR Further Information about the event can be found at http://jmcortes.info/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=549&Itemid=1&year=2010&month=12&day=24&title=brain-panel-discussion&uid=30d8fb2da43a3c46720adc3703d0dad0 Yours faithfully. Jesus M Cortes. From pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr Tue Feb 1 11:00:00 2011 From: pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr (Pierre-Yves Oudeyer) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 17:00:00 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: IEEE ICDL-EPIROB 2011: Call for Papers, Tutorials, Special Sessions Message-ID: Call for Papers ? Call for Tutorials and Special Sessions IEEE CONFERENCE ON DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING, AND EPIGENETIC ROBOTICS IEEE ICDL-EPIROB 2011 Frankfurt am Main, Germany August 24-27, 2011 www.icdl-epirob.org == Conference description The past decade has seen the emergence of a new scientific field that studies how intelligent biological and artificial systems develop sensorimotor, cognitive and social abilities, over extended periods of time, through dynamic interactions of their brain and body with their physical and social environments. This field lies at the intersection of a number of scientific and engineering disciplines including Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology, Developmental Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computational Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, and Philosophy. Various terms have been associated with this new field such as Autonomous Mental Development, Epigenetic Robotics, Developmental Robotics, etc., and several scientific meetings have been established. The two most prominent conferences of this field, the International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) and the International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics (EpiRob), are now joining forces and invite submissions for a joint meeting in 2011, to explore and extend the interdisciplinary boundaries of this field. == Keynote speakers Andrew Barto, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Jean Mandler (overview talk), University of California, San Diego Erin Schuman, Max Planck Insitute for Brain Research, Framkfurt am Main Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig == Call for papers We invite submissions for this exciting window into the future of developmental sciences. Submissions which establish novel links between brain, behavior and computation are particularly encouraged. == Topics of interest include ? but are not limited to: ? The development and emergence of perceptual, motor, cognitive, emotional, social, and communicational skills in biological systems and robots ? General principles of development and learning ? Neural and behavioral plasticity ? Grounding of knowledge and development of representations ? Biologically inspired architectures for cognitive development and open-ended development ? Models of emotionally driven behavior ? Mechanisms of intrinsic motivation, exploration and play ? Embodied cognition: Foundations and applications ? Social development in humans and robots ? Use of robots in applied settings such as autism therapy ? Epistemological approaches to Epigenetic / Developmental Robotics == Submissions will be accepted in two categories: Full six-page papers: Accepted manuscripts will be included in the conference proceedings published by IEEE. They will be selected for either an oral presentation or a featured poster presentation at the conference; featured posters will have a 1 minute "teaser" presentation as part of the main conference session. For articles requiring more than six pages, up to two additional pages may be submitted at an extra charge. Two-page poster abstracts: The aim of this format is to encourage dissemination of late-breaking results or work that is not sufficiently mature for a full paper. These submissions will NOT be included in the conference proceedings (but the short abstracts will appear online at Frontiers in Neurorobotics http://www.frontiersin.org/neurorobotics/about). Accepted abstracts will be presented during the evening poster sessions. Manuscripts should be submitted through the online conference management system, available at the conference website www.icdl-epirob.org. For the paper preparation, follow the instructions at the conference website. == Call for tutorials We invite experts in different areas to organize a 3-hour tutorial, which will be held on the first day of the conference. Participants in tutorials are asked to register for the main conference as well. Tutorials are meant to provide insights into specific topics as well as overviews that will inform the interdisciplinary audience about the state-of-the-art in child development, neuroscience, robotics, or any of the other disciplines represented at the conference. Submissions (max. two pages) should be sent no later than March 15th to Katharina Rohlfing (kjr at uni-bielefeld.de) and Ian Fasel (ianfasel at cs.arizona.edu) including: - Title of tutorial - Tutorial speaker(s), including short CVs; - Concept of the tutorial; target audience or prerequisites. All proposals submitted will be subjected to a review process. == Call for special sessions A special session will be an opportunity to present a topic in depth, for which format a slot of 1.5 hours will be offered. Special session organizers are invited to submit (1) a summary (250 words) describing the topic, purpose and target audience of the session as well as (2) abstracts of papers (each 250 words) that will constitute the group of presentations. It is suggested that a special session includes three oral presentations to allow for sufficient presentation and discussion time. A discussant (from another discipline) may be added to the special session. Tutorial and Special Session proposals should be sent no later than March 15th to Katharina Rohlfing (kjr at uni-bielefeld.de) and Ian Fasel (ianfasel at cs.arizona.edu). All proposals submitted will be subjected to a review process. == Important dates Abstract and Paper Submission Deadline: March 28, 2011 Notification Due: May 16, 2011 Final Version Due: June 20, 2011 Conference: August, 24?27, 2011 == Child-care For families, child-care services will be provided. Please contact Katharina Rohlfing (kjr at uni-bielefeld.de) concerning your interest in child-care services by the end of May. The detailed organization will be planned according to the needs. Pierre-Yves Oudeyer INRIA FLOWERS INRIA, France http://flowers.inria.fr/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110201/7509fcc0/attachment.html From jan.schnupp at dpag.ox.ac.uk Tue Feb 1 15:29:17 2011 From: jan.schnupp at dpag.ox.ac.uk (Jan Schnupp) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 20:29:17 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Announcing New Textbook "Auditory Neuroscience" Message-ID: Dear colleagues, I am pleased to announce that MIT Press recently published our new textbook entitled "Auditory Neuroscience - Making Sense of Sound" A web site with multimedia content to accompany the book is up at http://auditoryneuroscience.com The book, authored by Eli Nelken, Andy King and yours truly, aims to be a synopsis of hearing research that is suitable as a textbook for a 2nd year undergraduate course in neuroscience or psychology, or for self study by graduates or researchers who are entering the field of hearing research from other disciplines and need to get a quick, integrated overview. It should therefore also be suitable for computational neuroscientists looking to develop a good working knowledge of the neurobiology of auditory processing. Its eight chapters cover the following topics: fundamentals of acoustics and signal processing, neurobiology of the ear, psychology and physiology of pitch perception, processing of vocalization and speech, spatial hearing, auditory scene analysis, development & plasticity of the auditory system, hearing aids and cochlear implants. Prof Shihab Shamma had the following nice things to say about this new book: "This book is unique in its elegant unification of a broad view of the fundamentals of hearing with a highly sophisticated account of the current state of auditory neuroscience. Each chapter is a self-contained, coherent, and comprehensive account of a major attribute or function of hearing that takes the reader through an exciting journey of discovery, beginning with basic definitions and ending with a balanced critique of the diverse opinions and ideas that are typical of a lively field of investigation. In such a scientific endeavor, this book is a valuable guide for the novice and the expert alike." Best wishes, Jan -- Dr Jan Schnupp University of Oxford Dept. of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics Sherrington Building - Parks Road Oxford OX1 3PT - UK +44-1865-272513 http://jan.schnupp.net From smart at neuralcorrelate.com Tue Feb 1 21:46:37 2011 From: smart at neuralcorrelate.com (Susana Martinez-Conde) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:46:37 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Call for Illusion Submissions: The World's 7th Annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest Message-ID: <026901cbc283$69e598f0$3db0cad0$@com> ****2ND CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE WORLD'S 7TH ANNUAL BEST ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST**** http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com The 2011 Best Illusion of the Year Contest will be held in Naples, Florida (Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, http://www.thephil.org/) on Monday, May 9th, 2011, as an official satellite of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) conference. The Naples Philharmonic Center is an 8-minute walk from the main VSS headquarters hotel in Naples, and is thus central to the VSS conference. Past contests have been highly successful in drawing public attention to vision research, with over ***FIVE MILLION*** website hits from viewers all over the world, as well as hundreds of international media stories. The First, Second and Third Prize winners at the 20019 contest were Koukichi Sugihara (Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences, Japan), Bart Anderson (University of Sydney, Australia), and Jan Kremlacek (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights from the 2010 and previous contests, go to http://illusionoftheyear.com Eligible submissions are novel perceptual or cognitive illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2010) of all sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) in standard image, movie or html formats. Exciting new variants of classic or known illusions are admissible. An international panel of impartial judges will rate the submissions and narrow them to the TOP TEN. Then, at the Contest Gala in Naples, the TOP TEN illusionists will present their contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to pick the TOP THREE WINNERS! Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2011 contest, so long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the TOP THREE winners in previous years. Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the authors/creators will retain full copyright. The TOP TEN illusion will be posted on the illusion contest's website *after* the Contest Gala. Illusions not chosen among the TOP TEN will not be disclosed. As with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in to the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere. Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Executive Producer, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart at neuralcorrelate.com) until February 14, 2010. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings (if known). Illusions will be rated according to: . Significance to our understanding of the visual system . Simplicity of the description . Sheer beauty . Counterintuitive quality . Spectacularity Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last year's illusions: http://illusionoftheyear.com Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award! On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse ---------------------------------------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Executive Producer, Best Illusion of the Year Contest President, Neural Correlate Society http://illusionoftheyear.com Director, Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience Division of Neurobiology Barrow Neurological Institute 350 W. Thomas Rd Phoenix AZ 85013, USA Phone: +1 (602) 406-3484 Fax: +1 (602) 406-4172 Email: smart at neuralcorrelate.com http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110201/6e7eebcc/attachment.html From d.mareschal at bbk.ac.uk Wed Feb 2 13:00:17 2011 From: d.mareschal at bbk.ac.uk (Denis Mareschal) Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 18:00:17 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Phd Studentships in London Message-ID: Please circulate to relevant people Do not respond directly to this message. Best regards, Denis Mareschal ============================================= 7 Marie Curie PhD studentships in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Birkbeck, University of London, UK Funded by the EU Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (ITN) Call: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN PART B: Tracking Early Human Development: From Basic Science to Applications The Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development and affiliated laboratories have recently been granted Marie Curie Centre of Excellence in Training status by the European Commission. As a result of this, 7 3-year fellowships are available for the purposes of completing a PhD in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck College, University of London. The PhD studentships are tenable for up to 3 years and must be taken up no later than October 2011. Fellows will be hosted at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development (CBCD), within the Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London. Details of the Centre's and affiliated lab's activities can be found at www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk. Successful applicants will be required to complete a PhD under the supervision of a member of the CBCD faculty and in addition, the PhD candidate will be allocated a second supervisor from one of the seven associated partners who can provide convergent expertise. Associated Partners include: Cognitive Development Centre Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Dipartimento di Psicologia University of Padova, Padova, Italy Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering University College London Research & Development Acuity ETS Limited, Reading, UK Research & Development Baby Care Proctor & Gamble, Germany Research & Development Geodisc Inc. Research & Development Abbey Home Media Group Ltd Eligibility conditions Marie Curie actions carry a number of mobility constraints. Successful applicants cannot have resided more than 1 year within the last 2 in the UK. We encourage applicants from outside the EU, but applicants should be aware that overseas tuition fees are not included in this funding. Other eligibility requirements may apply. Excellent English language standards apply for all PhD candidates to the CBCD. Successful candidates will be expected to have sufficiently high written English skills to undertake the writing of their doctoral thesis in English. Equal Opportunity Birkbeck is an equal opportunity employer. We particularly encourage application from women and recognise the differing life patterns of men and women in the work and trainings sectors. Qualifications The fellowships are open to truly outstanding candidates who must have achieved at least a level of training that would enable them to qualify for entry into a PhD programme in their home country. This would be a first class or high upper second class degree in psychology, neuroscience biomedical engineering, neuroimaging or related areas of research. As the PhD must be completed within the 3 years of the fellowships we anticipate that successful candidates will have already obtained training in relevant research methods (e.g., from a masters degree or equivalent training). Conditions of employment Successful candidates will be employed as research assistants within the Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London. A competitive salary commensurate with the cost of living in London will be offered. All payments are determined by the personal circumstances and details of actual salary and allowances can be obtained on request. Application procedures Interested applicants should consult the relevant web pages of the CBCD and affiliated Labs first to assess whether their research interests and experience match those of relevant possible supervisors. You must also apply to the Department of Psychological Sciences PhD program online by following the links on ( http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/phd/psychology/RRRPSYCH.html#how2apply). When applying, candidates should make it clear on their application form that they wish to be considered for a Marie Curie Studentship. Applications should be submitted not later than Friday 18th March 2011 . A short list of candidates will be invited to London for interviews approximately 2 to 4 weeks following this date. We will continue to consider applications until all 7 positions have been filled. We will announce when the position have been filled on the CBCD web pages cited above. Informal enquires can be made to Dr. Natasha Kirkham (n.kirkham at bbk.ac.uk) or any potential supervisor who is part of the CBCD and affiliated laboratories. Procedural or administrative enquires regarding the application procedures or conditions of employment should be made to the Marie Curie Administrator Ms Robin Saunders (r.saunders at bbk.ac.uk). Those submitting an application should also email Ms Saunders following submission to alert the CBCD and confirm that the application has been successfully submitted. -- ================================================= 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.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/dmareschal The Making of Human Concepts: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199549221.do Neuroconstructivism books: http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780198529910 http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780198529934 ================================================= -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110202/52523cde/attachment-0001.html From emmanuel.vincent at inria.fr Wed Feb 2 03:29:30 2011 From: emmanuel.vincent at inria.fr (Emmanuel Vincent) Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:29:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for papers: First International Workshop on Machine Listening in Multisource Environments (CHiME 2011) Message-ID: <4D4915EA.50906@inria.fr> ---------------------------------------------- First International Workshop on Machine Listening in Multisource Environments (CHiME 2011) in conjunction with Interspeech 2011 September 1st, 2011, Florence, Italy http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/spandh/chime/workshop ---------------------------------------------- Important Dates: * Deadline for submission of papers: April 14th, 2011 * Notification of acceptance: June 2nd, 2011 * Final version: June 14th, 2011 * Workshop: September 1st, 2011 Overview: CHiME 2011 is an ISCA-approved satellite workshop of Interspeech 2011 that will consider the challenge of developing machine listening applications for operation in multisource environments, i.e. real-world conditions with acoustic clutter, where the number and nature of the sound sources is unknown and changing over time. CHiME will bring together researchers from a broad range of disciplines (computational hearing, blind source separation, speech recognition, machine learning) to discuss novel and established approaches to this problem. The cross-fertilisation of ideas will foster fresh approaches that efficiently combine the complementary strengths of each research field. The workshop will also be hosting the PASCAL CHiME Speech Separation and Recognition Challenge. This is a binaural, multisource speech separation and recognition competition supported by the EU PASCAL network and the UK EPSRC. If you wish to participate, please visit the Challenge website (http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/spandh/chime/challenge.html). Call for Papers: We invite original submissions for oral or poster presentation during the workshop. Relevant research topics include (but are not limited to), * automatic speech recognition in multisource environments, * acoustic event detection in multisource environments, * sound source detection and tracking in multisource environments, * music information retrieval in multisource environments, * sound source separation or enhancement in multisource environments, * robust feature extraction and classification in multisource environments, * scene analysis and understanding for multisource environments. Abstracts or full-papers are to be submitted by 14th April. After the workshop participants will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers to a peer-reviewed special issue of the journal "Computer Speech and Language" on the theme of Multisource Environments. Organising Committee: Dr Jon Barker, University of Sheffield, UK Dr Emmanuel Vincent, INRIA Rennes, France Prof. Dan Ellis, Columbia University, USA Prof. Phil Green, University of Sheffield, UK Dr. John Hershey, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, USA Prof. Walter Kellermann, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany Prof. Hiroshi Okuno, Kyoto University, Japan From wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de Wed Feb 2 08:12:28 2011 From: wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Stefan Wermter) Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:12:28 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc and PhD Student Positions in Intelligent Systems Message-ID: <4D49583C.7000003@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> Please forward to possibly interested postdocs or PhD candidates: ------------------------------------------------------------ University of Hamburg, Computer Science, Knowledge Technology We are looking for candidates for three job openings in the area of knowledge technology and intelligent systems, in particular: 1) Scientific Associate (preferably Postdoc or PhD candidate) for International Master Computer Science and Intelligent Systems 2) PhD student Neural Multimodal Integration 3) PhD student Neural Sound Localisation for Speech Processing ------------------------------------------------------------ Scientific Associate (preferably Postdoc or PhD candidate for International Master Computer Science and Intelligent Systems) The Knowledge Technology Group has an open position for a Scientific Associate (Postdoc or PhD candidate) in the context of an International Master Computer Science and Intelligent Systems, salary group 13 TV-L (equivalent to Verg.Gr. IIa BAT). Responsibilities: The duties include academic service in the area of new MSc programme development as well as research in intelligent systems. The successful candidate will - within a team - develop and manage a new international Master Programme in Computer Science and Intelligent Systems as well as contribute to its teaching. Furthermore, the candidate is expected to conduct research in the area of Knowledge Technology and Intelligent Systems. This post is open to Postdocs or PhD candidates. PhD candidates have the opportunity to advance their academic education through the completion of a doctoral dissertation. Requirements: Academic degree preferably in computer science qualifying the holder to carry out the above-mentioned responsibilities. In particular, an MSc or PhD in Artificial Intelligence or Computer Science is essential. Your demonstrated research interests should be in the areas of Knowledge Technology and Intelligent Systems (e.g. Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Robotics, Natural Language Processing, Vision, or Knowledge Representation etc). We are also looking for very good communication skills and teamwork, in particular a very good command of both German and English is a requirement. Experience or a keen interest in developing a new MSc programme and very good programming skills are a plus. The position is fulltime (39 hours per week). The initial contract will be for two years and can be extended for an additional three years (see also ? 2 of the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Law (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz)). The university intends to increase the number of women amongst its academic personnel and encourages qualified women to apply. In compliance with the Hamburg Equal Opportunity Law, if applicants are equally qualified, preference will be given to qualified female applicants or qualified disabled applicants. For queries or more information please contact Prof. Dr. Stefan Wermter, Head of Knowledge Technology or see http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ . Application dossiers (application letter, curriculum vitae, degree certificate(s), etc.) are to be submitted electronically in a single pdf file to wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de before 28.2.2011. The applications will be accepted until the position is filled. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2 PhD Studentships Neural Multimodal Integration & Neural Speech Localisation) The Knowledge Technology Research Group is looking to fill two fulltime PhD studentships funded by the DFG in the context of the International Research Training Group CINACS ( http://www.cinacs.org/ ) . The project offers a 3-year doctoral programme based at the University of Hamburg and at Tsinghua University, Beijing. The dissertation projects will be carried out at the University of Hamburg. A part of the studies (a few months) can be performed at Tsinghua University. The interdisciplinary programme provides exciting research opportunities in multisensory perception and cross-modal information processing. Responsibilities: The candidate is expected to conduct research in the area of Knowledge Technology and Neural Network Robotics. In these two subprojects we are particularly focused on working towards a) neural multimodal integration based on the superior colliculus and b) neural sound localisation for speech processing based on the inferior colliculus. We use an attractive humanoid robot scenario where humanoid robots interact with humans based on multimodal information. This includes the integration of an ambient environment with new cognitive humanoid robots. Requirements: Academic degree preferably in computer science or related qualifying the holder to carry out the above-mentioned responsibilities. In particular, an MSc or equivalent in computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, engineering or equivalent is essential. Knowledge of artificial intelligence, neural networks or robotics and an interest to work in an interdisciplinary environment will be important. The post involves international travel. We are looking for excellent programming skills, e.g. in C++, C, Python, Java etc. We are also looking for very good communication skills and teamwork, including very good knowledge of English. Knowledge of German would be desirable. The PhD stipend is for three years (2 plus 1) in fulltime mode. The university intends to increase the number of women amongst its academic personnel and encourages qualified women to apply. In compliance with the Hamburg Equal Opportunity Law, if applicants are equally qualified, preference will be given to qualified female applicants or qualified disabled applicants. For queries or more information please contact Prof. Dr. Stefan Wermter, Head of Knowledge Technology or see http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ . Application dossiers (application letter, curriculum vitae, degree certificate(s), etc.) are to be submitted electronically in a single pdf file to wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de and will be accepted until the positions are filled. Further information can be obtained at: http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/jobs.shtml Applicants should clearly state for which position they apply. *********************************************** Professor Dr. Stefan Wermter Head of Knowledge Technology Department of Computer Science, WTM, Building F University of Hamburg Vogt Koelln Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany Secretary: +49 40 42883 2433 Phone: +49 40 42883 2434 Fax : +49 40 42883 2515 Email: Wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~wermter/ http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ *********************************************** From juergen at idsia.ch Fri Feb 4 15:07:26 2011 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 21:07:26 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Visual Pattern Recognition / Neural Network ReNNaissance / Jobs Message-ID: <47CD7ECA-D1A9-46D8-8EBD-CF13DCCF4C52@idsia.ch> Recently our neural computer vision team collected a string of 1st ranks in the following visual pattern recognition competitions and benchmarks: 1. Online Traffic Sign Recognition Competition, U. Bochum (1st & 2nd rank; 1.02% error rate, January 2011). 2. NORB Object Recognition Benchmark, NYU, 2004. New record (2.53% error rate) in January 2011 [1]. 3. CIFAR-10 Object Recognition Benchmark, U. Toronto, 2009. New record (19.51% error rate) in January 2011 [1]. 4. MNIST Handwritten Digit Recognition Benchmark, NYU, 1998. New record (0.35% error rate) in 2010, tied in January 2011 [1]. 5.-7. Old news: Three Connected Handwriting Recognition Competitions at ICDAR 2009, all won by multi-dimensional LSTM recurrent neural networks. We use supervised feedforward or recurrent neural networks with many non-linear processing stages, somewhat inspired by early hierarchical neural architectures such as the Neocognitron (1980), sometimes (but not always) profiting from weight sharing & convolution, contrast enhancement, max-pooling, and sparse network connectivity. GPUs speed up learning by a factor of up to 50. No need for unsupervised pre- training, which is a bit depressing, as we have developed unsupervised learning algorithms for two decades. Nevertheless, we think our results are contributing to a second Neural Network ReNNaissance (the first one happened in the 1980s and early 90s). Most recent paper: [1] D. C. Ciresan, U. Meier, J. Masci, L. M. Gambardella, J. Schmidhuber. High-Performance Neural Networks for Visual Object Classification. Preprint arXiv:1102.0183v1 [cs.AI], 1 Feb 2011. Overview web site with additional papers: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/vision.html We are also hiring postdocs and PhD students: Postdoc SFR 72,000/year ~ US$ 75,400/year as of 4/2/2011; PhD student SFR 40,800/year ~ US$ 42,700/year: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/sn2010.html BTW, Switzerland is the best country for scientists: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/switzerland.html :-) J?rgen Schmidhuber Director of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA, Lugano Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Univ. Lugano Professor SUPSI, Manno-Lugano, Switzerland http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/whatsnew.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110204/51a72e3d/attachment.html From choe at cs.tamu.edu Fri Feb 4 10:47:06 2011 From: choe at cs.tamu.edu (Yoonsuck Choe) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 09:47:06 -0600 (CST) Subject: Connectionists: [Final call for papers] IJCNN deadline extended to 2/10 Message-ID: [News highlight] 1. Updated deadline: February 10, 2011 (final) 2. For the first time, IJCNN 2011 will also feature a Special Track on Neuroscience and Neurocognition, for which authors may submit abstracts as well as full papers (for details, please see http://www.ijcnn2011.org/callforabstracts.php) IJCNN 2011 Submission Deadline is February 10, 2011 The 2011 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks will be held at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California, July 31 – August 5, 2011. The conference is sponsored jointly by the International Neural Network Society and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. Papers and abstracts should be submitted through the on-line submission system at the conference website: http://www.ijcnn2011.org IJCNN 2011 will feature: * Contributed technical talks and posters describing the latest research from around the world. * Plenary lectures by leading researchers. Confirmed speakers include Michael Arbib, Leon Glass, Dharmendra Modha and Stefan Schaal. * An NSF-sponsored all-day special symposium on the theme "From Brains to Machines" featuring invited speakers. * Special sessions and panels covering a broad range of topics * Pre-conference tutorials and post-conference workshops with presentations by experts. * Several Competition Challenges with deadlines between January and March 2011 (check www.ijcnn2011.org/competitions.php for details). For the first time, IJCNN 2011 will also feature a Special Track on Neuroscience and Neurocognition, for which authors may submit abstracts as well as full papers (for details, please see http://www.ijcnn2011.org/callforabstracts.php) Submission Deadlines: Full Papers: February 10, 2011 Abstracts: February 10, 2011 (for Special Track on Neuroscience and Neurocognition only) The range of topics covered includes, but is not limited to: * Neural network theory & models. * Collective intelligence. * Computational neuroscience. * Pattern recognition. * Cognitive models. * Machine vision. * Brain-machine interfaces. * Hybrid systems. * Embodied robotics. * Self-aware systems. * Evolutionary neural systems. * Data mining. * Neurodynamics. * Sensor networks. * Neuroinformatics. * Agent-based systems. * Neuroengineering. * Computational biology. * Neural hardware. * Bioinformatics * Neural network applications. * Artificial life. New high-quality proposals for post-conference workshops will also continue to be considered. We look forward to seeing you in San Jose! General Chair: Ali A. Minai (University of Cincinnati) Program Chair: Hava Siegelmann (University of Massachusetts Amherst) Technical Co-Chairs: Michael Georgiopoulos (University of Central Florida) Cesare Alippi (Politecnico di Milano) From poal at cvc.uab.es Fri Feb 4 10:01:12 2011 From: poal at cvc.uab.es (Jordi Gonzalez) Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:01:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers ICCV2011, Barcelona, Spain (6-13/11/2011) Message-ID: <4D4C14B8.9040204@cvc.uab.es> ================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS The 13th International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV 2011) November 6th - 13th 2011 -- Barcelona, Spain http://www.iccv2011.org/ ================================================================== THE WEBSITE IS NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS! Papers in the main technical program must describe high quality, original research. Topics of interest include all aspects of computer vision and pattern recognition including, but not limited to: - Sensors and Early Vision - Color and Texture - Segmentation and Grouping - Motion and Tracking - Stereo and Structure from Motion - Image-based Modeling - Illumination and Reflectance Modeling - Shape Representation - Physics-based Modeling - Object Recognition - Video Analysis and Event Recognition - Face and Gesture - Statistical Methods and Learning - Vision for Robots - Performance Evaluation - Medical Image Analysis - Image and Video Retrieval DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION: March 1, 2011 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Chairs: Dimitris Metaxas, State University of New Jersey, USA Long Quan, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Alberto Sanfeliu, Technical University of Catalonia, Spain Luc Van Gool, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland Program Chairs: Steve Lin, Microsoft Research Asia Bernt Schiele, Max-Planck-Institut f?r Informatik, Germany Stefano Soatto, University of California, USA Peter Sturm, INRIA, France From triesch at fias.uni-frankfurt.de Sun Feb 6 04:12:51 2011 From: triesch at fias.uni-frankfurt.de (Jochen Triesch) Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 10:12:51 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 10 Doctoral Fellowships in the area of Neural Circuits Message-ID: <80F299E9-E036-481F-A16F-1EAA94DDC9F3@fias.uni-frankfurt.de> International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits http://www.mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de/global/menue/IMPRS/index.htm The IMPRS for Neural Circuits was recently funded by the Max Planck Society and offers ten positions for talented students holding a relevant Master?s or Bachelor?s degree to perform research resulting in a PhD. It also includes a tailor-made educational program including neuroscience courses (topics and techniques), transferable skills, rotations and exchange programs. The deadline for applications (including the letters of recommendation) is March 15, 2011! IMPRS for Neural Circuits Faculty are Frankfurt Neuroscientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Brain Research and Biophysics, the Goethe University and the university clinic, the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and the newly established Ernst Str?ngmann Institute. IMPRS Faculty members currently include Amparo Acker-Palmer, Georg Auburger, Ernst Bamberg, Thomas Deller, Pascal Fries, Alexander Gottschalk, Manfred K?ssl, Werner K?hlbrandt, Gilles Laurent, Christoph van der Malsburg, Peter Mombaerts, Jochen Roeper, Erin Schuman, Wolf Singer, Hartwig Spors, Jochen Triesch and Gabriel Wittum. The common focus of the IMPRS for Neural Circuits will be the understanding of neural circuits (from the simple to the large and complex), at all scales required to achieve this understanding. This ambitious objective will require analyses at the molecular, cellular, multi-cellular, network and behavioral levels, with the full understanding that macroscopic phenomena (spatial patterns, dynamics) can be scale-dependent, and that reductionism is not always sufficient as a method. For questions please refer to Max Planck Institute for Brain Research IMPRS for Neural Circuits Dr. A.P. (Arjan) Vink Deutschordenstr. 46 60528 Frankfurt am Main Germany arjan.vink at brain.mpg.de -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110206/bd5152ba/attachment.html From ale at sissa.it Sun Feb 6 16:34:55 2011 From: ale at sissa.it (Alessandro Treves) Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:34:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2 group leaders sought at SISSA In-Reply-To: <20080320105419.zj7wc6eu4gw8o4sk@webmail.sissa.it> References: <20080320105419.zj7wc6eu4gw8o4sk@webmail.sissa.it> Message-ID: <20110206223455.623jnyycgk4k0kgs@webmail.sissa.it> The Cognitive Neuroscience Sector at SISSA, in Trieste, Italy, seeks to recruit 2 independent group leaders, one to carry out research in Brain and Language and the other in Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Behaviour. The positions are for 3 years, renewable for 3 more. The call for applications, in Italian for bureaucratic reasons, is available at http://www.sissa.it/main/?p=A3_B4&id=933, with deadline February 28. Candidates are sought worldwide, and all academic activities at SISSA are conducted in English. SISSA is one of the three purely postgraduate and postdoctoral institutions within the Italian university system, consistently ranked at the top by measures ranging from publications to external funding to visibility outside of Italy. It is keen to enhance its international character and its intellectual diversity. The Sector currently has 25 PhD students supported on SISSA fellowships, over half of whom are not Italians. Postdocs, however, are normally supported by individual research funding. Faculty members are required to teach limited PhD mini-courses, and to individually supervise the research of students in their groups. Further information about the Sector can be found on the http://www.sissa.it/cns/ and informal inquiries are welcome, e.g. by e-mail to alessandrotreves at gmail.com, with a CV attached, or by phone +39-040-3787623 -- SISSA - Cognitive Neuroscience - via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy rm:241 tel:39040-3787623 fax:39040-3787528 http://people.sissa.it/~ale ---------------------------------------------------------------- SISSA Webmail https://webmail.sissa.it/ Powered by Horde http://www.horde.org/ From erik at oist.jp Sun Feb 6 22:16:38 2011 From: erik at oist.jp (Erik De Schutter) Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2011 12:16:38 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course 2011: Application deadline approaching Message-ID: <436A8316-7951-4318-B563-84FE0FFB4D34@oist.jp> OKINAWA COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE COURSE 2011 Methods, Neurons, Networks and Behaviors June 13 - June 30, 2011. Okinawa, Japan http://www.irp.oist.jp/ocnc/2011 The aim of the Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course is to provide opportunities for young researchers with theoretical backgrounds to learn the latest advances in neuroscience, and for those with experimental backgrounds to have hands-on experience in computational modeling. We invite graduate students and postgraduate researchers to participate in the course, held from June 13th through June 30th, 2011 at an oceanfront seminar house of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Applications are through the course web page only; they will open January 3rd and close February 14th, 2011. Applicants are required to propose a project at the time of application. Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance in March. Like in preceding years, OCNC will be a comprehensive three-week course covering single neurons, networks, and behaviors with ample time for student projects. The first week will focus exclusively on methods with hands-on tutorials during the afternoons, while the second and third weeks will have lectures by international experts. We invite those who are interested in integrating experimental and computational approaches at each level, as well as in bridging different levels of complexity. The sponsor will provide lodging and meals during the course and support travel for those without funding. We hope that this course will be a good opportunity for theoretical and experimental neuroscientists to meet each other and to explore the attractive nature and culture of Okinawa, the southernmost island prefecture of Japan. Invited faculty: ? De Schutter, Erik ? Doya, Kenji ? Ermentrout, Bard ? Gerstner, Wulfram ? Haruno, Masahiko ? Jeff, Wickens ? Kuhn, Bernd ? Li, Zhaoping ? McCormick, David ? Mongillo, Gianluigi ? Nicolelis, Miguel ? Prinz, Astrid ? Seung, Sebastian ? Stevens, Chuck ? Stiefel, Klaus ? Yu, Angela From hava at cs.umass.edu Sun Feb 6 18:39:50 2011 From: hava at cs.umass.edu (Hava Siegelmann) Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 18:39:50 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Announcing special session on Computational Social NeuroScience Message-ID: <4D4F3146.9050107@cs.umass.edu> Dear Colleagues: A special session is being arranged on the topic of computational social neuroscience, which will feature research on social interaction and on the ability of agents to relate to each other. It will take place during the IJCNN 2011 conference this summer. http://www.ijcnn2011.org/ The session is in honor of a friend and colleague - Phil Goodman - a neurologist and researcher - who passed away recently at a young age. There is an extended deadline for submissions, so we encourage the submission of short abstracts or papers in this topic. We will follow with a special edition in a journal. Thank you very much, Hava Sieglemann IJCNN2011 Program Chair From jose.millan at epfl.ch Mon Feb 7 16:14:12 2011 From: jose.millan at epfl.ch (Jose del R. Millan) Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:14:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 3rd Annual BMI Workshop at IEEE-SMC Message-ID: <4D5060A4.6020004@epfl.ch> *Featured BMI Workshop IEEE SMC 2011: 3rd Annual Workshop on Brain-Machine Interfaces * Anchorage, Alaska October 10-11, 2011 This workshop is co-sponsored jointly by the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (SMC), Circuits and Systems Society (CAS), and the Engineering, Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). *Important Dates* April 1, 2011: Deadline for submission of full-length papers June 1, 2011: Acceptance/Rejection notification July 5, 2011: Final camera-ready papers due in electronic form For more details: http://www.smc2011.org/technical-program/bmi-workshop -- Dr. Jos? del R. Mill?n, Defitech Professor Defitech Chair in Non-Invasive Brain-Machine Interface Center for Neuroprosthetics School of Engineering Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) EPFL STI-CNBI ELB 138. Station 11 CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland Tel: +41-21-6937391 Fax: +41-21-6935307 jose.millan at epfl.ch http://people.epfl.ch/jose.millan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110207/53cf8e74/attachment.html From Smagt at dlr.de Sun Feb 6 11:29:07 2011 From: Smagt at dlr.de (Smagt@dlr.de) Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 16:29:07 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Summer School on Impedance Message-ID: announcing the STIFF/VIACTORS SUMMER SCHOOL ON IMPEDANCE July 25-29, 2011 >From July 25 to 29, 2011, the STIFF/VIACTORS Summer School on Impedance will be organised on the Fraueninsel in Bavaria, Germany. This summer school concentrates on fundamentals and latest results in human and robotic impedance, as well as on studying the transfer of one to the other. The current programme includes the following keynote speakers: Alin Albu-Sch?ffer, DLR Antonio Bicchi, Pisa University Etienne Burdet, Imperial College Neville Hogan, MIT Oussama Khatib, Stanford University Joseph McIntyre, UPD-CNRS (Paris) Sethu Vijayakumar, University of Edinburgh The five-day programme will include the above keynote talks, a number of in-depth presentations of current research on the area of human and robotic impedance, and a hands-on robot programming lab. Audience: Ph.D. students, postdocs, and senior researchers working on robot control, neuroscience, and biophysics. Please find all information on the event at http://summerschool.stiff-project.org/. Registration will soon be open; up to then, please join our mailing list. There will be a maximum of 70 participants to the school. Patrick -- Dr. Patrick van der Smagt phone +49 8153 281152, fax -34 DLR/Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics smagt at dlr.de P.O.Box 1116, 82230 Wessling, Germany http://www.bionics.dlr.de/ From michel.verleysen at uclouvain.be Tue Feb 8 07:12:48 2011 From: michel.verleysen at uclouvain.be (Michel Verleysen) Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 13:12:48 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: ESANN 2011 programme Message-ID: <00b301cbc789$7ff94280$7febc780$@verleysen@uclouvain.be> (Our apologies if you get multiple copies of this message, despite our precautions) ====================================================== ESANN 2011 19th European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning Bruges (Belgium) - April 27-28-20, 2011 Preliminary program ===================================================== The preliminary program of the ESANN 2011 conference is now available on the Web: http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann For those of you who maintain WWW pages including lists of related machine learning and artificial neural networks sites: we would appreciate if you could add the above URL to your list; thank you very much! For 19 years the ESANN conference has become a major event in the field of neural computation and machine learning. ESANN is a selective conference focusing on fundamental aspects of artificial neural networks, machine learning, statistical information processing and computational intelligence. Mathematical foundations, algorithms and tools, and applications are covered. The program of the conference can be found at http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann, together with practical information about the conference venue, registration, etc. Other information can be obtained by sending an e-mail to esann at uclouvain.be. ======================================================== ESANN - European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann * For submissions of papers, reviews, registrations: Michel Verleysen Univ. Cath. de Louvain - Machine Learning Group 3, pl. du Levant - B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve - Belgium tel: +32 10 47 25 51 - fax: + 32 10 47 25 98 mailto:esann at uclouvain.be * Conference secretariat d-side conference services 24 av. L. Mommaerts - B-1140 Evere - Belgium tel: + 32 2 730 06 11 - fax: + 32 2 730 06 00 mailto:esann at uclouvain.be ======================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110208/fabc60df/attachment-0001.html From jose at psychology.rutgers.edu Tue Feb 8 08:25:11 2011 From: jose at psychology.rutgers.edu (Stephen =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9?= Hanson) Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:25:11 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: RESEARCH MR PHYSICIST-- RUBIC- Rutgers University Message-ID: <1297171511.1873.133.camel@max> The newly built neuroimaging center--RUBIC (Rutgers Brain Imaging Center) is seeking an individual for research development and management of the center resources especially including a SIEMENS 3T TRIO. See the following webpage for more information and to apply online. If you have any questions about this position, please respond to jose at psychology.rutgers.edu with a subject line "PHYSICIST" http://uhr.rutgers.edu/jobs/JobDetail.aspx?pst_num=10-001370 -- Stephen Jos? Hanson Professor Psychology Department Rutgers University Director RUBIC (Rutgers Brain Imaging Center) Director RUMBA (Rutgers Brain/Mind Analysis-NK) Member of Cognitive Science Center (NB) Information Science, NJIT (NK) email: jose at psychology.rutgers.edu web: psychology.rutgers.edu/~jose lab: www.rumba.rutgers.edu fax: 866-434-7959 voice: 973-353-5440 x 1412 From torcini at gmail.com Wed Feb 9 10:43:03 2011 From: torcini at gmail.com (Alessandro Torcini) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2011 16:43:03 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop at CNS*2011 .. Request forcontributions Message-ID: CNS*2011 Workshop - July 23-28, 2011 in Stockholm, Sweden Relevance of coherent neural activity for brain functionality For more details see http://neuro.fi.isc.cnr.it/index.php?page=workshop Two or three slots for contributed talks (20+5 min) will be available. Please send applications (including title and abstract) to the organizers Alessandro Torcini (alessandro.torcini at cnr.it) and Michael Rosenblum (mros at uni-potsdam.de) Contributions from experimentalists are warmly encouraged -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alessandro Torcini -?? Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi - CNR via Madonna del Piano, 10 --- I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino Tel:+39-055-522-6670 Fax:+39-055-522-6683?? SKyPE: torcini ? ? ? ? http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/alessandro.torcini ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk Wed Feb 9 12:43:27 2011 From: a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk (Anil Seth) Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:43:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in consciousness science at University of Sussex Message-ID: <4D52D23F.1080904@sussex.ac.uk> A two-year full-time post-doctoral position is available within the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science (SCCS), starting in Spring 2011, closing date for applications Feb 28 2011. This research initiative is funded by the large-scale EU project 'collective experience of empathic data systems' (CEEDS, see www.ceeds-project.eu ). You will work with Dr. Anil Seth (Principal Investigator and SCCS co-director) and other researchers in the group, on developing and testing a theoretical model of the neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning conscious presence. CEEDS is a large-scale (FP7, ICT) project funded by a 6.9M EUR grant from the EU and comprising 16 European partners. Its primary aim is to develop novel, integrated technologies to support human experience, analysis, and understanding of very large datasets. The available post will focus on /development of//a theoretical model of conscious presence/. Presence is a key dimension structuring conscious experience, but one that requires explanation. In virtual reality, researchers try to engender conscious presence in simulated environment. Conversely, certain psychiatric disorders (e.g., depersonalization, derealisation) selectively affect conscious presence. A possible starting point is to integrate concepts of expectation and prediction error with models of autonomic/emotional responses to environmental stimuli, though other directions are also possible. The successful applicant will develop a model to a degree allowing experimental testing (via neuroimaging and other behavioural methods available at Sussex and within the CEEDS consortium). Candidates will also be expected to contribute as needed to other aspects of the CEEDS project that lie within its main scientific remit. Candidates must have a PhD or equivalent degree in a quantitative science discipline. Prior postdoctoral experience is preferred, as are candidates with a strong background in neural modelling/analysis. For more about the SCCS see www.sussex.ac.uk/sackler . For more information on the research background see www.anilseth.com and www.ceeds-project.eu . For informal inquiries please contact Dr. Anil Seth, School of Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ, UK; a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk . For full details and how to apply see www.sussex.ac.uk/jobs -- Anil K. Seth, D.Phil. Co-Director, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science School of Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK W: www.anilseth.com, T: +44 1273 678549, -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110209/66a80b2e/attachment.html From retienne at jhu.edu Wed Feb 9 20:48:42 2011 From: retienne at jhu.edu (retienne) Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:48:42 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 2011 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Workshop: Call For Applicants In-Reply-To: <4CFFB291.8030909@jhu.edu> References: <4397BD8D-0665-4A95-9FFB-3641C4EF0A5B@gmail.com> <4CFFB032.4030207@ini.phys.ethz.ch> <4CFFB291.8030909@jhu.edu> Message-ID: <4D5343FA.3060609@jhu.edu> *2011 Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop / Telluride, Colorado, June 26-July 16, 2011/* NEUROMORPHIC COGNITION ENGINEERING WORKSHOP www.ine-web.org Sunday June 26th - Saturday July 16th, 2011, Telluride, Colorado We invite applications for a three-week summer workshop that will be held in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday June 26th - Saturday July 16th, 2011. The application deadline is *Tuesday, March 15th* and application instructions are described at the bottom of this document. The 2011 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Institute for Neuroinformatics - University and ETH Zurich, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Maryland - College Park, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, University of Sydney, University of Florida - Gainesville and the Salk Institute. Directors: Ralph Etienne-Cummings, Johns Hopkins University Timothy Horiuchi, University of Maryland, College Park Tobi Delbruck, Institute for Neuroinformatics, Zurich Workshop Advisory Board: Andreas ANDREOU (The Johns Hopkins University) Andre van SCHAIK (University of Sydney) Avis COHEN (University of Maryland) Barbara SHINN-CUNNINGHAM (Boston University) Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Jonathan TAPSON (University of Cape Town) Paul HASLER (Georgia Institute of Technology) Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland) Malcolm SLANEY Previous year workshop can be found at: http://ine-web.org/workshops/workshops-overview/index.html and last year's wiki is https://neuromorphs.net/nm/wiki/2010 . GOALS: Neuromorphic engineers design and fabricate artificial neural systems whose organizing principles are based on those of biological nervous systems. Over the past 16 years, this research community has focused on the understanding of low-level sensory processing and systems infrastructure; efforts are now expanding to apply this knowledge and infrastructure to addressing higher-level problems in perception, cognition, and learning. In this 3-week intensive workshop and through the Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering (INE), the mission is to promote interaction between senior and junior researchers; to educate new members of the community; to introduce new enabling fields and applications to the community; to promote on-going collaborative activities emerging from the Workshop, and to promote a self-sustaining research field. FORMAT: The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on systems and cognitive neuroscience (in particular sensory processing, learning and memory, motor systems and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI design, mobile 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, some of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by invited speakers. Projects and interest groups meet in the late afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there will be tutorials on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, mobile robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective attention mechanisms, cognitive systems, etc. 2011 TOPIC AREAS: "A Cognitive Robot Detecting Objects using Sound, Language, and Vision" (Cornelia Fermuller, Yiannis Aloimonos, & Andreas Andreou) "Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Methods for Guided Reinforcement Learning" (John Harris and David Noelle) "Attention-Driven Scene Analysis" (Julio Martinez and Mounya Elhilali) "From Single Cells to Cognition in Software and Hardware" (Kwabena Boahen and Chris Eliasmith) In addition, there will be a number of ad-hoc tutorials, demonstrations, and discussion groups that will focus on important issues in the research community. Terry Sejnowski -- Computational Neuroscience (invitational mini-workshop) 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 (350 miles). 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). Wireless 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 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 ARRANGEMENTS: ------ Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around the end of March 2011. The Workshop covers all your accommodations and facilities costs. You are responsible for your own travel to the Workshop. For expenses not covered by federal funds, a Workshop registration fee is required. The fee is $600 per participant, however, due to the difference in travel cost, we offer a discount to participants outside of the US, Canada and Mexico. European registration fees will be reduced to $350; non-US/non-European registration fees will be reduced to $200. 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. ------ 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. Anyone interested in proposing or discussing specific projects should contact the appropriate topic leaders directly. The application website is (after February 10th, 2011): http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2011/apply-info Application information needed: * contact email address * First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address. * Curriculum Vitae (a short version, please). * One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop, including possible ideas for workshop projects. Please indicate which topic areas you would most likely join. * Two letters of recommendation (uploaded directly by references). The application deadline is March 15, 2011. Applicants will be notified by e-mail. 10 February, 2011 - Applications accepted on website 15 March, 2011 - Applications Due end of March - Notification of Acceptance (v9.2.2011b) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110209/a5afaab3/attachment-0001.html From juergen at idsia.ch Thu Feb 10 05:01:32 2011 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:01:32 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: AGI-11 paper submission deadline extended to March 1 Message-ID: <12E71558-E8DA-427D-91A2-E5B393799FC0@idsia.ch> In response to an upsurge of popular demand, the paper submission deadline for the Fourth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence has been extended till March 1, 2011. Hosted on Google's campus in Mountain View, California, AGI-11 is shaping up to be the biggest AGI conference yet. In addition to a plenitude of great talks and workshops on the theory and practice of AGI research, the conference will feature the first-ever AGI/ neuroscience special session, plus an exciting AI/robotics demo session with many contributions from Bay area technology companies. See the conference webpage http://agi-conf.org/2011 for more information, and the page http://agi-conf.org/2011/call-for-papers for author instructions. Hoping to see you in Mountain View, in August! Yours, Juergen Schmidhuber, IDSIA: AGI-11 Program Committee Chair Kristinn Thorisson, Reykjavik University: AGI-11 Program Committee Chair Moshe Looks, Google Inc.: AGI-11 Conference Chair Ben Goertzel, Novamente LLC: Chair of AGI Conference Series http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110210/719e7268/attachment.html From raphael.ritz at incf.org Thu Feb 10 05:44:17 2011 From: raphael.ritz at incf.org (Raphael Ritz) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:44:17 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Job offer at INCF: Scientific applications software engineer Message-ID: <4D53C181.4080403@incf.org> Job description *************** The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF; www.incf.org) is a professional organization that aims to develop a global neuroinformatics infrastructure and to promote the sharing of data and computing resources to the international neuroscience research community. For this purpose, INCF is seeking an experienced software developer to develop software libraries, applications and tools to support neuroscience analysis, modeling and simulation research. The successful candidate will join the staff at the INCF Secretariat in Stockholm and will work closely with the scientists and developers involved in neuroinformatics research around the world. Qualifications ************** We are interested both in experienced applicants as well as in recent graduates. Applicants should have a strong background in science and mathematics, as well as real experience developing quality software, either commercial or open source. More experienced applicants should also have demonstrated project management skills and the ability to lead a team of strong developers with highly technical backgrounds. The candidate should have experience with both static and dynamic programming languages, including C/C++ and Python, and in-depth understanding of the following: domain-specific languages, scientific computing, algorithm analysis and data structures, foreign function interfaces between high- and low-level languages (for example SWIG or Boost Python). DESIRED SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES (Required) Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or other scientific or engineering field with preferably an M.S. or Ph.D. degree. (Required) Minimum 2 years of technical lead or development experience with 4 or more years preferred. Ability to understand a problem domain and then conceive of and implement an intuitive user interface geared toward the scientist or engineer user. Discipline, pride, and professionalism to write readable, documented, and unit-tested code that serves as an example to others who later study your work. Experience with source revision repositories, issue tracking and wiki software a plus. Strong work ethic and commitment to satisfying the customer. Experience with Python, and a strong understanding of how to apply its capabilities to develop GUIs, work flow frameworks, distributed data grids, analysis, modeling, simulation and elegant scientific applications. Understanding of databases, statistics, optimization, image processing, signal processing, or other technical areas is desirable. The candidate should have very good knowledge of English, in both oral and written communication. Good knowledge of other languages is an advantage. Employment ************ Fixed term contract 6 months, with possible prolongation. Competitive salary, set according to the qualifications and experiences of the successful candidate. Further information ******************** Applications should contain a cover letter and CV, and be sent to jobs at incf.org by March 4. Code samples and links to previous work are encouraged but not required. Download this job announcement as a pdf here: http://incf.org/documents/Scientific%20applications%20software%20engineer.pdf -- Dr. Raphael Ritz Scientific Officer International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility Karolinska Institutet Nobels v?g 15 A SE-171 77 Stockholm Sweden Email: raphael.ritz at incf.org Phone: +46 8 524 87017 Fax: +46 8 524 87150 web: www.incf.org From M.Montemurro at manchester.ac.uk Thu Feb 10 09:32:10 2011 From: M.Montemurro at manchester.ac.uk (Marcelo Montemurro) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:32:10 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Funded PhD Message-ID: Dear All, a 3-year studentship is available to work with Prof. Hugh Piggins, Dr Marcelo Montemurro, and Prof David Broomhead on 'Synaptic communication in the brain's daily clock'. The 3-year studentship will provide full support for tuition fees, an annual tax-free stipend of ?13,590 and cover all research expenses. This project is available to UK/EU nationals only due to the nature of the funding and is due to start October 2011. The project is highly interdisciplinary and involves both experimental and computational / theoretical work. The precise balance between the different types of approach will be defined according to he the student's background and interests. Further details can be found at: http://www.neuroscience.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/PhDstudentships2011/synapticcommunication.pdf For enquires write to Prof. Hugh Piggins (hugh.d.piggins at manchester.ac.uk) or Dr Marcelo Montemurro (m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk). Applications are invited up to and including Monday 7 March 2011. Regards, -- Dr. Marcelo A. Montemurro Faculty of Life Sciences University of Manchester Room 3.606 Stopford Building Oxford Road Manchester, M13 9PT UK phone: +44(0)161 306 3883 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110210/3e7b21fb/attachment.html From standage at biomed.queensu.ca Fri Feb 11 11:11:33 2011 From: standage at biomed.queensu.ca (Dominic Standage) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:11:33 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Gain modulation by an urgency signal controls the speed-accuracy trade-off in a network model of a cortical decision circuit Message-ID: <000e01cbca06$5a1548f0$0e3fdad0$@queensu.ca> Apologies for cross posting. A new paper on the modulation of decision circuitry by the encoding of elapsed time is available at http://www.frontiersin.org/computational_neuroscience/10.3389/fncom.2011.000 07/abstract Standage D, You H, Wang D and Dorris MC (2011). Gain modulation by an urgency signal controls the speed-accuracy trade-off in a network model of a cortical decision circuit. Front. Comput. Neurosci. 5:7. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2011.00007 Abstract: The speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) is ubiquitous in decision tasks. While the neural mechanisms underlying decisions are generally well characterized, the application of decision-theoretic methods to the SAT has been difficult to reconcile with experimental data suggesting that decision thresholds are inflexible. Using a network model of a cortical decision circuit, we demonstrate the SAT in a manner consistent with neural and behavioural data and with mathematical models that optimize speed and accuracy with respect to one another. In simulations of a reaction time task, we modulate the gain of the network with a signal encoding the urgency to respond. As the urgency signal builds up, the network progresses through a series of processing stages supporting noise filtering, integration of evidence, amplification of integrated evidence, and choice selection. Analysis of the network's dynamics formally characterizes this progression. Slower buildup of urgency increases accuracy by slowing down the progression. Faster buildup has the opposite effect. Because the network always progresses through the same stages, decision-selective firing rates are stereotyped at decision time. Dominic Standage Postdoctoral Research Fellow Centre for Neuroscience Studies Queen's University, Botterell Hall, Room 453 Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6 Tel: 613 533-3256 Fax: 613 533-6880 Email: standage at biomed.queensu.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110211/017c8a46/attachment-0001.html From smart at neuralcorrelate.com Fri Feb 11 22:48:26 2011 From: smart at neuralcorrelate.com (Susana Martinez-Conde) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:48:26 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Final Call for Illusion Submissions: The World's 7th Annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest Message-ID: <010c01cbca67$c7783fe0$5668bfa0$@com> ****FINAL CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE WORLD'S 7TH ANNUAL BEST ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST**** http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com The 2011 Best Illusion of the Year Contest will be held in Naples, Florida (Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, http://www.thephil.org/) on Monday, May 9th, 2011, as an official satellite of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) conference. The Naples Philharmonic Center is an 8-minute walk from the main VSS headquarters hotel in Naples, and is thus central to the VSS conference. Past contests have been highly successful in drawing public attention to vision research, with over ***FIVE MILLION*** website hits from viewers all over the world, as well as hundreds of international media stories. The First, Second and Third Prize winners at the 20019 contest were Koukichi Sugihara (Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences, Japan), Bart Anderson (University of Sydney, Australia), and Jan Kremlacek (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights from the 2010 and previous contests, go to http://illusionoftheyear.com Eligible submissions are novel perceptual or cognitive illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2010) of all sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) in standard image, movie or html formats. Exciting new variants of classic or known illusions are admissible. An international panel of impartial judges will rate the submissions and narrow them to the TOP TEN. Then, at the Contest Gala in Naples, the TOP TEN illusionists will present their contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to pick the TOP THREE WINNERS! Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2011 contest, so long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the TOP THREE winners in previous years. Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the authors/creators will retain full copyright. The TOP TEN illusion will be posted on the illusion contest's website *after* the Contest Gala. Illusions not chosen among the TOP TEN will not be disclosed. As with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in to the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere. Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Executive Producer, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart at neuralcorrelate.com) until February 14, 2010. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings (if known). Illusions will be rated according to: . Significance to our understanding of the visual system . Simplicity of the description . Sheer beauty . Counterintuitive quality . Spectacularity Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last year's illusions: http://illusionoftheyear.com Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award! On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse ---------------------------------------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Executive Producer, Best Illusion of the Year Contest President, Neural Correlate Society http://illusionoftheyear.com Director, Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience Division of Neurobiology Barrow Neurological Institute 350 W. Thomas Rd Phoenix AZ 85013, USA Phone: +1 (602) 406-3484 Fax: +1 (602) 406-4172 Email: smart at neuralcorrelate.com http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110211/8994658f/attachment.html From pascal.hitzler at wright.edu Sat Feb 12 20:43:17 2011 From: pascal.hitzler at wright.edu (Pascal Hitzler) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2011 20:43:17 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Call for Papers: 7th International Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy11 at IJCAI 2011) Message-ID: <4D573735.60605@wright.edu> SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS 7th International Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy.11) http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy11/ Following the success of NeSy 2010 at AAAI, Atlanta, please find below a call for papers for NeSy 2011, which will take place in conjunction with IJCAI, Barcelona, 17 July 2011. (A NeSy'10 workshop report is available at http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~aag/AI-magazineNeSy10.pdf) The Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning attracts researchers and practitioners from different areas such as Neural Computation, Artificial Intelligence, Logic, Complex Networks, Cognitive Science, Computer Vision, Fraud Prevention, Semantic Web, Verification and Validation. NeSy is intended to create an atmosphere of exchange of ideas, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of the key multidisciplinary topics related to neural-symbolic integration. Topics of interest include: 1. Representation and computation of symbolic knowledge by neural networks; 2. Machine learning for neural-symbolic networks; 3. Knowledge extraction from complex networks; 4. Logical reasoning in neural-symbolic networks; 5. New neuro-symbolic cognitive models; 6. Uncertainty in neural-symbolic networks; 7. Biologically-inspired neuro-symbolic integration; 8. Applications in robotics, simulation, fraud prevention, semantic web, fault diagnosis, bioinformatics, etc. Submission You are invited to submit papers in pdf format through easychair at: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nesy11. Submitted papers must not have been published elsewhere and should not exceed 6 pages in the case of research and experience papers or 3 pages in the case of position papers. All submitted papers will be refereed based on their quality, relevance, originality, significance and soundness. Keynote Talk Robert Kowalski: The Connection Graph method as a Symbolic-Connectionist Model of the Mind Presentation Accepted papers must be presented during the workshop. The workshop will also include extra time for discussion, allowing the audience to get a better understanding of the issues, challenges and ideas being presented. Publication Accepted papers will be published by CEUR and will be included in the official workshop proceedings, which will be distributed during the workshop. Authors of the best papers will be invited to submit a revised and extended version of their paper to the Journal of Logic and Computation, reasoning and learning corner, A. S. d'Avila Garcez and L. Valiant (eds.), Oxford University Press. Important Dates Paper submission deadline: 18 April 2011 Notification of acceptance: 13 May 2011 Camera-ready paper due: 20 May 2011 Workshop date: 17 July 2011 IJCAI-11 dates: 16 to 22 July 2011 Workshop Organisers Artur d.Avila Garcez (City University London, UK) Pascal Hitzler (Kno.e.sis Center, Wright State University, Dayton, USA) Luis C. Lamb (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) Workshop Website: http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy11/ -- Prof. Dr. Pascal Hitzler Dept. of Computer Science, Wright State University, Dayton, OH pascal at pascal-hitzler.de http://www.knoesis.org/pascal/ Semantic Web Textbook: http://www.semantic-web-book.org Semantic Web Journal: http://www.semantic-web-journal.net From vcut at bu.edu Tue Feb 15 16:37:58 2011 From: vcut at bu.edu (Cutsuridis, Vassilis) Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:37:58 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: BOOK: Hippocampal Microcircuits: A Computational Modeller's Resource Book (2010) In-Reply-To: <4FCA5F376FFA4521BFA919996C09C765@Zeus> References: <4FCA5F376FFA4521BFA919996C09C765@Zeus> Message-ID: <272593B6D0D54BD3AB5549253FFB19C9@VasileiosPC> Hippocampal Microcircuits: A Computational Modeller's Resource Book By Vassilis Cutsuridis, Bruce P. Graham, Stuart Cobb, Imre Vida Springer (USA), 2010 http://www.springer.com/biomed/neuroscience/book/978-1-4419-0995-4?changeHeader Positive reviews about our book have recently appeared in the Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience journal by Prof. Michael Hasselmo (Boston U.) http://admin.frontiersin.org/computational_neuroscience/10.3389/fncom.2011.00002/full and in the Hippocampus journal by Prof. Roger D. Traub (IBM) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hipo.20876/pdf Description from the publisher --------------------------------------- The hippocampus plays an indispensible role in the formation of new memories in the mammalian brain. It is the focus of intense research and our understanding of its physiology, anatomy, and molecular structure has rapidly expanded in recent years. Yet, still much needs to be done to decipher how hippocampal microcircuits are built and function. Here, we present an overview of our current knowledge and a snapshot of ongoing research into these microcircuits. Rich in detail, Hippocampal Microcircuits: A Computational Modeler?s Resource Book provides focused and easily accessible reviews on various aspects of the theme. It is an unparalleled resource of information, including both data and techniques that will be an invaluable companion to all those wishing to develop computational models of hippocampal neurons and neuronal networks. The book is divided into two main parts. In the first part, leading experimental neuroscientists discuss data on the electrophysiological, neuroanatomical, and molecular characteristics of hippocampal circuits. The various types of excitatory and inhibitory neurons are reviewed along with their connectivity and synaptic properties. Single cell and ensemble activity patterns are presented from in vitro models, as well as anesthetized and freely moving animals. In the second part, computational neuroscientists describe models of hippocampal microcircuits at various levels of complexity, from single neurons to large-scale networks. Additionally, a chapter is devoted to simulation environments currently used by computational neuroscientists in developing their models. In addition to providing concise reviews and a wealth of data, the chapters also identify central questions and unexplored areas that will define future research in computational neuroscience. From msh at aber.ac.uk Tue Feb 15 07:36:37 2011 From: msh at aber.ac.uk (msh@aber.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:36:37 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Final call: IM-CLeVeR Spring School - deadline 21st February Message-ID: <22312b5e7e4be3366510c9956d69636b.squirrel@webmail.aber.ac.uk> This is the final call for the EU funded project 'IM-CLeVeR - Intrinsically Motivated Cumulative Learning Versatile Robots?/ Aberystwyth University Spring School 2011, to be held at the 2011 CapoCaccia Cognitive Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop in Sardinia from 1st to 7th May inclusive. Applications are due by the 21st February - there are only a few places left! This year?s themes are intrinsic motivation, abstract representations of sensorimotor data, hierarchical architectures and cumulative learning. The school is aimed at PhD students and young researchers in the fields of computer science, robotics, autonomous systems, machine vision, biologically inspired robotics, machine learning and engineering but is open to interested students in biology, psychology and neuroscience etc. with a reasonable background and skills in robotics and programming. It is intended as a platform for work exchange, for meeting other students and learning from each other by working in small robotic related research projects of a maximum of five people. The school is a unique opportunity for students to see their own research from a different angle and to gain the valuable experience of applying competence and skills in new domains. This year we are running the school in conjunction with the 2011 CapoCaccia Cognitive Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop (http://capocaccia.ethz.ch/capo/wiki/2011 ). Students of the school will be registered to the workshop, and will be able to attend workshop events and talks as well as those of the school. The main school will run during the first 7 days of the workshop, but we will provide space and supervision for students wishing to stay until the end on the 14th May so that they may continue working on their school projects. The school will also host a series of lectures by high-profile researchers, including: - Andrew Barto, University of Massachusetts Amherst - Philippe Gaussier, Cergy-Pontoise University - Peter Redgrave, The University of Sheffield - Matthew Schlesinger, Southern Illinois University - Leslie Smith, University of Stirling - Jochen Triesch, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies Students wishing to attend the school should apply to James Law (jxl at aber.ac.uk), with the following information: - A covering letter indicating how your research relates to the school topics and how you perceive attendance will benefit you - A letter of endorsement from your research supervisor, or equivalent - Your order of preference for the school projects (http://www.im-clever.eu/announcements/events/first-im-clever-summer-school/projects) Applications must be received by Monday 21st February. Bursaries are available to assist with some of the costs. For more details, and the list of confirmed speakers, please visit: http://www.im-clever.eu/announcements/events/first-im-clever-summer-school-1 James Law Spring School organiser From datashare at sciencedb.net Tue Feb 15 16:58:13 2011 From: datashare at sciencedb.net (datashare@sciencedb.net) Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:58:13 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: Announcement : Neuroscience positions database Message-ID: <96d2f026dfef0363b2a38ef13aa0bdb6.squirrel@squirrel-webmail.surftown.com> Dear Connectionists, * Apologies if you receive this multiple times * We would like to inform you about new forum for neuroscience job announcements: http://sciencedb.net/groups/neuroscience-positions-announcements/forum/ We hope you can use this forum to post announcements from post-doc positions and faculty positions to PhD. projects and internship projects. If you only want to follow the announcement; sign up for a free newswletter: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ScienceDbNeurosciencePositions-Announcements&loc=en_US Kind regards, Sciencedb.net PS. Follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/sciencedb or sign-up for our newsletter: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ScienceDb --- ScienceDB.net is a non-profit portal for the scientific community. Our service is sponsored by ads and donations. If you have any suggestions or comments, please mail us at sciencedb at sciencedb.net. From terry at salk.edu Tue Feb 15 22:01:27 2011 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:01:27 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - March, 2011 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents - Volume 23, Number 3 - March 1, 2011 ARTICLE Learning a Generative Model of Images by Factoring Appearance and Shape Nicolas Le Roux, Nicolas Heess, Jamie Shotto, and John Winn NOTES Intracellular Dynamics of Virtual Place Cells Sandro Romani, Terrence J. Sejnowski, and Misha Tsodyks Does High Firing Irregularity Enhance Learning? Chris Christodoulou and Aristodemos Cleanthous Bounding the Bias of Contrastive Divergence Learning Asja Fischer and Christian Igel LETTERS Stability Against Fluctuations: Scaling, Bifurcations and Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Stochastic Models of Synaptic Plasticity Collective Stability of Networks of Winner-Take-All Circuits Ueli Rutishauser, Rodney J. Douglas, and Jean-Jacques Slotine Suitability of V1 Energy Models for Object Classification James Bergstra, Yoshua Bengio, and Jerome Louradour Machine-Learning Based Coadaptive Calibration for Brain Computer Interfaces Carmen Vidaurre, Claudia Sannelli, Klaus-Robert Muller and Benjamin Blankertz ----- ON-LINE - http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/neco SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2011 - VOLUME 23 - 12 ISSUES USA Others Electronic only Student/Retired $67 $130 $62 Individual $118 $181 $110 Institution $986 $1,049 $882 Canada: Add 5% 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 smart at neuralcorrelate.com Wed Feb 16 10:08:58 2011 From: smart at neuralcorrelate.com (Susana Martinez-Conde) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:08:58 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Illusion submission EXTENSION: 7th annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest! Message-ID: <006001cbcdeb$729e3290$57da97b0$@com> ***DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND*** --The deadline for the 7th annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest has been extended. The FINAL (no exceptions) submission date is now ***March 1st***! http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com Many of the most outstanding illusion creators in the world have asked us to extend the deadline so as to perfect their contributions for the Contest! The 2011 Best Illusion of the Year Contest will be held in Naples, Florida (Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, http://www.thephil.org/) on Monday, May 9th, 2011, as an official satellite of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) conference. The Naples Philharmonic Center is an 8-minute walk from the main VSS headquarters hotel in Naples, and is thus central to the VSS conference. Past contests have been highly successful in drawing public attention to vision research, with over ***FIVE MILLION*** website hits from viewers all over the world, as well as hundreds of international media stories. The First, Second and Third Prize winners at the 20019 contest were Koukichi Sugihara (Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences, Japan), Bart Anderson (University of Sydney, Australia), and Jan Kremlacek (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights from the 2010 and previous contests, go to http://illusionoftheyear.com Eligible submissions are novel perceptual or cognitive illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2010) of all sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) in standard image, movie or html formats. Exciting new variants of classic or known illusions are admissible. An international panel of impartial judges will rate the submissions and narrow them to the TOP TEN. Then, at the Contest Gala in Naples, the TOP TEN illusionists will present their contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to pick the TOP THREE WINNERS! Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2011 contest, so long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the TOP THREE winners in previous years. Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the authors/creators will retain full copyright. The TOP TEN illusions will be posted on the illusion contest's website *after* the Contest Gala. Illusions not chosen among the TOP TEN will not be disclosed. As with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in to the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere. Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Executive Producer, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart at neuralcorrelate.com) until March 1st, 2011. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings (if known). Illusions will be rated according to: . Significance to our understanding of the visual system . Simplicity of the description . Sheer beauty . Counterintuitive quality . Spectacularity Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last year's illusions: http://illusionoftheyear.com Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award! On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse ---------------------------------------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Executive Producer, Best Illusion of the Year Contest President, Neural Correlate Society http://illusionoftheyear.com Director, Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience Division of Neurobiology Barrow Neurological Institute 350 W. Thomas Rd Phoenix AZ 85013, USA Phone: +1 (602) 406-3484 Fax: +1 (602) 406-4172 Email: smart at neuralcorrelate.com http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110216/9a354881/attachment-0001.html From ctf20 at sussex.ac.uk Thu Feb 17 01:32:12 2011 From: ctf20 at sussex.ac.uk (Chrisantha Fernando) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:32:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Symbol manipulation and rule learning in spiking neuronal networks Message-ID: <7940064A-08EA-4C3D-9096-451D0D8DCC3C@sussex.ac.uk> FYI... Journal of Theoretical Biology Volume 275, Issue 1, 21 April 2011, Pages 29-41 Symbol manipulation and rule learning in spiking neuronal networks Chrisantha Fernandoa, b, c, , a Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9RH, London, UK b MRC National Institute for Medical Research, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London, UK c Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, Szenth?roms?g u. 2, H-1014 Budapest, Hungary Received 19 August 2010; revised 9 January 2011; accepted 10 January 2011. Available online 13 January 2011. Abstract It has been claimed that the productivity, systematicity and compositionality of human language and thought necessitate the existence of a physical symbol system (PSS) in the brain. Recent discoveries about temporal coding suggest a novel type of neuronal implementation of a physical symbol system. Furthermore, learning classifier systems provide a plausible algorithmic basis by which symbol re-write rules could be trained to undertake behaviors exhibiting systematicity and compositionality, using a kind of natural selection of re-write rules in the brain, We show how the core operation of a learning classifier system, namely, the replication with variation of symbol re-write rules, can be implemented using spike-time dependent plasticity based supervised learning. As a whole, the aim of this paper is to integrate an algorithmic and an implementation level description of a neuronal symbol system capable of sustaining systematic and compositional behaviors. Previously proposed neuronal implementations of symbolic representations are compared with this new proposal. Available here... http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ctf20/dphil_2005/publications.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110217/c099aa6c/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: REcor.gif Type: image/gif Size: 203 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110217/c099aa6c/REcor.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: REemail.gif Type: image/gif Size: 320 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110217/c099aa6c/REemail.gif From hiro at brain.riken.jp Thu Feb 17 23:56:42 2011 From: hiro at brain.riken.jp (hiroyuki nakahara) Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:56:42 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: FYI RIKEN BSI Summer School 2011 Message-ID: <20110218135428.4D6F.HIRO@brain.riken.jp> Dear colleagues, I forward the following information. - Hiro Nakahara Call for Applications RIKEN Brain Science Institute 2011 Summer Program URL: http://www.brain.riken.go.jp/en/summer/index.html Application deadline; March 15, 2011 Lecture Course: July 12 - July 20 Internship: June 15 - August 10 Every summer, RIKEN Brain Science Institute (Wako, Japan; nearby Tokyo) organizes the international summer school. The short summary of the summer school this year is attached below. Application guideline, further information of the coming and past summer schools and etc are on the above URL. The summer school program has two types of applications. One ("Lecture Course application") is to attend the lecture course. The other ("Inernship application") is to have a two-months intership in one of laboratories at RIKEN Brain Science Instiute in addition to the attendance at the lecture course. In both types, financial support for travel and accommodation will be considered for those without external funding. For questions, please send any general inquiry not to me but to the adminstration or organizing committee of the summer school shown in the above summer school URL, while you can send inquiry to me if it is specifically about my laboratory (lab URL: http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp). 2011 RIKEN BSI Summer Program ?The Collective Brain: How does the dynamics of collective interaction of neurons make our mind work?? In this course, we would like to place our emphasis on the interaction or coordination of different components of the brain that allows it to function as an integrated system for controlling cognition, memory and behavior. Our emphasis is also on how the malfunctioning of these mechanisms might lead to abnormal states of the brain. Invited Lecturers * Edmund Rolls, Oxford Center for Computational Neuroscience * Matthew Wilson, MIT * Francesco Battaglia, University of Amsterdam * Howard Eichenbaum, Boston University * Gustavo Deco, Universitat Pompeu Fabra * Shigetada Nakanishi, Osaka Bioscience Institute * Geoffrey Schoenbaum, University of Maryland * Rui M. Costa, NIH * Jeff Wickens, OIST * Paul Phillips, University of Washington * Joshua Berke, University of Michigan * Joshua Gordon, Columbia University BSI Speakers * Thomas McHugh, RIKEN BSI * Tomoki Fukai, RIKEN BSI * Hitoshi Okamoto, RIKEN BSI --------------------------------- Hiro Nakahara Lab for Integrated Theoretical Neuroscience RIKEN Brain Science Institute 2-1 Hirosawa Wako Saitama, 351-0198, Japan Email: hn at brain.riken.jp Lab webpage: http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp/ -- hiroyuki nakahara http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp From wjma at cpu.bcm.edu Mon Feb 21 19:33:43 2011 From: wjma at cpu.bcm.edu (Wei Ji Ma) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:33:43 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position in computational neuroscience Message-ID: <48071F74CBAD5B46973B3D2B90179BCB0A744F@stan.hou-ad.hnl.bcm.tmc.edu> Department of Neuroscience Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX Postdoctoral Associate in Computational Neuroscience Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position (minimum 2 years) in the laboratory of Dr. Wei Ji Ma (http://neuro.bcm.edu/malab) in the Department of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. The long-range goal of our work is to understand, at the behavioral and at the neural level, how the human brain performs probabilistic inference. We mostly study computationally tractable forms of hierarchical inference in perception. Current projects include classification, visual short-term memory, and visual search. The lab uses a combination of theory, simulations, and theoretically driven psychophysics. The position will focus on theory and simulations, but also involve the analysis of neural data collected by experimental collaborators. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience, computer science, physics, mathematics, psychology, or another relevant field, and have a commitment to a research career in neuroscience. A strong mathematical and/or computational background is expected. Experience with experimental methods is an advantage. Applicants should send a CV and a statement of interest to Wei Ji Ma at wjma at bcm.edu, and arrange for at least three letters of recommendation to be sent to the same address. Consideration of applications will begin immediately and will end when the position is filled. Salary is competitive and will be commensurate with experience and qualifications. Baylor College of Medicine is an Equal-Opportunity, Affirmative-Action and Equal-Access Employer. I will be at the Cosyne conference, so if you want to meet me there, let me know. -- Wei Ji Ma, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Neuroscience Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX 77030, USA +1 713 798 8407 http://neuro.bcm.edu/malab -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110221/0d674d79/attachment-0001.html From rak at minduploading.org Sun Feb 20 04:38:34 2011 From: rak at minduploading.org (Randal Koene) Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 01:38:34 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: DEADLINE EXTENSION for paper submission to the Special Track on Neuroscience and AI at AGI-11 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, *** By popular request, the deadline for submissions to the Special Track on NEUROSCIENCE and AI at the Fourth Artificial General Intelligence Conference (AGI-11), at Google in Mountain View, CA, has been EXTENDED TO MARCH 1. *** Once more, I would like to invite you to submit you paper (short, long, prepared, new) to the Special Track on NEUROSCIENCE and AI at the Fourth Artificial General Intelligence Conference (AGI-11), August 3-6, at Google in Mountain View, CA. http://agi-conf.org/2011/conference-schedule/special-session-on-agi-and-neuroscience/ The Artificial General Intelligence conference series focuses on theoretical and practical AI work aimed toward the original goal of the AI field: creating artificial systems with general intelligence at the human level, and ultimately beyond. This pursuit obviously has a great deal to learn from neuroscience, and possibly may provide some guidance to theoretical neuroscience as well. Thus, in the Fourth Conference on AGI, we have considered it appropriate to organize a Special Session focusing specifically on the intersection of neuroscience and AGI. We are eager to obtain submissions from neuroscience researchers whose work has led them to conclusions or hypotheses that they believe relevant to researchers constructing AI systems aimed at human-level general intelligence. This may be an opportunity for neuroscientists to present, to an eager audience, ideas that (while grounded in data) are too theoretical or speculative for conventional neuroscience conferences. The door is open for papers presenting holistic considerations regarding modeling or simulating brain function, models of specific brain regions or networks, or models of specific brain processes (even at the neural level or below, for example) ? anything with interesting implications for the digital implementation of general intelligence. If you would like to submit a paper to this Special Session, please follow the instructions at http://agi-conf.org/2011/call-for-papers/ and submit your paper similarly to a regular AGI-11 conference paper. However, you should also email me, the Chair of the Special Session to ensure your paper is reviewed with the Special Session in mind. Send these emails either to r at halcyonmolecular.com or to Randal.A.Koene at carboncopies.org. Remember, the submission deadline for the Special Session is March 1, 2011! Yours cordially, Randal A. Koene Dr. Randal A. Koene Chair, Special Session on Neuroscience and AI Halcyon Molecular (halcyonmolecular.com) Carboncopies (carboncopies.org) 650-388-0725 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110220/e03061b0/attachment.html From mhb0 at lehigh.edu Mon Feb 21 12:13:30 2011 From: mhb0 at lehigh.edu (Mark H. Bickhard) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:13:30 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Interactivist Summer Institute 2011 Message-ID: <23A986A2-7E6C-426C-A08F-9C5BE41E8C8E@lehigh.edu> Interactivist Summer Institute 2011 July 29 - August 1, 2011 University of the Aegean Syros, Greece Join us in exploring the frontiers of understanding of life, mind, and cognition. There is a growing recognition - across many disciplines - that phenomena of life and mind, including cognition and representation, are emergents of far-from-equilibrium, interactive, autonomous systems. Mind and biology, mind and agent, are being re- united. The classical treatment of cognition and representation within a formalist framework of encodingist assumptions is widely recognized as a fruitless maze of blind alleys. From neurobiology to robotics, from cognitive science to philosophy of mind and language, dynamic and interactive alternatives are being explored. Dynamic systems approaches and autonomous agent research join in the effort. The conference will involve both tutorials addressing central parts and aspects of the interactive model, and papers addressing current work of relevance to this general approach. This will be our sixth Summer Institute; the first was in 2001 at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA, the second in 2003 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the third in 2005 at Clemson University, South Carolina, USA, the fourth in 2007 at The American University in Paris, and the fifth in 2009 at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. The Summer Institute is a biennial meeting where those sharing the core ideas of interactivism will meet and discuss their work, try to reconstruct its historical roots, put forward current research in different fields that fits the interactivist framework, and define research topics for prospective graduate students. People working in philosophy of mind, linguistics, social sciences, artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics, theoretical biology, and other fields related to the sciences of mind are invited to send their paper submission or statement of interest for participation to the organizers. http://www.lehigh.edu/%7einteract/isi2011web/index.htm Mark H. Bickhard Lehigh University 17 Memorial Drive East Bethlehem, PA 18015 mark at bickhard.name http://bickhard.ws/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110221/3d93eea2/attachment.html From martin.giese at tuebingen.mpg.de Tue Feb 22 04:55:45 2011 From: martin.giese at tuebingen.mpg.de (Martin Giese) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:55:45 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PHD / POSTDOC POSITION: COMPUTATIONAL NEURAL MECHANISMS OF ACTION UNDERSTANDING Message-ID: PHD / POSTDOC POSITION: COMPUTATIONAL NEURAL MECHANISMS OF ACTION UNDERSTANDING (University of Tuebingen, Germany) ======================================================================== Neural mechanisms that link action perception and motor execution have become a central topic in cognitive systems neurosience. Experimental observations, like the one of 'mirror neurons', suggest that the control and perception of actions are tightly linked in the cortex. However, an understanding of the exact neural circuits that that match visual action observation and the control of motor behavior remains to be discovered. Goal of the project is the development of a physiologically plausible neural theory of action understanding that is closely based on electrophysiological results. The project will be realized in tight interaction with electrophysiologist and offers the possibility to take part in the development of new methods for the study of mirror neurons. The main focus will be the development of physiologically plausible models. The Department of Cognitive Neurology and the Section for Computational Sensomotorics are part of the Werner Reichardt Center for Integrative Neurosciences and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research in T?bingen. It also is part of the newly funded Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience. T?bingen offers the possibility of a PhD in Neuroscience in the Graduate Training Center of Neuroscience. The project will be jointly directed by Prof. M. Giese (Theoretical Neurosience) and Prof. P Thier (Physiology). M. Giese's laboratory works on the computational and neural mechanisms of body motion perception, combining modeling, machine learning, and behavioral and imaging techniques. P. Thier's laboratory works on the neural basis of perception and action, using electrophysiological techniques, combined with imaging techniques and clinical studies. Ideal candidates have the following qualifications: * Masters degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or Biology / Psychology (with very good mathematical skills) * Programming experience (Matlab, C, ...) * Basic knowledge about neuroscience, neural modeling, and / or machine learning * English speaking and writing skills. Committed to Equal Opportunities. Please send applications preferentially electronically (including CV, marks and 2 letters of reference) as soon as possible to Prof. Dr. Martin Giese, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Frondsbergstr. 23, 72070 Tuebingen, Germany; email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de -------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Martin Giese Section for Computational Sensomotorics Dept. for Cognitive Neurology Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neurocience University Clinic Tuebingen Frondsbergstr. 23 D-72076 Tuebingen GERMANY Tel.: +49 7071 29 89124 Fax: +49 7071 29 4790 Email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de Web: http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ -------------------------------------------------------- From lars.schwabe at uni-rostock.de Mon Feb 21 07:06:42 2011 From: lars.schwabe at uni-rostock.de (Lars Schwabe) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 05:06:42 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Position in "Data-driven Human Behaviour Modeling" Message-ID: <4D625552.3050403@uni-rostock.de> Dear all, I have an opening for a PhD position in ?Data-driven Human Behaviour Modeling? at the intersection of computational neuroscience, machine leaning, and ubiquitous computing. We are operating a laboratory with many large displays in order to characterize how team members interact in group-based decision making, i. e. we record all kinds of human-computer interactions, body and eye- motions, and physiological signals such as EEG. The goal is to improve IT support for group-based decision making such as in, e. g., a situation room. In your work, you will explore if neuroscience-based models (for perception, attention, memory, and decision-making) can outperform plain statistical and rule-based models (the state-of-the- art in this field) in terms of predictive power. The ideal candidate has a background in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, psychology, or a related field. Good programming skills are mandatory. The University of Rostock (founded 1419) is located at the baltic coast, its computer science and electrical engineering dept is high- ranked in Germany, and it provides an excellent environment to foster the interaction of life science and engineering. The position is available immediately. Please send your application material via email to lars.schwabe at uni-rostock.de. We consider all applications not sent later than March 13. Please feel free to contact me (lars.schwabe at uni- rostock.de) if you have questions. Best regards, Lars Schwabe Contact address: Prof. Dr. Lars Schwabe Adaptive and Regenerative Software Systems Dept of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Universit?t Rostock Albert-Einstein-Str. 21, 18059 Rostock, Germany Office, Fax: +49-381-4987420, +49-381-4987522 E-Mail, Web: lars.schwabe at uni-rostock.de, ars.informatik.uni- rostock.de -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: lars_schwabe.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 360 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110221/dfe6f261/lars_schwabe-0001.vcf From chrisw at cs.rhul.ac.uk Mon Feb 21 05:24:58 2011 From: chrisw at cs.rhul.ac.uk (chrisw@cs.rhul.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:24:58 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doctoral position at Royal Holloway Message-ID: <6594ab0c4f37dd706dc7e762a0edc7c3.squirrel@www.cs.rhul.ac.uk> Post-doctoral position at Royal Holloway, University of London Applications are invited for a post-doctoral research position in the Department of Computer Science, Royal Holloway, to work with Chris Watkins on reinforcement learning. The post is for up to four years, fully funded by the Composing Learning for Artificial Cognitive Systems (CompLACS) project, which is a Framework 7 collaborative project between 8 universities in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and France. The post will start in Spring 2011. The aim of the research is to go beyond conventional reinforcement learning to develop theory and algorithms for autonomous exploration and learning of multiple skills, and the autonomous development of skill-based representations of the environment. You will be expected to collaborate with other project partners in theoretical work, and especially in implementing and evaluating novel learning systems on application platforms, which include UAVs, a robot arm, and a news-analysis system. There will be opportunities for you to visit other project partner sites in Europe. You should have: * a strong interest in doing basic, creative research in machine learning * a PhD in machine learning or an allied discipline, with publication * strong numerical programming skills to implement learning algorithms The Royal Holloway CS department has an exceptional track record in machine learning research. You will also be expected to collaborate with groups at UCL. It would be feasible for you to live in central London. You are welcome to make preliminary enquiries to Chris Watkins, chrisw at cs.rhul.ac.uk. To apply formally, you should submit an application form with a list of publications and a statement of research interests. Further details and an application form are available to download at http://www.rhul.ac.uk/jobs/home.aspx or by contacting the Recruitment Team by email: recruitment at rhul.ac.uk or tel: +44 1784 414241 Please quote the reference: X0211/6237 Salary for this post is in the range of ?31,987- 32,881 per annum inclusive of London Allowance. Closing date 12 noon, 22nd March 2011 The College is committed to equality and diversity, and encourages applications from all sections of the community. From a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk Tue Feb 22 14:02:22 2011 From: a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk (Anil Seth) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:02:22 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position in (computational) consciousness science Message-ID: <4D64083E.7060903@sussex.ac.uk> A two-year full-time post-doctoral position is available within the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science (SCCS), starting in Spring 2011, closing date for applications *Feb 28 2011*. This research initiative is funded by the large-scale EU project 'collective experience of empathic data systems' (CEEDS, see www.ceeds-project.eu ). You will work with Dr. Anil Seth (Principal Investigator and SCCS co-director) and other researchers in the group, on developing and testing a theoretical model of the neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning conscious presence. CEEDS is a large-scale (FP7, ICT) project funded by a 6.9M EUR grant from the EU and comprising 16 European partners. Its primary aim is to develop novel, integrated technologies to support human experience, analysis, and understanding of very large datasets. The available post will focus on /development of//a theoretical model of conscious presence/. Presence is a key dimension structuring conscious experience, but one that requires explanation. In virtual reality, researchers try to engender conscious presence in simulated environment. Conversely, certain psychiatric disorders (e.g., depersonalization, derealisation) selectively affect conscious presence. A possible starting point is to integrate concepts of expectation and prediction error with models of autonomic/emotional responses to environmental stimuli, though other directions are also possible. The successful applicant will develop a model to a degree allowing experimental testing (via neuroimaging and other behavioural methods available at Sussex and within the CEEDS consortium). Candidates will also be expected to contribute as needed to other aspects of the CEEDS project that lie within its main scientific remit. Candidates must have a PhD or equivalent degree in a quantitative science discipline. Prior postdoctoral experience is preferred, as are candidates with a strong background in neural modelling/analysis. *I (Anil) will be at Cosyne so let me know by email if you want to arrange a meeting* For more about the SCCS see www.sussex.ac.uk/sackler . For more information on the research background see www.anilseth.com and www.ceeds-project.eu . For informal inquiries please contact Dr. Anil Seth, School of Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ, UK; a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk . For full details and how to apply see www.sussex.ac.uk/jobs -- Anil K. Seth, D.Phil. Co-Director, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science School of Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK W: www.anilseth.com, T: +44 1273 678549, -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110222/fe7449ec/attachment.html From boularias at gmail.com Fri Feb 25 06:53:11 2011 From: boularias at gmail.com (Abdeslam Boularias) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:53:11 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Posters for the ICML Workshop on New Developments in Imitation Learning Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Posters for the ICML Workshop on New Developments in Imitation Learning http://www.robot-learning.de/Research/ICML2011 In the field of imitation learning, we have seen a dramatic growth over the past decade in many different ways: in terms of newly developed algorithms, new successful applications and new scientific challenges for understanding both the computational and the neuronal aspects of imitation. Moreover, imitation is a complex learning problem related to many fields of Machine Learning, including supervised and semi-supervised learning, learning with structured data, transfer learning, reinforcement learning, multi-agent learning, and online learning. The workshop will have an awesome set of invited speakers including Drew Bagnell, Pieter Abbeel, Aude Billard, Emo Todorov, Umar Syed, and Manuel Lopes. For this workshop, we are seeking researchers who want to present high-quality recent or ongoing work on all aspects of imitation learning. Both theoretical and applied work is solicited. An extended abstract suffices for a poster submission. Additionally, we welcome position papers, as well as papers discussing potential future research directions. Submissions and Publication Both extended abstracts and position/future research papers will be reviewed by program committee members on the basis of relevance, significance, and clarity. Accepted contributions will be presented as posters but particularly exciting work may be considered for talks. Submissions should be formatted according to the conference templates and submitted via email to imitation.learning.icml2011 at googlemail.com. Important Dates April 29 - Deadline of submission May 20 - Notification of Acceptance July 2 - Workshop Proper Organizing Committee Abdeslam Boularias, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Primary contact) Brian Ziebart, Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University Jan Peters, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best wishes, -- Abdeslam Boularias, Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Dept. Sch?lkopf Spemannstra?e 41 72076 T?bingen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110225/794de29f/attachment.html From rak at minduploading.org Sun Feb 27 21:38:59 2011 From: rak at minduploading.org (Randal Koene) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:38:59 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: FINAL REMINDER TO SUBMIT PAPERS BY MARCH 1 FOR THE AGI-11 SPECIAL TRACK ON NEUROSCIENCE Message-ID: Dear colleagues, This is a reminder that MARCH 1 is the official deadline for paper submission to be considered for a talk at the Special Track on Neuroscience and AI at the Artificial General Intelligence conference (AGI-11) in Mountain View, CA, 3-6 August, 2011. For more information about the special track, please see http://agi-conf.org/2011/conference-schedule/special-session-on-agi-and-neuroscience/ For information about submittin a paper, please see http://agi-conf.org/2011/call-for-papers/ We are eager to obtain submissions from neuroscience researchers whose work has led them to conclusions or hypotheses that they believe relevant to researchers constructing AI systems aimed at human-level general intelligence. This may be an opportunity for neuroscientists to present, to an eager audience, ideas that (while grounded in data) are too theoretical or speculative for conventional neuroscience conferences. The door is open for papers presenting holistic considerations regarding modeling or simulating brain function, models of specific brain regions or networks, or models of specific brain processes (even at the neural level or below, for example) ? anything with interesting implications for the digital implementation of general intelligence. If you would like to submit a paper to this Special Session, please follow the instructions at http://agi-conf.org/2011/call-for-papers/ and submit your paper similarly to a regular AGI-11 conference paper. However, you should also email me, the Chair of the Special Session to ensure your paper is reviewed with the Special Session in mind. Send these emails either to r at halcyonmolecular.com or toRandal.A.Koene at carboncopies.org. With regards, Randal A. Koene Dr. Randal A. Koene Chair, Special Session on Neuroscience and AI Halcyon Molecular (halcyonmolecular.com) Carboncopies (carboncopies.org) 650-388-0725 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110227/ec695426/attachment-0001.html From vcut at bu.edu Sun Feb 27 23:35:24 2011 From: vcut at bu.edu (Cutsuridis, Vassilis) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 23:35:24 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Announcing the "Perception-Action Cycle: Models, Algorithms and Hardware" book Message-ID: <3F2661839DCC46B58437B42B1F36A847@VasileiosPC> Dear colleagues, we are pleased to announce the publication of our book entitled ?Perception-Action Cycle: Models, Algorithms and Hardware? by Vassilis Cutsuridis (Boston Univ., USA) Amir Hussain (University of Stirling, UK) John G. Taylor (King?s Colege, London, UK) published by Springer (USA), 2011 http://www.springer.com/biomed/neuroscience/book/978-1-4419-1451-4 Description ---------------- The perception-action cycle is the circular flow of information that takes place between the organism and its environment in the course of a sensory- guided sequence of behavior towards a goal. Each action causes changes in the environment that are analyzed bottom-up through the perceptual hierarchy and lead to the processing of further action, and top-down through the executive hierarchy toward motor effectors. These actions cause new changes that are analyzed and lead to new action, and so the cycle continues. The Perception-Action cycle: Models, Architectures and Hardware book provides focused and easily accessible reviews of various aspects of the perception-action cycle. It is an unparalleled resource of information that will be an invaluable companion to anyone in constructing and developing models, algorithms, and hardware implementations of autonomous machines empowered with cognitive capabilities. The book is divided into three main parts. In the first part, leading computational neuroscientists present brain-inspired models of perception, attention, cognitive control, decision making, conflict resolution and monitoring, knowledge representation and reasoning, learning and memory, planning and action, and consciousness grounded in experimental data. In the second part, architectures, algorithms, and systems with cognitive capabilities and minimal guidance from the brain are discussed. These architectures, algorithms, and systems are inspired by cognitive science, computer vision, robotics, information theory, machine learning, computer agents, and artificial intelligence. In the third part, the analysis, design, and implementation of hardware systems with robust cognitive abilities from the areas of mechatronics, sensing technology, sensor fusion, smart sensor networks, control rules, controllability, stability, model/knowledge representation, and reasoning are discussed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20110227/4f9c0dfb/attachment.html