From vanessa.casagrande at bccn-berlin.de Mon Sep 3 04:07:52 2012 From: vanessa.casagrande at bccn-berlin.de (Vanessa Casagrande) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 10:07:52 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: Last Call: Oct 29-31, BCCN Symposium and BCAN/ICMB Opening In-Reply-To: <1974368161.28374.1346659449931.JavaMail.root@comms> Message-ID: <2064115838.28564.1346659672790.JavaMail.root@comms> *Apologies for cross-postings* Call for registration - Call for posters Deadline: September 15th, 2012 SYMPOSIUM "Neural Computation: From Perception to Cognitive Function" and OPENING SYMPOSIUM of the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging (BCAN) and of the Interdisciplinary Center for Modern Imaging (ICMB) Berlin, October 29th-31st 2012 NEW WEB PAGE: www.bccn-berlin.de/symposium-2012 With this event, the Bernstein Center Berlin and its Graduate Programs will celebrate two years of activities of the DFG-funded Research Training Group "Sensory Computation in Neural Systems". A highlight of the program is the opening of the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging (BCAN), a new facility that houses two 3-Tesla MRI scanners and that promotes computational techniques in neuroimaging. For this joint occasion, there will be a number of excellent international speakers (see below). We also invite other neuroscientists from all over the world to discuss their most recent findings and hypotheses in the field of brain computation and neuroimaging. Confirmed Speakers: Angela Yu (University of California, San Diego, CA, USA) Alessandro Treves (SISSA, Trieste, Italy) Klaas Enno Stephan (University of Zurich & ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Terrence Sejnowski (Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, CA, USA) Pieter Roelfsema (Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands) Yael Niv (Princeton University, NJ, USA) Wolfgang Maass (Graz University of Technology, Austria) Leonard Maler (University of Ottawa, Canada) M?t? Lengyel (University of Cambridge, UK) Tai Sing Lee (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA) Peter Koenig (Osnabrueck University, Germany) Joshua Gold (University of Pennsylvania, USA) Rainer Goebel (Maastricht University, Netherlands) Richard Ehmann (Mayo Clinic, USA) Peter Bandettini (National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, MD, USA) Conference participants are welcome to contribute posters Program Committee: John-Dylan Haynes (BCCN Berlin, Charit? Medical School) Benjamin Lindner (BCCN Berlin, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin) Klaus Obermayer (BCCN Berlin, Berlin University of Technology) Susanne Schreiber (BCCN Berlin, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin) Organized and Sponsored by: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin Research Training Group "Sensory Computation in Neural Systems" Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure Charit? Medical School Berlin University of Technology Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Contact: Vanessa Casagrande Margret Franke --- Dr. Vanessa Casagrande Teaching Coordinator Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Philippstr. 13 House 6 10115 Berlin Germany Phone +49 (0)30 2093 6773 Fax +49 (0)30 2093 6771 http://www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de GRK 1589/1 Sensory Computation in Neural Systems Technische Universitaet Berlin Sekretariat FR 2-1 Franklinstr. 28/29 10587 Berlin Germany Phone +49 (0)30 314 72006 Fax +49 (0)30 314 73121 http://www.eecs.tu-berlin.de/grk_15891/ From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Mon Sep 3 17:18:31 2012 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:18:31 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURON course at SFN 2012 meeting Message-ID: <50451EA7.7000905@yale.edu> A few seats remain available for the one day NEURON course that will be presented as a satellite to the SFN 2012 meeting in New Orleans. If you are interested, you should sign up quickly because the Sept. 28 registration deadline is less than 4 weeks away. For more information about the course and an on-line registration form, see http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/nola2012/nola2012.html Ted Carnevale Senior Research Scientist Neurobiology Department Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT From Giulio.Sandini at iit.it Mon Sep 3 18:19:46 2012 From: Giulio.Sandini at iit.it (Giulio Sandini) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 00:19:46 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Felowships: Neuroscience and Robotcs Message-ID: <5DC202FE0CF163479BB34B7C900815E38F8860F254@IITMXMBX.iit.local> If you are interested in expanding your scientific background and join the multidisciplinary research group of the Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department (RBCS) department at IIT apply to one of the PhD fellowships offered this year. Since the start of IIT in 2006 at RBCS (www.rbcs.iit.it), top-level neuroscience research and top-level robotics research is being merged to seek answers towards some of the long standing open problems in both fields while offering the possibility to publish in leading journals in life sciences, cognitive and neural sciences and robotic engineering. By joining RBCS you will become part of a research team composed of neuroscientists, engineers, psychologists, physicists working together to investigate brain functions, realize intelligent machines and advanced rehabilitation devices. At RBCS you will be carrying out your own research in a stimulating environment while expanding your scientific background beyond your current expertize. RBCS is also the home of the humanoid robot iCub in its dual role of stimulus for the study of human machine interaction and of tester of artificial cognitive architecture and developmental robotics. Applications can be submitted electronically to the Doctoral Course on "Life and Humanoid Technologies" following a procedure described here (BEFORE SEPTEMBER 21st): http://www.iit.it/en/openings/phd-calls/1595-phd-school-in-life-and-humanoid-technologies.html The research topics offered by RBCS this year can be selected from those listed in ANNEX-4 and grouped in five streams (from Theme 1.1 to 1.33): 1. Manual and Postural Action (Themes 1.1 to 1.9) 2. Perception during Action (Themes 1.10 to 1.20 3. Interaction With and Between Humans (Themes 1.21 and 1.22) 4. Interfacing with the Human Body (Themes 11.23 to 1.27) 5. Sensorimotor Impairment, rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies (Themes 1.28 to 1.33) Only the best 15 candidates and their proposed projects will be selected. DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION IS SEPTEMBER 21st --- Prof. Giulio Sandini Head: Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Phone: +39 010 71781 416 - Fax: +39 010 7170817 http://www.rbcs.iit.it -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120903/ca613832/attachment.html From terry at salk.edu Tue Sep 4 00:36:02 2012 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:36:02 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - October, 2012 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents -- Volume 23, Number 10 - October 1, 2012 Article Mapping of Visual Receptive Fields by Tomographic Reconstruction Zhe Chen, Gordon Pipa, Sergio Neuenschwander, Bruss Lima, and Emery Brown Letters Unsupervised Formation of Vocalization Sensitive Neurons: A Cortical Model Based on Short-term and Homeostatic Plasticity Tyler Lee, Dean V. Buonomano The Rise and Fall of Memory in a Model of Synaptic Integration Terry Elliott, Kostas Lagogiannis Predicting Single Neuron Activity in Locally Connected Networks Feraz Azhar, William S. Anderson Nearly Extensive Sequential Memory Lifetime Achieved by Coupled Nonlinear Neurons Taro Toyoizumi Replicating Receptive Fields of Simple and Complex Cells in Primary Visual Cortex in a Neuronal Network Model with Temporal and Population Sparseness and Reliability Takuma Tanaka, Toshio Aoyagi, and Takeshi Kaneko Motion-based Prediction Is Sufficient to Solve the Aperture Problem Laurent Udo Perrinet, Guillaume S Masson Nonlinearities and Adaptation of Color Vision From Sequential Principal Curves Analysis Valero Laparra, Sandra Jimenez, Gustavo Camps-Valls, and Jesus Malo An Extension of the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve and AUC-optimal Classification Takashi Takenouchi, Osamu Komori, and Shinto Eguchi ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2012 - VOLUME 24 - 12 ISSUES USA Others Electronic Only Student/Retired $70 $193 $65 Individual $124 $187 $115 Institution $1,035 $1,098 $926 Canada: Add 5% GST From shelie at purdue.edu Tue Sep 4 16:43:02 2012 From: shelie at purdue.edu (Helie, Sebastien) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 16:43:02 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Graduate student position Message-ID: Prof. Sebastien Helie is looking for new graduate students interested in the Mathematical and Computational Cognitive Science (MCCS) program to join the Purdue Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience in Fall 2013. The Purdue Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience is affiliated with the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University, which is consistently ranked among the top 50 in the US. The Purdue Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience uses different methodologies from cognitive psychology, neuroimaging, and computational modeling to study the relation between the brain and cognitive processing. The goal of the Purdue Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience is to use empirical and computational methods to better understand categorization, automaticity, rule learning, sequence learning, skill acquisition, intuition in decision-making, and creative problem solving. You can find more information about the Department of Psychological Sciences @ Purdue University here: http://www.purdue.edu/hhs/psy/ You can find more information about the Mathematical and Computational Cognitive Science (MCCS) program here: http://www.purdue.edu/hhs/psy/graduate/research_training_areas/mathematical/index.php You can find more information about The Purdue Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience program here: http://ccn.psych.purdue.edu/index.html Interested students should contact Prof. Helie at shelie at purdue.edu. ----------------------------------- Sebastien Helie, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Psychological Sciences Purdue University 703 Third Street West Lafayette, IN 47907-2081 -- Office: Peirce Hall, Room 359 Phone: (765) 496-2692 E-mail: shelie at purdue.edu Website: http://ccn.psych.purdue.edu/ ------------------------------------ From gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Tue Sep 4 21:27:49 2012 From: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu (Mark A. Gluck) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 21:27:49 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Assistant Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience/Brain Imaging at Rutgers-Newark Neuroscience [DEADLINE: September 15, 2012] Message-ID: The Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at Rutgers University-Newark has an opening for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE/BRAIN IMAGING. The ideal candidate would be someone who uses brain imaging to ask fundamental hypothesis-driven questions about brain structure and function. We are particularly interested in candidates who use imaging in combination with other methods such as behavioral methods, animal research, neurocomputational modeling, genetics, and/or clinical patient studies. Applicants should apply as soon as possible, but no later than September 15th, 2012. The applicant would be expected to be an active member of the Rutgers Brain Imaging Center (RUBIC) and make use of our new NSF-funded research-dedicated Siemens 3T TRIO magnet located on the ground floor of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience in Newark. This facility can also be used for animal imaging. We seek a candidate who will interact well with a diverse community of neuroscientists including molecular, systems, behavioral, and cognitive neuroscientists. The candidate will be expected to contribute to undergraduate research training and teach graduate courses in neuroscience, mentor Ph.D. students in our Behavioral and Neural Sciences graduate program, and maintain an active externally-funded research program. Women and members of underrepresented minorities are especially encouraged to apply; Rutgers-Newark is noted for its exceptionally diverse student population. Although not required, a candidate who has current and transportable external funding is preferred. For more information on neuroscience at Rutgers-Newark see http://www.neuroscience.newark.rutgers.edu. Additional information on our brain imaging center is at http://rubic.rutgers.edu/ . To apply, please create four PDF files: (1) Cover letter summarizing (a) past training, (b) future research and professional goals, (c) past honors, grants, and fellowship awards, current external grant awards with start and end dates, and plans for future grant submissions, (d) why you are a good fit for Rutgers/CMBN and visa versa, (e) names, affiliations, and email addresses of three people whom you have contacted for letters of recommendation, and (f) a one sentence precis of research interest and activities, (2) C.V., (3) Research Statement, (4) One representative first-authored paper. These four files should be emailed as PDF attachments to mri at cmbn.rutgers.edu with a header: ". Cog Neuro Faculty Application". In addition, all applicants should arrange for at least three letters of recommendation to be emailed directly to the same email address, with a header that reads: ": Recommendation from . ___________________________________ Dr. Mark A. Gluck, Professor Director, Rutgers Memory Disorders Project Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Rutgers University 197 University Ave. Newark, New Jersey 07102 Web: http://www.gluck.edu Email: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Ph: (973) 353-3298 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120904/d45a989c/attachment.html From compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de Wed Sep 5 04:15:20 2012 From: compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de (Compsens) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:15:20 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PHD POSITION: COMPUTATIONAL NEURAL MECHANISMS OF THE NEURAL ENCODING OF ACTION SAMANTICS (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Tuebingen, Germany) Message-ID: <20120905101520.82773c2gyujjyas8@webmail.uni-tuebingen.de> PHD POSITION: COMPUTATIONAL NEURAL MECHANISMS OF THE NEURAL ENCODING OF ACTION SAMANTICS (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Tuebingen, Germany) ============================================================= Action perception and action execution are tightly linked in the brain, and how these funcions are neurally encoded has received a lot of interest in recent research in neuroscience. The clarification of the underlying neural mechanisms requires the tight interaction between theoretical and experimental neuroscience. Collaborating closely with physiologists from the Department of Cognitive Neurology and M.I.T., we investigate experimentally the neural encoding of actions during perception and execution. We develop physiologically-inspired neural and probabilistic models for the visual processing of actions and its interaction with motor representations. Applying advanced statistical Bayesian approaches, we investigate the semantic structure of action representations based on neural data, and we exploit advanced technologies for online animation in order to investigate the dynamics of neural representations of actions in premotor cortex. We look for a theoretically oriented researcher with strong interest in physiology and systems neuroscience. Ideal candidates for this position should have: * a Masters degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or Biology with good mathematical and reasonable programming skills * Basic knowledge about neural networks or machine learning, or models of biological functions * programming experience (Matlab, C++, or Python) * a strong interest in theoretical and experimental neuroscience, and especially in higher-level vision, motor control, or cognition * English speaking and writing skills. Applications with inappropriate background (e.g. in molecular or cell biology) will not be considered. Committed to Equal Opportunities. The Section of Computational Sensomotorics is working on computational and neural models of action processing, and technical applications related to action perception and control. Our lab is part of the Dept. of Cognitive Neurology at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research (HIH), a leading European institution in Clinical Neuroscience. It is also part of the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), an Excellence cluster from the German Research organization with more than 70 groups working on different aspects of systems neuroscience, and of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in T?bingen. 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 & Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Otfried-Mueller-Str. 25, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany; email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de ----- End forwarded message ----- From honglak at eecs.umich.edu Tue Sep 4 23:57:40 2012 From: honglak at eecs.umich.edu (Honglak Lee) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 23:57:40 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: AAAI 2013 SPRING SYMPOSIUM ON LIFELONG MACHINE LEARNING Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS AAAI 2013 SPRING SYMPOSIUM ON LIFELONG MACHINE LEARNING Submissions due: Oct 5, 2012 OVERVIEW Humans learn to solve increasingly complex tasks by continually building upon and refining knowledge over a lifetime of experience. This process of continual learning and transfer allows us to rapidly learn new tasks, often with very little training. Over time, it enables us to develop a wide variety of complex abilities across many domains. Despite recent advances in transfer learning and representation discovery, lifelong machine learning remains a largely unsolved problem. Lifelong machine learning has the huge potential to enable versatile systems that are capable of learning a large variety of tasks and rapidly acquiring new abilities. These systems would benefit numerous applications, such as medical diagnosis, virtual personal assistants, autonomous robots, visual scene understanding, language translation, and many others. Learning over a lifetime of experience involves a number of procedures that must be performed continually, including: 1.) Discovering representations from raw sensory data that capture higher-level abstractions, 2.) Transferring knowledge learned on previous tasks to improve learning on the current task, 3.) Maintaining the repository of accumulated knowledge, and 4.) Incorporating external guidance and feedback from humans or other agents. Each of these procedures encompasses one or more subfields of machine learning and artificial intelligence. The primary goal of this symposium is to bring together practitioners in each of these areas and focus discussion on combining these lines of research toward lifelong machine learning. TOPICS The symposium will include paper presentations, talks, and discussions on a variety of topics related to lifelong learning, including but not limited to: knowledge transfer - active transfer learning - multi-task learning - cross-domain transfer - knowledge/schema mapping - source knowledge selection - one-shot learning - transfer over long sequences of tasks continual learning - online multi-task learning - online representation learning - knowledge maintenance/revision - developmental learning - scalable transfer learning - task/concept drift - self-selection of tasks representation discovery - learning from raw sensory data - deep learning - latent representations - multi-modal/multi-view learning - multi-scale representations incorporating guidance from external teachers - learning from demonstration - skill shaping - curriculum-based training - interactive learning - corrective feedback - agent-teacher communication frameworks for lifelong learning - architectures - software frameworks - testbeds - evaluation methodology applications of lifelong learning - data sets - application domains/environments - simulators - deployed applications Within these topics, the symposium will explore lifelong learning in different problem formats, including classification, regression, and sequential decision-making problems. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Prospective participants are invited to submit either full-length papers (up to 6 pages) or short papers/extended abstracts (2 pages) in PDF format using the EasyChair conference system: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aaaisss13lml. All submissions should follow AAAI style guidelines. While we encourage original work, we will also consider modified versions or extended abstracts of previously published work, provided it is directly related to the symposium goals and the prior publication is explicitly identified. IMPORTANT DATES October 5, 2012 - Submissions due via EasyChair November 2, 2012 - Notification of acceptance/rejection sent to authors January 18, 2013 - Final papers and signed distribution license due to AAAI February 15, 2013 - Invited participants registration deadline March 8, 2013 - Final (open) registration deadline March 25-27, 2013 - Symposium at Stanford University, California ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Chair: Eric Eaton (Bryn Mawr College) Committee Members: Terran Lane (Google) Honglak Lee (University of Michigan) Michael Littman (Brown University) Fei Sha (University of Southern California) Thomas Walsh (University of Kansas) FOR MORE INFORMATION Symposium website: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~eeaton/AAAI-SSS13-LML/ From sophie.deneve at ens.fr Thu Sep 6 13:08:37 2012 From: sophie.deneve at ens.fr (Sophie Deneve) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 19:08:37 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral positions available at Group for Neural Theory, Paris Message-ID: *THREE POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS* are available in Sophie Deneve?s team at the Group Neural Theory, Paris, France (see www.gnt.ens.fr). The GNT is highly interactive and dynamic, is situated in central Paris, and is embedded within the strong Parisian theoretical neuroscience community. The ideal candidate should have *a PhD with a quantitative background* (ideally in fields such as machine learning and/or computational neuroscience). We will investigate information coding and learning in spiking neural networks, combining theoretical approaches, simulations and analysis of neurophysiological datasets. Possible projects are described in more details below. Starting dates are flexible. The positions are for two years, with net salaries from 2500 to 2800 euro/month depending on prior experience. We will also provide generous travel funds. Possibilities exists to get subsidized housing (especially for families). Candidates should send a letter of motivation (2 pages max), the contact information of 2 to 3 referees and their CVs to sophie.deneve at ens.fr *BEFORE OCTOBER 10, 2012*. Interviews of short-listed candidates will be conducted in the fall either in Paris, at SFN in New Orleans or by video-conferences. Description of projects: Dealing with uncertainties is necessary for the survival of any living organism. Indeed, recent years have seen the growing application of probabilistic inference models to perception and action. Excitable neural structures face similar uncertainties: they receive noisy and ambiguous inputs and must accumulate evidence over time, combine unreliable cues and decide among alternative interpretations of the sensory input. Probabilistic model can thus be used to further our understanding not only of behavior, but also of the function and dynamics of biological neural networks. Our working hypotheses are two-fold. First, we suppose that neural networks are tuned to estimate sensory or motor variables as reliably as possible. And second, firing dynamics insure self-consistency, i.e. these estimates can be extracted by postsynaptic integration of output spike trains. These two principles entirely constrain the structure, dynamics and plasticity of the corresponding spiking neural network. In particular, this purely functional approach captures many aspects of cortical dynamics and sensory responses (Boerlin and Deneve Plos Comp Bio 2011, Lochman, Ernst and Deneve J Neurosci 2012, Lochman and Deneve, Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2011). The projects will consist in 1-Developing and generalizing this framework to explore its implications for neural coding, dynamics and sensory representations 2-Designing new methods of data analysis able to extract a network?s function from multi-electrode neural recordings. 3-Applying this approach to neural datasets (multielectrode recordings ? optical imaging data) from sensory and motor areas. -- Dr Sophie Deneve Group for Neural Theory Laboratoire de Neurosciences cognitives ENS-INSERM 29, rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France Tel. (+33) (0)1 44 32 26 35 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120906/cab15124/attachment.html From feldman at icsi.berkeley.edu Thu Sep 6 14:41:35 2012 From: feldman at icsi.berkeley.edu (Jerry Feldman) Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:41:35 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: The Neural Binding Problem(s) Message-ID: <5048EE5F.10107@icsi.berkeley.edu> "The *binding problem* is one of a number of terms at the interface between neuroscience and philosophy which suffer from being used in several different ways, often in a context that does not explicitly indicate which way the term is being used." Wikipedia, June 2012 I have(finally) finished my review of the Neural Binding Problem(s) . It is in press, but a preprint is available at: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/icsi/publication_details?n=3346 and a video of a recent talk on the work is at: http://archive.org/details/Redwood_Center_2012_06_27_Jerome_Feldman As always, feedback is invited- Jerry F. Abstract: The famous Neural Binding Problem (NBP) comprises at least four distinct problems with different computational and neural requirements. This review discusses the current state of work on General Coordination, Visual Feature-Binding, Variable Binding, and the Subjective Unity of Perception. There is significant continuing progress, partially masked by confusing the different versions of the NBP. From destexhe at unic.cnrs-gif.fr Sun Sep 9 14:24:26 2012 From: destexhe at unic.cnrs-gif.fr (Alain Destexhe) Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:24:26 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Two postdoc positions available to investigate magnetic fields in neurons Message-ID: <20120909202426.elebdx57kgocscw8@mail.inaf.cnrs-gif.fr> Hi everyone, We have two postdoc positions available in our laboratory at the UNIC, related to theoretical and experimental study of magnetic fields generated by neurons. This is supported by a European project called MAGNETRODES and which consists of conceiving, testing and modeling new microdevices ("magnetrodes") to record magnetic fields directly from neural tissue, and in some cases in close proximity to neurons. The device will be fabricated by a laboratory in CEA Saclay (Myriam Pannetier) and in Lisbon (Susana Cardoso), and will be tested at the UNIC in vitro (cortical slices; Thierry Bal) using patch-clamp experiments. At the UNIC, we will also model the results of the experiments (Alain Destexhe) to obtain a precise characterization of the "magnetic generator" by neurons. We will also study possible extensions to modeling the magneto-encephalogram (MEG) signals. Other partners of the project are Pascal Fries (Frankfurt; in vivo testing) and Lauri Parkkonen (Aalto, MEG). We are looking for two postdocs (2 year contracts with possible extension), one will be primarily involved in patch-clamp experiments with the magnetrodes, and the other one will be involved in the modeling of neuronal electromagnetic fields. These two postdocs will interact closely, and we will encourage candidates willing to participate to both experiments and modeling. One candidate should ideally be physicist with strong background in electromagnetism theory, and the other candidate should ideally be trained in electrophysiogy. Candidates should have a PhD degree - there is no restriction on nationality. The project will be conducted at the UNIC, which is a CNRS research unit (UPR 3293, Dir. Y. Fr?gnac) comprising 6 different laboratories, mixing experimental and theoretical neuroscience. The UNIC is part of the Alfred Fessard Neurobiology Institute (INAF; Dir. P. Vernier), located in the CNRS campus of Gif sur Yvette. The CNRS Campus comprises about 2000 researchers focusing on neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics and plant biology, and is affiliated with several universities and engineering schools in the Paris Region (Ecole Polytechnique, Sup-Elec, Pierre & Marie Curie University Paris 6, University of Orsay Paris 11, Ecole Normale Superieure Paris). Please contact Alain Destexhe (destexhe at unic.cnrs-gif.fr) or Thierry Bal (bal at unic.cnrs-gif.fr) Unit? de Neuroscience, Information et Complexit? (UNIC), UPR 3293, CNRS, 1 Avenue de la Terrasse (BAT 33), 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France Tel: 33-1-69-82-34-35 Fax: 33-1-69-82-34-27 URL: http://cns.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr From jainv at janelia.hhmi.org Fri Sep 7 09:41:11 2012 From: jainv at janelia.hhmi.org (Jain, Viren) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:41:11 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Open Positions in Connectomics/Machine Learning/Computer Vision Message-ID: The Jain lab at the HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus near Washington, DC, has open positions for researchers with experience and interests in machine learning, computer vision, or quantitative analysis of brain wiring diagrams. Example projects being pursued in the lab include: * developing large, deep machine learning networks for biological image analysis using Janelia?s 4000-core CPU/GPU cluster * developing novel structured prediction methods for parsing image data * developing tools for crowdsourcing image analysis * developing novel analytical techniques for understanding network structure in wiring diagrams Positions could be at the level of a postdoctoral fellow, research scientist, or software engineer, depending on the individual. Further information about the lab is available at: http://www.janelia.org/lab/jain-lab Please contact Dr. Viren Jain with questions or inquiries: jainv at janelia.hhmi.org About Janelia Farm Research Campus: Janelia Farm Research Campus is a new, state of the art pure research facility near Washington, DC devoted to method development and scientific advancement in in the imaging, biological, and computational sciences. All activity at the campus is fully internally funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. http://www.janelia.org/ From ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Sun Sep 9 23:07:55 2012 From: ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Akira Hirose) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:07:55 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: [CFP] Special Issue in IEEE TNNLS, "Complex- and Hypercomplex-Valued Neural Networks" Message-ID: <504D598B.4000306@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp> *Call for Papers: Deadline **_January 15, 2013_** IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL NETWORKS AND LEARNING SYSTEMS SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMPLEX- AND HYPERCOMPLEX-VALUED NEURAL NETWORKS * http://www.eis.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/news/NNTC_CVNN/ Complex-valued neural networks (CVNNs) exhibit very desirable characteristics in their learning, self-organizing, and processing dynamics. They are perfectly suited to deal with complex amplitude, composed of amplitude and phase, which is one of the core concepts in physical systems dealing with electromagnetic, light, sonic/ultrasonic, and quantum waves (electron and superconducting waves). This, together with the widespread use of analytic signals, gives them a critical advantage in practical applications in diverse fields of engineering, where signals are routinely analyzed and processed in time/space, frequency, and phase domains. CVNNs are closely related also to brain dynamics, e.g., in the analysis of theta rhythm in Hippocampus where the phase shift plays an important role in place cell firing. In addition, broad-sense CVNNs such as quaternion and Clifford neural networks, as well as kernel and reservoir approaches, underpin unique new directions in color-information treatment, robotics and control. To further promote research activities in this area, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks plans to publish a Special Issue on "Complex- and hypercomplex-valued neural networks" to be published in January 2014. *Scope of the Special Issue* We welcome theoretical papers, application papers, as well as survey papers. Topics include, but are not limited to: * Theoretical aspects of CVNNs such as complex-valued activation functions, gradient, and stability * Learning/Self-organization algorithms and processing dynamics in CVNNs * Chaos in the complex domain, coherence, and causality * Complex-valued associative memories and attractor networks * Feedforward/Recurrent CVNNs for time series analysis and classification * Phase-only and phase-sensitive signal processing and nonlinear filtering using CVNNs * Distributed, widely linear, sparse, and kernel CVNN approaches * Pattern recognition, classification and time series prediction using CVNNs * Applications of CVNNs in image processing, speech processing and bioinformatics * Frequency- , time-frequency, and spatio-temporal domain CVNN processing * Quantum computation and quantum neural networks * CVNNs for trajectory tracking, robotics and control * Clifford, quaternion, and multidimensional neural networks *IMPORTANT DATES * 15 January 2013 -- Deadline for manuscript submission 15 August 2013 -- Notification to authors 15 September 2013 -- Deadline for submission of revised manuscripts 1 October 2013 -- Final decision January 2014 -- Special issue publication in the IEEE TNNLS *GUEST EDITORS * Akira Hirose, The University of Tokyo, Japan, ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Igor Aizenberg, Texas A&M University - Texarcana, U.S.A., Igor.Aizenberg at tamut.edu Danilo P. Mandic, Imperial College, U.K., d.mandic at imperial.ac.uk *SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS* 1. Read the information for Authors at http://cis.ieee.org/publications.html 2. Submit the manuscript by *_January 15, 2013_* at the IEEE-TNNLS webpage http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tnnls and follow the submission procedure. Please, clearly indicate on the first page of the manuscript and the Author's Cover Letter that the manuscript has been submitted to the Special Issue on /Complex- and Hypercomplex-Valued Neual Networks/. Send also an email to the guest editors to notify of your submission. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120909/29859c5b/attachment.html From Bill at BillHowell.ca Sun Sep 9 18:21:44 2012 From: Bill at BillHowell.ca (Bill Howell. home email. Ottawa) Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2012 18:21:44 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2013) Message-ID: <504D1678.60405@BillHowell.ca> CALL FOR PAPERS IJCNN 2013 - International Joint Conference on Neural Networks August 4-9, 2013, Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, TX, USA http://www.ijcnn2013.org IJCNN is the premier international conference in the area of neural network theory, analysis, and applications. IJCNN is co-sponsored by the International Neural Network Society (INNS) and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (IEE-CIS), with support from : Missouri University of Science and Technology; University of Texas at Arlington; National Science Foundation (NSF, USA); Cognimem; and Toyota. PLENARY SPEAKERS: Olaf Sporns, Indiana University Lydia Kavraki, Rice University Frank Lewis, University of Texas at Arlington Stephen Grossberg, Boston University Topics covered include, but are not limited to: Neural network theory and models; Computational neuroscience; Cognitive models; Brain-machine interfaces; Embodied robotics; Evolving neural systems; Self-monitoring neural systems; Learning neural networks; Neurodynamics; Neuroinformatics; Neuroengineering; Neural hardware; Neural network applications; Pattern recognition; Machine vision; Collective intelligence; Hybrid systems; Self-aware systems; Data mining; Data streams processing; Sensor networks; Agent-based systems; Computational biology; Bioinformatics; Artificial life In addition to this Call for Papers, submissions for Special Sessions, Tutorials, post-conference workshops are requested. Please see www.ijcnn2013.org for details. Deadlines for Submission: Special Session and Tutorial Proposals: December 15, 2012 Post-conference Workshop Proposals: December 15, 2012 Papers: February 1, 2013 Camera-Ready Revised Accepted Papers: May 1, 2013 Early Registration: June 15, 2013 From jainv at janelia.hhmi.org Mon Sep 10 09:06:27 2012 From: jainv at janelia.hhmi.org (Jain, Viren) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:06:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for participation: NIPS 2012 Workshop on Connectomics Message-ID: We would like to invite you to participate in NIPS 2012 workshop on: * Connectomics: Opportunities and Challenges for Machine Learning Saturday, December 8, 2012 Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA http://www.nips2012connectomics.net/ We are inviting abstracts for poster presentations up until October 15. Please email abstracts to info at nips2012connectomics.net. * Overview: The "wiring diagram" of essentially all nervous systems remains unknown due to the extreme difficulty of measuring detailed patterns of synaptic connectivity of entire neural circuits. At this point, the major bottleneck is in the analysis of tera or peta-voxel 3d electron microscopy image data in which neuronal processes need to be traced and synapses localized in order for connectivity information to be inferred. This presents an opportunity for machine learning and machine perception to have a fundamental impact on advances in neurobiology. However, it also presents a major challenge, as existing machine learning methods fall short of solving the problem. The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in machine learning and neuroscience to discuss progress and remaining challenges in this exciting and rapidly evolving field. We aim to attract machine learning and computer vision specialists interested in learning about a new problem, as well as computational neuroscientists at NIPS who may be interested in modeling connectivity data. We will discuss the release of public datasets and competitions that may facilitate further activity in this area. We expect the workshop to result in a significant increase in the scope of ideas and people engaged in this field. * Confirmed Speakers: Peter Abbeel (UC Berkeley) Kevin Briggman (NIH) Mitya Chklovskii (HHMI) Moritz Helmstaedter (Max Planck Institute) Viren Jain (HHMI) * Organizers: Viren Jain is a Fellow and Laboratory Head at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Janelia Farm Research Campus. Moritz Helmstaedter is a group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich, Germany. For more information please visit: http://www.nips2012connectomics.net/ From m.biehl at rug.nl Mon Sep 10 11:41:00 2012 From: m.biehl at rug.nl (Michael Biehl) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:41:00 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Special session at CIDM 2013 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Fabrice Rossi and Michael Biehl will organize a special session on *Interpretable systems in machine learning, data analysis, and visualization * at the CIDM 2013 conference (part of the IEEE SSCI 2013) in Singapore, April 2013. We would be happy to welcome many contributions concerning data analysis and visualization of complex data sets in various application contexts. This includes the biomedical domain and, in particular, neurosciences. For further information, please visit: http://samm.univ-paris1.fr/Special-Session-on-Interpretable The main conference page is: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/epnsugan/index_files/SSCI2013/index.html We would be very happy to receive your submission and to see you in Singapore next year! Please spread the news and andvertise the session among your colleagues! Many thanks in advance, Michael Biehl Fabrice Rossi -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Michael Biehl Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science University of Groningen P.O. Box 407, 9700 AK Groningen The Netherlands www.cs.rug.nl/~biehl m.biehl at rug.nl -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Michael Biehl Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science University of Groningen P.O. Box 407, 9700 AK Groningen The Netherlands www.cs.rug.nl/~biehl m.biehl at rug.nl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120910/0e76dc96/attachment.html From mdhamala at phy-astr.gsu.edu Tue Sep 11 08:56:41 2012 From: mdhamala at phy-astr.gsu.edu (Mukesh Dhamala) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:56:41 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: 3 faculty positions at Georgia State University In-Reply-To: <503D0480.4020502@bcs.rochester.edu> References: <503D0480.4020502@bcs.rochester.edu> Message-ID: <504F3509.4010604@phy-astr.gsu.edu> * Faculty Positions in Human Neuroimaging, Georgia State University* Multiple Faculty Positions in Human Neuroimaging. As part of its Second Century Initiative (http://www.gsu.edu/secondcentury/) and pending budgetary approval, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA anticipates hiring up to 3 tenure-track faculty members (open rank, applicants at Associate or Full Professor-levels preferred) with established research programs in human behavior and expertise in neuroimaging, to begin Fall 2013. We seek established scientists who will join our growing cadre of researchers who are capitalizing on our state-of-the-art facilities at the GSU/GT Joint Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI; http://www.cabiatl.com/CABI/), and help advance current GSU research initiatives that include Brains and Behavior (http://neuroscience.gsu.edu/3650.html) and Language and Literacy (http://www.researchlanglit.gsu.edu), and may build upon our current strengths in atypical development and learning (http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwaty), clinical neuropsychology, and/or cognitive science (http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwpsy/graduate_programs.html). A number of GSU units will support these individuals to drive a broad vision for interdisciplinary and cross-departmental research. Ongoing activities at the CABI include functional and structural neuroimaging within the areas of working memory, cognitive control, reading and language, and emotion processing as well as with a wide range of clinical and developmental populations, including survivors of cancer, sports-related concussions, as well as children and adults with autism and other neurological, genetic, and psychiatric conditions. The candidate will be appointed in a relevant department (e.g., Psychology and/or Neuroscience, Physics) at Georgia State University. A Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D. or similar degree in psychology, neuroscience or a related research discipline is required. The successful candidate will have strong academic credentials and an outstanding record of research achievement, including a strong record of external research funding. The successful candidate will be expected to maintain a productive, funded research program in human neuroimaging, and will be expected to demonstrate graduate and undergraduate instructional effectiveness with a diverse student body. Interested individuals should send a curriculum vita, a cover letter stating research interests and experience, evidence of instructional effectiveness, and three letters of recommendation. Review of applications will begin on October 19, 2012, but application materials will be accepted until the positions are filled. Applications should be sent to: Human Neuroimaging Search Committee Department of Psychology Box 5010 Georgia State University Atlanta, GA 30302-5010 neuroimaging at gsu.edu An offer of employment will be conditional on background verification. Georgia State University, a Research University of the University System of Georgia, is an EEO/AA Employer and encourages applications from women and minority candidates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120911/3944724f/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2CI_imaging_ad.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 130049 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120911/3944724f/2CI_imaging_ad-0001.pdf -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: mdhamala.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 365 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120911/3944724f/mdhamala-0001.vcf From djaeger at emory.edu Tue Sep 11 22:33:14 2012 From: djaeger at emory.edu (Jaeger, Dieter) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 02:33:14 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2014-2016 European Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience : Call for Sites Message-ID: <5A5A0407AFA3CE489A16D5CF166618367725E37F@e14mbx12w.Enterprise.emory.net> Call for site proposals for the European Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience (ACCN) Due date: December 15, 2012 The organizing committee of the Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience is looking for applications for sites to host the course for 3 years (2014-2016). The course, which is now in its seventeenth year, each year selects 30 graduate students and postdocs from around the world. They are taught by 5-7 tutors and approximately 25 invited faculty. The course is held in August in a European (or Associated) country. The ideal site will be isolated from other large groups of people (e.g. not consist of a resort hotel) to ensure intimacy and quietness, and will be in an attractive location. Previous courses have been held at: Crete, Greece 1996-1998 Trieste, Italy 1999-2001 Obidos, Portugal 2002-2004 Arcachon, France 2005-2007 Freiburg, Germany 2008-2010 Bedlewo, Poland 2011-2013 The course has attained a high profile over the years, and will generate high international visibility to any new location. It is expected to attract considerable visibility to any emerging new center of computational neuroscience in Europe. Our specific requirements are: - a local organizer who is responsible for arranging lodging, food, transportation, and lecture and computer facilities; - a lecture room with a seating capacity of about 50; - computer room(s), that can fit laptop computers for about 20 people, and allows a fast internet connection and wireless; as well as about 15 supplied workstations for students without sufficient own computing resources. - affordable lodging for about 50 people for four weeks, close to the lecture/computer rooms (university accommodation would be fine) - affordable food (restaurant or other) for about 50 people, close to the lecture/computer rooms. In addition, it would be nice to have: - a kitchen/dining room that students can use during the weekends and breaks; - a secretary who can handle communication with students and faculty during the months preceding the school; - a full-time systems manager for the computer network during the school; - internet access in the hotel rooms; - local funding. The availability of substantial local funding will greatly influence the selection of our future training site. Local funding would for instance be raised towards inviting faculty and/or subsidizing local housing and food plans. Anyone interested should email Mate Lengyel (m.lengyel at eng.cam.ac.uk) for detailed application forms and information on how to apply. SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE (see also http://www.neuroinf.pl/accn) The Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience is a high-level, 4-week intensive course on the computational aspects of the central nervous system function, from the cellular to the systems level. It is taught by invited faculty, who are both experimentalists and theoreticians and are among the best in their fields (see http://www.neuroinf.org/courses/EUCOURSE/B12/index.shtml web site for current and previous programs). The course is highly selective - we receive typically around 90 applications every year, and only 30 students are selected. Students are typically mid-term PhDs or postdocs, with backgrounds ranging from pure theory to pure experiment. The course provides the students with a solid theoretical background in topics that are important for understanding the complexity of the nervous system, and exposes them to the approaches that have been used in theoretical studies. Students do a research project during the course, with the help of the invited faculty and tutors. The selection of students is based on a CV, proposed project, letters of recommendation, and the advice of three independent referees. The current course directors: Yifat Prut (Jerusalem, Israel); Carl van Vreeswjik (Paris, France); Dieter Jaeger (Atlanta, USA); Mate Lengyel (Cambridge, UK), and current local organizer Daniel Wojcik are available to answer questions by potential site applicants. ________________________________ This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the original message (including attachments). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120911/88a54bac/attachment.html From bard at math.pitt.edu Wed Sep 12 10:35:53 2012 From: bard at math.pitt.edu (Bard Ermentrout) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:35:53 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position in Math Neuroscience Message-ID: Computational/Mathematical Neuroscience Postdoc Bard Ermentrout (http://www.pitt.edu/~phase) in the Mathematics Department at the University of Pittsburgh is seeking applicants for a three-year postdoctoral research position. The project is concerned with (1) the interactions between correlated inputs and spatio-temporal patterns ; (2) the origin and analysis of spatio-temporal patterns in mean-field and spiking models of neurons; (3) relationship between population oscillations and their mean-field approximations. The ability to do simulations and some perturbation analysis is desirable and knowledge of XPPAUT or Matlab is also a plus. The salary is competitive and there are full benefits. Please contact Bard Ermentrout at bard at pitt.edu From acriss at syr.edu Wed Sep 12 14:43:02 2012 From: acriss at syr.edu (Amy Criss) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:43:02 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Two Tenure Track Positions in Cognitive Psychology at Syracuse University Message-ID: Two Tenure Track Positions in Cognitive Psychology at Syracuse University. As part of our multiyear hiring plan, the Department of Psychology at Syracuse University invites applications for two full time tenure-track positions in Cognitive Psychology to join the Cognition, Brain, & Behavior (CBB) area. In addition to CBB, the department includes research emphases in school, social, and clinical health. The department?s goal is to grow the Cognition, Brain, & Behavior faculty to a total of seven to eight members in the next five years. These hires present an exciting opportunity to collaborate in building the program according to a shared vision. In addition, there exists ample opportunity to contribute to the emerging interdisciplinary Neuroscience program across The College. The individuals filling these two positions are expected to pursue exceptional programs of research using rigorous methods and driven by a strong theoretical foundation to understand fundamental mechanisms underlying cognition and/or perception. Candidates with outstanding quantitative skills will receive special consideration. One appointment is at the rank of Assistant Professor and one position is expected to be Open Rank. Applicants for the positions should have a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology or a related field. Successful candidates will show evidence of (1) high quality scholarship and the potential to build a vigorous program of funded research (2) teaching promise at the undergraduate and graduate levels and (3) promise of excellence in engaging graduate and undergraduate students in research. Responsibilities include maintaining an active program of research, teaching and advising at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and contributing to the efforts to build the CBB program. Additional information about the department may be found at http://psychology.syr.edu/. The Department of Psychology is strongly committed to academic excellence, community engagement, and the University?s vision of ?Scholarship in Action.? Syracuse, NY is home to the Upstate Medical University, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry, and the VA Medical Center. Syracuse is a medium-sized city with affordable housing, abundant cultural opportunities, little traffic, and a high quality of life. Located in the heart of beautiful Upstate New York, the university is close to the Adirondack Mountains and Park, the Finger Lakes, the Great Lakes, and the Catskill Mountains. Applicants must complete a brief online faculty application at http://www.sujobopps.com. Attach electronic copies of your curriculum vitae and a cover letter describing your research and teaching interests. Three letters of recommendation are required. Do not ask your references to send paper documents. Detailed instructions for uploading their confidential recommendation letter into the system will be sent to references identified in your application. Review of applications will begin November 1, 2012 and will continue until the positions are filled. Syracuse University is an equal opportunity, affirmative-action institution and does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, national origin, religion, marital status, age, disability, sexual orientation, status as a disabled veteran, or a veteran of the Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq Eras. The Department of Psychology is committed to enhancing the diversity of its faculty and encourages applications from women, members of minority groups, and individuals with disabilities. From robbie at bcs.rochester.edu Wed Sep 12 16:26:42 2012 From: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu (Robert Jacobs) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:26:42 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Computational Cognition Cheat Sheets Message-ID: <5050F002.1070704@bcs.rochester.edu> COMPUTATIONAL COGNITION CHEAT SHEETS Over the years, our lab has written several notes (referred to as "Computational Cognition Cheat Sheets") providing brief introductions to computational methods that are often useful in the study of human cognition. Many students and faculty have told us that these notes are extremely useful, both for self-study and classroom teaching. These notes are available from the following web page: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/jacobslab/cheat_sheets.html There are currently 22 notes available on the following topics: Backpropagation Algorithm Bayesian Estimation Bayesian Inference: Gibbs Sampling Bayesian Inference: Metropolis-Hastings Sampling Bayesian Inference: Particle Filtering Bayesian Statistics: Beta-Binomial Model Bayesian Statistics: Dirichlet Processes Bayesian Statistics: Indian Buffet Process Bayesian Statistics: Normal-Normal Model Conditional Independence, Dependency-Separation, and Bayesian Networks Factor Analysis Hidden Markov Models K-Means Algorithm for Clustering Maximum Likelihood Estimation Mixture Models Mixtures-of-Experts Optimal Linear Cue Combination Principal Components Analysis Principal Components Analysis and Unsupervised Hebbian Learning Reinforcement Learning: Model-based Reinforcement Learning: Model-free Sensory Integration and Kalman Filtering -- Robert Jacobs Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0268 email: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu phone: 585-275-0753 web: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/jacobslab/people.html From gary at eng.ucsd.edu Wed Sep 12 23:01:40 2012 From: gary at eng.ucsd.edu (Gary Cottrell) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:01:40 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Cognitive Modeling Greatest Hits In-Reply-To: References: <1278FDA5-EBB9-4851-AB89-7634DF38043A@eng.ucsd.edu> Message-ID: <80514DCD-CEE5-42B8-9712-5533F105B513@eng.ucsd.edu> Hi - Last year I collected from a bunch of colleagues their "Cognitive Modeling Greatest Hits". These are collected here: http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/users/gary/CogSciLiterature.html There are many connectionist papers in the list! g. Gary Cottrell 858-534-6640 FAX: 858-534-7029 Computer Science and Engineering 0404 IF USING FED EX INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING LINE: CSE Building, Room 4130 University of California San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive # 0404 La Jolla, Ca. 92093-0404 "Probably once or twice a week we are sitting at dinner and Richard says, 'The cortex is hopeless,' and I say, 'That's why I work on the worm.'" Dr. Bargmann said. "A grapefruit is a lemon that saw an opportunity and took advantage of it." - note written on a door in Amsterdam on Lijnbaansgracht. "Physical reality is great, but it has a lousy search function." -Matt Tong "Only connect!" -E.M. Forster "You always have to believe that tomorrow you might write the matlab program that solves everything - otherwise you never will." -Geoff Hinton "I am awaiting the day when people remember the fact that discovery does not work by deciding what you want and then discovering it." -David Mermin Email: gary at ucsd.edu Home page: http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/~gary/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120912/a3d9ea28/attachment.html From jclune at msu.edu Thu Sep 13 00:32:02 2012 From: jclune at msu.edu (Jeff Clune) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 00:32:02 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Two fully funded Ph.D. positions in evolving artificial intelligence (neural networks, robotics, and/or deep learning) Message-ID: **Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested** Two fully funded Ph.D. positions are available in any of the following areas, especially in combinations of them: evolving artificial intelligence, neural networks, computational neuroscience, robotics, and deep learning. Postdoctoral positions are also available, but under different funding arrangements (please email jeffclune at cornell.edu for details). Positions ideally start January 2013, but applications will be reviewed until the positions are filled. I (Jeff Clune) am starting up a new lab at the University of Wyoming and am seeking two people interested in earning a Ph.D. in computer science. The lab focus is on evolving artificial intelligence by producing artificially intelligent robots, including physical robots and agents in simulated worlds, such as video games. The lab will also study other bio-inspired AI techniques, such as deep learning. Part of these efforts will involve investigating how evolution produced the complex, intelligent, diverse life on this planet by trying to computationally recreate it. A major focus will be on evolving large-scale, structurally organized neural networks (i.e. networks with millions of connections that are modular, regular, and hierarchical). I am also interested in combining neuroevolution with learning algorithms (Hebbian, neuromodulation, etc.) Please see my website (http://JeffClune.com) for example publications, press articles about the work, videos, etc. Here are some keywords that describe related fields: evolutionary algorithms (also known as genetic algorithms or evolutionary computation), neural networks (including evolving neural networks, having them learn, deep learning, and computational neuroscience), robotics, artificial intelligence, and research into the evolution of intelligence, complexity, evolvability, and diversity. If you are interested in joining the lab or would like more information about the positions, please follow the instructions at http://jeffclune.com/positionsAvailable.html The University of Wyoming is located in Laramie, a college town in the heart of the Rocky Mountain West. Nestled between two mountain ranges, Laramie has more than 300 days of sunshine a year and is home to year-round outdoor activities including hiking, camping, rock climbing, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, fishing and mountain biking. Laramie is also near many of Colorado's major cities and university communities (e.g. Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver). The University of Wyoming is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, marital, veteran or any other legally protected status. Best regards, Jeff Clune Visiting Scientist Cornell University jeffclune at cornell.edu jeffclune.com From nilton at brain.riken.jp Thu Sep 13 07:17:15 2012 From: nilton at brain.riken.jp (Nilton Kamiji) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:17:15 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: RAST for SfN2012, New Orleans, Oct. 13-17 Message-ID: Dear all, Apologies if you have received multiple copies. For the forth year, we at the Laboratory for Neuroinformatics at RIKEN Brain Science Institute are pleased to announce the Related Abstract Search Tool (RAST) for SfN 2012! http://ras.ni.brain.riken.jp/SfN2012/ For mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, and Android based tablets and smartphones, a web application is available at: http://ras.ni.brain.riken.jp/SfN2012/mobile/htdocs Since this is a web application, all you need is a web browser. The RAST allows you to search not only by providing keyword(s), but also by selecting one or multiple abstracts to search for its related abstracts. This feature may provide results focused on the user's interest. That is, abstracts related to a single abstract by means of document similarity may belong to a different research topic. However, abstracts mutually similar to multiple selected abstracts have higher chance in belonging to the similar topic. RAST also suggests possible candidates of keywords by automatically extracting major words from the list of related abstracts. You can also use these words to refine your search. Moreover, not all related abstracts will contain the provided keyword(s). These abstracts cannot be searched by the ordinary keyword search, and thus we call them "Hidden treasure". You can create a list by clicking on Add to Cart button at each abstract, where abstracts will be sorted by date and time. You can also print the list with or without the abstract body from your Printing Cart. You can restore your "Printing Cart" by saving the ID which is displayed on the top right corner. Try and find your "hidden treasures" with RAST! A quick guide is shown on the top page, and a detailed guide can be accessed by clicking on "How to use". Any comments or questions are very welcome at ras at ni.brain.riken.jp ------------------------------------ Shiro USUI, Ph.D usuishiro at riken.jp Neuroinformatics Lab. RIKEN BSI 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako 351-0198 Japan Tel: +81-48-467-7491 Fax:+81-48-467-7498 Cel: +81-90-7175-0861 http://www.ni.brain.riken.jp/ http://www.neuroinf.jp ------------------------------------ From jose at psychology.rutgers.edu Thu Sep 13 15:20:14 2012 From: jose at psychology.rutgers.edu (Stephen =?UTF-8?B?Sm9zw6k=?= Hanson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:20:14 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Position at RUTGERS--COMPUTATIONAL NEUROIMAGING Message-ID: <20120913152014.473c3bf3@max> The Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at Rutgers University-Newark has an opening for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE/BRAIN IMAGING. The ideal candidate would be someone who uses brain imaging to ask fundamental hypothesis-driven questions about brain structure and function. We are particularly interested in candidates who use imaging in combination with other methods such as behavioral methods, animal research, neurocomputational modeling, genetics, and/or clinical patient studies. Applicants should apply as soon as possible, but no later than September 15th, 2012. The applicant would be expected to be an active member of the Rutgers Brain Imaging Center (RUBIC) and make use of our new NSF-funded research-dedicated Siemens 3T TRIO magnet located on the ground floor of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience in Newark. This facility can also be used for animal imaging. We seek a candidate who will interact well with a diverse community of neuroscientists including molecular, systems, behavioral, and cognitive neuroscientists. The candidate will be expected to contribute to undergraduate research training and teach graduate courses in neuroscience, mentor Ph.D. students in our Behavioral and Neural Sciences graduate program, and maintain an active externally-funded research program. Women and members of underrepresented minorities are especially encouraged to apply; Rutgers-Newark is noted for its exceptionally diverse student population. Although not required, a candidate who has current and transportable external funding is preferred. For more information on neuroscience at Rutgers-Newark see http://www.neuroscience.newark.rutgers.edu. Additional information on our brain imaging center is at http://rubic.rutgers.edu/ . To apply, please create four PDF files: (1) Cover letter summarizing (a) past training, (b) future research and professional goals, (c) past honors, grants, and fellowship awards, current external grant awards with start and end dates, and plans for future grant submissions, (d) why you are a good fit for Rutgers/CMBN and visa versa, (e) names, affiliations, and email addresses of three people whom you have contacted for letters of recommendation, and (f) a one sentence precis of research interest and activities, (2) C.V., (3) Research Statement, (4) One representative first-authored paper. These four files should be emailed as PDF attachments to mri at cmbn.rutgers.edu with a header: ". Cog Neuro Faculty Application". In addition, all applicants should arrange for at least three letters of recommendation to be emailed directly to the same email address, with a header that reads: ": Recommendation from . -- 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 murphyk at cs.ubc.ca Fri Sep 14 00:14:43 2012 From: murphyk at cs.ubc.ca (Kevin Murphy) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:14:43 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: new book: "Machine learning: a probabilistic perspective" Message-ID: I am pleased to announce the publication of my book, "Machine learning: a probabilistic perspective" (MIT Press 2012). This book provides a unified view of machine learning, based on probabilistic inference and graphical models. It is designed to be accessible to upper level undergraduates as well as beginning graduate students. In addition, it covers various important topics that are not in other ML textbooks, such as conditional random fields, convex and non-convex sparsity promoting priors, and deep learning. Further details can be found at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/MLbook/index.html Some endorsements: "An astonishing machine learning book: intuitive, full of examples, fun to read but still comprehensive, strong and deep! A great starting point for any university student -- and a must have for anybody in the field." -- Prof. Jan Peters, Darmstadt University of Technology/ Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems "An amazingly comprehensive survey of the field, covering both the basic theory as well as cutting edge research. Richly illustrated and loaded with examples and exercises. I will tell my students (and myself) to read this cover to cover!" -- Prof. Max Welling, U.C. Irvine "Prof. Murphy excels at unravelling the complexities of machine learning methods while motivating the reader with a stream of illustrated examples and real world case studies. The accompanying software package includes source code for many of the figures, making it both easy and very tempting to dive in and explore these methods for yourself. A must-buy for anyone interested in machine learning or curious about how to extract useful knowledge from big data." -- Dr John Winn, Microsoft Research. "This book does a really nice job explaining the basic principles and methods of machine learning from a Bayesian perspective. It will prove useful to statisticians interested in the current frontiers of machine learning as well as machine learners seeking a probabilistic foundation for their methods. It hits the 4 c's: clear, current, concise, and comprehensive, and it deserves a place alongside 'All of Statistics' and 'The Elements of Machine Learning' on the practical statistician's bookshelf." -- Dr Steven Scott, Google Quantitative Analysis Team. From bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca Thu Sep 13 12:33:50 2012 From: bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:33:50 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers - Deep Learning and Unsupervised Feature Learning Workshop at NIPS 2012 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <02ACD94B-0E0D-4D67-B0A1-D6A8533555CA@iro.umontreal.ca> Hello, A few slight changes on the call for submissions: - submission deadline pushed 5 days to Sept. 21st - acceptance decision pushed 3 days to Oct. 10th - 8-page limit strongly encouraged but not enforced - we have been scheduled for Satuday the 8th of December -- Yoshua On 2012-08-22, at 16:14, Quoc V. Le wrote: > Call for Papers: Deep Learning and Unsupervised Feature Learning Workshop > held in conjunction with Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2012) > > December 7 or 8 (TBD), 2011, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA. > https://sites.google.com/site/deeplearningnips2012/ > > Overview > ------------------------------------ > In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in algorithms that learn > feature representations from unlabeled data. Deep learning algorithms such > as deep belief networks, sparse coding-based methods, autoencoder variants, > convolutional networks, ICA methods, and deep Boltzmann machines have shown > promise and have already been successfully applied to a variety of tasks in > computer vision, audio processing, natural language processing, information > retrieval, and robotics. In this workshop, we will bring together > researchers who are interested in deep learning and unsupervised feature > learning, review the recent technical progress, discuss the challenges, and > identify promising future research directions. > > The workshop invites paper submissions that will be either presented as > oral or in poster format. Through invited talks, panel discussions and > presentations by the participants, this workshop attempts to address some > of the more controversial topics in deep learning today, such as what is a > good representation, how it could be learned, and what obstacles need to be > addressed in future research. Panel discussions will be led by the members > of the organizing committee as well as by prominent representatives of the > vision and neuroscience communities. > > The goal of this workshop is two-fold. First, we want to identify the > next big challenges and propose research directions for the deep > learning community. Second, we want to bridge the gap between > researchers working on different (but related) fields, to leverage > their expertise, and to encourage the exchange of ideas with all the > other members of the NIPS community. > > Dates > ------------------------------------ > - Submission deadline: September 16, 2012 > - Acceptance notification: October 7, 2012 > - Workshop date: December 7 or 8, 2012 (TBD) > > A tentative schedule is available at: > https://sites.google.com/site/deeplearningnips2012/ > > Submissions > ------------------------------------ > We solicit submissions of unpublished research papers. Papers should > be at most 8 pages (plus 1 additional page containing references only) > and must satisfy the formatting instructions of the NIPS 2012 call for > papers. Style files are available at http://nips.cc/PaperInformation/StyleFiles. > Please note that the reviewing is double blind, so your manuscript > should not contain authors? identifying information. Papers should be > submitted through https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/DL2012/ no later > than 23:59 EST on Sunday, September 16, 2012. > > We encourage submissions on the following and related topics: > * unsupervised feature learning algorithms > * deep learning algorithms > * semi-supervised and transfer learning algorithms > * inference and optimization > * theoretical foundations of unsupervised learning > * theoretical foundations of deep learning > * applications of deep learning and unsupervised feature learning > The best papers will be awarded by an oral presentation, all other > accepted papers will have a poster presentation accompanied by a short > spotlight presentation. > > Organizers > ------------------------------------ > * Yoshua Bengio, University of Montreal > * James Bergstra, Harvard University > * Quoc V. Le, Stanford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120913/5d55037a/attachment-0001.html From geazzo at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 11:24:13 2012 From: geazzo at gmail.com (George Azzopardi) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 17:24:13 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Free Matlab code for computational models of V1 simple cells and shape-selective V4 neurons with applications to computer vision References: <8FE492B0-61FB-4ACD-8DF8-BDE4CB224234@gmail.com> Message-ID: <78C9959A-0492-45A1-A4E8-D11677C3F9A1@gmail.com> Dear all, I am pleased to announce that we made publicly available the Matlab code of the following two algorithms: 1. A CORF computational model of a simple cell with application to contour detection CORF is a computational model of a simple cell in visual cortex. It is a more realistic model than the Gabor function model as it uses as input the responses of model LGN cells rather than the intensity pixels as they fall on the retina. CORF produces the following two important properties that the Gabor model fails to produce: contrast invariant orientation tuning and cross orientation suppression. Also, the CORF model outperforms the Gabor model in contour detection tasks with high statistical significance. Contour detection is presumably the the primary biological role of simple cells. Download code: http://matlabserver.cs.rug.nl/corfweb/web/index.html Reference: G. Azzopardi and N. Petkov, "A CORF computational model of a simple cell that relies on LGN input outperforms the Gabor function model", Biological Cybernetics, 106(3), 177-89, 2012. 2. Trainable COSFIRE filters for Keypoint Detection and Pattern Recognition Download code: http://matlabserver.cs.rug.nl/cosfireweb/web/index.html Reference: G. Azzopardi and N. Petkov, "Trainable COSFIRE filters for keypoint detection and pattern recognition", IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2012, DOI: 10.1109/TPAMI.2012.106 Best regards, George Azzopardi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120914/0dc9d7bd/attachment.html From thomas.wennekers at plymouth.ac.uk Fri Sep 14 07:01:17 2012 From: thomas.wennekers at plymouth.ac.uk (Thomas Wennekers) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:01:17 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Special Issue on "Computational Neuroscience" in J Neurosci Meth Message-ID: <201209141201.17847.thomas.wennekers@plymouth.ac.uk> Dear All The Journal of Neuroscience Methods has published a special issue about "Computational Neuroscience" this month. A list of contributions follows below. More info about each contribution and the background of the special issue can be found here http://helen.pion.ac.uk/~thomas/papers/editorial-wennekers.pdf The papers are obtainable from these web pages http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-neuroscience-methods/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01650270/210/1 Regards Thomas Contents ======== Thomas Wennekers "Special Issue on Computational Neuroscience (Editorial)" Claude B?dard, Sebastien B?huret, Charlotte Deleuze, Thierry Bal, Alain Destexhe "Oversampling method to extract excitatory and inhibitory conductances from single-trial membrane potential recordings" Hinnerk Feldwisch-Drentrup, Adam B. Barrett, Michael T. Smith, Mark C.W. van Rossum "Fluctuations in the open time of synaptic channels: An application to noise analysis based on charge" Armin Bahl, Martin B. Stemmler, Andreas V.M. Herz, Arnd Roth "Automated optimization of a reduced layer 5 pyramidal cell model based on experimental data" Lucy A. Davies, Jose A. Garcia-Lazaro, Jan W.H. Schnupp, Thomas Wennekers, Susan L. Denham "Tell me something interesting: Context dependent adaptation in somatosensory cortex" Robin A.A. Ince, Alberto Mazzoni, Andreas Bartels, Nikos K. Logothetis, Stefano Panzeri "A novel test to determine the significance of neural selectivity to single and multiple potentially correlated stimulus features" Cesare Magri, Alberto Mazzoni, Nikos K. Logothetis, Stefano Panzeri "Optimal band separation of extracellular field potentials" Susan Denham, Alexandra Bendixen, Robert Mill, D?nes T?th, Thomas Wennekers, Martin Coath, Tam?s B?hm, Orsolya Szalardy, Istv?n Winkler "Characterising switching behaviour in perceptual multi-stability" Jayawan H.B. Wijekoon, Piotr Dudek "VLSI circuits implementing computational models of neocortical circuits" Thomas Sharp, Francesco Galluppi, Alexander Rast, Steve Furber "Power-efficient simulation of detailed cortical microcircuits on SpiNNaker" ==================================================================================== Most articles in this special issue were supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant EP/C010841/1 -- "A Novel Computing Architecture for Cognitive Systems based on the Laminar Microcircuitry of the Neocortex (COLAMN)". From calendarsites at insticc.org Mon Sep 17 10:02:55 2012 From: calendarsites at insticc.org (CalendarSites) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:02:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP BIOSTEC 2013 - 6th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies Message-ID: <025301cd94dd$238d2bb0$6aa78310$@insticc.org> CALL FOR POSITION PAPERS 6th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - BIOSTEC 2013 Website: http://www.biostec.org February 11 - 14, 2013 Barcelona, Spain Important Deadlines: Position Paper Submission: October 26, 2012 Authors Notification (position papers): November 29, 2012 Final Position Paper Submission and Registration: December 13, 2012 Technical Co-sponsorship by: Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) In Cooperation with: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) In Collaboration with: Universitat de Vic The purpose of BIOSTEC is to bring together researchers and practitioners, including engineers, biologists, health professionals and informatics/computer scientists, interested in both theoretical advances and applications of information systems, artificial intelligence, signal processing, electronics and other engineering tools in knowledge areas related to biology and medicine. BIOSTEC is composed of four co-located conferences, each specialized in at least one of the aforementioned main knowledge areas. - BIODEVICES: International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices (http://www.biodevices.biostec.org) CONFERENCE TOPICS Emerging Technologies Biomedical Instrumentation Biomedical Equipment Biomedical Sensors Biomedical Metrology Microelectronics Health Monitoring Devices Embedded Signal Processing Low-Power Design Electrical Bio-Impedance Bio-Electromagnetism Biorobotics Biocomputing and Biochips Implantable Electronics Biotelemetry Wireless Systems Biomaterials MEMS Nanotechnologies Biomechanical Devices Artificial Limbs Technologies Evaluation Cardiovascular Biomechanics Electrocardiography and Heart Monitoring Computational Physiology (virtual organs) Brain-Computer Interfaces Spectroscopic Applications Imaging and Visualization Devices Computer-aided Detection and Diagnosis - BIOINFORMATICS: International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms (http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org) CONFERENCE TOPICS Simulation Computational Intelligence Genomics and Proteomics Sequence Analysis Structural Bioinformatics Image Analysis Visualization Databases and Data Management Data mining and Machine Learning Biostatistics and Stochastic Models Pharmaceutical Applications Systems Biology Algorithms and Software Tools Web Services in Bioinformatics Computational Molecular Systems Immuno- and chemo-informatics Pattern recognition, clustering and classification Structure prediction Model design and evaluation Transcriptomics Next Generation Sequencing Structural Variations - BIOSIGNALS: International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (http://www.biosignals.biostec.org) CONFERENCE TOPICS Speech Recognition Neural Networks Biometrics Pattern Recognition Medical Signal Acquisition, Analysis and Processing Wearable Sensors and Systems Real-Time Systems Evolutionary Systems Acoustic Signal Processing Time and Frequency Response Wavelet Transform Medical Image Detection, Acquisition, Analysis and Processing Physiological Processes and Bio-signal Modeling, Non-linear dynamics Cybernetics and User Interface Technologies Electromagnetic fields in biology and medicine Fuzzy Systems and Signals Monitoring and Telemetry Cardiovascular Signals Image Analysis and Processing Detection and Identification Motion Control - HEALTHINF: International Conference on Health Informatics(http://www.healthinf.biostec.org) CONFERENCE TOPICS Datamining Knowledge Management Decision Support Systems Interoperability Telemedicine Medical and Nursing Informatics Confidentiality and Data Security Wearable Health Informatics Semantic Interoperability Therapeutic Systems and Technologies Physiological Modeling Databases and Datawarehousing Cognitive Informatics Affective Computing Human-Machine Interfaces for Disabled Persons ICT, Ageing and Disability Design and development methodologies for Healthcare IT Mobile technologies for Healthcare applications Evaluation and use of Healthcare IT Healthcare Management Systems E-Health Development of Assistive Technology Electronic Health Records and Standards Software Systems in Medicine Pervasive Health Systems and Services Clinical problems and applications Data Visualization Pattern recognition and Machine Learning Practice-based Research Methods for Healthcare IT e-Health for Public Health These four concurrent conferences are held in parallel and registration to one warrants delegates to attend all four. BIOSTEC Keynote Speakers Pedro G?mez Vilda, Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid, Spain Christian Jutten, GIPSA-lab, France Adam Kampff, Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal Richard Reilly, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Vladimir Devyatkov, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian Federation PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers (full, short and posters) will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SciTePress Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). SciTePress is member of CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/). A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index, INSPEC, DBLP and EI. AWARDS Best paper awards will be distributed during the conference closing session. Conference Co-chairs Jordi Sol?-Casals, University of Vic, Spain Ana Fred, Technical University of Lisbon / IT, Portugal Hugo Gamboa, CEFITEC / FCT - New University of Lisbon, Portugal Please check further details at the conference website (http://www.biostec.org). ---------------------------------- CALL FOR POSITION PAPERS International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices - BIODEVICES 2013 Website: http://www.biodevices.biostec.org February 11 - 14, 2013 Barcelona, Spain Important Deadlines: Position Paper Submission: October 26, 2012 Authors Notification (position papers): November 29, 2012 Final Position Paper Submission and Registration: December 13, 2012 Technical Co-sponsorship by: Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) In Cooperation with: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) In Collaboration with: Universitat de Vic The purpose of the International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices is to bring together researchers and practitioners from electronics and mechanical engineering, interested in studying and using models, equipments and materials inspired from biological systems and/or addressing biological requirements. Monitoring devices, instrumentation sensors and systems, biorobotics, micro-nanotechnologies and biomaterials are some of the technologies addressed at this conference. BIODEVICES encourages authors to submit papers to one of the main topics indicated below, describing original work, including methods, techniques, advanced prototypes, applications, systems, tools or general survey papers, reporting research results and/or indicating future directions. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference by one of the authors and published in the proceedings. Acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. There will be both oral and poster sessions. The proceedings will be indexed by several major international indexers. Special sessions are also welcome. Please contact the secretariat for further information on how to propose a special session. BIODEVICES 2013 is part of the International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Tecnologies (BIOSTEC 2013) that has 3 more conferences with very strong synergies between them, namely: - BIOINFORMATICS: International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms (http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org) - BIOSIGNALS: International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (http://www.biosignals.biostec.org/) - HEALTHINF: International Conference on Health Informatics(http://www.healthinf.biostec.org/) These four concurrent conferences are held in parallel and registration to one warrants delegates to attend all four. BIOSTEC Keynote Speakers Pedro G?mez Vilda, Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid, Spain Christian Jutten, GIPSA-lab, France Adam Kampff, Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal Richard Reilly, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Vladimir Devyatkov, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian Federation PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers (full, short and posters) will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SciTePress Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). SciTePress is member of CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/). A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index, INSPEC, DBLP and EI. AWARDS Best paper awards will be distributed during the conference closing session. Please check the website for further information (http://www.biodevices.biostec.org/best_paper_awards.asp). Conference Co-chairs Jordi Sol?-Casals, University of Vic, Spain Ana Fred, Technical University of Lisbon / IT, Portugal Hugo Gamboa, CEFITEC / FCT - New University of Lisbon, Portugal CONFERENCE TOPICS Emerging Technologies Biomedical Instrumentation Biomedical Equipment Biomedical Sensors Biomedical Metrology Microelectronics Health Monitoring Devices Embedded Signal Processing Low-Power Design Electrical Bio-Impedance Bio-Electromagnetism Biorobotics Biocomputing and Biochips Implantable Electronics Biotelemetry Wireless Systems Biomaterials MEMS Nanotechnologies Biomechanical Devices Artificial Limbs Technologies Evaluation Cardiovascular Biomechanics Electrocardiography and Heart Monitoring Computational Physiology (virtual organs) Brain-Computer Interfaces Spectroscopic Applications Imaging and Visualization Devices Computer-aided Detection and Diagnosis PROGRAM COMMITTEE http://www.biodevices.biostec.org/ProgramCommittee.aspx Please check further details at the conference website (http://www.biodevices.biostec.org). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- CALL FOR POSITION PAPERS International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms - BIOINFORMATICS 2013 Website: http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org February 11 - 14, 2013 Barcelona, Spain Important Deadlines: Position Paper Submission: October 26, 2012 Authors Notification (position papers): November 29, 2012 Final Position Paper Submission and Registration: December 13, 2012 Technical Co-sponsorship by: Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) In Cooperation with: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) In Collaboration with: Universitat de Vic The purpose of the International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in the application of computational systems and information technologies to the field of molecular biology, including for example the use of statistics and algorithms to understanding biological processes and systems, with a focus on new developments in genome bioinformatics and computational biology. Areas of interest for this community include sequence analysis, biostatistics, image analysis, scientific data management and data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational evolutionary biology, computational genomics and other related fields. BIOINFORMATICS encourages authors to submit papers to one of the main topics indicated below, describing original work, including methods, techniques, advanced prototypes, applications, systems, tools or survey papers, reporting research results and/or indicating future directions. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference by one of the authors and published in the proceedings. Acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. There will be both oral and poster sessions. The proceedings will be indexed by several major international indexers. Special sessions are also welcome. Please contact the secretariat for further information on how to propose a special session. BIOINFORMATICS 2013 is part of the International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Tecnologies (BIOSTEC 2013) that has 3 more conferences with very strong synergies between them, namely: - BIODEVICES: International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices (http://www.biodevices.biostec.org) - BIOSIGNALS: International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (http://www.biosignals.biostec.org/) - HEALTHINF: International Conference on Health Informatics(http://www.healthinf.biostec.org/) These four concurrent conferences are held in parallel and registration to one warrants delegates to attend all four. BIOSTEC Keynote Speakers Pedro G?mez Vilda, Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid, Spain Christian Jutten, GIPSA-lab, France Adam Kampff, Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal Richard Reilly, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Vladimir Devyatkov, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian Federation PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers (full, short and posters) will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SciTePress Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). SciTePress is member of CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/). A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index, INSPEC, DBLP and EI. AWARDS Best paper awards will be distributed during the conference closing session. Please check the website for further information (http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org/best_paper_awards.asp). Conference Co-chairs Jordi Sol?-Casals, University of Vic, Spain Ana Fred, Technical University of Lisbon / IT, Portugal Hugo Gamboa, CEFITEC / FCT - New University of Lisbon, Portugal Conference Topics Simulation Computational Intelligence Genomics and Proteomics Sequence Analysis Structural Bioinformatics Image Analysis Visualization Databases and Data Management Data mining and Machine Learning Biostatistics and Stochastic Models Pharmaceutical Applications Systems Biology Algorithms and Software Tools Web Services in Bioinformatics Computational Molecular Systems Immuno- and chemo-informatics Pattern recognition, clustering and classification Structure prediction Model design and evaluation Transcriptomics Next Generation Sequencing Structural Variations PROGRAM COMMITTEE http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org/ProgramCommittee.aspx Please check further details at the conference website (http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ CALL FOR POSITION PAPERS International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing - BIOSIGNALS 2013 Website: http://www.biosignals.biostec.org February 11 - 14, 2013 Barcelona, Spain Important Deadlines: Position Paper Submission: October 26, 2012 Authors Notification (position papers): November 29, 2012 Final Position Paper Submission and Registration: December 13, 2012 Technical Co-sponsorship by: Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) In Cooperation with: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) In Collaboration with: Universitat de Vic The purpose of the International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing is to bring together researchers and practitioners from multiple areas of knowledge, including biology, medicine, engineering and other physical sciences, interested in studying and using models and techniques inspired from or applied to biological systems. A diversity of signal types can be found in this area, including image, audio and other biological sources of information. The analysis and use of these signals is a multidisciplinary area including signal processing, pattern recognition and computational intelligence techniques, amongst others. BIOSIGNALS encourages authors to submit papers to one of the main topics indicated below, describing original work, including methods, techniques, advanced prototypes, applications, systems, tools or survey papers, reporting research results and/or indicating future directions. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference by one of the authors and published in the proceedings. Acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. There will be both oral and poster sessions. The proceedings will be indexed by several major international indexers. Special sessions are also welcome. Please contact the secretariat for further information on how to propose a special session. BIOSIGNALS 2013 is part of the International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Tecnologies (BIOSTEC 2013) that has 3 more conferences with very strong synergies between them, namely: - BIODEVICES: International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices (http://www.biodevices.biostec.org) - BIOINFORMATICS: International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms (http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org) - HEALTHINF: International Conference on Health Informatics (http://www.healthinf.biostec.org/) These four concurrent conferences are held in parallel and registration to one warrants delegates to attend all four. BIOSTEC Keynote Speakers Pedro G?mez Vilda, Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid, Spain Christian Jutten, GIPSA-lab, France Adam Kampff, Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal Richard Reilly, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Vladimir Devyatkov, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian Federation PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers (full, short and posters) will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SciTePress Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). SciTePress is member of CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/). A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index, INSPEC, DBLP and EI. AWARDS Best paper awards will be distributed during the conference closing session. Please check the website for further information (http://www.biosignals.biostec.org/best_paper_awards.asp). Conference Co-chairs Jordi Sol?-Casals, University of Vic, Spain Ana Fred, Technical University of Lisbon / IT, Portugal Hugo Gamboa, CEFITEC / FCT - New University of Lisbon, Portugal PROGRAM CHAIR Sergio Alvarez, Boston College, United States Conference Topics Speech Recognition Neural Networks Biometrics Pattern Recognition Medical Signal Acquisition, Analysis and Processing Wearable Sensors and Systems Real-Time Systems Evolutionary Systems Acoustic Signal Processing Time and Frequency Response Wavelet Transform Medical Image Detection, Acquisition, Analysis and Processing Physiological Processes and Bio-signal Modeling, Non-linear dynamics Cybernetics and User Interface Technologies Electromagnetic fields in biology and medicine Fuzzy Systems and Signals Monitoring and Telemetry Cardiovascular Signals Image Analysis and Processing Detection and Identification Motion Control PROGRAM COMMITTEE http://www.biosignals.biostec.org/ProgramCommittee.aspx Please check further details at the conference website (http://www.biosignals.biostec.org). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- CALL FOR POSITION PAPERS International Conference on Health Informatics - HEALTHINF 2013 Website: http://www.healthinf.biostec.org February 11 - 14, 2013 Barcelona, Spain Important Deadlines: Position Paper Submission: October 26, 2012 Authors Notification (position papers): November 29, 2012 Final Position Paper Submission and Registration: December 13, 2012 Technical Co-sponsorship by: Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) In Cooperation with: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) In Collaboration with: Universitat de Vic The purpose of the International Conference on Health Informatics is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to healthcare and medicine in general and to the specialized support to persons with special needs in particular. Databases, networking, graphical interfaces, intelligent decision support systems and specialized programming languages are just a few of the technologies currently used in medical informatics. Mobility and ubiquity in healthcare systems, standardization of technologies and procedures, certification, privacy are some of the issues that medical informatics professionals and the ICT industry in general need to address in order to further promote ICT in healthcare. In the case of medical rehabilitation and assistive technology the use of ICT has had important results in the enhancement of the quality of life, contributing to a full integration of all citizens in the societies they are also part of. HEALTHINF is a forum for debating all these aspects. Furthermore, this conference is also a meeting place for those interested in understanding the human and social implications of technology, not only in healthcare systems but in other aspects of human-machine interaction such as accessibility issues. HEALTHINF encourages authors to submit papers to one of the main topics indicated below, describing original work, including methods, techniques, advanced prototypes, applications, systems, tools or survey papers, reporting research results and/or indicating future directions. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference by one of the authors and published in the proceedings. Acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. There will be both oral and poster sessions. The proceedings will be indexed by several major international indexers. Special sessions are also welcome. Please contact the secretariat for further information on how to propose a special session. HEALTHINF 2013 is part of the International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Tecnologies (BIOSTEC 2013) that has 3 more conferences with very strong synergies between them, namely: - BIODEVICES: International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices (http://www.biodevices.biostec.org) - BIOINFORMATICS: International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms (http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org) - BIOSIGNALS: International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (http://www.biosignals.biostec.org) These four concurrent conferences are held in parallel and registration to one warrants delegates to attend all four. BIOSTEC Keynote Speakers Pedro G?mez Vilda, Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid, Spain Christian Jutten, GIPSA-lab, France Adam Kampff, Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal Richard Reilly, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Vladimir Devyatkov, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian Federation PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers (full, short and posters) will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SciTePress Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). SciTePress is member of CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/). A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index, INSPEC, DBLP and EI. AWARDS Best paper awards will be distributed during the conference closing session. Please check the website for further information (http://www.healthinf.biostec.org/best_paper_awards.asp). Conference Co-chairs Jordi Sol?-Casals, University of Vic, Spain Ana Fred, Technical University of Lisbon / IT, Portugal Hugo Gamboa, CEFITEC / FCT - New University of Lisbon, Portugal PROGRAM CHAIR Deborah Stacey, University of Guelph, Canada CONFERENCE TOPICS * e-Health * Telemedicine * Medical and Nursing Informatics * Design and Development Methodologies for Healthcare IT * Interoperability * Semantic Interoperability * Confidentiality and Data Security * Knowledge Management * Databases and Datawarehousing * Datamining * Decision Support Systems * Wearable Health Informatics * Mobile Technologies for Healthcare Applications * Evaluation and Use of Healthcare IT * Physiological Modeling * Cognitive Informatics * Affective Computing * Therapeutic Systems and Technologies * Healthcare Management Systems * Human-Machine Interfaces for Disabled Persons * Development of Assistive Technology * ICT, Ageing and Disability * Practice-based Research Methods for Healthcare IT * Electronic Health Records and Standards * Software Systems in Medicine * Pervasive Health Systems and Services * e-Health for Public Health * Clinical Problems and Applications * Data Visualization * Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning PROGRAM COMMITTEE http://www.healthinf.biostec.org/ProgramCommittee.aspx Please check further details at the conference website (http://www.healthinf.biostec.org). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120917/887ac3e6/attachment-0001.html From gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Mon Sep 17 22:09:23 2012 From: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu (Mark A. Gluck) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:09:23 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position available: Cognition and Emotion in Parkinson's Disease (at Rutgers-Newark, New Jersey) Message-ID: Postdoctoral position available: Cognition and Emotion in Parkinson's Disease We seek a postdoctoral fellow to work in our lab on studies of learning, memory, and decision making in Parkinson's Disease patients, studying how these cognitive capabilities interact with emotional and other psychiatric aspects of the disorder (e.g., depression and impulse control disorders). We are especially interested in how these cognitive and emotional variables are affected by dopaminergic medications. The position would be at Rutgers University-Newark (just outside New York City, NY) and involve overseeing our many collaborative projects in Parkinson's disease, both locally at NYU Medical Center and the North Shore-LIJ Feinstein Institute's Udall Center of Excellence in Parkinson's Disease as well as our international collaborations with Parkinson's clinics in China, Turkey, Italy, Israel, and the Palestinian West Bank. PREFERRED ATTRIBUTES: (1) A strong command of the relevant cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology literature on Parkinson's disease, basal ganglia function, and dopamine, and (2) prior experience designing and conducting behavioral studies with patient populations, (3) strong statistical data analysis skills, (4) excellent speaking and professional writing skills in English. Although not essential, it would be useful if the candidate has some familiarity with functional brain imaging to assist in ongoing imaging studies of striatal function in both healthy individuals and those with Parkinson's disease. For more information on our laboratory, see http://www.gluck.edu. A collection of our recent papers on Parkinson's disease can be found at: http://www.gluck.edu/parkinsons.html START DATE: Prefer early 2013 but summer/fall 2013 is also possible. Interested candidates should contact me by email at gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu with a cover letter describing their background, career goals, and how they fit the four attributes listed above, along with a CV and a PDF of a representative published paper. Regards, Mark Gluck PS. NOTE: IF GOING TO SFN IN NEW ORLEANS, PLEASE CONTACT ME ASAP TO SET UP PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW THERE. ___________________________________ Dr. Mark A. Gluck, Professor Director, Rutgers Memory Disorders Project Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Rutgers University 197 University Ave. Newark, New Jersey 07102 Web: http://www.gluck.edu Email: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Ph: (973) 353-3298 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120918/d6c49724/attachment.html From Jean-Philippe.Vert at mines-paristech.fr Wed Sep 12 05:20:23 2012 From: Jean-Philippe.Vert at mines-paristech.fr (Jean-Philippe Vert) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:20:23 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: NIPS 2012 workshop on Machine Learning in Computational Biology Message-ID: <20120912112023.16774t967z3hcy04@webmail.sif.mines-paristech.fr> Call for contributions Workshop on Machine Learning in Computational Biology http://www.mlcb.org A workshop at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2012) Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA, December 7 or 8, 2012. Important dates: Oct 21, 2012 : Deadline for submission of extended abstracts Nov 5, 2012: Acceptance notification Dec 7 or 8, 2012: Workshop date WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION The field of computational biology has seen dramatic growth over the past few years, in terms of newly available data, new scientific questions and new challenges for learning and inference. In particular, biological data is often relationally structured and highly diverse, and thus requires combining multiple weak evidence from heterogeneous sources. These sources include sequenced genomes of a variety of organisms, gene expression data from multiple technologies, protein sequence and 3D structural data, protein interaction data, gene ontology and pathway databases, genetic variation data (such as SNPs), high-content phenotypic screening data, and an enormous amount of text data in the biological and medical literature. New types of scientific and clinical problems require novel supervised and unsupervised learning approaches that can use these growing resources. Furthermore, next generation sequencing technologies are yielding terabyte scale data sets that require novel algorithmic solutions. The workshop will host presentations of emerging problems and machine learning techniques in computational biology. We encourage contributions describing either progress on new bioinformatics problems or work on established problems using methods that are substantially different from standard approaches. Kernel methods, graphical models, semi-supervised approaches, feature selection and other techniques applied to relevant bioinformatics problems would all be appropriate for the workshop. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Researchers interested in contributing should upload an extended abstract of 4 pages in PDF format to the MLCB submission web site http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mlcb2012 by Oct 21, 2012, 11:59pm (Samoa time). No special style is required. Authors may use the NIPS style file, but are also free to use other styles as long as they use standard font size (11 pt) and margins (1 in). *Submissions should be suitably anonymized and meet the requirements for double-blind reviewing.* All submissions will be anonymously peer reviewed and will be evaluated on the basis of their technical content. A strong submission to the workshop typically presents a new learning method that yields new biological insights, or applies an existing learning method to a new biological problem. However, submissions that improve upon existing methods for solving previously studied problems will also be considered. Examples of research presented in previous years can be found online at http://www.mlcb.org/nipscompbio/previous/. The workshop allows submissions of papers that are under review or have been recently published in a conference or a journal. This is done to encourage presentation of mature research projects that are interesting to the community. The authors should clearly state any overlapping published work at time of submission. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Karsten Borgwardt, (Max Planck Institute) Florence d'Alche-Buc (Universit? d'Evry-Val d'Essonne, Genopole) Alexander Hartemink (Duke University) Laurent Jacob (UC Berkeley) Quaid Morris (University of Toronto) William Noble (University of Washington) Yanjun Qi (NEC Labs America) Gunnar R?tsch (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) Alexander Schliep (Rutgers University) Oliver Stegle (Max Planck Institute) Koji Tsuda (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) ORGANIZERS Anna Goldenberg (University of Toronto) Christina Leslie (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) Jean-Philippe Vert (Mines ParisTech, Institut Curie) -- Jean-Philippe Vert Cancer computational genomics and bioinformatics Mines ParisTech - Institut Curie - INSERM U900 http://cbio.ensmp.fr/~jvert From jebara at cs.columbia.edu Wed Sep 12 00:36:22 2012 From: jebara at cs.columbia.edu (Tony Jebara) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 00:36:22 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: NIPS 2012 Workshop on Log-Linear Models Message-ID: <62812A56-EA46-437E-A287-769CE05115E1@cs.columbia.edu> WORKSHOP ON LOG-LINEAR MODELS NIPS 2012 WORKSHOP December 8, Lake Tahoe, Nevada https://sites.google.com/site/nips12logmodels/home CONFIRMED SPEAKERS Francis Bach Martin Wainwright Li Deng Fei Sha Hermann Ney Peder Olsen SUBMISSION Submission deadline: Friday, October 1st, 2012. Notification of acceptance: Friday, October 12th, 2012 We invite submission of abstracts to the workshop for poster or oral presentation. Submissions should be written as extended abstracts, no longer than 4 pages in the NIPS latex style. NIPS style files and formatting instructions can be found at http://nips.cc/PaperInformation/StyleFiles. The submissions should include the authors' name and affiliation since the review process will not be double blind. The extended abstract may be accompanied by an unlimited appendix and other supplementary material, with the understanding that anything beyond 4 pages may be ignored by the program committee. Abstracts should be submitted by email to logmodels at gmail.com There will be a special issue of IEEE Transactions in Speech and Signal Processing on large-scale optimization. Authors of accepted papers with speech content will be encouraged to extend their abstract to the full papers to be considered for this special issue. OVERVIEW Exponential functions are core mathematical constructs that are the key to many important applications, including speech recognition, pattern-search and logistic regression problems in statistics, machine translation, and natural language processing. Exponential functions are found in exponential families, log-linear models, conditional random fields (CRF), entropy functions, neural networks involving sigmoid and soft max functions, and Kalman filter or MMIE training of hidden Markov models. Many techniques have been developed in pattern recognition to construct formulations from exponential expressions and to optimize such functions, including growth transforms, EM, EBW, Rprop, bounds for log-linear models, large-margin formulations, and regularization. Optimization of log-linear models also provides important algorithmic tools for machine learning applications (including deep learning), leading to new research in such topics as stochastic gradient methods, sparse / regularized optimization methods, enhanced first-order methods, coordinate descent, and approximate second-order methods. Specific recent advances relevant to log-linear modeling include the following. *Effective optimization approaches, including stochastic gradient and Hessian-free methods. *Efficient algorithms for regularized optimization problems. *Bounds for log-linear models and recent convergence results. *Recognition of modeling equivalences across different areas, such as the equivalence between Gaussian and log-linear models/HMM and HCRF, and the equivalence between transfer entropy and Granger causality for Gaussian parameters. Though exponential functions and log-linear models are well established, research activity remains intense, due to the central importance of the area in front-line applications and the rapid expanding size of the data sets to be processed. Fundamental work is needed to transfer algorithmic ideas across different contexts and explore synergies between them, to assimilate the influx of ideas from optimization, to assemble better combinations of algorithmic elements for tackling such key tasks as deep learning, and to explore such key issues as parameter tuning. TOPICS The workshop will bring together researchers from the many fields that formulate, use, analyze, and optimize log-linear models, with a view to exposing and studying the issues discussed above. Topics of possible interest for talks at the workshop include, but are not limited to, the following: 1) Log-linear models. 2) Equivalences across different applications and models. 3) Comparisons of optimization / accuracy performance. 4) Convex formulations. 5) Bounds and their applications. 6) Stochastic gradient, first-order, and second-order methods. 7) Efficient non-Gaussian filtering approaches. 8) Graphical modeling and network inference. 9) Missing data and hidden variables in log-linear modeling. 10) Semi-supervised estimation in log-linear modeling. 11) Sparsity in log-linear models. 12) Block and novel regularization methods for log-linear models. 13) Parallel, distributed and large-scale methods for log-linear models. 14) Information geometry of Gaussian densities and exponential families. 15) Hybrid algorithms that combine different optimization strategies. 16) Connections between log-linear models and deep belief networks. 17) Connections with kernel methods. 18) Applications to speech / natural-language processing and other areas. 19) Empirical contributions that compare and contrast different approaches. 20) Theoretical contributions that relate to any of the above topics. ORGANIZERS Dimitri Kanevsky (IBM) Tony Jebara (Columbia University) Li Deng (Microsoft) Stephen Wright (University of Wisconsin) Georg Heigold (Google) Avishy Carmi (Nanyang Technological University) From rsutton at ualberta.ca Mon Sep 17 17:46:59 2012 From: rsutton at ualberta.ca (Richard Sutton) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:46:59 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: 8th Barbados Workshop on Reinforcement Learning to be held April 28--May 1, 2013 Message-ID: <1E444091-1AD1-4911-B37B-9CB580FE7C26@ualberta.ca> Dear Colleagues, As we have in past years, Doina Precup, Elliot Ludvig, and I are organizing a small workshop on reinforcement learning this spring at McGill's Bellairs Institute in Barbados. This year, we will be holding the workshop from April 28--May 1, 2013. The theme will be Planning in Reinforcement Learning, meaning any way of going from a model of the world, or knowledge of the world, to a good policy or value function. As usual, we will have participants from several disciplines, including psychology and control. If you are interested in participating, please save the dates, and send us an email as described in the workshop's web pages and the Call for Participation at http://barbados2013.rl-community.org. -Rich Sutton From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Sun Sep 16 23:27:22 2012 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:27:22 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURON course registration deadline Message-ID: <5056989A.1030806@yale.edu> The registration deadline for the 1 day NEURON course at this year's meeting of the Society for Neuroscience is Friday, September 28--less than two weeks from today. For the course description and online registration form, see http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/nola2012/nola2012.html --Ted From tomas.hromadka at gmail.com Sat Sep 15 17:43:45 2012 From: tomas.hromadka at gmail.com (Tomas Hromadka) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 23:43:45 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Cosyne 2013 Reminder: Call for Workshop Proposals Message-ID: <5054F691.5020502@gmail.com> ================================================================= Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING WORKSHOPS Feb 28 - Mar 2, 2013 Mar 3 - 5, 2013 Salt Lake City, Utah Snowbird Ski Resort, Utah http://www.cosyne.org ================================================================= SPACE STILL AVAILABLE FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS REMINDER: PROPOSAL DEADLINE is September 14, 2012, extended deadline October 26, 2012 Preference will be given to proposals received by September 14, 2012; additional proposals received by October 26, 2012 will still be considered. The annual Cosyne meeting provides an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience. A series of workshops will be held after the main Cosyne meeting (www.cosyne.org). The goal is to provide an informal forum for the discussion of important research questions and challenges. Controversial issues, open problems, comparisons of competing approaches, and alternative viewpoints are encouraged. This year we would like to foster increased participation from experimental groups as well as computational ones. Please circulate widely and encourage your students and postdocs to apply. The overarching goal of all workshops should be the integration of empirical and theoretical approaches, in an environment that fosters collegial discussion and debate. Preference will be given to proposals that differ substantially in content, scope, and/or approach from workshops of recent years (examples available at www.cosyne.org). Relevant topics include, but are not limited to: sensory processing, motor planning and control, functional neural circuits, motivation, reward and decision making, learning and memory, adaptation and plasticity, neural coding, neural circuitry and network models, and methods in computational or systems neuroscience. Please note that in an effort to reduce the overlap between workshops, speakers are strongly discouraged from presenting talks at more than one workshop. WORKSHOP DETAILS: There will be 4-8 workshops/day, running in parallel. Each workshop is expected to draw between 15 and 80 people. The workshops will be split into morning (8:00-11:00 AM) and afternoon (4:30-7:30 PM) sessions. Workshops will be held at Snowbird, a ski resort located 30 miles (typically less than an hour) from the Salt Lake City airport. Buses from the main conference will be provided. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Deadline for additional proposals: October 26, 2012 Format: plain text only---please no attachments---email to: cosyne13workshops at googlegroups.com (Jessica Cardin, Tatyana Sharpee) Proposals should include: - Name(s) and email address(es) of the organizers (no more than 2 organizers per session, please). A primary contact should be designated. - A title. - A brief description of 1) what the workshop will address and accomplish, 2) why the topic is of interest, 3) who is the targeted group of participants. - Names of potential invitees, with indication of confirmed speakers. Preference will be given to workshops with the most confirmed speakers. - Proposed workshop length (1 or 2 days). Most workshops will be limited to a single day. If you think your workshop needs 2 days, please explain why. - A *brief* resume of the workshop organizer along with a *brief* list of publications (about half a page total). WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS RESPONSIBILITIES: - Coordinate workshop participation and content. - Moderate the discussion. SUGGESTIONS: Experience has shown that the best discussions during a workshop are those that arise spontaneously. A good way to foster these is to have short talks and long question periods (e.g. 30+15 minutes), and have plenty of breaks. We strongly recommend fewer than 10 talks. WORKSHOP COSTS: Detailed registration costs, etc, will be available at www.cosyne.org. Please note: Cosyne does NOT provide travel funding for workshop speakers. All workshop speakers are expected to pay for workshop registration fees. Participants are encouraged to register early, in order to qualify for discounted registration rates. One complimentary (free) organizer registration is provided per workshop. For workshops with 2 organizers, the free registration can be given to one of the organizers or split evenly between them. COSYNE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chairs: Nicole Rust (Penn) and Jonathan Pillow (UT Austin) Program Chairs: Peter Latham (UCL) and Marlene Cohen (U Pittsburgh) Workshop Chairs: Jessica Cardin (Yale) and Tatyana Sharpee (Salk) Publicity Chair: Kanaka Rajan (Princeton) COSYNE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Anthony Zador (CSHL) Alexandre Pouget (U Rochester) Zachary Mainen (Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme) From wduch at is.umk.pl Sun Sep 16 08:09:18 2012 From: wduch at is.umk.pl (Wlodzislaw Duch) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 20:09:18 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: 3490 fake conferences organized by WASET Message-ID: <022e01cd9404$1b011c10$51035430$@is.umk.pl> Dear Colleagues, checking the web address for the next ICANN 2013 International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (which is run by the European Neural Networks Society every year) we have found the following WASET conference site: http://www.waset.org/conferences/2013/amsterdam/icann/ Identical name, but no logo of ENNS, no chairman, it claims to be 34th ICANN, but actually we had so far only 22 conferences in this series, and the 2013 will be in Sophia in September (see http://www.e-nns.org), not in May in Amsterdam. The name has been hijacked and I doubt that such conference will ever take place. Investigating further we have found that the conference has no chairman, and is run by unknown people, with few exceptions of people who may not even know that they are in the committee or may have carelessly accepted an invitation. And then looking at the list of conferences we have found that there are 3490 conferences allegedly organized by WASET! Some of them I could easily identify as well-known conferences that got also high numbers in front to make you think that they have been organized many times. Some of them are in Singapore. A search in the internet shows that many people already lost 450 Euro paying conference fees. See the story https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/i_love_taiwan/TFx1WwltKl Q The whole scam seems to be connected to Azerbaijan, where WASET is registered, and it seems to be run by Turkish people. Incidentally Wikipedia redirects WASET to Thebes, ancient city in Egypt. As this information is not yet easily found in the Internet please warn your friends not to fall in this trap, as well as do not accept to be a member of such conferences. Please tell me if you know about some international police efforts to follow such scams, perhaps there is a way to block their site. Regards, Wlodek Duch ______________ Google: W. Duch -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120916/aced97ad/attachment.html From sekiya at faculty.chiba-u.jp Tue Sep 18 05:40:40 2012 From: sekiya at faculty.chiba-u.jp (Hiroo SEKIYA) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:40:40 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: NOLTA, IEICE Journal: Special Section on Recent Progress in Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications Message-ID: <50584198.2080309@faculty.chiba-u.jp> [Apologies for multiple copies] Dear Colleagues, Please consider to submit your paper to Special Section on "Recent Progress in Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications", NOLTA, IEICE Journal, JAPAN. http://www.nolta.ieice.org/ The call for papers is attached below. *** Important Date: Submission deadline: January 10, 2013 Publication Date: October, 2013 *** Best regards, Hiroo Sekiya Chiba University, JAPAN == CALL FOR PAPERS Special Section on Recent Progress in Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications, Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications (NOLTA), The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) We are pleased to announce the special section of IEICE's journal, "Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications, IEICE" to be published in October, 2013. The major part of this issue will consist of the special section focusing on recent progress in the field of nonlinear theory and its applications. The topics of interest within the scope of this Special Section include, but are not limited to, the following areas: Chaos and Bifurcations Chaotic Neural Networks Circuits and Systems Oscillations Cellular Neural Networks Self-Validating Numerics Synchronization Learning and Memory Modeling and Simulations Coupled Oscillators Prediction and Identification Large-Scale Networks Communications Image and Signal Processing Analog and Digital ICs Chua's Circuits Neuro Dynamics Distributed Networks Control Evolutionary Computation Power Systems Complex Systems Optimization Robotics Fractals Fuzzy Optics Solitons Biocybernetics Chemistry Applied Mathematics Economics Physics Biomedical Data Processing Biomedical Engineering Bioinformatics Complex Networks Computational Neuroscience Social Dynamics The submitted papers are edited by the Editorial Committee of the Special Section. The DEADLINE of the paper submission is JANUARY 10, 2013. Prospective authors are requested to follow carefully the submission process described below: (1) Prepare manuscripts according to the guidelines described in the web page: http://www.nolta.ieice.org/data/authors.html The LATEX style file and template file can be downloaded from this page. Papers do not usually exceed 30 pages of an A4-sized PDF file. (2) Submit manuscripts through the IEICE paper submission system at: https://review.ieice.org/regist_common_e.aspx?society=NOLTA Authors should choose "[Special-EN] Recent Progress in Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications"as a "Type of Issue (Section) / Transactions" on the line screen. Do not choose "[Regular-EN]". (3) Send "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" and "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration" by E-mail, FAX or postal mail to the following address: Hiroo Sekiya, Graduate School of Advanced Integration Science, Chiba University, Yayoi-cho 1--33, Inage-ku, Chiba, 263--8522, Japan E-mail: sekiya at faculty.chiba-u.jp FAX: +81-43-290-3258 (please attach a cover sheet indicating the sender's name) The article charges until 30 pages: - One of the authors is a member of IEICE : 60,000 JPY - Otherwise : 65,000 JPY Please do not forget to send "Copyright Transfer and Article Charge Agreement" and "Confirmation Sheet of Manuscript Registration" January 10, 2013. We cannot start the review process without them, even if we receive the manuscript. For additional guidelines on manuscript preparation, please visit the following site: http://www.nolta.ieice.org/data/authors.html [IMPORTANT NOTICE] Both members and nonmembers of IEICE are invited to submit manuscript. However, we recommend that authors unaffiliated with IEICE apply for membership: http://www.ieice.org/eng/member/OM-appli.html Guest Editors: Claudio Mirasso (Universitat de les Illes Balears) Tohru Ikeguchi (Saitama University) Guest Associate Editors: Yanne Chembo (FEMTO-ST Institute) Ingo Fischer (IFISC, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) Daniele Fournier (INSA-DGEI) Hisato Fujisaka (Hiroshima City University) Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo (Universitat Polit`ecnica de Catalunya) Mikio Hasegawa (Tokyo University of Science) Masayuki Kimura (Shiga Prefecture University) Hiroyuki Kitajima (Kagawa University) Kunihiko Mitsubori (Takushoku University) Hiroya Nakao (Tokyo Institute of Technology) Marco Storace (University of Genova) Satoshi Sunada (Kanazawa University) Yoshihiko Susuki (Kyoto University) Peter Szolgay (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) Ljiljana Trajkovic (Simon Fraser University) Akio Tsuneda (Kumamoto University) Atsushi Uchida (Saitama Universiy) Kazuyuki Yoshimura (NTT Communication Science Laboratories) Associate Editors of NOLTA, IEICE: Shinji Doi (Kyoto University) Orla Feely (University College Dublin) Yoshihiko Horio (Tokyo Denki University) Takehiko Horita (Osaka Prefecture University) Heinz Koeppl (EPFL) Keiji Konishi (Osaka Prefecture University) Fabio Pareschi (University of Ferrara) Isao Tokuda (Ritsumeikan University) Hiroyuki Torikai (Osaka University) Chi K. Tse (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) Chai Wah Wu (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) Secretaries of the Special Section: Hiroo Sekiya (Chiba University) -- --- Hiroo SEKIYA, Ph. D Chiba University, JAPAN Phone & Fax: +81-43-290-3258 E-mail: sekiya at faculty.chiba-u.jp URL: http://www.s-lab.nd.chiba-u.jp/ From t.nowotny at sussex.ac.uk Wed Sep 19 08:56:06 2012 From: t.nowotny at sussex.ac.uk (Thomas Nowotny) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:56:06 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 3 Postdoc Positions available In-Reply-To: <5056E6C5.6070206@sussex.ac.uk> References: <5056E6C5.6070206@sussex.ac.uk> Message-ID: <5059C0E6.9040706@sussex.ac.uk> Dear Connectionsts, please consider and spread the word about the opportunities below: UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX AND UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD Advertisement Sussex Ref: 816 Sheffield Refs: UOS005250, UOS005253 Three postdoctoral positions are available at the Universities of Sheffield (two posts) and Sussex (one post) as part of the EPSRC funded, ?Green Brain? project. This exciting new project will develop computational neuroscience models of learning and decision-making in the honeybee brain, and controllers based on these to run on an NVIDIA GPU supercomputer controlling a flying robot in real time. Invertebrate neuroscientists are continuing to demonstrate that despite their small sized brains, insects, such as honeybees, have comparable cognitive sophistication to those of larger-brained animals, including vertebrates. Honeybees, in particular, have been demonstrated to be able to manage speed-accuracy trade-offs in decision-making, exhibit positive and negative-reinforcement learning, and transfer concepts such as 'sameness' and 'difference' across sensory modalities. This project is intended to advance our understanding of the invertebrate brain by computational neuroscience modelling, with the ultimate long-term goal of achieving a complete brain model of an animal such as the honeybee. To achieve this goal, modern GPU super-computing will be used to build detailed models of brain function that can run in real time and can interface with a flying robot to study its behaviour in an embodied context. The work will be carried out in close collaboration with honeybee experts in Toulouse. It is expected that the long-term goal of a full brain model will not only represent a significant basic research achievement, but also lead to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, control of autonomous agents and computational insights into cognitive mechanisms in higher animals The postdoctoral positions of the research associates on this project are as follows: 1. Computational neuroscientist (Sussex): Your primary responsibilities will be to further develop models of the honeybee olfactory system and learning pathways, develop GPU modelling tools, and integrate your work with the other research associates. 2. Computational neuroscientist (Sheffield): Your primary responsibilities will be to model the honeybee optic tubercle and visual learning pathways, to investigate multi-modal integration and learning, and to integrate your work with the other research associates 3. Roboticist (Sheffield): Your primary responsibility will be to develop and maintain the GPU-supercomputer-controlled flying robot, and integrate the work of the other research associates into the platform Successful candidates must hold a PhD or equivalent degree in a quantitative science discipline. All posts require a keen interest in computational neuroscience and the basis of learning and behaviour in animals. We are looking for candidates with a strong mathematical, computational and computational neuroscience background (posts 1 and 2) and keen interest in robotics (post 3). Knowledge of the insect olfactory system (post 1), visual system (post 2) and robotic controllers (post 3) is desirable, but is not a requirement. All positions require good programming skills and experience with GPU computing would be a big plus. The positions will involve travel between Sheffield and Sussex and occasionally to the collaborating experimental bee researchers in Toulouse. For informal inquiries about the positions, please contact Dr. James Marshall, James.Marshall at shef.ac.uk or Dr. Thomas Nowotny, t.nowotny at sussex.ac.uk. Candidates interested in applying for the University of Sussex job please apply through www.sussex.ac.uk/jobs. Candidates interested in the posts at University of Sheffield please apply through http://www.shef.ac.uk/jobs. If candidates are interested in several posts please apply on both sites. Please provide a CV with publication list, a brief (1 page) statement of why you are interested in the position and about your future career plans with your application form. Salary range: starting at ?30,122 and rising to ?37,012 per annum, according to experience Expected start date: 1 December 2012 Closing date for applications: 17/14 October 2012 Interviews are anticipated for: 1 November 2012 For full details and how to apply see www.shef.ac.uk/jobs www.sussex.ac.uk/jobs The Universities of Sheffield and of Sussex are committed to equality of opportunity. -- Dr. Thomas Nowotny Reader Phone: +44-1273-678593 CCNR, Informatics, Fax: +44-1273-877873 University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ http://sussex.ac.uk/informatics/tnowotny From tomas.hromadka at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 17:13:25 2012 From: tomas.hromadka at gmail.com (Tomas Hromadka) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:13:25 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: COSYNE 2013: Meeting Announcement and Call for Abstracts (abstract deadline Nov 16 2012) Message-ID: <5058E3F5.5060408@gmail.com> ================================================================= Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING WORKSHOPS Feb 28 - Mar 3, 2013 Mar 4 - 5, 2013 Salt Lake City, Utah Snowbird Ski Resort, Utah http://www.cosyne.org ================================================================= The annual Cosyne meeting provides an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience, in order to understand how neural systems function. The MAIN MEETING is single-track. A set of invited talks are selected by the Executive Committee, and additional talks and posters are selected by the Program Committee, based on submitted abstracts. The WORKSHOPS feature in-depth discussion of current topics of interest, in a small group setting. Cosyne topics include but are not limited to: neural coding, natural scene statistics, dendritic computation, neural basis of persistent activity, nonlinear receptive field mapping, representations of time and sequence, reward systems, decision-making, synaptic plasticity, map formation and plasticity, population coding, attention, and computation with spiking networks. This year we would like to foster increased participation from experimental groups as well as computational ones. Please circulate widely and encourage your students and postdocs to apply. IMPORTANT DATES: Abstract submission opens: 08 Oct 2012 Abstract submission deadline: 16 Nov 2012 INVITED SPEAKERS: William Bialek (Princeton) Kwabena Boahen (Stanford) Carlos Brody (Princeton) Ila Fiete (U Texas, Austin) Yves Fregnac (CNRS-UNIC) Deborah Gordon (Stanford) Eve Marder (Brandeis) J Anthony Movshon (NYU) Paul Schrater (U Minnesota) Terrence Sejnowski (Salk) Barbara Shinn-Cuningham (Boston U) When preparing an abstract, authors should be aware that not all abstracts can be accepted for the meeting, due to space constraints. Abstracts will be selected based on the clarity with which they convey the substance, significance, and originality of the work to be presented. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chairs: Jonathan Pillow (UT Austin) and Nicole Rust (Penn) Program Chairs: Marlene Cohen (U Pittsburgh) and Peter Latham (UCL) Workshop Chairs: Jessica Cardin (Yale) and Tatyana Sharpee (Salk) Communications Chair: Kanaka Rajan (Princeton) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Anne Churchland (CSHL) Zachary Mainen (Champalimaud) Alexandre Pouget (U Rochester) Anthony Zador (CSHL) From giles at ist.psu.edu Wed Sep 19 13:33:22 2012 From: giles at ist.psu.edu (Lee Giles) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:33:22 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: 3490 fake conferences organized by WASET In-Reply-To: <022e01cd9404$1b011c10$51035430$@is.umk.pl> References: <022e01cd9404$1b011c10$51035430$@is.umk.pl> Message-ID: <505A01E2.5090408@ist.psu.edu> Hi: WASET runs quite a few conferences. Their committee for so many conferences is quite small. > http://www.waset.org/committees.php These conferences appear to function as publication machines, primarily for authors from institutions far from the mainstream. You pay a fee and you get your paper(s) published. >From their website, some of these conference publications seem to become journal papers. This makes their publication model very confusing. There seems to be little or no reviewing and there have been cases of plagiarism. On the positive, all papers are free and readily accessed by the public. Best, Lee Giles On 9/16/12 8:09 AM, Wlodzislaw Duch wrote: > Dear Colleagues, > > > > checking the web address for the next ICANN 2013 International Conference on > Artificial Neural Networks (which is run by the European Neural Networks > Society every year) we have found the following WASET conference site: > > http://www.waset.org/conferences/2013/amsterdam/icann/ > > > > Identical name, but no logo of ENNS, no chairman, it claims to be 34th > ICANN, but actually we had so far only 22 conferences in this series, and > the 2013 will be in Sophia in September (see http://www.e-nns.org), not in > May in Amsterdam. The name has been hijacked and I doubt that such > conference will ever take place. > > > > Investigating further we have found that the conference has no chairman, and > is run by unknown people, with few exceptions of people who may not even > know that they are in the committee or may have carelessly accepted an > invitation. And then looking at the list of conferences we have found that > there are 3490 conferences allegedly organized by WASET! Some of them I > could easily identify as well-known conferences that got also high numbers > in front to make you think that they have been organized many times. > > Some of them are in Singapore. A search in the internet shows that many > people already lost 450 Euro paying conference fees. See the story > > https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/i_love_taiwan/TFx1WwltKl > Q > > > > The whole scam seems to be connected to Azerbaijan, where WASET is > registered, and it seems to be run by Turkish people. > > Incidentally Wikipedia redirects WASET to Thebes, ancient city in Egypt. As > this information is not yet easily found in the Internet please warn your > friends not to fall in this trap, as well as do not accept to be a member of > such conferences. Please tell me if you know about some international police > efforts to follow such scams, perhaps there is a way to block their site. > > > > Regards, > > Wlodek Duch > > ______________ > > Google: W. Duch > > > > > > From bazhenov at salk.edu Thu Sep 20 19:10:20 2012 From: bazhenov at salk.edu (Maxim Bazhenov) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:10:20 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: postdoctoral position in computational neuroscience to study sleep oscillations Message-ID: <505BA25C.1020509@salk.edu> Applications are invited for an NIH-funded post-doctoral position to study mechanisms and functions of sleep oscillations. The successful candidate will join a research team involving the laboratories of Eric Halgren (UCSD), Terry Sejnowski (UCSD) and Maxim Bazhenov (UC Riverside). For relevant references see, Chen et al, Journal of Physiology (London), 2012, Jul 9; Bonjean et al, Journal of Neuroscience, 2012, 32(15):5250-63. The ultimate goal of this work is to understand mechanisms and functions of sleep rhythms during stage 2 sleep and the role of sleep oscillations in memory and learning. The successful candidate will be responsible for the design of a thalamocortical model generating sleep rhythms based on existing experimental data. These models will be used to understand underlying neural mechanisms, as well as guide data analysis and produce novel experimental predictions. Qualified applicants are expected to have experience in computational/theoretical neuroscience and conductance-based neural modeling. Programming experience with C/C++ is required. Knowledge of PYTHON or MATLAB is a plus. The University of California offers excellent benefits. Salary is based on research experience. The initial appointment is for 1 year with a possibility of extension. Applicants should send a brief statement of research interests, a CV and the names of three references to Maxim Bazhenov at maksim.bazhenov at ucr.edu -- Maxim Bazhenov, Ph.D. Professor, Cell Biology and Neuroscience University of California Riverside, CA 92521 Ph: 951-827-4370 http://biocluster.ucr.edu/~mbazhenov/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120920/db2a59cf/attachment.html From wduch at is.umk.pl Thu Sep 20 09:39:15 2012 From: wduch at is.umk.pl (Wlodzislaw Duch) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:39:15 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: More on fake conferences organized by WASET Message-ID: <030201cd9735$55c0c510$01424f30$@is.umk.pl> Lee Giles wrote: >On the positive, all papers are free and readily accessed by the public. People already lost conference fees that have not be refunded and the conferences never took place. See the following links: http://comp-lite.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/is-waset-fraud-whose-victims-keep-qu iet.html http://fromwillis.blogspot.co.nz https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/i_love_taiwan/TFx1WwltKl Q http://neurobonkers.com/2012/01/16/is-this-journal-for-real-scientific-and-a cademic-publishing/ They have 3490 conferences, many of them with stolen names. http://www.waset.org/conferences.php There is no positive side. WASET has stolen the names of reputable conferences, ex: XXXIV. International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks is a fiction, we had 12 ICANNs run by the European Neural Networks Society every year, and as the President of the ENNS for past 6 years I'd certainly have heard about another conference with this name that started earlier. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, has been 12 times in Poland, so how one can have XXXIII Conference? Where is information about the previous ones? Can you recognize many other reputable conferences on the WASET list that they have hijacked? Perhaps a few are actually organized, but this does not change the facts. With best regards, Wlodek Duch _______________________________________________ Google: W. Duch -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120920/3bdca85f/attachment-0001.html From theimad at gmail.com Fri Sep 21 22:03:37 2012 From: theimad at gmail.com (Imad Khan) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:03:37 +1000 Subject: Connectionists: More on fake conferences organized by WASET In-Reply-To: <030201cd9735$55c0c510$01424f30$@is.umk.pl> References: <030201cd9735$55c0c510$01424f30$@is.umk.pl> Message-ID: This raises another point. We had a discussion several years (5+) ago on this list on how to make papers freely available. Can we create a peer-baised organization which publishes journals (lets make them top-class) free of charge electronically. Hard-copies have no worth these days. We can always print to read a paper. Regards, Dr. M. Imad Khan On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:39 PM, Wlodzislaw Duch wrote: > Lee Giles wrote: > >>On the positive, all papers are free and readily accessed by the public. > > > > People already lost conference fees that have not be refunded and the > conferences never took place. > See the following links: > > http://comp-lite.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/is-waset-fraud-whose-victims-keep-quiet.html > > http://fromwillis.blogspot.co.nz > > https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/i_love_taiwan/TFx1WwltKlQ > > http://neurobonkers.com/2012/01/16/is-this-journal-for-real-scientific-and-academic-publishing/ > > > > They have 3490 conferences, many of them with stolen names. > > http://www.waset.org/conferences.php > > > > There is no positive side. WASET has stolen the names of reputable > conferences, ex: > > > > XXXIV. International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks is a fiction, > we had 12 ICANNs run by the European Neural Networks Society every year, and > as the President of the ENNS for past 6 years I'd certainly have heard about > another conference with this name that started earlier. > > > > International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, has > been 12 times in Poland, so how one can have XXXIII Conference? Where is > information about the previous ones? Can you recognize many other reputable > conferences on the WASET list that they have hijacked? > > > > Perhaps a few are actually organized, but this does not change the facts. > > > > With best regards, > > Wlodek Duch > > _______________________________________________ > > Google: W. Duch > > > > > > From Eugene.Izhikevich at braincorporation.com Fri Sep 21 19:14:36 2012 From: Eugene.Izhikevich at braincorporation.com (Eugene Izhikevich) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:14:36 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Brain Corporation gets multi-million dollar funding to grow to 40 people Message-ID: <3BD53F3E-217D-4737-82F4-4CC55E14492B@braincorporation.com> Brain Corporation receives Series B funding from Qualcomm Ventures and signs a multi-year R&D agreement with Qualcomm Incorporated to develop a spiking model of the motor control system. The funding will allow Brain Corporation to scale up to 40 scientists -- all experts in neuroscience of sensory and motor processing. The goal is to create the greatest and the most advance computational neuroscience group under one roof. There are more than 20 research positions for computational neuroscientists who have expertise in modeling cerebellum, basal ganglia, brainstem and spinal cord, internal models of motor control, reinforcement learning, and animal locomotion. Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich Chairman & CEO Brain Corporation San Diego, CA, http://braincorporation.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120921/4622f96e/attachment.html From tgd at cs.orst.edu Sun Sep 23 12:53:36 2012 From: tgd at cs.orst.edu (Dietterich, Thomas G.) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 09:53:36 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: More on fake conferences organized by WASET In-Reply-To: References: <030201cd9735$55c0c510$01424f30$@is.umk.pl> Message-ID: <000001cd99ab$fd92dc10$f8b89430$@cs.orst.edu> We already have such a journal: jmlr.org. And of course, anyone can post papers at arxiv.org, where they are easy for other people to find. -- Thomas G. Dietterich, Professor Voice: 541-737-5559 School of Electrical Engineering FAX: 541-737-1300 and Computer Science URL: http://eecs.oregonstate.edu/~tgd US Mail: 1148 Kelley Engineering Center Office: 2067 Kelley Engineering Center Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR 97331-5501 -----Original Message----- From: connectionists-bounces at cs.cmu.edu [mailto:connectionists-bounces at cs.cmu.edu] On Behalf Of Imad Khan Sent: Friday, September 21, 2012 7:04 PM To: wduch at is.umk.pl Cc: Connectionists at cs.cmu.edu Subject: Re: Connectionists: More on fake conferences organized by WASET This raises another point. We had a discussion several years (5+) ago on this list on how to make papers freely available. Can we create a peer-baised organization which publishes journals (lets make them top-class) free of charge electronically. Hard-copies have no worth these days. We can always print to read a paper. Regards, Dr. M. Imad Khan On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:39 PM, Wlodzislaw Duch wrote: > Lee Giles wrote: > >>On the positive, all papers are free and readily accessed by the public. > > > > People already lost conference fees that have not be refunded and the > conferences never took place. > See the following links: > > http://comp-lite.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/is-waset-fraud-whose-victims-k > eep-quiet.html > > http://fromwillis.blogspot.co.nz > > https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/i_love_taiwan/TFx1 > WwltKlQ > > http://neurobonkers.com/2012/01/16/is-this-journal-for-real-scientific > -and-academic-publishing/ > > > > They have 3490 conferences, many of them with stolen names. > > http://www.waset.org/conferences.php > > > > There is no positive side. WASET has stolen the names of reputable > conferences, ex: > > > > XXXIV. International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks is a > fiction, we had 12 ICANNs run by the European Neural Networks Society > every year, and as the President of the ENNS for past 6 years I'd > certainly have heard about another conference with this name that started earlier. > > > > International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft > Computing, has been 12 times in Poland, so how one can have XXXIII > Conference? Where is information about the previous ones? Can you > recognize many other reputable conferences on the WASET list that they have hijacked? > > > > Perhaps a few are actually organized, but this does not change the facts. > > > > With best regards, > > Wlodek Duch > > _______________________________________________ > > Google: W. Duch > > > > > > From Eugene.Izhikevich at braincorporation.com Mon Sep 24 21:52:28 2012 From: Eugene.Izhikevich at braincorporation.com (Eugene Izhikevich) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:52:28 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Scholarpedia: Brain Corporation $10k Prize in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: Scholarpedia (www.scholarpedia.org) and Brain Corporation (http://braincorporation.com/) announce a global experiment in scholarship and collaboration. The goal is to complete the most comprehensive, open, current , and scholarly resource in computational neuroscience: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Encyclopedia_of_computational_neuroscience Brain Corporation is offering $10,000 (US) in prizes for writing and publishing the most popular Scholarpedia article in the field of Computational Neuroscience. As a Scholarpedia entry, each such article will undergo normal peer-review and publication process. The article must be published in Scholarpedia between October 1, 2012 and January 31, 2013 in order to participate in the contest. All participating articles will be publicly available under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License. The winning Scholarpedia articles will be determined based on the number of Google +1 votes receive after publication, and the award will be given during the COSYNE'13 meeting. In order to reserve an article in Scholarpedia for this competition, students and post-docs will need to team up with established experts on the topic they choose to cover. For details on how to participate, please visit: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Scholarpedia:2012_Brain_Corporation_Prize_in_Computational_Neuroscience [please forward widely; apologies for cross-postings] -- Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich Founder and CEO of Brain Corporation, San Diego, California Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Scholarpedia -- the peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120924/6d3a2b3f/attachment.html From bjoern.ommer at iwr.uni-heidelberg.de Tue Sep 25 18:34:44 2012 From: bjoern.ommer at iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (=?windows-1252?Q?Bj=F6rn_Ommer?=) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:34:44 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD and Postdoc Position in Computer Vision - University of Heidelberg Message-ID: <50623184.9050202@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> PhD and Postdoc Position in Computer Vision at the University of Heidelberg The University of Heidelberg invites applications for both a fully funded position for a Postdoc and PhD student in Computer Vision. Both positions will be affiliated with the Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing (HCI). The HCI comprises five research groups (Garbe, Hamprecht, Jaehne, Ommer, Schnoerr) and is funded within the German Excellence Initiative by the German Research Foundation (DFG), industrial partners, and the University. Heidelberg is an attractive, lively city and the University and the HCI provide an inspiring research environment. The open positions are situated in the research areas ? Visual object recognition in images and video, e.g., web-scale object detection ? Action recognition in video sequences, e.g., abnormality detection Ideal candidates will have an excellent degree (Diploma, M.Sc. or equivalent for the PhD position; PhD for the PostDoc position) in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related field. They will have a strong mathematical background, solid programming experience in C++ and Matlab, and above all a strong motivation and desire to learn. Prior experience in computer vision and pattern recognition is desired and fluency in English is required (both written and spoken). Applications should be submitted by email until October 29, 2012 and include a statement of research interests and experience, a complete curriculum vitae, academic transcripts and grades, a list of publications, and recommendation letters from two academic references. The screening process will already start beginning of October so early submissions are encouraged. The starting date is negotiable. Email: hci [dot] applications [at] iwr [dot] uni-heidelberg [dot] de Prof. Dr. Bj?rn Ommer Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing (HCI) University of Heidelberg http://hci.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/Staff/bommer/ From whitneytabor at yahoo.com Tue Sep 25 20:17:58 2012 From: whitneytabor at yahoo.com (Whitney Tabor) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:17:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Connectionists: Three Systems Science positions (tenure track/tenured) at the University of Connecticut Message-ID: <1348618678.21544.YahooMailNeo@web160805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Three Systems Science positions in Psychology at the University of Connecticut The Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut invites applications for 3 full-time faculty, two at the Assistant Professor level and one at the Assistant, Associate, or Full level.? As part of the university's strategy to advance its research mission, the department seeks to enhance our complement of quantitative, analytic, and computational researchers as part of the development of an interdepartmental Systems Science Research network. Our goal is to attract researchers who address complex psychological phenomena using methods that allow for modeling nonlinear dynamic processes, causal relationships between variables or time series, or interrelated systems with emergent properties. Examples of such approaches include (but are not limited to) computational neuroscience, dynamic developmental processes, multilevel/latent organizational systems modeling, multi-agent modeling and social network analysis, and cognitive dynamical systems modeling. Candidates? application letters should address their quantitative graduate teaching preference(s) and specify the potential departmental division(s) within which they would best fit; see www.psychology.uconn.edu for the department's divisional structure. http://www.psychology.uconn.edu/general/Positions.html Qualifications Minimum Qualifications: - To be considered at the Assistant Professor level, a PhD in Psychology or closely related field at the time of appointment, evidence or promise of a strong research program, evidence or promise of ability to teach graduate and undergraduate psychology courses, including advanced quantitative courses. Equivalent foreign degrees are acceptable. - To be considered at the Associate Professor level, applicants must have all of the above qualifications, a record of demonstrated scholarly productivity, and evidence of strong teaching skills. - To be considered at the Full Professor level, applicants must have all of the above qualifications plus evidence of professional recognition of scholarship, evidence of strong teaching skills, and leadership potential in the development of the Systems Science Research Network. Preferred Qualifications: At all levels, ability to complement existing substantive research programs, potential synergy with one of the six graduate programs of the department; evidence or promise of obtaining external funding; evidence of ability to mentor graduate and undergraduate students; ability to bridge traditional statistical methods and newer approaches to modeling dynamic processes; and ability to contribute through research, teaching, and/or public engagement to the diversity of the department and university. Appointment Terms: These positions are full-time, 9-month, tenure track or tenured positions for research, teaching, service and outreach and have an anticipated start date of August 23, 2013. Salary and rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. The successful candidate will be expected to teach appropriate courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels, engage in scholarly activities, participate in outreach and service activities, and mentor students in their research. The successful candidate's primary academic appointment will be at the Storrs campus. To Apply : Interested applicants should apply online through Husky Hire; upload a cover letter, curriculum vitae, statements of research and teaching interests, and representative reprints or preprints, Search # 2013035, Dr. James Chrobak, Search Committee Chair. Review of applications will begin immediately. Three letters of recommendation are required and should be sent directly to psychsearch at uconn.edu. Potential candidates can address questions to: james.chrobak at uconn.edu. Applications must be submitted at the latest by December 1, 2012. http://www.psychology.uconn.edu/general/Positions.html The University of Connecticut is an EEO/AA employer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120925/cffd17ed/attachment.html From hermann.neuro at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 10:46:24 2012 From: hermann.neuro at gmail.com (Hermann Cuntz) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:46:24 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Computational Neuroscience Social at SfN 2012 Message-ID: <010001cd9bf5$b5035640$1f0a02c0$@gmail.com> Dear Friends, dear Colleagues, Join us for the increasingly popular Computational Neuroscience Social at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting! Information on computational neuroscience conferences, summer schools, publications, and web resources will be provided, but mainly we will just socialize and network and enjoy each other's company in an informal setting. Everybody is welcome! Special guests: L. F. Abbott, K. T. Blackwell, G. T. Einevoll, K. D. Harris, P. E. Latham, H. Markram, A. Prinz, E. de Schutter, F. K. Skinner, A. J. Yu Time: Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 6:45 PM-8:45 PM Location: Hilton Riverside: Versailles, New Orleans Hope to see you all at the social! Hermann Dr. Hermann Cuntz Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Goethe-University Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, D-60590 Frankfurt/Main, Germany Tel. ++49 (0) 69 / 6301 - 87127 E-Mail hermann.neuro at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120926/a9688a03/attachment-0001.html From rish at us.ibm.com Tue Sep 25 10:29:34 2012 From: rish at us.ibm.com (Irina Rish) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:29:34 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline extended: MLINI-2012: 2nd workshop on Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging at NIPS-2012 Message-ID: Call for Papers MLINI-2012: 2nd Workshop on Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging at NIPS-2012 https://sites.google.com/site/nipsmlini2012/ December 7-8, 2012, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, United States Submission deadline (extended): October 8, 2012 Workshop Overview: ------------------------ MLINI is a two day workshop on the topic of machine learning approaches in neuroscience and neuroimaging. We believe that both machine learning and neuroimaging can learn from each other as the two communities overlap and enter an intense exchange of ideas and research questions. Methodological developments in machine learning spurn novel paradigms in neuroimaging, while neuroscience motivates methodological advances in computational analysis. In this context many controversies and open questions exist. The goal of the workshop is to pinpoint these issues, sketch future directions, and tackle open questions in the light of novel methodology. The first workshop of this series at NIPS 2011 built upon earlier events in 2006 and 2008. Last year's workshop included many invited speakers, and was centered around two panel discussions, during which 2 questions were discussed: the interpretability of machine learning findings, and the shift of paradigms in the neuroscience community. The discussion was inspiring, and made clear, that there is a tremendous amount the two communities can learn from each other benefiting from communication across the disciplines. The aim of the 2nd MLINI workshop is to continue exploring important issues on the intersection of ML and neuroimaging and further promote cross- fertilization between these communities. Besides interpretation, and the shift of paradigms, many open questions remain. Among them: How suitable are MVPA and inference methods for brain mapping? How can we use these approaches for a flexible and useful representation of neuroimaging data? What is the role of decoding vs. embedded or separate feature selection? How can we assess the specificity and sensitivity? What can we accomplish with generative vs. discriminative modelling? Can and should the Machine Learning community provide a standard repertoire of methods for the Neuroimaging community to use (e.g. in choosing a classifier)? Workshop Format: -------------------------- In this two-day workshop we will explore perspectives and novel methodology at the interface of Machine Learning, Inference, Neuroimaging and Neuroscience. We aim to bring researchers from machine learning and neuroscience community together, in order to discuss open questions, identify the core points for a number of the controversial issues, and eventually propose approaches to solving those issues. The workshop will be structured around the following main topics: - machine learning and pattern analysis methodology in neuroimaging - causal inference and interpretability in neuroimaging - evaluation of machine learning methods in light of clinical applications - linking machine learning methodology with neuroscience or neuroimaging questions Each session will be opened by 2-3 invited talks, and an in depth discussion. This will be followed by original contributions. Original contributions will also be presented and discussed during a poster session. The workshop will end with a panel discussion, during which we will address specific questions, and invited speakers will open each segment with a brief presentation of their opinion. This workshop proposal is part of the PASCAL2 Thematic Programme on Cognitive Inference and Neuroimaging ( http://mlin.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/ ). Paper Submission: -------------------------- We seek for submission of original (previously unpublished) research papers. The length of the submitted papers should not exceed 8 pages in Springer format, excluding the references (LaTeX2e style files are available on the workshop page). Submission of previously published work is possible as well, but the authors are required to mention this explicitly. Previously published work can be presented at the workshop, but will not be included into the workshop proceedings (which are considered peer- reviewed publications of novel contributions). Moreover, the authors are welcome to present their novel work but choose to opt out of the workshop proceedings in case they have alternative publication plans. Important dates: -------------------------- - October 1, 2012 - paper submission - October 15, 2012 - notification of acceptance/rejection - December 7-8, 2012 - Workshop in Lake Tahoe, Nevada US, following the NIPS conference Invited Speakers: -------------------------- Jack Gallant (UC Berkeley) Bertrand Thirion (INRIA, Neurospin) Jean-Baptiste Poline (Neurospin) Mert Sabuncu (MGH, Harvard Medical School) (more to be confirmed) Organizing Committee: -------------------------- Guillermo Cecchi (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) Kai-min Kevin Chang (Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University) Moritz Grosse-Wentrup (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, T?bingen, Germany) Georg Langs (Medical University of Vienna, CSAIL, MIT) Bjoern Menze (ETH Zuerich, CSAIL, MIT) Brian Murphy (Machine Learning Department, Carngie Mellon University) Irina Rish (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120925/613a3a4f/attachment.html From akozlov at nada.kth.se Thu Sep 27 03:32:05 2012 From: akozlov at nada.kth.se (Alexander Kozlov) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:32:05 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: PhD-Positions in Computational Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics The Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Program "EuroSPIN" (European Study Programme in Neuroinformatics) is inviting applications from students having a solid background in mathematics, physics, computer sciences, biochemistry or neuroscience (on a master level or equivalent), in all cases with computer science skills. Documented interest in research like activities (e.g. demonstrated in the form of master thesis work, or participation in research related activities) is of large importance. Also fluency in English is requested. Four partners participate: Bernstein Center Freiburg, Germany KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden National Centre for Biological Science, India University of Edinburgh (UoE), UK They are all research leaders in the Neuroinformatics field, but they have complementary strengths. Each student will spend most of the time at two of the partner universities, and also receive a joint (or double) PhD degree following a successful completion of the studies. The mobility periods, as well as the courses a student will follow, are tailored individually based on: a) the PhD students background; b) which constellations of partners that are involved, as well as c) the specific research project. During the PhD period each student has one main supervisor from each of the two universities that grant the PhD degree. There are excellent scholarship opportunities for students accepted to an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate programme. An employment contract will be given to all selected PhD students during the study time, which is 4 years. If you are interested, go to our webpage: http://www.kth.se/eurospin/ Deadline for Application (both EU and non-EU students): 30 Nov 2012. From laurent.perrinet at univ-amu.fr Thu Sep 27 03:48:03 2012 From: laurent.perrinet at univ-amu.fr (Laurent Perrinet) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:48:03 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Two postdoctoral positions open on motion integration by V1 population Message-ID: <4F511649-0E59-4138-AFAB-B48E1EF2E846@univ-amu.fr> TWO POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS OPEN ON MOTION INTEGRATION BY V1 POPULATION Location Marseille (France) Starting date oct-dec 2012 Duration 2 years (1+1) Net salary ranges between ~1,800 Euros and 2,400 Euros per month, commensurate with experience. Description Applications are invited for two postdoctoral positions at the "Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone" (team "Inference and Visual Behavior"), CNRS, Marseille (France) to study object motion integration and representation at the level of V1 populations: One in physiology, with Frederic Chavane, will focus on the role of propagation and diffusion of activity at the level of neuronal population in V1 of awake monkeys (using Voltage-sensitive dye imaging and UTAH array recording). The applicant must have a PhD in Neuroscience and a strong background in programming (Matlab, Python). Experience in behaving animals or prior experience in visual physiology will be an advantage but is not mandatory. The second in modeling, with Laurent Perrinet, will implement anisotropic diffusive processes, such as observed in V1, at the functional and neural levels. The applicant must have a PhD, prior experience in modeling and a strong background in mathematics & programming (Python). Experience or interest in visual processing and experimentation will be an advantage but is not mandatory. The two applications are independent but the successful candidates will be encouraged to work in synergy. Applications should be sent to Frederic Chavane ( frederic.chavane at univ-amu.fr ) or Laurent Perrinet ( Laurent.Perrinet at univ-amu.fr ), and include a detailed CV including publication list, a brief statement about research interests, and contact information for 2 references. Applications will be considered until the position is filled. Informal inquiries can also be made at any time to the same e-mail addresses. Context This grant is funded by a large European integrated project called "BrainScales" whose aim is to understand brain information processing at multiple spatial and temporal scales. The successful applicants will have the opportunity to interact with a large and exciting consortium composed of 18 europeans teams working in biology, modeling and hardware. Our team just moved to a new Institute within an entirely renovated building at the medical campus of the Timone with brand-new animal, surgery and experimental facilities along with a high-performance computing cluster. The team is composed of 8 P.I., 7 Ph.D., 7 Post-Docs and 3 clinicians covering a large span of expertise in visual and visuo-motor processing, using psychophysics, neurophysiology and modeling approaches. Importantly, the Institute concentrates one of the largest expertise in behaving monkey in Europe with 8 P.I. working in vision, but also motor control and motivational processes. Marseille is a major french town by the mediterranean sea with a lively atmosphere and cultural life. References Reynaud A., Masson G. S. and Chavane F. Dynamics of Local Input Normalization Result from Balanced Short- and Long-Range Intracortical Interactions in Area V1 Journal of Neuroscience, 2012, 32(36): 12558-12569 Reynaud A., Takerkart S, Masson G. S. and Chavane F. Linear model decomposition for voltage-sensitive dye imaging signals: Application in awake behaving monkey. Neuroimage, 2011, 54(2), 1196?1210 Perrinet, L. and Masson G. Motion-based prediction is sufficient to solve the aperture problem Neural Computation, 2012 Masson G. and Perrinet L. The behavioral receptive field underlying motion integration for primate tracking eye movements Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2012. http://invibe.net/LaurentPerrinet/PostDoctoralPosition -- Laurent Perrinet INT (UMR 7289) / CNRS - Aix-Marseille University http://invibe.net/LaurentPerrinet -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120927/92dec3fe/attachment.html From fhamker at uni-muenster.de Thu Sep 27 03:47:06 2012 From: fhamker at uni-muenster.de (Fred Hamker) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:47:06 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Research Position in Computational Neuroscience (Basal Ganglia Models) Message-ID: <83E09832-483B-48B2-8D7A-AAFEFD453A1E@uni-muenster.de> Research Position in Computational Neuroscience (Basal Ganglia Models) The position is available at Chemnitz University of Technology in the Department of Computer Science. We preferably seek for a PostDoc, but PhD students might also be considered. The position is for three years, starting as soon as possible. Interviewing at the next SfN meeting in New Orleans is possible. The research position is funded from a German-Japanese Grant (DFG) in Computational Neuroscience and focuses on the function and role of Basal Ganglia pathways. We collaborate with Atsushi Nambu (National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan) who will do recordings in monkey Basal Ganglia and with Andrea K?hn (Charit? Berlin, Germany) who will collect patient data relevant to Basal Ganglia dysfunction. The goal in our project is to elucidate the role and function of Basal Ganglia pathways by developing a detailed model of basal ganglia with respect to neural spiking dynamics, anatomical connectivity within and in between basal ganglia nuclei, as well as neural plasticity. Please see references to previous work of more abstract, functional models of Basal Ganglia pathways below. The work will include a strong interaction with our partners Atsushi Nambu and with Andrea K?hn. The ideal candidate should have prior experience in computational neuroscience and sufficient programming experience. The salary is according to German standards (E 13 TV-L), PhD (E 13 TV-L, 50%). The university is an equal opportunity employer. Women are encouraged to apply. Disabled applicants will receive priority in case they have equal qualifications. Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the state of Saxony and close to scenic mountains. Major cities nearby are Leipzig and Dresden with a rich tradition of music and culture. Applications should be sent by email (preferably in PDF format) to (fred.hamker at informatik.tu-chemnitz.de) as soon as possible. Applications will be considered until the position is filled. Previous work on Basal Ganglia: Schroll, H, Vitay, J, Hamker, F.H. (2012) Working memory and response selection: A computational account of interactions among cortico-basal ganglio-thalamic loops. Neural Networks, 26:59-74. Vitay, J., Hamker, F. H. (2010) A computational model of the influence of basal ganglia on memory retrieval in rewarded visual memory tasks. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, Volume 4, Article 13. -------------------- Prof. Dr. Fred H Hamker Artificial Intelligence & Neuro Cognitive Systems Department of Computer Science Chemnitz University of Technology Strasse der Nationen 62 D - 09107 Chemnitz Germany Tel: +49 (0)371 531-37875 Fax: +49 (0)371 531-25739 email: fred.hamker at informatik.tu-chemnitz.de www: http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/informatik/KI/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120927/dfffdff4/attachment-0001.html From P.J.Lisboa at ljmu.ac.uk Thu Sep 27 05:56:36 2012 From: P.J.Lisboa at ljmu.ac.uk (Lisboa, Paulo) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:56:36 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Special session at ESANN 2013: Sparsity for interpretation and visualization in inference models In-Reply-To: <5063F49E.7000001@esat.kuleuven.be> References: <5063F49E.7000001@esat.kuleuven.be> Message-ID: <4A16DE0A294AED4F8E0F9C9FC592A60933906B5D@EXMB1.jmu.ac.uk> Dear colleagues, The following special session may be of interest. It focuses on sparsity mechanisms to enhance interpretability/transparency of advanced mathematical models. Kind regards, Paulo Lisboa, Vanya Van Belle Special session proposal at the 21th ESANN European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning Bruges (Belgium), 24 - 26 April 2013 www.esann.org Sparsity for interpretation and visualization in inference models Vanya Van Belle, (1,2), Paulo Lisboa, (2), (1) KU Leuven (Belgium), (2) Liverpool John Moores University (UK) Machine learning methods have proved to be very flexible and generalizing methods for classification and regression purposes. A drawback of these methods is their intrinsic black-box nature resulting in a lack of transparency of the predictions and decisions. In order to extend the use of artificial neural networks and machine learning methods to application domains where visualization and interpretation of decision models are considered to be superior to maximal performance, adaptations to enable the derivation of insights into the decision process are necessary. This special session focuses on the use of sparsity mechanisms to improve interpretability, transparency and visualization of methods. Contributions involve, but or not restricted to, the following topics: - Feature selection limited to interpretation and visualization - Sparsity in dual space leading to interpretability - Inference with prototypes - Compact representation of models, e.g. nomograms - Data visualization - p-norm regularization suitable for interpretation - Low rank approximations suitable for interpretation - Applications to real-world data Deadline ________________________________ Prospective authors are invited to submit their contributions before 30 November 2012. ________________________________ Important Notice: the information in this email and any attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not an intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to an intended recipient, you should delete it from your system immediately without disclosing its contents elsewhere and advise the sender by returning the email or by telephoning a number contained in the body of the email. No responsibility is accepted for loss or damage arising from viruses or changes made to this message after it was sent. The views contained in this email are those of the author and not necessarily those of Liverpool John Moores University. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120927/ebb7d0cd/attachment.html From tjung at ulg.ac.be Fri Sep 28 12:51:57 2012 From: tjung at ulg.ac.be (tjung@ulg.ac.be) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 18:51:57 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: Final CFP: NIPS 2012 Workshop on Information in Perception and Action In-Reply-To: <176132415.1257488.1346414515862.JavaMail.root@serv224.segi.ulg.ac.be> Message-ID: <180073354.1492359.1348851117810.JavaMail.root@serv224.segi.ulg.ac.be> //////////////////////////////////////////////////////// INFORMATION IN PERCEPTION AND ACTION NIPS 2012 WORKSHOP December 7, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, United States //////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Description ----------- Since its inception for describing the laws of communication in the 1940's, information theory has been considered in fields beyond its original application area and, in particular, it was long attempted to utilize it for the description of intelligent agents. Already Attneave (1954) and Barlow (1961) suspected that neural information processing might follow principles of information theory and Laughlin (1998) demonstrated that information processing comes at a high metabolic cost; this implies that there would be evolutionary pressure pushing organismic information processing towards the optimal levels of data throughput predicted by information theory. This becomes particularly interesting when one considers the whole perception-action cycle, including feedback. In the last decade, significant progress has been made in this direction, linking information theory and control. The ensuing insights allow to address a large range of fundamental questions pertaining not only to the perception-action cycle, but to general issues of intelligence, and allow to solve classical problems of AI and machine learning in a novel way. Call for Participation ---------------------- The workshop aims to present work on progress in AI, machine learning, control, as well as biologically plausible cognitive modeling that is based on information theory. We invite contributions for oral presentations that should fall in one of the following categories: - Information-theoretic methods for learning (including model learning, reinforcement learning, but also concept learning) - Information theory in control; relation with the statistical physics of control theory - Information theory in games; quantifying the value of information - Information-theoretic approaches towards general artificial intelligence, such as universal reward and utility structures (e.g., predictive information, empowerment, etc.); principled approaches towards goal and subgoal generation - Influence of "embodiment" on performance and structuring of cognitive tasks; emergence of concepts from agent-world interaction - Fundamental limits on information processing capabilities; minimal solutions for given tasks and optimal performance for constrained perception/actuation - Information- and entropy-based regularization and kernel techniques The submissions should be in the form of long (4-6 pages) or short (1/2-1 page) abstracts. Timely and novel work will be particularly considered, but also more mature work may be contributed---please indicate which one you aim for. The abstracts will be placed on the workshop website. Submissions in PDF (NIPS format) should be emailed to tjung at ulg.ac.be with the subject line "NIPS 2012 Workshop Submission" no later than October 3rd, 2012. The notification of acceptance will be sent out on October 7th, 2012. All accepted submissions will have the opportunity for oral presentation, and ample opportunity for discussion is integrated in the workshop. Important Dates --------------- October 3, 2012: Submission October 7, 2012: Notification December 7, 2012: NIPS Workshop Organizers ---------- Naftali Tishby, Hebrew University, Israel Daniel Polani, University of Hertfordshire, UK Tobias Jung, University of Liege, Belgium Web --- http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~tjung/nips12workshop From gaute.einevoll at umb.no Sat Sep 29 11:55:38 2012 From: gaute.einevoll at umb.no (Gaute Einevoll) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 15:55:38 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in Computational Neuroscience in Norway Message-ID: <50AADEA29903F5469B8A51DA48B9D496147DF6D7@A-EXCH-MBX2.ans.umb.no> POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE IN NORWAY Would you like to pursue exciting research in computational neuroscience? Then you should consider applying for a full-time limited-term position as postdoctoral researcher (code 1352) in the Computational Neuroscience Group at the Department of Mathematical Sciences and Technology of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) at Aas, just outside Oslo, the capital of Norway. The position is a part of, and financed by, the research project "Multiscale physics on the computer: A Norwegian network". This project is funded by the Research Council of Norway and involves collaboration with physicists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and the University of Oslo on developing computational physics in Norway. The position is limited to three years and expected starting date is early winter 2013. In the research project you will use a biophysical computational modeling scheme to investigate the neural origin of electrical brain signals recorded from humans such as the local field potential (LFP), EEG, and MEG. Results from these calculations will be used to develop novel physics-based analysis methods for human LFP recordings provided by the collaborating labs of Dr. Sydney Cash at Harvard-MGH in Boston and professor Eric Halgren at UCSD in San Diego. The calculations will involve detailed models of human nerve cells with anatomically reconstructed dendritic morphologies and use of the NEURON simulator (http://www.neuron.yale.edu) within our LFPy Python package (http://compneuro.umb.no/LFPy). For an example of such modeling, see Linden et al., Neuron 72, 859-872 (2011). The computational neuroscience group at UMB presently consists of four permanent faculty members (Einevoll, Plesser, Wyller, Indahl), four post-docs, five PhD-students and a scientific software developer. We are co-localized and closely interacting with other computational biologists on campus who focus on modeling of heart function and the genotype-phenotype link, and we are also host of the Research School in Systems Biology. As a member of the NEST Initiative, we are strongly involved in developing leading-edge simulation software. We enjoy access to the Norwegian national scientific high-performance computing resources (http://www.notur.no/). For information on our group, see compneuro.umb.no. As part of the overall research project, our group will organize a national course in computational neuroscience, and you are expected to contribute in the preparation and teaching of this course. To qualify for the position, you must have a PhD in either computational neuroscience or physics with a significant theoretical/computational component. Documented skills in implementation of scientific software, preferably in Python, are essential for the position. Experience in neuroscience is considered an asset. Women are currently underrepresented in our group and are especially encouraged to apply. If two or more applicants are considered to be equally qualified for the position, and at least one of them is a woman, the woman will be employed. The position is financed through the research project "Multiscale physics on the computer: A Norwegian network" funded by the Research Council of Norway and is limited to three years. Start date is as early as possible. The contract period will be extended in case of parental leave. Starting salary is at state salary level 57 (currently NOK 468.400). A higher starting salary is negotiable for applicants with significant relevant job experience, up to state salary level 60 (currently NOK 493.900). Please submit your application via the webpage http://www.jobbnorge.no/job.aspx?jobid=86930&uid=1&reset=1 (use link "Apply for this job" on top of this web page) by October 28th, 2012. Applications should include (electronically) a letter of intent, curriculum vitae, full publication list, copies of degree certificates and transcripts of academic records (all certified), and a list of two persons who may act as references (with phone numbers and e-mail addresses). Your most relevant (up to five) publications should be included electronically within the application deadline. All applications will be reviewed by a scientific evaluation committee. The committee's report and recommendation will be made available to all applicants before selected applicants will be invited for trial lectures and interviews. Please contact Professor Gaute T. Einevoll (gaute.einevoll at umb.no) for further information. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Gaute T. Einevoll Department of Mathematical Sciences and Technology Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 1432 Aas, Norway ph. +47-64965433, mobile: +47-95124536 email: Gaute.Einevoll at umb.no, web: compneuro.umb.no, arken.umb.no/~gautei private address: Utsiktsveien 22A, 1369 Stabekk, Norway From rish at us.ibm.com Sat Sep 29 21:48:51 2012 From: rish at us.ibm.com (Irina Rish) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 21:48:51 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Final CFP (updated): MLINI-2012: 2nd Workshop on Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging at NIPS-2012 Message-ID: Call for Papers MLINI-2012: 2nd Workshop on Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging at NIPS-2012 https://sites.google.com/site/nipsmlini2012/ December 7-8, 2012, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, United States Submission deadline (extended): October 8, 2012 Workshop Overview: ------------------------ MLINI is a two day workshop on the topic of machine learning approaches in neuroscience and neuroimaging. We believe that both machine learning and neuroimaging can learn from each other as the two communities overlap and enter an intense exchange of ideas and research questions. Methodological developments in machine learning spurn novel paradigms in neuroimaging, while neuroscience motivates methodological advances in computational analysis. In this context many controversies and open questions exist. The goal of the workshop is to pinpoint these issues, sketch future directions, and tackle open questions in the light of novel methodology. The first workshop of this series at NIPS 2011 built upon earlier events in 2006 and 2008. Last year's workshop included many invited speakers, and was centered around two panel discussions, during which 2 questions were discussed: the interpretability of machine learning findings, and the shift of paradigms in the neuroscience community. The discussion was inspiring, and made clear, that there is a tremendous amount the two communities can learn from each other benefiting from communication across the disciplines. The aim of the 2nd MLINI workshop is to continue exploring important issues on the intersection of ML and neuroimaging and further promote cross- fertilization between these communities. Besides interpretation, and the shift of paradigms, many open questions remain. Among them: How suitable are MVPA and inference methods for brain mapping? How can we use these approaches for a flexible and useful representation of neuroimaging data? What is the role of decoding vs. embedded or separate feature selection? How can we assess the specificity and sensitivity? What can we accomplish with generative vs. discriminative modelling? Can and should the Machine Learning community provide a standard repertoire of methods for the Neuroimaging community to use (e.g. in choosing a classifier)? Workshop Format: -------------------------- In this two-day workshop we will explore perspectives and novel methodology at the interface of Machine Learning, Inference, Neuroimaging and Neuroscience. We aim to bring researchers from machine learning and neuroscience community together, in order to discuss open questions, identify the core points for a number of the controversial issues, and eventually propose approaches to solving those issues. The workshop will be structured around the following main topics: - machine learning and pattern analysis methodology in neuroimaging - causal inference and interpretability in neuroimaging - evaluation of machine learning methods in light of clinical applications - linking machine learning methodology with neuroscience or neuroimaging questions Each session will be opened by 2-3 invited talks, and an in depth discussion. This will be followed by original contributions. Original contributions will also be presented and discussed during a poster session. The workshop will end with a panel discussion, during which we will address specific questions, and invited speakers will open each segment with a brief presentation of their opinion. This workshop proposal is part of the PASCAL2 Thematic Programme on Cognitive Inference and Neuroimaging (http://mlin.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/). Paper Submission: -------------------------- We seek for submission of original (previously unpublished) research papers. The length of the submitted papers should not exceed 6 pages in Springer format, excluding the references (LaTeX2e style files are available on the workshop page). Submission of previously published work is possible as well, but the authors are required to mention this explicitly. Previously published work can be presented at the workshop, but will not be included into the workshop proceedings (which are considered peer- reviewed publications of novel contributions). Moreover, the authors are welcome to present their novel work but choose to opt out of the workshop proceedings in case they have alternative publication plans. Important dates: -------------------------- - October 1, 2012 - paper submission - October 15, 2012 - notification of acceptance/rejection - December 7-8, 2012 - Workshop in Lake Tahoe, Nevada US, following the NIPS conference Invited Speakers: -------------------------- Jack Gallant (UC Berkeley) Bertrand Thirion (INRIA, Neurospin) Jean-Baptiste Poline (Neurospin) Mert Sabuncu (MGH, Harvard Medical School) (more to be confirmed) Organizing Committee: -------------------------- Guillermo Cecchi (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) Kai-min Kevin Chang (Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University) Moritz Grosse-Wentrup (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, T?bingen, Germany) Georg Langs (Medical University of Vienna, CSAIL, MIT) Bjoern Menze (ETH Zuerich, CSAIL, MIT) Brian Murphy (Machine Learning Department, Carngie Mellon University) Irina Rish (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/mailman/private/connectionists/attachments/20120929/864b0ec8/attachment.html