From alla.borisyuk at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 14:11:39 2013 From: alla.borisyuk at gmail.com (Alla Borisyuk) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 12:11:39 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: CNS-2013: first announcement; NEW REGISTRATION RULES In-Reply-To: References: <1829035934.136110.1356978342180.JavaMail.mcapp@membe1-vmapp15.inetuhosted.net> Message-ID: Organization for Computational Neurosciences (OCNS) 22nd Annual Meeting University of Paris ?Ren? Descartes?, Paris, France July 2013 The main meeting (July 14 ? 16, 2013) will be preceded by a day of tutorials (July 13) and followed by two days of workshops (July 17 ?18). Conference banquet will be held in the Mus?e des Arts-Forains on July 15 Confirmed Invited Speakers: Sophie Den?ve (ENS-Paris) Simon Laughlin (University of Cambridge) Nikos Logothetis (Max Planck Institute T?bingen) Rafael Yuste (Columbia University) Abstract submission and registration will open January 15, 2013. For up-to-date conference information, visit http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2013-paris NEW!!!! Please note that the registration procedure has changed this year. It is now required that the presenting author registers for the meeting BEFORE submitting an abstract. In the case that the abstract is not accepted for presentation, the registration fee will be refunded. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OCNS is the international member-based society for computational neuroscientists. Become a member to be eligible for travel awards and more. Visit our website for more information: http://www.cnsorg.org From iyildirim at bcs.rochester.edu Wed Jan 2 11:29:55 2013 From: iyildirim at bcs.rochester.edu (Ilker Yildirim) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:29:55 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: See & Grasp: A Visual Haptic Data Set Message-ID: <50E46083.5080806@bcs.rochester.edu> SEE & GRASP DATA SET See & Grasp data set is a data set containing visual and haptic features for a set of 40 Fribbles. Fribbles are complex, 3-D objects with multiple parts and spatial relations among the parts. Moreover, Fribbles have a categorical structure---that is, each Fribble is an exemplar from a category formed by perturbing a category prototype. The unmodified 3-D object files for the whole set of Fribbles can be found on Mike Tarr's (Dept. of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University) web pages. We slightly modified these object files so that the connections among parts would be stronger. An innovative aspect of our work is that we have obtained physical copies of Fribbles fabricated using an extremely high-resolution 3-D printing process. The See & Grasp data set is based upon this visual and physical copies of Fribbles. We are sharing our data set in the hope that it will become a major resource to the cognitive science and computer science communities interested in perception. The data set is available at the following web page: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/jacobslab/dataset.html The visual features for each Fribble consist of the pixel values for a 2-D canonical projection. The data set includes the 3-D computer models for each Fribble so that researchers can obtain 2-D projections from whichever angle they prefer. The haptic features consist of joint angles of a 16 DOF human hand model at the time of a stable grasp simulated by the grasping simulator GraspIt! (Miller & Allen, 2004). Please cite the following paper in relation to the See & Grasp data set. Yildirim, I. & Jacobs, R. A. (2013). Transfer of object category knowledge across visual and haptic modalities: Experimental and computational studies. Cognition, 126, 135-148. Citation for GraspIt!: Miller, A., & Allen, P. K. (2004). Graspit!: A versatile simulator for robotic grasping. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 11, 110?122. From cie.conference.series at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 20:17:01 2013 From: cie.conference.series at gmail.com (CiE Conference Series) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 01:17:01 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CiE13 call for papers and special awards Message-ID: ************************************************************************ CALL FOR PAPERS AND SPECIAL AWARDS: ??????????????????CiE 2013: The Nature of Computation ????????????????????Logic, Algorithms, Applications ?????????????????????????????Milan, Italy ??????????????????????????July ?1 - 5, 2013 ????????????????????http://cie2013.disco.unimib.it IMPORTANT DATES: Submission Deadline for LNCS: ??????????????????20 January 2013 Notification of authors: ???????????????????????4 March 2013 Deadline for final revisions: ??????????????????1 April 2013 CiE 2013 is the ninth conference organised by CiE (Computability in Europe), a European association of mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, philosophers, physicists and others interested in new developments in computability and their underlying significance for the real world. Previous meetings have taken place in Amsterdam (2005), Swansea (2006), Siena (2007), Athens (2008), Heidelberg (2009), Ponte Dalgada (2010), Sofia (2011) and Cambridge (2012). The Nature of Computation is meant to emphasize the special focus of CIE13 on the unexpected and strong changes that studies on Nature have brought in several areas of mathematics, physics, and computer science. Starting from Alan Turing, research on Nature with a computational perspective has produced novel contributions, giving rise even to new disciplines. AWARDS: Springer-Verlag has graciously funded two awards that will be given during the CiE 2013 Conference. Best student paper This prize will be awarded for the best student paper presented at CiE 2013, as judged by the Program Committee. A prize of 500 Euros will be given to the author(s) of the best student-authored paper (or split between more than one paper if there is a tie). In order to be considered, a paper has to be submitted in the category 'Regular paper (eligible for best student paper award)' on EasyChair. Papers are eligible if all of its authors are full-time students at the time of submission. Best paper on Natural Computing The prize consists of the four volumes of the Handbook of Natural Computing (see http://cie2013.disco.unimib.it/awards/). This prize will be awarded to the best paper on Natural Computing presented at CiE 2013, as judged by the Program Committee. A paper is eligible if its main topic falls within the scope of Natural Computing, roughly defined as the set of fields studied in the above handbook. The Program Committee is the only judge of the relevance of a paper within the Natural Computing scope. The authors of a paper eligible for the award must indicate this in the submission notes. INVITED SPEAKERS Ulle Endriss (University of Amsterdam) Lance Fortnow (Georgia Institute of Technology) Anna Karlin (University of Washington) Bernard Moret (Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne) Mariya Soskova (Sofia University) Endre Szemer?di (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Rutgers University) TUTORIAL SPEAKERS Gilles Brassard (Universit? de Montr?al) Grzegorz Rozenberg (Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science and University of Colorado at Boulder) SPECIAL SESSIONS on Algorithmic Randomness ?????????organizers: Mathieu Hoyrup, Andre Nies Data Streams and Compression ?????????organizers: Paolo Ferragina, Andrew McGregor Computational Complexity in the Continuous World ?????????organizers: Akitoshi Kawamura, Robert Rettinger Computational Molecular Biology ?????????organizers: Alessandra Carbone, Jens Stoye Computation in Nature ?????????organizers: Mark Delay, Natasha Jonoska History of Computation ?????????organizers: Gerard Alberts, Liesbeth De Mol PROGRAM COMMITTEE: * Gerard Alberts (Amsterdam) * Lu?s Antunes (Porto) * Arnold Beckmann (Swansea) * Laurent Bienvenu (Paris) * Paola Bonizzoni (Milan, co-chair) * Vasco Brattka (Munich and Cape Town, co-chair) * Cameron Buckner (Houston TX) * Bruno Codenotti (Pisa) * Stephen Cook (Toronto ON) * Barry Cooper (Leeds) * Ann Copestake (Cambridge) * Erzs?bet Csuhaj-Varj? (Budapest) * Anuj Dawar (Cambridge) * Gianluca Della Vedova (Milan) * Liesbeth De Mol (Gent) * J?r?me Durand-Lose (Orl?ans) * Viv Kendon (Leeds) * Bj?rn Kjos-Hanssen (Honolulu, HI) * Antonina Kolokolova (St. John?s NF) * Benedikt L?we (Amsterdam) * Giancarlo Mauri (Milan) * Rolf Niedermeier (Berlin) * Geoffrey Pullum (Edinburgh) * Nicole Schweikardt (Frankfurt) * Sonja Smets (Amsterdam) * Susan Stepney (York) * S. P. Suresh (Chennai) * Peter van Emde Boas (Amsterdam) The PROGRAMME COMMITTEE cordially invites all researchers (European and non-European) in computability related areas to submit their papers (in PDF format, max 10 pages using the LNCS style) for presentation at CiE 2013. The submission sitehttps://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2013 is open. We particularly invite papers that build bridges between different parts of the research community. The CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS will be published by LNCS, Springer Verlag. Contact: Paola Bonizzoni - bonizzoni at disco.unimib.it Website: http://cie2013.disco.unimib.it ************************************************************************ From bowlby at bu.edu Thu Jan 3 10:12:11 2013 From: bowlby at bu.edu (Brian Bowlby) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 10:12:11 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 17th ICCNS conference: Call for Abstracts (February 28 contributed abstract submission deadline) Message-ID: <028BB0C4-0917-4B58-8B53-D02DE64D6536@bu.edu> SEVENTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS June 4 ? 7, 2013 Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA http://cns.bu.edu/cns-meeting/conference.html Sponsored by the Boston University Center for Adaptive Systems, Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet), and Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (CELEST) with financial support from the National Science Foundation, pending final approval This interdisciplinary conference is attended each year by approximately 300 people from 30 countries around the world. As in previous years, the conference will focus on solutions to the questions: HOW DOES THE BRAIN CONTROL BEHAVIOR? HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY EMULATE BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE? The conference is aimed at researchers and students of computational neuroscience, cognitive science, neural networks, neuromorphic engineering, and artificial intelligence. It includes invited lectures and contributed lectures and posters by experts on the biology and technology of how the brain and other intelligent systems adapt to a changing world. The conference is particularly interested in exploring how the brain and biologically-inspired algorithms and systems in engineering and technology can learn. Single-track oral and poster sessions enable all presented work to be highly visible. Three-hour poster sessions with no conflicting events will be held on two of the conference days. Posters will be up all day, and can also be viewed during breaks in the talk schedule. CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS Todd Braver (Washington University) Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control: Influences on reward-based decision-making Marisa Carrasco (New York University) Effects of attention on early vision Robert Desimone [Plenary Speaker] (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Prefrontal-visual cortex interactions in attention Azir Ghazanfar (Princeton University) Evolving and developing communication through coupled oscillations Stephen Grossberg (Boston University) Behavioral economics and neuroeconomics: Cooperation, competition, preference, and decision-making Joy Hirsch (Columbia University) Neural circuits for conflict resolution Roberta Klatzky (Carnegie Mellon University) Multi-modal interactions within and between senses Kevin LaBar (Duke University) Neural systems for fear generalization Randi Martin (Rice University) Memory retrieval and interference during language comprehension Andrew Meltzoff (University of Washington) How to build a baby with social cognition: Accelerating learning by generalizing across self and other Earl Miller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Brain rhythms and cognition Javier Movellan (University of California, San Diego) Optimal control approaches to the analysis and synthesis of social behavior Mary Potter (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Recognizing briefly presented pictures: Feedforward processing? Pieter Roelfsema (The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience) Neuronal mechanisms for perceptual organization Daniel Salzman (Columbia University) Cognitive signals in the amygdala Daniel Schacter [Plenary Speaker] (Harvard University) Constructive memory and imagining the future Wolfram Schultz (University of Cambridge) Neuronal reward and risk signals Helen Tager-Flusberg (Boston University) Identifying early neurobiological risk markers for autism spectrum disorder in the first year of life Jan Theeuwes (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Prior history shapes selection James Todd (Ohio State University) The perception of 3D shape from texture Leslie Ungerlieder (National Institutes of Health) Functional architecture for face processing in the primate brain Jeremy Wolfe (Brigham and Women's Hospital) How selective and non-selective pathways contribute to visual search in scenes CALL FOR ABSTRACTS Session Topics: * vision * object recognition * image understanding * neural circuit models * audition * neural system models * speech and language * mathematics of neural systems * unsupervised learning * robotics * supervised learning * hybrid systems (fuzzy, evolutionary, digital) * reinforcement and emotion * neuromorphic VLSI * sensory-motor control * industrial applications * cognition, planning, and attention * other * spatial mapping and navigation Contributed abstracts must be received, in English, by February 28, 2013. Email notification of acceptance will be provided by March 15, 2013. Abstracts must not exceed one 8.5"x11" page in length, with 1" margins on top, bottom, and both sides in a single-column format with a font of 10 points or larger. The title, authors, affiliations, surface, and email addresses should begin each abstract. A separate cover letter should include the abstract title; name and contact information for corresponding and presenting authors; requested preference for oral or poster presentation; and a first and second choice from the topics above, including whether it is biological (B) or technological (T) work [Example: first choice: vision (T); second choice: neural system models (B)]. Contributed talks will be 15 minutes long. Posters will be displayed for a full day. Overhead and computer projector facilities will be available for talks. Copies of the accepted abstracts will be provided electronically to all registered conference participants. No extended paper will be required. A meeting registration fee must accompany each abstract. The fee will be refunded if the abstract is not accepted for presentation. Fees of accepted abstracts will be returned upon written request only until April 30, 2013. Abstracts, cover letters, and completed registration forms with fee payment information should be submitted electronically to cindy at bu.edu using the phrase ?17th ICCNS abstract submission? in the subject line. Fax submissions of the abstract page will not be accepted. Fax or surface mail submissions of the registration form are acceptable (to Cynthia Bradford, using the contact information shown on the registration form below). Student registrations must be accompanied by a letter of verification from a department chairperson or faculty/research advisor. Postdoctoral fellows and faculty members should register at the regular rate. REGISTRATION FORM Seventeenth International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems June 4 ? 7, 2013 Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA Fax: +1 617 353 7755 Mr/Ms/Dr/Prof:_____________________________________________________ Affiliation:_________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________ City, State, Postal Code:______________________________________________ Phone and Fax:_____________________________________________________ Email:____________________________________________________________ The registration fee includes a conference reception and multiple daily coffee breaks. CHECK ONE: ( ) $135 Conference (Regular) ( ) $85 Conference (Student) METHOD OF PAYMENT: [ ] Enclosed is a check made payable to "Boston University" Checks must be made payable in US dollars and issued by a US correspondent bank. Each registrant is responsible for any and all bank charges. [ ] I wish to pay by credit card (MasterCard, Visa, or Discover Card only) Name as it appears on the card:___________________________________________ Type of card: _____________________________ Expiration date:________________ Account number: _______________________________________________________ Signature:____________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: brochure.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 22569 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mepalmer at charles.stanford.edu Thu Jan 3 01:17:35 2013 From: mepalmer at charles.stanford.edu (Michael E. Palmer) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:17:35 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track at GECCO 2013 Message-ID: <50E5227F.8060108@charles.stanford.edu> ************************************************************************* *** CALL FOR PAPERS *** 2013 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE (GECCO-2013) *** Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) Track *** July 06-10, 2013, Amsterdam, The Netherlands *** Organized by ACM SIGEVO *** http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013 ************************************************************************* We invite you to submit your paper to the Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track at GECCO 2013. The focus of the GDS track is making artificially evolved systems scale to high complexity, with work ranging from biologically inspired approaches to automated engineering design. Each paper submitted to the GDS Track will be reviewed by experts in the field. The size and prestige of the GECCO conference will allow many researchers to learn about your work, both at the conference and via the proceedings (GECCO has the highest impact rating of all conferences in the field of Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life). TRACK DESCRIPTION ----------------- The continuing growth in systems' size and complexity has rendered the engineering traditions of rigid top-down planning and control unsustainable. Understanding the evolution of natural complex systems - large sets of elements interacting locally and giving rise to collective behavior ? can help create a new generation of truly autonomous and adaptive artificial systems. Biological evolution has produced the astounding complexity and diversity of living organisms based on random mutations, nonrandom selection and self-organization. The Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track seeks to unlock the full potential of "in silico" evolution as a design methodology that can scale to systems of great complexity. It aims to create complex and diverse artifacts that meet our specifications with minimal guidance and programming effort. Indirect and open-ended representations: Representing more than the information needed to produce a single individual, the genotype is a layered repository of many generations of evolutionary innovation, and is shaped by two requirements: to be fit in the short term, and to be evolvable over the long term through its influence on the production of variation. "Indirect representations" such as morphogenesis or string-rewriting grammars, which rely on developmental or generative processes, may allow long-term improvement via accumulated elaborations and emergent new features. "Direct representations" are not capable of open-ended elaboration because they are restricted to predefined features. Complex environments encourage complex phenotypes: While complex genotypes are not necessarily favored in simple environments, they may enable unprecedented phenotypes and behaviors that can later successfully invade new, uncrowded niches in complex environments ? which can create pressure toward increasing complexity. Many factors may affect environmental (hence genotypic) complexity, such as spatial structure, temporal fluctuations, or competitive co-evolution. More is more: Today's typical numbers of generations, sizes of populations, and components inside individuals are still too small. Just as physics needs higher-energy accelerators and farther-reaching telescopes to understand matter and space-time, evolutionary computation needs a strong boost in computational resolution and scope to understand the spontaneous generation of complex functionality. Biological evolution involved 4 billion years and untold numbers of organisms. We expect that datacenter-scale computing power will be applied in the future to produce artificially evolved artifacts of great complexity. How will we apply such resources most efficiently? Over 150 years after Darwin's and Mendel's work, and the subsequent "Modern Synthesis" of evolution and genetics, the developmental process that maps genotype to phenotype is still poorly understood. Yet, development cannot remain an abstraction if we wish to encourage open-ended evolutionary novelty in artificial systems. The GDS track at GECCO 2013 seeks to understand the full evolution-of-development ("evo-devo") picture. It stresses the importance of the generative and developmental processes that generate the raw material for selection; such representations are uniquely capable of producing ongoing, open-ended innovation. We invite all papers related to the evolution of complexity, including in the areas of: * artificial development, artificial embryogeny * evo-devo robotics, morphogenetic robotics * evolution of evolvability * gene regulatory networks * grammar-based systems, generative systems, rewriting systems * indirect mappings, compact encodings, novel representations * measures of complexity, theories of scalable design * morphogenetic engineering * neural development, neuroevolution, augmenting topologies * spatial computing, amorphous computing Additionally, papers in the following areas will be considered if they have a particular focus on representations and/or scaling to high complexity: * competitive co-evolution (arms races) * complex, spatially structured, and dynamically changing environments * diversity preservation, novelty search * large numbers of generations, individuals, and internal components * unconventional computing, natural computing, organic computing * synthetic biology, biological and chemical IT, artificial chemistry VENUE ----- The track and conference will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. IMPORTANT DATES --------------- * January 23, 2013 - Paper submission deadline (Historically, the GECCO conference chairs have granted a two week extension on the due date; please check the GECCO website for the final deadline.) * April 17, 2013 - Camera-ready version of accepted articles * July 06-10, 2013 - GECCO 2013 Conference in Amsterdam FOR MORE INFORMATION -------------------- More information on the GDS track is at: http://iscpif.fr/gds2013 and on the GECCO conference at: http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013 To submit your paper to the GDS track, visit http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013/papers.html We look forward to reading your paper. -- Michael Palmer, Ren? Doursat, and Joshua Bongard, GDS track chairs From romain.brette at ens.fr Thu Jan 3 11:24:46 2013 From: romain.brette at ens.fr (Romain Brette) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:24:46 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Handbook of Neural Activity Measurement Message-ID: <50E5B0CE.8050607@ens.fr> Dear all, It is my pleasure to announce the publication of the "Handbook of Neural Activity Measurement", edited by Romain Brette and Alain Destexhe, and published by Cambridge University Press. The book covers the mathematical and physical principles underlying neural measurement techniques, from intracellular recording to fMRI. It is available at the following url: http://www.cambridge.org/9780521516228 Summary of the book: "Neuroscientists employ many different techniques to observe the activity of the brain, from single-channel recording to functional imaging (fMRI). Many practical books explain how to use these techniques, but in order to extract meaningful information from the results it is necessary to understand the physical and mathematical principles underlying each measurement. This book covers an exhaustive range of techniques, with each chapter focusing on one in particular. Each author, a leading expert, explains exactly which quantity is being measured, the underlying principles at work, and most importantly the precise relationship between the signals measured and neural activity. The book is an important reference for neuroscientists who use these techniques in their own experimental protocols and need to interpret their results precisely; for computational neuroscientists who use such experimental results in their models; and for scientists who want to develop new measurement techniques or enhance existing ones." Table of contents: 1. Introduction. Romain Brette and Alain Destexhe 2. Electrodes. Thomas Stieglitz 3. Intracellular recording. Romain Brette and Alain Destexhe 4. Extracellular spikes and CSD. Klas H. Pettersen, Henrik Lind?n, Anders M. Dale and Gaute T. Einevoll 5. Local field potentials. Claude B?dard and Alain Destexhe 6. EEG and MEG ? forward modelling. J. C. de Munck, C. H. Wolters and M. Clerc 7. EEG and MEG ? source estimation. Seppo P. Ahlfors and Matti S. H?m?l?inen 8. Intrinsic signal optical imaging. Ron D. Frostig and Cynthia H. Chen-Bee 9. Voltage-sensitive dye imaging. S. Chemla and F. Chavane 10. Calcium imaging. Fritjof Helmchen 11. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Andreas Bartels, Jozien Goense and Nikos Logothetis 12. Perspectives. Romain Brette and Alain Destexhe. Best regards and happy new year, Romain Brette -- The Brian simulator is competing for the 2012 Brain Corporation Prize in Computational Neuroscience, vote for us by clickling Google+1 on our Scholarpedia article! http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Brian_simulator Blog: http://www.briansimulator.org/category/romains-blog/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RomainBrette From terry at salk.edu Fri Jan 4 17:25:09 2013 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:25:09 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - January, 2013 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents -- Volume 25, Number 1 - January 1, 2013 Letters Dynamics of Feature Categorization Daniel Marti, John Rinzel Stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley Equations With Colored Noise Terms in the Conductances Marifi Gueler Statistical Computer Model Analysis of the Reciprocal and Recurrent Inhibitions of the Ia-EPSP in alpha-Motoneurons Gideon Gradwohl, Yoram Grossman Point Process Principal Components Analysis via Geometric Optimization Victor Solo, Syed Ahmed Pasha A Spiking Neural Model for Stable Reinforcement of Synapses Based on Multiple Distal Rewards Michael J. O'Brien, Narayan Srinivasa A Model of the Differential Representation of Signal Novelty in the Local Field Potentials and Spiking Activity of the Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Jung Hoon Lee, Joji Tsunada, and Yale Cohen Computing Sparse Representations of Multidimensional Signals Using Kronecker Bases Cesar Federico Caiafa, Andrzej Cichocki ANUBIS - Artificial Neuromodulation Using a Bayesian Inference System Benjamin J. H. Smith, Chakravarthini M Saaj, and Elie Allouis Multi-Layer Perceptron Classification of Unknown Volatile Chemicals From the Firing Rates of Insect Olfactory Sensory Neurons and Its Application to Biosensor Design Luqman Ramadhana Bachtiar, Charles P. Unsworth, Richard D. Newcomb, and Edmund J. Crampin ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2013 - VOLUME 25 - 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 MIT Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge, MA 02142-9902 Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-orders at mit.edu ------------ From taras at kowaliw.ca Fri Jan 4 11:09:11 2013 From: taras at kowaliw.ca (Kowaliw, Taras) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:09:11 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd CfP: Art paper submissions to GECCO 2013 Message-ID: <50E6FEA7.6050409@kowaliw.ca> =============================================== 2ND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Digital Entertainment Technologies and Arts track (DETA) @ GECCO 2013 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference July 6-10, 2013 Amsterdam, The Netherlands =============================================== Submission deadline: January 23, 2013 Camera-ready submission: April 17, 2013 GECCO-2013 conference: July 06-10, 2013 The arts, music, and games are key application fields for computational intelligence, evolutionary computation, and related techniques. This track explicitly focuses on these areas, strengthening a domain of high scientific, commercial, and cultural relevance. We invite submissions describing original work involving the use of computational intelligence in the creative arts, including design, games, and music. Works of a methodological, experimental, or theoretical nature will be considered. We welcome your submissions and participation! Further detail here: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~aland/GECCO-2013/ -- _____ Taras Kowaliw, Ph.D. Guest Researcher / Chercheur Post-Doctorant, Institut des Syst?mes Complexes - Paris ?le-de-France, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 57-59 rue Lhomond, 75005, Paris, France t.: +33 01 42 17 40 35 | f.: + 33 01 45 35 79 21 w.: http://kowaliw.ca | e.: taras at kowaliw.ca From erik at tnb.ua.ac.be Sun Jan 6 03:31:04 2013 From: erik at tnb.ua.ac.be (Erik De Schutter) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2013 17:31:04 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course 2013: Applications are open Message-ID: OKINAWA COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE COURSE 2013 Methods, Neurons, Networks and Behaviors June 17 - July 4, 2013. OIST, Okinawa, Japan new website: https://groups.oist.jp/ocnc The aim of the Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course is to provide opportunities for young researchers with theoretical backgrounds to learn the latest advances in neuroscience, and for those with experimental backgrounds to have hands-on experience in computational modeling. We invite graduate students and postgraduate researchers to participate in the course, held from June 17th through July 4th, 2013 at an oceanfront seminar house of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University. Applications are through the course web page only; they will close February 10th, 2013. Applicants are required to propose a project at the time of application. Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance in March. Like in preceding years, OCNC will be a comprehensive three-week course covering single neurons, networks, and behaviors with ample time for student projects. The first week will focus exclusively on methods with hands-on tutorials during the afternoons, while the second and third weeks will have lectures by international experts. We invite those who are interested in integrating experimental and computational approaches at each level, as well as in bridging different levels of complexity. There is no tuition fee. The sponsor will provide lodging and meals during the course and may support travel for those without funding. We hope that this course will be a good opportunity for theoretical and experimental neuroscientists to meet each other and to explore the attractive nature and culture of Okinawa, the southernmost island prefecture of Japan. Invited faculty: ? Angelo Arleo (Universit? Pierre & Marie Curie, France) ? Avrama Blackwell (George Mason University, USA) ? Erik De Schutter (OIST) ? Karl Deisseroth (Stanford University, USA) ? Sophie Deneve (Ecole Normale Sup?rieure, France) ? Kenji Doya (OIST) ? Gaute Einevoll (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) ? Mike Hasselmo (Boston University, USA) ? Mitsuo Kawato (ATR, Japan) ? Bernd Kuhn (OIST) ? Henry Markram (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland) ? Jonathan Pillow (University Texas Austin, USA) ? Idan Segev (Hebrew University, Israel) ? Jeff Wickens (OIST) ? Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama (OIST) From grlmc at urv.cat Sat Jan 5 12:40:37 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2013 18:40:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: SLSP 2013: 2nd call for papers Message-ID: <9970A750FD814F3381418D5416B33BA1@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject* ********************************************************************* 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STATISTICAL LANGUAGE AND SPEECH PROCESSING SLSP 2013 Tarragona, Spain July 29-31, 2013 Organised by: Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics (GRLMC) Rovira i Virgili University Research Institute for Information and Language Processing (RIILP) University of Wolverhampton http://grammars.grlmc.com/SLSP2013/ ********************************************************************* AIMS: SLSP is the first event in a series to host and promote research on the wide spectrum of statistical methods that are currently in use in computational language or speech processing. It aims at attracting contributions from both fields. Though there exist large, well-known conferences including papers in any of these fields, SLSP is a more focused meeting where synergies between areas and people will hopefully happen. SLSP will reserve significant space for young scholars at the beginning of their careers. VENUE: SLSP 2013 will take place in Tarragona, 100 km. to the south of Barcelona. SCOPE: The conference invites submissions discussing the employment of statistical methods (including machine learning) within language and speech processing. The list below is indicative and not exhaustive: - phonology, morphology - syntax, semantics - discourse, dialogue, pragmatics - statistical models for natural language processing - supervised, unsupervised and semi-supervised machine learning methods applied to natural language, including speech - statistical methods, including biologically-inspired methods - similarity - alignment - language resources - part-of-speech tagging - parsing - semantic role labelling - natural language generation - anaphora and coreference resolution - speech recognition - speaker identification/verification - speech transcription - text-to-speech synthesis - machine translation - translation technology - text summarisation - information retrieval - text categorisation - information extraction - term extraction - spelling correction - text and web mining - opinion mining and sentiment analysis - spoken dialogue systems - author identification, plagiarism and spam filtering STRUCTURE: SLSP 2013 will consist of: ? invited talks ? invited tutorials ? peer-reviewed contributions INVITED SPEAKERS: Yoshua Bengio (Montr?al), tutorial Learning Deep Representations Christof Monz (Amsterdam), Challenges and Opportunities of Multilingual Information Access Tanja Schultz (Karlsruhe Tech), Multilingual Speech Processing with a special emphasis on Rapid Language Adaptation PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, Co-Chair) Ruslan Mitkov (Wolverhampton, Co-Chair) Jerome Bellegarda (Apple Inc., Cupertino) Robert C. Berwick (MIT) Laurent Besacier (LIG, Grenoble) Bill Byrne (Cambridge) Jen-Tzung Chien (National Chiao Tung U, Hsinchu) Kenneth Church (IBM Research) Koby Crammer (Technion) Renato De Mori (McGill & Avignon) Thierry Dutoit (U Mons) Marcello Federico (Bruno Kessler Foundation, Trento) Katherine Forbes-Riley (Pittsburgh) Sadaoki Furui (Tokyo Tech) Yuqing Gao (IBM Thomas J. Watson) Ralp Grishman (New York U) Dilek Hakkani-T?r (Microsoft Research, Mountain View) Adam Kilgarriff (Lexical Computing Ltd., Brighton) Dietrich Klakow (Saarbr?cken) Philipp Koehn (Edinburgh) Mikko Kurimo (Aalto) Lori Lamel (CNRS-LIMSI, Orsay) Philippe Langlais (Montr?al) Haizhou Li (Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore) Qun Liu (Dublin City) Daniel Marcu (SDL) Manuel Montes-y-G?mez (INAOEP, Puebla) Masaaki Nagata (NTT, Kyoto) Joakim Nivre (Uppsala) Kemal Oflazer (Carnegie Mellon Qatar, Doha) Miles Osborne (Edinburgh) Manny Rayner (Geneva) Giuseppe Riccardi (U Trento) Jos? A. Rodr?guez Fonollosa (Technical U Catalonia, Barcelona) Paolo Rosso (Technical U Valencia) Mark Steedman (Edinburgh) Tomek Strzalkowski (Albany) G?khan T?r (Microsoft Research, Redmond) Stephan Vogel (Qatar Computing Research Institute, Doha) Kuansan Wang (Microsoft Research, Redmond) Dekai Wu (HKUST, Hong Kong) Min Zhang (Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore) Yunxin Zhao (U Missouri, Columbia) ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Adrian Horia Dediu (Tarragona) Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, Co-Chair) Ruslan Mitkov (Wolverhampton, Co-Chair) Bianca Truthe (Magdeburg) Florentina Lilica Voicu (Tarragona) SUBMISSIONS: Authors are invited to submit papers presenting original and unpublished research. Papers should not exceed 12 single?spaced pages (including eventual appendices) and should be formatted according to the standard format for Springer Verlag's LNAI series (see http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0). Submissions are to be uploaded to: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=slsp2013 PUBLICATIONS: A volume of proceedings published by Springer in the LNAI topical subseries of the LNCS series will be available by the time of the conference. A special issue of a major journal will be later published containing peer-reviewed extended versions of some of the papers contributed to the conference. Submissions will be by invitation. REGISTRATION: The period for registration is open from November 30, 2012 to July 29, 2013. The registration form can be found at: http://grammars.grlmc.com/SLSP2013/Registration DEADLINES: Paper submission: March 5, 2013 (23:59h, CET) Notification of paper acceptance or rejection: April 9, 2013 Final version of the paper for the LNAI proceedings: April 17, 2013 Early registration: April 24, 2013 Late registration: July 19, 2013 Submission to the post-conference journal special issue: October 31, 2013 QUESTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION: florentinalilica.voicu at urv.cat POSTAL ADDRESS: SLSP 2013 Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics (GRLMC) Rovira i Virgili University Av. Catalunya, 35 43002 Tarragona, Spain Phone: +34-977-559543 Fax: +34-977-558386 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Diputaci? de Tarragona Universitat Rovira i Virgili University of Wolverhampton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wegall at nsi.edu Mon Jan 7 17:12:26 2013 From: wegall at nsi.edu (W. Einar Gall) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2013 14:12:26 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Research positions at The Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla Message-ID: The Neurosciences Institute is seeking researchers in computational neuroscience to join ongoing projects using large-scale spiking models of the mammalian nervous system in order to understand the biological bases of brain function. Generally these models are also used to control autonomous robotic devices that perform various behavioral tasks. These Brain-Based Devices have been used to study the neural bases of perception, operant and fear conditioning, episodic and spatial memory, navigation, and motor control. Current work focuses on the mechanisms underlying conscious behavior. A suitable candidate should have neural modeling experience, strong programming skills, and a broad background in neurobiology. Position title and salary are dependent upon relevant experience; a full benefit package is available. Interested persons should send a curriculum vitae including the names of three references to Dr. W. Einar Gall, Research Director, The Neurosciences Institute, 800 Silverado Street, Suite 302, La Jolla, CA 92037 or by email to theoryjobs at nsi.edu. The Neurosciences Institute is an independent not-for-profit research organization led by Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman. The Institute is part of the larger, active neuroscience community in San Diego. From smd501 at york.ac.uk Wed Jan 9 08:32:37 2013 From: smd501 at york.ac.uk (Sam Devlin) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 13:32:37 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Adaptive Learning Agents Workshop @ AAMAS 2013 Message-ID: First Call For Papers Adaptive and Learning Agents Workshop 2013 at AAMAS 2013 (Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA) ****************************** ************************* We apologize if you receive more than one copy. Please share with colleagues and students. Paper deadline: JANUARY 30th, 2013 * AAMAS workshop with a long and successful history, now in its 13th edition. * ACM proceedings format with up to 8 pages. * Accepted papers are eligible for inclusion in a special issue journal. ******************************************************* The ALA workshop has a long and successful history and is now in its 13th edition. The workshop is a merger of European ALAMAS and the American ALAg series which is usually held at AAMAS. Details may be found on the workshop web site: http://swarmlab.unimaas.nl/ala2013/ Paper management will be done at the site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ala20130 ******************************************************* * Submission Deadline: January 30, 2013 * Notification of acceptance: February 27, 2013 * Camera-ready copies: March 10, 2013 * Workshop: May 6-7, 2013 ******************************************************* Adaptive and Learning Agents, particularly those in a multi-agent setting are becoming more and more prominent as the sheer size and complexity of many real world systems grows. How to adaptively control, coordinate and optimize such systems is an emerging multi-disciplinary research area at the intersection of Computer Science, Control theory, Economics, and Biology. The ALA workshop will focus on agent and multi-agent systems which employ learning or adaptation. The goal of this workshop is to increase awareness and interest in adaptive agent research, encourage collaboration and give a representative overview of current research in the area of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems. It aims at bringing together not only scientists from different areas of computer science but also from different fields studying similar concepts (e.g., game theory, bio-inspired control, mechanism design). This workshop will focus on all aspects of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems with a particular emphasis on how to modify established learning techniques and/or create new learning paradigms to address the many challenges presented by complex real-world problems. The topics of interest include but are not limited to: * Novel combinations of reinforcement and supervised learning approaches * Integrated learning approaches that work with other agent reasoning modules like negotiation, trust models, coordination, etc. * Supervised multi-agent learning * Reinforcement learning (single and multi-agent) * Planning (single and multi-agent) * Reasoning (single and multi-agent) * Distributed learning * Adaptation and learning in dynamic environments * Evolution of agents in complex environments * Co-evolution of agents in a multi-agent setting * Cooperative exploration and learning to cooperate and collaborate * Learning trust and reputation * Communication restrictions and their impact on multi-agent coordination * Design of reward structure and fitness measures for coordination * Scaling learning techniques to large systems of learning and adaptive agents * Emergent behaviour in adaptive multi-agent systems * Game theoretical analysis of adaptive multi-agent systems * Neuro-control in multi-agent systems * Bio-inspired multi-agent systems * Applications of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems to real world complex systems * Learning of Co-ordination ******************************************************* Submission Details: Papers can be submitted through Easychair: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ala20130 Submissions may be up to 8 pages in the ACM proceedings format (i.e., the same as AAMAS papers in the main conference track). Accepted work will be allocated time for oral presentation during the one day workshop. Papers accepted at the workshop will also be eligible for inclusion in a planned special issue journal published after the workshop. ******************************************************* Organization Workshop chairs: Sam Devlin (University of York, UK) Daniel Hennes (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) Enda Howley (National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland) If you have any questions about the ALA workshop, please contact Enda Howley at: enda.howley AT nuigalway.ie Senior Steering Committee Members: Daniel Kudenko (University of York, UK) Ann Now? (Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium) Peter Stone (University of Texas at Austin, USA) Matthew Taylor (Lafayette College, USA) Kagan Tumer (Oregon State University, USA) Karl Tuyls (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) ******************************************************* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From retienne at jhu.edu Mon Jan 7 20:43:31 2013 From: retienne at jhu.edu (retienne) Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:43:31 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: DEADLINE EXTENDED: 2013 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Workshop: Call For Topics Message-ID: <50EB79C3.9010105@jhu.edu> Call for Topic Area Proposals 2013 Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop Telluride, Colorado, June 30 -July 20, 2013 We are now accepting proposals for Topic Areas in the 2013 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop. We support topics and projects in neuromorphic cognition, particularly those that involve solving challenging ?everyday? tasks that incorporate domain-specific knowledge, exploration, prediction, and problem solving. In particular, we are interested in projects that hold promise for addressing Grand Challenge types of problems that do not have strong solutions of any form, neuromorphic or not. These Challenge problems should feature long-duration sensorimotor problems that involve autonomous cognitive decision making. Examples might include tasks such as learning a new language, navigating through an unknown environment to locate an object or reach a desired location, adaptively manipulating unknown or complex objects in the service of a task, playing a game requiring inference of hidden information or long-term planning and learning, etc. Proposals related to hardware technologies that aim to bring these capabilities to reality are also encouraged. Topic proposals that aim to solve a particular problem using the multidisciplinary experience of participants will be favored over topics that simply gather a large number of people working within a discipline, or using a single technology, or approach. Topic areas for this summer's Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop will be chosen from proposals submitted to the organizers. Important: Due to the nature of our NSF grant (primary funding source), two topic areas are already established: ?Interpreting actions of manipulation? and ?Human-robot cooperation in the identification of speakers and exploration of space?. We will also have a ?Future hardware technologies? tutorial/projects group. Topic areas can span a large field; we are looking for leadership in planning activities and inviting good people in a field. Although past topic areas have tended to be very broad and discipline-oriented (e.g., cognition, audition, vision, robotics, neural interfacing, neuromorphic VLSI, etc.), application-oriented topic areas (e.g., sensor fusion, game-playing robot, object recognition, sound localization, human robot interaction, etc.) are especially desirable. Topic area leaders will receive housing for themselves and their invitees, and limited travel funds. Topic area leaders will help to define the field of neuromorphic cognition engineering through the projects they pursue and the people they invite. They shape their topic by inviting speakers and project leaders (the invitees) and by initiating topic area project discussions prior to the workshop. Teams of two organizers are required. One of the organizers should be an attendee of a previous Telluride Workshop (in any capacity) and has stayed at the Workshop for at least one week. Pre-workshop topic area choices and study assignments. Before the workshop begins, each topic area will be required to prepare and distribute study materials that constitute: 1) an introductory presentation (e.g., pptx, video, review paper) of the fundamental knowledge associated with the topic area that everyone at the workshop should be exposed to, and 2) a few critical papers that the participants in the topic area should read before the workshop. The topic area should 3) begin a serious group discussion of the projects (e.g., via Facebook, Skype, email, etc). The maximum 2-page proposals should include: 1. Title of topic area. 2. Names of the two topic leaders, their affiliations, and contact information (email addresses!). 3. A paragraph explaining the focus and goals of the topic area. 4. A list of possible specific topic area projects. 5. A list of example invitees (up to six names and institutions). No commitments necessary. 6. Any other material that fits within the two-page limit that will help us make a smart choice. Send your topic area proposal in pdf or text format to organizers13 at neuromorphs.net with subject line containing "topic area proposal". Proposals must be received by January 16, 2013; proposals received after the deadline may still be considered if space is available. Resources limit the workshop to roughly 2 additional topic areas, each with 5 invitees. If your proposal for the topic area is not accepted, we will work with you to see if there is a natural way to include your ideas (and you) into the accepted topic areas. We hope to have significant turn-over each year in the topic areas and leaders to ensure fresh new ideas and participants. See the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering (www.ine-web.org) for background information on the workshop and neuromorphs.net for past workshop wikis. We look forward to your topic proposals! Deadline: January 16, 2013 The Workshop Directors: Cornelia Ferm?ller (University of Maryland), Ralph Etienne-Cummings (Johns Hopkins Univ.) Shih-Chii Liu (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich), Timmer Horiuchi (University of Maryland) Recent Director: Tobi Delbruck (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich) -- ------------------------------------------------- Ralph Etienne-Cummings Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering The Johns Hopkins University 105 Barton Hall 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 Tel: (410) 516 3494 Fax: (410) 516 2939 Email: retienne at jhu.edu URL: http://etienne.ece.jhu.edu/ From Raphael.Maree at ULg.ac.be Tue Jan 8 15:27:37 2013 From: Raphael.Maree at ULg.ac.be (Raphael.Maree.) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:27:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doc positions at University of Liege, Belgium Message-ID: <20130108212736.A488.287C5CB8@ULg.ac.be> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bioinformatics and Modeling research unit at the GIGA Biomedical Research Center and at the Montefiore Institute of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Li?ge is seeking for Post-Doctoral researchers respectively in machine learning for bioimage informatics and machine learning for biological network inference to begin between October 2013 and January 2014. Theme 1: Machine learning for bioimage informatics The researcher will be working closely with a team of software developers, researchers in machine learning, and biologists, to advance high-throughput automated analysis of high-resolution images in the context of cancer research, developmental biology, and diagnostic pathology. The applicant will be involved in the design of novel algorithms and their large-scale evaluation for cell and phenotype recognition, and tissue segmentation and quantification. She/He will have access to a high-performance computing environment and the inhouse developed Cytomine platform able to process terabytes of imaging data. Theme 2: Machine learning for biological network inference The researcher will participate to the effort of the team on the development of machine learning techniques for the inference of biological networks. In particular, the applicant will be involved in the extension of network inference methods to integrate various kinds of data and the practical application of these methods on real biomedical datasets. Depending on the interest of the applicant, the work could focus more on methodological developments in machine learning or on some specific biomedical applications. Applicants should hold a PhD and have strong knowledge in machine learning, bioinformatics and/or computer vision. Programming and data analysis skills are also highly desirable. The candidates should be highly motivated, with a strong interest in large-scale biomedical applications. A working knowledge of English language is mandatory, and of French is a plus. Application procedure: Interested individuals should send a CV, a brief statement of research and development interests, three relevant publications, and the names and contact details of two references by e-mail to: Rapha?l Mar?e (Raphael.Maree at ulg.ac.be) with subject "Postdoc ULG". Candidates interested should send their application before mid-February 2013. The final decision will be taken in June 2013. The position will be available for an initial period of 1 year, with possible one-year extension after mid-term evaluation. More information: - The GIGA research center: http://www.giga.ulg.ac.be/jcms/c_5015/en/home - The Montefiore Institute: http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be - Research Unit in Systems and Modeling: http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/systmod/ - The CYTOMINE research project: http://www.cytomine.be/ (Theme 1) - The Li?ge city: http://www.liege.be/tourisme-en/photographie-de-liege -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de Wed Jan 9 07:10:03 2013 From: compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de (Compsens) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:10:03 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PHD Position (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Tuebingen, Germany) Message-ID: <20130109131003.54534wrne6mzexwb@webmail.uni-tuebingen.de> PHD POSITION: COMPUTATIONAL NEURAL MECHANISMS OF VISUAL ACTION PROCESSING (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Tuebingen, Germany) ============================================================= The interaction between action perception and execution 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 develop physiologically inspired, probabilistic and information-theoretical models for the visual processing of actions and its interaction with motor representations. In addition, we collaborate on the development of new experimental paradigms in humans and monkeys to identify underlying computational neural mechanisms exploiting advanced technologies from computer graphics. 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 and motor control * 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 Society (DFG) with more than 70 groups working on different aspects of systems neuroscience, and of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN) 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 From brandon.s.minnery at ugov.gov Tue Jan 8 09:05:29 2013 From: brandon.s.minnery at ugov.gov (Brandon S Minnery) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2013 14:05:29 +0000 (GMT+00:00) Subject: Connectionists: IARPA funding opportunity: Knowledge Representation in Neural Systems (KRNS) Program In-Reply-To: <1166775728.107499.1357652757565.JavaMail.root@linzimmb03o.imo.intelink.gov> Message-ID: <1369476367.107627.1357653929343.JavaMail.root@linzimmb03o.imo.intelink.gov> Greetings, ? Please note that the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity ( www.iarpa.gov ) is soliciting research proposals for the Knowledge Representation in Neural Systems (KRNS) Program.? A synopsis of the program is provided below. ? Additional information on the KRNS Program, including a link to the full solicitation, can be found at: http://www.iarpa.gov/Programs/ia/KRNS/solicitation_krns.html ? Best Regards, Brad Minnery, Ph.D. Program Manager IARPA Office of Incisive Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------- ? PROGRAM SYNOPSIS ? When making sense of intelligence data, analysts rely on rich repertoires of conceptual knowledge to resolve ambiguities, make inferences, and draw conclusions. Conceptual knowledge refers to knowledge about the properties of an entity (e.g., an apple is edible) as well as its relationships to other entities (e.g., an apple is associated with orchards, grocery stores, etc.). Understanding how the human brain represents conceptual knowledge is an important?step toward building new analysis tools that acquire, organize and wield knowledge with unprecedented proficiency. Moreover, such understanding may lead to the development of novel techniques for training intelligence analysts and linguists. Although decades of neuroscience research have shed light on how the brain represents various types of sensory and motor information, far less is known about the neural basis of conceptual knowledge. Many studies to date have focused on a limited number of coarsely defined concept classes (e.g., faces and places), but a general predictive theory of the neural basis of conceptual knowledge remains elusive. The KRNS Program seeks to develop and rigorously assess novel theories that explain how the human brain represents diverse types of conceptual knowledge within spatial and temporal (dynamic) patterns of neural activity. To demonstrate the power of their theories, KRNS performers will develop systems that predict patterns of neural activity associated with particular concepts and that interpret which concepts are represented within measured patterns of neural activity. All neural activity data in KRNS will be obtained using non-invasive methods such as (but not limited to) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). The KRNS Program consists of two phases. Phase 1 seeks to understand how the brain?s representation of an individual concept varies as a function of semantic context (e.g., how does the neural representation of "apple" differ depending on whether the subject is contemplating "the apple was delicious" versus "the boy threw the apple"?). Phase 2 will explore how combinations of multiple individual concepts are represented in the brain (e.g., how is the neural representation of a composite concept such as "the doctor drove the car" related to the neural representation of the individual concepts, "doctor," "drove," "car"?). Brad Minnery, Ph.D. Program Manager IARPA Office of Incisive Analysis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vanessa.casagrande at bccn-berlin.de Fri Jan 11 08:12:19 2013 From: vanessa.casagrande at bccn-berlin.de (Vanessa Casagrande) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:12:19 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: Call for applications: International Graduate Programs Computational Neuroscience in Berlin In-Reply-To: <545940112.11229.1357909794537.JavaMail.root@comms> Message-ID: <1563538209.11283.1357909939815.JavaMail.root@comms> **Apologies for cross-postings** The Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN) Berlin invites applications for its International Graduate Programs. The BCCN Berlin is a leading research institution which gathers a large number of groups working on questions related to the neural computation from a single cell level up to a systemic level both theoretically and experimentally. The Center hosts a Master and a PhD program to combine outstanding research with excellent teaching. Application deadline March 15th, 2013 Begin of Courses: October 2013 http://www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de *Master's Program* The Master's program has been established in 2006, offers ten places per year, has a duration of 2 years, and is fully taught in English. The curriculum is subdivided into ten modules, whose content includes theoretical neuroscience, advanced programming, data acquisition, computational analysis, machine learning, and modeling of experimental data, with a strong focus on complementary theoretical and experimental training. In the second year, students autonomously perform research projects by accomplishing three lab rotations and a Master's Thesis under the supervision of the Center's Faculty. Participation in the program grants the students an interdisciplinary education and an early contact to the international neurocomputational research environment. The Master's degree is jointly awarded by the Berlin University of Technology and Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin. Requirements: BSc or equivalent degree, (typically in the natural sciences, in an engineering discipline, in neuroscience, in cognitive science, in mathematics/physics or in another relevant discipline), certificate of English proficiency, proof of sufficient mathematical knowledge (i.e. at least 24 ECTS credit points). *Doctoral Program* The Doctoral Program has been established in 2007 and currently counts 36 members. Doctoral students associated to the Program work on interdisciplinary projects investigating brain computation to exploit the recent advances in machine learning, theoretical computer science, and statistics for modeling brain function, and to develop new theories of neural computation hand in hand with well-controlled experiments in order to put functional hypotheses to test. The training group offers a structured supervision by at least two faculty members with complementary expertise, complemented by teaching and training activities. Upon completion of the program, students are awarded a doctoral degree by the University of the respective supervisor and a Certificate from the BCCN Berlin. Requirements: Candidates are expected to hold a Master's or equivalent degree (typically in the natural sciences, in an engineering discipline, in neuroscience, in cognitive science, in mathematics/physics or in another relevant discipline), to have the required advanced mathematical background, and to present a research project proposal. Candidates selected in the first application step will be invited for lab visits and an interview for final decision about admission to the program. Want to know more? Come and visit us on January 31st at 4 PM at the BCCN Berlin: http://www.bccn-berlin.de/Calendar/Events/event/?contentId=3108 or browse http://www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de or e-mail graduateprograms at bccn-berlin.de . With best regards, Vanessa Casagrande -- Dr. Vanessa Casagrande Teaching Coordinator Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Philippstr. 13 Haus 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 Universit?t 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 bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca Thu Jan 10 11:21:45 2013 From: bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:21:45 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: ICLR 2013 (International Conference on Learning Representations) Message-ID: <4732B2C0-42AB-4041-98FA-9D5D890FCDEE@iro.umontreal.ca> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR2013) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Website: https://sites.google.com/site/representationlearning2013/ Held in conjunction with AISTATS2013, Scottsdale, Arizona, May 2nd-4th 2013 Submission deadline (for initial arXiv submission): January 15th 2013 Overview ------------- It is well understood that the performance of machine learning methods is heavily dependent on the choice of data representation (or features) on which they are applied. The rapidly developing field of representation learning is concerned with questions surrounding how we can best learn meaningful and useful representations of data. We take a broad view of the field, and include in it topics such as deep learning and feature learning, metric learning, kernel learning, compositional models, non-linear structured prediction, and issues regarding non-convex optimization. Despite the importance of representation learning to machine learning and to application areas such as vision, speech, audio and NLP, there is currently no common venue for researchers who share a common interest in this topic. The goal of ICLR is to help fill this void. A non-exhaustive list of relevant topics: - unsupervised representation learning - supervised representation learning - metric learning and kernel learning - dimensionality expansion, sparse modeling - hierarchical models - optimization for representation learning - implementation issues, parallelization, software platforms, hardware - applications in vision, audio, speech, and natural language processing, robotics and neuroscience. - other applications ICLR2013's Two Submission Tracks: ------------------------------------------------ ICLR2013 has two publication tracks: Conference Track: These papers are reviewed as standard conference papers. Papers should be between 6-9 pages in length. Accepted papers will be presented at the main conference as either an oral or poster presentation and will be included in the official ICLR2013 proceedings. A subset of accepted conference track papers will be selected to participate in a JMLR special topics issue on the subject of Representation Learning. Authors of the selected papers will be given an opportunity to extend their original submissions with supplementary material. Workshop Track: Papers submitted to this track are ideally 2-3 pages long and describe late-breaking developments. This track is meant to carry on the tradition of the former Snowbird Learning Workshop. These papers are considered as workshop papers (and can be published elsewhere). They will be lightly reviewed by ICLR reviewers. ICLR2013 Submission Instructions: ---------------------------------------------- (1) Authors should post their submissions (both conference and workshop tracks) on arXiv: http://arxiv.org (2) Once the arXiv paper is publicly visible (there can be an approx. 30 hour delay), authors should go to the openreview ICLR2013 website:http://openreview.net/iclr2013 to submit to either the conference track or the workshop track. To register on the openreview ICLR2013 website, the submitting author requires a google account. Both tracks will use the NIPS format (style files available here: http://nips.cc/PaperInformation/StyleFiles). Submission deadline (for initial arXiv submission): January 15th 2013 Notes: i. Regarding the conference submission's 6-9 page limits, these are really meant as guidelines and will not be strictly enforced. For example, figures should not be shrunk to illegible size to fit within the page limit. However, in order to ensure a reasonable workload for our reviewers, papers that go beyond the 9 pages should be formatted to include a 9 page submission and a separate supplementary material submission that will be optionally reviewed. If the paper is selected for the JMLR special topic issue, this supplementary material can be incorporated into the final journal version. ii. Workshop track submissions should be formatted as a short paper, with introduction, problem statement, brief explanation of solution, figure(s) and references. They should not merely be abstracts. iii. Paper revisions will be permitted in response to reviewer comments (see "A New Reviewing Paradigm" section below). A New Reviewing Paradigm: -------------------------------------- ICLR2013 will use a novel publication model that will proceed as follows: - After the authors have posted their submissions on arXiv, the ICLR program committee designates anonymous reviewers as usual. - The submitted reviews are published without the name of the reviewer, but with an indication that they are the designated reviews. Anyone can write and publish comments on the paper (non anonymously). Anyone can ask the program chairs for permission to become an anonymous designated reviewer (open bidding). The program chairs have ultimate control over the publication of each anonymous review. Open commenters will have to use their real name, linked with their Google Scholar profile. - Authors can post comments in response to reviews and comments. They can revise the paper as many times as they want, possibly citing some of the reviews. - By March 15th 2013, the ICLR program committee will consider all submitted papers, comments, and reviews and will decide which papers are to be presented at the conference as oral or poster. Although papers can be modified after that date, there is no guarantee that the modifications will be taken into account by the committee. - Papers that are not accepted for publication in the proceedings will be considered non-archival, and could be submitted elsewhere (modified or not), although the ICLR site will maintain the reviews, the comments, and the links to the arXiv versions. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Invited Speakers ------------------------ Jeff Bilmes (U. Washington) Jason Eisner (JHU) Geoffrey Hinton (U. Toronto) Ruslan Salakhutdinov (U. Toronto) Max Welling (U.Amsterdam) Alan Yuille (UCLA) General Chairs --------------------- Yoshua Bengio, Universit? de Montreal Yann LeCun, New York University Program Chairs ----------------------- Aaron Courville, Universit? de Montreal Rob Fergus, New York University Chris Manning, Stanford University Contact ----------- The organizers can be contacted at: iclr2013.programchairs at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: cleardot.gif Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca Thu Jan 10 11:08:17 2013 From: bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:08:17 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: neural computation and adaptive perception / deep learning post-doc In-Reply-To: <279DAC59-0C37-4848-8917-5137FCEE5BA4@iro.umontreal.ca> References: <279DAC59-0C37-4848-8917-5137FCEE5BA4@iro.umontreal.ca> Message-ID: <6282E533-2884-4E2B-9A23-AD05FDC8EB69@iro.umontreal.ca> For those interested in deep learning research and in a post-doc, submission deadline is January 21st. ------------------------------------- Hello, The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research invites applications for a Junior Fellowship in Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception. Application deadline: January 21, 2013. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research brings together top international researchers to tackle many of the most interesting and pressing questions of our time. Our Junior Fellow Academy offers gifted, early career researchers the unique opportunity to participate in CIFAR?s global research network and to closely collaborate, and be mentored by, some of Canada?s and the world?s best researchers. CIFAR?s Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception (NCAP) Program is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to fill a Junior Fellowship position beginning in July 2013. The fellowship will be held in conjunction with a university postdoctoral appointment under the supervision of Yoshua Bengio and/or Pascal Vincent at the Universit? de Montr?al. Applicants should have a PhD in Computer Science, Computational Neuroscience, or a related discipline, and already have an exceptional track record of original research. The Junior Fellow will pursue his or her own research program, which should be related to computational approaches to how vision can be achieved by learning deep representations, preferably with some relevance to biological visual systems. To read the full advertisement and obtain application instructions, please visit: http://www.cifar.ca/JFA ------------------------------------- -- Yoshua Bengio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From camda at bioinf.jku.at Fri Jan 11 05:07:20 2013 From: camda at bioinf.jku.at (CAMDA 2013) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:07:20 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Conference Announcement - CAMDA 2013 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, With great pleasure we announce the 12th International Conference on the Critical Assessment of Massive Data Analysis (CAMDA) in Berlin, Germany, July 18-19, 2013, held as official Satellite Meeting to 21st ISMB/ECCB. CAMDA focuses on innovative methods to analyze massive data sets from life sciences. Over two days, researchers from bioinformatics, computer sciences, statistics, genetics, molecular biology, and other fields present novel approaches to analyze Big Data. An essential part of CAMDA is its competitive challenge where big heterogeneous data sets are analyzed and outcomes and methods compared. Academic and industrial researchers worldwide are invited to take the CAMDA challenge, to show their expertise in handling Big Data, and to present their results. Submitted abstracts are selected for oral and poster presentations. As in last years, the prestigious CAMDA prize will be awarded for the best presentation. Selected submissions are published in the CAMDA Proceedings as an open access PubMed indexed special issue of Systems Biomedicine. You can find additional information about the challenge data sets, submissions, etc. at www.camda.info. Some key dates are: - Abstract submission deadline for oral presentation / 20 May 2013 - Abstract submission deadline for poster presentation / 25 May 2013 - Notification of accepted contributions / 30 May 2013 - Early registration closes / 1 June 2013 As in past years, contest presentations are complemented by high profile keynotes (with recent speakers including Sandrine Dudoit, Mark Gerstein, John Quackenbush, Terry Speed, John Storey, Eran Segal, and others). This year, we are delighted to welcome Atul Butte of the Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA! We look forward to seeing you in Berlin! The organizers and chairs of CAMDA 2013 Chairs: Joaquin Dopazo, CIPF, Spain Sepp Hochreiter, Johannes Kepler University, Austria David Kreil, Boku University, Austria Simon Lin, Marshfield Clinic, U.S.A. Local organizer: Djork-Arn? Clevert, Johannes Kepler University, Austria Contact: camda at bioinf.jku.at Conference website: http://www.camda.info -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From etienne.roesch at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 03:34:39 2013 From: etienne.roesch at gmail.com (=?windows-1252?Q?Etienne_Beno=EEt_Roesch?=) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:34:39 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Extended deadline CfP "Enaction: Challenges and Successes" AISB'13, Exeter UK, April 2-5th 2013 Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS: Enaction: Challenges and Successes DEADLINE EXTENSION: 28th January 2013 If you do plan on submitting a contribution or if you need particular adjustments, please get in touch with us as soon as possible. We are pleased to announce the AISB symposium "Enaction: Challenges and Successes" to take place during the AISB Annual Convention 2013, Univ. Exeter, UK, April 2-5th, 2013. http://emps.exeter.ac.uk/computer-science/research/aisb/ Enaction represents one alternative to "good old-fashion cognitive science", in the form of a change of focus for models of cognition: from computation to interaction, from the brain-in-a-vat to the embodied brain in the world. This extension, dubbed enactive cognitive science, arises from both the inability of current theoretical frameworks to account for recent data in the social and life sciences, and from growing debates on the defining features of a cognizant organism in its environment. The symposium will foster discussions around 1) the challenges that any alternative to current frameworks will have to overcome, and 2) the successes from enactive cognitive science that respond to shortcomings in the orthodox frameworks. The outcome of this symposium will be a critical perspective of the state of the field today, as well as a tentative roadmap for the future. It will be organised around talks and panel discussions. Papers should be no more than 7000 words, including refs and figures. All accepted papers will be provided to the AISB'13 delegates on memory sticks at the beginning of the Convention and, subject to a sufficient number of high-quality submissions, proceedings of the symposium will be published in a more formal outreach, like the Springers series Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics (SAPERE). Submissions should be made using the EasyChair portal for the symposium: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aisb13enaction (New) Timeline: ? Submission of full papers: 28th January 2013 ? Notification of acceptance: 18th February 2013 ? Camera-ready for inclusion in proceedings: 4th March 2013 The symposium is a sequel to the workshop "Foundations of Enactive Cognitive Sciences", which took place in Windsor, on February 27-28th, 2013, sponsored by the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, at the University of Reading. More information and update can be found at: http://reading.ac.uk/cinn/enactivism Dr. Etienne B. Roesch (Univ. Reading) Prof. Slawomir Nasuto (Univ. Reading) Prof. J. Mark Bishop (Goldsmiths Univ. London) ----- Dr. Etienne Roesch Lecturer in Systems Engineering and Neuroscience University of Reading | http://etienneroes.ch/ ? CfP "Enaction: Challenges and Successes" @ AISB'13 http://reading.ac.uk/cinn/enactivism From Johan.Suykens at esat.kuleuven.be Tue Jan 8 11:25:02 2013 From: Johan.Suykens at esat.kuleuven.be (Johan Suykens) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:25:02 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc positions KU Leuven ESAT-SCD Message-ID: <50EC485E.7070301@esat.kuleuven.be> The research group KU Leuven ESAT-SCD is currently offering 2 Postdoc positions (1-year, extendable) within the framework of the ERC Advanced Grant A-DATADRIVE-B (PI: Johan Suykens) http://www.esat.kuleuven.be/sista/ADB/ . The research positions relate to the following possible topics: -1- Prior knowledge incorporation -2- Kernels and tensors -3- Modelling structured dynamical systems -4- Sparsity -5- Optimization algorithms -6- Core models and mathematical foundations -7- Next generation software tool The research group ESAT-SCD http://www.esat.kuleuven.be/scd/ at the university K.U. Leuven Belgium provides an excellent research environment being active in the broad area of mathematical engineering, including systems and control theory, neural networks and machine learning, nonlinear systems and complex networks, optimization, signal processing, bioinformatics and biomedicine. The research will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Johan Suykens. Interested candidates having a solid mathematical background and PhD degree can apply for these positions by sending their CV and motivation letter to johan.suykens at esat.kuleuven.be. For further information on these positions you may contact johan.suykens at esat.kuleuven.be. From mail at berndporr.me.uk Fri Jan 11 10:48:34 2013 From: mail at berndporr.me.uk (Bernd Porr) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:48:34 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers, Computational Approaches to Constructivism Message-ID: <50F03452.3090602@berndporr.me.uk> Call for Papers Computational Approaches to Constructivism Special Issue of Constructivist Foundations to be published November 2013 Much of the work being done in constructivist approaches progresses conceptually. As in general philosophy, claims and arguments appeal to the intuition of the reader or listener. Such contemplative work is certainly a powerful and typical human instrument for acquiring new knowledge, or at least guiding us in unknown areas. However, as Daniel Dennett liked to quote from Bo Dahlbom and Lars-Erik Janlert, ?Just as you cannot do very much carpentry with your bare hands, there is not much thinking you can do with your bare brain.? There are reasons to assume that much more progress could be made by complementing the bare brain with computational tools to explore ?the properties of mathematical models where analytic methods are unavailable? (Paul Humphrey). Computational methods have not only been applied in the context of general philosophy and philosophy of science (e.g., by Paul Thagard) but also in constructivist approaches such as Francisco Varela et al.?s computational autopoiesis from the 1970s. Still, most articles related to constructivist approaches seem to favor the conceptual rather than the synthetic approach. Therefore, the goal of the special issue is to set ?computational constructivism? in motion. It welcomes papers presenting: 1. Actual computational models of constructivist concepts and processes (such as sensorimotor constructions, systems inspired by second-order cybernetic processes, autopoietic systems, etc.), and results from conducting experiments with them. For example, Ernst von Glasersfeld?s ?[The world] is a black box with which we can deal remarkably well? could be put to computational scrutiny: What sort of computation should we assume takes place in the cognizing subject that gives rise to her reality construction based on her experiences? Papers in this category may also review various computational methodologies and simulation architectures relevant for constructivist approaches. 2. (Meta) (critical) assessments of the philosophical and conceptual significance of computational tools. These may aim at questions such as: Can we, in principle, formulate computational models of constructivist processes? Are computer models useful heuristics for stimulating an individual?s construction of reality? Can we computationally predict reality construction? Is computational autopoiesis possible? Must enactive approaches be considered anti-computational in content? The answer to these and related questions may require addressing more general problems such as: How to define ?computational?? Can computational models ever create something new? The answers may also help to shed light on whether appeals to the reader?s intuition may no longer be regarded a universal tool of conceptual investigation because they do not scale up to complex contexts, and whether highly complex computational models need to be used instead. Time Table 31 January 2013: Expressions of interest 1 June 2013: Paper submissions 1 September 2013: Revised papers 15 November 2013: Publication Please see also the call attached. Best, /Bernd Porr bernd.porr at glasgow.ac.uk -- http://www.berndporr.me.uk http://www.linux-usb-daq.co.uk http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3293421/ +44 (0)7840 340069 -- http://www.berndporr.me.uk http://www.linux-usb-daq.co.uk http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3293421/ +44 (0)7840 340069 From contact2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de Mon Jan 14 12:00:32 2013 From: contact2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (Organizers ECVP 2013) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:00:32 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) 2013: 1st Call for Abstracts Message-ID: <50F439B0.9060906@ecvp.uni-bremen.de> *European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) 2013: 1st Call for Abstracts * The 36th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) will take place in Bremen, Germany, from August 25th to August 29th 2013. Herewith we call for your contributions to ECVP 2013. We invite you to submit an abstract about your recent work on visual perception and related topics to present it on the conference - either as a talk or poster. All abstracts will be reviewed. Notification of acceptance will be sent by June. *The deadline for abstract submission is March 24, 2013. * This year's ECVP has a special focus on Computational Neuroscience. We encourage submissions on work at the node between Visual Perception and Computational Neuroscience, regarding techniques, methods, concepts, and models. Please note that for submitting an abstract, you have to register for the main conference first (http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/node/15). After registering, you will receive a preliminary confirmation, and a link to the abstract submission system. *Registration opens on January 21, 2013 (next Monday).* Please note that there are two modifications this year regarding abstract submission: 1. If you apply for an oral presentation (talk) you can optionally include a max one-page PDF or RTF extended summary with additional information about your contribution. 2. You are required to choose at least one topic and one method keyword, in order to assign all abstracts to appropriate reviewers and program sessions. The list of available keywords can be found on the website (abstract guidelines). On Sunday, August 25th, 2013 we offer two additional events you might want to attend: 1. Bernstein-Tutorials: Will take place before the main conference and shall give the opportunity for introducing students, postdocs but also experienced scientists to various important topics and state-of-the-art methods and techniques in Psychophysics, Data analysis and Computational Neurosciences. 2. Satellite Symposium at HWK: The satellite symposium "The Art of Perception - The Perception of Art" will also be held on the opening day of the ECVP 2013. Registration for satellite events (Bernstein tutorials, Art symposium etc.) is subject to space limitations and will be done on a first-come, first-served basis. You have to register for satellite events during the normal registration process. You can find all important dates, fees, guidelines and additional information at *http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/* Best regards and awaiting many interesting contributions, ECVP 2013 team, Udo Ernst | Cathleen Grimsen | Detlef Wegener | Agnes Janssen -- ECVP 2013 Organizing Committee Udo Ernst | Cathleen Grimsen | Detlef Wegener | Agnes Janssen Universitaet Bremen / University of Bremen Zentrum fuer Kognitionswissenschaften / Center for Cognitive Sciences Hochschulring 18 28359 Bremen / Germany Website: www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de Facebook: www.facebook.com/EuropeanConferenceOnVisualPerception Contact - email: symp2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For organization and submission of symposia) exhibition2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For any query regarding the exhibition) contact2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For any comments, questions or suggestions) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu Mon Jan 14 11:00:56 2013 From: dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:00:56 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL NETWORKS - 25th Anniversary Commemorative Issue (Jan. 2013) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50F42BB8.6000805@cse.ohio-state.edu> Neural Networks - Volume 37, January 2013 http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks Editorial: Happy Twenty-fifth Anniversary Kenji Doya and DeLiang Wang Adaptive Resonance Theory: How a brain learns to consciously attend, learn, and recognize a changing world Stephen Grossberg Dreaming of mathematical neuroscience for half a century Shun-ichi Amari Essentials of the self-organizing map Teuvo Kohonen Synthetic event-related potentials: A computational bridge between neurolinguistic models and experiments Victor Barres, Authur Simons, and Michael Arbib DISCOV (DImensionless Shunting COlor Vision): A neural model for spatial data analysis Gail Carpenter and Suhas Chelian Artificial vision by multi-layered neural networks: Neocognitron and its advances Kunihiko Fukushima Outline of a general theory of behavior and brain coordination Scott Kelso, Guillaume Dumas, and Emmanuelle Tognoli Noise-enhanced clustering and competitive learning algorithms Osonde Osoba and Bart Kosko A neural model of visual figure-ground segregation from kinetic occlusion Timothy Barnes and Ennio Mingolla Neural associative memories and sparse coding Gunther Palm Local circuit inhibition in the cerebral cortex as the source of gain control and untuned suppression Robert Shapley and Dajun Xing The No-Prop algorithm: A new learning algorithm for multilayer neural networks Bernard Widrow, Aaron Greenblatt, Youngsik Kim, and Dookun Park From wolpert at eng.cam.ac.uk Mon Jan 14 14:26:30 2013 From: wolpert at eng.cam.ac.uk (Daniel Wolpert) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:26:30 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc Opportunity in Sensorimotor Control (Cambridge) Message-ID: <6BD0F996-C9C9-4991-AE9D-8CA2D58CB166@eng.cam.ac.uk> Research Assistant/Associate in Sensorimotor Control (Wolpert & Shadlen) We seek a Research Assistant/Associate for an HFSP project between Daniel Wolpert (Cambridge) and Michael Shadlen (Columbia) investigating the interplay between decision making and sensorimotor control in humans using computational and experimental approaches (www.wolpertlab.com). Experience with human behavioural experiments and computational approaches in visual psychophysics, decision-making, motor-control are advantageous. Strong analytical skills (Matlab) are essential. The post will be based in Cambridge. Applicants should have (or soon to be awarded) a Ph.D in a discipline relevant to neuroscience. Further details on http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/-24702/ Deadline February 15th -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ricardo.chavarriaga at epfl.ch Sun Jan 13 15:15:24 2013 From: ricardo.chavarriaga at epfl.ch (Ricardo Chavarriaga) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 21:15:24 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: IEEE CYBCONF 2013 - Call for tutorials/workshops Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings.. ========================================================== CALL FOR TUTORIALS AND WORKSHOPS IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics, CYBCONF 2013 >From ?Human in the Loop? to Autonomous Systems: Novel Approaches to Cybernetics Lausanne Switzerland, 13-15 June 2013 http://www.cybconf2013.org/ ========================================================== The IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics (CYBCONF 2013) provides an international forum for researchers and practitioners to report the latest innovations, summarize the state-of-the-art, and exchange ideas and advances in all aspects of Cybernetics. The Program Committee is seeking tutorial and workshop proposals which are of interest to conference participants The tutorials and workshops provide an opportunity for conference participants to explore cutting-edge topics; to acquire new insights, knowledge, and skills; and to learn from a peer who is a leader in his/her field. Thus, we encourage various leaders in the respective technical areas to submit their proposals electronically to the chairs. PDF version of the call for tutorials/workshops is available for: http://cnbisrv02.epfl.ch/~rchava/cybconf2013/CfP_tutorials.pdf IMPORTANT DATES February 1, 2013: Proposal Submission Deadline for Tutorial/Workshop Sessions. February 15, 2013: Acceptance/Rejection Notification for Tutorial/Workshop Sessions. June 15, 2013: Tutorial/Workshop Sessions. TUTORIAL/WORKSHOP CHAIRS Dr Ricardo Chavarriaga (ricardo.chavarriaga at epfl.ch) Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland Prof. Dr. Robert Babuska (r.babuska at tudelft.nl) University of Technology --- Ricardo CHAVARRIAGA Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne CNBI - Chair on Non-Invasive Brain-Machine Interface e-mail: ricardo.chavarriaga at epfl.ch http://people.epfl.ch/ricardo.chavarriaga "Cogito Cogito Ergo Cogito Sum" From mehdi.khamassi at isir.upmc.fr Mon Jan 14 14:05:41 2013 From: mehdi.khamassi at isir.upmc.fr (Mehdi Khamassi) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:05:41 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Announcement: Third Symposium on Biology of Decision Making, Paris, France, 29-30 May 2013 Message-ID: <50F45705.9070203@isir.upmc.fr> [Please accept our apologies if you get multiple copies of this message] Dear colleagues, It is our great pleasure to invite you to the Third Symposium on Biology of Decision Making which will take place in Paris on May, 29-30th 2013. The deadline for registration and poster submission is on April, 28th. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THIRD SYMPOSIUM ON BIOLOGY OF DECISION MAKING (SBDM 2013) May 29-30, 2013, Paris, France Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle, H?pital La Piti? Salp?tri?re, 47 Bd de l'H?pital, 75013 Paris Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. http://sbdm2013.isir.upmc.fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRESENTATION: The Third Symposium on Biology of Decision Making will take place on May 29-30, 2013 at the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle, H?pital La Piti? Salp?tri?re, 47 boulevard de l'H?pital, 75013 Paris, France. The objective of this two day symposium is to gather people from different research fields with different approaches (economical, behavioral, neural and computational approaches) to decision making. The symposium will be a single-track, will last for 2 days and will include 4 sessions: Neuro-Physiology, Neuro-Systems, Neuro-Computations and Decision-Theory (Economics and Ethology). Please circulate widely and encourage your students and postdocs to attend. More information coming soon, including a call for poster submissions. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS (more to be announced): Hagai Bergman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) Alain Berthoz (Coll?ge de France) Rafal Bogacz (Bristol University, UK) Erie Boorman (Oxford University, UK) Giorgio Coricelli (CNRS / ?cole Normale Sup?rieure, France) Michael J Frank (Brown University, France) Emmanuel Guigon (CNRS / UPMC, France) David Hansel (CNRS / Universit? Ren? Descartes, France) Masaki Isoda (Kansai Medical University, Japan) Ian Krajbich (University of Zurich, Switzerland) Samuel McClure (Stanford University, USA) Yael Niv (Princeton University, USA) Geoffrey Schoenbaum (NIDA-IRP, USA) Wolfram Schultz (Cambridge University, UK) Hidehiko Takahashi (Kyoto University, Japan) Taiki Takahashi (Hokkaido University, Japan) Frans de Waal (Emory University, USA) Jeffrey Wickens (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan) IMPORTANT DATES: March 18, 2013 Early Bird Registration April 28, 2013 Deadline for Registration and Poster Submission May 29-30, 2013 Symposium Venue ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Thomas Boraud (CNRS, Bordeaux, France) Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (La Sorbonne, Paris, France) Kenji Doya (OIST, Okinawa, Japan) Mehdi Khamassi (CNRS, Paris, France) Mathias Pessiglione (ICM - INSERM, Paris, France) CONTACT INFORMATION : Website, registration, poster submission and detailed program: http://sbdm2013.isir.upmc.fr Contact: sbdm2013 [ at ] isir.upmc.fr -- Mehdi Khamassi, PhD Researcher (CNRS) Institut des Syst?mes Intelligents et de Robotique (UMR7222) CNRS - Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie Pyramide, Tour 55 - Bo?te courrier 173 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France tel: + 33 1 44 27 28 85 fax: +33 1 44 27 51 45 cell: +33 6 50 76 44 92 http://people.isir.upmc.fr/khamassi From k.gurney at sheffield.ac.uk Mon Jan 14 12:04:06 2013 From: k.gurney at sheffield.ac.uk (Kevin Gurney) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:04:06 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentships at Sheffield Message-ID: University of Sheffield has three PhD studentships in decision making The cross-disciplinary neuroeconomics network at the University of Sheffield is seeking applications for PhD studentships as part of the project: "Decision making under uncertainty: brains, swarms and markets" Project 1: "Experimental validation of a new computational theory of adaptive decision-making." Project 2: ??Herding cats?: Visually guided decision making with target swarms? Project 3: Reinforcement learning and the equity premium puzzle The closing date for applications is 15 February 2013. See http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/psychology/prospectivepg/decisionmaking for full details. -- Kevin Gurney, PhD, FSB Professor of Computational Neuroscience Adaptive Behaviour Research Group Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK http://abrg.group.shef.ac.uk/people/kevin/ ------------- "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration." Donald Knuth: Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University, and winner of the 1974 Turing Award. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pkoprinkova at yahoo.com Tue Jan 15 03:05:08 2013 From: pkoprinkova at yahoo.com (Petia Koprinkova) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:05:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connectionists: ENNS annual conference ICANN'2013 Message-ID: <1358237108.19957.YahooMailNeo@web160601.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Dear Colleagues, We have the pleasure to invite you to the annual conference of the European Neural Network Society ? the 23rd International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks ICANN?2013. The conference will be held from 10th to 13th of September 2013 in Sofia, Bulgaria. ? The conference topics include but are not limited to: Neural network theory & models Computational neuroscience Neuronal automata Connectionist cognitive science Pattern recognition Neuroeconomics Neurofinance Graphical network models Brain machine interfaces Evolutionary neural networks Neurodynamics Complex systems Neuroinformatics Neuroengineering Hybrid systems Computational biology Neural hardware Bioinspired embedded systems Collective intelligence Self-orgnization Embodied robotics Learning algorithms Neural data analysis Cognitive models Cellular Neural Networks ? The official site of ICANN?2013 is: http://www.icann2013.org/ ? Please note that on the web there is a misleading announcement of a fake conference with the same abbreviation that has nothing in common with ENNS! Please be careful where you submit your papers! ? The ICANN proceedings will be published in the LNCS series of Springer. ? Deadlines are as follows: Workshops/special sessions proposals: March 1, 2013 Tutorials/competition proposals: March 1, 2013 Papers:?March 15, 2013 ? Looking forward to meet you in Sofia, ICANN?2013 Team -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lucy.davies4 at plymouth.ac.uk Wed Jan 16 05:57:05 2013 From: lucy.davies4 at plymouth.ac.uk (Lucy Davies) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:57:05 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Conference: The Lure of the New - Deadline extension Message-ID: The deadline for the Lure of the New has been extended to 7th Feb 2013, for more details see below: The annual conference of the Cognition Institute, Plymouth University, will be held March 20-22, 2013. The conference will be structured around seven themed oral symposia and poster sessions. In addition evening events include a reception and CogTalk debate to mark the official launch of the Cognition Institute, and a SciScreen film event. The Keynote address will be given by the Head of Programs at the INCF: Linda Lanyon: Toward globally collaborative science: the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility. http://cognition.plymouth.ac.uk/annual-conference-lure-new/ Symposia * Sounds for Communication * Embodied Cognition and Mental Simulation * Developments in infant speech perception * Engineering Creativity - can the arts help scientific research more directly? * Computational Modelling of Brain Processes * Current trends in deception research * Imagery, Dance and Creativity The programme can be found here: http://cognition.plymouth.ac.uk/annual-conference-lure-new/programme/ Registration is now open and details of how to apply as well as how to submit an abstract proposal can be found here: http://cognition.plymouth.ac.uk/annual-conference-lure-new/registration/ For all conference enquiries please contact Martin Coath at: outreach.cognition at plymouth.ac.uk. Lucy Davies Cognition Institute Plymouth University Room A222, Portland Square Plymouth UK PL4 8AA 44+ (0)1752 584920 http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/research/cognition/Pages/default.aspx [cid:image001.jpg at 01CDF3D8.38F46A40] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3387 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: From gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Wed Jan 16 05:53:01 2013 From: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu (Mark Gluck) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 05:53:01 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: New modeling paper, "Dissociating the Cognitive Effects of Levodopa versus Dopamine Agonists" (and a link to a public lecture on "Memory: How it Works") In-Reply-To: <71184449-47E9-4DB9-A9F4-25F6A6BF93A3@pavlov.rutgers.edu> References: <13F0344C3758CF4CA65C24A09AB75411391B5B68@losangeles.karger.intra> <71184449-47E9-4DB9-A9F4-25F6A6BF93A3@pavlov.rutgers.edu> Message-ID: Dear Friends & Colleagues, The following paper Moustafa, A. A., Herzallah, M. M., & Gluck, M. A. (2013). Dissociating the cognitive effects of levodopa versus dopamine agonists in a neurocomputational model of learning in Parkinson?s disease. Neurodegenerative Disorders. 11:102?111 DOI: 10.1159/000341999 Abstract:. Background/Aims: Levodopa and dopamine agonists have different effects on the motor, cognitive, and psychiatric as- pects of Parkinson?s disease (PD). Methods: Using a computational model of basal ganglia (BG) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) dopamine, we provide a theoretical synthesis of the dissociable effects of these dopaminergic medications on brain and cognition. Our model incorporates the findings that levodopa is converted by dopamine cells into dopamine, and thus activates prefrontal and striatal D1 and D2 do- pamine receptors, whereas antiparkinsonian dopamine agonists directly stimulate D2 receptors in the BG and PFC (although some have weak affinity to D1 receptors). Results: In agreement with prior neuropsychological studies, our model explains how levodopa enhances, but dopamine agonists impair or have no effect on, stimulus-response learning and working memory. Conclusion: Our model explains how levodopa and dopamine agonists have differential effects on motor and cognitive processes in PD. is now in press and available as a PDF at http://www.gluck.edu/pdf/2013_neurodegener_dis.pdf This article is one of several that appears in a special issue of this journal that I guest-edited on the topic of "Cognitive Deficits in Parkinson's Disease" which followed a special session on this topic that I organized last year at the Memory Disorders Research Society conference in Barcelona, Spain. Also: For anyone who might be interested in a "Infotainment" introduction to memory and memory disorders for the general public (perhaps for non-scientist friends or family who might ask for information on memory and advice on memory improvement), here is a link to Newark community lecture I gave on: Memory: How it works, why it sometime's doesn't, and what you can do to improve yours. It is on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr2VnCB_DXs - Mark Gluck ___________________________________ 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: From mepalmer at charles.stanford.edu Wed Jan 16 14:46:49 2013 From: mepalmer at charles.stanford.edu (Michael E. Palmer) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:46:49 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Generative and Developmental Systems at GECCO: Extension to January 31 Message-ID: <50F703A9.5010708@charles.stanford.edu> ************************************************************************* *** PAPER DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JAN 31, 2013 *** 2013 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE (GECCO-2013) *** Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) Track *** July 06-10, 2013, Amsterdam, The Netherlands *** Organized by ACM SIGEVO *** http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013 ************************************************************************* EXTENSION ANNOUNCEMENT: the paper deadline has been extended to ** January 31 ** We invite you to submit your paper to the Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track at GECCO 2013. The focus of the GDS track is making artificially evolved systems scale to high complexity, with work ranging from biologically inspired approaches to automated engineering design. Each paper submitted to the GDS Track will be reviewed by experts in the field. The size and prestige of the GECCO conference will allow many researchers to learn about your work, both at the conference and via the proceedings (GECCO has the highest impact rating of all conferences in the field of Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life). TRACK DESCRIPTION ----------------- The continuing growth in systems' size and complexity has rendered the engineering traditions of rigid top-down planning and control unsustainable. Understanding the evolution of natural complex systems - large sets of elements interacting locally and giving rise to collective behavior ? can help create a new generation of truly autonomous and adaptive artificial systems. Biological evolution has produced the astounding complexity and diversity of living organisms based on random mutations, nonrandom selection and self-organization. The Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track seeks to unlock the full potential of "in silico" evolution as a design methodology that can scale to systems of great complexity. It aims to create complex and diverse artifacts that meet our specifications with minimal guidance and programming effort. Indirect and open-ended representations: Representing more than the information needed to produce a single individual, the genotype is a layered repository of many generations of evolutionary innovation, and is shaped by two requirements: to be fit in the short term, and to be evolvable over the long term through its influence on the production of variation. "Indirect representations" such as morphogenesis or string-rewriting grammars, which rely on developmental or generative processes, may allow long-term improvement via accumulated elaborations and emergent new features. "Direct representations" are not capable of open-ended elaboration because they are restricted to predefined features. Complex environments encourage complex phenotypes: While complex genotypes are not necessarily favored in simple environments, they may enable unprecedented phenotypes and behaviors that can later successfully invade new, uncrowded niches in complex environments ? which can create pressure toward increasing complexity. Many factors may affect environmental (hence genotypic) complexity, such as spatial structure, temporal fluctuations, or competitive co-evolution. More is more: Today's typical numbers of generations, sizes of populations, and components inside individuals are still too small. Just as physics needs higher-energy accelerators and farther-reaching telescopes to understand matter and space-time, evolutionary computation needs a strong boost in computational resolution and scope to understand the spontaneous generation of complex functionality. Biological evolution involved 4 billion years and untold numbers of organisms. We expect that datacenter-scale computing power will be applied in the future to produce artificially evolved artifacts of great complexity. How will we apply such resources most efficiently? Over 150 years after Darwin's and Mendel's work, and the subsequent "Modern Synthesis" of evolution and genetics, the developmental process that maps genotype to phenotype is still poorly understood. Yet, development cannot remain an abstraction if we wish to encourage open-ended evolutionary novelty in artificial systems. The GDS track at GECCO 2013 seeks to understand the full evolution-of-development ("evo-devo") picture. It stresses the importance of the generative and developmental processes that generate the raw material for selection; such representations are uniquely capable of producing ongoing, open-ended innovation. We invite all papers related to the evolution of complexity, including in the areas of: * artificial development, artificial embryogeny * evo-devo robotics, morphogenetic robotics * evolution of evolvability * gene regulatory networks * grammar-based systems, generative systems, rewriting systems * indirect mappings, compact encodings, novel representations * measures of complexity, theories of scalable design * morphogenetic engineering * neural development, neuroevolution, augmenting topologies * spatial computing, amorphous computing Additionally, papers in the following areas will be considered if they have a particular focus on representations and/or scaling to high complexity: * competitive co-evolution (arms races) * complex, spatially structured, and dynamically changing environments * diversity preservation, novelty search * large numbers of generations, individuals, and internal components * unconventional computing, natural computing, organic computing * synthetic biology, biological and chemical IT, artificial chemistry VENUE ----- The track and conference will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. IMPORTANT DATES --------------- * January 31, 2013 - Paper submission deadline (FINAL deadline) * April 17, 2013 - Camera-ready version of accepted articles * July 06-10, 2013 - GECCO 2013 Conference in Amsterdam FOR MORE INFORMATION -------------------- More information on the GDS track is at: http://iscpif.fr/gds2013 and on the GECCO conference at: http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013 To submit your paper to the GDS track, visit http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013/papers.html We look forward to reading your paper. -- Michael Palmer, Ren? Doursat, and Joshua Bongard, GDS track chairs From Roland.W.Fleming at psychol.uni-giessen.de Tue Jan 15 10:49:15 2013 From: Roland.W.Fleming at psychol.uni-giessen.de (Roland Fleming) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:49:15 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Studentships at Giessen University and NextLimit Technologies Message-ID: <1472F10B-8B7A-4816-8DF4-E0378386D6B2@psychol.uni-giessen.de> PhD STUDENTSHIPS AT GIESSEN UNIVERSITY AND NEXTLIMIT TECHNOLOGIES AS PART OF THE EU-FUNDED "PRISM" NETWORK Two full-time 36-month PhD studentships are available immediately as part of the EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network on the Perceptual Representation of Illumination, Shape and Materials (PRISM: https://sites.google.com/site/prismitn/home). One is in Roland Fleming's lab in the Psychology Department, University of Giessen (http://www.allpsych.uni-giessen.de/roland/). The other is with the leading computer graphics firm NextLimit Technologies, Madrid (http://www.nextlimit.com/). As NextLimit is an industrial partner the PhD degree will be awarded through Giessen University --- however, NextLimit will be the primary host for the research projects. ABOUT THE NETWORK The PRISM network is a research and training consortium that brings together seven academic and two industrial partners from across Europe to study how the brain represents the illumination, shape and material properties of surface and objects in our surroundings. The network provides outstanding inter-disciplinary training opportunities through hands-on research projects, international lab exchanges, industrial secondments and specialist workshops and conferences. We invite applicants with a strong background in psychology, neuroscience, biology, physics, computer science, or engineering who are keen to understand how the brain represents the richly detailed ?look and feel? of surfaces, objects and illumination in the surrounding world. Studentships are generously funded at a rate set by the EU and with many opportunities for travel and networking. ABOUT THE HOSTS Roland Fleming?s lab uses a combination of psychophysics, computer graphics and image analysis techniques to study how the brain visually estimates the physical properties of surfaces and objects. This includes the perception of 3D shape, optical properties of materials (such as translucency and glossiness), and higher-level physical and functional properties such as object stability and fluid viscosity. This project will focus primarily on the perception of soft, deformable materials, investigating how we use shape---and the way shape changes over time---to infer the properties of the materials. NextLimit Technology is a software development company specializing in simulation technologies. NextLimit?s research on rendering algorithms has produced one of the most advanced rendering technologies on the market: Maxwell Render. This technology is capable of simulating the interaction of the light and materials by means of sophisticated ray-tracing techniques, resulting in very high quality images. Another product developed by Next Limit is RealFlow, a physics simulation technology, which includes fluids and body dynamics to produce advanced simulations. These technologies have been used in numerous Hollywood blockbusters including Avatar, 2012, GI Joe and many others. This project will focus primarily on the visual evaluation of image fidelity and realism, using psychophysics and modelling to develop image quality metrics for evaluating renderings. Previous experience with computer graphics is highly recommended. ELIGIBILITY Applicants should have a strong academic training, including a Master's degree in a relevant discipline. Due to requirements of the funding scheme, the applicant for the position in Roland Fleming's lab must not have spent more than 12 months in the past 3 years in Germany. Similarly, the applicant for the position at NextLimit must not have spent more than 12 months in the past 3 years in Spain. We particularly encourage female applicants and applicants from any ethnic background to apply. HOW TO APPLY Please send a CV and a brief (max. 1 page) cover letter explaining why you are interested in applying for the position to roland.w.fleming at psychol.uni-giessen.de and, if you are applying for the position at NextLimit, also to mariajose.orellana at nextlimit.com, with the subject "REF: PRISM ITN Position at Next Limit". In your cover letter, please briefly explain in a couple of paragraphs: ? your research interests ? what you are looking for in a PhD ? why you would like to study at the host institution ? your longer term career goals CONTACT INFORMATION -- Giessen, Germany: Justus-Liebig-Universit?t Gie?en Roland Fleming: roland.w.fleming at psychol.uni-giessen.de -- Madrid, Spain: NextLimit Technologies* Mar?a Jos? Orellana: mariajose.orellana at nextlimit.com FIND OUT MORE For further information see the PRISM website: https://sites.google.com/site/prismitn/home -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From n.burgess at ucl.ac.uk Tue Jan 15 06:07:26 2013 From: n.burgess at ucl.ac.uk (Burgess, Neil) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:07:26 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc in computational modelling of spatial cognition Message-ID: <7273B575276E404A85A4CBFBCA48E722382E8253@DB3PRD0104MB132.eurprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com> UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience & Institute of Neurology University College London U.K. POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW Computational modelling of the neural mechanisms of spatial cognition A post-doctoral research position in Neil Burgess's lab at UCL is available for computational modelling of the interactions between grid cells and place cells in coding spatial location (see e.g. 1,2,3) and their role in human spatial memory and imagery in combination with parietal cortex (see e.g. 4,5,6). Applicants should have experience of computational modelling applied to neuroscience or cognition and of programming languages such as MatLab. Experience of analysis or acquisition of experimental data in neuroscience or psychology involving virtual reality, single-unit electrophysiology, fMRI or MEG would be a bonus. Neil's lab forms part of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/), located close to the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit (http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/), the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/) and other facilities for research including electrophysiology and virtual reality. For details of the lab's research interests see: http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/Research-Groups/Space-and-Memory-Group/. The post is part of a European Union grant on computational modelling of spatial cognition, with partners Fred Hamker (T U Chemnitz), Patrick Cavanagh (U Paris Descartes), Pieter Menendorp (Donders/Neijmegen) and Rufin Van Rullen (CNRS/U Toulouse). The position will be available from March 2013, starting salary within UCL Grade 7 according to experience (?32,375 - ?39,132, inc. London Allowance). You should apply through "Current employment opportunities at UCL" on www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/jobs using Ref No 1305299. If you have any queries regarding the application process, please contact Samantha Robinson, Personnel Officer, Institute of Neurology, 23 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3BG (email: IoN.HRadmin at ucl.ac.uk). Informal enquiries should be addressed to Prof Neil Burgess n.burgess at ucl.ac.uk. Please quote Ref: 1305299 Closing date: Monday 28th January 2013 1. Burgess N, O'Keefe J (2011) Models of place and grid cell firing and theta rhythmicity. Curr Opin. Neurobiol. 21: 734-744. 2. Barry C, Ginsberg LL, O'Keefe J, Burgess N (2012) Grid cell firing patterns signal environmental novelty by expansion. P.N.A.S. In press. 3. Krupic J, Burgess N, O'Keefe J (2012) Neural Representations of Location Composed of Spatially-periodic Bands. Science, 337: 853-857. 4. Doeller CF, Barry C, Burgess, N (2010) Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network. Nature 463 657- 661. 5. Byrne P, Becker S, Burgess N (2007). Remembering the past and imagining the future: a neural model of spatial memory and imagery. Psychological Review 114 340-375. 6. Tcheang L, B?lthoff H, Burgess N (2011) Visual influence on path integration in darkness indicates a multimodal representation of large-scale space. P.N.A.S. 108: 1152-1157 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pascal.fua at epfl.ch Tue Jan 15 12:12:50 2013 From: pascal.fua at epfl.ch (Pascal Fua) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:12:50 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Post-Doctoral and Research Engineer Positions at EPFL's Computer Vision Lab Message-ID: <50F58E12.3000401@epfl.ch> EPFL's Computer Vision laboratory (http://cvlab.epfl.ch) is about to begin a collaboration with Pix4D, a local start-up company (http://www.pix4d.com/), to develop novel approaches to combining aerial images acquired by drones with ground-level ones for automated mapping. The challenge is that these images will be very different in scale and viewpoint, making it difficult to register them using traditional keypoint-based methods. The post-doctoral fellow and the research engineer will collaborate closely, both with each other and with our Pix4D colleagues. The former will focus on developping new methods that can lead to publication while the latter will be expected to write industrial-grade software that can eventually be transfered to the company. Post-Doctoral Profile: - Ph.D. degree in Computer Vision or Photogrammetry. - Strong publication record in top-level conferences and journals. - Strong programming skills (C or C++) are a plus. Research-Engineer Profile: - Master's degree in a field related to image processing. - Proven record of writing industrial/open-source code. - Familiarity with mapping and photogrammetry is a plus. Duration: - One year renewable up to a maximum of three years. Applying: Please send your CV with three references to Mrs. Josiane Gisclon (josiane.gisclon at epfl.ch). From thomaskreuz at yahoo.de Wed Jan 16 18:54:40 2013 From: thomaskreuz at yahoo.de (Thomas Kreuz) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 23:54:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Connectionists: Vastly improved measure of spike train synchrony (incl. source codes & movies) Message-ID: <1358380480.49505.YahooMailNeo@web171204.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Dear all, ? may I kindly draw your attention to our paper on the new SPIKE-distance. The improved method opens up several novel possibilities in spike train analysis. Among others, it allows to estimate spike train synchrony online and in real-time. ? ? Monitoring spike train synchrony ? Kreuz T, Chicharro D, Houghton C, Andrzejak RG, Mormann F: Abstract: Recently, the SPIKE-distance has been proposed as a parameter-free and time-scale independent measure of spike train synchrony. This measure is time-resolved since it relies on instantaneous estimates of spike train dissimilarity. However, its original definition led to spuriously high instantaneous values for event-like firing patterns. Here we present a substantial improvement of this measure which eliminates this shortcoming. The reliability gained allows us to track changes in instantaneous clustering, i.e., time-localized patterns of (dis)similarity among multiple spike trains. Additional new features include selective and triggered temporal averaging as well as the instantaneous comparison of spike train groups. In a second step, a causal SPIKE-distance is defined such that the instantaneous values of dissimilarity rely on past information only so that time-resolved spike train synchrony can be estimated in real-time. We demonstrate that these methods are capable of extracting valuable information from field data by monitoring the synchrony between neuronal spike trains during an epileptic seizure. Finally, the applicability of both the regular and the real-time SPIKE-distance to continuous data is illustrated on model electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings. ? The paper is soon to appear in the Journal of Neurophysiology: ? http://jn.physiology.org/content/early/2012/11/30/jn.00873.2012.abstract ? A preprint can be found on the arXiv (with permission): http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.6604v2.pdf ? ? On my webpage you can find the Matlab source codes (including documentation): ? http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/thomas.kreuz/Source-Code/Monitoring.html ? ? The source codes include a file ?Distances_Main_Demo? which reproduces the figures 1-9 and the movie from the paper. To provide a better illustration of what is done the parameter settings for each figure are detailed on the webpage. [Note that we are in the process of programming a graphical user interface which should be finished in a week or two.] ? On the same webpage there are also two movies (in both avi and wmv format) which demonstrate the new method best. The first one is described in Fig. 9 of the paper, the second one extends the analysis performed in Fig. 7D-F. ? Any feedback (on both the paper and the source codes) is welcome! ? ? Finally, a shorter review on the SPIKE-distance can be found on Scholarpedia: ? Kreuz T: SPIKE-distance. Scholarpedia 7(12), 30652 (2012). ? With this article I am taking part in the competition for the ? 2012 Brain Corporation Prize in Computational Neuroscience ? which basically gives prizes to the three articles that have received the most Google +1 votes by January 31. So if this is of interest to you and you have a Google account could you please vote for me (on the top right corner of my article ?SPIKE-distance? you will see the Google +1 button). ? Thank you very much for your support! ? Best regards, Thomas Kreuz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From weiflee at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 23:19:04 2013 From: weiflee at gmail.com (=?gb2312?B?wO7OwLfmKFdlaWZlbmcgTGkp?=) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:19:04 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doc positions at Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, China Message-ID: <1a2001cdf469$d702f0d0$8508d270$@gmail.com> Visual Information Processing (VIP) Lab (i.e., Tsinghua University ?C Hong Kong PolyU Joint Lab) in Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, China, is the member of the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Technology and System. It has several openings for post-doctoral fellows in the fields: 1. Speech/Acoustic/EEG signal processing, robust speech recognition, speech synthesis; 2. Image Processing, computer vision??3D image/video processing; 3. Machine learning, artificial intelligence; 4. Biometrics, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Affective computing. Job requirements for post-doctoral fellows: - Applicants are expected to have finished, or be about to finish their Ph.D. degrees, to have a strong background in one of the following areas: mathematics, statistical signal processing, biometrics, and multimedia processing, and to have a track record of publications in top conferences and journals. - Strong programming skills (C or C++, matlab, or python). - Embedded system software and hardware development experience is a plus. - Good English communication skills; Salary: The salaries are in the range 20,000 to 25,000 USD per year based on the candidates' experience. An apartment with about 70 square meters (two bed rooms, one living room and one kitchen room??is provided inside the campus and the rent is less than 200 USD per month. Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University is located in Shenzhen city, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. Owing to China's economic liberalization, the area became China's first and the most successful Special Economic Zones. The laboratory offers a creative international environment, and works on an interdisciplinary team. We provide a possibility to conduct competitive research on a global scale. There will be ample opportunities to cooperate with some of the best groups in Hong Kong, Europe and the USA. Application Instructions: Interested applicants should send a CV to Prof. Li (li.weifeng at sz.tsinghua.edu.cn) Address: Room 103A, F Building, Tsinghua Campus, University Town, Nanshan District, 518055 Shenzhen, P.R. China -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From i.bojak at reading.ac.uk Thu Jan 17 09:33:20 2013 From: i.bojak at reading.ac.uk (Ingo Bojak) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:33:20 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: University of Reading PhD Studentship (UK/EU only) Message-ID: <50F80BB0.8040105@reading.ac.uk> *University of Reading PhD Studentship (UK/EU only) * ** Project Title: Dendrites and layers: Neural field models in three dimensions *Supervisor:*Prof Ingo Bojak *School/Department:*School of Systems Engineering *Overview *Neural field models treat cortical tissue as continuous with emergent properties. Since neocortex has the surface area of three A4 sheets but is only 1-5 mm thick, classical theories locate neural activity on a 2D "cortical sheet". This approach has been highly successful in describing in particular the electroencephalogram (EEG). However, neurons are organized into six anatomical layers. They also form dendritic trees, branching fibers that create large input areas, and project axons (output fibers) to the dendrites of other neurons. Their size and arrangement depends systematically on neuron type and depth, creating neural "microcircuits" across layers. This project brings this third cortical dimension to neural field models.We will develop a 3D theory that incorporates shunting synaptic inputs arranged in realistic spatial patterns across the dendrites, and produce a software package that allows rapid evaluation of such models (possibly with GPU acceleration). We will fit laminar electrode and/or EEG data from schizophrenic patients, and explore (speculative) functional consequences of dendritic processing, like burst-suppression in anesthesia or acquired epilepsy. This is a computational neuroscience project which requires skills and knowledge in neuroscience, applied mathematics and programming. Candidates that have a strong background in at least two of these three fields are welcome to apply, if they are enthusiastic about the third. Neural field models are a particularly accommodating subject for transitions from physics, engineering, etc. into the life sciences. However, we will also place a strong focus on describing real-world data; depending on student aptitude and preference, the candidate can engage with ongoing electrophysiological and animal experiments directly relevant to this project (e.g., acquired epilepsy) via the Co-Supervisor, Dr Ben Whalley of the Reading School of Pharmacy, in order to identify and validate exploitable applications of the model. ** *Eligibility *Applicants should hold a minimum of a UK Honours Degree at 2:1 level or equivalent in a relevant subject.Please note that due to restrictions on the funding this studentship is for UK/EU applicants only. ** *Funding Details *Studentship will cover Home/EU Fees and pay the Research Council minimum stipend (?13,590 for 2011/12) for up to 3 years. The studentship will begin in October 2013. *How to apply *To apply for this studentship please submit an application for a *PhD in Cybernetics *to the University at http://www.reading.ac.uk/Study/apply/pg-applicationform.aspx.Please quote the reference *GS13-07 *in the '/Scholarships applied for'/ box which appears within the /Funding Section/ of your online application. *Application Deadline *Friday, 15^th March 2013. ** *Further Enquiries *Please contact Prof Ingo Bojak, i.bojak at reading.ac.uk . Prof Bojak will join the University of Reading in May 2013. Interviews may be conducted in his current place of work (University of Birmingham) prior to this date. Ingo Bojak http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1765-3502 http://www.researcherid.com/rid/E-9759-2010 http://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.url?authorId=6602776413 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mallat at cmap.polytechnique.fr Thu Jan 17 11:58:09 2013 From: mallat at cmap.polytechnique.fr (Stephane Mallat) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:58:09 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?Postdoc_Positions_in_Signal_Classi?= =?iso-8859-1?q?fication_at_=C9cole_Normale_Sup=E9rieure_in_Paris?= Message-ID: <50F82DA1.5090201@cmapx.polytechnique.fr> Postdoc Positions in Signal Classification at ?cole Normale Sup?rieure in Paris The Signal Classification group at ?cole Normale Sup?rieure, in Paris is offering two post-doc positions (1-year, extendable), beginning beween March 1st and September 1st 2013, under the supervision of Pfr. St?phane Mallat. The research domain concerns signal and image representations for unsupervised and supervised classification. It covers a broad range of signal processing, machine learning and applied mathematics topics, including: - Deep neural networks - Dictionary learning - Invariant representations on groups - Kernel learning and clustering - Sparse representations - Wavelet transforms Applications may concern any type of signal, including speech and music, images, videos, seismic data and medical signals such as EEG or ECG. Candidates should email to stephane.mallat at ens.fr before February 15th: - Their CV - Selected preprints - A list of three references with emails and phone numbers More information are available at: http://www.di.ens.fr/signal or in the NIPS video lecture: : http://videolectures.net/nips2012_mallat_classification/ From T.Hain at dcs.shef.ac.uk Thu Jan 17 19:44:42 2013 From: T.Hain at dcs.shef.ac.uk (Thomas Hain) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:44:42 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Research Associate in Robust Speech Recognition Message-ID: Research Associate in Robust Speech Recognition =============================================== The University of Sheffield, Department of Computer Science invite applications for a position as Research Associate to work on a project to research and develop robust technology for recognition of speech in meetings. The associated project, DocuMeet, is funded by the European Union and involves collaboration with partners from academia and industry across Europe. The Speech and Hearing Research Group is responsible for speech technology in the project, but also contributes to some natural language understanding tasks. Speech transcription of meeting data is a well-established task, with international competitions (held by U.S. NIST), and supported by several large-scale research projects. While significant progress has been made, the performance of recognition, detection and analysis systems is still very far from usable in many realistic, natural scenarios. There are many significant challenges seeking a solution: the acoustic complexity of meetings goes well beyond standard settings.: Noise and reverberation are standard; speech signals show significant amounts of overlap between speakers; varying degrees of emotion are present; and speakers are moving. All of these pose significant challenges to speech research and practical applications. In the DocuMeet project we specifically work on speech recognition robustness to noise and reverberation. We aim to work on new algorithms that allow to factor environment and context in novel ways (e.g. eigen-environments). The recordings from multiple microphones can be used to remove unwanted acoustics, while knowledge about a specific environment type should be used to adjust acoustic models of the recognition systems. Further we will investigate how such algorithms can be integrated with personalisation (acoustic/language) and how metadata can be used to inform such processes. Extensive experimentation of existing and new corpora will be required to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new techniques. Applicants are required to have a track record of work on speech technologies including speech recognition, and to have had exposure to modern machine learning techniques. Ideally, such a track record is demonstrated by publications in international journals and conferences. The successful candidate will be required to hold a PhD in the field; work on the project will require publication of results, travelling to conferences and extensive visits to itslanguage offices. At this point the project duration is for one year, but extensions are likely. The project will be embedded in the Speech and Hearing (SpandH) research group at (http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/spandh) in the Department of Computer Science, and in particular the subgroup on machine intelligence for natural interfaces (MINI). SpandH is amongst the largest speech research groups in the UK, with extensive infrastructure and a vibrant research environment. The group is well known internationally for its research, which reaches across traditional divides to encompass and link computational hearing, speech perception and speech technology. The MINI subgroup is led by Prof. Hain, currently has 13 members, and is amongst other things well known for speech recognition and classification. It has had systems with best performance in international competitions that are available to the public at www.webasr.org. The subgroup is currently involved in many projects, including an EPSRC programme grant (with Univ. of Cambridge, Univ. of Edinburgh), research organisations (e.g. Idiap, NICT), and Industry (e.g. Cisco, Google). It has its own extensive computing infrastructure, access to large quantities of data, as well as dedicated recording facilities. The Department of Computer Science, which is a member of the Faculty of Engineering, was established in 1982 and has since attained an international reputation for its research and teaching. Currently there are over 100 members of staff in Computer Science, including 35 Academics. The Department has an international reputation for the quality of its research, and was awarded grade 5 in the 2001 research assessment exercise, and in the 2008 exercise, 65% of our research was rated world leading or internationally excellent in terms of its originality, significance and rigor. If you would like to know more about this position, please contact Prof. Thomas Hain - t.hain at dcs.shef.ac.uk. In order to apply, the best option is to visit jobs.ac.uk and then press the 'Apply' button on the page: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AFU678/research-associate/ The University of Shefield JOB ID is UOS005891. From cie.conference.series at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 07:39:24 2013 From: cie.conference.series at gmail.com (CiE Conference Series) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:39:24 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CiE 2013: The Nature of Computation - final submission by *February 2nd 2013* Message-ID: FINAL SUBMISSION INFORMATION CiE 2013: The Nature of Computation Milan, Italy July 1 - 5, 2013 http://cie2013.disco.unimib.it co-located with Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation 2013 http://ucnc2013.disco.unimib.it ALL FINAL SUBMISSION needed by *February 2nd 2013* The organisers have received several requests for extending the deadline. The server for submissions to CIE 2013 will remain open for new submissions until January 30th. Revised versions of papers may be submitted until February 2nd, as long as a preliminary version including an abstract has been submitted by January 30th. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computability in Europe provides the largest international conference dealing with the full spectrum of computability-related research. The Nature of Computation is meant to emphasize the special focus of CIE13 on the unexpected and strong changes that studies on Nature have brought in several areas of mathematics, physics, and computer science. Starting from Alan Turing, research on Nature with a computational perspective has produced novel contributions, giving rise even to new disciplines. We particularly welcome submissions in emergent areas, such as bioinformatics and natural computation, where they have a basic connection with computability. SUBMISSIONS Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their work at the conference. Each presentation will be 25 minutes long, including the time for the eventual discussion. Submitted papers must describe work not previously published, and they must neither be accepted nor under review at a journal or at another conference with refereed proceedings. Authors are required to submit their manuscripts electronically in PDF using the LNCS style. Authors using LaTeX can download the needed macros at Springer-Verlag site. Papers should not exceed 10 pages; full proofs may appear in a clearly marked technical appendix which will be read at the reviewers? discretion. The submission process is managed by EasyChair and is available at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2013. The proceedings will be available at the conference venue. The CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS will be published by LNCS, Springer Verlag. From borisyuk at math.utah.edu Fri Jan 18 15:24:28 2013 From: borisyuk at math.utah.edu (Alla Borisyuk) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:24:28 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: CNS*2013: abstract submission and registration is now open In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Organization for Computational Neurosciences (OCNS) 22nd Annual Meeting University of Paris ?Ren? Descartes?, Paris, France July 13-18, 2013 Abstract submission and registration are now open. Please visit: http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2013-abstract-submission Deadlines: 14 Feb 2013 Latest date for Member applications before abstract submission 16 Feb 2013 Abstract submission closes (11:00 pm Pacific time USA) NEW!!!! Please note that the registration procedure has changed this year. It is now required that the presenting author registers for the meeting BEFORE submitting an abstract. In the case that the abstract is not accepted for presentation, the registration fee will be refunded. --------------------------------------- The main meeting (July 14 ? 16, 2013) will be preceded by a day of tutorials (July 13) and followed by two days of workshops (July 17?18). Conference banquet will be held in the Mus?e des Arts-Forains on July 15 http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2013-paris Confirmed Invited Speakers: Sophie Den?ve (ENS-Paris) Simon Laughlin (University of Cambridge) Nikos Logothetis (Max Planck Institute T?bingen) Rafael Yuste (Columbia University) ---------------------------------------- OCNS is the international member-based society for computational neuroscientists. Become a member to be eligible for travel awards and more. Visit our website for more information: http://www.cnsorg.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this message From kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de Fri Jan 18 08:20:56 2013 From: kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de (Janina Kirsch) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:20:56 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD-Position available at the Bernstein Center Freiburg - "Local Balance in Neuronal Networks" (Biomicrotechnology lab - Prof. Dr. Ulrich Egert) Message-ID: <008801cdf57e$a622b7f0$f26827d0$@bcf.uni-freiburg.de> We are inviting application for a PhD-Position "Local Balance in Neuronal Networks" Biomicrotechnology lab - Prof. Ulrich Egert Neuronal networks with inhomogeneous connectivity have been suggested to be more robust against saturation and excessive synchronization in high input regimes. This strongly depends on the specific type of balance of excitation and inhibition as well as the role and effectiveness or long range connectivity. Locally unbalanced networks could contribute to an optimal representation of information in wide range of input regimes, or conversely to pathological network dynamics. In this context, we are interested in the role of inhibition/excitation balance beyond the statistical mean. We expect that local variability, the extent of connectivity and the specific properties of inhibitory/excitatory balance influence the activity structure and robustness of neuronal networks. We test this in synthetic networks of cultured cortical neurons using electrophysiological, optogenetic and computational techniques. We invite applications to join the lab for a 3-4 year PhD-Project, and to enter the PhD-Program "iCoNeT" at the Bernstein Center Freiburg. The project is financed by a fellowship of the DAAD. The successful applicant has some prior training in experimental neurophysiology, excellent command of the English language, high motivation for independent work, knowledge of some programming language, ideally Matlab or Python, and willingness to contribute to an international team. Experience with cell cultures, network modeling or intracellular recording would be a plus. The Bernstein Center Freiburg concentrates research in Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The projects are highly interdisciplinary and span across mathematical-theoretical approaches on the function and dynamics of neuronal networks, neuroanatomy, experimentally driven neurophysiology and the development of technologies for medical application. Application deadline: March 31, 2013 Further details on: www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/jobs and http://www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/teaching-and-training/phd-program Contact: Dr. Janina Kirsch Teaching & Training Coordinator Hansastr. 9a 79104 Freiburg, Germany kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de From pul8 at psu.edu Fri Jan 18 16:06:21 2013 From: pul8 at psu.edu (Ping Li) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:06:21 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: NSF book info and article info Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, With the permission of the list moderator, I would like to let you know about a new book that was just published by Wiley (see below). Although this book is not about connectionist models, the list moderator believed that it could be relevant to colleagues on the listserv. My apologies to those who are not interested (although the general grant writing tips here could be useful to non-NSF proposal writers). On the other hand, we have recently compiled a bibliography on connectionism and language that could be useful to many (Li & Zhao, 2012; see http://goo.gl/2KuY7). This is part of the Oxford Bibliography Online (OBO) effort which means we will be able to update the entries in a timely fashion. We already received comments from colleagues about entries missing and we will update these in the next few weeks. If you have references that you think should be included, I would appreciate you letting me know. Sincerely Ping Li ------ "Having Success with NSF: A Practical Guide" (Li & Marrongelle, 2013), with highlights from the publisher: ? Addresses the new NSF Merit Review Principles and Criteria as of 2013 ? Takes a practical approach to conceiving, writing, and submitting an NSF proposal ? Addresses FAQs the authors received as NSF program directors ? Discusses what you don?t know about the proposal review process ? Contains sample letters and various templates for NSF required documents ? Makes an excellent reference for grad student seminars in grant writing For more information, please see: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118013980.html http://cogsci.psu.edu/pubs/Pubs/nsf_book_info.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john.hajda at sagecenter.ucsb.edu Fri Jan 18 16:59:01 2013 From: john.hajda at sagecenter.ucsb.edu (John Hajda) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:59:01 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc job announcement at UC Santa Barbara Message-ID: <50F9C5A5.2030606@sagecenter.ucsb.edu> *SAGE JUNIOR FELLOW PROGRAM, SAGE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF MIND, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA. *Three postdoctoral positions will be available beginning on July 1, 2013. The initial appointment is for one year, with a possible extension to a second year. The SAGE Center Junior Fellowship will foster interdisciplinary research in the study of brain-mind interaction at the postdoctoral level. We are seeking exceptional scholars who will engage in research and participate in teaching graduate-level courses at UCSB. In addition to developing research programs in close collaboration with individual faculty, Junior Fellows will enjoy special privileges, including access to Visiting SAGE Scholars and attendance at regular group meetings to collaborate and share information about the role of psychology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, political science, anthropology, biology, and philosophy on the study of mind. To be eligible for the Junior Fellows program, a candidate must be at an early stage of his or her postdoctoral career. Proposed research topics must be related to brain-mind interaction. We will strive to create a team based on common interests of the top applicants. To apply, please send: 1. A complete CV, published article and three letters of recommendation 2. A statement of your research interests and a description of how those interests complement the goals of the SAGE Center. For primary consideration, apply by March 1, 2013, although we will accept applications until the positions are filled. Letters of recommendation may be sent by applicants or by recommenders. Email the required application materials to juniorfellows at sagecenter.ucsb.edu ; include your last name in the subject line of all correspondence. Alternatively, you or your recommenders may send hard copies to this address: Michael S. Gazzaniga, Ph.D. Director, Sage Center for the Study of Mind University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California 93106-9660 http://www.sagecenter.ucsb.edu/ http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~gazzanig/ The Department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching and service. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action employer. -- John Hajda, Ph.D. Associate Director Sage Center for the Study of the Mind Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660 Phone 805-893-4460 Fax 805-893-3228 hajda at sagecenter.ucsb.edu http://www.sagecenter.ucsb.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jesus.m.cortes at gmail.com Sat Jan 19 12:35:35 2013 From: jesus.m.cortes at gmail.com (Jesus Cortes) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 18:35:35 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Frontiers Research Topic: Information-based methods for Neuroimaging (updated info) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In collaboration with Frontiers in Neuroscience, we are currently organizing a Research Topic, "Information-based methods for Neuroimaging: analyzing structure, function and dynamics". Host Specialty: Frontiers in Neuroinformatics Research Topic Title: Information-based methods for neuroimaging: analyzing structure, function and dynamics Topic Editor(s): Daniele Marinazzo, Jesus Cortes, Miguel Angel Mu?oz Abstract Submission Deadline: March 01, 2013 Article Submission Deadline: November 01, 2013 Confirmed contributors are: Daniel Chicharro Demian Battaglia Joaquin Go?i Joseph Lizier Timothy Mullen Olaf Sporns Stefano Panzeri Michael Wibral %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Description: The aim of this Research Topic is to discuss the state of the art on the use of Information-based methods in the analysis of neuroimaging data. Information-based methods, typically built as extensions of the Shannon Entropy, are at the basis of model-free approaches which, being based on probability distributions rather than on specific expectations, can account for all possible non-linearities present in the data in a model-independent fashion. Thus, for instance, to compute the statistical dependence between two random variables, the Mutual Information accounts for the information bits that the two variables are sharing (if it is zero, the two variables are statistically independent). Mutual Information-like methods can also be applied on interacting dynamical variables described by time-series, thus addressing the uncertainty reduction (or information) in one variable by conditioning on another set of variables. This is the spirit of the growing-in-popularity Transfer Entropy (Schreiber 2000), an Information-based method to estimate directed influence. In the last years, different Information-based methods have been shown to be flexible and powerful tools to analyze neuroimaging data, with a wide range of different methodologies, including formulations-based on bivariate vs multivariate representations, frequency vs time domains, etc. Apart from methodological issues, the information bit as a common unit represents a convenient way to open the road for comparison and integration between different measurements of neuroimaging data in three complementary contexts: Structural Connectivity, Dynamical (Functional and Effective) Connectivity, and Consciousness. Mutual Information-based methods have provided new insights about common-principles in brain organization, showing the existence of an active default network when the brain is at rest. It is not clear, however, how this default network is generated, the different modules are intra-interacting, or disappearing in the presence of stimulation. Some of these open-questions at the functional level might find their mechanisms on their structural correlates. A key question is the link between structure and function and the use of structural priors for the understanding of the functional connectivity measures. As effective connectivity is concerned, recently a common framework has been proposed for Transfer Entropy and Granger Causality, a well-established methodology originally based on autoregressive models. This framework can open the way to new theories and applications. Information flow and transfer in the brain can be straightforwardly associated to consciousness: will the knowledge of the structure and the dynamics lead us to define consciousness? Do different information processing pathways exist in different consciousness states, or is simply the amount of information different? Information based measurements could help to clarify this issue. A Research Topic bringing together contributions from researchers from different backgrounds which are either developing new approaches, or applying existing methodologies to new data would be an optimal round table and starting platform for the development and validation of new Information-based methodologies for the understanding of brain structure, function, and dynamics. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% About Frontiers Research Topics: Frontiers Research Topics are designed to be an organized, encyclopedic coverage of a particular research area, and a forum for discussion and debate. Contributions can be of different article types (Original Research, Methods, Hypothesis & Theory, and others). Our Research Topic has a dedicated homepage on the Frontiers website, where contributing articles are accumulated and discussions can be easily held. Once all articles are published, the topic will be compiled into an e-book, which can be sent to foundations that fund your research, to journalists and press agencies, and to any number of other organizations. As the ultimate reference source from leading scientists, Frontiers Research Topic articles become highly cited. Frontiers is a Swiss-based, open access publisher. As such an article accepted for publication incurs a publishing fee, which varies depending on the article type. The publishing fee for accepted articles is below average compared to most other open access journals - and lower than subscription-based journals that apply page and color figure charges. Moreover, for Research Topic articles, the publishing fee is discounted quite steeply thanks to the support of the Frontiers Research Foundation. Details on Frontiers? fees can be found at http://www.frontiersin.org/about/PublishingFees. When published, your article will be freely available to visitors to the Frontiers site, and will be indexed in PubMed and other academic archives. As an author in Frontiers, you will retain the copyright to your own paper and all figures. For more information about this topic and Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org/Neuroinformatics/researchtopics/Information-based_methods_for_/1241 Should you choose to participate, please confirm by sending a quick email and then your abstract using the following link: http://www.frontiersin.org/submissioninfo %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Best Regards Daniele Marinazzo, Jesus M Cortes, Miguel Angel Mu?oz From A.GARCEZ at city.ac.uk Fri Jan 18 16:46:31 2013 From: A.GARCEZ at city.ac.uk (Garcez, Artur) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 21:46:31 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Doctoral Studentships at City University London In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: City University London is offering up to 30 fully-funded PhD studentships for starting in October 2013. These are open to UK, EU and overseas students and include a bursary of GBP 16,000 per year and a full tuition fee waiver for 3 years. The application deadline is the 1st of March 2013. General information and an assessment criteria are available at: http://www.city.ac.uk/citygraduateschool/fees-and-funding/university-doctoral-studentships Information on how to apply to the Computer Science programme is available at: http://www.city.ac.uk/informatics/research/phd-research-studies/fees-and-funding If you would like to discuss a potential application, please contact Artur Garcez at aag at soi.city.ac.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Artur d'Avila Garcez, FBCS Reader in Computing Department of Computing, School of Informatics City University London, EC1V 0HB, UK Tel: + 44 (0)20 7040 8344 Fax: + 44 (0)20 7040 0244 Email: aag at soi.city.ac.uk URL: http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~aag ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fhamker at uni-muenster.de Mon Jan 21 10:54:18 2013 From: fhamker at uni-muenster.de (Fred Hamker) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:54:18 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Research Position in Computational Neuroscience (Basal Ganglia Models) Message-ID: <600A336F-DE74-4B5A-9CF1-9369F8687898@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 will also be considered. The position is for three years, starting as soon as 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, who will record from basal ganglia nuclei in monkey and with Andrea K?hn with respect to clinical applications. 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. (submitted) Dysfunctional and Compensatory Synaptic Plasticity in Parkinson?s Disease. 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: From kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de Mon Jan 21 05:51:09 2013 From: kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de (Janina Kirsch) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:51:09 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD-Position available at the Bernstein Center Freiburg - "Structural and molecular dynamics of epileptogenesis" (Experimental Epilepsy Lab - Prof. Dr. Carola Haas) Message-ID: <004901cdf7c5$390c0740$ab2415c0$@bcf.uni-freiburg.de> We are inviting application for a PhD-Position "Structural and molecular dynamics of epileptogenesis" Experimental Epilepsy Lab - Prof. Dr. Carola Haas Our goal is to understand the interplay between molecular, cellular and functional determinants leading to focal epilepsies in the mammalian brain. Our main tools are in vivo and in vitro animal models where we apply morphological, biochemical, molecular and electrophysiological techniques to address questions regarding epileptogenesis in the hippocampus and neocortex. In collaboration with physiologists and physicists, we seek to understand how the fine-tuned neuronal network of the brain becomes unbalanced and epileptic. We are a young group of researchers from medicine and biology and invite applications to join the lab for a 3-4 year PhD-Project, and to enter the PhD-Program "iCoNeT" at the Bernstein Center Freiburg. The project is financed by a fellowship of the DAAD. The successful applicant has some prior training in experimental neurophysiology or molecular biology. Experience with neuronal cell culture and confocal microscopy would be a plus. Good knowledge of the English language, high motivation for independent work, but also ability to work in a an international team are mandatory. The Bernstein Center Freiburg concentrates research in Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The projects are highly interdisciplinary and span from mathematical-theoretical approaches on the function and dynamics of neuronal networks over neuroanatomy and experimentally driven neurophysiology up to the development of technologies for medical application. Application deadline: March 31, 2013 Further details on how to apply: www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/jobs and about the PhD-Program "iCoNeT" http://www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/teaching-and-training/phd-program Contact: Dr. Janina Kirsch Teaching & Training Coordinator Hansastr. 9a 79104 Freiburg, Germany kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de From pl219 at cam.ac.uk Sat Jan 19 19:59:18 2013 From: pl219 at cam.ac.uk (Pietro Lio') Date: 20 Jan 2013 00:59:18 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: MONACOM 2013, deadline extended to 25th January Message-ID: Dear All, **As all the ICC workshops' deadlines has been extended to 25th January (http://www.ieee-icc.org/), also MoNaCom has followed this initiative: NEW DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING A PAPER FOR MONACOM IS 25th January ** The 3rd IEEE International Workshop on Molecular and Nanoscale Communications workshop (MoNaCom 2013) will be held in conjunction with the International Conference on Communications (ICC), June 9-13, 2013 in Budapest, Hungary. The general chair of the workshop is Prof. Falko Dressler from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. TPC co-chairs are Pietro Lio' from the University of Cambridge, UK, and Michael Moore from Osaka University, Japan. As before, the workshop is focused on nano and molecular networks that interconnect nanomachines. The full CFP is available at: http://monacom.tssg.org/cfp/. In order to have a successful workshop, we would appreciate your submission of workshop papers, distributing the CFP to colleagues, and encouraging colleagues to submit. IMPORTANT DATES: Registration of Abstracts for Workshops: 25 January 2013 Submission Deadline for Workshops: 25 January 2013 Notification of Acceptance for Workshops: 22 February 2013 Camera-ready deadline: March 8, 2013 Topics of the workshop include: - Design and engineering of nanomachines for nano/molecular communication: Protein machines; Artificial cells; Synthetic cells; DNA machines; Nano-bio sensors and actuators - Infrastructures for nano/molecular communication: Calcium signaling; Viral transport; Carbon Nano Tubes (CNT); Membrane nanotube; Flagellated Bacteria; Molecular motors over microtubules; Neural networks; Electromagnetic nanonetworks - Network theory: Mobility in nano/molecular networks; Energy models for nano machines; Information processing in nano/molecular networks; Protocols and architectures for nano/molecular communication; Network controls of nano/molecular communication; Addressing, switching and routing at nano/molecular scale; Coding in nano/molecular networks; Security of nano/molecular networks - Nano/molecular network design: Robust design and architecture; Network design by moleware; Emergent behaviour in nano/molecular networks (e.g. self-assembly, self-organisation); Programming for moleware communication; Planning of nano/molecular networks; Networks of nanocomputers; integrating and monitoring nanonetworks with larger-scale networks - Natural Computing in nano/molecular communication: Molecular computing; DNA computing; membrane computing; Integration of computational and communication capabilities in nano/molecular networks - Tools to support nano/molecular network design: Wetware communication by simulation in silico; Network simulators (e.g. ns2, ns3) for nano/molecular networks - Applications of nano/molecular networks: Healthcare, e.g., Drug delivery, Nanomedicine, Telecommunications, Energy, Biotechnology, Bioremediation and Environment, Nano robots communication. Submission guideline: Prospective authors are encouraged to submit a standard IEEE conference style paper via the EDAS submission system (http://edas.info/N13467). Papers should be written in English with a standard length of five (5) printed pages (10-point font) including figures, without incurring additional page charges (maximum 1 additional page with extra charge if accepted). Dr Pietro Lio' PhD In Genetics, PhD in Engineering Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge tel +44 (0)1223 763604; Fax: +44 (0)1223 33467; email: pl219 at cam.ac.uk; www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pl219 From s.j.nasuto at reading.ac.uk Mon Jan 21 08:22:50 2013 From: s.j.nasuto at reading.ac.uk (Slawomir Jaroslaw Nasuto) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:22:50 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD-Position studentship at the University of Reading on the nature of anticipation Message-ID: University of Reading PhD Studentship Project Title: Fast and Furious: the nature of anticipation Supervisor: Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi and Prof Slawomir J. Nasuto School/Department: School of Systems Engineering (SSE) Overview: We make split second decisions and actions at each step of our lives. Engaging in such activities is critically dependent on ability to anticipate future outcomes. Anticipation has been postulated as one of the most generic forms of information processing in perception, motor control, and coordination of interactions with the environment or the other members of the society. Yet the nature of the anticipation mechanisms is not well understood and the fundamental assumptions behind some of the proposals are hotly debated. The project will develop and apply tools from nonlinear dynamical modelling and signal analysis in order to investigate the mechanisms of anticipation using motion tracking experimental paradigm where two subjects learn via interaction to perform coherently their motion. The project will also involve development of novel techniques of simultaneous EEG scanning of two subjects which will further inform us about the neural mechanisms underlying anticipation. We are inviting applications from dedicated candidates enthusiastic about the research and interested in interdisciplinary study in neuroscience, cognitive science and cybernetical physics, combining experimental, analytic and computational techniques, who are also interested in potential fundamental larger questions related to their line of enquiry. The suitable candidate should have excellent analytic skills, good familiarity with programming and be keen to develop experimental and cognitive expertise through their study. The candidate will work as a member of the Brain Embodiments Lab - a thriving interdisciplinary research community which will offer an excellent support and possibility of interactions with researchers and students investigating the role of the close loop between brain, body and the dynamic environment in cognitive and neural information processing. Eligibility: Applicants should hold a minimum of a UK Honours Degree at 2:1 level or equivalent in a relevant subject such as systems engineering, control engineering, cybernetics or physics. Please note that due to restrictions on the funding this studentship is for UK/EU applicants only. Funding Details: Studentship will cover Home/EU Fees and pay the Research Council minimum stipend (?13,590 for 2011/12) for up to 3 years. The studentship will begin in October 2013. How to apply: To apply for this studentship please submit an application for a PhD in Cybernetics to the University - see http://www.reading.ac.uk/Study/apply/pg-applicationform.aspx. Please quote the reference GS13-14 in the 'Scholarships applied for' box which appears within the Funding Section of your online application. Once you have submitted your application, you should receive an email to confirm receipt of your application. You should forward email confirming application receipt, along with a covering letter, to SSE Postgraduate Administrator, Mrs Nellie Round (n.round at reading.ac.uk). Application Deadline: Friday 15th March 2013 Further Enquiries: Please contact Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi : Email hayashi.yoshikatsu at gmail.com -------- Slawomir J Nasuto Professor of Cybernetics School Director of Postgraduate Research Studies School of Systems Engineering University of Reading Reading, RG6 6AY, UK Tel: +44 (0) 118 378 6701 Fax: +44 (0) 118 378 8220 From etienne.roesch at gmail.com Mon Jan 21 16:32:18 2013 From: etienne.roesch at gmail.com (=?windows-1252?Q?Etienne_Beno=EEt_Roesch?=) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:32:18 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Studentship "Modelling of retinal neural networks" (Full-time, full-tuition, UK/EU only) Message-ID: <38FAF495-53B4-4793-97E4-03D210649C52@gmail.com> University of Reading PhD Studentship (UK/EU only) Project Title: Mesoscopic modelling of retinal neural networks Supervisor: Dr. Etienne B. Roesch School/Department: School of Systems Engineering & Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics Overview: The goal of the project is to build neural field models of the retina that will allow the investigation of the architecture underlying visual information processing. These models will also be used to simulate the disturbances yielding visual impairment in early diabetic retinopathy. Neural fields are integro-differential equations, similar to wave equations, that represent electrical and chemical neurodynamics on continuous space-time scales. They are thus ideal to study populations of cells as homogeneously structured, and as dependent on spatial contiguity as the retina, whilst exploring complex nonlinear dynamics of neural information processing. The construction of the models will be informed by connectomic and physiological data, and the models subjected to extensive parameter-sensitivity analyses. The project falls into the remit of the University of Reading?s strategic investment to support neuroscience and interdisciplinary research. The student will be supervised by Dr. Etienne B. Roesch and Prof. Ingo Bojak. This is a computational neuroscience project, which requires skills and knowledge in neuroscience, applied mathematics and programming. Candidates that have a strong background in at least two of these three fields are welcome to apply, if they are enthusiastic about the third. Neural field models are a particularly accommodating subject for transitions from physics, engineering, etc. into the life sciences. However, we will also place a strong focus on describing real-world data; depending on the student?s aptitude and preference, the candidate will be given the opportunity to engage with ongoing electrophysiological experimentation directly relevant to this project, in our lab and with collaborators in the UK and internationally, in order to identify and validate exploitable applications of the models. Additionally, the candidate will be granted access to the cluster of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and other facilities at the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, as well as at the Brain Embodiments Laboratory. Eligibility: Applicants should hold a minimum of a UK Honours Degree at 2:1 level or equivalent in a relevant subject. Please note that due to restrictions on the funding this studentship is for UK/EU applicants only. Funding Details: Studentship will cover Home/EU Fees and pay the Research Council minimum stipend (?13,590 for 2011/12) for up to 3 years. The studentship will begin in October 2013. How to apply: To apply for this studentship please submit an application for a PhD in Cybernetics (full time) to the University ? see http://www.reading.ac.uk/Study/apply/pg-applicationform.aspx. Once you have submitted your application, you should receive an email to confirm receipt of your online application. Please forward this email, along with a covering letter, to Dr. Etienne B. Roesch, e.b.roesch at reading.ac.uk, by the application deadline. Please quote the reference GS13-15 in the ?Scholarships applied for? box that appears within the Funding Section of your online application. Application Deadline: Friday 15th March 2013 Further Enquiries: Please contact Dr. Etienne B. Roesch, e.b.roesch at reading.ac.uk. ??? Dr. Etienne B. Roesch Lecturer, University of Reading, UK ? Cybernetics, School of Systems Engineering ? Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics !!! EXTENDED DEADLINE: 28th JANUARY 2013 CfP "Enaction: Challenges and Successes" @ AISB'13 http://reading.ac.uk/cinn/enactivism From janetw at itee.uq.edu.au Mon Jan 21 22:04:36 2013 From: janetw at itee.uq.edu.au (Janet Wiles) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 03:04:36 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc and PhD student positions in Bio-inspired computation (Spiking neural networks and robotics) University of Queensland, Australia Message-ID: <7F1713CE870C2941A370868EACF2308925D69F@UQEXMDA1.soe.uq.edu.au> Postdoc and PhD student positions in Bio-inspired Computation, University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia The University of Queensland is seeking to recruit a postdoc and new PhD students for a project on bio-inspired computation. The aims of the project are to develop spiking neural networks for practical computation with the iRat robot. Qualifications for the postdoc position: PhD in Computational Neuroscience, Robotics, Computer Science or related area. PhD students should have 1st class honours in Computer Science or a related discipline and an interest in learning the following skills. Essential Knowledge and Skills: Experience in simulation of spiking neural networks; excellent programming skills; practical and theoretical knowledge of bio-inspired computation; track record of publication of research findings in peer reviewed journals and conferences. Desired: Expertise in cognitive robotics; excellent mathematics or machine learning; experience in computational neuroscience and theory of computation. The postdoc position description and application details are online at http://uqjobs.uq.edu.au/jobDetails.asp?sJobIDs=494238 Informal enquiries about the positions can be made to Prof Janet Wiles (email: j.wiles at uq.edu.au). PhD applicants can email a current CV. Closing date: 10th February 2013 Professor Janet Wiles School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering The University of Queensland Cricos Provider: 00025B -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pascualm at key.uzh.ch Mon Jan 21 21:23:40 2013 From: pascualm at key.uzh.ch (Roberto D. Pascual-Marqui) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:23:40 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: "Similarity Covariance" pre-print Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The following pre-print on "similarity covariance" might be of interest: http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4291 A measure of association between vectors based on "similarity covariance" RD Pascual-Marqui, D Lehmann, K Kochi, T Kinoshita, N Yamada The "similarity covariance" definition introduced in this study is motivated by the seminal work of Szekely et al on "distance covariance" (Ann. Statist. 2007, 35: 2769-2794; Ann. Appl. Stat. 2009, 3: 1236-1265). Instead of using Euclidean distances "d" as in Szekely et al, we use "similarity", which can be defined as "exp(-d/s)", where the scaling parameter s>0 controls how rapidly the similarity falls off with distance. Scale parameters are chosen by maximizing the similarity correlation. The motivation for using "similarity" originates in spectral clustering theory (see e.g. Ng et al 2001, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 14: 849-856). We show that a particular form of similarity correlation is asymptotically equivalent to distance correlation for large values of the scale parameter. Furthermore, we extend similarity correlation to coherence between complex valued vectors, including its partitioning into real and imaginary contributions. Several toy examples are used for comparing distance and similarity correlations. For instance, points on a noiseless straight line give distance and similarity correlation values equal to 1; but points on a noiseless circle produces near zero distance correlation (dCorr=0.02) while the similarity correlation is distinctly non zero (sCorr=0.36). In distinction to the distance approach, similarity gives more importance to small distances, which emphasizes the local properties of functional relations. This paper represents a preliminary empirical study, showing that the novel similarity association has some distinct practical advantages over distance based association.For the sake of reproducible research, the software code implementing all methods here (using lazarus free-pascal "www.lazarus.freepascal.org"), including all test data, are freely available at: "sites.google.com/site/pascualmarqui/home/similaritycovariance". Sincerely, Roberto ... Roberto D. Pascual-Marqui, PhD, PD The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich (Switzerland) Department of Community Psychiatric Medicine, Shiga University of Medical Science (Japan) (pascualm at belle.shiga-med.ac.jp) [www.keyinst.uzh.ch/loreta] [www.researcherid.com/rid/A-2012-2008] From kiebel at cbs.mpg.de Tue Jan 22 12:23:11 2013 From: kiebel at cbs.mpg.de (Stefan Kiebel) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:23:11 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: postdoc and PhD position in comp neuroscience & MEG/EEG methods, Jena, Germany In-Reply-To: <1397793264.7656.1358874926142.JavaMail.root@zimbra> Message-ID: <1648008212.7704.1358875391127.JavaMail.root@zimbra> We are inviting applications for a postdoctoral and a PhD student position in the Computational Neuroscience & Magnetoencephalography group at the Biomagnetic Centre (http://www.biomag.uni-jena.de), Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Germany. The successful candidates will develop novel analysis methods for Magneto- and Electroencephalography (MEG/EEG) such as connectivity analysis, source reconstruction and advanced single trial analysis. The positions are devoted to research only without any teaching or administrative duties. The work will be done in collaboration with the MEG and theoretical neuroscience groups at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging in London, UK. These positions are ideal for candidates with a computational/theoretical background and a strong interest in collaborating with experimental researchers in neuroimaging. The lab runs a 306 channels MEG (Neuromag Vectorview) with 128 integrated EEG sensors, a high-density EEG system, and high-performing compute servers. In addition the group has access to a research-only 3T MRI-scanner. All experimental facilities (MEG, EEG, MRI) are supported by experienced physics and IT staff. The applicants should have worked in neuroscience before and be motivated to work in a multidisciplinary team (e.g. mathematicians, engineers, psychologists, physicians). The postdoc applicant must have a PhD (or equivalent) in computational neuroscience, physics, or a related field and should, ideally, have expertise in EEG or MEG and nonlinear dynamical systems. The PhD student should have a mathematically oriented background in computational neuroscience, physics, or a related field but students with a cognitive neuroscience, psychology, or related background will be considered as well. The starting dates for both positions are flexible. Salary is based on German Public service regulations (postdoc TV-L E13, PhD student TV-L E13 65%). The postdoc position is initially for two years with possible extension; the PhD position is for three years with one year possible extension. Interested candidates are encouraged to get in touch at their earliest convenience. Applications are considered until 15th of March 2013 but reviewing of the applications will start immediately. For questions or an informal discussion about these positions please contact Prof. Stefan Kiebel (skiebel at biomag.uni-jena.de). The following documents should be included in the application in a single PDF-file and sent by email to skiebel at biomag.uni-jena.de: A cover letter including a brief description of personal qualifications and future research interests, curriculum vitae, and contact details of two personal references. -- Prof. Dr. Stefan Kiebel Biomagnetic Center Hans Berger Dept of Neurology Jena University Hospital, Germany Tel.: +49 (0) 3641 9325770 http://www.biomag.uni-jena.de From jwmbrown at indiana.edu Wed Jan 23 17:52:04 2013 From: jwmbrown at indiana.edu (Joshua Brown) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:52:04 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc in computational neural models of sensemaking Message-ID: <009d01cdf9bc$449efb50$cddcf1f0$@indiana.edu> POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW Computational Cognitive Neuroscience of Cognitive Control and Sensemaking The Cognitive Control lab at Indiana University Bloomington (directed by Joshua Brown) is recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to work on computational cognitive neuroscience models of cognitive control. The successful candidate will join an ongoing computational neural modeling research program looking at the interactions of the medial prefrontal cortex with related regions in tasks involving executive function and decision-making. The work is funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency. The candidate will be asked to work on ongoing projects aimed at developing computational neural models of sensemaking, with well-defined benchmarks (http://www.iarpa.gov/Programs/ia/ICArUS/icarus.html). The position will be for one year initially, with the possibility of additional years depending on available funding. There may also be opportunities to collaborate on EEG, TMS, and combined neuroimaging and computational neural modeling of cognitive control. Available facilities include a research-dedicated 3T Siemens Tim Trio fMRI scanner, high density EEG, and TMS, all within the building. Indiana University also provides a 1024 core high-performance computing cluster for computational model development. Information about the lab is available at http://www.indiana.edu/~cclab. A Ph.D. and background in cognitive neuroscience and computation, broadly defined, are required. Experience with computational modeling, including neural networks, machine learning, and/or computational neuroscience is required. Experience with Linux/unix and matlab is required. Prior experience with fMRI is preferred. The position is available to start immediately, and applications received by March 1, 2013 will receive full consideration. To apply, send a CV, statement of research background and interests, and 3 letters of recommendation by email to: jwmbrown at indiana.edu. (Note that mailed paper applications and recommendations will not be accepted). Inquiries may be directed to Joshua Brown (jwmbrown at indiana.edu). Applications from women and minorities are encouraged. Indiana University is an equal opportunity employer. ******************************************************************** * Joshua W. Brown, Ph.D. (812) 855-9282 (WORK) * Associate Professor of Psychology (812) 855-4691 (FAX) * Dept. of Psychological and Brain Sciences, rm 336 * Indiana University * 1101 E Tenth St. * Bloomington, IN 47405, USA * http://www.indiana.edu/~cclab ******************************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bonnybanerjee at yahoo.com Thu Jan 24 00:12:49 2013 From: bonnybanerjee at yahoo.com (Bonny Banerjee) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 21:12:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions in speech/signal processing/control theory at University of Memphis, USA Message-ID: <1359004369.21957.YahooMailClassic@web140004.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> ***** Apologies if you receive this message multiple times ***** Fully-funded Ph.D. positions available in speech/signal processing, neural networks, machine learning, and control theory Multiple fully-funded Ph.D. positions are available at the Computational Intelligence Laboratory (CIL). The CIL is affiliated with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (EECE) and the interdisciplinary Institute for Intelligent Systems (IIS). A Ph.D. student will work as a research assistant at CIL, funded by a prestigious U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, which will provide full financial support that includes tuition fees and a monthly stipend sufficient for a reasonable lifestyle in Memphis. Obtaining a Ph.D. typically requires 4-5 years. Ph.D. students will work under the supervision of Dr. Bonny Banerjee. There will be the opportunity to collaborate with researchers at the School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, IIS, and the EECE department at the University of Memphis, as well as with researchers external to the university.? Research will involve investigating computational approaches to answering fundamental questions in visual and auditory perception, such as, how do we learn the norms or invariances from saliencies or surprises in unstructured data. Our current focus is on developing a multilayered neural network model for learning invariances across multiple spatial and temporal abstractions. This research exists at the confluence of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive science, and computational neuroscience. The NSF grant funds research in applying this model for automatically tuning cochlear implants for the hearing impaired. Details are available in Dr. Banerjee?s website. An ideal candidate will possess the following: 1. Background in and strong motivation to pursue research in speech/signal processing, neural networks, machine learning or control theory, with applications to interesting real world problems. 2. Masters degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, or in a related computational area. Exceptional candidates with a Bachelors degree will also be considered. 3. Strong mathematical and programming (Matlab) skills. 4. Some experience in research, such as, working on research projects, co-authoring journal/conference papers, etc. Informal enquiries should be sent to Dr. Bonny Banerjee (BonnyBanerjee at yahoo.com). For formal application procedure, please visit the admissions webpage (see below). Important Links: Dr. Bonny Banerjee ?s research http://sites.google.com/site/bonnybanerjee1 University of Memphis http://www.memphis.edu Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering http://www.memphis.edu/eece Institute for Intelligent Systems http://iis.memphis.edu Admissions http://www.memphis.edu/admissions Ph.D. degree requirements http://www.memphis.edu/gradcatalog/deg_req/doctoral.php -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From djaeger at emory.edu Wed Jan 23 22:19:34 2013 From: djaeger at emory.edu (Jaeger, Dieter) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 03:19:34 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience, 28 July -24 August 2013 Message-ID: <5A5A0407AFA3CE489A16D5CF16661836A3661B71@e14mbx11n.Enterprise.emory.net> ADVANCED COURSE IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE, 18th Edition July 28 - August 24, 2013 Bedlewo, Poland Applications accepted: January 21, 2013 - April 2, 2013 SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS: * Ehud Ahissar (Weizmann Institute, Israel) * Dieter Jaeger (Emory University, USA) * M?t? Lengyel (University of Cambridge, UK) * Carl van Vreeswijk (CNRS, Universit? Paris Descartes, France) LOCAL ORGANIZERS: * Daniel Wojcik (Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Poland) * Tiaza Bem (Institute Of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Poland) This year for the third and last time the Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience (ACCN) will be held at the Mathematical Research and Conference Center (MRCC) of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the village Bedlewo in Poland. The ACCN is for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in learning the essentials of the field of computational neuroscience. The course has two complementary parts. Mornings are devoted to lectures given by distinguished international faculty on topics across the breadth of experimental and computational neuroscience. During the rest of the day, students pursue a project of their choosing under the close supervision of expert tutors. This gives them practical training in the art and practice of neural modeling. The first week of the course introduces students to essential neurobiological concepts and to the most important techniques in modeling single cells, synapses and circuits. Students learn how to solve their research problems using software such as MATLAB, NEST, NEURON, Python, XPP, etc. During the following three weeks the lectures cover networks and specific neural systems and functions. Topics range from modeling single cells and subcellular processes through the simulation of simple circuits, large neuronal networks and system level models of the brain. The course ends with project presentations by the students. The course is designed for students from a variety of disciplines, including neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics and psychology. Students are expected to have a keen interest and basic background in neurobiology as well as some computer experience. Students of any nationality can apply. Essential details: * Course size: thirty students. * Fee (which covers lodging, meals and excursions): EUR 1500. * Scholarships and travel stipends are available. * Application start: January 21, 2013 * Application deadline: April 2, 2013 * Deadline for letters of recommendation: April 9, 2013 * Notification of results: May, 2013 Information and application http://www.neuroinf.pl/accn Contact address: * Daniel Wojcik Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology 3 Pasteur St 02-093 Warsaw Poland * email: accn at nencki.gov.pl CONFIRMED FACULTY Ad Aertsen, University of Freiburg, Germany Ehud Ahissar, Weizmann Institute, Israel Erik De Schutter, OIST, Japan Quentin Huys, ETH Z?rich, Switzerland Dieter Jaeger, Emory University, USA M?t? Lengyel, University of Cambridge, UK Carole Levenes, Paris Descartes University, France Christian Machens, Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, Portugal J. Kevin O'Regan, , Paris Descartes University, France Astrid Prinz, Emory University, USA John Rinzel, New York University, USA Maria Sanchez-Vives, IDIBAPS, Spain Peggy Seri?s, University of Edinburgh, UK Rich Turner, University of Cambridge, UK Carl van Vreeswijk, Paris Descartes University, France Daniel W?jcik, Nencki Institute, Poland CONFIRMED TUTORS Sacha van Albada, Juelich Forschungszentrum, Germany Tomasz Smolinski, Delaware State University, USA SECRETARY DURING THE COURSE Chris Ploegaert, U Antwerp, Belgium -- Daniel K. Wojcik, PhD, DSc Laboratory of Neuroinformatics, Head Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology 3 Pasteur St, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland tel: (+48 22) 5892348 fax: (+48 22) 8225342 skype: danek8317 http://dwojcik.pl/ ________________________________ 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: From erik at oist.jp Thu Jan 24 23:30:52 2013 From: erik at oist.jp (Erik De Schutter) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:30:52 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?Postdoctoral_position_to_investiga?= =?iso-8859-1?q?te_cerebellar_function_at_Okinawa_Institute=A0of_Science_a?= =?iso-8859-1?q?nd_Technology?= Message-ID: A position is available in the Computational Neuroscience Unit (https://groups.oist.jp/cnu) of Prof. Erik De Schutter at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology for a postdoc interested in modeling and understanding cerebellar function. Candidates should have good knowledge of cerebellar anatomy and physiology, obtained by previous experimental or modeling work, and be open to an explorative approach of cerebellar function. Depending on prior experience and interest the focus can be on modeling the cerebellum and/or on analyzing experimental data obtained through collaboration. The postdoc will interact with other researchers and students in the lab who are working on cerebellar modeling projects. We offer attractive financial and working conditions in an English language graduate university, located on a beautiful subtropical island. Starting date any time before end 2013. Send curriculum vitae, summary of research interests and experience, and the names of three referees to Prof. Erik De Schutter at erik at oist.jp From gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Thu Jan 24 18:05:30 2013 From: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu (Mark Gluck) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:05:30 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: New paper. Why trace and delay conditioning are sometimes (but not always) hippocampal dependent: A computational model In-Reply-To: <514F6D3A-710F-4F54-8134-51CDC97B2C10@pavlov.rutgers.edu> References: <514F6D3A-710F-4F54-8134-51CDC97B2C10@pavlov.rutgers.edu> Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, A newly published paper has been uploaded to our website at: http://www.gluck.edu/pdf/2013_MoustafaHippModel2013.pdf Moustafa, A. A., Wufong, E., Servatius, R. J., Pang, K. C., Gluck, M. A., & Myers, C. E. (2013). Why trace and delay conditioning are sometimes (but not always) hippocampal dependent: A computational model. Brain Research. 1493: 48-67. ABSTRACT: A recurrent-network model provides a unified account of the hippocampal region in mediating the representation of temporal information in classical eyeblink conditioning. Much empirical research is consistent with a general conclusion that delay conditioning (in which the conditioned stimulus CS and unconditioned stimulus US overlap and co-terminate) is independent of the hippocampal system, while trace conditioning (in which the CS terminates before US onset) depends on the hippocampus. However, recent studies show that, under some circumstances, delay conditioning can be hippocampal-dependent and trace conditioning can be spared following hippocampal lesion. Here, we present an extension of our prior trial-level models of hippocampal function and stimulus representation (Gluck & Myers, 1993, 2001) that can explain these findings within a unified framework. Specifically, the current model includes adaptive recurrent collateral connections that aid in the representation of intra-trial temporal information. With this model, as in our prior models, we argue that the hippocampus is not specialized for conditioned response timing, but rather is a general-purpose system that learns to predict the next state of all stimuli given the current state of variables encoded by activity in recurrent collaterals. As such, the model correctly predicts that hippocampal involvement in classical conditioning should be critical not only when there is an intervening trace interval, but also when there is a long delay between CS onset and US onset. Our model simulates empirical data from many variants of classical conditioning, including delay and trace paradigms in which the length of the CS, the inter-stimulus interval, or the trace interval is varied. Finally, we discuss model limitations, future directions, and several novel empirical predictions of this temporal processing model of hippocampal function and learning. Comments and feedback are always welcome and appreciated. - Mark Gluck ___________________________________ 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: From hugo.larochelle at usherbrooke.ca Wed Jan 23 10:26:21 2013 From: hugo.larochelle at usherbrooke.ca (Hugo Larochelle) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:26:21 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: CfP: ACL Workshop on Continuous Vector Space Models and their Compositionality (CVSC) Message-ID: ********************************************************************************** One day Workshop on Continuous Vector Space Models and their Compositionality (CVSC) Co-located with ACL 2013, Sofia, Bulgaria August 9, 2013 Submission deadline: April 26, 2013. https://sites.google.com/site/cvscworkshop/ ********************************************************************************** First Call for Papers (Apologies for multiple postings) In recent years, there has been a growing interest in algorithms that learn and use continuous representations for words, phrases, or documents in many natural language processing applications. Among many others, two influential proposals illustrate this trend: latent Dirichlet allocation and neural network based language models. These approaches are motivated by improving the generalization power of the discrete standard models, by dealing with the data sparsity issue and by efficiently handling a wide context. Despite the success of single word vector space models, they are limited since they do not capture compositionality. This prevents them from gaining a deeper understanding of the semantics of longer phrases or sentences. Another different trend of research on continuous vector space models belongs to the family of spectral methods. The motivation in that context is that working in a continuous space allows for the design of algorithms that are not plagued with the local minima issues that discrete latent space models tend to suffer from. In this workshop, we invite submissions of papers on continuous vector space models for natural language processing. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * learning algorithms for continuous vector space models, * their compositionality, * their use in NLP applications, * spectral learning for NLP, * neural networks for NLP, * latent Dirichlet allocation and other continuous representations of documents * tensor models * distributed semantic representations INVITED SPEAKERS There will be two invited speakers Mirella Lapata and Xavier Carreras, and a panel discussion lead by Chris Manning. SUBMISSION INFORMATION Authors should submit a full paper of up to 8 pages in electronic, PDF format, with up to 2 additional pages for references. The reported research should be substantially original. The papers will be presented orally or as posters. All submissions must be in PDF format and must follow the ACL 2013 formatting requirements (available at the ACL 2013 website). We strongly advise the use of the provided LaTeX template files. Reviewing will be double-blind, and thus no author information should be included in the papers; self-reference should be avoided as well. Submissions must be made through the Softconf website set up for this workshop: https://www.softconf.com/acl2013/CVSC2013/ Accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings, where no distinction will be made between papers presented orally or as posters. IMPORTANT DATES 26 April 2013 : Submission deadline 24 May 2013 : Notification of acceptance 7 June 2013 : Camera-ready deadline 8 or 9 August 2013 : Workshop PROGRAM COMMITTEE Yoshua Bengio (Universit? de Montr?al, Canada) Antoine Bordes (Universit? Technologique de Compi?gne, France) L?on Bottou (Microsoft Research, USA) Xavier Carreras (Universitat Polit?cnica de Catalunya, Spain) Shay Cohen (Columbia University, USA) Michael Collins (Columbia University, USA) Ronan Collobert (IDIAP Research Institute, Switzerland) Kevin Duh (University of Washington, USA) Dean Foster (University of Pennsylvania, USA) Mirella Lapata (University of Edinburgh, UK) Percy Liang (Stanford University, USA) Andriy Mnih (Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, England) John Platt (Microsoft Research, USA) Holger Schwenk (Universit? du Maine, France) Jason Weston (Google, USA) Guillaume Wisniewski (LIMSI-CNRS/Universit? Paris-Sud, France) WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS Alexandre Allauzen (LIMSI-CNRS/Universit? Paris-Sud, France) Hugo Larochelle (Universit? de Sherbrooke, Canada) Chris Manning (Stanford University, USA) Richard Socher (Stanford University, USA) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at mkaiser.de Thu Jan 24 13:26:00 2013 From: mail at mkaiser.de (Marcus Kaiser) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:26:00 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Extended deadline: Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD programme in Systems Neuroscience (Newcastle University) Message-ID: Dear all, our Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD programme in systems neuroscience, aimed at applicants from the physical sciences (physics, engineering, mathematics, or computer science), is now accepting applications for studentships starting in September 2013 (see below). Research areas include Neuroinformatics, Computational Neuroscience, Neuroimaging (fMRI, DTI, EEG, ECoG) in humans and non-human primates, Brain Connectivity, Clinical Neuroscience, Behaviour and Evolution, and Brain Dynamics (simulations and time series analysis). Strong interactions between clinical, experimental, and computational researchers are a key component of this programme. Best, Marcus *Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD programme 'Systems Neuroscience: From Networks to Behaviour'* Programme Directors: Prof. Stuart Baker, Prof. Tim Griffiths, Prof. Alex Thiele and Dr Marcus Kaiser The Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University integrates more than 100 principal investigators across medicine, psychology, computer science, and engineering. Research in systems, cellular, computational, and behavioural neuroscience. Laboratory facilities include auditory and visual psychophysics; rodent, monkey, and human neuroimaging (EEG, fMRI, PET); TMS; optical recording, multi-electrode neurophysiology, confocal and fluorescence imaging, high-throughput computing and e-science, artificial sensory-motor devices, clinical testing, and the only brain bank for molecular changes in human brain development. The Wellcome Trust's Four-year PhD Programmes are a flagship scheme aimed at supporting the most promising students to undertake in-depth postgraduate research training. The first year combines taught courses with three laboratory rotations to broaden students' knowledge of the subject area. At the end of the first year, students will make an informed choice of their three-year PhD research project. This programme is based at Newcastle University and is aimed to provide specialised training for physical and computational scientists (e.g. physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and computer science) wishing to apply their skills to a research neuroscience career. Eligibility/Person Specification: Applicants should have, or expect to obtain, a 1st or 2:1 degree, or equivalent, in a physical sciences, engineering, mathematics or computing degree. Value of the award: Support includes a stipend for 4 years (?19k/yr tax-free), PhD registration fees at UK/EU student rate, research expenses, general training funds and some travel costs. How to apply: You must apply through the University's online postgraduate application form ( http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/search/list/in054 ) inserting the reference number IN054 and selecting 'Master of Research/Doctor of Philosophy (Medical Sciences) - Neuroscience' as the programme of study. Only mandatory fields need to be completed (no personal statement required) and a covering letter, CV and (if English is not your first language) a copy of your English language qualifications must be attached. The covering letter must state the title of the studentship, quote the reference number IN054 and state how your interests and experience relate to the programme. The deadline for receiving applications is 10 February 2013. You should also send your covering letter and CV to Suzi Englebright, Postgraduate Secretary, Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, or by email to ion-postgrad-enq at ncl.ac.uk . For more information, see http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ion/postgrad/research/wellcome/ -- Marcus Kaiser, Ph.D. Associate Professor (Reader) in Neuroinformatics School of Computing Science Newcastle University Claremont Tower Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK Lab website: http://www.biological-networks.org/ Neuroinformatics at Newcastle: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/neuroinformatics/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aprieto at ugr.es Sat Jan 26 06:21:29 2013 From: aprieto at ugr.es (Alberto Prieto) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2013 12:21:29 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP and deadline for IWANN Conference (Canary Islands, 12-14 June 2013) Message-ID: <5103BC39.5020202@ugr.es> /* Apologies if you received multiple copies of this CFP./ /* Please kindly forward to those who may be interested./ Dear colleagues, *DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING A PAPER FOR IWANN 2103 IS 8th February* On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the 12th International Work-Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (IWANN2013), we are pleased to invite you to participate in this event that will be held on June 12-14, 2013 in Puerto de la Cruz-Tenerife (Spain). This biennial meeting seeks to provide a discussion forum for scientists, engineers, educators and students about the latest discoveries and realizations in the foundations, theory, models and applications of systems inspired on nature, using computational intelligence methodologies, as well as in emerging areas related to the above items. We strongly emphasize the wide range of topics comprised under the umbrella of IWANN2013, covering all the fields that are usually referred to as "Computational Intelligence". In this edition we are particularly interested in submissions dealing with: Artificial Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems, Evolutionary Computation, Hybrid Systems, etc. As in previous editions, IWANN also aims to create a friendly environment that could lead to the establishment or to strengthen scientific collaborations and exchanges among attendees. The proceedings will include all the presented communications to the conference. As in previous editions of IWANN, we are arranging the publication of the proceedings with Springer-Verlag on Lecture Notes on Computer Science (LNCS) series, and the books will be available on-site. It is also foreseen the publication of an extended version of selected papers in a special issue on several specialized journals (such as Neurocomputing, Elsevier). IWANN is included in the ranking of the best conferences established by the Computer Science Conference Ranking based on the "Estimated Impact of Conference (EIC,2009)", concretely in position 55 among 701 considered (in the Artificial Intelligence field), and in the rank B in Computing Research and Education Association (CORE). Also the IWANN papers are indexed by CiteSeer.IST, and by the organization Computing Research and Education Association (CORE). You can find extended information on IWANN web pages: http://www.iwann-conference.org/ We hope this conference will be of your interest. Best wishes Joan Cabestany, Gonzalo Joya and Ignacio Rojas Co-Chairmen IWANN 2013 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Eugene.Izhikevich at braincorporation.com Sat Jan 26 16:00:04 2013 From: Eugene.Izhikevich at braincorporation.com (Eugene Izhikevich) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:00:04 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: New (6/30) deadline for Brain Corporation Prize in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: The Brain Corporation Prize aims to encourage researchers to make freely available the latest and best scholarly information concerning topics in computational neuroscience. To provide more time for submissions, the contest deadline has been extended to June 30th, 2013. The winners will be recognized during the CNS'03 in Paris. Presently, the leaders are: 234 votes: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/SPIKE-distance 222 votes: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Frontal_eye_field 110 votes: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Homeostatic_Regulation_of_Neuronal_Excitability We sincerely hope to see your participation -- here are 10 reasons to get involved: 1. Help discover what works in scholarly collaboration -- participate in a global experiment on the future of scholarly research. 2. Add a peer-reviewed article with a famous co-author to your C.V. 3. Support open-access publishing. 4. Help the public -- provide to the world an accurate article on a topic of importance to you. 5. For posterity -- be the author of a review that will be useful for decades to come. 6. To support interdisciplinary research -- encourage others to participate in compiling a free, current, and scholarly online resource. 7. To see your work appear in a normal Google search -- your article will likely appear within the top five search results when its topic is queried. 8. For Curatorship -- become a topic Curator, and help ensure that the world has trustworthy information available to them on a topic of your expertise. 9. To accelerate research -- help science and scholarship advance more quickly by providing an easily accessible and updatable review. 10. To promote scholarly information online -- help resist the glut of redundant and generic online "content" with a substantive, thoughtful, and enduring contribution. Contest rules and guidelines are available here: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Scholarpedia:2012_Brain_Corporation_Prize_in_Computational_Neuroscience -- Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich CEO, Brain Corporation Editor-in-chief, Scholarpedia - the peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia From smart at neuralcorrelate.com Fri Jan 25 07:12:45 2013 From: smart at neuralcorrelate.com (Susana Martinez-Conde) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:12:45 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd call for illusion submissions: the world's 9th annual Best illusion of the Year Contest Message-ID: <007e01cdfaf5$49621a70$dc264f50$@com> ****2ND CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE WORLD'S 9TH ANNUAL BEST ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST**** http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com *** We are happy to announce the world's 9th annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest!!*** Submissions are now welcome! The 2013 contest will be held in Naples, Florida (Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, http://www.thephil.org/) on Monday, May 13th, 2013, as an official satellite of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) conference. The Naples Philharmonic Center is an 8-minute walk from the main VSS headquarters hotel in Naples, and is thus central to the VSS conference. Past contests have been highly successful in drawing public attention to perceptual research, with over ***FIVE MILLION*** website hits from viewers all over the world, as well as hundreds of international media stories. The First, Second and Third Prize winners from the 2012 contest were Roger Newport, Helen Gilpin and Catherine Preston (University of Nottingham, UK), Jason Tangen, Sean Murphy and Matthew Thompson (The University of Queensland, Australia), and Arthur Shapiro, William Kistler, and Alex Rose-Henig (American University, USA). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights from the 2012 and previous contests, go to http://illusionoftheyear.com. Eligible submissions to compete in the 2013 contest are novel perceptual or cognitive illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2012) of all sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) in standard image, movie or html formats. Exciting new variants of classic or known illusions are admissible. An international panel of impartial judges will rate the submissions and narrow them to the TOP TEN. Then, at the Contest Gala in Naples, the TOP TEN illusionists will present their contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to pick the TOP THREE WINNERS! Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2013 contest, so long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the TOP THREE winners in previous years. Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the authors/creators will retain full copyright. The TOP TEN illusions will be posted on the illusion contest's website *after* the Contest Gala. Illusions not chosen among the TOP TEN will not be disclosed. As with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in to the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere. Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Executive Producer, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart at neuralcorrelate.com) until February 15, 2013. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings (if known). Illusions will be rated according to: . Significance to our understanding of the mind and brain . Simplicity of the description . Sheer beauty . Counterintuitive quality . Spectacularity Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last year's illusions: http://illusionoftheyear.com. Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award! On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse ---------------------------------------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Executive Producer, Best Illusion of the Year Contest President, Neural Correlate Society Columnist, Scientific American Mind Author, Sleights of Mind Director, Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience Division of Neurobiology Barrow Neurological Institute 350 W. Thomas Rd Phoenix AZ 85013, USA Phone: +1 (602) 406-3484 Fax: +1 (602) 406-4172 Email: smart at neuralcorrelate.com http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Sun Jan 27 04:23:22 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2013 10:23:22 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: SSTiC 2013: 1st announcement Message-ID: <202C07009C444A0EB0D046BB3B0F073A@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject* ********************************************************************* 2013 INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL ON TRENDS IN COMPUTING SSTiC 2013 Tarragona, Spain July 22-26, 2013 Organized by: Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics (GRLMC) Rovira i Virgili University http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/ ********************************************************************* AIM: SSTiC 2013 will be an open forum for the convergence of top class well recognized computer scientists and people at the beginning of their research career (typically PhD students) as well as consolidated researchers. SSTiC 2013 will cover the whole spectrum of computer science by means of more than 70 six-hour courses dealing with hot topics at the frontiers of the field. By actively participating, lecturers and attendees will share the idea of scientific excellence as the main motto of their research work. ADDRESSED TO: Graduate students from around the world. There are no pre-requisites in terms of the academic degree the attendee must hold. However, since there will be several levels among the courses, in the description of some of them reference may be made to specific knowledge background. SSTiC 2013 is appropriate also for people more advanced in their career who want to keep themselves updated on developments in the field. Finally, senior researchers will find it fruitful to listen and discuss with people who are main references of the diverse branches of computing nowadays. REGIME: At least 8 parallel sessions will be held during the whole event. Participants will be able to freely choose the courses they will be willing to attend as well as to move from one to another. VENUE: Palau Firal i de Congressos de Tarragona Arquitecte Rovira, 2 43001 Tarragona http://www.palaucongrestgna.com COURSES AND PROFESSORS: Divyakant Agrawal (Santa Barbara) [intermediate] Scalable Data Management in Enterprise and Cloud Computing Infrastructures Shun-ichi Amari (Riken) [introductory] Information Geometry and Its Applications James Anderson (Chapel Hill) [intermediate] Scheduling and Synchronization in Real-Time Multicore Systems Pierre Baldi (Irvine) [intermediate] Big Data Informatics Challenges and Opportunities in the Life Sciences Yoshua Bengio (Montr?al) [introductory/intermediate] Deep Learning of Representations Stephen Brewster (Glasgow) [advanced] Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction Bruno Buchberger (Linz) [introductory] Groebner Bases: An Algorithmic Method for Multivariate Polynomial Systems. Foundations and Applications Rajkumar Buyya (Melbourne) [intermediate] Cloud Computing Jan Camenisch (IBM Zurich) [intermediate] Cryptography for Privacy John M. Carroll (Penn State) [introductory] Usability Engineering and Scenario-based Design Jeffrey S. Chase (Duke) [intermediate] Trust Logic as an Enabler for Secure Federated Systems Larry S. Davis (College Park) [intermediate] Video Analysis of Human Activities Paul De Bra (Eindhoven) [intermediate] Adaptive Systems Marco Dorigo (Brussels) [introductory] An Introduction to Swarm Intelligence and Swarm Robotics Max J. Egenhofer (Maine) [introductory/intermediate] Qualitative Spatial Relations: Formalizations and Inferences Matthias Felleisen (Northeastern) [introductory] Programming with Contracts Richard M. Fujimoto (Georgia Tech) [introductory] Parallel and Distributed Simulation David Garlan (Carnegie Mellon) [advanced] Software Architecture: Past, Present and Future Mario Gerla (Los Angeles) [intermediate] Vehicle Cloud Computing Georgios B. Giannakis (Minnesota) [advanced] Sparsity and Low Rank for Robust Data Analytics and Networking Ralph Grishman (New York) [intermediate] Information Extraction from Natural Language Mark Guzdial (Georgia Tech) [introductory] Computing Education Research: What We Know about Learning and Teaching Computer Science Francisco Herrera (Granada) [intermediate] Imbalanced Classification: Current Approaches and Open Problems Paul Hudak (Yale) [introductory] Euterpea: From Signals to Symphonies Using Haskell Syed Ali Jafar (Irvine) [intermediate] Interference Alignment Niraj K. Jha (Princeton) [intermediate] FinFET Circuit Design George Karypis (Minnesota) [introductory] Introduction to Parallel Computing: Architectures, Algorithms, and Programming Aggelos K. Katsaggelos (Northwestern) [intermediate/advanced] Sparsity-based Advances in Image Processing Arie E. Kaufman (Stony Brook) [advanced] Advances in Visualization Carl Kesselman (Southern California) [intermediate] Biomedical Informatics and Big Data Hugo Krawczyk (IBM Research) [intermediate] An Introduction to the Design and Analysis of Authenticated Key Exchange Protocols Pierre L'Ecuyer (Montr?al) [intermediate] Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods in Simulation: Theory and Practice Laks Lakshmanan (British Columbia) [intermediate/advanced] Information and Influence Spread in Social Networks Wenke Lee (Georgia Tech) [introductory] DNS-based Monitoring of Malware Activities Maurizio Lenzerini (Roma La Sapienza) [intermediate] Ontology-based Data Integration Ming C. Lin (Chapel Hill) [introductory/intermediate] Physically-based Modeling and Simulation Jane W.S. Liu (Academia Sinica) [intermediate] Critical Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Preparedness and Response Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann (Nanyang Tech) [introductory] Modelling and Animating Virtual Humans Satoru Miyano (Tokyo) [intermediate] How to Hack Cancer Systems with Computational Methods Aloysius K. Mok (Austin) [introductory/advanced] From Real-time Systems to Cyber-physical Systems Daniel Moss? (Pittsburgh) [intermediate] Asymmetric Multicore Management Hermann Ney (Aachen) [intermediate/advanced] Probabilistic Modelling for Natural Language Processing - with Applications to Speech Recognition, Handwriting Recognition and Machine Translation David M. Nicol (Urbana) [intermediate] Cyber-security and Privacy in the Power Grid Jeff Offutt (George Mason) [intermediate] Cutting Edge Research in Engineering of Web Applications David Padua (Urbana) [intermediate] Data Parallel Programming Bijan Parsia (Manchester) [introductory] The Semantic Web: Conceptual and Technical Foundations Massoud Pedram (Southern California) [intermediate] Energy Efficient Architectures and Information Processing Systems Jian Pei (Simon Fraser) [intermediate/advanced] Mining Uncertain and Probabilistic Data Charles E. Perkins (FutureWei) [intermediate/advanced] Beyond 4G Prabhakar Raghavan (Google) [introductory/intermediate] Web Search and Advertising Sudhakar M. Reddy (Iowa) [introductory] Design for Test and Test of Digital VLSI Circuits Gustavo Rossi (La Plata) [intermediate] Topics in Model Driven Web Engineering Kaushik Roy (Purdue) [introductory/intermediate] Low-energy Computing Yousef Saad (Minnesota) [intermediate] Projection Methods and Their Applications Robert Sargent (Syracuse) [introductory] Validating Models Douglas C. Schmidt (Vanderbilt) [intermediate] Patterns and Frameworks for Concurrent and Networked Software Bart Selman (Cornell) [intermediate] Fast Large-scale Probabilistic and Logical Inference Methods Mubarak Shah (Central Florida) [advanced] Visual Crowd Surveillance Ron Shamir (Tel Aviv) [introductory] Revealing Structure in Disease Regulation and Networks Micha Sharir (Tel Aviv) [introductory/intermediate] Geometric Arrangements and Incidences: Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Algebra Satinder Singh (Ann Arbor) [introductory/advanced] Reinforcement Learning: On Machines Learning to Act from Experience Elliot Soloway (Ann Arbor) [introductory] Primary & Secondary Educational Computing in the Age of Mobilism Dawn Xiaodong Song (Berkeley) [advanced] Selected Topics in Computer Security Daniel Thalmann (Nanyang Tech) [intermediate] Simulation of Individuals, Groups and Crowds and Their Interaction with the User Mike Thelwall (Wolverhampton) [introductory] Sentiment Strength Detection for the Social Web Julita Vassileva (Saskatchewan) [intermediate] Engaging Users in Social Computing Systems Yao Wang (Polytechnic New York) [introductory/advanced] Video Compression: Fundamentals and Recent Development Gio Wiederhold (Stanford) [introductory] Software Economics: How Do the Results of the Intellectual Efforts Enter the Global Market Place Ian H. Witten (Waikato) [introductory] Data Mining Using Weka Limsoon Wong (National Singapore) [introductory/intermediate] The Use of Context in Gene Expression and Proteomic Profile Analysis Michael Wooldridge (Oxford) [introductory] Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Philip S. Yu (Illinois Chicago) [advanced] Mining Big Data Yuanyuan Zhou (San Diego) [intermediate] Building Robust Software Justin Zobel (Melbourne) [introductory/intermediate] Writing and Research Skills for Computer Scientists REGISTRATION: It has to be done on line at http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/Registration.php Since a large number of attendees are expected and the capacity of the venue is limited, registration requests will be processed on a first come first served basis. The registration period will be closed when the capacity of the venue will be complete. FEES: They are the same (a flat rate) for all people by the corresponding deadline. They give the right to attend all courses. ACCOMMODATION: Information about accommodation will be available on the website of the School. CERTIFICATE: Participants will be delivered a certificate of attendance. IMPORTANT DATES: Announcement of the programme: January 26, 2013 Six registration deadlines: February 26, March 26, April 26, May 26, June 26, July 26, 2013 QUESTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION: Lilica Voicu: florentinalilica.voicu at urv.cat POSTAL ADDRESS: SSTiC 2013 Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics (GRLMC) Rovira i Virgili University Av. Catalunya, 35 43002 Tarragona, Spain Phone: +34-977-559543 Fax: +34-977-558386 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Ajuntament de Tarragona Diputaci? de Tarragona Universitat Rovira i Virgili -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbednar at inf.ed.ac.uk Mon Jan 28 10:12:45 2013 From: jbednar at inf.ed.ac.uk (James A. Bednar) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:12:45 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: EU/UK PhD studentships in Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: <20742.38253.582839.729909@hebb.inf.ed.ac.uk> Second-round applications for fully-funded PhD studentships at the University of Edinburgh Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) in Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience are now being considered. The DTC is a world-class centre for research at the interface between neuroscience and the engineering, computational, and physical sciences. Our four-year programme is ideal for students with strong computational and analytical skills who want to employ cutting-edge methodology to advance research in neuroscience and related fields, or to apply ideas from neuroscience to computational problems. The first year consists of courses in neuroscience and informatics, as well as lab projects. This is followed by a three-year PhD project done in collaboration with one of the many departments and institutes affiliated with the DTC. Current DTC PhD topics fall into five main areas: * Computational neuroscience: Using analytical and computational models, potentially supplemented with experiments, to gain quantitative understanding of the nervous system. Many projects focus on the development and function of sensory and motor systems in animals, including neural coding, learning, and memory. * Biomedical imaging algorithms and tools: Using advanced data analysis techniques, such as machine learning and Bayesian approaches, for imaging-based diagnosis and research. * Cognitive science: Studying human cognitive processes and analysing them in computational terms. * Neuromorphic engineering: Using insights from neuroscience to help build better hardware, such as neuromorphic VLSI circuits and robots that perform robustly under natural conditions. * Software systems and applications: Using discoveries from neuroscience to develop software that can handle real-world data, such as video, audio, or speech. Other related areas of research are also encouraged. Edinburgh has a large, world-class research community in these areas and leads the UK in creating a coherent programme in neuroinformatics and computational neuroscience. The University of Edinburgh was ranked 21st worldwide in the latest QS World University Rankings, and the School of Informatics is the largest and highest-ranked computing department in the UK. Edinburgh has often been voted 'best place to live in Britain', and has many exciting cultural and student activities. Students with a strong background in computer science, mathematics, physics, or engineering are particularly encouraged to apply. Highly motivated students with other backgrounds will also be considered. Studentships include a stipend of 14,385-17,782 UK pounds/year along with research and travel costs. They are available to UK or other EU citizens who have been residing in the UK for the past three years (whether for work or for education); see our web site for full details. Other applicants can be considered if they provide their own funding, typically via a scholarship from their country of origin. Applications are now being accepted for September 2013 entry. Applications must be complete by 30th March 2013 to receive full consideration for the remaining studentships, and will be considered for interviews in April. Further information and application forms can be obtained from: http://www.anc.ed.ac.uk/dtc -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From tomas.hromadka at gmail.com Sun Jan 27 18:30:33 2013 From: tomas.hromadka at gmail.com (Tomas Hromadka) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:30:33 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: COSYNE 2013: Early registration and discount hotel deadlines fast approaching Message-ID: <5105B899.5050905@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 ================================================================= REGISTRATION AND HOTELS: Online registration is currently open. Hotel booking is currently open. Early registration deadline: Jan 31, 2013, 11.59PM EST Deadline for discounted hotel rates (main meeting, Salt Lake City): Feb 6, 2013 For more detailed information, please visit www.cosyne.org 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) THE MEETING: 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. WORKSHOP TITLES: The awake and anesthetized cortex ? similar or different? Beyond optogenetics: new approaches for systems neuroscience. Dendritic computation in neural circuits. Furry statisticians ? how rodents infer the meaningful properties of unreliable environments. Large-scale neuronal simulations ? science, languages and platforms. Neural mechanisms for orienting decisions across the animal kingdom. Neural mechanisms of foraging decisions. A new chapter in the study of functional maps in visual cortex. Priors in perception, decision-making and physiology. Reticular microcircuits: from structure to function. Reward-based decision-making. Understanding the brain by building one: New neuroscience on VLSI hardware. Why does neocortex need six layers and even more cell types? 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 Geneva) Anthony Zador (CSHL) From sebastian.risi at cornell.edu Tue Jan 29 16:49:46 2013 From: sebastian.risi at cornell.edu (Sebastian Risi) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:49:46 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?Call_for_Interest_on_AAAI_2013_Fall_Sym?= =?utf-8?q?posium_Proposal_=E2=80=9CLevels_of_Abstraction_in_Artifi?= =?utf-8?q?cial_Intelligence_Research=E2=80=9D?= Message-ID: (apologies for multiple posting.) Dear colleagues, We are submitting a proposal as part of the AAAI 2013 Fall Symposium (http://www.aaai.org/Symposia/symposia.php) titled ?Levels of Abstraction in Artificial Intelligence Research?. We aim to bring together a diverse and multi-disciplinary group of AI researchers interested in discussing and comparing different abstractions of intelligence and processes that might create it. We hope to provide a common ground to actively encourage cross-pollination of ideas between levels and types of abstraction, and generate new ideas for revising or creating abstractions of intelligence and intelligence-generating processes. The full proposal can be found here: http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~risi/aaai2013symposium.pdf. The symposium will be held Friday - Sunday, November 15-17 at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Virginia adjacent to Washington, DC. If this is a symposium that could interest you or you are willing to review submissions please let us know by responding to this e-mail. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you! -- Sebastian Risi, Joel Lehman, Jeff Clune -- Dr. Sebastian Risi Postdoctoral Fellow Creative Machines Laboratory Cornell University Email: sebastian.risi at cornell.edu Tel: (407) 929-5113 Web: http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~risi/ From n.lepora at sheffield.ac.uk Tue Jan 29 09:50:21 2013 From: n.lepora at sheffield.ac.uk (Nathan F Lepora) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:50:21 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Living Machines 2013: 2nd Call for Papers, Exhibits, Satellite Events and Sponsors Message-ID: ______________________________________________________________ 2nd Call for Papers, Exhibits, Satellite Events and Sponsors The 2nd International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. A Convergent Science Network Event 29th July to 2nd August 2013 Natural History Museum, London http://csnetwork.eu/livingmachines/conf2013 Paper deadline: March 22nd, 2013 Deadline for Satellite Event proposals, March 22nd, 2013 ______________________________________________________________ ABOUT LIVING MACHINES 2013 The development of future real-world technologies will depend strongly on our understanding and harnessing of the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems. Biomimetics is the development of novel technologies through the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems. The investigation of biomimetic systems can serve two complementary goals. First, a suitably designed and configured biomimetic artefact can be used to test theories about the natural system of interest. Second, biomimetic technologies can provide useful, elegant and efficient solutions to unsolved challenges in science and engineering. Biohybrid systems are formed by combining at least one biological component?an existing living system?and at least one artificial, newly-engineered component. By passing information in one or both directions, such a system forms a new hybrid bio-artificial entity. The development of either biomimetic or biohybrid systems requires a deep understanding of the operation of living systems, and the two fields are united under the theme of ?living machines??the idea that we can construct artefacts, such as robots, that not only mimic life but share the same fundamental principles; or build technologies that can be combined with a living body to restore or extend its functional capabilities. Biomimetic and biohybrid technologies, from nano- to macro-scale, are expected to produce major societal and economical impacts in quality of life and health, information and communication technologies, robotics, prosthetics, brain-machine interfacing and nanotechnology. Such systems should also lead to significant advances in the biological and brain sciences that will help us to better understand ourselves and the natural world. The following are some examples: ? Biomimetic robots and their component technologies (sensors, actuators, processors) that can intelligently interact with their environments. ? Active biomimetic materials and structures that self-organize and self-repair. ? Biomimetic computers?neuromimetic emulations of the physiological basis for intelligent behaviour. ? Biohybrid brain-machine interfaces and neural implants. ? Artificial organs and body-parts including sensory organ-chip hybrids and intelligent prostheses. ? Organism-level biohybrids such as robot-animal or robot-human systems. ACTIVITIES The main conference will take the form of a three-day single-track oral and poster presentation programme, 30th July to 1st August 2013, that will include five plenary lectures from leading international researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems. Agreed speakers are: Mark Cutkosky, Stanford University (Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation); Terrence Deacon, University of California, Berkeley (Natural and Artificial Selves); Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena, Imperial College London (Biomimetics for medical devices); Robert Full, Stanford University (Locomotion); Andrew Pickering, University of Exeter (History of living machines). Submissions will be in the form of full papers or extended abstracts. The proceedings will be published in the Springer-Verlag LNAI Series. Submissions are also invited for a one-day exhibition to feature working biomimetic or biohybrid systems and biomimetic/biohybrid art. The exhibition, will take place on the afternoon and evening of Thursday 1st August with the evening event including a press reception and buffet dinner. Active researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems are also invited to propose topics for 1-day tutorials or workshops on related themes. ABOUT THE VENUE The organisers are delighted to have secured the Flett Theatre at the Natural History Museum in London as the main venue for our conference. The NHM is an international centre for the study of the natural world featuring many important biological collections. The exhibition and poster session on Thursday 1st will be hosted at the nearby Science Museum, and the satellite events at Imperial College London. All three venues are conveniently located within a short walking distance of each other in South Kensington, the Museum district of the UK capital, and close to many of London?s tourist sights. SUBMITTING TO LIVING MACHINES 2013 Oral and poster programme We invite both full papers (12 pages, LNCS format) and extended abstracts (3 pages, LNCS format). All contributions will be refereed. Full papers are invited from researchers at any stage in their career but should present significant findings and advances in biomimetic or biohybid research; more preliminary work would be better suited to extended abstract submission. Full papers will be accepted for either oral presentation (single track) or poster presentation. Extended abstracts will be accepted for poster presentation only. All submissions must be formatted according to Springer LNCS guidelines. Papers should be submitted via the Living Machines web-site by midnight on March 22nd 2013. Exhibition The Living Machines 2013 Exhibition is intended to feature working biomimetic or biohybrid systems and biomimetic/biohybrid art. It will take place in the London Science Museum Level 1 Galleries on Thursday 1st August 2013. The exhibition is expected to include intelligent artefacts such as biomimetic robotics; however, we are open to proposals for display of biomimetic or biohybrid systems of any kind. The exhibition will be in two sessions. In the afternoon session exhibits will be displayed alongside conference posters. This session will be open to conference delegates and sponsors only. The evening session will be alongside the LM2013 buffet dinner and reception. This session will be open to invited representatives of the press, VIPs, and conference delegates and members of the public who have registered for the evening event. For registered conference participants there is no additional charge to participate in the exhibition but you must register your exhibit using the proforma available through the LM2013 web-site. Note that, if you wish to continue to display your exhibit during the evening session, you must also register for the buffet dinner and reception in addition to the main conference. We strongly encourage authors of accepted papers and extended abstracts to bring their working biomimetic or biohybrid artefacts to include in the exhibition. A prize will be awarded for the best exhibit. The conference organisers would also be interested in performance type material for the evening session. Please contact us if you have a proposal. Satellite events LM2013 will support satellite events, such as symposia, workshops or tutorials, in any of the areas listed below, which can be scheduled for either the 29th July or 2nd August. Attendance at satellite events will attract a small fee intended to cover the costs of the meeting. There is a lot of flexibility about the content, organisation, and budgeting for these events. We have reserved meeting rooms at Imperial College London to host the satellites each with capacity for up to 40 people (though larger rooms could be arranged if needed) and will have projection equipment with technical support. Proposals for satellites should be submitted using the proforma available from the LM2013 web-page by March 22nd, 2013 but please contact us sooner if you are thinking of organising an event. Confirmation of accepted proposals will be provided be early April at the latest. SCOPE OF CONTRIBUTIONS Submissions of papers, exhibits and satellite events are invited in, but not limited to, the following topics and related areas. Biomimetics can, in principle, extend to all fields of biological research from physiology and molecular biology to ecology, and from zoology to botany. Promising research areas include system design and structure, self-organization and co-operativity, new biologically active materials, self-assembly and self-repair, learning, memory, control architectures and self-regulation, movement and locomotion, sensory systems, perception, and communication. Biomimetic research, particularly at the nano-scale, should also lead to important advances in component miniaturisation, self-configuration, and energy-efficiency. A key focus of the conference will be on complete behaving systems in the form of biomimetic robots that can operate on different substrates on sea, on land, or in the air. A further central theme will be the physiological basis for intelligent behaviour as explored through neuromimetics?the modelling of neural systems. Exciting emerging topics within this field include the embodiment of neuromimetic controllers in hardware, termed neuromorphics, and within the control architectures of robots, sometimes termed neurorobotics. Biohybrid systems usually involve structures from the nano-scale (molecular) through to the macro-scale (entire organs or body parts). Important implementation examples are: Bio-machine hybrids where, for instance, biological muscle is used to actuate a synthetic device. Brain-machine interfaces where neurons and their molecular machineries are connected to microscopic sensors and actuators by means of electrical or chemical communication, either in vitro or in the living organism. Intelligent prostheses such as artificial limbs, wearable exoskeletons, or sensory organ-chip hybrids (such cochlear implants and artificial retina devices) designed to assist the disabled or elderly, or to aid rehabilitation from illness. Implantable or portable devices that have been fabricated for monitoring health care or for therapeutic purposes such as artificial implants to control insulin release. Biohybrid systems at the organism level such as robot-animal or robot-human communities. Biohybrid systems may take advantage of progress in the field of synthetic biology. Contributions from biologists, neuroscientists, and theoreticians, that are of direct relevance to the development of future biomimetic or biohybrid devices are also welcome, as are papers considering ethical issues and/or societal impacts arising from the advances made in this field. ACCOMODATION West London has many excellent hotels that are suitable for conference delegates. We are also organizing the provision of reasonably-priced accommodation for LM2013 events in the Imperial College Halls of Residence. KEY DATES March 22nd, 2013 Paper submission deadline March 22nd, 2013 Satellite Event proposal deadline Early April, notification of accepted satellites April 29th, 2013 Notification of acceptance of papers May 20th, 2013 Camera ready copy May 31st, Early registration deadline July 29-August 2nd 2013 Conference SPONSORSHIP Living Machines 2013 is sponsored by the Convergent Science Network (CSN) for Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems which is an EU FP7 Future Emerging Technologies Co-ordination Activity. CSN also organises two highly successful workshop series: the Barcelona Summer School on Brain, Technology and Cognition and the Capoccaccia Neuromorphic Cognitive Engineering Workshop. Living Machines 2013 is supported by the IOP Physics Journal Biomimetics & Bio-inspiration, who this year will publish a special issue of articles based on last years? LM2012 best papers. A review of the state of the art in biomimetics, by the conference chairs, and reporting strong recent growth in the field, has just been published in the journal (http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-3182/8/1/013001). Other organisations wishing to sponsor the conference in any way and gain the corresponding benefits by promoting themselves and their products through conference publications, the conference web-site, and conference publicity are encouraged to contact the conference organisers to discuss the terms of sponsorship and necessary arrangements. We offer a number of attractive and good-value packages to potential sponsors. We are looking forwards to seeing you in London. Organising Committee: Tony Prescott (co-chair) Paul Verschure (co-chair) Nathan Lepora (programme chair) Holger Krapp (workshops & symposia) Anna Mura (web-site) Conference Secretariat: living-machines at sheffield.ac.uk c/o Gill Ryder, Sheffield Centre for Robotics Department of Psychology University of Sheffield Western Bank Sheffield, S10 2TN United Kingdom From bowlby at bu.edu Wed Jan 30 11:17:09 2013 From: bowlby at bu.edu (Brian Bowlby) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:17:09 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 17th ICCNS conference: Call for Abstracts (February 28 contributed abstract submission deadline) Message-ID: SEVENTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS (ICCNS) June 4 ? 7, 2013 Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA http://cns.bu.edu/cns-meeting/conference.html Sponsored by the Boston University Center for Adaptive Systems, Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet), and Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (CELEST) with financial support from the National Science Foundation, pending final approval This interdisciplinary conference is attended each year by approximately 300 people from 30 countries around the world. As in previous years, the conference will focus on solutions to the questions: HOW DOES THE BRAIN CONTROL BEHAVIOR? HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY EMULATE BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE? The conference is aimed at researchers and students of computational neuroscience, cognitive science, neural networks, neuromorphic engineering, and artificial intelligence. It includes invited lectures and contributed lectures and posters by experts on the biology and technology of how the brain and other intelligent systems adapt to a changing world. The conference is particularly interested in exploring how the brain and biologically-inspired algorithms and systems in engineering and technology can learn. Single-track oral and poster sessions enable all presented work to be highly visible. Three-hour poster sessions with no conflicting events will be held on two of the conference days. Posters will be up all day, and can also be viewed during breaks in the talk schedule. This year's conference will include, in addition to regular invited and contributed talks and posters, two workshops on the topics: NEURAL DYNAMICS OF VALUE-BASED DECISION-MAKING AND COGNITIVE PLANNING and SOCIAL COGNITION: FROM BABIES TO ROBOTS See the url above for the complete program of invited speakers. CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS Todd Braver (Washington University, St. Louis) Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control: Influences on reward-based decision-making Marisa Carrasco (New York University) Effects of attention on early vision Patrick Cavanagh (Harvard University and Universit? Paris Descartes) Common functional architecture for spatial attention and perceived location Robert Desimone [Plenary Speaker] (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Prefrontal-visual cortex interactions in attention Asif Ghazanfar (Princeton University) Evolving and developing communication through coupled oscillations Stephen Grossberg (Boston University) Behavioral economics and neuroeconomics: Cooperation, competition, preference, and decision-making Joy Hirsch (Columbia University Medical Center) Neural circuits for conflict resolution Roberta Klatzky (Carnegie Mellon University) Multi-modal interactions within and between senses Kevin LaBar (Duke University) Neural systems for fear generalization Randi Martin (Rice University) Memory retrieval and interference during language comprehension Andrew Meltzoff (University of Washington) How to build a baby with social cognition: Accelerating learning by generalizing across self and other Javier Movellan (University of California, San Diego) Optimal control approaches to the analysis and synthesis of social behavior Mary Potter (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Recognizing briefly presented pictures: Feedforward processing? Pieter Roelfsema (The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience) Neuronal mechanisms for perceptual organization Daniel Salzman (Columbia University) Cognitive signals in the amygdala Daniel Schacter [Plenary Speaker] (Harvard University) Constructive memory and imagining the future Wolfram Schultz (University of Cambridge) Neuronal reward and risk signals Helen Tager-Flusberg (Boston University) Identifying early neurobiological risk markers for autism spectrum disorder in the first year of life Jan Theeuwes (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Prior history shapes selection James Todd (Ohio State University) The perception of 3D shape from texture Leslie Ungerleider (National Institutes of Health) Functional architecture for face processing in the primate brain Jeremy Wolfe (Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women's Hospital) How selective and non-selective pathways contribute to visual search in scenes CALL FOR ABSTRACTS Session Topics: * vision * object recognition * image understanding * neural circuit models * audition * neural system models * speech and language * mathematics of neural systems * unsupervised learning * robotics * supervised learning * hybrid systems (fuzzy, evolutionary, digital) * reinforcement and emotion * neuromorphic VLSI * sensory-motor control * industrial applications * cognition, planning, and attention * other * spatial mapping and navigation Contributed abstracts must be received, in English, by February 28, 2013. Email notification of acceptance will be provided by March 15, 2013. Abstracts must not exceed one 8.5"x11" page in length, with 1" margins on top, bottom, and both sides in a single-column format with a font of 10 points or larger. The title, authors, affiliations, surface, and email addresses should begin each abstract. A separate cover letter should include the abstract title; name and contact information for corresponding and presenting authors; requested preference for oral or poster presentation; and a first and second choice from the topics above, including whether it is biological (B) or technological (T) work [Example: first choice: vision (T); second choice: neural system models (B)]. Contributed talks will be 15 minutes long. Posters will be displayed for a full day. Overhead and computer projector facilities will be available for talks. Copies of the accepted abstracts will be provided electronically to all registered conference participants and will be made publicly available via posting on the conference web site, in accordance with funding agency guidelines. No extended paper will be required. A meeting registration fee must accompany each abstract. The fee will be refunded if the abstract is not accepted for presentation. Fees of accepted abstracts will be returned upon written request only until April 30, 2013. Abstracts, cover letters, and completed registration forms with fee payment information should be submitted electronically tocindy at bu.edu using the phrase ?17th ICCNS abstract submission? in the subject line. Fax submissions of the abstract page will not be accepted. Fax or surface mail submissions of the registration form are acceptable (to Cynthia Bradford, using the contact information shown on the registration form below). Student registrations must be accompanied by a letter of verification from a department chairperson or faculty/research advisor. Postdoctoral fellows and faculty members should register at the regular rate. REGISTRATION FORM Seventeenth International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems June 4 ? 7, 2013 Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA Fax: +1 617 353 7755 Mr/Ms/Dr/Prof:_____________________________________________________ Affiliation:_________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________ City, State, Postal Code:______________________________________________ Phone and Fax:_____________________________________________________ Email:____________________________________________________________ The registration fee includes a conference reception and multiple daily coffee breaks. CHECK ONE: ( ) $135 Conference (Regular) ( ) $85 Conference (Student) METHOD OF PAYMENT: [ ] Enclosed is a check made payable to "Boston University" Checks must be made payable in US dollars and issued by a US correspondent bank. Each registrant is responsible for any and all bank charges. [ ] I wish to pay by credit card (MasterCard, Visa, or Discover Card only) Name as it appears on the card:___________________________________________ Type of card: _____________________________ Expiration date:________________ Account number: _______________________________________________________ Signature:____________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: brochure (01-29-13).docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 23668 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cardoso at bcos.uni-freiburg.de Wed Jan 30 02:48:12 2013 From: cardoso at bcos.uni-freiburg.de (Simone Cardoso de Oliveira) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 08:48:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience: refilling the position of the Head of the National Coordination Site Message-ID: <5108D03C.8090701@bcos.uni-freiburg.de> The Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience is refilling the position of the *Head of the National Coordination Site* The Bernstein Network is a German research network in the interdisciplinary field of Computational Neuroscience. It was initiated in 2004 by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and connects over 200 research groups at more than 20 locations throughout Germany. The National Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) supports the network in all joint activities, represents the network nationally and internationally and is responsible for the joint press and public-relations work. Besides the position of its head announced here, BCOS consists of a scientific officer, a press and public relations officer and a project assistant. Responsibilities of the BCOS head include: * Fostering the communication and scientific cooperation between the network partners and international contacts, * Organizational support for the yearly Bernstein Conference, planning and organization of further events and workshop, * Intensifying industry contacts * Support of young researchers and training * Development of long-term perspectives for theBernstein Network and lobbying * Contact to and service functions for the BMBF and the Project Agency, as well as contact to other funding agencies.** ** The position comes with a broad spectrum of interesting tasks and offers numerous contacts and opportunities in a dynamic national and international research area. Applicants should have a PhD or equivalent (preferentially in the neurosciences), own research experience and a good overview over the fields of ComputationalNeuroscience and Neurotechnology. Experience in third-party funded projects and science management is expected. An excellent command of the German and English languages is required, as well as an integrative personality with pronounced social skills and a high degree of self-initiative. The position entails travelling within Germany as well as occasional international travelling. We seek to fill the position as soon as possible. Salary level is up to TV-L E 15. Employment is currently limited until August 2015, prolongation on the basis of additional funding is being sought. Further information on the Bernstein Network and its activities can be found at: www.nncn.de. Please direct your application (by February 15, 2013, one pdf file, < 5 MB) and any inquiries to: Dr. Simone Cardoso de Oliveira (cardoso at bcos.uni-freiburg.de). -- Dr. Simone Cardoso de Oliveira Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience Head of the Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg Hansastr. 9A 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: +49-761-203-9583 fax: +49-761-203-9585 cardoso at bcos.uni-freiburg.de www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From opossumnano at gmail.com Thu Jan 31 05:56:28 2013 From: opossumnano at gmail.com (Tiziano Zito) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:56:28 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?=5BANN=5D_Summer_School_=22Advanced_Sci?= =?utf-8?q?entific_Programming_in_Python=22_in_Z=C3=BCrich=2C_Switzerland?= Message-ID: <20130131105628.4B2BC12E00D6@comms.bccn-berlin.de> Advanced Scientific Programming in Python ========================================= a Summer School by the G-Node and the Physik-Institut, University of Zurich Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have evolved, only few scientists actually use them. As a result, instead of doing their research, they spend far too much time writing deficient code and reinventing the wheel. In this course we will present a selection of advanced programming techniques, incorporating theoretical lectures and practical exercises tailored to the needs of a programming scientist. New skills will be tested in a real programming project: we will team up to develop an entertaining scientific computer game. We use the Python programming language for the entire course. Python works as a simple programming language for beginners, but more importantly, it also works great in scientific simulations and data analysis. We show how clean language design, ease of extensibility, and the great wealth of open source libraries for scientific computing and data visualization are driving Python to become a standard tool for the programming scientist. This school is targeted at Master or PhD students and Post-docs from all areas of science. Competence in Python or in another language such as Java, C/C++, MATLAB, or Mathematica is absolutely required. Basic knowledge of Python is assumed. Participants without any prior experience with Python should work through the proposed introductory materials before the course. Date and Location ================= September 1?6, 2013. Z?rich, Switzerlandi. Preliminary Program =================== Day 0 (Sun Sept 1) ? Best Programming Practices - Best Practices, Development Methodologies and the Zen of Python - Version control with git - Object-oriented programming & design patterns Day 1 (Mon Sept 2) ? Software Carpentry - Test-driven development, unit testing & quality assurance - Debugging, profiling and benchmarking techniques - Best practices in data visualization - Programming in teams Day 2 (Tue Sept 3) ? Scientific Tools for Python - Advanced NumPy - The Quest for Speed (intro): Interfacing to C with Cython - Advanced Python I: idioms, useful built-in data structures, generators Day 3 (Wed Sept 4) ? The Quest for Speed - Writing parallel applications in Python - Programming project Day 4 (Thu Sept 5) ? Efficient Memory Management - When parallelization does not help: the starving CPUs problem - Advanced Python II: decorators and context managers - Programming project Day 5 (Fri Sept 6) ? Practical Software Development - Programming project - The Pelita Tournament Every evening we will have the tutors' consultation hour : Tutors will answer your questions and give suggestions for your own projects. Applications ============ You can apply on-line at http://python.g-node.org Applications must be submitted before 23:59 CEST, May 1, 2013. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by June 1, 2013. No fee is charged but participants should take care of travel, living, and accommodation expenses. Candidates will be selected on the basis of their profile. Places are limited: acceptance rate is usually around 20%. Prerequisites: You are supposed to know the basics of Python to participate in the lectures. You are encouraged to go through the introductory material available on the website. Faculty ======= - Francesc Alted, Continuum Analytics Inc., USA - Pietro Berkes, Enthought Inc., UK - Valentin Haenel, freelance developer and consultant, Berlin, Germany - Zbigniew J?drzejewski-Szmek, Krasnow Institute, George Mason University, USA - Eilif Muller, Blue Brain Project, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland - Emanuele Olivetti, NeuroInformatics Laboratory, Fondazione Bruno Kessler and University of Trento, Italy - Rike-Benjamin Schuppner, Technologit GbR, Germany - Bartosz Tele?czuk, Unit? de Neurosciences Information et Complexit?, CNRS, France - St?fan van der Walt, Applied Mathematics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa - Bastian Venthur, Berlin Institute of Technology and Bernstein Focus Neurotechnology, Germany - Niko Wilbert, TNG Technology Consulting GmbH, Germany - Tiziano Zito, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Germany Organized by Nicola Chiapolini and colleagues of the Physik-Institut, University of Zurich, and by Zbigniew J?drzejewski-Szmek and Tiziano Zito for the German Neuroinformatics Node of the INCF. Website: http://python.g-node.org Contact: python-info at g-node.org From john.lee at uclouvain.be Wed Jan 23 08:05:58 2013 From: john.lee at uclouvain.be (John Lee) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:05:58 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: PostDoc in Dimensionality Reduction and Information Visualization at UCLouvain (Belgium) Message-ID: <50FFDE77.3020802@uclouvain.be> The Universit? catholique de Louvain invites applications for a 2-year postdoctoral position in Machine Learning/Information Visualisation, beginning July 1, 2013. The visual interpretation of data is an essential step to guide any further processing or decision making. Data visualization is tackled independently from two different angles in the scientific community. The domain of machine learning addresses mainly statistical, mathematical, and algorithmic aspects with dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques, whereas the field of information visualization focuses on the interaction with the user (man-computer interface, visual efficacy, user-friendliness). In this context, the project aims at bridging the two approaches. More specifically, the project intends to import the concepts of interactivity and controllability from the field of information visualization and to integrate them in advanced DR techniques in order to improve their acceptance by users and broaden their range of application. The successful applicant will hold a Ph.D. degree delivered not earlier than July 1, 2007, and must not have the Belgian nationality. In addition, the candidate must not have lived in Belgium for more than 2 years since July 1, 2010. The net salary after deduction of taxes and social security is about 26000 euros per year, or more, depending on seniority. Applicants should be knowledgeable in machine learning, data mining, information visualisation, with a particular interest in manifold learning, dimensionality reduction and information retrieval. Applicants should have a strong background in computer science and applied mathematics. A working knowledge of English language is mandatory. French is an optional asset. Working location will be Louvain-la-Neuve, a lively pedestrian town in the suburbs of Brussels, where most of the Universit? catholique de Louvain is located. The work will be carried out in collaboration with Profs. John A. Lee (http://scholar.google.be/citations?user=ZopTupcAAAAJ) and Michel Verleysen (http://perso.uclouvain.be/michel.verleysen/), in the ICTEAM institute (http://www.uclouvain.be/en-icteam.html). Application procedure: Interested individuals should send a CV, a brief statement of research and development interests (max. 1 page), and the names and contact details of two references by e-mail to John Lee (john.lee at uclouvain.be) with subject "Postdoc DRedVis". Candidates interested should send their application before March 15th, 2013; we reserve the right to accept late applications. The position will be available for an initial period of 1 year, with possible one-year extension after mid-term evaluation. -- -- John A. Lee, PhD, FNRS Research Associate Universit? catholique de Louvain Molecular Imaging, Radiotherapy, and Oncology Avenue Hippocrate 55 box B1.54.07 B-1200 Bruxelles, Belgium Tel. +32 2 7649528 Email john.lee at uclouvain.be From f.ramos at acfr.usyd.edu.au Fri Jan 25 01:14:09 2013 From: f.ramos at acfr.usyd.edu.au (Fabio Ramos) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 06:14:09 -0000 Subject: Connectionists: Research Fellow Position in Machine Learning at NICTA Message-ID: NICTA is seeking a highly creative and motivated researcher to join its world-class machine learning research group. The researcher will join a team pursing continental scale spatial-temporal machine learning problems, with potential impacts in a variety of areas such as environmental modelling, including geological and hydrological modelling; air and water pollution monitoring; and energy systems. The successful applicant will undertake research into Bayesian statistical modelling and data fusion with applications in a variety of domains. The research will be performed in conjunction with the security and environment business team to achieve major environmental and economic benefits to Australia. Accountability and Associated Responsibilities: ? Achieve the highest international standards of research. ? Contribute to the management of research projects. ? Form research synergies and collaborations with researchers within NICTA and other research institutes and industry. ? Publish results of research in top tier conferences and/or journals. ? Contribute to research interaction with industry with a view to generate economic impact. ? Work with research group and business team leaders, and other researchers, to formulate and deliver project objectives. ? Participate in supervision and review of PhD students. ? Maintain high ethical and performance standards. Essential Requirements: ? PhD qualification (or near completion) in machine learning, statistics, robotics, data fusion, signal processing or related areas. ? A strong research record, evidenced by research publications in top tier journals and conferences, patents and other relevant research output. ? An ability to clearly formulate, pursue and deliver against original research questions. ? Outstanding interpersonal and teamwork skills. ? Willingness to comply with EEO and WHS standards. ? Awareness and understanding of NICTA?s Business Conduct and Risk Management policies and procedures. The position is based in Sydney and the applicant may be eligible for an adjunct or conjoint appointment at the University of Sydney. This is a two year contract position to commence as soon as possible. Contract extensions are possible. Applications will remain open until a suitable candidate is found. Applicants are recommended to apply as soon as possible using the link below: https://nicta.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=143&company_id=16182&version=1&source=ONLINE&JobOwner=993272&startflag=1 For further information please contact george.mathews at nicta.com.au or fabio.ramos at sydney.edu.au NICTA is an EEO employer and promotes a culture of diversity and equality. NICTA values a diverse workforce and encourages women, people with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to apply. Job Location: Eveleigh, Sydney, Australia Position Type: Full-Time/Regular Contract End Date: N/A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: