From florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de Sun Jun 2 04:39:16 2013 From: florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Florian_R=F6hrbein?=) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2013 10:39:16 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [Frontiers Research Topic] 2 special issues open for submission Message-ID: <3A0F68DD-2C6F-4AAF-8325-8EFA2C1A7E03@in.tum.de> Dear all, I would like to inform you of the following 2 special issues of Frontiers in Neurorobotics that are still accepting submissions: "Towards embodied artificial cognition: TIME is on my side" deadline: Oct 30, 2013 http://www.frontiersin.org/Neurorobotics/researchtopics/Towards_embodied_artificial_co/1554 "Intrinsic motivations and open-ended development in animals, humans, and robots" deadline: Jun 21, 2013 http://www.frontiersin.org/Neurorobotics/researchtopics/Intrinsic_motivations_and_open_1/1797 If you are interested to contribute, please first send me a quick email. regards, PD Dr. Florian Roehrbein florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de Technische Universitaet Muenchen http://www.humanbrainproject.eu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From silvia at sa.infn.it Sat Jun 1 01:40:32 2013 From: silvia at sa.infn.it (Silvia Scarpetta) Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 07:40:32 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?Call_for_Papers_-_Special_issue_on_?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=9EComputations_in_oscillating_neuronal_networks?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=9C_in_Network=3A_Computation_in_Neural_Systems?= Message-ID: Special issue on ?Computations in oscillating neuronal networks? in Network: Computation in Neural Systems Editors: Silvia Scarpetta (silvia at sa.infn.it) Christian Leibold (leibold at bio.lmu.de) The abundance of oscillatory activity in neuronal circuits has stimulated both theoretical and experimental neuroscience over many decades. Questions about the role of oscillations in the representation of information in the brain has ever since been a source of great inspiration to neuroscientists. This Special Issue of Network: Computation in Neural Systems (http://informahealthcare.com/loi/net),is aimed to provide a platform to review recent successes of computational models of neuronal oscillations as well as insights into their computational/functional roles. We are inviting original research contributions, reviews, and perspectives on all topics relevant to the theory of neuronal network oscillations. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: * Biophysics of neuronal oscillators * Phase coding, * Phase response theory * Dual phase-and-rate codes, * STDP and the formation of synaptic circuits underyling oscillations * Role of oscillations in hippocampus and in olfactory system * Storage and replay of oscillatory pattern * Oscillations and reverberations Manuscripts should be submitted online via http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ncns, mentioning the special issue in the cover letter. Important dates: Manuscript submission due: 30.09.2013 First review completed: 31.10.2013 Revised manuscript due: 30.11.2013 Second review completed, final decisions to authors: 23.12.2013 Final manuscript due: 08.01.2014 Publication date: 01.03.2014 For further information, please contact the editors. From grlmc at urv.cat Sun Jun 2 06:11:02 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2013 12:11:02 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: SSTiC 2013: next registration deadline 26 June Message-ID: *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ********************************************************************* 2013 INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL ON TRENDS IN COMPUTING SSTiC 2013 Tarragona, Spain July 22-26, 2013 Organized by Rovira i Virgili University http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/ ********************************************************************* +++ next registration deadline: June 26 +++ ********************************************************************* 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 59 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: 7 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: 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 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 Paul Dourish (Irvine) [introductory] Ubiquitous Computing in a Social Context Max J. Egenhofer (Maine) [introductory/intermediate] Qualitative Spatial Relations: Formalizations and Inferences 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 Francisco Herrera (Granada) [intermediate] Imbalanced Classification: Current Approaches and Open Problems Paul Hudak (Yale) [introductory] Euterpea: From Signals to Symphonies Using Haskell 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 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 Satoru Miyano (Tokyo) [intermediate] How to Hack Cancer Systems with Computational Methods Aloysius K. Mok (Austin) [intermediate] From Real-time Systems to Cyber-physical Systems Hermann Ney (Aachen) [intermediate/advanced] Probabilistic Modelling for Natural Language Processing - with Applications to Speech Recognition, Handwriting Recognition and Machine Translation Cathleen A. Norris (North Texas) & Elliot Soloway (Ann Arbor) [introductory] Primary & Secondary Educational Computing in the Age of Mobilism Jeff Offutt (George Mason) [intermediate] Cutting Edge Research in Engineering of Web Applications David Padua (Urbana) [intermediate] Parallel Programming with Abstractions Bijan Parsia (Manchester) [introductory] The Semantic Web: Conceptual and Technical Foundations Massoud Pedram (Southern California) [intermediate] Energy Efficient Architectures and Information Processing Systems 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 Phillip Rogaway (Davis) [introductory/intermediate] Provably Secure Symmetric Encryption Gustavo Rossi (La Plata) [intermediate] Topics in Model Driven Web Engineering Kaushik Roy (Purdue) [introductory/intermediate] Low-energy Computing 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) [intermediate/advanced] Visual Crowd Surveillance Ron Shamir (Tel Aviv) [introductory] Revealing Structure in Disease Regulation and Networks Dawn Xiaodong Song (Berkeley) [introductory] Selected Topics in Computer Security Mike Thelwall (Wolverhampton) [introductory] Sentiment Strength Detection for the Social Web Julita Vassileva (Saskatchewan) [introductory/intermediate] Engaging Users in Social Computing Systems Philip Wadler (Edinburgh) [introductory] Topics in Lambda Calculus and Life 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 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 Ronald R. Yager (Iona) [introductory/intermediate] Fuzzy Sets and Soft Computing Philip S. Yu (Illinois Chicago) [advanced] Mining Big Data REGISTRATION: It has to be done at http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/Registration.php Since 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 is 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: Departament d?Economia i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virgili From zaytsev at fz-juelich.de Mon Jun 3 08:36:10 2013 From: zaytsev at fz-juelich.de (Yury V. Zaytsev) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013 14:36:10 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Release of NEST 2.2.2 Message-ID: <1370262970.2722.251.camel@newpride> Dear colleagues, We are very happy to announce the release of NEST 2.2.2! NEST is a fast and efficient simulator for networks of spiking neurons developed by NEST Initiative, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 (or later) and can be downloaded from http://www.nest-initiative.org/index.php/Software:Download Additionally, we make available Ubuntu-based live media in both ISO and OVA formats, suitable, for example, for importing into VirtualBox, or burning to a DVD. NEST, NEURON, Brian, PyNN and other software comes pre-installed, which is useful for trying out NEST without installing it on your computer, especially for Windows and Mac OS X users. NEST 2.2.2 is primarily a bugfix release, resolving bugs in various components of NEST 2.2.1 and featuring several important improvements, such as new and updated models, as well as performance enhancements. Release notes for NEST 2.2.2 ---------------------------- * New models and devices: - `iaf_psc_alpha_multisynapse` - `iaf_psc_exp_multisynapse` - `mcculloch_pitts_neuron` - `ginzburg_neuron` - `spin_detector` - `sinusoidal_gamma_generator` * Updated models and devices: - `smp_generator` is replaced by `sinusoidal_poisson_generator`, which sends an '''individual''' spike train to each of its targets by default; be wary when updating your code! In order to replicate the old behavior of the `smp_generator` (all targets receive the same spike train), set `/individual_spike_trains` to `false` on the `sinusoidal_poisson_generator` model before creating a generator node. - `iaf_psc_alpha`: bugfixes - `stdp_dopamine_synapse`: bugfixes * PyNEST: fixes to the `DataConnect()` interface * Topology: - more efficient `GetTargetNodes()` implementation - lognormal distribution for parameter values * Various bugfixes to the kernel, SLI, build system and other areas As always, please use the NEST user mailing list for posting support requests and bug reports. Happy simulating! Beautiful greetings on behalf of the NEST Initiative, -- Dipl.-Phys. Yury V. Zaytsev Simulation Lab Neuroscience J?lich Supercomputing Centre Institute for Advanced Simulation J?lich Research Center http://www.fz-juelich.de/ias/jsc Office: +49 2461 61-9466 Fax # : +49 2461 61-9460 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From info at ssa.org.ua Sat Jun 1 15:41:09 2013 From: info at ssa.org.ua (Info SSA KPI) Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 22:41:09 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: Summer School AACIMP late registration deadline is extended! Message-ID: Please forward this letter to everyone who might be interested. VIII Summer School "Achievements and Applications of Contemporary Informatics, Mathematics and Physics" (AACIMP - 2013) August 1- 17, 2013, Kyiv (Ukraine), website: http://summerschool.ssa.org.ua. Late registration deadline is extended till* June 20.* Registration is still open for two streams: Neuroscience and Operational Research. *Neuroscience (NS) stream*- gives an overview of the field for students, postgraduates and young scientists mainly with physical and mathematical background and aims to give initial knowledge and induce interest to Neuroscience. The curriculum includes broad range of topics from subcellular level to cognition and social behaviour considered mainly from computational point of view. It provides all required information to understand biological bases of modelled processes. *Operational Research (OR) stream*- introduces methods of mathematical analysis that allow better solutions dealing with the complex challenges from the real life of businesses and governments. Operational Research is truly interdisciplinary it unites diverse subjects such as financial models, transportation optimization and many others to provide better understanding of the world and improve the quality of decisions made. There are no requirements on preliminary experience of participants in Operational Research, but a good mathematical background would improve the personal learning outcome of the course. To participate in the Summer School, a student has to fill in an application form on the AACIMP-2013 website (*summerschool.ssa.org.ua*). The decision on the acceptance is made by the Organizing Committee based on student's skills, range of interests and motivation. DAAD scholarships for students that are currently studying in Germany (covering all costs). More information about scholarships can be found on the DAAD Go East program website http://goeast.daad.de/. You can find all the details of registration, information about courses, terms of participation, scholarships and payment at the AACIMP-2013 website: http://summerschool.ssa.org.ua. Sorry for the multiple copies of this message. Best regards, Organizing Committee Summer School AACIMP-2013 37, Peremohy avenue, building 1, room 299(15) 03056, Ukraine, Kyiv, phone/fax: +38 044 454 9243 e-mail: summerschool at ssa.org.ua -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From neumann at ias.tu-darmstadt.de Mon Jun 3 11:25:53 2013 From: neumann at ias.tu-darmstadt.de (Gerhard Neumann) Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:25:53 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline Extension *June 10*: CfP - RSS 2013 Workshop on "Hierarchical and Structured Learning for Robotics " Message-ID: <51ACB581.1090400@ias.tu-darmstadt.de> DEADLINE EXTENSION *June 10* --- CALL FOR POSTERS RSS 2013 WORKSHOP ON "Hierarchical and Structured Learning for Robotics" ================================================================================================== Title: Hierarchical and Structured Learning for Robotics Organizers: Gerhard Neumann (neumann at ias.tu-darmstadt.de, TU Darmstadt) George Konidaris (gdk at csail.mit.edu, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) Freek Stulp (freek.stulp at ensta-paristech.fr, ENSTA - ParisTech) Jan Peters (peters at ias.tu-darmstadt.de, TU Darmstadt and MPI for Intelligent Systems) WWW: http://www.ias.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/Workshops/RSS2013 ABSTRACT: Learning robot control policies in complex real-world environments is a major challenge for machine learning due to the inherent high dimensionality, partial observability and the high costs of data generation. Treating robot learning as a monolithic machine problem and employing off-the-shelf approaches is unrealistic at best. However, the physical world can yield important insights into the inherent structure of control policies, state or action spaces and reward functions. For example, many robot motor tasks are also hierarchically structured decision tasks. For example, a tennis playing robot has to combine different striking movements sequentially. During locomotion there are at least three behaviors simultaneously active as a robot has to combine its gait generation with foot placement and balance control. First domain-driven skill learning approaches have already yielded impressive recent successes by incorporating such structural insights into the learning process. Hence, a promising route to more scalable policy learning approaches includes the automatic exploitation of the environment's structure, resulting in new structured learning approaches for robot control. Structured and hierarchical learning has been an important trend in machine learning in recent years. In robotics, researchers often ended up naturally at well-structured hierarchical policies based on discrete-continuous partitions (e.g., define local movement generators as well as a prioritized operational space control for combining them) with nested control loops at several different speeds (i.e., fast control loops for smooth and accurate movement achievement, slower loops for model-predictive planning). Furthermore, evidence from the fields cognitive sciences indicate that humans also heavily exploit such structures and hierarchies. Although such structures have been found in human motor control, are favored in robot control and exist in machine learning, the connections between these fields have not been well explored. Transferring insights from structured prediction methods, which make use of the inherent correlation in the data, to hierarchical robot skill learning may be a crucial step. General approaches for bringing structured policies, states, actions and rewards into robot reinforcement learning may well be the key to tackle many challenges of real-world robot environments and an important step to the vision of intelligent autonomous robots which can learn rich and versatile sets of motor skills. This workshop aims to reveal how complex motor skills typically exhibit structures that can be exploited for learning reward functions and to find structure in the state or action space. In order to make progress towards the goal of structured learning for robot control, this workshop aims at researchers from different machine learning areas (such as reinforcement learning, structured prediction), robotics and related disciplines (e.g., control engineering, and the cognitive sciences). We particularly want to focus on the following important topics for structured robot learning which have a big overlap from several of these fields: - Efficient representations and learning methods for hierarchical policies - Learning in several layers of hierarchy - Structured representations for motor control and planning - Skill extraction and skill transfer - Sequencing and composition of behaviors - Hierarchical Bayesian Models for decision making and efficient transfer learning - Low-dimensional manifolds as structured representations for decision making - Exploiting correlations in the decision making process - Prioritized control policies in a multi-task reinforcement learning setup These challenges are important steps to building intelligent autonomous robots and may potentially motivate new research topics in the related research fields. FORMAT: The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers which are interested in structured representations, reinforcement learning, hierarchical learning methods and control architectures. Among these general topics we will focus on the following questions: Structured representations: - How to efficiently use graphical models such as Markov random fields to exploit correlations in the decision making process? - How to extract the relevant structure (e.g. low dimensional manifolds, factorizations...) from the state and action space? - Can we efficiently model structure in the reward function or the system dynamics? - How to learn good features for the policy or the value function? - What can we learn from structured prediction? Representations of behavior: - What are good representations for motor skills? - How can we efficiently reuse skills in new situations? - How can we extract movement skills and elemental movements from demonstrations? - How can we compose skills to solve a combination of tasks? - How can we represent versatile motor skills? - How can we represent and exploit the correlations over time in the decision process? Structured Control: - How to efficiently use structured representations for planning and control? - Can we learn task-priorities and use similar policies as in task-prioritized control? - How to decompose optimal control laws into elemental movements ? - How to use low-dimensional manifolds to control high-dimensional, redundant systems? - Can we use chain or tree-like structures as policy representation to mimic the kinematic structure of the robot? Hierarchical Learning Methods: - How can we efficiently apply abstractions to the control problem? - How to efficiently learn at several layers of hierarchy? - Which policy search algorithms are appropriate for which hierarchical representation? - Can we use hierarchical inverse reinforcement learning to acquire skill reward functions, and priors over selecting those skills? - How can we decide when to create new skills or re-use known ones? - How can we discover and generalize important sub-goals in our movement plan? Skill Transfer: - How can we efficiently transfer skills to new situations? - Can we use hierarchical Bayesian models to learn in several layers of abstraction also in decision making? - How to transfer learned models or even value functions to new tasks? IMPORTANT DATES June 1st - Deadline of submission for Posters June 4th - Notification of Poster Acceptance June 10th - Extended Deadline of Submission for Posters June 12th - Notification for Extended Deadline SUBMISSIONS Extended abstracts (1 pages) will be reviewed by the program committee members on the basis of relevance, significance, and clarity. Accepted contributions will be presented as posters but particularly exciting work may be considered for talks. Submissions should be formatted according to the conference templates and submitted via email to neumann at ias.tu-darmstadt.de. ORGANIZERS Gerhard Neumann, Technische Universitaet Darmstadt George Konidaris, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Freek Stulp, ENSTA - ParisTech Jan Peters, Technische Universitaet Darmstadt and Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems LOCATION AND MORE INFORMATION The most up-to-date information about the workshop can be found on the RSS 2013 webpage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From p.husbands at sussex.ac.uk Mon Jun 3 12:09:50 2013 From: p.husbands at sussex.ac.uk (Phil Husbands) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013 16:09:50 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc positions in selectionist neural dynamics Message-ID: Two 24 month post-doc positions are available in the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of Sussex.2 One is in computational neuroscience and one in neurophysiology, to work on an interdisciplinary EU FP7 FET project (INSIGHT) on Darwinian and selectionist neural dynamics. INSIGHT is an exciting multi-disciplinary project with the following partners: Parmenides Foundation (Prof. Eors Szathmary), QMUL (Dr. Chrisantha Fernando), EPFL (Prof. Dario Floreano), SONY/Barcelona (Prof. Luc Steels), and Sussex (Prof. Phil Husbands, Dr. Kevin Staras). For background see the following Frontiers in Comp. Neurosci. paper: http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/Abstract.aspx?ART_DOI=10.3389/fncom.2012.00024&name=computational_neuroscience post-doc 1: computational neuroscience application process and further details: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/161 The post will involve realistic simulations of neuronal networks in order to explore the kinds of replication of information that can take place in the nervous system. The research will involve collaboration with an electrophysiology post-doc who will be looking for empirical evidence of such mechanisms. Insights from this work will be used to inform research at partner institutions on the design of cognitive architectures for robotics. post-doc 2: neurophysiology application process and further details: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/162 The post will involve electrophysiology/imaging experiments on neural network cultures using a multi-electrode array system and/or imaging rig. Experiments will examine the influences of imposed stimulation patterns on on-going neuronal activity characteristics. The research will involve collaboration with a computational neuroscience research fellow (post-doc 1 above). From terry at salk.edu Mon Jun 3 14:55:40 2013 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:55:40 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - July 1, 2013 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents -- Volume 25, Number 7 - July 1, 2013 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/25/7 Review Learning Quadratic Receptive Fields From Neural Responses to Natural Stimuli Gasper Tkacik, Kanaka Rajan, and Olivier Marre Article Design and Analysis of Closed-loop Decoder Adaptation Algorithms for Brain-machine Interfaces Jose Carmena, Siddharth Dangi, Amy Orsborn, and Helene Moorman Letters Decorrelation by Recurrent Inhibition in Heterogeneous Neural Circuits Alberto Bernacchia, Xiao-Jing Wang Neutral Stability, Rate Propagation, and Critical Branching in Feedforward Networks Natasha Cayco Gajic, Eric T. Shea-Brown The Role of the Extracellular Conductivity Profiles in the Compartmental Models for Neurons: Particulars for Layer 5 Pyramidal Cells Jorge Riera, Kai Wang, Herve Enjieu-Kadji, and Ryuta Kawashima A Calcium-based Simple Model of Multiple Spike Interactions in Spike-timing Dependent Plasticity Takumi Uramoto, Hiroyuki Torikai Identifying Functional Bases for Multidimensional Neural Computations Tatyana Sharpee, Joel Kaardal, Jeffrey Fitzgerald, and Michael J. Berry II Combinatorial Neural Codes From a Mathematical Coding Theory Perspective Carina Curto, Vladimir Itskov, Katherine Morrison, Zachary Roth, and Judy L Walker Multiple Spectral Kernel Learning and a Gaussian Complexity Computation Nima Reyhani ------------ 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 julian.mcauley at gmail.com Tue Jun 4 13:54:26 2013 From: julian.mcauley at gmail.com (Julian McAuley) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 10:54:26 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Final CFP: Eleventh Workshop on Mining and Learning with Graphs Message-ID: Eleventh Workshop on Mining and Learning with Graphs (MLG 2013) August 11, 2013 - Chicago, IL (co-located with KDD 2013) http://snap.stanford.edu/mlg2013/ Submission Deadline: June 6, 2013 This workshop is a forum for exchanging ideas and methods for mining and learning with graphs, developing new common understandings of the problems at hand, sharing of data sets where applicable, and leveraging existing knowledge from different disciplines. The goal is to bring together researchers from academia, industry, and government, to create a forum for discussing recent advances graph analysis. In doing so we aim to better understand the overarching principles and the limitations of our current methods, and to inspire research on new algorithms and techniques for mining and learning with graphs. To reflect the broad scope of work on mining and learning with graphs, we encourage submissions that span the spectrum from theoretical analysis, to algorithms and implementation, to applications and empirical studies. In terms of application areas, the growth of user-generated content on blogs, microblogs, discussion forums, product reviews, etc., has given rise to a host of new opportunities for graph mining in the analysis of social media. Social media analytics is a fertile ground for research at the intersection of mining graphs and text. As such, this year we especially encourage submissions on theory, methods, and applications focusing on the analysis of social media. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Theoretical aspects: * Computational or statistical learning theory related to graphs * Theoretical analysis of graph algorithms or models * Sampling and evaluation issues in graph algorithms * Analysis of dynamic graphs * Relationships between MLG and statistical relational learning or inductive logic programming Algorithms and methods: * Graph mining * Kernel methods for structured data * Probabilistic and graphical models for structured data * (Multi-) Relational data mining * Methods for structured outputs * Statistical models of graph structure * Combinatorial graph methods * Spectral graph methods * Semi-supervised learning, active learning, transductive inference, and transfer learning in the context of graph Applications and analysis: * Analysis of social media * Social network analysis * Analysis of biological networks * Knowledge graph construction * Large-scale analysis and modeling We invite the submission of regular research papers (6-8 pages) as well as position papers (2-4 pages). Authors whose papers are accepted to the workshop will have the opportunity to participate in a poster session, and some set may also be chosen for oral presentation. Timeline: Submission Deadline: June 6 Notification: June 25 Final Version: July 6 Workshop: August 11 Submission instructions can be found on http://snap.stanford.edu/mlg2013/instructions.html Please send enquires to jmcauley at cs.stanford.edu We look forward to seeing you at the workshop! Lada Adamic, Lise Getoor, Bert Huang, Jure Leskovec, Julian McAuley (chairs) Edoardo Airoldi, Leman Akoglu, Aris Anagnostopoulos, Arindam Banerjee, Christian Bauckhage, Francesco Bonchi, Ulf Brefeld, Tina Eliassi-Rad, Thomas Gaerner, Brian Gallagher, David Gleich, Marco Gori, Mohammad Hasan, Jake Hofman, Jiawei Han, Larry Holder, Manfred Jaeger, Tamara Kolda, U Kang, Kristian Kersting, Kristina Lerman, Bo Long, Sofus Macskassy, Thorsten Meinl, Prem Melville, Dunja Mladenic, Jennifer Neville, Srinivasan Parthasarathy, Jan Ramon, Bing Tian Dai, Hanghang Tong, Chris Volinsky, Stefan Wrobel, Xifeng Yan, Xintian Yang, Philip Yu, Mohammed Zaki, Liang Zhang, Mark Zhang (program committee) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlam at bccn-tuebingen.de Tue Jun 4 12:08:52 2013 From: jlam at bccn-tuebingen.de (Judith Lam) Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 18:08:52 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: abstract submission still open - Bernstein Conference 2013 - Call for Abstracts Message-ID: <51AE1114.4020907@bccn-tuebingen.de> A small number of slots (<40) for abstract submissions are still available and we still accept submissions until all slots are filled (first come, first serve). The selection of contributed talks will take into account all abstracts submitted by *Sunday, June 16th*. Abstract submission:http://www.bernstein-conference.de/abstracts Conference program:http://www.bernstein-conference.de/program Workshop programs:http://www.bernstein-conference.de/workshops ************************************************************** Call for Abstracts: Bernstein Conference 2013 ************************************************************** Workshops September 24-25, 2013 Main Conference September 25-27, 2013 ************************************************************** The Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience started out as the annual meeting of the Bernstein Network (www.nncn.de) and has become the largest European Conference in Computational Neuroscience in recent years. This year, the Conference is organized by the Bernstein Center Tuebingen and will take place September 25-27, 2013. In addition, there will be a series of pre-conference workshops on September 24-25, 2013. The Bernstein Conference is a single-track conference, covering all aspects of Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, and sessions for poster presentations are an integral part of the conference. We now invite the *submission of abstracts for poster presentations* from all relevant areas. Due to space limitations we will accept 250 abstracts for posters which will be presented in two sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evening. Additionally, a small number of abstracts will be selected for contributed talks. Accepted abstracts will be published online and will be citable via Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). DETAILS FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: For abstract submission visit: http://www.bernstein-conference.de/abstracts CONFERENCE DATE AND VENUE: Workshops September 24-25, 2013, Brechtbau, Wilhelmstr. 50, Tuebingen, Germany Main Conference September 25-27, 2013, Neue Aula, Geschwister Scholl Platz, Tuebingen, Germany For more information on the conference, please visit the website: http://www.bernstein-conference.de PhD STUDENT SYMPOSIUM: September 28, 2013 PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Matthias Bethge, Michael Black, Michael Brecht, Jakob Macke, Anthony Movshon, Felix Wichmann, Fred Wolf ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Matthias Bethge (General Chair) Judith Lam, Jakob Macke, Felix Wichman We look forward to seeing you in Tuebingen in September! -- Dr. Judith Lam Executive Coordinator Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience T?bingen Eberhard Karls University of T?bingen Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics http://www.bccn-tuebingen.de/about-bccn/contact.html Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25, 72076 T?bingen Tel: +49 7071 29 89019 Fax: +49 7071 29 25015 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mptouzel at nld.ds.mpg.de Tue Jun 4 10:35:31 2013 From: mptouzel at nld.ds.mpg.de (Maximilian Puelma Touzel) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 16:35:31 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Computational Neuroscience Summer School Invitation Message-ID: <004f01ce6130$c445b430$4cd11c90$@nld.ds.mpg.de> ????? Applications are invited for the 11th summer course on ???????? COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE in G?ttingen, Germany ????????????????? September 02rd - 06th, 2013 ????????????????? organized by? David Hofmann ????????????????????????? Agostina Palmigiano ???????????????????? Maximilian Puelma-Touzel The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with working knowledge of theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field. The course includes tutorials and lectures by the following researchers: ?? * Nancy Kopell, Boston University, USA ?? * Naftali Tishby, Hebrew University, USA ?? * Moritz Helias, Free University Berlin, Germany ?? * last 2 speakers coming soon - visit our homepage (see below) The course takes place at the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics of the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, G?ttingen. A course fee of 100 Euro includes participation in the tutorials, study materials, and part of the social events. The number of participants is limited to 30. The course language is English. To apply please fill out the application form at: http://www.bccn-goettingen.de/events/cns-course by *August 5, 2013* Best wishes and looking forward to seeing you in G?ttingen, Max Puelma Touzel (on behalf of the organizers) Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization Fassberg 17, 37077 Goettingen, Germany +49 551 5176 444 Office mptouzel at nld.ds.mpg.de www.nld.ds.mpg.de From g.prabhu at ucl.ac.uk Wed Jun 5 05:25:30 2013 From: g.prabhu at ucl.ac.uk (Prabhu, Gita) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 09:25:30 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: =?windows-1252?q?Postdoctoral_position=3A_Researc?= =?windows-1252?q?h_Associate_=96_Statistician_=28Wellcome_Trust_Centre_fo?= =?windows-1252?q?r_Neuroimaging=2C_UCL_Institute_of_Neurology=29?= Message-ID: <8FA098054B78474295F8E54485E75A683444D36A@DB3PRD0111MB489.eurprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com> Research Associate ? Statistician Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology ?32,375 - ?39,132 per annum including London Allowance Closing date: 7 July 2013 Interview: 24 July 2013 Applications are invited for a postdoctoral Research Associate to work on a joint UCL-Cambridge University Wellcome Trust funded project that involves testing adolescents and young adults from widespread backgrounds on a variety of decision-making and reinforcement learning tasks and using the results to characterise the underlying elements of affective decision-making, the ways these change over the course of development, and routes towards mental disease. The data collection pipeline is established and so we now seek an individual with a strong background in machine learning and statistics to build and fit rich, parameterized, models of the behaviour and thereby help formulate and test hypotheses about the nature and interactions of the underlying elements, and the way they evolve over time. Experience with the creative analysis of large sets of behavioural data using supervised and unsupervised methods is essential and should be documented in the application; familiarity with reinforcement learning models and with the vagaries of human behavioural data are highly desirable. Excellent skills with matlab or an equivalent programming language are required; knowledge of parametric and non-parametric Bayesian methods would be invaluable. Candidates must have a PhD in a relevant subject area by the agreed start date of the position. The post is available immediately and will be funded for three years in the first instance by a grant from the Wellcome Trust. The post will be supervised by Professor Ray Dolan and Professor Peter Dayan. You should apply for these posts through UCL's online recruitment ? www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/jobs where you can download a job description and person specification (ref: 1337782). 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). Applicants may contact Professor Ray Dolan directly on r.dolan at ucl.ac.uk for further information. Dr Gita Prabhu NSPN Coordinator Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging UCL Institute of Neurology 12 Queen Square London WC1N 3BG Tel.: 020 3448 4411 (ext. 84411) From simone.cardoso at brainlinks-braintools.uni-freiburg.de Wed Jun 5 10:57:36 2013 From: simone.cardoso at brainlinks-braintools.uni-freiburg.de (Simone Cardoso de Oliveira) Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:57:36 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Open positions for Junior Group Leaders in "BrainLinks-BrainTools" Message-ID: <51AF51E0.7050204@brainlinks-braintools.uni-freiburg.de> The University of Freiburg invites applications for positions as *Junior Research Group Leaders * *within the new Cluster of Excellence "BrainLinks-BrainTools".* BrainLinks-BrainTools offers young scientists a creative and inspiring working environment in the interdisciplinary research area where neurotechnology forms the intersection of neuroscience, microsystems engineering, computer science, robotics, and clinical applications. Funding is provided until October 2017 and consists of the group leader position, two PhD student positions for up to three years, a start-up package as well as staff support. It is expected that the Junior Research Group Leaders will be raising financial means from third- party funds to enlarge their respective groups. Candidates should be highly qualified junior scientists, holding a PhD or MD with equivalent qualification, and should have an excellent scientific track record plus at least 2 years of postdoctoral experience in the above-mentioned research areas. Especially welcome but not restricted to these areas are applications from junior scientists applying experimental approaches in animal models or humans to relevant research questions as well as microsystems engineers dealing with questions of energy supply. We expect that the successful candidates will establish synergistic collaborations with groups working in the cluster and that they will actively contribute to the aims of the cluster. The positions will be integrated in the Faculty of Biology, Engineering, or Medicine, depending on the chosen research program. BrainLinks-BrainTools will offer advanced training in specific areas to actively consolidate the new group, including courses in team management, support on obtaining further funding, mentoring from senior scientists, and intensive interaction with other Junior Research Group Leaders. The University is seeking to increase the amount of female employees and one of the goals of BrainLinks-BrainTools is to promote women in higher positions. Thus, we strongly encourage applications from qualified female candidates. Applications should include a full CV, a list of publications and the contact details of three referees. Additionally, we expect a brief outline of the intended research project (max. three pages), indicating the main research area and impact on BrainLinks-BrainTools? main goals as part of the application. The outline should also refer to possibilities for collaborations within the Cluster of Excellence. All relevant information about BrainLinks-BrainTools is available at: http://www.brainlinks-braintools.de/researchprogram/ Applications should be sent by electronic mail (maximum of three documents and 10 MB size in total) to positions at brainlinks-braintools.uni-freiburg.de, where further inquiries can also be directed to. This call for applications will be closed on June 30, 2013. The short-listed candidates will be invited to submit a full research proposal that will be reviewed by an evaluation board consisting of members of BrainLinks-BrainTools and external experts. -- Dr. Simone Cardoso de Oliveira Scientific Manager for Strategic Development, Networking & Sustainability BrainLinks-BrainTools Cluster of Excellence University of Freiburg Georges-K?hler-Allee 79 D-79110 Freiburg Phone: +49-761-203-67720 simone.cardoso at brainlinks-braintools.uni-freiburg.de www.brainlinks-braintools.uni-freiburg.de -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yael at Princeton.EDU Wed Jun 5 22:58:36 2013 From: yael at Princeton.EDU (Yael Niv) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 22:58:36 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: RLDM2013: submission deadline soon! (June 16) In-Reply-To: <02AA476C-7FFE-4F4B-8B84-8B3909CA04E3@Princeton.EDU> References: <02AA476C-7FFE-4F4B-8B84-8B3909CA04E3@Princeton.EDU> Message-ID: The 1st Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM2013) www.rldm.org Oct 25-27, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA ====================================================== Submissions to RLDM2013 are now being accepted at https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/RLDM2013 ** Note the nearing deadline: 16 June 2013, midnight UTC-11 ** We invite extended abstracts for contributed poster presentations. We welcome submissions of original research related to "learning and decision making over time to achieve a goal", coming from any discipline or disciplines, describing empirical results from human, animal, robot or artificial agent experiments, and/or theoretical work, simulations and modeling. Contributions should be aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, but not at the expense of technical excellence. This is an abstract-based meeting, with no published conference proceedings. As such, work that is intended for, or has been submitted to, other conferences or journals is also welcome, provided that the intent of communication to other disciplines is clear. Submissions should consist of a summary (max 2000 characters; text only), and an extended abstract of between one and four pages (including figures and references). LaTeX and RTF templates, and sample submissions, are available from www.rldm.org/submit.html To submit your abstract please go to https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/RLDM2013 Submissions will be reviewed for relevance to the topic and for quality. Exceptional abstracts will be selected for poster spotlight presentations, and for a best poster talk. IMPORTANT DATES: Submissions open: 1 May 2013 Submissions close: 16 June 2013, midnight UTC-11 (American Samoa Time) Notification of acceptance: by early August, 2013 Early registration: 31 August 2013 Meeting: 25-27 October 2013, Princeton, NJ To ensure that you receive future announcements about RLDM2013 please join our mailing list at http://tinyurl.com/RLDMlist (you must log in to google to see the "join list" button, and choose 'all emails' in the options). RLDM2013 confirmed speakers: http://rldm.org/rldm2013/list-of-speakers/ RLDM2013 Programme Committee: http://rldm.org/rldm2013/committees/rldm2013-pc/ --- From nando at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 6 18:12:01 2013 From: nando at cs.ubc.ca (Nando de Freitas) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 15:12:01 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Early registration for UAI 2013 - June 15th Message-ID: This is a call to participate in the 2013 Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2013). Please note that the deadline for early registration is approaching soon: June 15th. http://auai.org/uai2013/index.shtml UAI will take place in Bellevue, Washington, USA on July 11-15, 2013. Highlights for this year: - 26 talks and 47 poster-only presentations on a wide variety of topics, including inference algorithms, statistics, learning, causality, Markov decision processes, and cognitive science. - Invited talks from Josh Tenenbaum, Ralf Herbrich, and Tom Mitchell - Tutorials on computational advertising and causality (Leon Bottou), large-scale distributed machine learning (Carlos Guestrin), genomics (Lior Pachter), and polynomial methods in learning and statistics (Ankur Moitra) - Workshops on causal structure learning, spatial/temporal/network models, complex models and big data, and e-commerce recommender systems. I look forward to seeing you there, Nando de Freitas UAI 2013 General Chair -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Sun Jun 9 05:04:49 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 11:04:49 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: SLSP 2013: call for participation Message-ID: <8451FDBBCC3A4DFF86258C9FD4494FD6@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ************************************************************************************************ 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STATISTICAL LANGUAGE AND SPEECH PROCESSING SLSP 2013 Tarragona, Spain July 29-31, 2013 http://grammars.grlmc.com/SLSP2013/ ************************************************************************************************ PROGRAMME Monday, July 29: 8:00 - 8:50 Registration 8:50 - 9:00 Opening 9:00 - 9:50 Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning of Representations: Looking Forward (I) - Invited Tutorial 9:50 - 10:20 Coffee Break 10:20 - 11:35 Horacio Saggion, Stefan Bott, and Luz Rello: Comparing Resources for Spanish Lexical Simplification Borb?la Sikl?si, Attila Nov?k, and G?bor Pr?sz?ky: Context-aware Correction of Spelling Errors in Hungarian Medical Documents Attia Nehar, Djelloul Ziadi, and Hadda Cherroun: Rational Kernels for Arabic Text Classification 11:35 - 11:45 Break 11:45 - 13:00 Horia Cucu, Andi Buzo, Laurent Besacier, and Corneliu Burileanu: Statistical Error Correction Methods for Domain-Specific ASR Systems Myung-Jae Kim, Il-Ho Yang, and Ha-Jin Yu: Histogram Equalization Using Centroids of Fuzzy C-Means of Background Speakers' Utterances for Speaker Identification Layla El Asri, Romain Laroche, and Olivier Pietquin: Reward Shaping for Statistical Optimisation of Dialogue Management 13:00 - 14:30 Lunch 14:30 - 15:20 Samuel W. K. Chan and Mickey M. C. Chong: Predicting Part-of-Speech Tags and Morpho-Syntactic Relations using Similarity-based Technique Nobal Niraula, Rajendra Banjade, Dan ?tef?nescu, and Vasile Rus: Experiments with Semantic Similarity Measures based on LDA and LSA 15:20 - 15:30 Break 15:30 - 16:20 Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning of Representations: Looking Forward (II) - Invited Tutorial Tuesday, July 30: 9:00 - 9:50 Christof Monz: Challenges and Opportunities of Multilingual Information Access - Invited Lecture 9:50 - 10:20 Coffee Break 10:20 - 11:35 Akira Hayashi, Kazunori Iwata, and Nobuo Suematsu: Finding the Most Likely Upper Level State Sequence for Hierarchical HMMs Jordan Rodu, Dean P. Foster, Weichen Wu, and Lyle H. Ungar: Using Regression for Spectral Estimation of HMMs Amit Kirschenbaum: Unsupervised Segmentation for Different Types of Morphological Processes Using Multiple Sequence Alignment 11:35 - 11:45 Break 11:45 - 13:00 Abdessalam Bouchekif, G?raldine Damnati, and Delphine Charlet: Complementarity of Lexical Cohesion and Speaker Role Information for Story Segmentation of French TV Broadcast News Markus Saers, Karteek Addanki, and Dekai Wu: Iterative Rule Segmentation under Minimum Description Length for Unsupervised Transduction Grammar Induction Ngoc Thang Vu, Heike Adel, and Tanja Schultz: An Investigation of Code-Switching Attitude Dependent Language Modeling 13:00 - 14:30 Lunch 14:30 - 15:20 Hans Moen and Erwin Marsi: Cross-Lingual Random Indexing for Information Retrieval Javad Nouri, Lidia Pivovarova, and Roman Yangarber: MDL-based Models for Transliteration Generation 15:20 - 15:30 Break 15:30 - 16:20 Sanja ?tajner and Richard Evans: Can Statistical Tests Be Used for Feature Selection in Diachronic Text Classification? Luis Trindade, Hui Wang, William Blackburn, and Niall Rooney: Factored Semantic Sequence Kernel for Sentiment Polarity Classification 17:30 Visit to the City Wednesday, July 31: 9:00 - 9:50 Tanja Schultz: Multilingual Speech Processing with a special emphasis on Rapid Language Adaptation - Invited Lecture 9:50 - 10:20 Coffee Break 10:20 - 11:35 Fethi Bougares, Mickael Rouvier, Nathalie Camelin, Paul Del?glise, and Yannick Est?ve: An Investigation of Single-pass ASR System Combination for Spoken Language Understanding Marwa Graja, Maher Jaoua, and Lamia Hadrich Belguith: Discriminative Framework for Spoken Tunisian Dialect Understanding Bassam Jabaian, Fabrice Lef?vre, and Laurent Besacier: Generalization of Discriminative Approaches for Speech Language Understanding in a Multilingual Context 11:35 - 11:45 Break 11:45 - 13:00 Felix Stahlberg, Tim Schlippe, Stephan Vogel, and Tanja Schultz: Pronunciation Extraction from Phoneme Sequences Through Cross-Lingual Word-to-Phoneme Alignment Stanis?aw Kacprzak and Mariusz Zi??ko: Speech/Music Discrimination via Energy Density Analysis Karteek Addanki and Dekai Wu: Unsupervised Rhyme Scheme Identification in Hip Hop Lyrics using Hidden Markov Models 13:00 Closing From manuel.lopes at inria.fr Thu Jun 6 06:42:53 2013 From: manuel.lopes at inria.fr (Manuel Lopes) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 12:42:53 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: Call for PhD, postdoc and engineer positions in Robotics at Inria (Bordeaux, France) In-Reply-To: <0ED7AC97-28B7-4E84-A335-82F0C9FDC938@inria.fr> Message-ID: <396216594.3524934.1370515373161.JavaMail.root@inria.fr> The Flowers Team at Inria (Bordeaux, France) is seeking for highly motivated and talented postdoc and PhD researchers interested in the following topics: * Machine Learning for Robotics (especially Reinforcement Learning, Imitation, and Model Learning) * Computational Approaches for Human-Robot Collaboration * Personalized robotic factory cells * Lifelong robot learning in the context of assistive robotics The Flowers project-team, at Inria Bordeaux and Ensta ParisTech, is a highly stimulating research environment which has been developing cutting edge research in autonomous robot learning and development, imitation learning, human-robot adaptive interaction and robot language acquisition. Around five permanent researchers (M. Lopes, F. Stulp, D. Filliat, A. Gepperth, P-Y. Oudeyer), a lively group of PhDs, postdocs and engineers are collaborating with more than 15 labs in the world on various projects. Members of the team have been recently awarded several prestigious international research distinctions (e.g. ERC Grant, King-Sun Fu Best Paper Award of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics for the year 2012). Web: http://flowers.inria.fr There are multiple research positions funded by several EU-FP7-ICT "Cognitive Systems, Interaction and Robotics" projects: * phd student scholarship * 3 year post-doc * 3 year expert engineer The candidates will be involved in a european research project on human-robot collaboration, co-working and adaptive interaction. This will also involve close collaborations with several international laboratories, including the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Lab (IAS) at the Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), the Machine Learning & Robotics Lab (Univ. Stuttgart), and the Intelligent Systems group at the University of Innsbruck (Austria). The candidates must have strong skills in mathematics, machine learning and control theory (with a focus on statistics, optimization and control theory), and be capable to conduct complex robotic experiments in a collaborative project. They must have experience in robotics and programming proficiency (e.g. C/C++, Matlab, Python). *** PROSPECTIVE APPLICANTS: PLEASE MEET MANUEL LOPES *** *** AT ICML in Atlanta or at RSS in Berlin IF YOU ATTEND *** Contact: Manuel Lopes ( manuel.lopes at inria.fr ) Flowers Team: http://flowers.inria.fr Inria site: http://www.inria.fr/bordeaux/ City of Bordeaux http://www.bordeaux.fr/ Bordeaux is situated in the south of France, and is one of the most pleasant town to live in France, with a sunny weather, a unique and large historical center protected by UNESCO, and close to the sea and the Pyr?n?es mountains. The Inria research center is situated in the middle of a large scientific campus, in a brand new building with a direct view on the famous Haut-Brion vineyard. About Inria: http://www.inria.fr Inria is a major research institution at the international level in applied mathematics and computer sciences. Inria?s 3,400 researchers strive to invent the digital technologies of the future. The institute is dedicated to fundamental and applied research in information and communication science and technology (ICST) but also plays a major role in technology transfer by fostering training through research, disseminating scientific and technical information, and participating in international programs. Inria develops many partnerships with industry and fosters technology transfer and company foundation in the field of ICST - some ninety companies have been founded with the support of Inria Transfer, a subsidiary of Inria, specialized in guiding, evaluating, qualifying, and financing innovative high-tech IT start-up companies. Inria is involved in standardization committees such as the IETF, ISO and the W3C of which Inria was the European host from 1995 to 2002. Throughout its eight research centres located, Inria has a workforce of 3800 (2,800 of whom are scientists from Inria or from Inria?s partner organisations such as CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research), universities and leading engineering schools). The researchers at Inria published over 4,800 articles in 2010. They are behind over 270 active patents and 105 start-ups. In 2010, Inria?s budget came to 252.5 million euros, 26% of which represented its own resources. They work in 173 project-teams. Many Inria researchers are also professors who supervise around 1000 doctoral students, their theses work contributing to Inria research projects. Inria maintains important international relations and exchanges. In Europe, Inria is a member of ERCIM, which brings together research institutes from 19 European countries. Inria is a partner in about 120 FP6 actions and 128 FP7 actions, with 71 proposals in the ICST field. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Laurent.Bougrain at loria.fr Fri Jun 7 04:26:20 2013 From: Laurent.Bougrain at loria.fr (Laurent Bougrain) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2013 10:26:20 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentship on EEG-based Neuroprosthesis at Inria (Nancy, France) In-Reply-To: <1958782366.3811847.1370593511548.JavaMail.root@inria.fr> Message-ID: <523705484.3812067.1370593580553.JavaMail.root@inria.fr> Research theme : Computational Medecine and Neuroscience Keywords: EEG-based neuroprosthesis; motor control; machine learning; robotic arm Location : NEUROSYS team, Inria Nancy - Grand Est, France (1h30 from Paris by TGV) PhD Director : Axel Hutt PhD Advisor : Laurent Bougrain The NeuroSys team aims at understanding the dynamics of neural systems using a systems neuroscience approach. This PhD thesis aims at overcoming the limitations of EEG-based neuroprosthesis by introducing multilabel classifiers for a 3D control of a robotic arm using band-specific EEG markers associated with a motor task. A full description of the PhD position is available here : http://www.loria.fr/~bougrain/pub/research/fiche-BCI_LIFT_NANCY_2013-PhD-eng.pdf Application deadline : 31/06/2013 Targeted hiring Date : 01/10/13 Duration : Three years Salary : First- and second-year PhD student: ?1 957.54 (gross) per month - ?1 596.53 (net) per month. Third-year PhD student: ?2 058.84 (gross) per month - ?1 679.14 (net) per month Please, send your covering letter and your CV to laurent.bougrain at loria.fr links : http://www.loria.fr/~bougrain http://neurosys.loria.fr http://www.inria.fr/en/centre/nancy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Fri Jun 7 11:47:19 2013 From: A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk (Angelo Cangelosi) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2013 16:47:19 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Research Assistant in Neurocomputational Modelling of Language Learning Message-ID: Can you please post this in the connectionist mailing list? Thanks, angelo Research Assistant in Neurocomputational Modelling of Language Learning (BABEL Project) Job location: Brain Language Laboratory at the Freie Universit?t Berlin, Germany http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AGR658/research-assistant-in-neurocomputational-modelling-of-language-learning-babel-project/ Ref: A3308 Salary ?23,352 to ?27,047 pa ? Grade 5 A research assistant post is available to support the EPSRC and BBSRC funded research project BABEL (www.babel-project.org) between Plymouth University and the Freie Universit?t Berlin to investigate the computational and brain basis of human language. The research plan includes building neurocomputational systems that simulate brain processes of semantic understanding and their integration in cognitive robots. In parallel, neuroimaging experiments are being performed to evaluate the models and mechanisms. You will have a strong interest in the study of language mechanisms in the human brain using neurocompuational methods. An additional interest in investigating language with neuroimaging methods is desirable. The primary objective of this position is to elucidate the mechanisms of semantic and lexical learning. You should have a strong programming background; experience in both language and brain research will be an advantage. You should hold a MSc / M.A. or similar degree in a relevant discipline, including computational neuroscience, informatics, neuroscience, neuropsychology, linguistics or psychology. The research assistant will be hired by Plymouth University with a full time work location in the Brain Language Laboratory at the Freie Universit?t Berlin, Germany, Recruitment and selection will be based on individual merit, however, we should particularly like to encourage applications from women, black and minority ethnic people who are under-represented in the Faculty of Technology. Informal enquiries regarding the post, the project or the research details can be made to Professor Friedemann Pulvermuller (friedemann.pulvermuller at fu-berlin.de) or Professor Angelo Cangelosi (acangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk). This is a full-time post working 37 hours per week on a fixed-term basis of 30 months. Closing date: 12 midnight, Friday 5 July 2013 ________________________________ This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From chiestand at salk.edu Wed Jun 5 20:24:39 2013 From: chiestand at salk.edu (Chris Hiestand) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 17:24:39 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NIPS 2013 Call for Workshops Message-ID: <272D110F-1BE4-4DD5-A41C-9B0FD94D44ED@salk.edu> NIPS*2013 Post-Conference Workshops Mon December 9 and Tue December 10, 2013 Hotels Harrah's and Harveys Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA Following the NIPS*2013 main conference, workshops on a variety of current topics will be held on Monday December 9 and Tuesday December 10, 2013, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA. We invite researchers interested in chairing one of these workshops to submit workshop proposals. The goal of the workshops is to provide an informal forum for researchers to discuss important research questions and challenges. Controversial issues, open problems, and comparisons of competing approaches are encouraged as workshop topics. There will be seven hours of workshop meetings per day, split into morning and afternoon sessions, with free time between the sessions for individual exchange or outdoor activities. Potential workshop topics range from Neuroscience to Bayesian Methods to Representation Learning to Kernels to Clustering, and include Application Areas such as Computational Biology, Speech, Vision or Social Networks. Detailed descriptions of previous workshops may be found at: http://nips.cc/Conferences/2012/Program/schedule.php?Session=Workshops Workshop organizers have several responsibilities, including: Coordinating workshop participation and content as well as providing the program for the workshop in a timely manner for the workshop booklet. The expected deadline for submitting final workshop programs is October 30, 2013. The booklet will be submitted for hardcopy printing a few days after this deadline. Hence it is important for the workshop schedules to be as complete as possible by that time. Submission Instructions A nips.cc account is required to submit the Workshops application. Please follow the URL below and check the required format for the application well before the proposal deadline. You can edit your application online right up until this deadline. We have funding to video record a limited number of workshops for later online viewing. Workshop proposals should state if they wish their workshop to be recorded. Interested parties must submit a proposal by **23:59 UTC on Friday August 2nd, 2013**. Proposals should be submitted electronically at the following URL: https://nips.cc/Workshops/ Preference will be given to one-day workshops that reserve a significant portion of time for open discussion or panel discussion and to workshops with a greater fraction of confirmed speakers. We suggest that organizers allocate at least 50% of the workshop schedule to questions, discussion, and breaks. Past experience suggests that workshops otherwise degrade into mini-conferences as talks begin to run over. Organizers should explicitly state the expected fraction of time for discussion & questions and the expected number of talks per day at the end of the proposal. We would like to attempt to partially unify the NIPS workshop important dates across all of the workshops. Therefore, please consider using the following date guidelines for your workshop in order to provide program information in time for publication: We suggest workshop organizers to adopt the following schedule: * Workshop acceptance notification will be on August 14th, 2013 * Your workshop should be publicized on or before August 21st, 2013. * Submission deadline should be on or before October 9th, 2013. * Acceptance decisions should be mailed out on or before October 23th, 2013. * Submit finalized workshop program on or before October 30th, 2013. NIPS does not provide travel funding for workshop speakers. In the past, some workshops have sought and received funding from external sources to bring in outside speakers. The organizers of each accepted workshop can name two individuals to receive free workshop registration. Please note that unlike previous years, this year the main conference runs Thursday-Sunday and the workshops will be held on Monday and Tuesday. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions: Rich Caruana and Gunnar R?tsch NIPS*2013 Workshops Chairs Web URL: http://nips.cc/Conferences/2013/CallForWorkshops From getoor at cs.umd.edu Wed Jun 5 18:40:04 2013 From: getoor at cs.umd.edu (Lise Getoor) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 18:40:04 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Participation: ICML 2013 Workshop on Structured Learning: Inferring Graphs from Structured and Unstructured Inputs (SLG 2013), June 16, Altanta, GA Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------ ICML 2013 Workshop on Structured Learning: ------------ ----- Inferring Graphs from Structured and Unstructured Inputs ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------- https://sites.google.com/site/slgworkshop2013/ -------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We invite you to participate in the ICML 2013 Workshop on Structured Learning (SLG 2013), occurring June 16th on ICML's "Tutorial's Day," immediately following the NAACL conference and immediately preceding the main ICML conference. The topic of the workshop is on learning and making inferences from inputs that can be both unstructured (e.g., text) and structured (e.g., graphs and graph fragments), and making predictions about outputs that are also structured as graphs. We have an exciting program with invited talks by: Yoshua Bengio, U Montreal Jonathan Chang, Facebook William Cohen, CMU John Frank, MIT Andrew McCallum, UMass Amherst Patrick Pantel, MSR Chris Re, U Wisconsin Dan Roth, U Illinois Stuart Russell, UC Berkeley And a program of 17 exceptional contributed papers: https://sites.google.com/site/slgworkshop2013/accepted_papers With so many activities, it's sure to be an exciting and full day, from 9am through 6pm. The tentative schedule is available here: https://sites.google.com/site/slgworkshop2013/schedule You may register through the ICML registration by selecting "Main Conference & ICML Workshops registration (Sunday-Friday)" or "ICML NLP-Related Workshops Only (Sunday)": https://www.regonline.com/ICML-2013-ATL Hope to see you there! Lise Getoor, Hal Daume III, Evgeniy Gabrilovich, Kevin Murphy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lvdmaaten at gmail.com Sat Jun 8 03:52:19 2013 From: lvdmaaten at gmail.com (Laurens van der Maaten) Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2013 09:52:19 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Computer Vision & Machine Learning for Painting Analysis Message-ID: <40F8B208-777A-4020-82A0-0EAEDE21EF11@gmail.com> The Computer Vision Lab at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) is soliciting applications for a fully funded PhD position in Computer Vision and Machine Learning for Painting Analysis. The prospective PhD student will be supervised by Laurens van der Maaten. The research is part of the European FP7 project INSIDDE (insidde-fp7.eu). The goal of the project is to uncover hidden elements in paintings by artists such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt. In the project, there will be a particular focus on the development of analysis techniques for terahertz images. Your task in the project will be to develop new computer vision and machine learning algorithms to analyse terahertz, x-ray, and XRF images of paintings. In particular, you will try to identify and visualise hidden paint layers, and in doing so, to uncover (parts of) underpaintings. To this end, you will work on problems such as blind-source separation, texture analysis, and segmentation; making use of convolutive independent components analysis, conditional random fields, generative models, and deep learning. You are also encouraged to develop your own research ideas within the context of the project. Requirements You have obtained an MSc or equivalent degree or expect to obtain an MSc very soon. Interested applicants should have a background and interest in some or all of the following subjects, or a related discipline: computer vision, machine learning, image processing, and pattern recognition. The successful applicant will have: ? good programming skills; ? curiosity and good analytical skills; ? the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team; ? good oral and written communication skills; ? proficiency in English. Conditions of employment TU Delft offers an attractive benefits package, including a flexible work week, free high-speed Internet access from home (with a contract of two years or longer), and the option of assembling a customised compensation and benefits package (the 'IKA'). Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities. As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment; an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor; and a Doctoral Education Programme aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills. Please visit www.phd.tudelft.nl for more information. For more information about this position, please contact Laurens van der Maaten, phone: +31 (0)15-2788434, e-mail: l.j.p.vandermaaten at tudelft.nl. Interested applicants should send an up-to-date curriculum vitae, a letter of application, a transcript of grades obtained during MSc studies, and the names and contact information (telephone number and e-mail address) of two references. The letter of application should summarize: 1) why the project is of interest to the applicant and 2) a brief description of the applicant's prior experience in machine learning and computer vision (e.g., a description of the research performed in the context of the applicant's MSc thesis). Please e-mail your application by 30 June 2013 to Laurens van der Maaten, Hr-eemcs at tudelft.nl. When applying for this position, please refer to vacancy number EWI2013-14. Contract type: Temporary, 4 years Organization Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is a multifaceted institution offering education and carrying out research in the technical sciences at an internationally recognised level. Education, research and design are strongly oriented towards applicability. TU Delft develops technologies for future generations, focusing on sustainability, safety and economic vitality. At TU Delft you will work in an environment where technical sciences and society converge. TU Delft comprises eight faculties, unique laboratories, research institutes and schools. The Department of Intelligent Systems conducts research on processing and interpretation of data to enable man and machine to deal with the increasing volume and complexity of data and communication. We have a strong focus on medical and health sciences. One of our research labs is the Computer Vision Lab (visionlab.tudelft.nl). Within the Computer Vision Lab we perform research in the area of computer vision, image analysis and video analysis. Our focus is on analysing and interpreting multidimensional data (image sequences, multiple cameras, 3D/4D medical data like MRI and CT), in particular by using machine-learning approaches to accomplish the vision task. The main research fields currently covered are 3D imaging, (bio)medical imaging, social/human signal processing and surveillance. We teach image processing and computer vision courses in the Computer Science undergraduate and graduate programs. Additional information Laurens van der Maaten +31 (0)15-2788434 l.j.p.vandermaaten at tudelft.nl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simone.seeger at zi-mannheim.de Mon Jun 10 09:29:22 2013 From: simone.seeger at zi-mannheim.de (Seeger, Simone) Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:29:22 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Open Position: PhD Position - Bernstein Center for Computation Neuroscience Heidelberg/Mannheim Message-ID: <9E7DF156BDC0C040BCBE984CDE6E0E8C07DC27@zimail02.Zi.local> The Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Heidelberg/Mannheim (Research Group Prof. Dr. Christian Fiebach; Goethe-University Frankfurt) offers a PhD Position (TV-E 13 50%) in Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, to be filled as early as possible. The Bernstein Center Heidelberg/Mannheim investigates the influence of genetic variatons on cognitive processing in healthy persons and psychiatric patients. One main focus is the computational modeling of genetic influences on network dynamics in prefrontal cortex. The PhD position is part of the project "Cognitive Flexibility vs. Stability" and will primarily be involved in the neurocomputational modeling of cognitive processes and in model-based analysis of fMRI data from genotyped samples (Imaging Genetics). We expect an excellent degree (Master or Diploma) in Computational Neuroscience, Psychology, Biology, Physics or related disciplines. Further information can be obtained directly from Christian Fiebach (fiebach at psych.uni-frankfurt.de). Please send your electronic applications (Letter of Motivation, CV, certificates, contact details for references) to: Prof. Dr. C. Fiebach, Goethe-Universit?t Frankfurt/Main, Abt. Neurowissenschaftliche Psychologie, Gr?neburgweg 1, 60323 Frankfurt/Main, fiebach at psych.uni-frankfurt.de. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bazhenov at salk.edu Tue Jun 11 15:49:32 2013 From: bazhenov at salk.edu (Maxim Bazhenov) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:49:32 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: postdoctoral position in modeling memory consolidation during sleep Message-ID: <51B77F4C.6030706@salk.edu> Applications are invited for post-doctoral positions in the laboratory of Dr. Maxim Bazhenov at the University of California, Riverside to study role of sleep rhythms in memory and learning. This project involves close collaboration with laboratories of Eric Halgren (UCSD), Terry Sejnowski (Salk), Sydney Cash (Harvard), Jean-Marc Fellous (Univ of Arizona). The ultimate goal of this work is to understand how the interaction among brain areas during different stages of sleep leads to consolidation of memory for recent learning. The successful candidate will be responsible for the design of the anatomically realistic thalamo-cortico-hippocampal models based on existing experimental data. These models will be used to understand network dynamics of brain that are involved in the processes of memory consolidation, as well as guide data analysis and produce novel experimental predictions. Qualified applicants are expected to have experience in computational/theoretical neuroscience and conductance-based neural modeling. Programming experience with C/C++ is required. Knowledge of PYTHON or MATLAB is a plus. The University of California offers excellent benefits. Salary is based on research experience. Applicants should send a brief statement of research interests, a CV and the names of three references to Maxim Bazhenov at maksim.bazhenov at ucr.edu -- Maxim Bazhenov, Ph.D. Professor, Cell Biology and Neuroscience University of California Riverside, CA 92521 Ph: 951-827-4370 http://biocluster.ucr.edu/~mbazhenov/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de Tue Jun 11 02:59:01 2013 From: kirsch at bcf.uni-freiburg.de (Janina Kirsch) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:59:01 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Final Call for applications ----- BCF/NWG-Course: Analysis and Models in Neurophysiology, Freiburg, Germany Message-ID: <003a01ce6671$2786b400$76941c00$@bcf.uni-freiburg.de> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% BCF/NWG-Course: Analysis and Models in Neurophysiology %% %% October 6-11, 2013 %% %% Application deadline: June 30, 2013 %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Aim of the course %% The course is intended to provide advanced Diploma/Masters and PhD students, as well as young researchers from the neurosciences with approaches for the analysis of electrophysiological data and the theoretical concepts behind them. http://www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/events/conferences-workshops/20131006-nwgcourse The course includes various topics such as ? Neuron models and spike train statistics ? Point processes and correlation measures ? Systems and signals ? Local field potentials and synaptic plasticity The course will consist of lectures in the morning and and matching exercises using Matlab and Mathematica. Experience with these software packages will be helpful but is not required for registration. The participants should have a basic understanding of scientific programming. This course is designated especially for advanced diploma/M.Sc.-students and PhD-students (preferentially in their first year). %% Faculty %% ? Dr. Stefan Rotter, Bernstein Center Freiburg, University of Freiburg ? Dr. Sonja Gruen, Research Center J?lich ? Dr. Ulrich Egert, Biomicrotechnology, Department of Microsystems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Freiburg ? Dr. Ad Aertsen, Neurobiology & Biophysics, Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, %% Application %% Please apply by sending an email containing your CV and a meaningfull letter of motivation to nwg-course at bcf.uni-freiburg.de The course is limited to 20 participants. Course fees: NWG members: 50 Euro others: 125 Euro %% Course venue %% Bernstein Center Freiburg, Lecture Hall and Computerlab (ground floor), Hansastr. 9a, 79104 Freiburg, Germany http://www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/contact/findus %% Contact %% Dr. Janina Kirsch, Bernstein Center Freiburg Germany Tel: +49 761 203 9575 Fax: +49 761 203 9559 E-Mail: nwg-course at bcf.uni-freiburg.de From cc3450 at columbia.edu Thu Jun 6 17:44:35 2013 From: cc3450 at columbia.edu (Claudia Clopath) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 17:44:35 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: PhD student position (Claudia Clopath) Message-ID: Opening for a PhD student position in computational neuroscience. Computational Neuroscience Laboratory Headed by Dr. Claudia Clopath Department of Bioengineering Imperial College London -----------------Requirements:----------------- The Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, headed by Dr. Claudia Clopath, is looking for a talented PhD student, interested in working in the field of computational neuroscience, specifically addressing questions of learning and memory. The PhD position is fully funded, and will start in the autumn 2013 (date is flexible). The perfect candidate has a strong mathematical, physical or engineering background (or equivalent), and a keen interest in biological and neural systems. Demonstrated programming skills are a plus. This position is restricted to EU citizens. More information can be found at: http://www.neurotheory.columbia.edu/~claudia/lab/index.html -----------------Research topic:----------------- Learning and memory are among the most fascinating topic of neuroscience, yet our understanding of it is only at the beginning. Learning is thought to change the connections between the neurons in the brain, a process called synaptic plasticity. Using mathematical and computational tools, it is possible to model synaptic plasticity across different time scales, which helps understand how different types of memory are formed. The PhD candidate will be working to build those models of synaptic plasticity, and study the functional role of synaptic plasticity in artificial neural networks. They will have the opportunity to collaborate with experimental laboratories, which study connectivity changes and behavioural learning. ----------------- The lab:----------------- The Computational Neuroscience Laboratory is very young and dynamic, and publishes in prestigious journals, such as Nature and Science. It is part of the Department of Bioengineering, which conducts state-of-the-art multidisciplinary research in biomechanics, neuroscience and neurotechnology. The lab is at Imperial College London, the 3rd ranked university in Europe, and is located in the city centre of London. ----------------- How to apply:----------------- Candidates should send a single pdf file, consisting of a 1-page motivation letter, CV, and names and contact information of two references, to clopathlab.imperial at gmail.com, with the subject containing 'PHD2013'. Applications received by July 5th will be given full consideration. However, the position remains open until filled. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sala038 at aucklanduni.ac.nz Tue Jun 11 01:45:33 2013 From: sala038 at aucklanduni.ac.nz (shafiq burki) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:45:33 +1200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Book Chapter: Bio-inspired KDD Message-ID: CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS: Proposal Submission Deadline: June 30, 2013 Biologically-Inspired Techniques for Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Advances in Data Mining and Database Management (ADMDM) Book Series A book edited by Dr. Shafiq Alam, Dr. Yun Sing Koh, and Prof. Gillian Dobbie University of Auckland, New Zealand Website: https://conference.fos.auckland.ac.nz/bdm/biokdd/index.html To be published by IGI Global: http://bit.ly/13tKOjc *********************** Introduction *********************** Biological inspired data mining techniques have been intensively used in different data mining applications such as data clustering, classification, association rule mining, sequential pattern mining, outlier detection, feature selection and information extraction in many application areas, such as healthcare and bioinformatics. The techniques include Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems, Genetic Algorithms, Ant Colony Optimization, Particle Swarm Optimization, Artificial Immune Systems, Culture Algorithms, Social evolution, and Artificial Bee Colony Optimization. A huge increase in the number of papers and citations in the area has been observed in the past decade, which is clear evidence of the popularity of these techniques. *********************** Objective of the Book *********************** The aim of this book is to highlight the contemporary research in the area of Biologically-Inspired techniques in different data mining domains, and the implementation of these techniques in real life data mining problems. The book will publish some of the state of the art work in this area and share the good practices that have enabled this area grow and flourish. The book will also contribute to extending the knowledge by providing quality work from established researchers that can be used by new researchers in the area. The book calls for high quality chapters outlining current research, literature surveys, theoretical and empirical studies, and other relevant work including but not limited to the following areas: 1. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) - PSO based clustering - PSO based classification - PSO based outlier detection - PSO based feature selection 2. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) - ACO based clustering - ACO based classification - ACO based feature selection - ACO based association rules mining - ACO based sequential patterns mining 3. Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) - Intrusion detection using AIS - Clustering using AIS - Decision support system using AIS 4. Bee Colony Optimization (BCO) - BCO for pattern matching - Clustering using BCO 5. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) - ANN based pattern matching and discover - Classification rules discovery using ANN - Forecasting using ANN 6. Genetic Algorithms (GA?s) - Clustering, classification and parameter tuning using GA?s - GA?s based feature extraction and selection 7. Fuzzy systems (FS) - Fuzzy clustering - Fuzzy classification - Fuzzy Association rules discovery ********************** Target Audience ********************** The primary target of this book is the research community in the area of computational intelligence, machine learning, and data mining. However, the book is equally of interest for other KDD areas such as data analysis and preprocessing, big data management, web mining, optimization based data mining, and recommender systems. Specifically, it will be very useful for researchers from computational intelligence and evolutionary computation to update their knowledge about different application areas of their research, experimentation, and evaluation methods in the area of KDD. ***************************** Submission Procedure ***************************** Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before April 30, 2013, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by May 15, 2013 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by August 30, 2013. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project. Publisher This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the ?Information Science Reference? (formerly Idea Group Reference), ?Medical Information Science Reference,? ?Business Science Reference,? and ?Engineering Science Reference? imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2014. Important Dates June 30, 2013: Proposal Submission Deadline July 15, 2013: Notification of Acceptance August 30, 2013: Full Chapter Submission October 30, 2013: Review Results Returned November 30, 2013: Final Chapter Submission February 15, 2014: Final Deadline ******************************************* Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to: Dr. Shafiq Alam Department of Computer Science UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND Tel.: +6493737599 ext. 82128 ? Fax: +6493737453 E-mail: sala038 at aucklanduni.ac.nz ************************************ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From A.K.Seth at sussex.ac.uk Wed Jun 12 06:10:49 2013 From: A.K.Seth at sussex.ac.uk (Anil Seth) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:10:49 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2x permanent faculty positions at the University of Sussex Message-ID: <5490D850-007B-4009-B614-5ABE7CCF0D43@sussex.ac.uk> Apologies for cross-posting: TWO PERMANENT FACULTY POSITIONS AVAILABLE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX (neural computation and machine learning) http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/182-183 School of Engineering of Informatics, Department of Informatics Application deadline JULY 11, 2013 The School of Engineering and Informatics is investing for the future; a key element of that investment is in innovative people. We are in the process of advertising 15 posts in areas of strategic importance to the School. One such area is neural computation, machine learning, and their applications. We wish make two appointments in this area: one at Lecturer level and the other at Senior Lecturer/Reader level. Position 1 is in neural computation. Applicants for this position should have a strong research record in some aspect of neural computation, including: computational neuroscience; neuroinformatics; neuro-centric biorobotics; and applications of neural computation in biology, cognitive science, or image processing. Position 2 is in machine learning. Applicants for this position should have a strong research record in machine learning, with an interest in applying their research to problems in fields such as natural language processing, data mining and social media analysis. The successful applicants will join the Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems Research Group (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/easy/) or the Cognitive and Language Processing Systems Research Group (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/calps/), but will be expected to contribute to other related research activities in the School. These include multidisciplinary research centres including the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/ccnr/), the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sackler), and the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cogs/). (see http://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/research for more details) http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/182-183 ------------------------------------------- Anil K. Seth, D.Phil. Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Co-Director, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science University of Sussex www.anilseth.com a.k.seth at sussex.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rogilmore at psu.edu Wed Jun 12 12:02:34 2013 From: rogilmore at psu.edu (Rick Gilmore) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:02:34 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Job posting -- Assistant/Associate Director of Human Imaging @ Penn State Message-ID: Assistant/Associate Director of Human Imaging Penn State https://app2.ohr.psu.edu/jobs/home_EJMS/view_faculty.cfm#39729 The Pennsylvania State University invites applications for an Associate or Assistant Director of Human Imaging position to join the Penn State Social, Life, & Engineering Sciences Imaging Center (SLEIC; http://www.imaging.psu.edu). The individual in this position will oversee operations of the SLEIC Human Electrophysiology Facility (HEF) and the 3T MRI Facility at the University Park campus. The 3T MRI Facility houses a Siemens Trio 3 tesla whole-body system. Both the 3T MRI Facility and HEF are 100% allocated to research. Candidates must have a Ph.D. in a related discipline with a background in functional MRI; familiarity with EEG research is also desirable. Candidates also should have knowledge of Matlab, Linux/Unix and fMRI data analysis software (SPM8, FSL, AFNI, BrainVoyager). A substantial focus at SLEIC is MRI of the brain (fMRI, DTI, MRS), but research also includes projects in nutritional sciences and biomechanics. The SLEIC has an ongoing relationship with the Center for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Research (CNMRR) at the Penn State Hershey College of Medicine. Other MRI facilities at University Park include a 7 and a 14.1 T Agilent, as well as a 20 T Bruker preclinical system. There will be ample opportunity for the Assistant/Associate Director to collaborate on cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research projects. The Assistant/Associate Director?s responsibilities will include: oversight of daily operations of the Center, including supervision of technical staff; directing quality assurance procedures; and consultation with faculty and graduate students around research protocols. This position also may involve teaching and/or development of training workshops. In addition, the Assistant/Associate Director will be encouraged to pursue a program of research. This is a fixed-term renewable appointment based at the University Park campus. Full Penn State benefits are included. Employment will require successful completion of background check(s) in accordance with University policies. Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity and the diversity of its workforce. Applicants should send curriculum vitae, statement of research interests, and names of three referees to: Sherry Yocum, Social Science Research Institute, 114 Henderson, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. Materials accepted until position is filled. From gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu Mon Jun 10 19:23:20 2013 From: gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu (Mark Gluck) Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:23:20 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: POSTDOCTORAL POSITION: Cognition and aging in African-Americans (Apply by August 15th for 2014 start date) Message-ID: <8EC78E7C-82FC-4BF0-A918-C05FC1DF565B@pavlov.rutgers.edu> Please re-post and/or forward to potential applicants: POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AVAILABLE FOR SUMMER/FALL 2014 START: Cognition and Aging in African-Americans Deadline for application to Rutgers: August 15th (We will select a potential candidate on or before September 1, and that candidate will then need to work with us to submit one or more fellowship applications that are due by Oct 1, 2013, and which then take six months or more to review. (NOTE: It may be possible to arrange a start date of February, 2014 pending available funding) Start date: Summer/fall 2014. We seek someone who either has a PhD, or will be finishing their PhD in the coming year (by summer 2014) who would be interest in applying this summer (by August, 15, 2013) for a three-year postdoctoral fellowships to begin in summer or fall of 2014 to work on research projects relating to cognition and aging in African-Americans. The research is based at the Center for Neuroscience at Rutgers University-Newark, within the lab of Mark Gluck, Ph.D., and is part of the university's broader African-American Brain Health Initiative In partnership with local Newark churches and other community and city organizations, we are combining educational programs on brain health and cognitive vitality in the African-American community with observational and interventional research studies on "Pathways to Healthy Brain Aging in African-Americans" along with studies of neurological disorders (especially Parkinson's disease, Depression, and Alzheimer's disease) in African-American seniors. For more information, see http://www.brainhealth.rutgers.edu Candidates must: 1. Have a PhD in Psychology, Nursing, Geriatrics, Social Work, or related fields with a strong background in (a) experimental behavioral research, (b) strong writing skills, and (c) statistical data analysis skills (please document all three in your cover letter). 2. Have prior experience, familiarity, and sensitivity to minority health issues and working with the African-American community. 3. Be a US Citizen or "green card" holder. More information on our lab and related research, educational, and global health programs is at http://www.gluck.edu We are located in downtown Newark, New Jersey, just outside (about 13 miles from) Manhattan/New York City DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: August 15, 2013 (for February or summer/fall 2014 start date) Postdoctoral applicants should send a CV and cover letter with overview of their background and career goals, addressing all three criteria noted above, along with names and emails of potential recommenders to gluck at pavlov.rutgers.edu. NOTE: We also have graduate fellowship lines for incoming PhD students who would be interested in working on this research and community outreach project. For information on our PhD program and other neuroscience resources at Rutgers-Newark (including our new NSF-funded Rutgers University Brain Imaging Center), see http://www.neuroscience.newark.rutgers.edu - 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 peter.ljunglof at heatherleaf.se Tue Jun 11 18:09:53 2013 From: peter.ljunglof at heatherleaf.se (=?iso-8859-1?Q?peter_ljungl=F6f?=) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:09:53 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: EACL 2014: Call for tutorial proposals Message-ID: <5D3EA7EA-8CBC-4670-B480-AEB965675E9C@heatherleaf.se> EACL 2014 CALL FOR TUTORIAL PROPOSALS Proposals are invited for the Tutorial Program of the 14th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL 2014), to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from 26 to 30 April 2014. The selected tutorials will be given on the Saturday and Sunday preceding the main conference (26 and 27 April). EACL 2014 seeks proposals for tutorials in all areas of computational linguistics, broadly conceived to include disciplines such as Linguistics, Speech, Information Retrieval, Psycholinguistics, and Multimodal Processing. We particularly welcome (1) tutorials which cover advances in newly emerging areas not previously covered in an *ACL related tutorial, and (2) tutorials which provide introductions into related fields which are potentially relevant for the CL community (e.g. bioinformatics, neuroscience, human language processing, video and image analysis, machine learning techniques). In order to gather a widespread audience, the experience and qualifications of the instructors will also be taken into account. REMUNERATION Remuneration for tutorials is regulated by ACL policies: http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Policy_on_tutorial_teacher_payment. Please note that enumeration for tutorial presenters is fixed according to the above policy and does not cover registration fees for the main conference. SUBMISSION DETAILS Proposals for tutorials should contain: 1. A title and brief description of the tutorial content and its relevance to the ACL community (not more than 2 pages). 2. A brief outline of the tutorial structure showing that the tutorial's core content can be covered in a three-hour slot (excluding a coffee break). In exceptional cases six-hour tutorial slots are available as well. 3. The names, postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the tutorial instructors, including a one-paragraph statement of their research interests and areas of expertise. 4. A list of previous venues and approximate audience sizes, if the same or a similar tutorial has been given elsewhere; otherwise an estimate of the audience size. 5. A description of special requirements for technical equipment (e.g. internet access). Proposals should be submitted by electronic mail, in plain ASCII text, to "tutorials at eacl2014 dot org", no later than 1 November 2013. The subject line should be: "EACL 2014 Tutorial Proposal". Please note that only proposals submitted by e-mail will be taken into account. TUTORIAL SPEAKER RESPONSIBILITIES Accepted tutorial speakers will be notified by 15 November 2013, and must then provide abstracts of their tutorials for inclusion in the conference registration material by 15 December 2013. The description should be in two formats: an ASCII version that can be included in email announcements and published on the conference web site, and a PDF version for inclusion in the electronic proceedings (detailed instructions to follow). Tutorial speakers must provide tutorial materials, at least containing copies of the course slides as well as a bibliography for the material covered in the tutorial, by 1 February 2014. IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline for tutorial proposals: 1 November 2013 Notification of acceptance: 15 November 2013 Tutorial descriptions due: 15 December 2013 Tutorial course material due: 1 February 2014 Tutorial dates: 26-27 April 2014 TUTORIAL CHAIRS Marco Baroni, University of Trento, Italy Afra Alishahi, Tilburg University, Netherlands Please send inquiries concerning EACL 2014 tutorials to "tutorials at eacl2014 dot org". From cassio at idsia.ch Wed Jun 12 05:37:10 2013 From: cassio at idsia.ch (Cassio P. de Campos) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 06:37:10 -0300 Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentship in robust learning of Bayesian networks Message-ID: PhD studentship in robust learning of Bayesian networks The Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA, http://www.idsia.ch), a non-profit oriented research institute for artificial intelligence, affiliated with both University of Lugano and University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, advertises a full-time position as PhD student in the area of robust learning of Bayesian networks. The position is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. IDSIA offers an international working environment (English is the official language), the possibility of attending conferences and a salary in line with Swiss standards. The work will be performed in close collaboration with experts in probabilistic graphical models, robust learning, data mining, optimization, imprecise probabilities (see http://ipg.idsia.ch for more information). It includes theoretical advances in robust structure learning of probabilistic graphical models, as well as design and development of algorithms. The ideal candidate has a strong commitment to research and to the completion of the PhD program, has obtained a Master degree in a quantitative area, has very good communication skills in English, good programming skills, and ability to work in a collaborative environment. For applying, please follow the instructions available at http://www.supsi.ch/home/dms/supsi/docs/supsi/offerte-lavoro/2013/20130705_DTI_DottorandoRetiBayesiane_eng.pdf The closing date for applications is July 5th 2013 (expected starting date within 2013). This deadline may be extended at the discretion of the recruiting committee. For further information, please contact: Cassio de Campos (cassio at idsia.ch). From M.Loog at tudelft.nl Tue Jun 11 08:00:57 2013 From: M.Loog at tudelft.nl (Marco Loog - EWI) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:00:57 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CfP : S+SSPR 2014 Message-ID: <1B7FB132C5F56E428E697512485E8232448E01D6@SRV363.tudelft.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS ------------------------------------------------------------------- S+SSPR 2014 IAPR Joint International Workshops on 10th Statistical Techniques in Pattern Recognition (SPR) 15th Structural and Syntactic Pattern Recognition Workshop (SSPR) 20-22 August 2014 Joensuu, Finland http://cs.uef.fi/ssspr2014/ ------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DATES: Paper submission: 1 March 2014 Notifications: 17 April 2014 Camera-ready: 17 May 2014 ------------------------------------------------------------------- CONFERENCE TOPICS: We invite original contributions within the following topics: SPR Topics: Domain adaptation Structural Matching Dissimilarity Representations Structural Complexity Ensemble Methods Syntactic Pattern Recognition Multiple Classifiers Image Understanding Gaussian Processes Shape Analysis Dimensionality Reduction Graph-theoretic Methods Clustering Algorithms Graphical Models Model Selection Structural Kernels Semi-Supervised Learning Spectral Methods Multiple Instance Learning Spatio-Temporal Pattern Recognition Active Learning Stochastic Structural Models Contextual Pattern Recognition Intelligent Sensing Systems Location-based Pattern Recognition Multimedia Analysis Partially Supervised Learning Structured Text Analysis Novelty Detection Image Document Analysis Comparative Studies In addition to the original contributions, we also invite authors to submit their recent papers (within 1 year) published in a related journal (e.g. PAMI, PR, PRL, JMLR). These papers will undergo a lighter review process, and if accepted, they will be included in the workshop program and short abstract in the proceedings. ------------------------------------------------------------------- PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: All manuscripts (max. 10 pages) must be in LaTex format following Springer's LNCS style: http://www.springer.com/comp/lncs/authors.html All papers are submitted via EasyChair, and will be reviewed at least two or more anonymous reviewers. Accepted papers (not exceeding 10 pages) will be published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series, providing that at least one author will register to the workshop and present the paper. ------------------------------------------------------------------- KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Prof. Ali Shokoufandeh, Drexel University, Philadelphia, US Approximation of hard combinatorial problems via embedding to hierarchically separated trees https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~ashokouf/ Prof. David Hand Imperial College, London, UK Evaluating supervised classification methods: error rate, ROC curves, and beyond http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/d.j.hand ------------------------------------------------------------------- ORGANIZATION: General Chair: Pasi Fr?nti, University of Eastern Finland SPR Chairs: Gavin Brown, University of Manchester, UK Marco Loog, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands SSPR Chairs: Francisco Escolano, Universidad de Alicante, Spain Marcello Pelillo, University of Venice, Italy --------------------------------------------------------------- VENUE: The workshops are organized by School of Computing in the University of Eastern Finland. Joensuu is a small town of 75,000 inhabitants in the lakeside Finland - the capital of green. It is famous its peaceful nature, excellent outdoor opportunities as well as many saunas. TRAVEL: Joensuu can be reached easiest from Helsinki (50 min transit), which can be reached direct flights from most European cities, New York, Chicago and all the major hubs in Asia including Beijing, Shanghai, Tokio, Osaka, Bangkok and Singapore. The workshops are organized one week prior to ICPR conference. Schedude is planned to support smooth transit to Stockholm either by flight or by a memorable sea cruise. --------------------------------------------------------------- LINK: http://cs.uef.fi/ssspr2014/ --------------------------------------------------------------- From nando at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 13 11:44:41 2013 From: nando at cs.ubc.ca (Nando de Freitas) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:44:41 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Reminder: UAI early registration Message-ID: This is a call to participate in the 2013 Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2013). Please note that the deadline for early registration is approaching soon: June 15th. http://auai.org/uai2013/index.shtml UAI will take place in Bellevue, Washington, USA on July 11-15, 2013. Highlights for this year: - 26 talks and 47 poster-only presentations on a wide variety of topics, including inference algorithms, statistics, learning, causality, Markov decision processes, and cognitive science. - Invited talks from Josh Tenenbaum, Ralf Herbrich, and Tom Mitchell - Tutorials on computational advertising and causality (Leon Bottou), large-scale distributed machine learning (Carlos Guestrin), genomics (Lior Pachter), and polynomial methods in learning and statistics (Ankur Moitra) - Workshops on causal structure learning, spatial/temporal/network models, complex models and big data, and e-commerce recommender systems. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From contact2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de Thu Jun 13 10:19:58 2013 From: contact2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (ECVP 2013) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:19:58 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ECVP 2013: Final Program, Tutorials, and Showtime Message-ID: <00b201ce6841$15eb7b00$41c27100$@ecvp.uni-bremen.de> ECVP 2013 is taking place from August 25th - 29th, 2013 in Bremen, Germany. We are happy to inform you about the latest News: 1) PROGRAMME The final program for ECVP 2013 has been published. Please find the schedule at http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/node/44, and the details of sessions inkl. all speakers, presenters, abstracts, and presentation times at http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/~ecvpprog. The online program is a platform-independent website that can be viewed in optimized resolution on all terminal devices, inkl. smartphones, iphones, and tablets. 2) TUTORIALS The schedule for the Bernstein tutorials has been published as well. Please find the timetable at http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/node/46. We still have a few places left: If you want to register for the tutorials and have already registered for the main meeting please enter the normal registration procedure at http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/node/15, choose "Tutorials only" and leave a comment that you have already registered to the main conference. It is explicitly possible to register for tutorials only but not for the main meeting. Again, choose "Tutorials only" during registration. Participation fees are the same as for early registration (?60.- for students, ?80.- for researchers) and include catering during lunch break. 3) SHOWTIME The deadline for Showtime proposals is June, 15th. Please find the call at http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/node/58. We very much appreciate proposals on e.g., new visual effects; old effects presented in a new way; nice demonstrations or shows of a well-known illusion; novel pieces of equipment or apparatus; or something artistic that is visually exciting. Please submit your proposals to showtime2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de. 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: http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EuropeanConferenceOnVisualPerception Contact - emails: contact2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For any comments, questions or suggestions) abstracts2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For questions regarding abstract submission) showtime2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For submitting proposals for SHOWTIME) symp2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For organization and submission of symposia) exhibition2013 at ecvp.uni-bremen.de (For any query regarding the exhibition) From guangliang.li2010 at gmail.com Thu Jun 13 14:38:27 2013 From: guangliang.li2010 at gmail.com (Guangliang Li) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:38:27 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ICML Workshop on the Reinforcement Learning Competition 2013(WRLCOMP) Message-ID: *ICML Workshop on the Reinforcement Learning Competition 2013*(*WRLCOMP*) in conjunction with *ICML 2013* , *16-21 June 2013 *Atlanta, USA. https://sites.google.com/site/rlcomp2013/icml_workshop?pli=1 *Workshop program (*June 21, 2013*)* 9:00 -10:00 Introduction to the workshop, results, domains 10:00-10:30 Break 10:30-12:00 Presentations of approaches 13:30-14:30 Invited talk by Marc Deisenroth 14:30-15:30 Discussion on the future of the workshop. *Workshop goals* In the reinforcement learning competition , researchers can test their algorithms and insights in a friendly competitive way, on new and challenging domains. The reinforcement learning competition has not been organized for a while, but will take place again this year after a long hiatus. The primary aim of the competition is to test both general and domain-specific reinforcement learning algorithms, using an unbiased and transparent methodology. The domains used in the competition will form a set of benchmarks, and the results of the submitted algorithms will form a body of benchmark results, which researchers can then use as a basis of comparison in future work. The ICML reinforcement learning competition workshop will bring together researchers, who participated in the competition, in order to present and discuss their results. We will evaluate what works, and also under what conditions established methods may not work so well. In this way we hope to broaden our insight into state-of-the-art RL algorithms, and important properties of RL problems. A secondary aim is to discuss methodological approaches for comparing reinforcement learning algorithms. This remains an issue in reinforcement learning in general. Another important aim is to ensure the continuing existence of the competition, and the prevention of further hiatuses. Our aim is to ensure that the competition will organized annually again, from this year onward. To this extend we will try to build up an organization of interested researchers. *Organizers* - Christos Dimitrakakis - Nikolaos Tziortziotis - Guangliang Li - Diederik Roijers *Program Committee* - Mauricio Araya - Olivier Buffet - Marc Deisenroth - Christos Dimitrakakis - Guangliang Li - Diederik Roijers - Ronald Ortner - Vincent Thomas - Nikolaos Tziortziotis - Nikos Vlassis -- ---------------------- Guangliang Li PhD student, Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group Informatics Institute, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam Room C3.258A Email: G.Li at uva.nl http://staff.science.uva.nl/~gli/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aurel at ee.columbia.edu Fri Jun 14 10:27:49 2013 From: aurel at ee.columbia.edu (Aurel A. Lazar) Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:27:49 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: open-source for massively parallel neural encoding/decoding of visual stimuli/scenes In-Reply-To: <00b201ce6841$15eb7b00$41c27100$@ecvp.uni-bremen.de> References: <00b201ce6841$15eb7b00$41c27100$@ecvp.uni-bremen.de> Message-ID: <78A56358-CC26-499E-A46B-50FAB1D6656B@ee.columbia.edu> Source code for encoding and decoding of natural and synthetic visual scenes (videos) with Time Encoding Machines consisting of Gabor or center surround receptive fields in cascade with Integrate-and-Fire neurons is available at http://www.bionet.ee.columbia.edu/code/vtem The code is written in Python/PyCuda and runs on single GPUs. The current release supports grayscale videos. Stay tuned for color and multi-GPUs implementations. A visual demonstration of decoding a short video stimulus encoded with a Video Time Encoding Machine consisting of 100,000 Hodgkin-Huxley neurons is available at: http://www.bionet.ee.columbia.edu/research/nce Aurel http://www.bionet.ee.columbia.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Vittorio.Murino at iit.it Fri Jun 14 10:59:41 2013 From: Vittorio.Murino at iit.it (Vittorio Murino) Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:59:41 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 4th PAVIS School on CVPR - Large Scale Visual Recognition of Object Instances and Categories - A. Zisserman, A. Vedaldi Message-ID: <51BB2FDD.1070200@iit.it> 2nd NOTICE -- Apologise for multiple posting ==================================================================== Call for Participation 4th PAVIS School on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, and Image Processing September 18-20, 2013 ? Sestri Levante (GE), Italy LARGE SCALE VISUAL RECOGNITION OF OBJECT INSTANCES AND CATEGORIES -------------------------------------------------------------------- Invited speakers * Andrew Zisserman, University of Oxford, UK * Andrea Vedaldi, University of Oxford, UK -------------------------------------- REGISTRATION DEADLINE APPROACHING !!! >>>>> JULY 15, 2013 <<<<< (see instructions below) -------------------------------------- The goal of this school is to introduce a number of state-of-the-art fundamental techniques in image understanding as well as to demonstrate the use of open source software to implement them in applications. Theoretical aspects that will be covered include image representations suitable for registration, object instance, and object category matching (including regions of interest, local descriptors, descriptor metrics, quantisation, indexing, and historamming) as well as machine learning techniques to train models for given object types (linear and non-linear large scale support vector machines and related kernel representations and optimisation methods). Alternating with the theoretical sessions, in a series of guided experiments the students will explore how such ideas can be implemented in software by using MATLAB and open source libraries such as VLFeat. *********************************************************************** * REGISTRATION DEADLINE: July 15, 2013 * * Interested applicants are invited to send an expression of interest * at pavisschool2013 at iit.it asking for participation. * For Ph.D. candidates please attach a Curriculum vitae and a letter * from your supervisor in support to the request. * * Accepted candidates will receive an email containing the instructions * for the actual registration and payment. *********************************************************************** Notice that, due to the limited number of places, applications are subject to acceptance, and for this reason, early registrations or expressions of interest are encouraged. The attendees are expected to bring a laptop with a working version of MATLAB since practical experiments will be performed during the school using open source libraries such as VLFeat. Registration Fees - 150 euro for Ph.D. and undergraduate students. - 250 euro for post docs, researchers, and other people working directly in a university or a research institute. - 300 euro for everybody else. Director: Prof. Vittorio Murino Local Organizers: Vittorio Murino, Matteo Bustreo, Carlos Beltran- Gonzalez, Alessio Del Bue. This school follows a series of intensive courses, targeting PhD students and researchers in the areas of Computer Vision, Image Processing, and Pattern Recognition. The course is residential, spanning 3 days, so that attendees can install a more productive interaction with the lecturers. It is organized and sponsored by PAVIS (Pattern analysis and Computer Vision) department of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova (Italy). The course will take place in the beautiful Baia del Silenzio in Sestri Levante (http://g.co/maps/xqnyr), located between the city of Genova and the border to Tuscany. The school is structured in a such way that attendees can install a more productive interaction with the lecturers. For more information please visit: http://tinyurl.com/4th-pavis-school The school is endorsed by GIRPR (Gruppo Italiano Ricercatori in Pattern Recognition). ========================================================================= -- Vittorio Murino **************************** Prof. Vittorio Murino, Ph.D. PAVIS - Pattern Analysis & Computer Vision IIT Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Via Morego 30 16163 Genova, Italy Phone: +39 010 71781 504 Mobile: +39 329 6508554 Fax: +39 010 71781 236 E-mail: vittorio.murino at iit.it http://www.iit.it/pavis.html *************************************************************************** From M.Gillies at gold.ac.uk Sat Jun 15 09:54:21 2013 From: M.Gillies at gold.ac.uk (Marco Gillies) Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:54:21 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Data Science Message-ID: Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Data Science - Goldsmiths, University of London http://jobs.goldsmiths.ac.uk/fe/tpl_goldsmiths01.asp?s=4A515F4E5A565B1A&jobid=84189,2383871523&key=75190599&c=991398157158&pagestamp=seeglvhddtpwzfombw Goldsmiths Department of Computing is seeking to appoint a lecturer and/or senior lecturer to spearhead strategic developments in research and postgraduate teaching related to Data Science. As the broader college is expanding its research and teaching in data-led social science and humanities, we are particularly looking for candidates who can work closely with researchers in other disciplines to propose and deliver joint research and teaching. You should have a PhD in computer-science or a related discipline, a substantial publication record, experience working in research teams, preferably multi-disciplinary teams, and you should have the potential to win large grants. If you are applying for the Senior Lectureship, you should have an excellent publication record and the proven ability to obtain research funding and lead research groups or networks. You should be familiar with innovations in research and teaching in Goldsmiths Computing and demonstrate a desire to help the department continue its development as one of Europe?s leading interdisciplinary centres for computing research and teaching. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Fri Jun 14 23:47:01 2013 From: ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Akira Hirose) Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:47:01 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline Extended to 30 June 2013: CFP: ICONIP 2013 Daegu Message-ID: <51BBE3B4.6070200@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp> The 20th Int'l Conference on Neurl Information Processing *ICONIP 2013 Daegu, 3-7 November 2013* Deadline extended to _30 June 2013_ http://iconip2013.org/ Keynote Speaker * Speaker : *Prof. Shun-Ichi Amari* Plenary Speakers * Speaker : *Prof. Yoshua Bengio* * Speaker : *Prof. Kunihiko Fukushima* * Speaker : *Prof. Soo-Young Lee* * Speaker : *Prof. Naftali Tishby* * Speaker : *Prof. Zongben Xu* *ICONIP 2013 Secretariat* *Address* : 6F, Sunghwa B/D, #1356-51, Manchon1-dong, Suseong-gu, Daegu 706-803, Republic of Korea *Email* : iconip2013 at gmail.com*Brain Engineering Society of Korea* ** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hqyang at cse.cuhk.edu.hk Mon Jun 17 02:48:25 2013 From: hqyang at cse.cuhk.edu.hk (Haiqin) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:48:25 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: SML@IEEE BigData 2013: International Workshop on Scalable Machine Learning: Theory and Applications In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: **************************************************************************************** CALL FOR PAPERS **************************************************************************************** SML at IEEE BigData 2013: International Workshop on Scalable Machine Learning: Theory and Applications https://sites.google.com/site/bigdatasml/home Co-located with IEEE BigData 2013, October 6, 2013, Santa Clara, CA, USA WORKSHOP AIMS and SCOPE ----------------------------------------------- Big Data are encountered in various areas, including Internet search, social networks, finance, business sectors, meteorology, genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations, and biological and environmental research. The huge volume, high velocity, significant variety, and low veracity bring challenges to current machine learning techniques. It is desirable to scale up machine learning techniques for modeling and analyzing the big data from various domains. The workshop aims to provide professionals, researchers, and technologists with a single forum where they can discuss and share the state-of-the-art of scalable machine learning technologies from theory and applications. TOPICS OF INTEREST ----------------------------------------------- Topics of interest include, but not limited to: * Distributed machine learning architectures - Data separation and integration techniques - Machine learning algorithms for GPUs - Machine learning algorithms for clouds - Machine learning algorithms for clusters * Theory and algorithms of data reduction techniques for Big Data - Online/incremental learning algorithms - Random projection - Hashing techniques - Data sampling algorithms * Theory and algorithms of large-scale matrix approximation - Bound analysis of matrix approximation algorithms - Parallel matrix factorization - Parallel multiway array factorization - Online dictionary learning - Distributed topic modeling algorithms * Heterogeneous learning on Big multi-modality Data - Multiview learning - Multitask learning - Transfer learning - Semi-supervised learning - Active learning * Temporal analysis and spatial analysis in Big Data - Real time analysis for data stream - Trend prediction in financial data - Topic detection in instant message systems - Real time modeling of events in dynamic networks - Spacial modeling on maps * Scalable Machine Learning in large graphs - Communities discovery and analysis in social networks - Link prediction in networks - Anomaly detection in social networks - Authority identification and influence measurement in social networks - Fusion of information from multiple blogs, rating systems, and social networks - Integration of text, videos, images, sounds in social media - Recommender systems * Novel applications of scalable machine learning in - Healthcare - Cybersecurity - Mobile computing such as location-based service, mobile networks, etc. - Smart cities - Astronomy - Biological data analysis IMPORTANT DATES ----------------------------------------------- * August 2, 2013: Due date for workshop papers submission * August 30, 2013: Notification of paper decision to authors * September 25, 2013: Camera-ready of accepted papers * October 6 2013: Workshop SUBMISSION INFORMATION ----------------------------------------------- We call for original and unpublished research paper contribution of short (2-4 pages) and full (6-8 pages) manuscripts to the workshop using IEEE Computer Society Proceedings Manuscript Formatting. Papers should be submitted via the online submission system. If you do not have an account, you will be asked to sign up for an account. Please select "Workshop/Scalable Machine Learning: Theory and Algorithms" when you submit papers. Each accepted paper is required at least a workshop registration regardless of the status of the registered author. Also, one of the authors (or a qualified substitute) must give a presentation of the paper at the workshop. The workshop papers will be part of the conference proceedings. They will be indexed by ieee explore. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ----------------------------------------------- * Irwin King, The Chinese University of Hong Kong * Michael R. Lyu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong * Michael Mahoney, Stanford University * Zenglin Xu, Purdue University * Haiqin Yang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS ----------------------------------------------- * Mikhail Bilenko, Microsoft * Carlos Guestrin, University of Washington * Alek Kolcz, Twitter * Alex Smola, CMU From rsalakhu at cs.toronto.edu Sat Jun 15 16:36:58 2013 From: rsalakhu at cs.toronto.edu (Ruslan Salakhutdinov) Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:36:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Connectionists: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: ICML 2013 Workshop on Interactions CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: ICML 2013 Workshop on Interactions Message-ID: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: ICML 2013 Workshop on Interactions between Inference and Learning (Inferning 2013) http://inferning.cs.umass.edu/2013/ Date: June 20, 2013 Time: 8:30am to 5:30pm Room: L401-3 OVERVIEW There are strong interactions between learning algorithms which estimate the parameters of a model from data, and inference algorithms which use a model to make predictions about data. Understanding the intricacies of these interactions is crucial for advancing the state-of-the-art on real-world tasks in natural language processing, computer vision, computation biology, etc. Yet, many facets of these interactions remain unknown. In this workshop, we study the interactions between inference and learning using two reciprocating perspectives. 1) How does inference affect learning? 2) How does learning affect inference? PROGRAM We have an exciting program with keynote talks by: http://inferning.cs.umass.edu/2013/keynote-talks Dan Roth, Univ. of Illinois Ben Taskar, Univ. of Washington Alan Fern, Oregon State Univ. Rina Dechter, Univ. of California, Irvine Hal Daume, Univ. of Maryland, College Park We have 6 contributed talks and 13 poster spotlights: http://inferning.cs.umass.edu/2013/papers Schedule: http://inferning.cs.umass.edu/2013/schedule REGISTRATION You can register through ICML website: http://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1211492 ORGANIZERS Janardhan Rao (Jana) Doppa, Oregon State University Pawan Kumar, Ecole Centrale Paris Ruslan Salakhutdinov, University of Toronto Sameer Singh, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Michael Wick, University of Massachusetts, Amherst From pierre.kornprobst at inria.fr Mon Jun 17 08:04:26 2013 From: pierre.kornprobst at inria.fr (Pierre Kornprobst) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:04:26 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Computational Neuroscience at Inria, Sophia Antipolis, France Message-ID: One Ph.D. position is available at Inria (France) in the Mathematical and Computational Neuroscience team Neuromathcomp from Inria Sophia Antipolis is currently looking for a PhD student to work on "Modelling the collective response of the retinal ganglion cells layer". Your work will focus on deciphering the biological processing of visual information and developing neurocomputational models of vision. You will be part of the interdisciplinary European project RENVISION entirely devoted to better understand the retina (from studying its activity and architecture, to developing new applications). Please visit our website to learn more about this offer: http://www-sop.inria.fr/neuromathcomp/public/jobs.shtml -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aaron.courville at umontreal.ca Sun Jun 16 20:47:50 2013 From: aaron.courville at umontreal.ca (Aaron Courville) Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:47:50 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: ICML 2013 Workshop on Peer Reviewing and Publishing Models Message-ID: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: ICML 2013 Workshop on Peer Reviewing and Publishing Models ( https://sites.google.com/site/workshoponpeerreviewing ) Date: Thursday, June 20, 2013, Time: 8:30am to 5:30pm Location: room L504-5. ________________________________ Overview: Across a wide range of scientific communities, peer reviewing and publishing models are undergoing significant changes. These changes have been motivated by the coupled objectives of improving the quality of the reviewing process, reducing the workload on reviewers and ultimately promoting the rapid dissemination of knowledge. The goal of this workshop is to provide a venue to bring together researchers from within our community as well as from other scientific disciplines who share a common interest in improving peer reviewing and publishing models. We wish to use this venue to share ideas and experiences, both positive and negative, of open reviewing, open access publishing models and the tools that support them. ________________________________ Schedule: Morning Session: Open Peer Review Landscape, Policies and Experiments 8:30 -- Andrew McCallum: Welcome, Overview, Landscape of Peer Review 8:50 -- John Langford: Representative Reviewing 9:10 -- Hanna Wallach: The Benefits of Double-Blind Review 9:30 -- Yann Lecun: The ICLR Reviewing Model 9:40 -- David Soergel: Open Scholarship and Peer Review: a Time for Experimentation ? 10:00 -- Coffee 10:30 -- Teleconference Panel with outside experts: Peter Binfield (PeerJ), Rebecca Lawrence (F1000), Virginia Barbour (PLOS) 11:45 -- David McAllester: Report from ICML 2013 12:00 -- 2:00 Lunch Afternoon: Tools and Discussion Session to Produce Position Paper 2:00 -- Laurent Charlin, Richard Zemel: The Toronto Paper Matching System: An automated paper-reviewer assignment system 2:20 -- Amjad Abu Jbara, Dragomir Radev: The ACL Anthology Network Corpus as a Resource for NLP-based Bibliometrics 2:40 -- Steven H Lee, Taesun Moon, Hal Daume III: Taking Advantage of Out-of-Corpus Information for Citation Network Clustering 2:50 -- Michael Wick, Ari Kobren, Andrew McCallum: Large-scale author coreference via hierarchical entity representations 3:00 -- Bert Huang: Fairness in Assignment Markets with Dual Decomposition 3:10 -- Valdas Diciunas, et al, EJMS (Electronic Journal Management System) 3:20 -- Sam Anzaroot, Andrew McCallum: A New Dataset for Fine-Grained Citation Field Extraction 3:30 -- Coffee and Poster Session 4:00 -- Panel on Future of Peer Review in ML Community: Aaron Courville, David McAllester, Kevin Murphy, John Langford, Hanna Wallach. 4:45 -- Discussion or breakout sessions aiming to produce a position paper 5:30 -- End ________________________________ Registration: You can register through ICML website: http://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1211492 ________________________________ Organizers: Andrew McCallum, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Aaron Courville, University of Montreal For inquiries please contact us at: reviewing.workshop.icml2013 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk Mon Jun 17 12:39:42 2013 From: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Dr Amir Hussain) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:39:42 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: FINAL Call: International Summer School on Cognitive Computation, Stirling, Scotland, UK, 25-30 Aug 2013 Message-ID: Limited places remaining in the 2013 International Summer School on Cognitive Computation, to be held at the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK, from 25-30 August 2013: http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/events/COGCOMP2013/ The FINAL round of applications will close on Monday, 28 June 2013, and places are limited, so you should act soon if you want to learn about the latest brain-inspired cognitive technologies for engineering the intelligent systems of tomorrow! The five-day School programme will consist of a set of tutorial-style lectures, all delivered by experts of international standing combined with hands-on practical sessions for constructing and working with the techniques and applications covered in the course material. Registration fee (without accommodation): ?250 (fee covers all course materials, lunches, coffees and School dinner). Registration fee including Accommodation: Choice of 4-6 nights (?450-?500-?550) full-board (breakfast, lunch and dinner inclusive) on-Campus accommodation in single en-suite rooms. Scholarships Available: (i) The School sponsor: Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance (SICSA), will cover the ?500 registration fee for PhD students in computer science departments of SICSA member Scottish universities (for a full list of SICSA Universities, see: http://www.sicsa.ac.uk/about/SICSA_Universities). The number of SICSA scholarships is limited and a decision on ranking will be taken if necessary. (ii) Up to two competitive places are also being generously sponsored by the IEEE UK-RI Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Chapter. (iii) Six partial (merit) scholarships (of up to ?150 each) are being offered by Springer to School applicants who will also be required to present their research at the School Poster Session. Overview: Cognitive Computation is an emerging discipline that links together neurobiology, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.The vision of this Summer School is to empower participants with an interdisciplinary understanding of some of the key underlying methodologies, concepts and techniques in cognitive computation, and their strengths and limitations (demonstrated by a range of real-world case studies). Participants will also learn of future directions in this exciting multi-disciplinary field. Topics covered will include: perception, action, affective and cognitive learning and memory, attention, decision making and control, social cognition, language processing and communication, reasoning, pattern recognition, problem solving, and consciousness. Springer?s Neuroscience Publishing Editor will also give a talk on ?Publishing interdisciplinary research in scientific journals? on the first day, Monday, 26 August, which will be followed by a Research Posters Session, and Exhibition organized by Springer (with prize awarded to the best poster). Authors of selected posters, judged by the Keynote Guest Lecturer: Professor Igor Aleksander, will be invited to submit extended/full papers to Springer?s Cognitive Computation journal ( http://www.springer.com/12559). Audience: The School is intended for postgraduate, PhD students, postdoctoral and industrial researchers working in all areas of cognitive computation, including its theoretical, applied, artificial and natural dimensions. More generally, it will appeal to researchers interested in biologically inspired computing techniques and applications, for example: machine learning, computational intelligence, cognitive and computational neuroscience, machine consciousness, neural hardware implementations and biologically inspired robotics and systems. Although the course will have substantial technical content, no prerequisites are required beyond a good background/first-degree in computer science/informatics or a related subject. For details of the School programme and application process, please see: http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/events/COGCOMP2013/ We hope to see you soon in Stirling! Amir --- Professor Amir Hussain Personal Chair in Computing Science School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland, UK E-mail: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1786 467437 / 464551 http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~ahu/ http://www.springer.com/12559/ -- The University of Stirling is ranked in the top 50 in the world in The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 table, which ranks the world's best 100 universities under 50 years old. The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wwwkiycom.yobi at gmail.com Sat Jun 15 07:22:04 2013 From: wwwkiycom.yobi at gmail.com (In Youb Kim) Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:22:04 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: [ICONIP 2013] Call for regular and special session paper and extended abstract extended to 30 June 2013. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: [image: ?? ??? 1] Call for regular and special session paper and extended abstract extended to 30 June 2013. * * *Key Dates* Deadline for regular and special session paper, extended abstract 30 June 2013 Notification of acceptance 1 August 2013 Deadline for Camera-ready final paper submission 15 August 2013 The 20th International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP 2013), an annual conference of the Asia Pacific Neural Network Assembly (APNNA), will be held from 3 - 7 November 2013 at EXCO, Daegu, Korea. We hope that you will take advantages of this unique opportunity to interact and share your experience with your colleagues and peers, and have a memorable and rewarding experience during your time in Daegu, Korea. Contributions are invited in the following area (but not limited to): * Neuroscience * Neuro-psychology * Industrial applications * Cognitive science * Demonstration * Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence * Learning Theory, Algorithms, and Architectures * Computational Neuroscience and Brain Imaging * Vision, Speech and Signal Processing * Control, Robotics and Hardware Technologies * Novel approaches and Applications If you are research involved to following area, please participate in following special sessions: SS1: Artificial Neural Networks and Pattern Recognition in Geosciences SS2: Neuro-Robotics SS3: Neuroengineering SS4: Learning Analytics: From Personal Learning Data to Open Educational Linked Data SS5: Intelligent State Estimation and Intrusion Detection for Control Systems SS6: Applied Soft Computing in Medical Informatics (ASC-MI) SS7: Brain Inspired Systems - Exploring Functional Roles of Brain Dynamics and Implementation of Brain Functions SS8: Spiking Neural Networks SS9: Extracting Latent Features from Multi-Dimensional Data SS10: Machine Intelligence for Pattern Recognition and Image Processing: Emerging Techniques, Principles and Application * * * * *Click here for more details about **Special Sessions * *Instruction for paper submission* Paper submission is now available via an official ICONIP 2013 website. Please follow the guideline below; Step 1 Visit the following website for paper submission. Step 2 Make your account of ICONIP 2013 paper submission system. Step 3 Please choose one category which your paper relevant among 4 categories. - ICONIP 2013: submission for regular papers - Special Session: submission for special sessions - Tutorial - Workshop Step 4 Fill up your paper information and authors' information and submit it. Don't forget to choose groups (Oral or Poster) and topics. Step 5 Confirmation letter will be sent to you by e-mail. You modify your paper until deadline of paper submission, 30 June 2013. *ICONIP **2013 **Online Paper Submission * We look forward to welcoming you to ICONIP 2013 in Daegu! [image: ?? ??? 2] -- *--------------------------* *ICONIP 2013 Secretariat***** 6F, Sunghwa Bldg., #1356-51 Manchon1-dong,**** Suseong-gu, Daegu 706-803, Korea**** *Tel.* +82-53-746-9965 / *Fax.* +82-53-742-9007**** *E-mail.* iconip2013 at gmail.com *Website.* www.iconip2013.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 34541 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 326683 bytes Desc: not available URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Sat Jun 15 13:45:47 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:45:47 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: SSTiC 2013: next registration deadline 26 June Message-ID: <498CF07A40D545D5B9EC1F7E4C356C2D@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ********************************************************************* 2013 INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL ON TRENDS IN COMPUTING SSTiC 2013 Tarragona, Spain July 22-26, 2013 Organized by Rovira i Virgili University http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/ ********************************************************************* +++ next registration deadline: June 26 +++ ********************************************************************* 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 56 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: 7 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: 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 Larry S. Davis (College Park) [intermediate] Video Analysis of Human Activities Paul De Bra (Eindhoven) [intermediate] Adaptive Systems Paul Dourish (Irvine) [introductory] Ubiquitous Computing in a Social Context Max J. Egenhofer (Maine) [introductory/intermediate] Qualitative Spatial Relations: Formalizations and Inferences 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 Francisco Herrera (Granada) [intermediate] Imbalanced Classification: Current Approaches and Open Problems Paul Hudak (Yale) [introductory] Euterpea: From Signals to Symphonies Using Haskell 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 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 Satoru Miyano (Tokyo) [intermediate] How to Hack Cancer Systems with Computational Methods Aloysius K. Mok (Austin) [intermediate] From Real-time Systems to Cyber-physical Systems Hermann Ney (Aachen) [intermediate/advanced] Probabilistic Modelling for Natural Language Processing - with Applications to Speech Recognition, Handwriting Recognition and Machine Translation Cathleen A. Norris (North Texas) & Elliot Soloway (Ann Arbor) [introductory] Primary & Secondary Educational Computing in the Age of Mobilism Jeff Offutt (George Mason) [intermediate] Cutting Edge Research in Engineering of Web Applications David Padua (Urbana) [intermediate] Parallel Programming with Abstractions Bijan Parsia (Manchester) [introductory] The Semantic Web: Conceptual and Technical Foundations Charles E. Perkins (FutureWei) [intermediate/advanced] Beyond 4G Prabhakar Raghavan (Google) [introductory/intermediate] Web Search and Advertising Phillip Rogaway (Davis) [introductory/intermediate] Provably Secure Symmetric Encryption Gustavo Rossi (La Plata) [intermediate] Topics in Model Driven Web Engineering Kaushik Roy (Purdue) [introductory/intermediate] Low-energy Computing 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) [intermediate/advanced] Visual Crowd Surveillance Ron Shamir (Tel Aviv) [introductory] Revealing Structure in Disease Regulation and Networks Dawn Xiaodong Song (Berkeley) [introductory] Selected Topics in Computer Security Mike Thelwall (Wolverhampton) [introductory] Sentiment Strength Detection for the Social Web Julita Vassileva (Saskatchewan) [introductory/intermediate] Engaging Users in Social Computing Systems Philip Wadler (Edinburgh) [introductory] Topics in Lambda Calculus and Life 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 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 Ronald R. Yager (Iona) [introductory/intermediate] Fuzzy Sets and Soft Computing Philip S. Yu (Illinois Chicago) [advanced] Mining Big Data REGISTRATION: It has to be done at http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/Registration.php Since 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: Fees may be for the whole week (full-time participant) or per blocks of days (part-time participant). They are a flat rate allowing one to attend all courses within the time window set: 5, 4, 3 or 2 days. Fees vary depending on the deadline. ACCOMMODATION: Information about accommodation is 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 Registration deadlines: next: June 26, 2013 last: July 25, 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: Departament d?Economia i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virgili From pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr Mon Jun 17 03:51:07 2013 From: pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr (Pierre-Yves Oudeyer) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:51:07 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [publication and call for dialog] IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development, Spring 2013 Message-ID: <36E79713-C7CA-497F-8C55-F538C0B29593@inria.fr> Dear colleagues, It is my pleasure to announce the release of the Spring 2013 issue of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development. This is the biannual newsletter of the computational developmental sciences and developmental robotics community, studying mechanisms of autonomous lifelong learning and development in machines and humans. It is available at: http://www.cse.msu.edu/amdtc/amdnl/AMDNL-V10-N1.pdf === Dialog initiated by J. Weng, with responses from Y. Demiris, A. Tapus, M. Lopes, K. Rohlfing, B. Wrede, A. Morse, Y. Choe === "Modeling AMD and its Application to Assistive Robotics: Closed Skull or Not? This dialog discusses the developmental approach to socially assistive robotics. While assistive robots need to adapt continuously and in a lifelong manner to the particularities, preferences and evolving needs of human(s), there are still significant challenges to adapt these developmental learning methods to constraints of safety, trust, acceptability and usefulness. The dialog in this issue of the newsletter provides enlightening visions about this challenge. === New dialog initiated by P. F. Dominey === "How are Grammatical Constructions Linked to Embodied Meaning Representations?" Then, a new dialog initiation by Peter Ford Dominey addresses issues in language development and related to the associated capability to perform mental simulations of events: How children learn to use grammar that allows the specification of the temporal unfolding of events in simulation? Does the progressive increase in the complexity of grammatical constructions that are used in development correspond to a developing capability to mentally represent? Is there a direct link between language and simulation? Or must the target of simulation be coded symbolically? Those of you interested in reacting to this dialog initiation are welcome to submit a response (contact pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr) by September 15th, 2013. The length of each response must be between 600 and 800 words (including references). Next to the dialogs, Angelo Cangelosi, the chair of the IEEE AMD TC, provides an overview of the news and activities of the TC. Let me remind you that previous issues of the newsletter are all open-access and available at: http://www.cse.msu.edu/amdtc/amdnl/ I wish you a stimulating reading! Best regards, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Editor of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development Research director, Inria Head of Flower project-team Inria and Ensta ParisTech, France http://www.pyoudeyer.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jaakko.peltonen at aalto.fi Tue Jun 18 09:43:13 2013 From: jaakko.peltonen at aalto.fi (Peltonen Jaakko) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:43:13 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers: AISTATS 2014, Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics Message-ID: <34678FBC663BDC47BAD0B96BB3FF2858F6EB982B@EXMDB01.org.aalto.fi> ============================================================================== AISTATS 2014 Call for Papers Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics April 22 - 25, 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland http://www.aistats.org Colocated with a MLSS Machine Learning Summer School ============================================================================== AISTATS is an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and related areas. Since its inception in 1985, the primary goal of AISTATS has been to broaden research in these fields by promoting the exchange of ideas among them. We encourage the submission of all papers which are in keeping with this objective at http://www.aistats.org. Paper Submission: ----------------- Proceedings track: This is the standard AISTATS paper submission track. Papers will be selected via a rigorous double-blind peer-review process. Reviewers will be assigned to a paper by multiple mechanisms so that there is no "single point of failure": by an automated mechanism, and by the primary and secondary members of the senior program committee. All accepted papers will be presented at the Conference as contributed talks or as posters and will be published in the Proceedings. A selected set of papers will be designated as "notable papers" which will carry a preface in the proceedings by a member of the senior program committee, and will also be given greater visibility and discussion via social media. Highlight talks track: We will include talks on recent high-impact work on AISTATS themes. This is an opportunity to raise discussion and get additional exposure to already published work, in particular in journals. The talks will be selected based on one-page abstracts and the existing papers, and they do not lead to a paper in the Proceedings. Late-breaking posters track: Some time at the conference will be set aside for "breaking news" posters having a one-page abstract. These are reports on ongoing or unpublished projects, projects already published elsewhere, partially developed ideas, negative results etc, and are meant as informal forums to encourage discussion. The review process of the late-breaking posters will be very light-touch and presentation at the Conference will not lead to publication in the Proceedings. Solicited topics include, but are not limited to: * Models and estimation: graphical models, causality, Gaussian processes, approximate inference, kernel methods, nonparametric models, statistical and computational learning theory, manifolds and embedding, sparsity and compressed sensing, ... * Classification, regression, density estimation, unsupervised and semi-supervised learning, clustering, topic models, ... * Structured prediction, relational learning, logic and probability * Reinforcement learning, planning, control * Game theory, no-regret learning, multi-agent systems * Algorithms and architectures for high-performance computation in AI and statistics * Software for and applications of AI and statistics For a more detailed list of keywords, see http://www.aistats.org/keywords.php. Submission Requirements for Proceedings Track: ------------------------ Electronic submission of papers is required. We will use the Microsoft CMT submission system. Papers may be up to 8 double-column pages in length, excluding references. Authors may optionally submit also supplementary material. Formatting and submission information will be made available on the conference website at http://www.aistats.org/submit.php. All accepted papers will be presented at the Conference either as contributed talks or as posters, and will be published in the AISTATS Conference Proceedings in the Journal of Machine Learning Research Workshop and Conference Proceedings series. Papers for talks and posters will be treated equally in publication. Submitted manuscripts should not have been previously published in a journal or in the proceedings of a conference, and should not be under consideration for publication at another conference at any point during the AISTATS review process. It is acceptable to have a substantially extended version of the submitted paper under consideration simultaneously for journal publication, so long as the journal version's planned publication date is in 2014 or later, the journal submission does not interfere with AISTATS's right to publish the paper, and the situation is clearly described at the time of AISTATS submission. Please describe the situation in the appropriate box on the submission page (and do not include author information in the submission itself, to avoid accidental unblinding). Submission Deadlines: --------------------- Submissions will be considered if they are received by the following deadlines. Proceedings track paper submissions: 1 November, 2013, 23:59 UTC Highlight talk abstract submissions: 24 January, 2014, 23:59 UTC Late-breaking poster abstract submissions: 24 January, 2014, 23:59 UTC See the conference website for additional important dates: http://www.aistats.org/dates.php. Colocated Events: ----------------- A Machine Learning Summer School (MLSS) will be held after the conference (April 26th-May 4th). April 25 will be an AISTATS/MLSS joint tutorial + MLSS poster session day. Venue: ------ AISTATS 2014 will be held in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, in Grand Hotel Reykjavik. Reykjavik and its environs offer a unique mix of culture and varied nature, from glaciers to waterfalls to geysers and thermal pools. This is a unique opportunity to spend an AISTATS afternoon break at a geothermal warm beach, the famous Blue Lagoon. Reykjavik is easily reachable by several airlines; travel information will be available on http://www.aistats.org. Program Chairs: ----------- Samuel Kaski, Aalto University, Finland Jukka Corander, University of Helsinki, Finland Local Chair: Deon Garrett, School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University and Icelandic Institute for Intelligent Machines, Iceland The European meetings of AISTATS are organized by the European Society for Artificial Intelligence and Statistics. =================== for more information see http://www.aistats.org ==================== From sen.cheng at rub.de Tue Jun 18 04:56:01 2013 From: sen.cheng at rub.de (Sen Cheng) Date: 18 Jun 2013 10:56:01 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Stipend in Computational Neuroscience/ Robotics Message-ID: A funded PhD studentship is available in a joint project between Prof. Sen Cheng in the Mercator Research Group ?Structure of Memory? and Prof. Laurenz Wiskott at the Institute for Neural Computation at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. The goal of the project is to understand the functional role of the hippocampus in spatial navigation and episodic memory using robotics simulations. To achieve this goal, we use small ePuck robots to simulate key rodent experiments in learning and memory. The main language of communication in the project is English. Candidates should have an excellent Master degree, or equivalent, in neuroscience, physics, mathematics, engineering or a related field. Excellent programming skills and experience with computer/ robotics simulations are mandatory. Familiarity with computational neuroscience would be a further asset. To apply please send a letter stating your motivation and your research interests, a complete CV, academic transcripts (Bachelor and Master), and at least two academic letters of recommendation to mrg1+jobs at rub.de in a single PDF file by July 8th, 2013. The Ruhr University Bochum is home to a vibrant research community in neuroscience and neural computation. Students will be able to join the International Graduate School of Neuroscience. For further information about the research groups, see www.rub.de/cns and http://www.ini.rub.de/PEOPLE/wiskott. The Ruhr University Bochum is committed to equal opportunity. We strongly encourage applications from qualified women and persons with disabilities. --- Prof. Dr. Sen Cheng Ruhr-University Bochum Mercator Research Group "Structure of Memory" Universitaetsstr. 150 44801 Bochum Germany office: GA 04/48 | +49-234- 32 27136 | FAX: +49-234- 32 07136 sen.cheng at rub.de | http://www.rub.de/cns From sebastian.risi at gmail.com Tue Jun 18 15:52:50 2013 From: sebastian.risi at gmail.com (Sebastian Risi) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:52:50 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Last CFP: AAAI 2013 Fall Symposium on How Should Intelligence be Abstracted in AI Research: MDPs, Symbolic Representations, Artificial Neural Networks, or _____? (Deadline June 24th) Message-ID: (apologies for multiple posting.) Dear Colleagues, This is just a reminder that the submission deadline for our AAAI 2013 Fall Symposium on "How Should Intelligence be Abstracted in AI Research: MDPs, Symbolic Representations, Artificial Neural Networks, or _____?" is approaching fast: Monday, June 24th, 2013 We look forward to your contributions. The CFP can be found below. Thank you! -- Sebastian Risi, Joel Lehman, Jeff Clune -- Call for Papers -- ** AAAI 2013 Fall Symposium: ?How Should Intelligence be Abstracted in AI Research: MDPs, Symbolic Representations, Artificial Neural Networks, or _____?? ** Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Virginia (adjacent to Washington, DC). November 15-17, 2013 ** Schedule ** Full Paper/Extended Abstract Submission: June 24, 2013 Noti?cation: July 7, 2013 Final Camera-ready Paper/Extended Abstract: September 12, 2013 ** Keynote Speakers ** Andrew Ng via Skype (Stanford University, USA) Georg Striedter (University of California, Irvine, USA) Randall O'Reilly (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA) Risto Miikkulainen (University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA) Gary Marcus (New York University, USA) More TBD Dear colleagues, We invite contributions to our AAAI 2013 Fall Symposium titled ?How Should Intelligence be Abstracted in AI Research: MDPs, Symbolic Representations, Artificial Neural Networks, or _____??. Each subfield of AI has a different perspective on intelligence and unspoken assumptions about what is critical to recreate it computationally. To better understand such differences, we aim to bring together a diverse group of AI researchers interested in discussing and comparing how intelligence and processes that might create it are abstracted in various subfields. For example, such discussion may include honest examination of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and what features of biological intelligence are crucial or unnecessary to include in algorithms. We hope to encourage cross-pollination of ideas between researchers viewing intelligence in different ways (e.g. through the lens of MDPs or symbolic manipulation, through the lens of embodied robotics or purely-computational simulation, etc.) and at different levels of abstraction (e.g. biologically-plausible neural simulations or restricted Boltzmann machines). One goal is to facilitate revising or creating new abstractions of intelligence and intelligence-generating processes. More information can be found here: http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~risi/AAAISymposium2013/ Contributions related to how intelligence can or should be abstracted algorithmically in artificial intelligence research are invited. We also invite contributions to how robotics relates to artificial intelligence. Extended abstracts that summarize the results of a research program along these lines are most welcome, as are personal position papers or contributions describing speculative work or work in progress. Works bridging traditionally separate AI paradigms are encouraged. Participants should be open to inspiration from work and ideas in other subfields, and be willing to step outside their intellectual comfort zones. Interested participants are encouraged to submit extended abstracts (no more than 2 pages), or full-length papers (up to 6 pages in AAAI format) in PDF format to sebastian.risi at cornell.edu. Accepted submissions will be published as citable, peer-reviewed papers in the AAAI technical report. Areas of interest include but are not limited to: - Different levels and types of knowledge representation and reasoning - Embodied robots / subsumption architecture - Abstractions of the following: - Neural networks (e.g. deep learning networks, spiking ANNs, and plastic ANNs) - Learning (e.g. machine learning and reinforcement learning) - Biological development (e.g. generative and developmental systems, and developmental robotics) - Evolutionary search (e.g. digital evolution and evolutionary algorithms) - Biologically-inspired computation - Evolutionary robotics - Swarm intelligence - Artificial life - Philosophical arguments on characteristics of appropriate abstractions for AI The symposium will be held Friday - Sunday, November 15-17 at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Virginia (adjacent to Washington, DC). 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/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jainv at janelia.hhmi.org Tue Jun 18 21:09:54 2013 From: jainv at janelia.hhmi.org (Jain, Viren) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:09:54 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Open Positions in Connectomics/Machine Learning/Deep Networks/Computer Vision Message-ID: <12CD42AE32DAF349880F19044B9D72F4E0753B62@JFMB3.hhmi.org> The Jain lab at the HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus near Washington, DC, has open positions for researchers with experience and interests in machine learning, computer vision, or quantitative analysis of brain wiring diagrams. The lab is at the forefront of developing high-throughput methods to map the brain at synaptic resolution, using a combination of large-scale electron microscopy and machine learning based automated image analysis. The ideal candidate will have an accomplished background in a quantitative discipline (EE, CS, math, physics, etc) as well as a passion for achieving off-scale impact on fundamental issues in neuroscience. Example projects being pursued in the lab include: * developing large-scale deep networks for biological image analysis using Janelia?s 4000-core CPU/GPU cluster * developing novel structured prediction methods for reasoning about image data * developing tools for crowdsourcing image analysis * developing novel analytical techniques for understanding network structure in wiring diagrams Positions could be at the level of a postdoctoral fellow, research scientist, or software engineer, depending on the individual. Further information about the lab is available at: http://www.janelia.org/lab/jain-lab Please contact Dr. Viren Jain with questions or inquiries: jainv at janelia.hhmi.org About Janelia Farm Research Campus: Janelia Farm Research Campus is a state of the art pure research facility near Washington, DC devoted to method development and scientific advancement in in the imaging, biological, and computational sciences. All activity at the campus is fully internally funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. http://www.janelia.org/ From bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Wed Jun 19 10:48:35 2013 From: bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Barbara Hammer) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:48:35 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: New Challenges in Neural Computation and Machine Learning Message-ID: <51C1C4C3.6040104@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> Apologies for cross-posting. Readers of this mailing list might be interested in the following workshop: ----------------------------------------------------------- FINAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS The Workshop New Challenges in Neurocomputing and Machine Learning (NC^2) with special focus topic on INTERPRETABLE MODELS IN MACHINE LEARNING will be held in conjunction to GCPR'13 (http://www.gcpr2013.uni-saarland.de/) at September, 3rd, 2013, in Saarbr?cken, Germany. See: http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~bhammer/GINN/NC2/ Submissions are welcome connected to the following areas: * nonlinear dimensionality reduction, blind source separation, and visualization * models for very large or streaming data sets * parallelization and hardware implementations * models for non-euclidean data * recursive models and dynamic systems * adaptive data representation * bio-inspired models * challenges in machine learning * challenges in applications Submission deadline is 16. July 2013. ORGANIZERS: Barbara Hammer, Thomas Martinetz, Thomas Villmann PROGRAMM COMMITTEE: Michael Biehl, Colin Fyfe, Marco Gori, Fred Hamker, Sven Hellbach, Amaury Lendasse, Paulo Lisboa, Alessio Micheli, Jaakko Peltonen, Felix Reinhart, Martin Riedmiller, Fabrice Rossi, Frank-Michael Schleif, Udo Seiffert, Alessando Sperduti, Marc Strickert, Peter Tino, Heiko Wersing, Rolf W?rtz -- Prof. Dr. Barbara Hammer CITEC centre of excellence Bielefeld University D-33594 Bielefeld Phone: +49 521 / 106 12115 Fax: +49 521 / 106 12181 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From terry at salk.edu Wed Jun 19 16:03:22 2013 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:03:22 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - August 1, 2013 In-Reply-To: <199706131630.JAA17514@helmholtz.salk.edu> Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents -- Volume 25, Number 8 - August 1, 2013 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/25/8 Articles Encoding Through Patterns: Regression Tree Based Neuronal Population Models Robert Haslinger, Gordon Pipa, Emery Brown, Laura Lewis, Danko Nikolic, and Ziv Williams Analysis of the Stabilized Supralinear Network Kenneth D. Miller, Yashar Ahmadian, and Daniel B. Rubin Letters Representing Objects, Relations, and Sequences Stephen I Gallant, T. Wendy Okaywe The Evolution of Representation in Simple Cognitive Networks Lars Marstaller, Arend Hintze, and Christoph Adami Dynamics of Multiple-choice Decision Making DaHui Wang, Hongzhi You EEG Data Space Adaptation to Reduce Inter-session Non-stationarity in Brain-Computer Interface Mahnaz Arvaneh, Cuntai Guan, Kai Keng Ang, and Chai Quek Alternating Direction Methods for Latent Variable Gaussian Graphical Model Selection Hui Zou, Shiqian Ma, and Lingzhou Xue A Monte Carlo Metropolis-Hastings Algorithm for Sampling From Distributions With Intractable Normalizing Constants Faming Liang, Ick-Hoon Jin ------------ 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 fbln at ecomp.poli.br Tue Jun 18 22:10:06 2013 From: fbln at ecomp.poli.br (Prof. Fernando Buarque) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:10:06 -0300 Subject: Connectionists: BRICS-CCI & CBIC 2013 Data Mining Competition Announcement ("Porto de Galinhas" - Brazil) Message-ID: Dear All, The organizers of 1st BRICS and 11th Brazilian Congresses on Computational Intelligence are proud to announce an Algorithm Competition, to be held in the beach village of "Porto de Galinhas", Brazil on 8-11th September. We would be very pleased if you could encourage your colleagues and students to enter the competition and also if you could publicize this much interesting co-located activity of our Congress. The submissions for main tracks of BRICS-CCI and CBIC 2013 are now closed with a record of over 350 submissions, *but *Competitions (i.e. SW as well as Theses/Dissertations) and other Symposia are still open for submissions. We have brought this year competition topic from market demands on the traditional credit risk assessment domain, but under an innovative perspective, as previously done by us in the PAKDD competitions 2009 & 2010. This endeavor was not possible without NeuroTech S.A. (co-organizer) so that we are quite happy to host the first data mining competition in Brazil. -We do hope to see you next September! Congress is packed with interesting speakers ( http://brics-cci.org/confirmed-invited-speakers-by-october-2012/) *Competition Deadline:* July, 31st 2013 *Overview:* -The competition is open for academia and industry, accessible either through the BRICS-CCI & CBIC 2013 Conference site ( brics-cci.org/ci-algorithms-competition-ciac) or directly to the competition server (brics-cci.neurotech.com.br). -This year's Competition, is on the well known application of credit scoring, focused on the effects of temporal degradation of performance and seasonality of payment delinquency. -There is a real-time LeaderBoard for stimulating the competitors' daily participation and to allow some parameter adjustment. *Problem Summary: **Credit Risk Assessment System Robustness Against Degradation and Seasonal Variation* The offer of credit for potential clients is a very important service for stimulating consumption in the market. Despite being among the oldest application domains for data mining, there are some difficulties related to credit scoring which are often overlooked by modelers, namely: ? In general, there are only data about the company's clients for modeling, but not about the rejected applicants thus representing a strongly biased sample of the market given that a systematic procedure focused on the problem target (payment default) has been applied for their selection. ? The data is also collected from a time interval in the past for developing a model to be applied in a future time. Despite the absence of any drastic change in the economy, gradual market changes and geographical expansion occur affecting the performance of the model estimated on the modeling data set. ? Added to the degradation, there is a seasonality effect that causes variations on the monthly payment delinquency. This competition focuses on two features of the credit risk assessment model that are presented as tasks for the participants: *Task 1*: Robustness against performance degradation caused by market gradual changes along few years of business operation. *Task 2*: Fitting of the estimated delinquency produced by the estimation model to that observed on the actual data for the applications approved by the model for Task 1. -Participants will download a labeled data set from a two-year period (2009-2010) for modeling and will submit scores to the test dataset from a year ahead (2011). The leaderboard results will be assessed on almost than 10% of the records from the test dataset while the whole test dataset will be used for the final competition performance evaluation. These data sets come from the private label credit card operation of a major Brazilian retail chain, along stable inflation condition (2009-2011). -Competitors may use any modeling technique they wish for either task and the official performance metrics will be the area under the ROC curve for task-1 and the distance D of the Chi-square statistics for the monthly delinquency estimated in task-2. *Webpage: *brics-cci.org/ci-algorithms-competition-ciac/ or brics-cci.neurotech.com.br *Contact:* brics2013 at neurotech.com.br *Competition Organizers:* -Paulo Jorge Leit?o ADEODATO Center of Informatics, Federal University of Pernambuco / Neurotech S.A., Brazil -Swagatam Das Indian Statistical Institute, India -Domingos S. P. Salazar Distance Learning Unit, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco / Neurotech S.A., Brazil -- Prof. Fernando Buarque , BSc MSc DIC PhD Hab., Senior Member IEEE, PQ-2 CNPq Professor Associado - Escola Polit?cnica/Universidade de Pernambuco (POLI /UPE ) Coordenador do Mestrado de Engenharia de Computa??o da UPE (PPG-EC ) Docente do Mestrado de Engenharia de Sistemas da UPE (PPG-ES ) Docente da Gradua??o de Engenharia de Computa??o da UPE (E-Comp ) Pesquisador L?der do Grupo de Intelig?ncia Computacional da UPE (CIRG at UPE ) Assessor de Rela??es Internacionais da POLI (ARI at POLI ) Coordenador T?cnico do N?cleo de Telemedicina da UPE (NUTES at UPE ) Visiting Professor - University of Johannesburg, South Africa (Kingsway Campus ) Graduate Faculty - Computer Science/Florida Institute of Technology, USA ( CS at FIT ) Universidade de Pernambuco / Escola Polit?cnica de Pernambuco Rua Benfica, 455 (Bl. 'C' 2. andar) * Bairro: Madalena CEP 50720-001 * Recife, Pernambuco - Brasil Fone: +55(0)81 3184-7542 * Fax: +55(0)81 3184-7581 WEB -> http://www.fbln.pro.br/ * WAP -> http://www.fbln.pro.br/wap.htm *"Se voc? quiser educar um homem, comece pela av? dele" (Victor Hugo).* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From n.lepora at sheffield.ac.uk Wed Jun 19 18:12:23 2013 From: n.lepora at sheffield.ac.uk (Nathan F Lepora) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:12:23 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Living Machines: Call for Participation in Conference, Exhibition and Workshops Message-ID: ______________________________________________________________ Call for Participation in Conference, Exhibition and Workshops Living Machines: The 2nd International Conference on Biomimetic Robotics and Biohybrid Systems. A Convergent Science Network Event 29th July to 2nd August 2013 Natural History Museum, London http://csnetwork.eu/livingmachines/conf2013 ______________________________________________________________ News & Highlights * Extended deadline for early registration, now June 30th, 2013. * Very last chance to book good value, local conference accommodation at Imperial College; any un-reserved rooms will be released on June 21st. * Main conference programme now online, 5 plenary talks, 18 single-track oral presentations, 47 posters. * 25 exhibits for the exhibition from biomimetic robots to biohybrid clothing to computer art, including live robot performance. The evening reception for the exhibition can now be booked as a separate event. * 5 satellite workshops also available for registration as separate events, topics include the self, emergence, plant-like robots, neuromorphic engineering, societal impacts. * LM2012 proceedings in the top 25% of Springer LNAI volumes for downloads in the last 12 months. * Significant media interest in our events, press passes available. * New journal ?Soft Robotics? to be launched at LM2013 Contact living-machines at sheffield.ac.uk for all enquiries. ABOUT LIVING MACHINES 2013 The 2nd International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid systems comprises a week of events including 2.5 days of single-track oral presentations with five plenary speakers; a 1-day exhibition that will include a range of novel biomimetic and biohybrid technologies many of which have not been exhibited in public before; and five satellite workshops on themes ranging from artificial ?selves? to the societal impacts of living machines. We wish to draw particular attention to the exhibition, which can be registered for independently of the main conference. Current highlights of the exhibition include: ? A live musical performance featuring a humanoid robot ? Mammal-like robots with whiskered touch systems ? A Robot swarm whose behaviour is more than the sum of its parts ? A robot model of ?trace? fossils from the dawn of life ? Music composed by a bio-inspired computer programme that mimics natural selection ? Plant-like robots that grow and change shape ? Biomimetic medical devices ? A robot that powers itself by digesting insects ? Micro-flying robots ? Robothespian?an interactive multi-lingual humanoid ? Wearable computing for finding your way in darkness ? Biohybrid clothing made with amoebas In addition to the active, and interactive, exhibits there will be a buffet dinner and complementary wine and drinks. We hope you will join us for the exciting and futuristic science & technology event! The conference registration site is open. Please register soon to take advantage of early registration, which has been extended due to delays with finalising the conference program?deadline June 30th Conference accommodation is also available through the conference registration site, at Imperial College London from 70 GBP per night. If attendees wish to take advantage of these favourable rates they should book by Friday 21st June, after which the rooms held back in reserve will be released. CONFERENCE PROGRAMME **Program now available online** The main conference will take the form of a single-track oral presentation programme, 30th July to midday 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, University of California, Berkeley (Locomotion); Andrew Pickering, University of Exeter (History of living machines). There will also be 18 regular talks, and a 3 hour poster session (afternoon of August 1st) featuring 47 posters. Particular themes include: Biomimetic robotics Biohybrid systems including biological-machine interfaces Neuromimetic systems Active sensing in vision and touch Social robotics Embodied robotics Biomimetics of plants WORKSHOPS **Programs now available online** In addition to the main conference there are two further days of workshops, each with their own full program that can be found on the Living Machines website. Monday 29th July Self and cognitive systems (organizers Peter Ford Dominey and Paul Verschure) Learning from the Plant Kingdom to Invent Smart Artificial Solutions (organizers Barbara Mazzolai and Lucia Beccai) Friday 2nd August Neuromorphic models, circuits, and emerging nano-technologies for real-time neural processing systems (organizers Giacomo Indiveri and Themistoklis Prodromakis) Emergent social behaviours in bio-hybrid systems (organizers Jose Halloy, Thomas Schmickl and Stuart Wilson) Societal impacts of Living Machines (organizers Tony Prescott and Michael Szollosy) Attendance at satellite events will attract a small fee intended to cover the costs of the meeting. We have reserved meeting rooms at Imperial College London to host the satellites each with capacity for up to 40 people. Please book early. Separation registration for satellite events is possible. 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. KEY DATES June 21, 2013 Un-reserved accommodation released. June 30, 2013 Extended deadline for early registration. July 29-August 2nd 2013 Conference 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 bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca Fri Jun 21 07:40:22 2013 From: bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 07:40:22 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: ICONIP 2013 session on Deep Learning of Representations, deadline June 30 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <08C07D97-EC49-4460-9133-C8050D446E8A@iro.umontreal.ca> Hello, Honglak Lee and I are organizing a session on Deep Learning of Representations at ICONIP'2013 (South Corea, 3-7 Nov. 2013), where I will also be a plenary speaker: http://www.iconip2013.org Submission deadline is June 30, for 8-page papers: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iconip2013 The best papers will be selected for a special issue of the Neural Networks journal, on Deep Learning of Representations (submission deadline January 15th, 2014), open to all: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11GdxipkmXyt25En3N8_0jxNSf5f0lwi0B_bo1wwNUts/edit?pli=1 -- Yoshua Bengio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wwwkiycom.yobi at gmail.com Thu Jun 20 02:45:08 2013 From: wwwkiycom.yobi at gmail.com (In Youb Kim) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 15:45:08 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Call for regular and special session paper, extended abstract - Deadline of submission is 30 June 2013. Message-ID: [image: ?? ??? 5] Call for regular and special session paper, extended abstract 30 June 2013. Considering many requests of deadline extension, we decide to extend the deadline to 30 June 2013. Further extension will be impossible after 30 June. Do not miss the last opportunity to be a part of the ICONIP 2013. * * *Key Dates* Deadline for regular and special session paper, extended abstract 30 June 2013 Notification of acceptance 1 August 2013 Deadline for Camera-ready final paper submission 15 August 2013 Contributions are invited in the following area (but not limited to): * Neuroscience * Neuro-psychology * Industrial applications * Cognitive science * Demonstration * Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence * Learning Theory, Algorithms, and Architectures * Computational Neuroscience and Brain Imaging * Vision, Speech and Signal Processing * Control, Robotics and Hardware Technologies * Novel approaches and Applications If you are research involved to following area, please participate in following special sessions: SS1: Artificial Neural Networks and Pattern Recognition in Geosciences SS2: Neuro-Robotics SS3: Neuroengineering SS4: Learning Analytics: From Personal Learning Data to Open Educational Linked Data SS5: Intelligent State Estimation and Intrusion Detection for Control Systems SS6: Applied Soft Computing in Medical Informatics (ASC-MI) SS7: Brain Inspired Systems - Exploring Functional Roles of Brain Dynamics and Implementation of Brain Functions SS8: Spiking Neural Networks SS9: Extracting Latent Features from Multi-Dimensional Data SS10: Machine Intelligence for Pattern Recognition and Image Processing: Emerging Techniques, Principles and Application SS11: Human-Robot Interaction: Cognitive modeling for Human Interacting Robot * * * * *Click here for more details about **Special Sessions * Also selected papers will be included in special issues of the following international journal after substantial extension; * Neural Networks website (Website ) Topic : Deep Network Guest editors : Yushua Bengio (University of Montreal, Canada), Honglak Lee (University of Michigan, USA) * Neurocomputing website (Website) Topic : TBA Guest editors : Andrew Leung (The City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong), Minho Lee (Kyungpook National University, Korea) * Cognitive Computation website (Website) Topic : TBA recommendation by Andrew Leung * Cognitive Systems Research website (Website) Topic : Robots or Emotion Guest editors : TBA * Neural Processing Letters website (Website) Topic : TBA Guest editors : TBA * * * * *Click here for more details about International Journal * * * * * *Instruction for paper submission* Paper submission is now available via an official ICONIP 2013 website. Please follow the guideline below; Step 1 Visit the following website for paper submission. Step 2 Make your account of ICONIP 2013 paper submission system. Step 3 Please choose one category which your paper relevant among 4 categories. - ICONIP 2013: submission for regular papers - Special Session: submission for special sessions - Tutorial - Workshop Step 4 Fill up your paper information and authors' information and submit it. Don't forget to choose groups (Oral or Poster) and topics. Step 5 Confirmation letter will be sent to you by e-mail. You modify your paper until deadline of paper submission, 30 June 2013. *ICONIP **2013 **Online Paper Submission * We look forward to welcoming you to ICONIP 2013 in Daegu! [image: ?? ??? 6] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 509689 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 35107 bytes Desc: not available URL: From nico.schmidt at uzh.ch Fri Jun 21 04:55:35 2013 From: nico.schmidt at uzh.ch (Nico Schmidt) Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:55:35 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Invitation to eSMCs Summer School on Embodiment and Morphological Computation Message-ID: <51C41507.2060504@uzh.ch> eSMCs Summer School 2013 on Embodiment and Morphological Computation, September 22-28,2013 _summerschool2013.esmcs.eu_ *Invitation* We cordially invite you to the summer school "Embodiment and Morphological Computation", which will take place at the University of Zurich, Switzerland in September 2013. The school will give a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the art in the fields of embodied cognition, morphological computation and neuronal mechanisms of enactive cognition. In addition it aims at connecting renowned researchers in the field with students and post-docs who are interested in the corresponding subjects. The school will be the third in a series of summer schools funded and organized by the EU FP-7 project "Extending sensorimotor contingencies to cognition - eSMCs" (esmcs.eu ). This year the school is jointly organized by the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Zurich (www.ailab.ch ) and the Dept. of Neurophysiology at the UKE Hamburg (uke.de/neurophysiology ). *Content* The five-day school will be structured around the following themes: 1. embodiment and morphology 2. active perception and sensorimotor contingencies 3. information theory 4. neuroscience of motor cognition 5. embodiment and awareness The school will comprise keynote lectures in the mornings and workshops in the afternoons, which serve for in-depth discussions of topics from the keynote lectures. The workshops will feature hands-on tutorials where students will have the opportunity to build their own robots using the robotic toolkit EmbedIT (embed-it.ch/ ) to study the impact of morphology on locomotion behavior. Participation in the school will be free of charge, but participants will have to cover their own expenses. *Confirmed Speakers:* Auke Iijspeert, EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland. Josh Bongard, University of Vermont, USA Fumiya Ida, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Marek McGann, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland Wolfgang Prinz, University of M?nster, Germany Daniel Polani, University of Hertfordshire, UK Rajesh Rao, University of Washington, USA Ricarda Schubotz, University of M?nster, Germany Angelo Maravita, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy Catherine Tallon-Baudry, ?cole Normale Sup?rieure, Paris, France Herbert Peremans, University of Antwerp, Belgium Rolf Pfeifer, University of Zurich, Switzerland Helmut Hauser, University of Zurich, Switzerland *Important dates:* - Application deadline: 31.7.2013 - Notification of acceptance: 9.8.2013 - Summer school: 22.9.-28.9.2013 *How to apply:* The school is open to 50 PhD students and post-docs who are working on the themes addressed. Interested participants shall submit written information on their scientific background, projects involved, and motivation to attend. Admission will be on a competitive basis. Applications should be sent via email to esmcs-summerschool at ifi.uzh.ch . Please state on a single page (11pt font): -Your scientific background and degree -Your motivation to come to this school -The topic of your thesis -Any prior knowledge in the field Participation in the school is free. *Further Information**:* All relevant information can be found at summerschool2013.esmcs.eu . For further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us (esmcs-summerschool at ifi.uzh.ch ). Previous schools in this series were "The future of the embodied mind", held 2011 in San Sebasti?n, Spain (summerschool2011.esmcs.eu/ ), and a conjunction with the "Barcelona cognition, brain and technology summer school" in 2012 (bcbt.upf.edu/bcbt11/ ). On behalf of the eSMCs consortium, Rolf Pfeifer, AI-Lab, University of Zurich Andreas Engel, Dept. of Neurophysiology, UKE Hamburg -- Nico Schmidt, Ph.D. Student Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Dept. of Informatics, University of Zurich Andreasstr. 15, CH-8050 Zurich, Switzerland Phone: +41 (0) 44 63 54563 Fax: +41 (0) 44 63 54507 Email: nico.schmidt at uzh.ch Web: http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/ailab/nschmidt -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From redish at umn.edu Fri Jun 21 13:08:31 2013 From: redish at umn.edu (David Redish) Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:08:31 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: New book: (Redish) The Mind with the Brain: How we make decisions and how those decisions go wrong Message-ID: Now available: A. David Redish (2013) _The Mind within the Brain: How we make decisions and how those decisions go wrong_ Oxford University Press ---------------------------- Our choices make us who we are, and yet how we make those choices has remained shrouded in mystery. Over the past decades, a multitude of fields studying decision-making have converged on similar mechanisms, suggesting that decision-making within the mammalian brain (including the human) arises from an interaction of identifiable subsystems. These systems include both those involved in action-selection (Reflexes, Pavlovian, Deliberative, and Procedural) and support systems (Perceptual, Motor, Motivational, and Situation-recognition). The book shows how current science understands these systems, following from the evidence that the mind is instantiated by a physical brain. The fact that we are physical brains has implications for understanding both normal function (imagination, memory, decision-making) and abnormal dysfunction (addiction, gambling, psychiatric disorders), as well as implications for what differentiates humans from other animals, our understanding of morality, and consciousness. Table of Contents: DECISIONS AND THE BRAIN 1. What Is a Decision? 2. The Tale of the Thermostat 3. The Definition of Value 4. Value, Euphoria, and the Do-It-Again Signal 5. Risk and Reward THE DECISION-MAKING SYSTEM 6. Multiple Decision-Making Systems 7. Reflexes 8. Emotion and the Pavlovian Action-Selection System 9. Deliberation 10. The Habits of Our Lives 11. Integrating Information 12. The Stories We Tell 13. Motivation 14. The Tradeoff Between Exploration and Exploitation 15. Self-Control THE BRAIN WITH A MIND OF ITS OWN 16. The Physical Mind 17. Imagination 18. Addiction 19. Gambling and Behavioral Addictions 20. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 21. Computational Psychiatry THE HUMAN CONDITION 22. What Makes Us Human? 23. The Science of Morality 24. The Conundrum of Robotics Epilogue APPENDIX A. Information Processing in Neurons B. Gleaning Information fr om the Brain C. Content-Addressable Memory -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From smednick at ucr.edu Fri Jun 21 13:14:47 2013 From: smednick at ucr.edu (Sara C. Mednick) Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:14:47 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in Sleep and Cognition Message-ID: The Sleep and Cognition (SaC) Lab of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside is soliciting applications from cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and engineers for a postdoctoral research position. The researcher will work with existing and ongoing data sets related to the effect of pharmacology and sleep on memory consolidation. Successful candidates should have experience in applying signal processing and non-linear analysis techniques to EEG recordings, as well as programming skills. Experience in sleep methodology is desirable, but not essential. Researchers must possess a doctoral degree. The University of California offers excellent benefits. Salary is based on research experience. The initial appointment is for 1 year with a possibility of extension. Please send your CV, statement of research interests and the names of three references or make inquires to Sara C. Mednick smednick at ucr.edu. Thank you. Sara Mednick -- Assistant Professor University of California, Riverside Department of Psychology Sleep and Cognition Lab www.saramednick.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Sun Jun 23 06:17:59 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 12:17:59 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: TPNC 2013: 3rd call for papers Message-ID: <8737EC87A66B4B16859BD6166B4588EA@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ************************************************************************* 2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF NATURAL COMPUTING TPNC 2013 C?ceres, Spain December 3-5, 2013 Organized by: Computer Architecture and Logic Design Group (ARCO) University of Extremadura Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics (GRLMC) Rovira i Virgili University http://grammars.grlmc.com/tpnc2013/ ********************************************************************* AIMS: TPNC is a conference series intending to cover the wide spectrum of computational principles, models and techniques inspired by information processing in nature. TPNC 2013 will reserve significant room for young scholars at the beginning of their career. It aims at attracting contributions to nature-inspired models of computation, synthesizing nature by means of computation, nature-inspired materials, and information processing in nature. VENUE: TPNC 2013 will take place in C?ceres, in Western Spain, 300 kms. to the southwest of Madrid and 100 kms. to the Portuguese border. The old city is a UNESCO World Heritage site. SCOPE: Topics of either theoretical, experimental, or applied interest include, but are not limited to: * Nature-inspired models of computation: - amorphous computing - cellular automata - chaos and dynamical systems based computing - evolutionary computing - membrane computing - neural computing - optical computing - swarm intelligence * Synthesizing nature by means of computation: - artificial chemistry - artificial immune systems - artificial life * Nature-inspired materials: - computing with DNA - nanocomputing - physarum computing - quantum computing and quantum information - reaction-diffusion computing * Information processing in nature: - developmental systems - fractal geometry - gene assembly in unicellular organisms - rough/fuzzy computing in nature - synthetic biology - systems biology * Applications of natural computing to: algorithms, bioinformatics, control, cryptography, design, economics, graphics, hardware, learning, logistics, optimization, pattern recognition, programming, robotics, telecommunications etc. A flexible "theory to/from practice" approach would be the perfect focus for the expected contributions. STRUCTURE: TPNC 2013 will consist of: ? invited talks ? invited tutorials ? peer-reviewed contributions INVITED SPEAKERS: Risto Miikkulainen (Austin), Evolving Neural Networks (tutorial) Yew-Soon Ong (Singapore), Advances in Memetic Computation Xin Yao (Birmingham), Evolutionary Algorithm Portfolios for Numerical Optimisation PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: Selim G. Akl (Kingston, CA) Thomas B?ck (Leiden, NL) Peter J. Bentley (London, UK) Hans-Georg Beyer (Dornbirn, AT) Mauro Birattari (Brussels, BE) Jinde Cao (Nanjing, CN) Vladimir Cherkassky (Minneapolis, US) Sung-Bae Cho (Seoul, KR) John A. Clark (York, UK) Carlos A. Coello Coello (Mexico DF, MX) David W. Corne (Edinburgh, UK) Peter Dayan (London, UK) Bernard De Baets (Ghent, BE) Andries P. Engelbrecht (Pretoria, ZA) Enrique Herrera-Viedma (Granada, ES) Yaochu Jin (Guildford, UK) Nikola Kasabov (Auckland, NZ) Vladik Kreinovich (El Paso, US) Kwong-Sak Leung (Hong Kong, CN) Xiaohui Liu (London, UK) Manuel Lozano (Granada, ES) Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, ES, chair) Julian F. Miller (York, UK) Frank Neumann (Adelaide, AU) Leandro Nunes de Castro (S?o Paulo, BR) Nikhil R. Pal (Kolkata, IN) G?nther Palm (Ulm, DE) Jos? Carlos Pr?ncipe (Gainesville, US) Helge Ritter (Bielefeld, DE) Conor Ryan (Limerick, IE) Hava Siegelmann (Amherst, US) Moshe Sipper (Beer-Sheva, IL) Thomas St?tzle (Brussels, BE) Ponnuthurai N. Suganthan (Singapore, SG) Johan Suykens (Leuven, BE) Kay Chen Tan (Singapore, SG) Dacheng Tao (Sydney, AU) Jon Timmis (York, UK) Marco Tomassini (Lausanne, CH) Michael D. Vose (Knoxville, US) Michael N. Vrahatis (Patras, GR) Harald Weinfurter (Munich, DE) Rolf W?rtz (Bochum, DE) Jun Zhang (Guangzhou, CN) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Adrian Horia Dediu (Tarragona) Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, co-chair) Bianca Truthe (Magdeburg) Miguel A. Vega-Rodr?guez (C?ceres, co-chair) Florentina Lilica Voicu (Tarragona) LOCAL COMMITTEE: V?ctor Berrocal-Plaza Jos? M. Chaves-Gonz?lez Juan A. G?mez-Pulido David L. Gonz?lez-?lvarez Jos? M. Granado-Criado Alejandro Hidalgo-Paniagua Jos? M. Lanza-Guti?rrez ?lvaro Rubio-Largo Sergio Santander-Jim?nez Miguel A. Vega-Rodr?guez (chair) SUBMISSIONS: Authors are invited to submit non-anonymized papers in English presenting original and unpublished research. Papers should not exceed 12 single-spaced pages (including eventual appendices) and should be formatted according to the standards of the Springer Verlag's LNCS series (see http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0). Submissions have to be uploaded to: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tpnc2013 PUBLICATIONS: A volume of proceedings published by Springer in the LNCS series will be available by the time of the conference. A special issue of the journal Soft Computing (Springer, 2011 impact factor: 1.880) will be later published containing peer-reviewed extended versions of some of the papers contributed to the conference. Submissions to it will be by invitation. REGISTRATION: The period for registration is open from April 17 to December 3, 2013. The registration form can be found at: http://grammars.grlmc.com/tpnc2013/Registration DEADLINES: Paper submission: July 16, 2013 (23:59h, CET) Notification of paper acceptance or rejection: August 27, 2013 Final version of the paper for the LNCS proceedings: September 3, 2013 Early registration: September 10, 2013 Late registration: November 19, 2013 Starting of the conference: December 3, 2013 End of the conference: December 5, 2013 Submission to the post-conference special issue: March 5, 2014 QUESTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION: florentinalilica.voicu at urv.cat POSTAL ADDRESS: TPNC 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: Departament d?Economia i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya Universidad de Extremadura Universitat Rovira i Virgili From juergen at idsia.ch Sun Jun 23 03:52:26 2013 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Juergen Schmidhuber) Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 09:52:26 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Master's in Artificial Intelligence - Swiss AI Lab IDSIA & University of Lugano, Switzerland Message-ID: <5AF36B4B-D1E8-4345-97D4-1A5B4FE991F5@idsia.ch> Starting Fall 2013 - application deadline 1 July: Master's Degree in Computer Science with a Specialization in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Master of Science in Informatics with a Specialization in Intelligent Systems (IS) Topics include Computer Vision, Machine Learning & Pattern Recognition, Neural Networks, Optimization, Evolutionary Computation, Probabilistic Reasoning, Robotics. Taught by award-winning experts of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA and the University of Lugano (USI), in the scenic southern part of Switzerland, the world's leading science nation. More info including instructions and deadlines: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/aimaster.html J?rgen Schmidhuber -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carlos.alzate at ie.ibm.com Mon Jun 24 09:40:45 2013 From: carlos.alzate at ie.ibm.com (Carlos Alzate) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:40:45 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Positions in Data Mining/Machine Learning at the IBM Research Ireland laboratory. Message-ID: The Smarter Cities Technology Centre (SCTC) at the IBM Dublin Research Laboratory, Ireland is accepting applications for full-time researchers from entry-level through principal investigators. We are hiring researchers in data management, statistical analysis, predictive modeling, data mining and machine learning. We are especially interested in candidates with strong experience in working with real-world data, and/or with a solid knowledge of systems and software for dealing with huge amounts of data (Terrabytes and more). Experience with data management and analysis in the context of Smarter Cities (transportation and mobility services, smart grids, intelligent building, water management) is an additional asset. Projects will involve identifying applications of data-intensive machine learning, invention of effective algorithms for these applications, and incorporation of these algorithms in distributed and parallel software systems. The successful candidate will have demonstrated ability to define research plans, carry out leading research, and publish research results through professional journals, academic conferences, and patents. As a researcher you will be expected to organize challenging problems, develop new solutions, and work with business & development teams to ensure these solutions have a significant impact. The Smarter Cities Technology Centre is part of IBM Research and was created to take on the challenges of our increasingly urbanized world. We are an R&D organization that works closely with city authorities, universities, and businesses to advance science & technology for smarter urban and environmental systems. We aim to expand our highly skilled and cross-disciplinary team to as many as 200 researchers and software engineers. Areas we currently focus on include: data mining and machine learning; statistical modeling & organization, control and decision systems, social, semantic web; distributed information systems; knowledge & data engineering, geospatial analysis and organization simulation, real-time computing, and urban and environmental systems, e.g., water, energy, transportation. We offer: - A stimulating, cross-disciplinary environment in a leading research organization - Opportunities for a unique combination of scientific and industrial research into real-world problems - Excellent ties to research groups worldwide - Up-to-date infrastructure and resources - The ability to take part in large-scale international research projects Required - Doctorate Degree - At least 1 year experience?in?publication in top-tier conferences and journals - English: Fluent Preferred - At least 1 year experience?in?working with real-world data, particularly spatio-temporal data - At least 1 year experience?in?statistical modeling software (e.g., SAS, SPSS, R) - At least 2 years experience?in?Java or C++ - At least 1 year experience?in?systems and software for handling huge amounts of data (e.g., Hadoop, S4, Storms) Applications can be submitted online following this link to the job posting on the IBM career website: https://jobs3.netmedia1.com/cp/faces/job_summary?job_id=RES-0577457 From vtrianni at ulb.ac.be Mon Jun 24 03:55:00 2013 From: vtrianni at ulb.ac.be (Vito Trianni) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 09:55:00 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop on Collective Behaviours and Social Dynamics @ECAL 2013 - News and info References: Message-ID: <847A803B-6960-429C-BD1F-E454BC257755@ulb.ac.be> Workshop on Collective Behaviours and Social Dynamics @ECAL 2013 - News and info 1. News: Confirmed Invited Speakers 2. Info: Call for Contributions - deadline is approaching 3. Info: Workshop program ========================================================== 1. News: Confirmed Invited Speakers The workshop will feature two outstanding invited speakers covering the collective behaviours and social dynamics (see also the program below): Dr. Simon Garnier from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University (http://www.theswarmlab.com) will give a talk titled "Ant wuz here! Following the trail of recent ant network research". Dr. Andrea Baronchelli from the Northeastern University (https://sites.google.com/site/andreabaronchelli), will give a talk on "Modeling interaction networks of mobile individuals: from artificial agents to human gatherings". ========================================================== 2. Call for contributions - deadline is approaching: June the 30th, 2013! Workshop on Collective Behaviours and Social Dynamics ECAL 2013, the 12th European Conference on Artificial Life Taormina, Italy, September 2-6, 2013 http://laral.istc.cnr.it/collective-and-swarm-robotics.html === About the Workshop === This workshop is at the intersection of several disciplines, from ethology to swarm intelligence, from collective robotics to evolutionary linguistics. Despite very heterogeneous, these disciplines share a common ground when they refer to the mechanisms and the dynamics of social interaction. Despite the similar scientific questions, the study of collective behaviour and social dynamics is characterised by very different approaches, and few places for discussion and comparison are available. Therefore, the workshop represents a unique occasion in which such a juxtaposition of diverse disciplines can take place. The goal of the workshop is to confront the current trends and advancements in the study of collective behaviour and social dynamics, and to promote cross-fertilisation and contamination between disciplines and approaches that rarely meet together. We solicit presentation proposals about both published (e.g., to a top-ranking journal) and unpublished work. Selected presentations of unpublished work will be invited to submit a full-length paper to the Swarm Intelligence journal, and will benefit of a fast-track reviewing process. The workshop is supported by the European Science Foundation (ESF) under the EUROCORES program EuroBioSAS. http://www.esf.org/coordinating-research/eurocores/running-programmes/eurobiosas.html === Submission Instructions === Applicants are asked to submit an abstract or short paper (up to 2 pages) of the planned presentation. Specify whether the work has been already published elsewhere. Important Dates: ? Submission due: June 30, 2013. ? Notification of acceptance: July 15, 2013 ? Conference: September 2-6, 2013 Applications should be submitted via e-mail to: Workshop.Collective.Robotics at gmail.com For additional information, see http://laral.istc.cnr.it/collective-and-swarm-robotics.html ========================================================== 3. Workshop program. This full day workshop features two invited talks and selected presentations from submitted contributions. At the end of the day, an open discussion among the workshop participants will cover the workshop topics, trying to identify common aspects, peculiarities and trends in the study of collective behaviours and social dynamics. 9:00 welcome notes by the workshop organisers 9:15 keynote talk by Dr. Simon Garnier: "Ant wuz here! Following the trail of recent ant network research" 10:00 coffee break 10:30 session on collective behaviours in natural and artificial systems 13:00 lunch break 13:45 keynote talk by Dr. Andrea Baronchelli: "Modeling interaction networks of mobile individuals: from artificial agents to human gatherings" 14:30 session on social dynamics: from opinion sharing to language evolution 16:00 coffee break 16:30 round table 17:30 conclusions by the workshop organisers ======================================================================== Vito Trianni, Ph.D. vito.trianni@(no_spam)istc.cnr.it ISTC-CNR http://www.istc.cnr.it - http://laral.istc.cnr.it/trianni currently visiting at: IRIDIA-CoDE, CP 194/6 vtrianni@(no_spam)ulb.ac.be Universit? Libre de Bruxelles Tel: +32 (0)2 650 2712 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50 Fax: +32 (0)2 650 2715 1050 Bruxelles Belgium ======================================================================== From b.graham at cs.stir.ac.uk Mon Jun 24 12:13:52 2013 From: b.graham at cs.stir.ac.uk (Bruce Graham) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 17:13:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: <3891.139.153.254.219.1372090432.squirrel@www.cs.stir.ac.uk> Dear all, The following 3 year post is available in Scotland. Note that I will be at the CNS meeting in Paris and can answer queries there. Thanks, Bruce Graham ------------------------------------------------------------------- Post-doctoral research assistant in computational neuroscience (3 year FTA): Location: School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Scotland, U.K. Job number: SCH00213 Full time, Fixed Term Contract (expected dates 01/10/2013 - 31/09/2016) Grade 6 ?24,049 - ?29,541 Closing date: 26th July 2013 The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council-funded project ?Balancing resource and energy usage for optimal performance in a neural system?, will use a tightly integrated programme of experiments and computational modelling to study activity-dependent regulation in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) in the mammalian auditory brainstem, which plays a key role in sound source localisation (SSL). We will examine how different intrinsic plasticity mechanisms, evoked by incoming neural activity, obtain satisfactory functional performance in this nucleus from a limited set of noisy resources (neurons, ion channels, synapses etc) while minimising energy usage. This project is a collaboration between computational modellers at Stirling (Dr Bruce Graham) and Edinburgh (Dr Matthias Hennig), and the experimental lab of Prof. Ian Forsythe at the University of Leicester. The PDRA at Stirling will carry out the computational modelling. A PDRA at Leicester will be conducting the experiments. Continuous interaction between the two PDRAs will be necessary. Essential: PhD in relevant area (or close to completion of PhD). The candidate should have good computational modelling skills (preferably in compartment modelling of neurons); be familiar with numerical mathematics and dynamic and stochastic systems; have proven computer programming ability in a high-level language such as Java or C++; demonstrated ability to work both independently and as part of a team and an aptitude for working across the life sciences interface; a proven track record in this field (e.g. through peer-reviewed publications of international quality), and an ability to present their work to a specialist audience. They must be willing to travel to other project sites for collaboration (short visits). Desirable: Strong candidates would demonstrate one or more of the following: A sound knowledge of the nervous system and neurons; experience with the NEURON simulator and MATLAB software; a knowledge of parameter identification and optimisation techniques for modelling.; proven ability to work in an inter-disciplinary team, across the life sciences interface.; proven communication skills with non-specialists. Additional Information For informal enquires, or to discuss how you might fit into our project, please contact the project principal investigator, Dr Bruce Graham (01786 467432, b.graham at cs.stir.ac.uk). To apply, go to http://www.stir.ac.uk/about/jobs/list/ (Postdoctoral Research Assistant) -- Dr Bruce Graham, Reader (b.graham at cs.stir.ac.uk) Computing Science and Mathematics, School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA phone: +44 1786 467 432 fax: +44 1786 464 551 Coauthor of "Principles of Computational Modelling in Neuroscience", CUP July 2011 -- The University of Stirling is ranked in the top 50 in the world in The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 table, which ranks the world's best 100 universities under 50 years old. The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. From drasmuss at cs.uwaterloo.ca Mon Jun 24 14:07:16 2013 From: drasmuss at cs.uwaterloo.ca (Daniel Rasmussen) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:07:16 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: New book release: "How to build a brain: A neural architecture for biological cognition" Message-ID: <51C88AD4.8040601@uwaterloo.ca> Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce the release of a new book based on the work in our lab: Chris Eliasmith. How to build a brain: A neural architecture for biological cognition. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2013. One goal of researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence is to build theoretical models that are able to explain the flexibility and adaptiveness of biological systems. "How to build a brain" provides a detailed guided exploration of a new cognitive architecture that takes biological detail seriously, while addressing cognitive phenomena. Examples of such models are provided, and they are shown to explain a wide range of data. These models are not introduced as independent considerations of brain function, but instead integrated to give rise to what is currently the world's largest functional brain model.[1] All of the software used in the book is available for free at http://www.nengo.ca. The book includes 8 detailed, hands-on tutorials that exploit this software, providing practical experience with the concepts and models presented throughout. In addition, all the source code for this project is available at https://github.com/ctn-waterloo/nengo_1.4 for those looking to work with (or contribute to) the development version. We hope this book will spark some interesting conversations, and eagerly invite any comments or discussion. Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience University of Waterloo [1] Eliasmith,C. T.C. Stewart, X. Choo, T. Bekolay, T. DeWolf, Y. Tang, and D. Rasmussen. A large-scale model of the functioning brain. Science, 338:1202-1205, 2012. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlsp at neuro.kuleuven.be Wed Jun 26 02:59:43 2013 From: mlsp at neuro.kuleuven.be (2013 IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning fo Signal Processing) Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 08:59:43 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: MLSP DATA COMPETITION 2013 Message-ID: <51CA915F.1040200@neuro.kuleuven.be> MLSP DATA COMPETITION The MLSP 2013 data competition organizing committee is announcing the MLSP 2013 Bird Classification Challenge. The goal in this challenge is to predict the set of bird species that are present given a ten-second audio clip. The detail information is on the Kaggle.com page https://www.kaggle.com/c/mlsp-2013-birds. The MLSP 2013 organizing committee is providing three awards to competition winners: 1st place: 700 USD 2nd place: 600 USD 3rd place: 500 USD Link: http://mlsp2013.conwiz.dk/competition.htm From robbie at bcs.rochester.edu Wed Jun 26 09:29:58 2013 From: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu (Robert Jacobs) Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 09:29:58 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: programmer position available Message-ID: <51CAECD6.8060804@bcs.rochester.edu> The Center for Visual Science at the University of Rochester is seeking a programmer to develop software for vision research. The position involves working with faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students on the development of novel and sophisticated applications to study visual information processing in the eye and brain (for example, see http://www.cvs.rochester.edu/research.html). An ideal candidate would have familiarity with both Macintosh and PC operating systems, 3D graphics (ideally OpenGL), Matlab, C++, and hardware/software interfacing for real-time control of data acquisition. The successful candidate will have considerable independence, working in a vigorous and exciting research environment.Competitive salary commensurate with experience. Please send applications or queries about the position to Debbie Shannon. (debbie at cvs.rochester.edu). -- Robert Jacobs Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0268 email: robbie at bcs.rochester.edu phone: 585-275-0753 web: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/robbie/jacobslab/people.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From e.vasilaki at gmail.com Thu Jun 27 02:12:21 2013 From: e.vasilaki at gmail.com (Eleni Vasilaki) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 07:12:21 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Computational modelling: from neurons to systems and behaviour, 11-13 September, Sheffield, UK Message-ID: *Computational modelling: from neurons to systems and behaviour 3rd NAMASEN Training Workshop, Sheffield, UK 11-13 September 2013 * NAMASEN (http://www.namasen.net/) is a multi-disciplinary Initial Training Network (ITN) funded under the EU FP7 Marie Curie Actions. Its 3rd workshop, hosted by the University of Sheffield, UK, is open to PhD students and researchers and will focus on theory and models in Neuroscience. The aim of the workshop is to provide a view of current computational and theoretical models that can be employed to tackle key biological questions such as neural plasticity and its role in memory formation, dendritic and neural computation, and reinforcement learning and its role in decision-making and shaping behaviour. List of confirmed speakers in alphabetical order: *Claudia Clopath, Imperial College, UK Peter Dayan Gatsby Unit, University College London, UK Wulfram Gerstner, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland Michele Giugliano, University of Antwerp, Belgium Kevin Gurney, University of Sheffield, UK Dieter Jaeger, Emory University, USA Robert Legenstein, Graz University of Technology, Austria * *Jean Pascal Pfister, University Bern, Switzerland Panayiota Poirazi, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Greece Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield, UK Magnus Richardson, University of Warwick, UK Mark Van Rossum, University of Edinburgh, UK Idan Segev, Hebrew University, Israel Harel Shouval, The University of Texas, USA* The last day of the event, Friday the 13th, will consist of two soft skills sessions. Coffee breaks, refreshments and a light lunch will be offered to all participants. Registration is free for participants outside NAMASEN. For more information please see: http://www.namasen.net/drupal/sites/WorkshopShefffield2013/index.html. We look forward to welcome you in Sheffield. The organization committee: Eleni Vasilaki ? Tiago Gehring - Panayiota Poirazi -- Dr Eleni Vasilaki, Lecturer Web: www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~eleni -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wray.buntine at nicta.com.au Tue Jun 25 03:46:19 2013 From: wray.buntine at nicta.com.au (Wray Buntine) Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 17:46:19 +1000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for submissions: Asian Conference on Machine Learning 2013 Message-ID: <51C94ACB.4070204@nicta.com.au> Call for contributions The 5th Asian Conference on Machine Learning (ACML2013) will be held on 13-15 November 2013, at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. The conference aims at providing a leading international forum for researchers in machine learning and related fields to share their new ideas and achievements. To support this, a best paper award will be given, which apart from technical novelty also includes quality of the experimental work, for instance reproducibility. Moreover, as in previous years a selection of papers will be asked to submit to a special issue of the Machine Learning Journal. Submissions from other than the Asia-Pacific regions are also highly encouraged. The conference calls for research papers reporting original investigation results. http://acml2013.conference.nicta.com.au/ Organising Committee General Co-chairs: Wray Buntine (NICTA and ANU) and Bob Williamson (ANU and NICTA) PC Co-chairs: Tu Bao Ho (JAIST, Japan) and Cheng Soon Ong (NICTA) Tutorial and Workshop Chair: Lexing Xie (ANU) Publication Chair: Justin Domke (NICTA) Invited speakers Ralf Herbrich (Machine Learning Science at Amazon) Chih-Jen Lin (National Taiwan University) Geoff Holmes (University of Waikato) Important Dates Paper Submission 24 July 2013 Notification 25 Sept 2013 Conference ACML Tutorials and Workshops 13 Nov 2013 ACML Conference 14-15 Nov 2013 More Details http://acml2013.conference.nicta.com.au/call_for_papers For questions and suggestions, please write to: acml2013.program.chairs at gmail.com ________________________________ The information in this e-mail may be confidential and subject to legal professional privilege and/or copyright. National ICT Australia Limited accepts no liability for any damage caused by this email or its attachments. From wwwkiycom.yobi at gmail.com Thu Jun 27 05:03:26 2013 From: wwwkiycom.yobi at gmail.com (In Youb Kim) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 18:03:26 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline of regular and special session paper, extended abstract submission: D-3 In-Reply-To: References: <51cbf961.2a86320a.0f04.ffffb03eSMTPIN_ADDED_MISSING@mx.google.com> Message-ID: Call for regular and special session paper, extended abstract 30 June 2013. Further extension will be impossible after 30 June. Do not miss the last opportunity to be a part of the ICONIP 2013. Contributions are invited in the following area (but not limited to): ? Neuroscience ? Neuro-psychology ? Industrial applications ? Cognitive science ? Demonstration ? Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence ? Learning Theory, Algorithms, and Architectures ? Computational Neuroscience and Brain Imaging ? Vision, Speech and Signal Processing ? Control, Robotics and Hardware Technologies ? Novel approaches and Applications If your researches are involved to following area, please participate in following special sessions: SS1: Artificial Neural Networks and Pattern Recognition in Geosciences SS2: Neuro-Robotics SS3: Neuroengineering SS4: Learning Analytics: From Personal Learning Data to Open Educational Linked Data SS5: Intelligent State Estimation and Intrusion Detection for Control Systems SS6: Applied Soft Computing in Medical Informatics (ASC-MI) SS7: Brain Inspired Systems - Exploring Functional Roles of Brain Dynamics and Implementation of Brain Functions SS8: Spiking Neural Networks SS9: Extracting Latent Features from Multi-Dimensional Data SS10: Machine Intelligence for Pattern Recognition and Image Processing: Emerging Techniques, Principles and Application SS11: Human-Robot Interaction: Cognitive modeling for Human Interacting Robot SS12: Brain Computer Interface and Applications SS13: Brain Computer Interface and Applications SS14: Deep Learning of Representations * * *Click here for more details about Special Sessions * * * *Instruction for paper submission* Paper submission is now available via an official ICONIP 2013 website. Please follow the guideline below; Step 1 Visit the following website for paper submission. Step 2 Make your account of ICONIP 2013 paper submission system. Step 3 Please choose one category which your paper relevant among 4 categories. - ICONIP 2013: submission for regular papers - Special Session: submission for special sessions - Tutorial - Workshop Step 4 Fill up your paper information and authors? information and submit it. Don?t forget to choose groups (Oral or Poster) and topics. Step 5 Confirmation letter will be sent to you by e-mail. Modify your paper until deadline of paper submission, 30 June 2013. *ICONIP 2013 Online Paper Submission * We look forward to welcoming you to ICONIP 2013 in Daegu! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From s.p.wilson at sheffield.ac.uk Thu Jun 27 15:25:20 2013 From: s.p.wilson at sheffield.ac.uk (Stuart Wilson) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 20:25:20 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Symposium on Emergent Social Behaviours in Bio-hybrid Systems Message-ID: <58E6EB2F-3BEA-40C7-831E-496CCA7A9E98@sheffield.ac.uk> Dear colleagues, It is our pleasure to announce the forthcoming 'Symposium on Emergent Social Behaviours in Bio-hybrid Systems'. The symposium will run as a satellite to the Living Machines 2013 conference (http://www.csnetwork.eu/livingmachines/conf2013), and will take place on Friday 2nd August in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building, Imperial College London. Registration will be on a first-come-first-served basis, so please book your place early! For more details please see: http://www.csnetwork.eu/livingmachines/conf2013/workshop This symposium will explore the emergence of biohybrid societies comprising living systems (i.e., organisms) and embodied artificial systems (i.e., robots). Biohybrid societies research is a new science, which poses exciting new questions at the interface between computational biology, biomimetic and bio-inspired robotics, swarm robotics and swarm intelligence, and artificial intelligence and artificial life. How can living and artificial systems self-organise to generate complex aggregate behaviours? By what processes can mixed societies maintain group-level homeostasis? How might organisms and robots compete and/or cooperate in order to achieve common goals? What can biohybrid societies research reveal about the organisation of natural social systems? How can control over the individual be used to exert control over the group? By what laws might biohybrid societies emerge, develop, and evolve? Biohybrid societies research also raises important ethical questions about potential benefits to and impacts upon animal welfare, about the safety of biohybrid systems, and about the potential impacts of biohybrid technologies for e.g., agriculture, entertainment, and health. With these questions in mind, the symposium will feature invited talks tackling ?core? themes, as well as exploratory short-talks at open invitation, a poster session, and a structured panel discussion addressing broader concepts and potential impacts. Confirmed speakers: Terence Deacon, University of California, Berkeley. title TBC Chrisantha Fernando, Queen Mary University of London. Darwinian Neurodynamics Andrew Adamatzky, University of the West of England. Advances in Physarum Machines Thomas Schmickl, University of Graz. From Biology & Robots to Biohybrid Systems Roderich Gro?, University of Sheffield. Collective Behavior: Minimalism, Evolution and Science Automation Jos? Halloy, Universite Paris Diderot. Biological and technological challenges of social bio-hybrid systems of animals and robots generating collective intelligence We look forward to meeting you in London, Stuart Wilson Thomas Schmickl Jos? Halloy -- Dr. Stuart P. Wilson (Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience) Department of Psychology (Room 2-42) University of Sheffield Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 6595 Fax: +44 (0) 114 276 6515 Email: S.P.Wilson at Sheffield.ac.uk Group: abrg.group.shef.ac.uk/people/stuart/ Personal: spwilson.staff.shef.ac.uk Departmental: www.sheffield.ac.uk/psychology/staff/academic/stuart_wilson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maass at igi.tugraz.at Fri Jun 28 07:16:41 2013 From: maass at igi.tugraz.at (Wolfgang Maass) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 13:16:41 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc/Univ. Assistant position for Machine Learning applications in Neuroscience Message-ID: <51CD7099.1080905@igi.tugraz.at> I am inviting applications for a Postdoc/University Assistant position in my team at the Graz University of Technology (Faculty for Computer Science) for research on Machine Learning with Applications in Computational Neuroscience. This position will be partially funded by the EU Flagship Project "Human Brain Project" http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/ and by the EU-Project BrainScaleS http://brainscales.kip.uni-heidelberg.de/index.html This Postdoc position can be combined with a half-time position as University Assistant (Universit?ts-Assistent) at the Graz University of Technology. Such position usually runs for 4 years, involves teaching a course in Machine Learning, and provides a good entrance stage for a career as University Professor (including a Habilitation). One of our goals in Machine Learning is to develop for our collaboration with leading Labs in Experimental Neuroscience new methods for the analysis of data, especially for new recording methods such as 2-photon calcium imaging from hundreds of neurons in vivo over extended periods of time (even while the animal learns new behaviours). Another goal of our Lab is to apply methods and insights from Machine Learning to elucidate through theoretical models and computer simulations the emergence of computational organization in networks of neurons in the brain, and to improve our understanding of various learning processes in the brain on the basis of experimental data from neuroscience and cognitive science. We have a very active research group in this area, involving also Prof. Robert Legenstein and several postdocs and phd students. Expected qualifications: Excellent research skills, very good knowledge in Machine Lerning (including a Phd in a related area), a genuine interest in answering fundamental open questions about learning processes in the brain, and the capability to work in an interdisciplinary research team and in the context of international research projects are expected. Experience in programming, computer simulations or data analysis will be helpful. Please send your CV, a list of your publications (and pdf's for publications that are not freely online available), information about your grades, a letter describing your scientific interests and goals, and names and email addresses of referees by July 7 to my assistant Regina Heidinger: regina.heidinger at igi.tugraz.at -- Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Maass Institut fuer Grundlagen der Informationsverarbeitung Technische Universitaet Graz Inffeldgasse 16b , A-8010 Graz, Austria Tel.: ++43/316/873-5811 Fax ++43/316/873-5805 http://www.igi.tugraz.at/maass/Welcome.html From salah at boun.edu.tr Fri Jun 28 04:41:20 2013 From: salah at boun.edu.tr (Ali Salah) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:41:20 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: 4th Int. Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding (HBU'2013) - Extended Deadline for Submissions Message-ID: Dear colleagues, We have received many requests for deadline extension, particularly from colleagues at the CVPR. Please find the updated CFP for the Human Behavior Understanding Workshop below. The deadline is extended to 5th of July. Best, Albert -------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Papers: 4th Int. Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding (HBU'2013) to be held in conjunction with ACM Multimedia'2013, 22 October, Barcelona, Spain "Focus Theme: Interactions in arts, creativity, entertainment and edutainment" http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/hbu/2013/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Short Description: The Fourth Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding, organized as a satellite to ACM MM'2013, will gather researchers dealing with the problem of modeling human behavior under its multiple facets (expression of emotions, display of complex social and relational behaviors, performance of individual or joint actions, etc.), with particular attention to interactions in arts, creativity, entertainment and edutainment. Concrete examples are interactive art installations that sense and respond to their viewers in novel ways, persuasive and serious games, affect-sensing systems with educational goals, gesture-sensing tutoring systems, healthcare systems that improve the patients? physical or cognitive well-being, playful interaction settings that serve beneficial purposes, to name a few. The HBU Workshops, previously organized as satellite to ICPR, AMI, and IROS Conferences, have a unique aspect of fostering cross-pollination of different disciplines, bringing together researchers of multimedia, robotics, HCI, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, interaction design, ambient intelligence, and psychology. The diversity of human behavior, the richness of multi-modal data that arises from its analysis, and the multitude of applications that demand rapid progress in this area ensure that the HBU Workshops provide a timely and relevant discussion and dissemination platform. Keynotes: Dr. Pushmeet Kohli, Microsoft Research Cambridge Dr. Antonio Camurri, Univ. of Genova, DIBRIS, Casa Paganini - InfoMus Research Centre Topics: The covered topics would span one or more items from the following topic dimensions: Human Behavior Analysis Systems ? Action and activity recognition ? Affect analysis ? Social signal processing ? Face analysis ? Gestures and haptic interaction ? Voice and speech analysis ? Learning and adaptation ? Gaze, attention and saliency Theory and Methodology of Human Interactive Behaviors ? Theoretical frameworks of behavior analysis ? Data collection, annotation, and benchmarking ? User studies and human factors ? Interaction design Interactive Applications ? Visual and digital arts ? Games and entertainment ? Healthcare and well-being ? Education ? Creativity ? Robotics Submissions: Submissions must represent original material. Papers are accepted for review with the understanding that the same work has been neither submitted to, nor published in, another journal or conference. All manuscripts will undergo a rigorous review process by the members of the program committee. Reviewing is single-blind. The submissions will be up to 12 pages, Lecture Notes in Computer Science style. The proceedings will be published by Springer Verlag's LNCS Series. The papers of the workshop will also be indexed by the ACM Digital Library. You can submit a paper now at: https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=hbu2013 Important Dates: July 5, 2013: Submission of full papers (23:59pm GMT) August 2, 2013: Notification of acceptance August 16, 2013: Camera-ready October 22, 2013: Workshop Journal Special Issue: There will be a post-workshop special issue at ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems. All workshop authors will be invited to submit significantly extended and revised versions of their papers to the special issue. Contact: Contact A.A. Salah (salah at boun.edu.tr) about questions regarding HBU. Committees: Organizing Committee: Albert Ali Salah, Bogazi?i Univ., Turkey. Hayley Hung, Delft Univ. of Technology, The Netherlands. Oya Aran, Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland. Hatice Gunes, Queen Mary Univ. of London (QMUL), UK. Program Committee: Elisabeth Andre, Univ. Augsburg, Germany Nick Bryan-Kinns, Queen Mary Univ. London, UK Rafael E. Calvo, Univ. of Sydney, Australia Antonio Camurri, Univ. of Genova, Italy Jeffrey Cohn, Univ. Pittsburgh, USA Simon Colton, Imperial College London, UK Fernando de la Torre, CMU, USA Thierry Dutoit, Univ. Mons, Belgium Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, Univ. of Ottawa, Canada Jordi Gonzalez, UAB-CVC Barcelona, Spain Daniel Gonzalez-Jimenez, Gradiant, Spain Stefan G?bel, TU Darmstadt, Germany Zakia Hammal, CMU, USA Christian Jacquemin, LIMSI-CNRS, France Alejandro Jaimes, Yahoo Barcelona, Spain Dinesh Jayagopi, Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland Ben Kr?se, Univ. of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Cem Keskin, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK Dana Kulic, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada Matei Mancas, Univ. of Mons, Belgium Louis-Philippe Morency, USC, USA Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, RMIT, Australia Frank Nack, Univ. of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Hiroshi Okuno, Kyoto Univ., Japan Isabella Poggi, Univ. Roma Tre, Italy Thierry Pun, Univ. of Geneva, Switzerland Francis Quek, Virginia Tech, USA Ben Schouten, Eindhoven Tech. Univ., the Netherlands Bj?rn Schuller, Tech. Univ. Munich, Germany Alan Smeaton, Dublin City Univ., Ireland Koray Tahiroglu, Aalto Univ., Finland Reiner Wichert, Fraunhofer IGD, Germany Giorgios Yannakakis, Univ. of Malta, Malta -- Dr. Albert Ali Salah Bogazici University, Computer Engineering Dept. 34342 Bebek - Istanbul, Turkey Phone: +90 212 359 (7774) http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~salah/ Bogazici University, Cognitive Science MA Program http://www.cogsci.boun.edu.tr "If you are interested in Cognitive Sciences in Turkey, please consider joining the two communication groups established by the CogSci programs of METU and Bogazici Univ.; one in LinkedIn ( http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4348599) and the other in GoogleGroups: cogsci-news-tr (http://groups.google.com/group/cogsci-news-tr?hl=en)." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Fri Jun 28 16:29:16 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 22:29:16 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: SSTiC 2013: last call Message-ID: <33EB1DB87D5B417C9C4257E2D88047B6@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ********************************************************************* 2013 INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL ON TRENDS IN COMPUTING SSTiC 2013 Tarragona, Spain July 22-26, 2013 Organized by 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 54 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: 6 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: Campus Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virgili Av. Catalunya, 35 43002 Tarragona COURSES AND PROFESSORS: 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 Larry S. Davis (College Park) [intermediate] Video Analysis of Human Activities Paul De Bra (Eindhoven) [intermediate] Adaptive Systems Paul Dourish (Irvine) [introductory] Ubiquitous Computing in a Social Context Max J. Egenhofer (Maine) [introductory/intermediate] Qualitative Spatial Relations: Formalizations and Inferences 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 Ralph Grishman (New York) [intermediate] Information Extraction from Natural Language Francisco Herrera (Granada) [intermediate] Imbalanced Classification: Current Approaches and Open Problems Paul Hudak (Yale) [introductory] Euterpea: From Signals to Symphonies Using Haskell 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 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 Satoru Miyano (Tokyo) [intermediate] How to Hack Cancer Systems with Computational Methods Aloysius K. Mok (Austin) [intermediate] From Real-time Systems to Cyber-physical Systems Hermann Ney (Aachen) [intermediate/advanced] Probabilistic Modelling for Natural Language Processing - with Applications to Speech Recognition, Handwriting Recognition and Machine Translation Cathleen A. Norris (North Texas) & Elliot Soloway (Ann Arbor) [introductory] Primary & Secondary Educational Computing in the Age of Mobilism Jeff Offutt (George Mason) [intermediate] Cutting Edge Research in Engineering of Web Applications Bijan Parsia (Manchester) [introductory] The Semantic Web: Conceptual and Technical Foundations Charles E. Perkins (FutureWei) [intermediate/advanced] Beyond 4G Prabhakar Raghavan (Google) [introductory/intermediate] Web Search and Advertising Phillip Rogaway (Davis) [introductory/intermediate] Provably Secure Symmetric Encryption Gustavo Rossi (La Plata) [intermediate] Topics in Model Driven Web Engineering Kaushik Roy (Purdue) [introductory/intermediate] Low-energy Computing 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) [intermediate/advanced] Visual Crowd Surveillance Ron Shamir (Tel Aviv) [introductory] Revealing Structure in Disease Regulation and Networks Dawn Xiaodong Song (Berkeley) [introductory] Selected Topics in Computer Security Mike Thelwall (Wolverhampton) [introductory] Sentiment Strength Detection for the Social Web Julita Vassileva (Saskatchewan) [introductory/intermediate] Engaging Users in Social Computing Systems Philip Wadler (Edinburgh) [introductory] Topics in Lambda Calculus and Life 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 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 Ronald R. Yager (Iona) [introductory/intermediate] Fuzzy Sets and Soft Computing Philip S. Yu (Illinois Chicago) [advanced] Mining Big Data REGISTRATION: It has to be done at http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/Registration.php Since 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. It is highly convenient to register prior to the event. FEES: Fees may be for the whole week (full-time participant) or per blocks of days (part-time participant). They are a flat rate allowing one to attend all courses within the time window set: 5, 4, 3 or 2 days. Fees vary depending on the deadline. ACCOMMODATION: Information about accommodation is available on the website of the School. CERTIFICATE: Participants will be delivered a certificate of attendance. 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: Departament d?Economia i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virgili From doya at oist.jp Sat Jun 29 06:38:36 2013 From: doya at oist.jp (Kenji Doya) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 10:38:36 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty Position: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Message-ID: The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (http://www.oist.jp) invites applications for a tenured Associate or Full Professor in Applied Mathematics or Statistics. We seek a dynamic scientist with visionary leadership and a sustained record of scholarly achievement in applied mathematics or statistics, including machine learning or data mining. Cutting edge cross-disciplinary approaches based on high-throughput measurements or high-performance computing and a track record of collaborative research with experimentalists are of particular interest. Applicants should have a PhD or equivalent degree, and have demonstrated excellence and imagination in research. Successful candidates will be expected to lead an internationally-recognized research program, to contribute to the teaching and supervision of graduate students, and to participate in the academic life and governance of OIST. Generous institutional support will be provided, including startup costs, researcher salaries, operating costs and space in striking new laboratory buildings. For more information, please refer to the web page: https://groups.oist.jp/facultypositions/professor-applied-mathematics-or-statistics The position will remain open until filled. ---- Kenji Doya Neural Computation Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology 1919-1 Tancha, Onna, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan Phone: +81-98-966-8594; Fax: +81-98-966-2891 https://groups.oist.jp/ncu From thomaskreuz at yahoo.de Sat Jun 29 22:18:52 2013 From: thomaskreuz at yahoo.de (Thomas Kreuz) Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 03:18:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: Connectionists: SPIKY: A freely available graphical user interface for monitoring spike train synchrony In-Reply-To: <1372557666.53770.YahooMailNeo@web171202.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> References: <1372557666.53770.YahooMailNeo@web171202.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1372558732.83389.YahooMailNeo@web171202.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Dear all, ? may I kindly draw your attention to SPIKY, a new and freely available Matlab-based graphical user interface (GUI) which facilitates the application of the recently proposed SPIKE-distance (2013 JNeurophysiol paper) to both simulated and real data. ? On my webpage you can find the Matlab source codes as well as a detailed documentation: ? http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/thomas.kreuz/Source-Code/SPIKY.html ? This improved method opens up several novel possibilities in spike train analysis. Besides a maximum temporal resolution it also allows to estimate spike train synchrony in real-time. ? 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 June 30, 23:59 Pacific Time (tomorrow!). So if this is of any interest to you 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! Any feedback is very welcome! ? Best regards, Thomas Kreuz ? Institute for complex systems, CNR Via Madonna del Piano 10 50119 Sesto Fiorentino (Italy) Tel: +39-349-0748506 Email:?thomas.kreuz at cnr.it Webpage: http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/thomas.kreuz/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ASIM.ROY at asu.edu Sun Jun 30 22:47:32 2013 From: ASIM.ROY at asu.edu (Asim Roy) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2013 02:47:32 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: =?windows-1252?q?Workshop_on_=93Perception_and_co?= =?windows-1252?q?gnition_in_the_brain_=96_integrating_single_cell_recordi?= =?windows-1252?q?ngs=2C_spiking_neurons_and_a_brain_theory=94_at_IJCNN_20?= =?windows-1252?q?13_in_Dallas=2C_Texas?= Message-ID: <4AD8F84F0AA4E1448BD8131BA7E55EB40B0FF6A8@exmbt02.asurite.ad.asu.edu> The following post-conference workshop will be held on August 9, Friday, 2013 at the IJCNN 2013 in Dallas, Texas. One might be able to register for this workshop separately. Please check the IJCNN website. Anyone interested in this workshop can contact us. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ?Perception and cognition in the brain ? integrating single cell recordings, spiking neurons and a brain theory? IJCNN 2013, Dallas, Texas, Aug 9, 2013 Sponsors ? 1. Autonomous Machine Learning (AML) Section of INNS (International Neural Network Society) 2. Spiking Neural Network SIG of INNS Presenters: Narayan Srinivasa, HRL Laboratories, USA (http://www.frontiersin.org/people/NarayanSrinivasa/63753/profile ) Moran Cerf, New York University, USA (http://www.morancerf.com/cv.php) Asim Roy, Arizona State University, USA (http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.asim.roy) Abstract: Even after decades of research, the mechanisms by which perception and cognition arise in the brain have been elusive to us. This workshop will present research in three separate but related areas to get a better understanding of these mechanisms in the brain. We will first review and summarize the findings of over four decades of research on single cell recordings of the brain, both in animals and humans, to provide a better understanding of how the internal mechanisms of the brain work. This will also cover some recent recordings from the medial temporal lobe region of the human brain that relate to higher level perception and cognition. Second, we will review the relevance of spike coding and provide examples of spiking neural network models and related neuromorphic technology that are under development. Some of the next generation of robots will be built using such neuromorphic chips that implement some of these ideas. Third, we will review a new brain theory that postulates that localist representation, instead of a distributed one, and grandmother cells are used widely in the brain. This theory is based on substantial neurophysiological evidence and shows the pathway to perception and cognition in the brain. In fact, the most efficient and easily accessible form of semantic cognition could be built with grandmother cells. We will try to integrate these research findings for a better understanding of the processes within the brain. After these presentations, we will have open discussions about research and collaboration to build the next generation of robots that possess the skills of perception and cognition. Some references: A. Narayan Srinivasa?s work on spiking neurons 1. Corey M. Thibeault, Kirill Minkovich, Michael J. O'Brien, Frederick C. Harris and Narayan Srinivasa Efficiently passing messages in distributed spiking neural network simulation 2. Karl Dockendorf and Narayan Srinivasa Learning and prospective recall of noisy spike pattern episodes 3. Corey M. Thibeault and Narayan Srinivasa Using a hybrid neuron in physiologically inspired models of the basal ganglia B. Moran Cerf?s work on single cell recordings 1. Moran Cerf, Nikhil Thiruvengadam, Florian Mormann, Alexander Kraskov, Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Christof Koch & Itzhak Fried On-line, voluntary control of human temporal lobe neurons 2. Florian Mormann, Julien Dubois, Simon Kornblith, Milica Milosavljevic, Moran Cerf, Matias Ison, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Alexander Kraskov, Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Ralph Adolphs, Itzhak Fried & Christof Koch A category-specific response to animals in the right human amygdala C. Asim Roy?s work on brain theories 1. Asim Roy: A theory of the brain: localist representation is used widely in the brain 2. Asim Roy: An extension of the localist representation theory: grandmother cells are also widely used in the brain 3. Asim Roy: Connectionism, controllers and a brain theory -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk Sun Jun 30 05:05:27 2013 From: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Dr Amir Hussain) Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 10:05:27 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Cognitive Computation journal (Springer): Table of Contents, Vol.5, No.2 / June 2013 Issue Message-ID: Dear Colleagues: (with advance apologies for any cross-postings) We are delighted to announce the publication of Volume 5, No.2/June 2013 Issue, of Springer's Cognitive Computation journal - www.springer.com/12559 This Issue comprises a Special Issue titled: Advances on Brain Inspired Computing / 2012 Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2012) Conference, Guest Editors: Stefano Squartini, Sanqing Hu & Qingshan Liu. The individual list of published articles (Table of Contents) for this Issue can be viewed here (and also at the end of this message, followed by an overview of the previous Issues/Archive listings): http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/2/page/1 A list of the most downloaded articles (which can always be read for FREE) can be found here: http://www.springer.com/biomed/neuroscience/journal/12559#realtime Other 'Online First' published articles not yet in a print issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/121361/?Content+Status=Accepted All previous Volumes and Issues of the journal can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12559 ======================================================= NEW: ISI Impact Factor for Cognitive Computation of 0.867 for 2012! ======================================================= As you will know, Cognitive Computation was selected for coverage in Thomson Reuter?s products and services in 2011. Beginning with V.1 (1) 2009, this publication is now indexed and abstracted in: ? Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch?) ? Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition ? Current Contents?/Engineering Computing and Technology ? Neuroscience Citation Index? Cognitive Computation also received its first Impact Factor of 1.0 (Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports? 2011) in 2011 0.867(Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports? 2011) in 2012 ============================================ Reminder: New Cognitive Computation "LinkedIn" Group: ============================================ To further strengthen the bonds amongst the interdisciplinary audience of Cognitive Computation, we have set-up a "Cognitive Computation LinkedIn group", which has over 500 members already! We warmly invite you to join us at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3155048 For further information on the journal and to sign up for electronic "Table of Contents alerts" please visit the Cognitive Computation homepage: http://www.springer.com/12559 or follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/CognComput for the latest On-line First Issues. For any questions with regards to LinkedIn and/or Twitter, please contact Springer's Publishing Editor: Dr. Martijn Roelandse: martijn.roelandse at springer.com Finally, we would like to invite you to submit short or regular papers describing original research or timely review of important areas - our aim is to peer review all papers within approximately six weeks of receipt. We also welcome relevant high quality proposals for Special Issues - five are already planned for 2013-14, including a forthcoming Special Issue (Sep 2013 Issue) to celebrate the work of the late Professor John Taylor, founding Chair of Cognitive Computation's Editorial Advisory Board. With our very best wishes for the Summer, to all aspiring readers and authors of Cognitive Computation, Professor Amir Hussain, PhD (Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) E-mail: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Professor Igor Aleksander, PhD (Honorary Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) (Imperial College, London, UK) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents Alert -- Cognitive Computation Vol 5 No 2, June 2013 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Issue: Advances on Brain Inspired Computing / 2012 Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2012) Conference Guest Editors: Stefano Squartini, Sanqing Hu & Qingshan Liu Special Issue Editorial: Advances on Brain Inspired Computing Stefano Squartini, Sanqing Hu & Qingshan Liu http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-013-9215-2 Learning Effects in Coupled Arrays of Cellular Neural Oscillators Robert Kozma & Marko Puljic http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9182-z Robust Bayesian Classification with Incomplete Data Xunan Zhang, Shiji Song & Cheng Wu http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9188-6 Mussels Wandering Optimization: An Ecologically Inspired Algorithm for Global Optimization Jing An, Qi Kang, Lei Wang & Qidi Wu http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9189-5 Quantized Control Design for Coupled Dynamic Networks with Communication Constraints Guotao Hui, Bonan Huang, Yingchun Wang & Xiangping Meng http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-013-9203-6 Underdetermined Blind Source Separation by Parallel Factor Analysis in Time-Frequency Domain Liu Yang, Jun Lv & Yong Xiang http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9177-9 Distributed Interference Alignment Algorithm for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Networks with Uncoordinated Interference Liang Zhong, Guangxi Zhu, Zhengmin Kong & Jian Liu http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9195-7 Automatic Removal of Artifacts from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Electroencephalograms Based on Independent Component Analysis Ling Zou, Soukun Xu, Zhenghua Ma, Jieru Lu & Wenjing Su http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9199-3 Common Sense Knowledge for Handwritten Chinese Text Recognition Qiu-Feng Wang, Erik Cambria, Cheng-Lin Liu & Amir Hussain http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9183-y Asynchronous Brain?Computer Interface Based on Steady-State Visual-Evoked Potential Bin Xia, Xing Li, Hong Xie, Wenlu Yang, Jie Li & Lianghua He http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-013-9202-7 Bio-inspired Approach for Smooth Motion Control of Wheeled Mobile Robots Z. J. Jia, Y. D. Song & W. C. Cai http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9186-8 Adaptive Dynamic Programming Algorithm for Renewable Energy Scheduling and Battery Management Matteo Boaro, Danilo Fuselli, Francesco De Angelis, Derong Liu, Qinglai Wei & Francesco Piazza http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-012-9191-y --------------------------------------------------- Previous Issues/Archive: Overview: --------------------------------------------------- All previous Volumes and Issues can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12559 Alternatively, the full listing of the Inaugural Vol. 1, No. 1 / March 2009, can be viewed here (which included invited authoritative reviews by leading researchers in their areas - including keynote papers from London University's John Taylor, Igor Aleksander and Stanford University's James McClelland, and invited papers from Ron Sun, Pentti Haikonen, Geoff Underwood, Kevin Gurney, Claudius Gross, Anil Seth and Tom Ziemke): http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/1/ The full listing of Vol. 1, No. 2 / June 2009, can be viewed here (which included invited reviews and original research contributions from leading researchers, including Rodney Douglas, Giacomo Indiveri, Jurgen Schmidhuber, Thomas Wennekers, Pentti Kanerva and Friedemann Pulvermuller): http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/2/ The full listing of Vol.1, No. 3 / Sep 2009, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/3/ The full listing of Vol. 1, No. 4 / Dec 2009, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/4/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 1 / March 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/1/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 2 / June 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/2/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 3 / Aug 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/3/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 4 / Dec 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/4/ The full listing of Vol.3, No.1 / Mar 2011 (Special Issue on: Saliency, Attention, Active Visual Search and Picture Scanning, edited by John Taylor and Vassilis Cutsuridis), can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/1/ The Guest Editorial can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/hu2245056415633l/ The full listing of Vol.3, No.2 / June 2011 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/2/ The full listing of Vol. 3, No. 3 / Sep 2011 (Special Issue on: Cognitive Behavioural Systems, Guest Edited by: Anna Esposito, Alessandro Vinciarelli, Simon Haykin, Amir Hussain and Marcos Faundez-Zanuy), can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/3/ The Guest Editorial for the special issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4718567520t2h84/ The full listing of Vol. 3, No. 4 / Dec 2011 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/4/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.1 / Mar 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/1/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.2 / June 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/2/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.3 / Sep 2012 (Special Issue on: Computational Creativity, Intelligence and Autonomy, Edited by: J. Mark Bishop and Yasemin J. Erden) can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/3/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.4 / Dec 2012 (Special Issue titled: "Cognitive & Emotional Information Processing", Edited by: Stefano Squartini, Bj?rn Schuller and Amir Hussain, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/4/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.1 / March 2013 Special Issue titled: Computational Intelligence and Applications Guest Editors: Zhigang Zeng & Haibo He, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/1/page/1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The University of Stirling is ranked in the top 50 in the world in The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 table, which ranks the world's best 100 universities under 50 years old. The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -- The University of Stirling is ranked in the top 50 in the world in The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 table, which ranks the world's best 100 universities under 50 years old. The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From xaq at cns.bcm.edu Sat Jun 29 21:35:55 2013 From: xaq at cns.bcm.edu (Xaq Pitkow) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:35:55 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: research positions in Computional Neuroscience for postdocs and graduate students Message-ID: POSITION: Xaq Pitkow's Computational Neuroscience group jointly at the Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University (neuro.bcm.edu/pitkowlab) is just starting and I am seeking highly motivated researchers to help build a fun, dynamic, collaborative lab environment. We have broad research interests with a primary focus on developing theories of the computational functions of neural networks, especially how they compute properties of the world using ambiguous sensory evidence. A few related topics include: distributed neural representations, algorithms for statistical inference, models of the natural environment, and computation by nonlinear recurrent networks. Successful applicants are welcome to pursue research in collaboration with experimentalists and/or in pure theory. QUALIFICATIONS: The main selection criteria will be outstanding research accomplishments, quantitative skills, creativity and promise of future achievement. A strong quantitative background is required for both graduate students and postdocs, and postdoctoral applicants must have a Ph.D in a relevant discipline. Previous experience with neurobiology is helpful but not necessary: Computational Neuroscience benefits from researchers with backgrounds in physics, mathematics, neuroscience, psychology, biology and biophysics, statistics, machine learning, computer science, electrical engineering, and other related areas. ENVIRONMENT: Baylor is one of the nation's top neuroscience research institutes and has strong experimental interests in systems neuroscience (neuro.bcm.edu). Rice is a leading research and teaching institution with strengths in electrical and computer engineering (ece.rice.edu) and continuing growth in neuroengineering. Houston hosts an outstanding greater research community, including multiple labs pursuing computational neuroscience. Our lab will be active in developing cross-institutional connections between Baylor, Rice, University of Texas at Houston, and the University of Houston. APPLYING: Postdoctoral fellowships are for an initial appointment of one year, with possible extensions to three years depending on progress. The positions provide a highly competitive annual salary and benefits. Applicants should email a letter of research interests and CV to Xaq Pitkow (xaq(a)cns.bcm.edu), and should also arrange to have three letters of reference sent. The start date is flexible, and I look forward to reviewing completed applications as they arrive. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vtrianni at ulb.ac.be Sun Jun 30 12:31:03 2013 From: vtrianni at ulb.ac.be (Vito Trianni) Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 18:31:03 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop on Collective Behaviours and Social Dynamics @ECAL 2013 - deadline extended & travel grants References: Message-ID: <3248A8C4-358E-4AF5-800C-1E4E71A4C387@ulb.ac.be> 1. Info: Call for Contributions - deadline extended to July the 5th, 2013 2. Info: travel grants available ========================================================== 1. Call for contributions - deadline is approaching! Workshop on Collective Behaviours and Social Dynamics ECAL 2013, the 12th European Conference on Artificial Life Taormina, Italy, September 2-6, 2013 http://laral.istc.cnr.it/collective-and-swarm-robotics.html === About the Workshop === This workshop is at the intersection of several disciplines, from ethology to swarm intelligence, from collective robotics to evolutionary linguistics. Despite very heterogeneous, these disciplines share a common ground when they refer to the mechanisms and the dynamics of social interaction. Despite the similar scientific questions, the study of collective behaviour and social dynamics is characterised by very different approaches, and few places for discussion and comparison are available. Therefore, the workshop represents a unique occasion in which such a juxtaposition of diverse disciplines can take place. The goal of the workshop is to confront the current trends and advancements in the study of collective behaviour and social dynamics, and to promote cross-fertilisation and contamination between disciplines and approaches that rarely meet together. We solicit presentation proposals about both published (e.g., to a top-ranking journal) and unpublished work. Selected presentations of unpublished work will be invited to submit a full-length paper to the Swarm Intelligence journal, and will benefit of a fast-track reviewing process. The workshop will feature two outstanding invited speakers covering the collective behaviours and social dynamics: Dr. Simon Garnier from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University (http://www.theswarmlab.com) will give a talk titled "Ant wuz here! Following the trail of recent ant network research". Dr. Andrea Baronchelli from the Northeastern University (https://sites.google.com/site/andreabaronchelli), will give a talk on "Modeling interaction networks of mobile individuals: from artificial agents to human gatherings". The workshop is supported by the European Science Foundation (ESF) under the EUROCORES program EuroBioSAS. http://www.esf.org/coordinating-research/eurocores/running-programmes/eurobiosas.html === Submission Instructions === Applicants are asked to submit an abstract or short paper (up to 2 pages) of the planned presentation. Specify whether the work has been already published elsewhere. Important Dates: ? Submission due: July 5, 2013. ? Notification of acceptance: July 15, 2013 ? Workshop: September 2, 2013 Applications should be submitted via e-mail to: Workshop.Collective.Robotics at gmail.com For additional information, see http://laral.istc.cnr.it/collective-and-swarm-robotics.html ========================================================== 2. Travel grants available A limited number of travel grants are available for graduate and undergraduate students giving a presentation at the workshop. The grant can cover travel and accommodation for two nights. The registration to the workshop/ECAL conference should be provided by the participant. To apply for a travel grant, please submit your request to Workshop.Collective.Robotics at gmail.com, attaching a cover letter and a copy of the student card (or equivalent documentation about the student status). ======================================================================== Vito Trianni, Ph.D. vito.trianni@(no_spam)istc.cnr.it ISTC-CNR http://www.istc.cnr.it - http://laral.istc.cnr.it/trianni currently visiting at: IRIDIA-CoDE, CP 194/6 vtrianni@(no_spam)ulb.ac.be Universit? Libre de Bruxelles Tel: +32 (0)2 650 2712 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50 Fax: +32 (0)2 650 2715 1050 Bruxelles Belgium ======================================================================== From nickel at dbs.ifi.lmu.de Sun Jun 30 18:46:36 2013 From: nickel at dbs.ifi.lmu.de (Maximilian Nickel) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2013 00:46:36 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: (Deadline extended) CFP - ECML/PKDD Workshop: Tensor Methods for Machine Learning Message-ID: [Apologies for multiple postings] Please redistribute: ECML/PKDD Workshop: Tensor Methods for Machine Learning Date: Friday, September 27th, 2013 Location: Prague, Czech Republic Website: http://www.cip.ifi.lmu.de/~nickel/tml2013/ *** EXTENDED DEADLINE: July 5th, 2013! *** ---------------------- Call for Papers ---------------------- Tensors, as generalizations of vectors and matrices, have become increasingly popular in different areas of machine learning and data mining, where they are employed to approach a diverse number of difficult learning and analysis tasks. Prominent examples include learning on multi-relational data and large-scale knowledge bases, recommendation systems, computer vision, mining boolean data, signal processing, neuroimaging or the analysis of time-varying networks. The success of tensors methods is strongly related to their ability to efficiently model, analyze and predict data with multiple modalities. To address specific challenges and problems, a variety of methods has been developed in different fields of application. This workshop should serve as a basis for an interdisciplinary exchange of methods, ideas and techniques, with the goal to develop a deeper understanding of tensor methods for machine learning, further advance existing approaches and enable new approaches to important problems. A particular focus of this workshop is to uncover underlying principles in tensor methods, their applications, and associated problems. The workshop is intended for researchers in the machine learning, data mining, and tensor communities to discuss novel methods and applications as well as theoretical advances. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to ? Statistical analysis and learning theory related to tensor methods, factorizations or analysis. ? Novel techniques and methods for tensor factorization or tensor completion. ? New factorization models, loss functions or regularization methods. ? Probabilistic/Bayesian approaches to tensor factorizations. ? Tensor methods for large-scale and distributed problems. ? Novel applications of tensor methods in machine learning and statistics. ? Empirical studies that provide new insight into tensor methods for machine learning. ? Related techniques and methods in machine learning such as matrix factorizations. More information about the workshop is available from the workshop's website at: http://www.cip.ifi.lmu.de/~nickel/tml2013/ Submission Instructions ------------------------------------ Submitted papers should be at most 4 (extended abstract) or 8 (full paper) pages long and formatted according to the Springer LNAI guidelines. All submitted papers will be subject to peer review. Accepted papers will be presented as a talk or poster at the workshop and will also be published on the workshop's website. For manuscript submission, please use the EasyChair site at: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tml2013 Important Dates ------------------------ For manuscript submission, please consider the following deadlines ? Paper Submission: Friday, July 5th, 2013 (EXTENDED!) ? Acceptance Notification: Friday, July 19th, 2013 ? Camera-Ready Paper Submission: Friday, August 2nd, 2013 Program Chairs ----------------------- ? Maximilian Nickel, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany ? Volker Tresp, Siemens AG, Germany Program Committee ---------------------------------------------------------- ? Alwin Stegeman, University of Groningen, Netherlands ? Evrim Acar Ataman, University of Copenhagen, Denmark ? Franz Kir?ly, TU Berlin, Germany ? Jaakko Hollm?n, Aalto University, Finland ? Morten M?rup, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark ? Pauli Miettinen, Max-Planck Institut f?r Informatik, Germany ? Rainer Gemulla, Max-Planck Institut f?r Informatik, Germany ? Ryota Tomioka, University of Tokyo, Japan ? Shipeng Yu, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, USA ? Steffen Rendle, Universit?t Konstanz, Germany ? Taylan Cemgil, Bogazici University Istanbul, Turkey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: