From salah at boun.edu.tr Mon Nov 4 10:25:28 2013 From: salah at boun.edu.tr (Ali Salah) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 17:25:28 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ACM TiiS special issue on Behavior Understanding for Arts and Entertainment Message-ID: Call for Papers Special Issue of the ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems on BEHAVIOR UNDERSTANDING FOR ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Main submission deadline: March 26th, 2014 http://tiis.acm.org/special-issues.html AIMS AND SCOPE Techniques for understanding human behavior have become an important technology for interactive intelligent systems. New challenges arise when the behavior being analyzed involves engagement with arts and/or entertainment. The subject of the behavior understanding may be either a creator, such as a visual artist or a performer; or a person who engages with a (possibly interactive) work of art or entertainment. A system can support these types of interaction in novel and interesting ways through real-time behavior analysis. The same types of behavior can also be analyzed off-line, to support research in areas like interaction design and social psychology. The creativity that is involved makes it less likely that the behavior conforms to known patterns and norms, and it makes evaluation less straightforward. This special issue aims to encourage and publish research about the challenges and opportunities associated with human behavior understanding in arts and entertainment. In accordance with the scope of ACM TiiS, each submission should include a discussion of the implications of the research for some type of interactive system. The specific topics of submitted manuscripts can differ along the dimensions listed below. TOPIC DIMENSIONS Nature of the Behavior Being Analyzed - Creative performance and/or responses to it - Creation of an artifact and/or interaction with it - Game playing - ... Unit of Behavioral Analysis - Individual behavior - Group behavior System Actions Taken on the Basis of On-Line Behavior Understanding - Support for creative performance - Enhancement of interaction with a game or interactive work of art - Increasing the effectiveness of edutainment or persuasion - Personalization and adaptation - ... Functions of Off-Line Behavior Understanding - Laying a foundation for improving interaction design - Gaining insights into human behavior in creative contexts - ... Computational Techniques for Human Behavior Understanding - Action and activity recognition - Affective and social signal analysis - Face analysis - Analysis of postures, gestures, and haptic interaction - Voice and speech analysis - Analysis of gaze and attention - Biosignal analysis - Techniques for benchmarking and evaluation - ... Application Domains - Visual and digital arts - Entertainment - Education and edutainment - Computer games - Healthcare and well-being - Creativity training - ... SPECIAL ISSUE ASSOCIATE EDITORS - Albert Ali Salah, Bogazi?i University, Turkey (contact: salah[at]boun[dot]edu[dot]tr) - Hayley Hung, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands - Oya Aran, Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland - Hatice Gunes, Queen Mary University of London, UK - Matthew Turk, University of California Santa Barbara, USA IMPORTANT DATES - By March 26th, 2014: Submission of manuscripts - By July 9th, 2014: Notification about decisions on initial submissions - By October 7th, 2014: Submission of revised manuscripts - By December 6th, 2014: Notification about decisions on revised manuscripts - By January 5th, 2015: Submission of manuscripts with final minor changes - Starting February, 2015: Announcement of the special issue articles on the TiiS website (with subsequent publication in the ACM Digital Library and in a printed journal issue) HOW TO SUBMIT Please see the instructions for authors on the TiiS website (http://tiis.acm.org). ABOUT ACM TiiS TiiS (pronounced "T double-eye S"), founded in 2010, is an ACM journal for research about intelligent systems that people interact with. -- 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 From cie.conference.series at gmail.com Fri Nov 1 19:54:09 2013 From: cie.conference.series at gmail.com (CiE Conference Series) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 23:54:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Connectionists: CiE 2014: Language, Life, Limits. Call for Papers Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS: CiE 2014: Language, Life, Limits Budapest, Hungary June 23 - 27, 2014 http://cie2014.inf.elte.hu IMPORTANT DATES: Submission Deadline for LNCS: 10 January 2014 Notification of authors: 3 March 2014 Deadline for final revisions: 31 March 2014 CiE 2014 is the tenth conference organized by CiE (Computability in Europe), a European association of mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, philosophers, physicists and others interested in new developments in computability and their underlying significance for the real world. Previous meetings have taken place in Amsterdam (2005), Swansea (2006), Siena (2007), Athens (2008), Heidelberg (2009), Ponte Dalgada (2010), Sofia (2011), Cambridge (2012), and Milan (2013). The motto of CiE 2014 "Language, Life, Limits" intends to put a special focus on relations between computational linguistics, natural and biological computing, and more traditional fields of computability theory. This is to be understood in its broadest sense including computational aspects of problems in linguistics, studying models of computation and algorithms inspired by physical and biological approaches as well as exhibiting limits (and non-limits) of computability when considering different models of computation arising from such approaches. As with previous CiE conferences the allover glueing perspective is to strengthen the mutual benefits of analyzing traditional and new computational paradigms in their corresponding frameworks both with respect to practical applications and a deeper theoretical understanding. TUTORIAL SPEAKERS: Wolfgang Thomas (RWTH Aachen) Peter Gr?nwald (CWI, Amsterdam) INVITED SPEAKERS: Lev Beklemishev (Steklov Mathematical Institute, Moscow) Alessandra Carbone (Universite Pierre et Marie Curie and CNRS Paris) Maribel Fernandez (King's College London) Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz (University of Calgary) Eva Tardos (Cornell University) Albert Visser (Utrecht University) SPECIAL SESSIONS: History and Philosophy of Computing (organizers: Liesbeth de Mol, Giuseppe Primiero) Computational Linguistics (organizers: Maria Dolores Jim?nez-L?pez, G?bor Pr?sz?ky) Computability Theory (organizers: Karen Lange, Barbara Csima) Bio-inspired Computation (organizers: Marian Gheorghe, Florin Manea) Online Algorithms (organizers: Joan Boyar, Csan?d Imreh) Complexity in Automata Theory (organizers: Markus Lohrey, Giovanni Pighizzini) CiE 2014 conference topics include, but not exclusively: * Admissible sets * Algebraic models of computation * Algorithms * Analog computation * Artificial intelligence * Automata theory * Bioinformatics and Bio-inspired computation * Bounded arithmetic * Classical computability and degree structures * Cognitive science and modelling * Complexity classes * Computability theoretic aspects of programs * Computable analysis and real computation * Computable structures and models * Computational and proof complexity * Computational biology * Computational creativity * Computational learning and complexity * Computational linguistics * Concurrency and distributed computation * Constructive mathematics * Cryptographic complexity * Decidability of theories * Derandomization * DNA computing * Domain theory and computability * Dynamical systems and computational models * Effective descriptive set theory * Emerging and non-standard models of computation * Finite model theory * Formal aspects of program analysis * Formal methods * Foundations of computer science * Games * Generalized recursion theory * History of computation * Hybrid systems * Higher type computability * Hypercomputational models * Infinite time Turing machines * Kolmogorov complexity * Lambda and combinatory calculi * L-systems and membrane computation * Machine learning * Mathematical models of emergence * Membrane computing * Molecular computation * Morphogenesis and developmental biology * Multi-agent systems * Natural computation * Neural nets and connectionist models * Philosophy of science and computation * Physics and computability * Probabilistic systems * Process algebras and concurrent systems * Programming language semantics * Proof mining and applications * Proof theory and computability * Proof complexity * Quantum computing and complexity * Randomness * Reducibilities and relative computation * Relativistic computation * Reverse mathematics * Semantics and logic of computation * Swarm intelligence and self-organisation * Type systems and type theory * Uncertain reasoning * Weak systems of arithmetic and applications We particularly welcome submissions in emergent areas, such as bioinformatics and natural computation, where they have a basic connection with computability. Contributed papers will be selected from submissions received by the PROGRAM COMMITTEE consisting of: * Gerard Alberts (Amsterdam) * Sandra Alves (Porto) * Hajnal Andr?ka (Budapest) * Lu?s Antunes (Porto) * Arnold Beckmann (Swansea) * Laurent Bienvenu (Paris) * Paola Bonizzoni (Milan) * Olivier Bournez (Palaiseau) * Vasco Brattka (Munich) * Bruno Codenotti (Pisa) * Barry Cooper (Leeds) * Erzs?bet Csuhaj-Varj? (Budapest, co-chair) * Michael J. Dinneen (Auckland) * Erich Gr?del (Aachen) * Marie Hicks (Chicago IL) * Natasha Jonoska (Tampa FL) * Jarkko Kari (Turku) * Elham Kashefi (Edinburgh) * Viv Kendon (Leeds) * Satoshi Kobayashi (Tokyo) * Andr?s Kornai (Budapest) * Marcus Kracht (Bielefeld) * Benedikt L?we (Amsterdam & Hamburg) * Klaus Meer (Cottbus, co-chair) * Joseph R. Mileti (Grinnell IA) * Georg Moser (Innsbruck) * Benedek Nagy (Debrecen) * Sara Negri (Helsinki) * Thomas Schwentick (Dortmund) * Neil Thapen (Prague) * Peter van Emde Boas (Amsterdam) * Xizhong Zheng (Glenside PA) The PROGRAMME COMMITTEE cordially invites all researchers (European and non-European) in computability related areas to submit their papers (in PDF format, max 10 pages using the LNCS style) for presentation at CiE 2014. The submission site https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2014 is open. For submission instructions consult http://cie2014.inf.elte.hu/?Submission_Instructions We particularly invite papers that build bridges between different parts of the research community. The CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS will be published by LNCS, Springer Verlag. Contact: Erzs?bet Csuhaj-Varj? - csuhaj[at]inf.elte.hu Website: http://cie2014.inf.elte.hu/ From cookie at ucsd.edu Fri Nov 1 16:29:30 2013 From: cookie at ucsd.edu (Santamaria, Cookie) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 20:29:30 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Winter q-bio Mtg in HAWAII Feb. 2013 ***Abstract submission deadline NOV. 5, 2013*** In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ***REMINDER: ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2013*** http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ THE SECOND ANNUAL WINTER Q-BIO MEETING Quantitative Biology on the Hawaiian Islands February 17-20, 2014 http://w-qbio.org/ The Winter q-bio meeting brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in all areas of q-bio. The venue for 2014 is the Hilton Waikoloa Village, which is located on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii's Big Island. The resort lets you experience breathtaking tropical gardens, abundant wildlife, award-winning dining, world-class shopping, art and culture, and an array of activities. The Island of Hawaii is the youngest and biggest in the Hawaiian chain, providing a vast canvas of environments to discover--home of one of the world's most active volcanoes (Kilauea), the most massive mountain in the world (Maunaloa), and the largest park in the state (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park). As requested by participants at the last meeting, a number of selected contributed talks will be interspersed with the invited talks during the plenary morning sessions (in addition to the contributed talks in the breakout sessions). SPONSORED BY: UC San Diego BioCircuits Institute and the San Diego Center for Systems Biology The University of Hawaii at Manoa UC San Diego Divisions of Biological Sciences and Engineering The Office of Naval Research 2014 CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Naama Barkai, The Weizmann Institute of Science Sangeeta Bhatia Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco Zev Gartner, University of California, San Francisco Taekjip Ha, University of Illinois Shigeru Kondo, Osaka University Arthur Lander, University of California, Irvine Andrew Murray, Harvard University Steve Quake, Stanford University Petra Schwille, Max Planck Institute Christina Smolke, Stanford University Aleksandra Walczak, Laboratoire de Physique Th?orique CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS: Kevin Bennett, University of Hawaii at Manoa William Ditto, University of Hawaii at Manoa Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco Jeff Hasty, University of California, San Diego Alexander Hoffmann, University of California, San Diego Galit Lahav, Harvard University Eva-Maria Schoetz-Collins, University of California, San Diego Chao Tang, Peking University Lev Tsimring, University of California, San Diego ***REGISTRATION NOW OPEN*** Registration fee covers conference venue, registration reception, banquet, coffee & snacks. EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ($500/$425 Student) DEADLINE: December 1, 2013 REGULAR REGISTRATION ($600/$525 Student) DEADLINE: January 31, 2014 LATE REGISTRATION ($675/$600 Student) After January 31, 2014 REGISTER NOW: http://w-qbio.org/ HOTEL: A block of rooms has been reserved for registered conference participants at a negotiated rate of $199 per night at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. The rooms will be available soon on a first-come, first-served basis, so book early! CONTRIBUTED TALKS: If you wish to present your work at the conference, either as an oral talk or a poster, you must submit an abstract through the conference website by the November 5th deadline. Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ ABSTRACT DEADLINE: November 5, 2013 Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ Questions should be emailed to: coordinator at w-qbio.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From akozlov at nada.kth.se Fri Nov 1 10:13:59 2013 From: akozlov at nada.kth.se (akozlov at nada.kth.se) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 15:13:59 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: The Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Program "EuroSPIN" (European Study Programme in Neuroinformatics) is inviting applications from students having a solid background in mathematics, physics, computer sciences, biochemistry or neuroscience (on a master level or equivalent), in all cases with computer science skills. Documented interest in research like activities (e.g. demonstrated in the form of master thesis work, or participation in research related activities) is of large importance. Also fluency in English is requested. Four partners participate: - Bernstein Center Freiburg, Germany - KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden - National Centre for Biological Science, India - University of Edinburgh (UoE), UK They are all research leaders in the Neuroinformatics field, but they have complementary strengths. Each student will spend most of the time at two of the partner universities, and also receive a joint (or double) PhD degree following a successful completion of the studies. The mobility periods, as well as the courses a student will follow, are tailored individually based on: a) the PhD students background; b) which constellations of partners that are involved, as well as c) the specific research project. During the PhD period each student has one main supervisor from each of the two universities that grant the PhD degree. There are excellent scholarship opportunities for students accepted to an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate programme. An employment contract will be given to all selected PhD students during the study time, which is 4 years. If you are interested, go to our webpage: http://www.kth.se/eurospin If you have questions, contact us at . EuroSPIN Coordinators, Stockholm, SWEDEN. From bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca Sat Nov 2 05:46:43 2013 From: bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:46:43 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: student & post-doc positions in deep learning at U. Montreal Message-ID: <0AF92E94-A129-40AB-84D1-CCB65CBF8008@iro.umontreal.ca> Hello, My lab (with 4 deep learning faculty) is recruiting graduate students and post-docs for deep learning research. Salary is negotiable. The team is large (about 30 students and professionals), intellectually stimulating and very productive (look at our list of publications). Montreal is a 4-university city, among the most culturally interesting places to live (and cheap). Our graduates are highly sought by big data and AI companies. If you are interested, please write to me! For more information, visit http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy/yoshua_en/open_positions.html ? Yoshua Bengio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Mon Nov 4 14:49:12 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC - URV) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 20:49:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: TPNC 2013: call for participation Message-ID: <003a01ced996$f3cc5720$6400a8c0@GRLMC.local> *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 http://grammars.grlmc.com/tpnc2013/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROGRAMME Tuesday, December 3 09:00 - 09:50 Registration 09:50 - 10:00 Opening 10:00 - 10:50 Eugen Czeizler, Pekka Orponen: Yield optimization strategies for (DNA) staged Tile Assembly Systems Vinay Kumar Gautam, Pauline C. Haddow, Martin Kuiper: Reliable Self-assembly by Self-triggered Activation of Enveloped DNA Tiles 10:50 - 11:20 Coffee Break 11:20 - 13:00 Miros?aw Kordos, Andrzej Rusiecki: Improving MLP Neural Network Performance by Noise Reduction Omar K. Shoukry, Magda B. Fayek: Evolutionary Scheduling for Mobile Content Pre-fetching Marius Nagy, Naya Nagy: General Quantum Encryption Scheme based on Quantum Memory Marius Nagy, Naya Nagy: Quantum Secret Communication without an Encryption Key 13:00 - 14:45 Lunch 14:45 - 15:35 Oliver Rice, Robert Smith, Rickard Nyman: GPU Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm: Asynchronously Parallel Distributed NSGA-II Anne Jeannin-Girardon, Pascal Ballet, Vincent Rodin: An Efficient Biomechanical Cell Model to Simulate Large Multi-cellular Tissue Morphogenesis: Application to Cell Sorting Simulation on GPU 15:35 - 15:50 Break 15:50 - 16:40 Joel Lehman, Risto Miikkulainen: Boosting Interactive Evolution using Human Computation Markets ? Invited Tutorial I Wednesday, December 4 09:00 - 10:40 Rim Hentech, Ilyes Jenhani, Zied Elouedi: Learning from Uncertain Data Using Possibilistic Artificial Immune Recognition Systems Massimiliano D?Angelo, Berend Weel, Agoston E. Eiben: Online Gait Learning for Modular Robots with Arbitrary Shapes and Sizes Jos? M. Lanza-Guti?rrez, Juan A. G?mez-Pulido, Miguel ?ngel Vega-Rodr?guez: A Trajectory Algorithm to Solve the Relay Node Placement Problem in Wireless Sensor Networks Rafael Nogueras, Carlos Cotta, Carlos M. Fernandes, Juan Luis Jim?nez Laredo, Juan Juli?n Merelo, Agostinho C. Rosa: An Analysis of a Selecto-Lamarckian Model of Multimemetic Algorithms with Dynamic Self-Organized Topology 10:40 - 11:10 Coffee Break 11:10 - 12:00 Poster session I Orlando Duran: A Hybrid Solution to the Multi-Echelon Inventory Problem of Repairable Spare Parts Using Discrete Swarm Intelligence and a Local Search Procedure Jes?s Torrecilla-Pinero, Fernando Torrecilla-Pinero, Juan A. G?mez-Pulido, Carlos Urue?a-Fern?ndez: A Novel Way to Optimize Cantilever Walls by Means of Natural Computing and Multiobjective Optimization Hector Zenil: Complexity and Algorithmic Probability of Animal Behaviour from Cognition to Communication Ron Cottam, Willy Ranson, Roger Vounckx: A Framework for Computing like Nature Cristina Mart?nez-Ram?rez, Alberto Besana: Models for the Distribution of Letters in Random Generated Words Ra?l Dom?nguez, Tim K?hler, Christian Rauch, Elmar Bergh?fer, Frank Kirchner: Autonomous Robot Long Distance Traversing by a Robust Nature-Inspired Behaviour Control Model Using Sensor Feedback Expectations 12:00 - 12:15 Break 12:15 - 13:05 Joel Lehman, Risto Miikkulainen: Boosting Interactive Evolution using Human Computation Markets ? Invited Tutorial II 13:05 - 14:50 Lunch 14:50 - 15:50 Poster session II Kazunari Ozasa, Jeesoo Lee, Simon Song, Masahiko Hara, Mizuo Maeda: Introduction of Artificial Pheromone Effects on Euglena Cells Toward Ant Colony Optimization Experiments Krist?ne C?pola, R?si?? Freivalds: Examples of Advantages for Ultrametric Automata Mikhail Peretyat?kin: Combinatorial Computation in First-Order Predicate Logic as a Formal Prototype of Natural Computing Alidra Abdelghani, Mohamed Tahar Kimour: Biology Inspired Decision Making for Self-Healing Realtime Systems Krist?ne C?pola, K?rlis Cezi??, R?si?? Freivalds, Viesturs V?zis: Producing Learning Tools to Teach Quantum and Ultrametric Automata Antonio J. Tall?n-Ballesteros, Jos? C. Riquelme, C?sar Herv?s-Mart?nez, Roberto Ruiz: Enhancing the Performance of a Feature Selection Method Based Jointly on Feature Ranking and Feature Subset Selection in the Context of a Neural Network Classifier ?ngela Villota, Jes?s Aranda: Towards a General Approach to Model Biological Systems from Membrane Systems into a Concurrent Constraint Calculus 15:55 Visit to the City Thursday, December 5 09:00 ? 09:50 Xin Yao: Evolutionary Algorithm Portfolios for Numerical Optimisation - Invited Talk 09:50 - 10:05 Break 10:05 - 11:20 Yara Khaluf, Mauro Birattari, Franz Rammig: Probabilistic Analysis of Long-term Swarm Performance under Spatial Interferences V?ctor Berrocal-Plaza, Miguel ?ngel Vega-Rodr?guez, Juan M. S?nchez-P?rez: A New Version of the Multiobjective Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for Optimizing the Location Areas Planning in a Realistic Network Takuya Nishida, Takaaki Mizuki, Hideaki Sone: Securely Computing the Three-Input Majority Function with Eight Cards 11:20 - 11:50 Coffee Break 11:50 - 13:05 Yahya O. Mohamed Elhadj, Mansour Alghamdi, Mohamed Alkanhal: Approach for Recognizing Allophonic Sounds of the Classical Arabic Based on Quran Recitations Antonio Mart? Campoy, Francisco Rodr?guez-Ballester, Rafael Ors Carot: Using Dynamic, Full Cache Locking and Genetic Algorithms for Cache Size Minimization in Multitasking, Preemptive, Real-time Systems Lingling Jin, Ian McQuillan: Computational Modelling of the Interruptional Activities between Transposable Elements 13:05 Closing From R.Borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk Mon Nov 4 08:18:38 2013 From: R.Borisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk (Roman Borisyuk) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 13:18:38 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Marie-Curie Funded Research Fellowship is available at the Plymouth University, UK Message-ID: <7C21808200B7BB4EBAE3C051E15772F6057655@TIS104.uopnet.plymouth.ac.uk> Marie-Curie Funded Research Fellowship is available at the Plymouth University, UK to work on Project 3 "Modelling Creative Decision Making" under supervision of Prof Roman Borisyuk (Computational Neuroscience), Dr Haline Schendan (Neuropsychology), Dr Giorgio Ganis (Neuropsychology), as part of European Project "CogNovo" http://www.cognovo.eu/projects/ ). We are looking for a very strong and motivated candidate to develop a biologically plausible neurocomputational model to explore the link between novelty detection, attention, memory and creative decision making. The model will be based on recordings from human subjects and will be used to explore how novelty detection triggers a cascade of processes that underlie creativity. Qualifications: Upper second honours degree (first strongly preferred) or equivalent in Computer Science (preferable), Applied Mathematics, Computational Neuroscience, Engineering or related fields. Candidates who also have a Master's degree in these fields are especially desirable. Essential skills: Excellent programming skills. Good experience with university-level mathematics. Experience in at least one of the following: computational modelling, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, artificial neural networks, signal processing, the scientific study of human cognition or neuroscience. Desirable skills: Understanding the basic concepts of Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems, basic principles of neural computations, mathematical/computational neuroscience. Salary: from ?35,000, including living and mobility allowance. Applicants should send a completed application form along with a covering letter detailing their suitability for the studentship, C.V. and 2 academic references to Catherine Johnson, Faculty of Science and Technology Research Office, Room A425, Portland Square, Plymouth PL4 8AA or e-mail catherine.johnson at plymouth.ac.uk. Closing date for applications: 12 noon, 30 November 2013 Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview in January/February 2014. Roman Borisyuk, DSc, PhD Professor of Computational Neuroscience School of Computing and Mathematics University of Plymouth A224, Portland Sq Plymouth, PL4 8AA UK Phone: +44 (0) 1752 584949 E-mail: RBorisyuk at plymouth.ac.uk ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] 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. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From malin.sandstrom at incf.org Tue Nov 5 07:44:21 2013 From: malin.sandstrom at incf.org (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Malin_Sandstr=F6m?=) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 13:44:21 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Fwd: INCF and neuroinformatics at SfN 2013 - exhibits, demos, and social activities! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear colleagues, (with apologies for cross-posting) this year as usual, INCF will exhibit at SfN Neuroscience 2013 in San Diego. You can find us in booth #4128, near many other neuroinformatics exhibitors, where we will be available for questions on neuroscience data, data sharing, standards, infrastructure and other neuroinformatics key areas. We also host three days of demos of interesting tools and projects (see full program below). You are all invited to come by our booth to get updated on this year's activities, to view a demo or two or to simply sit down in our (very comfy) sofa for some combined networking and relaxation. Together with the Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF) we also have a neuroinformatics social on Sunday November 10 6:30-9:30 pm, at the Cat Eye Club near the convention center. Light refreshments served, please remember to bring your SfN badge! An overview of INCF's activities at SfN can be found via our webpages on: http://incf.org/community/sfn2013 You can also follow our live Twitter updates during the event via twitter.com/INCForg. Best regards, Malin Sandstr?m ---- ******************** Live demos at the INCF booth #4128 at SfN in San Diego: meet tool developers and project contact persons from various neuroscience fields, get hands-on experience and ask them your questions. And don't miss the Neuroinformatics Social at the Cat Eye Club on 370 Seventh Avenue, 6:30-9:30 pm on Sunday Nov. 10th! Sunday, Nov. 10th ------------------------- 09:30 - 12:30 New Methods Enhance the SenseLab Portal and Modeler's Experience McDougal R, Wang R, Cavarretta F, Marenco L, Morse TM, Hines ML, Carnevale NT, Cheung KH, Migliore M, Miller P, Shepherd GM Computing, querying, and visualizing brains, shape features, metrics, and templates: A prototype webapp infrastructure built on NIDM Stoner R, Nichols N, Klein A, Ghosh S 13:30 - 16:30 Search with Brain Atlas and an Integrative Neuroinformatics Environment Developed at Japan Node Tanabe H, Okumura Y, Yamaguchi Y Taking advantage of the Digital Atlasing Infrastructure Haselgrove C, Boline J Monday, Nov. 11th -------------------------- 09:30 - 12:30 The Multi-modal Australian ScienceS Imaging and Visualisation Environment (MASSIVE) high performance computing infrastructure: applications in neuroscience and neuroinformatics research Goscinski W, McIntosh P, Felzmann U, Mazimenko A, Hill C, Gureyev T, Janke A, Galloway G, Killeen N, Barnes D, Kaluza O, Bonnington P, Egan GF Open source web-based infrastructure for brain atlas reconstruction, visualization and mining: 3D Brain Atlas Reconstructor, Scalable Brain Atlas and a new marmoset brain template W?jcik DK, Bakker R, Chan J, Chaplin T, Ch?odzi?ska N, Kowalski JM, Rosa M, Yu HH, Majka P 13:30 - 16:30 Web services and software for management and sharing of neurophysiological data Wachtler T, Sobolev A A simple tool for data sharing and quality control in neuroimaging Haselgrove C, and the INCF Neuroimaging Data Sharing Task Force Tuesday, Nov. 12th ----------------------------- 9:30 - 12:30 The INCF Data Space (IDS): Connect and share neuroscience data Smith C, Valls Guimera R NeuroDebian: from disjoint tools and data to robust turnkey platform for neuroimaging and beyond Halchenko YO 13:30 - 16:30 Waxholm Space Atlas of the Sprague Dawley Rat Brain Papp EA, Leergaard TB, Calabrese E, Johnson GA, Bjaalie JG OpenWorm: An open science approach to computational neuroscience Larson S All info about this year's INCF activities at SfN can be found via this webpage:http://www.incf.org/community/sfn2013 The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) is an international organization launched in 2005, following a proposal from the Global Science Forum of the OECD to establish international coordination and collaborative informatics infrastructure for neuroscience ? and currently has 17 member countries across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. INCF establishes and operates scientific programs to develop standards for neuroscience data sharing, analysis, modeling and simulation while coordinating an informatics infrastructure designed to enable the integration of neuroscience data and knowledge worldwide and catalyze insights into brain function in health and disease. ******************* -- Malin Sandstr?m, PhD Community Engagement Officer malin.sandstrom at incf.org International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility Karolinska Institutet Nobels v?g 15 A SE-171 77 Stockholm Sweden http://www.incf.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From juergen at idsia.ch Tue Nov 5 10:15:01 2013 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Juergen Schmidhuber) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:15:01 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Deep Learning: MICCAI Grand Challenge / Chinese characters / Timeline / Jobs ... Message-ID: Announcements on Deep Learning: 22 Sept 2013: our deep neural networks won the MICCAI 2013 Grand Challenge on Mitosis Detection (important for cancer prognosis): http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/deeplearningwinsMICCAIgrandchallenge.html 1 Sept 2013: our deep NN are the best artificial offline recognisers of Chinese characters from the ICDAR 2013 competition (3755 classes), approaching human performance: http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.0261 Oct 2013: My first Deep Learner of 1991 + Deep Learning timeline 1962-2013 (also summarises the origins of backpropagation, still the central algorithm of Deep Learning). An experiment in massive open online peer review: www.deeplearning.me Jobs 2013/2014: Join the team that won more international competitions in machine learning & pattern recognition than any other team: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/eu2013.html Sept/Oct 2013: G+ posts on Deep Learning https://plus.google.com/u/0/100849856540000067209/posts -- Older news, with recent updates: -- 2012: Deep NN wins brain image segmentation contest (relevant for the huge brain projects in EU and US): http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/deeplearningwinsbraincontest.html 2012: 8th international pattern recognition contest won since 2009 http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-bio-inspired-deep-learning-keeps-winning-competitions 2011: First superhuman visual pattern recognition http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/superhumanpatternrecognition.html 2009: First official international pattern recognition contests won by Deep Learning (LSTM RNN) http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/handwriting.html http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnn.html 1991: Fundamental Deep Learning Problem discovered and analysed http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/fundamentaldeeplearningproblem.html Deeplearn it! www.deeplearning.it J?rgen Schmidhuber Scientific Director of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ From rajeev.raizada at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 01:59:47 2013 From: rajeev.raizada at gmail.com (Rajeev Raizada) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 01:59:47 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Two postdoc jobs: neural decoding of language, and similarity-based neural representations Message-ID: Two postdoctoral positions are available in the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester in the lab of Rajeev Raizada (http://raizadalab.org). Both positions will involve applying multivoxel pattern-based fMRI analysis to seeking to understand the structure of neural representations. One position will concentrate especially on the neural decoding of language, in particular the semantic representation of words embedded in sentences. The other position will focus on exploring similarity-based representations, relating neural similarity structure to the visual and semantic similarity of objects. Applicants must have a PhD in neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, computer science or a related field. Experience in some or all of the following areas would be ideal: fMRI data analysis, machine learning (especially kernel-based or Bayesian approaches), computational linguistics (for the language decoding postdoc), computer vision or visual psychophysics (for the object-similarity postdoc). Experience with Matlab or some other scientific programming language (e.g. SciPy, R) is required. Salary will be on the standard NIH postdoc payscale. Both positions are available immediately and have funding for a two year period, although they could potentially be extended beyond that time if mutually agreed and if additional funding is obtained. To apply, please send a description of your research interests, a CV, the names of three referees, and weblinks to representative publications to rajeev.raizada at gmail.com , specifying in the subject-line which of the two positions you are applying to. Large files such as PDFs of papers should be sent as weblinks (e.g. to your publications webpage, or using Dropbox) rather than as e.mail attachments. If you will be attending the upcoming Society for Neuroscience conference then it might be possible to meet there, otherwise interviews can be conducted via Skype. The Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester (http://www.bcs.rochester.edu) has a strong focus on computational and statistical studies of neural representations, and has researchers working in language, vision, computation, development and neuroimaging. The Rochester Center for Brain Imaging (http://rcbi.rochester.edu) has a research-dedicated 3T Siemens Trio scanner. From fmschleif at googlemail.com Tue Nov 5 06:02:16 2013 From: fmschleif at googlemail.com (Frank-Michael Schleif) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 12:02:16 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for papers - Special Session on 'Learning of structured and non-standard data' at ESANN 2014 Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP] Call for Papers - Special Session on 'Learning of structured and non-standard data' 23-25 April 2014, Bruges, Belgium http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann AIMS AND SCOPE Today real life data are often given not in the form of vectorial data but in various formats often without an underlying metric space. Prominent examples are network structured data e.g. from social or communication networks, tree structured data used to represent hierarchical documents or collections thereof. Also the simple relation between objects e.g. by means of score data found in sequence alignments or rating information as obtained in collaborative filtering approaches is of this type. The recent technological developments, also in the context of big data, allow the generation of very complex data sets. Challenges are now in the effective processing of these data, in the light of the pure amount, but also to keep the obtained model informative for subsequent analysis. These data are also often given without an explicit vector space, point relations can be asymmetric, metric properties may not be valid and the available information if often sparse in different representations. Computational intelligence methods have the potential to be used to pre-process, model and to analyze such complex data but new strategies are needed. A very effective way is to employ explicit or implicit knowledge about the data, or the analysis task and to learn an appropriate model from available training data. In other cases the knowledge is used in the design of adaptive analysis algorithms to generate the desired meta information out of the data. Such knowledge may be available by means of appropriate (bio-)physical models, data specific distance measures, auxiliary information associated with the data. or dedicated processing strategies for non-metric data employing infinite kernels or dissimilarity learning approaches. Also novel data encoding techniques and projection methods, employing concepts from randomization algorithm, have been used to obtain compact descriptions of these complex data sets or to identify relevant information. Examples of such data analysis problems are e.g. in the analysis of biological or social networks with a large number of measurements and complex data relations. TOPICS We encourage submission of papers on novel methods for structured data, dissimilarity learning, non-standard data analysis and non-metric data processing by means of computational intelligence and machine learning approaches, including but not limited to: - data analysis and pattern recognition approaches for structured data - dissimilarity learning - methods employing ex- and implicit data knowledge for non-standard data - representation and modeling of heterogeneous, high-dimensional, multi-modal (structured) and/or non-standard data - approaches in the line of matrix completion, collaborative filtering, reduction techniques for non-standard data - large scale network analysis IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission deadline : 29 November 2013 Notification of acceptance : 31 January 2014 Deadline for final papers : 21 February 2014 The ESANN 2014 conference : 23-25 April 2014 SPECIAL SESSION ORGANIZERS: Frank-Michael Schleif, University of Appl. Sc. Mittweida, Germany and University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Thomas Villmann, University of Appl. Sc. Mittweida, Germany Peter Tino, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK From Vittorio.Murino at iit.it Tue Nov 5 08:21:59 2013 From: Vittorio.Murino at iit.it (Vittorio Murino) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 14:21:59 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Open Postdoc position at IIT-PAVIS on Computer Vision and Machine Learning Message-ID: <5278F0F7.6050707@iit.it> Apologize for multiple posting ------------------------------------------ Open Postdoctoral position on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, and Machine Learning PAVIS department @IIT The Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia - IIT - was founded with the objective of promoting the country's technological development and further education in science and technology. In this sense, IIT's scientific program is based in the combination of the basic scientific research with the development of technical applications, a major inspirational principle. The research areas cover scientific topics of high innovative content, which represent the most advanced frontiers of modern technology, with wide application possibilities in various fields ranging from medicine to industry, from computer science to robotics, life sciences, and nanobiotechnology. The PAVIS department at IIT (http://www.iit.it/pavis.html) is looking for a highly qualified researcher in the field of Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, and Image Analysis. The main mission of PAVIS (Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision) is to design and develop innovative video surveillance systems, characterized by the use of highly-functional smart sensors and advanced video analytics features. PAVIS has also an active role in supporting the research facilities in IIT providing solutions to life-scientists in Neuroscience, Drug Discovery and Development and Nanophysics. To this end, the group is involved in activities concerning computer vision and pattern recognition, machine learning, multimodal data analysis and sensor fusion, sensors networks, and embedded computer vision systems. The lab will pursue this goal by working collaboratively and in cooperation with external private and public partners. This call aims at consolidating PAVIS expertise in the following research areas: * Detection and Tracking (individuals, groups, crowd) and Re-identification; * Behaviour Analysis & Activity Recognition (individuals, groups, crowd); * and, from the methodological point of view, Graphical Models, Statistical Methods, Reasoning Paradigms in general. Applicants research experience and qualification on computer vision and pattern recognition/machine learning are clearly a must, and evidence of top quality research on the above specified areas in the form of published papers in top conferences/journals and/or patents are mandatory. Experience on the preparation and management of research proposals (EU, US, national), and few years of postdoc experience will constitute an added value. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in computer vision, machine learning, signal processing, image analysis or related areas. The salary will be commensurate to qualification and experience and in line to that of the research institutes in the rest of Europe. Further details and informal enquires can be made by email to pavis at iit.it . Completed application forms along with a curriculum listing all publications, a pdf of your most representative publications, and a research statement describing your previous research experience and outlining its relevance to the above topics should be sent by email to pavis at iit.it , indicating the reference number PAVIS-PDS 68042. Please also indicate 2 independent references inside the CV or the email. This call will be open and applications will be reviewed until the position is filled but for full consideration please apply before December 23, 2013. In order to comply with the Italian law (art. 23 of Privacy Law of the Italian Legislative Decree n. 196/03), we have to kindly ask the candidate to give his/her consent to allow IIT to process his/her personal data. We inform you that the information you provide will be used solely for the purpose of assessing your professional profile to meet the requirements of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Your data will be processed by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, with headquarters in Genoa, Via Morego 30, acting as the Data Holder, using computer and paper based means, observing the rules on protection of personal data, including those relating to the security of data. Please also note that, pursuant to art.7 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, you may exercise your rights at any time as a party concerned by contacting the Data Manager. The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is an Equal Opportunity Employer that actively seeks diversity in the workforce/./ ====================================================== Vittorio Murino PAVIS director -- 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 *************************************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From redish at umn.edu Wed Nov 6 09:28:54 2013 From: redish at umn.edu (David Redish) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 08:28:54 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: Spike sorting toolbox: MClust-4.0 Message-ID: Announcing the new version of my free, open-source spike-sorting toolbox: MClust-4.0. MClust is a matlab-based spike-sorting toolbox, allowing one to sort neurophysiological spikes using cluster-cutting operations. It is primarily used for tetrode spike-sorting, but has been used for other sorting operations as well. This version includes a completely rebuilt internal engine, full compatibility with the latest versions of Matlab (2012+), and completely integrated cluster-quality measures. As before, loading engines, features, and additional cluster and cutting options are easily added to the code. Available from http://redishlab.neuroscience.umn.edu/MClust/MClust.html. adr ------------------------------------------------------------------- A. David Redish redish at umn.edu http://www.umn.edu/~redish ----------------------------- Professor Department of Neuroscience University of Minnesota ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tomas.hromadka at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 18:25:04 2013 From: tomas.hromadka at gmail.com (Tomas Hromadka) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 00:25:04 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [COSYNE2014] Abstract submission closes soon; Travel grants open; Mailing lists Message-ID: <52797E50.9000706@gmail.com> ================================================================== Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING WORKSHOPS Feb 27 - Mar 2, 2014 Mar 3 - Mar 4, 2014 Salt Lake City, Utah Snowbird Ski Resort, Utah http://www.cosyne.org ================================================================== IMPORTANT COSYNE NEWS (see below for details): Abstract submission deadline is fast approaching. Travel grant submission is now open. New Cosyne mailing list is now available for public posting. ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Mon 18 Nov 2013 (11:59pm PST) The annual Cosyne meeting provides an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience, in order to understand how neural systems function. The MAIN MEETING is single-track. A set of invited talks are selected by the Executive Committee, and additional talks and posters are selected by the Program Committee, based on submitted abstracts. The WORKSHOPS feature in-depth discussion of current topics of interest, in a small group setting. Cosyne topics include but are not limited to: neural coding, natural scene statistics, dendritic computation, neural basis of persistent activity, nonlinear receptive field mapping, representations of time and sequence, reward systems, decision-making, synaptic plasticity, map formation and plasticity, population coding, attention, and computation with spiking networks. When preparing an abstract, authors should be aware that not all abstracts can be accepted for the meeting, due to space constraints. Abstracts will be selected based on the clarity with which they convey the substance, significance, and originality of the work to be presented. TRAVEL GRANTS: Applications are now open for travel grants to attend the conference. Each awardee will receive at least $500 to help offset the costs of travel, registration, and accommodations. Larger grants may be available to those traveling from outside North America. Special consideration is given to scientists who have not previously attended the meeting, underrepresented minorities, students who are attending the meeting together with a mentor, and authors of submitted Cosyne abstracts. For details on applying, see http://www.cosyne.org/c/index.php?title=Travel_Grants MAILING LISTS: Cosyne mailing lists provide subscribers with various cosyne-related information and discussions. All mailing lists are moderated. 'Cosyne-announce' list provides official Cosyne announcements. 'Cosyne-discussions' is a new list providing a forum for cosyne-related scientific announcements and discussions. 'Cosyne-roomshare' list provides a forum for all other cosyne-related discussions on accommodation, transportation, etc. For details on Cosyne mailing lists, see http://www.cosyne.org/c/index.php?title=Mailinglist INVITED SPEAKERS: Rui Costa (Champalimaud) Catherine Dulac (Harvard) Joshua Gold (U Pennsylvania) Hopi Hoekstra (Harvard) Thomas Jessell (Columbia) John Krakauer (Johns Hopkins) Jeffrey Magee (Janelia Farm) Thomas Mrsic-Flogel (Universitat Basel) Yael Niv (Princeton) Elad Schneidman (Weizmann Institute) Doris Tsao (Caltech) Nachum Ulanovsky (Weizmann Institute) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chairs: Marlene Cohen (U Pittsburgh) and Peter Latham (UCL) Program Chairs: Michael Long (NYU) and Stephanie Palmer (U Chicago) Workshop Chairs: Robert Froemke (NYU) and Tatyana Sharpee (Salk) Publicity Chair: Eugenia Chiappe (Champalimaud) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Anne Churchland (CSHL) Zachary Mainen (Champalimaud) Alexandre Pouget (U Geneva) Anthony Zador (CSHL) From schwarzwaelder at bcos.uni-freiburg.de Thu Nov 7 11:12:46 2013 From: schwarzwaelder at bcos.uni-freiburg.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?Kerstin_Schwarzw=E4lder?=) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 17:12:46 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Open positions in Computational Neuroscience in Germany - visit the Bernstein Network booth #3930 at SfN 2013! Message-ID: <527BBBFE.8080801@bcos.uni-freiburg.de> Dear all, at its booth #3930 at the upcoming SfN meeting in San Diego, the German Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience is presenting job offers and more than 20 study programs at more than 20 locations in Germany. We look forward to welcoming you at booth #3930! Best regards, Kerstin Schwarzwaelder -- Dr. Kerstin Schwarzw?lder Bernstein Coordination Site of the National Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg Hansastr. 9A 79104 Freiburg Germany phone: +49 761 203 9594 fax: +49 761 203 9585 schwarzwaelder at bcos.uni-freiburg.de www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From plaut at cmu.edu Wed Nov 6 12:47:31 2013 From: plaut at cmu.edu (David Plaut) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 12:47:31 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Call for nominations: Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes in Cognitive Science In-Reply-To: <259E87F6-5ABA-4E4B-9B6C-CF6065971392@wisc.edu> References: <259E87F6-5ABA-4E4B-9B6C-CF6065971392@wisc.edu> Message-ID: <527A80B3.1080605@cmu.edu> *Call for Nominations* *The Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes in Cognitive Science* *Nomination Deadline: January 15, 2014* The Cognitive Science Society and the Glushko-Samuelson Foundation seek nominations for up to five outstanding dissertation prizes in cognitive science. The goals of these prizes are to increase the prominence of cognitive science, and encourage students to engage in interdisciplinary efforts to understand minds and intelligent systems. The hope is that the prizes will recognize and honor young researchers conducting ground-breaking research in cognitive science. The eventual goal is to aid in efforts to bridge between the areas of cognitive science and create theories of general interest to the multiple fields concerned with scientifically understanding the nature of minds and intelligent systems. Promoting a unified cognitive science is consistent with the belief that understanding how minds work will require the synthesis of many different empirical methods, formal tools, and analytic theories. The prize was first begun in 2011, and 2014 will occasion the induction of the fourth group of prize winners. Up-to-date information on the prizes can be found at http://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/about_awards_glushko.html. *A Description of the Prizes* 1) Up to five Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes in Cognitive Science will be awarded annually. Each prize will be accompanied by a certificate and a $10,000 award to be used by the recipient without any constraints. Prize winners will also receive three years of complimentary membership in the Cognitive Science Society starting with the year in which they have won the prize. 2) Prize-winning dissertations are expected to transcend any one of the individual fields comprising cognitive science. They should centrally address issues of interest to multiple fields that comprise cognitive science, including: psychology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, and education. 3) Prize-winners must have received a PhD degree no more than two years before the January 15 nomination deadline. For the 2014 prizes, dissertations will be considered from individuals who received their PhD degrees during the period from January 15, 2012 to January 15, 2014. 4) The dissertation prizes are open to any student who has conducted dissertation research related to cognitive science, regardless of nationality or originating department. *How to Submit* 1) The deadline for nominations is January 15, 2014. Awardees will be announced by April 15, 2014. 2) All nomination materials should be sent electronically to glushkoprize at gmail.com , in ascii, PDF, or Word format. A nomination dossier includes: Letters of support from 3 faculty members. The letters of support should explicitly describe how the dissertation research transcends a single field comprising cognitive science to address core issues of relevance to several fields. We recommend that these letters refer to particular sections of the dissertation to support claims for interdisciplinary importance. A curriculum vitae for the nominee The dissertation itself A pr?cis of no more than 4,000 words (references are not included in the word count) written by the nominee describing the dissertation research. This description should clearly express the interdisciplinary contribution of the dissertation, suitable for review by a broad spectrum of cognitive scientists. *Glusko Prize Commitee* Kathleen Akins , Professor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, Canada Dedre Gentner , Professor of Psychology and of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, United States Maryellen MacDonald (*chair*), Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States David Plaut , Professor of Computer Science and Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, United States Tim Shallice , Professor of Neuropsychology, University College London, England Linda Smith , Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, United States Shimon Ullman , Professor of Computer Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel *Acknowledgements* The Robert J. Glushko Prize is underwritten by the Glushko-Samuleson Foundation, which also underwrites the David E. Rumelhart Prize in Cognitive Science. The prize is sponsored by the Cognitive Science Society . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rava at ens.fr Wed Nov 6 22:33:58 2013 From: rava at ens.fr (Rava A. da Silveira) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 22:33:58 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: POSTDOCTORAL POSITION IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE AT ENS, PARIS Message-ID: POSTDOCTORAL POSITION available in the group of RAVA AZEREDO DA SILVEIRA at the ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE, Paris This position will be devoted, in part, to the analysis and modeling of exciting retina data sets from the labs of Botond Roska (FMI) and Andreas Hierlemann (ETH). Experience with data analysis and proficiency with numerical methods and programming, in addition to familiarity with neuroscience topics and mathematical and statistical methods, are desirable. In addition, research may be pursued on problems of single-cell and network dynamics, neural coding, or cognitive and behavioral modeling (inference, sensory integration, decision making, etc), with more or less connection with data depending upon the specific problem. Thus, a spirit of intellectual adventure and eagerness is at least as desirable. The ENS, together with a number of neighboring institutions (College de France, Institut Curie, ESPCI, Universit?s Paris 5, 6, and 7, and Institut Pasteur), offers a rich scientific and intellectual environment, with a strong representation in computational neuroscience and related fields. Furthermore, as far as cities go, Paris is not bad. The postdoctoral salary will be supplemented by travel and equipment funds. To apply, please send a letter of motivation and statement of research, a curriculum vitae, a list of publication, and arrange for three letters of recommendations to be sent, to rava at ens.fr. Reviewing of the applications with start on 25 November 2013. From cchrist at cs.ucy.ac.cy Tue Nov 5 13:01:58 2013 From: cchrist at cs.ucy.ac.cy (Chris Christodoulou) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 20:01:58 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: BRAIN RESEARCH - Special Issues on Neural Coding Message-ID: <52793296.6000604@cs.ucy.ac.cy> Dear colleagues, We would like to announce a couple of /Brain Research/ Special Issues on Neural Coding: /?rain Research/ -- Volume 1536 - 6 November 2013 Available online for download now from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00068993/1536 /Brain Research/ -- Volume 1434 - 24 January 2012 Available online for download from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00068993/1434 The Table of Contents of each one of the issues above can be seen at the end of this email. Kind regards, Chris Christodoulou, Petr Lansky and Jean-Pierre Rospars -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /?rain Research/ - Contents -- Volume 1536 - 6 November 2013 Special Issue: Selected papers presented at the Tenth International Neural Coding Workshop, Prague, Czech Republic, 2012 Available online for download now: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00068993/1536 Guest Editors ' Foreword Foreword P. Lansky (Czech Republic) , J.-P. Rospars (France) and C. Christodoulou (Cyprus) Selected Articles The speed of learning instructed stimulus-response association rules in human: Experimental data and model G. Bugmann, J. Goslin (United Kingdom) and P. Duchamp-Viret (France) On the precision of neural computation with interaural level differences in the lateral superior olive Z. Bures and P. Marsalek (Czech Republic) On the haptic nature of the active electric sense of fish A.A. Caputi , P.A. Aguilera , A. Carolina Pereira and A. Rodr?guez-Catt?neo (Uruguay) Modeling complex responses of FM-sensitive cells in the auditory midbrain using a committee machine T.R. Chang , T.W. Chiu (Taiwan), X. Sun (China) and P.W.F. Poon (Taiwan) Natural image sequences constrain dynamic receptive fields and imply a sparse code C. H?usler , A. Susemihl and M.P. Nawrot (Germany) Nested theta to gamma oscillations and precise spatiotemporal firing during memory retrieval in a simulated attractor network P.A. Herman , M. Lundqvist and A. Lansner (Sweden) Population coding is essential for rapid information processing in the moth antennal lobe R. Kobayashi , S. Namiki , R. Kanzaki , K. Kitano , I. Nishikawa (Japan) and P. Lansky (Czech Republic) Measuring input synchrony in the Ornstein -- Uhlenbeck neuronal model through input parameter estimation A. Koutsou (Cyprus), J. Kanev (Germany) and C. Christodoulou (Cyprus) Visual thalamocortical circuits in parvalbumin-deficient mice A. Lintas , B. Schwaller (Switzerland) and A.E.P. Villa (Switzerland, France) Data-driven honeybee antennal lobe model suggests how stimulus-onset asynchrony can aid odour segregation T. Nowotny (UK) , J.S. Stierle , C.G. Galizia and P. Szyszka (Germany) Transmission efficiency in ring, brain inspired neuronal networks. Information and energetic aspects B. Paprocki and J. Szczepanski (Poland) Responses of single neurons and neuronal ensembles in frog first- and second-order olfactory neurons J.-P. Rospars (France), P. Sanda , P. Lansky (Czech Republic) and P. Duchamp-Viret (France) Modeling neuronal activity in relation to experimental voltage-/patch-clamp recordings A. Tchaptchet (Germany), S. Postnova (Australia) , C. Finke , H. Schneider , M.T. Huber and H.A. Braun (Germany) Glutamate -- AMPAR interaction in a model of synaptic transmission F. Ventriglia and V. Di Maio (Italy) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brain Research - Contents -- Volume 1434 - 24 January 2012 Selected papers presented at the Ninth International Workshop on Neural Coding, Limassol, Cyprus, 2010 Available online for download from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00068993/1434 Foreword C. Christodoulou, P. Lansky, and J.-P. Rospars (Cyprus, Czech Republic, France) Brief Introductory Speech by Professor Jose Segundo A few words a propos of neural coding (also thanks and alleged wisdom) J. Segundo (USA, Uruguay) Research Reports Lateral thinking, from the Hopfield model to cortical dynamics A. Akrami, E. Russo, and A. Treves (Italy) Integration and transmission of distributed deterministic neural activity in feed-forward networks Y. Asai and A.E.P. Villa (Japan, Switzerland, France) Viewing strategy of /Cebus/ monkeys during free exploration of natural images D. Berger, A. Pazienti, F.J. Flores, M.P. Nawrot, P.E. Maldonado, and S. Gr?n (Germany, Italy, Chile) Perception of categories: From coding efficiency to reaction times L. Bonnasse-Gahot and J.-P. Nadal (France) Transient dynamics between displaced fixed points: An alternate nonlinear dynamical framework for olfaction C.L. Buckley and T. Nowotny (UK) Modeling fast stimulus--response association learning along the occipito-parieto-frontal pathway following rule instructions G. Bugmann (UK) Modeling frequency modulated responses of midbrain auditory neurons based on trigger features and artificial neural networks T.R. Chang, T.W. Chiu, X. Sun, and P.W.F. Poon (Taiwan, China) Encoding electric signals by /Gymnotus omarorum/: Heuristic modeling of tuberous electroreceptor organs E.R. Cilleruelo and ?.A. Caputi (Uruguay) Learning optimisation by high firing irregularity A. Cleanthous and C. Christodoulou (Cyprus) Modelling the signal delivered by a population of first-order neurons in a moth olfactory system A. Gr?miaux, T. Nowotny, D. Martinez, P. Lucasa, and J.-P. Rosparsa (France, UK) Approximate information capacity of the perfect integrate-and-fire neuron using the temporal code L. Kostal (Czech Republic) Dopamine deficiency increases synchronized activity in the rat subthalamic nucleus A. Lintas, I.G. Silkis, L. Alb?ri, and A.E.P. Villa (Switzerland, Canada, Russia, France) Variability of spike firing during theta-coupled replay of memories in a simulated attractor network M. Lundqvist, P. Herman, and A. Lansner (Sweden) Input-rate modulation of gamma oscillations is sensitive to network topology, delays and short-term plasticity M.D. McDonnell, A. Mohan, C. Stricker, and L.M. Ward (Australia, Canada) Characterising stimulus-specific adaptation using a multi-layer field model R. Mill, M. Coath, T. Wennekers, and S.L. Denham (UK) Neural coding in graphs of bidirectional associative memories A.D. Bouchain and G. Palm (Germany) Self-terminating wave patterns and self-organized pacemakers in a phenomenological model of spreading depression D.E. Postnov, D.D. Postnov, and L. Schimansky-Geier (Russia, Germany) Cortical attractor network dynamics with diluted connectivity E.T. Rolls and T.J. Webb (UK) Information analysis of posterior canal afferents in the turtle, /Trachemys scripta elegans/ M.H. Rowe and A.B. Neiman (USA) Detecting dependencies between spike trains of pairs of neurons through copulas L. Sacerdote, M. Tamborrino, and C. Zucca (Italy, Denmark) Stochastic interpolation model of the medial superior olive neural circuit P. Sanda and P. Marsalek (Czech Republic, Germany) Reciprocal projections in hierarchically organized evolvable neural circuits affect EEG-like signals V. Shaposhnyk and A.E.P. Villa (Switzerland, France) The emergence of connectivity in neuronal networks: From bootstrap percolation to auto-associative memory T.S. Turova (Sweden) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From metzner at rob.uni-luebeck.de Thu Nov 7 10:26:23 2013 From: metzner at rob.uni-luebeck.de (Christoph Metzner) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 16:26:23 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Open PhD Position at University of Luebeck, Germany Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings ------------------------------------------ The Department of Neurology, University of L?beck seeks to recruit a Ph.D. student from the 1st of January 2014 onwards. The candidate will be working on a project on the neural basis of primary food reward in humans using multimodal imaging (EEG-fMRI). An essential part of the project will be the development of methods of electrophysiological-hemodynamic coupling. Applicants must hold a Diplom, MSc or equivalent degree in Mathematics, Physics, Engineering or a relevant discipline. They should have a strong interest in cognitive neuroscience and excellent programming skills. Preference will be given to applicants experienced in functional imaging and/or cognitive electrophysiology. The position is initially for 2 years with the possibility of renewal. The salary will be according to an E13 (TV-L, 50%) position. The University of L?beck is an equal opportunities employer. Applications from female candidates are strongly encouraged. In case of compatible qualifications, preference will be given to people with disabilities. Applications should include CV, copies of certificates and letters of recommendation. Please send initial enquiries and/or applications directly to Dr. Nuria Do?amayor Alonso (nuria.donamayor at neuro.uni-luebeck.de). -- ========================================================================================================= Institute for Robotics and Cognitive Systems -- University of Luebeck Graduate School for Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences -- University of Luebeck -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dipl. Math. Christoph Metzner tel: +49 451 500 5694 University of Luebeck secretary: +49 451 500 5201 Institute for Robotics fax: +49 451 500 5202 Ratzeburger Allee 160 mail: metzner at rob.uni-luebeck.de D-23538 Luebeck, Germany www: http://www.rob.uni-luebeck.de // http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de/ ========================================================================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ilafiete at mail.clm.utexas.edu Wed Nov 6 23:04:39 2013 From: ilafiete at mail.clm.utexas.edu (Ila Fiete) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:04:39 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: Ph.D. positions in vision research at the University of Texas at Austin Message-ID: <527B1157.7050200@mail.clm.utexas.edu> Dear Colleagues, Please convey the following announcement to bright undergraduates looking for opportunities to earn a Ph.D. in perception, action, and neuroscience. Best regards, Ila Fiete ------------------- The program in Perception at The University of Texas at Austin is encouraging applications for interdisciplinary graduate study in vision sciences, with emphasis on naturalistic tasks and stimuli. Housed in the Department of Psychology, the Institute for Neuroscience, and the Center for Perceptual Systems, our program is a vibrant, growing, and highly-collaborative collection of research laboratories boasting world-class facilities for conducting research in visual perception, visually guided actions, and the underlying neural mechanisms. These facilities include fMRI, eye tracking, head and body tracking, face and facial expression tracking, virtual reality, the collection of 3D time-varying natural scene statistics, computationally-intensive modeling and computer graphics, psychophysics, 2 photon microscopy, optical imaging, and electrophysiology. Funding opportunities are available through an NIH training grant, Research Assistantships, Fellowships, and Teaching Assistantships. Faculty actively engaging in interdisciplinary research in the program include: Dana Ballard: computational neuroscience, machine learning, visuo-motor control Larry Cormack: vision and natural scene statistics; psychophysics, motion and depth Ila Fiete: computational neuroscience of network dynamics and coding Bill Geisler: vision and natural scene statistics; computational modeling Mary Hayhoe: eye movements, attention, virtual environments. Alex Huk: sensory-motor decisions, neural mechanisms of motion and depth perception Ian Nauhaus: circuitry underlying functional maps and coding in visual cortex Jonathan Pillow: computational neuroscience, neural coding, Bayesian modeling Nicholas Priebe: neural coding in early visual cortex, intracellular recording Eyal Seidemann: neural basis of visual perception, neural population coding Max Snodderly: early visual system, eye movements, and natural environments More information on our research can be found at www.cps.utexas.edu , and we encourage you to contact investigators directly if you are interested in their research. You can apply via the Ph.D. programs in Neuroscience http://neuroscience.utexas.edu/program/ 512-471-3640, neuroscience at mail.clm.utexas.edu and Psychology http://www.psy.utexas.edu/psy/GradProgram/gradhome.html 512-471-6398, gradoffice at psy.utexas.edu /Interested students are strongly encouraged to apply to both programs/. -- ________________________________ Ila Fiete Assistant Professor Center for Learning and Memory The University of Texas at Austin Phone: 512.232.8439 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cookie at ucsd.edu Thu Nov 7 14:31:59 2013 From: cookie at ucsd.edu (Santamaria, Cookie) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 19:31:59 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Winter q-bio Mtg in HAWAII Feb. 2014 ***Abstract submission deadline EXTENDED*** In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *** ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2013*** http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ THE SECOND ANNUAL WINTER Q-BIO MEETING Quantitative Biology on the Hawaiian Islands February 17-20, 2014 http://w-qbio.org/ The Winter q-bio meeting brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in all areas of q-bio. The venue for 2014 is the Hilton Waikoloa Village, which is located on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii's Big Island. The resort lets you experience breathtaking tropical gardens, abundant wildlife, award-winning dining, world-class shopping, art and culture, and an array of activities. The Island of Hawaii is the youngest and biggest in the Hawaiian chain, providing a vast canvas of environments to discover--home of one of the world's most active volcanoes (Kilauea), the most massive mountain in the world (Maunaloa), and the largest park in the state (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park). As requested by participants at the last meeting, a number of selected contributed talks will be interspersed with the invited talks during the plenary morning sessions (in addition to the contributed talks in the breakout sessions). SPONSORED BY: UC San Diego BioCircuits Institute and the San Diego Center for Systems Biology The University of Hawaii at Manoa UC San Diego Divisions of Biological Sciences and Engineering The Office of Naval Research 2014 CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Naama Barkai, The Weizmann Institute of Science Sangeeta Bhatia Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco Zev Gartner, University of California, San Francisco Taekjip Ha, University of Illinois Shigeru Kondo, Osaka University Arthur Lander, University of California, Irvine Andrew Murray, Harvard University Steve Quake, Stanford University Petra Schwille, Max Planck Institute Christina Smolke, Stanford University Aleksandra Walczak, Laboratoire de Physique Th?orique CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS: Kevin Bennett, University of Hawaii at Manoa William Ditto, University of Hawaii at Manoa Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco Jeff Hasty, University of California, San Diego Alexander Hoffmann, University of California, San Diego Galit Lahav, Harvard University Eva-Maria Schoetz-Collins, University of California, San Diego Chao Tang, Peking University Lev Tsimring, University of California, San Diego ***REGISTRATION NOW OPEN*** Registration fee covers conference venue, registration reception, banquet, coffee & snacks. EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ($500/$425 Student) DEADLINE: December 1, 2013 REGULAR REGISTRATION ($600/$525 Student) DEADLINE: January 31, 2014 LATE REGISTRATION ($675/$600 Student) After January 31, 2014 REGISTER NOW: http://w-qbio.org/ HOTEL: A block of rooms has been reserved for registered conference participants at a negotiated rate of $199 per night at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. The rooms will be available soon on a first-come, first-served basis, so book early! CONTRIBUTED TALKS: If you wish to present your work at the conference, either as an oral talk or a poster, you must submit an abstract through the conference website by the November 5th deadline. Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ ABSTRACT DEADLINE: EXTENDED UNTIL MONDAY, November 18, 2013 (Extended due to large volume of interest!) Accepted abstracts will be announced by November 25, 2012. You may submit your abstract now and if accepted, still register by the early bird registration deadline of December 2, 2013. Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ We encourage you to forward this message to any colleagues that may be interested in taking part in this exciting event. Questions should be emailed to: coordinator at w-qbio.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Colin.Wise at uts.edu.au Thu Nov 7 21:07:43 2013 From: Colin.Wise at uts.edu.au (Colin Wise) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 13:07:43 +1100 Subject: Connectionists: AAI Short Course - Advanced Data Analytics - an Introduction - Tuesday 19 November 2013 Message-ID: <8112393AA53A9B4A9BDDA6421F26C68A016E461F86E9@MAILBOXCLUSTER.adsroot.uts.edu.au> Dear Colleague, AAI Short Course - Advanced Data Analytics - an Introduction - Tuesday 19 November 2013 https://shortcourses-bookings.uts.edu.au/Clientview/Schedules/ScheduleDetail.aspx?ScheduleID=1356&EventID=1171 Our AAI short course Advanced Data Analytics - an Introduction may well be of interest to you and or others in your organisation. The Data Analytics introductory short course will provide an early and rewarding understanding of the level of analytics to which your organisation and your people should aspire. Upon completion of this course students will: * Understand why advanced data analytics is essential to your business success * Understand the key terms and concepts used in advanced data analytics * Understand relations of big data, clouding computing and analytics * Be familiar with basic skills of statistics in data analytics, including descriptive analysis, regression, multivariate data analysis * Learning basic data mining and data warehousing, visualization and reporting, such as supervised vs unsupervised methods, clustering, association rule and frequent mining and so on * Knowing key techniques in machine learning, such as Parametric and non-parametric models, learning and inference, Maximum-likelihood estimation, and Bayesian approaches and so on * Be given the introduction of social media analytics, multimedia analytics, and the real projects or case studies conducted in AAI Further information and registrations at https://shortcourses-bookings.uts.edu.au/Clientview/Schedules/ScheduleDetail.aspx?ScheduleID=1356&EventID=1171 We are happy to discuss at your convenience - please contact us. Thank you and regards. Colin Wise Operations Manager Advanced Analytics Institute (AAI) Blackfriars Building 2, Level 1 University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Email: Colin.Wise at uts.edu.au Tel. +61 2 9514 9267 M. 0448 916 589 AAI: www.analytics.uts.edu.au/ Future short courses on Data Analytics and Big Data may be viewed at LINK AAI Education and Training Short Courses Survey - you may be interested in completing our AAI Survey at LINK AAI September 2013 Newsletter Link AAI Email Policy - should you wish to not receive this periodic communication on Data Analytics Learning please reply to our email (to sender) with UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject. We will delete you from our database. Thank you for your past and future support. UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From triesch at fias.uni-frankfurt.de Thu Nov 7 22:18:41 2013 From: triesch at fias.uni-frankfurt.de (Jochen Triesch) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 19:18:41 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: 10 PhD scholarships at the International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits Message-ID: <04D20891-4BC5-4B8E-9204-07D59BB4B133@fias.uni-frankfurt.de> International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Neural Circuits was funded in 2011 by the Max Planck Society and offers ten positions every year for excellent students holding a relevant Master?s or Bachelor?s degree to perform research resulting in a PhD. The program is taught in English. All positions are completely funded (by the school and/or participating Labs), either by a contract or a fellowship. The common focus of the IMPRS for Neural Circuits will be the understanding of neural circuits (from the simple to the large and complex), at all scales required to achieve this understanding. This ambitious objective will require analyses at the molecular, cellular, multi-cellular, network and behavioral levels, with the full understanding that macroscopic phenomena (spatial patterns, dynamics) can be scale-dependent, and that reductionism is not always sufficient as a method. In the IMPRS for Neural Circuits we offer a multidisciplinary program to excellent doctoral students with backgrounds in neuroscience, mathematics, physics, computer science, (bio) chemistry, biology and medicine as well as research experience in the participating institutions of the Frankfurt Neuroscience community (see website for participating Faculty members). Students will participate in a tailor-made educational program including research rotations and neuroscience classes but also in trainings in transferable skills. We welcome excellent students to apply to the program. Till January 6, 2014, it will be possible to apply for a position starting in the Fall of 2014. You can apply via our electronic registration system. After the deadline, the Faculty members will select around 25 students to participate in the interview symposium in Frankfurt (March 2014). Shortly after the symposium, the students will receive a letter with an offer or rejection. More information can be found on our website www.imprs.brain.mpg.de. Please send an email to arjan.vink at brain.mpg.de if you have more specific questions. -- Prof. Dr. Jochen Triesch Johanna Quandt Research Professor Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/~triesch/ Tel: +49 (0)69 798-47531 Fax: +49 (0)69 798-47611 From rajeev.raizada at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 11:36:45 2013 From: rajeev.raizada at gmail.com (Rajeev Raizada) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 11:36:45 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure-track jobs in Data Sci open at U.Rochester, including comp.ling., comp.vision, comp.models of perception, machine learning Message-ID: The University of Rochester has committed $50m to a new Data Science initiative, and is conducting searches for multiple tenure-track positions. https://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=7532 Focus areas include computational linguistics, computer vision, computational models of human perception, and machine learning. Full info about the jobs can be found here: http://www.rochester.edu/rocdata/recruit/interdisciplinary and is also pasted below. Raj --------------- Rajeev Raizada Assistant Professor Dept. of Brain & Cognitive Sciences University of Rochester Meliora Hall Rochester, NY 14627 rajeev.raizada at gmail.com http://raizadalab.org --------------- Faculty Search for Interdisciplinary Research in Data Science The University of Rochester has made data science the centerpiece of its 5-year strategic plan, committing to 20 new faculty lines in diverse areas, a new building, and the establishment of the Institute for Data Science. We are currently seeking applicants for tenure track positions in interdisciplinary research areas within data science. This search complements department-specific searches in data science currently underway; see http://www.rochester.edu/rocdata/recruit/index.html for a summary of all data science searches. The interdisciplinary search focuses on recruiting candidates who are excited about engaging in collaborative research that connects advances in computational models and methods to other fields of engineering or life, social, or physical sciences. Successful candidates will receive a primary appointment in one of the departments supporting the search, and a secondary appointment in at least one other department. Departments supporting this search are Biomedical Engineering, Biology, Biostatistics & Computational Biology, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Chemistry, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Economics, Linguistics, Mathematics, Physics & Astronomy, and Political Science. Focus areas for this year?s interdisciplinary search are: Fundamental Methods in Machine Learning, Network Science, and Statistics Research on general computational methods for constructing systems for classification, prediction, classification, clustering, and related tasks from large-scale data. We are particularly interested in work on analyzing complex relational data using network models. Computational Linguistics, Computer Vision, and Computational Models of Human Perception Research in computational linguistics or computer vision, with a particular interest in work that spans shallow and deep semantic processing, and/or relates computational models to physiological models of perception. Candidates should have extensive experience with natural corpora and other rich databases. Computational Biology and Computational Bioengineering Research on computational approaches to analyze large, complex data sets in biology and biomedical engineering. Potential areas of research may include functional and evolutionary genomics, proteomics and protein folding, systems biology, multi-scale modeling in bioengineering, or multimodal bio-imaging informatics. Global Biogeochemistry Research that integrates biotic (e.g. microbial), chemical, and geological processes for an interdisciplinary research focus on understanding global geochemical cycling processes and/or global climate change. Applicants should have a strong computational and/or modeling component to their research aimed at mining, integrating, and/or interpreting large data sets. Apply online for this search at: https://www.rochester.edu/fort/rocdata/ Applicants should hold a PhD and will be required to supply a set of refereed scholarly publications, names of references, and research and teaching statements. The application asks applicants to select a focus area and set of disciplines most relevant to their research area. Review of applications at any rank will begin immediately and continue until the positions are filled. For full consideration, applications should be received by January 1st, 2014. Please direct questions by email to Melissa Singkhamsack (melissas at cs.rochester.edu). The University of Rochester is a private, Tier I research institution located in western New York State. It consistently ranks among the top 30 institutions, both public and private, in federal funding for research and development. The university has made substantial investments in computing infrastructure through the Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) and the Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation (HSCCI). The university includes the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester Medical Center, a major medical school, research center, and hospital system. The greater Rochester area is home to over a million people, including 80,000 students who attend the 8 colleges and universities in the region. The University of Rochester has a strong commitment to diversity and actively encourages applications from candidates from groups underrepresented in higher education. The University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. From jaakko.peltonen at aalto.fi Fri Nov 8 11:45:51 2013 From: jaakko.peltonen at aalto.fi (Peltonen Jaakko) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 16:45:51 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Second Call for Participation: MLSS Machine Learning Summer School, Reykjavik, April 25 - May 4, 2014 Message-ID: <34678FBC663BDC47BAD0B96BB3FF28580120D8CE67@EXMDB01.org.aalto.fi> ============================================================================== MLSS Machine Learning Summer School April 25 - May 4, 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland http://mlss2014.hiit.fi Colocated with AISTATS 2014, the Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics ============================================================================== The Machine Learning Summer School will take place at Reykjavik University in Reykjavik, Iceland, from April 25 to May 4, 2014. The field of machine learning is at the intersection of computer science, statistics, mathematics, and optimization. The Machine Learning Summer School (MLSS) is a great venue for graduate students, researchers, and professionals to learn about fundamental and advanced methods of machine learning, data analysis, and inference, from theory to practice. The MLSS in Reykjavik features an exciting program with talks from leading experts in the field. MLSS is colocated with the high-profile international conference AISTATS 2014, the Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics. The MLSS also features a poster session for students, jointly with a poster session of AISTATS. Limited travel support for students is available, see the website for details. Key Information: ---------------- URL: http://mlss2014.hiit.fi Dates: April 25 - May 4, 2014 Location: Reykjavik, Iceland Email contact: mlss at iiim.is Application system opens: 15 October Student application deadline: 15 November Admission notification by: 31 December Confirmed Speakers: ------------------- Yoshua Bengio, Universite de Montreal http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy/yoshua_en/index.html Michael Betancourt, University College London http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucakmjb/ Emily B. Fox, University of Washington http://www.stat.washington.edu/~ebfox/ Mark Girolami, University College London http://www.ucl.ac.uk/statistics/people/markgirolami Thore Graepel, Microsoft Research Cambridge http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/thoreg/ Ralf Herbrich, Amazon http://www.herbrich.me/ Chris Holmes, University of Oxford http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~cholmes/ Neil Lawrence, University of Sheffield http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/N.Lawrence/ Iain Murray, University of Edinburgh http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/ David Silver, University College London http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/d.silver/web/Home.html Follow the website for more speakers! Joint Tutorial Speakers with AISTATS: ------------------------------------- Roderick Murray-Smith, University of Glasgow http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/ Talk title TBA Christian P. Robert, Ceremade - Universite Paris-Dauphine https://www.ceremade.dauphine.fr/~xian/ Talk title: Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), methodology and applications Havard Rue, Norwegian University of Science and Technology http://www.ntnu.edu/employees/havard.rue Talk title: Bayesian computing with INLA Posters: ------------------ Bring along a poster! MLSS is an excellent opportunity to showcase your work. Note that it is possible to present posters alread on April 24, the day before MLSS starts: there will be a joint poster session with AISTATS on April 24, and the student poster session continues the following day. Social Events: -------------- In addition to the scientific program, a lively social program is available, with events such as a joint poster session/reception with AISTATS, an evening out, a hiking trip/walking tour, and other informal gatherings, pub excursions etc. Some events may involve a small fee. Colocated Events: ----------------- MLSS is colocated with the high-profile international conference AISTATS 2014, the Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics. There will be a joint poster session with AISTATS on April 24, and the student poster session continues the following day. April 25 is also an AISTATS/MLSS joint tutorial day. See http://www.aistats.org for information about AISTATS 2014. Venue: ------ The MLSS will be held in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, in Reykjavik University. Reykjavik and its environs offer a unique mix of culture and varied nature, from glaciers to waterfalls to geysers and thermal pools. Reykjavik is easily reachable by several airlines; travel information will be available on http://mlss2014.hiit.fi. Program Chairs: --------------- Samuel Kaski, Aalto University and University of Helsinki Jukka Corander, University of Helsinki Yee Whye Teh, University of Oxford Organizing Committee: --------------------- Deon Garrett (local organization chair), School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University and Icelandic Institute for Intelligent Machines Dorota Glowacka (sponsorship chair), University of Helsinki Antti Honkela, University of Helsinki Jaakko Peltonen (publicity and webmaster), Aalto University ============= for more information see http://mlss2014.hiit.fi =============== From grlmc at urv.cat Sat Nov 9 15:23:43 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 21:23:43 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: AlCoB 2014: 2nd call for papers Message-ID: <1FCB1BD19D834511B54D95BEDC65502D@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ********************************************************************* 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ALGORITHMS FOR COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY AlCoB 2014 Tarragona, Spain July 1-3, 2014 Organized by: Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics (GRLMC) Rovira i Virgili University http://grammars.grlmc.com/alcob2014/ ********************************************************************* AIMS: AlCoB aims at promoting and displaying excellent research using string and graph algorithms and combinatorial optimization to deal with problems in biological sequence analysis, genome rearrangement, evolutionary trees, and structure prediction. The conference will address several of the current challenges in computational biology by investigating algorithms aimed at: 1) assembling sequence reads into a complete genome, 2) identifying gene structures in the genome, 3) recognizing regulatory motifs, 4) aligning nucleotides and comparing genomes, 5) reconstructing regulatory networks of genes, and 6) inferring the evolutionary phylogeny of species. Particular focus will be put on methodology and significant room will be reserved to young scholars at the beginning of their career. VENUE: AlCoB 2014 will take place in Tarragona, located 90 kms. to the south of Barcelona. The venue will be the Catalunya Campus. SCOPE: Topics of either theoretical or applied interest include, but are not limited to: Exact sequence analysis Approximate sequence analysis Pairwise sequence alignment Multiple sequence alignment Sequence assembly Genome rearrangement Regulatory motif finding Phylogeny reconstruction Phylogeny comparison Structure prediction Compressive genomics Proteomics: molecular pathways, interaction networks ... Transcriptomics: splicing variants, isoform inference and quantification, differential analysis Next-generation sequencing: population genomics, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics ... Microbiome analysis Systems biology STRUCTURE: AlCoB 2014 will consist of: invited talks invited tutorials peer-reviewed contributions INVITED SPEAKERS: Michael Galperin (National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda), Comparative Genomics Approaches to Identifying Functionally Related Genes Uwe Ohler (Max-Delbr?ck Centre for Molecular Medicine, Berlin), Decoding Non-coding Regulatory Regions in DNA and RNA (tutorial) Jason Papin (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), Network Analysis of Microbial Pathogens PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: Tatsuya Akutsu (Kyoto, JP) Amihood Amir (Ramat-Gan, IL) Alberto Apostolico (Atlanta, US) Joel Bader (Baltimore, US) Pierre Baldi (Irvine, US) Serafim Batzoglou (Stanford, US) Bonnie Berger (Cambridge, US) Francis Y.L. Chin (Hong Kong, HK) Benny Chor (Tel Aviv, IL) Keith A. Crandall (Washington, US) Bhaskar DasGupta (Chicago, US) Joaqu?n Dopazo (Valencia, ES) Liliana Florea (Baltimore, US) Olivier Gascuel (Montpellier, FR) David Gilbert (Uxbridge, UK) Gaston H. Gonnet (Zurich, CH) Roderic Guig? (Barcelona, ES) Dan Gusfield (Davis, US) Vasant Honavar (University College, US) Sorin Istrail (Providence, US) Tao Jiang (Riverside, US) Inge Jonassen (Bergen, NO) Anders Krogh (Copenhagen, DK) Giovanni Manzini (Alessandria, IT) Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, ES, chair) Satoru Miyano (Tokyo, JP) Burkhard Morgenstern (G?ttingen, DE) Shinichi Morishita (Tokyo, JP) C?dric Notredame (Barcelona, ES) Graziano Pesole (Bari, IT) Mark Ragan (Brisbane, AU) Timothy Ravasi (Thuwal, SA) Allen G. Rodrigo (Durham, US) Steven Salzberg (Baltimore, US) David Sankoff (Ottawa, CA) Thomas Schiex (Toulouse, FR) Jo?o C. Setubal (S?o Paulo, BR) Steven Skiena (Stony Brook, US) Peter F. Stadler (Leipzig, DE) Wing-Kin Sung (Singapore, SG) Alfonso Valencia (Madrid, ES) Jacques van Helden (Marseille, FR) Arndt von Haeseler (Vienna, AT) Lusheng Wang (Hong Kong, HK) Limsoon Wong (Singapore, SG) Xiaohui Xie (Irvine, US) Dong Xu (Columbia, US) Zohar Yakhini (Santa Clara, US) Alex Zelikovsky (Atlanta, US) Michael Q. Zhang (Dallas, US) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Adrian Horia Dediu (Tarragona) Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, chair) Bianca Truthe (Magdeburg) Florentina Lilica Voicu (Tarragona) 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 standard format for 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=alcob2014 PUBLICATIONS: A volume of proceedings published by Springer in the LNCS/LNBI series will be available by the time of the conference. A special issue of a major journal will be later published containing peer-reviewed extended versions of some of the papers contributed to the conference. Submissions to it will be by invitation. REGISTRATION: The period for registration is open from September 21, 2013 to July 1, 2014. The registration form can be found at: http://grammars.grlmc.com/alcob2014/Registration.php DEADLINES: Paper submission: February 4, 2014 (23:59 CET) Notification of paper acceptance or rejection: March 15, 2014 Final version of the paper for the LNCS/LNBI proceedings: March 22, 2014 Early registration: March 29, 2014 Late registration: June 17, 2014 Starting of the conference: July 1, 2014 End of the conference: July 3, 2014 Submission to the post-conference journal special issue: October 3, 2014 QUESTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION: florentinalilica.voicu at urv.cat POSTAL ADDRESS: AlCoB 2014 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 bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Fri Nov 8 12:24:01 2013 From: bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Barbara Hammer) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 18:24:01 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Special Session on Learning and Modeling Big Data Message-ID: <527D1E31.80908@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdudik at microsoft.com Mon Nov 11 14:49:57 2013 From: mdudik at microsoft.com (Miro Dudik) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 19:49:57 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc positions at Microsoft Research NYC References: Message-ID: Microsoft Research NYC [ http://research.microsoft.com/newyork/ ] seeks outstanding applicants for 2-year postdoctoral researcher positions. We welcome applicants with a strong academic record in one of the following areas: * Machine learning: http://research.microsoft.com/mlnyc/ * Algorithmic economics and market design: http://research.microsoft.com/algorithmic-economics/ * Computational social science: http://research.microsoft.com/cssnyc * Online experimental social science: http://research.microsoft.com/oess_nyc We will also consider applicants in other focus areas of the lab, including information retrieval, and behavioral & empirical economics. Additional information about these areas is included below. For full consideration, please submit your application materials by Friday, December 13, 2013. Applications will continue to be reviewed after the deadline, subject to availability. Application submission instructions at: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/postdoc.aspx#NYC ---------- MACHINE LEARNING http://research.microsoft.com/mlnyc/ We welcome candidates from all areas of machine learning and related fields. Microsoft offers a unique opportunity to work with extremely diverse data sources, both big and small, while also offering a very stimulating environment for cutting-edge theoretical research. We seek postdoc applicants who have demonstrated ability to do independent research, have a strong publication record at top research venues and thrive in a multidisciplinary environment. ALGORITHMIC ECONOMICS AND MARKET DESIGN http://research.microsoft.com/algorithmic-economics/ Market design, the engineering arm of economics, benefits from an understanding of computation: complexity, algorithms, engineering practice, and data. Conversely, computer science in a networked world benefits from a solid foundation in economics: incentives and game theory. Scientists with hybrid expertise are crucial as social systems of all types move to electronic platforms, as people increasingly rely on programmatic trading aids, as market designers rely more on equilibrium simulations, and as optimization and machine learning algorithms become part of the inner loop of social and economic mechanisms. We seek applicants who embody a diverse mix of skills, including a background in computer science (e.g., artificial intelligence or theory) or related field, and knowledge of the theoretical and experimental economics literature. Experience building prototype systems, and a comfort level with modern programming paradigms (e.g., web programming and map-reduce) are also desirable. COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE http://research.microsoft.com/cssnyc With an increasing amount of data on every aspect of our daily activities -- from what we buy, to where we travel, to who we know -- we are able to measure human behavior with precision largely thought impossible just a decade ago. Lying at the intersection of computer science, statistics and the social sciences, the emerging field of computational social science uses large-scale demographic, behavioral and network data to address longstanding questions in sociology, economics, politics, and beyond. We seek postdoc applicants with a diverse set of skills, including experience with large-scale data, scalable statistical and machine learning methods, and knowledge of a substantive social science field, such as sociology, economics, psychology, political science, or marketing. ONLINE EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL SCIENCE http://research.microsoft.com/oess_nyc Online experimental social science involves using the web, including crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, to study human behavior in "virtual lab" environments. Among other topics, virtual labs have been used to study the relationship between financial incentives and performance, the honesty of online workers, advertising impact as a function of exposure time, the implicit cost of "bad ads," the testing of graphical user interfaces eliciting probabilistic information and also the relationship between network structure and social dynamics, related to social phenomena such as cooperation, learning, and collective problem solving. We seek postdoc applicants with a diverse mix of skills, including awareness of the theoretical and experimental social science literature, and experience with experimental design, as well as demonstrated statistical modeling and programming expertise. Specific experience running experiments on Amazon's Mechanical Turk or related crowdsourcing websites, as well as managing virtual participant pools is also desirable, as is evidence of UI design ability. From ecai2014 at guarant.cz Mon Nov 11 06:52:51 2013 From: ecai2014 at guarant.cz (ecai2014) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:52:51 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PAIS'14 Call for Papers Message-ID: PAIS'14 Call for Papers Conference on Prestigious Applications of Intelligent Systems 20 - 21 August 2014, Prague, Czech Republic http://www.ecai2014.org The PAIS'14 Programme Committee invites papers describing innovative applications of AI techniques to real-world systems and problems to be submitted to the Technical Programme of the 8th International Conference on the Prestigious Applications of Intelligent Systems - a subconference of the 21st European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI'14). Papers highlighting all aspects of the application of intelligent systems technology are most welcome. Our aim is to provide a forum for academic and industrial researchers and practitioners to share experience and insight on the applicability, development and deployment of intelligent systems. PAIS is the largest showcase in Europe of real applications using AI technology and is the ideal place to meet developers of successful applications. Papers on all novel and significant applications of intelligent systems are welcome. We encourage submissions on deployed (in production use for some period) and emerging (in field testing) applications. Both long (6-page) and short (2-page) papers can be submitted. Whereas long papers should report on substantial results, short papers are intended for highly promising but possibly more preliminary work. Short papers will be presented in poster form. Rejected long papers will also be considered for the short paper track. Submitted papers must be formatted according to ECAI'14 guidelines and submitted electronically through the ECAI'14 paper submission site. Full instructions including formatting guidelines and electronic templates are available on the ECAI'14 website. End of submission period: 1 March 2014 Author feedback: 14-18 April 2014 Notification of acceptance/rejection: 9 May 2014 Camera-ready copy due: 30 May 2014 The proceedings of PAIS'14 will be included in ECAI'14 and will be published by IOS Press. PAIS'14/ECAI'14 will be held in the beautiful and historic city of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. With excellent opportunities for sightseeing and gastronomy, Prague promises to be a wonderful venue for a memorable conference. PAIS'14 Conference Chairs: Gerhard Friedrich, Universitaet Klagenfurt, Austria Barry O'Sullivan, University College Cork, Ireland -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bernabe at imse-cnm.csic.es Tue Nov 12 06:29:16 2013 From: bernabe at imse-cnm.csic.es (bernabe) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 12:29:16 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Release of MNIST-DVS Message-ID: <5282110C.3050507@imse-cnm.csic.es> Apologies for cross-posting ------------------------------------- We recently released a version of the MNIST handwritten database, recorded with an Event-Driven Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) artificial retina. Further details and download info is available at: www.imse-cnm.csic.es/caviar/MNISTDVS.html Comments, feedback, suggestions, ... are greatly welcome. Best wishes, Bernabe -- -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bernabe Linares-Barranco, PhD, IEEE Fellow Full Professor (Profesor de Investigacion) CSIC Instituto Microelectronica Sevilla (IMSE) Phone: 34-954-466643/66 National Microelectronics Center, CNM-CSIC Fax: 34-954-466600 Av. Americo Vespucio s/n E-mail: Bernabe.Linares(AT)imse-cnm.csic.es 41092 Sevilla, SPAIN URL: http://www.imse-cnm.csic.es/~bernabe ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From retienne at jhu.edu Tue Nov 12 11:13:44 2013 From: retienne at jhu.edu (retienne) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 11:13:44 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 2014 Telluride Neuromorphic cognition Engineering Workshop: CALL FOR TOPIC AREA PROPOSALS Message-ID: <528253B8.2010301@jhu.edu> *Call for Topic Area Proposals*** *2014 Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop*** /Telluride, Colorado, June 29 -July 19, 2014/ We are now accepting proposals for Topic Areas in the 2014 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop. We support topics and projects in neuromorphic cognition, particularly those that involve solving challenging 'everyday' tasks that incorporate domain-specific knowledge, exploration, prediction, and problem solving. In particular, we are interested in projects that hold promise for addressing Grand Challenge types of problems that do not have strong solutions of any form, neuromorphic or not. These Challenge problems should feature long-duration sensorimotor problems that involve autonomous cognitive decision making. Examples might include tasks such as learning a new language, navigating through an unknown environment to locate an object or reach a desired location, adaptively manipulating unknown or complex objects in the service of a task, playing a game requiring inference of hidden information or long-term planning and learning, etc. Proposals related to hardware technologies that aim to bring these capabilities to reality are also encouraged. Topic proposals that aim to solve a particular problem using the multidisciplinary experience of participants will be favored over topics that simply gather a large number of people working within a discipline, or using a single technology, or approach. Topic areas for this summer's Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop will be chosen from proposals submitted to the organizers. We will have 4 topic areas and a "Future hardware technologies" tutorial/projects group. *Topic areas can span a large field; we are looking for leadership in planning activities and inviting good people in a field.* Although past topic areas have tended to be very broad and discipline-oriented (e.g., cognition, audition, vision, robotics, neural interfacing, neuromorphic VLSI, etc.), application-oriented topic areas (e.g., sensor fusion, game-playing robot, object recognition, sound localization, human robot interaction, etc.) are especially desirable. *Topic area leaders will receive housing for themselves and their invitees, and limited travel funds.*Topic area leaders will help to define the field of neuromorphic cognition engineering through the projects they pursue and the people they invite. They shape their topic by inviting speakers and project leaders (the *invitees*) and by initiating topic area project discussions prior to the workshop. Teams of two organizers are required. One of the organizers should be an attendee of a previous Telluride Workshop (in any capacity) and has stayed at the Workshop for at least one week. The second organizer should be a person who comes ideally from a field outside neuromorphic engineering. *Pre-workshop topic area choices and study assignments.* Before the workshop begins, each topic area will be required to prepare and distribute study materials that constitute: 1) an introductory presentation (e.g., pptx, video, review paper) of the fundamental knowledge associated with the topic area that /everyone at the workshop/ should be exposed to, and 2) a few critical papers that the participants in the topic area should read before the workshop. The topic area should 3) begin a serious group discussion of the projects (e.g., via Facebook, Skype, email, etc). *The maximum 2-page proposals should include:* 1. Title of topic area. 2. Names of the two topic leaders, their affiliations, and contact information (email addresses!). 3. A paragraph explaining the focus and goals of the topic area. 4. A list of possible specific topic area projects. 5. A list of example invitees (up to six names and institutions).Commitments from your invitees should already be in place such that these invitees can come to the workshop if your proposal is accepted. 6. Any other material that fits within the two-page limit that will help us make a smart choice. *Send your topic area proposal*in pdf or text format to organizers13 at neuromorphs.net with subject line containing "topic area proposal". *Proposals must be received by **December 20th**, 2013*; proposals received after the deadline may still be considered if space is available. *Resources limit the workshop to 4 topic areas*, each with 5 invitees*.* If your proposal for the topic area is not accepted, we will work with you to see if there is a natural way to include your ideas (and you) into the accepted topic areas. We hope to have significant turn-over each year in the topic areas and leaders to ensure fresh new ideas and participants. See the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering (www.ine-web.org ) for background information on the workshop and neuromorphs.net for past workshop wikis. We look forward to your topic proposals! *Deadline: **December 20th**, 2013* *The Workshop Directors:* Cornelia Fermuller (University of Maryland), Ralph Etienne-Cummings (Johns Hopkins Univ.) Shih-Chii Liu (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich), Timmer Horiuchi (University of Maryland) *Former 2007-2012 Workshop Director: * Tobi Delbruck (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich) -- ------------------------------------------------- Ralph Etienne-Cummings Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering The Johns Hopkins University 105 Barton Hall 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 Tel: (410) 516 3494 Fax: (410) 516 2939 Email:retienne at jhu.edu URL:http://etienne.ece.jhu.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.panzeri at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 11:29:10 2013 From: stefano.panzeri at gmail.com (Stefano Panzeri) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 17:29:10 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: three new positions in computational neuroscience - neural coding Message-ID: Dear all I am taking a full time research chair at the Italian Institute of Technology in Rovereto-Trento (Italy) and I am now advertising three new postdoctoral jobs in computational neuroscience in my lab (to study neural information processing), with deadline for application set to December 5th 2013. The positions are funded until 31 December 2016 and the earliest possible start date is February 1st 2014. Salaries depend on experience and track record and are very competitive on the European scale. If you are interested in and would like some additional informal information, please write to me stefano.panzeri at iit.it attaching a PDF of your CV. Formal advert and instruction of how to submit a formal application can be found at the following URL and is also copied at the bottom of the message. http://cncs.iit.it/resources/openings/99-three-postdoctoral-positions-in-computational-neuroscience-at-iit-cncs.html Regards Stefano Panzeri ------------ Three Postdoctoral positions in computational neuroscience at IIT-CNCS Ref: CB 67913, CB 68670, CB 68677 The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (http://www.iit.it) is a private law Foundation, created with special Government Law no. 269 of September 30th 2003, with the objective of promoting Italy's technological development and higher education in science and technology. Research at IIT is carried out in highly innovative scientific fields with state-of-the-art technology. The Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems is hosted at the facilities of the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences - CIMeC ( http://www.unitn.it/cimec), an interdisciplinary center for teaching and research in cognitive neuroscience of the University of Trento in Rovereto, Italy. The CIMeC hosts also a Doctoral School in Cognitive and Brain Sciences (http://www.unitn.it/en/drcimec). The University of Trento is ranked first among research universities in Italy, and the Trentino region is consistently at the top for quality of life and for the most efficient services in Italy. Applications are sought for three post-doctoral researchers to work in computational neuroscience. The postdoctoral candidates will be working in the Centre for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems in Trento (Italy), under the supervision of Prof. S. Panzeri. The postdoctoral scientists will work on computational approaches to the studies of neural coding and will use mathematical analysis methods and neural network models to understand how microscopic, mescoscopic and macroscopic networks in the brain interact to encode information relevant for behaviour. The ideal candidates will have a strong background in numerate sciences (physics, mathematics, engineering or informatics), and a keen interest in applying their numerate background to making breakthroughs in the understanding of the brain. The postdoctoral researchers will be based for most of their time at the IIT (CNCS at UNITN), supervised by internationally recognized experts and will have access to state-of-the-art equipment and laboratories. The postdoctoral researchers will have access to the international network of neurophysiological collaborators of the Neural Computation lab, which includes N.K. Logothetis (Tuebingen), M.E. Diamond (SISSA) and several other leading neurophysiological laboratories. Proficiency in English is required. Interested applicants should contact Stefano Panzeri ( stefano.panzeri at iit.it) for any informal queries. For a formal application, the candidate will submit CV, list of publications, a statement of research interests, and name and email addresses of two referees by e-mail to both stefano.panzeri at iit.it and Sara Maistrelli ( Cncs_selezioni at iit.it). The deadline for the application is December 5th 2013. For recent reviews about the work in the laboratory of Neural Computation, prospective applicants are invited to consult the following articles: G.T. Einevoll, C. Kayser, N.K. Logothetis and S. Panzeri (2013) Modelling and analysis of local field potential for studying the function of cortical circuits. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14:770-785 Panzeri S, Brunel N, Logothetis NK, Kayser C (2010) Neural codes at multiple temporal scales in sensory cortex. Trends in Neuroscience 33: 111-120 Quian Quiroga R, Panzeri S (2009) Extracting information from neuronal populations: information theory and decoding approaches. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10: 173-185 In order to comply with the Italian law (art. 23 of Privacy Law of the Italian Legislative Decree n. 196/03), we have to kindly ask the candidate to give his/her consent to allow IIT to process his/her personal data. We inform you that the information you provided will be used solely for the purpose of assessing your professional profile to meet the requirements of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Your data will be processed by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, with headquarters in Genoa, Via Morego, 30, acting as the Data Holder, using computer and paper based means, observing the rules on protection of personal data, including those relating to the security of data. Please also note that, pursuant to art. 7 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, you may exercise your rights at any time as a party concerned by contacting the Data Manager. The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is an Equal Opportunity Employer that actively seeks diversity in the workforce. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonas at buchli.org Tue Nov 12 13:20:01 2013 From: jonas at buchli.org (Jonas Buchli) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:20:01 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PostDoc Position - Learning planning and control for legged mobile manipulation - ETH Zurich Message-ID: <52827151.9060101@buchli.org> ======================================================================== Post-Doc position at the Agile and Dexterous Robotics Lab at ETH Z?rich ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learning planning and control for legged mobile manipulation ======================================================================== **[PROJECT BRIEF]** The goal of this research is to derive principled and robust approaches to learning, planning & control of walking, and manipulating robots in unstructured environments. The possible research topics for this position are relatively broad but will in general focus on the application of learning and planning to whole body control and impedance control in combined manipulation and locomotion problems. **[BACKGROUND]** The successful candidate will work in the frame of the NCCR Robotics: http://www.nccr-robotics.ch/ At the ADR lab we seek to understand the control of dynamic motions of robots, humans and animals in unstructured environments. This understanding will let us provide the ?intelligence? for versatile, agile and dexterous service robots. Topics include: - Applied machine learning and optimization to robotics - Nonlinear hybrid MPC - Feedback and kinodynamic planning - Control of legged locomotion and manipulation - Whole body control - Active impedance control - Multi-contact control - Full body force and impedance control **[DATES]** - Starting Date: The position is open for immediate filling. - Evaluation of candidates starts on receipt of applications but will continue until position is filled (see http://www.adrl.ethz.ch for updates). **[REQUIREMENTS]** - PhD in Robotics or closely related field - Excellent academic track record in topics related to the project - Very good English skills, written and spoken - Outstanding Team & Communication skills - Excellent programming skills - Excellent analytical skills & Critical thinking - Driven, independent personality - Persistence! Experience with: - Machine learning, Optimization - Planning with dynamics - Compliance, Stiffness, Impedance control - Torque controlled robots - Rigid body dynamics - Signals and Systems knowledge - Control engineering background - Experience with physics simulators - Unix/Linux knowledge - Working with real robots Post-Docs are expected, in addition to their research, to participate in teaching, supervision of bachelor's and master's projects, supervision of PhD students, grant preparation and the general activities of the Lab. **[HOW TO APPLY]** Please send your CV, a letter of motivation (incl. statement of research interests) and 3 reference letters to Prof. Dr. Jonas Buchli quoting [PostDoc Application S_13_3] in the subject. Please send all documents in PDF or plain text format only. Include a link to your PhD thesis and 3 of your most relevant papers. For questions please contact Jonas Buchli . **[WHAT WE OFFER]** We offer a contract of 1 year with possible extension in an exciting research opportunity at the forefront of one of the most dynamic engineering fields. A post-doc position at ETH is a regular job with social benefits, an attractive salary and access to excellent facilities in one of the world's leading technical universities. Zurich is regularly voted among the top cities in the world for quality of life. **[THE ADR LAB @ ETHZ]** - Information about the Agile and Dexterous Robotics lab can be found at http://www.adrl.ethz.ch/ - ADRL is located at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems: http://www.iris.ethz.ch/ and the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering: http://www.mavt.ethz.ch/ - Information about ETH can be found at http://www.ethz.ch/ -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Jonas Buchli Head Agile and Dexterous Robotics Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Z?rich -------------------------------------------------------------- -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Jonas Buchli, Dr., MSc EE http://buchli.org/jonas -------------------------------------------------------------- From horacio at math.bu.edu Tue Nov 12 12:59:25 2013 From: horacio at math.bu.edu (Horacio G. Rotstein) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 12:59:25 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty position - Applied Mathematics - NJIT Message-ID: The Department of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) at the New Jersey Institute of Technology seeks candidates to fill a tenure-track/tenured position at the Assistant/Associate/Full Professor level in the general area of Applied Mathematics. The Department is particularly interested in candidates whose research interests are consistent with the existing research strengths in scientific computing/numerical analysis, modeling/asymptotic analysis, PDE?s and dynamical systems, with focused research groups in the fields of fluid mechanics, mathematical biology and wave propagation. DMS has experienced tremendous growth in research over the past two decades, and is now recognized as a leading national program in applied mathematics. The department offers BS, MS & PhD degrees, with PhD program tracks in Applied Mathematics as well as in Applied Probability & Statistics. For more information about DMS faculty and programs, visit http://math.njit.edu. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics or related fields and postdoctoral experience with strong research and teaching potential for consideration at the Assistant Professor level, and an appropriate record of accomplishment in classroom teaching, mentoring doctoral students and research publication and funding, at the Associate or Full Professor level. At the university's discretion, the education and experience prerequisites may be excepted where the candidate can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the university, an equivalent combination of education and experience specifically preparing the candidate for success in the position. Please visit https://njit.jobs, posting number 0601798, to apply. Submit a cover letter, resume/CV, research and teaching statements, and a summary of teaching evaluations (particularly for positions at the Associate/Full Professor level). Review of applications will begin on November 15, 2013 and will continue until the position is filled. Thank you -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bouchard at stat.ubc.ca Tue Nov 12 17:23:48 2013 From: bouchard at stat.ubc.ca (Alexandre Bouchard) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:23:48 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty positions in Data Science at UBC Message-ID: I'd like to draw your attention to two faculty positions at the University of British Columbia that are related to Data Science. My apologies for potential cross-posting. The two positions have emerged separately within each of Mathematics and Computer Science. But, given the inter-deparmental nature of Data Science and the central role that Statistics plays in that discipline, we are working closely with these two departments in their searches. Furthermore, we anticipate there to be expansion in this important area in the coming years. Would you please pass these along to anyone who might be interested? Thank you. CS Dept: Ad posted : https://www.cs.ubc.ca/our-department/employment/faculty-positions This is tenure-track Assistant or tenured Associate Professor, in machine learning Mathematics Dept deadline: Nov 20. Ad posted : http://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/5100 This is tenure-track Assistant or tenured Associate Professor From jpineau at cs.mcgill.ca Tue Nov 12 22:25:37 2013 From: jpineau at cs.mcgill.ca (Joelle Pineau) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:25:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Connectionists: Faculty Position in data mining at McGill University References: In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <57463.209.222.58.115.1384313137.squirrel@webmail.cs.mcgill.ca> The school of Computer Science at McGill University invites applications for a tenure-track positions at the assistant professor level, to begin August 1, 2013 in the area of data mining with particular emphasis on ?big data,? text analysis and unstructured data. http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/about/employment The School of Computer Science offers a collegial environment with opportunities for interaction with world class researchers in areas including (but not limited to): machine learning, discrete mathematics, mobile robotics, computer vision, appearance modeling, bioinformatics, cryptography and quantum computing. For further information on the School, see: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca. Applications will be reviewed as soon as they are received. Applications received before Jan. 6th, 2014 are assured full consideration. From thomas.wennekers at plymouth.ac.uk Thu Nov 14 08:34:58 2013 From: thomas.wennekers at plymouth.ac.uk (Thomas Wennekers) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:34:58 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: FINAL CALL: 26 PhD positions (CogNovo International Training Network) Message-ID: <201311141334.59097.thomas.wennekers@plymouth.ac.uk> Dear All The deadline for 26PhD studentships at the Cognition Institute (Plymouth University, UK) is approaching. These are 14 EU-funded Marie Curie early career research posts and 12 PhD studentships funded by Plymouth University. Many of these posts are in areas relevant to subscribers of this email list, e.g., Experimental, Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, or Robotics. The general adverts are included below. Details of each individual PhD project can be found at http://www.cognovo.eu In case of questions about particular projects, prospective students are invited to contact members of the supervisory teams listed on the respective project pages. Regards Thomas PS: Please note that the eligibility criteria differ between both types of posts below due to requirements by the funders. Candidates that satisfy both sets of criteria can apply for both types of posts. Plymouth University Research Studentships (PhD): 12 positions Cognition Institute | Plymouth University Fixed term 36 months, starting 1st April 2014 Twelve University-funded PhD positions are available on the CogNovo project. CogNovo is an Innovative Doctoral Programme funded by the EU Marie Curie initiative and Plymouth University to foster research in the emerging field of Cognitive Innovation. CogNovo offers transdisciplinary research training that combines scientific studies of the neural correlates and mechanisms of creativity, with investigations into the role of creativity in human cognition, and their application in sustainable technological and social innovation. Selected candidates will be registered for a comprehensive PhD programme that includes specialised research on specific topics, as well as training workshops covering experimental methods, cognitive neuroscience, computational modelling, humanities and human values, experimental psychology, creative arts, cognitive robotics and entrepreneurship. CogNovo also offers secondment possibilities to academic and commercial partners across the world. Candidates should apply for specific projects, indicating their top 3 choices. For further details of CogNovo and the research projects available, please see: www.cognovo.eu. Application forms are available for download from the website. Eligibility: An excellent 1st degree, good verbal and written communication skills in English, and an interest in multi-disciplinary research are essential. Specific educational prerequisites vary and are indicated in the project web-pages. More information on individual projects can be found on the CogNovo Projects Page. These positions are open to all UK and EU citizens with appropriate qualifications. Applicants who are normally required to pay overseas fees may also apply, but will have to cover the difference between the Home/EU and the overseas tuition fee rates (approximately ?9,790 per annum). For more details on university studentships, please visit www.plymouth.ac.uk/postgraduate. University studentships include full Home/EU tuition fees plus a stipend of ?13,726 per annum. Submitting an application: Applicants should send a completed application form along with a covering letter detailing their suitability for the studentship, C.V. and 2 academic references to Catherine Johnson, Faculty of Science and Technology Research Office, Room A425, Portland Square, Plymouth PL4 8AA or e-mail catherine.johnson at plymouth.ac.uk. Closing date for applications: 12 noon, 30 November 2013 Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview in January/February 2014. We regret that we may not be able to respond to all applications. Applicants who have not received an offer of a place by March 2014 should consider their application has been unsuccessful on this occasion. Marie Curie Early Career Research Fellowships (PhD): 14 positions Cognition Institute | Plymouth University Fixed term 36 months, starting 1st April 2014 The CogNovo project is offering fourteen early career research fellowships. CogNovo is an Innovative Doctoral Programme funded by the EU Marie Curie initiative and Plymouth University to foster research in the emerging field of Cognitive Innovation. CogNovo offers transdisciplinary research training that combines scientific studies of the neural correlates and mechanisms of creativity, with investigations into the role of creativity in human cognition, and their application in sustainable technological and social innovation. Selected candidates will be registered for a comprehensive PhD programme that includes specialised research on specific topics, as well as training workshops covering experimental methods, cognitive neuroscience, computational modelling, humanities and human values, experimental psychology, creative arts, cognitive robotics and entrepreneurship. CogNovo also offers secondment opportunities to academic and commercial partners across the world. Candidates should apply for specific projects, indicating their top 3 choices. For further details of CogNovo and the research projects available, please see: www.cognovo.eu. Application forms are available for download from the website. Eligibility: Marie Curie funding is intended to promote mobility of early career researchers within the research community; candidates are only eligible for these posts if they have not been resident within the UK for more than 12 months within the 3 years prior to 1 April 2104. An excellent 1st degree, good verbal and written communication skills in English, and an interest in multi-disciplinary research are essential. Specific educational prerequisites vary and are indicated in the project web-pages. More information on individual projects can be found on the CogNovo Projects Page. Salary: from ?35,000, including living and mobility allowance. Applicants should send a completed application form along with a covering letter detailing their suitability for the studentship, C.V. and 2 academic references to Catherine Johnson, Faculty of Science and Technology Research Office, Room A425, Portland Square, Plymouth PL4 8AA or e-mail catherine.johnson at plymouth.ac.uk. Closing date for applications: 12 noon, 30 November 2013 Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview in January/February 2014. We regret that we may not be able to respond to all applications. Applicants who have not received an offer of a place by March 2014 should consider their application has been unsuccessful on this occasion. ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] 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. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pkoenig at uos.de Wed Nov 13 09:30:26 2013 From: pkoenig at uos.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_K=F6nig?=) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:30:26 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?PhD_position_=22The_influence_of_s?= =?iso-8859-1?q?erotonergic_signaling_on_visual_and_somatosensory_cortical?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_processing_and_its_relevance_for_motor_behaviour=22=2C_la?= =?iso-8859-1?q?b_of_Peter_K=F6nig?= Message-ID: <52838D02.6080409@uos.de> The research group for Neurobiopsychology (Prof. Dr. Peter Ko?nig) at the Institute of Cognitive Science invites applications for a Research Associate (f/m) (Salary Scale 13 TV-L / 50%) to be filled at earliest practicable date for a period of 30 months. The position allows for further scientific qualification (PhD). Your task: The position involves research within the DFG SPP "Resolving and Manipulating Neuronal Networks in Mammalian Brain -- from Correlative to Causal Analysis" on the project "The influence of serotonergic signaling on visual and somatosensory cortical processing and its relevance for motor behaviour". Specifically, applicants will perform data analysis based on advanced techniques. This includes cleaning of physiological data, time and frequency domain methods, source localization and interaction measures. Furthermore, applicants will interact with the consortium partner and participate in the physiological experiments. Requirements: Candidates are expected to have an excellent academic degree (diploma/Master) and a good research record in Neuroscience involving physiological methods, excellent programming skills, a high level of expertise in advanced data analysis techniques as well as a good command of the English language. Candidates should have distinguished themselves by a strong research record in the area of Neurophysiology. As a certified family-friendly university, the University of Osnabrueck is committed to the reconciliation of work/study and family. The University of Osnabrueck aims to promote professional equality between women and men in particular, and therefore strongly encourages qualified women to apply. Handicapped applicants will be preferred in case of equal qualification. Applications with the usual documentation should be submitted no later than December 13, 2013 to the Director of the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrueck, Albrechtstra?e 28, 49076 Osnabrueck. Further information can be provided by Prof. Dr. Peter Ko?nig, (pkoenig at uni-osnabrueck.de). Microsoft Word - 164_IKW_wiss. MA E13_50%.docx -- *http://www.facebook.com/CognitiveScienceOsnabruck* Prof. Dr. Peter K?nig Institute of Cognitive Science University Osnabr?ck Albrechtstr. 28 49076 Osnabr?ck +49 541 969 2399 http://cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/~NBP/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hugo.larochelle at usherbrooke.ca Wed Nov 13 16:53:58 2013 From: hugo.larochelle at usherbrooke.ca (Hugo Larochelle) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:53:58 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: CfP: EACL-Workshop on Continuous Vector Space Models and their Compositionality (CVSC), 2nd edition Message-ID: <32684020-424C-4962-B6AB-F0B5E9A72B86@usherbrooke.ca> **************************************************************************************************** Workshop on Continuous Vector Space Models and their Compositionality (2nd edition) Co-located with EACL 2014, Gothenburg, Sweden April 27, 2014 Submission deadline: January 23, 2014 https://sites.google.com/site/cvscworkshop2014 **************************************************************************************************** First Call for Papers (Apologies for multiple postings) In recent years, there has been a growing interest in algorithms that learn and use continuous representations for words, phrases, or documents in many natural language processing applications. Among many others, influential proposals that illustrate this trend include latent Dirichlet allocation, neural network based language models and spectral methods. These approaches are motivated by improving the generalization power of the discrete standard models, by dealing with the data sparsity issue and by efficiently handling a wide context. Despite the success of single word vector space models, they are limited since they do not capture compositionality. This prevents them from gaining a deeper understanding of the semantics of longer phrases or sentences. With the growing popularity of these neural and probabilistic methods of language processing, the scope of this second workshop is extended to theoretical and conceptual questions regarding: * their relation to unsupervised distributional representations, * the encompassing of the compositional aspects of formal models of semantics, * the role of linguistic theory in the design and development of these methods. Some such pertinent questions include: Should phrase representations and word representations be of the same sort? Could different linguistic levels require different modelling approaches? Is compositionality determined by syntax, and if so, how do we learn/define it? Should word representations be fixed and obtained distributionally, or should the encoding be variable? Should word representations be task-specific, or should they be general? In this workshop, we invite submissions of papers on continuous vector space models for natural language processing. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * learning algorithms for continuous vector space models, * their compositionality, * their use in NLP applications, * spectral learning for NLP, * neural networks for NLP, * phrase, sentence, and document-level distributional representations, * tensor models, * distributed semantic representations, * the role of syntax in compositional models, * formal and distributional semantic models. INVITED SPEAKERS The workshop will showcase presentations from two invited speakers : Geoffrey Zweig (Microsoft Research) and a second presenter to be announced soon. SUBMISSION INFORMATION Authors should submit a full paper of up to 8 pages in electronic, PDF format, with up to 2 additional pages for references. The reported research should be substantially original. The papers will be presented orally or as posters. All submissions must be in PDF format and must follow the EACL 2014 formatting requirements (http://www.eacl2014.org/files/eacl-2014-styles.zip). Reviewing will be double-blind, and thus no author information should be included in the papers; self-reference should be avoided as well. Submissions must be made through the Softconf website set up for this workshop: https://www.softconf.com/eacl2014/CVSC/ Accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings, where no distinction will be made between papers presented orally or as posters. IMPORTANT DATES 23 January 2014 : Submission deadline 20 February 2014 : Notification of acceptance 3 March 2014 : Camera-ready deadline 27 April 2014 : Workshop ORGANIZERS Alexandre Allauzen (LIMSI-CNRS/Universit? Paris-Sud, France) Raffaella Bernardi (University of Trento, Italy) Edward Grefenstette (University of Oxford, UK) Hugo Larochelle (Universit? de de Sherbrooke, Canada) Christopher Manning (Stanford University, USA) Scott Wen-tau Yih (Microsoft Research, USA) PROGRAM COMMITTEE Nicholas Asher (IRIT-Toulouse) Marco Baroni (University of Trento) Yoshua Bengio (Universit? de Montr?al) Gemma Boleda (University of Texas) Antoine Bordes (Universit? Technologique de Compi?gne) Johan Bos (University of Groningen) L?on Bottou (Microsoft Research) Xavier Carreras (Universitat Polit?cnica de Catalunya) Lucas Champollion (New-York University) Stephen Clark (University of Cambridge) Shay Cohen (Columbia University) Ido Dagan (Bar Ilan University) Ronan Collobert (IDIAP Research Institute, Switzerland) Pino Di Fabbrizio (Amazon) Georgiana Dinu (University of Trento) Kevin Duh (Nara Institute of Science and Technology) Dean Foster (University of Pennsylvania) Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa) Louise McNally (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) Fabio Massimo Zanzotto (Universit? degli Studi di Roma) Mirella Lapata (University of Edinburgh) Andriy Mnih (Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit) Larry Moss (Indiana University) Diarmuid ? Seaghdha (University of Cambridge) Sebastian Pado (Universit?t Stuttgart) Martha Palmer (University of Colorado) John Platt (Microsoft Research) Maarten de Rijke (University of Amsterdam) Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh (University of London) Mark Steedman (University of Edinburgh) Chung-chieh Shan (Indiana University) Peter Turney (NRC) Jason Weston (Google) Guillaume Wisniewski (LIMSI-CNRS/Universit? Paris-Sud) From pblouw at uwaterloo.ca Wed Nov 13 18:09:29 2013 From: pblouw at uwaterloo.ca (Peter Blouw) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 18:09:29 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Summer School on Large-Scale Brain Modelling Message-ID: Hello! [All details about this school can be found online at http://www.nengo.ca/summerschool] The Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience at the University of Waterloo is inviting applications for an in-depth, two week summer school that will teach participants how to use the Nengo simulation package to build state-of-the-art cognitive and neural models. Nengo has been used to build what is currently the world's largest functional brain model, Spaun[1], and provides users with a versatile and powerful environment for simulating cognitive and neural systems. We welcome applications from all interested graduate students, research associates, postdocs, professors, and industry professionals. No specific training in the use of modelling software is required, but we encourage applications from active researchers with a relevant background in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, or a related field. [1] Eliasmith, C., Stewart T. C., Choo X., Bekolay T., DeWolf T., Tang Y., Rasmussen, D. (2012). A large-scale model of the functioning brain. Science. Vol. 338 no. 6111 pp. 1202-1205. DOI: 10.1126/science.1225266. [ http://nengo.ca/publications/spaunsciencepaper] ***Application Deadline: February 15, 2014*** Format Participants are encouraged to bring their own ideas for projects, which may focus on testing hypotheses, modelling neural or cognitive data, implementing specific behavioural functions with neurons, expanding past models, or provide a proof-of-concept of various neural mechanisms. Projects can be focused on software, hardware, or a combination of both. Amongst other things, participants will have the opportunity to: - build perceptual, motor, and cognitive models with spiking neurons - model anatomical, electrophysiological, cognitive, and behavioural data - use a variety of single cell models within a large-scale model - integrate machine learning methods into biologically oriented models - use Nengo with your favorite simulator, e.g. Brian, NEST, Neuron, etc. - interface Nengo with a variety of neuromorphic hardware - interface Nengo with cameras and robotic systems of various kinds - implement modern nonlinear control methods in neural models - and much more? Hands-on tutorials, work on individual or group projects, and talks from invited faculty members will make up the bulk of day-to-day activities. There will be a weekend break on June 14-15, and fun activities scheduled for evenings throughout! Date and Location: June 8th to June 21st, 2014 at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Applications: Please visit http://www.nengo.ca/summerschool, where you can find more information regarding costs, travel, lodging, along with an application form listing required materials. Questions about the summer school and application process can be directed to Peter Blouw (pblouw at uwaterloo.ca) We look forward to hearing from you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk Thu Nov 14 08:13:27 2013 From: m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk (Marcelo Montemurro) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:13:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: applications are invited for a fully funded BBSRC PhD studentship to work on a project entitled 'Quantifying the role of melanopsin in the processing of complex visual information' under the supervision of Dr Marcelo Montemurro and Prof Robert Lucas at the Faculty of Life Sciences of The University of Manchester. This studentship is available to UK/EU nationals only due to the nature of the funding and is due to start September 2014. The successful applicant will work on the development of computational analysis methods based on information theory and their application to experimental data gathered at Lucas' lab. The student will also have the opportunity to receive training in experimental methods and actively participate in experiment design. The precise balance between the different approaches will be defined according to he the student's background and interests. Further details can be found at: http://www.dtpstudentships.manchester.ac.uk/projects/studentship.aspx?id=1482 The deadline for application is Tuesday 6 December, 5pm. For any informal inquiries please write to: m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk From hermann.neuro at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 12:29:28 2013 From: hermann.neuro at gmail.com (Hermann Cuntz) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 18:29:28 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Invitation to contribute to Research Topic for Frontiers in Neuroanatomy Message-ID: <003301cee15f$12af1590$380d40b0$@gmail.com> Dear all, We would like to advertise our Research Topic for Frontiers in Neuroanatomy (impact factor 4.1) called "Quantitative analysis of neuroanatomy", see below for a brief description and please visit our website: http://www.frontiersin.org/neuroanatomy/researchtopics/quantitative_analysis _of_neuro/2028 We look forward to receiving your abstracts! Best wishes, Julian Budd, University of Sussex, United Kingdom Hermann Cuntz, Goethe University, Germany Stephen Eglen, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Patrik Krieger, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden _____ Quantitative analysis of neuroanatomy The true revolution in the age of digital neuroanatomy is the ability to extensively quantify anatomical structures and thus investigate structure-function relationships in great detail. Large scale projects were recently launched with the aim of providing infrastructure for brain simulations. These projects will increase the need for a precise understanding of brain structure, e.g., through statistical analysis and models. The aim of this Research Topic is to examine theoretical and experimental work directed at a detailed and comprehensive quantitative understanding of neuroanatomy. Integrating such knowledge with functional data should provide a more complete understanding of how the nervous system in different animal species is organized to generate appropriate behaviour. Three main areas will be covered in this issue. Firstly, progress in understanding neuroanatomical structures from applying novel mathematical and statistical methods. Secondly, experimental or computational work providing a quantitative analysis of microcircuit anatomy, cell distributions, cell morphologies, intracellular compartmentalization etc. Thirdly, experimental or computational studies of structural plasticity, and its effect on neural computations, e.g., changes in spine size and synaptic plasticity; changes in axonal projection patterns and cortical representations. Structural plasticity includes plasticity during development, in response to injury or disease and experience-induced plasticity. We welcome contributions of original research articles (both computational and experimental studies), review articles, and methodological advances related to the mathematical and statistical analysis of structure-function relationships in a nervous system. The emphasis is on scientific research at the level of cells and microcircuits using methods providing a detailed description of the underlying neuroanatomy. Deadline for abstract submission: 01 Dec 2013 Deadline for full article submission: 01 May 2014 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Colin.Wise at uts.edu.au Thu Nov 14 23:51:57 2013 From: Colin.Wise at uts.edu.au (Colin Wise) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:51:57 +1100 Subject: Connectionists: REMINDER - AAI Short Course - Advanced Data Analytics - an Introduction - Tuesday 19 November 2013 Message-ID: <8112393AA53A9B4A9BDDA6421F26C68A016E461F886D@MAILBOXCLUSTER.adsroot.uts.edu.au> Dear Colleague, REMINDER - AAI Short Course - Advanced Data Analytics - an Introduction - Tuesday 19 November 2013 https://shortcourses-bookings.uts.edu.au/Clientview/Schedules/ScheduleDetail.aspx?ScheduleID=1356&EventID=1171 Our AAI short course Advanced Data Analytics - an Introduction may well be of interest to you and or others in your organisation. The Data Analytics introductory short course will provide an early and rewarding understanding of the level of analytics to which your organisation and your people should aspire. Upon completion of this course students will: * Understand why advanced data analytics is essential to your business success * Understand the key terms and concepts used in advanced data analytics * Understand relations of big data, clouding computing and analytics * Be familiar with basic skills of statistics in data analytics, including descriptive analysis, regression, multivariate data analysis * Learning basic data mining and data warehousing, visualization and reporting, such as supervised vs unsupervised methods, clustering, association rule and frequent mining and so on * Knowing key techniques in machine learning, such as Parametric and non-parametric models, learning and inference, Maximum-likelihood estimation, and Bayesian approaches and so on * Be given the introduction of social media analytics, multimedia analytics, and the real projects or case studies conducted in AAI Further information and registrations at https://shortcourses-bookings.uts.edu.au/Clientview/Schedules/ScheduleDetail.aspx?ScheduleID=1356&EventID=1171 We are happy to discuss at your convenience - please contact us. Thank you and regards. Colin Wise Operations Manager Advanced Analytics Institute (AAI) Blackfriars Building 2, Level 1 University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Email: Colin.Wise at uts.edu.au Tel. +61 2 9514 9267 M. 0448 916 589 AAI: www.analytics.uts.edu.au/ Future short courses on Data Analytics and Big Data may be viewed at LINK AAI Education and Training Short Courses Survey - you may be interested in completing our AAI Survey at LINK AAI September 2013 Newsletter Link AAI Email Policy - should you wish to not receive this periodic communication on Data Analytics Learning please reply to our email (to sender) with UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject. We will delete you from our database. Thank you for your past and future support. UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From viktor.jirsa at univ-amu.fr Fri Nov 15 09:14:37 2013 From: viktor.jirsa at univ-amu.fr (Viktor Jirsa) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:14:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: System Neuroscience Conference in Marseille : The Dynamic Brain, 27-29 November 2013 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, please find the announcement of our International conference on system neuroscience "The Dynamic Brain" in Marseille, 27-29 November 2013 here attached. Best wishes, Viktor Jirsa -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: INS Conference_TheDynamicBrain_2729nov13.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 832933 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- From wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de Fri Nov 15 13:08:40 2013 From: wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Stefan Wermter) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 19:08:40 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [jobs] Research Associate Intelligent Systems Message-ID: <52866328.2040103@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> The Knowledge Technology Research Group at the University of Hamburg invites applications for a Research Associate in Intelligent Systems (Knowledge Technology, Neural Networks, Intelligent Robotics) from or after 1 March 2014. The position is full-time (39 hours per week), for two years and is at the 13 TV-L salary level. (doctoral or postdoctoral level). Tasks Duties primarily include research and teaching. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to pursue further academic qualifications, as postdoctoral research or doctoral research. The research area is Knowledge Technology and Artificial Intelligence, in particular Hybrid Neural Systems. We focus on basic fundamental research on neural and learning systems. Applications include vision, natural language processing, speech recognition and learning cognitive robots. The post holder should further develop and support the research of this area in the context of European or collaborative projects and have the potential to acquire third-party funding. Existing or newly emerging research areas in our team should be further developed. Furthermore, participation in some teaching in computer science, in particular in the area of Knowledge Technology is required as well as general support in Knowledge Technology. Requirements A postgraduate university degree in computer science or a relevant field related to the above-mentioned academic subject areas of Hybrid Neural Systems. Experience in at least human-robot interaction (e.g. speech recognition, gestures, robot navigation) or machine learning (e.g. reinforcement learning, supervised or unsupervised neural learning). After the MSc either experience working in a company or at least two years of research experience after the MSc in a university environment. Very good teamwork and communication skills, scientific publication in English, proven experience with writing large scientific documents in English. Experience with large collaborative or European research projects is an advantage. Applications The University intends to increase the number of women in research and teaching and explicitly encourages women to apply. Equally qualified female applicants will receive preference in accordance with Hamburg?s Higher Education Act (HmbHG). Severely disabled applicants will receive preference over equally qualified non-disabled applicants. Applications should include a letter of application, curriculum vitae, transcripts of courses, and copies of degree certificate(s).The deadline for applications is 15 December 2013. Please send applications to: katja.koesters at informatik.uni-hamburg.de in a single pdf document. For further information, please contact Prof. Dr. Stefan Wermter via email or consult our website http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ . *********************************************** Professor Dr. Stefan Wermter Chair of Knowledge Technology Department of Computer Science, WTM, Building F University of Hamburg Vogt Koelln Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany Email: wermter AT informatik.uni-hamburg.de http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~wermter/ http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ *********************************************** From ckiw at inf.ed.ac.uk Sun Nov 17 15:33:11 2013 From: ckiw at inf.ed.ac.uk (Chris Williams) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:33:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc: Machine Learning and the Analysis of Medical Sensor Data (Edinburgh, UK) Message-ID: Postdoc: Machine Learning and the Analysis of Medical Sensor Data Applications are invited for an experienced researcher to develop and validate advanced statistical methods for the analysis of data from a novel multiplexed sensor in the lungs and blood vessels. The post is part of a large Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration which involves: the development of novel chemical sensors and detectors; the development of inference methods to analyse the data produced and infer the concentration of various pathological processes present so as to provide doctors with information on the state of intensive care unit patients; and the testing of the methods in in-vitro, ex-vivo and in-vivo assay systems. The post will be supervised by Professor Chris Williams, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. The successful candidate will be a probabilistic machine-learning researcher (or similar) keen to work on a challenging application area. Over the duration of the project the richness and complexity the sensed data and the number of data sources will increase. The integration of information collected from different model systems will be tackled using hierarchical Bayesian models. Professor Williams has extensive experience of modelling and inference in an ICU setting, see e.g. the work on factorial switching linear dynamical systems (Quinn, Williams and McIntosh, IEEE Trans on Pattern Anal Mach Intell, 2009). You will be self-motivated with the ability to take day-to-day responsibility for the progress of the proposed work and collaborate effectively with project partners from medicine, physics, chemistry and engineering. There is potential for innovative methodological developments in the modelling framework. The post offers the opportunity to work in a world-class machine-learning research environment, applying and extending cutting edge methods in an important application area. Vacancy Ref: : 022769 Closing Date : 13 Jan 2014 Salary: GBP 30,424 - 36,298 To apply: https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/pls/corehrrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=022769 Informal enquiries: Professor Chris Williams: ckiw at inf.ed.ac.uk. [I will be attending the NIPS conference 5-10 Dec and will be available to have informal discussions with interested candidates there] -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From terry at salk.edu Mon Nov 18 10:47:52 2013 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 07:47:52 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - December, 2013 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Contents -- Volume 25, Number 12 - December 1, 2013 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/25/12 Articles Dynamical Regimes in Neural Network Models of Matching Behavior Kiyohito Iigaya, Stefano Fusi Supervised Spike-timing Dependent Plasticity: A Spatio-temporal Neuronal Learning Rule for Function Approximation and Decisions Jan-Moritz P. Franosch, Sebastian Urban, and Leo van Hemmen Letters Spontaneous Slow Oscillations and Sequential Patterns Due to Short-term Plasticity in a Model of the Cortex Timothee Leleu, Kazuyuki Aihara On the Continuous Differentiability of Inter-spike Intervals of Synaptically Connected Cortical Spiking Neurons in a Neuronal Network Gautam Kumar, Mayuresh V. Kothare Complete Classification of the Macroscopic Behavior of a Heterogeneous Network of Theta Neurons Tanushree Luke, Ernest Barreto, and Paul So Deficient GABAergic Gliotransmission May Cause Broader Sensory Tuning in Schizophrenia Osamu Hoshino Reinforcement Learning of 2-joint Virtual Arm Reaching in a Computer Model of Sensorimotor Cortex Samuel A Neymotin, George L Chadderdon, Cliff C Kerr, Joseph T Francis, and William W Lytton Speech Emotional Features Extraction Based on Electroglottograph Lijiang Chen, Xia Mao, Pengfei Wei, and Angelo Compare Bayesian Partial Least Squares Diego Vidaurre, Marcel A J van Gerven, Concha Bielza, Pedro Larranaga, and Tom Heskes ------------ 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 ajyu at ucsd.edu Tue Nov 19 14:49:40 2013 From: ajyu at ucsd.edu (Angela Yu) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 11:49:40 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doctoral position at UCSD Message-ID: <376473C4-3465-4FCD-8116-0BCEE2355F05@ucsd.edu> Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position immediately available in the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, led by Angela Yu, at University of California, San Diego. Initial appointment is for one year, with flexible start date and opportunity for renewal. The project is to develop a decision-theoretical framework for the inter-related problems of perceptual decision-making, active sensing, active learning, and social decision-making. Candidates must have a strong mathematical and modeling background in Bayesian statistics, reinforcement learning, machine learning, and decision theory. Experience with measure-theoretic probability theory, stochastic processes, stochastic control theory (stopping problems, bandit problems, sequential decision problems), and/or dynamical systems analysis is also desirable. Applicants should be committed to applying rigorous mathematical tools to modeling cognitive and neural processes. Expereince/interest in carrying out human behavioral experiments and/or collaborating with other human/animal neuroscience laboratories is desirable but not required. Dr. Yu's lab is situated within the Natural Computation Lab in the Cognitive Science department of UCSD. It is affiliated with the Computer Science Department, the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center, the UCSD Neurosciences Graduate Program, and the Institute of Neural Computation. It provides ample opportunities for collaboration with related labs across the UCSD main campus, the medical school, and the Salk Institute. Interested candidates should send a research statement, along with a CV including publications, to Dr. Angela Yu (ajyu at ucsd.edu). Two or more letters of references should be sent directly to the same address. --------------------------------------------------------- Angela J. Yu Assistant Professor Department of Cognitive Science UCSD, Mail Code 0515 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 Email: ajyu at ucsd.edu Phone: 858-822-3317 Fax: 858-534-1128 Website: www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~ajyu --------------------------------------------------------- From pierre.kornprobst at inria.fr Tue Nov 19 03:50:48 2013 From: pierre.kornprobst at inria.fr (Pierre Kornprobst) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 09:50:48 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in computational neuroscience at INRIA, France Message-ID: Postdoctoral position in computational neuroscience at INRIA, France: From real retinas to a virtual retina (Bruno Cessac and Pierre Kornprobst, team Neuromathcomp) *** Context : Our understanding on how the retina works has progressively known a paradigm change : whereas retina was up to recently viewed as a relatively simple organ (acting roughly like a camera), it is now admitted by the scientific community that ? eyes are smarter than scientists believed ? [Gollisch-Meister, 2010]. The retina is able to perform such clever tasks as detecting differential motion or anticipating motion. These wonderful properties are largely due to the sophisticated retina structure in terms of cells differentiation as well as connectivity. This results in a complex dynamical system where the response to visual inputs is encoded in a collective way by neurons dynamics. The ? output ? of the retina, a sequence of action potentials or spike train emitted by ganglion cells, is transmitted to the visual cortex via the optic nerve (constituted by the axons of the ganglion cells). In this way, the retina is able to ? encode ? a visual scene in the form of spike trains. How to decipher this collective code is an open problem. The Multi-Electrode Array (MEA) technique allows scientists to register spike trains in order to analyze their statistical properties and to extract potential generic laws giving keys to decipher the code on the one hand; on the other hand, techniques such as two-photons imaging or calcium imaging provide more and more detailed information about the retina circuitry and dynamics. This opens up several scientific challenges : on the theoretical side, building new mathematical models allowing to relate the retina circuitry and dynamics to spike trains statistics as a response to a visual scene ; on the applied side, creating software that mimics retina functioning with potential applications in the domain of fundamental research (simulating virtual retinas instead of performing experiments on animals) and therapy (e.g. analyzing the effect of drugs on retina functions, in silico). *** Project : The project we propose is at the corner between these two aspects. The goal is to develop a new hybrid retina simulator, emulating the outer retina. On the theoretical side, the project will use statistical methods developed in our team to perform spike train analysis [1,2] from experiments done by our partners (Evelyne Sernagor from NewCastle University and Luca Berdondini from IIT Genova), in order to construct a virtual layer of Amacrine and Ganglion cells emulating realistic spike statistics, instead of replicating the detailed laminar connectivity of the retina. For this, generic neural network models studied in our team will be used. These models neglect the detailed biological description of neurons, but take into account anatomical constraints such as connectivity and reproduce collective statistics of RGCs types in response to specific stimuli. On the applied side, this layer will be integrated to the Virtual Retina software developed in our team [3]. This postdoc is part of the RenVision European project. It is funded by the European Union FP7 FET (Future Emerging technology) proactive program: Neuro-Bio-Inspired Systems Call 9 Objective 9.11. This highly interdisciplinary project aims at understanding and modeling the biological processing of visual information in the retina and exploiting this new knowledge to build retina-inspired artificial visual processing systems. RENVISION website: https://www.renvision-fp7.eu *** Profile : The work is highly interdisciplinary, and applicants must have strong mathematical and computational skills. Preferred educational background is a PhD in Computational Neuroscience. Previous experience with neural population coding and C++ programming skills is required. Applicants should email a CV, brief research statement, relevant publications, and contact details for two academic references to:bruno.cessac at inria.fr and pierre.kornprobst at inria.fr. Bruno Cessac website: http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Bruno.Cessac Pierre Kornprobst website: http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Pierre.Kornprobst *** Laboratory: The INRIA team Neuromathcomp is working in the fields of mathematical and computational neuroscience, and biological vision modeling with applications to artificial vision. We are involved in several European research projects. The group is located in Sophia-Antipolis between Nice and Cannes on the French Riviera. INRIA is the only French public research body fully dedicated to computational sciences. Combining computer sciences with mathematics, INRIA?s 3,500 researchers strive to invent the digital technologies of the future. Educated at leading international universities, they creatively integrate basic research with applied research and dedicate themselves to solving real problems, collaborating with the main players in public and private research in France and abroad and transferring the fruits of their work to innovative companies. The researchers at INRIA published over 4,450 articles in 2012. They are behind over 250 active patents and 112 start-ups. The 180 project teams are distributed in eight research centers located throughout France. Neuromathcomp website: http://www-sop.inria.fr/neuromathcomp INRIA website: http://www.inria.fr *** Starting date: January 2014, on the basis of a competitive application. The position is open now until filled. *** Contract duration: 2 years (1 year probation) *** Net salary: 2140 euros/month *** Related references: [1] B. Cessac and A. Palacios, Spike train statistics from empirical facts to theory: the case of the retina, In Mathematical Problems in Computational Biology and Biomedicine, F. Cazals and P. Kornprobst, Springer (2013) [2] J.C. Vasquez, A. Palacios, O. Marre, M.J. Berry II, B. Cessac, Gibbs distribution analysis of temporal correlation structure on multicell spike trains from retina ganglion cells, J. Physiol. Paris, 106(3-4), pp. 120-127 (2012) [3] A. Wohrer and P. Kornprobst. Virtual Retina: A biological retina model and simulator, with contrast gain control, Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 26(2), pp. 219-249 (2009) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dayan at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Mon Nov 18 11:25:31 2013 From: dayan at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Peter Dayan) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 16:25:31 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position with Jon Roiser at UCL Message-ID: <20131118162531.GA14424@gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> A post-doctoral research associate position in computational psychiatry is available in the laboratory of Dr Jonathan Roiser at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. See http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/Vacancies/index.html for further details. Deadline 12th December 2013. JOB DESCRIPTION Post-doctoral research associate (Salary ?32,375 to ?39,132 including London Allowance) Main Purpose The post-holder will be expected to carry out research in the area of cognitive neuroscience, including neuroimaging and computational modelling. The post-holder will be responsible for the design and conduct of behavioural, functional neuroimaging and other cognitive neuroscience experiments with humans (including depressed individuals), recording and analysing data and preparing the results for publication. Summary of Duties and Responsibilities To design, set up and conduct experiments in consultation with the Principal Investigator, ensuring the acquisition of good quality data, including the recruitment and testing of participants To oversee the work of a post-graduate research assistant To record, analyse and write up the results of experiments, maintaining a permanent record of the methodologies and the experiment To prepare and present findings of research activity to colleagues To contribute to the writing, submission and revision of papers to be submitted to appropriate peer reviewed journals, collaborating with others as appropriate SUMMARY OF PERSONAL SPECIFICATION PhD (in the process of submission) in computational neuroscience or mathematical psychology; or PhD (in the process of submission) in neuroscience/cognitive neuroscience with considerable experience applying computational modelling techniques to data Extensive experience using Matlab, R or comparable software packages Considerable knowledge of data analysis using computational modelling and associated literature Good knowledge of cognitive neuroscience findings in the field of reinforcement learning From juergen at idsia.ch Tue Nov 19 08:33:45 2013 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:33:45 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Job Opportunities at the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA Message-ID: Join the Deep Learning team that won more international competitions in machine learning and pattern recognition than any other research group [1]. We are at the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA [2], in the world's leading science nation [3], also the world's most competitive country for the 5th year in a row [4] - since 2009, when our neural networks became the first Deep Learning systems to win official international contests [5]. We are especially interested in candidates applying for our prestigious Marie Curie Experienced Researcher Fellowship connected to the ProtoTouch project (a postdoctoral position) [6]. We offer a highly competitive Swiss salary. Please follow the instructions [7]. Deadline 8 December 2013 (right after NIPS). [1] Deep Learning since 1991 - pattern recognition, image segmentation, object detection www.deeplearning.it [2] The Swiss AI Lab IDSIA http://www.idsia.ch/ [3] The world's leading science nation with the most Nobels/patents/citations/funding per capita http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/switzerland.html [4] Global Competitiveness Report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Competitiveness_Report http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-economy-competitiveness-idUSBRE98215T20130903 [5] 2009: First international competitions (with secret test sets known only to the organisers) won by Deep Learning http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/handwriting.html [6] http://cordis.europa.eu/projects/rcn/105932_en.html [7] Get a job! http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/eu2013.html From fmschleif at googlemail.com Mon Nov 18 04:41:07 2013 From: fmschleif at googlemail.com (Frank-Michael Schleif) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 10:41:07 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 10th Anniversary - Workshop on Self Organizing Maps (WSOM'2014) - deadline extended to 10th December 2013 Message-ID: +++ PLEASE, APOLOGIZE MULTIPLE COPIES +++ Dear colleagues, due to several requests and some competing deadlines we decided to extend the deadline for WSOM 2014. Now, the last deadline is: 10th December 2013 ! To better plan the reviewing process it would be great if potential authors already upload a title + abstract (single page paper) into the easychair system. The full paper must be submitted by the 10th December 2013. Please follow the the submission guidlines provided at the conference homepage www.WSOM2014.de Details of the original call are also given below. We are looking forward to welcome you in Mittweida. With best regards, Frank-Michael Schleif WSOM Program Chair -- 10th Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps 2014 -- WSOM 2014 www.WSOM2014.de will be held in the beautiful small town Mittweida located close to the mountains Erzgebirge in Saxony/Germany. It will bring together researchers and practitioners in the field of self-organizing systems for data analysis, with a particular emphasis on self-organizing maps and learning vector quantization. WSOM 2014 is the 10th conference in a series of biannual international conferences started with WSOM'97 in Helsinki. SCOPE - TOPICS We expect contributions related to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the self-organizing map, learning vector quantization and related fields as well as respective applications. Topics include: - Data analysis and visualization and modelling dynamic phenomena - Mathematical aspects including information theory and mathematical statistics - Architectural solutions including hierarchical and growing networks, ensemble models and special metrics - Neuro-cognitive studies that compare modelling and empirical results at different levels - Software and hardware implementations - Outstanding applications emphasizing special aspects of the models We also call for scientific and practice-oriented papers that describe the use of self-organizing maps with variants in different application areas including but not limited to: - Data mining - Pattern recognition - Signal processing - Knowledge management - Time series processing - Industrial applications - Bioinformatics - Biomedical applications - Telecommunications - Financial analysis - Cognitive modeling - Robotics and intelligent systems - Image processing and vision - Speech processing - Language modeling - Text and document analysis Submission of papers : Dezember 10th 2013 Notification of provisional acceptance: January 15th 2013 Camera ready papers : February 5th 2014 Early registration (special rates) : February 15th 2014 Submissions can be done via Easychair at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/-conf=wsom2014 Accepted papers will be published in Springer's Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing series. Further details at: www.wsom2014.de -- ------------------------------------------------------- Dr. rer. nat. Frank-Michael Schleif University of Bielefeld AG Theoretical Computer Science and Computational Intelligence CITEC - Q1-143 Universit?tsstrasse 21-23 33615 Bielefeld - email: fschleif at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de phone: +49(0)521 106 12137 fax : +49(0)521 106 12181 ------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eero at cns.nyu.edu Tue Nov 19 18:40:47 2013 From: eero at cns.nyu.edu (Eero Simoncelli) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 18:40:47 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Doctoral studies in Computational/Theoretical Neuroscience at NYU Message-ID: <9F6D2598-1A36-43B4-8C9D-F604B4E0F12E@cns.nyu.edu> New York University is home to a thriving interdisciplinary community of researchers using computational and theoretical approaches in neuroscience. We are interested in exceptional PhD candidates with strong quantitative training (e.g., physics, mathematics, engineering) coupled with a clear interest in brain sciences. A full listing of neuroscience-related graduate programs is available at http://www.neuroscience.nyu.edu, and a listing of computationally-oriented faculty, sorted by their primary departmental affiliation, is given below. Doctoral programs are flexible, allowing students to pursue research across departmental boundaries. Nevertheless, admissions are handled separately by each department, and students interested in pursuing graduate studies should submit an application to the program that best fits their goals and interests. ** Center for Neural Science (CNS) (deadline: 12 December) [http://www.cns.nyu.edu/doctoral/] [Graduate studies in Neuroscience across NYU: http://www.neuroscience.nyu.edu/] * Andr? A. Fenton - Molecular, neural, behavioral, and computational aspects of memory. * Paul W. Glimcher - Decision-making in humans and animals. * Roozbeh Kiani - Vision and decision-making. * Wei Ji Ma (also in Psychology) - Perception, working memory, and decision making. * Tony Movshon - Vision and visual development. * Bijan Pesaran - Neuronal dynamics and decision making. * Alex Reyes - Functional interactions of neurons in a network. * John Rinzel (also in Mathematics) - Biophysical mechanisms and theory of neural computation. * Nava Rubin - Visual perception and the neural basis of vision. * Robert Shapley - Visual physiology and perception. * Eero Simoncelli - Computational vision. * Xiao-Jing Wang - Computational neuroscience, decision-making and working memory, neural circuits. ** Neuroscience and Physiology program, School of Medicine (deadline: 1 December) [http://neuroscience.med.nyu.edu/training-programs/graduate-program-neuroscience-physiology-school-medicine] [Graduate studies in Neuroscience across NYU: http://www.neuroscience.nyu.edu/] * Gyorgy Buzsaki - Rhythms in neural networks. * Dmitry Rinberg - Sensory information processing in the behaving animal. * Mario Svirsky - Auditory neural prostheses; experimental/computational studies of speech production/perception. ** Psychology, Cognition & Perception program (deadline: 12 December) [http://www.psych.nyu.edu/programs/cp/] * Nathaniel Daw (also in CNS) - Models of decision-making and neuromodulation. * Todd Gureckis - Memory, learning, and decision processes. * David Heeger (also in CNS) - fMRI, computational neuroscience, vision, attention. * Michael Landy - Computational approaches to vision. * Laurence Maloney - Mathematical approaches to psychology and neuroscience. * Gary Marcus - Origins of the human mind. * Denis Pelli - Visual object recognition. * Jonathan Winawer - Visual perception and memory. ** Mathematics (deadline: 18 December ) [http://math.nyu.edu/degree/phd/] * David Cai - Nonlinear stochastic behavior in physical and biological systems. * David McLaughlin - Nonlinear wave equations, computational visual neuroscience. * Aaditya Rangan - computational neurobiology, numerical analysis. * Charles Peskin - Mathematical biology. * Michael Shelley - Modeling and large-scale computation, computational visual neuroscience. * Daniel Tranchina - Information processing in the retina. ** Computer Science (deadline: 12 December) [http://www.cs.nyu.edu/web/Research/Areas/graphicsvisionui.html] * Davi Geiger - Computational vision and learning. * Yann LeCun - machine learning, hierarchical visual processing, robotics. ** Electrical and Computer Engineering, Poly campus, Brooklyn (deadline: 1 December) [http://www.poly.edu/academics/programs/electrical-engineering-phd] * Jonathan Viventi - Brain-computer interfaces and brain recording technologies. ** Economics (deadline: 18 December) * Andrew Caplin - Economic theory, neurobiology of decision. * Andrew Schotter - Experimental economics, game theory, neurobiology of decision. _______________________________________________ Comp-neuro mailing list Comp-neuro at neuroinf.org http://www.neuroinf.org/mailman/listinfo/comp-neuro From antoine.bordes at hds.utc.fr Wed Nov 20 13:01:11 2013 From: antoine.bordes at hds.utc.fr (antoine.bordes at hds.utc.fr) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 19:01:11 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?Postdoc=3A_Machine_Learning_for_Mo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?deling_Multi-relational_Data_=28Compi=E8gne=2C_France=29?= Message-ID: <20131120190111.15193xd9cnodqr5s@webmail.utc.fr> [apologies if you receive multiple copies of this advert] **Mixtures of Three-way Models for Multi-relational Data.** **Supervision** Antoine Bordes, CNRS - Universit? de Technologie de Compi?gne. **Dates** position open from January 1st, 2014. (earlier or later start dates can be negotiable) **Project description** Many data such as Knowledge Bases (e.g. freebase.com) are multi-relational, in that they describe multiple relations between entities. While there is a large body of work focused on modeling these data, modeling these multiple types of relations jointly remains challenging. This research project targets data with large numbers of relation types (more than 10k), and for which the various relation types have heterogeneous properties like different connectivities or occurrence frequencies for instance. We propose to take this into account by using different relational three-way models (e.g. variants of tensor factorization models, with different loss functions, architectures, constraints, etc.) for different relation types. These models would be trained jointly and share some parameters (e.g. those encoding the entities), leading to an overall mixture of three-way models. Such models will be based on previous work by Bordes et al. on modeling multi-relational data (see the publication page at https://www.hds.utc.fr/everest/doku.php?id=en:publications for recent papers) and will be developed in collaboration with Google. **Context** A post-doctoral position is available as part of a Google Reseach Award obtained by Antoine Bordes. Research will be conducted within the French ANR project EVEREST on "lEarning high-leVEl REpresentations of large Sparse Tensors" being undertaken by Heudiasyc laboratory in Universit? de Technologie de Compi?gne, with a partnership of Xerox Research Center Europe (Grenoble, France). See https://www.hds.utc.fr/everest for more details on the project. The post-doctoral fellow will be based in the Heudiasyc laboratory in Compi?gne (France -- 1h north of Paris) and join the DI team headed by Yves Grandvalet. He/she will be supervised by Antoine Bordes. Heudiasyc is a joint laboratory with the Universit? de Technologie de Compi?gne (UTC) and the French governmental agency for research (CNRS). In 2011, it was rated A+ (the highest rate) by the French Research evaluation agency (AERES). Heudiasyc fosters interdisciplinary research on information science and technology including machine learning, uncertain reasoning, operations research, robotics and knowledge management. In 2011 Heudiasyc was awarded with an excellence project (LabEx) on the ? Control of Technological Systems of Systems ?. The fellowship is funded through a Google Research Award and will start after January 1st, 2014 for one year (currently 2500? per month -- gross salary). **Requirements** The candidate should have a PhD or equivalent in computer science or mathematics. The following qualities are desirable : strong interests in machine learning, statistics or natural language processing; excellent record of academic and/or professional achievement; strong mathematical skills; strong programming skills ; good written and spoken communication skills in French or English. The ideal candidate should be able to conduct theoretical research, but also implement and test models on very large datasets. **Contact and application** Applicants should send (preferably as a single PDF file): * a CV * a brief statement of research interests * references (with email and phone number) * a sample of strongest publications Applications and inquiries should be directed to: Antoine Bordes - antoine.bordes at hds.utc.fr - https://www.hds.utc.fr/~bordesan From torsello at dsi.unive.it Wed Nov 20 05:17:14 2013 From: torsello at dsi.unive.it (Andrea Torsello) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:17:14 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Participation International Summer School on Complex Networks Message-ID: <528C8C2A.50803@dsi.unive.it> Call for Participation ISSCN International Summer School on Complex Networks Bertinoro, Italy July 14-18 2014 http://www.dsi.unive.it/isscn/ Complex networks are an emerging and powerful computational tool in the physical, biological and social sciences. They aim is to capture the structural properties of data represented as graphs or networks, providing ways of characterising both the static and dynamic facets of network structure. The topic draws on ideas from graph theory, statistical physics and dynamic systems theory. Applications include communication networks, epidemiology, transportation, social networks and ecology. The aim in the Summer School is to provide an overview of both the foundations and state of the art in the field. Lectures will be presented by intellectual leaders in the field, and there will be an opportunity to interact closely with them during the school. The school will be held in the Bertinoro Residential Centre of the University of Bologna, which is situated in beautiful hills between Ravenna and Bologna. The summer school is aimed at PhD students, and younger postdocs or RA?s working in the complex networks area. It will run for 5 days with lectures in the mornings and afternoons, and the school fee includes residential accommodation and meals at the residential centre. List of Lecturers Alex Arenas, Universidad Rovira i Virgili, Spain (to be confirmed) Michele Benzi, Emory University, USA Luciano Costa, University of S?o Paulo, Brasil Ernesto Estrada, University of Strathclyde, UK Jesus Gomez Gardenes, University of Zaragoza, Spain Ferenc Jordan, The Microsoft Research ? COSBI, Italy Yamir Moreno, University of Zaragoza, Spain Mirco Musolesi, University of Birmingham, UK Simone Severini, University College London, UK Organizers Andrea Torsello, Universit? Ca? Foscari Venezia, Italy Edwin Hancock, University of York, UK Richard Wilson, University of York, UK Ernesto Estrada, University of Strathclyde, UK Registration Fees Registration will include Accommodation for 5 nights (13/7 to 17/7), and meals. Accommodation can be in single or double rooms (subject to availability). Single room Double room PhD student EUR 700 EUR 650 Postdoc EUR 800 EUR 750 Other EUR 900 EUR 850 Contact: Andrea Torsello -- Andrea Torsello PhD Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica, Statistica Universita' Ca' Foscari di Venezia via Torino 155, 30172 Venezia Mestre, Italy Tel: +39 0412348468 Fax: +39 0412348419 http://www.dsi.unive.it/~atorsell From michel.verleysen at uclouvain.be Sat Nov 23 06:41:17 2013 From: michel.verleysen at uclouvain.be (Michel Verleysen) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:41:17 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: ESANN 2014: deadline extension Message-ID: <000801cee840$eccaaea0$c6600be0$@uclouvain.be> ====================================================== ESANN 2014 22nd European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning Bruges (Belgium) - April 23-24-25, 2014 http://www.esann.org/ Submission deadline extension ====================================================== Due to numerous requests, the deadline to submit papers to the ESANN 2014 conference has been extended to December 6, 2013. Please note that no further extension will be given. Looking forward to seeing you at ESANN 2014, The organizing committee. ==================================================== Michel Verleysen Full professor - Honorary Research Director FNRS ICTEAM Institute - ELEN - Machine Learning Group Louvain School of Engineering Universit? catholique de Louvain Mail address: SST/ICTM/ELEN Maxwell Place du Levant 3, bte L5.03.02 B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Phone: +32 10 47 25 51 - Fax: +32 10 47 25 98 E-mail: michel.verleysen at uclouvain.be Homepage: http://perso.uclouvain.be/michel.verleysen Institute: http://www.uclouvain.be/icteam Machine Learning Group: http://www.ucl.ac.be/mlg/ Doctoral School: http://www.uclouvain.be/doctoralschool-cil ==================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grlmc at urv.cat Sat Nov 23 16:02:30 2013 From: grlmc at urv.cat (GRLMC) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 22:02:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: SSTiC 2014: 1st announcement Message-ID: <9AC280B9F61C4163A2D9574EB8913BB8@Carlos1> *To be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line* ********************************************************************* 2014 TARRAGONA INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL ON TRENDS IN COMPUTING SSTiC 2014 Tarragona, Spain July 7-11, 2014 Organized by Rovira i Virgili University http://grammars.grlmc.com/sstic2014/ ********************************************************************* AIM: SSTiC 2014 is the second edition in a series started in 2013. For the previous event, see http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/ SSTiC 2014 will be a research training event mainly addressed to PhD students and PhD holders in the first steps of their academic career. It intends to update them about the most recent developments in the diverse branches of computer science and its neighbouring areas. To that purpose, renowned scholars will lecture and will be available for interaction with the audience. SSTiC 2014 will cover the whole spectrum of computer science through 5 keynote lectures and 30 six-hour courses dealing with the hottest topics in the field. The organizers share the idea that outstanding speakers will really attract high-quality students. ADDRESSED TO: Graduate students from around the world. There are no formal pre-requisites in terms of the academic degree the attendee must hold. However, since there will be several levels in the courses, reference may be made to specific knowledge background in the description of some of them. SSTiC 2014 is also appropriate for more senior people who want to keep themselves updated on developments in their own field or in other branches of computer science. They will surely find it fruitful to listen and discuss with scholars who are main references in computing nowadays. REGIME: In addition to keynotes, 3 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: SSTiC 2014 will take place in Tarragona, located 90 kms. to the south of Barcelona. The venue will be: Campus Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virgili Av. Catalunya, 35 43002 Tarragona KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Larry S. Davis (U Maryland, College Park), A Historical Perspective of Computer Vision Models for Object Recognition and Scene Analysis George Karypis (U Minnesota, Twin Cities), Recommender Systems Past, Present, & Future Ronald R. Yager (Iona C, New Rochelle), tba ... more will come ... COURSES AND PROFESSORS: Divyakant Agrawal (U California, Santa Barbara), [intermediate] Scalable Data Management in Enterprise and Cloud Computing Infrastructures Rajkumar Buyya (U Melbourne), [intermediate] Cloud Computing Kwang-Ting (Tim) Cheng (U California, Santa Barbara), [introductory/intermediate] Smartphones: Hardware Platform, Software Development, and Emerging Apps Richard M. Fujimoto (Georgia Tech, Atlanta), [introductory] Parallel and Distributed Simulation Mark Guzdial (Georgia Tech, Atlanta), [introductory] Computing Education Research: What We Know about Learning and Teaching Computer Science George Karypis (U Minnesota, Twin Cities), [intermediate] Programming Models/Frameworks for Parallel & Distributed Computing Arie E. Kaufman (U Stony Brook), [advanced] Visualization Sudhakar M. Reddy (U Iowa, Iowa City), [introductory] Test and Design for Test of Digital Logic Circuits Robert Sargent (Syracuse U), [introductory] Validation of Models Mubarak Shah (U Central Florida, Orlando), [intermediate] Visual Crowd Analysis Steffen Staab (U Koblenz), [intermediate] Programming the Semantic Web Mike Thelwall (U Wolverhampton), [introductory] Sentiment Strength Detection for Twitter and the Social Web Nitin Vaidya (U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), [introductory/intermediate] Distributed Consensus: Theory and Applications Philip Wadler (U Edinburgh), [intermediate] Topics in Lambda Calculus and Life ... more will come ... ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Adrian Horia Dediu (Tarragona) Carlos Mart?n-Vide (Tarragona, chair) Bianca Truthe (Magdeburg) Florentina Lilica Voicu (Tarragona) REGISTRATION: It has to be done at http://grammars.grlmc.com/sstic2014/registration.php The selection of up to 8 courses requested in the registration template is only tentative and non-binding. For the sake of organization, it will be helpful to have an approximation of the respective demand for each course. 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 very convenient to register prior to the event. FEES: As far as possible, participants are expected to attend for the whole (or most of the) week (full-time). Fees are a flat rate allowing one to attend all courses. They vary depending on the registration deadline. If seats will still be available, shortly prior to the event attending only a few days (part-time) may be permitted, with the appropriate adjustment of the fees. ACCOMMODATION: Information about accommodation will be available on the website of the School in due time. CERTIFICATE: Participants will be delivered a certificate of attendance. QUESTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION: florentinalilica.voicu at urv.cat POSTAL ADDRESS: SSTiC 2014 Lilica Voicu Rovira i Virgili University Av. Catalunya, 35 43002 Tarragona, Spain Phone: +34 977 559 543 Fax: +34 977 558 386 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Departament d?Economia i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virgili From birgit.ahrens at bcf.uni-freiburg.de Fri Nov 22 09:25:31 2013 From: birgit.ahrens at bcf.uni-freiburg.de (Birgit Ahrens) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:25:31 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: <004c01cee78e$b337bd70$19a73850$@bcf.uni-freiburg.de> The Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Program "EuroSPIN" (European Study Programme in Neuroinformatics) is inviting applications from students having a solid background in mathematics, physics, computer sciences, biochemistry or neuroscience (on a master level or equivalent), in all cases with computer science skills. Documented interest in research like activities (e.g. demonstrated in the form of master thesis work, or participation in research related activities) is of large importance. Also fluency in English is requested. Four partners participate: - Bernstein Center Freiburg, Germany - KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden - National Centre for Biological Science, India - University of Edinburgh (UoE), UK They are all research leaders in the Neuroinformatics field, but they have complementary strengths. Each student will spend most of the time at two of the partner universities, and also receive a joint (or double) PhD degree following a successful completion of the studies. The mobility periods, as well as the courses a student will follow, are tailored individually based on: a) the PhD students background; b) which constellations of partners that are involved, as well as c) the specific research project. During the PhD period each student has one main supervisor from each of the two universities that grant the PhD degree. There are excellent scholarship opportunities for students accepted to an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate programme. An employment contract will be given to all selected PhD students during the study time, which is 4 years. If you are interested, go to our webpage: http://www.kth.se/eurospin If you have questions, contact us at < mailto:mundus-eurospin at kth.se>. EuroSPIN Coordinators, Stockholm, SWEDEN. -- Dr. Birgit Ahrens -- Coordinator for the Teaching & Training Programs Bernstein Center Freiburg Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9a D - 79104 Freiburg Germany Phone: +49 (0) 761 203-9575 Fax: +49 (0) 761 203-9559 Email: birgit.ahrens at bcf.uni-freiburg.de Web: www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ASAHTan at ntu.edu.sg Mon Nov 25 21:48:10 2013 From: ASAHTan at ntu.edu.sg (Tan Ah Hwee (Assoc Prof)) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 02:48:10 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers - WCCI 2014 Special Session on Towards Human-Like Intelligence Message-ID: Call for Papers World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) 2014 Special Session on Towards Human-Like Intelligence (THLI) The WCCI 2014 Special Session on Towards Human-Like Intelligence (THLI) is organized by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Task Force on Towards Human-Like Intelligence (http://www.mini.pw.edu.pl/~mandziuk/cis_tf_thli/). It is one of a series of events, following the success of 2013 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence for Human-Like Intelligence (CIHLI) as part of Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI 2013) held in Singapore from 16 to 19 April 2013 and will be followed by 2014 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence for Human-Like Intelligence as part of SSCI 2014 to be held in Orlando, USA from 9 to 12 December 2014. The main goal of this special session is to promote and advance research activities related to achieving all facets of human-like intelligence, including learning, reasoning, problem solving, intuition, creativity, insight, emotion, motivation, curiosity, and imagination. The organizers encourage submission of papers describing interdisciplinary research, development, and applications of various Computational Intelligence paradigms, including neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, memetic computing, machine learning, and statistical techniques, towards creating human-like behavior, performance and characteristics. Topics of Interests The special session welcomes all papers related to accomplishing human-like intelligence by artificial and/or biologically-inspired systems, models, and algorithms. The topics of interests include but are not limited to: * Models and architectures for human-like intelligence * Cognitively-plausible architectures and systems * Biologically-inspired cognitive models * Knowledge representation, learning and reasoning * Emulating intuition, creativity, insight, curiosity, personality and imagination * Chunk-based representations and the use of geometrical properties in problem solving * High level cognition * Motivation in autonomous behavior * Emotion in human intelligence * Machine consciousness * Autonomous learning, active learning * Transfer learning and multi-task learning Important Dates December 20, 2013 Paper submission deadline March 15, 2014 Author notification of acceptance April 15, 2014 Deadline for receipt of final manuscript Information for Authors 1) Information on the format and templates for papers can be found here: http://www.ieee-wcci2014.org/Paper%20Submission.htm 2) Papers should be submitted via the IJCNN 2014 paper submission site: http://ieee-cis.org/conferences/ijcnn2014/upload.php3) Select the Special Session name in the Main Research topic dropdown list 3) Fill out the input fields, upload the PDF file of your paper and finalize your submission by the deadline of December 20, 2013 Special Session Organizers Ah-Hwee Tan School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Jacek Ma?dziuk Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland W?odzis?aw Duch Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland ________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY:This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged.If you are not the intended recipient,please delete it,notify us and do not copy,use,or disclose its contents. Towards a sustainable earth:Print only when necessary.Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From n.lepora at sheffield.ac.uk Mon Nov 25 05:05:34 2013 From: n.lepora at sheffield.ac.uk (Nathan F Lepora) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:05:34 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Living Machines III: First Call for Papers, Satellite Events and Sponsors Message-ID: ______________________________________________________________ First Call for Papers, Satellite Events and Sponsors Living Machines III: The 3rd International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems 30th July to 1st August 2014 http://csnetwork.eu/livingmachines To be hosted at the Museo Nazionale Della Scienza E Della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci (National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci) Milan, Italy In association with the Instituto Italiano di Technologia (IIT) Accepted papers will be published in Springer Lecturer Notes in Artificial Intelligence Submission deadline March 14th, 2014. ______________________________________________________________ ABOUT LIVING MACHINES 2014 The development of future real-world technologies will depend strongly on our understanding and harnessing of the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems. Biomimetics is the development of novel technologies through the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems. The investigation of biomimetic systems can serve two complementary goals. First, a suitably designed and configured biomimetic artefact can be used to test theories about the natural system of interest. Second, biomimetic technologies can provide useful, elegant and efficient solutions to unsolved challenges in science and engineering. Biohybrid systems are formed by combining at least one biological component?an existing living system?and at least one artificial, newly-engineered component. By passing information in one or both directions, such a system forms a new hybrid bio-artificial entity. The following are some examples: ? Biomimetic robots and their component technologies (sensors, actuators, processors) that can intelligently interact with their environments. ? Active biomimetic materials and structures that self-organize and self-repair. ? Biomimetic computers?neuromimetic emulations of the physiological basis for intelligent behaviour. ? Biohybrid brain-machine interfaces and neural implants. ? Artificial organs and body-parts including sensory organ-chip hybrids and intelligent prostheses. ? Organism-level biohybrids such as robot-animal or robot-human systems. ACTIVITIES The main conference will take the form of a three-day single-track oral and poster presentation programme, 30th July to 1st August 2014, hosted at the Museo Nazionale Della Scienza E Della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci in Milan (http://www.museoscienza.org). The conference programme will include five plenary lectures from leading international researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems, and the demonstrations of state-of-the-art living machine technologies The full conference will be preceded by up to two days of Satellite Events hosted by the Instituto Italiano di Technologia in Milan. SUBMITTING TO LIVING MACHINES 2014 We invite both full papers and extended abstracts in areas related to the conference themes. All contributions will be refereed and accepted papers will appear in the Living Machines 2014 proceedings published in the Springer-Verlag LNAI Series. Submissions should be made before the advertised deadline via the Springer submission site:http://senldogo0039.springer-sbm.com/ocs/en/home/LM2014 Full papers (upto 12 pages) are invited from researchers at any stage in their career but should present significant findings and advances in biomimetic or biohybid research; more preliminary work would be better suited to extended abstract submission (3 pages). Further details of submission formats will be circulated in an updated CfP and will be posted on the conference web-site. Full papers will be accepted for either oral presentation (single track) or poster presentation. Extended abstracts will be accepted for poster presentation only. Authors of the best full papers will be invited to submitted extended versions of their paper for publication in a special issue of Bioinspiration and Biomimetics. Satellite events Active researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems are invited to propose topics for 1-day or 2-day tutorials, symposia or workshops on related themes to be held 28-29th July at Italian Institute of Technology in Milan. Events can be scheduled on either the 28th or 29th or across both days. Attendance at satellite events will attract a small fee intended to cover the costs of the meeting. There is a lot of flexibility about the content, organisation, and budgeting for these events. Please contact us if you are interested in organising a satellite event! EXPECTED DEADLINES March 14th, 2014 Paper submission deadline April 29th, 2014 Notification of acceptance May 20th, 2014 Camera ready copy July 29-August 2nd 2014 Conference SPONSORSHIP Living Machines 2014 is sponsored by the Convergent Science Network (CSN) for Biomimetics and Neurotechnology. CSN is an EU FP7 Future Emerging Technologies Co-ordination Activity that also organises two highly successful workshop series: the Barcelona Summer School on Brain, Technology and Cognition (http://bcbt.upf.edu/bcbt12/) and the Capoccaccia Neuromorphic Cognitive Engineering Workshop (http://capocaccia.ethz.ch/capo/wiki/2012). The 2014 Living Machines conference will also be hosted and sponsored by the Instituto Italiano di Technologia (http://www.iit.it). Call for Sponsors. Other organisations wishing to sponsor the conference in any way and gain the corresponding benefits by promoting themselves and their products to through conference publications, the conference web-site, and conference publicity are encouraged to contact the conference organisers to discuss the terms of sponsorship and necessary arrangements. We offer a number of attractive and good-value packages to potential sponsors. ABOUT THE VENUE Living Machines 2014 continues our practice of hosting our annual meeting in an inspirational venue related to the conference themes. The scientific and technological genius Leonardo da Vinci drew much of his inspiration from biology and invented many biomimetic artefacts. We are therefore delighted that this year?s conference will be hosted at the Da Vinci museum of Science and Technology in Milan, one of the largest technology museums in Europe and host to a collection of working machines that realise many of Da Vinci?s ideas. We look forward to seeing you in Milan. Organising Committee: Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield (Co-chair) Paul Verschure, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Co-chair) Armin Duff, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Program Chair) Giorgio Metta, Instituto Italiano di Technologia (Local Organizer) Barbara Mazzolai, Instituto Italiano di Technologia (Local Organiser) Anna Mura, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Communications) Nathan Lepora, University of Bristol (Communications) From jutta.kretzberg at uni-oldenburg.de Fri Nov 22 07:41:03 2013 From: jutta.kretzberg at uni-oldenburg.de (Jutta Kretzberg) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:41:03 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc / PhD position in Germany: Model of the auditory system Message-ID: <528F50DF.6080409@uni-oldenburg.de> *The cluster of excellence Hearing4all *(www.hearing4all.de )*: **Models, Technology and Solutions for Diagnostics, Restoration and Support of Hearing** *at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany (in collaboration with Medizinische Hochschule Hannover and Leibniz Universit?t Hannover) is seeking to fill the position of a *Postdoctoral Research Associate / PhD Student* who will contribute to one of the main research goals of the cluster, the development of a *Comprehensive model of the auditory system.* The candidate will be a member of a large and active group of modelers, working towards the understanding of the auditory system with a broad spectrum of biophysical, effective and statistical models. Tasks of the candidate will be to * Combine existing effective and physiological models of the auditory system with the goals to compare their performances and to improve their predictive power for electrophysiological and psychophysical data of both animal and human studies * Manage and maintain the Hearing4all database containing information about the models and data sets present in the cluster * Play an integrative role by interacting closely with modelers (from computational neuroscience, medical physics, signal processing) as well as with experimenters (performing electrophysiological and psychophysics experiments in animals and/or humans) and clinicians These tasks require a sound analytical background and substantial modeling and programming experience, as well as excellent communication skills (in English, preferably also basic knowledge of German). The position offers the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree (PhD student position, TV-L E13, 50%). If the candidate already holds a PhD in one of the related fields, the position can be upgraded to Postdoctoral researcher (TV-L E13, full time). Candidates are expected to have an academic university degree (MSc or equivalent) in the field of computer science, computational neuroscience, bioengineering, physics or a related discipline and knowledge in the fields of neuroscience or hearing research. Postdoctoral applicants are expected to provide a good publication record. The position is initially available for two years. The University of Oldenburg strives to increase the percentage of women in science. Therefore, equally qualified female candidates will be given preference. Applicants with disabilities will be preferentially considered in case of equal qualification. Please send your application including a cover letter, CV, list of potential referees, links to recent publications, and copies of certificates for academic grades to the head office of the cluster of excellence, c/o Karin Klink, Medical Physics Section, University of Oldenburg, D-26122 Oldenburg, Germany; preferably via e-mail with electronic copies of the documents to karin.klink at uni-oldenburg.de . Prof. Jutta Kretzberg (jutta.kretzberg at uni-oldenburg.de ) and Prof. Sarah Verhulst (sarah.verhulst at uni-oldenburg.de ) can be contacted for further questions regarding the position. Interviewing of candidates will start on 10 December 2013 and will continue until the position is filled. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mccallum at cs.umass.edu Wed Nov 20 14:43:56 2013 From: mccallum at cs.umass.edu (Andrew McCallum) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:43:56 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty positions at UMass Amherst: NLP, vision, robotics, theory, systems Message-ID: <031B7FE3-DF4D-44DA-AFFE-E18B8274F813@cs.umass.edu> Dear colleagues, UMass Amherst Computer Science has four tenure track openings across AI, systems and theory. We are looking in all areas of AI, but especially NLP, vision and robotics. https://www.cs.umass.edu/content/assistant-associate-professor-positions-computer-science Our Department has become a School, and we are growing our current set of ~40 faculty. UMass CS is highly ranked in AI, exceptionally collaborative, and has long-standing broad interests touching many areas of AI. Selected current faculty include: * Alexandra Meliou (databases, analytics & causality) * Dan Sheldon (computational ecology & ML) * Evangelos Kalogerakis (graphics & ML) * Ben Marlin (graphical models) * Hanna Wallach (computational social science & ML) * Deepak Ganesan (sensor and mobile networks) * Andrew McGregor (algorithms) * Rui Wang (graphics) * Erik Learned-Miller (computer vision) * David Jensen (data mining & causality) * Andrew McCallum (information extraction & ML) * Sridhar Mahadevan (ML, RL & manifolds) * R. Manmatha (image and video retrieval) * Ramesh Sitaraman (theory & parallel/distributed systems) * Shlomo Zilberstein (AI) * James Allan (information retrieval) * Bev Woolf (intelligent tutoring systems) * Rod Grupen (robotics) * Neil Immerman (complexity theory) * Bruce Croft (information retrieval) We will begin reviewing applications on December 2, and will continue until the positions are filled. Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested. Best wishes, Andrew Chair, Faculty Search Committee =============================================================== Assistant / Associate Professor Positions in Computer Science The School of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites applications for four tenure-track faculty positions in computer science for the 2014-2015 academic year. Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related area and should show evidence of exceptional research promise. Three tenure track positions are available at the assistant or associate professor levels in the areas of 1) Theory with an emphasis on algorithms and game theory 2) Artificial Intelligence with an emphasis on robotics and computer vision, and 3) Systems with an emphasis on security. The tenure track position in Natural Language Processing is available at the Assistant Professor level. Here we seek candidates able to collaborate closely with the departments of Linguistics and Psychology in The Institute for Computational and Experimental Study of Language (ICESL). The applicant should have a strong background in Natural Language Processing, preferably in the area of Syntax and Semantics. Our school is highly supportive of junior faculty, providing both formal and informal mentoring. Many of our faculty are involved in interdisciplinary research, working closely with other departments including statistics/mathematics, linguistics, electrical and industrial engineering, biology, physics, and nursing, as well as new "green" initiatives. Amherst, a historic New England town, is the center of a vibrant and culturally rich area that includes four other colleges. For more information about the school, visithttp://www.cs.umass.edu. To apply, please send a cover letter indicating the position of interest: R45857 (theory), R45859 (artificial intelligence), R45860 (systems), or R45858 (natural language processing); a curriculum vita; a research statement; a statement of teaching interests; and names and contact information for at least three references. Electronic submission of application materials in PDF format is preferred. Send tofacrec at cs.umass.edu. Alternatively, paper copies of application materials may be sent to: Chair of Faculty Recruiting, School of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003. We will begin to review applications on December 2, 2013 and will continue until the positions are filled. Rank and salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Inquiries and requests for more information can be sent to: facrec at cs.umass.edu. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups are encouraged to apply. The University seeks to increase the diversity of its professoriate, workforce and undergraduate and graduate student populations because broad diversity is critical to achieving the University's mission of excellence in education, research, educational access and service in an increasingly diverse globalized society. Therefore, in holistically assessing many qualifications of each applicant of any race or gender we would factor favorably an individual?s record of conduct that includes students and colleagues with broadly diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds in educational, research or other work activities. Among other qualifications, we would also factor favorably experience overcoming or helping others overcome barriers to an academic career or degree. From peter.ljunglof at heatherleaf.se Fri Nov 22 16:50:11 2013 From: peter.ljunglof at heatherleaf.se (=?utf-8?Q?peter_ljungl=C3=B6f?=) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:50:11 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline extension: EACL 2014 Student Research Workshop Message-ID: <95FEE409-B418-4057-9C79-A71DF5D5E747@heatherleaf.se> EACL 2014 STUDENT RESEARCH WORKSHOP The 14th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics Gothenburg, Sweden 26-30 April 2014 http://eacl2014.org/ CALL FOR PAPERS ** Deadline extension! ** The Submission deadline has been extended to Friday, 13 December 2013; 11:59pm CET I. General Invitation for Submissions ------------------------------------- EACL 2014 continues the tradition of providing a forum for student researchers who are investigating various areas related to Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for student participants to present their work and receive valuable feedback from the international research community as well as from selected panelists - experienced researchers who will prepare in-depth comments and questions in advance of the presentation. The workshop's goal is to aid students at multiple stages of their education: from those in the final stages of undergraduate training to those active with graduate thesis research. We invite papers in two separate categories: 1. Thesis/Research Proposals: This category is appropriate for students who wish to get feedback on the progress of their thesis work and broader ideas from the field in order to identify the most promising directions for the remaining thesis work. 2. Research Papers: Most appropriate for students who are new to academic conferences. Papers in this category can describe completed original work or work in progress with preliminary results. Topics relevant to the workshop aim to cover all aspects of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, including, but not limited to (in alphabetical order): - Cognitive modeling of language processing and psycholinguistics - Dialogue and interactive systems - Discourse, coreference and pragmatics - Evaluation methods - Information retrieval - Language resources - Lexical semantics and ontologies - Machine translation: methods, applications and evaluation - Multilinguality in NLP - NLP applications - NLP and creativity - NLP for low-resource languages - NLP for the Web and social media - Question answering - Semantics - Sentiment analysis, opinion mining and text classification - Spoken language processing - Statistical and Machine Learning methods in NLP - Summarization and generation - Syntax and parsing - Tagging and chunking - Text mining and information extraction - Word segmentation Subject to the availability of established researcher volunteers, each accepted paper will be assigned a mentor, an experienced researcher who will provide feedback on the work to the student at the conference. Details on this service will be provided in the acceptance notification. II. Submission guidelines ------------------------- A) Submission requirements 1. Thesis/Research Proposals may contain previously published work and must include specific research directions. They may also be in the style of a position paper that surveys and critiques existing literature, but must suggest future research directions. Proposals may only have one author, who must be a student. 2. Research Papers must describe original completed work or work in progress. Since the main purpose of presenting at the workshop is to exchange ideas with other researchers and to receive helpful feedback for further development of the work, papers should clearly indicate directions for future research wherever appropriate. The first author of multi-author papers must be a student, but additional co-authors need not be students. Research Papers are eligible for this workshop only if they have not been presented at any other meeting with publicly available published proceedings. Students who have already presented at a past ACL/EACL/NAACL Student Research Workshop may not submit to this track as a first author (though they may still be a co-author, or the first author of a Thesis/Research Proposal). These students are instead encouraged to submit their work to the main conference or to the Thesis Proposal track. During submission, students must clearly indicate whether a paper has been submitted to another conference or workshop. Double submissions to the EACL main conference and the Student Research Workshop are not allowed. One student can only submit one paper to the Research Papers track as the first author. B) Submission procedure Both paper and proposal submissions to the EACL 2014 Student Research Workshop should follow the standard two-column format of the EACL 2014 proceedings and they must be submitted as a PDF file. Authors are strongly recommended to use the style files from the conference web site. The style files are available here: - http://www.eacl2014.org/files/eacl-2014-styles.zip All submissions may consist of up to nine (9) pages of content only. Any number of additional pages containing references is allowed. The reviewing process will be double-blind; therefore, please ensure that the paper does not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...". Further guidelines are provided in the template style files. References to your own work in thesis proposals should also be anonymized. You may for example write it as "in X (2000) we showed", etc. and do not add your papers in the reference list. Authors should not use other anonymous citations in both research papers and thesis proposals, and should not include any acknowledgments. Papers that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected without review. The deadline for submission has been extended to 11:59pm CET on Friday, 13 December 2013. Submission will be electronic using the paper submission web page: - https://www.softconf.com/eacl2014/srw/ Papers will be presented orally or as posters during the main EACL conference as determined by the program committee. Decisions on presentation format will be based on the nature rather than the quality of the work. There will be no distinction in the proceedings between long papers presented orally and as posters. C) Multiple-submission policy Papers that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications must indicate this at submission time. Authors of papers accepted for presentation at EACL SRW 2014 must notify the program chairs whether the paper will be presented. All accepted papers must be presented at the workshop in order for them to appear in the proceedings. We will not accept for publication or presentation papers that overlap significantly in content or results with papers that will be (or have been) published elsewhere. Double submissions to the EACL main conference and the Student Research Workshop are not allowed, and the authors must ensure that these submissions do not overlap significantly (> 50%) with each other in content or results. D) Reviewing procedure The reviewing of the papers will be double-blind. Reviewing will be managed by the Student Workshop Co-Chairs and a team of reviewers. Each submission will be matched with a mixed panel of student and senior researchers for review. The final acceptance decision will be based on the results of the review. III. Important dates -------------------- - Submission deadline has been extended to: 13 December 2013 - Notification of acceptance: 20 January 2014 - Camera-ready submission deadline: 17 February 2014 - Conference dates: 26-30 April 2014 (The workshop will be held during the main conference, in a mode similar to the conference's regular sessions. The exact format will be decided by the workshop co-chairs and conference chairs.) IV. Student Research Workshop Committee --------------------------------------- Student chairs: - Desmond Elliott (University of Edinburgh, UK) - Konstantina Garoufi (University of Potsdam, Germany) - Douwe Kiela (University of Cambridge, UK) - Ivan Vuli? (KU Leuven, Belgium) Faculty advisor: - Sebastian Pad? (University of Stuttgart, Germany) Contact information: - students at eacl.org From bressler at fau.edu Fri Nov 22 17:25:17 2013 From: bressler at fau.edu (Steven Bressler) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:25:17 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Cognitive Neuroscience Faculty Position Message-ID: FACULTY POSITION COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, and the Department of Psychology, at Florida Atlantic University invite applications for a tenure-track faculty position in cognitive neuroscience at the Assistant Professor level. Candidates will have the opportunity to work in an explicitly multidisciplinary setting and interact with cognitive and behavioral neuroscientists in the Center and Department whose research spans human, animal, and computational models. Ideal candidates will have a strong program in one or more of the following areas: object recognition, attention, memory, language, cognitive control. Applicants Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Experimental Psychology, or a related discipline, an excellent record of research productivity, the potential to develop an independent and internationally recognized research program, and strong commitment to undergraduate and graduate education. Active grant funding and/or a successful history of grant support are desirable. An approach that combines experimental (e.g. EEG, ERPs, or TMS, and/or neuroimaging) and computational (e.g. network modeling, graph-theoretic analysis) components is desirable. *Special Instructions to applicants:* This position is open until filled and may close without prior notice. All applicants must apply electronically to the currently posted position on the Office of Human Resources' job website (https://jobs.fau.edu) by completing the Faculty, Administrative, Managerial & Professional Position Application and submitting the related documents. The site permits the attachment of required/requested documentation. In addition to completing the online application, please upload the following: a cover letter, curriculum vitae, copies of official transcripts scanned into an electronic format, statement of research interests and teaching philosophy, sample publications, and letters from three references. Confidential letters may be sent by email to the Search Committee Chair at bressler at fau.edu. All other application materials must be submitted electronically at https://jobs.fau.edu. Degrees from outside the United States must be validated by an organization belonging to the National Association of Credential Evaluation Service (NACES), with an indication of the documents the evaluation was prepared from (official transcripts, diplomas, dissertation abstracts). The evaluation should be scanned and electronically attached to one's application as with other US-based transcripts. Prior to appointment, the candidate must submit official, sealed transcripts from all institutions where graduate coursework was attempted, whether or not a degree was obtained, as well as an original NACES evaluation, if applicable. Transcripts must be issued to Florida Atlantic University not to you as the student. A background check will be required for the candidate selected for this position. This position is subject to funding. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodation, please call 561-297-3057. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From weng at cse.msu.edu Fri Nov 22 23:09:24 2013 From: weng at cse.msu.edu (Juyang Weng) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 23:09:24 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Brain-Mind Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2013 In-Reply-To: <529029E2.80204@cse.msu.edu> References: <529029E2.80204@cse.msu.edu> Message-ID: <52902A74.2010505@cse.msu.edu> *Brain-Mind Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2013 *Table of Contents Front Cover 0 How the Brain-Mind Works: A Two-Page Introduction to a Theory banner 1 - 3 by /Juyang Weng / *Abstract: *Neuroscience has made impressive advances, but there is a lack of an overall computational brain theory. I would like to present a simplified computational theory in an intuitive language about how the brain wires itself as a multi-interchange bridge that bi-directionally connects many islands where each island is a sensor or effector. The wiring process of the brain is highly self-supervised while a baby manipulates an object, e.g., sucking a milk bottle. I also explain how the self-wired basic circuits become motivated through four additional neural transmitters beyond glutamate and GABA --- serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine. A layman or a researcher in another discipline can get a gist of the theory for the brain-mind by reading this two-page short introduction. *Index terms: *Brain, mind, neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy, vision, motivation, intelligence The EU Human Brain Project Is Unlikely to Create an Artificial Whole-Brain in a Decade banner 4 - 6 by /Fan-ji Gu / *Abstract: *The European Union (EU) Human Brain Project (HBP) has a core target --- simulation of the human brain in a decade. I argue in this paper that this target is unlikely to be realized in a decade, at least in terms of major known brain functions because the EU HBP researchers lack an overall brain theory. Simulating a kludge is a fatal underestimation of the overall principles of the biological human brain. *Index terms: *Human brain project, Blue Brain Project, whole-brain model, artificial brain AAUP Addresses Academic Freedom and Due Process Concerns at MSU banner 7 - 7 by /Gregory F. Scholtz / *Abstract: *On September 5, 2013, the administration of Michigan State University (MSU) removed Professor William Penn from his teaching responsibilities after a portion of his lecture was surreptitiously recorded and posted on a conservative website. In response to an inquiry about this action from the editors of Brain-Mind Magazine, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) wrote to express concerns about possible departures from widely adopted AAUP-supported principles and standards of academic freedom and due process. The letter cited the relevant AAUP documents whose links are provided. *Index terms: *Checks and balances of power, academic freedom, freedom of speech, due process Trial by YouTube banner 8 - 10 by /Mae Kuykendall /and/Debra Nails / *Abstract: *Media campaigns against professors exercising their academic freedom to teach are being addressed in eerily similar ways. At Michigan State University in the first week of September 2013, and at the University of Kansas two weeks later, tenured professors were suspended from their teaching duties by administrative action without due process. Although suspension has long been regarded as a disciplinary measure short of dismissal, in the new atmosphere of social media blitzkrieg, the action is represented as a rescue operation to protect the teaching professor from cameras, clamor, and death threats. At the same time, some administrators suggest that the professors who have offended the sensibilities of some of their students may have poisoned the learning environment. The authors review and defend academic freedom in the new climate. *Index terms: *Academic freedom, social media, due process How MSU Lacks Due Process: A Bylaw Perspective banner 11 - 12 by /Christopher S. Masfis / *Abstract: *Michigan State University (MSU) removed Professor William Penn from a course that he taught because of what he said in the course. MSU possibly also applied other punishments which, if there are any, are confidential per MSU regulations. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) raised its concerns over the lack of due process at MSU. The discussion of the MSU regulations here indicates that Professor Penn case was due to deeper problems. I use the AAUP recommended procedure standards and the corresponding bylaws and regulations at an MSU's sister university --- University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (UofM) --- as comparative references. *Index terms: *Science of governing, checks and balances of power, due process, freedom of speech The 4th Open Letter to the U.S. President Obama: Safeguard U.S. against Instinct Bursts banner 13 - 15 by /Juyang Weng / *Abstract: *The U.S. luckily skipped a military strike on Syria, but its government is now partially shutdown. Due to a lack of experience and knowledge, every individual brain is prone to bursts of instinctive passions. In the governments, such bursts resulted in international wars and domestic sufferings. In the short run, every legislator, including Mr. Obama, should resume budget negotiations without any precondition because the founding fathers of this nation expected all in the government to talk and compromise. In the long run, the U.S. government should systematically adopt brain-like computational developmental mechanisms into laws to safeguard the U.S. from gradual buildup of tensions that inevitably will lead to downfalls, from wars to sequestrations, triggered by small events like an armed clash or the failure of a last-minute deal. *Index terms: *Science of brain and mind, U.S. interest, foreign policies, domestic policies Building Civilized Societies with Better Cultures banner 16 - 17 by /Ming Xie / *Abstract: *In this paper, I put forward the concept of culture space, and highlight its three principal axes for referencing values which are the ultimate causes behind all social and individual activities as well as behaviors. And, these three references for gauging values are: people-centric reference for values, family-centric reference for values, and customer-centric reference for values. The culture space is the domain in which all minds evolve and develop. All the differences of behaviors among people, populations and countries are reflected by the paths or trajectories of their minds in the culture space. *Index terms: *Mind, culture, behavior, value, creation, destruction Brain Stories 4: Government Terrors banner 18 - 20 by /Brian N. Huang / *Abstract: *Every brain, from a layman to a national hero, is badly limited by the knowledge it can learn through its lifetime. The poorer his living conditions, the less likely he receives necessary education to act more intelligently. When such an individual has unchecked power in the government, the government inevitably results in widespread terrors in the name of the people or the nation. Here I tell a personal true story about how I was hopelessly part of the terrors created by a government whose unchecked paramount leader was not necessarily fully aware that he was indeed badly cheating the poor class and the nation that he claimed to represent. *Index terms: *Government power, checks and balances, the Cultural Revolution Back cover 21 BMI-line-right Established since June 2012 Published by the Brain-Mind Institute -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 1226865 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 79424 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 591054 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sebastian.risi at gmail.com Mon Nov 25 09:36:22 2013 From: sebastian.risi at gmail.com (Sebastian Risi) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 15:36:22 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track at GECCO 2014 Message-ID: *************************************************************************** *** CALL FOR PAPERS *** 2014 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE (GECCO-2014) *** Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) Track *** July 12-16, 2014 in Vancouver, BC, Canada *** Organized by ACM SIGEVO *** http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2014 ************************************************************************* We invite you to submit your paper to the Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track at GECCO 2014. The focus of the GDS track is making artificially evolved systems scale to high complexity, with work ranging from biologically inspired approaches to automated engineering design. Each paper submitted to the GDS Track will be reviewed by experts in the field. The size and prestige of the GECCO conference will allow many researchers to learn about your work, both at the conference and via the proceedings (GECCO has the highest impact rating of all conferences in the field of Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life). TRACK DESCRIPTION --------------------------- As artificial systems (of hardware, software and networks) continue to grow in size and complexity, the engineering traditions of rigid top-down planning and control are reaching the limits of their applicability. In contrast, biological evolution is responsible for the apparently unbounded complexity and diversity of living organisms. Yet, over 150 years after Darwin's and Mendel's work, and the subsequent "Modern Synthesis" of evolution and genetics, the developmental process that maps genotype to phenotype is still poorly understood. Understanding the evolution of complex systems - large sets of elements interacting locally and giving rise to collective behavior - will help us create a new generation of truly autonomous and adaptive artificial systems. The Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS) track seeks to unlock the full potential of in silico evolution as a design methodology that can "scale up" to systems of great complexity, meeting our specifications with minimal manual programming effort. Both qualitative and quantitative advances toward this long-term goal will be welcomed. Indirect and open-ended representations: The genotype is more than the information needed to produce a single individual. It is a layered repository of many generations of evolutionary innovation, shaped by two requirements: to be fit in the short term, and to be evolvable over the long term through its influence on the production of variation. "Indirect representations" such as morphogenesis or string-rewriting grammars, which rely on developmental or generative processes, may allow long-term improvements to the "genetic architecture" via accumulated layers of elaboration, and emergent new features. In contrast, "direct representations" are not capable of open-ended elaboration because they are restricted to predefined features. Complex environments encourage complex phenotypes: While complex genotypes may not be required for success in simple environments, they may enable unprecedented phenotypes and behaviors that can later successfully invade new, uncrowded niches in complex environments; this can create pressure toward increasing complexity over the long term. Many factors may affect environmental (hence genotypic) complexity, such as spatial structure, temporal fluctuations, or competitive co-evolution. More is more: Today's typical numbers of generations, sizes of populations, and components inside individuals are still too small. Just like physics needs higher-energy accelerators and farther-reaching telescopes to understand matter and space-time, evolutionary computation needs a boost in computational power to understand the generation of complex functionality. Biological evolution involved 4 billion years and untold numbers of organisms. Nature could afford to be "wasteful", but we cannot. We expect that datacenter-scale computing power will be applied in the future to produce artificially evolved artifacts of great complexity. How will we apply such resources most efficiently to "scale up" to high complexity? How should we measure evolved complexity?: The GDS track has recently added a new focus: defining quantitative metrics of evolved complexity. (Which is more complex - a mouse, or a stegosaurus?) The evolutionary computing community is badly in need of such metrics, which may be theoretical (e.g., Kolmogorov complexity) or more practical. Ideally, such metrics will be applicable across multiple problem domains and genetic architectures; however, any efforts will be welcomed. We encourage authors to submit papers on these quantitative metrics, which will be given special attention by the track chairs this year. The GDS track invites all papers addressing open-ended evolution, including, but not limited to, the areas of: * artificial development, artificial embryogeny * evo-devo robotics, morphogenetic robotics * evolution of evolvability * gene regulatory networks * grammar-based systems, generative systems, rewriting systems * indirect mappings, compact encodings, novel representations * morphogenetic engineering * neural development, neuroevolution, augmenting topologies * synthetic biology, artificial chemistry * spatial computing, amorphous computing * competitive co-evolution (arms races) * complex, spatially structured, and dynamically changing environments * diversity preservation, novelty search * efficiently "scaling up" to large numbers of generations, individuals, and internal components * measures of evolved complexity (theoretical, or practical) VENUE ----------- The track and conference will be held in Vancouver, BC, Canada. IMPORTANT DATES --------------------------- Abstract submission: January 15, 2014 (required, new for 2014!) Submission of full papers: January 29, 2014 (NO extensions this year) Notification of paper acceptance: March 12, 2014 Camera ready submission: April 14, 2014 Advance registration: May 2, 2014 Conference: July 12-16, 2014 in Vancouver, BC, Canada FOR MORE INFORMATION: ----------------------------------------- Please see the GDS 2014 website (http://www.mepalmer.net/gds2014), or email the GDS co-chairs, Michael Palmer (mepalmer at charles.stanford.edu) and Sebastian Risi (sebastian.risi at gmail.com). Or you can join the GDS Google Group ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/gds-gecco) to see the latest updates. We look forward to reading your paper. - Sebastian Risi and Michael Palmer, GDS track chairs -- Dr. Sebastian Risi Assistant Professor IT University of Copenhagen, Room 5D08 Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark email: sebastian.risi at gmail.com, web: http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~risi/ mobile: +45-50250355, office: +45-7218-5127 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From areynolds2 at vcu.edu Mon Nov 25 14:38:00 2013 From: areynolds2 at vcu.edu (Angela M Reynolds) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:38:00 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Conference & Bard Ermentrout's 60th Birthday: Nonlinear Dynamics and Stochastic Methods Inbox x Message-ID: Nonlinear dynamics and stochastic methods: from neuroscience to other biological applications March 10-12, 2014 Pittsburgh, PA This conference on nonlinear dynamics and stochastic methods will bring together a mix of senior and junior scientists to report on theoretical methods that proved successful in mathematical neuroscience, and to encourage their dissemination and application to modeling in computational medicine and other biological fields. *This conference will coincide with a celebration of G. Bard Ermentrout's sixtieth birthday. *The invited speakers will present on mathematical topics such as dynamical systems, multi-scale modeling, phase resetting curves, pattern formation and statistical methods. The mathematical tools will be demonstrated in the context of the following main topics: i) Rhythms in biological systems; ii) The geometry of systems with multiple time scales; iii) Pattern formation in biological systems; iv) Stochastic models: statistical methods and mean field approximations. The conference runs from March 10-12, 2014 at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. Travel support may become available for young investigators. Currently, this conference is partial funded by the Mathematical Biosciences Institute and the University of Pittsburgh. REGISTRATION, ABSTRACT SUBMISSION, AND SCHEDULE: http://homepage.math.uiowa.edu/~rcurtu/conferencePitt2014.htm Important Dates: December 22, 2013: Deadline for travel award application and abstract submission. SPONSORS: Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh Mathematical Biosciences Institute National Science Foundation (pending) CONTACT: rodica-curtu at uiowa.edu or areynolds2 at vcu.edu *Confirmed Speakers:* Paul Bressloff (University of Utah) Carson Chow (National Institutes of Health) Sharon Crook (Arizona State University) Jack Cowan (University of Chicago) Jonathan Drover (Cornell Medical College, NYC) Leah Edelstein-Keshet (University of British Columbia, Vancouver - Canada) Roberto Fernandez Galan (Case Western Reserve University) Pranay Goel (Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Pune - India) Boris Gutkin (Ecole Normale Superieure/ ENS, Paris - France) Zachary Kilpatrick (University of Houston) Nancy Kopell (Boston University) Cheng Ly (Virginia Commonwealth University) Remus Osan (Georgia State University) George Oster (University of California, Berkeley) John Rinzel (New York University) Jonathan Rubin (University of Pittsburgh) Daniel Simons (University of Pittsburgh) David Terman (Ohio State University) If you have questions now please contact one of the organizers, Angela Reynolds, areynolds2 at vcu.edu , or Rodica Curtu, rodica-curtu at uiowa.edu. Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Assistant Professor areynolds2 at vcu.edu 804-828-5664 Grace Harris Hall 4176 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ala at csc.kth.se Fri Nov 22 08:10:11 2013 From: ala at csc.kth.se (Anders Lansner) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 14:10:11 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Open tenure track position at KTH, Stockholm (Applied computer science with specialization in Neuroinformatics) Message-ID: <022501cee784$300200a0$900601e0$@csc.kth.se> School of Computer Science at KTH (Royal institute of Technology) has announced an OPEN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR POSITION in Applied computer science with specialization in Neuroinformatics. The assignments involve research and teaching in particular as a part of the Computational biology research group at School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH, as well as to foster and participate in collaboration with experimental brain research groups, nationally and internationally. Distribution between research and teaching is negotiable but the percentage of teaching will not be more than 25%. For more information please see http://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/vacancies/assistant-professor-in-applied -computer-science-with-specialization-in-neuroinformatics-1.423956 ****************************************** Anders Lansner Professor in Computer Science, Computational biology School of Computer Science and Communication Stockholm University and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) ala at kth.se, +46-70-2166122 ****************************************** Anders Lansner Professor in Computer Science, Computational biology School of Computer Science and Communication Stockholm University and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) ala at kth.se, +46-70-2166122 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cassio at idsia.ch Mon Nov 25 13:04:31 2013 From: cassio at idsia.ch (Cassio P. de Campos) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:04:31 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Job: Assistant Researcher at IDSIA, Switzerland Message-ID: The Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (http://www.idsia.ch), affiliated with both University of Lugano and University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, advertises a full-time (100% occupancy), permanent, assistant researcher position in the area of data mining. IDSIA offers an international working environment (English is the official language) and a very competitive salary. The main duty of the person to be hired will be to support IDSIA's projects through advanced scientific programming skills: in particular, applied research projects with industry partners as well as some theoretical projects. The work will be performed in close collaboration with experts in probabilistic graphical models, robust learning, data mining, operations research (please see http://ipg.idsia.ch for more information). The ideal candidate has a strong background in the design and development of algorithms, has exceptional programming skills, has obtained a Bachelor and a Master degree in a quantitative area (doctorate is a plus), has good communication skills in English (Italian is a preferential additional option), ability to work in a collaborative environment and to participate in applied projects. For further information and details on how to apply, contact Cassio de Campos (cassio at idsia.ch). Please provide your CV (plus any additional documents you might find relevant, PDF format is preferred) in case you are interested in applying to this position. Additional documents and/or procedures might be requested later on. Candidacies will be reviewed as soon as they are received. The search will remain open until the position is filled. Applications received before the end of 2013 will be given full consideration. From cookie at ucsd.edu Mon Nov 25 10:25:40 2013 From: cookie at ucsd.edu (Santamaria, Cookie) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 15:25:40 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: UCSD Winter School 2014 - Dynamics of Multifunction Brain Networks: Neuromorphic Engineering, Jan. 7-10, 2014 Message-ID: ***CALL FOR ACTIVE PARTICIPATION*** MURI Winter School and Workshop 2014 Dynamics of Multifunction Brain Networks: Neuromorphic Engineering Organizers: Henry Abarbanel, Gert Cauwenberghs, Katja Lindenberg, and Emre Neftci Hosted by University of California, San Diego http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/special/winterschool2014/ 15th Floor, Building 1, Village West, UC San Diego La Jolla, California, USA January 7-10, 2014 Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday, December 2, 2013 Registration Deadline: Friday, December 13, 2013 Confirmed Invited Lecturers: Kwabena Boahen (Stanford Univ.) - Designing and building large-scale neuromorphic systems Todd P. Coleman (UCSD) - Granger causality and functional connectivity in the brain Chris Eliasmith (Univ. of Waterloo) - Large-scale spiking neural models Stefano Fusi (Columbia Univ.) - Memory consolidation models with bidirectional interactions Giacomo Indiveri (Univ. of Zurich) - Multiple timescales in neuromorphic plasticity circuits Eugene Izhikevich (The Brain Corporation) - Simple models of spiking neurons Anthony M. Lewis (Qualcomm) - The Qualcomm Zeroth processor Rahul Sarpeshkar (MIT) - Cytomorphic systems: From cells to electronics and electronics to cells Terrence Sejnowski (Salk Institute) - Brain communication Gabriel Silva (UCSD) - Graph theoretic methods for descriptive and predictive analyses of cellular neural network dynamics Angela Yu (UCSD) - Sequential decision-making in perception and cognition This is the second gathering in an annual series of Winter Schools sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research as part of its UCSD/Chicago/Berkeley MURI program in Dynamics of Multifunction Brain Networks. This year's School and Workshop which focuses on Neuromorphic Engineering will include a "teach-in", laboratory/poster sessions, and invited lectures on developments in VLSI technology to realize functional networks. The School is intended for all researchers, including advanced graduate students, interested in fundamental topics as well as latest advances in neuromorphic engineering ranging from computational thermodynamics, learning and memory, brain activity mapping, and silicon brains, to cognitive engineering of multifunction dynamical brain networks. Active participation is strongly encouraged and all attendees are invited to submit abstracts for poster presentation and/or interactive demonstration of their research. Selected contributed posters and demonstrations will also be highlighted in a spotlight oral session. Registration is complimentary, but required for attendance. A limited number of travel awards are available for exceptionally qualified graduate students, who should apply by having their dissertation supervisor send a letter of reference via email to muri.winter.school at gmail.com. Please visit us online to register and for details regarding the schedule and poster/demonstration abstract submission: http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/special/winterschool2014/ From cookie at ucsd.edu Wed Nov 20 23:21:43 2013 From: cookie at ucsd.edu (Santamaria, Cookie) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 04:21:43 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Winter q-bio Mtg in HAWAII Feb. 2014 ***Abstract submission deadline DEC. 2, 2013*** In-Reply-To: <756F32C9-DE9E-4B9C-B6FB-0FC71B51FC05@ucsd.edu> References: <756F32C9-DE9E-4B9C-B6FB-0FC71B51FC05@ucsd.edu> Message-ID: ***ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2013*** http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ UPDATE: In response to participant interest, the submission deadline has been extended to December 2, 2013. This year 15 contributed talks will be selected from the submitted abstracts to be presented with the invited talks during the plenary sessions. Contributed talks will also be selected for parallel breakout sessions which commence in the late afternoon. THE SECOND ANNUAL WINTER Q-BIO MEETING Quantitative Biology on the Hawaiian Islands February 17-20, 2014 http://w-qbio.org/ The Winter q-bio meeting brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in all areas of q-bio. The venue for 2014 is the Hilton Waikoloa Village, which is located on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii's Big Island. The resort lets you experience breathtaking tropical gardens, abundant wildlife, award-winning dining, world-class shopping, art and culture, and an array of activities. The Island of Hawaii is the youngest and biggest in the Hawaiian chain, providing a vast canvas of environments to discover--home of one of the world's most active volcanoes (Kilauea), the most massive mountain in the world (Maunaloa), and the largest park in the state (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park). SPONSORED BY: UC San Diego BioCircuits Institute and the San Diego Center for Systems Biology The University of Hawaii at Manoa UC San Diego Divisions of Biological Sciences and Engineering The Office of Naval Research 2014 CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Naama Barkai, The Weizmann Institute of Science Sangeeta Bhatia Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco Zev Gartner, University of California, San Francisco Taekjip Ha, University of Illinois Shigeru Kondo, Osaka University Arthur Lander, University of California, Irvine Andrew Murray, Harvard University Steve Quake, Stanford University Petra Schwille, Max Planck Institute Christina Smolke, Stanford University Aleksandra Walczak, Laboratoire de Physique Th?orique CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS: Kevin Bennett, University of Hawaii at Manoa William Ditto, University of Hawaii at Manoa Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco Jeff Hasty, University of California, San Diego Alexander Hoffmann, University of California, San Diego Galit Lahav, Harvard University Eva-Maria Schoetz-Collins, University of California, San Diego Chao Tang, Peking University Lev Tsimring, University of California, San Diego ***REGISTRATION NOW OPEN*** Registration fee covers conference venue, registration reception, banquet, coffee & snacks. EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ($500/$425 Student) DEADLINE: December 20, 2013 REGULAR REGISTRATION ($600/$525 Student) DEADLINE: January 31, 2014 LATE REGISTRATION ($675/$600 Student) After January 31, 2014 REGISTER NOW: http://w-qbio.org/ HOTEL: A block of rooms has been reserved for registered conference participants at a negotiated rate of $199 per night at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. The rooms will be available soon on a first-come, first-served basis, so book early! CONTRIBUTED TALKS: If you wish to present your work at the conference, either as an oral talk or a poster, you must submit an abstract through the conference website by the November 5th deadline. Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ ABSTRACT DEADLINE: EXTENDED UNTIL MONDAY, December 2, 2013 (Extended due to large volume of interest!) Accepted abstracts will be announced by December 6, 2012. You may submit your abstract now and if accepted, still register by the early bird registration deadline of December 20, 2013. Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/ We encourage you to forward this message to any colleagues that may be interested in taking part in this exciting event. Questions should be emailed to: coordinator at w-qbio.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From todd.troyer at utsa.edu Tue Nov 26 18:17:57 2013 From: todd.troyer at utsa.edu (Todd Troyer) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 23:17:57 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure-track position in applied math at UT San Antonio Message-ID: <9EB46CF2-A409-4B56-8F28-D3C62E9F5AB2@utsa.edu> The mathematics department at UT San Antonio is searching for a tenure-track assistant professor in applied math, with a preference for applicants who will interact with the mathematically inclined folks in UTSA's neurosciences institute. Information on UTSA?s Mathematics program, and the full version of this ad along with application instructions can be viewed at http://math.utsa.edu. Information about the neurosciences institute can be found at http://neuroscience.utsa.edu. UTSA is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. Todd Troyer Dept. of Biology UT San Antonio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ckiw at inf.ed.ac.uk Tue Nov 26 14:21:13 2013 From: ckiw at inf.ed.ac.uk (Chris Williams) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:21:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connectionists: 10 PhD places in new Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Science, Edinburgh UK Message-ID: =================================================================== 10 PhD places in new Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Science Web site: http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/ Application deadline: 27 January 2014 (first round) =================================================================== The Edinburgh Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Data Science is now inviting applications for 10 fully-funded PhD studentships, to start in September 2014. Students with a strong background in computer science, mathematics, physics, or engineering are particularly encouraged to apply. The CDT focuses on the computational principles, methods, and systems for extracting knowledge from data. Large data sets are now generated by almost every activity in science, society, and commerce - ranging from molecular biology to social media, from sustainable energy to health care. Data science asks: How can we efficiently find patterns in these vast streams of data? Many research areas have tackled parts of this problem: machine learning focuses on finding patterns and making predictions from data; ideas from algorithms and databases are required to build systems that scale to big data streams; and separate research areas have grown around different types of unstructured data such as text, images, sensor data, video, and speech. Recently, these distinct disciplines have begun to converge into a single field called data science. The CDT is a 4-year programme: the first year provides Masters level training in the core areas of data science, along with a significant project. In years 2-4 students will carry out PhD research in Data Science, guided by PhD supervisors from within the centre. The CDT is funded by EPSRC and the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh has a large, world-class research community in data science to support the work of the CDT student cohort. The city of Edinburgh has often been voted the 'best place to live in Britain', and has many exciting cultural and student activities. Because of constraints from funding agencies, there are different rules for funding depending on your country of residence: * UK and EU residents: Full funding (fees and stipend) is available. * Non-EU residents: Funding is significantly more competitive; see http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/apply/information-for-non-eu-students/ for details. See http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/apply/ for further information and application forms. Enquiries via http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/contact/ . There are two deadlines for applications: * First round deadline for full consideration. Apply by 27 January 2014. (Any non-EU candidates must apply by this date, as well as following the specific instructions for non-EU residents.) * Second round: Any remaining scholarships will be awarded in a second round of applications. The deadline for the second round is 31 March 2014. -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From tim.fawcett at cantab.net Wed Nov 27 04:23:21 2013 From: tim.fawcett at cantab.net (Tim Fawcett) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 09:23:21 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Conference: THE EVOLUTION OF BEHAVIOURAL MECHANISMS, 5-6 Dec 2013, London Zoo Message-ID: This year's ASAB Winter Conference, on 'The evolution of behavioural mechanisms', will take place on 5-6 December 2013 at the Zoological Society of London. The meeting is completely free to attend and there is no need to register in advance. Below is the list of talks and posters. See tinyurl.com/winterasab2013 for further information. Hope to see you there! Tim Fawcett, Andy Higginson & Pete Trimmer Modelling Animal Decisions (MAD) group, University of Bristol PLENARIES * Melissa Bateson - Memory of hunger: cognitive scars of early-life adversity in European starlings? * Reuven Dukas - Social information use in fruit flies: mechanisms and functions * Simon Laughlin - Ascending Shannon's slopes: how the cost of information constrains brains NIKO TINBERGEN LECTURE * Marlene Zuk - The role of behaviour in the establishment of novel traits CONTRIBUTED TALKS * Willem Frankenhuis - When does natural selection favour sensitive periods in development? * Alex Kacelnik - Paradoxical preferences for low probability of reward: how adaptive mechanisms can have costly consequences * Kate Morgan - Decision making in context: comparing the choices of humans and animals * Vivek Nityananda - Bumblebee visual search for multiple learned target types * Dave Shuker - Constraints on adaptive sex allocation behaviour * Jarl Giske - Effects of the emotion system on adaptive behaviour * Dani Sulikowski - The function of mechanism: linking cognition to foraging ecology * Jayden van Horik - Behavioural flexibility in parrots * Robert Biegler - Relational complexity * Frederic Mery - Diffusion of social information within Drosophila group : natural genetic variation for social transmission * Neeltje Boogert - Pre- and post-natal stress have opposing effects on social information use * Rui Oliveira - Searching for the social brain: neural and molecular mechanisms of social learning in zebrafish * Gerit Pfuhl - Complex behaviour despite a simple ear * Thomas Hills - Animal foraging and the evolution of attentional control * Oren Kolodny - Foraging challenges in statistically structured environments give rise to learning mechanisms which may account for ?advanced cognitive abilities? * Alexander Kotrschal - From artificial selection to transcriptomics: the cognitive benefits of, and the gene responsible for, a large brain * Joe Woodgate - What mechanisms underlie visually-guided navigation in foraging wood ants (Formica rufa)? * Sophie Mowles - The costs of courtship: using physiology and performance to understand what females want * Michele Johnson - The evolution of muscle physiology and social behaviour in Caribbean Anolis lizards * Arnon Lotem - Evolution of learning and levels of selection: a lesson from avian parent?offspring communication * Patricia Lopes - Socially-induced plasticity of sickness behaviours and its neuroendocrine basis * Michal Arbilly - Complex interactions between individual and social learning processes shape their evolution * Magda Teles - Socially driven changes in neural plasticity mediate behavioural flexibility * Luc-Alain Giraldeau - Non-social learning in a social context CONTRIBUTED POSTERS * Christian Agrillo - Evidence of multiple cognitive systems underlying numerical abilities of vertebrates * Stefan Leitner - Environmental and genetic control of brain and song structure in the zebra finch * Anne Salvanes - Environmental enrichment promotes neural plasticity and cognitive ability in fish * Julia Purser - Costly responses to acoustic stressors: underlying physiology, psychology and flexibility? * Lorenz Gygax - Mood?emotion interaction effects on behavioural and brain reactions of sheep exposed to video images of social interactions * Jo?o Messias - The role of dopaminergic system in the modulation of the Indo-Pacific bluestreak cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus cooperative behaviour * Cecilia Wikstr?m - Behavioural and molecular responses to a social challenge in a cooperative breeder reared in different social environments * Claudia Kasper - Behavioural and genomic responses of a cooperatively breeding cichlid to a helping task * David Baracchi - Nestmate recogniton in Stenogastrinae wasps: visual and chemical information are not integrated in a multimodal sensory cue * Cedric Tan - Sex-specific response to the familiarity of mates, and the role of olfaction * Zineb El Filali - Mass spectrometric study of the peptidergic neurotransmission regulating male mating in a mollusc, Lymnaea stagnalis * F-X Dechaume-Moncharmont - Scramble competition severely impairs mate choosiness * Thomas Hoffmeister - What makes a forager leave a resource patch? Confronting models with reality * Benja Fallenstein - Heritable personality traits probably aren?t correct Bayesian priors * Noa Truskanov - Active search and self-experience mediate the success of both social and individual learning in house sparrow fledglings * Thomas Hesselberg - Behavioural flexibility and learning in orb spiders * Erika Dawson - Learning by observing others arises through simple associations in an insect model * Barbara Webb - Not so simple associative learning * Kit Longden - Internal state modulation of visual motion processing in walking blowflies * Adrian Bell - Locusts show handedness during goal-orientated movements -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr Tim W. Fawcett Room B72 School of Biological Sciences University of Bristol Woodland Road Bristol BS8 1UG United Kingdom +44 117 9287478 (office) +44 7789 126382 (mobile) tim.fawcett at cantab.net www.timwfawcett.com From p.gleeson at ucl.ac.uk Wed Nov 27 11:36:10 2013 From: p.gleeson at ucl.ac.uk (Padraig Gleeson) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:36:10 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Opportunity in Open Source Brain project for experienced software developer Message-ID: <52961F7A.3000404@ucl.ac.uk> (Apologies for cross postings) The Open Source Brain initiative (http://www.opensourcebrain.org) is looking to hire an experienced software developer to further develop the collaborative web infrastructure for this project as part of our multidisciplinary group at University College London: https://atsv7.wcn.co.uk/search_engine/jobs.cgi?owner=5041178&ownertype=fair&jcode=1380523 This would be a great opportunity for someone who has plenty of experience with Java development (and a good helping of Python/Ruby/Javascript/jQuery) to get a job at the leading edge of efforts to build a truly open infrastructure for modelling and understanding the brain. Previous experience in computational neuroscience is an advantage, though excellent software development skills in a web environment and a desire to make a difference in this field are essential. Deadline for applications is 4 Dec 2013. ----------------------------------------------------- Padraig Gleeson Room 321, Anatomy Building Department of Neuroscience, Physiology& Pharmacology University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT United Kingdom +44 207 679 3214 p.gleeson at ucl.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------- From huajin.tang at gmail.com Wed Nov 27 02:55:04 2013 From: huajin.tang at gmail.com (Huajin Tang) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 15:55:04 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Call For Papers: WCCI 2014 Special Session on Cognitive Computing and Neuro-Cognitive Robots Message-ID: Call For Papers: WCCI 2014 Special Session on *Cognitive Computing and Neuro-Cognitive Robots* *OVERVIEW* The WCCI 2014 Special Session on *Cognitive Computing and Neuro-Cognitive Robots* aims to reflect the efforts and achievements of the current research stream, by inviting scientists and researchers to report their state-of-the-art technologies and theories on computational modeling, theory, experiments and applications. It is the continuation of the previous successful events: ? ICONIP 2011 Special Session on ?Brain-Realistic Models for Learning, Memory and Embodied Cognition?, Shanghai, China, 13-17 Nov 2011; ? WCCI 2012 Special Session on ?Brain Inspired Models of Cognitive Memory?, Brisbane, Australia, 10-15 June 2012. The accepted papers has successfully published as a special issue in Neurocomputing. ? ICONIP 2013 Special Session on Neuro/Human-Robotics, Daegu, Korea, 3-7 Nov 2013. It has been a challenge in neuroscience and computer science for many years to implement brain-style intelligence in an artificial neural system. Artificial intelligence, developed by computer scientists is highly limited in adaptive behavior and learning ability. Therefore, the synthetic neural modeling approach by developing brain-realistic models and related algorithms with robotic simulation has become a prevailing method to target the core problem of brain-style intelligence, namely, cognitive computing. Based on neuro-anatomic and physiological features of local cortical regions and hippocampus as well as their integrated neuropsychological characteristics, the synthetic neural systems are then embedded in robotic system to emulate brain-style cognition and autonomy in a physical environment. To truly understand cognitive functions, it is necessary to step out of modeling approach only and step into understanding how networks of neurons represent information by integration technologies from different disciplines, including computer science, neuroscience and robotics, to understand the cognitive functions and computations undertaken by the brain. Cognitive computing encompasses two essential problems: learning and memory. In contrast to computer memory, cognitive memory is versatile, performing both information storage and processing, that leads to higher level cognitive functions, such as perception, prediction, and association. The information is stored in a non-binary, structure-based, adaptive, and experience dependent manner and is retrieved using contextual cues. Learning of the information is in a parallel, distributed, and hierarchical manner. *TOPICS OF INTEREST* The special session welcomes all papers related to cognitive computing, brain-inspired systems, and neuro-cognitive robots.Topics of interest include but are not limited to: ? Cognitive Computing and Brain-Computer Integration. ? Cyborg Intelligence ? Neural Circuits Modeling and Theory. ? Neural Information Encoding and Decoding. ? Neurophysiological Learning and Computing (STDP, Hebbian, recognition, decision making, etc). ? Embodied Cognition, Neuro-Robotics, Robotic Cognition and Autonomy, etc. *IMPORTANT DATES* December 20, 2013: Paper submission deadline. March 15, 2014: Notification of paper acceptance. April 15, 2014: Final manuscript submission deadline. *SUBMISSION GUIDELINE* 1) Information on the format and templates for papers can be found at: http://www.ieee-wcci2014.org/Paper%20Submission.htm. 2) Papers should be submitted via the online submission site for *IJCNN 2014*: http://ieee-cis.org/conferences/ijcnn2014/upload.php. Select the Special Session name in the Main Research topic dropdown list to select the special session. *SPECIAL SESSION ORGANIZERS* Dr. Huajin Tang, Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore Email: htang at i2r.a-star.edu.sg webpage: http://www1.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/~htang/ Prof. Gang Pan, Zhejiang University Email: gpan at zju.edu.cn webpage: http://www.cs.zju.edu.cn/~gpan Prof. Zhaohui Wu, Zhejiang University Email: wzh at zju.edu.cn Prof. Kay Chen Tan, National University of Singapore Email: eletankc at nus.edu.sg webpage: http://vlab.ee.nus.edu.sg/~kctan/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tj at cs.cornell.edu Wed Nov 27 10:31:49 2013 From: tj at cs.cornell.edu (Thorsten Joachims) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 10:31:49 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty Positions at Cornell in ML etc. Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Cornell is hiring into multiple tenured and tenure track positions this year. Machine Learning and other data-related areas are a special focus. Cheers Thorsten --- Cornell University Department of Computer Science Multiple faculty positions are available at Cornell's Department of Computer Science, based in Ithaca, New York. Candidates are invited to apply at all levels including tenured, tenure-track, or lecturer, and from all areas of computer science and related fields with a particular interest in Systems, Machine Learning and Big Data. Tenured and tenure track faculty must hold the equivalent of a Ph.D.; applicants for the position must have demonstrated an ability to conduct outstanding research. Lecturers must hold the equivalent of a Masters degree, with a Ph.D. preferred. To ensure full consideration, applications should be received by December 1, 2013, but will be accepted until all positions are filled. Applicants should submit a curriculum vita, brief statements of research and teaching interests, and arrange to have at least three references letters submitted at? https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/2813. Letters may be addressed to the search committee chair, Professor Claire Cardie. Cornell University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action educator and employer; qualified women and minority candidates are particularly encouraged to apply. --- Thorsten Joachims Professor Department of Computer Science Cornell University http://www.joachims.org/ From eros.pasero at polito.it Fri Nov 29 03:00:07 2013 From: eros.pasero at polito.it (PASERO EROS GIAN ALESSANDRO) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 09:00:07 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Positions available at the Politecnico of Turin, Italy Message-ID: One Postdoc position and one graduate position are available in the Department of Electronics and Communication, Neuronica Laboratory, at the Politecnico of Turin, Italy. We seek highly motivated people to join our efforts to advance artificial neural networks applied to industrial applications. Both theoretical (modeling) and practical (software) aspects will be requested to be investigated. We are working on a number of highly interdisciplinary projects such as: Time Series Forecast, applied to meteorological forecast Image recognition, applied to X-Ray image recognition Industrial Control processes, applied to coffee grinding Power wireless sensor networks optimization, applied to automotive devices and others. Successful candidates should possess the following qualifications: (i) a Ph.D. degree (or a graduate degree for the graduate position) in Engineering computer science, statistics, mathematics, physics. (ii) familiarity with machine learning theory and algorithms (supervised learning, parametric and nonparametric approaches, MLE and/or Bayesian, model selection and model evaluation), (iii) strong communication skills, (iv) excellent programming skills. The initial appointment is for one year, and the position may be renewed based on satisfactory progress. The salary will be 1465 euros a month (graduate position) and 1664 euros a month (post doc position). Applications should include CV, copies of certificates and letters of recommendation. Please send initial enquiries and/or applications directly to Prof. Eros Pasero (eros.pasero at polito.it) by December 25, 2013. Selected applicants will have to apply for the final selection by January 2, 2014 and the selection will be on January 14 (at the Politecnico of Turin or via Skype) Prof. Eros Pasero, Neuronica Lab, Electronics and Communication Dept., Turin, Italy www.neuronica.polito.it Prof. Eros Pasero Laboratorio di Neuronica Dip. Elettronica - Politecnico di Torino c.so Duca d. Abruzzi 24 10129 Torino - Italy ______________________________________ ' Tel +39 011 0904043, +393316796014 6 Fax 0+39 011 0904216 *e-mail eros.pasero at polito.it WEB: www.neuronica.polito.it P THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT: before printing this e-mail think whether it is really necessary ______________________________________________ "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility" ______________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de Sat Nov 30 05:13:19 2013 From: wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Stefan Wermter) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 11:13:19 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 24th Intl Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN 2014) Message-ID: <5299BA3F.1010602@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> 1st Call for Papers 1st Call for special sessions, workshops, demonstrations =================================================================== ICANN 2014: 24th Annual Conference on Artificial Neural Networks 15 - 19 September 2014, University of Hamburg, Germany http://icann2014.org/ =================================================================== The International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN) is the annual flagship conference of the European Neural Network Society (ENNS). In 2014 the University of Hamburg will organize the 24th ICANN Conference from 15th to 19th September 2014 in Hamburg, Germany. KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Christopher M. Bishop (Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK) Yann LeCun (New York University, NY, USA) Kevin Gurney (University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK) Barbara Hammer (Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany) Jun Tani (KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea) Paul Verschure (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain) ORGANIZATION: General Chair: Stefan Wermter (Hamburg, Germany) Program co-Chairs Alessandro E.P. Villa (Lausanne, Switzerland, ENNS President) Wlodzislaw Duch (Torun, Poland & Singapore, ENNS Past-President) Petia Koprinkova-Hristova (Sofia, Bulgaria) Cornelius Weber (Hamburg, Germany) Timo Honkela (Helsinki, Finland) Local Organizing Committee Chairs: Sven Magg, Johannes Bauer, Jorge Chacon, Stefan Heinrich, Doreen Jirak, Katja Koesters, Erik Strahl VENUE: Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany, home to over 1.8 million people. Situated at the river Elbe, the port of Hamburg is the second-largest port in Europe. The University of Hamburg is the largest institution for research and education in the north of Germany. The venue of the conference is the ESA building of the University of Hamburg, situated at Edmund-Siemers-Allee near the city centre and easily reachable from Dammtor Railway Station. Hamburg Airport can be reached easily via public transport. CONFERENCE TOPICS: ICANN 2014 will feature the main tracks Brain Inspired Computing and Machine Learning research, with strong cross-disciplinary interactions and applications. All research fields dealing with Neural Networks will be present at the conference. A non-exhaustive list of topics includes: Brain Inspired Computing: Cognitive models, Computational Neuroscience, Self-organization, Reinforcement Learning, Neural Control and Planning, Hybrid Neural-Symbolic Architectures, Neural Dynamics, Recurrent Networks, Deep Learning. Machine Learning: Neural Network Theory, Neural Network Models, Graphical Models, Bayesian Networks, Kernel Methods, Generative Models, Information Theoretic Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Relational Learning, Dynamical Models. Neural Applications for: Intelligent Robotics, Neurorobotics, Language Processing, Image Processing, Sensor Fusion, Pattern Recognition, Data Mining, Neural Agents, Brain-Computer Interaction, Neural Hardware, Evolutionary Neural Networks. WORKSHOPS and SPECIAL SESSIONS: ICANN 2014 invites workshops covering current research in neural networks. A workshop proposal should include: title, outline, expected enrollment, and organizer biography. The ICANN 2014 Program Committee solicits also proposals for special sessions within the technical scope of the conference. Special sessions, to be organized by international recognized experts, aim to bring together researchers in special focused topics. Papers submitted for special sessions are to be peer-reviewed with the same criteria used for the contributed papers. Proposals should include the session title, a brief description of the scope and motivation, biographic and contact information of the organizers. We invite you to submit proposals for Workshops and Special Sessions to the following email address: ICANN2014 at informatik.uni-hamburg.de PAPERS: Papers of maximum 8 pages length will be refereed to international standards by at least three referees. Accepted papers of contributing authors will be published in Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Compute Science (LNCS) series. Submission of papers will be online. More details are available on the conference web site. DEMONSTRATIONS: ICANN 2014 will host demonstrations to showcase research and applications of neural networks. Demonstrations are self-contained, i.e. independent of any presented talk or poster. For a demonstration proposal, we request a 1-page description of your demonstration and its features. Later, you will communicate which resources (space / duration / projector / internet / etc.) you require. Decisions about demonstrations will be made within two weeks after submission deadline. A full conference registration is required for the demonstration. We invite you to submit proposals for Demonstrations to: ICANN2014 at informatik.uni-hamburg.de TRAVEL AWARDS: As in previous years, the European Neural Network Society (ENNS) plans to offer around 10 student travel awards of 400 Euro each for students presenting papers. Only papers that have been considered positively by at least two reviewers can be considered. The selection considers only papers that have been accepted and is based on the ranking established by the referees during the procedure of paper evaluation. The deadline for sending the Travel Grant application (that includes a Letter of Interest to the PC chairs, Studentship Proof and detailed CV of the candidate) is the 14th of April, 2014. The award will be sent to the student by 28th April and paid during the conference. More details will be provided on the website nearer the time. DEADLINES: Special session / workshop proposals: 15 January 2014 Submission of full papers: * 17 February 2014 * Notification of acceptance: 7 April 2014 Submission of Demonstration proposals: 21 April 2014 Camera-ready paper and registration: 5 May 2014 Conference dates: 15-19 September 2014 CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://www.icann2014.org *********************************************** Professor Dr. Stefan Wermter Chair of Knowledge Technology Department of Computer Science University of Hamburg Vogt Koelln Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~wermter/ http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ *********************************************** From fmschleif at googlemail.com Sat Nov 30 07:29:01 2013 From: fmschleif at googlemail.com (Frank-Michael Schleif) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:29:01 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: ESANN 2014 (extended deadline, 06.12.2013) - Special Session 'Learning of structured and non-standard data' Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP] Call for Papers - Special Session on 'Learning of structured and non-standard data' 23-25 April 2014, Bruges, Belgium http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann AIMS AND SCOPE Today real life data are often given not in the form of vectorial data but in various formats often without an underlying metric space. Prominent examples are network structured data e.g. from social or communication networks, tree structured data used to represent hierarchical documents or collections thereof. Also the simple relation between objects e.g. by means of score data found in sequence alignments or rating information as obtained in collaborative filtering approaches is of this type. The recent technological developments, also in the context of big data, allow the generation of very complex data sets. Challenges are now in the effective processing of these data, in the light of the pure amount, but also to keep the obtained model informative for subsequent analysis. These data are also often given without an explicit vector space, point relations can be asymmetric, metric properties may not be valid and the available information if often sparse in different representations. Computational intelligence methods have the potential to be used to pre-process, model and to analyze such complex data but new strategies are needed. A very effective way is to employ explicit or implicit knowledge about the data, or the analysis task and to learn an appropriate model from available training data. In other cases the knowledge is used in the design of adaptive analysis algorithms to generate the desired meta information out of the data. Such knowledge may be available by means of appropriate (bio-)physical models, data specific distance measures, auxiliary information associated with the data. or dedicated processing strategies for non-metric data employing infinite kernels or dissimilarity learning approaches. Also novel data encoding techniques and projection methods, employing concepts from randomization algorithm, have been used to obtain compact descriptions of these complex data sets or to identify relevant information. Examples of such data analysis problems are e.g. in the analysis of biological or social networks with a large number of measurements and complex data relations. TOPICS We encourage submission of papers on novel methods for structured data, dissimilarity learning, non-standard data analysis and non-metric data processing by means of computational intelligence and machine learning approaches, including but not limited to: - data analysis and pattern recognition approaches for structured data - dissimilarity learning - methods employing ex- and implicit data knowledge for non-standard data - representation and modeling of heterogeneous, high-dimensional, multi-modal (structured) and/or non-standard data - approaches in the line of matrix completion, collaborative filtering, reduction techniques for non-standard data - large scale network analysis IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission deadline : 06 December 2013 Notification of acceptance : 31 January 2014 Deadline for final papers : 21 February 2014 The ESANN 2014 conference : 23-25 April 2014 SPECIAL SESSION ORGANIZERS: Frank-Michael Schleif, University of Appl. Sc. Mittweida, Germany and University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Thomas Villmann, University of Appl. Sc. Mittweida, Germany Peter Tino, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK From avellido at lsi.upc.edu Fri Nov 29 08:17:47 2013 From: avellido at lsi.upc.edu (Alfredo Vellido) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 14:17:47 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: IEEE BHI'14: Special session CFP "Towards interpretable Machine Learning applications in biomedicine and health" Message-ID: <529893FB.3040304@lsi.upc.edu> *** Apologies for cross-posting *** Dear colleagues, We cordially invite you to submit an article to the special session on "*Towards interpretable Machine Learning applications in biomedicine and health*" of the IEEE BHI'2014. CALL FOR PAPERS Special session: Towards interpretable Machine Learning applications in biomedicine and health *IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics 2014 (IEEE BHI'2014)** * Valencia, Spain 1-4 June 2014 Web site: http://bhi.embs.org/2014 ================================ Important Dates Deadline for paper submission: 9th December 2013 (Unofficially, the deadline will be extended at least one week) Notification of acceptance: 23rd January 2014. Deadline for camera-ready papers: 13th February 2014. Session goal =========== The practical use of machine learning and computational intelligence algorithms in biomedicine and health is sometimes hampered by the limited interpretability of the analytical models, without which it is difficult to validate against domain expertise and to explain the extracted knowledge to the user. Model interpretability, which is a problem that extends to all machine learning fields (classification, prediction, clustering, etc.), is paramount in those application domains. This special session expects to make contributions on interpretable Machine Learning models: both basic methodology for the interpretation of efficient non-linear models and practical applications in biomedicine and health are welcome. Topics of Interest Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to: . Interpretation of non-linear models, including SVMs and other kernel methods. . Deep learning. . Inductive learning, including rule generation from data and interpretation of random forests and tree bagging. . Graphical models and structure finding. . Manifolds for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. . Data visualization. . Practical applications in biomedicine and health to extract knowledge from Machine Learning models. Session format and submission The session will take place during the IEEE BHI 2014 Conference. Only papers in English will be accepted. All the papers will go through the normal conference reviewing process. Final papers are limited to 4 pages and must follow the conference instructions as described in the conference website (http://bhi.embs.org/2014/authors/). The session will consist of a limited number of paper presentations. A separate submission procedure has been established for this special session. To submit a paper to this session, a special code is required for paper upload. *To submit a paper* for this special session - Click Submit a contribution to BHI 2014 at https://embs.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/start.pl - Click Submit of the "Special Session Paper" row - Enter Code *7g259* and complete the rest of the form with the information of your contribution Looking forward to seeing you in Valencia! Jos? D. Mart?n, Universitat de Val?ncia (Spain) Alfredo Vellido, Universitat Polit?cnica de Catalunya (Spain) Paulo J. G. Lisboa, Liverpool John Moores University (UK) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From manuelgr at tuebingen.mpg.de Fri Nov 29 03:22:43 2013 From: manuelgr at tuebingen.mpg.de (Manuel Gomez Rodriguez) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 09:22:43 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd CFP: WSDM 2014 Workshop in "Diffusion Networks and Cascade Analytics" (New York City, Feb 28, 2014) Message-ID: Last Call for Papers (Extended deadline: Dec 6): ######################################### WSDM 2014 Workshop in "Networks -- Processes and Causality http://people.tuebingen.mpg.de/diffusion-networks-wsdm14 New York City (NY, USA), Feb 28, 2014 ######################################### Diffusion of various types of behavior, information, rumors, ideas and infectious diseases are all instances of stochastic processes that occur over the edges of an underlying network. A contagion appears at some node of a network and then spreads like an epidemic from node to node over the edges of the network, creating a cascade. For example, in case of information propagation, the contagion represents a piece of information and infection events correspond to times when nodes mention or copy the information from one of their neighbors in the network. Developing computational methods to analyze different cascade patterns, understand the mechanism underlying diffusion, and eventually predict the cascading outbreaks, is of paramount importance since it would allow not only to stop disease spread, avoid rumor and misinformation spread, or mitigate traffic congestion but also design optimal marketing strategies, maximize sales of a product, or detect viral ideas and content in an early stage. Diffusion and cascades have been studied for many years in sociology, and different theoretical models have been developed. However, experimental validation has been always carried out in relatively small datasets. In recent years, with the availability of large-scale network and cascade data, research on cascading and diffusion phenomena has aroused considerable interests from various fields in computer science. One of the main goals has been to discover different propagation patterns from historical cascade data. In this context, understanding the mechanisms underlying diffusion in both micro- and macro-scale levels and further develop predictive model of diffusion are fundamental problems of crucial importance. The main goal of this workshop is therefore to bring together researchers from academia and industry as well as practitioners to share and discuss their different perspectives, ideas and latest research problems on diffusion networks and cascade analytics. Topics of interest for the workshop include (but are not limited to) the following: Cascade pattern mining and analysis Cascading behavior analysis and prediction Cascading outbreak detection and prediction Information diffusion in social networks Homophily, social contagion and causality Network inference from cascades Rumor, misinformation, and anti-spam detection Mobility patterns mining and analysis Disease dynamics and vaccination strategies in social networks Games in networks Link prediction in networks Papers must be formatted according to ACM guidelines (http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) and style files to fit within 4 pages, including references, diagrams, and appendices if any. A submitted paper must be self- contained and in English. PDF files must have all non-standard fonts embedded. Papers should be submitted by email to cuip at tsinghua.edu.cn, with the title of "DifNet Submission: + $the name of the first author$". Submission Deadline: December 6 (Extended) Acceptance Notifications: December 21 Organizers: Peng Cui Fei Wang Hanghang Tong From ghio.alessandro at gmail.com Sat Nov 30 03:21:09 2013 From: ghio.alessandro at gmail.com (Alessandro Ghio) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 09:21:09 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: DEADLINE EXTENDED - "Byte the bullet: learning on real-world computing architectures" - ESANN 2014 Special Session Call for Papers Message-ID: <2482BF05-03C4-4674-B94C-599347F68B4A@gmail.com> *** Apologies for cross posting *** ESANN 2014 Special Session - "Byte the bullet: learning on real-world computing architectures" - CALL FOR PAPERS -- DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION POSTPONED TO 6 DECEMBER 2013 -- European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning (ESANN 2014). 23-25 April 2014, Bruges, Belgium - http://www.esann.org Submissions are invited for next year ESANN Special Session "Byte the bullet: learning on real-world computing architectures". Organizers: Davide Anguita, Alessandro Ghio, Luca Oneto University of Genoa (Italy) ESANN 2014 Special Session "Byte the bullet: learning on real-world computing architectures" webpage: http://btb.smartlab.ws TOPICS In this special session, we would like to encourage submissions related to the development and the application of fast, effective, reliable techniques, which consider possibilities, potentialities and constraints of real-world computing architectures as basic cornerstones and motivations. This list includes (despite not being limited to): Bit-based models (e.g. bit-base reformulations, Weightless Neural Networks) & their applications (e.g. sensor networks) Learning on dedicated (e.g. GPU, FPGA) and unconventional (e.g. quantum computing systems) architectures Linear & sub-linear ML algorithms for High-Performance Computing Learning on large, distributed and cloud architectures. Note that: Theoretical, practical and applicative works are all welcome The relevance with reference to the Special Session topics should be emphasized by the authors in their submissions. ABSTRACT Fast, effective, reliable models: these are the desiderata of every theorist and practitioner. Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, proposed in the last decades, proved to be effective and reliable in solving complex real-world problems. A huge amount of work has been spent to properly reformulate or revise these techniques, which are usually designed without taking into account the destination computing architecture, in order to make them run as fast as possible. This effort is often motivated by application-specific requirements, such as the need to accelerate the learning process with dedicated/distributed hardware (e.g. cloud computing) or to foster energy-sparing requirements of applications based on mobile standalone devices (e.g. smartphones, sensor networks). Contemplating the destination computing architecture influences overall performance, but can also be exploited for implementation benefits: it is the case of quantum computing, and of recent advances in ML showing how the generalization capability of learnt models can take advantage of computational constraints in learning. SUBMISSION & IMPORTANT DATES We kindly invite you to submit a paper to this special session. Each paper will undergo to a peer reviewing process for its acceptance. Paper submission should be done exclusively through the ESANN portal following the instructions provided in: (http://www.elen.ucl.ac.be/esann/index.php?pg=submission). Remember to select the BTB special session for your submission, otherwise the paper will be considered for the traditional ESANN tracks. Paper submission deadline : 6 December 2013 Notification of acceptance : 31 January 2014 Deadline for final papers : 21 February 2014 ESANN 2014 conference : 23-25 April 2014 NOTES You can find details about the special session at http://btb.smartlab.ws. If you have any questions concerning the special session, please do not hesitate to contact us via email to: btb at smartlab.ws More information about the Conference Program, accommodation facilities and registration fees is available on the ESANN website www.esann.org --- Dr. Alessandro Ghio, Ph.D. DITEN - University of Genoa Via Opera Pia 11a, I-16145 Genoa (Italy) T. +39-(0)10-3532192 F. +39-(0)10-3532897 @ Alessandro.Ghio at smartlab.ws W http://smartlab.ws/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From norbert at is.umk.pl Thu Nov 28 16:44:54 2013 From: norbert at is.umk.pl (Norbert Jankowski) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 22:44:54 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for papers: Data mining with meta-learning and hierarchical architectures Message-ID: <007101ceec83$153e2bf0$3fba83d0$@is.umk.pl> Call for papers: Special session: Data mining with meta-learning and hierarchical architectures The IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, Beijing, China, 6-11 July 2014 Goals of this special session: This session will be devoted to approaches that in an intelligent way integrate various components of learning algorithms used for data mining, especially in meta-learning, multimodel architectures, facilitating knowledge transfer and deep learning. Integration of machine learning algorithms becomes increasingly more important, especially in applications to hard problems which still wait to be solved, where application of specialized methods that do not use additional knowledge has led to limited success. Hard problems and big data need much more than single neural network or single learning machine. Sophisticated data transformations play more and more important role. Data mining packages contain hundreds of algorithms that may be composed in millions of ways. Automatization of this process requires analysis of learning algorithms at the meta-level. Methods that extract various forms of useful knowledge, share and integrate it for intelligent information processing, are necessary to solve hard problems. Such methods may be inspired by the organization of the brain, or may be based on formal algorithms. One promising direction is to use methods that construct new features, learning from successes of different algorithms, extracting knowledge from indirect, partial learning and using it to build final potential solutions. Another interesting aspect in the construction of complex computational intelligence methods is dealing with different levels of abstraction; useful meta-knowledge may come in the form of highly abstract heuristic knowledge directing the search process for the optimal model, or may be hidden in the details of algorithm implementation. The main subjects of interest are: . Meta-learning algorithms and system architectures. . Meta-knowledge representation, acquisition, application, re-use and construction, analysis of the usefulness of knowledge. . Knowledge transfer, knowledge sharing, transfer learning. . Meta-learning for big data. . Multimodel architectures, integration of hierarchy of individual models for data mining. . Multimodel data mining systems/algorithms, which integrate several methods of data analysis at different levels of granularity. . Data mining that use hybrid/heterogenous models . Advanced architectures of data mining systems. Combinations of machine learning, neural networks, fuzzy systems, etc. . Transformation-base learning, including deep learning algorithms. . Extraction and construction of new features that simplify the complex learning process, including pre-processing methods, multimodal signal processing, extraction of information from specific types of data. . Methods of reasoning for automatic creation of decision models, estimation of usefulness of knowledge for a given problem. . Applications to challenging problems, methods for testing complex systems. The session is not strictly limited to the above subjects. Every aspects of meta-learning or other integration of learning algorithms and knowledge are welcome. IMPORTANT DATES December 20, 2013: Paper submission deadline. March 15, 2014: Notification of paper acceptance. April 15, 2014: Final manuscript submission deadline. Organizers: Norbert Jankowski and Wlodzislaw Duch Department of Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University ul. Grudziadzka 5, 87-100 Toru?, Poland {norbert,wduch} @ is.umk.pl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: