Connectionists: Special Issue on "Emerging Spatial Competences: From Machine Perception to Sensorimotor Intelligence"

[Agostino Gibaldi]

Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP!



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                                    *CALL FOR PAPERS*
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                     Robotics and Autonomous Systems Journal

                                Special Issue on
/*"Emerging Spatial Competences: From Machine Perception to Sensorimotor Intelligence"
*/

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*IMPORTANT DATES*
-        January 31, 2014: Paper submission deadline
-        March 31, 2014: Notification of paper acceptance
-        April 30, 2014: Camera ready paper submission
-        Late Spring 2014: Expected publication date


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*AIMS AND OBJECTIVES*

Following the recent evolution of robotics and AI in different fields of application,
the increasing   complexity of the *actions *that an artificial agent needs to perform,
is  directly  dependent on the  complexity of  the *sensory information * that it  can
acquire and *interpret*, i.e. *perceive*.

>From this  point  of  view,  an  efficient and internal representation of the sensory
information  is  at the  base  of  a  robot to  develop  a  *human-like  capability *of
interaction  with  the  surrounding  environment.  Particularly, in  the space  at  a
*reachable distance*, not only visual and auditory, but also tactile and proprioceptive
information  rise  to  be relevant  to  gain a  comprehensive spatial cognition. This
information, coming from different senses, can be in principle integrated and used to
experience  an awareness of the environment both to actively interact with it, and to
calibrate the  interaction  itself.  Besides,  the  early  sensory  and  sensorimotor
mechanisms,  that  at  a  first glance  may appear  simple processes, are grounded on
highly structured  and  complex algorithms that  are  far  from  being understood and
modeled. By exploiting an early synergy  between *sensing  modules*  and *motor control*,
the loop between  action  and perception comes to be not just closed at system level,
but shortened  at  an  inner one.  This would allow not only the emergence of *spatial
competences* but  also their *continuous adaptation* to changes in the environment or in
the body, which could modify its interactions with the world.

The aim  of  this  special  issue is  to survey a state of the art of methodologies,
concepts, algorithms and techniques that would serve as bricks on which to build and
develop artificial  agents with  such a spatial competence; perceptual and cognitive
understanding of space should emerge from sensorimotor exercise.

The *action-perception loop* has never been so close!


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*PAPER SUBMISSION*
We invite original contributions that provide novel solutions to address the
relevant
topics including but not limited to:
-        Theoretical or practical aspects of machine sensing (for computer
         vision, robot audition, artificial touch, etc.)
-        Multisensory data fusion, processing, learning and integration
-        Computational neural modeling
-        Embodied robotics: perception, cognition, and behaviors
-        Machine learning for sensorimotor control and intelligence
-        Neural networks: models, theories, learning algorithms and applications
-        Engineering application of sensorimotor intelligence to pattern
         recognition, computer vision, speech recognition, human-robot
         interactions.

As a follow-up of the IJCNN 2013 special session, we invite in particular the special
session participants to submit  profoundly  extended  versions  of  their  conference
submission to go through a new  peer  review process, together with contributions not
published in the conference proceedings.

Papers should be typeset according  to  the format  instructions for the Robotics and
Autonomous Systems Journal, available on the Elsevier web site
(http://www.elsevier.com/journals/robotics-and-autonomous-systems/0921-8890/guide-for-authors).


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*GUEST EDITORS*

_Agostino Gibaldi_, agostino.gibaldi at unige.it
Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering
University of Genoa, Italy
Advanced Research Center on Electronic Systems (ARCES)
University of Bologna, Italy

_Silvio P. Sabatini_, silvio.sabatini at unige.it
Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering
University of Genoa, Italy

_Sylvain Argentieri_, sylvain.argentieri at upmc.fr
Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR)
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

_Zhengping Ji_, jizhengp at gmail.com
Advanced Image Research Laboratory (AIRL)
Samsung, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A

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