From auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch Sat Apr 2 04:23:39 2016 From: auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch (Auke Ijspeert) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 10:23:39 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: EPFL: PhD student position in neuromechanical models of vertebrate locomotion Message-ID: <56FF818B.40906@epfl.ch> PhD student position in neuromechanical models of vertebrate locomotion http://biorob.epfl.ch/openings The Biorobotics laboratory (Biorob, http://biorob.epfl.ch/) at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) anticipates to have one open PhD studentship in computational neuroscience and biorobotics. The goal of the project is to develop neuromechanical models of vertebrate locomotion, together with Marc-Olivier Gewaltig (computational neuroscientist) and Gregoire Courtine (neuroscientist). *The neuromechanical models will include numerical models of spinal cord circuits coupled to biomechanical models of the body. The first target animal will be the mouse; depending on progress, human models might be developed in a second stage. The spinal cord models might also be tested and validated in some of the quadruped robots developed by the Biorobotics laboratory. The position will be fully funded thanks to a grant from the Human Brain Project. EPFL is one of the leading Institutes of Technology in Europe and offers internationally competitive salaries and research infrastructure. Requirements: Candidates need to have a Master degree in a field related to computational neuroscience e.g. in physics or computer science. The ideal candidate for this position should have a strong math background (e.g. in dynamical systems), good programming skills, and interest/expertise in modeling neural circuits and biomechanical systems, and in locomotion. How to apply for the position: Step 1: The position is only open to applicants who have been accepted by the EPFL doctoral school (see http://phd.epfl.ch/). The first step is therefore to fill the applications for one of the relevant EPFL doctoral programs in robotics (http://phd.epfl.ch/EDPR) or neuroscience (http://phd.epfl.ch/neuroscience). Step 2: In parallel to step 1, or once accepted by one of the doctoral programs (please specify which doctoral program and the date of acceptance), the application to the position should be sent by email to Prof. Auke Ijspeert and consist of a motivation letter (explaining why you are interested in the project, and why you feel qualified for it) and a copy of the doctoral program application. Informal inquiries about the relevance of an application can be sent to auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch (e.g. before or while submitting an application to the doctoral school), but responses can be slow because of a heavy schedule and a filled mail box. Deadline and starting date: Applications will be considered continuously until the position is filled. The starting date is between April and September 2016 (the sooner the better). Note that the doctoral program in robotics (EDRS) has a deadline on April 15 2016, and the one in neuroscience (EDNE) on May 1st 2016. Contact: Information concerning the type of research carried out by the group can be found at http://biorob.epfl.ch/. You should send your application and any inquiry by email to: Prof. Auke Jan Ijspeert , auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Auke Jan Ijspeert Biorobotics Laboratory EPFL-STI-IBI-BIOROB EPFL, Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne Station 9, CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Office: ME D1 1226 Tel: +41 21 693 2658 Fax: +41 21 693 3705 www: http://biorob.epfl.ch Email: Auke.Ijspeert at epfl.ch ----------------------------------------------------------------- From max.garagnani at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 12:54:51 2016 From: max.garagnani at gmail.com (Max Garagnani) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 18:54:51 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: New article on Modelling brain processes of semantic grounding Message-ID: <039901d18c37$35c296d0$a147c470$@gmail.com> Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to report that following new article has been recently published by the European Journal of Neuroscience: Garagnani, M. & Pulverm?ller, F. (2016) Conceptual grounding of language in action and perception: a neurocomputational model of the emergence of category specificity and semantic hubs. European Journal of Neuroscience. Volume 43, Issue 6, pages 721?737, March 2016 A copy of the article can be downloaded at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.13145/abstract This cortical model of semantic grounding builds upon previous work on neurobiologically realistic neural-network models of language and attention processes in the brain: Garagnani, M., Wennekers, T. & Pulverm?ller, F. (2008) A neuroanatomically-grounded Hebbian learning model of attention-language interactions in the human brain. European Journal of Neuroscience. Volume 27, Issue 2, pages 492?513, January 2008 Preprints of this and other relevant publications are available here: http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/v/brainlang/team/MGaragnani.ht ml Kind regards, Max Garagnani -- Max Garagnani, Ph.D. (Durham), Ph.D. (Cantab) Brain Language Lab Freie Universit?t Berlin Habelschwerdter Allee 45 14195 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 838 56619 Fax. +49 (0)30 838 54862 From craig.jin at sydney.edu.au Sun Apr 3 11:12:23 2016 From: craig.jin at sydney.edu.au (Craig Jin) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 15:12:23 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Academic Position Open University of Sydney Message-ID: <2715ECA15E1E8843BAE28AF8F7983D350112FEE817@ex-mbx-pro-06> Academics with a background in Machine Learning applied to Audio, Speech and Language Processing encouraged to apply. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies Reference number: 294/0216 Teaching and research position - Opportunity to enhance and develop your academic profile Utilise your expertise to enhance research-led teaching in coursework and research programs. Full-time continuing position, remuneration $135k - $160kp.a., leave loading and up to 17% superannuation The University of Sydney is Australias first university and has an outstanding global reputation for academic and research excellence. It employs over 7500 permanent staff, supporting over 52,000 students. The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies at the University of Sydney is consistently ranked in the top 50 engineering and technology universities in the world. The School of Electrical and Information Engineering (EIE) has a strong and proud tradition in contributing to world class research and teaching in the fields of electrical and information engineering throughout its long history. Established in 1883, School counts some of the most eminent Australian industry leaders and engineering professionals amongst its Alumni. The School's research tradition is built upon strong disciplines supported by faculties and schools, cross-disciplinary initiatives, and commitments to rigour and depth in research and research training. EIE has a reputation for the quality of its graduates, innovation in its undergraduate curriculum and for the strength of its research and postgraduate teaching programs. Major research outcomes have been achieved in the fields of software, bio-electronics, computer, photonics, power and telecommunication engineering. We are seeking to appoint a Lecturer or Senior Lecturer with a strong track record of research and teaching in Electrical Engineering with specialized focus on Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Digital Systems or a closely related discipline. Essential Qualifications: A PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Digital Systems or a closely related discipline. Essential Experience/Skills/Knowledge: Demonstrated track record in two of the key research and teaching areas in Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Electronics or Digital Systems. Established research track record including research publications in top journals and conferences Track record of teaching excellence and a strong commitment to teaching and learning, including experience in lecturing and curriculum development. Demonstrated capacity to work independently and collaboratively. Track record of obtaining research funding and/or supervising a research team. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Desirable Criteria: Strong international engagement (for example through memberships on program committees and editorial boards) Demonstrated ability to engage with industry Track record in interdisciplinary research Academic and/or Industry experience in one or more of the following areas: FPGA design, embedded systems, integrated circuit design, acoustic engineering, sensor arrays and super-resolution imaging, signal processing machine learning, electrical impedance tomography. The successful candidate will be expected to build research collaborations within the School, the faculty, the University, industry, and beyond, and to apply for competitive research funding to develop their research area. To be considered for this position it is essential that you address the online selection criteria. For guidance on how to apply visit: http://sydney.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm?event=jobs.viewJobDetailsNewApplication&AccessibilityMode=true&jobid=DC35D770-B3D5-6C62-4031-91B64D17523B General enquiries can be directed to Dan Kuhner on 02 8627 0934 or at dan.kuhner at sydney.edu.au CLOSING DATE: 11:30pm 22 April 2016 The University is an equal opportunity employer committed to equity, diversity and social inclusion. Applications from equity target groups, including women and people with disabilities are encouraged. As the University of Sydney has established a scheme to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff employed across the institution, applications from people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent are also encouraged. The University reserves the right not to proceed with any appointment. Craig Jin | Associate Professor | Head of CARlab Computing and Audio Research Laboratory | School of Electrical and Information Engineering THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY Maze Crescent, Rm 854, Building J03 | The University of Sydney | Sydney | NSW | 2006 T +61 2 9351 7208 | F +61 2 9036 5449 E craig.jin at sydney.edu.au | W http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/carlab CRICOS 00026A This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Franklin.Chang at liverpool.ac.uk Fri Apr 1 12:20:15 2016 From: Franklin.Chang at liverpool.ac.uk (Franklin Chang) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 17:20:15 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: vision/language postdoctoral position (deadline April 20th) Message-ID: Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research associate position to study the relationship between visual/spatial representations and language. Language is often used to describe the visual world and this is done by labelling objects in the world with various roles (e.g., agent, goal). There is now a large infant social cognition literature which shows how categories like agents and goals may be identified using simple visual heuristics. In this post, we will strengthen these links by experimentally manipulating visual cues to see how they influence language choices in adults and children. In addition to the experimental study of these links, we will also develop computational models that use computer vision techniques to track the interaction of objects in videos and link these visual codes to the descriptions of the actions. We are most interested in people with a computational background who have an interest in human vision/language processing. This post offers the opportunity to join a thriving research group at the University of Liverpool and become a member of the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LUCID, http://www.lucid.ac.uk/), a multi-million pound collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster. You should have (or be about to obtain) a PhD in a field related to Computer Science, Psychology, Cognitive Science, or related disciple. The post is available for 3 years. Deadline is April 20th, 2016 ?32,600 - ?34,576 pa https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/working/jobvacancies/currentvacancies/research/r-590571/ -------- http://sites.google.com/site/sentenceproductionmodel/cv/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sje30 at cam.ac.uk Fri Apr 1 13:07:57 2016 From: sje30 at cam.ac.uk (Stephen Eglen) Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2016 18:07:57 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Quantitative Analysis of Neuroanatomy special issue / ebook Message-ID: On behalf of all the editors, I am pleased to announce the release of our special issue on the Quantitative Analysis of Neuroanatomy. All articles have been published in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. As of March 2016, all papers are now freely available as an Ebook either in PDF or EPUB format. 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. Home page: http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/2028/quantitative-analysis-of-neuroanatomy Blog page: http://sje30.github.io/post/qan/ Table of contents Editorial: Quantitative Analysis of Neuroanatomy Julian M. L. Budd, Hermann Cuntz, Stephen J. Eglen and Patrik Krieger. A comparison of manual neuronal reconstruction from biocytin histology or 2-photon imaging: morphometry and computer modeling Arne V. Blackman, Stefan Grabuschnig, Robert Legenstein and P. Jesper Sj?str?m. Automated computation of arbor densities: a step toward identifying neuronal cell types Uygar S?mb?l, Aleksandar Zlateski, Ashwin Vishwanathan, Richard H. Masland and H. Sebastian Seung. Functional connectivity estimation over large networks at cellular resolution based on electrophysiological recordings and structural prior Simona Ullo, Thierry R. Nieus, Diego Sona, Alessandro Maccione, Luca Berdondini and Vittorio Murino. Axonal and dendritic density field estimation from incomplete single-slice neuronal reconstructions Jaap van Pelt, Arjen van Ooyen and Harry B. M. Uylings. Slicing, sampling, and distance-dependent effects affect network measures in simulated cortical circuit structures Daniel C. Miner and Jochen Triesch A workflow for the automatic segmentation of organelles in electron microscopy image stacks Alex J. Perez, Mojtaba Seyedhosseini, Thomas J. Deerinck, Eric A. Bushong, Satchidananda Panda, Tolga Tasdizen and Mark H. Ellisman. Three-dimensional distribution of cortical synapses: a replicated point pattern based analysis Laura Anton-Sanchez, Concha Bielza, Angel Merch?n-P?rez, Jos?-Rodrigo Rodr?guez, Javier DeFelipe and Pedro Larra?aga. The patterning of retinal horizontal cells: normalizing the regularity index enhances the detection of genomic linkage Patrick W. Keeley and Benjamin E. Reese Statistical analysis and data mining of digital reconstructions of dendritic morphologies Sridevi Polavaram, Todd A. Gillette, Ruchi Parekh and Giorgio A. Ascoli Towards a ?canonical? agranular cortical microcircuit Sarah F. Beul and Claus C. Hilgetag Generation of dense statistical connectomes from sparse morphological data Robert Egger, Vincent J. Dercksen, Daniel Udvary, Hans-Christian Hege and Marcel Oberlaender Context-aware modeling of neuronal morphologies Benjamin Torben-Nielsen and Erik De Schutter The effects of neuron morphology on graph theoretic measures of network connectivity: the analysis of a two-level statistical model Jugoslava A?imovi?, Tuomo M?ki-Marttunen and Marja-Leena Linne Homeostatic structural plasticity can account for topology changes following deafferentation and focal stroke Markus Butz, Ines D. Steenbuck and Arjen van Ooyen Parametric Anatomical Modeling: a method for modeling the anatomical layout of neurons and their projections Martin Pyka, Sebastian Klatt and Sen Cheng Saltatory conduction in unmyelinated axons: clustering of Na+ channels on lipid rafts enables micro-saltatory conduction in C-fibers Ali Neishabouri and A. Aldo Faisal From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Fri Apr 1 11:15:16 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 17:15:16 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 11th Int. Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy'16): Call for Papers & Registration Message-ID: <1DFC602E-46DF-42F7-B75F-82B2085AC4A3@googlemail.com> == 11th INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON NEURAL-SYMBOLIC LEARNING AND REASONING (NeSy?16) == Location: New York City, USA Date: July 16 & 17, 2016 Website: http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ --------------- NeSy?16 is part of HLAI 2016, the Joint Multi-Conference on Human-Level Artificial Intelligence (http://www.hlai2016.org ) --------------- == REGISTRATION IS OPEN == Registration is handled via the Online Store of the City University London. Early-bird registration is open until Juni 25, 2016, at a price of 75,- GBP (approx. US$110). Late registration from June 26, 2016, is possible at a price of 125,- GBP (approx. US$180). Registration for NeSy?16 covers the participation in the workshop itself and the indicated keynote lectures, as well as an entrance ticket to the general HLAI 2016 reception and poster session on the evening of July 17, 2016. Please go to http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ in order to register for NeSy?16. == CALL FOR PAPERS == Artificial Intelligence researchers continue to face huge challenges in their quest to develop truly intelligent systems. The recent developments in the field of neural-symbolic integration bring an opportunity to integrate well-founded symbolic artificial intelligence with robust neural computing machinery to help tackle some of these challenges. The Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning is intended to create an atmosphere of exchange of ideas, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of the key topics related to neural-symbolic integration. Topics of interest include: ? The representation of symbolic knowledge by connectionist systems; ? Neural Learning theory. ? Integration of logic and probabilities, e.g., in neural networks, but also more generally; ? Structured learning and relational learning in neural networks; ? Logical reasoning carried out by neural networks; ? Integrated neural-symbolic learning approaches; ? Extraction of symbolic knowledge from trained neural networks; ? Integrated neural-symbolic reasoning; ? Neural-symbolic cognitive models; ? Biologically-inspired neural-symbolic integration; ? Applications in robotics, simulation, fraud prevention, natural language processing, semantic web, software engineering, fault diagnosis, bioinformatics, visual intelligence, etc. == Submission == Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit original papers that have not been submitted for review or published elsewhere. Submitted papers must be written in English, must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS style, and should not exceed 10 pages (excluding references/bibliography) in the case of research and experience papers, and 6 pages (excluding references/bibliography) in the case of position papers or technical notes. All submitted papers will be judged based on their quality, relevance, originality, significance, and soundness. Papers must be submitted through EasyChair (please see http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ for details). Additionally, for the first time presentations based on extended abstracts will be considered. These shall allow to report on latest results which had not been available at the time of paper submission. Therefore, the abstract deadline is significantly closer to the workshop date. Extended abstracts may not exceed 2 pages (including references/bibliography) and should aim to give a good impression of the type of work conducted, the achieved results and their importance for the field. == Presentation == Selected papers will be presented during the workshop. The workshop will include extra time for audience discussion of the presentation allowing the group to have a better understanding of the issues, challenges, and ideas being presented. == Publication == Accepted papers will be published in official workshop proceedings within the CEUR-WS.org series. Authors of the best papers will be invited to submit a revised and extended version of their papers to the newly-established corresponding track of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR). Accepted abstracts will also be included in the official workshop proceedings. If judged appropriate after presentation and discussion during the workshop, full papers based on the abstracts may also be invited to the JAIR track. == Important Dates == Deadline for paper submission: May 25, 2016 Notification of paper acceptance/rejection: June 15, 2016 Deadline for abstract submission: June 20, 2016 Notification of abstract acceptance/rejection: June 24, 2016 Camera-ready paper due: July 1, 2016 Workshop day: July 16 & 17, 2016 HLAI 2016 conference: July16-19, 2016 == Workshop Organisers == Tarek R. Besold (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy) Whitney Tabor (University of Connecticut, U.S.A.) Luciano Serafini (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy) Luis Lamb (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) == Programme Committee == Antoine Bordes (Facebook AI Research, U.S.A.) Artur d?Avila Garcez (City University London, UK) James Davidson (Google Inc., U.S.A.) Robert Frank (Yale University, U.S.A.) Ross Gayler (Melbourne, Australia) Ramanathan Guha (Google Inc., U.S.A.) Steffen H?lldobler (TU Dresden, Germany) Thomas Icard (Stanford University, U.S.A.) Kristian Kersting (TU Dortmund, Germany) Kai-Uwe K?hnberger (Universit?t Osnabr?ck, Germany) Simon Levy (Washington and Lee University, U.S.A.) Stephen Muggleton (Imperial College London, U.S.A.) Isaac Noble (Google Inc., U.S.A.) Andrea Passerini (University of Trento, Italy) Christopher Potts (Stanford University, U.S.A.) Daniel L. Silver (Acadia University, Canada) Ron Sun (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, U.S.A.) Jakub Szymanik (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Serge Thill (University of Skovde, Sweden) Michael Witbrock (Cycorp & Lucid.ai, U.S.A.) Frank van der Velde (University of Twente, The Netherlands) == Keynote speaker(s) == Leon Bottou (Facebook AI Research, U.S.A.) Gary Marcus (New York University & Geometric Intelligence Inc., U.S.A.) == ADDITIONAL INFORMATION == General questions concerning the workshop should be addressed to TarekRichard.Besold at unibz.it . For additional information, please see the workshop website at http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ . For additional information on HLAI 2016 in general, please see the general website at http://www.hlai2016.org or the HLAI 2016 Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/hlaiconference/ . The neural-symbolic integration mailing list will be used for announcements and discussions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu Fri Apr 1 15:11:22 2016 From: dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 15:11:22 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL NETWORKS, April 2016 Message-ID: <56FEC7DA.3080407@cse.ohio-state.edu> Neural Networks - Volume 76, April 2016 http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks A Fast Reduced Kernel Extreme Learning Machine Wan-Yu Deng, Yew-Soon Ong, Qing-Hua Zheng Multi-source adaptation joint kernel sparse representation for visual classification JianWen Tao, Wenjun Hu, Shiting Wen Pinning cluster synchronization in an array of coupled neural networks under event-based mechanism Lulu Li, Daniel W.C. Ho, Jinde Cao, Jianquan Lu Effects of self-coupling and asymmetric output on metastable dynamical transient firing patterns in arrays of neurons with bidirectional inhibitory coupling Yo Horikawa A local Echo State Property through the largest Lyapunov exponent Gilles Wainrib, Mathieu N. Galtier Finite-time robust stabilization of uncertain delayed neural networks with discontinuous activations via delayed feedback control Leimin Wang, Yi Shen, Yin Sheng Quantum perceptron over a field and neural network architecture selection in a quantum computer Adenilton Jose da Silva, Teresa Bernarda Ludermir, Wilson Rosa de Oliveira Projective synchronization of nonidentical fractional-order neural networks based on sliding mode controller Zhixia Ding, Yi Shen Learning contextualized semantics from co-occurring terms via a Siamese architecture Ubai Sandouk, Ke Chen An ensemble of dynamic neural network identifiers for fault detection and isolation of gas turbine engines M. Amozegar, K. Khorasani Hybrid feedback feedforward: An efficient design of adaptive neural network control Yongping Pan, Yiqi Liu, Bin Xu, Haoyong Yu From m.pontil at cs.ucl.ac.uk Sat Apr 2 05:37:15 2016 From: m.pontil at cs.ucl.ac.uk (Massimiliano Pontil) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 11:37:15 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: IIT & UCL PhD studentships in Machine Learning Message-ID: I have openings for 2 PhD positions to start in October 2016 or January 2017. The duration of the PhD will be three years. Students will be based at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa (https://www.iit.it/), but collaborations and extended visits (up to one year) in the Department of Computer Science (http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/home/) at University College London (UCL) will be encouraged. Students will officially be registered with UCL and be awarded a UCL degree. Studentships will cover UCL tuition fees (EU rates) and a stipend of approximately 22.000 euros per year. A supplement of 600 euros per month will be included during the time spent a UCL. Students will be co-supervised by Massimiliano Pontil at IIT and a full time academic at CS-UCL (e.g., David Barber, Mark Herbster, John Shawe-Taylor). Topics of primary interest include but are not restricted to: deep learning and representation learning; kernel methods; multitask and transfer learning; numerical optimization; online learning; reinforcement learning; sparsity regularization; statistical learning theory. Candidates must hold a master degree in either computer science, mathematics, statistics, or physics. Outstanding applications in other areas will also be considered. Candidates are expected to have already familiarity with machine learning methods and have either strong programming or mathematical skills. For inquiry on these positions please send your CV to m.pontil at cs.ucl.ac.uk in the first instance, writing "PhD IIT-UCL" in the subject. To receive full consideration applicants must also formally apply to the department of Computer Science at UCL, preferably by May 2: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/degrees/phd_programme/applying/#c7002 Regards, Massimiliano Pontil Italian Institute of Technology and University College London -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nicosia at dmi.unict.it Sat Apr 2 06:22:09 2016 From: nicosia at dmi.unict.it (Giuseppe Nicosia) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 12:22:09 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: SSBSS 2016 - Application Deadline is Approaching - Call for Oral Presentations/Posters: 8-14 July 2016, Volterra (Pisa) Tuscany, Italy - 3rd Int. Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School - Early Application: April 26, 2016 Message-ID: <8AE8EF20-7558-47E8-AAEA-600E1110ECE5@dmi.unict.it> ______________________________________________________ Call for Participation (apologies for multiple copies) ______________________________________________________ 3rd International Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School - SSBSS 2016, 8-14 July 2016, Volterra (Pisa) - Tuscany, Italy *** New Speaker: Edoardo Boncinelli, Universita' Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milano, Italy *** ssbss.school at gmail.com http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/ https://www.facebook.com/ssbss.school/ https://twitter.com/SchoolSsbss EARLY APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 26, 2016 http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/#application-form The Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School (SSBSS) is a full-immersion five-day residential summer school at the Volterra Learning Center (Pisa - Tuscany, Italy) on cutting-edge advances in systems and synthetic biology with lectures delivered by world-renowned experts. The school provides a stimulating environment for students (from Master students to PhD students), Post-Docs, early career researches, academics and industry leaders. Participants will also have the chance to present their results (with Oral Talks and Posters), and to interact with their peers, in a friendly and constructive environment. SSBSS 2016 DEADLINES: Early Application: April 26, 2016 Notification Acceptance: from 2 to 28 April 2016 Late Application: from May 1st, to July 4th 2016 Notification Acceptance: from May 6th 2016 according to registration time Early Short Talk/Poster Submission: April 26, 2016 Notification Acceptance: from 2 to 28 April 2016 Late Short Talk/Poster Submission: from May 1st, to July 4th 2016 Notification of Decision for Oral/Poster Presentation: from May 6, 2016 according to submission time http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/#application-form FINAL LIST OF SPEAKERS * Yaakov (Kobi) Benenson, Synthetic Biology Group at Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Basel, Switzerland Lecture 1: The practice of mammalian synthetic biology Lecture 2: Mammalian cell classifiers * Leonidas Bleris, Bioengineering Department, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA Lecture 1: Genome Editing Technologies and Therapeutic Modalities Lecture 2: Benchmark Circuits and Topological Properties * Edoardo Boncinelli, Universita? Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milano, Italy Lecture: TBA * Domitilla Del Vecchio, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, USA Lecture 1: Modularity in genetic circuits: Dream versus Reality Lecture 2: Engineering Modularity in Genetic Circuits * Diego Di Bernardo, Dept of Chemical Materials and Industrial Production Engineering University of Naples "Federico II", Naples, Italy Lecture 1: "Engineering and Control of Biological Circuits in Yeast" Lecture 2: "Engineering and Control of Biological Circuits in Mammalian Cells * Barbara Di Ventura, Synthetic Biology Group, BioQuant/DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany Lecture 1: Using blue light to control protein localization in living mammalian cells Lecture 2: Using split inteins for protein engineering in living cells * Jonathan S. Gootenberg, Feng Zhang and Aviv Regev Groups, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, USA Lecture 1: "Discovering and Characterizing CRISPR effectors" Lecture 2: "Probing Biology with CRISPR Screening" * Markus Herrgard, Technical University of Denmark - Biosustain, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Denmark Lecture 1: "Developing an Integrated Cell Factory Design Tool" Lecture 2: "Using Automated Laboratory Evolution to Optimize Cell Factories? * Shalev Itzkovitz, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Lecture 1: "Single Molecule Approaches for Studying Gene Expression in Intact Mammalian Tissues" Lecture 2: "Systems Biology of Stem Cell-Maintained Tissues? * Francesco Ricci, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Chimiche, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy Lecture 1: "DNA Nanotechnology Tools and Reactions for Synthetic Biology" Lecture 2: "Nature-inspired DNA-based Nanodevices Next Generation Sequencing Workshop ? Afternoon July 12th, 2016 * ?How fast can we align sequences?? Mario Guarracino, CNR, Italy * ?Advanced Bioinformatics tools for NGS? ? TBC Luca Zammataro, Yale University, USA Tutorials: * ?Detection and analysis of contaminating sequences in NGS sequencing data? Ilaria Granata, CNR, Italy * ?Detection and interpretation of circular RNAs in RNA-seq experiments? Parijat Tripathi, CNR, Italy SSBSS 2016 DIRECTORS Diego Di Bernardo, TeleThon Institute of Genetics & Medicine - TIGEM and University of Napoli "Federico II", Italy Giuseppe Nicosia, University of Catania, Italy Luca Zammataro, Yale University, USA MORE INFORMATION ssbss.school at gmail.com http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/ https://www.facebook.com/ssbss.school/ https://twitter.com/SchoolSsbss Social event(s): social tour and dinner in Florence. Please help us distributing in your circles (emails, blogs, and social networks) the call for participation and call for oral talks/posters for SSBSS 2016. Together we will make SSBSS a great event! See you in Tuscany in July! Ludovico Montalcini - SSBSS 2016 Organizing Committee Chair -- Giuseppe Nicosia, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Computer Engineering Dept of Mathematics & Computer Science University of Catania Viale A. Doria, 6 - 95125 Catania, Italy P +39 095 7383048 nicosia at dmi.unict.it http://www.dmi.unict.it/nicosia ================================================================== 3rd International Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School - SSBSS 2016 * Biology meets Computer Science & Engineering * July 8-14, 2016 - Volterra (Pisa), Tuscany, Italy http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/ ================================================================== 2nd International Workshop on Machine learning, Optimization & big Data - MOD 2016 August 26-29, 2016 - Volterra (Pisa), Tuscany, Italy http://www.taosciences.it/mod/ ================================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zhengzej at msu.edu Mon Apr 4 11:07:10 2016 From: zhengzej at msu.edu (zhengzej at msu.edu) Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2016 11:07:10 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: AIML Competition this summer at BMI Message-ID: <20160404110710.105950c706w2278e@mail.msu.edu> This summer, the Brain Mind Institute (BMI) is conducting its first ever /Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning (AIML) Contest! /This event aims to utilize general-purpose learning engines inspired by natural intelligence to achieve human-life levels of perception, cognition, motivation, and behavior. BMI is supplementing three machine learning courses focusing on cognitive science and machine learning, followed by implementation workshops. With a passion to learn and a hunger to learn, even beginners will build the knowledge and skills to submit solutions to the AIML contest and potentially win cash awards up to $10,000! Please visit our website: WWW.BRAIN-MIND-INSTITUTE.ORG/AIMLCONTEST If you are interested in sponsoring the event, please email Jonathan Dowdall (jtdowdall at gmail.com) to learn about sponsor benefits. If you have other questions regarding the contest, please contact our Program Chair Juan Castro-Garcia (juanlcastro3 at gmail.com) for more information. We hope you will join us in furthering the study and understanding of machine learning and artificial intelligence! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Mon Apr 4 03:40:16 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 09:40:16 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Final CfA: HLAI 2016 Doctoral Consortium (NYC, July 16, 2016) Message-ID: <6772A0C0-8268-437F-BC43-77F11F6EB7C0@googlemail.com> == Call for Applications for the HLAI 2016 DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM == Current or potential Ph. D. students are invited to apply for admission to the Doctoral Consortium to be held at the Joint Multi-Conference on Human-Level Artificial Intelligence (HLAI) 2016, New York City, July 16-19, 2016. Further information concerning the overall HLAI event can be found on the HLAI 2016 webpage at: http://www.hlai2016.org . The aim of the Doctoral Consortium is to give young researchers in fields related to human-level AI research (such as, e.g., cognitive systems, cognitive AI, cognitive modelling, neural-symbolic integration, cognitive computing, computational creativity,...) a platform to meet and mingle, to discuss their ideas, to get feedback and advice from senior scientists, and to create a network for the new generation of researchers. Applicants should submit: 1. A 2-3 pages research proposal that explains the topic you plan to pursue, including the clarification of the topic, the existing works in the direction, and your basic ideas and plan. If you already have a Ph. D. advisor, list his/her name, affiliation, and homepage. 2. A curriculum vitae with educational and professional background, including the current program and expected graduation date. Applications should be sent by email to pei.wang at temple.edu . Deadline for applications: April 10, 2016 Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2016 The accepted authors will present their proposals in the Doctoral Consortium (in the morning of July 16), and may participate in the poster session of HLAI (in the evening of July 17) if space allows. Also, revised and expanded versions of the research proposals will be collected and published online in citable form in the Publication Series of the Institute of Cognitive Science (PICS, ISSN 1610-5389) after the event. Students must be registered for one of the member conferences of HLAI 2016 to participate in the Doctoral Consortium. See http://www.hlai2016.org for a list of participating events. Further questions can be sent to pei.wang at temple.edu . The HLAI 2016 Doctoral Committee is organised by: - Pei Wang (Temple University) - Antonio Chella (University of Palermo) - Kristinn R. Th?risson (Reykjavik Univeristy) - Kai-Uwe K?hnberger (University of Osnabr?ck) - Tarek R. Besold (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sgreening at lsu.edu Tue Apr 5 20:42:27 2016 From: sgreening at lsu.edu (Steven Greening) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 19:42:27 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: postdoctoral position in cognitive and affective neuroscience Message-ID: Applications are invited for a full-time postdoctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Steven Greening on projects investigating the neural bases of emotion-cognition interactions. This position involves developing, running, and analyzing data on projects from healthy and mentally ill individuals, and presenting findings in peer-reviewed manuscripts and at conferences in collaboration with Dr. Greening. The research combines behavior and physiology with a multimodal MRI approach, FMRI and DTI, using univariate and multivariate analyses. This is a full-time one-year position with the possibility to renew for a second year. Apply online and view a more detailed ad at: www.lsusystemcareers.lsu.edu. Position #039259 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mholee at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 00:24:20 2016 From: mholee at gmail.com (Minho Lee) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 13:24:20 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: CFP for the special issue of Neural Networks Message-ID: <3693962B-BADB-485E-90DC-8934CBE5045C@gmail.com> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CFP [Neural Networks]: Special Issue - Advances in Cognitive Engineering Using Neural Networks ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2016 Neural Networks Special Issue "Advances in Cognitive Engineering Using Neural Networks" (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-advances-in-cognitive-engineering-using-neu/ ) Submission deadline: August 15, 2016 Notification of Acceptance: November 15, 2016 Final manuscripts due: January 15, 2017 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ Special Issue: Advances in Cognitive Engineering Using Neural Networks ------------------------------------ Cognitive Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach to the development of principles, methods, tools and techniques to guide the design of computerized systems intended to learn from and support of human cognitive performance. Cognitive Engineering draws on the disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, systems engineering, human computer interaction, human factors, and related fields. The goal of Cognitive Engineering is to develop systems that are easy to learn, easy to use, and lead to improved human-computer system performance. Cognitive engineering has emerged in the past decades in response to the proliferation of computers in everyday life. Safety-critical systems became more complex and increasingly integrated with advanced computer technology; thus novel design principles were needed to ensure that teams of human experts could operate computer systems safely and efficiently. Cognitive engineering helps to develop human-friendly and reliable computer systems by explicitly considering human processing characteristics in the context of the computer-assisted tasks. In recent years, significant progress has been made in cognitive engineering by focusing on how people actually interact with complex technical systems, including advanced human-computer interfaces. As a result, cognitive engineering has become a recognized interdisciplinary field at the interface of cognitive science, computer science and engineering. The special issue of Neural Networks on "Advances in Cognitive Engineering Using Neural Networks" aims at bringing together various research topics related to this field, discussing the present state-of-the-art, and outlining directions for future developments. We invite submissions on the most recent developments in Cognitive Engineering systems, methods, and models using neural networks, as well as various applications to real world tasks. We also welcome survey and overview papers pertaining to Cognitive Engineering. ------------------------------------ LIST OF TOPICS ------------------------------------ Topics of interest include but are not limited to: - Cognition in engineered systems - Cognitive engineering methods - Cognitive engineering models - Cognitive engineering and causality - Attention, selective attention - Intention understanding - Decision making and prediction - Awareness computing - Emotion recognition - Modeling creativity - Modeling mental constructs - Team cognition - Human-Computer Interfaces - Embodied cognitive engineering - Neuro-ergonomics - Operator behavior - Emergency response systems ------------------------------------ SUBMISSION ------------------------------------ Prospective authors should follow standard author instructions for Neural Networks and submit their manuscripts online at http://ees.elsevier.com/neunet/ . During the submission process, there will be steps to designate the submission to this special issue. ------------------------------------ ORGANIZATION ------------------------------------ Guest Editors Steven Bressler, Florida Atlantic University, USA Robert Kozma, University of Memphis, USA Minho Lee, Kyungpook National University, South Korea Minho Lee Kyungpook National University 80 Daehakro, Bukgu, Daegu, 41566, South Korea tel. +82-53-940-8816 mholee at gmail.com | http://abr.knu.ac.kr -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From huajin.tang at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 23:33:27 2016 From: huajin.tang at gmail.com (Huajin Tang) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2016 11:33:27 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty positions available at College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, China Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, There are some faculty positions available at the newly established Neuromorphic Computing Research Center (NCRC) at College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, China (http://nc-rc.org/huajintang.html). Candidates with Ph.D. degree in computer science, electronics, mathematics, physics or robotics or a close related area are encouraged to apply. Idea candidates should have solid background and strong motivation in one of the areas: (1) computing theories including neuromorphic computing, cognitive computing, spiking neural networks, machine/deep learning, (2) neuromorphic circuits or sensors design, FPGA or VLSI, etc, (3) robotics cognition, sensing, mapping, navigation and behavior learning, etc. The positions are open until filled. Interested applicants please send CV or any inquiry to Dr. Huajin Tang (htang at scu.edu.cn). Sincerely, Huajin Tang, Ph.D. ---------------------------------------- Professor Director of Neuromorphic Computing Research Center Associate Editor of IEEE TNNLS Associate Editor of IEEE TCDS Editorial Board Member of Frontiers in Robotics and AI Addr: College of Computer Science, Sichuan University No. 24 South Section 1, Yihuan Road, Chengdu, China 610065 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From frothga at sandia.gov Tue Apr 5 18:01:44 2016 From: frothga at sandia.gov (Fred Rothganger) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 16:01:44 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: Which simulators support structural dynamics? Message-ID: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> The NEST simulator documents the capability to create/destroy synapses at runtime (http://www.nest-simulator.org/py_sample/structural-plasticity-example). Which other simulators support a similar capability? For clarity, let's define "structural plasticity" as the ability to add and remove synapses and neurons while the simulation is actively running. Full support would include doing this on an HPC system (multiple compute nodes) and automatically rebalancing the load. Several forms of partial support are possible, including: * Only the ability to add/remove synapses, but not neurons. * Limitation to a single compute node or thread. * Pre-allocating an oversized model, some elements of which are kept idle until needed. -- Fred Fred Rothganger Neural Computing Department Sandia National Laboratories From EPNSugan at ntu.edu.sg Tue Apr 5 21:23:53 2016 From: EPNSugan at ntu.edu.sg (Ponnuthurai Nagaratnam Suganthan) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2016 01:23:53 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Applied Soft Computing J Special Issue on ANN & Machine Learning (CFP) Message-ID: Special Issue of Applied Soft Computing (Elsevier) (Impact Factor: 2.8) Special Issue on Non-iterative Approaches in Learning (Includes comparisons with iterative methods) Call for Papers http://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-soft-computing/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-non-iterative-approaches-in-learning-includ/ Optimization, which plays a central role in learning, has received considerable attention from academics, researchers, and domain workers. Many optimization problems in machine learning are solved by iterative methods which generate a sequence of improving approximated solutions with some termination criteria. These methods usually suffer from low convergence rate and are sensitive to parameter settings (such as learning rate/step size, maximum number of iterations). On the other hand, non-iterative solutions, which are usually presented in closed-form manner, are in general computationally faster than iterative solutions. However, comparative studies with iterative methods are also welcome. The main focus of this special issue is to present the recent advances in non-iterative solutions in learning. Original contributions and surveys are welcome. The special issue aims to promote non-iterative concepts in the field of learning. Even though non-iterative methods have attracted much attention in recent years, there exists a performance gap when compared with older methods and other competing paradigms. This special issue aims to bridge this gap. Besides the dissemination of the latest research results on non-iterative algorithms, it is also expected that this special issue will cover some industrial applications, present some new ideas and identify directions for future studies. The topics of the special issue include, but are not limited to: * Methods with and without randomization * Regression, classification and time series * Kernel methods such as kernel ridge regression, kernel adaptive filters, etc. * Feedforward, recurrent, multilayer, deep and other structures. * Ensemble learning * Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse, SVD and other solution procedures. * Non-iterative methods for large-scale problems with and without kernels * Theoretical analysis of non-iterative methods * Comparative studies with competing iterative methods * Applications of non-iterative solutions in domains such as power systems, biomedical, finance, signal processing, big data and all other areas Submission format and Guidelines Papers will be evaluated based on their originality, presentation, relevance and contribution to the development of non-iterative methods, as well as their suitability and the quality in terms of both technical contribution and writing. The submitted papers must be written in good English and describe original research which has not been published nor is currently under review by other journals or conferences. If used, the previously published conference papers should be clearly identified by the authors (at the submission stage) and an explanation should be provided how such papers have been extended to be considered for this special issue. Guest Editors will make an initial determination on the suitability and scope of all submissions. Papers that either lack originality, clarity in presentation or fall outside the scope of the special issue will not be sent for review and the authors will be promptly informed of such cases. Author guidelines for preparation of manuscript can be found at http://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-soft-computing/ Manuscripts should be submitted online at: http://ees.elsevier.com/asoc/ Applied Soft Computing Journal is well indexed. Its impact factors are 2.8 (2 years) and 3.2 (5 years). Important dates Manuscript submission: 15th Aug 2016 Revised version submission: 31st Jan 2017 Acceptance notification: 31st March 2017 Expected Publication: Mid 2017 Guest Editors Dr P N Suganthan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. epnsugan at ntu.edu.sg Prof. Sushmita Mitra, Indian Statistical Institute, India. sushmita at isical.ac.in Dr Ivan Tyukin, Department of Mathematics, University of Leicester, UK. I.Tyukin at le.ac.uk Best Wishes Suganthan http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/epnsugan/ ________________________________ 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. From elio.tuci at gmail.com Mon Apr 4 08:43:56 2016 From: elio.tuci at gmail.com (Elio Tuci) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 14:43:56 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: SAB2016 - international Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior Message-ID: *SAB2016 ? CALL FOR PAPERS* FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS 14 The 14th International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB2016) 23-26 August 2016, Aberystwyth, UK http://www.sab2016.org *Organising Committee* Conference Chairs: Myra S. Wilson, John Hallam Program Chairs: Elio Tuci, Alexandros Giagkos Tutorial Chair: Fred Labrosse *Important Dates* Paper Submission Deadline: 8th April, 2016 (extended) Notification of Acceptance: 16th May, 2016 Camera Ready Submission: 6th Jun., 2016 Tutorial Proposal Deadline: 21st May, 2016 Tutorial Notification of Acceptance: 31th May, 2016 Tutorials: 23rd Aug., 2016 Conference: 24-26th Aug., 2016 *Scope of the Conference* The objective of this interdisciplinary conference is to bring together researchers in computer science, artificial intelligence, artificial life, control, robotics, neurosciences, ethology, evolutionary biology and related fields in order to further our understanding of the behaviours and underlying mechanisms that allow natural and artificial animals to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. The conference will focus on experiments with well-defined models including robot models, computer simulation models and mathematical models designed to help characterise and compare various organisational principles or architectures underlying adaptive behaviour in real animals and in synthetic agents, the animats. *Relevant Research Areas* SAB2016 solicits contributions dealing with any aspect of adaptive behaviour in natural and artificial systems. Typical, but not exclusive, topics of interest are: The animat approach Motor control Body and brain co-evolution Self-assembling and self-replication Sensory-motor coordination Action selection and behavioural sequencing Navigation and mapping Internal models and representation Evolution, development and learning Collective and social behaviour Applied adaptive behaviour Motivation and emotion Communication and language Emergent structures and behaviours Neural correlates of behaviour Evolutionary and co-evolutionary approaches Bio-inspired and hybrid robotics Autonomous robotics Humanoid robotics Cognitive and developmental robotics Software agents and virtual creatures Philosophical and psychological issues Animats in education *Conference Format* Following the tradition of SAB conferences, the conference will be single track with additional poster sessions. There will also be a day of tutorials (23rd of August). *Paper Submission Instruction and Publication Details* Submitted papers must not exceed 12 pages. Detailed submission instructions are available from the conference website (http://www.sab2016.org). All accepted papers with oral or poster presentation will be published in Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series conference proceedings. Selected authors may additionally be invited to submit extended versions for a conference Special Issue of the Journal of Adaptive Behavior. *Tutorials* The SAB2016 organising committee invites proposals for tutorials, which will be held on the 23rd of August, 2016. Instructions for preparing the tutorial proposal and further details on the tutorials can be found at http://www.sab2016.org. *Exhibition Section* During SAB2016 there will be an exhibition section, where latest developments in hardware and software technologies will be displayed to the conference attendees and the Press. *Best Paper Award* Two best paper prizes will be awarded at the end of the conference to honour the authors of papers of exceptional merit. The prizes will be sponsored by Springer and Webots. For more information please refer to the official SAB2016 website. *Student Bursaries* ISAB sponsored student bursaries are available to cover conference fees, meals and accommodation. Preference will be given to students who are first authors on accepted papers. Information on how to apply can be found on http://www.sab2016.org. *Further Information* Up-to-date information will be published on the website http://www.sab2016.org. For information about local arrangements, registration forms, etc., please refer to the website or contact the local organisers at the address below. *Conference Address* Computer Science Department Llandinam Building Aberystwyth University Tel: +44-1970-622928 Aberystwyth Fax: +44-1970-628536 SY23 3DB UK sab2016-conference at isab.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ale at sissa.it Tue Apr 5 07:33:56 2016 From: ale at sissa.it (Alessandro Treves) Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2016 13:33:56 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: TEX2016 to close with keynote lecture by Yann LeCun Message-ID: <20160405133356.Horde.rWdAQh8V4mxXA6Kku4nQ_ZA@webmail.sissa.it> Our 9 days of cross-fertilization http://indico.sissa.it/e/tex2016 on language learning will close with the open-ended stimulation provided by a pioneer of the deep learning perspective (on July 15). Students are still invited to apply to the school, before April 15, (no extensions - enough applications already) and free participants are most welcome to join TEX2016 any time; but book your own accommodation! -- Alessandro Treves http://people.sissa.it/~ale/limbo.html SISSA - Cognitive Neuroscience, via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy +39-040-3787623+39-040-3787623 Ambassador (BlaBlaCar) +39-349-2504602+39-349-2504602 From d.goodman at imperial.ac.uk Wed Apr 6 12:32:41 2016 From: d.goodman at imperial.ac.uk (Dan Goodman) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2016 17:32:41 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Which simulators support structural dynamics? In-Reply-To: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> References: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> Message-ID: <57053A29.8020808@imperial.ac.uk> I can reply for the Brian simulator. In Brian 1.x, we have support for "dynamic" synapses allowing you to add or delete synapses at runtime. At the moment, in Brian 2 we don't have support for this although I'd like to add it in the future. It is already fairly straightforward to add synapses at runtime, but not to remove them. You'd have to make a copy of the whole set of synapses with some removed. We don't have support for adding/removing neurons at runtime in either version. In both versions, it's possible to pre-allocate an oversized model as you suggested. This is more straightforward in Brian 2 but can be done in either version. For what it's worth, the reason we haven't put more effort into this feature is that nobody has asked for it, and to my knowledge, nobody used the feature that was available in Brian 1, which is why we didn't spend any time implementing it for Brian 2. Dan On 05/04/2016 23:01, Fred Rothganger wrote: > The NEST simulator documents the capability to create/destroy synapses > at runtime > (http://www.nest-simulator.org/py_sample/structural-plasticity-example). > Which other simulators support a similar capability? > > For clarity, let's define "structural plasticity" as the ability to add > and remove synapses and neurons while the simulation is actively > running. Full support would include doing this on an HPC system > (multiple compute nodes) and automatically rebalancing the load. > > Several forms of partial support are possible, including: > * Only the ability to add/remove synapses, but not neurons. > * Limitation to a single compute node or thread. > * Pre-allocating an oversized model, some elements of which are kept > idle until needed. > > -- Fred > > Fred Rothganger > Neural Computing Department > Sandia National Laboratories > From danielcarlminer at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 03:55:07 2016 From: danielcarlminer at gmail.com (Daniel Miner) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2016 09:55:07 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Which simulators support structural dynamics? In-Reply-To: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> References: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> Message-ID: <57F85C47-966C-48E4-BDFF-FA4BCADD0DF4@gmail.com> The Brian simulator (http://briansimulator.org ) supports this as well, but, last I checked, only with the Connection Matrix class (http://brian.readthedocs.org/en/1.4.3/reference-connections.html#brian.DynamicConnectionMatrix ) found in Brian 1.x, which has been deprecated (though all the documentation is still available and it?s still supported on the mailing list) and replaced with the Synapse class in Brian 2 (which, in turn, does not support this). It?s possible updates have been made to the Synapse class that allow for this since I last looked into it, though I haven?t noted chatter on the user group about it. Best, Daniel Miner > On Apr 6, 2016, at 12:01 AM, Fred Rothganger wrote: > > The NEST simulator documents the capability to create/destroy synapses at runtime (http://www.nest-simulator.org/py_sample/structural-plasticity-example). Which other simulators support a similar capability? > > For clarity, let's define "structural plasticity" as the ability to add and remove synapses and neurons while the simulation is actively running. Full support would include doing this on an HPC system (multiple compute nodes) and automatically rebalancing the load. > > Several forms of partial support are possible, including: > * Only the ability to add/remove synapses, but not neurons. > * Limitation to a single compute node or thread. > * Pre-allocating an oversized model, some elements of which are kept idle until needed. > > -- Fred > > Fred Rothganger > Neural Computing Department > Sandia National Laboratories -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From umanor at salk.edu Wed Apr 6 19:08:33 2016 From: umanor at salk.edu (Uri Manor) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2016 23:08:33 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Job Opportunity at Salk Institute - Image Analysis Specialist Message-ID: <7088FA62-61EC-489F-B18E-989FF64947AD@salk.edu> Hi everyone, We are seeking an image analysis specialist for the Biophotonics Center at the Salk Institute. Please spread the word far and wide! Flyer is attached. Thanks! Uri Uri Manor, Ph.D. DIRECTOR WAITT ADVANCED BIOPHOTONICS CORE PH (858) 453-4100 x2119 M (314) 406-7618 E umanor at salk.edu W http://bpho.salk.edu [cid:52387f3d-1187-4bef-a3c3-fb394fb16b6e at salk.edu] Salk Institute for Biological Studies 10010 N Torrey Pines Rd ? La Jolla, CA 92037 WWW.SALK.EDU -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: www.salk.edu.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3867 bytes Desc: www.salk.edu.jpg URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Image Analysis Specialist - Job Flyer v1.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 167688 bytes Desc: Image Analysis Specialist - Job Flyer v1.pdf URL: From egidio.falotico at sssup.it Fri Apr 8 04:20:43 2016 From: egidio.falotico at sssup.it (Falotico Egidio) Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 10:20:43 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Final deadline extension for contributions - Human Brain Project workshop on Neurorobotics @ Biorob2016 Message-ID: Dear colleagues (with advance apologies for any cross-postings), We invite submissions for oral or poster presentations at the Human Brain Project workshop on Neurorobotics that will be organized on June 26th, at the sixth IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics ? BioRob 2016, in Singapore. http://www.sinapseinstitute.org/biorob2016/workshops.php (Conference workshop page) http://sssa.bioroboticsinstitute.it/workshops/biorob2016 (Workshop page for contributions) Prospective authors should submit the extended abstract (one A4 page, in PDF format) by April 14th (final deadline extension), 2016. Notification of acceptance will be received no later than April 21th. For submission please refer to the following link: http://sssa.bioroboticsinstitute.it/workshops/biorob2016/HBPPaperSubmissionForm ABSTRACT Neurorobotics is already an established branch of robotics that in the last years, taking advantage from an increase in the accessibility of existing neuroscientific data and knowledge, allowed building robotic systems that can exhibit robustness, adaptability and several features of the human intelligence. Reciprocally, significant developments in robotics and machine learning put robotics in the service of neuroscience as experimental platforms or test-beds of brain models. In the last years, advanced insights and the increasing availability of cheap processing power has led Neurorobotics to follow two tracks of research with different goals and methods: The first track focuses on neuro-inspired computing paradigms that mimic nervous system functions based on Spiking Neural Networks. This does not only foster our understanding of biological systems but also contributes to future technical applications in artificial systems. In the past, limited processing power and the lack of appropriate models and tools shifted the focus of research far away from biological neural networks. Recently a number of projects like the US BRAIN Initiative and the Human Brain Project have taken up the challenge by combining efforts from the fields of neuroscience and computer science to enable the large scale modeling and simulation of biological neural networks with billions of spiking neurons. The second track, extending the theory of classical artificial neural networks, mostly relies on simpler neuron models but integrate them in novel network architectures. These networks are extensively used in robotics, allowing mimicking the function of some brain areas in order to reproduce complex behaviors with a reduced computational cost. This workshop seeks to present and discuss advances in neuroscientific models for cognition and new perspectives in control for robotic applications based on both biologically-inspired and artificial neural networks. The final goal is to bring together researchers from both robotics and neuroscience in order to explore how to maximize the progress at the multidisciplinary frontier evaluating the advantages of both tracks of the Neurorobotics research. TOPICS OF INTEREST - Bio-inspired sensory-motor coordination and adaptive control - Active perception - Neurocontrollers - Self-organization and sensory-motor mapping - Predictive behaviour - Bio-inspired learning robots - Robot imitation and learning by demonstration - Memory-based algorithms - Cognitive behaviours in robots - Reservoir computing - Deep learning - Neuromorphic computing for robotics KEYNOTE SPEAKERS ?Giorgio Metta (Italian Institute of Technology, Italy) - ?The use of motor invariants can improve action discrimination? ?Tomohiro Shibata (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan) ? ?Functional Robotic Assistance of Human Motor Learning? ?Ruediger Dillman (Research Center for Information Technology, Germany) - ?Modelling Cortical Sensor-Motor Control Functionalities with a Spiking Neural-Robot Control Simulator? ?Sunil L. Kukreja (National University of Singapore, Singapore) ? ?Integration of Neuromorphic Tactile Perception with Haptic Feedback in a Virtual and Augmented Reality World for Advanced Robotic Control? Best Regards, Egidio Falotico, Cecilia Laschi (The BioRobotics Institite,Scuola Superiore Sant?Anna , Italy) Florian R?hrbein, Florian Walter (Technical University of Munich, Germany) Organizers From norbert.kopco at upjs.sk Fri Apr 8 03:45:45 2016 From: norbert.kopco at upjs.sk (Norbert Kopco) Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 09:45:45 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Slovakia and US Message-ID: <570761A9.4080306@upjs.sk> A PhD position is available in Norbert Kopco's Perception and Cognition Lab at Safarik University in Kosice, Slovakia, for a Marie Curie EU-funded project on adaptation and learning in spatial hearing (http://pcl.upjs.sk/grants/alt/). This is an international collaborative project, combining psychophysical, neuroimaging and computational methods. As part of this project, the student would be expected to work on development of modules for an auditory training tame (so, some programing skills are important), and spend up to 12 months in the US, either in Aaron Seitz's Brain Game Center at UC Riverside and/or Erick Gallun's lab at the Portland VA / OHSU (or, possibly with the other members of the consortium). Interested candidates please contact norbert.kopco at upjs.sk with a CV and a research statement. Information about PhD student application procedures is available at http://www.upjs.sk/en/faculty-of-science/foreign-students/ . -- doc. Norbert Kopco, Ph.D. Assoc Professor / Senior Researcher: Inst of Computer Sci, Faculty of Science, Safarik Univ, Kosice, Slovakia Adjunct: Ctr for Computational Neurosci (CompNet), Boston University& Martinos Ctr for Biomed Imaging, Harvard Med School - Mass Gen Hospital P: +16175759556 F: +14847279884,kopco at bu.edu,http://cns.bu.edu/~kopco -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trentin at dii.unisi.it Sat Apr 9 11:32:15 2016 From: trentin at dii.unisi.it (Edmondo Trentin) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2016 17:32:15 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: 7th IAPR-ANNPR feat. Special Issue of Neural Processing Letters Message-ID: Call for papers featuring Special Issue of Neural Processing Letters 7th IAPR TC3 International Workshop on Artificial Neural Networks in Pattern Recognition (ANNPR 2016) September 28-30, 2016 Ulm University, Ulm, Germany Sponsored by the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) Authors of selected papers presented at ANNPR2016 will be invited to submit an extended version of their articles to a dedicated special issue of the journal Neural Processing Letters, guest-edited by the ANNPR2016 Chairs and titled "Off the mainstream: advances in neural networks and machine earning for pattern recognition?. ANNPR 2016 invites papers that present original work in areas of neural networks, machine learning and pattern recognition, focusing on both theoretical and applied aspects. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Methodological Issues - Supervised, partially supervised, and unsupervised learning - Feed-forward, recurrent, and competitive neural nets - Kernel machines - Hierarchical modular architectures and hybrid systems - Combination of neural networks and Hidden Markov models - Multiple classifier systems and ensemble methods - Probabilistic graphical models - Deep architectures Applications in Pattern Recognition - Image processing and segmentation - Handwritten recognition and Document analysis - Sensor-fusion and multi-modal processing - Feature extraction, dimensionality reduction - Clustering and vector quantization - Speech and speaker recognition - Data, text, and web mining - Bioinformatics/Cheminformatics Important Dates Paper submission: May 4, 2016 Notification of acceptance: June 22, 2016 Camera ready due: July 6, 2016 Workshop: September 28-30, 2016 General Chairs Friedhelm Schwenker, Ulm University, Germany Hazem Abbas, German University of Cairo, Egypt Neamat El Gayar, Cairo University, Egypt Edmondo Trentin, University of Siena, Italy For more information, please visit us: http://neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ANNPR2016/ ----------------------------------------------- Edmondo Trentin, PhD Dip. Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Scienze MM. V. Roma, 56 - I-53100 Siena (Italy) E-mail: trentin at dii.unisi.it Voice: +39-0577-234636 Fax: +39-0577-233602 WWW: http://www.dii.unisi.it/~trentin From L.Wehenkel at ulg.ac.be Sun Apr 10 07:27:42 2016 From: L.Wehenkel at ulg.ac.be (Louis Wehenkel) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2016 13:27:42 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doctoral research position in power systems reliability management under uncertainty Message-ID: <570A38AE.5040900@ulg.ac.be> Dear Colleagues, The University of Li?ge invites applications for a post-doctoral research position in electric power systems reliability management. The work will be carried out within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Institut Montefiore (see http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/). It will target the design of probabilistic simulation and optimization frameworks for analyzing the impact of power systems (un)reliability on electric power producers, in collaboration with Electrabel/Engie. The successful candidate should be interested in power generation and power systems analysis, and be experienced in optimization under uncertainty and/or in machine learning. He should also have a strong motivation to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The starting date is at the latest in September 2016. The initial contract will be for 1 year, with a possibility to extend it to 2 years. Applications should be sent by email to Prof. Louis WEHENKEL (L.Wehenkel at ulg.ac.be), from whom further information may be requested. Please send us a detailed CV, and provide a motivation letter mentioning your experience in relation to this position and your long-term research project. The deadline for application is May 15, 2016. Do not hesitate to forward this announcement. Best regards, Louis Wehenkel From ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Sun Apr 10 23:39:08 2016 From: ahirose at ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Akira Hirose) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 12:39:08 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: ICONIP 2016 Kyoto, Japan Message-ID: <570B1C5C.2070105@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp> # Apologies if you receive multiple announcements. Call for Papers The 23rd International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP 2016) Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan (16-21 Oct 2016) http://www.iconip2016.org/ Important Dates Paper submissions: 24 Apr 2016 (Notification: Jun 2016) Camera-ready due: 8 July 2016 Author registration: 20 July 2016 Early registration: Aug 2016 Instruction for Paper Submissions Please prepare your paper in the format as the sample paper for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) include reference format. In the Information for LNCS Authors site, you are able to download the source files including LaTeX2e class file, sample file, word template. Topics of interest include, but not limited to: Theory & Algorithms: Neurodynamics, Machine learning, Deep neural networks, Compulational intelligence, Pattern recognition, Computer vision, Speech processing, Time series analysis, Reinforcement learning, Bayesian networks, Computational & Cognitive Neurosciences: Sensory perception, Motor control, Decision making, Social cognition, Emotion and reward, Neuroeconomics, Computational psychiatry, Brain-machine interface, Neural data analysis Applications: Big data analysis, Robotics and control, Bioinformatics, Biomedical engineering, Neuromorphic hardware, Data mining, Information security, Social networks, Computational finance, Sports and rehabilitation, Special Sessions From asier.erramuzpealiaga at osakidetza.net Mon Apr 11 04:32:39 2016 From: asier.erramuzpealiaga at osakidetza.net (Asier Erramuzpe Osakidetza) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 10:32:39 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position at BioCruces Health Research Institute, Bilbao, Spain Message-ID: BioCruces Health Research Institute (Bilbao, Spain) is looking for a PhD student who is a graduate in engineering and has completed a master, in its first year of doctorate or going into it this year. The pre-doc will work on an ongoing project since 2015, Neuroimaging in Parkinson's disease, funded by the ISCIII and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The candidate will work primarily with MR imaging and to a lesser extent retinal images and analysis of cardiovascular signals. The PI of the project would be Juan Carlos G?mez-Esteban, neurologist, Head of group of Neurodegenerative Diseases in BioCruces and Movement Disorders and Parkinson Surgery in the Hospital of Cruces in collaboration with Dr. I?igo Gabilondo. The website of the group: http://www.biocruces.com/bc5.01 Candidates should have a technical degree and knowledge of at least one programming language (python, matlab or R) and desirably knowledge of the packages SPM, FSL and Freesurfer. The contract will be up to 4 years (2 years extendable to 4 depending on the financing of the project), with a gross salary of ? 20,600 per year. Social security contributions and other recruitment costs paid by BioCruces. Application dates are from April 12 to May 11. Candidates are invited to send a motivation letter and the names of one referee to Dr. Gabilondo by mail: igabilon at gmail.com Regards -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arokem at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 14:26:25 2016 From: arokem at gmail.com (Ariel Rokem) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 11:26:25 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Reminder: applications for Neurohackweek (Seattle, September 5th-9th) close on April 18th Message-ID: This is a reminder that you can still apply to participate in the first installment of Neurohackweek, a 5 day hands-on workshop, unconference and hackathon held at the University of Washington eScience Institute in Seattle (September 5th-9th, 2016). Neurohackweek will focus on technologies used to analyze human neuroimaging data, on methods used to extract information from large datasets of publicly available data (such as the NKI Enhanced, Human Connectome Project, OpenfMRI, etc.), and on tools for making neuroimaging research open and reproducible. Morning sessions will be devoted to lectures and hands-on guided tutorials, and afternoon sessions will be devoted to participant-directed (unconference ) activities: work on team projects, hackathon sessions, and breakout sessions on topics of interest. To apply: http://neurohackweek.github.io/ Accepted applicants will be asked to pay a fee of $200 upon final registration (June 1st). This fee will include participation in the course, accommodation in the UW dorms, and two meals a day (breakfast and lunch), for the duration of the course. A limited number of fee waivers and travel grants will be available. We encourage students with financial need and students from groups that are underrepresented in neuroimaging and data science to apply for these grants (email with a statement of interest to: arokem at uw.edu) Thanks to funding from the OHBM open science special interest group, participants will be able to submit peer-reviewed progress reports, reporting on their project, to be published as part of Brainhack Proceedings series at Gigascience: https://gigascience.biomedcentral.com/new-content-item Important dates: April 18th: Deadline for applications to participate May 6th: Notification of acceptance June 1st: Final registration deadline -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From v.steuber at herts.ac.uk Wed Apr 13 06:37:38 2016 From: v.steuber at herts.ac.uk (Steuber, Volker) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 10:37:38 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Early Career Research Fellowship in Systems Biology / Machine Learning for Food and Disease Message-ID: <1460543860628.38298@herts.ac.uk> Early Career Research Fellowship in Systems Biology / Machine Learning for Food and Disease Closing date: 17 May 2016 Salary: ?31,656 - ?37,768 per annum depending on skills and experience. The University of Hertfordshire is investing in its future research staff and infrastructure, and is in the process of transitioning the delivery of its research under six Themes: Food; Global Economy; Health and Wellbeing; Heritage, Cultures and Communities; Information and Security; Space. These will assist in the further development of research excellence and provide both increased external profile and internal focus for Hertfordshire?s research activities. Six new Research Fellow posts are each offered for a five year term in the first instance. It is our expectation, however, that successful appointees will grow their research activities to become permanent academic staff members by the end of that period. Further particulars for the ECRF in Systems Biology / Machine Learning for Food and Disease Qualifications required: You must have a first degree in a science, such as biology, computer science, mathematics or a relevant subject, and a doctoral degree in bioinformatics, machine learning, quantitative genetics or a related subject area. Experience in systems biology, big data science or genomics will be particularly relevant. ? Research focus and environment: This Fellowship will focus on emerging methods in biocomputation that generate and exploit large data sets of biological information available from genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to better understand mechanisms of host resistance/immunity and/or resistance breakdown. The Fellow will generate an improved understanding of relevant biological systems to develop specific strategies to combat infectious diseases caused by plant, animal or human pathogens. This Fellowship will be supported by existing collaborations between colleagues in Schools of Life & Medical Sciences (Kukol, Stotz, Barling, Fitt) and Computer Science (Steuber). The Fellow is expected to use the University?s high performance computer cluster. Experience and skills required for the post (i) Considerable experience with big data analysis and machine learning, including working knowledge of scripting languages like Perl, Python and/or R; (ii) Knowledge of genomic research techniques, such as next-generation sequencing, proteomics and/or metabolic profiling; (iii) Practical experience with the application of numerical analysis and/or mathematical models to biological datasets, for example in genomics or quantitative genetics; (iv) Evidence of original research published in high impact journals. Research expectations The Fellow is expected to develop a collaborative research program with our academic partners. We envisage that the Research Fellow will become a permanent staff member, supported by funding from successful research grant applications and developing new areas of teaching, especially at the post-graduate level. To ensure this, the two Schools will provide career training for the Fellow. The Fellow will have established collaborations with companies and successfully obtained co-funded industry-government projects. The Fellow will continue to publish high-impact papers and be leading an internationally recognised research team. Description of the Schools: The Early Career Research Fellow will work with and receive support from the School of Life and Medical Sciences and the School of Computer Science. The successful candidate can build on the strengths of both Schools and may combine experiment-based empirical research with data-based analysis. Within the School of Life and Medical Sciences (http://www.herts.ac.uk/apply/schools-of-study/life-and-medical-sciences/research), the Centre for Agriculture, Food and Environmental Management (CAFEM) is a research and teaching collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College, Rothamsted Research and Oaklands College. The Fellow will work with researchers in CAFEM who have experience with systems biology applicable to crop protection, combining experimental field and lab research with computational modelling. Within the School of Computer Science, research in the Biocomputation Research Group (http://biocomputation.herts.ac.uk/) involves development of computational models to study biological systems and application of biologically-inspired machine learning algorithms for the analysis of "real-world" data. Members of the Biocomputation Group analyse and simulate computational models at different levels of complexity and collaborate closely with leading experimentalists in the UK and abroad. Informal enquiries are encouraged and should be made to Professor Bruce Fitt, Professor of Plant Pathology, email: b.fitt at herts.ac.uk / Tel + 44 (0)1707 284751 or Dr Volker Steuber, Reader in Biocomputation and Head of the Biocomputation Research Group, email: v.steuber at herts.ac.uk / Tel: +44 (0)1707 284350. Applications should be made through http://www.herts.ac.uk/contact-us/jobs-and-vacancies/research-vacancies, job reference 013457. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From umanor at salk.edu Mon Apr 11 12:23:12 2016 From: umanor at salk.edu (Uri Manor) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:23:12 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Correction: Job Opportunity for Image Analysis Scientist at Salk Message-ID: <6345E0EA-9DAE-48E6-A043-3C967AE9C3F3@salk.edu> The previous version of this announcement listed the job number as F142. The correct number is F143. I apologize for the inconvenience. WAITT ADVANCED BIOPHOTONICS CORE Job Opportunity ? Image Analysis Scientist The Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center has been established at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies as a state-of-the-art research hub to provide advanced and emerging imaging modalities to enable unprecedented insights into the inner workings of cells, tissues and organisms. We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced candidate in the field of computational image analysis to serve as an Image Analysis Scientist for the Biophotonics Core Facility. The Image Analysis Scientist will have a principal responsibility to collaborate with the other light and electron microscopy researchers in the Biophotonics Core and the Salk Institute to provide specific expertise for developing custom computer algorithms for complex and novel analyses of raw imaging data, computer data management and developing algorithms for microscopy operations. The Image Analysis Scientist will also develop and publish novel imaging and image analysis techniques in collaboration with the Core Director and Salk faculty. The Image Analysis Scientist will apply existing image processing software to 2D and 3D images and videos, and will also integrate data across different platforms (e.g. correlative EM). Finally, under the supervision and training of the Core Director, the Image Analysis Scientist will become familiar with the microscopes used in the facility, and develop expertise in using the equipment to acquire imaging data optimized for image analysis. Along with the Core Director, the Image Analysis Scientist will train Salk scientists on how to properly acquire high quality quantitative microscopy image data. This is a multi-faceted job that involves the following components: ? Image Processing & Data Analysis - With the support of the Core Director, the incumbent will participate in the collaborative development of custom image data analysis and algorithm solutions. ? Research Design & Participation - aiding Director and independently assisting users in design of imaging experiments. Educate facility users in the use of facility instrumentation and methods used therein for optimal acquisition of imaging data. ? Data Collection & Presentation - collecting and managing data and helping to prepare data for publication & presentation. ? User Training - guide and assist Salk researchers in the use of existing image acquisition and processing software. To Apply: http://www.salk.edu/about/careers/ (Job # F143) Uri Manor, Ph.D. DIRECTOR WAITT ADVANCED BIOPHOTONICS CORE PH (858) 453-4100 x2119 M (314) 406-7618 E umanor at salk.edu W http://bpho.salk.edu [cid:E4C48475-653C-4000-9B8C-437F759B2644 at salk.edu] Salk Institute for Biological Studies 10010 N Torrey Pines Rd ? La Jolla, CA 92037 WWW.SALK.EDU -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: www.salk.edu.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3867 bytes Desc: www.salk.edu.jpg URL: From sudarshan at jhu.edu Tue Apr 12 05:51:18 2016 From: sudarshan at jhu.edu (Sudarshan Ramenahalli) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 02:51:18 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Human behaviour data for audiovisual saliency evaluation Message-ID: Dear members, I am a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University working on audiovisual (AV) saliency. In order to validate the AV saliency model, I am looking for human behaviour (eg, eye tracking) data where attention is measured in audiovisual environment with spatialized audio. There are some eye tracking datasets for audio-visual saliency where spatial location of acoustic events is not provided to human observers. I am looking for eye tracking or any other behavioural data where spatialized audio along with video is used for measuring attention in audiovisual environments. If anyone has conducted experiments related to this or know about such datasets, please let me know. Thank You, Sudarshan -- PhD Candidate, Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Assistant, Computational Neuroscience Lab Krieger Mind/Brain Institute Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From P.Tino at cs.bham.ac.uk Wed Apr 13 11:37:20 2016 From: P.Tino at cs.bham.ac.uk (Peter Tino) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 16:37:20 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Birmingham fellowships - data science Message-ID: <570E67B0.1000804@cs.bham.ac.uk> *Birmingham fellowships - data science* *closing date: Friday 13th May 2016* Fantastic opportunity in data science: - appointed at the outset to a permanent academic post, normally at Lecturer grade; although in exceptional cases appointments may be made at a higher grade; - first 5 years of protected time for high-quality research to allow outstanding, high potential, early-career researchers of any age to establish themselves as rounded academics; - gradual development of teaching experience, including PhD supervision, increasing up to a normal teaching load by the fifth year of the Fellowship; - not expected to contribute substantively to academic administration during the Fellowship; - start-up package to support research; - assigned academic mentor and development support in both research and teaching; - starting salary is normally in the range of ?38,896 to ?46,414, potential progression once in post to ?52,219. More information: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/excellence/fellows/birmingham-fellows.aspx -- Peter Tino The University of Birmingham School of Computer Science Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK +44 121 414 8558 , fax: 414 4281 http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxt/ From olga.grant at ucd.ie Mon Apr 11 12:59:21 2016 From: olga.grant at ucd.ie (Olga Grant) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 17:59:21 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions: Multiscale Modelling of the Neuromuscular System for Deep Brain Stimulation Message-ID: <02e301d19413$7e9ad1e0$7bd075a0$@ucd.ie> Background Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an effective, safe and reversible method for treating the symptoms of Parkinson?s disease and other neurological disorders. It involves implanting electrodes in the brain to stimulate neurons responsible for symptoms including tremor, slowed movement and stiffness. Despite its success, the methods by which DBS works are not yet known and many questions remain to be answered in order to realize its full potential. Research within our group aims to improve our understanding of DBS and to identify new approaches for stimulation using computer models of networks of neurons within the brain and the neuromuscular system. Applications are invited for two full time PhD positions focusing on 1) Development of computational models of the neuromuscular system and 2) Closed loop control of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson?s disease. The start date for both projects will be September 2016 Who Should Apply Applicants should have, or expect to obtain, a first or upper second class honours Bachelors or Masters degree in Electrical, Electronic or Biomedical Engineering (or a related discipline). Suitable candidates will have a strong interest in biomedical/neural engineering and neuroscience. Excellent analytical, computer programming and communications skills are essential. Funding This project is funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant. Studentships cover tuition fees for EU applicants and a tax free stipend of ?18,000 per year. An annual allowance is provided for research consumables and for conference attendance. How to Apply Please send a cover letter describing your experience and interest in this project (1 page max), CV, and academic transcripts to Prof. Madeleine Lowery UCD School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4 Ireland E-mail: neuromuscular at ucd.ie Tel. +353 (1) 716 1911 ____________________________________ Dr Olga M Grant Research Project Manager School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Tel +353 (1) 7161778 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From navlakha at salk.edu Wed Apr 13 00:24:37 2016 From: navlakha at salk.edu (Saket Navlakha) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 04:24:37 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Biological Distributed Algorithms, Chicago, July 2016 Message-ID: <38AE0E6C-9C16-4BDC-AFB2-197847298677@salk.edu> SUBMISSION DEADLINE in 2 weeks. We have several student and post-doc travel awards available (NSF-sponsored). ======================================================= The 4th Workshop on Biological Distributed Algorithms (BDA 2016) Co-located with PODC 2016. July 25, 2016 in Chicago, IL USA http://www.snl.salk.edu/~navlakha/BDA2016/ ======================================================= We are excited to announce the 4th workshop on Biological Distributed Algorithms (BDA). The aim of the workshop is to foster collaborative research between biologists and distributed computing theory researchers, with the hope of producing better understanding of the behavior of distributed biological systems, as well as new ideas for design of algorithms for engineered or computational networks. BDA 2016 will include presentations on distributed algorithms related to a variety of biological systems, with special attention to communication and coordination in insect colonies (e.g. foraging, navigation, task allocation, construction) and networks in the brain (e.g. learning, decision-making, attention). This is a one-day workshop. =========== SUBMISSIONS =========== We solicit submissions of extended abstracts describing recent results relevant to biological distributed computing. We especially welcome extended abstracts describing new insights and / or case studies regarding the relationship between distributed computing and biological systems even if these are not fully formed. Since a major goal of the workshop is to explore new directions and approaches, we especially encourage the submission of ongoing work. Selected contributors would be asked to present, discuss and defend their work at the workshop. By default, the submissions will be evaluated for either oral or poster presentation, though authors may indicate in their submission if it should be only considered for one of the presentation types. Submissions should be in PDF and include title, author information, and a 4-page extended abstract. Shorter submissions are also welcome, particularly for poster presentation. Please use the following EasyChair submission link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bda20160 Note: The workshop will not include published proceedings. In particular, we welcome submissions of extended abstracts describing work that has appeared or is expected to appear in other venues. ================================= Support for students and postdocs ================================= To encourage the participation of researchers at the early stages of their career, the NSF has generously granted us with the means to provide financial support for student and postdoc participants. Specifically, for each accepted (oral or poster) presentation, we will reimburse the registration fee and at least $350 of additional travel expanses (the exact amount will be determined later on but it is expected to be higher) of one student/postdoc author. =============== IMPORTANT DATES =============== April 25, 2016 ? Extended abstract submission deadline May 25, 2016 ? Decision notifications July 25, 2016 ? Workshop ================ INVITED SPEAKERS ================ Bernard Chazelle - Princeton Melanie Moses - UNM Konrad Kording - Northwestern ================= PROGRAM COMMITTEE ================= Ziv Bar-Joseph - CMU Anna Dornhaus - University of Arizona Yuval Emek - Technion (co-chair) Amos Korman - CNRS and University of Paris Diderot Nancy Lynch - MIT Saket Navlakha - Salk Institute (co-chair) From EPNSugan at ntu.edu.sg Mon Apr 11 02:39:09 2016 From: EPNSugan at ntu.edu.sg (Ponnuthurai Nagaratnam Suganthan) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 06:39:09 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Applied Soft Computing J Special Issue on ANN & Machine Learning (CFP) Message-ID: Special Issue of Applied Soft Computing (Elsevier) (Impact Factor: 2.8) Special Issue on Non-iterative Approaches in Learning (Includes comparisons with iterative methods) Call for Papers http://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-soft-computing/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-non-iterative-approaches-in-learning-includ/ Optimization, which plays a central role in learning, has received considerable attention from academics, researchers, and domain workers. Many optimization problems in machine learning are solved by iterative methods which generate a sequence of improving approximated solutions with some termination criteria. These methods usually suffer from low convergence rate and are sensitive to parameter settings (such as learning rate/step size, maximum number of iterations). On the other hand, non-iterative solutions, which are usually presented in closed-form manner, are in general computationally faster than iterative solutions. However, comparative studies with iterative methods are also welcome. The main focus of this special issue is to present the recent advances in non-iterative solutions in learning. Original contributions and surveys are welcome. The special issue aims to promote non-iterative concepts in the field of learning. Even though non-iterative methods have attracted much attention in recent years, there exists a performance gap when compared with older methods and other competing paradigms. This special issue aims to bridge this gap. Besides the dissemination of the latest research results on non-iterative algorithms, it is also expected that this special issue will cover some industrial applications, present some new ideas and identify directions for future studies. The topics of the special issue include, but are not limited to: * Methods with and without randomization * Regression, classification and time series * Kernel methods such as kernel ridge regression, kernel adaptive filters, etc. * Feedforward, recurrent, multilayer, deep and other structures. * Ensemble learning * Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse, SVD and other solution procedures. * Non-iterative methods for large-scale problems with and without kernels * Theoretical analysis of non-iterative methods * Comparative studies with competing iterative methods * Applications of non-iterative solutions in domains such as power systems, biomedical, finance, signal processing, big data and all other areas Submission format and Guidelines Papers will be evaluated based on their originality, presentation, relevance and contribution to the development of non-iterative methods, as well as their suitability and the quality in terms of both technical contribution and writing. The submitted papers must be written in good English and describe original research which has not been published nor is currently under review by other journals or conferences. If used, the previously published conference papers should be clearly identified by the authors (at the submission stage) and an explanation should be provided how such papers have been extended to be considered for this special issue. Guest Editors will make an initial determination on the suitability and scope of all submissions. Papers that either lack originality, clarity in presentation or fall outside the scope of the special issue will not be sent for review and the authors will be promptly informed of such cases. Author guidelines for preparation of manuscript can be found at http://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-soft-computing/ Manuscripts should be submitted online at: http://ees.elsevier.com/asoc/ Applied Soft Computing Journal is well indexed. Its impact factors are 2.8 (2 years) and 3.2 (5 years). Important dates Manuscript submission: 15th Aug 2016 Revised version submission: 31st Jan 2017 Acceptance notification: 31st March 2017 Expected Publication: Mid 2017 Guest Editors Dr P N Suganthan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. epnsugan at ntu.edu.sg Prof. Sushmita Mitra, Indian Statistical Institute, India. sushmita at isical.ac.in Dr Ivan Tyukin, Department of Mathematics, University of Leicester, UK. I.Tyukin at le.ac.uk Best Wishes Suganthan http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/epnsugan/ ________________________________ 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. From danielcarlminer at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 01:31:43 2016 From: danielcarlminer at gmail.com (Daniel Miner) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 07:31:43 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Which simulators support structural dynamics? In-Reply-To: <57053A29.8020808@imperial.ac.uk> References: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> <57053A29.8020808@imperial.ac.uk> Message-ID: Hi Dan et al., Actually, I used it in a recent paper: http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004759 I?d argue that it does have a lot of utility for the study of circuit development and self-organization, but that?s probably a more appropriate discussion for the Brian board than Connectionists. Best, Daniel Miner > On Apr 6, 2016, at 6:32 PM, Dan Goodman wrote: > > I can reply for the Brian simulator. > > In Brian 1.x, we have support for "dynamic" synapses allowing you to add or delete synapses at runtime. > > At the moment, in Brian 2 we don't have support for this although I'd like to add it in the future. It is already fairly straightforward to add synapses at runtime, but not to remove them. You'd have to make a copy of the whole set of synapses with some removed. > > We don't have support for adding/removing neurons at runtime in either version. > > In both versions, it's possible to pre-allocate an oversized model as you suggested. This is more straightforward in Brian 2 but can be done in either version. > > For what it's worth, the reason we haven't put more effort into this feature is that nobody has asked for it, and to my knowledge, nobody used the feature that was available in Brian 1, which is why we didn't spend any time implementing it for Brian 2. > > Dan > > On 05/04/2016 23:01, Fred Rothganger wrote: >> The NEST simulator documents the capability to create/destroy synapses >> at runtime >> (http://www.nest-simulator.org/py_sample/structural-plasticity-example). >> Which other simulators support a similar capability? >> >> For clarity, let's define "structural plasticity" as the ability to add >> and remove synapses and neurons while the simulation is actively >> running. Full support would include doing this on an HPC system >> (multiple compute nodes) and automatically rebalancing the load. >> >> Several forms of partial support are possible, including: >> * Only the ability to add/remove synapses, but not neurons. >> * Limitation to a single compute node or thread. >> * Pre-allocating an oversized model, some elements of which are kept >> idle until needed. >> >> -- Fred >> >> Fred Rothganger >> Neural Computing Department >> Sandia National Laboratories >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Reza.Iraji at colostate.edu Wed Apr 13 14:09:06 2016 From: Reza.Iraji at colostate.edu (Iraji,Reza) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 18:09:06 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: 1st International Workshop on Robot Learning and Planning at RSS 2016 Message-ID: We are pleased to invite you all to contribute to the 1st international workshop on Robot Learning and Planning (RLP 2016) at RSS 2016. The solicited papers are expected to present challenges in the related fields and potential future directions. The main purpose of this workshop is promoting dialogue and brainstorming in the "Robot Learning and Planning" to identify new research directions and underdeveloped areas. By design, we expect the submitted papers to be rather unconventional and potentially controversial to promote dialogue. To archive these discussions, the accepted papers will be published, and a summary of the discussed topics will be disseminated either in the form of a review article or a website. The main objective of this workshop is to discuss new fundamental research directions and their applications for the next generation of robots. Specific topics include but are not limited to integration or application of machine learning and planning in * Adaptive and Reconfigurable Robotic Systems * Aerial Robotics * Assembly Automation and Self-Assembly Systems * Biomedical Robotics * Bionics (biomimetic robotics, neurobotics, synthetic biological systems, and etc.) * Complex and High Dimensional Environments * Distributed Robotic Systems * Field Robotics (underwater robotics, agricultural robotics, mining robotics, and etc.) * Geometry-based Algorithms * Human-Robot Interaction * Kinematics, Dynamics, and Control * Manipulation * Mechanisms (humanoids, hands, legged systems, and etc.) * Mobile Systems and Mobility (localization, mapping, and navigation) * Search Algorithms * Scheduling * Simultaneous Learning and Planning * Task and Policy Learning and Planning Important Dates: Announcement of Call for Papers: April 11, 2016 Full Paper Submission Due: May 15, 2016 Acceptance Notification: May 29, 2016 Workshop: June 18, 2016 Program Committee: * Ali Agha, Qualcomm Research * Chuck Anderson, Colorado State University * Kostas Bekris, Rutgers University * Maren Bennewitz, University of Freiburg * Gianni Di Caro, Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale * Stefano Carpin, University of California-Merced * Hamidreza Chitsaz, Colorado State University * Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon University * Juan Cort?s, LAAS-CNRS * Angel P. del Pobil, Jaume I University * Thierry Fraichard, INRIA * Roland Geraerts, University of Utrecht * Kamal Gupta, Simon Fraser University * Seth Hutchinson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign * Miles J. Johnson, Toyota Technical Center * Marcelo Kallmann, University of California, Merced * Lydia Kavraki, Rice University * Sven Koenig, University of Southern California * Jyh-Ming Lien, George Mason University * Dinesh Manocha, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill * Rafael Murrieta-Cid, Center for Mathematical Research * Giuseppe Oriolo, Sapienza University of Rome * Wheeler Ruml, University of New Hampshire * Surya P. N. Singh, University of Queensland * Frank van der Stappen, Utrecht University * Chee Yap, New York University We invite submissions to our special "Robot Learning and Planning" workshop. The RLP 2016 submission website is open now to receive the submissions. ----------------------------------------------------- Reza Iraji, M.Sc. Ph.D. Candidate Department of Computer Science Colorado State University Email: iraji at colostate.edu URL: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~iraji/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yang at maebashi-it.org Tue Apr 19 09:40:49 2016 From: yang at maebashi-it.org (Yang) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 22:40:49 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: AI 60 Years Celebration - CFP: Brain Informatics & Health 2016 Message-ID: <0740A08475A842DC808529A4043C94F8@wicPC> [Apologies if you receive this more than once] ================================ A Celebration to the 60th Anniversary of AI ================================ The 2016 International Conference on Brain Informatics & Health (BIH'16) October 13-16, 2016, Hilton Omaha, USA Homepage: http://wibih.unomaha.edu/bih ***Full Paper Submission Deadline*** - May 10, 2016 This year, the Brain Informatics & Health (BIH) conference is especially dedicated to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the past years, the attempt by brain scientists to understand how the human brain works has never stopped. Meanwhile, the AI researchers also have been striving to formalize the structure and function of human brain, aiming at creating computers and computer software with capacity of intelligent behavior. By integrating techniques and academic researchers, abundant brain-inspired achievements have been yielded. Recently, the so-called neuromorphic computer architectures-chips, that mimic the human brain's ability to be both analytical and intuitive to deliver context and meaning to big data, have been invented and showed us the promising future of AI. There is never been a more exciting moment than now, in neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, and AI. Brain Informatics (BI) has extended and made use of artificial intelligence for new products, services and frameworks that are empowered by the World Wide Web. By means of brain data collected globally and systematic researches on the human brain across macro, meso, and micro scales, i.e., mind and behavior, brain cognition and structure, neuronal morphology and gene, BI is committed to developing a big data sharing mind on the Wisdom Web of Things (W2T), and disclosing the intrinsic qualities of human intelligence. As a part of the celebration to the sixty years of AI, BIH'16 will be co-located with Web Intelligence (WI) 2016, and proudly host two distinguished brain scientists, Dr. Stephen Smith and Dr. Ivan Soltesz as the BIH keynote speakers, as well as two Turing Award laureates, Dr. Leslie Valiant (Turing Award 2010) and Dr. Butler Lampson (Turing Award 1992) as the WI keynote speakers, for the community to share with their intelligent, wisdom minds. We also will organize a panel on Connecting Network and Brain with Big Data and invite keynote/feature speakers of the 2 conferences as panelists. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS FULL PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: May 10, 2016 (!!Extended!!) *** KEYNOTE SPEAKERS *** Stephen Smith, Allen Institute for Brain Science Ivan Soltesz, Stanford School of Medicine *** FEATURE SPEAKERS *** Steven Schiff, Pennsylvania State University Kristen Harris, University of Texas at Austin Giulio Tononi, University of Wisconsin-Madison Bob Jacobs, Colorado College Partha Mitra, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Paola Pergami, George Washington University **************** The BIH series provides a premier forum that brings together researchers and practitioners from neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, information communication technologies, and neuroimaging technologies with the purpose of exploring the fundamental roles, interactions as well as practical impacts of Brain Informatics. BIH'16 addresses the computational, cognitive, physiological, biological, physical, ecological and social perspectives of brain informatics, with a strong emphasis on emerging trends of big data analysis and management technology for brain research, behaviour learning, and real-world applications of brain science in human health and well-being. BIH'16 will be co-located with the 2016 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference Web Intelligence (WI'16) (http://wibih.unomaha.edu/wi). Under our theme Connecting Network and Brain with Big Data, BIH'16 and WI'16 will provide a broad forum that academia, professionals and industry can use to exchange their ideas, findings and strategies in utilizing the power of human brains and man-made networks to create a better world. The attendees only need to register for one of the 2 conferences, but they can attend all sessions and social events of the 2 conferences. BIH'16 welcomes paper submissions (full paper and abstract submissions). Both research and application papers are solicited. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance and clarity. Accepted full papers will be included in the proceedings by Springer LNCS/LNAI. Tutorial, Workshop and Special-Session proposals and Industry/Demo-Track papers are also welcome. The organizers of Workshops and Special-Sessions are invited to prepare a book proposal based on the topics of the workshop/special session for possible book publication in the Springer Brain Informatics & Health book series. IMPORTANT DATES: (Extended!) ================ Workshop and Special-Session proposals submission: March 31, 2016 Notification of Workshop and Special-Session acceptance: April 15, 2016 Submission of full papers: May 10, 2016 Submission of Workshop/Special-Session full papers: June 7, 2016 Notification of full paper acceptance: June 14, 2016 Notification of Workshop/Special-Session full paper acceptance: June 20, 2016 Submission of abstracts: June 20, 2016 Notification of abstract acceptance: July 10, 2016 Tutorial proposal submission: July 10, 2016 Tutorials, Workshop and Special-Sessions: October 13, 2016 Main conference: October 14-16, 2016 PAPER SUBMISSIONS & PUBLICATIONS: ================================= TYPE-I (Full Paper Submissions; Submission Deadline: May 10, 2016): Papers need to have up to 10 pages in LNCS format: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0. All full length papers accepted (and all special sessions' full length papers) will be published by Springer as a volume of the series of LNCS/LNAI. TYPE-II (Abstract Submissions; Submission Deadline: June 20, 2016): Abstracts have a word limit of 500 words. Experimental research is particularly welcome. Accepted abstract submissions will be included in the conference program, and will be published as a single, collective proceedings volume. Title: Include in the title of the abstract all words critical for a subject index. Write your title in sentence case (first letter is capitalized; remaining letters are lower case). Do not bold or italicize your full title. Author: List all authors who contributed to the work discussed in the abstract. The presenting author must be listed in the first author slot of the list. Be prepared to submit contact information as well as conflict of interest information for each author listed. Abstract: Enter the body of the abstract and attach any applicable graphic files or tables here. Do not re-enter the title, author, support, or other information that is collected in other steps of the submission form. Presentation Preference: Authors may select from three presentation formats when submitting an abstract: "poster only", "talk preferred" or "no preference". The "talk preferred" selection indicates that you would like to give a talk, but will accept a poster format if necessary. Marking "poster only" indicates that you would not like to be considered for an oral-presentation session. Selecting "no preference" indicates the author's willingness to be placed in the best format for the program. Each paper or abstract requires one sponsoring attendee (i.e. someone who registered and is attending the conference). A single attendee can not sponsor more than two abstracts or papers. Oral presentations will be selected from both full length papers and abstracts. *** Post-Conference Journal Publication *** The BIH conferences have the formal ties with Brain Informatics journal (Springer, http://www.springer.com/40708). Accepted papers from the conference, including their Best Paper Award papers, will be expanded and revised for possible inclusion in the Brain Informatics journal each year. It is fully sponsored and no any article-processing fee is charged for BIH authors. *** Topics and Areas *** Track 1: Investigations of Human Information Processing Systems (HIPS) and Computational Foundations of Brain Science Track 2: Information Technologies for Curating, Mining and Using Brain Big Data Track 3: Brain-Inspired Technologies, Systems and Applications Please find the topics and areas of interest of BIH'16 at http://wibih.unomaha.edu/bih ORGANIZERS ========== General Chairs Hesham Ali (University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) Deepak Khazanchi (University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) Yong Shi (University of Nebraska at Omaha/Chinese Academy of Sciences) BIH'16 PC Chairs Giorgio Ascoli (George Mason University, USA) Michael Hawrylycz (Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA) BIH'16 Workshop/Special-session/Tutorial Chairs Bingni Wen Brunton (University of Washington, USA) Arvind Ramanathan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA) Yi Zeng (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) BIH'16 Publicity Chairs Kate Cooper (University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) Weidong Cai (University of Sydney, Australia) Henning Muller (HES-SO, Switzerland) Local Organizing Committee Prithviraj (Raj) Dasgupta Zhengxin Chen Peter Wolcott Haifeng Guo Mark Pauley Wikil Kwak Kerry Ward Dhundy (Kiran) Bastola Kate Cooper (publicity) Bettina Lechner (webmaster) BIH Steering Committee Co-chairs Ning Zhong (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan) Hanchuan Peng (Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA) *** Contact Information *** kdempsey at unomaha.edu MikeH at alleninstitute.org ascoli at gmu.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.panzeri at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 11:52:31 2016 From: stefano.panzeri at gmail.com (Stefano Panzeri) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:52:31 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position in Computational models of cortical sensory processing at IIT (Italy) Message-ID: We are seeking candidates for a PhD position at the Italian Institute of Technology?s Neural Coding Laboratory ( https://www.iit.it/lines/neural-computation ) directed by Stefano Panzeri and located in Rovereto (Trento), Italy. IIT collaborates with Universit? degli studi di Trento and finances these positions at the PhD course in Cognitive and Brain Sciences. *Interested candidates are invited to informally approach as soon as possible Prof. Stefano Panzeri (*stefano.panzeri at iit.it*) by emailing their CV and briefly explaining their interest in this position. In order to formally apply to the PhD Position, candidates will then need to refer to the call published by Universit? degli Studi di Trento and available at the following link*: http://web.unitn.it/en/drcimec/10140/admission-doctoral-school-cognitive-and-brain-sciences *Deadline for formal application is 10 may 2016* Topic description: This project will develop neural network models to investigate the mechanisms by which neural circuits encode and transmit information about the sensory environment. In particular, the successful candidate will model the role of specific classes of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in shaping cortical information processing. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to interact with the collaborating IIT laboratory of Dr Tommaso Fellin, that performs neurophysiological and optogenetic experiments to test the model predictions. The applicant should have a strong background in numerate sciences, and have a propensity for interdisciplinary research. No extensive previous experience in neuroscience is needed. However, a keen interest in understanding the brain is essential. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pel at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Mon Apr 18 05:01:36 2016 From: pel at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Peter Latham) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 10:01:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Connectionists: postdoc positions - Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit Message-ID: The Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit invites applications for one or more postdoctoral training fellowships in theoretical neuroscience and related areas. We are looking especially for someone with an interest and/or background in synaptic plasticity and learning. Candidates should have a very strong analytical background in physics, mathematics, statistics, or machine learning, with an emphasis on the use of Bayesian methods in neuroscience, a detailed knowledge and understanding of the literature, and a publication record in highly ranked conferences and journals. Candidates must also have a PhD in a relevant subject area by the agreed start date of the position. For additional information, and to apply, please visit http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/vacancies/TN%20Postdoc%202016/TN%20Postdoc%202016.html If you have any questions, please contact Peter Latham, pel at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk From hans.ekkehard.plesser at nmbu.no Mon Apr 18 03:16:50 2016 From: hans.ekkehard.plesser at nmbu.no (Hans Ekkehard Plesser) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 07:16:50 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral and Developer positions / Large-scale network simulator development Message-ID: <46666644-57CC-4899-84C8-D94AD4433F69@nmbu.no> Dear Colleagues! The computational neuroscience group at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences is currently recruiting one postdoctoral-level researcher and one scientific software developer as part of our large-scale neuronal network simulator development efforts in the Human Brain Project (HBP). Our group is responsible for four tasks in the next phase of the HBP: - Massively parallel methods for network construction from rules and data - Whole brain level in silico instrumentation, services and apps - Models of brain signals - Simulator NEST as a Service Your work will focus on the first two tasks, researching concepts required to compactly specify brain-scale neuronal networks so that they are easy for the neuroscientist to review, and at the same time can be instantiated efficiently in a massively parallel fashion. You will further work on concepts that will allow domain specialists to configure complete in silico experiments on point-neuron-based whole-brain models by connecting stimulation and recording devices to specific neuron populations. We will collaborate closely with colleagues within the HBP, especially at the Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine 6, Research Center Ju?lich (FZJ), at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), and at University of Oslo. Our group is a core member of the NEST Initiative. We have access to some of the world's largest supercomputers and aim to develop simulation technology that will scale to the exascale. Preferred starting date for the positions is 1 August 2016 for a period of 20 months (until 31 March 2018). For details on the positions, please see the full advertisements at https://www.jobbnorge.no/ledige-stillinger/stilling/124473/researcher-in-neuroinformatics-refno-16-01964 https://www.jobbnorge.no/ledige-stillinger/stilling/124558/head-engineer-senior-engineer-in-neuroinformatics-refno-16-01963 where you also can submit your application. For general information about working in Norway, please see https://www.nav.no/workinnorway/ Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in the positions! Hans Ekkehard Plesser -- Dr. Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Associate Professor Section Head Dept. of Mathematical Sciences and Technology Norwegian University of Life Sciences PO Box 5003, 1432 Aas, Norway Phone +47 6723 1560 Email hans.ekkehard.plesser at nmbu.no Home http://arken.umb.no/~plesser From Roman.Bauer at newcastle.ac.uk Sat Apr 16 08:31:34 2016 From: Roman.Bauer at newcastle.ac.uk (Roman Bauer) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2016 12:31:34 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position: neuronal self-organization in the retina Message-ID: Dear all, applications are invited for a fully-funded three-year PhD student position at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK). The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Dr Roman Bauer and Dr Evelyne Sernagor, and do computational modeling as well as wet-lab work on neuronal development and self-organization in the retina. There is also the possibility for the student to be involved in a collaborative project with CERN openlab and Intel as a project partner. Applicants should be highly motivated and should have a strong background in physics, computer science, neuroscience or a related disciplince. Good computational skills and experience in a major programing language such as C++ or Java are required. The Institute of Neuroscience (IoN) is a well-established research institute integrating over 75 principal investigators, and was ranked in UK top 10 for overall quality of research. The university's Faculty of Medical Sciences, of which IoN is part of, is ranked in the top 50 worldwide for biomedical and health sciences in the Leiden Ranking. UK/EU and International students are eligible to apply, but international students will be required to make up the difference between the UK/EU fees and international fees. The deadline is May 13th, 2016. More details on this job posting can be found here: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/sources/allstudents/12mrea.html Best regards, Roman Bauer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arafferty at carleton.edu Sun Apr 17 14:36:51 2016 From: arafferty at carleton.edu (Anna Rafferty) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 13:36:51 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position in machine learning for education at Carleton College Message-ID: Opening: 1-year postdoctoral research and teaching position at Carleton College. This position is funded by an NSF Research on Education and Learning (REAL) grant entitled "Diagnosing misconceptions about algebra using Bayesian inverse reinforcement learning". The project is joint work between Anna Rafferty at Carleton College and Tom Griffiths at University of California, Berkeley. The position is primarily focused on research, with the opportunity to gain teaching experience as well. The research project focuses on using machine learning techniques to better understand and support algebraic problem solving. The project is interdisciplinary, with parts focused on computational modeling, machine learning, and behavioral experiments. As part of this project, we have developed a website for learners to practice algebra problem solving, and this website is also used for data collection and testing of proposed models. Responsibilities for the position may include processing traces of learning behavior from the website; developing and testing ways of sequencing problems to most effectively diagnose learner understanding and promote learning; proposing improvements to the online learning environment; and using machine learning and statistics to identify important learner behaviors and their association with cognitive and affective outcomes. Candidates trained in cognitive science, computer science, cognitive psychology, learning science, educational technology, artificial intelligence, and other related fields are encouraged to apply; those who expect to have completed a Ph.D. by Fall 2016 are welcome to apply. Previous experience with computer programming (e.g., Java, Python, Matlab, R, or other languages) is necessary. Prior experience working with educational data and/or digital learning environments is desirable. The appointment is for one year, and salary is commensurate with experience and relevant research. The position is based in Northfield, Minnesota at Carleton College and the successful candidate will be working with Anna Rafferty in computer science. Carleton College is an undergraduate liberal arts college. The position has teaching responsibilities of 1-2 10-week classes total over the course of the year; exact number of classes is negotiable. To apply, please send a cover letter, CV, and contact information for three references to Anna Rafferty via email (arafferty at carleton.edu). Application review will be on a rolling basis, with priority to applications received by May 1. Best, Anna Rafferty ------------------------------------------------------- Anna N. Rafferty Assistant Professor Computer Science Department Carleton College https://sites.google.com/site/annanrafferty ------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.panzeri at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 11:48:15 2016 From: stefano.panzeri at gmail.com (Stefano Panzeri) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:48:15 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: fully funded PhD position in Information theoretic studies of neural population coding at IIT (Italy) Message-ID: We are seeking candidates for a PhD position at the Italian Institute of Technology?s Neural Coding Laboratory ( https://www.iit.it/lines/neural-computation ) directed by Stefano Panzeri and located in Rovereto (Trento), Italy. IIT collaborates with Universit? degli studi di Trento and finances these positions at the PhD course in Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Interested candidates are invited to informally approach *as soon as possible* Prof. Stefano Panzeri (stefano.panzeri at iit.it) by emailing their CV and briefly explaining their interest in this position. In order to formally apply to the PhD Position, candidates will then need to refer to the call published by Universit? degli Studi di Trento and available at the following link: http://web.unitn.it/en/drcimec/10140/admission-doctoral-school-cognitive-and-brain-sciences *Deadline for formal application is 10 may 2016* Topic description: Understanding how populations of neurons encode and transmit information is a prerequisite for understanding brain functions such as perception. Progresses in neural recordings technology enable scientists to monitor the activity of larger and larger number of neurons, but it is still unclear how to analyze these data to understand how groups of neurons work together. The successful candidate will develop and use tools for the analysis of large-scale simultaneous recordings of the spiking activity of cells in the cortex to understand how populations of neurons carry information. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to both develop new advanced methods and to analyze experimental data in collaboration with many experimental neuroscience laboratories. The applicant should have a strong background in numerate sciences, and have a strong propensity for interdisciplinary research. No extensive previous experience in neuroscience is needed. However, a keen interest in understanding the brain is essential. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fsommer at berkeley.edu Wed Apr 13 17:36:28 2016 From: fsommer at berkeley.edu (Friedrich Sommer) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:36:28 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline April 30 for Berkeley summer course in mining and modeling of neuroscience data References: Message-ID: <59A0E831-0513-4BFA-AF90-C31B63A297B4@berkeley.edu> Just a reminder: The application deadline for the Berkeley course in mining and modeling of neuroscience data, held July 11-22, 2016 is April 30 midnight. Call for applications: We invite applicants to the 2016 summer course in "Mining and modeling of neuroscience data" to be held July 11-22, 2016 at UC Berkeley. A description of the course is below and also at: http://crcns.org/course Berkeley summer course in mining and modeling of neuroscience data. July 11-22, 2016 Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, UC Berkeley Organizers: Fritz Sommer, Bruno Olshausen & Jeff Teeters (HWNI, UC Berkeley) Scope This course is for students and researchers with backgrounds in mathematics and computational sciences who are interested in applying their skills toward problems in neuroscience. It will introduce the major open questions of neuroscience and teach state-of?the-art techniques for analyzing and modeling neuroscience data sets. The course is designed for students at the graduate level and researchers with background in a quantitative field such as engineering, mathematics, physics or computer science who may or may not have a specific neuroscience background. The goal of this summer course is to help researchers find new exciting research areas and at the same time to strengthen quantitative expertise in the field of neuroscience. The course is sponsored by the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation from a grant supporting activities at the data sharing repository CRCNS.org, and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley. Format The course is ?hands on? in that it will include exercises in how to use and modify existing software tools and apply them to data sets, such as those available in the CRCNS.org repository. Course Instructors Robert Kass, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Maneesh Sahani, Gatsby Unit, University College London Odelia Schwartz, University of Miami Frederic Theunissen, University of California Berkeley Joshua Vogelstein, Johns Hopkins University Course Moderators Fritz Sommer and Jeff Teeters, Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. Speakers To complement the main course instruction there will be lectures in the evenings by local Berkeley and UCSF neuroscientists presenting their research using quantitative approaches. Requirements Applicants should be familiar with linear algebra, probability, differential and integral calculus and have some experience using MatLab and Python. Each student should bring a laptop with both MatLab and Python installed. Cost There is no cost to attend. Non-local attendees will be reimbursed for economy travel expenses (up to a maximum, probably about $500) and also for qualifying food expenses if receipts are provided. Housing Rooms in a nearby hotel will be provided for those attendees who need accommodations. Food Breakfast and some dinners will be provided to all participants as a group. Non-local attendees can purchase food at local stores or restaurants and be reimbursed. How to apply To apply, submit the online form linked from: http://crcns.org/course. A curriculum vitae and a letter of recommendation are required. The course is limited to 25 students. Deadlines Applications must be received by the end of April. Notifications of acceptance will be given by May 15. Questions Questions about the course can be sent to course [at] crcns.org. Topics covered (subject to change): Basic approaches: - The problem of neural coding - Spike trains, point processes, and firing rate - Statistical thinking in neuroscience - Theory of model fitting / regularization / hypothesis testing - Overview of stimulus-response function models - Theory of model fitting / regularization / hypothesis testing - Bayesian methods - Spike sorting - Estimation of stimulus-response functionals: regression methods, spike-triggered covariance, - Variance analysis of neural response - Estimation of SNR. Coherence Information theoretic approaches: - Information transmission rates - Scene statistics approaches and neural modeling Techniques for analyzing multiple-electrode and optical neural recordings: - Event sorting in electrophysiology and optical imaging - Optophysiology cell detection - Sparse coding/ICA methods, vanilla and methods including statistical models of nonlinear dependencies - Methods for assessing functional connectivity - Statistical issues in network identification - Low-dimensional latent dynamical structure in network activity?Gaussian process factor analysis/newer methods Analyzing structural data: - Histology cell detection - Statistical connectomics Neuroinformatics topics: - Petascale data storage, exploration, parsing and analysis - Introduction into Neurodata Without Borders data format for Neurophysiology -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sml at essex.ac.uk Mon Apr 18 08:45:00 2016 From: sml at essex.ac.uk (Lucas, Simon M) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 12:45:00 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD Studentships Message-ID: We have 3 fully funded PhD studentships available: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANJ233/phd-studentships-in-computer-science-and-electronic-engineering/ Closing date May 2. Best wishes, Simon Lucas Professor Simon Lucas Head of CSEE University of Essex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sahidullahmd at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 01:44:14 2016 From: sahidullahmd at gmail.com (Md Sahidullah) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2016 08:44:14 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: Short-term course on brain rhythms in IIT Kharagpur Message-ID: Dear all, IIT Kharagpur, India is organizing a short-term course on Brain Rhythms: Understanding, measurement, analysis and applications from 12.06.2016 to 23.06.2016. Please find more details in the link below: http://www.gian.iitkgp.ac.in/files/brochures/BR1458394002gsaha_IITKGP_GIAN_Brochure.pdf Thanking you with warm regards. Sahid -- Dr. Md Sahidullah Post-doctoral researcher School of Computing University of Eastern Finland Joensuu, P.O. Box 111 Finland- 80101 tel. +358-466250731 website: http://cs.joensuu.fi/~sahid/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From margret.franke at bccn-berlin.de Mon Apr 18 07:45:47 2016 From: margret.franke at bccn-berlin.de (Margret Franke) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 13:45:47 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Abstracts: Bernstein Conference 2016 In-Reply-To: <5714C843.8040609@bccn-berlin.de> References: <5714C843.8040609@bccn-berlin.de> Message-ID: <5714C8EB.8090502@bccn-berlin.de> Call for Abstracts: Bernstein Conference 2016 ************************************************************** Satellite Workshops September 20-21, 2016 Main Conference September 21-23, 2016 PhD Symposium September 23-24, 2016 ************************************************************** The Bernstein Conference started out as the annual meeting of the Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience and has become the largest annual Computational Neuroscience conference in Europe with more than 500 international participants in recent years. This year the conference is organized by the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin at the Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin. The main conference (Sep 21-23, 2016) will be accompanied by satellite workshops (Sep 20-21, 2016) and a PhD symposium (Sep 23-24, 2016). An important part of the main conference will be the two poster sessions. We are now inviting the submission of abstracts from all relevant areas. Authors of most accepted abstracts will get the chance for a poster presentation, a small number of abstracts will be selected for contributed talks during the main conference. Please note the earlier submission deadline for authors applying for a talk. All accepted abstracts will be published online and will be citable via Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). DETAILS FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: Please note that the submission of an abstract does not replace the conference registration (www.bernstein-conference.de/registration). Poster space is limited and early submission is encouraged. For abstract submission visit: http://g-node.org/abstracts/bc16/ ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINES: Posters to be considered as contributed talks: June 15, 2016 Other posters: August 1, 2016 NEW THIS YEAR ? TRAVEL GRANTS This year for the first time, the Bernstein Association offers Travel Grants for participation in the Bernstein Conference. Each of the 10 Travel Grants is endowed with 500 ?. Please find further information under the link: www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-conference/2016/travel-grant CONFERENCE DETAILS: Conference registration starts on May 2, 2016. Early registration deadline: July 24, 2016 Hotel rooms are relatively pricy and limited due to a huge trade fair at the same time. We offer a small contingent of hotel rooms close to conference venue on the conference website. Please book by yourself. VENUE Satellite Workshops and Main Conference: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin, Germany VENUE PhD Symposium: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Campus Nord, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Philippstr. 13 Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany VENUE Public Lecture: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Audimax, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin, Germany, September 21, 2016, 8 pm For more information on the conference, please visit the website http://www.bernstein-conference.de We are looking forward to welcoming you in Berlin! Local organizer: Michael Brecht Program chair: Richard Kempter Managing director: Margret Franke Co-Organizers: Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS): Andrea Huber Broesamle, Mareike Kardinal, Kerstin Schwarzwaelder -- Margret Franke Managing Director Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin Unter den Linden 6 10099 Berlin phone: (030) 2093-9110 fax: (030) 2093-6771 From j.jordan at fz-juelich.de Sun Apr 17 12:36:54 2016 From: j.jordan at fz-juelich.de (Jakob Jordan) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 18:36:54 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Summer School "Advanced Scientific Programming in Python" in Reading, UK, September 5--11, 2016 Message-ID: <5713BBA6.4090404@fz-juelich.de> Advanced Scientific Programming in Python ========================================= a Summer School by the G-Node, and the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have evolved, only few scientists have been trained to use them. As a result, instead of doing their research, they spend far too much time writing deficient code and reinventing the wheel. In this course we will present a selection of advanced programming techniques and best practices which are standard in the industry, but especially tailored to the needs of a programming scientist. Lectures are devised to be interactive and to give the students enough time to acquire direct hands-on experience with the materials. Students will work in pairs throughout the school and will team up to practice the newly learned skills in a real programming project ? an entertaining computer game. We use the Python programming language for the entire course. Python works as a simple programming language for beginners, but more importantly, it also works great in scientific simulations and data analysis. We show how clean language design, ease of extensibility, and the great wealth of open source libraries for scientific computing and data visualization are driving Python to become a standard tool for the programming scientist. This school is targeted at Master or PhD students and Post-docs from all areas of science. Competence in Python or in another language such as Java, C/C++, MATLAB, or Mathematica is absolutely required. Basic knowledge of Python and of a version control system such as git, subversion, mercurial, or bazaar is assumed. Participants without any prior experience with Python and/or git should work through the proposed introductory material before the course. We are striving hard to get a pool of students which is international and gender-balanced. You can apply online: https://python.g-node.org Application deadline: 23:59 UTC, May 15, 2016. Be sure to read the FAQ before applying. Participation is for free, i.e. no fee is charged! Participants however should take care of travel, living, and accommodation expenses by themselves. Travel grants may be available. Date & Location =============== September 5?11, 2016. Reading, UK Program ======= - Best Programming Practices ? Best practices for scientific programming ? Version control with git and how to contribute to open source projects with GitHub ? Best practices in data visualization - Software Carpentry ? Test-driven development ? Debugging with a debuggger ? Profiling code - Scientific Tools for Python ? Advanced NumPy - Advanced Python ? Decorators ? Context managers ? Generators - The Quest for Speed ? Writing parallel applications ? Interfacing to C with Cython ? Memory-bound problems and memory profiling ? Data containers: storage and fast access to large data - Practical Software Development ? Group project Preliminary Faculty =================== ? Francesc Alted, freelance consultant, author of PyTables, Spain ? Pietro Berkes, Enthought Inc., Cambridge, UK ? Zbigniew J?drzejewski-Szmek, Krasnow Institute, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA ? Eilif Muller, Blue Brain Project, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland ? Juan Nunez-Iglesias, Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative, University of Melbourne, Australia ? Rike-Benjamin Schuppner, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Germany ? Bartosz Tele?czuk, European Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience, CNRS, Paris, France ? St?fan van der Walt, Berkeley Institute for Data Science, UC Berkeley, CA, USA ? Nelle Varoquaux, Centre for Computational Biology Mines ParisTech, Institut Curie, U900 INSERM, Paris, France ? Tiziano Zito, freelance consultant, Germany Organizers ========== For the German Neuroinformatics Node of the INCF (G-Node) Germany: ? Tiziano Zito, freelance consultant, Germany ? Zbigniew J?drzejewski-Szmek, Krasnow Institute, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA ? Jakob Jordan, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Forschungszentrum J?lich GmbH, Germany For the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading UK: ? Etienne Roesch, Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, University of Reading, UK Website: https://python.g-node.org Contact: python-info at g-node.org -- Jakob Jordan Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) Computational and Systems Neuroscience & Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6) Theoretical Neuroscience J?lich Research Centre and JARA J?lich, Germany tel.: +49 2461 61-96450 http://www.csn.fz-juelich.de/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk Mon Apr 18 09:36:53 2016 From: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Dr Amir Hussain) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:36:53 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Cognitive Computation journal (Springer Nature): Vol.8, No.2 / April 2016 Issue [Table of Contents Alert] Message-ID: Dear Colleagues: (with advance apologies for any cross-postings) We are delighted to announce the publication of Volume 8, No.2 / April 2016 Issue, of (Springer Nature's) Cognitive Computation journal - www.springer .com/12559 ================================================================= Important News: Increased Impact Factor & Six bi-monthly Journal Issues since 2015 ================================================================= As you will know, Cognitive Computation was selected for coverage in Thomson Reuter?s products and services in 2011. Beginning with V.1 (1) 2009, this publication is now indexed and abstracted in: ? Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch?) ? Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition ? Current Contents?/Engineering Computing and Technology ? Neuroscience Citation Index? Cognitive Computation received its first Impact Factor (IF) in 2011 The IF for 2014/15 has increased to 1.44 (with a first five year IF 1.7) - Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports? 2014 Many congratulations to the editors, reviewers and authors! Want to be part of the growing success? Visit the journal homepage (http:// springer.com/12559) for instructions on submitting your research. ================================= Quarterly to Bi-monthly Issues, since 2015!! ================================= Due to continuously growing number of high quality submissions, the number of Issues has increased from four (quarterly Issues) to six (bi-monthly Issues) each year, since Feb 2015! ================================= The April 2016 Issue comprises two invited papers, the first by Yew-Soon Ong et al. (titled: Evolutionary Multitasking: A Computer Science View of Cognitive Multitasking) and the second by Zidong Wang et al. (titled: A Novel Switching Delayed PSO Algorithm for Estimating Unknown Parameters of Lateral Flow Immunoassay). These are followed by 10 regular papers, and finally a Special Issue titled: "Cognitively-Inspired Computing for Gerontechnology" (comprising five manuscripts, with the Guest Editorial available for free download here: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12559-016-9392-x.pdf ). The full listing of published articles (Table of Contents) for this April 2016 Issue can be viewed here (and also at the end of this message, followed by an overview of the previous Issues/Archive listings): http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/8/2/ A list of the journal's Open Access articles can be found here: *http://link.springer.com/search?query=&search-within=Journal&facet-journal-id=12559&package=openaccessarticles * Other 'Online First' published articles not yet in a print issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/121361/?Content+Status=Accepted All previous Volumes and Issues of the journal can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12559 ======================================== Reminder: Cognitive Computation "LinkedIn" Group: ======================================== To further strengthen the bonds amongst the interdisciplinary audience of Cognitive Computation, we have set-up a "Cognitive Computation LinkedIn group", which has over 800 members already! We warmly invite you to join us at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3155048 For further information on the journal and to sign up for electronic "Table of Contents alerts" please visit the Cognitive Computation homepage: http://www.springer.com/12559 or follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/CognComput for the latest On-line First Issues. For any questions with regards to LinkedIn and/or Twitter, please contact Springer's Publishing Editor: Marleen Moore: Marleen.Moore at springer.com Finally, we would like to invite you to submit short or regular papers describing original research or timely review of important areas - our aim is to peer review all papers within approximately six-eight weeks of receipt. We also welcome relevant high quality proposals for Special Issues - two are already planned for 2016! With our very best wishes to all aspiring readers and authors of Cognitive Computation. Professor Amir Hussain, PhD (Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) E-mail: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Professor Igor Aleksander, PhD (Honorary Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) (Imperial College, London, UK) http://www.springer.com/12559 NEW: Open Access Springer Nature/BioMed Central (BMC) journal: Big Data Analytics (http://www.bdataanalytics.com/) - Now accepting submissions! NEW: Springer Series on Socio-Affective Computing: http://www.springer.com/series/13199 Also consider your work for related Book Series: SpringerBriefs on Cognitive Computation: http://www.springer.com/series/10374 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ???????????Table of Contents Alert -- Cognitive Computation Vol 8 No 2, April 2016 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Invited Papers* Evolutionary Multitasking: A Computer Science View of Cognitive Multitasking Yew-Soon Ong & Abhishek Gupta http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-016-9395-7 A Novel Switching Delayed PSO Algorithm for Estimating Unknown Parameters of Lateral Flow Immunoassay Nianyin Zeng, Zidong Wang, Hong Zhang & Fuad E. Alsaadi http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-016-9396-6 *Regular Papers* Automated Fictional Ideation via Knowledge Base Manipulation Maria Teresa Llano, Simon Colton, Rose Hepworth & Jeremy Gow http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9366-4 Distributed Divergent Creativity: Computational Creative Agents at Web Scale Tony Veale & Guofu Li http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9337-9 Computational Drafting of Plot Structures for Russian Folk Tales Pablo Gerv?s http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9338-8/ Range?Angle-Dependent Beamforming for Cognitive Antenna Array Radar with Frequency Diversity Abdul Basit, Ijaz Mansoor Qureshi, Wasim Khan & Aqdas Naveed Malik http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9348-6 Combining Expression Data and Knowledge Ontology for Gene Clustering and Network Reconstruction Wei-Po Lee & Chung-Hsun Lin http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9349-5 A Hybrid Vigilance Monitoring Study for Mental Fatigue and Its Neural Activities Lei Cao, Jie Li, Yifei Xu, Huaping Zhu & Changjun Jiang http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9351-y Novel Approach Using Echo State Networks for Microscopic Cellular Image Segmentation Boudjelal Meftah, Olivier L?zoray & Abdelkader Benyettou http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9354-8 Cognitive Computation of Compressed Sensing for Watermark Signal Measurement Huimin Zhao & Jinchang Ren http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9357-5 A Novel Hybrid Text Summarization System for Punjabi Text Vishal Gupta & Narvinder Kaur http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9359-3 Autonomous Agents and Ethical Decision-Making Jos?-Antonio Cervantes, Luis-Felipe Rodr?guez, Sonia L?pez, F?lix Ramos & Francisco Robles http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9362-8 *Special Issue Cognitively-Inspired Computing for Gerontechnology* Cognitively-Inspired Computing for Gerontechnology Antonio Fern?ndez-Caballero, Pascual Gonz?lez & Elena Navarro http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-016-9392-x Assistive Technologies for Older Adults in Urban Areas: A Literature Review Anna K?tteritzsch & Benjamin Weyers http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9355-7 An Interactive Fuzzy Inference System for Teletherapy of Older People Arturo C. Rodr?guez, Cristina Roda, Francisco Montero, Pascual Gonz?lez & Elena Navarro http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9356-6 Mobile Conversational Agents for Context-Aware Care Applications David Griol & Zoraida Callejas http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9352-x Software Architecture for Smart Emotion Recognition and Regulation of the Ageing Adult Jos? Carlos Castillo, ?lvaro Castro-Gonz?lez, Antonio Fern?ndez-Caballero, Jos? Miguel Latorre, Jos? Manuel Pastor, Alicia Fern?ndez-Sotos & Miguel A. Salichs http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-016-9383-y Integrated e-Healthcare System for Elderly Support Pedro Pires, Lu?s Mendes, Jorge Mendes, R?ben Rodrigues & Ant?nio Pereira http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9367-3 ------------------------------------------------ Previous Issues/Archive: Overview: ----------------------------------------------- All previous Volumes and Issues can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12559 Alternatively, the full listing of the Inaugural Vol. 1, No. 1 / March 2009, can be viewed here (which included invited authoritative reviews by leading researchers in their areas - including keynote papers from London University's John Taylor, Igor Aleksander and Stanford University's James McClelland, and invited papers from Ron Sun, Pentti Haikonen, Geoff Underwood, Kevin Gurney, Claudius Gross, Anil Seth and Tom Ziemke): http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/1/ The full listing of Vol. 1, No. 2 / June 2009, can be viewed here (which included invited reviews and original research contributions from leading researchers, including Rodney Douglas, Giacomo Indiveri, Jurgen Schmidhuber, Thomas Wennekers, Pentti Kanerva and Friedemann Pulvermuller): http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/2/ The full listing of Vol.1, No. 3 / Sep 2009, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/3/ The full listing of Vol. 1, No. 4 / Dec 2009, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/4/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 1 / March 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/1/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 2 / June 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/2/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 3 / Aug 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/3/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 4 / Dec 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/4/ The full listing of Vol.3, No.1 / Mar 2011 (Special Issue on: Saliency, Attention, Active Visual Search and Picture Scanning, edited by John Taylor and Vassilis Cutsuridis), can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/1/ The Guest Editorial can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/hu2245056415633l/ The full listing of Vol.3, No.2 / June 2011 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/2/ The full listing of Vol. 3, No. 3 / Sep 2011 (Special Issue on: Cognitive Behavioural Systems, Guest Edited by: Anna Esposito, Alessandro Vinciarelli, Simon Haykin, Amir Hussain and Marcos Faundez-Zanuy), can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/3/ The Guest Editorial for the special issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4718567520t2h84/ The full listing of Vol. 3, No. 4 / Dec 2011 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/4/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.1 / Mar 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/1/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.2 / June 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/2/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.3 / Sep 2012 (Special Issue on: Computational Creativity, Intelligence and Autonomy, Edited by: J. Mark Bishop and Yasemin J. Erden) can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/3/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.4 / Dec 2012 (Special Issue titled: "Cognitive & Emotional Information Processing", Edited by: Stefano Squartini, Bj?rn Schuller and Amir Hussain, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/4/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.1 / March 2013 Special Issue titled: Computational Intelligence and Applications Guest Editors: Zhigang Zeng & Haibo He, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/1/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.2 / June 2013 Special Issue titled: Advances on Brain Inspired Computing, Guest Editors: Stefano Squartini, Sanqing Hu & Qingshan Liu, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/2/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.3 / Sep 2013 Special Issue titled: In Memory of John G Taylor: A Polymath Scholar, Guest Editors: Vassilis Cutsuridis & Amir Hussain, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/3/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.4 / Dec 2013, which includes regular papers (including an invited paper by Professor Ron Sun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA, titled: Moral Judgment, Human Motivation, and Neural Networks), and a Special Issue titled: Advanced Cognitive Systems Based on Nonlinear Analysis. Guest Editors: Carlos M. Travieso and Jes?s B. Alonso, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.1 / Mar 2014, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/1/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.2 / June 2014, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/2/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.3 / Sep 2014, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/3/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.4 / Dec 2014 (Special Issue on Modeling emotion, behaviour and context in socially believable robots and ICT interfaces, Guest Editors: Anna Esposito, Leopoldina Fortunati, and Giuseppe Lugano) can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 7, No.1 / Feb 2015 can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/1/ (with the first six papers part of a Special Issue on "Neural Signal Processing", Guest Edited by: Jordi Sole?-Casals, Francois-Benoit Vialatte, Justin Dauwels. The Guest Editorial titled: "Alternative Techniques of Neural Signal Processing in Neuroengineering" is available (for free download) here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9317-0) The full listing of Vol. 7, No. 2 / April 2015, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/2/ This comprises a Special Issue on "Sentic Computing", Guest Edited by: E. Cambria and A. Hussain. The Guest Editorial titled: "Sentic Computing" is available (for free download) here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9325-0 The full listing of Vol. 7, No. 3 / June 2015, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/3/ The full listing of Vol. 7, No. 4 / August 2015, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/4/ This comprises an invited paper by A. Vinciarelli and A. Esposito, et al. titled: Open Challenges in Modelling, Analysis and Synthesis of Human Behaviour in Human?Human and Human?Machine Interactions, which is followed by six regular papers. The full listing of Vol. 7, No. 5 / October 2015, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/5/ The full listing of Vol. 7, No.6 / December 2015, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/6/ This comprises a Special Issue titled: "Dealing with Big Data-Lessons from Cognitive Computing" (the Guest Editorial is available for free download here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9364-6). This is followed by seven regular papers, including an invited paper by Hojjat Adeli et al. titled: "Nature Inspired Computing: An Overview and Some Future Directions" (free download available here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9370-8) The full listing of Vol. 8, No.1 / February 2016, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/8/1// This comprises an invited paper by Ron Sun et al. titled: "Emotion: A Unified Mechanistic Interpretation from a Cognitive Architecture" (this is available for free download here: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12559-015-9374-4.pdf). This is followed by eight regular papers. ------------------------------ The University is ranked in the QS World Rankings of the top 5% of universities in the world (QS World University Rankings, 2014) The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -- The University achieved an overall 5 stars in the QS World University Rankings 2015 The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zheng at fias.uni-frankfurt.de Wed Apr 13 13:09:40 2016 From: zheng at fias.uni-frankfurt.de (Zheng) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 13:09:40 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP- Frontiers Research Topic: Cortico-striato-nigro-thalamo-cortical Modeling for Understanding Motor Function and Neurodegenerative Disease Message-ID: <570E7D54.4060000@fias.uni-frankfurt.de> To whom it may concern: In collaboration with Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, we are organizing a Research Topic titled "Cortico-striato-nigro-thalamo-cortical Modeling for Understanding Motor Function and Neurodegenerative Disease?, hosted by Pengsheng Zheng, James Kozloski, Timothy Rumbell, George V. Rebec. As host editor, I would like to encourage you to contribute to this topic. Please find more information about Research Topics below, including the publishing fees that apply. You can also visit the homepage we have created on the Frontiers website, which defines the focus of the topic, and where all published articles will appear. http://frontiersin.org/Computational_Neuroscience/researchtopics/Cortico-striato-nigro-thalamo-cortical_Modeling_for_Understanding_Motor_Function_and_Neurodegenerative_Disease/4744 Movement in the body is directly controlled by motor cortex, and also determined by multiple subcortical structures, such as thalamus and the basal ganglia (including striatum and dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra). Many lines of evidence have suggested the cortico-striato-nigro-thalamo-cortical circuitry plays a major role in motor learning and control. This circuitry has also been investigated for its causal role in the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases. Neurodegenerative diseases are often associated with movement disorders and neuronal dysfunction in degenerated brain structures, such as the striatum in Huntington?s disease and dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta in Parkinson's disease. Degeneration fundamentally changes the dynamics of local neuronal circuits, and these changes then propagate through the structural connectome of whole brain circuitry, eventually altering global brain dynamics. However, our current understanding of these system dynamics in the cortico-striato-nigro-thalamo-cortical circuitry remains rudimentary. Hence, theoretical studies about critical system variables and computational principles of this circuitry, constrained by recordings throughout, will shed new light on causes of motor dysfunction and neurodegenerative diseases. This Research Topic of Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience aims to bring together recent advances in theoretical modeling of cortico-striato-nigro-thalamo-cortical network and experimental observations. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, local brain circuit modeling, the functional role of neuronal plasticity in the local and global circuit, global circuit interactions and information exchange, new models validated by experimental observations, and dynamic disease risk analysis through perturbation studies. Best regards, Pengsheng Zheng zhengp at us.ibm.com T.J. Watson Research Center 1101 Kitchawan Rd., 13-114A Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de Wed Apr 20 10:33:23 2016 From: wermter at informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Wermter, Stefan) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:33:23 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [jobs] Postdoc-level in Intelligent Adaptive Systems (including neural networks, nlp and robotics) Message-ID: <57179333.4080901@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> The Knowledge Technology Research Group at the University of Hamburg invites applications for a Research Associate (Postdoc or postdoc-level/final year PhD candidate) in accordance with Section 28 of the Hamburg Higher Education Act (Hamburgisches Hochschul- gesetz, HmbHG). The position commences on 1 July 2016 or as soon as possible and is for three years plus a three year extension option. Responsibilities: Duties include teaching and research in the knowledge technology institute. Research associates can also pursue independent research and further academic qualifications as well as acquire teaching experience. These duties are intended to promote academic achieve- ment. Therefore, at least one-third of set working hours will be made available for the associate's own academic work. Specific Duties: The successful candidate will manage the international Master Pro- gramme in the field of MSc Intelligent Adaptive Systems as well as contribute to its teaching (4hrs/teaching week). Furthermore, the candidate is expected to conduct research in the area of Knowledge Technology and Intelligent Systems. This post is open to Postdocs or postdoc-level PhD candidates. PhD candidates have the opportunity to advance their academic education through the completion of a doctoral dissertation. Requirements: Academic degree preferably in computer science qualifying the post holder to carry out the above-mentioned responsibilities. In particu- lar, an MSc or PhD in Artificial Intelligence or Computer Science is essential. Your demonstrated research interests should be in the areas of Knowledge Technology and Intelligent Systems (e.g. Neural Networks, Cognitive Robotics, Natural Language Processing, Vision, or Knowledge Representation ). You should have published papers in this intelligent systems field. We are also looking for very good com- munication skills and teamwork; a very good command of both German and English is a requirement. Experience with teaching or organisation of MSc programmes is considered an advantage. The job is remunerated at the salary level TV-L 13. The position is full-time and comprises 39 hours per week. The fixed-term nature of this contract is based upon Section 2 of the Academic Fixed-Term Labor Contract Act (Wissenschaftszeitver- tragsgesetz, WissZeitVG). The initial fixed term is three years. The contract provides for a maximum extension of another three years de- pending on the associate's achievements during the first stage. The University aims 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 the Hamburg Equality Act (Hamburgisches Gleichstellungsgesetz, HmbGleiG). Severely disabled applicants will receive preference over equally qualified non-disabled applicants. In case of questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Stefan Wermter, Head of Knowledge Technology Institute or consult our website at https://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/wtm/. Applications should include an application letter, full curriculum vitae, pdf of best international publications, copies of degree certificates and transcripts. The application deadline is 6 May 2016. Please email applications in a single pdf file to: Ms Katja Koesters, katja.koesters at informatik.uni-hamburg.de *********************************************** Professor Dr. Stefan Wermter Chair of Knowledge Technology Institute 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 tarek.besold at googlemail.com Thu Apr 21 10:20:14 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 17:20:14 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd Call for Papers: 11th International Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy) 2016 (NYC, July 16 & 17, 2016) Message-ID: <3071FF5E-6257-4CBB-A2C8-60420E9E5641@googlemail.com> == 11th INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON NEURAL-SYMBOLIC LEARNING AND REASONING (NeSy?16) == Location: New York City, USA Date: July 16 & 17, 2016 Website: http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ --------------- NeSy?16 is part of HLAI 2016, the Joint Multi-Conference on Human-Level Artificial Intelligence (http://www.hlai2016.org ) --------------- == REGISTRATION IS OPEN == Registration is handled via the Online Store of the City University London. Early-bird registration is open until Juni 25, 2016, at a price of 75,- GBP (approx. US$110). Late registration from June 26, 2016, is possible at a price of 125,- GBP (approx. US$180). Registration for NeSy?16 covers the participation in the workshop itself and the indicated keynote lectures, as well as an entrance ticket to the general HLAI 2016 reception and poster session on the evening of July 17, 2016. Please go to http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ in order to register for NeSy?16. == KEYNOTE SPEAKERS == Leon Bottou (Facebook AI Research, U.S.A.) Gary Marcus (New York University & Geometric Intelligence Inc., U.S.A.) == CALL FOR PAPERS == Artificial Intelligence researchers continue to face huge challenges in their quest to develop truly intelligent systems. The recent developments in the field of neural-symbolic integration bring an opportunity to integrate well-founded symbolic artificial intelligence with robust neural computing machinery to help tackle some of these challenges. The Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning is intended to create an atmosphere of exchange of ideas, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of the key topics related to neural-symbolic integration. Topics of interest include: ? The representation of symbolic knowledge by connectionist systems; ? Neural Learning theory. ? Integration of logic and probabilities, e.g., in neural networks, but also more generally; ? Structured learning and relational learning in neural networks; ? Logical reasoning carried out by neural networks; ? Integrated neural-symbolic learning approaches; ? Extraction of symbolic knowledge from trained neural networks; ? Integrated neural-symbolic reasoning; ? Neural-symbolic cognitive models; ? Biologically-inspired neural-symbolic integration; ? Applications in robotics, simulation, fraud prevention, natural language processing, semantic web, software engineering, fault diagnosis, bioinformatics, visual intelligence, etc. == Submission == Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit original papers that have not been submitted for review or published elsewhere. Submitted papers must be written in English, must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS style, and should not exceed 10 pages (excluding references/bibliography) in the case of research and experience papers, and 6 pages (excluding references/bibliography) in the case of position papers or technical notes. All submitted papers will be judged based on their quality, relevance, originality, significance, and soundness. Papers must be submitted through EasyChair (please see http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ for details). Additionally, for the first time presentations based on extended abstracts will be considered. These shall allow to report on latest results which had not been available at the time of paper submission. Therefore, the abstract deadline is significantly closer to the workshop date. Extended abstracts may not exceed 2 pages (including references/bibliography) and should aim to give a good impression of the type of work conducted, the achieved results and their importance for the field. == Presentation == Selected papers will be presented during the workshop. The workshop will include extra time for audience discussion of the presentation allowing the group to have a better understanding of the issues, challenges, and ideas being presented. == Publication == Accepted papers will be published in official workshop proceedings within the CEUR-WS.org series. Authors of the best papers will be invited to submit a revised and extended version of their papers to the newly-established corresponding track of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR). Accepted abstracts will also be included in the official workshop proceedings. If judged appropriate after presentation and discussion during the workshop, full papers based on the abstracts may also be invited to the JAIR track. == Important Dates == Deadline for paper submission: May 25, 2016 Notification of paper acceptance/rejection: June 15, 2016 Deadline for abstract submission: June 20, 2016 Notification of abstract acceptance/rejection: June 24, 2016 Camera-ready paper due: July 1, 2016 Workshop day: July 16 & 17, 2016 HLAI 2016 conference: July16-19, 2016 == Workshop Organisers == Tarek R. Besold (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy) Whitney Tabor (University of Connecticut, U.S.A.) Luciano Serafini (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy) Luis Lamb (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) == Programme Committee == Antoine Bordes (Facebook AI Research, U.S.A.) Artur d?Avila Garcez (City University London, UK) James Davidson (Google Inc., U.S.A.) Robert Frank (Yale University, U.S.A.) Ross Gayler (Melbourne, Australia) Ramanathan Guha (Google Inc., U.S.A.) Steffen H?lldobler (TU Dresden, Germany) Thomas Icard (Stanford University, U.S.A.) Kristian Kersting (TU Dortmund, Germany) Kai-Uwe K?hnberger (Universit?t Osnabr?ck, Germany) Simon Levy (Washington and Lee University, U.S.A.) Stephen Muggleton (Imperial College London, UK) Isaac Noble (Google Inc., U.S.A.) Andrea Passerini (University of Trento, Italy) Christopher Potts (Stanford University, U.S.A.) Daniel L. Silver (Acadia University, Canada) Ron Sun (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, U.S.A.) Jakub Szymanik (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Serge Thill (University of Skovde, Sweden) Michael Witbrock (Cycorp & Lucid.ai, U.S.A.) Frank van der Velde (University of Twente, The Netherlands) == ADDITIONAL INFORMATION == General questions concerning the workshop should be addressed to TarekRichard.Besold at unibz.it . For additional information, please see the workshop website at http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy16/ . For additional information on HLAI 2016 in general, please see the general website at http://www.hlai2016.org or the HLAI 2016 Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/hlaiconference/ . The neural-symbolic integration mailing list will be used for announcements and discussions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From odobez at idiap.ch Thu Apr 21 13:41:58 2016 From: odobez at idiap.ch (Jean-Marc Odobez) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 19:41:58 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: JOB: IDIAP/EPFL (CH) - PhD positions in Machine Learning & Vision and for Human-Robot Message-ID: <571910E6.2090602@idiap.ch> The Idiap Research Institute (www.idiap.ch), a laboratory associated with EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, www.epfl.ch) seeks qualified candidates in computer vision and machine learning for multi-modal interaction modeling. Context: The research will be conducted in the context of MuMMER (MultiModal Mall Entertainment Robot), a 4-year EU Horizon 2020 funded project involving several leading European institutions in the field. The project will develop a humanoid robot (based on Aldebaran's Pepper platform) able to engage and interact autonomously and naturally with individuals or groups or people. To support this behaviour, the project consortium will develop and integrate new methods from audiovisual scene processing, social-signal processing, high-level action selection, and human-aware robot navigation. See http://www.mummer-project.eu/ PhD position and requirements: The research conducted at Idiap will focus on the sensing part, but with an HRI flavor, like better accounting for robot gestures, active sensing to reduce perception uncertainties or exploiting soft priors coming from communication and dialog models, etc. Within a team of two to three PhD students/postdocs, the PhD student is expected to advance the state-of-the-art in this field. The work will be oriented towards vision/depth processing, and the modeling of upper-body and face representation for the design of head detectors/trackers, landmark or eye alignements, or non-verbal behavior extraction methods appropriate at different depth ranges like for gaze (see for instance prior work in http://www.idiap.ch/project/g3e/). These work will rely on previous experience ans software developed in the context of previous projects. The ideal Ph.D student should have a master in computer science, engineering, or applied mathematics. S/he should have a good background in mathematics, statistics, and programming (C/C++, Python). Prior experience or background in statistical learning theory, computer vision or robotics will be a plus. The successful PhD candidate will become a doctoral student at EPFL (http://www.epfl.ch) provided that s/he is accepted by the Doctoral School at EPFL (http://phd.epfl.ch/applicants). Appointment for the PhD position is for a maximum of 4 years. Annual gross salary ranges from 48,000 CHF (first year) to 52,000 CHF (last year). The starting date is as early as possible. Application: For more information, please contact Dr Jean-Marc Odobez (odobez at idiap.ch, www.idiap.ch/~odobez). Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, a detailed CV, and the names of three references (or recommendation letters). About IDIAP: ------------ Idiap is an independent, non-profit research institute recognized and supported by the Swiss Government, and affiliated with the Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne (EPFL). It is located in the town of Martigny in Valais, a scenic region in the south of Switzerland, surrounded by the highest mountains of Europe, and offering exciting recreational activities, including hiking, climbing and skiing, as well as varied cultural activities. It is within close proximity to Geneva and Lausanne. Although Idiap is located in the French part of Switzerland, English is the working language. Free French lessons are provided. Idiap offers competitive salaries and conditions at all levels in a young, dynamic, and multicultural environment. Idiap is an equal opportunity employer and is actively involved in the "Advancement of Women in Science" European initiative. -- Jean-Marc Odobez, IDIAP & EPFL Senior Researcher (EPFL MER) IDIAP Research Institute (http://www.idiap.ch) Tel: +41 (0)27 721 77 26 Web: http://www.idiap.ch/~odobez From Anthony.Pipe at uwe.ac.uk Wed Apr 20 10:49:15 2016 From: Anthony.Pipe at uwe.ac.uk (Tony Pipe) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:49:15 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Professor in Embedded Cognitive AI for Robotics at Bristol Robotics Laboratory Message-ID: <571796EB.2040409@uwe.ac.uk> The Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) research-and-innovation pipeline is now experiencing unprecedented growth, evidenced by substantial new research opportunities appearing across the UK and EU funding landscape. You will champion an exciting new research theme in BRL; embedded cognitive AI for robots engaged in close-proximity Human-Robot Interaction. You will build up an expert team by utilising the existing world-renowned resources at BRL, and by creating new ones. We have identified two critical application domains in which to pursue this work: i) Health-Care Technologies (HCT) focused on robotics for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), including elderly/infirm care, rehabilitation, pre and post cancer surgery support; ii) Advanced Flexible Manufacturing (AFM) including Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and elements of ?Industrie 4.0?. BRL already has an excellent internationally recognised track record in these areas, including strong connection into the related UK, EU and international research and advanced industrial communities, but critical work remains to be done. You will bring your expert knowledge to bear on our existing work in bi-directional multi-modal interactions between a human and a robot to develop a robot ?theory of mind? in order for the machine to build notions of human wants and expectations, as well as modelling its own Beliefs, Desires and Intentions. Along with the ability to vary levels of autonomy to suit a given interaction context, these are vital issues in making robots genuinely helpful, supportive and natural to interact with and, ultimately, acceptable to users. To achieve the urgently required advances in these areas, you will ideally have an established track record in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for complex on-line cognition, requiring sophisticated interaction with humans during task execution. However, we welcome applications from gifted researchers from strongly linked disciplines who are fully committed to developing the area of research outlined above. Please note, this role is equivalent to a Full Professor role at a US University. Closing date: 31 May 2016 Salary: negotiable For more information, visit: http://www.brl.ac.uk/jobsatbrl.aspx (towards the bottom of that address there is a "How to apply" link). Tony Pipe Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems Deputy Director: Bristol Robotics Laboratory Anthony.Pipe at uwe.ac.uk www.brl.ac.uk From lucio.marcenaro at unige.it Fri Apr 22 04:51:46 2016 From: lucio.marcenaro at unige.it (Lucio Marcenaro) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 10:51:46 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 2 PhD open positions for the Joint Doctoral Programme in Interactive and Cognitive Environments (JD ICE) - University of Genova (Italy) and Queen Mary University of London Message-ID: <46f3f073-857f-aec7-0204-2aa87112211e@unige.it> *Two PhD scholarships* are available within the *Joint Doctoral Programme in Interactive and Cognitive Environments* (JD ICE) that is a PhD programme organised by the Department of Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications Engineering and Naval Architecture at *University of Genoa* (http://www.isip40.it/) and the Centre for Intelligent Sensing at *Queen Mary University of London* (http://cis.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/) . _*General Information*_* *Applications are invited for *2 PhD open position*. JD ICE provides PhD training in the fields of multimedia signal processing, data fusion, computer vision, cognitive dynamic systems and machine learning, and offers advanced research projects designed for ambitious students willing to become word-leading researchers. PhD students will benefit from a joint-supervision model and will spend part of their PhD programme in the London, UK and part in Genoa, Italy. The ISIP40 group, active in the DITEN department in the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Genoa has focused its attention mostly on: * Cognitive Dynamic Systems * Multisensor Signal Processing for Surveillance * Software and Cognitive Radio * Bayesian Object and Situation assessment * Interactive and Cognitive Environments _*Open Positions for Ph.D. (Dottorato di Ricerca)*__* *_ 2 positions (3 years) starting at the beginning of November 2016; expiration date for first level applications: May 15th, 2016 _* Research Areas:*_ /*Dynamic Bayesian networks for heterogeneous signal processing for modeling, understanding and recognizing anomalous events in crowded environments*//* */this research theme will study novel signal processing techniques based on probabilistic graphical models and dynamic Bayesian networks for understanding crowd dynamics and detecting potentially dangerous situations /*Compressed sensing based approach for dynamic opportunistic transmission in cognitive radio devices*//* */this research theme will study algorithms and methods based on compressed sensing theory as enabler for cognitive radio terminals for opportunistic spectrum usage to optimize transmission rate and external attack robustness _*Applications:*__* *_ Applications are invited for 2 PhD open positions, starting at the November 2015 with ISIP40 research group (http://www.isip40.it/) of the Department of Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications Engineering and Naval Architecture (DITEN), University of Genova ? Genova (ITALY). *Requirements:** * 1. Laurea Vecchio Ordinamento or Laurea Specialistica degree for Italian applicants in one of the following fields (or another relate field); Master of Science or equivalent degree for applicants from abroad: * Telecommunication Engineering * Electronic Engineering * Information Engineering * IT * Computer Science (or Laurea degree in Informatica) 2. Basic knowledge in the following topics: * Signal Processing * Communication Systems * Pattern Recognition * Image/Video Processing * English knowledge *Deadline for applying:* The interested applicants please apply not later than *May 15th, 2016*. *How to apply?** *The application is divided into two phases. In the *first phase *the interested applicants should send their complete C.V. and two recommendation letters to Professor Lucio Marcenaro, e-mail: lucio.marcenaro at unige.it In the *second phase*, applicants whose CV fits with requirements will be encouraged and advised to present an application for the official admission competition at Genoa University on line application closing on June 10th, 2016 (https://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ENG/). Candidates will have to take admission interview with a inter/university commission on July 5th 2016 at 9.30 AM to obtain the PhD position. *PhD economic conditions** *The research grant consists of about 16.5Keuro/year *Notes:* 1. A *complete C.V. *must contain at least the education degrees and the related information, experiences (both academic and non-academic), projects, list of publications, and every other things you think can be useful 2. If you have not graduated yet, provide some information about the probable graduation date. 3. If you have some publications, you can also send some of the important ones together with your CV. 4. You can also send any other information that you think can be useful and effective for your profile. -- *Lucio Marcenaro, PhD* Assistant Professor Signal Processing & Telecommunications Group Department of Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications Engineering and Naval Architecture (DITEN) Via all'Opera Pia 11, 16145 Genova (Italy) Ph. +39 010 3532060 |Mob. +39 3482360850 Email: lucio.marcenaro at unige.it -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca Thu Apr 21 14:02:12 2016 From: bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca (bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 14:02:12 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CIFAR grant for young faculty Message-ID: Hello, CIFAR invites outstanding early-career researchers to join one of nine research programs which address some of the most complex challenges facing the world today. The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program provides funding and support to help you build your research network and develop essential skills at this important time in your career. As a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, you?ll receive: A two-year appointment to a CIFAR research program $100,000 CDN in undesignated research support Specialized leadership and communications training Scholars are appointed to a research program, becoming part of a global network of leading researchers pursuing answers to some of the most difficult challenges facing the world today. You?ll forge new collaborations with mentors and colleagues from diverse disciplines. Experts will help you hone your leadership and communication skills to prepare you to be an influential leader within academia and beyond. For more information, see http://www.cifar.ca/global-scholars/ ? Yoshua Bengio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Giulio.Sandini at iit.it Wed Apr 20 04:46:32 2016 From: Giulio.Sandini at iit.it (Giulio Sandini) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 08:46:32 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD positions: Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Message-ID: We are seeking candidates for eight fully funded PhD positions at the Italian Institute of Technology's Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department (RBCS - www.iit.it/rbcs ) directed by Giulio Sandini. The fellowships give access to the PhD course "Bioengineering and Robotics" offered by the University of Genova and specifically to the "Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies" Curriculum. Deadline for Applications is June 10, 2016 at noon, Italian Time. The objective of the PhD program is to form scientists and research technologists capable of working in multidisciplinary teams on projects where human factors play a crucial role in technological development and design. Robotics and neuroscience researchers in RBCS share, as a fundamental scientific objective, the study of physical and social interaction in humans and machines (www.iit.it/rbcs ). More specifically the themes supported by PhD fellowships in this Curriculum are part of RBCS studies on human sensorimotor, cognitive and social interaction abilities, their implementation in the humanoid robot iCub, and on the design and assessment of assistive technologies and robotic rehabilitation devices for persons with disabilities. Among the topics offered one is left open to applicant's bright ideas (see the BYO theme in the list). RBCS research facilities supports our student's research activities including the realization of ad-hoc experimental set-ups and mechatronic devices. The experimental facilities include, besides the humanoid platform iCub, a fully equipped motion capture room with simultaneous electromyography recording and force-platforms, a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab, an Electrophysiology Lab for EEG recording, haptic devices for ergonomic measures of individual and dyadic interaction, robot rehabilitation devices for the upper limbs including the wrist; The ideal candidates are students with a higher level university degree willing to invest extra time and effort in blending into a multidisciplinary team composed of neuroscientists, engineers, psychologists, physicists working together to investigate brain functions and realize intelligent machines, rehabilitation protocols and advanced prosthesis. The list of the themes offered by the curriculum Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies can be downloaded here: https://www.iit.it/110-phd-program-in-biorob-cognitive-robotics-2016 [PDF] Applicants are strongly encouraged to get in touch with the tutors of the specific themes before completing the submission or with Giulio Sandini. International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues, relocation, etc. =========================================================================== How to apply Application deadline: 10 June 2016, Noon, Italian time =========================================================================== Please note that the positions are available through the PhD course of Bioengineering and Robotics, curriculum on Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies, offered jointly by IIT and the University of Genoa. The official calls are available here: https://www.iit.it/phd-school under the section "Research themes for the call for application to PhD Courses established in agreement with the Universit? degli Studi di Genova, XXXII cycle". Please have a look at the "tips and tricks" section of this page which contains detailed instructions on how to apply and a list of documents to be presented. The link to the on-line application page is: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ In case of problems or questions related to the application procedure, please contact: anastasia.bruzzone at iit.it =========================================================================== LIST OF THEMES OFFERED (tutors within brackets) Detailed descriptions are here: https://www.iit.it/110-phd-program-in-biorob-cognitive-robotics-2016 [PDF] =========================================================================== 1. INTERACTION AND GRASP FORCE IN HANDWRITING AND DEXTEROUS ACTION (Gabriel Baud-Bovy) 2. UNTANGLING FORCES PERCEPTUALLY IN HUMAN-HUMAN PHYSICAL INTERACTION (Gabriel Baud-Bovy) 3. VISUO-HAPTIC EXPLORATION STRATEGIES FOR OBJECT RECOGNITION (Alessandra Sciutti, Francesco Rea, Giulio Sandini) 4. MAKE HUMANOIDS UNDERSTAND HUMAN ACTIONS (Alessandra Sciutti, Francesco Rea, Giulio Sandini) 5. MULTISENSORY HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION (Alessandra Sciutti, Francesco Rea, Giulio Sandini) 6. ROBOT TECHNOLOGIES FOR EVALUATION OF SENSORIMOTOR IMPAIRMENT AND NEUROMOTOR REHABILITATION (Jacopo Zenzeri, Prof. Pietro Morasso) 7. MOTOR SKILL LEARNING IN DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTS (Jacopo Zenzeri, Prof. Pietro Morasso) 8. FROM SCIENCE TO TECHNOLOGY FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED CHILDREN (Monica Gori) 9. CORTICAL MECHANISMS OF MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS WITH AND WITHOUT VISUAL DISABILITY (Monica Gori, Giulio Sandini) 10. SPATIAL AWARENESS THROUGH EGOCENTRIC ON-BODY TACTILE STIMULATION (Luca Brayda, Fabrizio Leo) 11. IMPROVING ORIENTATION AND MOBILITY SKILLS IN VISUALLY IMPAIRED PERSONS BY MEANS OF PROGRAMMABLE TACTILE DISPLAYS (Luca Brayda, Fabrizio Leo) 12. BYO: BRING YOUR OWN (PROJECT) (Giulio Sandini) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From btuller at nsf.gov Tue Apr 19 14:18:12 2016 From: btuller at nsf.gov (Tuller, Betty K.) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 18:18:12 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Program Director Positions at NSF Message-ID: Two Program Officer positions are being advertised at the National Science Foundation: Cognitive Neuroscience Program Director: BCS is seeking a Program Director for the Cognitive Neuroscience program. The Cognitive Neuroscience Program aims to spur the development of highly novel theories, techniques and models directed toward enabling basic scientific understanding of a broad range of issues involving brain, cognition, and behavior. Research will provide insights into healthy functions of brain, cognition, and behavior. Additionally, the program highly values the exploration of new methodologies, utilization of the latest analytic approaches, and the convergence of cutting edge techniques for addressing basic questions about human cognition. For additional information, see:https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/435126100?org=BCS Science of Learning Program Director: The Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) at NSF is seeking a Program Director in the Science of Learning, who could also contribute to the management of the Development and Learning Sciences Program. Over the years, the Division has successfully supported research on learning across many scales of analysis, drawing on perspectives from many fields including cognitive and behavioral sciences, social science, engineering, biology, neuroscience, mathematics and physical sciences, computer science, machines learning and artificial intelligence. Attention is now turned to planning the next phase of Science of Learning investments, vis-?-vis the Developmental and Learning Sciences program, to continue the advancement of fundamental knowledge about learning. For additional information, see: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/435131500?org=BCS Betty Tuller, Ph.D. Director, Program in Perception, Action, and Cognition National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Blvd Arlington, VA 22230 Tel: 703.292.7238 Fax: 703.292.9068 1) A new Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide is now available at http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf16001 2) The PAC program has additional requirements for submission: Please go to the website at http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5686 3) Other items of potential interest to the PAC community are listed on the PAC website. NOTE: New solicitation for Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf16508. Interested in serving as a Program Officer at NSF? Visit: http://www.nsf.gov/about/career_opps/rotators/microsite/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From silvio.sabatini at unige.it Fri Apr 22 12:13:48 2016 From: silvio.sabatini at unige.it (Silvio P. Sabatini) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 18:13:48 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?Fully_funded_PhD_position=2C_University?= =?utf-8?q?_of_Genoa=2C_Italy_=E2=80=93_=22Computational_Neuroengineering?= =?utf-8?q?=22?= Message-ID: <571A4DBC.8000008@unige.it> Applications are invited for one full-time PhD studentship for a period of 3 years, at the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics, and System Engineering (DIBRIS), University of Genoa, Italy. The position will start on Nov 1st, 2016 on the following research project: *Sensory processing in large-scale hierarchical networks of interacting neuronal assemblies* Feed-forward networks provide a minimal framework to study coding and decoding strategies as well as to interpret certain aspects of cortical information processing. Following this architectural paradigm, deep networks have been proposed to specialize for different perceptual tasks, for taking decisions, or planning motor acts. However, such networks rely on an over-simplification in which single nodes model homogeneous population of cells and connections represent average interactions among populations (i.e., meta-network approach). The proposed project aims to increase the complexity and the realism of this model by designing and analyzing the behavior of large-scale hierarchical network of interacting neuronal assemblies. Each node should be modeled as an assembly composed of excitatory and inhibitory neurons with their own dynamics. The neurons of each assembly will respond to properties of the visual signal through their afferent receptive fields. Yet, their overall behavior will emerge from recurrent interactions, and will be ruled by network-parameters, like balance between excitation and inhibition, kind of connectivity, number of neurons of each of these assemblies. The goal is to develop a new model and to investigate the role of specific vs. unspecific inhibition on the tuning properties of the single cells, and on the efficiency of the code provided by the emerging functionally homogeneous populations, and on their attendant adaptation capabilities. The dynamic properties of the network will be analyzed in relation with the interconnections topology, and eventually related to its sensory processing capabilities. The research will be conducted at the NBT and PSPC labs of DIBRIS, under the joint guidance of Paolo Massobrio and Silvio P. Sabatini. Successful applicants would have a background (M.Sc. degree) in bioengineering, computer science, physics or related disciplines; strong interest in computational neuroscience; attitude for problem solving. Interests in understanding/learning basic biology. Essential skills comprise Matlab and/or C++/C# programming. Experience in computational neuroscience is a plus. * HOW TO APPLY Candidates must have: - a University degree at Master level (or expect to obtain it by October 31st, 2016) in Bioengineering, Computer Science, Physics or related disciplines; - strong interest in computational neuroscience; attitude for problem solving. Interests in understanding/learning basic biology. - Essential skills comprise Matlab and/or C++/C# programming. Experience in computational neuroscience is a plus. Online application is possible till June 10th, 2016 (at noon) Italian time Full details on the call and the application procedure are available at: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ENG/ http://phd.dibris.unige.it/biorob/index.php/how-to-apply Prospective students, please contact either Paolo Massobrio (paolo.massobrio at unige.it) or Silvio P. Sabatini (silvio.sabatini at unige.it) providing your CV and qualifications, the name and contact details of two references, and a description of your research interests. * WHERE NBT-Lab has a recognized experience in the field of in vitro electrophysiology (gained through several national and international projects), computational neuroscience and neuroengineering. Currently, the main goal of the lab is the understanding of the interplay between dynamics and connectivity in large-scale neuronal networks. PSPC-Lab has a long-standing expertise in visual coding and multidimensional signal representation, robot perception and computer vision. In the last years, the lab?s research activity focused on the analysis of the structural mechanisms of visuo-spatial cognition, responsible for orienting and interacting in the 3D space. Our labs are located in Genova, a small beautiful town in northern Italy, both from historical (its historical center is the largest of Europe) and naturalistic point of view (sea and mountains coexist creating a unique landscape). Genova is only 1.30h away from Milan by train and connected by plane to Rome (1.00h), London (2h) and Paris (1.30h). Regards, -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Silvio P. SABATINI, PhD [PSPC Research Group] Professor of Bioengineering DIBRIS - University of Genova | e_mail:silvio.sabatini at unige.it Via Opera Pia, 11A | phone: +39 010 3532092/3532794 I-16145 Genova (ITALY) | fax: +39 010 3532289/3536533 URL:http://pspc.unige.it --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Imagination is more important than knowledge..." [Albert Einstein] From m.reske at fz-juelich.de Wed Apr 20 10:49:18 2016 From: m.reske at fz-juelich.de (Martina Reske) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:49:18 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?Open_PhD_position_in_Juelich=2C_Germany?= =?utf-8?q?=3A_=E2=80=9CFrom_spike_trains_to_whole-brain_dynamics_?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=93_Bottom-up_and_top-down_processing_during_active_visio?= =?utf-8?b?buKAnQ==?= Message-ID: <571796EE.3000605@fz-juelich.de> Dear colleagues We have an open PhD student position in our collaborative project entitled ?From spike trains to whole-brain dynamics ? Bottom-up and top-down processing during active vision? to fill. This project addresses the question how visual input is processed in extremely short time cycles of fixations and saccades through interaction of various cortical areas. MEG recordings from human subjects performing free viewing tasks will allow for the simultaneous observation of neuronal activities from different cortical areas during active vision. Analysis of subjects? performance and brain activity on these visual tasks enables us to study the information flow through various cortical areas, and to identify top-down components interacting with bottom-up processes. What we expect from you: ? We seek for a highly motivated candidate with curiosity and persistence ? A preferable candidate will have background and strong Master degree in physics, neuroscience, electrophysiology, biology, computer science or a closely related field of natural science, preferably in the field of MEG/EEG biophysics, data acquisition and analysis, biostatistics, MEG/EEG biophysics or signal processing ? Obligatory: excellent educational records in the related field, good programming and data processing skills, time series analysis and M/EEG source estimation ? Substantial expertise in scientific programming (preferable languages: Python, C, C++ ) and substantial knowledge of Linux and Windows ? Strong motivation to carry out neuroimaging studies utilizing MEG and to perform source and connectivity analysis ? Beneficial: basic knowledge of neuroscience concepts ? Ability and willingness to work independently and proactively ? Confident appearance and ability to work cooperatively in an interdisciplinary environment ? Good interpersonal and communication skills, structured and systematic working style ? Fluent in English (spoken and written); beneficial: knowledge of German The candidate will primarily be based at the J?lich Research Center. What we offer: We offer a position in a creative and international team, themes ranging from computational neuroscience, simulation technology and multimodal imaging, see www.csn.fz-juelich.de and http://www.fz-juelich.de/inm/inm-4/EN/Forschung/MEG-Physik/_node.html. The J?lich Research Center is one of the largest research centers in Germany, with excellent scientific equipment, located on a green campus, and near the cultural centers K?ln, D?sseldorf, and Aachen. The PhD position is available for 3 years. Applications, including a letter clearly motivating your application, CV, publication list, copies of university certificates, and one reference letter should be sent as a single PDF email attachment (max. 10MB) mentioning the internal reference code CSC-GID latest until May 31st , 2016, to should be sent to: Dr. Juergen Dammers (d.dammers at fz-juelich.de). Project leaders will be: Prof. Dr. Sonja Gr?n (INM-6/IAS-6), Dr. Junji Ito (INM-6/IAS-6), Dr. J?rgen Dammers (INM-4) Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6, INM-4), Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6), J?lich Research Center and JARA52425 J?lich, Germany, www.csn.fz-juelich.de -- Dr. Martina Reske Scientific Coordinator Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) Computational and Systems Neuroscience & Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6) Theoretical Neuroscience J?lich Research Centre and JARA J?lich, Germany Work +49.2461.611916 Work Cell +49.151.26156918 Fax +49.2461.619460 www.csn.fz-juelich.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From juergen at idsia.ch Fri Apr 22 11:24:54 2016 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 17:24:54 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?PostDoc_Jobs_2016=3A_RNNAIssance_=26_?= =?utf-8?b?ImxlYXJuaW5nIHRvIHRoaW5r4oCd?= Message-ID: <31FBB059-0688-48FF-97A1-85CC36CDA4A0@idsia.ch> Join the Deep Learning team (since 1991) that won more competitions than any other. We are seeking postdocs for the project RNNAIssance based on this tech report on "learning to think:? http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.09249 . The project is about general purpose artificial intelligence for agents living in partially observable environments, controlled by reinforcement learning recurrent neural networks (RNNs), supported by unsupervised predictive RNN world models. Location: The Swiss AI Lab, IDSIA, in Switzerland, the world?s leading science nation, and most competitive country for the 7th year in a row. Competitive Swiss salary. Preferred start: As soon as possible. Interviews: Berlin (April 29 - May 1), NYC (May 2-7), Beijing (May 12-13), London (May 17-20), or in Switzerland, or by video. More details and instructions can be found here: http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnnai2016.html Juergen Schmidhuber http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/whatsnew.html ? From J.Bowers at bristol.ac.uk Fri Apr 22 06:07:12 2016 From: J.Bowers at bristol.ac.uk (J Bowers) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 11:07:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Post-Doc and PhD positions Message-ID: A postdoctoral Research Associate (Post-Doc) and PhD. student are required for the Leverhulme Trust-funded project entitled ?When and Why Do Neural Networks Learn Selective Codes??. In this project we aim to characterise the tasks and conditions in which a range of neural networks, including popular ?deep networks?, learn highly selective representations. To this end we will train networks on various tasks and then carry out analyses of the hidden units to determine the nature of the learned representations. The results of these simulations will provide clues as to why neurons in brains often respond in a highly selective manner. You woud be working with Jeffrey Bowers and Colin Davis at the University of Bristol, UK. Neither the post-doc nor PhD student needs to be from the EU, but the PhD post only pays for EU fees (plus a stipend). For more information see: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANM863/research-associate/ http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANM389/phd-studentship-selective-representation/ Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Thu Apr 21 04:14:23 2016 From: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de (Kerstin Schwarzwaelder) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 10:14:23 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Reminder: Valentino Braitenberg Award for Computational Neuroscience - Call for Nominations In-Reply-To: <571887FF.7040407@fz-juelich.de> References: <571887FF.7040407@fz-juelich.de> Message-ID: <57188BDF.9010202@fz-juelich.de> Dear Colleagues, Please let me remind you that the Bernstein Association for Computational Neuroscience invites nominations for the Valentino Braitenberg Award for Computational Neuroscience. The award is biannually presented by the Bernstein Association to a scientist in recognition of outstanding research that contributes to our understanding of the functioning of the brain. The major criterion for the award is the impact or potential impact of the recipient's research on the field of brain science. In the spirit of Valentino Braitenberg's research, special emphasis is given to theoretical studies elucidating the functional implications of brain structures and their neuronal network dynamics. The awardee receives a ?5.000 prize donated by the Autonome Provinz Bozen S?dtirol as well as complimentary participation (registration, travel, and hotel accomodation) in the Bernstein Conference 2016. Here, the prize is awarded together with a Golden Neuron pin badge in a special ceremony that includes the Valentino Braitenberg lecture given by the awardee. Nominations may be submitted by scientists working in the field of Computational Neuroscience and should include the following documents: - One-page laudation, in which the scientific work of the candidate is honored with regard to the award's criteria - CV and list of publications Deadline for nominations is April 30, 2016 by e-mail to an.huber at fz-juelich.de The call for nominations can be found under the followingn URL: www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-association/valentino-braitenberg-award-for-computational-neuroscience For inquiries please contact an.huber at fz-juelich.de Best regards, Andrea Huber Br?samle -- Dr. Kerstin Schwarzw?lder Scientific Coordination / Management Officer Please note: Our email addresses have changed. Please use k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience | Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Branch Office of the Forschungszentrum J?lich at the University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9A | 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: (+49) 0761 203 9589 mail: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de web: www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Braitenberg Award_Call_2016.pdf Type: text/x-pdf Size: 1469523 bytes Desc: not available URL: From k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Thu Apr 21 08:57:43 2016 From: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de (Kerstin Schwarzwaelder) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 14:57:43 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for applications: Brains for Brains Young Researchers' Computational Neuroscience Award 2016 Message-ID: <5718CE47.5070208@fz-juelich.de> Dear colleagues, for the seventh time, the Bernstein Association for Computational Neuroscience is announcing the "Brains for Brains Young Researchers' Computational Neuroscience Award". The call is open for researchers of any nationality who have contributed to a peer reviewed publication (as coauthor) or peer reviewed conference abstract (as first author) that was submitted before starting their doctoral studies, is written in English and was accepted or published in 2015 or 2016. The award is endowed with a travel grant of 2.000 ? to cover a trip to Germany, including participation in the Bernstein Conference 2016 in Berlin (www.bernstein-conference.de), and an individually planned visit to up to two German research institutions in Computational Neuroscience. Deadline for application is May 20, 2016 (5:00 p.m. CET). Detailed information about the application procedure can be found under: www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-association/brains-for-brains-2016 For inquiries please contact bernstein.network at fz-juelich.de Best regards, Kerstin Schwarzw?lder -- Dr. Kerstin Schwarzw?lder Scientific Coordination / Management Officer Please note: Our email addresses have changed. Please use k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience | Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Branch Office of the Forschungszentrum J?lich at the University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9A | 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: (+49) 0761 203 9589 mail: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de web: www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carsten.mehring at biologie.uni-freiburg.de Sat Apr 23 04:05:51 2016 From: carsten.mehring at biologie.uni-freiburg.de (Carsten Mehring) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2016 10:05:51 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: MSc program in Neuroscience - University of Freiburg, Germany Message-ID: <18708539-7759-4B24-A750-11A597806150@biologie.uni-freiburg.de> MSc program in Neuroscience - University of Freiburg, Germany We are inviting applications for the interdisciplinary MSc program in Neuroscience at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The program provides theoretical and practical training in neuroscience, covering both the foundations and latest research in the field. It is taught by lecturers from an international scientific community from three faculties and two neuroscience research centres. The modular course structure caters to the specific backgrounds and research interests of each individual student and we offer specialisations in computational neuroscience, neuro-/optophysiology, neurotechnology and developmental neuroscience. All courses are taught in English and the program is free of tuition fees. We welcome applications with a background in natural sciences, mathematics, behavioural sciences, computer science or engineering sciences. The deadline for applications for a start in October 2016 is the 15th of July (EU students) or the 31st of May (non-EU students). Further details can be found on our homepage http://www.mscneuro.uni-freiburg.de Please contact mscneuro at uni-freiburg,de for further questions. With best regards Carsten Mehring ? Bernstein Center Freiburg & Faculty of Biology University of Freiburg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de Mon Apr 25 03:18:28 2016 From: compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de (Compsens) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:18:28 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?POSTDOC_/_PHD_POSITION_NEURAL_REPRESENT?= =?utf-8?q?ATION_OF_SOCIAL_INTENTION=2C_T=C3=BCbingen_Germany?= Message-ID: <20160425091828.Horde.cLZVOXUksVNzTk6vx59xh1Y@webmail.uni-tuebingen.de> POSTDOC / PHD POSITION: NEURAL REPRESENTATION OF SOCIAL INTENTION (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tuebingen, Germany) ============================================================ The Section for Computational Sensomotorics at the Center for Integrative Neurosciences (CIN) and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research (HIH) at the University of Tuebingen invites applications for a Postdoc or a PhD student with a good mathematical background for a maximum duration of 3 years. The position is funded by a collaborative grant by the Human Frontiers Science Foundation (HFSP) as part of a collaborative project together with together with the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) and Ohio State University (OSU). The work will focus on the development of neural theories for the processing of social signals and their verification by psychophysical experiments, and in collaboration electrophysiological and fMRI experiments. What we offer: -------------- * The HIH is among the top institutions for clinical brain research in Europe and hosts 350 researchers working on different aspects of brain function, and their impairments in disease; the CIN is a leading research facility for systems neuroscience in Germany that was funded as part of the Excellence Initiative of the German government; it includes more than 80 groups from the University and the Max Planck Institutes working on neuroscience; also, the lab is part of the Bernstein Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience in T?bingen * High-end research facilities, including advanced motion capture technology (VICON), VR and augmented reality setups, game engines, state-of-the art equipment for the measurement, modeling, and analysis of human movements and social signals, including advanced methods for the generation of highly-realistic human and animal avatars * close integration with many experimental groups in T?bingen, e.g. working on physiology in nonhuman primates and rodents, relevant problems in neurology and psychiatry, and computational neuroscience * possibility of taking courses and teaching in all fields of neuroscience within the Graduate Training Center for Neuroscience, which offers about 40 courses in molecular, behavioral, and neural information processing * close interactions with high-profile research partners in Europe, Israel, and the US in the fields of systems neuroscience, clinical neuroscience, and robotics What we are looking for: ------------------------- * a highly-motivated individual with enthusiasm for research and capable of self-driven pursuing of the solution of difficult problems; high motivation to learn missing skills quickly * Masters (PhD) degree in Computer Science, Electrical / Mechanical / Biomedical Engineering, Physics, or related fields * strong mathematical background and programming skills (at least in C or Java); willingness to learn relevant techniques and software products (e.g. for computer animation, deep learning, or the simulation of spiking networks) * interest in social neuroscience, computational vision, and detailed neural circuits at the level of single cells * English speaking and writing skills. People without ambition in science who primarily look for a temporary job at a university are discouraged from applying. Committed to Equal Opportunities. Interested people should send their application, including a CV, all marks form studies, 2 letters of reference, and a research statement of about one half page (explaining how their skills might support a project about the understanding neural basis of the processing of social signals in the brain) to: Prof. Dr. Martin Giese Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de ================================================== Section for Theoretical Sensomotorics Dept. for Cognitive Neurology Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience University of Tuebingen Otfried-M?ller Str. 25 D-72076 Tuebingen GERMANY Tel.: +49 7071 2989124 Fax: +49 7071 294790 Email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de Web: http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ ============================================== -- Mirjana Angelovska Abt. Kognitive Neurologie Sektion f?r theoretische Sensomotorik AG Prof. Giese Universit?tsklink T?bingen Centrum f?r Integrative Neurowissenschaften Hertie Institut f?r klinische Hirnforschung Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25 72076 T?bingen Tel: + 49 (0)7071-2989137 Fax: + 49 (0)7071-294790 e-mail:compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de From J.deGreeff at tudelft.nl Mon Apr 25 09:15:53 2016 From: J.deGreeff at tudelft.nl (Joachim de Greeff) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:15:53 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Position in Human-Robot Teamwork @ Delft University of Technology Message-ID: <571E1889.9070805@tudelft.nl> Dear all, At Delft University of Technology, we are looking for a PhD candidate with a background in computer science/Artificial Intelligence, experience with semantic web languages and ontology design, and experience with human-robot interaction. The PhD project is part of the EU project Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Robot-Assisted Disaster Response (TRADR; see http://www.tradr-project.eu/). Using a human-centred design methodology, we develop decision support for human-robot teams to assist in disaster response efforts over multiple sorties during a mission. Semantic web technologies will be used to make the experience of the team persistent and to support establishing situation awareness within a team of human operators and robots over multiple, possibly asynchronous sorties. An ontological knowledge base and agent-based reasoning mechanisms are being developed to harmonise the team's work and information processes with the available human-robot resources and the dynamic context of these sorties. The focus of the PhD will be on the development of tools to enhance team awareness and to support coordination of the human-robot team. Part of the work will therefore involve developing the display logic of a user interface for exchanging and sharing information within the team. The situational awareness tools and components will be integrated into the cognitive agent framework that supports coordination of the team. The goal of this work is to establish a more seamless interaction between robots and humans in human-robot teamwork situations. Deadline for application May 31. Please visit http://ii.tudelft.nl/?q=node/8201 for more information on how to apply. -- ______________________________________________ Dr Joachim de Greeff - Postdoctoral researcher EU FP7 TRADR project (http://tradr-project.eu) Delft University of Technology Interactive Intelligence Group Delft, The Netherlands ______________________________________________ From J.Spencer at uea.ac.uk Mon Apr 25 16:00:50 2016 From: J.Spencer at uea.ac.uk (John Spencer (PSY)) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 20:00:50 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: post-doc in computational neuroscience and development... Message-ID: FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA Senior Research Associate (1fte) ?31,342 to ?37,394 per annum, pro rata This role offers an exciting opportunity to be involved in innovative experimental research with young children as well as extensive process-based modelling using dynamic neural fields. The programme aims to test the first formal theory of early word learning that integrates visual object processing and word learning across multiple timescales. The successful applicant will work closely with Profs. Larissa Samuelson and John Spencer. You will take a lead role in the project, coordinating dynamic neural field simulations and related theory development, developing and running experiments with young children, and analysing and reporting data. The post is available on a full-time (1fte) basis from 15 June 2016 for a fixed term period until 31 May 2020. The post is subject to a criminal records check at enhanced level from the Disclosure and Barring Service. Closing date: 12 noon on 21 May 2016. Further particulars and an application form are available on our website: www.uea.ac.uk/hr/vacancies/ or Tel. 01603 593493 John P. Spencer, PhD Professor School of Psychology, Room 0.09 Lawrence Stenhouse Building, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ United Kingdom Email: j.spencer at uea.ac.uk School website: http://www.uea.ac.uk/psy Telephone 01603 593968 [cid:image001.png at 01D09851.EF67E200] UK Top 20 (16th Complete University Guide 2015, 18th Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2015-16) UK 2nd for Student Satisfaction (National Student Survey 2015) World Top 1% (Times Higher Education World Rankings 2015-16) World Top 100 (Leiden Ranking 2015) [facebook] [twitter-old] [tumblr] [flickr] [linkedin] [youtube] [cid:image008.png at 01CF8BB5.50024060] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: F504CEB3-062D-40A4-B03A-6930FDDE7273[26].png Type: image/png Size: 3767 bytes Desc: F504CEB3-062D-40A4-B03A-6930FDDE7273[26].png URL: From terry at salk.edu Sat Apr 23 21:40:04 2016 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2016 18:40:04 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - May 1, 2016 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Volume 28, Number 5 - May 1, 2016 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/28/5 ----- Article Causal Inference on Discrete Data via Estimating Distance Correlations Furui Liu, Laiwan Chan Note A Mathematical Motivation for Complex-valued Convolutional Networks Mark Tygert, Joan Bruna, Soumith Chintala, Yann LeCun, Serkan Piantino, and Arthur Szlam Letters Learning Precise Spike Train to Spike Train Transformations in Multilayer Feedforward Neuronal Networks Arunava Banerjee Separating Spike Count Correlation From Firing Rate Correlation Giuseppe Vinci, Valerie Ventura, Matthew A. Smith, and Robert E. Kass Effect of Reference Scheme on Power and Phase of the Local Field Potential Vinay Shirhatti, Ayon Borthakur, and Supratim Ray State Space Analysis of Granger-Geweke Causality With Application to fMRI Victor Solo Whole-Body Reaching Movements Formulated by Minimum Muscle-Tension Change Criterion Naoki Kudo, Kyuheong Choi, Takahiro Kagawa, and Yoji Uno Recurrent Neural Network for Computing Outer Inverse Ivan S. Zivkovic, Predrag S. Stanimirovic, and Yimin Wei ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2016 - VOLUME 28 - 12 ISSUES Student/Retired $78 Individual $138 Institution $1,108 MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209 Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-cs at mit.edu ------------ From mvzaanen at uvt.nl Tue Apr 26 07:57:18 2016 From: mvzaanen at uvt.nl (Menno van Zaanen) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 13:57:18 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Job opening: PhD "The Relationship between Engagement, Motivation, and Success in MOOCs" Message-ID: <20160426115718.GS24013@pinball.uvt.nl> The Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication (TiCC) has a vacancy for a PhD candidate on the project "The Relationship between Engagement, Motivation, and Success in MOOCs" The Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication (TiCC), one of five Centers of Excellence at Tilburg University, invites applications for 4 PhD positions, on the following projects: 1. Improving the Effectiveness of Web-based Health Interventions by Data-Driven Timely Feedback 2. Efects of Linguistic Cues on Impression Formation in Online Dating 3. Picture this! An interdisciplinary approach to examining how visual consumer-generated content shapes the persuasion process 4. The Relationship between Engagement, Motivation, and Success in MOOCs These four projects were selected by an international assessment committee. Project 4: The Relationship between Engagement, Motivation, and Success in MOOCs --------------------------------------------------------------- This project will investigate the relationship between engagement, motivation and success in the context of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). We are interested in identifying measures that provide insight in whether MOOC participants are motivated to finish the MOOC and how this information is contained in participants' engagement with the MOOC. Engagement may be measured through user data, including click rates, number of problems attempted, and completion rate. Measuring motivation may require alternative means, such as heartbeat, respiration rates, or changes in skin and body temperature, although questionnaires may also provide insight. The analysis of the wide range of measurements will be done using data analysis, or data mining techniques. Requirements ------------ We seek enthusiastic candidates with a background in a relevant discipline, including (in alphabetical order) Affective Science, Cognitive Science, Communication & Information Sciences, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Psychology, or a related area. The successful candidates have a (Research) Master's degree in one of the aforementioned areas, a strong interest in doing research, excellent writing skills and a good command of English. In addition, the candidates have proven experience with experimental research, and are well-versed in modern statistical techniques. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the research projects, the successful candidate is willing and able to work across disciplinary boundaries. Good skills in data mining, data handling and data analysis are required. Experience with physiological measurements and/or developing MOOCs are considered a plus. Information ----------- For more information on this specific project, please contact dr. Menno van Zaanen (m.m.vanzaanen at tilburguniversity.edu). For general information on the 4 positions, please contact prof.dr. Emiel Krahmer (E.J.Krahmer at tilburguniversity.edu), scientific director of the Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication (TiCC). What we offer ------------- Tilburg University is rated among the top Dutch employers, offering excellent terms of employment. The collective labour agreement of Tilburg University applies. The PhD project will be carried within the Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication (TiCC), one of the five centers of excellence at Tilburg University. TiCC combines two strong research programs: Creative Computing (CC), including research in Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, and Intelligent Systems, and Language, Communication and Cognition (LCC), including research in Cognitive Science, Communication and Discourse Studies. The unique combination of these two research programs enables TiCC to work on research projects in which computer-based techniques of modelling and processing (big) data are combined with experimentally elicited human data. The PhD candidate will be ranked in the Dutch university job ranking system (UFO) as a PhD-student (promovendus) with a starting salary of ??? 2.174.-- gross per month in the first year, up to ??? 2.779,-- in the fourth year (amounts fulltime). The selected candidates will start with a contract for one year, concluded by an evaluation. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining three years. It is also possible to work 80% instead of fulltime. The selected candidate is expected to have written a PhD thesis by the end of the contract (which may be based on articles). Applications ------------ Applications should include: - A cover letter, - Curriculum Vitae, - Copy of the university marks (grade list), - Names of two references. Applications should be sent before the application deadline of May 21, 2016. Starting dates are flexible. You can apply online by following this link: http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/about-tilburg-university/working-at/wp/ Via this link you can also find the 3 other PhD-vacancies. Tilburg School of Humanities ---------------------------- Tilburg School of Humanities (TSH) conducts scientific research and education in the fields of Communication and Information Sciences, Philosophy, Religious studies and Language and Culture studies. The School of Humanities features three departments, several research institutes and a faculty office. Each year around 275 students commence a Bachelor or (Pre) Master Program. The School has approximately 1300 students and 250 employees. Recruitment code ---------------- Tilburg University applies the recruitmentcode of the Dutch Association for Personnel Management & Organization Development (NVP). Disclaimer ---------- The text of this vacancy advertisement is copyright-protected property of Tilburg University. Use, distribution and further disclosure of the advertisement without express permission from Tilburg University is not allowed, and this applies explicitly to use by recruitment and selection agencies which do not act directly on the instructions of Tilburg University. Responses resulting from recruitment by non-contractors of Tilburg Universities will not be handled. ------------------------ Watch me wallabys feed mate. - Menno van Zaanen - Watch me wallabys feed. - mvzaanen at uvt.nl - They're a dangerous breed mate. - ilk.uvt.nl/~mvzaanen - So watch me wallabys feed. ------------------------ -Rolf Harris From yonvisell at gmail.com Sat Apr 23 19:03:44 2016 From: yonvisell at gmail.com (Yon Visell) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2016 16:03:44 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position at UC Santa Barbara Message-ID: <6C49F0E4-68E8-46BD-9CF4-C4D7794C456F@gmail.com> We are seeking a highly creative and motivated postdoctoral fellow to work in the RE Touch Lab (http://www.re-touch-lab.com), College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, within a multidisciplinary team of roboticists, engineers, and scientists. The successful candidate will undertake research aimed at illuminating biomechanical mechanisms of sensory information processing in the upper limb. We are using novel instrumentation, 3D imaging techniques, and computational modeling, in order to characterize sensory information processing associated with soft tissue dynamics in the whole limb, including signals associated with multi-digit grasping and manipulation. The results will guide the design of new interactive technologies with applications in VR and robotics. We are interested in candidates with possible expertise in a number of potential areas, including any of the following: - Perception; Decision theory - Signal processing - Probabilistic and computational models of behavior - Deformable image registration Consideration will be given to candidates with strong quantitative skills and a recent (< 5 years) PhD in a relevant field (computational neuroscience, psychology, computer science, engineering, etc). A PhD is required. Salary will be highly competitive. The RE Touch Lab is affiliated with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (http://ece.ucsb.edu) and the Media Arts and Technology Graduate Program (http://www.mat.ucsb.edu), an interdisciplinary program at the convergence of art, multimedia and engineering. The lab is physically integrated in the UCSB California NanoSystems Institute - A unique institution combining multiple Engineering departments at UCSB, and whose faculty include Nobel Prize winners, Fields Medal winners, Technical Academy Award winners, and multiple National Academy of Science members. With world-class facilities set in a beautiful mediterranean climate on the California shore, the University of California, Santa Barbara College of Engineering is rated among the top 10 in the world. Interested parties should contact Professor Yon Visell for information. Applicants are asked to a CV, copies of relevant publications, and contact information for at least three references. The Department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching and service. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. _________________________________________________________ Yon Visell, PhD Assistant Professor University of California, Santa Barbara Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Media Arts & Technology Graduate Program Mechanical Engineering Department www.re-touch-lab.com Mobile: +1 267 800 8960 _________________________________________________________ From lorincz at inf.elte.hu Sat Apr 23 08:47:07 2016 From: lorincz at inf.elte.hu (Andras Lorincz) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2016 12:47:07 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Application Call: Head of Data Science and Engineering Department In-Reply-To: References: <570435C8.8080203@sandia.gov> <57053A29.8020808@imperial.ac.uk>, Message-ID: Application Call Head of Data Science and Engineering Department ELTE Faculty of Informatics (ELTE FI) in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs), establishes industry driven, R&D&I oriented department in order to carry out research, development and teaching in data science and data engineering theory, technologies and their applications. For further details, see: https://www.academics.com/science_jobs/head_f_m_of_data_science_and_engineering_department_125419.html Please share with anyone who might be interested. Thanks, Andras _________________________ Andras Lorincz ECCAI Fellow email: lorincz at inf.elte.hu home: http://people.inf.elte.hu/lorincz bio: http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.andras.lorincz Department of Software Technology and Methodology Eotvos Lorand University Budapest, Hungary -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naotsu at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 12:26:34 2016 From: naotsu at gmail.com (Naotsugu Tsuchiya) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:26:34 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: postdocotral fellowship: empirical testing of integrated information theory with neural recordings Message-ID: Advertisement: Postdoctoral position at Monash University, Australia. A postdoctoral position is available to work on a JST (Japan Science and Technology) funded CREST research project on ?Towards constructing artificial consciousness based on the integrated information theory (IIT)? (PIs: Kanai, Kawanabe and Maekawa, Co-PIs: Tsuchiya and Oizumi), which started in Oct 2015 and will run for 5.5 years till Mar 2021. The initial appointment will be for one year, with renewal based upon satisfactory performance and evaluation. Salary will be commensurate with experience. We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow whose main research interest is the neuronal basis of consciousness, the analysis of multi-channel neural data and the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness, in order to empirically test predictions from IIT in real neural systems For those who are interested, please check out the following key papers for the project. 1. Measuring integrated information from the decoding perspective http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004654 2. A unified framework for information integration based on information geometry http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.04455 3. Contents of Consciousness Investigated as Integrated Information in Direct Human Brain Recordings http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/15/039032 You will be employed at Araya Brain Imaging (CEO: Kanai) in Japan, but the actual location of work will be conducted at A/Prof NaotsuguTsuchiya's lab in Monash University, Australia. There will be some travels between Japan and Australia at least twice a year to maximise interactions within the team in Japan. Required skills: excellent programming, familiarity in key mathematical concepts especially machine learning and information theory. Excellence in written and oral English communication skills, as supported by objective publication recorded, will be essential. Monash University, one of the eight top universities in Australia (G8), is forming a strong cluster of consciousness researchers, called Monash Neuroscience of Consciousness (MoNoC http://ochinpun.wix.com/monoc#!who_we_are/c139r) ranging from philosophers, neurophysiologists, and psychologists. We are located in the building with excellent cognitive neuroscience tools available (simultaneous EEG & fMRI experiments and EEG/TMS & fMRI experiments at Monash Brain Imaging facility, which hosts a research-only MRI scanner, EEG, TMS and eye tracking. http://mbi.monash.edu.au/) Interested candidates are encouraged to send a CV, statement of research accomplishments and interests, PDF copies of representative publications, and contact information for 2 reference letters to: naotsugu.tsuchiya at monash.edu Application review will begin immediately and continue until the positions are filled. Best wishes, Nao Tsuchiya -- -- *Nao (Naotsugu) Tsuchiya* Associate Professor *Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences* Attention and Memory Program School of Psychological Sciences Monash University 770 Blackburn Monash Brain Imaging facility, Clayton, VIC 3800 Australia T: +61 3 9905 4564 E: naotsugu.tsuchiya at monash.edu W: homepage: http://users.monash.edu.au/~naotsugt/Tsuchiya_Labs_Homepage http://med.monash.edu.au/psych/email-sig/miccn-email-sig.jpg 2. ARC Future Fellow 3. Visiting Researcher at Department of Dynamic Brain Imaging, Advanced Telecommunications Research (ATR), Japan 4. Visiting Researcher at CiNet, Osaka University, Japan orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-8701 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From poirazi at imbb.forth.gr Sat Apr 23 04:09:13 2016 From: poirazi at imbb.forth.gr (Yiota Poirazi) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2016 11:09:13 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: DENDRITES 2016, June 18-21, Crete: EMBO travel fellowships Message-ID: <571B2DA9.1000501@imbb.forth.gr> Please post this announcement on the connectionists list. Thanks much! Yiota Poirazi ----------------------- Dear colleagues, We are happy to announce additional support from EMBO for the DENDRITES 2016 EMBO Workshop . As a result: *A.* Early registration rates extend to May 31st, 2016 B. We offer *six* travel fellowships (up to 500 Euro) provided by EMBO for participants of the DENDRITES 2016 meeting working in *Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain* and*Turkey*. Interested candidates, including both registered and new participants, must submit: 1) a short Resume 2) a short statement of why they wish to attend the workshop and why financial support is critical for them 3) at least one letter of recommendation The above should be submitted by email to poirazi at imbb.forth.gr by *May 8th, 2016*. Awardees will be announced on *May 15th, 2016*. on behalf of the organizing committee, Yiota Poirazi *---------------------------------- EMBO Workshop on Dendritic Anatomy, Molecules and Function (DENDRITES 2016)* Heraklion, Crete, Greece June 18-21, 2016 http://dendrites2016.gr/ info at dendrites2016.gr _Organizers:_ Yiota Poirazi, IMBB-FORTH Michael Hausser, UCL * * Matthew Larkum, Humboldt University _Invited speakers (scientific talks): _ Claudia Clopath Daniel Dombeck Casper Hoogenraad Arthur Konnerth Attila Losonczy Judit Makara Rishikesh Narayanan Elly Nedivi Jackie Schiller Erin Schuman Idan Segev Nelson Spruston Greg Stuart _Invited speakers (Career Issues in academia):_ Monica Di Luca, FENS President: "Publication issues: right time for a reality check" Camilla Belone, FENS-Kavli Scholar: "Retention of women in high levels of neuroscience - Perspectives" Emre Yaksi, FENS-Kavli Scholar: "Funding opportunities in Neuroscience: how to write a successful grant proposal" Matthew Larkum: "How to write an influential scientific publication" -- Panayiota Poirazi, Ph.D. Director of Research Computational Biology Laboratory Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) Foundation of Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) Vassilika Vouton, P.O.Box 1385 GR 711 10 Heraklion, Crete, GREECE Tel: +30 2810 391139 Fax: +30 2810 391101 ?mail: poirazi at imbb.forth.gr http://www.dendrites.gr Chair http://www.fens.org/Outreach/FENS-Kavli-Network-of-Excellence/ - -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 115691 bytes Desc: not available URL: From i.bojak at reading.ac.uk Tue Apr 26 07:51:30 2016 From: i.bojak at reading.ac.uk (Ingo Bojak) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 11:51:30 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Neuroinformatics 2016 in Reading, UK, September 3-4 Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From e.wintersteller at icloud.com Mon Apr 25 03:50:54 2016 From: e.wintersteller at icloud.com (Elisabeth Wintersteller) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:50:54 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: FENS Satellite, 1 July Copenhagen - Cells, Circuits and Computation Message-ID: <213F47C8-E300-49F8-9A98-565A84709FBD@icloud.com> Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce that the registration for the FENS Satellite event: Cells, Circuits and Computation: Expanding the Horizons on Big Data Analysis is open. This one day workshop takes place on 1 July 2016 in Copenhagen and is organised by the HBP Education Programme Office, the Allen Brain Institute and the Blue Brain Project. In this one day workshop immediately before FENS 2016, Allen Institute for Brain Science and Human Brain Project scientists will present brand new research discoveries and data analysis tools that have been developed from the mining and analysis of data that is publicly available online. Each presentation will also incorporate hands-on training of novel and emerging data analysis tools in effectively using the publicly available resources from both projects. Space is limited and registration is required. Please go to https://education.humanbrainproject.eu/web/hbp-education-portal/fens-2016 for more information. Registration fee: ? 50.00 for students ? 100.00 for senior scientists Coffee breaks and lunch will be provided for free. If you have any questions, please don?t hesitate and contact me. Looking forward to receiving your registrations! Best regards, Elisabeth Mag. Elisabeth Wintersteller Innsbruck Medical University Center of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Department of General Psychiatry and Social Psychiatry Experimental Psychiatry Unit Innrain 66a, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria Phone Office: +43 512 504 23779 Fax Office: +43 512 504 23716 Email: e.wintersteller at icloud.com Mobile: +43 664 8831 8313 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From silvio.sabatini at unige.it Tue Apr 26 12:14:16 2016 From: silvio.sabatini at unige.it (Silvio P. Sabatini) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 18:14:16 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position, University of Genoa, Italy - Binocular visuomotor systems Message-ID: <571F93D8.7090106@unige.it> Applications are invited for a fully-funded three-year PhD student position at "The Physical Structure of Perception and Computation" (PSPC) lab of the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics, and System Engineering (DIBRIS), University of Genoa, Italy. The position will start on Nov 1st, 2016 on the following research project: **Modeling the impaired binocular visual system** Expected results will concern: 1) a better understanding of the neural mechanisms that underlie the healthy and impaired visual system, 2) developing and assessing diagnostic and therapeutic methodologies for visual impairments, 3) inspiring design principles for artificial visual systems. The project will provide the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary environment in collaborations with engineers, neuroscientists and clinicians. Ongoing cooperations, at international level, and especially with: - Prof. Peter J. Bex, Translational Vision Lab, Northeastern University, Boston, MA. - Prof. Marty Banks, BanksLab, University of California - Berkeley, CA. will ensure a highly interdisciplinary and stimulating environment. The PhD will be fully funded, including stipend (EUR 1230 per month after taxes), fees, and a research training and support grant (EUR 1650 per year). * * HOW TO APPLY* Candidates must have: - a University degree at Master level (or expect to obtain it by October 31st, 2016) in Bioengineering, Computer Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics or related disciplines; - a keen interest in reverse-engineering the brain; - essential skills in Matlab and/or C/C++/C# or Python programming. Knowledge on computational neuroscience, machine learning, image processing are a plus. Experience with Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and CUDA programming is also a plus. Online application is possible till June 10th, 2016 (at noon) Italian time Full details on the call and the application procedure are available at: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ENG/ http://phd.dibris.unige.it/biorob/index.php/how-to-apply _Informal inquiries regarding the position are encouraged.__ __Please contact:_ Silvio P. Sabatini (silvio.sabatini at unige.it) Also, a post-doc of mine (Agostino Gibaldi) will be available throughout the VSS 2016 conference, so please send him an email (agostino.gibaldi at unige.it) if you would like to set up a meeting. * * WHERE* DIBRIS is a unique inter-school department of the University of Genoa, bridging together researchers from the former Science and Engineering Faculties. It offers an excellent multidisciplinary, interactive and collaborative research environment combining expertise in computer vision, computational neuroscience, neuromorphic computing, robotics and mechatronics. PSPC-Lab has a long-standing expertise in visual coding and multidimensional signal representation, robot perception and computer vision. In the last years, the lab's research activity focused on the analysis of the structural mechanisms of visuo-spatial cognition, responsible for orienting and interacting in the 3D space. Our lab is located in Genoa, a small beautiful town in northern Italy, both from historical (its historical center is the largest of Europe) and naturalistic point of view (sea and mountains coexist creating a unique landscape). Genoa is only 1.30h away from Milan by train and connected by plane to Rome (1.00h), London (2h) and Paris (1.30h). Regards, -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Silvio P. SABATINI, PhD [PSPC Research Group] Professor of Bioengineering DIBRIS - University of Genova | e_mail: silvio.sabatini at unige.it Via Opera Pia, 11A | phone: +39 010 3532092/3532794 I-16145 Genova (ITALY) | fax: +39 010 3532289/3536533 URL: http://pspc.unige.it --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Imagination is more important than knowledge..." [Albert Einstein] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From elferran at utc.fr Tue Apr 26 13:41:05 2016 From: elferran at utc.fr (Eliseo Ferrante) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 19:41:05 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in swarm robotics available at UTC (Compiegne - France) Message-ID: ?apologies for multiple postings? A fully-funded three years PhD position in swarm robotics is available at the Laboratory of Excellence (LABEX) at the Universit? de Technologie de Compi?gne (UTC) in France (www.utc.fr/labexms2t). The successful candidate will work with Dr. Eliseo Ferrante on exciting topics at the interface between swarm robotics, evolutionary biology, and statistical physics. The research direction will be managed by Dr. Ferrante in collaboration with the DIVINA project ( https://www.hds.utc.fr/labex-ms2t-484/news-rubrique/events/DIVINA/?lang=en) team led by Prof. Vincent Fr?mont. The PhD is expected to start in Fall 2016. The accepted candidate will work on a project focusing on the design of self-organized collective behaviors for performing collective exploration of a an unknown environment using a swarm of robots and principles of self-organization. The methods will be based on biological models of information retrieval and integration, such as distributed decision-making and collective categorization, which in turns recalls the cognitive mapping processes in the human brain. For a description of the research interests of Dr. Ferrante, please visit his website (https://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/ferrante/). Graduate students with background in computer science, physics, or biology and with specialization in artificial intelligence, statistical physics, computational modeling in biology, or robotics are encouraged to apply. The candidate is expected to be proficient in programming in languages such as C++ and Java, and to have solid knowledge of scientific software packages such as Matlab, R, and/or equivalent. Candidates with experience with multi-agent simulations will be highly preferred. Fluent English (written and spoken) is required, and only applications in English will be accepted. Above all, the applicants must be motivated, autonomous, and able to learn quickly and work effectively on challenging research problems. We will begin reviewing candidate's applications starting from June 2016. To apply, you can send the following documents to Eliseo.Ferrante at hds.utc.fr and Vincent.Fremont at hds.utc.fr: - Curriculum vitae - Motivation letter - At least two references and/or recommendation letters - A statement of research experience and interests - Any research articles authored by the applicant For any informal enquiry about the eligibility conditions, as well as for more details about the position, please contact Eliseo Ferrante < eliseo.ferrante at hds.utc.fr>. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alessandra.sciutti at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 07:29:45 2016 From: alessandra.sciutti at gmail.com (Alessandra Sciutti) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 13:29:45 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 3 Fully Funded PhD Positions at the Cognitive Robotics and Interaction Lab of the Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at the Italian Institute of Technology Message-ID: <004901d1a078$19af3ed0$4d0dbc70$@gmail.com> Apologies for cross-posting =========================================================================== PhD Openings at the Cognitive Robotics and Interaction Lab Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department Italian Institute of Technology =========================================================================== In the spirit of the doctoral School on Bioengineering and Robotics the PhD Program for the curriculum ?Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies? offers interdisciplinary training at the interface between technology and life-sciences. The objective of the PhD program is to form scientists and research technologists capable of working in multidisciplinary teams on projects where human factors play a crucial role in technological development and design.? Robotics and neuroscience researchers in RBCS share, as a fundamental scientific objective, the study of physical and social interaction in humans and machines (www.iit.it/rbcs ).? Among the different research themes proposed I would like to advertise these three topics: ? VISUO-HAPTIC EXPLORATION STRATEGIES FOR OBJECT RECOGNITION ? MAKE HUMANOIDS UNDERSTAND HUMAN ACTIONS ? MULTISENSORY HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION The ideal candidates are students with a higher level university degree willing to invest extra time and effort in blending into a multidisciplinary team composed of neuroscientists, engineers, psychologists, physicists working together to investigate brain functions and realize intelligent machines, rehabilitation protocols and advanced prosthesis. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR (www.codefror.eu) , with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues, relocation, etc. Below you can find more details related to the position and the instructions on how to apply. Application deadline: *****10 June 2016, Noon,? Italian time***** Best regards, Alessandra Sciutti ----------------------------------------- Alessandra Sciutti (PhD) Researcher, Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences Dept. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy email: alessandra.sciutti at iit.it https://www.iit.it/people/alessandra-sciutti =========================================================================== Make humanoids understand human actions Tutors: Dr. Alessandra Sciutti, Dr. Francesco Rea, Prof. Giulio Sandini Department: RBCS (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) http://www.iit.it/rbcs =========================================================================== Description: Action understanding is a fundamental ability at the basis of human interaction. Neurophysiological evidence indicate that it is supported by a visuo-motor matching process: action observation activates in the observer a motor representation of the same action learned through execution, which yields to a rapid and automatic understanding of the action goal. Hence, visual action understanding requires a sensori-motor representation of the action, built by? performing it and learning its motor and sensory consequences. The general aim of this project will be to provide the humanoid robot iCub with a similar visuo-motor matching skill in order to endow it with a human-like ability to understand human actions. In particular the robot will have to learn the motor (efference copy) and sensory (visual, joint angles, forces) consequences of its own actions to build a complete action representation. The research should determine which are the visual information needed to allow the recall of this model when the robot observes the same action performed by someone else. The work might take advantage of a computational system already available on the robot designed to localize the portion of the scene containing biological motion and extract some of its visual features . The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR, with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. Requirements:? degree in robotics, bioengineering, computer science, computer engineering, or related disciplines, attitude for problem solving, c++ programming. A background on machine learning is an asset. References: ????????????? Sciutti A., Ansuini C., Becchio C. & Sandini G. 2015, ?Investigating the ability to read others? intentions using humanoid robots?, Frontiers in Psychology ? Cognitive Science, vol. 6,no. 1362 ????????????? Noceti N., Sciutti A. & Sandini G. 2015, ?Cognition helps vision: recognizing biological motion using invariant dynamic cues?, 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing. ????????????? Rizzolatti G, Craighero L. 2004 The mirror-neuron system. Annu Rev Neurosci 27:169?192 Contacts: Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the perspective tutors before they submit their application: alessandra.sciutti at iit.it, francesco.rea at iit.it , giulio.sandini at iit.it =========================================================================== Multisensory human-robot interaction??????? Tutors: Dr. Francesco Rea,? Dr. Alessandra Sciutti, Prof. Giulio Sandini Department: RBCS (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) http://www.iit.it/rbcs =========================================================================== Description: Humans interact with each other by exploiting a variety of communicative cues across many different sensory channels. Communication signals range from speech to sounds in the auditory domain, from gestures to facial expressions in the visual domain and to different types of physical contacts in the haptic domain. Moreover, these signals can be explicitly communicative, as pointing or waving, or implicit and unconscious, as gaze direction or body movements speed. The activity we propose is to endow the humanoid robot iCub with a library of sensory and motor skills supporting all these communication possibilities. The robot will have first to detect the presence of a potential human partner nearby and then establish a communication with him by making use of? these multisensory cues. The research will leverage on the current social capabilities of the robot iCub, as gaze tracking,? biological motion detection, biologically plausible motion generation, etc.? The selected candidate will have to integrate the existing skills and develop the missing abilities, in order to enable iCub to interact naturally with non-expert users across multiple sensory domains. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR, with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. Requirements: Degree in robotics, bioengineering, computer science, computer engineering, or related disciplines, attitude for problem solving, c++ programming, as also willingness to make experiments with human participants. Strong motivation to work and adapt to a multidisciplinary environment. References:. ????????????? Palinko O., Sciutti A., Rea F. & Sandini G., 2015, ?Eye Gaze Tracking for a Humanoid Robot? in IEEE/RAS International Conference of Humanoids Robotics, Seoul, Korea, November 3-5 2015. ????????????? Mosadeghzad M., Rea F., Tata M., Brayda L. & Sandini G. 2015, ?Saliency Based Sensor Fusion of Broadband Sound Localizer for Humanoids?, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Information Integration (MFI 2015), San Diego, CA, USA, September 14-16, 2015; ????????????? Sciutti A., Patan? L., Nori F. & Sandini G., 2014, ?Understanding object weight from human and humanoid lifting actions?, IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 80-92 doi: 10.1109/TAMD.2014.2312399 Contacts: Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the perspective tutors before they submit their application: francesco.rea at iit.it , alessandra.sciutti at iit.it, giulio.sandini at iit.it =========================================================================== Visuo-haptic exploration strategies for object recognition Tutors: Dr. Alessandra Sciutti, Dr. Francesco Rea, Prof. Giulio Sandini Department: RBCS (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) http://www.iit.it/rbcs =========================================================================== Description: In everyday situations human adults are capable of transferring information about objects from one sensory modality to the other. Objects explored visually can, at a later time, be analyzed, and recognized, by exploring them with our hands and, vice versa, we can visually recognize objects that have been previously explored haptically. This cross-modal transfer can be explained only through the use of a representation of objects merging visual and haptic information and perhaps by hypothesizing a shared exploratory strategy used when we explore objects visually or haptically. The main scientific objective of the project is to test this hypothesis by investigating how the transfer of information form one sensory modality to the other develops in humans and if different sensory channels share the same exploration strategy. A model of this ability could be implemented on the humanoid robot iCub to build and exploit a multisensory representation of manipulable objects, augmenting its ability to learn how to interact with the environment and with others.? The successful candidate will conduct experimental investigation of? human visuo-haptic explorative strategies by means of multiple techniques, as eye-tracking, motion capture and force measurements with ad hoc designed devices. The collected data will be used to model the exploration strategies both during healthy development and in presence of sensory deficits. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR, with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. Requirements: The candidate for this position must have either a degree in Computer Science Engineering, Bioengineering or equivalent, with high interests in human sciences, or alternatively a degree in Psychology, with proven background in programming toolboxes (Matlab, R). References:. ????????????? Gori M., Sciutti A., Burr D. & Sandini G. 2011, ?Direct and indirect haptic calibration of visual size judgments?, PLoS ONE, vol. 6,no. 10, e25599. [ ????????????? Sann, C. and Streri, A. (2007), Perception of object shape and texture in human newborns: evidence from cross-modal transfer tasks. Developmental Science, 10: 399?410. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00593.x ????????????? Gori, M., Del Viva, M., Sandini, G., & Burr, D. C. (2008). Young children do not integrate visual and haptic form information. Current Biology, 18(9), 694-698. Contacts: Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the perspective tutors before they submit their application: alessandra.sciutti at iit.it, francesco.rea at iit.it , giulio.sandini at iit.it =========================================================================== How to apply =========================================================================== Please note that the positions are available through the PhD course of Bioengineering and Robotics, curriculum on Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies, offered jointly by IIT and the University of Genoa. The official calls are available here: https://www.iit.it/phd-school under the section ?Research themes for the call for application to PhD Courses established in agreement with the Universit? degli Studi di Genova, XXXII cycle?. Please have a look at the "tips and tricks" section which contains detailed instructions on how to apply and a list of documents you have to present. The link to the on-line application page is: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ In case of problems or questions related to the application procedure, please contact: anastasia.bruzzone at iit.it ? =========================================================================== Application deadline: *****10 June 2016, Noon,? Italian time****** =========================================================================== From b.torben-nielsen at herts.ac.uk Thu Apr 28 06:54:55 2016 From: b.torben-nielsen at herts.ac.uk (Torben-Nielsen, Benjamin) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 10:54:55 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Studentships in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Hertfordshire Message-ID: <99b4b2d9f66c4f76912271d2d5c5501c@vUH-WA-EXCMBX4.herts.ac.uk> We welcome applications for a funded PhD position in the Biocomputation Research Group at the University of Hertfordshire. The successful applicant will work on a project related to the detailed modelling of neuronal dynamics arising through dendritic processing and/or the analysis of morphological and circuit data. Potential projects in the fields of neuroinformatics and computational neuroscience include (but are not limited to): - Analysis of neuronal morphology and micro-circuitry. - Simulation of development of neuronal morphologies and tissues. - Simulation of dendritic processing on hardware. - Sensory processing and behaviour generation in individual invertebrate neurons. - Development of experimental robot controllers based on dendritic computation. - Structural plasticity at the single neuron and micro-circuitry level. More project ideas can be found here: http://www.dendrites.club/Positions.html The successful candidate will have extensive programming experience, preferably in Python (and/or other programming languages depending on the precise project). Depending on the project, experience with parallel programming (MPI, ZMQ), meshing software (VTK, CGAL, ITK, ...), or statistical analysis in R or Python are an advantage. In addition, we greatly value curiosity and a personal motivation to find out how things work. We collaborate closely with leading experimentalists and theoreticians all over the world, such as Prof. Adrian Moore (RIKEN, Japan), Prof. Erik De Schutter (OIST, Japan) and Dr. Marylka Uusisaari (Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands). The student will be based in the Biocomputation Group (biocomputation.herts.ac.uk) at the University of Hertfordshire and will be supervised by Drs. Ben Torben-Nielsen and Volker Steuber to whom informal enquiries can be sent. Successful candidates are eligible for a research studentship award from the University (approximately GBP 14,250 per annum bursary plus the payment of the student fees). Application forms can be obtained from Mrs Lorraine Nicholls, Research Student Administrator, STRI, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB, Tel: 01707 286083, l.nicholls @ herts.ac.uk. The short-listing process will begin on 30 May 2016. Dr. Ben Torben-Nielsen Senior Lecturer (Assistant professor) Biocomputation Group University of Hertfordshire, UK From Uwe.Aickelin at nottingham.edu.cn Thu Apr 28 03:08:27 2016 From: Uwe.Aickelin at nottingham.edu.cn (Uwe Aickelin) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 07:08:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD scholarships at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China Message-ID: Hello, The University of Nottingham Ningbo is now open to PhD applications of undertaking research with the new Ningbo Nottingham International Academy for the Marine Economy and Technology (IAMET). It would be appreciated if you can help forward this email to suitable candidates who are interested in Datamining, Optimisation, Artificial Intelligence, logistics and related subjects. There are PhD scholarships to undertake research projects in the following research areas: * Data mining/machine learning challenges: large data sets, mixture of data types (including images), data quality and security issues. Data mining will provide input patterns and parameters for the optimization stage. * Optimisation challenges: dealing with uncertainty, dynamic problems, large scale optimization problem. Heuristics and exact methodologies will be tested, new combinations such as simulation and machine learning will pose technical challenges * Social challenges - users needs to understand and trust the solution methods or they will not use them optimally. We need to find ways how to translate solutions into good management practices These scholarships are suited to anyone with an interest in computer science, data mining, logistics, supply chains, operational research and optimization within the context of port, marine, logistics or related city services and sectors. The research projects are multidisciplinary in nature making extensive use of sophisticated methods of solving business problems related to designing, planning, controlling and improving operations and supply chain management processes. The scholarships will be attractive to researchers from a range of industrial, engineering, computer science or management backgrounds. Students will need either a first class or upper second class honours degree in a relevant subject such as engineering, computer science, logistics, supply chain or operations management or related subjects. How to Apply: http://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/admissions/domestic-students/phdprogramme/how-to-apply/application--assessment-procedure.aspx Find more details at: http://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/admissions/international/pg/phd-programmes/phd-scholarships/iamet-scholarships.aspx Informal inquiries may be addressed to Professor Uwe Aickelin uwe.aickelin at nottingham.edu.cn This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of The University of Nottingham Ningbo China. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with The University of Nottingham Ningbo China may be monitored as permitted by UK and Chinese legislation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Sara.Finocchietti at iit.it Thu Apr 28 10:30:15 2016 From: Sara.Finocchietti at iit.it (Sara Finocchietti) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 14:30:15 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2 Fully Funded PhD Positions Message-ID: Apologies for cross-posting Two fully founded PhD stipends (3 years) are available at the Unit for the Visually Impaired People of the Italian Institute of Technology https://www.iit.it/lines/unit-for-visually-impaired-people ***Theme 1: FROM SCIENCE TO TECHNOLOGY FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED CHILDREN*** The goal of the project is to develop technologies to support the inclusion of adults and children with visual disabilities through: * The development of a new set of devices to rehabilitate spatial cognition, mobility and social interaction of children and adults with visual deficits through natural sensory-motor associations. * The demonstration and the validation of the technology through user, experimental and clinical studies. Requirements: A successful candidate holds a master degree in engineering. Basic neuroscience, and programming skills are required. ***Theme 2: CORTICAL MECHANISMS OF MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS WITH AND WITHOUT VISUAL DISABILITY*** The goal of this project are: * to study multisensory integration development in children; * to study how multisensory integration develops in absence of visual input; * to investigate the neural mechanisms that subserve the cross-modal development. Requirements: A successful candidate holds a master degree in engineering, neuroscience, psychology or equivalent. Basic programming skills are required. Previous experience with the EEG technique is preferred. The ** DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION IS JUNE 10, 2016, NOON (CET) ** and the stipends are open for appointment from November 1, 2016. The successful candidate for a U-VIP PhD-stipend will be part of a multidisciplinary team composed of neuroscientists, engineers, psychologists, and physicists working together to investigate brain functions and realize intelligent machines and rehabilitation protocols. More infos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiSsDLUS_UQ The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) supports the student's research activities including the realization of ad-hoc experimental set-ups and mechatronic devices. The experimental facilities include, besides the humanoid platform iCub, a fully equipped motion capture room with simultaneous electromyography recording and force-platforms, a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab, an Electrophysiology Lab for EEG recording, haptic devices for ergonomic measures of individual and dyadic interaction, robot rehabilitation devices and many more. IIT working language is English, and we are located in the beautiful city of Genoa, on the Mediterranean sea. You may obtain further information from Dr. Monica Gori, email: monica.gori at iit.it concerning the scientific aspects of the stipend. --- Think before you ink - Green IT! Sara Finocchietti, PhD Postdoc U-VIP: Unit for Visually Impaired people Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) via morego 30 16163 Genova, Italy phone +39 01071781761 fax +39 (0)10 71781208 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjthomas at case.edu Thu Apr 28 11:14:02 2016 From: pjthomas at case.edu (Peter Thomas) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 11:14:02 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: IEEE T-MBMC Shannon Centennial Special Issue: Deadline Extended to June 1, 2016 Message-ID: Happy Birthday, Claude Shannon! April 30, 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Claude Shannon, the originator of information theory. To honor this occasion the IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological and Multiscale Communications (T-MBMC) is soliciting submissions for a special issue on Biological Applications of Information Theory. We are happy to announce an extension of the submission deadline to June 1, 2016. Submission Instructions Submissions will be collected via Manuscript Central, http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tmbmc/ . In your cover letter, state: ?This paper is a submission for the Shannon Centennial special issue". For further information, please contact the corresponding guest editor, Prof. Peter Thomas (pjthomas__at__case.edu). Special Issue Guest Editors Prof. Alexander G. Dimitrov Department of Mathematics and Statistics Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience Washington State University, Vancouver, Washington, USA Prof. Faramarz Fekri Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Prof. Aurel Lazar Department of Electrical Engineering Columbia University, New York, New York, USA Prof. Stefan M. Moser Signal and Information Processing Lab (ISI) ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Hsinchu, Taiwan Prof. Peter J. Thomas* Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, and Statistics Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Biology Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA *corresponding guest editor -- Peter J. Thomas Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics. homepage: http://www.case.edu/math/thomas/ g-scholar: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5ctD7qIAAAAJ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kyunghyun.cho at nyu.edu Thu Apr 28 07:58:27 2016 From: kyunghyun.cho at nyu.edu (Kyunghyun Cho) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 07:58:27 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: 1st Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP: Call for Papers Message-ID: 1st Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP: Call for Papers The 1st Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP ( https://sites.google.com/site/repl4nlp2016/) invites papers of a theoretical or experimental nature on all relevant topics. Relevant topics for the workshop include, but are not limited to, the following areas (in alphabetical order): - Analysis of language using eigenvalue, singular value and tensor decompositions - Distributional compositional semantics - Integration of distributional representations with other models - Knowledge base embedding - Language modeling for automatic speech recognition, statistical machine translation, and information retrieval - Language modeling for logical and natural reasoning - Latent-variable and representation learning for language - Multi-modal learning for distributional representations - Neural networks and deep learning in NLP - The role of syntax in compositional models - Spectral learning and the method of moments in NLP - Language embeddings and their applications Important Dates - Deadline for submission: 8 May 2016 - Notification of acceptance: 5 June 2016 - Deadline for camera-ready version: 22 June 2016 - Early registration deadline (ACL'16): To be announced. - Workshop: 11 August 2016 Submissions We solicit three categories of papers: regular workshop papers, extended abstracts and cross-submissions. Only regular workshop papers will be included in the proceedings as archival publications. All submissions should be in PDF format and made through the Softconf website set up for this workshop: https://www.softconf.com/acl2016/repl4nlp2016/. Regular Workshop Paper Authors should submit a long paper of up to 8 pages, with up to 2 additional pages for references, following the ACL 2016 formatting requirements (see the ACL 2016 Call For Papers for reference: http://acl2016.org/index.php?article_id=9). The reported research should be substantially original. Accepted papers will be presented as posters. Selected papers may also be presented orally at the discretion of the committee. Reviewing will be double-blind, and thus no author information should be included in the papers; self-reference that identifies the authors should be avoided or anonymized. Accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings, where no distinction will be made on the basis of mode of presentation. Extended Abstracts Preliminary but interesting ideas or results that have not been published before may be submitted as extended abstracts, with length of 2 to 4 pages plus references, following the ACL 2016 formatting requirements (see the ACL 2016 Call For Papers for reference: http://acl2016.org/index.php?article_id=9). Reviewing will be double-blind, and thus no author information should be included in the papers; self-reference that identifies the authors should be avoided or anonymized. Accepted abstracts will be presented as posters, but will not be included in the workshop proceedings. Cross Submissions In addition to unpublished work, we also solicit papers on related topics that have appeared in a non-NLP venue (e.g., workshop or conference papers at NIPS or ICML). These papers will be presented as posters, but do not count as RepL4NLP workshop papers and will not be included in the proceedings. Interested authors need to submit their papers in PDF format through the same Softconf website at https://www.softconf.com/acl2016/repl4nlp2016/ with a note on the original venue. Papers in this category do not need to follow the ACL format and the selection is solely determined by the organizing committee. Best Paper Prizes Thanks to generous support from our sponsors: Google DeepMind, Microsoft Research, and Facebook, we will be awarding a prize of $300 to the three best regular workshop paper submissions as selected by our program committee, to be presented at the workshop. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From friedhelm.schwenker at uni-ulm.de Wed Apr 27 06:52:48 2016 From: friedhelm.schwenker at uni-ulm.de (Dr. Schwenker) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 12:52:48 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ANNPR 2016, New submission deadline: May 20, 2016 Message-ID: <57209A00.3030903@uni-ulm.de> ***** NEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE: May 20, 2016 (final deadline !)* Call for papers ANNPR 2016 Workshop & Special Issue of Neural Processing Letters 7th IAPR TC3 International Workshop on Artificial Neural Networks in Pattern Recognition (ANNPR 2016) September 28-30, 2016 Ulm University, Ulm, Germany Sponsored by the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) ANNPR 2016 invites papers that present original work in areas of neural networks, machine learning and pattern recognition, focusing on both theoretical and applied aspects. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Methodological Issues - Supervised, partially supervised, and unsupervised learning - Feed-forward, recurrent, and competitive neural nets - Kernel machines - Hierarchical modular architectures and hybrid systems - Combination of neural networks and Hidden Markov models - Multiple classifier systems and ensemble methods - Probabilistic graphical models - Deep architectures Applications in Pattern Recognition - Image processing and segmentation - Handwritten recognition and Document analysis - Sensor-fusion and multi-modal processing - Feature extraction, dimensionality reduction - Clustering and vector quantization - Speech and speaker recognition - Data, text, and web mining - Bioinformatics/Cheminformatics Important Dates Paper submission: May 20, 2016 Notification of acceptance: June 29, 2016 Camera ready due: July 15, 2016 Workshop: September 28-30, 2016 *Call for papers featuring Special Issue of Neural Processing Letters: *Authors of selected papers presented at ANNPR2016 will be invited to submit an extended version of their articles to a dedicated special issue of the journal Neural Processing Letters, guest-edited by the ANNPR2016 Chairs and titled "Off the mainstream: advances in neural networks and machine earning for pattern recognition?. General Chairs Friedhelm Schwenker, Ulm University, Germany Hazem Abbas, German University of Cairo, Egypt Neamat El Gayar, Cairo University, Egypt Edmondo Trentin, University of Siena, Italy For more information, please visit us: http://neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ANNPR2016/ -- Dr. Friedhelm Schwenker University of Ulm Institute of Neural Information Processing D-89069 Ulm, Germany phone: +49-731-50-24159 fax: +49-731-50-24156 email: friedhelm.schwenker at uni-ulm.de www: http://www.uni-ulm.de/in/neuroinformatik/mitarbeiter/f-schwenker.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yosinski at cs.cornell.edu Sat Apr 30 21:11:06 2016 From: yosinski at cs.cornell.edu (Jason Yosinski) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 21:11:06 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Last Call for submissions: ICML 2016 Workshop on Visualization for Deep Learning Message-ID: * Call For Submissions http://icmlviz.github.io/ We invite submissions to the ICML 2016 Workshop on Visualization for Deep Learning in New York City, NY on June 23rd, 2016. (http://icmlviz.github.io/) Deep neural networks are complex to design and train. They are non-linear systems that have many local optima and are sensitive to hyper-parameters. Systematic optimization of structure and hyper-parameters is possible, but hampered by the expense of training each design on realistic datasets. We argue that visualization can play an essential role in understanding DNNs and in developing new design principles. With rich tools for visual exploration of networks during training and inference, one should be able to form closer ties between theory and practice: validating expected behaviors, and exposing the unexpected which can lead to new insights. * Important Dates Deadline for submissions : May 1, 2016 (Email chairs if you need more time) Notification of acceptance : May 10, 2016 Workshop date : June 23 2016 (Thursday, First day of workshops) * Submission We accept many kinds of papers, such as (and not limited to) extended abstracts, short papers, work-in-progress papers, and demo papers. You can also submit your published work as 2-page summarization. We encourage submissions of relevant work that has been previously published, or is to be presented at the main conference. The accepted papers will be posted on the workshop website and will not appear in the official ICML proceedings. Submissions must be in PDF, written in English, no more than 8 pages long ? shorter papers are welcome ? and formatted according to the standard ICML 2016 guideline. Submissions do not have to be anonymized. For accepted papers, at least one author must attend the workshop to present the work. Submission website: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/VDL2016 * Contact For workshop-related queries please contact: bjiang at berkeley.edu * Organizers: John Canny (UC Berkeley, canny at berkeley.edu) Polo Chau (Georgia Tech, polo at gatech.edu) Biye Jiang (UC Berkeley, bjiang at berkeley.edu) Aditya Khosla (MIT, khosla at csail.mit.edu) *Program Committee Byron Boots, Georgia Tech Jeff Clune, University of Wyoming Shixia Liu, Tsinghua University Wojciech Samek, Heinrich Hertz Institute Yingnian Wu, University of California, Los Angeles Jason Yosinski, Cornell University Junyan Zhu, University of California, Berkeley cheers, jason --------------------------- Jason Yosinski, Cornell Computer Science / Geometric Intelligence http://yosinski.com/ +1.719.440.1357 From ameet at cs.ucla.edu Fri Apr 29 13:12:37 2016 From: ameet at cs.ucla.edu (Ameet Talwalkar) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 10:12:37 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc Position in Machine Learning at UCLA Computer Science Message-ID: Dear colleagues and friends, The machine learning group at UCLA, led by Fei Sha ( http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~feisha/) and Ameet Talwalkar ( http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~ameet/) , has 1 remaining open postdoctoral position. We seek applicants from all areas of machine learning. Candidates must hold a PhD in computer science, statistics or a closely related discipline, and have a strong publication record in top conferences and journals (NIPS, ICML, JMLR, etc.). The expected start date is July, but is also be flexible. The postdoctoral researcher is to interact and collaborate closely with both faculty and graduate students in our research group, which consists of about 10 students and postdocs. While the research group has a rich set of ongoing research projects, the postdoctoral researcher is also encouraged to be independent and develop his/her own research agenda that complements existing research endeavors. Quality of research is the ultimate criterion. The UCLA CS department is rapidly growing with core strengths in machine learning, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, data science, computer vision and robotics. UCLA provides a thriving research environment with interdisciplinary activities between these areas and others, and with cross-cutting collaborations among various departments and schools on campus. The campus is located on the west side of Los Angeles, with convenient access to beaches / mountains / national parks and a fantastic assortment of cultural diversity and activities throughout the metropolitan LA area. UCLA is also in close proximity to many other renowned academic institutions such as Caltech, USC, and other UC campuses. Interested candidates should email Fei Sha (feisha at cs.ucla.edu) and Ameet Talwalkar (ameet at cs.ucla.edu) with their CVs, research statements and a list of reference letter writers. Thanks. -Ameet -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From j.v.stone at sheffield.ac.uk Sat Apr 30 14:31:10 2016 From: j.v.stone at sheffield.ac.uk (James Stone) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 19:31:10 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Book: Bayes' Rule With Python Message-ID: <5724F9EE.3030506@sheffield.ac.uk> I'd like to announce the publication of this book: Bayes' Rule With Python A Tutorial Introduction to Bayesian Analysis by JV Stone Reviews, synopsis, and table of contents can be found here: http://jim-stone.staff.shef.ac.uk/BookBayes2012/books_by_jv_stone/index.html regards, Dr James V Stone, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK. From dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu Thu Apr 28 21:48:58 2016 From: dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 21:48:58 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL NETWORKS, May 2016 Message-ID: Neural Networks - Volume 77, May 2016 http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks Noise further expresses exponential decay for globally exponentially stable time-varying delayed neural networks Song Zhu, Qiqi Yang, Yi Shen Function approximation in inhibitory networks Bryan Tripp, Chris Eliasmith A Fast SVD-Hidden-nodes based Extreme Learning Machine for Large-Scale Data Analytics Wan-Yu Deng, Zuo Bai, Guang-Bin Huang, Qing-Hua Zheng Tensor SOM and tensor GTM: Nonlinear tensor analysis by topographic mappings Tohru Iwasaki, Tetsuo Furukawa Synchronization for an array of neural networks with hybrid coupling by a novel pinning control strategy Dawei Gong, Frank L. Lewis, Liping Wang, Ke Xu Analysis of global image stability and global asymptotical periodicity for a class of fractional-order complex-valued neural networks with time varying delays R. Rakkiyappan, R. Sivaranjani, G. Velmurugan, Jinde Cao State estimation for a class of artificial neural networks with stochastically corrupted measurements under Round-Robin protocol Yuqiang Luo, Zidong Wang, Guoliang Wei, Fuad E. Alsaadi, Tasawar Hayat Towards holographic "brain" memory based on randomization and Walsh-Hadamard transformation Daniel Berend, Shlomi Dolev, Sergey Frenkel, Ariel Hanemann Image and geometry processing with Oriented and Scalable Map Hao Hua Neuromorphic VLSI realization of the hippocampal formation Anu Aggarwal Global exponential stability of neural networks with time-varying delay based on free-matrix-based integral inequality Yong He, Meng-Di Ji, Chuan-Ke Zhang, Min Wu From ret26 at cam.ac.uk Fri Apr 29 12:56:51 2016 From: ret26 at cam.ac.uk (Richard Turner) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 17:56:51 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position in machine learning at the University of Cambridge (deadline 20th May) Message-ID: *University of Cambridge* *Machine Learning Group* *http://mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk* We are seeking a highly creative and motivated Postdoctoral Research Assistant/Associate to join the Machine Learning Group in the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK. The position will involve research in direct collaboration with Dr. Richard Turner developing new methods for Bayesian active learning with application areas including, but not limited to, intelligent hearing tests. The successful applicants will have or will be near completing a PhD in computer science, information engineering, statistics or a related area, and will have excellent research experience and a strong publication record in machine learning, including ideally papers in top machine learning conferences such as NIPS, UAI, ICML, and AISTATS. The official advert can be found here . If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Miss Diane Hazell, email: dsu21 at cam.ac.uk, Tel: +44 01223 748529. To apply you must upload your information via: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/10095 The deadline for applications is 20th May 2016 Dr. Richard E. Turner University Lecturer in Machine Learning and Computer Vision Department of Engineering University of Cambridge -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From silvio.sabatini at unige.it Thu Apr 28 12:40:22 2016 From: silvio.sabatini at unige.it (Silvio P. Sabatini) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 18:40:22 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position, University of Genoa, Italy - "Visuo-haptic sensorimotor models" Message-ID: <57223CF6.3010905@unige.it> ===================================================================== Applications are invited for one full-time PhD studentship (with scholarship) for a period of 3 years, at the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics, and System Engineering, University of Genoa, Italy. ===================================================================== The position will start on Nov 1st, 2016 on the following research project: ACTION-PERCEPTION TRANSFER IN VISUAL AND VISUO-HAPTIC BEHAVIOR _Deadline for Applications: June 10th, 2016_ Experiencing the sensory feedback gained from movements allows us to learn the contingencies and correlations between actions and sensory events. Accordingly, sensing "educates" motor action, but, conversely, and more elusively, motor practice can "educate" sensing. The proposed research aims at investigating the interplay between action and perception at different levels: (1) modelling early action-perception transfer in visual feature extraction (cf. neural coding of visual properties) and perceptual judgement processes (decoding stages); (2) experiments on bidirectional perceptual-action influence - including the development of systems and devices that integrate vision and haptics; (3) applications in neuromotor and cognitive rehabilitation, in which action is used to educate perception and perception is used to educate action. The project will provide the opportunity to work on neural modeling, visual and visuo-haptic psychophysics, and robotics. Experimental, modeling, and theoretical approaches might be pursued with a different accent according to personal attitude. * HOW TO APPLY Candidates must have: - University degree at M.Sc. level (or expect to obtain it by October 31st, 2016) in Bioengineering, Computer Science, Physics, or related disciplines; - attitude for problem solving and interest in experimental work; - essential skills comprise Matlab and/or C/C++/C# or Python programming. Online application is possible till June 10th, 2016 (at noon) Italian time Full details on the call and the application procedure are available at: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ENG/ http://phd.dibris.unige.it/biorob/index.php/how-to-apply Prospective students, please contact: Silvio P. Sabatini (silvio.sabatini at unige.it) or Vittorio Sanguineti (vittorio.sanguineti at unige.it), providing your CV and qualifications, the name and contact details of two references, and a description of your research interests. * WHERE The research will be conducted jointly at "The Physical Structure of Perception and Computation (PSPC) Lab", and the "Neuro-engineering and Neuro-robotics lab (NEUROLAB)", led by Silvio P. Sabatini and Vittorio Sanguineti, respectively. PSPC-Lab has a long-standing expertise in visual coding and multidimensional signal representation, robot perception and computer vision. In the last years, the lab's research activity focused on the analysis of the structural mechanisms of visuo-spatial cognition, responsible for orienting and interacting in the 3D space. NEUROLAB (http://www.neurolab.dibris.unige.it/) focuses on experimental studies on neural control of movement, in normal and pathologic conditions. Recent activity aimed at investigating the computational basis of motor skill learning, and how this process can be facilitated by robots and other interactive technologies. Our labs are located in Genoa, a small beautiful town in northernItaly, both from historical (its historical center is the largest of Europe) and naturalistic point of view (sea and mountains coexist creating a unique landscape). Genoa is only 1.30h away from Milan by train and connected by plane to Rome (1.00h), London (2h) and Paris (1.30h). Regards, -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Silvio P. SABATINI, PhD [PSPC Research Group] Professor of Bioengineering DIBRIS - University of Genova | e_mail:silvio.sabatini at unige.it Via Opera Pia, 11A | phone: +39 010 3532092/3532794 I-16145 Genova (ITALY) | fax: +39 010 3532289/3536533 URL:http://pspc.unige.it --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Imagination is more important than knowledge..." [Albert Einstein] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Thu Apr 28 13:48:32 2016 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 13:48:32 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Parallel Simulation with NEURON Message-ID: <57224CF0.8020508@yale.edu> A few seats remain available in the course Parallel Simulation with NEURON that we will be presenting at HHMI|Janelia Saturday, June 25 - Monday, June 27. This course is designed for users who already know how to write hoc or Python code for NEURON and now want to adapt existing models, or create new ones, that can be simulated on parallel hardware. Special attention will be paid to strategies for debugging, and measuring and improving performance. Registration is subject to approval by the course's faculty. The registration deadline is Friday, May 20, 2016. For more information and the online application form, see http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/summer2016/summer2016.html --Ted From Nicoladie.Tam at unt.edu Thu Apr 28 22:05:17 2016 From: Nicoladie.Tam at unt.edu (Tam, Nicoladie) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 02:05:17 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for proposals to host the annual Computational Neuroscience (CNS) Meeting in 2018 Message-ID: Call for proposals to host the annual Computational Neuroscience (CNS) Meeting in 2018 The Organization for Computational Neurosciences (OCNS, http://www.cnsorg.org ) requests proposals from candidate local organizers to organize the CNS meeting in 2018 in a location outside of Europe, preferably in North or South America. Groups or individuals interested in organizing the CNS*2018 meeting should submit a proposal with consideration of the extensive on-line information ( http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2018-local-organizer ) and using the on-line templates provided as a guide. The OCNS board members will select/discuss the different proposals, contact the potential local organizers for more information if necessary and come to a timely agreement between OCNS and potential local organizers. Proposals should be emailed to the OCNS president at president at cnsorg.org no later than June 15th, 2016. Decisions are expected to be conveyed to potential organizers in July 2016. Astrid Prinz (OCNS President) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Pavis at iit.it Fri Apr 29 09:39:32 2016 From: Pavis at iit.it (Pavis) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 13:39:32 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD call - 2016 PhD Course on SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING, in the "COMPUTATIONAL VISION, AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION AND LEARNING (CODE 6213)" curriculum. In-Reply-To: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C8877700FF6@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> References: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C8861CD910F@IITMXWGE015.iit.local>, <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C8877700FF6@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> Message-ID: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C887770100C@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> PhD call - 2016 PhD Course on SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING, in the "COMPUTATIONAL VISION, AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION AND LEARNING (CODE 6213)" curriculum. Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT - www.iit.it) together with the University of Genova opened the call for the 2016 Doctoral Course on Sciences & Technologies For Electronics & Telecommunication - Curriculum in Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. In this context, Ph.D. positions are available at the Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision (PAVIS) Dept. and at the Visual Geometry and Modeling Lab (VGM Lab) to work in Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, and more specifically on the following themes: Theme A - Computer vision for behavioral analysis and activity recognition Theme B - Computer vision for the prediction of human intentions Theme C - Part-based human body modeling for Socially-Aware Computer Vision Theme D - Crowd behavioral analysis and event recognition Theme E - Re-identification Theme F - Time-lapse Computer Vision for long-term learning Theme G - Semantic 3D scene reconstruction and modelling Theme H - Sensing humans: enhancing social abilities of the iCub platform Theme I - Biomedical imaging Theme L - Connectomics Theme M - Animal behavior analysis More info on the above research topics can be found at: https://pavisdata.iit.it/data/phd2016/ResearchThemes_IIT-PAVIS.pdf or directly asked to Prof. V. Murino (vittorio.murino at iit.it) or any other tutor indicated for each theme. The PhD program on the listed themes will take place at the PAVIS department of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) located in Genova (www.iit.it). The department focuses on activities related to the analysis and understanding of images and patterns in general, thus representing a reference for the other IIT Departments and labs which have to deal with such kind of data. The PAVIS and VGM Lab staff has a wide expertise on image processing, computer vision and pattern recognition, machine learning, and related applications (mainly surveillance/security and biomedical). For more information, you can also browse the PAVIS and VGM Lab webpages to see our activities and research at: http://old.iit.it/en/research/departments/pattern-analysis-and-computer-vision.html and www.iit.it/lines/visual-geometry-and- modelling To apply, follow the instructions indicated in this link: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ in short: a detailed CV, a research proposal under one or more themes chosen among those above indicated, reference letters, and any other formal document concerning the degrees earned. Notice that these documents are mandatory in order to consider valid the application. IMPORTANT: In order to apply, candidates must prepare a research proposal based on the research topics above mentioned. Please follow these indications to prepare it: https://pavisdata.iit.it/data/phd2016/ResearchProjectTemplate.pdf ONLINE APPLICATION DEADLINE is June 10th, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. (noon ? Italian time/CET) Strict deadline, no extension. APPLICATIONS are possible through University of Genoa ONLINE PROCEDURE ONLY - http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/