From john.lee at uclouvain.be Mon Aug 1 12:34:09 2016 From: john.lee at uclouvain.be (John Lee) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 18:34:09 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Open PhD position at UCLouvain, Belgium (deep learning for medical images) Message-ID: <3a12d508-ff15-52c6-8f5c-5da8da4fa233@uclouvain.be> The Universit? catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) is hiring a PhD student within the framework of a project called "DeepContour" (Deep learning for automatic organ contouring of medical images in adaptive radiation therapy). The project takes place at the crossing of machine learning and cancer treatment with photon or proton therapy). To target the tumor and avoid organs at risk, radiation oncology heavily relies on medical images that must be annotated with the contours of these structures. This difficult task is still performed mainly manually by physicians. On the other hand, automatic recognition and delineation of organs in medical images is often turned into an image registration problem: a reference image, called atlas and manually segmented by an expert, is non-rigidly deformed to match the image to be segmented. Registration can however suffer from inaccuracies, especially when trying to match anatomies of different patients. DeepContour follows a different approach of the atlas, based on machine learning techniques. Reference images will be used to train classifiers, namely, deep neural networks, which can afterwards process new images and label pixels or homogeneous groups of pixels, called superpixels. A previous proof-of-concept has demonstrated the validity of this approach and the project aims to improve the methodology by: * Defining new features to optimise prior segmentation into superpixels and therefore final, accurate delineation of organs (shape and texture features could be used in addition to gray level, distance and contiguity to organs). * Managing unexpected or unpredictable objects (like medical devices, tumours, etc.), particularly difficult to deal with in image registration. * Transpose from natural scenes to medical images an architecture that combines deep neural networks and superpixels. * Make the methodology interactive (ask the user whenever the risk of error is significant) and adaptive (learn from new images segmented by the atlas and approved by physicians). The project also includes the collection of reference data with a clinical partner and the comparison with registration-based atlases. The ideal PhD student should have a master degree in engineering, computer science, or applied mathematics. S/he should have a good background in mathematics, statistics, and programming (Python, Matlab, scripting langages), completed with scientific curiosity and good communication skills. S/he will work in a multidisciplinary and dynamic environment (engineers, mathematicians, physicists, physicians), sharing its time between the ICTEAM Institute (Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics, and Applied Mathematics, Louvain-la-Neuve) and the IREC (Institut de Recherche Exp?rimentale et Clinique, Brussels). S/he should speak at least English or French and be willing to learn the other language. The contract is a 2+2 scholarship. Two years are already secured, the 3rd and 4th depend on evaluation after the first two years. The candidate should be eligible for a Belgian, tax-free PhD scholarship (EU citizen and holder of a Master degree). The net salary is about 1700-1800 euros/month. Applications will be considered as they are received; the position will remain open until filled. The contract is planned to start in October 2016. The Universit? catholique de Louvain (http://www.uclouvain.be) is the largest and highest-ranked university in the French-speaking part of Belgium, with more than 28000 students, 3600 researchers, and 2000 PhD students. It is located mainly in Louvain-la-Neuve (25km in the South-East of Brussels) and the outskirts of Brussels (University hospital and medicine school). The University provides easy access to language courses, as well as sport facilities and cultural events. Contact information: john.lee at uclouvain.be (send a CV and motivation letter) From maass at igi.tugraz.at Tue Aug 2 04:12:15 2016 From: maass at igi.tugraz.at (Wolfgang Maass) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 10:12:15 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc/Assistant Professor position for Principles of Brain Computation and Learning Message-ID: <57A055DF.9020604@igi.tugraz.at> Applications are invited for a 50% position as Assistant Professor (Universit?tsassistent mit Doktorat, for 6 years), that is combined with a 50% position as Postdoc researcher in our Lab. We are looking for a researcher with a strong background in theory (such as theoretical computer science, mathematics, theoretical neuroscience, theoretical physics), programming experience, a strong research track record, and a keen interest in unraveling the principles of brain computation and learning. Teaching can be carried out in English. Our research is carried out in direct collaboration with experimental neuroscientists that record from hundreds or thousands of neurons in the brain while it computes and learns. We aim at extracting functional principles that can be used to build powerful artificial brains on large neuromorphic hardware systems, in particular, on SpiNNaker and the BrainScaleS system (developed at the University of Heidelberg), see e.g. http://primeurmagazine.com/weekly/AE-PR-08-16-74.html A sketch of current research in my Lab can be found in #228 on http://www.igi.tugraz.at/maass/publications.html Please send your application, including a publication list and pdf's of unpublished work, as well as names and email addresses of 3 referees, at your earliest convenience to Ms. Daniela Potzinger daniela.potzinger at igi.tugraz.at -- Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Maass Institut fuer Grundlagen der Informationsverarbeitung Technische Universitaet Graz Inffeldgasse 16b , A-8010 Graz, Austria Tel.: ++43/316/873-5822 Fax ++43/316/873-5805 http://www.igi.tugraz.at/maass/Welcome.html From ingo.willuhn at gmail.com Thu Aug 4 12:37:33 2016 From: ingo.willuhn at gmail.com (Ingo W) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 18:37:33 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: position for a postdoctoral researcher in Amsterdam Message-ID: Hi there, I would like to advertise a job ad for a postdoctoral researcher (attached; http://herseninstituut.nl/en/about-us/vacancies/postdoctoral-researcher/?). I am looking for somebody that comes from a computational angle and is analysis-savvy. The candidate should be interested in studying basal ganglia function (reward learning; compulsive behavior as a result of dysfunction) with in vivo calcium imaging and fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in behaving rats. Best, Ingo ----- Ingo Willuhn, PhD Group Leader & Associate Professor Team 'Neuromodulation and Behavior' Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) & Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Center (AMC), University of Amsterdam (UvA) Meibergdreef 47 1105BA Amsterdam The Netherlands i.willuhn at nin.knaw.nl tel (31) 20 5665491 www.herseninstituut.nl/en/research/researchgroups/denyswilluhn-group/ www.amc.nl/web/Research/Who-is-Who-in-Research/Who-is-Who-in-Research.htm?p=4745# -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fritzke at web.de Fri Aug 5 09:25:51 2016 From: fritzke at web.de (fritzke at web.de) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 15:25:51 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: DemoGNG.js - a new simulator for competitive learning methods Message-ID: ************* DemoGNG.js ************ A new simulator for vector-based competitive learning methods (e.g. Self-organizing Feature Map, Neural Gas, Growing Neural Gas) is available at ? http://www.demogng.de (cover page) and http://www.demogng.de/js/demogng.html (full-page version of the running simulator) ? The simulator is meant as a tool for increasing the understanding of the realized models and easily comparing them to each other by running them against selected test data sets/distributions. Models currently implemented: Self-organizing Feature Map, Neural Gas, Growing Neural Gas, Growing Grid, LBG, LBG-U, Hard Competive Learning, Competitive Hebbian Learning General properties of the simulator - visually rich presentation of the running models to increase understanding - rapid change of model, signal distribution or simulation speed by swipe of a mouse or finger (if touch available) - platform-independence: written in Javascript (ECMAScript 5), HTML5 and CSS - no local installation needed (only a browser) - links to formal descriptions of the models where available - supports full-screen display (e.g. for classroom demonstrations) Feedback and suggestions are welcome (fritzke at web.de) -- Dr.-Ing. Bernd Fritzke From plaurent at me.com Fri Aug 5 14:11:48 2016 From: plaurent at me.com (Patryk Laurent) Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2016 18:11:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Connectionists: Predictive recurrent network for vision Message-ID: <22ef1fbe-2a35-4cf7-8034-ec38732ab336@me.com> Dear colleagues, We would like to draw your attention to some work by our R&D group towards the hard problem of perception for robots. Real world perception benefits significantly from spatial and temporal context information. However, this kind of information cannot be captured in primarily feedforward architectures, like contemporary deep learning ConvNets. We demonstrate that a highly recurrent self-supervised network exposed to continuous video can learn enough about the visual world to serve as the basis for a highly accurate visual object tracker. These exciting results show how cognitive neuroscience ideas of recurrent feedback and prediction can be scalably implemented using conventional machine learning methods, and applied to an important problem in robotics. They also point to the importance of neuromorphic chip development and the high degree of flexibility possible for neuromorphic implementation details. "Unsupervised Learning from Continuous Video in a Scalable Predictive Recurrent Network" Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.06854 Best regards, Patryk Laurent and Filip Pi?kniewski -- Patryk Laurent, Ph.D. Brain Corporation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From huajin.tang at gmail.com Sat Aug 6 03:04:20 2016 From: huajin.tang at gmail.com (Huajin Tang) Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2016 15:04:20 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers: SSCI 2016 Paper Submision Deadline Extended to August 15, 2016 Message-ID: **Apologies for cross posting.** **Please forward this call for papers to anyone else who might be interested.** The paper submission deadline for IEEE Symposium on Neuromorphic Systems and Cyborg Intelligence (IEEE SNCI'16) ? one of the symposiums of the 2016 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI 2016) has been extended to *August 15, 2016*. The 2016 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI 2016) will be held in Athens, Greece, a city full of arts, philosophy and historical attractions. SSCI is a flagship annual international conference on computational intelligence sponsored by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, promoting all aspects of theory, algorithm design, applications and related emerging techniques. As a tradition, IEEE SSCI 2016 will co-locate a number of symposiums, each dedicated to a special topic related to computational intelligence, thereby providing a unique platform for promoting cross-fertilization. SSCI 2016 will be featured by cross-symposium tutorials, keynote speeches, panel discussions, PhD consortiums, oral presentations and poster sessions. Student grants, Best paper Awards and Student Best Paper Award will be given. Refer to the following conference website for more information: http://ssci2016.cs.surrey.ac.uk/ *2016 IEEE Symposium on Neuromorphic Systems and Cyborg Intelligence (IEEE SNCI'16) * The 2016 IEEE Symposium on Neuromorphic Systems and Cyborg Intelligence (SNCI?16) will be held in Athens, Greece, December 6 - 10, 2016, following the success of the first international symposium held in Beijing and the second in Hangzhou 2014. SNCI?16 will be a part of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence 2016. In recent years neuromorphic computing has been an important emerging research area. There has been rapid progress in various computational theories, learning algorithms, signal processing algorithm, circuit designs and implementations, which have shown appealing computational advantages over conventional approaches. Emulating the computational principles and architecture found in neural systems, neuromorphic computing studies sensory coding, synaptic computing, learning (e.g., STDP) and memory, and attempts to develop neuromorphic sensors, processors, and sensory motor systems for robotic agents. Neuromorphic systems overlap with another framework called cyborg intelligence, combining brain functions with computational machines to achieve the best of both via brain-machine interfaces. The symposium will provide an important platform for the researchers across all related fields to exchange the ideas and report recent progress, and aims to bring new theoretical and technical advances in neuromorphic computing and cyborg intelligence. *Scope and Topics * ? Cognitive computing and cyborg intelligence ? Brain inspired computing ? Neuromorphic vision and sensors ? Neuromorphic information/signal processing ? Brain-inspired data representation models ? Spike-based sensing and learning ? Neural coding ? Event based processing ? Neuromorphic sensors and hardware systems ? Cognition mechanisms for big data ? Brain inspired computing for sound, vision and speech processing ? Embodied cognition and neuro-robotics. *General Co-Chairs: * Huajin Tang, Sichuan University (htang at scu.edu.cn ) Garrick Orchard, Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology, Singapore ( garrickorchard at nus.edu.sg) Ali A. Minai, University of Cincinnati, US (ali.minai at uc.edu ) Zhaohui Wu, Zhejiang University, China (wzh at zju.edu.cn ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yoram.burak at elsc.huji.ac.il Sat Aug 6 08:01:29 2016 From: yoram.burak at elsc.huji.ac.il (Yoram Burak) Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2016 12:01:29 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for applications: travel grants for advanced PhD students, the 2016 ELSC Annual Retreat Message-ID: Please distribute to whoever may be interested. Thanks, Yoram --- *Competitive travel grants: ELSC retreat, January 2017* We'd like to reach out through you to advanced PhD students in your institute who may be interested in a fully supported travel opportunity to join us at the Annual Retreat of our Brain Center (ELSC) in the Desert Resort of Ein Gedi at the end of January 2017. The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is an ambitious scientific venture, building upon Hebrew University?s record of excellence and innovation in its multidisciplinary approach to brain science. At ELSC, researchers work collaboratively, covering the full spectrum of neuroscience research (for more information, see http://elsc.huji.ac.il/science/scientists) ELSC is offering up to 20 competitive travel grants for advanced PhD students to attend ELSC's 2017 annual retreat and present their work. Last year?s program can be seen via the following link: http://elsc.huji.ac.il/content/elsc-retreat-2016 Candidates are required to send their CVs, together with letters of intent and recommendation to: elsc-retreat at elsc.huji.ac.il by November 1, 2016. ELSC invites selected attendees to extend their visit, at our expense, and spend 2-3 days visiting ELSC labs, exploring opportunities for a postdoctoral internship and collaborations. We will be delighted to assist with the necessary arrangements. See also: http://elsc.huji.ac.il/content/elsc-retreat-2017 For enquiries, please contact Ms. Idit Nusilevitz: idit.nusi at elsc.huji.ac.il Many Thanks! The organising committee. ___ Yoram Burak The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Racah Institute of Physics | Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences p: +972-2-6585837/84523 w: http://elsc.huji.ac.il/burak a: Danciger B 103, Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ranzato at fb.com Sat Aug 6 22:21:37 2016 From: ranzato at fb.com (Marc'Aurelio Ranzato) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 02:21:37 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: ICLR 2017 - Call for Papers Message-ID: 5th International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2017) Website: http://www.iclr.cc/ Paper submission deadline: 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time, November 4th, 2016 Location: Palais des Congr?s Neptune, Toulon, France, April 24-26, 2017 Overview The performance of machine learning methods is heavily dependent on the choice of data representation (or features) on which they are applied. The rapidly developing field of representation learning is concerned with questions surrounding how we can best learn meaningful and useful representations of data. We take a broad view of the field and include topics such as deep learning and feature learning, metric learning, compositional modeling, structured prediction, reinforcement learning, and issues regarding large-scale learning and non-convex optimization. The range of domains to which these techniques apply is also very broad, from vision to speech recognition, text understanding, gaming, music, etc. A non-exhaustive list of relevant topics: * unsupervised, semi-supervised, and supervised representation learning * representation learning for planning and reinforcement learning * metric learning and kernel learning * Sparse coding and dimensionality expansion * hierarchical models * optimization for representation learning * learning representations of outputs or states * implementation issues, parallelization, software platforms, hardware * applications in vision, audio, speech, natural language processing, robotics, neuroscience, or any other field The program will include keynote presentations from invited speakers, oral presentations, and posters. ICLR features two tracks: a Conference Track and a Workshop Track. Submissions of extended abstracts to the Workshop Track will be accepted after the decision notifications for Conference Track submissions are sent. A future call for extended abstracts will provide more details on the Workshop Track. Some of the submitted Conference Track papers that are not accepted to the conference proceedings will be invited for presentation in the Workshop Track. What Is Changing from ICLR 2016 1. We will use OpenReview (as opposed to CMT) for the Conference Track. Moreover, submissions will be hosted by OpenReview (no requirement to submit to arXiv). 2. We will have a two-round review process. In the first round, reviewers may only ask clarification questions. 3. The program committee will select best review awards. 4. The Workshop Track will favor highly innovative, but possibly not fully validated, submissions. The goal is to improve the quality of the overall reviewing process. By using OpenReview, authors can update their paper respond to comments anytime. Also, anybody in the community can comment on submissions and reviewers can leverage public discussions to improve their understanding and rating of papers. ICLR Submission Instructions By November 4th - 5:00pm EST, authors are asked to submit their paper to: http://openreview.net The submission deadline will be strictly enforced. There is no strict limit on paper length. However, we strongly recommend keeping the paper at 8 pages, plus 1 page for the references and as many pages as needed in an appendix section (all in a single pdf). The appropriateness of using additional pages over the recommended length will be judged by reviewers. Authors are encouraged to update their submission as desired and participate in the public discussion of their paper, as well as any other paper submitted to the conference. Submissions are not anonymous, but reviews will be anonymized. For detailed instructions about the format of the paper, please visit iclr.cc . Reviewing Process 1. Submissions to ICLR are uploaded on OpenReview, which enables public discussion. All comments are publicly visible (even for people who are not logged in) but the author of a comment can decide to post anonymously or not. Log in is required before posting any comment. 2. Authors are encouraged to revise their paper as many times as needed and, anytime, to participate in the discussion about their paper as well as any other paper submitted to the conference. 3. By December 2nd 2016, reviewers need to post questions for papers assigned to them. Reviews are anonymous and publicly visible in OpenReview. 4. By December 16th 2016, reviewers need to post their full review. Again, reviews are anonymous and publicly visible. 5. On February 3rd 2016, authors will be notified about the acceptance or rejection of their paper. Some of the rejected papers that distinguish themselves for their originality will be invited for presentation under the Workshop Track. 6. Papers that are not accepted to the Conference Track or presented to the Workshop track will be considered non-archival, and may be submitted elsewhere (modified or not), although the OpenReview site will maintain the reviews, the comments, and links to the versions submitted to ICLR. General Chairs Yoshua Bengio, Universit? de Montreal Yann LeCun, New York University and Facebook Senior Program Chair Marc'Aurelio Ranzato, Facebook Program Chairs Hugo Larochelle, Twitter and Universit? de Sherbrooke Tara Sainath, Google Oriol Vinyals, Google Deepmind Contact The organizers can be contacted at iclr2017.programchairs at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pstone at cs.utexas.edu Sun Aug 7 21:53:26 2016 From: pstone at cs.utexas.edu (Peter Stone) Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2016 20:53:26 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc opportunity - UT Austin Message-ID: <97876.1470621206@skipper.cs.utexas.edu> [Apologies if you receive this multiple times] DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, USA POSITION: Post-doctoral fellow on "Grounded Language Learning on Robots" CONTACTS: Profs. Raymond Mooney and Peter Stone The University of Texas at Austin 2317 Speedway, Stop D9500 Austin, TX 78712-1757 USA Austin, Texas 78712-0233 U.S.A. {mooney,pstone}@cs.utexas.edu http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~{mooney,pstone} Applications are invited for a postdoctoral fellow of two years, possibly renewable for additional years, in the Department of Computer Science. The position will be joint across Prof. Mooney's Machine Learning Research Group and Prof. Stone's Learning Agents Research Group within the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Primary responsibilities include performing cutting-edge research in collaboration with faculty and Ph.D. students. The research will focus on developing robust, adaptive, interactive intelligent robots in an indoor environment that are capable of natural language interaction. Specifically, the goal is to develop human-robot dialog systems that learn to communicate with users through natural dialog, learning from repeated user interactions to become more robust and capable through normal use. QUALIFICATIONS: Applicants should have a Ph.D. in Computer Science or related field. Experience in intelligent robotics and/or natural language processing is essential. Experience in grounded natural language, machine learning, and/or human-robot interaction is preferable, as is experience programming in ROS. TO APPLY: Applicants should send by email to mooney at cs.utexas.edu and pstone at cs.utexas.edu - a curriculum vitae - names of two references with contact information - a two-page summary of past research and relevant qualifications - a personal Web page, if available, where further details can be found This position is to start as early as fall of 2016 or at any agreed later date. Applications will be reviewed as they are received. ___ Professor Peter Stone David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professor University Distinguished Teaching Professor Associate Chair Department of Computer Science phone: 512-471-9796 The University of Texas at Austin fax: 512-471-8885 2317 Speedway, Stop D9500 pstone at cs.utexas.edu Austin, Texas 78712-1757 USA http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~pstone From azahkm at gmail.com Mon Aug 8 02:49:31 2016 From: azahkm at gmail.com (Azah Kamilah Muda) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 14:49:31 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?CFP_=3A_The_16th_ISDA=E2=80=9916_=26_Th?= =?utf-8?q?e_4th_WICT=E2=80=9916_-_Springer_=E2=80=93_Porto=2C_Port?= =?utf-8?q?ugal_-_New_Due_Dates?= Message-ID: ** We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP ** ** Kindly help to distribute this CFP to your mailing list ** -- Call For Papers --- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- The 16th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA?16) -- http://www.mirlabs.org/isda16 http://www.mirlabs.net/isda16 -- The 6th World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies (WICT'16) -- http://www.mirlabs.org/wict16 http://www.mirlabs.net/wict16 ** Important Dates ** ---------------------------------- Special sessions/Track/workshop proposals: August 20, 2016 Acceptance of special sessions: August 31, 2016 Paper submission due: September 20, 2016 Notification of paper acceptance: October 15, 2016 Registration and Final manuscript due: October 30, 2016 Conference: December 14 - 16, 2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About ISDA?16 : ------------------------- The International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA) is a major international conference bringing together researchers, engineers, and practitioners who work in the areas of intelligent systems and its applications in industry and the real world. Every year, ISDA attracts authors from over 30 countries. The conference will include workshops, special sessions and tutorials, along with prominent keynote speakers and regular paper presentations in parallel tracks. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. Topics ( not limited to ) ----------------------------- Intelligent Systems Architectures and Applications Intelligent Image and Signal Processing Intelligent Internet Modeling Intelligent Data mining Intelligent Business Systems Intelligent Control and Automation Intelligent Agents Intelligent Knowledge Management Innovative Information Security Innovative Networking and Communication Techniques Web Intelligence Intelligent Software Engineering About WICT'16 : ------------------------- WICT ?16 aims to provide an opportunity for the researchers from academia and industry to meet and discuss the latest solutions, scientific results and methods in the usage and applications of ICT in the real world. The conference programme includes workshops, special sessions and tutorials, along with prominent keynote speakers and regular paper presentations in parallel tracks. In the past century, our society has been through several periods of dramatic changes, driven by innovations such as transportation systems, telephone etc. Last few decades have experienced technologies that are evolving so rapidly, altering the constraints of space and time, and reshaping the way we communicate, learn and think. Rapid advances in information technologies and other digital systems are reshaping our ecosystem. Innovations in ICT allow us to transmit information quickly and widely, propelling the growth of new urban communities, linking distant places and diverse areas of endeavor in productive new ways, which a decade ago was unimaginable. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. Topics ( not limited to ) ----------------------------- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality Data Mining e-Learning e-Business e-Government Artificial Intelligence Web Services and Semantic Web Grid and Cloud Computing Ambient Intelligence Body Sensor Networks Computational Finance and Economics Cybercrime (Legal and Technical Issues) Computer Network Security Data Mining for Information Security Academic Integrity, Plagiarism Detection and Software Misuse Intrusion Detection and Forensics Scheduling For Large Scale Distributed System Nature Inspired Optimization Algorithms and Their Applications The Role of Technology in Education and Health Data Management Collaborative Design in Knowledge-based Environment Software Engineering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Submission Guidelines: ------------------------------------------------------ Submission of paper should be made through the submission page from the conference web page. Please refer to the conference website for guidelines to prepare your manuscript. Paper format templates: http://www.springer.com/series/11156 Proceedings are expected to be published by the Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, which is now indexed by ISI Proceedings, DBLP. Ulrich's, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS, Zentralblatt Math, MetaPress, Springerlink Proceedings will be made available during the conference. Expanded versions of selected papers will be published in special issues of internationally referred journals (indexed by SCI) and edited volumes. ISDA?16 Submission : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=isda2016 WICT?16 Submission : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wict2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Organizing Committee * ---------------------------------- General Chairs : Ana Maria Madureira, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Portugal Ajith Abraham, Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA Technical Committee (Please refer website ) : http://www.mirlabs.net/isda16/committees.php http://www.mirlabs.net/wict16/committees.php For technical contact: ---------------------------------- Ajith Abraham Email: ajith.abraham at ieee.org -- Best Regards, Azah Muda -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arnaud.blanchard at ensea.fr Mon Aug 8 16:08:55 2016 From: arnaud.blanchard at ensea.fr (Arnaud Blanchard) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:08:55 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ICDL-Epirob 2016 - Registrations are opened - Cergy-Pontoise/Paris, France - 19th-22nd September Message-ID: <1E67D235-1F4B-4171-AF94-EF7F16C19EBC@ensea.fr> ICDL-Epirob 2016 - Registrations are opened Cergy-Pontoise / Paris, France September 19-22th, 2016 http://icdl-epirob.org = IEEE ICDL-EPIROB 2016 = Six associated workshops ( submisions are still opened ) == Conference description IEEE ICDL-Epirob is the premier forum for advances in epigenetic robotics and developmental psychology with the focus on learning and development in biological and artificial systems. This single-track conference brings together researchers from cognitive sciences, computer sciences, and robotics to explore their shared interests in autonomous learning and development. The design and study of both robotic and simulated embodied and situated computational models that are inspired by the principles of human development will be presented at the conference. A special event -- the ?Babybot challenge? ? will see renowned psychologists challenging engineers and modelers in how to use the tools of developmental robotics to replicate and extend the key findings. This year, thanks to special funding from Paris-Seine University, five renowned invited speakers will cover the different facets of the conference. We invite you to participate in IEEE ICDL-Epirob by sharing your research, insights, experience, and enthusiasm. A social event ?on the paths of the impressionists? will allow you to discover the old city of Pontoise and Auvers sur Oise where Vincent Van Gogh painted some of his most famous masterpieces. Excursions to Paris, Versailles and Giverny will be proposed for spouses. == Keynote speakers * Tamim Asfour (http://h2t.anthropomatik.kit.edu/english/21_66.php ) * Karl Friston (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl ) * Julie Grezes (http://iec-lnc.ens.fr/social-cognition-group/membres-100/faculty-177/grezes-julie-dr2/?lang=en ) * Tony Prescott (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/psychology/staff/academic/tony-prescott ) * Daniela Corbetta (http://web.utk.edu/~infntlab ) == Program committee General chairs: * Minoru Asada Osaka (Japan). * Philippe Gaussier, Cergy-Pontoise (France). Program chairs: * Verena Hafner, Berlin (Germany) * Alexandre Pitti, Cergy-Pontoise (France) Bridge chairs: ? David Cohen, Paris (France) ? Mathew Schlesinger, Southern Illinois (USA) Publication chairs: * Sofiane Boucenna, Cergy-Pontoise (France) Publicity chairs: * Arnaud Blanchard, Cergy-Pontoise (France) * Manuel Lopes, Bordeaux (France) * Yulia Sandamirskaya, Z?rich (Switzerland) Local chairs: * Pierre Andry, Cergy-Pontoise (France) * Nicolas Cuperlier, Cergy-Pontoise (France) Finance chairs: * Ghil?s Mostafaoui, Cergy-Pontoise (France) == Registration fees* Price for : advanced / late registration (after september 18th) IEEE Member 380? / 460? Non-member 480? / 560? IEEE Student member 190? / 240? Student non-member 260? / 280? IEEE Life member 190? / 240? Only Workshops (September 19th) 120? / 120? (*) This price includes the social dinner. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From burcu.urgen at gmail.com Tue Aug 9 06:46:18 2016 From: burcu.urgen at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Burcu_Ay=C5=9Fen_=C3=9Crgen?=) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:46:18 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Participation: IEEE RO-MAN workshop on Neuroscience Methods in Human-Robot Interaction Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Apologies for multiple postings. We look forward to seeing anyone interested in the interdisciplinary research between cognitive neuroscience and robotics at our workshop in August this summer in NY. Please see the workshop info below. Please spread to colleagues who may be interested. -- IEEE RO-MAN workshop on Neuroscience Methods in Human-Robot Interaction 31st August 2016, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY Neuroscience methods such as brain imaging are increasingly used to address research questions in robotics, robot-human communication and interaction. This workshop will provide an overview of state-of-the-art work at the intersection of human-robot interaction and human neuroscience, to show how cross-disciplinary collaboration can be a win-win, and to help increase communication between researchers from different yet complementary disciplines, with the hope of catalysing new ideas and collaborations. Neuroscientists with expertise in several topics of interest for RO-MAN 2016 (e.g., embodiment, empathy, social cognition, body movements, gestures, facial expressions, anthropomorphism, learning and imitation, social presence, inference of human states, machine learning and brain-machine interfaces) will introduce the methods used, and present empirical and modeling work exemplifying their application to robotics, highlighting not only how such studies have led to insights on neural mechanisms of interaction, communication, and collaboration, but also how the findings inform the design and development of new robots, robot-human collaborative systems, interaction modalities and interfaces. Robotics and neuroscience both being active, rapidly developing, and high priority research areas, and the combination of expertise across disciplines holding great promise for advances in both theory and applications, the workshop will serve an important role by bringing together researchers coming from different backgrounds. Panel session will address challenges for interdisciplinary and novel research and discuss ideas for increasing synergy and impact future work. *Workshop Organizers:* Burcu A. Urgen, PhD (University of Parma, ITALY) Ayse P. Saygin, PhD (UC San Diego, USA) Emily S. Cross, PhD (Bangor University, UK) *Workshop website:* http://neurorobotics.ucsd.edu/ *Workshop Schedule:* *Morning Session* 9:15-9:30 - Opening remarks/Introduction: Burcu A. Urgen, PhD 9:30-10:30 ? *Keynote:* Ayse P. Saygin, PhD Talk title: *Human neuroscience and robotics* 10:30-11:00 - Coffee break 11:00-11:45 ? Susanne Quadflieg, PhD (*fMRI Tutorial*) Talk title: *The role of fMRI in robotics research* 11:45-12:30 ? James Thompson, PhD (*EEG and TMS Tutorial*) Talk title: *A brief introduction to electroencephalograpy (EEG) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) techniques in Human-Robot Interactions* 12:30-13:30 - Lunch *Afternoon Session* 13:30-14:30 ? *Keynote:* Emily S. Cross, PhD Talk title: *Robots on the brain: Exploring brain and behavioural correlates of social perception of artificial agents* 14:30-15:00 ? Burcu A. Urgen, PhD Talk title: *Cognitive neuroscience and artificial agent design: A case study from Uncanny Valley* 15:00-15:30 ? Coffee break 15:30-15:50 ? Andersen Man Shun Ang, Yeung Sam Hung Talk title: *Separable non-negative tensor factorization approach to feature extraction with application to human-computer interface* 16:00-16:45 ? *Panel session:* Interdisciplinary research between HRI and Cognitive Neuroscience, challenges of interdisciplinary research, peer-review process and tips about neuroimaging for HRI researchers, future directions 16:45 ? 17:00 ? Closing remarks (by the organizers) *Contact:* Workshop organizers (see emails on the workshop website) -- Burcu Aysen Urgen, PhD Postdoctoral researcher Department of Neuroscience University of Parma, ITALY Email: burcu.urgen at gmail.com Website: http://www.burcuaysenurgen.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From M.Gillies at gold.ac.uk Tue Aug 9 07:46:22 2016 From: M.Gillies at gold.ac.uk (Marco Gillies) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 11:46:22 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: ACM TiiS Special Issue on Human-Centred Machine Learning In-Reply-To: <2B8D3511-637F-4A2A-81A8-E4E57F70F489@gold.ac.uk> References: <2B8D3511-637F-4A2A-81A8-E4E57F70F489@gold.ac.uk> Message-ID: ==================================== CALL FOR PAPERS ==================================== ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS) Special Issue on Human-Centered Machine Learning DEADLINE: 2 December 2016 http://tiis.acm.org/ AIMS AND SCOPE Machine learning is one of the most important and successful techniques in contemporary computer science. It involves the statistical inference of models (such as classifiers) from data. It is often conceived in a very impersonal way, with algorithms working autonomously on passively collected data. However, this viewpoint hides considerable human work of tuning the algorithms, gathering the data, and even deciding what should be modeled in the first place. Examining machine learning from a human-centered perspective includes explicitly recognizing this human work, as well as reframing machine learning workflows based on situated human working practices, and exploring the co-adaptation of humans and intelligent systems. A human-centered understanding of machine learning in human context can lead not only to more usable machine learning tools, but to new ways of framing learning computationally. This journal issue will bring together research from different disciplines that aims to create a human-centered approach to machine learning. We invite submissions presenting novel research concerning the role of humans in machine learning systems to a special issue on Human-Centered Machine Learning to be published in the ACM Transactions of Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS, see more tiis.acm.org). These include both interactive machine learning systems and user studies that aim to understand the role of people in machine learning (or a combination of the two). The relevant topics are listed below. Since TiiS requires that every submission must demonstrate the two defining characteristics of an interactive intelligent system (tiis.acm.org/about.cfm), this special issue will consider only submissions that have such two defining characteristics. Hence, not every submission that falls into one of the listed topics is relevant to TiiS. TOPIC DIMENSIONS Advancing the state of the art in interactive machine learning * Design of new machine learning systems that is grounded in user research * New methods of interacting with the machine learning process (e.g. interacting during training, data collection, ideation, evaluation and adaptation) * New applications of interactive machine learning * Evaluation of new interactive machine learning systems * New user interaction approaches to machine learning including graphical interfaces but also physical and audio-visual interfaces Understanding the role of people in machine learning * User studies of machine learning systems * Case studies of the use of a machine learning tool * Identifying difficulties that users have with machine learning * Understanding users? conceptual models of machine learning * Identifying ways of using machine learning that do not conform to standard models Supporting Effective Use of Machine Learning * Methods to guide users to give useful information to machine learning systems * Methods to support debugging machine learning systems * Studies of the factors that influence the effectiveness of users? interactions with machine learning systems Visualizing and Explaining Machine Learning systems * Visualizations of the output and internal functioning of machine learning systems * Methods of giving feedback on why a machine learning system acted as it did * Textual, audio and other non-graphical feedback methods * Users studies on the role of feedback in machine learning Beyond Labels * Methods of guiding machine learning systems beyond the standard data labeling or reward signals used in supervised or reinforcement learning * Studies of the types of information that users want to give to machine learning systems * Interactive machine learning systems that allow people to give multiple, diverse forms of information SPECIAL ISSUE GUEST EDITORS * Rebecca Fiebrink (Goldsmiths, University of London) (r.fiebrink at gold.ac.uk) * Marco Gillies (Goldsmiths, University of London) (m.gillies at gold.ac.uk) DATES * By December 2nd, 2016: Submission of manuscripts * By March, 2017: Notification about decisions on initial submissions * By September, 2017: Targeting special issue publication Except for the initial submission deadline, these dates are indicative rather than definitive. Some submissions will be processed more quickly, while others may require more reviewing and revision. Each accepted article will be available online soon after, even if other articles for the special issue are not yet ready for publication. HOW TO SUBMIT Please see the instructions for authors on the TiiS website (http://tiis.acm.org). ABOUT ACM TiiS TiiS (pronounced "T double-eye S"), is an ACM journal for research about intelligent systems that people interact with. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From newsletter at saso-conference.org Tue Aug 9 14:49:22 2016 From: newsletter at saso-conference.org (=?utf-8?b?SmFuLVBoaWxpcHAgU3RlZ2jDtmZlcg==?=) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 20:49:22 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?CfPart=3A_SASO_2016_-_IEEE_Internationa?= =?utf-8?q?l_Conference_on_Self-Adaptive_and_Self-Organizing_System?= =?utf-8?q?s=2C_September_12-16=2C_Augsburg=2C_Germany?= Message-ID: ************************************************************************* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Tenth IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO 2016) Augsburg, Germany; 12-16 September 2016 http://uni-augsburg.de/saso2016 @SASO2016Conf ************************************************************************* Part of FAS* - Foundation and Applications of Self* Computing Conferences Co-located with: The International Conference on Cloud and Autonomic Computing (ICCAC 2016) http://iccac2016.se.rit.edu The conference program features three keynotes by distinguished speakers from academia and industry, nine workshops, four tutorials, a doctoral symposium, a poster and demo session, as well as presentation of six short papers and 14 full papers. Access to all activities is included in the registration fee. ---------------------------------- Registration and Accommodation ---------------------------------- Early Bird Registration ends August 19! Please register at: http://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/registration.html A single registration fee includes access to the main conference, tutorials, workshops, and the doctoral symposium. Moreover, it includes a conference kit with electronic proceedings, all coffee breaks, entrance to the Welcome Reception and to the Conference Dinner. Greatly reduced hotel rates are available at: https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/venue.html ------------------- Aims and Scope ------------------- The aim of the Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing systems conference series (SASO) is to provide a forum for the foundations of a principled approach to engineering systems, networks, and services based on self-adaptation and self-organization. The complexity of current and emerging networks, software, and services, especially when dealing with dynamics in the environment and problem domain, has led the software engineering, distributed systems, and management communities to look for inspiration in diverse fields (e.g., complex systems, control theory, artificial intelligence, sociology, and biology) to find new ways of designing and managing such computing systems. In this endeavor, self-organization and self-adaptation have emerged as two promising interrelated approaches. They form the basis for many other self-* properties, such as self-configuration, self-healing, or self-optimization. Systems exhibiting such properties are often referred to as self-* systems. The tenth edition of the SASO conference embraces the inter-disciplinary nature and the scientific, empirical, and application dimensions of self-* systems and welcomes novel results on both self-adaptive and self-organizing systems research. ---------------------- Invited Speakers ---------------------- https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/keynotes.html Prof. Dr. Marco Dorigo, Universit? Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium: Collective Decision Making: The Best-of-n Problem in Robot Swarms Dr. Manish Gupta, VP and Director, Xerox Research Center India: Using Data Science and Cloud to Scale and Personalize Services Dominik B?sl, KUKA AG: Future of Robotics ? Paving the Way for a Generation ?R? of Robotic Natives in the Age of Digitalization -------------------------- Accepted Full Papers -------------------------- https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/program.html Karan Budhraja and Tim Oates: Controlling Swarms by Visual Demonstration Fernando Silva, Lu?s Correia and Anders Lyhne Christensen: Online Hyper-Evolution of Controllers in Multirobot Systems Mostafa Wahby, Daniel Nicolas Hofstadler, Mary Katherine Heinrich, Payam Zahadat and Heiko Hamann: An Evolutionary Robotics Approach to the Control of Plant Growth and Motion: Modeling Plants and Crossing the Reality Gap Victor Lequay, Salima Hassas, Mathieu Lefort and Saber Mansour: Flexible Load Shedding using Gossip Communication in a Multi-Agents System Barry Porter and Roberto Rodrigues Filho: Losing Control: The Case for Emergent Software Systems using Autonomous Assembly, Perception and Learning Guoli Yang and Vincent Danos: Learning in open adaptive networks Jacob Beal, Mirko Viroli, Danilo Pianini and Ferruccio Damiani: Self-adaptation to Device Distribution Changes in Situated Computing Systems Tilman Deuschel and Ted Scully: On the Importance of Spatial Perception for the Design of Adaptive User Interfaces David Burth Kurka and Jeremy Pitt: Distributed Distributive Justice Patricio Petruzzi, Jeremy Pitt and D?dac Busquets: Inter-Institutional Social Capital Ada Diaconescu, Sylvain Frey, Christian M?ller-Schloer, Jeremy Pitt and Sven Tomforde: Goal-oriented Holonics for Complex System (Self-)Integration: Concepts and Case Studies Emanuele Carlini, Massimo Coppola, Patrizio Dazzi, Matteo Mordacchini and Andrea Passarella: Self-optimising Decentralised Service Placement in Heterogeneous Cloud Federation Gerrit Anders and Patrick Lehner: Self-Organized Graph-Based Resource Allocation Ashutosh Pandey, Gabriel Moreno, Javier C?mara and David Garlan: Hybrid Planning for Decision Making in Self-Adaptive Systems ------------------------- Accepted Short Papers ------------------------- https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/program.html Henner Heck, Olga Kieselmann and Arno Wacker: Evaluating Connection Resilience for Self-Organized Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems Sona Ghahremani, Holger Giese and Thomas Vogel: Towards Linking Adaptation Rules to the Utility Function for Dynamic Architectures Alain Tcheukam Siwe and Hamidou Tembine: One Swarm per Queen: A Particle Swarm Learning for Stochastic Games Vikramjit Singh, Markus Esch and Ingo Scholtes: Decentralized Cluster Detection in Distributed Systems based on Self-Organized Synchronization Abdessalam Elhabbash, Rami Bahsoon and Peter Tino: Interaction-awareness for self-adaptive volunteer computing Matthias Sommer, Anthony Stein and Joerg Haehner: Self-adaptive Ensemble Time Series Forecasting with XCSF ------------------ Special Track ------------------ Trustworthy Self-Organizing Systems http://tsos.isse.de/ Featuring invited talks by Jeremy Pitt, Christiano Castelfranchi and Rino Falcone, Natasha Dwyer and Stephen Marsh, as well as interactive presentations showcasing the combination of trust and self-organisation. ------------- Workshops ------------- https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/workshops.html 4th International Workshop on Autonomic Management of high performance Grid and Cloud Computing (AMGCC'16) 3rd Edition of the IEEE Workshop on Quality Assurance for Self-adaptive, Self-organising Systems (QA4SASO) The 2nd International Workshop on Data-driven Self-regulating Systems (DSS) 1st eCAS Workshop on Engineering Collective Adaptive Systems (eCAS) 9th International Workshop on Dynamic Software Product Lines. Variability at Runtime (DSPL) 4th International Workshop on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organising Socio-Technical Systems (SASO^ST) 1st International Workshop on Self-Organising Construction (SOCO) The 1st International joint Workshops on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing, and on Information Security and Privacy for Mobile Cloud Computing, Web and Internet of Things (FMEC/ISCW-2016) --------------- Tutorials --------------- https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/tutorials.html Odd Erik Gundersen: Knowledge Level Models of Situations and Situation Assessment: Theory and Applications Andr?s Pataricza, Imre Kocsis, L?szl? G?nczy: Model-based Cloudification of Critical Applications Lauro Snidaro: Context for adaptive Information Fusion Alexander Schiendorfer: Solving Soft Constraint Problems in Autonomic Systems with MiniBrass --------------------------- Venue and Accommodation --------------------------- FAS* 2016 will be hosted at the University of Augsburg. There are a number of hotel options available at greatly reduced prices for a limited time. Please refer to the details at https://saso2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/venue.html From amir.aly at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp Tue Aug 9 15:23:19 2016 From: amir.aly at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp (Amir Aly) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:23:19 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [journals] CFP - Special Issue on "Symbol Emergence and Developmental Systems: Social Symbol Grounding and Embodied Cognition in Humans and Robots" - IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS) Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS **Apologies for cross posting ** *IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS)*Special Issue on "*Symbol Emergence and Developmental Systems: Social Symbol Grounding and Embodied Cognition in Humans and Robots*" *I. Aim and Scope *Exploring human cognitive development constitutes a basic step towards endowing robots with high level human-like cognitive functions. Human embodied cognition follows a seamless process of development, which includes the development of sensorimotor skills, understanding concrete ideas and events, using concepts representing physical entities to describe objects, and coordinating multiple abstractions within complex representations. Investigating these aspects that bootstrap human cognitive development ? through appropriate theoretical and computational cognitive modeling ? allows for making robots capable of handling objects through the cumulative learning experiences that could develop sensorimotor skills, developing social skills through social learning strategies, grounding abstract concepts in the sensorimotor system, and developing linguistic skills in order to represent situations through language within interaction. A symbol system combines a group of tokens into structures and manipulates them through explicit rules to produce new expressions. The task of assigning a meaning to each meaningless symbol in a structure defines the "Symbol Grounding" problem, which has static physical and social components. The "Physical Symbol Grounding" allows an agent to form an internal explicit representation of an external-world referent so as to interpret symbols semantically. Whereas, the "Social Symbol Grounding" allows for developing a common lexicon of symbols grounded in perception information within a population of agents, which could lead to a gradual emergence of language through social interaction. A recent approach to semantically interpreting a symbol system is "Symbol Emergence", which accounts for the dynamic and self-organized nature of symbols that constitute human cognition. These complementary representations of a symbol system are still considered as real challenges in cognitive developmental robotics, and they require more elaborate theoretical and experimental studies in order to better understand the aspects of human behavior development. *II. Themes *This special issue aims to shed light on cutting-edge research lines in cognitive developmental robotics at the intersection of human cognitive science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, language science, and robotics research. Topics relevant to this special issue include, but are not limited to: - Human symbol systems and symbol emergence in robotics. - Cognitive modeling of human behavior. - Language and action development. - Learning from demonstration. - Action sequence learning. - Conceptual spaces for cognitive robotics. - Fluid and embodied construction grammar for cognitive robotics. *III. Submission * Manuscripts should be prepared according to the journal's ?Information for Authors? instructions found at http://cis.ieee.org/publications.html, and submissions should be done through the IEEE TCDS Manuscript center: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcds-ieee (please select the category ?SI: Symbol Emergence?). *IV. Important Dates*15 December 2016 ? Deadline for papers submission 31 March 2017 ? First notification for authors 15 May 2017 ? Deadline for revised papers submission 15 June 2017 ? Final notification for authors *V. Guest Editors * 1. *Amir Aly*, Ritsumeikan University, Japan ( amir.aly at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp) 2. *Sascha Griffiths*, Queen Mary University of London, UK ( sascha.griffiths at qmul.ac.uk) 3. *Francesca Stramandinoli*, IIT, Italy (francesca.stramandinoli at iit.it) 4. *Tadahiro Taniguchi*, Ritsumeikan University, Japan ( taniguchi at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp ) 5. *Paul Vogt*, Tilburg University, The Netherlands (p.a.vogt at uvt.nl) More details about the scope of this journal special issue and the guest editors are available on: IEEE_TCDS_SI_CFP.pdf . ------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Amir Aly Postdoctoral Research Associate Emergent Systems Laboratory College of Information Science and Engineering - Ritsumeikan University 1-1-1 Noji Higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577 Japan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkrichma at uci.edu Tue Aug 9 22:23:19 2016 From: jkrichma at uci.edu (Jeff Krichmar) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:23:19 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop On Interacting with Robots Through Touch at UC Irvine Message-ID: <318B9630-03C2-471B-BBD4-CED3C3F57476@uci.edu> Workshop On Interacting with Robots Through Touch at UC Irvine September 13, 2016 9AM ? 6PM 1517 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, University of California, Irvine Register at: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma/haptics_workshop.html Robots and autonomous systems are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday life. In particular co-Robots, in which robots have a symbiotic relationship with people, have the potential to increase social well-being and open up new socioeconomic opportunities. For example, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), co-Robotics, and Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) are increasingly being used for entertainment, education, telepresence, rehabilitation and therapy. SARs have the potential to help children with developmental disorders, such as autism or attention deficit disorders. Social robots can act as digital ethnographers by: automatically detecting what robot-generated activities children enjoy most, monitoring development of social structure within the classroom. To date, most of these co-robots focus on eye contact (e.g., shared attention, shared gaze, etc.) and auditory cues (e.g., catch phrases and music), but tend to neglect other sensory systems important for social behavior, such as tactile interaction. The purpose of this workshop is to explore the use of tactile sensing in HRI and SARs. The day will include talks by invited speakers and a poster session. If you are interested in presenting a poster on this topic, send your abstract to: jkrichma at uci.edu Confirmed Speakers: Andrea Chiba, University of California, San Diego Deborah Forster, University of California, San Diego William Harwin, University of Reading Guy Hoffman, Cornell University Jeffrey L. Krichmar, University of California, Irvine Francis McGlone, Liverpool JM University David J. Reinkensmeyer, University of California, Irvine Veronica J. Santos, University of California, Los Angeles Michael Tolley, University of California, San Diego Jeff Krichmar Department of Cognitive Sciences 2328 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-5100 jkrichma at uci.edu http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma From Uwe.Aickelin at nottingham.edu.cn Wed Aug 10 01:52:33 2016 From: Uwe.Aickelin at nottingham.edu.cn (Uwe Aickelin) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 05:52:33 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Job Opportunity Message-ID: Hello, The University of Nottingham Ningbo China is currently recruiting an Associate Professor in Computer Science. It will be much appreciated if you can help forward this email to suitable candidates. Associate Professor in Computer Science Reference: UNNC444X1 Closing Date: Monday, 5th September 2016 Job Type: Research & Teaching Salary: ?49230 to ?58754 per annum, depending on skills and experience. Salary progression beyond this scale is subject to performance. For more details and/or to apply on-line please access: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/jobs/currentvacancies/ref/UNNC444X1 Informal enquiries regarding these vacancies may be addressed to: Professor Guoping Qiu, Head of School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Email: guoping.qiu at nottingham.edu.cn Please note that applications sent directly to this address will not be accepted. Applications must be submitted on-line. Interviews will take place in Ningbo, China and your referees will be contacted prior to interview. 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 alessandra.sciutti at gmail.com Wed Aug 10 12:21:33 2016 From: alessandra.sciutti at gmail.com (Alessandra Sciutti) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 18:21:33 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?CfP_for_the_Workshop_=22Vision_and?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_the_development_of_social_cognition=22_at_ICDL-EPI?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ROB_2016?= Message-ID: <000e01d1f323$431d3e90$c957bbb0$@gmail.com> Call for Papers?(apologies for multiple postings) ? ?=================================================== Workshop ?Vision and the development of social cognition? =================================================== September 19th?2016 Cergy-Pontoise / Paris https://www.codefror.eu/icdl_workshop In conjunction with the?Sixth Joint IEEE International Conference on Developmental Learning and Epigenetic Robotics(ICDL-EPIROB 2016) http://www.icdl-epirob.org ? **************************************************************************** *************************** ================= Workshop organisers ================= ? ? Alessandra Sciutti,? RBCS - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova alessandra.sciutti at iit.it ? ? Nicoletta Noceti, DIBRIS - Universit? degli Studi di Genova nicoletta.noceti at unige.it This workshop is supported by the European Project CODEFROR (FP7-PIRSES-2013-612555) - www.codefror.eu ? **************************************************************************** *************************** ================== Scope and motivation ==================? Since birth humans show a strong predisposition to social interaction, which is supported by their developing visual perception skills. An important role is played by the vision of others? actions and movements. For instance, a natural predisposition to detect biological motion is present from birth enabling infants to detect interacting agents. More refined abilities ? as the understanding and anticipation of others' actions? progressively develop with age, leading, in a few years, to a full capability of interaction based on mutual understanding, joint coordination and collaboration. Unfolding the theory of visual motion perception development is one of the main challenges of neuro- and cognitive science research. Over the last decades, the artificial vision community has shown an increasing interest for these theories, stimulated by the ambition of providing artificial agents with comparable perception capabilities. The topics of the workshop will refer to the possible interconnections between human and machine vision in a developmental perspective. The purpose of the meeting will be two-fold: on the one hand the discussion will focus on how the development of human visual perception might inspire the development of?novel methods for artificial vision and social robotics; on the other hand, it will evaluate how the implementation of machine vision methods could help?understanding human social development. The ambition of this workshop is to stimulate the discussion on these challenging topics, bridging Computer Vision, Developmental Science and Robotics, with an eye to potential applications in the field of human-robot interaction and rehabilitation.? ? Topics of interest?include but are not limited to: ? ? Computational models of visual perception ? Vision of action and motion ? Human-Robot Interaction ? Visual social signals ? The relationship of vision and other sensory modalities ? Visual development in healthy and autistic population **************************************************************************** *************************** =============== Keynote speakers =============== ? ? Giulio Sandini, RBCS - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova? ? ? Mohamed Chetouani - Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie ? ISIR, Paris? ? ? Jacqueline Nadel - Centre Emotion CNRS , Paris? ? ? **************************************************************************** *************************** ========== Submission ========== Prospective participants are required to submit short (2 pages) or full papers (up to 8 pages). Submissions must be in pdf, following the ICDL conference style. All contributions will be subject to a peer review process. The selected contributions will be assigned either an oral or a poster presentation.?The pdf will have to be sent to?alessandra.sciutti at iit.it?and?nicoletta.noceti at unige.it?by August 22nd, 2016. The e-mail should contain the tag [ICDL_VISION] in the subject. ? **************************************************************************** *************************** =============== Important dates =============== ? ? 22nd?August 2016?- Deadline for paper submissions? ? 19th September 2016?- Workshop in Cergy-Pontoise / Paris **************************************************************************** *************************** From m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk Wed Aug 10 12:00:48 2016 From: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk (m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:00:48 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Marie Curie Experienced Researcher in Video Analytics for Large Camera Networks, VisioSafe, Switzerland Message-ID: Marie Curie Experienced Researcher in Video Analytics for Large Camera Networks VisioSafe, Switzerland http://www.spartan-itn.eu/#1 Closing Date: Open until filled Applications are invited for a Marie Curie Experienced Researcher (ER) position at VisioSafe, Switzerland in Video Analytics for Large Camera Networks. This post is for 24 months maximum (to end by 30 Sept 2018), as part of the SpaRTaN Marie Curie Initial Training Network in sparse representations and compressed sensing. Over the past years, VisioSafe have installed hundreds of cameras to get in-depth insights on human mobility in large public scenes such as train terminals. We have collected more than 75 million trajectories aggregated as temporal Origin-Destination (OD) matrices from two train terminals during one year. The selected candidate will analyze such Big Data to identify behavioural patterns in transportation settings. More specifically, we aim to address how predictable is human behaviour. Can we learn structures in the OD matrices to infer recurrent and abnormal patterns? The outcome of the project will help to understand the space usage, to forecast human flows, and to simulate the impact of infrastructure changes. Candidates should hold a master's degree in image processing, computer science and/or engineering, or related areas. To be eligible for this funding, the master's degree must have been completed at least four years, but not more than five years, before starting this post. The candidate must not have spent more than 12 months in the host country in the 3 years prior to starting. Experience in image-processing algorithms is essential. Candidates are also expected to have good skills in programming (C and C++), proficiency in English, the right to work in Switzerland and availability to travel within the SpaRTaN network. For more details on eligibility and how to apply, see http://www.spartan-itn.eu/#1 -- Prof Mark D Plumbley Professor of Signal Processing Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) University of Surrey Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK Email: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk From mholee at gmail.com Wed Aug 10 16:51:41 2016 From: mholee at gmail.com (Minho Lee) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 05:51:41 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Request for connectionist email subscription Message-ID: Subject: [Neural Networks]: Special Issue - Advances in Cognitive Engineering Using Neural Networks, EXTENDED DEADLINE: August 31, 2016 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 is extended (August 31, 2016) Due to numerous requests, a deadline extension has been approved. The new submission deadline is 31 August. No further extensions will be possible. Submission deadline: August 31, 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 From sorelle at cs.haverford.edu Wed Aug 10 17:03:04 2016 From: sorelle at cs.haverford.edu (Sorelle Friedler) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:03:04 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: 3rd Workshop on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS ========================================================================= 3rd Workshop on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning Co-located with the Data Transparency Lab 2016 November 18, New York, NY http://fatml.org/ Submission Deadline: September 9, 2016 ========================================================================= OVERVIEW -------- This workshop aims to bring together a growing community of researchers and practitioners concerned with fairness, accountability, and transparency in machine learning. The past few years have seen growing recognition that machine learning raises novel challenges for ensuring non-discrimination, due process, and understandability in decision-making. In particular, policymakers, regulators, and advocates have expressed fears about the potentially discriminatory impact of machine learning, with many calling for further technical research into the dangers of inadvertently encoding bias into automated decisions. At the same time, there is increasing alarm that the complexity of machine learning may reduce the justification for consequential decisions to ?the algorithm made me do it.? The goal of this workshop is to provide researchers with a venue to explore how to characterize and address these issues with computationally rigorous methods. This year, the workshop is co-located with two other highly related events: the Data Transparency Lab (DTL) Conference and the Workshop on Data and Algorithmic Transparency (DAT). We anticipate that our workshop will consist of a mix of invited talks, invited panels, and contributed talks. We welcome paper submissions that address any issue of fairness, accountability, and transparency related to machine learning, especially those that provide a bridge to empirical studies of the behavior of data-driven systems in the wild, the focus of the DTL and DAT events. TOPICS OF INTEREST ------------------ Fairness: 1. Can we develop new computational techniques for discrimination-aware data mining? How should we handle, for example, bias in training data sets? 2. How should we formalize fairness? What does it mean for an algorithm to be fair? 3. Should we look only to the law for definitions of fairness? Are legal definitions sufficient? Can legal definitions even be translated to practical algorithmic contexts? 4. Can we develop definitions of discrimination and disparate impact that move beyond the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?s 80% rule? 5. Who decides what counts as fair when fairness becomes a machine learning objective? 6. Are there any dangers in turning questions of fairness into computational problems? Accountability: 1. What would human review entail if models were available for direct inspection? 2. Are there practical methods to test existing algorithms for compliance with a policy? 3. Can we prove that an algorithm behaves in some way without having to reveal the algorithm? Can we achieve accountability without transparency? 4. How can we conduct reliable empirical black-box testing and/or reverse engineer algorithms to test for ethically salient differential treatment? 5. What are the societal implications of autonomous experimentation? How can we manage the risks that such experimentation might pose to users? Transparency: 1. How can we develop interpretable machine learning methods that provide ways to manage the complexity of a model and/or generate meaningful explanations? 2. Can we use adversarial conditions to learn about the inner workings of inscrutable algorithms? Can we learn from the ways they fail on edge cases? 3. How can we use game theory and machine learning to build fully transparent, but robust models using signals that people would face severe costs in trying to manipulate? PAPER SUBMISSION ---------------- Papers are limited to 4 content pages, including figures and tables, and should use a standard 2-column 11pt format; however, an additional fifth page containing only cited references is permitted. Papers must be anonymized for double-blind reviewing. Accepted papers will be made available on the workshop website and should also be posted by the authors to arXiv; however, the workshop's proceedings can be considered non-archival, meaning that contributors are free to publish their work in archival journals or conferences. Accepted papers will be either presented as a talk or poster (to be determined by the workshop organizers). Papers should be submitted here: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fatml2016 Complete Paper Submissions Due: September 9, 2016, 11:59:59PM EDT Notification to Authors: October 7, 2016 Camera-Ready Papers Due: October 28, 2016 RELATED CALL ------------ Authors of especially well developed papers should also consider submitting to a special issue of Big Data on ?Social and Technical Trade-Offs,? which is being guest edited by a number of the workshop organizers: http://www.liebertpub.com/lpages/big-data-cfp-social-and-technical-trade-offs/155/ Complete Manuscript Submissions Due: September 15, 2016 ORGANIZATION ------------ Workshop Organizers: Solon Barocas, Microsoft Research NYC Sorelle Friedler, Haverford College Moritz Hardt, Google Joshua Kroll, CloudFlare Suresh Venkatasubramanian, University of Utah Hanna Wallach, Microsoft Research NYC Program Committee: Sorelle Friedler, Haverford College, Co-Chair Suresh Venkatasubramanian, University of Utah, Co-Chair Anupam Datta, Carnegie Mellon University Hal Daume, University of Maryland, College Park Fernando Diaz, Microsoft Research NYC Krishna Gummadi, MPI-SWS Sara Hajian, Eurecat, Technology Center of Catalonia Kristian Lum, Human Rights Data Analysis Group David Robinson, Upturn Salvatore Ruggieri, Universit? di Pisa Julia Stoyanovich, Drexel University Christo Wilson, Northeastern University *** more members may be added *** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Wed Aug 10 15:16:15 2016 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 15:16:15 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Neuroscience Gateway Workshop at SFN 2016 meeting Message-ID: <7972da9a-7620-7758-9a5b-bc310de4ed52@yale.edu> Space is still open in the workshop Using the Neuroscience Gateway Portal for Parallel Simulation which will be held Saturday, Nov. 12 from 9 AM to noon as a satellite to the 2016 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The Neuroscience Gateway Portal (NSG) is an NSF-supported resource with a simple, convenient user interface, that provides free time on high performance computing hardware for computationally intensive tasks such as large scale simulations and data analysis. Currently installed software includes Brian, GENESIS, MOOSE, NEST, NEURON, PyNN, Freesurfer, and the Virtual Personalized Multimodal Connectome Pipeline. The registration deadline for this workshop is Friday Oct. 28, but it is advisable to sign up early because space is limited. See http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/nsg2016/nsg2016.html for more information and a link to the registration form. --Ted From yhongdian at gmail.com Wed Aug 10 14:59:33 2016 From: yhongdian at gmail.com (Hongdian Yang) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:59:33 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc positions in systems neuroscience available at UC Riverside Message-ID: The Yang lab at the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of California Riverside is seeking talented, highly-motivated candidates to fill 1-2 postdoc positions. Our lab employs multi-disciplinary approaches, including state-of-the-art in vivo electrophysiology and calcium imaging, optogenetics, mouse behavior, computational modeling and theory, to link cellular-level physiology to circuit dynamics and network analysis in behaving rodents. Our lab is currently interested in understanding how neuromodulators regulate cortical dynamics and animal?s behavior. Ideal candidates should be highly motivated, have rigorous training in neuroscience, bioengineering, biophysics, or other related Fields. Experience with electrophysiology or Matlab programming is a huge plus. Scientific creativity and interpersonal skills are also important as the successful candidates will work both independently and as part of a team. Candidates interested in postdoc positions please email us ( recruit.yanglab at gmail.com), and should include a cover letter, CV and contact information for 3 references. For more information, please refer the attached PDF and visit our website www.hyanglab.com -- Hongdian Yang Assistant Professor Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience University of California, Riverside www.hyanglab.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: YangLab_recruitment.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1147234 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anartaghosh at gmail.com Thu Aug 11 06:52:09 2016 From: anartaghosh at gmail.com (Anarta ghosh) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:52:09 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Research positions at United Technologies Research Center - Ireland Message-ID: United Technologies Research Center Ireland Ltd. (UTRCI) is inviting qualified candidates with excellent track records in the areas of data analytics, machine learning, statistical pattern recognition, diagnostics prognostics & health management to apply. UTRC delivers advanced technologies to the businesses of United Technologies Corporation (UTC). UTC (NYSE:UTX) is a diversified company that provides a broad range of high-technology products and services to the global aerospace and building systems industries (www.utc.com). UTRC employees enjoy a diverse and collaborative working environment. The following links provide information about the job postings and can also be used to apply for the positions: https://www.goodrich.apply2jobs.com/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=mExternal.showJob&RID=36390&CurrentPage=1 https://www.goodrich.apply2jobs.com/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=mExternal.showJob&RID=37722&CurrentPage=1 In addition, our company offers Internship opportunities in these areas for students and research associates. Given the expertise of your organization in the aforementioned areas, we would be very interested in hearing from your students, researchers or colleagues. We would therefore like to request if you could kindly distribute and post this information in your institution. Please do not hesitate to contact us at any time should you have a question or wish to provide recommendations on exceptional individuals. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Yours sincerely, Anarta Ghosh (ghosha at utrc.utc.com) ================================= *UTRC Profile United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) delivers advanced technologies to the businesses of United Technologies Corporation (UTC). UTC (NYSE:UTX) is a diversified company that provides a broad range of high-technology products and services to the global aerospace and building systems industries (www.utc.com). UTC's commercial businesses are Otis elevators and escalators and UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a leading provider of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, fire and security systems building automation and controls under the brand names Carrier, Automated Logic etc.. UTC?s aerospace businesses are Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines and UTC Aerospace Systems. UTRC partners with UTC business units and external research organizations to expand the boundaries of science and technology through research and innovation, delivering technology options that meet and anticipate the needs of the marketplace. Founded in 1929, UTRC is located in East Hartford, Connecticut (U.S.), with an office in Berkeley, California, and research and development centers in Shanghai, China; Rome, Italy; and Cork, Ireland. United Technologies Research Centre Ireland, Ltd. (UTRCI), established in 2009, operates as the European hub of UTRC and is part of UTRC?s mission to expand its collaborative activities while leveraging a global network of innovation. Located in Cork, Ireland, UTRCI undertakes R&D for the next generation of Energy and Security Systems for High Performance Buildings. Recently, UTRCI has expanded its research capability to include Aerospace Systems to support large UTC industrial presence in Europe (UTAS, Pratt & Whitney and Goodrich) by leveraging existing relationships with independent aerospace-active research labs in Europe. The UTRCI team members are world-class engineers and researchers with expertise in Control Systems and Optimization, Building Energy Modeling, Power Electronics, Formal Methods, Access Control, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Decision Support, Credentials, Communications, and Localization. UTRCI is a diverse and collaborative working environment with a focus on healthy work-life balance. ================================= From gbhuang at cs.umass.edu Thu Aug 11 14:43:51 2016 From: gbhuang at cs.umass.edu (Gary Huang) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 14:43:51 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Image Segmentation Research Specialist, FlyEM, Janelia Research Campus, HHMI Message-ID: Image Segmentation Research Specialist, FlyEM Application page: https://hhmi-openhire.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=469&company_id=16908&version=2&source=ONLINE&jobOwner=992639&aid=1 Questions: Stephen Plaza, plazas at janelia.hhmi.org Job Description: The FlyEM team at Janelia Research Campus, HHMI is seeking an exceptional candidate to tackle the computer vision challenges in extracting the neural connectivity of a brain from terabytes of electron microscopic images. This is a unique opportunity to help elucidate real neural computation by providing theorists, behaviorists, and other neuroscientists with meaningful data extracted from an increasing flow of extremely high-resolution brain data. Janelia is among a few institutes in the world that generate such high-resolution, isotropic 3d brain images. The candidate will be expected to generate original research and apply that research to practical applications in a large-scale, collaborative, team science environment. This position is appropriate for either career scientists / independent contributors or recent PhD graduates looking for post-doctoral experience. The candidate should be an expert in computer vision, machine learning, optimization, or related fields and have sufficient programming proficiency to apply that research. Example projects could include image segmentation using deep learning or object prediction. The candidate will interact with experts of diverse background and collaborators around the world and must possess superior communication skills. Preferred Qualifications: - PhD in computer science or related disciplines - Expertise in computer vision, machine learning - Proficiency in one or more computer languages (such as C++ and Python) - Ability to work in a collaborative environment About Janelia: Janelia Research Campus is a pioneering research center in Ashburn, Virginia, where scientists pursue fundamental questions in neuroscience and imaging. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) launched Janelia in 2006, establishing an intellectually distinctive environment for scientists to do creative, collaborative, hands-on work. To learn more about working at Janelia, visit janelia.org/careers. About HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is a science philanthropy whose mission is to advance biomedical research and science education for the benefit of humanity. We empower exceptional scientists and students to pursue fundamental questions about living systems, and work to share scientific discoveries with researchers, students, and science-curious individuals around the world. Founded in 1953 by aviator and industrialist Howard R. Hughes, HHMI is headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and employs more than 2,500 people across the U.S. Visit hhmi.org/careers to learn more about working at HHMI. HHMI is an Equal Opportunity Employer Job Location: Ashburn, Virginia, United States Position Type: Full-Time/Regular From sorelle at cs.haverford.edu Fri Aug 12 11:32:37 2016 From: sorelle at cs.haverford.edu (Sorelle Friedler) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:32:37 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Big Data Special Issue on Social and Technical Trade-Offs Message-ID: *Big Data / *http://www.liebertpub.com/big Call for Papers: Special Issue on Social and Technical Trade-Offs Guest Editors: Solon Barocas / Microsoft Research danah boyd / Data & Society and Microsoft Research Sorelle Friedler / Haverford College and Data & Society Hanna Wallach / Microsoft Research and UMass Amherst Deadline for manuscript submission: *September 15, 2016* This special issue on Social and Technical Trade-Offs aims to serve two main purposes: 1. To highlight exciting and novel work in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data mining, and data science that articulates, examines, challenges, and addresses the technical and social trade-offs involved in the analysis and interpretation of big data. 2. To pose practical, grounded, and socially-oriented challenges for researchers in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data mining, and data science to motivate and guide their research. Working with ?big data? isn't easy, especially when it involves social data. Researchers and practitioners must make hard choices when cleaning and processing data, grapple with biased data sets and missing data, and evaluate the social and technical trade-offs involved in analysis and interpretation. What are the ethical implications of these choices? What happens when we get it wrong? How can we prioritize reproducibility? What happens when biased data and imperfect methods are combined in unexpected ways? This special issue will examine the trade-offs that emerge from the interconnected nature of the social and technical decision-making that lies at the heart of big data. We encourage submissions that focus on challenges and questions involving large-scale social data, and that are deployed (or are in the process of being deployed) in the real world. Area of focus include (but are not limited to): - Surveillance and privacy - Healthcare, medicine, and public health - Criminal justice and policing - Education and learning - Disaster relief - Urban planning, housing, and infrastructure - Finance, scoring, and insurance - Public administration and public policy - Autonomous experimentation - Targeted advertising Example questions that are relevant include (but are not limited to): - How should we strike a balance between model performance and interpretability? - How can we formalize social concepts in ways that are amenable to machine learning methods? How do these formalizations influence the choice of machine learning method? - How does uncertainty and noise inherent to real-world data sets affect the use of these data sets and the use of results obtained from them via machine learning methods? - How can we incorporate social and ethical considerations into our validation methods and choices? What are the social costs of errors or class imbalance and the distribution of those errors across populations? What are the social implications of prioritizing false positive rates vs. false negative rates? - When is it appropriate to collect additional data about minority or underrepresented populations? How should we address the need for balanced datasets without imposing a ?diversity tax?? How should we weigh the social and financial associated costs and benefits? - What are the social consequences and tradeoffs involved in feature selection? - We encourage submissions from organizations that may do not typically write research papers. In addition to submissions from universities and corporations, we welcome submissions from government agencies, nonprofit organizations, startups, and foundations. These submissions might be: - Papers that describe and evaluate new and/or existing methods that balance social and technical factors in decision-making using or surrounding big data. - Papers that describe trade-offs that emerged during the design and implementation of big data systems in industry, government, or nonprofit settings. - Position papers that highlight sociotechnical challenges that need to be overcome in order to make methods that are suited to responsibly solving large-scale social challenges. Deadline for manuscript submission: September 15, 2016. Submit here: http://www.liebertpub.com/manuscript/big Please address any questions to: bd-tradeoffs at lists.datasociety.net Big Data is a highly innovative, peer-reviewed journal, provides a unique forum for world-class research exploring the challenges and opportunities in collecting, analyzing, and disseminating vast amounts of data, including data science, big data infrastructure and analytics, and pervasive computing. Advantages of publishing in Big Data include: ? Big Data is indexed in Thomson Reuters Emerging Sources Citation Index ? Attractive open access options ? Fast and user-friendly electronic submission ? Rapid, high-quality peer review ? Maximum exposure: accessible in 170 countries worldwide *A web version of this call is available at: *http://www.datasociety. net/blog/2016/03/10/big-data-cfp-social-technical-trade-offs/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zhaoping at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Fri Aug 12 12:13:14 2016 From: zhaoping at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Dr Zhaoping Li) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:13:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: Connectionists: A video tutorial on Visual Attention and Visual Salience Message-ID: A one hour-long video introduction to visual attention and visual salience is available from http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/Zhaoping.Li/AttentionSalienceIntroSeminar.html Feedback and questions welcome! Zhaoping -- Li Zhaoping Prof. of computational neuroscience, UCL http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/Zhaoping.Li/ Author of "Understanding Vision: theory, models, and data", Oxford University Press, 2014 http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/Zhaoping.Li/VisionBook.html From sliman.bensmaia at gmail.com Fri Aug 12 14:58:17 2016 From: sliman.bensmaia at gmail.com (Sliman Bensmaia) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 18:58:17 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: programmer wanted -- neuroscience and neuroprosthetics lab Message-ID: Lab at the cutting edge of neuroscience and neurotechnology looking for a programmer to keep us at the cutting edge! The lab has two general pursuits: discover the neural basis of touch and proprioception ? how do patterns of activation in the nerve and in the brain mediate our ability to feel objects by touch and sense the position and movements of our limbs in space? ? and to develop a somatosensory neuroprosthesis ? How can we recreate the sense of touch by stimulating the nerve or the brain. See http://bensmaialab.org for additional information regarding the lab and the exciting work we are doing. Ideally, looking for a motivated, intelligent individual who works well with people, someone who might be able to make a long term commitment to the lab and help us build something special. JOB SUMMARY Responsible for interfacing the various machines in the lab (robots, sensors, data acquisition systems, etc.) with computers and with each other to run neurophysiological and behavioral experiments with human and non-human primates. EDUCATION Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field of engineering required. EXPERIENCE One year of relevant programming experience required. Experience developing, implementing, debugging and maintaining applications required. Two years of professional programming experience preferred. Experience developing applications using C++, Matlab, Python, Java, MySQL, Visual Basic, and/or any other object oriented programming language preferred. Experience building and debugging electronic systems preferred but not required. Knowledge of electromechanical systems preferred but not required. Interest in and/or knowledge of neurophysiology preferred but not required. -- Sliman Bensmaia Associate Professor Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy University of Chicago 773.834.5203 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wduch at is.umk.pl Fri Aug 12 15:24:39 2016 From: wduch at is.umk.pl (=?iso-8859-2?Q?W=B3odzis=B3aw_Duch?=) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 21:24:39 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-2?q?_Fully_funded_PhD_positions_in_the?= =?iso-8859-2?q?_project=3A_=22In_search_of_the_sources_of_brain=27?= =?iso-8859-2?q?s_cognitive_activity=22?= Message-ID: <006401d1f4cf$2c4e4670$84ead350$@is.umk.pl> Our Neurocognitive Laboratory at the Center for Modern Interdisciplinary Technologies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland, is looking for PhD students to work on the project: "In search of the sources of brain's cognitive activity". Consortium running this project is composed of 4 institutions: Neurocognitive Lab and Department of Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru?, Poland (supervisors: prof. A. Cichocki, prof. W. Duch), Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw (dr hab. E. Kublik), and Bioimaging Research Center, Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, Warsaw (dr T. Wolak). STARTING DATE: October 2016 or later, support for 3-5 years. RESEARCH TOPIC: To understand how brain executes cognitive functions we need to find an optimal method of identification of brain structures responsible for generation of the EEG waves recorded on the scalp. We want to identify the unique spatio-temporal maps of electrical activation specific for the activated structures/subnetworks, so-called EEG-fingerprint specific for each structure. The project is focused on novel methods of EEG and fMRI signal analysis that will be verified using real time fMRI/EEG neurofeedback and behavioral experiments. PROFILE of PhD candidates: MSc in computer science, signal processing, machine learning, applied mathematics, theoretical physics or related fields. Programming experience in Python, Matlab, or C/C++. Experience with deep learning algorithms, analysis of neuroimaging data, is not required but would be an asset. TO APPLY: send your CV, a motivation letter, a list of publications, and one or more recommendation letters to dr Tomasz Piotrowski, tpiotrowski at is.umk.pl as soon as possible but not later than September 15, 2016 ____________________ Google W. Duch -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ndjaitly at google.com Sat Aug 13 00:36:58 2016 From: ndjaitly at google.com (Navdeep Jaitly) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 21:36:58 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Announcing the Second Deep Learning Symposium at NIPS 2016 Message-ID: Second Deep Learning Symposium at the 30th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2016) December 8, 2016, Barcelona, Spain https://sites.google.com/site/nips2016deeplearnings/ Program Committee recommendation deadline: Friday, August 26, 2016 OVERVIEW Deep learning algorithms attempt to discover good representations at multiple levels of abstraction. This research area has seen an explosion of progress over the past several years, with significant algorithmic advances as well as applications to areas as diverse as vision, speech processing, language understanding, robotics, game playing, neuroscience, and health. Major machine learning and AI conferences often dedicate several sessions to deep learning, attesting to the widespread interest in this area of research. The rapid (and perhaps bewildering) rate of progress also opens up new research challenges. This symposium aims to bring together researchers in deep learning and related areas to discuss the new advances and challenges and to brainstorm about new solutions and directions. FORMAT A selected group of leading experts in the field -- the Program Committee (PC) members (see the list at https://sites.google.com/site/nips2016deeplearnings/pc-members ) -- will recommend papers to present at the event. There is no usual submission/review process, but PCs members will make their recommendations based on papers they have recently read. In order to let the broader research community and authors contribute with links to paper URLs and comments to papers, we will use OpenReview (http://beta.openreview.net/). The PCs recommendation deadline is: Friday, August 26, 2016 (although the recommendation website will remain open for comments and contributions even after this date to benefit the PCs in their subsequent discussion to determine the final presenter list, and even after the Symposium date for the benefit of the whole community). For more information, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/nips2016deeplearnings/ The Deep Learning Symposium Organizers at NIPS 2016, Yoshua Bengio, Roger Grosse, Navdeep Jaitly, and Yann LeCun From Roman.Bauer at newcastle.ac.uk Mon Aug 15 03:26:45 2016 From: Roman.Bauer at newcastle.ac.uk (Roman Bauer) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 07:26:45 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Abstracts: Computational Neurology Conference 2017 Message-ID: Call for Abstracts: Computational Neurology Conference 2017 We are now inviting authors to submit abstracts for poster and oral presentations at the Computational Neurology conference in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) on February 20-21, 2017. The conference will gather international researchers and professionals interested in applying advances in computing and neuroscience for clinically relevant purposes. More information on the conference can be found on this website: http://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/compneurology/ Registration to the conference will be free, and lunch & refreshments will be provided. Authors of accepted abstracts will get the chance for a poster and oral presentation. The organizing committee will select submissions that will be given the opportunity to give a 20 min talk, and there will be a poster prize. All accepted abstracts will be published online on the conference website. Currently confirmed speakers include: * Javier Escudero - Edinburgh * Viktor Jirsa - Marseille * Marcus Kaiser - Newcastle * Dimitri Kullmann - UCL * Marco Manca - CERN * Florian Mormann - Bonn * Matthew Nolan - Edinburgh * Gregory Scott - Imperial College London * Peter Uhlhaas - Glasgow Details for Abstract Submission: Deadline for abstract submission is October 31st, 2016. The length of the abstract should not exceed 250 words. In addition to the abstract, please add your contact information (name, degree/position and institution), and send these information by email to compneurology at ncl.ac.uk . Please note that the submission of an abstract does not replace the conference registration. Thanks and we are looking forward to welcoming you in Newcastle upon Tyne! On behalf of the organizers: Roman Bauer, Anupam Hazra, Luis Peraza Rodriguez, Peter Taylor, Yujiang Wang -- Roman Bauer, Ph.D. Research Associate School of Computing Science Newcastle University 9.22 Claremont Tower Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK tel: +44 (0) 191 208 7975 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From missura.olana at gmail.com Mon Aug 15 03:32:28 2016 From: missura.olana at gmail.com (Olana Missura) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 03:32:28 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: ECML-PKDD 2016 Network Classification Challenge Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, In addition to our three exciting challenges, we have prepared a very innovative ECML-PKDD 2016 discovery challenge, which collocates in the realm of Automatic Network Management. This challenge is one of the first explorations of ML for automatic network analysis. Our goal is to promote the use of ML for network-related tasks in general and, at the same time, to assess the participants' ability to quickly build a learning-based system showing a reliable performance. Please see more information at http://www.neteye-blog.com/netcla-the-ecml-pkdd-network-classification-challenge/ Schedule Aug. 12: the challenge starts, registration opens Sept. 7: test data released, submission page opens Sept. 10: submissions due Sept. 12: Results and Paper invitations Sept. 23: ECML-PKDD challenge track The schedule is tight but we have encoded the network data using simple feature vectors for learning a multi-class, single label, classification task. Thus, you can simply try your own multiclass classification algorithms and watch if they improve on strong baselines. The aim is to find out which ML algorithms can better deal with this kind of data. Best, Alessandro and Elio Discovery Challenge Chairs of ECML-PKDD 2016 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lciti at essex.ac.uk Mon Aug 15 14:54:03 2016 From: lciti at essex.ac.uk (Luca Citi) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:54:03 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: JOB: postdoc on neural engineering for the control of robotic hand prostheses Message-ID: <57B20FCB.8060107@essex.ac.uk> We are pleased to announce this postdoctoral position on neural engineering for the control of robotic hand prostheses. The position involves researching and developing robust neuro-muscular control algorithms for decoding users' intentions and enabling efficient control of hand prostheses from high-density surface EMG recordings. The project is led by Dr Luca Citi at the University of Essex (UK) and involves a collaboration with Dr Christian Cipriani from Prensilia SRL, Dr Demba Ba from Harvard SEAS, Professor Silvestro Micera from EPFL, and Professor Dario Farina from University of G?ttingen. The successful applicant will have received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Statistics, Computer Science or a closely related discipline. The ideal candidate will have significant experience in neural engineering and applicants are also expected to have a strong publication record as first author, ideally including publications in 1st quartile journals in relevant areas. The successful applicant will be part of the Essex BCI Lab, the UK's largest research group in brain-computer interfaces. This post is fixed-term for 17 months. Interested applicants can find further information about the post and the application process at http://csee.essex.ac.uk/staff/lciti/postodc_epsrc . Please feel free to email lciti at essex.ac.uk to discuss this opportunity. From azahkm at gmail.com Mon Aug 15 22:19:44 2016 From: azahkm at gmail.com (Azah Kamilah Muda) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:19:44 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?CFP_=3A_SoCPaR=2716_=26_CaSON=2716_-_Sp?= =?utf-8?q?ringer_=E2=80=93_Vellore=2C_India?= Message-ID: ** We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP ** ** Kindly help to distribute this CFP to your mailing list ** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- The 8th International Conference on Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition (SoCPaR'16) ? C Vellore, India ( December 19 - 21, 2016) http://www.mirlabs.org/socpar16 http://www.mirlabs.net/socpar16 -- The 8th International Conference on Computational Aspects of Social Network (CaSON'16) ? Vellore, India ( December 19 - 21, 2016) http://www.mirlabs.org/nabic16 http://www.mirlabs.net/nabic16 ** Important Dates ** ---------------------------------- Special sessions/Track/workshop proposals: August 31, 2016 Acceptance of special sessions: September 05, 2016 Paper submission due: September 30, 2016 Notification of paper acceptance: October 15, 2016 Registration and Final manuscript due: October 30, 2016 Conference: December 19 - 21, 2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About SoCPaR'16 : ------------------------- Conference Objective: The International Conference on Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition (SoCPaR) is a major international conference bringing together researchers, engineers, and practitioners who work in the areas of soft computing and pattern recognition in the industry and real world. Every year, SoCPaR attracts authors from over 30 countries. After the success of the Seventh edition, which was held in Japan, this year event will be held in Vellore, India. SoCPaR'16 invites novel contributions/papers of soft computing and pattern recognition from fundamental aspects to various practical applications. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. Topics ( not limited to ) ----------------------------- [Soft Computing and Applications] Evolutionary computing Swarm intelligence Artificial immune systems Fuzzy Sets Uncertainty analysis Fractals Rough Sets Support vector machines Artificial neural networks Case Based Reasoning Wavelets Hybrid intelligent systems Nature inspired computing techniques Machine learning Ambient intelligence Hardware implementations [Pattern Recognition and Applications] Information retrieval Data Mining Web Mining Image Processing Computer Vision Bio-informatics Information security Network security Steganography Biometry Remote sensing Medical Informatics E-commerce Signal Processing Control systems About CaSON'16 : ------------------------- The International Conference on Computational Aspects of Social Network (CASoN) is a major international conference that brings together an interdisciplinary venue for social scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, computer users, and students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects (theory, applications and tools) of intelligent methods applied to Social Network, and to discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. Industrial Workshop/Tutorials and conference sessions will allow individuals interested in the theory, methods, or applications of social network analysis to share ideas and explore common interests. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. We solicit original research and technical papers not published elsewhere. The papers can be theoretical, practical and application, and cover a broad set of intelligent methods, with particular emphasis on Social Network computing. Methods such as (but not restricted to) : Neural Networks and Connectionist Models Evolutionary Algorithms Fuzzy Logic Knowledge Management Multi-valued Logic Semantic Networks Rough Sets Intelligent Agents Ontologies Reinforcement Learning Applications on Social Networks: Network evolution Network evolution and growth mechanisms. Online communities and computer networks. Information diffusion in social networks. Detection of communities by document analysis. Topology of real networks. Recommendation: Information diffusion in social networks. Recommendations for product purchase, information acquisition and establishment of social relations. Impact of recommendation models on the evolution of the social network. Classification models and their application in social recommender systems. Advertisement models : Economical impact of social network discovery. Social advertising. Use of social networks for marketing. Search in network: Web page ranking informed by social media. Search algorithms on social networks. Collaborative Filtering. Security : Anomaly detection in social network evolution. Data protection inside communities. Crime data mining and network analysis. Modeling trust and reputation in social networks. Misbehavior detection in communities. Network geography : Geographical clusters, networks, and innovation. Social geography. International Collaborations in e-Social network. Web : Automatic discovery and analysis of Web based social networks. Link Topology and Site Hierarchy. Web mining algorithms. Web communities. Web-Based Cooperative Work. Evaluation : Test collection. Benchmark creation. Measures and methodologies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Submission Guidelines: ------------------------------------------------------ Submission of paper should be made through the submission page from the conference web page. Please refer to the conference website for guidelines to prepare your manuscript. Paper format templates: http://www.springer.com/series/11156 Proceedings are expected to be published by the Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, which is now indexed by ISI Proceedings, DBLP. Ulrich's, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS, Zentralblatt Math, MetaPress, Springerlink Proceedings will be made available during the conference. Expanded versions of selected papers will be published in special issues of internationally referred journals (indexed by SCI) and edited volumes. SoCPaR?16 Submission : http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=socpar2016 CaSON?16 Submission : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cason2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Organizing Committee * ---------------------------------- Chairs : Ajith Abraham, Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA Aswani Kumar Cherukuri, VIT University, India Ana Maria Madureira, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Portugal Technical Committee ( Please refer website ) : http://www.mirlabs.net/socpar16/committees.php http://www.mirlabs.net/cason16/committees.php For technical contact: ---------------------------------- Ajith Abraham Email: ajith.abraham at ieee.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From azahkm at gmail.com Mon Aug 15 22:43:12 2016 From: azahkm at gmail.com (Azah Kamilah Muda) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:43:12 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?CFP=3A_16th_HIS_and_8th_NaBIC_-_Springe?= =?utf-8?q?r_=E2=80=93_Marrakech=2C_Morocco_-_New_Due_Date?= Message-ID: ** We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP ** ** Kindly help to distribute this CFP to your mailing list ** -- Call For Papers --- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- The 16th International Conference on Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS'16) -- http://www.mirlabs.org/his16 -- The 8th World Congress on Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing (NaBIC'16) -- http://www.mirlabs.net/nabic16 ** Important Dates ** ---------------------------------- Paper submission due (extended): September 15, 2016 Notification of paper acceptance (extended): September 30, 2016 Registration and Final manuscript due (Extended): October 15, 2016 Conference: November 21-23, 2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About HIS'16 : ------------------------- Conference Objective: Hybridization of intelligent systems is a promising research field of modern artificial/computational intelligence concerned with the development of the next generation of intelligent systems. A fundamental stimulus to the investigations of Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS) is the awareness in the academic communities that combined approaches will be necessary if the remaining tough problems in artificial/computational intelligence are to be solved. Hybrid Intelligent Systems are getting popular due to their capabilities in handling several real world complexities involving imprecision, uncertainty and vagueness. HIS'16 invites novel contributions/papers of soft computing and pattern recognition from fundamental aspects to various practical applications. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. Topics ( not limited to ) ----------------------------- ** Hybrid Intelligent Systems: Architectures ** Interactions between neural networks and fuzzy inference systems. Artificial neural network optimization using global optimization techniques. Fuzzy clustering algorithms and optimization techniques. Fuzzy inference system optimization using global optimization algorithms. Hybrid computing using neural networks - fuzzy systems - evolutionary algorithms. Hybrid optimization techniques (evolutionary algorithms, simulated annealing, tabu search, GRASP etc.). Hybrid of soft computing and statistical learning techniques. Models using inductive logic programming, logic synthesis, grammatical inference, case-based reasoning. Autonomic computing. Hybridizatiion with novel computing paradigms: Qantum computing, DNA computing, membrane computing etc. ** Hybrid Intelligent Systems: Applications ** Image and Signal Processing Internet Modeling, Communication and Networking Data mining Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Business Information Systems Control and Automation Special topics About NaBIC'16 : ------------------------- NaBIC 2016 is organized to provide a forum for researchers, engineers, and students from all over the world, to discuss the state-of-the-art in machine intelligence, and address various issues on building up human friendly machines by learning from nature. The conference theme is Nurturing Intelligent Computing Towards Advancement of Machine Intelligence. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. Topics ( not limited to ) ----------------------------- ** Computational methods and Innovative approaches ** Artificial Neural Networks Biodegradability Prediction Cellular Automata Evolutionary Algorithms Swarm Intelligence Emergent Systems Artificial Life Lindenmayer Systems Digital Organisms Artificial Immune Systems Membrane Computing Simulated Annealing Communication Networks and Protocols Computing with Words Common Sense Computing Cognitive Modeling and Architecture Connectionism Metaheuristics Hybrid Approaches Quantum Computing Nano Computing ** Industrial Applications of Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing ** Information Retrieval Robotics Fault Diagnosis Bioinformatics Web Intelligence Speech Processing Business Information Systems Knowledge Management Evolvable Hardware Image and Signal Processing Pattern Recognition Traffic and Transportation System Decision Analysis Data Mining Computer Vision Information and Communication Technology Control Systems ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Submission Guidelines: ------------------------------------------------------ Submission of paper should be made through the submission page from the conference web page. Please refer to the conference website for guidelines to prepare your manuscript. Paper format templates: http://www.springer.com/series/11156 Proceedings are expected to be published by the Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, which is now indexed by ISI Proceedings, DBLP. Ulrich's, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS, Zentralblatt Math, MetaPress, Springerlink Proceedings will be made available during the conference. Expanded versions of selected papers will be published in special issues of internationally referred journals (indexed by SCI) and edited volumes. HIS?16 Submission : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=his20161. NaBIC?16 Submission : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nabic2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Organizing Committee * ---------------------------------- General Chairs : Abdelkrim Haqiq, FST, Hassan 1st University, Settat, Morocco Ajith Abraham, MIR Labs, USA Adel M. Alimi, University of Sfax, Tunisia Technical Committee ( Please refer website ) : http://www.mirlabs.org/his16/committees.php http://www.mirlabs.net/nabic16/committees.php Local information contact: ---------------------------------- Abdelkrim Haqiq FST, Hassan 1st University, Settat, Morocco Email: abdelkrim.haqiq at uhp.ac.ma Technical contact: ----------------------------- Ajith Abraham Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA Email: ajith.abraham at ieee.org -- Best Regards, Azah Muda -- Best Regards, Azah Muda -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aprieto at ugr.es Wed Aug 17 07:42:06 2016 From: aprieto at ugr.es (Alberto Prieto) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:42:06 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: New tutorial on Neural Networks In-Reply-To: <17c7945e-865b-1808-7668-3e58112ac6c7@ugr.es> References: <17c7945e-865b-1808-7668-3e58112ac6c7@ugr.es> Message-ID: <3f81526b-38b2-422f-6783-8c96c2f357c3@ugr.es> *Neural networks: An overview of early research, current frame works and newchallenges* http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231216305550 (doi:10.1016/j.neucom.2016.06.014) This paper presents a comprehensive overview of modelling, simulation and implementation of neural networks,and their contribution to fundamental concepts at the birth and development of other disciplines such as Computational Neuroscience, Neuro-engineering, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning.Also the paper describes several important national and multinational projects and initiativesare marking the way to follow in neural-network research. The paper include 421 references. Please, cite this article as: A.Prieto, et al., Neural networks: An overview of early research, current frame works and newchallenges; Neurocomputing (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2016.06.014i. Many thanks and best wishes -- *Alberto Prieto* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From christopher.pack at mcgill.ca Wed Aug 17 11:19:18 2016 From: christopher.pack at mcgill.ca (Christopher Pack, Dr.) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:19:18 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc in systems neuroscience Message-ID: Applications are requested for a postdoctoral position in systems neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), which is part of McGill University's School of Medicine. The MNI is located in downtown Montreal, Canada, and provides a multifaceted neuroscience environment with clinical and research activities housed under one roof. The successful candidate will work in the lab of Christopher Pack to study the role of the extrastriate visual cortex in perception and behavior. The lab has facilities for multi-electrode recordings, human psychophysics, TMS, and eye movement monitoring. More information on our current research interests can be found at: http://packlab.mcgill.ca The candidate must have obtained a Ph.D. in neuroscience or a related field in the last 2 years and have prior research experience in one or more of the following areas: -micro-electrode recording of neural activity -analysis of neural signals -computational/theoretical neuroscience Starting date is negotiable. Please send curriculum vitae, brief statement of research interests and accomplishments, and names of two references to christopher.pack at mcgill.ca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From olga.grant at ucd.ie Thu Aug 18 11:30:08 2016 From: olga.grant at ucd.ie (Olga Grant) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:30:08 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: computer scientist position in neuromuscular systems group in University College Dublin Message-ID: <017001d1f965$678d4660$36a7d320$@ucd.ie> Computer Scientist - Multiscale Modelling for Deep Brain Stimulation Applications are invited for a Research Assistant with a Computer Science or Computer Engineering background to contribute to development and integration of software for modelling the human neuromuscular system during Deep Brain Stimulation. 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. The position will be in Professor Madeleine Lowery's research group (see www.ucd.ie/neuromuscularsystems ) in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (http://www.ucd.ie/eece/) in University College Dublin (www.ucd.ie ). See http://www.ucd.ie/hr/jobvacancies/ Competition 00861 'Computer Scientist (Research Assistant), UCD School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering' for a detailed description and how to apply. Closing date 21st September. ____________________________________ Dr Olga M Grant Research Project Manager School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering University College Dublin Tel +353 (1) 7161778 www.ucd.ie/neuromuscularsystems -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de Fri Aug 19 08:48:42 2016 From: florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de (Florian Roehrbein) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:48:42 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [jobs] Experienced Simulation Software Engineer Neuro-Robotics Message-ID: The Human Brain Project is an ambitious large-scale research initiative funded by the European Commission with a high worldwide visibility. About 100 research institutes from different disciplines all over Europe cooperate intensively to achieve a multi-level, integrated understanding of brain structure. The project will run for about 10 years and during this time six ICT platforms will be developed. The Neurorobotics Platform (NRP) is a web application that runs neurorobotics experiments. It grants neuroscientists easy access to state-of-the-art simulators: spiking neural networks (NEST), robotics (Gazebo) and physics (ODE, bullet). These simulators are connected together and coordinated within a closed loop. They run on high performance computing resources and on neuromorphic hardware. The NRP also provides designers for the creation of brain-body interfaces, virtual worlds and robot models. To strengthen our Neurorobotics distributed (EPFL, TUM, fortiss) team, we are looking at fortiss GmbH for an EXPERIENCED SIMULATION SOFTWARE ENGINEER ? NEUROROBOTICS Profile: ? A Master?s degree in software engineering or similar (Bachelors if proven relevant professional experience) ? Minimum of 3 years of experience and successful development track record for simulation-based software projects Major duties and responsibilities: ? Gazebo robotics simulator development, soft-body physics engine integration and maintenance (C++) ? Frontend development of rich, highly interactive 3D web interfaces (HTML5, CSS, Javascript) ? Backend development at the brain simulator level (Python, C++ / MPI) ? Participation in deployment on highly scalable HPC cluster hardware architectures ? All aspects of the modern software development lifecycle: unit testing, continuous integration, version control, debugging, documentation ? Support to the users for setting up new neurorobotics experiments Essential skills and experience required: ? Experience in robotics on the software layer ? Good familiarity with 3D simulators / libraries and either ROS, Gazebo or other robotic simulator ? Strong experience in C++ ? Strong motivation to learn the other languages / technologies that we use, in particular spiking neural networks ? Very good familiarity with team work and modern software development life-cycle ? Flexible, good team player and fluent in written and spoken English, German is a plus Preferred: ? Agile Methodologies; SaaS environment experience ? Python, HTML, Javascript languages; WebGL, ThreeJS, AngularJS frameworks ? Experience with neural networks, NEST simulator What we offer: ? A prestigious project of global prominence in simulation-based neuroscience ? A dynamic, interdisciplinary, and motivated team ? A modern working environment based at fortiss in Munich city inbounds Start date: September 1st Contract: 1,5 year, renewable, salary according to experience and public TV-L West charts (E13 for Masters, E11 Bachelors) Applicants should submit a cover letter and a detailed CV in PDF format only, with file name ?_HBP_cover? and ?_HBP_CV?. Contact: Please send your application electronically to career(at)fortiss.org Application code: FB2-HBP-MA-02-2016 Please note that applications without this code cannot be considered. Contact person: Axel von Arnim We are looking forward to receiving your application! Priv.-Doz. Dr. Florian R?hrbein Program Director HBP Neurorobotics http://neurorobotics.net/ Department of Informatics VI Technical University of Munich Boltzmannstr. 3 85748 Garching Germany room: MI 03.07.041 phone: +49.(0)89.289.18139 fax: +49.(0)89.289.18107 cell: +49.(0)176.98585836 http://www.frontiersin.org/Neurorobotics (now with Impact Factor) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeremiah.deng at otago.ac.nz Thu Aug 18 20:22:10 2016 From: jeremiah.deng at otago.ac.nz (Jeremiah Deng) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:22:10 +1200 Subject: Connectionists: Last CfPs - IEEE ICDM'16 Workshop on Data Mining for Energy Modeling and Optimization Message-ID: <8B782CEC-7F33-4672-B465-73E6CF3F2983@otago.ac.nz> IEEE ICDM'16 Workshop on Data Mining for Energy Modeling and Optimization (DaMEMO'16) December 9, 2016, Barcelona, Spain http://www.covic.otago.ac.nz/DaMEMO16/ LAST CALL FOR PAPERS ==================== Final submission deadline: 26/8/2016 Machine learning and data mining techniques have been successfully applied in domains such as social media, e-commerce, health informatics, natural language processing and computer vision. There are ample opportunities for utilizing data mining techniques to tackle the significant energy challenges we are faced with nowadays in energy modelling, analysis and conservation. This workshop aims at bringing researchers from machine learning, forecasting, energy and power engineering and other disciplines to explore the utilization of cutting-edge data mining techniques to develop intelligent solutions for energy related modeling and optimization problems. Topics of interest to the workshop include, but are not limited to: - Time series prediction of energy related time series - Renewable energy modelling and prediction - Electricity consumption prediction - Electricity price modelling and prediction for energy markets - Smart meters and usage patterns data analysis - Energy conservation in smart homes - Energy efficient compressed sensing - Smart grid data analysis - Outage and risk prediction - Spatial-temporal energy data mining - Feature extraction and selection in energy data - Anomaly detection in energy data - Algorithms for real-time analysis of energy data - Kinetic energy modelling - Optimized self-organization of micro-grids - Energy-optimized cloud computing - Distributed data mining on sensor networks Please follow the paper submission instructions to prepare your submission and submit it through the ICDM CyberChair system. All submitted papers will go through a triple-blind review process by the program committee. The workshop proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press, and will also be included in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. ~~~~ Jeremiah Deng Associate Professor Dept. of Information Science University of Otago Email: jeremiah.deng at otago.ac.nz PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand Tel: +64 3 479 8090 Fax: ~8311 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From EPNSugan at ntu.edu.sg Fri Aug 19 12:02:25 2016 From: EPNSugan at ntu.edu.sg (Ponnuthurai Nagaratnam Suganthan) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 16:02:25 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: (Imapct Factor - 2.8) Journal Special Issue on RVFL, ELM, RF, KRR, and others Message-ID: Extended Final Deadline 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 Typical paradigms include random vector functional link (RVFL), extreme learning machines (ELM), kernel ridge regression (KRR), random forests (RF), etc. 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: 30th Sept 2016 (Final Extended Deadline) 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 ________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it, notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose its contents. Towards a sustainable earth: Print only when necessary. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cer54 at cam.ac.uk Fri Aug 19 11:47:32 2016 From: cer54 at cam.ac.uk (Carl Edward Rasmussen) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 16:47:32 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2 postdoc positions in machine learning in Cambridge Message-ID: We are seeking up to two highly creative and motivated Research Assistants/Associates to join the Machine Learning Group (http://mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk) in the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK. The positions will involve research in direct collaboration with Professor Carl Edward Rasmussen. The key responsibilities and duties of the roles are: conducting research in the fields of probabilistic machine learning, non-linear time series modelling (system identification) and reinforcement learning with applications to autonomous systems and control. Developing research objectives and proposals; presentations and publications; assisting with teaching and learning support; liaising and networking with colleagues and students; planning and organising research resources and workshops. The role will combine strong theoretical and analytical skills with programming experience. Successful applicants will have or be near to completing a PhD in computer science, information engineering, statistics or a related area, and will have extensive research knowledge and experience in addition to a strong publication record in machine learning, including ideally papers in top machine learning conferences such as NIPS, UAI, ICML, and AISTATS. Excellent mathematical and programming skills are essential. Experience in two or more of the following areas: probabilistic modelling and scalable approximate inference (See: http://www.automaticstatistician.com/); probabilistic programming and bayesian nonparametrics research on an existing probabilistic programming language; MCMC methods; message passing and approximations of partition functions in regards to inference in graphical models will be necessary. For more information and to apply see http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/11220 From arindam.basu at ntu.edu.sg Sat Aug 20 00:31:26 2016 From: arindam.basu at ntu.edu.sg (Arindam Basu) Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2016 04:31:26 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Exciting job opportunities in Spiking Neural Networks for Machine Learning Message-ID: <077B8C05263E5842BEDBADACDC81F66701CAD5EA02@EXCHMBOX31.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg> Dear all Several exciting positions available at School of EEE, NTU in industry sponsored projects for developing low-power, neuromorphic machine learning chips, embedded platforms and supporting algorithms. Established in 1981, the SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING (EEE) is one of the founding Schools of the Nanyang Technological University. Built on a culture of excellence, the School is renowned for its high academic standards and strong tradition in research. To support teaching and cutting-edge research, EEE is host to 11 research centres and more than 50 laboratories, which are well-equipped with modern facilities and state-of-the-art equipment. With about 200 faculty members and an enrolment of more than 4,000, of which about 1,300 are graduate students, it is one of the largest EEE schools in the world. The positions are in the BRAIN lab (http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/arindam.basu/ ) under the supervision of Dr. Arindam Basu. Selected candidates will get to work with cutting edge neuromorphic image sensors and some of the lowest power machine learning chips in the world such as the IBM True North and the ELM IC developed in BRAIN lab. It has been widely covered in media for biomedical applications (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ntu-scientists-developing/2506294.html ) and the corresponding publication is one of the most popular article in IEEE TBCAS since publication (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/topAccessedArticles.jsp?punumber=4156126 ). The candidate will get the chance to use this ELM IC for a new application (object detection in spike based cameras for unattended ground sensors) and develop new generations of this design with ample opportunity for basic research as well as commercialization through startup. The candidates also have a chance to work with IBM?s True North technology of ultra low-power spiking neural networks. Details of the positions are as follows: Project Name: Unattended Ground Sensors All jobs in this project will typically have a 1 year initial contract followed by extension up to 4 years based on satisfactory performance. Remunerations will be competitive to world standards and be negotiable depending on candidate?s relevant experience. 1. Job Title: Research Fellow/Research Associate Job Field: Machine learning, Neural Networks Educational Requirements: PhD (for Postdoctoral Research Fellow) or M.S + >2 yrs of experience (for Research Assistant) in related topic Job description: Develop algorithms for object detection and classification from asynchronous event based camera outputs. The candidate has the chance to work with cutting-edge low-power machine learning hardware such as the NTU ELM IC and IBM True North. Selected candidate has to: * Train deep networks for IBM TrueNorth based deployment * Develop randomized neural network algorithms (such as ELM, RVFL) to classify objects * Optimize neural networks for given hardware constraints * Develop strategies for fusion of acoustic and camera inputs to reduce false positives * Develop strategies to partition tasks between several neuromorphic processors and general purpose processors like ARM/MCU or FPGA. Job requirement: Must have: * Research work related to field of neural network, machine learning * Knowledge of MATLAB coding including usage of and toolbox for fixed point arithmetic and neural network * Knowledge of Spiking neural networks Good to have: * Experience in MCU coding * Experience in working with event based sensors 2. Job Title: Research Assistant/ Project Officer Job Field: Embedded hardware Educational Requirements: M.S (for Research Assistant) or B.S + >2 yrs of experience (for Project Officer) in ECE/ EE/CSE Job description: Selected candidate has to help in system integration of custom machine learning ELM IC with neuromorphic camera and FPGA platform. * Main job is to write Verilog/VHDL codes for interfacing FPGA with custom ELM IC developed by team and neuromorphic image sensor and IBM TrueNorth * Develop library of Verilog/VHDL codes for basic image processing blocks * Need to co-work with algorithm person to optimize the neural network for hardware friendly implementation Job requirement: Must have: * Experience in HDL coding, using FPGA kits and interfacing FPGA with computer and other components * Knowledge of debugging using logic analyser * Knowledge of at least one of MATLAB/OPENCV/Python programming language for interfacing with FPGA kit Good to have: Knowledge of Neural Networks and Image processing algorithms Regards, Arindam ________________________________ 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 bonnybanerjee at yahoo.com Sat Aug 20 17:26:34 2016 From: bonnybanerjee at yahoo.com (Bonny Banerjee) Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2016 21:26:34 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Connectionists: Multiple fully-funded Ph.D. positions in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Memphis, USA References: <913876184.346878.1471728394093.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <913876184.346878.1471728394093@mail.yahoo.com> (Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement.) Multiple fully-funded Ph.D. positionsin?ArtificialIntelligence (AI)?areavailable from January 2017 in the?Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (EECE),University of Memphis, USA. A Ph.D. student will work as aresearch assistant which willprovide full financial support that includes tuition fees and a monthly stipend.Obtaining a Ph.D. typically requires 4-6 years. The students will be associated with the?Computational Intelligence Laboratory affiliated with theDepartment of EECE and theinterdisciplinary Institute for Intelligent Systems. The students will workunder the supervision of Dr. Bonny Banerjee (http://sites.google.com/site/bonnybanerjee1),and will have the opportunity to collaborate with researchers from differentacademic units at the University of Memphis as well as collaborators from otheruniversities of international repute. Research will involve investigating computational approaches to answeringfundamental questions in sensory perception, action and cognition, such as, howdo we learn the different objects/behaviors in our environment, how do wefilter different kinds of noise without any prior model of the noise,? how do we act proactively to garnerefficiency, and so on. Our current focus is on investigating a deep predictivecoding model to answer these fundamental questions. This research exists at theconfluence of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive science, andcomputational neuroscience, with applications to smart healthcare and smartcities using the Internet of Things. ?An ideal candidate will posses thefollowing: 1.????? Experience with implementing basic machine learning (regression,classification, clustering) and neural network algorithms (e.g., supportvector machine, k-means clustering, multilayered perceptron trained withbackpropagation, self-organizing map). 2.????? Experience with computer vision or audio/speech processing. 3.????? Strong motivation in pursuing research in AI, neural networks,machine learning, with application to interesting real world problems. 4.????? Strong mathematical and programming skills. 5.????? Masters degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering, ComputerScience, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, or in a related area. Exceptionalcandidates with a 4-year Bachelors degree will also be considered. ?Informal inquiries should be directed to Dr. Bonny Banerjee (bbnerjee at memphis.edu).For formal application procedure, please visit the admissions webpage (see linksbelow). Important links: University of Memphis???????? http://www.memphis.edu Department of Electrical &Computer Engineering ???????? http://www.memphis.edu/eece Institute for IntelligentSystems ???? http://iis.memphis.edu Admissions??? ????????????????????????http://www.memphis.edu/graduateadmissions/future/apply_grad.phpPh.D. degree requirements? http://www.memphis.edu/eece/programs/phd.phpEECE course catalog???????????? http://www.memphis.edu/gradcatalog/degree_planning/course_descriptions/engr/eece.php -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alessandra.sciutti at gmail.com Sun Aug 21 12:21:17 2016 From: alessandra.sciutti at gmail.com (Alessandra Sciutti) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:21:17 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?Extended_deadline_-_CfP_for_the_Wo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?rkshop_=22Vision_and_the_development_of_social_cogn?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ition=22_at_ICDL-EPIROB_2016?= Message-ID: <007801d1fbc8$0be60530$23b20f90$@gmail.com> Call for Papers?(apologies for multiple postings) ? EXTENDED DEADLINE ? =================================================== Workshop ?Vision and the development of social cognition? =================================================== In conjunction with the?Sixth Joint IEEE International Conference on Developmental Learning and Epigenetic Robotics(ICDL-EPIROB 2016) http://www.icdl-epirob.org September 19th?2016 Cergy-Pontoise / Paris Website: https://www.codefror.eu/icdl_workshop THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT A CONTRIBUTION IS POSTPONED TO SEPTEMBER, 2nd ================== Keynote speakers: ================== ? Giulio Sandini, RBCS - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova ? His objective is understanding the neural mechanisms of human sensorimotor coordination and cognitive development from a biological and an artificial perspective. ? Mohamed Chetouani - Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie ? ISIR, Paris ? His research activities cover the areas of social signal processing and personal robotics through non-linear signal processing, feature extraction, pattern classification and machine learning. ? Jacqueline Nadel - Centre Emotion CNRS , Paris ? She is specialized in the development of non verbal communication, the basis of imitation and emotion in infants and in autistic population. **************************************************************************** ** ================== Scope and motivation ==================? How do humans develop social interaction capabilities? What is the role of the vision of actions in the development of social awareness? How can we replicate a similar developmental process on a robot? ? Since birth humans show a strong predisposition to social interaction, which is supported by their developing visual perception skills. An important role is played by the vision of others? actions and movements. For instance, a natural predisposition to detect biological motion is present from birth enabling infants to detect interacting agents. More refined abilities ? as the understanding and anticipation of others' actions? progressively develop with age, leading, in a few years, to a full capability of interaction based on mutual understanding, joint coordination and collaboration. Unfolding the theory of visual motion perception development is one of the main challenges of neuro- and cognitive science research. Over the last decades, the artificial vision community has shown an increasing interest for these theories, stimulated by the ambition of providing artificial agents with comparable perception capabilities. The topics of the workshop will refer to the possible interconnections between human and machine vision in a developmental perspective. The purpose of the meeting will be two-fold: on the one hand the discussion will focus on how the development of human visual perception might inspire the development of?novel methods for artificial vision and social robotics; on the other hand, it will evaluate how the implementation of machine vision methods could help?understanding human social development. The ambition of this workshop is to stimulate the discussion on these challenging topics, bridging Computer Vision, Developmental Science and Robotics, with an eye to potential applications in the field of human-robot interaction and rehabilitation.? ? Topics of interest?include but are not limited to: ? ? Computational models of visual perception ? Vision of action and motion ? Human-Robot Interaction ? Visual social signals ? The relationship of vision and other sensory modalities ? Visual development in healthy and autistic population **************************************************************************** *************************** ========== Submission ========== Prospective participants are required to submit short (up to 2 pages) or full papers (up to 8 pages). Submissions must be in pdf, following the ICDL conference style. All contributions will be subject to a peer review process. The selected contributions will be assigned either an oral or a poster presentation and will be published on the website of the workshop. Authors may opt out from publication by communicating their choice to the workshop organizers. The pdf will have to be sent to?alessandra.sciutti_AT_iit.it?and?nicoletta.noceti_AT_unige.it?by September 2nd, 2016. The e-mail should contain the tag [ICDL_VISION] in the subject. ? **************************************************************************** *************************** ================= Workshop organisers ================= ? ? Alessandra Sciutti,? RBCS - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova alessandra.sciutti_AT_iit.it ? ? Nicoletta Noceti, DIBRIS - Universit? degli Studi di Genova nicoletta.noceti_AT_unige.it This workshop is supported by the European Project CODEFROR (FP7-PIRSES-2013-612555) -?www.codefror.eu?? ? ********************************************* From aramdas at berkeley.edu Sun Aug 21 18:12:52 2016 From: aramdas at berkeley.edu (Aaditya Ramdas) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:12:52 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: AISTATS 2017 Message-ID: AISTATS is an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and related areas. The 20th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS ) will take place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA from *April 20-22, 2017*. The deadline for paper submission is *Oct 13, 2016*, with final decisions made on Jan 24, 2017. New this year: 1. *Fast-track for Electronic Journal of Statistics*: Authors of a small number of accepted papers will be invited to submit an extended version for fast-track publication in a special issue of the Electronic Journal of Statistics (EJS) after the AISTATS decisions are out. Details on how to prepare such extended journal paper submission will be announced after the AISTATS decisions. 2. *Review-sharing with NIPS*: Papers previously submitted to NIPS 2016 are required to declare their previous NIPS paper ID, and optionally supply a one-page letter of revision (similar to a revision letter to journal editors; anonymized) in supplemental materials. AISTATS reviewers will have access to the previous anonymous NIPS reviews. Other than this, all submissions will be treated equally. *Paper Submission:* Electronic submission of PDF papers is required. The main part of the paper (single PDF up to 5Mb) may be up to 8 double-column pages in length including tables/figures. References only can exceed the 8 page limit. The main part should have enough information so that reviewers are able to judge the correctness and merit of the paper. Authors may optionally submit supplementary material (up to 10Mb) as a single zip file, containing additional proofs, audio, images, video, data or source code. Reviewing any supplementary material is up to the discretion of the reviewers. *Dual Submissions Policy:* Submissions that are identical (or substantially similar) to versions that have been previously published, or accepted for publication, or that have been submitted in parallel to other conferences or journals are not appropriate for AISTATS and violate our dual submission policy. Exceptions to this rule are the following: (a) it is acceptable to submit work that has been made available as a technical report or similar, e.g., on arXiv, without citing it (to preserve anonymity). (b) Submission is permitted for papers presented or to be presented at conferences or workshops without proceedings (e.g., ICML or NIPS workshops), or with only abstracts published. The dual-submission rules apply during the whole AISTATS review period until the authors have been notified about the decision on their paper. *Double-blind review:* Papers will be selected via a rigorous double-blind peer-review process (the reviewers will not know the identities of the authors, and vice versa). It will be up to the authors to ensure the proper anonymization of their paper and supplemental materials. Violation of the above rules may lead to rejection without review. One round of author rebuttal will occur with the initial reviews available to the authors. *Evaluation Criteria:* Submissions will be judged on the basis of technical quality, novelty, potential impact, and clarity. Typical papers often (but not always) consist of a mix of algorithmic, theoretical and experimental results, in varying proportions. Results will be judged on the degree to which they have been objectively established and/or their potential for scientific and technological impact. *Publication and presentation:* All accepted papers will be presented at the conference as posters, with a few selected for additional oral presentation. All accepted papers will be treated equally when published in the AISTATS Conference Proceedings (Journal of Machine Learning Research Workshop and Conference Proceedings series). At least one author of each accepted paper must register and attend AISTATS. A small number of accepted papers will be invited to submit an extended version for fast-track publication in a special issue of the Electronic Journal of Statistics (EJS) journal after the AISTATS decisions are out. *Topics:* Since its inception in 1985, the primary goal of AISTATS has been to promote the exchange of ideas from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics. We encourage the submission of all papers in keeping of this objective. Solicited topics include, but are not limited to: - Supervised, unsupervised and semi-supervised learning, kernel and Bayesian methods - Stochastic processes, hypothesis testing, causality, time-series, nonparametrics, asymptotic theory - Graphical models and inference, manifold learning and embedding, network analysis, statistical analysis of deep learning - Sparse models and compressed sensing, information theory - Reinforcement learning, planning, control, multi-agent systems, logic and probability, relational learning - Learning theory, game theoretic learning, online learning, bandits, learning for mechanism design - Convex and non-convex optimization, discrete optimization, Bayesian optimization - Algorithms and architectures for high-performance computing - Applications in biology, cognition, computer vision, natural language, neuroscience, robotics, etc. - Topological data analysis, selective inference, experimental design, interactive learning, optimal teaching, and other emerging topics --- Aaditya Ramdas www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aramdas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From elferran at utc.fr Mon Aug 22 06:35:25 2016 From: elferran at utc.fr (Eliseo Ferrante) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 12:35:25 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [job] Post-doc position on Collective Response in Self-Organizing Systems available at UTC (Compiegne - France) Message-ID: ?apologies for multiple postings? A fully-funded 1 year (renewable for at least another year, contingent on performance) postdoc position in self-organizing systems 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 self-organized artificial life, robotics systems and statistical physics. The Postdoc position is expected to start in Fall 2016 or later (flexible) and is open until filled. Project description: Our lab considers self-organizing systems from a unique interdisciplinary point of view that combines artificial life, engineering, statistical physics, and biology. We study how various biological and technological components can collectively achieve complex dynamics using only simple rules and no centralized control. Examples include bird flocks, insect and robot swarms, and bacteria colonies coordinating to achieve collective motion. One of the fundamental challenges of self-organizing systems is the integration of local and global dynamics. While individual components are mainly linked to local sensing and actuation, coherent global responses are required for the organism or group to perform and survive collectively. In order to achieve this collective response, those systems need to have correlations in at least some of their individual state variables that scale up with the system?s size. Various processes may provide mechanisms for this coherent collective response. For example, the addition of few long-range interactions is enough to produce integrated dynamics in small-world networks. Furthermore, in absence of long-range interactions, systems in a critical state (between order and disorder) naturally display long-range correlations that can achieve coherent system-level dynamics. Finally, there could also be other types of interaction modes responsible for reaching coherent collective response. The project undertaken by the candidate will be focused on understanding self-organizing system that must simultaneously manage local and organism-level dynamics. The candidate will study systems in which a collective response is generated at the collective scale, as a function of stimuli that are exerted at the local scale. The candidate will explore whether this property is already present in existing self-organization mechanisms, and potentially develop novel models in which collective response is generated by the interplay between three different mechanisms: small-world topologies, criticality, and self-organization. Potential applications include collective exploration and surveillance with technological devices such as drones, which will take advantage of this collective response in order to have a fast reaction to a discovered resource. The candidate will be using tools such as multi-agent simulations and mathematical models to study collective systems with different types of interaction patterns. She or he will focus on scenarios where global and local dynamics needs to be integrated in a group of agents, in order to achieve specific collective goals involving collective response, such as: mapping an unknown environment, achieving collective response to the discovery of a feature in the environment, performing dynamic agent re-allocation in the environment, etc ? In order to do so, the candidate will focus on analyzing the interplay between the different mechanisms able to achieve collective response, in order to find which configuration is best for each scenario. Candidate?s profile: The candidate must have earned a Doctorate degree in computer science, statistical physics, complex systems, or relevant disciplines, and must be self-motivated and able to work autonomously. The candidate is expected to be proficient in programming languages such as Python, Java, C++ and to have solid knowledge of scientific software packages such as Matlab, R, Mathematica. The candidates must have experience with large-scale multi-agent simulations, and familiarity with mathematical modeling of collective systems using several techniques (ODEs, mean field approximations, chemical reaction networks, Fokker-Planck equations, Langevin equations, etc ?) will definitely be a plus. Candidates with an interdisciplinary background that are interested in questions at the interface between science and engineering 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. Documents required to apply: To apply, you can send the following documents to Eliseo.Ferrante at hds.utc.fr: - Curriculum vitae - At least two references and/or recommendation letters - A statement of research experience and interests - Publication record stating impact factor (if present) and number of citations For any informal enquiry about the eligibility conditions, as well as for more details about the position, please contact Eliseo Ferrante . -- Eliseo Ferrante, PhD Labex MS2T Junior Research Chair Joint Laboratory HEUDIASYC Labex MS2T UMR CNRS 7253 Universit? de Technologie de Compi?gne (France) From h.dibeklioglu at gmail.com Mon Aug 22 07:26:29 2016 From: h.dibeklioglu at gmail.com (Hamdi Dibeklioglu) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:26:29 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ECCV 2020 - Call for Organization Message-ID: Call for Proposals for the Organization of ECCV 2020 The ECCV-series is a premiere conference of computer vision, organised in alteration with ICCV, the international version on the same topic. Where ICCV is organised on odd years, ECCV is organised on even years. This is to call potential organizers to submit their proposals to organize the conference in 2020. There is no format to comply with but obviously the best and most complete among the proposals will have a good chance of being selected. At ECCV2016, the General Chairs of that edition will organize a meeting of the Steering Committee of the ECCV-series. The tentative date for the meeting is Thursday, 13th October 2016 at lunch. The Steering Committee will convene to discuss current matters and to select the organizers and the site of ECCV2020. The Steering Committee is composed of the general chairs of the past editions of the conference. Each conference present at the meeting will have one vote. The Steering Committee will first decide on the order of the meeting and how to reach a conclusion. Then, proposers are invited in to present their proposal in 10 minutes each exactly. (If there are many proposers the time for presentation may be shortened, of which fact the proposers will be notified after October 1st.) Material to illustrate the proposal can be submitted to the general chairs of ECCV2016 on ?generalchairs at eccv2016.org? before October 1st until 24:00. Proposers will be notified upon reception on time. Proposals will be forwarded to the Steering Committee members. For more information, see http://www.eccv2016.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nikhilrao86 at gmail.com Mon Aug 22 10:55:11 2016 From: nikhilrao86 at gmail.com (Nikhil Rao) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:55:11 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: NIPS 2016 Workshop on Learning in High Dimensions with Structure Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS NIPS 2016 Workshop on Learning in High Dimensions with Structure Barcelona, Spain Website: https://sites.google.com/site/structuredlearning16/ ================================================== ================================================== IMPORTANT DATES: October 14 : Extended abstracts due November 11 : Notification of acceptance November 22 : Final papers due December 9 : Workshop ================================================== ================================================== Several applications necessitate learning a very large number of parameters from small amounts of data, which can lead to overfitting, statistically unreliable answers, and large training/prediction costs. A common and effective method to avoid the above mentioned issues is to restrict the parameter-space using specific structural constraints such as sparsity or low rank. However, such simple constraints do not fully exploit the richer structure which is available in several applications and is present in the form of correlations, side information or higher order structure. Designing new structural constraints requires close collaboration between domain experts and machine learning practitioners. Similarly, developing efficient and principled algorithms to learn with such constraints requires further collaborations between experts in diverse areas such as statistics, optimization, approximation algorithms etc. This interplay has given rise to a vibrant research area. The main objective of this workshop is to consolidate current ideas from diverse areas such as machine learning, signal processing, theoretical computer science, optimization and statistics, clarify the frontiers in this area, discuss important applications and open problems, and foster new collaborations. ================================================== ================================================== INVITED SPEAKERS Amir Beck (Technion) Sham Kakade (U. Washington) Po-Ling Loh (U. Wisconsin - Madison) Guillaume Obozinski (Ecole des Ponts) Rene Vidal (Johns Hopkins) Allen Yang (UC Berkeley) Rob Nowak (U. Wisconsin - Madison) Richard Samworth (Cambridge) ================================================== ================================================== SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS We invite submissions in the form of 2 page extended abstracts, excluding references, in PDF format and in NIPS style. If accepted, final submissions may be at most 4 pages long, excluding references and supplementary materials. Submissions will be accepted as poster presentations, and will be published on the workshop website. The authors may choose to make their identities visible on the submissions. Submissions should be mailed to *nips.lhds at gmail.com .* Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Algorithms - Online and Reinforcement learning in high dimensions - Submodularity for high dimensional structured learning - Novel regularization frameworks - Theory - Applications, including machine learning, speech and signal processing, computer vision and biostatistics. ================================================== ================================================== ORGANIZERS Nikhil Rao (Technicolor) Prateek Jain (Microsoft) Hsiang-Fu Yu (Amazon) Francis Bach (Ecole Normale Superieure) Ming Yuan (UW Madison) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From climate.informatics.workshop at gmail.com Mon Aug 22 21:33:44 2016 From: climate.informatics.workshop at gmail.com (CI 2016) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 18:33:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Connectionists: Climate Informatics 2016: Invitation to Participate & Early Bird Registration Deadline Message-ID: <57bba7f8.c1a8370a.0d89.2eef@mx.google.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tomas.hromadka at gmail.com Tue Aug 23 05:42:42 2016 From: tomas.hromadka at gmail.com (Tomas Hromadka) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:42:42 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: COSYNE 2017: Call for workshop proposals Message-ID: <6ccead25-d304-bc54-4906-a61741a007bd@gmail.com> ==================================================== Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2017 (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING 23 - 26 February 2017 Salt Lake City, Utah WORKSHOPS 27 - 28 February 2017 Snowbird, Utah www.cosyne.org ==================================================== ---------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS ---------------------------------------------------- PRE-PROPOSAL DEADLINE: 01 October 2016 FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: 31 October 2016 PRE-PROPOSALS In an effort to coordinate submissions, the organizers are *strongly encouraged* to submit a pre-proposal by *01 October 2016.* Pre-proposals will be shared among submitters. Pre-proposals are not mandatory but workshops with a pre-proposal will have priority. The organizers may submit the full proposal by its deadline. In order to foster discussion within Workshops, organizers should inform invited speakers that a single person should not speak in more than one of the Workshops taking place on the same day. A series of workshops will be held after the main Cosyne meeting (www.cosyne.org). The goal is to provide an informal forum for the discussion of important research questions and challenges. Controversial issues, open problems, comparisons of competing approaches, and alternative viewpoints are encouraged. The overarching goal of all workshops should be the integration of empirical and theoretical approaches, in an environment that fosters collegial discussion and debate. Preference will be given to proposals that differ substantially in content, scope, and/or approach from workshops of recent years (examples available at Cosyne.org -> Workshops). Relevant topics include, but are not limited to: sensory processing; motor planning and control; functional neural circuits; motivation, reward and decision making; learning and memory; adaptation and plasticity; neural coding; neural circuitry and network models; and methods in computational or systems neuroscience. Please note that in an effort to reduce the overlap between workshops, speakers are strongly discouraged from presenting talks at more than one workshop. WORKSHOP DETAILS - There will be 4-8 workshops/day, running in parallel. - Each workshop is expected to draw between 15 and 80 people. - The workshops will be split into morning (8.00-11.00 AM) and afternoon (4.30-7.30 PM) sessions. - Workshops will be held at Snowbird, a ski resort located 30 miles (typically less than an hour) from the Salt Lake City airport. Buses from the main conference will be provided. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Format: plain text only, please no attachments, email to cosyne17workshops [at] gmail.com (Alfonso Renart, Laura Busse) PRE-PROPOSALS should include: - Name(s) and email address(es) of the organizers (no more than 2 organizers per session, please). A primary contact should be designated. - A title. - A brief description of 1) what the workshop will address and accomplish, 2) why the topic is of interest, 3) who is the targeted group of participants. - Names of potential invitees, with indication of confirmed speakers. Preference will be given to workshops with the most confirmed speakers. - Proposed workshop length (1 or 2 days). Most workshops will be limited to a single day. If you think your workshop needs 2 days, please explain why. - A brief resume of the workshop organizer along with a short list of workshop-relevant publications (about half a page total). FULL PROPOSALS should include the list of confirmed speakers in addition to components required for a pre-proposal. Workshop organizer responsibilities include coordinating workshop participation and content, scheduling all speakers and submitting a final schedule for the workshop program, and moderating the discussion. Organizers can be speakers but need not speak depending on scheduling constraints. SUGGESTIONS Experience has shown that the best discussions during a workshop are those that arise spontaneously. A good way to foster these is to have short talks and long question periods (e.g. 15+30 minutes), and have plenty of breaks. We recommend fewer than 10 talks. WORKSHOP COSTS Detailed registration costs, etc, will be available at www.cosyne.org. Please note: Cosyne does NOT provide travel funding for workshop speakers. All workshop speakers are expected to pay for workshop registration fees. Participants are encouraged to register early, in order to qualify for discounted registration rates. One complementary (free) organizer registration is provided per workshop. For workshops with 2 organizers, the free registration can be given to one of the organizers or split evenly between them. COSYNE 2017 WORKSHOP CHAIRS Alfonso Renart (Champalimaud Center, Lisbon) and Laura Busse (LMU, Munich) QUESTIONS email: cosyne17workshops [at] gmail.com COSYNE MAILING LISTS Please consider adding yourself to Cosyne mailing lists (groups) to receive email updates with various Cosyne-related information and join in helpful discussions. See Cosyne.org -> Mailing lists for details. From xu.1265 at osu.edu Mon Aug 22 16:34:27 2016 From: xu.1265 at osu.edu (Xu, Wei) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 20:34:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd CFP: COLING 2016 Workshop on Noisy User-generated Text Message-ID: == The 2nd Workshop on Noisy User-generated Text (WNUT'16) == The WNUT Workshop will be held with COLING in Osaka, Japan, on December 11, 2016. The website for the workshop is at: http://noisy-text.github.io/ WNUT workshop focuses on Natural Language Processing applied to noisy user-generated text, such as that found in social media, web forums, online reviews, clinic records and language learner essays. This year, there will be two *shared tasks*: 1) Geolocation Prediction in Twitter and 2) Named Entity Recognition in Twitter. We seek submissions of both long and short papers on original and unpublished work (same page limit as COLING main conference). 1-page abstracts on work-in-progress or work published elsewhere are also welcome and will *not* be included in the conference proceedings. All accepted submissions will be presented as posters. Additionally, selected submissions will be presented orally. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: * NLP Preprocessing of Noisy Text - Part of speech tagging - Named entity tagging, including a wide range of categories, e.g. product names - Chunking of user-generated text - Parsing * Text Normalization and Error Correction - Normalizing noisy text for downstream tasks and for human readability - Error detection and correction * Paraphrase extraction and detection in noisy text * User prediction, e.g. geolocation, gender, age, etc * Bilingual translation of noisy text * Multilingual NLP in noisy text * Colloquial language, e.g. idiom detection * Domain adaptation to user-generated text * Geolocation prediction * Global and regional trend detection and event extraction * Extracting user demographics, profiles and major life events * Detecting rumors and contradictory information on social media * Temporal aspects of user-generated content (resolving time expressions, concept drift, diachronic analyses, etc...) = IMPORTANT DATES = * January 24 2015: First call for workshop papers * September 2016: Shared-task evaluations * September 25, 2016: Workshop paper due * October 16, 2016: Notification of acceptance * October 30, 2016: Camera-ready papers due * December 11, 2016: Workshop date = SHARED TASKS = * Task #1: Geolocation Prediction in Twitter (September 18, 2016) * Task #2: Named Entity Recognition in Twitter (September 9-16, 2016 ) = ORGANIZERS = Bo Han (Hugo AI) Alan Ritter (The Ohio State University) Leon Derczynski (The University of Sheffield) Wei Xu (The Ohio State University) Tim Baldwin (The University of Melbourne) = INVITED SPEAKERS = Ming-Wei Chang (Microsoft Research) Barbara Plank (University of Groningen) Kentaro Torisawa (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) = PROGRAM COMMITTEE = David Bamman (University of California, Berkeley) Kalina Bontcheva (University of Sheffield) Claire Cardie (Cornell University) Colin Cherry (National Research Council Canada) Grzegorz Chrupa?a (Tilburg University) Marina Danilevsky (IBM Research) Seza Do?ru?z (Tilburg University) Heba Elfardy (Columbia University) Eric Fosler-Lussier (The Ohio State University) Kevin Gimpel (Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago) Weiwei Guo (Yahoo! Research) Ben Hachey (Hugo AI) Masato Hagiwara (Duolingo) Ed Hovy (Carnegie Mellon University) Jing Jiang (Singapore Management University) Nobuhiro Kaji (Yahoo! Research) Emre Kiciman (Microsoft Research) Chen Li (University of Texas at Dallas) Wang Ling (Google DeepMind) Huan Liu (Arizona State University) Rada Mihalcea (University of Michigan) Smaranda Muresan (Columbia University) Preslav Nakov (Qatar Computing Research Institute) Naoaki Okazaki (Tohoku University) Miles Osborne (Bloomberg) Ellie Pavlick (University of Pennsylvania) Daniel Preo?iuc-Pietro (University of Pennsylvania) Will Radford (Hugo AI) Shourya Roy (Xerox Research) Alla Rozovskaya (City University of New York) Andrew Schwartz (Stony Brook University) Djam? Seddah (University Paris-Sorbonne) Richard Sproat (Google Research) Anders S?gaard (University of Copenhagen) Jeniya Tabassum (The Ohio State University) Joel Tetreault (Yahoo! Research) Byron C. Wallace (University of Texas at Austin) Svitlana Volkova (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) Xiaojun Wan (Peking University) Jun-Ming Xu (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Diyi Yang (Carnegie Mellon University) Yi Yang (Georgia Tech) Guido Zarrella (MITRE) Ming Zhou (Microsoft Research) = SUBMISSION = Formatting should be according to COLING 2016 specifications. Dual submission is allowed, but must state at the time of submission. Please submit through the START system at the following url: https://www.softconf.com/coling2016/WNUT/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From S.M.Bohte at cwi.nl Tue Aug 23 08:49:40 2016 From: S.M.Bohte at cwi.nl (Sander Bohte) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:49:40 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CFP NIPS 2016 Workshop: Computing with Spikes Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS NIPS 2016 Workshop: Computing with Spikes https://www.cwi.nl/computing-spikes-nips-2016-workshop The first NIPS Workshop Computing with Spikes will be held at NIPS 2016 in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday December 10 [tentative]. =================================== We invite you to submit new work on computing with spiking neurons. Submissions should be in the NIPS 2016 format with a maximum of eight pages. Author names need not be anonomyzed and references can extend beyond the 8 pages as far as needed; the usual NIPS policy on supplementary information applies. Accepted submissions will get a spotlight and a poster presentation; a small subset will be selected for contributed talks. The submission deadline is September 29 (midnight), and decisions will be sent out on October 5. Please submit papers by email to this address: =================================== Despite remarkable computational success, artificial neural networks ignore the spiking nature of neural communication that is fundamental for biological neuronal networks. Understanding how spiking neurons process information and learn remains an essential challenge. It concerns not only neuroscientists studying brain function, but also neuromorphic engineers developing low-power computing architectures, or machine learning researchers devising new biologically-inspired learning algorithms. Unfortunately, despite a joint interest in spike-based computation, the interactions between these subfields remains limited. The workshop aims to bring them together and to foster the exchange between them by focusing on recent developments in efficient neural coding and spiking neurons' computation. The discussion will center around critical questions in the field, such as "what are the underlying paradigms?" "what are the fundamental constraints?", and "what are the measures for progress??, that benefit from varied perspectives. The workshop will combine invited talks reviewing the state-of-the-art and short contributed presentations, and it will conclude with a panel discussion. =================================== Invited Speakers Sophie Deneve (Ecole Normale Superieure) Wolfgang Maass (U. Graz) Steve Furber (U. Manchester) Tobi Delbrueck (ETH Zurich, INI) Terry Steward (U Waterloo) tba (IBM Truenorth team) =================================== Organizers: Cristina Savin (IST), Thomas Nowotny (U Sussex), Davide Zambrano (CWI) Sander Bohte (CWI). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Miel.VanderSande at UGent.be Wed Aug 24 04:46:47 2016 From: Miel.VanderSande at UGent.be (Miel Vander Sande) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 08:46:47 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: ISWC 2016: Program online!, Registrations, Workshop highlights Message-ID: <555E0D33-E11C-4C32-A4B4-CB704850D876@ugent.be> 15th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2016) Kobe, Japan, October 17 -21, 2016 Website: http://iswc2016.semanticweb.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/113652365383847 Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISWC2016 The program is online! ========================================== In less than two months, ISWC 2016 opens its doors in the beautiful Kobe. We are happy to announce the full 5-day program that will take place, check it here: http://iswc2016.semanticweb.org/pages/program.html Don?t forget to register ========================================== Attending the conference? Don?t forget to register in time, early bird tickets are ending September 2. Read all about registration, visa, accommodation and travel here: http://iswc2016.semanticweb.org/pages/attending.html Workshop highlights ========================================== ** SemStats 2016 Call for Challenge ** The SemStats 2016 challenge is still running, with a deadline of September 16th, see http://semstats.org/2016/call-for-challenge. There is BIG monetary prices for this challenge, thanks to generous sponsors! ** VOILA 2016 (Visualization and Interaction for Ontologies and Linked Data) ** - 15 presentations of latest research & development - interactive demo sessions and discussions - share your ideas, demos, and experiences http://voila2016.visualdataweb.org ** The Consuming Linked Data Workshop (COLD) ** The Consuming Linked Data Workshop (COLD) goes into its seventh edition this year, and we have three main highlights for this edition: (i) a great keynote, (ii) six research papers, and (iii) The Great Linked Data Debate! (i) Our keynote speaker this year is Juan Reutter from the Pontificia Universidad Cat?lica de Chile. Juan is at home in the database community and he will share with us his thoughts on "The Fascinating World of Querying Linked Data." (ii) The next highlight are presentations of the following six research papers: * Distributed Linked Data as a Framework for Human-Machine Collaboration (Paolo Pareti) * Managing and Consuming Completeness Information for Wikidata Using COOL-WD (Radityo Eko Prasojo, Fariz Darari, Simon Razniewski, Werner Nutt) * Multidimensional Interfaces for Selecting Data within Ordinal Ranges (Ruben Taelman, Pieter Colpaert, Ruben Verborgh, Erik Mannens, Rik Van de Walle) * Property Paths over Linked Data: can it be done and how to start? (Jorge Baier, Dietrich Daroch, Juan L. Reutter, Domagoj Vrgo?) * The Impact of an Extra Feature on the Scalability of Linked Connections (Pieter Colpaert, Sander Ballieu, Ruben Verborgh, Erik Mannens) * Towards Maintainable Constraint Validation and Repair for Taxonomies: The PoolParty Approach (Monika Solanki, Christian Mader) (iii) Last, but certainly not least, for this edition of COLD we are planning to have The Great Linked Data Debate. Here is what it is about: The Linked Data principles, as described by Tim Berners-Lee, recently passed their decade anniversary. By some accounts, the glass is half full: Linked Data has been a huge success and enjoys healthy adoption. By other accounts, the glass is half empty: Linked Data has failed to live up to its original promise by a wide margin. But by all accounts, the glass could be more full. Within the community, there is a natural tendency to see the glass as half full, at least when we are not too busy solving low-level technical topics and writing papers. The goal of this session will be to take a step back and to try to view the glass as being half-empty, to try to understand why that might be, to see what challenges need to be addressed, what unforeseen problems have arisen from the adoption of the past 10 years, and what is holding us back from further success. We will invite a selection of experts to foment debate on these topics. In particular, in the style of a debate, we will ask each expert to argue the position that, Linked Data, as it currently stands, is doomed to fail. After stating their position, the expert will then debate their position with the audience. Each expert will thus act as a devil's advocate. They will argue as convincingly as possible a critical stance against Linked Data, regardless of their own position on the topic. It will be the role of the audience to defend Linked Data, if they so choose. As you can see, we have a great program, and we will plan a lot of time for discussions. Come to the workshop, engage with our speakers, and take part in the discussions! For more information, visit the workshop Web page at http://dcc.uchile.cl/cold2016/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aranoya at gmail.com Wed Aug 24 04:47:42 2016 From: aranoya at gmail.com (Oya Aran) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 10:47:42 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ICMI 2016 - Final Call for Demonstrations and Exhibits - Deadline: August 28th Message-ID: ICMI 2016 Call for Demonstrations and Exhibits We kindly invite you to submit your proposals for demonstrations and exhibits to be held during the 18th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2016), located in Tokyo, Japan on 12-16 November 2016. Demonstrations and Exhibits The ICMI 2016 Demonstrations & Exhibits session is intended to provide a forum to showcase innovative implementations, systems and technologies demonstrating new ideas about interactive multimodal interfaces. We particularly encourage demonstration of interactive and multimodal analysis systems and sensors. They can also serve to introduce commercial products. Proposals may be of two types: demonstrations and exhibits. The main difference is that demonstrations include a 2-page paper, which will be included in ICMI proceedings. We encourage both the submission of early research prototypes and interesting mature systems. In addition, authors of accepted regular research papers are invited to participate in the demonstration sessions as well. This year will feature a Multimodal Resources track to showcase novel corpora, annotation tools and schemes. Demonstrations in this track will benefit from more exposure to visitors, and will allow visitors to interact with the material. Demonstration Submission Demo proposals can be submitted at any time until August 10th, 2016. A 1-2 page description of the demonstration is required, which must be submitted electronically through the main ICMI conference management system (https://precisionconference.com/~icmi ). Demo description(s) must be in PDF format, according to ACM publication format. Demo proposals should include a description with photographs and/or screen captures of the demonstration and, if possible, the URL of a website where a live version or video of the proposed demo is available. Please note that the accepted descriptions will be included in ICMI proceedings. Exhibit Submission Exhibit proposals can be submitted at any time until September 5, 2016, and do not require a paper submission. Hence, exhibits won't have a paper published in the ICMI 2016 proceedings. To submit an exhibit, prospective applicants should fill out and submit an online form: https://goo.gl/TjkufI Exhibitors will be notified within one week. Important Dates * Submission of demo proposal: August 28th, 2016 * Demo notification of acceptance: September 14, 2016 * Submission of exhibit proposal due: September 7, 2016 * Exhibit notification of acceptance: one week after submission -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schaul at gmail.com Wed Aug 24 12:08:29 2016 From: schaul at gmail.com (Tom Schaul) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 17:08:29 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?NIPS_workshop_on_=E2=80=9CContinual_Lea?= =?utf-8?q?rning_and_Deep_Networks=E2=80=9D?= Message-ID: *TL;DR:* we invite you to our workshop on Continual Learning and Deep Networks, at this year?s NIPS. Submission deadline for 4-page abstracts is October 21. --------------- Description: Humans have the extraordinary ability to learn continually from experience. Not only can we apply previously learned knowledge and skills to new situations, we can also use these as the foundation for later learning. One of the grand goals of AI is building an artificial "continual learning" agent that constructs a sophisticated understanding of the world from its own experience, through the autonomous incremental development of ever more complex skills and knowledge. Hallmarks of continual learning include: interactive, incremental, online learning (learning occurs at every moment, with no fixed tasks or data sets); hierarchy or compositionality (previous learning can become the foundation far later learning); "isolaminar" construction (the same algorithm is used at all stages of learning); resistance to catastrophic forgetting (new learning does not destroy old learning); and unlimited temporal abstraction (both knowledge and skills may refer to or span arbitrary periods of time). Continual learning is an unsolved problem which presents particular difficulties for the deep-architecture approach that is currently the favoured workhorse for many applications. Some strides have been made recently, and many diverse research groups have continual learning on their road map. Hence we believe this is an opportune moment for a workshop focusing on this theme. The goals would be to define the different facets of the continual-learning problem, to tease out the relationships between different relevant fields (such as reinforcement learning, deep learning, lifelong learning, transfer learning, developmental learning, computational neuroscience, etc.) and to propose and explore promising new research directions. Confirmed speakers: - Claudia Clopath (Imperial College London) - Eric Eaton (University of Pennsylvania) - Raia Hadsell (Google DeepMind) - Honglak Lee (University of Michigan) - Joelle Pineau (McGill University) - Satinder Singh Baveja (Cogitai and University of Michigan) - Alexander Stoytchev (University of Iowa) - Richard Sutton (University of Alberta) Dates: - Submission deadline: Friday October 21 - Workshop: Saturday December 10 Submission format: 4 page extended abstracts, which can include previously published work. More details at the website: https://sites.google.com/site/cldlnips2016/ We look forward to seeing you in December! Razvan Pascanu, Mark Ring and Tom Schaul. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vijay at PHYSICS.UPENN.EDU Wed Aug 24 12:34:16 2016 From: vijay at PHYSICS.UPENN.EDU (Vijay Balasubramanian) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 10:34:16 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: Fellowships in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania Message-ID: <18d2a203-2010-23da-2ca8-97b7dab306e4@physics.upenn.edu> Postdoctoral Fellowships in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience University of Pennsylvania The Computational Neuroscience Initiative (CNI, http://cni.upenn.edu ) of the University of Pennsylvania seeks exceptional candidates for a CNI Postdoctoral Fellowship. Candidates with strong quantitative skills from a variety of fields including neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, physics, mathematics, and engineering will be considered. The selected Fellows will join an inter-disciplinary research environment in historic Philadelphia. CNI Fellows will be encouraged to foster collaborative research between multiple labs. The CNI supports inter-disciplinary and collaborative research at the frontier of knowledge about the brain, behavior, and the mind. We focus on systems-level approaches that integrate theory and computation with experiment. Our members include faculty, post-docs, and students from multiple programs and departments including neurobiology, cognitive science, psychology, physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, bioengineering, and computer science. Our research and training spans the three major elements of the field of Computational Neuroscience: 1) Theory ? understanding the brain as an information-processing machine; 2) Experiments ? providing quantitative methods to aid in the design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of empirical studies that probe all levels of brain function, from molecules to behavior; and 3) Applications ? including robotics, brain-machine interfaces, and new clinical tools. Applications should be submitted by email to compneuro at sas.upenn.edu and should consist of a CV and a cover letter stating the candidate's research experience and reasons for applying to this Fellowship. Please arrange for up two three letters of recommendation to be sent to the same email address with the candidate?s name in the subject line. Review of applications will occur on a rolling basis until the positions are filled The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented individuals from diverse backgrounds (http://jobs.hr.upenn.edu ). Vijay Balasubramanian, Director David Brainard, Co-Director Joshua Gold, Co-Director -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dengdehao at gmail.com Wed Aug 24 10:21:10 2016 From: dengdehao at gmail.com (Teng Teck Hou) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 22:21:10 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: [Big Data NLP Workshop @ IEEE Big Data 2016] Call For Papers Message-ID: <006001d1fe12$c42bdb50$4c8391f0$@gmail.com> Big Data and Natural Language Processing workshop hosted at IEEE Big Data 2016 http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/bignlp2016/ The modality of textual data has been somewhat under-represented in big data and data science research thus far. This is despite the fact that large amounts of data are stored in unstructured textual format. We intend that this workshop will address this shortcoming and bring together academic and industrial researchers to exchange cutting edge research in the emerging area of extremely large-scale natural language processing (NLP). This topic has emerged in several areas in parallel in recent years: information retrieval and search engines, text mining, machine learning, web-derived corpus/computational linguistics, digital libraries, high performance and parallel computing. Common to all these areas is some or all of the main parts of the NLP pipeline: collection, cleaning, annotation, indexing, storage, retrieval and analysis of voluminous quantities of naturally occurring language data from the web or large-scale national and international digitisation initiatives. By hosting this event at IEEE Big Data 2016, we hope to encourage the communities to come together to consider synergies between NLP and data science. In this context, numerous issues should be considered including those linked to the five Vs of big data: (a) Volume: is having more data for training and testing NLP techniques always better? (b) Variety: are all types of data available on a sufficiently large scale? (c) Velocity: how are parallel methods best applied to carry out NLP on a large scale? (d) Variability: how does inconsistent data impact on the accuracy of NLP techniques? (e) Veracity: how does the accuracy of data affect inferences that can be drawn from it? Research topics: Topics covered by the workshop include, but are not restricted to, the following: Application focused papers e.g. security informatics Crowdsourcing approaches to large-scale language analysis Use of big data to train/test methods for low resource languages where existing NLP approaches do not exist Efficient NLP for analysing large data sets Challenges of scaling the NLP pipeline Big Data Management for NLP Storage and access for large linguistic data sets Language processing via GPGPUs Parallel and distributed computing techniques for language analysis e.g. HPC, MapReduce, Hadoop, Spark and cloud based machine learning Visualisation methods for the analysis of large corpora Dates: Oct 3, 2016: Due date for full workshop papers submission Oct 25, 2016: Notification of paper acceptance to authors Nov 8, 2016: Camera-ready of accepted papers Dec 5-8, 2016: Workshops Program Chairs: Dr Paul Rayson (Lancaster University, UK) Dr Mark Stevenson (Sheffield University, UK) Dr John Mariani (Lancaster University, UK) Dr Laura Irina Rusu (IBM Research Australia) Gandhi Sivakumar (Watson CoC, IBM Australia) Program committee members: Dr Nikos Aletras (Amazon UK) Dr Enrique Alfonseca (Google Zurich) Professor Laurence Anthony (Waseda University, Japan) Dr Piotr Banski (IDS-Mannheim, Germany) Dr Alistair Baron (Lancaster University, UK) Dr Eddie Bell (Lyst, UK) Matt Coole (Lancaster University, UK) Professor John Keane (University of Manchester, UK) Dr Dawn Knight (Cardiff University, UK) Dr Marc Kupietz (IDS-Mannheim, Germany) Dr Jochen Leidner (Thomson Reuters, UK) Dr Diana Maynard (Sheffield University, UK) Dr Rao Muhammad Adeel Nawab (COMSATS, Pakistan) Dr Sebastian Riedel (UCL, UK) Dr Mahsa Salehi (IBM Research, Australia) Dr Irena Spasic (Cardiff University, UK) Dr Stephen Wattam (Lancaster University, UK) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From g.lever at cs.ucl.ac.uk Fri Aug 26 06:14:56 2016 From: g.lever at cs.ucl.ac.uk (guy lever) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:14:56 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Multi-Agent Workshop at NIPS - Call for submissions Message-ID: <57C016A0.7090703@cs.ucl.ac.uk> NIPS 2016 Workshop on Learning, Inference and Control of Multi-Agent Systems 10 December 2016, Barcelona, Spain https://sites.google.com/site/malicnips2016 Submission deadline: 21 October 2016 Organizers: Thore Graepel, Marc Lanctot, Joel Leibo, Guy Lever, Janusz Marecki, Frans Oliehoek, Karl Tuyls Multi-agent learning is of crucial importance to the future of computational intelligence and poses difficult and fascinating problems that need to be addressed across disciplines. The paradigm shift from single-agent to multi-agent systems will be pervasive and will require efforts across different fields including machine learning, cognitive science, robotics, natural computing, and (evolutionary) game theory. In this workshop we aim to bring together researchers from these different fields to discuss the current state of the art, future avenues and visions for work regarding theory and practice of multi-agent learning, inference, and decision-making. 1. Call for Papers Authors can submit a 2-6 pages paper (excluding references) that will be reviewed by the organization committee. The papers can present new work or give a summary of recent work of the author(s). All papers will be considered for the poster sessions. Outstanding long papers (4-6 pages) will also be considered for a 20 minutes oral presentation. Topics considered for contribution include: * Multi-agent reinforcement learning * Deep multi-agent learning * Theory of Mind * Multi-agent communication * POMDPs, Dec-POMDPS and partially observable stochastic games * Multi-agent robotics, human-robot collaboration, swarm robotics * Game theory, mechanism design, algorithms for computing Nash equilibria and other solution concepts * Bioinspired approaches, swarm intelligence and collective intelligence * Co-evolution, evolutionary dynamics and culture * Ad hoc teamwork * Learning from demonstrations, apprenticeship learning, and inverse reinforcement learning Submissions should be sent per email to malic.nips2016 at gmail.com Please use the standard NIPS style-file for the submissions. Your submission should be anonymous, so please do not add the author names to the PDF. 2. Format The workshop will serve as a platform to bring researchers from the different relevant communities together and foster discussions about the next necessary developments for multi-agent systems. The workshop will consists of six invited talks, a few contributed talks and a poster session. 3. Confirmed Speakers * Chris Amato * Michael Bowling * Josh Tenenbaum * Manuela Veloso * Shimon Whiteson * Richard Watson 4. Program Committee * Daan Bloembergen * Sander Bohte * Chrisantha Fernando * Vicen? G?mez * Bert Kappen * Michael Littman * Gerhard Neumann * Ann Now? * Olivier Pietquin * Matt Taylor * Kagan Tumer * Gerhard Weiss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Pavis at iit.it Thu Aug 25 10:45:12 2016 From: Pavis at iit.it (Pavis) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:45:12 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition - 71372 Message-ID: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C8877763C55@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> Postdoctoral position in Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition - [ Postdoc ] PAVIS department at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) (http://www.iit.it/pavis) is looking for a highly qualified candidate with a strong background in Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, with particular emphasis on recognition, video analysis, behavior understanding and prediction. As the activities may be carried out in collaboration with other research units inside IIT, previous multidisciplinary experience is an added value which will be duly considered. The main mission of PAVIS (Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision) is to design and develop innovative video surveillance systems, characterized by the use of highly-functional smart sensors and advanced video analytics features. PAVIS also plays an active role in supporting the other research units inside IIT providing scientists in Neuroscience, Nanophysics and other departments/centers with ad-hoc solutions. To this end, the group is involved in activities concerning computer vision and pattern recognition, machine learning, multimodal\multimedia data analysis and sensor fusion, and embedded computer vision systems. The lab will pursue this goal by working collaboratively and in cooperation with external private and public partners. In particular, this call aims at consolidating PAVIS expertise in one or more of the following research areas: Analysis of static and dynamic scenes; Recognition (objects, scenes, actions, events, etc.) and reconstruction ; Behavior Analysis & Activity Recognition (individuals, groups, crowd); Prediction of intentions. >From the methodological standpoint, the ideal candidate should be familiar with one or more of the following subjects: Graphical Models, Topic Models, Bayesian Nonparametrics, Deep Learning, Representation/Feature Learning, Sparse and Dictionary Learning, Clustering, Kernel methods, Manifold Learning and Statistical and Probabilistic Models in general. Candidates to this position have a Ph.D. in computer vision, machine learning or related areas. Research experience and qualification in computer vision and pattern recognition/machine learning are clearly a must and evidence of top quality research on the above specified areas, in the form of published papers in top conferences/journals and/or patents, is mandatory. The call is opened to scientists with more seniority, having specific experience in the preparation and management of research proposals (EU, US, national), therefore a few years of postdoc experience, either in academia or industrial lab, should be manifest. Evidence of such experience should be duly and clearly provided. The winning candidate will also be asked to contribute to set up new (funding) project proposals and will participate in funding activities. He/she is also expected to publish his/her research results in leading international journals and conferences, supervise PhD candidates and also collaborate with other scientists with different expertise. The position is offered for an initial period of 2 years. Salary will be commensurate to qualification and experience and in line with international standards. The workplace is Genova, Italy. Further details and informal enquires can be made by email to pavis at iit.it quoting PAVIS-PD 71372 as reference number in the subject line Completed application forms along with a curriculum listing all publications (possibly including a pdf of your most representative publications), and a research statement describing your previous research experience and outlining its relevance to the above topics should be sent by email to applications at iit.it, quoting PAVIS-PD 71372 as reference number in the subject line. Please also send 2 reference letters. The call will remain open and applications will be reviewed until the position is filled, but for full consideration please apply by September 30th, 2016. Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia - IIT - was founded with the objective of promoting Italy?s technological development and further education in science and technology. In this sense, IIT?s scientific program is based in the combination of basic scientific research and development of technical applications, a major inspirational principle. Research areas cover scientific topics of high innovative content, representing the most advanced frontiers of modern technology, with wide application possibilities in various fields ranging from medicine to industry, from computer science to robotics, life sciences and nanobiotechnology. In order to comply with Italian law (art. 23 of Privacy Law of the Italian Legislative Decree n. 196/03), the candidate is kindly asked to give his/her consent to allow Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia to process his/her personal data. We inform you that the information you provide will be solely used for the purpose of evaluating and selecting candidates in order to meet the requirements of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Your data will be processed by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, with its headquarters in Genoa, Via Morego 30, acting as the Data Holder, using computer and paper-based means, observing the rules on the protection of personal data, including those relating to the security of data, and they will not be communicated to thirds. Please also note that, pursuant to art.7 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, you may exercise your rights at any time as a party concerned by contacting the Data Holder. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is an Equal Opportunity Employer that actively seeks diversity in the workforce. From maciej.mazurowski at duke.edu Thu Aug 25 18:46:27 2016 From: maciej.mazurowski at duke.edu (Maciej Mazurowski) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 18:46:27 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position available at Duke Message-ID: <8a686de2-b76a-daa8-1540-3b2d4b7bd5a8@duke.edu> We are currently looking to hire a postdoctoral associate with expertise in machine learning (experience with deep learning preferred) to work in a lab at Duke University. The full announcement can be found here: http://deckard.duhs.duke.edu/~mazurowski/positions/postdoc_machine_learning.html -- Maciej A. Mazurowski, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Radiology and Electrical and Computer Engineering Duke University tel: 919 684 1466 From dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu Fri Aug 26 11:44:54 2016 From: dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:44:54 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL NETWORKS, Sept. 2016 Message-ID: <91dcd358-6a2d-1473-19f6-acc902ac4dd9@cse.ohio-state.edu> Neural Networks - Volume 81, September 2016 http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks A note on finite-time and fixed-time stability Wenlian Lu, Xiwei Liu, Tianping Chen New results on anti-synchronization of switched neural networks with time-varying delays and lag signals Yuting Cao, Shiping Wen, Michael Z.Q. Chen, Tingwen Huang, Zhigang Zeng Neural network training as a dissipative process Marco Gori, Marco Maggini, Alessandro Rossi Extreme learning machine and adaptive sparse representation for image classification Jiuwen Cao, Kai Zhang, Minxia Luo, Chun Yin, Xiaoping Lai Global exponential stability of impulsive complex-valued neural networks with both asynchronous time-varying and continuously distributed delays Qiankun Song, Huan Yan, Zhenjiang Zhao, Yurong Liu Synchronization of fractional-order complex-valued neural networks with time delay Haibo Bao, Ju H. Park, Jinde Cao A neural model of the frontal eye fields with reward-based learning Weijie Ye, Shenquan Liu, Xuanliang Liu, Yuguo Yu Pseudo-inverse linear discriminants for the improvement of overall classification accuracies Gao Daqi, Dastagir Ahmed, Guo Lili, Wang Zejian, Wang Zhe Pointwise and uniform approximation by multivariate neural network operators of the max-product type Danilo Costarelli, Gianluca Vinti Real-time object tracking based on scale-invariant features employing bio-inspired hardware Shinsuke Yasukawa, Hirotsugu Okuno, Kazuo Ishii, Tetsuya Yagi From evomusart at gmail.com Thu Aug 25 18:33:01 2016 From: evomusart at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Jo=C3=A3o_Correia?=) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 22:33:01 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: EvoMusArt 2017 - CfP Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------ CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE 6th EVOMUSART CONFERENCE ------------------------------------------------ The 6th International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMusArt) will be held in Amsterdam in 19-21 April 2017, as part of the evo* event. The main goal of EvoMusArt is to bring together researchers who are using Computational Intelligence techniques for artistic tasks such as visual art, music, architecture, video, digital games, poetry, or design. The conference gives researchers in the field the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in the area. Important dates: Submission: 1 November 2016 Notification to authors: 9 January 2017 Camera-ready deadline: 25 January 2017 Evo*: 19-21 April 2017 We welcome submissions which use Computational Intelligence techniques (e.g. Evolutionary Computation, Artificial Life, Machine Learning, Swarm Intelligence) in the generation, analysis and interpretation of art, music, design, architecture and other artistic fields. Submissions must be at most 16 pages long, in Springer LNCS format (instructions downloadable from http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0). Each submission must be anonymised for a double-blind review process and submitted to http://myreview.csregistry.org/evomusart17/ . The deadline for submission is 1 November 2016, and acceptance notification on 9 January 2017. Accepted papers will be presented orally or as posters at the event and included in the EvoMusArt proceedings published by Springer Verlag in a dedicated volume of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Indicative topics include but are not limited to: * Systems that create drawings, images, animations, sculptures, poetry, text, designs, webpages, buildings, etc.; * Systems that create musical pieces, sounds, instruments, voices, sound effects, sound analysis, etc...; * Systems that create artifacts such as game content, architecture, furniture, based on aesthetic and functional criteria; * Systems that resort to computational intelligence to perform the analysis of image, music, sound, sculpture, or some other types of artistic object; * Systems in which computational intelligence is used to promote the creativity of a human user; * Theories or models of computational aesthetics; * Computational models of emotional response, surprise, novelty; * Representation techniques for images, videos, music, etc; * Surveys of the current state-of-the-art in the area; * New ways of integrating the user in the process (e.g. improvisation, co-creation, participation). More information on the submission process and the topics of EvoMusArt 2017 can be found at http://www.evostar.org/2017/cfp_evomusart.php We look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam in 2017! The EvoMusArt 2017 organisers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dengdehao at gmail.com Wed Aug 24 21:01:51 2016 From: dengdehao at gmail.com (Teng Teck Hou) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 09:01:51 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: [IJCNN 2017] Combined Calls Message-ID: <006101d1fe6c$44a608b0$cdf21a10$@gmail.com> [Apologies for cross-postings] ################################################## COMBINED CALLS CALL FOR PAPERS http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-papers CALL FOR SPECIAL SESSIONS http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-special-sessions CALL FOR WORKSHOPS http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-workshops CALL FOR TUTORIALS http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-tutorials CALL FOR COMPETITIONS http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-competition CALL FOR SPONSORS http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-sponsors International Joint Conference on Neural Networks May 14-19, 2017, Anchorage, Alaska, USA http://www.ijcnn.org/ ################################################## IJCNN is the premier international conference in the area of neural network theory, analysis, and applications. Co-sponsored by the International Neural Network Society (INNS) and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (IEEE-CIS), over the last three decades this conference and its predecessors has hosted [past, present, and future] leaders of neural network research. IJCNN 2017 will feature invited plenary talks by world-renowned speakers in the areas of neural network theory and applications, computational neuroscience, robotics, and distributed intelligence. In addition to regular technical sessions with oral and poster presentations, the conference program will include special sessions, competitions, tutorials and workshops on topics of current interest. The 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2017) will be held at the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, May 14-19, 2017. "... Only in Anchorage can you meet a moose, walk on a glacier and explore a vast, natural park all in a single day. Between mountains and an inlet, surrounded by national parks and filled with Alaska wildlife, Anchorage combines the best of Alaska in a city that has the comforts of home and the hospitality of the Last Frontier. ..." For the latest updates, follow us on Facebook (https://fb.me/ijcnn2017/) and Twitter (@ijcnn2017). ##############################Important Dates############################## * Special Session, Panel Sesion & Competition Proposals September 15, 2016 * Tutorial and Workshop Proposals October 15, 2016 * Paper Submission November 15, 2016 * Paper Decision Notification January 20, 2017 * Camera-Ready Submission February 20, 2017 ########################################################################### ##########################Plenary Speakers########################## * Christof Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA * Hava Siegelmann, DARPA, and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA * Jose Principle, University of Florida, USA #################################################################### ##########################Call for Special Sessions########################## The IJCNN 2017 Program Committee solicits proposals for special sessions within the technical scopes of the conference. Special sessions, to be organized by international recognized experts, aim to bring together researchers focused in special, novel, and challenging topics. Fast-developing themes such as Deep Learning, Big Data, or applications to fields like chemistry, biology, computer games, robotics, etc. are examples. Papers submitted for special sessions are to be peer-reviewed with the same criteria used for the regular sessions. Researchers interested in organizing special sessions are invited to submit a formal proposal using the on-line form of the Special Sessions webpage. Due to large expected number of submissions, please do not directly email the information to the special session co-chairs Derong Liu, University of Chicago & Chinese Academy of Sciences. Beijing, and Tatiana Tambouratzis, University of Piraeus, Greece. For further details, please refer to http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-special-sessions Any questions regarding this proposal can be asked to the Special Session Chairs: Derong Liu, University of Chicago, USA. E-mail: derong at uic.edu Tatiana Tambouriatzis, University of Piraeus, Greece. E-mail: tatianatambouratzis at gmail.com ############################################################################ # ##########################Call for Workshops########################## Post-conference workshops offer a unique opportunity for in-depth discussions of specific topics in neural networks and computational intelligence. The workshops should be moderated by scientists or professionals who has significant expertise and /or whose recent work has had a significant impact within their field. IJCNN 2017 will emphasize emerging and growing areas of computational intelligence. Each workshop has a duration of 3 or 6 hours. The format of each workshop will be up to the moderator, and can include interactive presentations as well as panel discussions among participants. These interactions should highlight exciting new developments and current research trends to facilitate a discussion of ideas that will drive the field forward in the coming years. Workshop organizers can prepare various materials including handouts or electronic resources that can be made available for distribution before or after the meeting. Researchers interested in organizing workshops are invited to submit a formal proposal including the following information as a single file (pdf, doc, etc.) to the workshop chair: Title Organizers and their short bio Brief description of the scope and impact of the workshop Timeliness of the topic Confirmed and/or potential speakers Half day (3 hours) or full day (6 hours) Link to organizer's web page and/or workshop web site (optional) For further details, please refer http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-workshops. Any questions regarding this proposal can be asked to the Workshop Chair: Lazaros Iliadis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. E-mail: liliadis at fmenr.duth.gr ###################################################################### ##########################Call for Tutorials########################## IJCNN 2017 will feature pre-conference tutorials addressing fundamental and advanced topics in computational intelligence. Tutorial proposals should be emailed to the Tutorial Chair (see below). A tutorial proposal should include the Title Presenter/organizer name(s) and affiliations Expected enrollment Abstract (less than 300 words) Additional outline if needed Presenter/organizer biography Links to the presenter/organizer web page or the tutorial page (optional) The proposal should not exceed two pages in 1.5 space, Times 12 point font. The tutorial format (preliminary) is 1 hour and 45 minutes with a 10-minute break. Researchers interested in organizing workshops are invited to submit a formal proposal. For further details, please refer to http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-tutorials. Any questions regarding this proposal can be asked to the Tutorials Chair: Asim Roy, Arizona State University, USA. E-mail: ASIM.ROY at asu.edu ###################################################################### ##########################Call for Competitions########################## Competition organizers are kindly invited to submit their proposals to IJCNN2017 Competition Chair (TBA) by September 15, 2016. The notifications of acceptance of the competition proposals will be provided by TBA and will be shortly publish in the IJCNN 2017 website. Please note that each accepted competition will be published in a separate web link. The competition proposal should contain the following information (please fill out the form at the bottom of this page, or send the required information in the form as a single pdf file to the competition chair [email below]) The aims and objectives of the competition, The rules of the competition, including which data sets will be used, How the competition will serve the neural networks community/society, How to enter the competitions and how to evaluate them, and Which competition platform (or result submission and validation method) you will use (e.g. similar to Kaggle). Summary of performance results directly reported by the competition participants and not verified by the competition organizers are not acceptable. Please note that you need to select a category for your competition from the following list: Category A: You are planning to organise an associated special session, in which the proposal must be submitted separately to the special session chairs. In addition, you require that each team must submit at least one paper to the special session. Category B: You are planning to organise an associated special session, whose proposal must be also submitted separately to the special session chairs. However, submission of papers to the special session by competition participants is not mandatory. Category C: You have no plan to organize an associated special session. Note: For categories B and C, please also indicate whether or not conference participation is required for each entry. Sponsorship A winning certificate and free registration will be provided to the winner of each competition who attends IJCNN 2017. For further details, please refer to http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-competition. If you need any other information, please do not hesitate to contact the IJCNN2017 Competition Chair: Juyang (John) Weng, Michigan State University. E-mail: weng at cse.msu.edu ######################################################################### ##########################Call for Sponsors########################## You are invited to support the 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2017), organized by the International Neural Network Society (INNS) and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (IEEE-CIS). This is an ideal way to demonstrate your organization's commitment to the field of artificial intelligence ? including neural networks, biomorphic systems, computational neuroscience, neuroengineering, and many other areas at the frontier of technological innovation ? and to publicize this support to many leaders and students in the field. Corporate support is typically used to permit a greater number of students to attend IJCNN at reduced fees without increasing the general registration, and to allow student volunteers to receive complimentary registration. Exhibits by sponsors also help inform researchers ? especially students and postdocs ? about relevant applications and opportunities. Corporate support can be targeted to a particular event or activity at the Conference. IJCNN 2017 has four sponsorship levels: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Your support is very important to the conference, and the conference committee ensures that these contributions are well recognized. We list the benefits and costs below. PLATINUM (US$10,000 or greater contribution) You will get 4 free registrations to the main conference and tutorials and workshops, 4 banquet tickets, 3 exhibition tables. You will also get second choice at naming events at the conference. For example, there are generally two receptions, several lunches and coffee breaks, plus a student reception. Naming of events will be decided based on the amount of the contribution and the order received. Your company or institution (with logo and URL) will be listed in all conference announcements, on the advance program, and on the conference web pages, at www.ijcnn.org We will specially acknowledge your company's contribution and offer thanks at the opening and closing sessions of the conference You will have the opportunity to include material and giveaways with the conference material for each attendee You will get early notification direct from the Corporate Support Chair of conference news GOLD SPONSORSHIP (US$5,000 or greater contribution) You will get 3 free registrations to the main conference or tutorials and workshops, 3 banquet tickets, 2 exhibition tables. You will also get third choice at naming events at the conference (after the Platinum). For example, there are generally two receptions, several lunches and coffee breaks, plus a student reception. Naming of events will be decided based on the amount of the contribution and the order received. Your company or institution (with logo and URL) will be listed in all conference announcements, on the advance program, and on the conference web pages, at www.ijcnn.org We will acknowledge your company's contribution and offer thanks at the opening and closing sessions of the conference You will have the opportunity to include material and giveaways with the conference material for each attendee You will get early notification direct from the Corporate Support Chair of conference news SILVER SPONSORSHIP (US$3,000 or greater contribution) You will get 2 free registrations to the main conference or tutorials and workshops, 2 banquet tickets, 1 exhibition table. We will name an event after your company, if there are events left after those named for Platinum and Gold Your company or institution (with logo and URL) will be listed in the advance program, and on the conference web pages, at www.ijcnn.org We will acknowledge your company's contribution and offer thanks at the opening and closing sessions of the conference You will get early notification direct from the Corporate Support Chair of conference news BRONZE SPONSORSHIP (US$1,500 or greater contribution) You will get 1 free registration to the main conference or tutorials and workshops and 1 banquet ticket. Your company or institution (with logo and URL) will be listed in the advance program, and on the conference web pages, at www.ijcnn.org We will acknowledge your company's contribution and offer thanks at the opening and closing sessions of the conference You will get early notification direct from the Corporate Support Chair of conference news Sponsorships at lower levels will be considered, with benefits negotiated between the IJCNN 2017 Sponsorship Chair and the Sponsor. For further details, please refer to http://www.ijcnn.org/call-for-sponsors Any questions regarding this proposal can be asked to the Sponsor Chair: Lipo Wang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. E-mail: elpwang at ntu.edu.sg ###################################################################### ############Paper Submission and Publication############ * Regular paper can have up to 8 pages in double-column IEEE Conference format * All papers are to be prepared using IEEE-compliant Latex or Word templates on paper of U.S. letter size. * All submitted papers will be checked for plagiarism through the IEEE CrossCheck system. * Papers with significant overlap with the authors own papers or other papers will be rejected without review. ######################################################## ##################Topics and Areas of Interest################## This conference solicits papers addressing original works in topics and areas of interest including, but are not limited to: NEURAL NETWORK MODELS * Feedforward neural networks * Recurrent neural networks * Self-organizing maps * Radial basis function networks * Attractor neural networks and associative memory * Modular networks * Fuzzy neural networks * Spiking neural networks * Reservoir networks (echo-state networks, liquid-state machines, etc.) * Large-scale neural networks * Other topics in artificial neural networks MACHINE LEARNING * Supervised learning * Unsupervised learning and clustering, (including PCA, and ICA) * Reinforcement learning * Probabilistic and information-theoretic methods * Support vector machines and kernel methods * EM algorithms * Mixture models, ensemble learning, and other meta-learning or committee algorithms * Bayesian, belief, causal, and semantic networks * Statistical and pattern recognition algorithms * Visualization of data * Feature selection, extraction, and aggregation * Evolutionary learning * Hybrid learning methods * Computational power of neural networks * Deep learning * Other topics in machine learning NEURODYNAMICS * Dynamical models of spiking neurons * Synchronization and temporal correlation in neural networks * Dynamics of neural systems * Chaotic neural networks * Dynamics of analog networks * Neural oscillators and oscillator networks * Dynamics of attractor networks * Other topics in neurodynamics COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE * Connectomics * Models of large-scale networks in the nervous system * Models of neurons and local circuits * Models of synaptic learning and synaptic dynamics * Models of neuromodulation * Brain imaging * Analysis of neurophysiological and neuroanatomical data * Cognitive neuroscience * Models of neural development * Models of neurochemical processes * Neuroinformatics * Other topics in computational neuroscience NEURAL MODELS OF PERCEPTION, COGNITION AND ACTION * Neurocognitive networks * Cognitive architectures * Models of conditioning, reward and behavior * Cognitive models of decision-making * Embodied cognition * Cognitive agents * Multi-agent models of group cognition * Developmental and evolutionary models of cognition * Visual system * Auditory system * Olfactory system * Other sensory systems * Attention * Learning and memory * Spatial cognition, representation and navigation * Semantic cognition and language * Neural models of symbolic processing * Reasoning and problem-solving * Working memory and cognitive control * Emotion and motivation * Motor control and action * Dynamical models of coordination and behavior * Consciousness and awareness * Models of sleep and diurnal rhythms * Mental disorders * Other topics in neural models of perception, cognition and action NEUROENGINEERING * Brain-machine interfaces * Neural prostheses * Neuromorphic hardware * Embedded neural systems * Other topics in neuroengineering BIO-INSPIRED AND BIOMORPHIC SYSTEMS * Brain-inspired cognitive architectures * Embodied robotics * Evolutionary robotics * Developmental robotics * Computational models of development * Collective intelligence * Swarms * Autonomous complex systems * Self-configuring systems * Self-healing systems * Self-aware systems * Emotional computation * Artificial life * Other topics in bio-inspired and biomorphic systems APPLICATIONS * Bioinformatics * Biomedical engineering * Data analysis and pattern recognition * Speech recognition and speech production * Robotics * Neurocontrol * Approximate dynamic programming, adaptive critics, and Markov decision processes * Neural network approaches to optimization * Signal processing, image processing, and multi-media * Temporal data analysis, prediction, and forecasting; time series analysis * Communications and computer networks * Data mining and knowledge discovery * Power system applications * Financial engineering applications * Applications in multi-agent systems and social computing * Manufacturing and industrial applications * Expert systems * Clinical applications * Big data applications * Smart grid applications * Other applications CROSS-DISCIPLINARY TOPICS * Hybrid intelligent systems * Swarm intelligence * Sensor networks * Quantum computation * Computational biology * Molecular and DNA computation * Computation in tissues and cells * Artificial immune systems * Other cross-disciplinary topics ################################################################ ##########################Organizing Committee########################## General Chair * Yoonsuck Choe, Texas A and M University, USA Program Chair * Christina Jayne, Robert Gordon University, UK Technical Co-Chairs * Irwin King, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China * Barbara Hammer, University of Bielefeld, Germany Plenary Chair * Cesare Alippi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Special Session Co-Chairs * Derong Liu, University of Chicago, USA * Tatiana Tambouriatzis, University of Piraeus, Greece Tutorial Chair * Asim Roy, Arizona State University, USA Workshop Chair * Lazaros Iliadis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece Poster Session Chair * Richard Duro, Universidad Coruna, Spain Competition Chair * Juyang (John) Weng, Michigan State University, USA Panels Chair * Robert Kozma, University of Memphis, USA Awards Chair * Nikola Kasabov, Auckland University of Technology, Australia Web Reviews Chair * Tomasz Cholewo, Lexmark International Inc., USA Sponsors & Exhibits Chair * Lipo Wang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Publication Chair * Bill Howell, Natural Resources Canada (retired), Canada International Liaison * Teresa Ludermir, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil European Liaison * Danilo P. Mandic, Imperial College, UK Asia-Pacific Liaison * Minho Lee, Kyungpook National University, Korea Neuroscience Liaison * P?ter ?rdi, Kalamazoo College, USA Robotics Liaison * Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, INRIA, France Industry Liaison * Sven F. Crone, Lancaster University, UK Publicity Co-Chairs * Giacomo Boracchi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy * Simone Scardapane, Sapienza University, Italy * Teck-Hou Teng, Singapore Management University, Singapore Local Arrangements Co-Chairs * Frank W. Moore, University of Alaska, USA * Kenrick Mock, University of Alaska, USA Registration Chair * Jaerock Kwon, Kettering University, USA Webmaster * Jaewook Yoo, Texas A & M University, USA ####################################################################### ##################Sponsoring Organizations################## * INNS - International Neural Network Society * IEEE - Computational Intelligence Society ############################################################ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pascal.fua at epfl.ch Fri Aug 26 11:32:42 2016 From: pascal.fua at epfl.ch (Pascal Fua) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:32:42 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Research Engineer Position at EPFL's Computer Vision Lab Message-ID: EPFL's Computer Vision laboratory (http://cvlab.epfl.ch) is involved in a joint project with the Swiss SecondSpectrum office ( http://www.secondspectrum.com/). Its goal is to enable sports fan to interact with a game they could previously only passively observe. To this end, we will develop mobile device apps that rely on Computer Vision techniques to let them access information about a player or match by either selecting a player or part of the game on their mobile device?s screen, or by pointing their mobile device?s camera at a sporting event that is taking place before them. We are looking for a research engineer to help us collect data and write industrial-grade software for this 18-month project. Profile: - Master's degree in a field related to Image Processing and Compute r Vision. - Proven record of writing industrial-grade code. - Previous experience with Image Registration and/or Deep Networks would be a plus. Duration: - One year, renewable for at least another 6 months. Applying: Please send your CV with three references to Mrs. Ariane Staudenmann (ariane.staudenmann at epfl.ch). -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. P. Fua (Pascal.Fua at epfl.ch) Tel: 41/21-693-7519 FAX: 41/21-693-7520 Url: http://cvlab.epfl.ch/~fua/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ASJagath at ntu.edu.sg Sat Aug 27 07:24:36 2016 From: ASJagath at ntu.edu.sg (Jagath C Rajapakse (Prof)) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 11:24:36 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral and student positions in computational and systems biology Message-ID: <1AF9712A-C7E9-4AD6-9A2B-D5E04170E81A@contoso.com> Postdoctoral positions and PhD student position in computational and systems biology Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Two postdoctoral positions and one PhD student position in a project investigating missing and spurious links and labels of molecular networks are available at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore (www.ntu.edu.sg). The project will begin in January 2017 and is led by Professor Jagath Rajapakse in the School of Computer Science and Engineering. Protein-interaction networks are widely used in inferring disease mechanisms and in drug discovery. Missing and spurious links and labels of PIN are challenging and undermine the applications. The aim of this project is to develop computational techniques and tools for the prediction of missing and spurious links and labels by mapping the hierarchical modularity of protein interaction networks and gene ontology. Applications of the techniques to predicting biological pathways, prioritizing disease targets, and detecting hierarchies of protein complexes in diseases such as psoriasis, leprosy and cancer will be explored. Postdoc 1 will research on various models of protein interaction networks, and their applications in predicting missing links, extracting network modules, the hierarchical structure of protein complexes, and prioritizing proteins. A potential candidate will have background and experience in biological network analysis, probabilistic models, or machine learning. Postdoc 2 will investigate the graphical structure and missing labels of gene ontology, and the applications to inferring biological pathways from multiple biological data sources. A potential candidate will have experience in biological network analysis, bioinformatics, ontologies, or text mining. The PhD student will work on the hierarchical modular architecture of protein interaction networks and mapping between the hierarchical structures of PINs and gene ontologies, and their applications to cancer. For postdoctoral positions, PhD in a related field is required. For more details and applications, please send your curriculum vitae to Professor Jagath Rajapakse (asjagath at ntu.edu.sg). ? Jagath C. Rajapakse, PhD, FIEEE Professor of Computer Engineering School of Computer Science and Engineering Nanyang Technological University N4-2a06 50 Nanyang Ave Singapore 639798 Tel: 67905802, Fax: 67926559 www.ntu.edu.sg/home/asjagath ________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it, notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose its contents. Towards a sustainable earth: Print only when necessary. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eilif.mueller at epfl.ch Sun Aug 28 18:09:03 2016 From: eilif.mueller at epfl.ch (emuller) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:09:03 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: SfN2016 Satellite Symposium "Collaborative Neuroscience and Enabling Infrastructure" Message-ID: <20160829000903.6ed0750b@zimt> ANNOUNCEMENT Human Brain Project Satellite Symposium to SfN 2016 "Collaborative Neuroscience and Enabling Infrastructure" When: 1pm-5pm, November 11th, 2016 Where: Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, Room: Cortez Hill ABC Organizers: Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, Eilif Muller, Jeff Muller, David Lester, Andrew Davison Participants are kindly asked to register using the following link (google forms): https://goo.gl/forms/0uuu4rW5yW3epgNm2 OVERVIEW The EU funded Human Brain Project is developing six research platforms in the areas of Neuroinformatics, High-Performance Computing, Brain Simulation, Medical Informatics, Neuromorphic Computing and Neurorobotics to support international research. This symposium brings together researchers and engineers from the Human Brain Project (HBP) with the larger neuroscience community to discuss how the HBP Platforms can catalyze collaborative neuroscience research by the community, and highlight selected complementary initiatives to explore synergies. We will provide an introduction to the Human Brain Project platforms, "The HBP Collaboratory", with a focus on neuroscientific use-cases available as of the initial public release of spring 2016, and first success stories. For further details see the website: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/sfn-2016-satellite From margret.franke at bccn-berlin.de Mon Aug 29 05:41:51 2016 From: margret.franke at bccn-berlin.de (Margret Franke) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:41:51 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: REMINDER: Bernstein Conference 2016: Late Registration Deadline: Sept 4, 2016 In-Reply-To: <75aaa8d6-4227-d500-62ad-a8d33dffdcbb@bccn-berlin.de> References: <75aaa8d6-4227-d500-62ad-a8d33dffdcbb@bccn-berlin.de> Message-ID: *BERNSTEIN CONFERENCE 2016 in Berlin* Late registration deadline: Sept 4, 2016 Please register here: http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2016/registration **************************************************************************** Satellite Workshops http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2016/satellite-workshops Main Conference http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2016 **************************************************************************** The Bernstein Conference has become the largest annual Computational Neuroscience Conference in Europe and now regularly attracts more than 500 international participants. This year, the Conference is organized by the Bernstein Center Berlin and will take place in Berlin on September 21-23, 2016. In addition, there will be a series of pre-conference satellite workshops on September 20-21, 2016. The Bernstein Conference is a single-track conference, covering all aspects of Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, and sessions for poster presentations are an integral part of the conference. The goal of the satellite workshops is to provide an informal forum for the discussion of timely research questions and challenges. For more information on the conference, please visit: www.bernstein-conference.de CONFERENCE DATE AND VENUE: Satellite Workshops September 20-21, 2016 Venue: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Seminargeb?ude am Hegelplatz, Dorotheenstr. 24, 10117 Berlin Germany Main Conference September 21-23, 2016 Venue: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin Germany PHD Symposium: September 23-24, 2016 Venue: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Philippstr. 13 Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Michael Brecht Gustavo Deco Alain Destexhe Sophie Den?ve Udo Ernst Adrienne Fairhall Margret Franke Sonja Gr?n John-Dylan Haynes Andreas Herz Philipp H?vel Richard Kempter Klaus Obermayer Stefan Rotter Susanne Schreiber Henning Sprekeler Bernstein Coordination Site: Mareike Kardinal Kerstin Schwarzw?lder We look forward to seeing you in Berlin in September! -- 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 nikhilrao86 at gmail.com Sun Aug 28 18:17:07 2016 From: nikhilrao86 at gmail.com (Nikhil Rao) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:17:07 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: NIPS workshop on Learning in High Dimensions with Structure Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS NIPS 2016 Workshop on Learning in High Dimensions with Structure Barcelona, Spain Website: https://sites.google.com/site/structuredlearning16/ ================================================== ================================================== IMPORTANT DATES: September 23 : Extended abstracts due October 4 : Notification of acceptance November 22 : Final papers due December 9 : Workshop ================================================== ================================================== Several applications necessitate learning a very large number of parameters from small amounts of data, which can lead to overfitting, statistically unreliable answers, and large training/prediction costs. A common and effective method to avoid the above mentioned issues is to restrict the parameter-space using specific structural constraints such as sparsity or low rank. However, such simple constraints do not fully exploit the richer structure which is available in several applications and is present in the form of correlations, side information or higher order structure. Designing new structural constraints requires close collaboration between domain experts and machine learning practitioners. Similarly, developing efficient and principled algorithms to learn with such constraints requires further collaborations between experts in diverse areas such as statistics, optimization, approximation algorithms etc. This interplay has given rise to a vibrant research area. The main objective of this workshop is to consolidate current ideas from diverse areas such as machine learning, signal processing, theoretical computer science, optimization and statistics, clarify the frontiers in this area, discuss important applications and open problems, and foster new collaborations. ================================================== ================================================== INVITED SPEAKERS Amir Beck (Technion) Sham Kakade (U. Washington) Po-Ling Loh (U. Wisconsin - Madison) Guillaume Obozinski (Ecole des Ponts) Rene Vidal (Johns Hopkins) Allen Yang (UC Berkeley) Rob Nowak (U. Wisconsin - Madison) Richard Samworth (Cambridge) ================================================== ================================================== SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS We invite submissions in the form of 2 page extended abstracts, excluding references, in PDF format and in NIPS style. If accepted, final submissions may be at most 4 pages long, excluding references and supplementary materials. Submissions will be accepted as poster presentations, and will be published on the workshop website. The authors may choose to make their identities visible on the submissions. Submissions should be mailed to nips.lhds at gmail.com. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Algorithms - Online and Reinforcement learning in high dimensions - Submodularity for high dimensional structured learning - Novel regularization frameworks - Theory - Applications, including machine learning, speech and signal processing, computer vision and biostatistics. ================================================== ================================================== ORGANIZERS Nikhil Rao (Technicolor) Prateek Jain (Microsoft) Hsiang-Fu Yu (Amazon) Francis Bach (Ecole Normale Superieure) Ming Yuan (UW Madison) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From azahkm at gmail.com Mon Aug 29 05:19:57 2016 From: azahkm at gmail.com (Azah Kamilah Muda) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 17:19:57 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?2nd_CFP_=3A_SoCPaR=2716_=26_CaSON=2716_?= =?utf-8?q?-_Springer_=E2=80=93_Vellore=2C_India?= Message-ID: ** We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP ** ** Kindly help to distribute this CFP to your mailing list ** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- The 8th International Conference on Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition (SoCPaR'16) ? C Vellore, India ( December 19 - 21, 2016) http://www.mirlabs.org/socpar16 http://www.mirlabs.net/socpar16 -- The 8th International Conference on Computational Aspects of Social Network (CaSON'16) ? Vellore, India ( December 19 - 21, 2016) http://www.mirlabs.org/nabic16 http://www.mirlabs.net/nabic16 ** Important Dates ** ---------------------------------- Special sessions/Track/workshop proposals: August 31, 2016 Acceptance of special sessions: September 05, 2016 Paper submission due: September 30, 2016 Notification of paper acceptance: October 15, 2016 Registration and Final manuscript due: October 30, 2016 Conference: December 19 - 21, 2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About SoCPaR'16 : ------------------------- Conference Objective: The International Conference on Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition ( SoCPaR) is a major international conference bringing together researchers, engineers, and practitioners who work in the areas of soft computing and pattern recognition in the industry and real world. Every year, SoCPaR attracts authors from over 30 countries. After the success of the Seventh edition, which was held in Japan, this year event will be held in Vellore, India. SoCPaR'16 invites novel contributions/papers of soft computing and pattern recognition from fundamental aspects to various practical applications. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. Topics ( not limited to ) ----------------------------- [Soft Computing and Applications] Evolutionary computing Swarm intelligence Artificial immune systems Fuzzy Sets Uncertainty analysis Fractals Rough Sets Support vector machines Artificial neural networks Case Based Reasoning Wavelets Hybrid intelligent systems Nature inspired computing techniques Machine learning Ambient intelligence Hardware implementations [Pattern Recognition and Applications] Information retrieval Data Mining Web Mining Image Processing Computer Vision Bio-informatics Information security Network security Steganography Biometry Remote sensing Medical Informatics E-commerce Signal Processing Control systems About CaSON'16 : ------------------------- The International Conference on Computational Aspects of Social Network (CASoN) is a major international conference that brings together an interdisciplinary venue for social scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, computer users, and students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects (theory, applications and tools) of intelligent methods applied to Social Network, and to discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. Industrial Workshop/Tutorials and conference sessions will allow individuals interested in the theory, methods, or applications of social network analysis to share ideas and explore common interests. All accepted and registered papers will be included in the conference proceedings to expected be published by Springer. We solicit original research and technical papers not published elsewhere. The papers can be theoretical, practical and application, and cover a broad set of intelligent methods, with particular emphasis on Social Network computing. Methods such as (but not restricted to) : Neural Networks and Connectionist Models Evolutionary Algorithms Fuzzy Logic Knowledge Management Multi-valued Logic Semantic Networks Rough Sets Intelligent Agents Ontologies Reinforcement Learning Applications on Social Networks: Network evolution Network evolution and growth mechanisms. Online communities and computer networks. Information diffusion in social networks. Detection of communities by document analysis. Topology of real networks. Recommendation: Information diffusion in social networks. Recommendations for product purchase, information acquisition and establishment of social relations. Impact of recommendation models on the evolution of the social network. Classification models and their application in social recommender systems. Advertisement models : Economical impact of social network discovery. Social advertising. Use of social networks for marketing. Search in network: Web page ranking informed by social media. Search algorithms on social networks. Collaborative Filtering. Security : Anomaly detection in social network evolution. Data protection inside communities. Crime data mining and network analysis. Modeling trust and reputation in social networks. Misbehavior detection in communities. Network geography : Geographical clusters, networks, and innovation. Social geography. International Collaborations in e-Social network. Web : Automatic discovery and analysis of Web based social networks. Link Topology and Site Hierarchy. Web mining algorithms. Web communities. Web-Based Cooperative Work. Evaluation : Test collection. Benchmark creation. Measures and methodologies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Submission Guidelines: ------------------------------------------------------ Submission of paper should be made through the submission page from the conference web page. Please refer to the conference website for guidelines to prepare your manuscript. Paper format templates: http://www.springer.com/series/11156 Proceedings are expected to be published by the Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, which is now indexed by ISI Proceedings, DBLP. Ulrich's, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS, Zentralblatt Math, MetaPress, Springerlink Proceedings will be made available during the conference. Expanded versions of selected papers will be published in special issues of internationally referred journals (indexed by SCI) and edited volumes. SoCPaR?16 Submission : http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=socpar2016 CaSON?16 Submission : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cason2016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Organizing Committee * ---------------------------------- Chairs : Ajith Abraham, Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA Aswani Kumar Cherukuri, VIT University, India Ana Maria Madureira, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Portugal Technical Committee ( Please refer website ) : http://www.mirlabs.net/socpar16/committees.php http://www.mirlabs.net/cason16/committees.php For technical contact: ---------------------------------- Ajith Abraham Email: ajith.abraham at ieee.org -- Best Regards, Azah Muda -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vicen.gomez at upf.edu Mon Aug 29 09:14:01 2016 From: vicen.gomez at upf.edu (=?UTF-8?B?VmljZW7DpyBHw7NtZXo=?=) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:14:01 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CfP: 13th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL 2016) Message-ID: <31061c8b-51d8-7e75-6de9-d9e81c9df3ff@upf.edu> ************************************************************************************************* The 13th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL 2016) Dates: December 3-4 2016 Location: Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain (co-located with NIPS) http://ewrl.wordpress.com/ewrl13-2016/ ************************************************************************************************* Want to enjoy a two-day workshop on Reinforcement Learning, without the stress of the many NIPS parallel sessions? Look no further! 1. Paper Submission We invite submissions from the entire reinforcement learning spectrum. Authors can submit a 2-6 pages paper in JMLR format (excluding references) that will be reviewed by the program committee in a double-blind procedure. The papers can present new work or give a summary of recent work of the author(s). All papers will be considered for the poster sessions. Outstanding long papers (4-6 pages) will also be considered for a 20 minutes oral presentation. Accepted papers are going to be published in an arxiv.org collection. Submission deadline: 16/09/2016 Notification: 04/10/2016 Page limit: 2-6 pages excluding references. Paper format: JMLR format, anonymous. Submission website: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ewrl2016 2. Description The 13th European workshop on reinforcement learning (EWRL 2016) invites reinforcement-learning researchers to participate in the newest edition of this world class event. We plan to make this an exciting meeting for researchers worldwide, not only for the presentation of top quality papers, but also as a forum for ample discussion of open problems and future research directions. EWRL 2016 will consist of 11+ invited talks, contributed paper presentations, discussion sessions spread over a two day period, and a poster session. Reinforcement learning is an active field of research which deals with the problem of sequential decision making in unknown (and often) stochastic and/or partially observable environments. Recently there has been a wealth of both impressive empirical results, as well as significant theoretical advances. Both types of advances are of significant importance and we would like to create a forum to discuss such interesting results. The workshop will cover a range of sub-topics including (but not limited to): - Exploration/Exploitation and multi-armed bandits - Deep RL - Representation learning for RL - Large-scale RL - Theoretical aspects of RL - Policy search and actor-critic methods - Online learning algorithms - RL in non-stationary environments - Risk-sensitive RL - Transfer and Multi-task RL - Empirical evaluations in RL - Kernel methods for RL - RL in partially observable environments - Imitation learning and Inverse RL - Bayesian RL - Multi agent RL - Applications of RL - Open problems 3. Organizing Committee Gergely Neu Vicen? G?mez Csaba Szepesv?ri For more information, see https://ewrl.wordpress.com/ewrl13-2016/ From pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr Mon Aug 29 10:22:23 2016 From: pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr (Pierre-Yves Oudeyer) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 16:22:23 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [publication and call for dialog] IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, Spring 2016 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, I am happy to announce the release of the latest issue of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (open access). This is a biannual newsletter addressing the sciences of developmental and cognitive processes in natural and artificial organisms, from humans to robots, at the crossroads of cognitive science, developmental psychology, machine intelligence and neuroscience. It is available at: http://goo.gl/KBA9o6 Featuring dialog: === "Moving Beyond Nature-Nurture: a Problem of Science or Communication?" == Dialog initiated by John Spencer, Mark Blumberg and David Shenk with responses from: Bob McMurray, Scott Robinson, Patrick Bateson, Eva Jablonka, Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis, Bart de Boer, Gert Westermann, Peter Marshall, Vladimir Sloutsky, Dan Dediu, Jedebiah Allen and Mark Bickhard, Rick Dale and Anne Warlaumont and Michael Spivey. == Topic: In spite of numerous scientific discoveries supporting the view of development as a complex multi-factored process, the discussions of development in several scientific fields and in the general public are still strongly organized around the nature/nurture distinction. Is this because there is not yet sufficient scientific evidence, or is this because the simplicity of the nature/nurture framework is much easier to communicate (or just better communicated by its supporters)? Responses show a very stimulating diversity of opinions, ranging from defending the utility of keeping the nature/nurture framing to arguing that biology has already shown its fundamental weaknesses for several decades. Call for new dialog: === "What is Computational Reproducibility?" == Dialog initiated by Olivia Guest and Nicolas Rougier == This new dialog initiation explores questions and challenges related to openly sharing computational models, especially when they target to advance our understanding of natural phenomena in cognitive, biological or physical sciences: What is computational reproducibility? How shall codebases be distributed and included as a central element of mainstream publication venues? How to ensure computational models are well specified, reusable and understandable? Those of you interested in reacting to this dialog initiation are welcome to submit a response by November 10th, 2016. The length of each response must be between 600 and 800 words including references (contact pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr). Let me remind you that all issues of the newsletter are all open-access and available at: http://icdl-epirob.org/cdsnl I wish you a stimulating reading! Best regards, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Editor of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems Chair of the IEEE CIS AMD Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems Research director, Inria Head of Flower project-team Inria and Ensta ParisTech, France http://www.pyoudeyer.com https://flowers.inria.fr http://www.poppy-project.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/pyoudeyer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkrichma at uci.edu Mon Aug 29 23:41:22 2016 From: jkrichma at uci.edu (Jeff Krichmar) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 20:41:22 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop On Interacting with Robots Through Touch at UC Irvine References: <318B9630-03C2-471B-BBD4-CED3C3F57476@uci.edu> Message-ID: Workshop On Interacting with Robots Through Touch at UC Irvine September 13, 2016 9AM ? 6PM 1517 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, University of California, Irvine Register at: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma/haptics_workshop.html Robots and autonomous systems are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday life. In particular co-Robots, in which robots have a symbiotic relationship with people, have the potential to increase social well-being and open up new socioeconomic opportunities. For example, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), co-Robotics, and Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) are increasingly being used for entertainment, education, telepresence, rehabilitation and therapy. SARs have the potential to help children with developmental disorders, such as autism or attention deficit disorders. Social robots can act as digital ethnographers by: automatically detecting what robot-generated activities children enjoy most, monitoring development of social structure within the classroom. To date, most of these co-robots focus on eye contact (e.g., shared attention, shared gaze, etc.) and auditory cues (e.g., catch phrases and music), but tend to neglect other sensory systems important for social behavior,! such as tactile interaction. The purpose of this workshop is to explore the use of tactile sensing in HRI and SARs. The day will include talks by invited speakers and a poster session. If you are interested in presenting a poster on this topic, send your abstract to: jkrichma at uci.edu Confirmed Speakers: Andrea Chiba, University of California, San Diego Deborah Forster, University of California, San Diego William Harwin, University of Reading Guy Hoffman, Cornell University Jeffrey L. Krichmar, University of California, Irvine Francis McGlone, Liverpool JM University David J. Reinkensmeyer, University of California, Irvine Veronica J. Santos, University of California, Los Angeles Michael Tolley, University of California, San Diego Jeff Krichmar Department of Cognitive Sciences 2328 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-5100 jkrichma at uci.edu http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeanette at csc.kth.se Mon Aug 29 08:52:45 2016 From: jeanette at csc.kth.se (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jeanette_H=E4llgren_Kotaleski?=) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 12:52:45 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position - computational systems (neuro-)biology Message-ID: <1472475179278.86423@csc.kth.se> Dear all, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm has currently an open postdoc position in systems biology/computational neuroscience at Dept of Computational Science and Technology. The position, which is to be integrated into the Human Brain Project, is focused on modeling subcellular signaling pathways involved in synaptic plasticity, and investigating those using a systems biology approach. The ideal candidate has a PhD in a field such as computational biology, neuroscience, systems biology, (bio-)physics/biochemistry, etc, as well as has acquired computer science and programming skills. Additional info at https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/lediga-jobb/what:job/jobID:103988/where:4/ A postdoc position at KTH is normally for two years, but in case the date for the PhD degree is at most three years old at the time of application for a postdoc position, the position can be extended for two additional years. Application deadline 5 Sept 2016. All the best, Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski Prof, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From annecollins at berkeley.edu Tue Aug 30 12:23:37 2016 From: annecollins at berkeley.edu (Anne Collins) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 09:23:37 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Post-doc position in computational cognitive neuroscience at UC Berkeley Message-ID: Hello, I run the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at UC Berkeley ( https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~acollins/), and am looking for a postdoc. *Post-doctoral research position at the CCN lab at UC Berkeley:* My lab investigates reinforcement learning, decision-making and executive functions. I?m looking to hire a post-doc interested in these topics. You should have (or be nearing completion of) a PhD in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, or a related field. Ideal candidates would have expertise collecting and analyzing EEG or fMRI data, experience in developmental or patient studies, or both. Experience in computational modeling is also highly desirable, and programming experience is essential. However, I welcome applications from anyone with experience and interest in RL, decision-making, or executive functions. This position can begin immediately, but the start date is flexible. To apply, please send your CV, contact information for your references, and a short letter about why you?re interested in this position to Anne Collins ( annecollins at berkeley.edu). -- Anne Collins Assistant Professor Tolman Hall, 3429 Department of Psychology University of California, Berkeley (510) 664-7146 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From huajin.tang at gmail.com Wed Aug 31 04:13:12 2016 From: huajin.tang at gmail.com (Huajin Tang) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:13:12 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: 2016 International Symposium on Neuromorphic Cognitive Computing and Robotics Sep 21-23, Chengdu, China Message-ID: *2016 International Symposium on Neuromorphic Cognitive Computing and Robotics Sep 21-23, Chengdu, China* *Introduction**?* The 2016 International Symposium on Neuromorphic Cognitive Computing and Robotics will be held in Chengdu, China, Sep 21 - 23, 2016. In recent years neuromorphic computing has been an important emerging research area. Emulating the computational principles and architecture found in neural systems, neuromorphic cognitive computing aims to develop holistic framework that involves sensory coding, synaptic learning, spike-based computing, memory and other high level brain functions. Neuromorphic cognitive computing has become an important approach in developing brain-like intelligent systems from neuromorphic sensors, processors, microchips to cognitive robotics, brain-computer interface and cyborg intelligence. The symposium will provide an important platform for the researchers across all related fields to exchange the ideas and report recent progress, and aims to bring new theoretical and technical advances in neuromorphic cognitive computing and robotics. Register at: http://ncrc.scu.edu.cn/nccr2016. The symposium is organized by Neuromorphic Computing Research Center, Sichuan University, and co-sponsored by IEEE Brain and IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. *Confirmed Speakers:* ? Giacomo Indiveri? Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich ? Ryad Benosman, Vision Institute, University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France ? Jeffrey L. Krichmar, University of California, Irvine, US ? Michael Milford?Queensland University of Technology, Australia ? Garrick Orchard?National University of Singapore. ? Tiejun Huang, Peking University,China ? Bo Xu, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. ? Hong Qiao, Chinese Academy of Sciences , China ? Yuanqing Li? South China University of Technology,China. ? Dezhong Yao, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. *General Chairs:* ? Huajin Tang, Sichuan University, China ? Gang Pan, Zhejiang University, China *Program Chairs:* ? Rui Yan, Sichuan University ? Badong Chen, Xi'an Jiaotong University Huajin Tang, Professor Director of Neuromorphic Computing Research Center Chair of IEEE CIS Summer School Subcommittee Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS) Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS) Associate Editor, Frontiers in Neuromorphic Engineering Editorial Board Member, Frontiers in Robotics and AI E-mail: htang at scu.edu.cn Website: ncrc.scu.edu.cn 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 a.gruning at surrey.ac.uk Wed Aug 31 04:10:49 2016 From: a.gruning at surrey.ac.uk (a.gruning at surrey.ac.uk) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 08:10:49 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: University of Surrey: Professorial appointment in the Nature Inspired Computing and Engineering Group Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, the University of Surrey has a job opening for a professorship, see the details below or at http://jobs.surrey.ac.uk/060916 Best, Andre The University of Surrey is an international university with a world-class research profile and an enterprising spirit. The University has an outstanding record in student employment and teaching excellence. The Department of Computer Science embodies the ethos of ?applying theory into practice? across its research and teaching activities. The Department of Computer Science within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences has an international reputation for research and teaching. Research in the department is focussed on two main areas - Nature Inspired Computing and Engineering (NICE), and Secure Systems, with Surrey hosting one of only 13 Academic Centres of Excellence recognised by GCHQ. This post offers an exciting opportunity for a Professorial appointment in the Nature Inspired Computing and Engineering group. The vision of the group is to better human life and the environment by understanding and simulating how nature works. The successful candidate will provide leadership in research in machine learning at the highest level and develop strategic partnerships. We welcome applications from both academia and industry. We are open to a variety of machine learning and cognitive systems specialisms that are related to, or complement current strengths of the group including (but not limited to): computational intelligence, computational neuroscience, with applications to data-driven engineering optimisation, self-organising and autonomous systems, health care and bioinformatics. It is expected that the post-holder will also contribute to high quality teaching at undergraduate and post-graduate level, for example in data science. The initial focus of the post is working as part of the senior team to drive forward machine learning research within the Department, across the University and internationally with academia and industry. The Department has excellent links with Honda, The Pirbright Institute and Moorfields Hospital. It offers the unique opportunity to grow interdisciplinary research within Surrey, for example with the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences involving the Surrey Sleep Research Centre and within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences which has expertise in machine learning across several of its Departments and research centres. The Department is implementing a strong growth plan which has seen its academic staff base increase by over 35% in the last year, with a focus on security. The Department has now prioritised future growth in the area of machine learning research and immediately after the appointment to this Chair the Department intends to appoint a further faculty member at Lecturer level alongside this post. For an informal discussion about the positions, please contact the Head of Department of Computer Science, Dr Helen Treharne on h.treharne at surrey.ac.uk or Professor Paul Krause, Director of Research, on p.krause at surrey.ac.uk. A search exercise is being undertaken by Society who will support the University Panel decision to identify the widest possible field of candidates and assist in their assessment. For further details, including job description, person specification and information on how to apply, please contact www.society-search.com quoting reference 0475 or to discuss the position further contact Nina Patel on +(0) 44 20 36530479 The closing date is 3rd October 2016 at 5pm (GMT). Interviews will be held in on 19th and 20th October, in Guildford. Presentations will be given on the afternoon of 19th October 2016 and the interviews will follow on the 20th October, 2016. It is expected that candidates will participate on both days. The start date is anticipated to be April 2017 (or earlier). Visits to Guildford and to the Department can be arranged for short-listed candidates, in advance of the interview date. The University is committed to building a culturally diverse organisation and strongly encourages applications from female and minority candidates.? -- Dr Andre Gruning Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) Department of Computer Science University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH United Kingdom