From erdi.peter at wigner.mta.hu Sat Jul 1 00:27:21 2017 From: erdi.peter at wigner.mta.hu (=?ISO-8859-2?Q?=C9rdi_P=E9ter?=) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2017 06:27:21 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: Cognitive Systems Research: Virtual Special Issue - Public Policy Processes: The Cognitive Systems Perspective Message-ID: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13890417/vsi/10PBJ5583CG Public Policy Processes: The Cognitive Systems Perspective This special issue explores the connections between cognitive processes and organizational/institutional dynamics in public policy. Articles discuss bounded rationality as a microfoundation for the study of public policy, the modeling of contagion in policy systems, evolutionary factors in coordinating policy action, communication models of information-processing, dynamic adaptation in public and private organizations, the measurement of uncertainty in policy-related discourse, and the integration of big data approaches into public policy theory. Contains articles from 01 June 2017 to 01 October 2017. ******** The cognitive underpinnings of policy process studies: Introduction to a special issue of Cognitive Systems Research Volume 45, October 2017, Pages 48-51 Bryan D. Jones, Herschel F. Thomas Deep learning and punctuated equilibrium theory Volume 45, October 2017, Pages 59-69 Simon Hegelich Endogenous disjoint change Volume 44, August 2017, Pages 69-73 Frank R. Baumgartner Cognitive load and issue engagement in congressional discourse Volume 44, August 2017, Pages 89-99 Robert Shaffer Modeling contagion in policy systems Volume 44, August 2017, Pages 74-88 Herschel F. Thomas Public policy and the wisdom of crowds Volume 43, June 2017, Pages 53-61 Derek A. Epp Coordinated policy action and flexible coalitional psychology: How evolution made humans so good at politics Volume 43, June 2017, Pages 89-99 Beth L. Leech, Lee Cronk Behavioral rationality as a foundation for public policy studies Volume 43, June 2017, Pages 63-75 Bryan D. Jones From rsun at rpi.edu Sat Jul 1 20:11:54 2017 From: rsun at rpi.edu (Professor Ron Sun) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2017 20:11:54 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Special issue on deep reinforcement learning: deadline extended to July 15, 2017 Message-ID: Special Issue on Deep Reinforcement Learning in Neural Networks: deadline extended to July 15, 2017! https://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-deep-reinforcement-learning-in-neural-netwo Deep learning (DL) has become highly popular in recent years, among theoretically minded and application-focused researchers alike. Moreover, the idea of deep learning has been combined with reinforcement learning (RL), leading to deep reinforcement learning, which has achieved notable successes in tackling difficult problems. However, there are many open questions and issues that need to be addressed with regard to deep RL. Open questions with regard to deep RL include: ? How do we extend RL algorithms or systems to make them suitable for deep learning? How do we make RL (typically centered on values of states or state-action pairings) appropriately deep? ? How do we do so without jeopardizing useful characteristics of RL? ? What modification and enhancements to learning algorithms are necessary to accomplish deep RL in an effective and/or efficient manner? ? How can we make knowledge within deep RL systems explicit (generating explicit, symbolic, usable knowledge) and enable metacognitive reflection and regulation to some extent? ? How can deep learning help facilitate planning or model-based reinforcement learning? ? How can hierarchical or modular approaches be applied to deep RL? ? What theoretical/mathematical properties can be obtained with regard to deep RL (e.g., convergence, stability, robustness, and optimality)? ? How do we apply deep RL in real-world scenarios? The aim of this special issue is to showcase state-of-the-art work in the field of deep RL, addressing some of the above questions and beyond. Although there have no doubt been advances in addressing these questions, there is clearly room for further development. This special issue will provide a platform for deep learning and reinforcement learning researchers to share their work, for the sake of more rapid advances on a solid footing, fully realizing the potential of infusing reinforcement learning and deep learning. It also intends to showcase more effective applications in a variety of fields (robotics, control engineering, data analysis, and so on). We invite original research contributions on deep reinforcement learning (broadly defined). Possible topics for this special issue include, among others: ? New and better deep RL algorithms ? New and better neural network architectures for deep RL ? Better combinations of existing algorithms and techniques for deep RL ? Theories regarding deep RL ? Transfer learning and prior knowledge within deep RL ? Coping with uncertainty in deep RL ? Combining policy learning, value learning, and model-based search ? Symbolic structures from or within deep RL ? Planning and deep RL ? Mathematical analysis of deep RL (regarding convergence, optimality, stability, robustness, and so on) ? Hierarchical or modular RL ? Multi-agent RL ? Applications of deep RL algorithms, architectures, and systems to robotics, control, data analysis, prediction and forecast, modeling and simulation, and so on ? Applications of deep RL to cognitive-psychological or social modeling and analysis Survey papers are welcome also. Submission Procedure: Prospective authors should follow the standard author instructions for Neural Networks, and submit manuscripts online at http://ees.elsevier.com/neunet/. During submission, authors should indicate that their papers are for the special issue. Important Dates ? July 15, 2017 ? Deadline for submission ? December 1, 2017 ? Notification of review decisions to authors ? February 1, 2018 ? Deadline for submission of revised versions ? April 1, 2018 ? Final acceptance decision Guest Editors: Ron Sun, David Silver, Gerald Tesauro, Guang-Bin Huang ======================================================== Professor Ron Sun, Ph.D., FIEEE, FAPS, FPsyS Cognitive Science Department Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 Eighth Street, Carnegie 302A Troy, NY 12180, USA phone: 518-276-3409 fax: 518-276-3017 email: dr.ron.sun [AT] gmail.com web: http://sites.google.com/site/drronsun ======================================================= From torcini at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 04:01:24 2017 From: torcini at gmail.com (A. Torcini) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2017 10:01:24 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Theoretical Neuroscience/Nonlinear Dynamics - Ile De France (Paris) Message-ID: g More details here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nowtt4cb3d69xfi/project_phd.pdf?dl=0 Title of the PhD project: Exact Reduction of Multiscale Neural Dynamics Goal: PhD grant without teaching duties, 3 years, fully funded, 1400 euros/month (with teaching duties in french the salary can increase to 1600 euros/month) When: starting from 1st October 2017 Keywords: Dynamics of neural networks; Mean field analysis; Microscopic and Macroscopic statistical analysis; Linear and nonlinear instabilities; Lyapunov exponents Where: The candidate will be based at the Universite' de Cergy-Pontoise, Laboratoire de Physique Th?orique et Mod?lisation in Cergy-Pontoise, Ile de France (France) under the supervision of Prof Alessandro Torcini and with the co-supervision of Dr. E. Montbri? at the Center for Brain and Cognition, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain). Required titles/skills: - Master Title (M2) in Theoretical Physics or in Appled Mathematics or in related subjects - Strong knowlegde of statistical mechanics, nonlinear dynamics, applied mathematics - Strong ability to program in Fortran or in C language - Knowledge in computational neuroscience - Interest for multidisciplinary research - Ability to turn smoothly autonomous, once the road has been set - Programming with Matlab and/or Python - French is not a requirement if fluent in English, but willingness to learn would be beneficial How to apply and more details can be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nowtt4cb3d69xfi/project_phd.pdf?dl=0 Funding: The project is funded by the Initiative of Excellence Paris Seine, within the programme of the French Government "Investissemensts d'Avenir " From torcini at gmail.com Mon Jul 3 03:59:31 2017 From: torcini at gmail.com (A. Torcini) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2017 09:59:31 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Theoretical Neuroscience/Nonlinear Dynamics - Ile De France (Paris) Message-ID: More details here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nowtt4cb3d69xfi/project_phd.pdf?dl=0 Title of the PhD project: Exact Reduction of Multiscale Neural Dynamics Goal: PhD grant without teaching duties, 3 years, fully funded, 1400 euros/month (with teaching duties in french the salary can increase to 1600 euros/month) When: starting from 1st October 2017 Keywords: Dynamics of neural networks; Mean field analysis; Microscopic and Macroscopic statistical analysis; Linear and nonlinear instabilities; Lyapunov exponents Where: The candidate will be based at the Universite' de Cergy-Pontoise, Laboratoire de Physique Th?orique et Mod?lisation in Cergy-Pontoise, Ile de France (France) under the supervision of Prof Alessandro Torcini and with the co-supervision of Dr. E. Montbri? at the Center for Brain and Cognition, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain). Required titles/skills: - Master Title (M2) in Theoretical Physics or in Appled Mathematics or in related subjects - Strong knowlegde of statistical mechanics, nonlinear dynamics, applied mathematics - Strong ability to program in Fortran or in C language - Knowledge in computational neuroscience - Interest for multidisciplinary research - Ability to turn smoothly autonomous, once the road has been set - Programming with Matlab and/or Python - French is not a requirement if fluent in English, but willingness to learn would be beneficial How to apply and more details can be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nowtt4cb3d69xfi/project_phd.pdf?dl=0 Funding: The project is funded by the Initiative of Excellence Paris Seine, within the programme of the French Government "Investissemensts d'Avenir " From mathieu.daquin at insight-centre.org Mon Jul 3 06:08:55 2017 From: mathieu.daquin at insight-centre.org (Mathieu D'Aquin) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2017 11:08:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [Jobs] Research Fellows (3 posistions) - Data and knowledge management, processing and analytics Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUI Galway Message-ID: Research Fellows (3 posistions) - Data and knowledge management, processing and analytics Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUI Galway. (NUIG 113-17) Salary: ?51,716 to ?56,442 per annum. Start date: Positions are available immediately. Closing date for receipt of applications is 5.00 pm BST on Friday 21st July 2017. See https://www.insight-centre.org/content/research-fellows- 3-posistions-data-and-knowledge-management-processing-and-analytics-insight for details on how to aply. Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for 3 full-time, fixed term positions as Research Fellows at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, National University of Ireland, Galway. These positions are available for an initial two year period and may be extended depending on project success and future funding acquisition. At Insight we offer a stimulating, dynamic, multi-cultural research environment and a great research infrastructure, with excellent ties to both leading research groups and industries worldwide. The successful candidates will be expected to integrate one of the existing research units on Linked Data Infrastructures (possibly as PI), Knowledge and Data Management or Information Mining and Retrieval. They will be working in collaboration with researchers and PhD students at the leading edge of those fields, and will be expected to progressively develop their own research trajectory as contribution to the strategic research direction of the centre, in particular through establishing both academic and industrial collaborations. Job Description: The successful candidate will be expected to perform a leading role in research, supervision and research group management. They will work with the unit head in supervising a team focusing on key research challenges in one of the following (overlapping) areas: - Network data analytics, including network science, graph/network analytics and graph databases, web-mining, web-science, machine learning and knowledge discovery, adaptive/explorative search and recommender systems. - Linked data infrastructures, including semantic web, distributed data processing and integration, large graph analysis, open and public data, semantic web applications, large-scale data solutions delivered through international collaborative networks. - Knowledge and data management, including knowledge graphs, data discoverability, data traceability, data profiling, semantics-based data management and distribution, autonomous production and consumption of data and knowledge, ontology engineering, responsible use of data. These positions are funded by the Insight Centre SFI Grant initially for 2 years. The Insight Centre at NUI Galway is part of the broader Insight Centre network, comprising more than 400 researchers in Data Science and Analytics. The successful candidate(s) will have the opportunity to supervise and co-supervise Master and PhD students, as well as to possibly contribute to teaching in the College of Engineering?s MSc in Computer Science (Data Analytics). The candidate(s) will contribute to ongoing research on a collaborative basis with other research units within the Insight Centre. Duties: The successful candidate is expected to: - Carry out their own research, demonstrate leadership through collaboration with junior researchers, and develop their own academic career. - Assist the head of unit in the supervision and development of the research group - Actively support the acquisition of additional funding for the group and the institute - Contribute to the dissemination of the group?s and centre?s research activities - Make significant contribution to the on-going initiatives within the Insight centre and the College of - Engineering and Informatics - Collaborate extensively with relevant units and projects within Insight - Collaborate with industry as part of industry research partnerships and with international networks - Participate as a member of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics Galway team in a collegial way, assisting in the definition and realisation of the scientific goals and vision of the institute. - When required, support technology transfer into the community and businesses through demonstrators and international co-operations - Support the unit leadership and institute directorship with administrative and unit/institute development tasks. Essential Skills: - A PhD in Computer Science with postdoctoral experience in topics relevant to the position(s) - A track record of internationally leading research in at least one of the three topics mentioned above - Demonstrated ability to express a clear research vision on one of those topics - Proven technical ability to realise/develop/implement such a vision - Demonstrated understanding and initial track record of raising research funding - Excellent verbal, written and presentation communication skills - Willingness and ability to supervise students and junior researchers - Excellent skills in problem-solving, data analytics and programming. Desirable Requirements: - Demonstrated organisational skills, especially through contribution to the organisation of scientific events such as workshops and tutorials - Experience and understanding in external, non-expert communication, including through media and social media - Strong technical expertise in large scale data processing platform. Contact: Informal enquiries concerning the post may be made to: - For Network data analytics, Dr Conor Hayes at conor.hayes at insight-centre.org - For Linked data infrastructures, Professor Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhmann at rebholz at insight-centre.org - For Knowledge and data management, Professor Mathieu d?Aquin at mathieu.daquin at insight-centre.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From congress at incf.org Mon Jul 3 05:00:37 2017 From: congress at incf.org (congress) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2017 11:00:37 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Neuroinformatics 2017 in Kuala Lumpur! Message-ID: Dear all, It is high time to register for Neuroinformatics 2017, August 20-21, in Kuala Lumpur! See full program and speakers here: *http://neuroinformatics2017.org/program/* *Register by July 15th to get early bird registration rates: * *http://neuroinformatics2017.org/register/ * The annual INCF Congress provides a meeting place for researchers in all fields related to neuroinformatics. Join us for keynotes from top neuroscientists, community sessions and poster- and demo sessions. This meeting is especially useful for anyone who is developing neuroscience tools and methods, working on better ways to handle neuroscience data, and looking for cross-disciplinary collaborations. *http://neuroinformatics2017.org/* Please spread this information to anyone you feel might be interested in attending! *The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) is an international non-profit organization devoted to advancing the field of neuroinformatics and global collaborative brain research. Learn more about INCF www.incf.org * *We look forward to seeing you in Kuala Lumpur!* Best Regards INCF Secretariat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From james4424 at gmail.com Tue Jul 4 00:43:52 2017 From: james4424 at gmail.com (Yansong Chua) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 12:43:52 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Research positions in Neuromorphic computing in Singapore Message-ID: Multiple scientist and engineer positions are open for a 4-year neuromorphic program in Singapore, at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), A*STAR. The program is a multi-disciplinary effort, that straddles across the hardware (neuromorphic chip with RRAM, on-chip learning), middleware (emulator) and software (learning algorithms), and we aim to develop a demonstrating application system at end of the program. The program hence presents an unique research opportunity for candidates hoping to build a complete neuromorphic learning system. We are now in the early stages of the program and are actively recruiting talented scientists who would be excited to work on any aspects of the program (hardware, middleware, software and system integration). Multiple top-ranked universities and research institutes in Singapore (NUS, NTU, IME, IHPC, I2R) are working on the program. The work package I am in-charge of is primarily involved in the design of better algorithms for spiking neural networks. To this end, successful candidates will conduct research in one or more of the following areas: - Neuronal encoding: how to better encode external stimuli into spike based representations to facilitate decoding with high fidelity and also better learning performance (in terms of accuracy and power efficiency). - Supervised learning: given that spiking neural networks are asynchronous and sparse in their activities, the design of supervised learning algorithms that can fully capitalize on these properties becomes critical. - Mapping of state-of-art deep learning networks to spiking networks. Neuromorphic learning algorithms are still solving fairly simple problems compared to deep learning. For this, we would like to systematically borrow from the deep learning community networks and learning algorithms that can quickly boost the capabilities of spiking neural networks. - Unsupervised learning. STDP is well suited for unsupervised learning in spiking neural networks, and we would like to further advance STDP learning in spiking neural networks (both theory and applications). Preference will be given to candidates who can document knowledge in deep learning, spiking neural networks or signal processing (with interest in spiking neural networks). Candidates must have a PhD (for scientists) or MS/BS (for engineers) in computer science, computational neuroscience or related fields. Strong programming and quantitative skills are highly desired. Candidates should be proficient in spoken and written English. The appointment will be for 3 years, and extended for another 1 year, after review. Salaries are commensurate with internationally-competitive salaries and benefits. The start date is flexible and applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the positions are filled. Other benefits include: - Funding for international conferences and training courses - Collaboration opportunities with an excellent network of international scientists Candidates please send your curriculum vitae, a statement of research interests and three references to Dr. Yansong Chua (chuays at i2r.a-star.edu.sg ). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Alessandro.Dausilio at iit.it Tue Jul 4 04:13:35 2017 From: Alessandro.Dausilio at iit.it (Alessandro D'Ausilio) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 08:13:35 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions on Translational Neurosciences and Neurotechnologies Message-ID: <28F4D56F-D778-46AD-AFBE-31D8735BA573@iit.it> PHD PROGRAM in TRANSLATIONAL NEUROSCIENCES AND NEUROTECHNOLOGIES The Center for Translational Neurophysiology of Speech and Communication (CTNSC) at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) is looking for up to 4 highly motivated, full-time PhD students to work in the core research areas of the Center. At the CTNSC we focus our efforts in two integrated directions. On one side we are studying how the brain builds communicative and linguistic representations. On the other side we are designing new brain interfaces, specifically conceived for human use, to record and computationally decode neural signals. The CTNSC is hosted by the Section of Physiology of the University of Ferrara, one of the oldest in Italy (founded in 1391). In terms of its size, facilities, quality and quantity of education and research, the university is a point of excellence within Italy. The PhD student will work in Ferrara, in an international and multidisciplinary team including biomedical engineers, biologists, computer scientists, psychologists and medical doctors. The PhD positions will cover the following core areas of CTNSC: A01 Improving performance and biocompatibility of electrode arrays for brain-computer interfaces A02 Functional investigation of innovative neural interfaces A03 Investigation of sensorimotor functions in animal models (NH primates and rats) A04 Machine learning applications to multimodal brain and speech signals A05 Human neurophysiology of speech and sensorimotor communication A06 Cortical recordings in human patients during awake Neurosurgery A07 Hardware and software development for innovative exploration of brain signals DEADLINE: 1st AUGUST 2017 CTNSC Info: https://www.iit.it/centers/ctnsc-unife PhD page [ITA]: http://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/corsi/riforma/neuroscienze How to participate to the selection [ITA/ENG]: http://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/modulistica/Guidaconcorso.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Tue Jul 4 06:34:07 2017 From: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de (Kerstin Schwarzwaelder) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 12:34:07 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: REMINDER: Bernstein Conference 2017: Early, Registration Deadline: July 9, 2017 In-Reply-To: <65e1889e-fcd3-5cfb-c998-a849738d90ee@fz-juelich.de> References: <65e1889e-fcd3-5cfb-c998-a849738d90ee@fz-juelich.de> Message-ID: *BERNSTEIN CONFERENCE 2017 in G?ttingen* Early registration deadline ends July 09, 2017 Please register here: http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017/registration **************************************************************************** Satellite Workshops http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017/satellite-workshops Main Conference http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017 **************************************************************************** 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 G?ttingen and will take place in G?ttingen on September 13-15, 2017. In addition, there will be a series of pre-conference satellite workshops on September 12-13, 2017. 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 12-13, 2017 Main Conference: September 13-15, 2017 PHD Symposium: September 12 & 15, 2017 Venue: The Central Lecture Hall (ZHG), Platz der G?ttinger Sieben 5, 37073 G?ttingen, Germany ACCOMMODATION AND HOTEL RESERVATION: We strongly recommend early room booking! The number of available accommodation is limited due to several concurrent events. And many Hotels in G?ttingen are already booked out for that week! We arranged for room contingents in a variety of hotels that you may book by yourself by email or phone. Please follow the instructions at our Accommodations Website (http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017/venue/accommodation). We would like to emphasize that these room contingents will be held open up to different expiration dates depending on the hotel (or until they are filled). Many expiration dates are already mid of June 2017. We strongly encourage participants to share rooms and to book rooms as a group. We emphasize that it will be very difficult to book accommodation beyond the expiration dates. Please find a list of the hotels at our Accommodations Website. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Matthias Bethge Laura Busse Claudia Clopath Julia Fischer Alexander Gail Richard Hahnloser Claus Hilgetag Peter Jonas Siegrid L?wel Michael Platt Viola Priesemann Nicole Rust Marion Silies Christian Tetzlaff Fred Wolf (Conference Chair) Florentin W?rg?tter (Workshop Chair) Bernstein Coordination Site: Alexandra Stein Kerstin Schwarzw?lder We look forward to seeing you in G?ttingen in September! -- Dr. Kerstin Schwarzw?lder Scientific Coordination / Management Officer Please note: Our email addresses have changed. Please use k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience | Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Branch Office of the Forschungszentrum J?lich at the University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9A | 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: (+49) 0761 203 9589 mail: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de web: www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From p.j.b.hancock at stir.ac.uk Tue Jul 4 06:56:00 2017 From: p.j.b.hancock at stir.ac.uk (Peter Hancock) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 10:56:00 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Models of human face perception PhD at Stirling Message-ID: PhD Studentship: Models of Human Face Perception We have a studentship available for UK/EU citizens to work in the Face Research Lab with Professor Peter Hancock. The aim is to work on a computer model of human face perception and recognition. Such a model should show characteristics of human perception, for example being very good at recognising familiar faces but rather poor with unfamiliar ones, yet still able to derive things like age, sex, race and expression. The student will join a much larger project, FACER2VM, where the aim is to improve the state of the art in computer face recognition 'in the wild'. Working with two postdocs who are studying human face recognition, the aim of this studentship is to further our understanding of how we may do it; it is explicitly not a hard-core, squeeze the best you can out of a deep neural network project. The successful candidate will need good programming skills, for example in Matlab or Python. Ideally they will already also be familiar with the psychology of human face perception. The studentship is available for three-years, and includes a tax-free stipend of approximately ?14,553 p.a. Tuition fees will be met by the University at the home/EU rate. Subject to satisfactory progress review at the end of the first year, the studentship will be renewed for a second year and thereafter for a third year. The studentship will have an anticipated registration date of 1 October 2017. Informal enquiries to Peter Hancock, pjbh1 at stir.ac.uk or Linda Cullen (linda.cullen at stir.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 1786 466854. Please submit a CV and research proposal via the online application, selecting 'Research Degree in Psychology': http://www.stir.ac.uk/postgraduate/how-to-apply/ Once you have started the application process, please email research.admissions at stir.ac.uk to ask to be exempted from the 'find-a-supervisor' process. Closing date: 28th July Peter Hancock Professor, Deputy Head of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences University of Stirling FK9 4LA, UK phone 01786 467675 fax 01786 467641 http://stir.ac.uk/190 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6025-7068 http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-4633-2009 Psychology at Stirling: 100% 4* Impact, REF2014 Come and study Face Perception at the University of Stirling! Our unique MSc in the Psychology of Faces is open for applications. For more information see http://www.stir.ac.uk/postgraduate/programme-information/prospectus/psychology/psychological-research-methods-face-research/ [highly cited 2016] -- The University achieved an overall 5 stars in the QS World University Rankings 2016/17 The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 10010 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Tue Jul 4 08:24:07 2017 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 14:24:07 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd CfP "Comprehensibility and Explanation in AI and ML", collocated with AI*IA 2017 (submission deadline: July 27, 2017) Message-ID: <002f01d2f4c0$77f10cb0$67d32610$@gmail.com> === Comprehensibility and Explanation in AI and ML (CEx) @ AI*IA 2017 === Location: University of Bari (Bari, Italy). Date: Nov. 14 & 15 XOR Nov. 16 & 17, 2017. Hosted at: AI*IA 2017, the 16th International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (http://aiia2017.di.uniba.it/). == WORKSHOP WEBSITE == http://cex.inf.unibz.it == INVITED SPEAKERS == Barbara Hammer, University of Bielefeld ...more to come... == REGISTRATION == Registration for the workshop is handled via the main conference website. Please consult http://aiia2017.di.uniba.it/ for details. == CALL FOR PAPERS == ** Mission Statement ** CEx addresses fundamental questions for the nature of "comprehensibility" and "explanation" in an AI and ML context from a theoretical and an applied perspective. Research into philosophical approximations to what an explanation in AI and ML is (or can be) or how the comprehensibility of an intelligent system can formally be defined will be presented next to work addressing practical questions of how to assess a systems comprehensibility from a psychological perspective, or how to design and build better explainable AI and ML systems. ** Fields of Interest ** The workshop brings together a diverse audience, including... - ...participants from core areas of AI and ML,... - ...ontologists,... - ...cognitive scientists,... - ...psychologists,... - ...HCI researchers,... - ...and practitioners from industry and business contexts. ** Accepted Submission Formats ** Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit original papers that have not been submitted for review or published elsewhere: - Submitted papers must be written in English, must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS style (templates and sample files are available from https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gui delines). - FULL PAPERS: Research and experience papers should not exceed 10 pages (excluding references/bibliography). - SHORT PAPERS: Position papers or technical notes should not exceed 6 pages (excluding references/bibliography). - All submitted papers will be judged based on their relevance, originality, significance, technical quality, and organisation. ** Submission Website ** Submissions to CEx @ AI*IA 2017 should be made via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cexaiia2017 ** Presentation ** Selected papers will be presented during the workshop. The workshop will include extra time for discussion of the presentations allowing the group to have a better understanding of the issues, challenges, and ideas being presented. ** Publication ** Accepted papers will be published in official workshop proceedings within the CEUR-WS.org series. Depending on the number and quality of accepted papers, the organizers will consider organizing a special issue of a journal as follow-up publication. == IMPORTANT DATES == Deadline for paper submission: July 27, 2017 (anywhere on this planet) Notification of paper acceptance/rejection: September 10, 2017 Camera-ready paper due: September 30, 2017 Workshop date: Nov. 14 & 15 XOR Nov. 16 & 17, 2017 == WORKSHOP ORGANISERS == - Tarek R. Besold (University of Bremen, Germany) - Oliver Kutz (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy) == PROGRAMME COMMITTEE == - John Bateman, University of Bremen - Joanna Bryson, University of Bath - Derek Doran, Wright State University - Artur Garcez, City, University of London - Barbara Hammer, University of Bielefeld - Caroline Jay, University of Manchester - Kristian Kersting, Technical University Darmstadt - Antonio Lieto, University of Turin - Rafael Penaloza, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano - Sarah Schulz, University of Stuttgart - Gem Stapleton, University of Brighton - Serge Thill, University of Sk?vde - Leon van der Torre, University of Luxembourg - Rebekah Wegener, RWTH Aachen University - Christina Zeller, University of Bamberg ...more to come... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de Tue Jul 4 09:17:36 2017 From: florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de (Florian Roehrbein) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 15:17:36 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Frontiers in Neurorobotics: Three new research topics are accepting submissions Message-ID: <661D2FC9-6432-4596-AADF-DF5AD3491056@in.tum.de> Topic: "Mapping Human Sensory-Motor Skills for Manipulation onto the Design and Control of Robots? Editors: Matteo Bianchi, Gionata Salvietti http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/5808/mapping-human-sensory-motor-skills-for-manipulation-onto-the-design-and-control-of-robots Topic: "Machine Learning Methods for High-Level Cognitive Capabilities in Robotics? Editors: Emre Ugur, Yiannis Demiris, Takayuki Nagai, Tetsuya Ogata, Tadahiro Taniguchi http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/5334/machine-learning-methods-for-high-level-cognitive-capabilities-in-robotics Topic: "Consciousness in Humanoid Robots? Editors: Antonio Chella, Giorgio Metta, Angelo Cangelosi, Selmer Bringsjord http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/5781/consciousness-in-humanoid-robots ---------------------------------------------------------- Priv.-Doz. Dr. Florian Roehrbein Program Director HBP Neurorobotics http://neurorobotics.net/ Technical University of Munich Department of Informatics VI Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748 Garching, Germany -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Wed Jul 5 10:40:26 2017 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2017 16:40:26 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Participation: Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy) 2017 -- London, UK -- July 17&18, 2017 Message-ID: <00b801d2f59c$abde1f90$039a5eb0$@gmail.com> === NeSy'17: 12th International Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning === Date: July 17 & 18, 2017. Venue: City, University of London, UK. = WEBSITE = http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy17/ = KEYNOTE SPEAKERS = Mauro Ferreira, Trinity College Dublin. Zoubin Ghahramani, University of Cambridge & Uber AI Labs. Alex Graves, Google DeepMind. Pascal Hitzler, Wrights State University. Chris Percy, BetBuddy Ltd. Murray Shanahan, Imperial College London. = INDUSTRY PANEL = Simo Dragicevic, CEO, BetBuddy Ltd. (moderator). John McNamara, Senior Inventor, IBM. James Davidson, Software Engineer, Google Brain. Jamie Woodhouse, Managing Director and Head of Financial Services Management Consulting and Finance and Risk, Accenture. Lonnie Hamm, Head of Data Science, Kindred Group Plc. Amir Saffari, Director of Applied AI, BenevolentAI. = INDUSTRY TRACK ADDED = For the first time, the 2017 edition of NeSy will feature an industry track on the second day of the workshop, July 18, 2017. The track will cover industry applications of neural-symbolic methods (including knowledge extraction from statistical data, neural-symbolic methods integrating data and knowledge for the semantic web, etc.), with the program featuring contributions from industry and academia alike. Also, there will be time to mix and mingle, exchange experiences from practitioners on both sides, and develop joint ideas and projects for the future. = REGISTRATION = The registration for NeSy'17 is available from the City, University of London eStore: http://estore.city.ac.uk/product-catalogue/conference-events/school-specific -events/12th-international-workshop-on-neuralsymbolic-learning-and-reasoning -nesy17 = TOPICS = Artificial Intelligence researchers continue to face huge challenges in their quest to develop truly intelligent systems. The recent developments in the field of neural-symbolic integration bring an opportunity to integrate well-founded symbolic artificial intelligence with robust neural computing machinery to help tackle some of these challenges. The Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning is intended to create an atmosphere of exchange of ideas, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of the key topics related to neural-symbolic integration. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: - The representation of symbolic knowledge by connectionist systems; - Neural Learning theory; - Integration of logic and probabilities, e.g., in neural networks, but also more generally; - Structured learning and relational learning in neural networks; - Logical reasoning carried out by neural networks; - Integrated neural-symbolic approaches; - Extraction of symbolic knowledge from trained neural networks; - Integrated neural-symbolic reasoning; - Neural-symbolic cognitive models; - Biologically-inspired neural-symbolic integration; - Applications in robotics, simulation, fraud prevention, natural language processing, semantic web, software engineering, fault diagnosis, bioinformatics, visual intelligence, etc. = WORKSHOP ORGANISERS = General Chairs: - Tarek R. Besold (University of Bremen, Germany) - Artur d'Avila Garcez (City, University of London, UK) - Isaac Noble (Playground Global, U.S.A.) Local Chair at City, University of London: Simon Odense On-Site Organisation Support: Yihan Wu (University of Minnesota, U.S.A.) = PROGRAMME COMMITTEE = - Raquel Alhama, University of Amsterdam - James Davidson, Google Brain - Richard Evans, Google DeepMind - Barbara Hammer, Bielefeld University - Thomas Icard, Stanford University - Kai-Uwe Kuehnberger, University of Osnabrueck - Luis Lamb, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Thomas Lukasiewicz, University of Oxford - Edjard Mota, Federal University of Amazonas - Terrence C. Stewart, University of Waterloo - Serge Thill, University of Skoevde - Son Tran, CSIRO Australia - Stefan Wermter, University of Hamburg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amir.aly at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp Wed Jul 5 12:19:17 2017 From: amir.aly at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp (Amir Aly) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2017 01:19:17 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: CFP - HAI 2017 Workshop: Representation Learning for Human and Robot Cognition Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS **Apologies for cross posting ** The full day workshop: "*Representation Learning for Human and Robot Cognition*" In conjunction with the *5th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction* *- Bielefeld - Germany - October * *17th, 2017* *Webpage: **http://cognitive-mirroring.org/en/events/hai2017_workshop/* *I. Aim and Scope *Creating intelligent and interactive robots has been subject to extensive research studies. They are rapidly moving to the center of human environments so that they collaborate with human users in different applications, which requires high-level cognitive functions so as to allow them to understand and learn from human behavior. To this end, an important challenge that attracts much attention in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, is the ?Symbol Emergence? problem, which investigates the bottom-up development of symbols through social interaction. This research line employs representation learning based models for understanding language and action in a developmentally plausible manner so as to make robots able to behave appropriately on their own. This could open the door to robots to understand syntactic formalisms and semantic references of human speech, and to associate language knowledge to perceptual knowledge so as to successfully collaborate with human users in space. Another interesting approach to study representation learning is ?Cognitive Mirroring?, which refers to artificial systems that could make cognitive processes observable, such as the models that could learn concepts of objects, actions, and/or emotions from humans through interaction. A key idea of this approach is that robots learn individual characteristics of human cognition rather than acquiring a general representation of cognition. In this way, the characteristics of human cognition become observable and can be measured as modifications in model parameters, which is difficult to verify through neuroscience studies only. In this workshop, we invite researchers in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, cognitive robotics, and neuroscience to share their knowledge and research findings on representation learning, and to engage in cutting-edge discussions with other experienced researchers so as to help promoting this research line in the Human-Agent Interaction (HAI) community. *II. Keynote Speakers * 1. *Beata Joanna Grzyb *? Radboud University ? The Netherlands 2. *Thomas Hermann*? Bielefeld University ? Germany 3. *Tetsuya Ogata *? Waseda University ? Japan 4. *Erhan Oztop *? Ozyegin Universiy ? Turkey 5. * Stefan Wermter *? University of Hamburg ? Germany *III. Submission * 1. For paper submission, use the following EasyChair web link: *Paper Submission *. 2. Use the ACM SIGCHI format: *ACM SIGCHI Templates *. 3. Submitted papers should be limited to 2-4 pages maximum. The primary list of topics covers the following points (but not limited to): - Computational model for high-level cognitive capabilities - Predictive learning from sensorimotor information - Multimodal interaction and concept formulation - Human-robot communication and collaboration based on machine learning - Learning supported by external trainers by demonstration and imitation - Bayesian modeling - Learning with hierarchical and deep architectures - Interactive reinforcement learning * IV. Important Dates * 1. Paper submission: *01-September-2017* 2. Notification of acceptance: *15-September-2017* 3. Camera-ready version: *30-September-2017* 4. Workshop: *17-October-2017* *V. Organizers * 1. *Takato Horii *? Osaka University ? Japan 2. *Amir Aly *? Ritsumeikan University ? Japan 3. *Yukie Nagai *? National Institute of Information and Communications Technology ? Japan 4. * Takayuki Nagai *? The University of Electro-Communications ? Japan -- *Amir Aly, Ph.D.* Senior Researcher 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 yang at maebashi-it.org Wed Jul 5 21:45:09 2017 From: yang at maebashi-it.org (Yang) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2017 10:45:09 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: [Brain Informatics 2017] - Call for Abstracts Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive this more than once] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS The 2017 International Conference on Brain Informatics (BI'17) "Investigating the Brain and Mind from Informatics Perspective" November 16-18, 2017, Beijing, China Homepage: http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bi-2017/ --------------------------------------- SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July 20, 2017 One-line submission: https://wi-lab.com/cyberchair/2017/bi17/scripts/submit.php?subarea=B --------------------------------------- *** KEYNOTE SPEAKERS *** Alan Evans (McGill University, Canada) Tom Mitchell (Carnegie Mellon University, US) Yanchao Bi (Beijing Normal University, China) Adam Ferguson (University of California San Francisco, US) Bin Hu (Lanzhou University, China) Michael Hawrylycz (Allen Institute for Brain Science, US) Dinggang Shen (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US) *** WORKSHOPS AND SPECIAL SESSIONS *** ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Submission deadline for workshop/special session full papers has been EXTENDED to July 20, 2017 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (Full paper / abstract submission for worshop / special session is still open, please see http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bi-2017/workshops.htm for more information) # Workshop on Brain and Artificial Intelligence (BAI 2017) Organizers: Yi Zeng, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Shuliang Wang, Beijing Institute of Technology, China # Workshop on Knowledge Representation: Brain and Machine (KRBM 2017) Organizers: Yanchao Bi, Beijing Normal University, China Yi Zeng, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China # Workshop on Affective, Psychological and Physiological Computing (APPC 2017) Organizers: Bin Hu, Lanzhou University, China Zhijun Yao, Lanzhou University, China Mi Li, Beijing University of Technology, China # Workshop on Big Data and Visualization for Brainsmatics (BDVB 2017) Organizers: Qingming Luo, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China Anan LI, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China # Workshop on Brain Big Data Based Wisdom Service (BBDBWS 2017) Organizer: Jiajin Huang, Beijing University of Technology, China # Workshop on Semantic Technology for eHealth (STeH 2017) Organizers: Jiao Li, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China Zhisheng Huang, Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands # Workshop on Big Data Neuroimaging Analytics for Brain and Mental Health (BDNABMH 2017) Organizer: Shouyi Wang, University of Texas at Arlington, USA # Workshop on Novel Methods of the Brain Imaging in the Clinical and Preclinical Neuroscience (NMBICPN 2017) Organizers: Vassiliy Tsytsarev, University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA Vicky Yamamoto, Keck School of Medicine of USC, USA Yan Li, University of Southern Queensland, Australia # The 1st International Workshop on Deep Learning in Brain MRI and Pathology Images (DLBMPI 2017) Organizers: Yan Xu, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, BUAA Eric Chang, Microsoft Research Asia # Workshop on Mesoscopic Brainformatics (MBAI 2017) Organizers: Dezhong Yao, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China Pedro A. Valdes-Sosa, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China Li Dong, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China # Special Session on Brain Informatics in Neurogenetics (BIN 2017) Organizers: Hong Liang, Harbin Engineering University, China Lei Du, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China Li Shen, Indiana University School of Medicine, USA # Special Session on BigNeuron Project (BP 2017) Organizers: Zhi Zhou, Allen Institute for Brain Sciences, USA Min Liu, Hunan University, China ================================================== Brain Informatics (BI) conference series provides a premier forum to bring together researchers and practitioners in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, information communication technologies, and neuroimaging technologies. BI'17 addresses the computational, cognitive, physiological, biological, physical, ecological and social perspectives of brain informatics, as well as topics relating to mental health and well-being. It also welcomes emerging information technologies, including but not limited to Internet/Web of Things (IoT/WoT), cloud computing, big data analytics and interactive knowledge discovery related to brain research. BI'17 also encourages submissions that explore how advanced computing technologies are applied to and make a difference in various large-scale brain studies and their applications. BI'17 welcomes paper submissions (full paper and abstract submissions). Both research and application papers are solicited. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance and clarity. Accepted full papers will be included in the proceedings by Springer LNCS/LNAI. Workshop, Special-Session and Tutorial proposals, and Industry/Demo-Track papers are also welcome. The organizers of Workshops and Special-Sessions are invited to prepare a book proposal based on the topics of the workshop/special session for possible book publication in the Springer-Nature Brain Informatics & Health book series (http://www.springer.com/series/15148). *** Topics and Areas *** Track 1: Cognitive and Computational Foundations of Brain Science Track 2: Investigations of Human Information Processing Systems Track 3: Brain Big Data Analytics, Curation and Management Track 4: Informatics Paradigms for Brain and Mental Health Track 5: Brain-Inspired Intelligence and Computing IMPORTANT DATES : =========================== May 1, 2017: Submission deadline for full papers June 20, 2017: Notification of full paper acceptance July 20, 2017: Submission deadline for workshop/special-session papers July 20, 2017: Submission deadline for abstracts July 25, 2017: Notification of workshop/special-session paper acceptance July 30, 2017: Notification of abstract acceptance November 16, 2017: Tutorials, workshops and special-sessions November 17-18, 2017: Main conference ABSTRACT (TYPE-II) SUBMISSIONS : ================================= (Submission Deadline: July 20, 2017): Abstracts have a word limit of 500 words. Experimental research is particularly welcome. Accepted abstract submissions will be included in the conference program, and will be published as a single, collective proceedings volume. Title: Include in the title of the abstract all words critical for a subject index. Write your title in sentence case (first letter is capitalized; remaining letters are lower case). Do not bold or italicize your full title. Author: List all authors who contributed to the work discussed in the abstract. The presenting author must be listed in the first author slot of the list. Be prepared to submit contact information as well as conflict of interest information for each author listed. Abstract: Enter the body of the abstract and attach any applicable graphic files or tables here. Do not re-enter the title, author, support, or other information that is collected in other steps of the submission form. Presentation Preference: Authors may select from three presentation formats when submitting an abstract: "poster only", "talk preferred" or "no preference." The "talk preferred" selection indicates that you would like to give a talk, but will accept a poster format if necessary. Marking "poster only" indicates that you would not like to be considered for an oral-presentation session. Selecting "no preference" indicates the author's willingness to be placed in the best format for the program. Each paper or abstract requires one sponsoring attendee (i.e. someone who registered and is attending the conference). A single attendee can not sponsor more than two abstracts or papers. Oral presentations will be selected from both full length papers and abstracts. ----------------------------------------------- One-line submission: https://wi-lab.com/cyberchair/2017/bi17/scripts/submit.php?subarea=B ----------------------------------------------- *** Post-Conference Journal Publication *** The Brain Informatics conferences have the formal ties with Brain Informatics journal (Springer-Nature, http://www.springer.com/40708). Accepted abstracts from the conference will be expanded and revised for possible inclusion in the Brain Informatics journal each year. It is fully sponsored and no any article-processing fee charged for authors of Brain Informatics conference. ORGANIZERS ========== General Chairs Bo Xu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Hanchuan Peng (Allen Institute for Brain Sciences, USA) Qingming Luo (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China) Program Committee Chairs Yi Zeng (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Yong He (Beijing Normal University, China) Jeanette Kotaleski (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) Maryann Martone (University of California, San Diego, USA) Organizing Chairs Ning Zhong (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan, and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China Jianzhou Yan (Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China) Shengfu Lu (Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China) Workshop/Special-Session Chairs An'an Li (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China) Sen Song (Tsinghua University, China) Tutorial Chair Wenming Zheng (South East University, China) Publicity Chairs Tielin Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Shouyi Wang (University of Texas at Arlington, USA) Yang Yang (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan, and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China) Steering Committee Chairs Ning Zhong (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan) Hanchuan Peng (Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA) *** Contact Information *** tielin.zhang at ia.ac.cn shouyiw at uta.edu yang at maebashi-it.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From n.lepora at bristol.ac.uk Thu Jul 6 02:33:53 2017 From: n.lepora at bristol.ac.uk (Nathan Lepora) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2017 07:33:53 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [jobs] Postdoc in Tactile Robot Hands (Bristol Robotics Lab) Message-ID: *** closing date for applications: July 31 2017 *** *** a member of our group (Ben Ward-Cherrier) is attending RSS and can be approached informally about the post *** The University of Bristol and Bristol Robotics Laboratory invites applications for an immediate position in Tactile Robot Hands. The Tactile Robotics Group at Bristol Robotics Laboratory is looking for an outstanding candidate to grow an important research strand within the group on tactile robotic hands. This will complement our strengths in developing novel 3d-printed tactile sensors and artificial intelligence methods for robot touch. Although a relatively new group, we have a strong track record in publishing in the major robotics/AI journals and conferences, including RSS, NIPS, IEEE Trans Robotics and regularly in ICRA/IROS, and also computational neuroscience journals such as PLOS Computational Biology. We recently won a competition in Soft Robotics, and our 3d-printed tactile sensors and a tactile hand are on display in the Science Museum, London. The research group has expanded rapidly to approximately ten people over the last few years from attracting a large number of PhD candidates and interns, and is currently expanding further in postdoctoral staff due to a major investment from the Leverhulme Trust and the University of Bristol of over ?2M. The project has funding until April 2022, making this an ideal position to develop a leading academic career in this important research area. Post details: The successful candidate will be part of a multi-disciplinary team on the new Leverhulme-funded Leadership Award ?A biomimetic forebrain for robot touch?. ?1M has been awarded by the Leverhume Trust, with a similar contribution covered by the University of Bristol. These funds will enable a 5-year project that will apply leading robotics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and psychology to develop a biomimetic forebrain embodied on a 3D-printed tactile robot hand to enable human-like tactile dexterity. This particular postdoc position will focus on the design and application of the tactile robotic hands. Applicant qualities: This application is for a postdoctoral position (Research Associate) in Tactile Robot Hands. The post-holder will complement and support three other postdoctoral researchers and a technician, who will collectively develop artificial intelligence methods for active touch embodied on state-of-the-art tactile robot hands and link the progress to a model of the mammalian forebrain involved in active touch in animals. You will hold (or will be expected to obtain soon) a strong PhD in a discipline relevant to the project. In addition to an excellent research track record in a related area to this project, you will also have excellent communication and presentation skills, and a drive to make impact with your research. You will also help supervise graduate students and interns on projects related to your research. Institution The project will be based at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (www.brl.ac.uk) the largest center for multi-disciplinary robotics research in the UK with state-of-the-art workshops and robotic hardware. The post holder will be employed by the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol, ranked 3rd for general Engineering in the UK (just after Oxford and Cambridge). The city of Bristol is consistently ranked as the 'best place to live' in the UK, e.g. as reported by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39320118). Further details: It is anticipated that interviews will take place in August 2017, and the anticipated start as soon as possible thereafter. This post is full time for 2 years initially, with funds in place to extend the position until April 2022. Further information about the Leverhulme Award (http://www.lepora.com/leverhulme.htm) and the activities of the research group (www.lepora.com) can be found via these links. Details and procedure to apply can be made through this link http://www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/ with reference number ACAD102489 Informal enquiries can be made to: Dr. Nathan Lepora (N.Lepora at bristol.ac.uk) Closing date for applications: 31 July 2017 best wishes Nathan -- Dr Nathan Lepora Senior Lecturer in Engineering Maths & BRL Theme Leader in Tactile Robotics Dept of Engineering Maths, Merchant Venturers Building, University of Bristol Office (MVB2.50): 0117 3315169 Lab (BRL bays 3-5): 0117 3286171 @nathanlepora lepora.com bristol.ac.uk/engineering/people/nathan-f-lepora @tactilerobot brl.ac.uk/research/researchthemes/tactilerobotics.aspx From aschmidt at nld.ds.mpg.de Thu Jul 6 06:21:41 2017 From: aschmidt at nld.ds.mpg.de (Alexander Schmidt) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2017 12:21:41 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Summer school on Advanced Computational Neuroscience, Germany Message-ID: <84f99bc5-5c1f-605d-b2fe-63f1f4043d0b@nld.ds.mpg.de> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Advanced COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE Summer School in G?ttingen, Germany ?Neural circuit theories for primate cognition? September 02nd - 10th, 2017 *REGISTRATION **DEADLINE *Ju**ly**2**3**, 201**7**** %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Please find attached the course poster, which we want to encourage you to advertise in your institutes. Feel free to distribute this email to students and postdocs potentially interested in the school. The aCNS school within the Advanced Computational Neuroscience School in the Emotion-Cognition-Link-Series is a *9**-day intensive course* in *mathematical and computational neuroscience*. It offers an intensive pedagogy of advanced mathematical and computational tools to students working in computational neuroscience and already familiar with its interdisciplinary nature and is designed to qualify young researchers to push the frontiers of the field. The following researchers are in charge of the 4 two-day theoretical blocks and 4 evening lectures: * Nicolas Brunel , /University of Chicago/, Chicago, USA * Alexander Gail , /German Primate Center/, G?ttingen, Germany * Raoul Memmesheimer , /University of Bonn/, Bonn, Germany * John Beggs , /University of //Indiana/, Bloomington, USA * Julia Fischer , /German Primate Center/, G?ttingen, Germany * Eckart Altenm?ller , /University for Music and Theater/, Hanover, Germany * Annekathrin Schacht , /University of G?ttingen/, G?ttingen, Germany * Georg Martius , /M//PI//for Intelligent Systems/, T?bingen, Germany The consecutive two day thematic blocks are dedicated to mathematical approaches to circuit dynamics. Each lecturer will give a self-contained introduction to a particular set of theoretical tools in a block of two morning lectures. In the afternoon, participants will work on problem sets designed to develop proficiency in both the mathematical and computational tools learned earlier that day. An additional set of evening ?easy? lectures will give the opportunity to discuss significant advances in the field. The course takes place at the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics of the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, G?ttingen. Registration fee is 200 ?. Course language is English. Housing is provided by the school. Travel grants can be applied for. *Only 15 participants will accepted. We invite applicants to apply by filling out the application form at:* *www.bccn-goettingen.de* *and have their reference letters submitted by *July 23, 2017*.* Best regards and looking forward to seeing you in G?ttingen, B. Feulner, D. Regel, A. Schmidt and J. Wilting (local committee, PhD students) on behalf of the course directors Prof. F. Wolf and Prof. A. Schacht -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: acns_poster_100dpi.png Type: image/png Size: 1148076 bytes Desc: not available URL: From htlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw Fri Jul 7 01:55:01 2017 From: htlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw (Hsuan-Tien Lin) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 13:55:01 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: ACML 2017 Call for Papers (final cycle) Message-ID: ACML 2017 Call for Papers The 9th Asian Conference on Machine Learning (ACML 2017) will take place on November 15 - 17, 2017 at Baekyang Hall of Yonsei University campus, Seoul, Korea. We invite professionals and researchers to discuss research results and ideas in machine learning. We seek original and novel research papers resulting from theory and experiment of machine learning. The conference also solicits proposals focusing on disruptive ideas and paradigms within the scope. We encourage submissions from all parts of the world, not only confined to the Asia-Pacific region. We are running two publication tracks following the last year's practice: authors may submit either to the conference track, for which the proceedings will be published as a volume of Proceeding of Machine Learning Research (PMLR) series, or to the journal track for which accepted papers will appear in a special issue of the Machine Learning Journal. Please note that submission arrangements for the two tracks are different. Submission guidelines: http://www.acml-conf.org/2017/authors/call-for-papers/ Conference Scope Topics of interest include but are not limited to: - Learning problems Active learning, Bayesian machine learning, Deep learning, latent variable models, Dimensionality reduction, Feature selection, Graphical models, Learning for big data, Learning in graphs, Multiple instance learning, Multi-objective learning, Multi-task learning, Semi-supervised learning, Sparse learning, Structured output learning, Supervised learning, Online learning, Transfer learning, Unsupervised learning - Analysis of learning systems Computational learning theory, Experimental evaluation, Knowledge refinement, Reproducible research, Statistical learning theory - Applications Bioinformatics, Biomedical information, Collaborative filtering, Healthcare, Computer vision, Human activity recognition, Information retrieval, Natural language processing, Social networks, Web search - Learning in knowledge-intensive systems Knowledge refinement and theory revision, Multi-strategy learning, Other systems Important Dates - March 31, 2017 Journal Track Submission Deadline - May 10, 2017 Workshop and Tutorial Proposals - May 10, 2017 Early Submission Deadline - June 20, 2017 Early Notification Date - August 5, 2017 Final Submission Deadline - September 15, 2017 Final Notification Date - October 2, 2017 Final Manuscript Deadline ======================================================== -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hsuan-Tien Lin htlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~htlin ========== Associate Professor Dept. of Computer Science and Information Engineering & Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia National Taiwan University -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From janet.hsiao at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 23:18:56 2017 From: janet.hsiao at gmail.com (Janet Hsiao) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 11:18:56 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral Position, University of Hong Kong: Understanding eye movements in cognitive tasks Message-ID: *Postdoctoral Position, University of Hong Kong: Understanding eye movements in cognitive tasks* Applicants are invited for appointment as a *Post-doctoral Fellow *in the Attention Brain and Cognition Lab at the Department of Psychology, to commence as soon as possible for a period of 1 year, with the possibility of renewal up to 3 years. Applicants must have a Ph.D. degree in Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, or related fields. Preference will be given to those with experience in running eye movement experiments and eye movement data analysis, or with experience in using machine learning methods to understand human cognition. The appointee will work with Dr. Janet Hsiao (Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong), in collaboration with Dr. Antoni Chan (Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong) and Dr. Sherry Chan (Department of Psychiatry, University of Hong Kong), on projects related to using a hidden Markov model (HMM) based approach (EMHMM, the Matlab toolbox is available here: http://visal.cs.cityu.edu.hk/research/emhmm/) to analyze eye movement data in cognitive tasks. Information about the research in the lab can be obtained at http://abc.psy.hku.hk/. For more information about the position, please contact Dr. Janet Hsiao at jhsiao at hku.hk. Dr. Hsiao will be available for a short meeting during July 13-17 at APCV in Taiwan and during July 26-29 at Cog Sci in London. A highly competitive salary commensurate with qualifications and experience will be offered, in addition to annual leave and medical benefits. Applicants should send a completed application form together with a letter of application, an up-to-date C.V. including academic qualifications, research experience, publications, and at least three letters of reference to Dr. Janet Hsiao at jhsiao at hku.hk, with the subject line ?Post-doctoral position?. Application forms (341/1111) can be downloaded at http://www.hku.hk/apptunit/form-ext.doc. Further particulars can be obtained at http://jobs.hku.hk/. *Review of applications will start on Aug. 1 and continue until* *the position is filled*. The University thanks applicants for their interest, but advises that only candidates shortlisted for interviews will be notified of the application result. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florian at coneural.org Thu Jul 6 06:08:27 2017 From: florian at coneural.org (=?UTF-8?Q?R=c4=83zvan_Florian?=) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2017 13:08:27 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: Three postdoctoral research associate positions - machine learning approaches to program synthesis / induction / visualization Message-ID: <685bdada-9c0d-a120-85e5-fab1a60f00ed@coneural.org> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fh at cs.uni-freiburg.de Fri Jul 7 07:13:26 2017 From: fh at cs.uni-freiburg.de (Frank Hutter) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 13:13:26 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: AutoML workshop at ECML-PKDD 2017 -- deadline extended to July 16 Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS -- deadline extended due to popular request The ECML-PKDD 2017 Workshop on Automatic Machine Learning (AutoML) Collocated with ECML-PKDD in Skopje, Macedonia, September 22, 2017 Web: http://ecmlpkdd2017.automl.org Email: ecmlpkdd2017 at automl.org ---------------------------------------------------------------- Important Dates: Extended submission deadline: 16 July, 2017, 11:59pm UTC-12 (July 16 anywhere in the world) Notification: 30 July, 2017 ---------------------------------------------------------------- AutoML: Automatic selection, configuration and composition of machine learning algorithms This workshop will provide a platform for discussing recent developments in the areas of meta-learning, algorithm selection and configuration, which arise in many diverse domains and are increasingly relevant today. Researchers and practitioners from all areas of science and technology face a large choice of parameterized machine learning algorithms, with little guidance as to which techniques to use in a given application context. Moreover, data mining challenges frequently remind us that algorithm selection and configuration are crucial in order to achieve cutting-edge performance, and drive industrial applications. Meta-learning leverages knowledge of past algorithm applications to select the best techniques for future applications, and offers effective techniques that are superior to humans both in terms of the end result and especially in the time required to achieve it. In this workshop, we will discuss different ways of exploiting meta-learning techniques to identify the potentially best algorithm(s) for a new task, based on meta-level information, including prior experiments on both past datasets and the current one. Many contemporary problems also require the use of complex workflows that consist of several processes or operations. Constructing such complex workflows requires extensive expertise, and could be greatly facilitated by leveraging planning, meta-learning and intelligent system design. This task is inherently interdisciplinary, as it builds on expertise in various areas of AI. Main research areas of relevance to this workshop include, but are not limited to: - Algorithm / model selection and configuration - Meta-learning and exploitation of meta-knowledge - Hyperparameter optimization - Automatic generation and evaluation of learning processes / workflows - Representation learning and automatic feature extraction / construction - Automatic feature coding / transformation - Automatic detection and handling skewed data or missing values - Automatic acquisition of new data (active learning, experimental design) - Usage of planners in the construction of workflows - Reinforcement learning for parameter control & algorithm design - Representation of learning goals and states in learning - Control and coordination of learning processes - Meta-reasoning - Layered learning - Multi-task and transfer learning - Learning to learn - Intelligent experiment design Co-chairs: Frank Hutter, Holger Hoos, Pavel Brazdil and Joaquin Vanschoren We welcome standard submissions of up to 6 pages (not including references) in ECML-PKDD format, as well as longer papers of up to 15 pages (not including references). For further details, please see the submission page ; the submission deadline is July 16th, 2017. All accepted papers will be presented as posters and very short poster spotlights; the best paper(s) will be selected for an oral presentation. At least one author of each accepted paper should be registered for the main conference. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gangluo at cs.wisc.edu Sat Jul 8 10:32:45 2017 From: gangluo at cs.wisc.edu (Gang Luo) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2017 07:32:45 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: VLDB Workshop on Data Management and Analytics for Medicine and Healthcare (DMAH 2017) In-Reply-To: <98fb5f8c-40cd-e157-e67b-b582971d3e57@cs.wisc.edu> References: <5abfd369-d365-f9d6-a2e6-93095646033a@cs.wisc.edu> <98fb5f8c-40cd-e157-e67b-b582971d3e57@cs.wisc.edu> Message-ID: -- Call for Participation -- The Third International Workshop on Data Management and Analytics for Medicine and Healthcare (DMAH 2017) In Conjunction with VLDB 2017 Munich, Germany, September 1, 2017 http://dmah.info/ Healthcare enterprises are producing large amounts of data through electronic medical records, medical imaging, health insurance claims, surveillance, and others. Such data have high potential to transform current healthcare to improve healthcare quality and prevent diseases, and advance biomedical research. Medical Informatics is an interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective use of medical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving and decision making, driven by efforts to improve human health and well being. The goal of the workshop is to bring people in the field cross-cutting information management and medical informatics to discuss innovative data management and analytics technologies highlighting end-to-end applications, systems, and methods to address problems in healthcare, public health, and everyday wellness, with clinical, physiological, imaging, behavioral, environmental, and omic- data, and data from social media and the Web. It will provide a unique opportunity for interaction between information management researchers and biomedical researchers for the interdisciplinary field. This year, we have a rich program covering various topics, including data privacy and trustability, biomedical data management and integration, online mining of health related data, and clinical data analytics. Program: 08:30-10:00 Session 1: Data Privacy and Trustability for Electronic Health Records 08:30-08:40 Opening remark 08:40-9:30 Keynote I: Health Data Management and Analytics with Privacy and Confidentiality (Li Xiong, Emory University, USA) 9:30-10:00 How Blockchain could Empower eHealth: an Application for Radiation Oncology (Alevtina Dubovitskaya, Zhigang Xu, Samuel Ryu, Michael Ignaz Schumacher and Fusheng Wang) 10:00-10:30 Coffee Break 10:30-12:00 Session 2: Biomedical Data Management and Integration 10:30-10:55 On-Demand Service-Based Big Data Integration: Optimized for Research Collaboration (Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Yiru Chen, Ashish Sharma, Helena Galhardas, Peter Van Roy and Lu?s Veiga) 10:55-11:20 CHIPS ? A Service for Collecting, Organizing, Processing, and Sharing Medical Image Data in the Cloud (Rudolph Pienaar, Ata Turk, Jorge Bernal-Rusiel, Nicolas Rannou, Daniel Haehn, P. Ellen Grant and Orran Krieger) 11:20-11:45 High Performance Merging of Massive Data from Genome-Wide Association Studies (Xiaobo Sun, Fusheng Wang and Zhaohui Qin) 11:45-12:10 Healthsurance ? Mobile App for Standardized Electronic Health Records Database (Prateek Jain, Sagar Bhargava, Naman Jain, Shelly Sachdeva, Shivani Batra and Subhash Bhalla) 12:00-13:30 Lunch Break 13:30-15:00 Session 3: Online Mining of Health Related Data 13:30-14:30 Keynote II: Analysis of Online Health-Related User-Generated Content (Vagelis Hristidis, University of California, Riverside, USA) 14:30-15:00 Social media mining to understand public mental health (Andrew Toulis and Lukasz Golab) 15:00-15:30 Coffee Break 15:30-17:00 Session 4: Clinical Data Analytics 15:30-16:00 Effects of varying sampling frequency on the analysis of continuous ECG data streams (Ruhi Mahajan, Rishikesan Kamaleswaran and Oguz Akbilgic) 16:00-16:30 Detection and Visualization of Variants in Typical Medical Treatment Sequences (Yuichi Honda, Muneo Kushima, Tomoyoshi Yamazaki, Kenji Araki and Haruo Yokota) 16:30-17:00 Umedicine: A System for Clinical Practice Support and Data Analysis (Nuno F. Lages, Bernardo Caetano, Manuel J. Fonseca, Jo?o D. Pereira, Helena Galhardas and Rui Farinha) 17:00: Closing Remarks Workshop Chairs: Fusheng Wang, Stony Brook University, USA Gang Luo, University of Washington, USA Edmon Begoli, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA From m.herbster at cs.ucl.ac.uk Sun Jul 9 12:08:35 2017 From: m.herbster at cs.ucl.ac.uk (Mark Herbster) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2017 17:08:35 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Studentship: Online distributed machine learning Message-ID: <22BBBB9D-0E20-4E31-BF65-15E427F5F88B@cs.ucl.ac.uk> PhD Studentship in Online Distributed Machine Learning University College London Department of Computer Science We have multiple PhD studentships available for EU and UK students. It will suit students with a strong background in theoretical computer science, mathematics or physics. The aim of these PhD positions is to design efficient algorithms for online distributed machine learning. There is scope for both applied and theoretical work. In particular we will look at optimization algorithms for deep networks, matrix completion, and sequential decision making in non-stationary environments. The research will take place within the context of the DAIS ITA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAIS-ITA ). You will be part of team of over 150 researchers in the US and UK. The ITA is a collaboration of six US universities, four UK universities, four industrial partners and is led by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the US Army Research Laboratory in partnership with IBM. As a student you may have frequent opportunities for extended research stays at DSTL, ARL, IBM as well as at other academic and industrial partners. This project will be jointly co-supervised by Mark Herbster and Simon Julier. Please contact m.herbster at cs.ucl.uk or S.Julier at ucl.ac.uk for further details. Studentships are available to UK or EU students only and will be funded for 3 years in line with the UCL standard studentship figures: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/research-services/res-stud/student-budget To apply see https://www.prism.ucl.ac.uk/#!/?project=235 From aw665 at cam.ac.uk Sun Jul 9 18:48:42 2017 From: aw665 at cam.ac.uk (Adrian Weller) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2017 18:48:42 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CfP: Reliable Machine Learning in the Wild at ICML 2017, deadline 17 July Message-ID: <011201d2f905$846db260$8d491720$@cam.ac.uk> Final call for Papers for ICML 2017 Workshop on Reliable Machine Learning in the Wild, please forward to others who may have interest. Workshop website https://sites.google.com/site/wildml2017icml/ When can we trust that a system that has performed well in the past will continue to do so in the future? Designing systems that are reliable in the wild is essential for high stakes applications such as self-driving cars and automated surgical assistants. This workshop aims to bring together researchers in diverse areas such as reinforcement learning, human-robot interaction, game theory, cognitive science, and security to further the field of reliability in machine learning. We will focus on three aspects - robustness (to adversaries, distributional shift, model misspecification, corrupted data); awareness (of when a change has occurred, when the model might be miscalibrated, etc.);and adaptation (to new situations or objectives). We aim to consider each of these in the context of the complex human factors that impact the successful application or meaningful monitoring of any artificial intelligence technology. Together, these will aid us in designing and deploying reliable machine learning systems. We are seeking submissions that deal with the challenges of reliably applied machine learning techniques in the real world. Some possible questions touching on each of these categories are given below, though we also welcome submissions that do not directly fit into these categories. * Robustness: How can we make a system robust to novel or potentially adversarial inputs? What are ways of handling model mis-specification or corrupted training data? What can be done if the training data is potentially a function of system behavior or of other agents in the environment (e.g. when collecting data on users that respond to changes in the system and might also behave strategically)? * Awareness: How do we make a system aware of its environment and of its own limitations, so that it can recognize and signal when it is no longer able to make reliable predictions or decisions? Can it successfully identify "strange" inputs or situations and take appropriately conservative actions? How can it detect when changes in the environment have occurred that require re-training? How can it detect that its model might be mis-specified or poorly-calibrated? * Adaptation: How can machine learning systems detect and adapt to changes in their environment, especially large changes (e.g. low overlap between train and test distributions, poor initial model assumptions, or shifts in the underlying prediction function)? How should an autonomous agent act when confronting radically new contexts? * Monitoring: How can we monitor large-scale systems in order to judge if they are performing well? If things go wrong, what tools can help? * Value Alignment: For systems with complex desiderata, how can we learn a value function that captures and balances all relevant considerations? How should a system act given uncertainty about its value function? Can we make sure that a system reflects the values of the humans who use it? * Reward Hacking: How can we ensure that the objective of a system is immune to reward hacking? Reward hacking is a way that the system can attain high reward that was unintended by the system designer. For example see https://blog.openai.com/faulty-reward-functions/ * Human Factors: Actual humans will be interacting and adapting to these systems when they are deployed. How do properties of humans affect the guarantees of performance that the system has? What if the humans are suboptimal or even adversarial? How to submit Papers submitted to the workshop should be up to four pages long excluding references and in ICML 2017 format. They should be submitted via Easychair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rmlw17 . As the review process is not blind, authors can reveal their identity in their submissions. Accepted submissions will be presented as posters or talks. We will accept submissions at two deadlines. One earlier deadline, with an earlier acceptance notification, and one later one. Our goal is to allow for late submission to the extent that we can, while still allowing some people to get early confirmation of paper acceptance, which they might need in order to arrange travel in time. Important Dates: Submission deadline 1: 16 June 2017 Acceptance notification 1: 1 July 2017 Submission deadline 2: 17 July 2017 Acceptance notification 2: 31 July 2017 Final camera-ready versions of accepted papers: 5 August 2017 Workshop: 11 August 2017 Thank you, Dylan, Jacob, Smitha and Adrian ---------------------------------------------- Adrian Weller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fbln at ecomp.poli.br Mon Jul 10 03:56:45 2017 From: fbln at ecomp.poli.br (Prof. Fernando Buarque) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 09:56:45 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: *FINAL* CALL FOR PAPERS 2017 IEEE-4rd Latin-American Conference on Computational Intelligence (IEEE LA-CCI 2017) - We are waiting for you in PERU ! Message-ID: *FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS2017 IEEE** - 4rd Latin-American Conference on Computational Intelligence* * (IEEE LA-CCI 2017) *Arequipa (close to Machu Picchu) ? Universidad Cat?lica San Pablo ? Peru. *November, 8-10th, 2017* *[**The 6-7th, prior, will be dedicated to the LA-School on CI**]* *Sponsored by the IEEE-CIS* *Supported by CI Societies/Groups from:* Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru(Host) and Venezuela *THE CONFERENCE WEBSITE LINK => http://la-cci.org/ * *FOR SUBMMITING YOUR LATEST WORK **=> https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=2017ieeelacci * *WE WILL WELCOME 10 MORE REVIEWER **=> mailto:fbln at ecomp.poli.br * *FINAL-CFP (*FEEL FREE TO DISTRIBUTE*) => http://la-cci.org/wp-content/uploads/LA-CCI2017/FINAL-CFP-IEEE-LA-CCI-2017.pdf * *Important Dates* -Submission of full papers * *July 17th, 2017*. -Notification of acceptance: August 18h, 2017. -Final (camera ready) paper due: by August 28th, 2017. -Submission of entry for the Contest: September 28th, 2017. -Author registration & Early registration: September 4th, 2017. -Regular registration: September 28th, 2017 and onwards. *List of Key - Speakers (**CONFIRMED**):* *1) Jos? Pr?ncipe *** **University of Florida (USA)* * * **Talk: ?Information Theoretic Deep Learning?* *2) Giuseppe Zollo * Universit? degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Italy)* * * Talk: ?The Aesthetics of Complexity: how the mind computes the beauty?* *3) Tshilidzi Marwala * University of Johannesburg (South Africa) * * * Talk: ?The Challenges and Opportunities of Industry 4.0?* *4) Fernando Buarque de Lima Neto * Universidade de Pernambuco (Brazil) * * * Talk: ?Why Metaheuristics are so useful? * *5) Omar Florez * Intel Labs (USA) * * * Talk: ?From Machine Learning to Machine Understanding?* *6) Mike Preuss * University of M?nster (Germany) * * * Talk: ?Novel developments in CI and Games?* *7) Pablo Estevez * Universidad de Chile (Chile) * * * Talk: ?Big Data Analytics using Deep Learning and Information-Theoretical Learning: Applications to Astronomy?* *8) Ronaldo Menezes * Florida Institute of Technology (USA) * * * Talk: ?Network and Data Science? * Key speaker at LA-CCI School* *Main-Tracks:* I) Evolutionary & Swarm Computation: Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Artificial Immune Systems, Swarm Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Evolvable Hardware, Bio-inspired Methods. II) Neural & Learning Systems: Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Complex Systems, Molecular and Quantum Computing, Complex Networks. III) Fuzzy & Stochastic Modeling: Fuzzy Systems, Fuzzy Control & Decision Making, Uncertainty Analysis, Rough Sets, Fractals, Multiagent Systems, Reinforcement Learning, Game Theory. *Activities: *LA-CCI SCHOOL on CI; POST GRADUATE THESIS CONTEST; ROUND-TABLES & more. *Highlights:* This edition will boast thematic roundtables, an exciting School, a Post-Grad Contest/Doctoral Consortium and some exquisite cultural activities (such as visiting Machu Picchu over the weekend). *We are waiting for you!* Warm regards, Fernando Buarque - PC-Chair of LA-CCI'2017 Prof. Fernando Buarque , BSc MSc DIC PhD(UK) Hab(BR) AvH Fellow(DE), Senior Memb. IEEE(USA), Accred. Res. CNPq(BR) Associate Professor - Escola Polit?cnica/Universidade de Pernambuco (POLI /UPE ) Adjunct Professor - Electrical&Computer Engineering/Texas A&M University, USA (ECE at TAMU ) Graduate Faculty - Computer Science/Florida Institute of Technology, USA ( CS at FIT ) Visiting Professor - University of M?nster, Germany (ERCIS ) Visiting Professor - University of Johannesburg, South Africa (Kingsway Campus ) Full Member of PostGrad Program on Computing Engineering of UPE (PPG-EC ) Full Member of PostGrad Program on Systems Engineering of UPE (PPG-ES ) Full Member of UnderGrad Program on Computing Engineering of POLI (E-Comp ) Head of the Computational Intelligence Research Group of UPE (CIRG at UPE ) International Relations Officer of POLI (ARI at POLI ) Universidade de Pernambuco / Escola Polit?cnica de Pernambuco Rua Benfica, 455 (Bl. 'C' 2. andar) * Bairro: Madalena CEP 50720-001 * Recife, Pernambuco - Brasil Fone: +55(0)81 3184-7542 <+55%2081%203184-7542> * Fax: +55(0)81 3184-7548 <+55%2081%203184-7548> National => http://www.fbln.pro.br/ * International => http://www.fbln.net [image: LA-CCI 2017] *"Se voc? quiser educar um homem, comece pela av? dele" (Victor Hugo).* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugenio.piasini at iit.it Mon Jul 10 04:40:40 2017 From: eugenio.piasini at iit.it (Eugenio Piasini) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 10:40:40 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [call for papers] Entropy: special issue on "Information Theory in Neuroscience" Message-ID: <4146c329-d13e-4ec5-7fe4-65a3a1284132@iit.it> (apologies for cross-posting) Dear all, The journal Entropy is currently running a Special Issue entitled "Information Theory in Neuroscience", that we believe could be of interest for the members of this list. As the ultimate information processing device, the brain naturally lends itself to be studied with information theory. Application of information theory to neuroscience has spurred the development of principled theories of brain function, has led to advances in the study of consciousness, and to the development of analytical techniques to crack the neural code, that is to unveil the language used by neurons to encode and process information. In particular, advances in experimental techniques enabling precise recording and manipulation of neural activity on a large scale now enable for the first time the precise formulation and the quantitative test of hypotheses about how the brain encodes and transmits across areas the information used for specific functions. This Special Issue emphasizes contributions on novel approaches in neuroscience using information theory, and on the development of new information theoretic results inspired by problems in neuroscience. Research work at the interface of neuroscience, Information Theory and other disciplines is also welcome. Deadline for manuscript submission: 1 December 2017 For more information: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/neuro Eugenio Piasini and Stefano Panzeri, Italian Institute of Technology Guest Editors From romain.veltz at inria.fr Mon Jul 10 07:40:48 2017 From: romain.veltz at inria.fr (Romain Veltz) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 13:40:48 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Computational Neuroscience/Nonlinear Dynamics on synaptic plasticity - INRIA Sophia Antipolis France Message-ID: <3255A1A8-F4C4-4E93-8F32-C262B5B5F52B@inria.fr> A PhD scholarship in mathematical and computational neuroscience on The modelling of excitatory synapses in healty / pathological condition is available at INRIA Sophia Antipolis , within the Team MathNeuro in collaboration with Dr Marie's team at the Institut de Pharmacologie Mole?culaire et Cellulaire (IPMC, Sophia Antipolis). This 3 year funded PhD scholarship starts in September 2017 or January 2018. Candidate The ideal candidate should have a background in nonlinear dynamics, stochastic analysis and computational neuroscience. He/she should also have strong ability to program in Python / C / Matlab / Julia. French is not a requirement if fluent in English, but willingness to learn would be beneficial. Applications Send CV, transcripts and contact informations of two persons we could reach for recommendation to romain.veltz at inria.fr and marie at ipmc.cnrs.fr . Supervisors Dr Romain Veltz (INRIA) Dr Helene Marie (IPMC) Project description Synaptic plasticity is one of the fundamental phenomena which shape neural networks. It is thought to be the basis of our memory and learning capabilities. Synaptic plasticity have been modelled recently [1,2,3] but at a phenomenological level. It is for example quite difficult to link these model internal variables to the synapse biophysics. Another issue is noise. Whereas in many models, noise is added as cherry on top, it is in fact internally generated given the small number of synaptic constituants [4]. The project will focus on the development of a stochastic model of the postsynaptic side of an excitatory synapse, in healthy / Alzheimer conditions, which describes the behaviour of the first biochemical molecules targeted upon arrival of Glutamate. More precisely, the project will first aim at modelling the early phase plasticity (LTP, LTD, STDP) in light of recent experimental data [5,6] with aim to take into account data provided by Dr Marie's lab concerning deficient synapses observed in Alzheimer?s disease like conditions. The project will involve a mix of high performance scientific computation, nonlinear dynamics, stochastic analysis, and an enthusiasm for learning about plasticity mechanisms in general. References Clopath, Claudia, Lars B?sing, Eleni Vasilaki, et Wulfram Gerstner. ? Connectivity reflects coding: a model of voltage-based STDP with homeostasis ?. Nature Neuroscience 13, n? 3 (mars 2010): 344?52. doi:10.1038/nn.2479. Graupner, Michael, et Nicolas Brunel. ? Calcium-Based Plasticity Model Explains Sensitivity of Synaptic Changes to Spike Pattern, Rate, and Dendritic Location ?. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 22 f?vrier 2012. doi:10.1073/pnas.1109359109. Costa, Rui Ponte, Robert C. Froemke, P. Jesper Sj?str?m, et Mark CW van Rossum. ? Unified Pre- and Postsynaptic Long-Term Plasticity Enables Reliable and Flexible Learning ?. ELife 4 (26 ao?t 2015): e09457. doi:10.7554/eLife.09457. Ribrault, Claire, Ken Sekimoto, et Antoine Triller. ? From the Stochasticity of Molecular Processes to the Variability of Synaptic Transmission ?. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 12, n? 7 (juillet 2011): 375?87. doi:10.1038/nrn3025. Fujii, Hajime, Masatoshi Inoue, Hiroyuki Okuno, Yoshikazu Sano, Sayaka Takemoto-Kimura, Kazuo Kitamura, Masanobu Kano, et Haruhiko Bito. ? Nonlinear Decoding and Asymmetric Representation of Neuronal Input Information by CaMKII? and Calcineurin ?. Cell Reports 3, n? 4 (25 avril 2013): 978?87. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2013.03.033. Tigaret, Cezar M., Valeria Olivo, Josef H.L.P. Sadowski, Michael C. Ashby, et Jack R. Mellor. ? Coordinated activation of distinct Ca2+ sources and metabotropic glutamate receptors encodes Hebbian synaptic plasticity ?. Nature Communications 7 (13 janvier 2016): 10289. doi:10.1038/ncomms10289. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tomc at cs.ru.nl Mon Jul 10 08:16:14 2017 From: tomc at cs.ru.nl (Tom Claassen) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 14:16:14 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: PhD candidate / Postdoc in Machine Learning for Ecology (1.0 FTE) Message-ID: =========================================================== PhD candidate / Postdoc position in Machine Learning for Ecology (1.0 FTE, 4yrs./3yrs.) Institution : Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands Keywords : causal discovery, ecological modelling, machine learning, environmental change Application deadline : 14 August 2017 Website : http://www.ru.nl/werken/details/details_vacature_0/?recid=598034 =========================================================== (apologies for crossposting) Summary The project aims to bridge the gap between state-of-the-art causal discovery and its application to observational ecological data, in order to help predict factors that drive biodiversity under environmental change. To that end, causal discovery algorithms will be developed that are capable of handling the spatiotemporal dependencies that are common in field monitoring data. After testing, the algorithms will be applied to reveal cause-effect relationships from various ecological monitoring datasets. We are looking for talented, highly motivated PhD candidates and/or Postdocs: either students from the field of computer science/mathematics with an interest in real-world applications, or students from biology/environmental sciences with a strong background in modelling and/or statistical analysis. Description Predicting how species and ecosystems will respond to global environmental change is a central goal in ecology. As controlled experiments cannot fully address this goal, there is a clear need for innovative statistical and machine learning methods to analyse ecological field data. In this project you will be developing and testing novel machine learning algorithms that can be applied to reveal causal relationships from observational ecological data. Ecological monitoring data are typically characterised by multiple spatial and temporal dependencies. For example, due to auto-ecological processes such as reproduction and dispersal, species? distribution patterns are often more clustered than would be expected based on abiotic gradients. A main challenge in this project will be to develop machine learning algorithms able to deal with such dependencies. After testing, you will apply the algorithms to large-scale ecological monitoring data in order to reveal causal relationships between species? occurrence and underlying drivers. The project is a collaboration between the Data Science group of the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences and the Environmental Science group of the Institute for Water and Wetland Research (IWWR). You will be working in both groups, at the interface of ecology and machine learning. The main focus of the Environmental Science group of the IWWR is on quantifying, understanding and predicting human impacts on the environment. To that end, we employ a variety of research methods, including process-based modelling, meta-analyses, field studies and lab work. In our research we cover multiple stressors, species and spatial scales, searching for overarching principles that can ultimately be applied to better underpin environmental management and biodiversity conservation. The Data Science group?s research concerns the design and understanding of (probabilistic) machine learning methods, with a keen eye on applications in other scientific domains as well as industry. The Data Science section is part of the vibrant and growing Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS). iCIS is consistently ranked as the top Computer Science department in the Netherlands (National Research Review of Computer Science 2002-2008 and 2009-2014). What we expect from you: You have an MSc degree in natural science, computer science, mathematics, or a related discipline. You are open-minded, with a strong interest in multidisciplinary research and a solid background mathematics, and you are highly motivated to perform scientific research. As you will be working in two different research groups, you need to be flexible, communicative and able to work in a multidisciplinary team. For more information about this vacancy and details on how to apply, see the website or contact: * Prof. Mark Huijbregts, e-mail: m.huijbregts at science.ru.nl (IWWR) * Prof. Tom Heskes, tel: +31 24 3652696, e-mail: t.heskes at science.ru.nl (iCIS) * Dr. Tom Claasen, tel: +31 24 3652019, e-mail: tomc at cs.ru.nl (iCIS) From yoram.burak at elsc.huji.ac.il Tue Jul 11 05:26:50 2017 From: yoram.burak at elsc.huji.ac.il (Yoram Burak) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:26:50 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure track and mid-career positions at ELSC Message-ID: Please see the two ads below, for faculty positions at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences. The application deadline for the searches is September 1, 2017. --- *Tenure Track Positions at ELSC* Following the recent inauguration of the new home for the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) , we are offering tenure-track positions at the lecturer and senior lecturer levels (roughly equivalent to assistant professor level). We are looking for excellent *early-stage scientists* who aspire to establish active innovative and interdisciplinary research programs *in neuroscience*. *ELSC builds upon Hebrew University?s record of excellence and innovation in its multidisciplinary approach to brain sciences. * *ELSC provides a thriving interface between theoretical and experimental neuroscience across levels.* We offer: ? State-of-the-art, individually-designed laboratories and research facilities ? Competitive start-up funding ? Top ranking Ph.D. interdisciplinary program ? Ph.D. and post-doc fellowships ? State-of-the-art central research facilities ? Outstanding academic milieu *We seek to recruit scientists in the following areas:* 1. Theoretical and computational neuroscience 2. Cognitive neuroscience & human brain imaging 3. Neural circuits and behavior 4. System neuroscience in NHP 5. Molecular neuroscience *Application requirements:* ? Curriculum vitae ? A letter of intent ? An outline of future research and scientific vision ? Reference letters from the PhD advisor and Post-Doctoral host ? Three to five publications that best represent their research work ? Names of 2-3 additional colleagues willing to provide letters of reference *Applications Deadline: Sep 1, 2017* *Applications materials have to be submitted on-line * *For further information, please contact Ms. Idit Nusilevitz:* *brain at elsc.huji.ac.il* *; phone: 972-2-6585375 <02-658-5375>* *Mid-Career Neuroscientists Positions at ELSC* Following the recent inauguration of the new home for the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) , we are looking for excellent *Mid-career neuroscientists* (associate or full professor) who aspire to establish active innovative and interdisciplinary research. *ELSC builds upon Hebrew University ?s record of excellence and innovation in its multidisciplinary approach to brain sciences.* *ELSC provides a thriving interface between theoretical and experimental neuroscience across levels.* We offer: ? Large, individually-designed *laboratories* ? State-of-the-art central *research facilities* ? Competitive *transition* and *start-up* funding ? Ph.D. and *post-doctoral fellowships* ? An Outstanding academic milieu *We seek to recruit mid-career scientists with a proven track record, in all areas of neuroscience.* To apply, please send *Curriculum Vitae* and a *Letter of Intent* directly to *Applications Deadline: Sep 1, 2017* For information about ELSC see *http://elsc.huji.ac.il/ * For information please contact Ms. Idit Nusilevitz: brain at elsc.huji.ac.il; phone: 972-2-6585375 <02-658-5375> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From luigi.malago at gmail.com Tue Jul 11 05:32:19 2017 From: luigi.malago at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Luigi_Malag=C3=B2?=) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 12:32:19 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: 2 postdocs in Geometry of Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning at RIST Message-ID: =========================================================== 2 postdoc positions in Machine Learning (1 year, renewable up to 3 years) Institution: RIST - Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca Keywords: Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Stochastic Optimization, Optimization over Manifolds, Information Geometry, Riemannian Geometry Application deadline: 30 July 2017 (applicants are encouraged to apply earlier) Salary: around 2190 euro net Official announcement: http://rist.ro/en/details/news/postdoc-positions-in-deep-learning-and-machine-learning.html =========================================================== Dear colleagues, the Romanian Institute of Science and Technology (RIST) has an opening for 2 postdoc positions, in the context of the DeepRiemann project ?Riemannian Optimization Methods for Deep Learning?, funded by European structural funds through the Competitiveness Operational Program (POC 2014-2020). The appointments will be for 1 year, with possible extensions up to 3 years. The DeepRiemann project aims at the design and analysis of novel training algorithms for Neural Networks in Deep Learning, by applying notions of Riemannian optimization and differential geometry. The task of the training a Neural Network is studied by employing tools from Optimization over Manifolds and Information Geometry, by casting the learning process to an optimization problem defined over a statistical manifold, i.e., a set of probability distributions. The project is highly interdisciplinary, with competences spanning from Machine Learning to Optimization, Deep Learning, Statistics, and Differential Geometry. The objectives of the project are multiple and include both theoretical and applied research, together with industrial activities oriented to transfer knowledge, from the institute to a startup or spin-off of the research group. The positions will be part of the new Machine Learning and Optimization group http://luigimalago.it/group.html, which performs research at the intersection of Machine Learning, Stochastic Optimization, Deep Learning, and Optimization over Manifolds, from the unifying perspective of Information Geometry. The group is one of two newly-formed groups in Machine Learning at RIST, where about 20 new postdoctoral research associates and research software developers will be hired by 2018. The official job announcement can be seen here: http://rist.ro/en/details/news/postdoc-positions-in-deep-learning-and-machine-learning.html Informal inquiries can be sent to Dr. Luigi Malag? , principal investigator of the DeepRiemann project. Application deadline: 30 July 2017 (applicants are encouraged to apply earlier) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Tue Jul 11 10:57:03 2017 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 10:57:03 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURON course at SFN 2017 meeting Message-ID: Using NEURON to Model Cells and Networks Friday, Nov. 10 from 9 AM to 5 PM at a downtown Washington DC location. This course provides a practical introduction to building and using models of neurons and networks with NEURON. Covered topics include basic concepts, workflow for building and using models, speeding up simulations with parallel hardware from multicore personal computers to massively parallel supercomputers, using Python with NEURON, and modeling reactive diffusion with the RxD class. The registration deadline for this course is Friday Oct. 27, but you should sign up early because space is limited. See http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/dc2017/dc2017.html for more information and a link to the registration form. --Ted From cl at cmu.edu Tue Jul 11 10:41:26 2017 From: cl at cmu.edu (Christian Lebiere) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 10:41:26 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: BICA 2017 Conference Message-ID: =============================== WHAT: Fierces / BICA 2017, bica2017.bicasociety.org (Cognitive Architectures!) WHERE: Baltschug Kempinski (5 star, next to the Kremlin), Moscow, Russia WHEN: August 1-5, 2017; socials on Jul 31 - Aug 6 every day WHY: Great adventure in Moscow, WoS/Scopus publications, socializing with the BICA community SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July 15 (abstracts / position papers OK) CONTACT: Alexei Samsonovich (asamsono at gmu.edu) =============================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From AmoresJ at utrc.utc.com Tue Jul 11 08:44:28 2017 From: AmoresJ at utrc.utc.com (Amores-Llopis, Jaume Export License Required - US UTRC-Ireland) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 12:44:28 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Job opening at UTRC Ireland: Senior Research Scientist, Computer Vision / Video Analytics Message-ID: <05752a88abc54335853676ca993f5d2e@UUSALE0K.utcmail.com> UTRCI Senior Research Scientist, Computer Vision/Video Analytics United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) delivers advanced technologies to the businesses of United Technologies Corporation (UTC). UTC is a diversified company that provides a broad range of high-technology products and services to the global aerospace and building systems industries. Its commercial business ? UTC Building & Industrial Systems ? comprises Otis elevators and escalators as well as UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a leading provider of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, fire and security systems, and building automation and controls. The company?s aerospace businesses include Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines and UTC Aerospace Systems aerospace products. UTRC engages with UTC business units and external research organizations globally to pursue research and develop innovative technologies that meet/anticipate marketplace needs. Founded in 1929, UTRC is headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut (U.S.), with an office in Berkeley, California, and research and development centers in Shanghai, China and Cork, Ireland. United Technologies Research Centre Ireland, Ltd. (UTRCI), established in 2009, conducts research into the next generation of energy and security systems for high-performance buildings, generating world-class technologies for UTC?s commercial businesses worldwide. Recently, UTRC Ireland added aerospace systems research to its portfolio to support UTC?s large industrial presence in Europe. UTRCI invites qualified individuals to apply for the following position in its Cork office. A competitive compensation and benefits package will be provided to the successful candidates. Learn more @ www.utrc.utc.com Job responsibilities UTRCI has an opening for a Senior Research Scientist in the area of Computer Vision and Video Analytics. Successful candidates should demonstrate outstanding track records in 3 or more of the following fields: object detection and tracking, object recognition, scene recognition, human action / activity / event recognition, content-based indexing and retrieval and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). In addition to the technical contribution, the candidate is expected to interact with United Technologies Corporation (UTC) business units to provide technical expertise in existing programs, contribute towards business development through Irish and European grant acquisition, and contribute to the definition of technical strategy. The candidate must be able to work effectively in a multidisciplinary, multinational team environment focused on innovation and be able to partner with leading institutions (university, government agencies, national labs, and professional organizations) to meet organizational objectives and will have exceptional communication skills. Additionally, the successful candidate will be expected to: ? Develop and execute technology research plans to successfully achieve desired technical outcomes within time and budget constraints. ? Assist in developing proposals for externally-funded research in the area of security and aerospace applications, including collaboration with external partners such as companies, national labs and universities. ? Demonstrate excellent communication skills and provide timely, accurate reports and presentations to senior management and functional teams. ? Contribute concepts to technology roadmaps in areas related to computer vision and visual surveillance, helping expand the portfolio of technology maturation projects. ? Contribute to the development of integrated solutions for UTC business units, focusing on creative solutions in computer vision and video surveillance problems. ? Contribute to business development through Irish local and European grant acquisition and contribute to the setting of strategic technical agenda ? Author technical papers, and engage in relevant technical communities. Educational Requirements M.S. degree in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field with 5+ years of industrial or academic experience (post M.S.). Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field, plus 2+ years of industrial or academic experience after completion of the Ph.D. in disciplines as outlined above. Essential Experience/Qualifications ? Expert knowledge and a minimum of 3 years (5 years for M.S) of industrial or academic experience in at least three of the following computer vision/pattern recognition fields: object classification, detection and tracking; object recognition; activity and event recognition; content-based indexing and retrieval, SLAM. ? Demonstrated ability to work within multi-disciplinary teams to successfully achieve desired technical outcomes within time and budget constraints. ? Demonstrated ability to write proposals and win external funding/contracts/grants. ? Record of technical contributions, including patents and publications in refereed technical journals and major conferences in computer vision. ? Proven success in innovative strategic and technical thinking, willingness to champion and investigate new technical ideas, and experience in applying work to real-world applications. ? Excellent communication skills, innovative strategic and technical thinker, high energy and team player. ? Willingness to go beyond the original field of expertise. ? Software skills: C/C++, MATLAB, OpenCV and Python. Desired Skills ? Experience in robotics applications, including indoor or aerial environments ? Familiarity with video-based forensic analysis, including machine-based reasoning and chain-of-evidence management ? Experience in High-Performance Computing (HPC), including hardware-based acceleration using GPU technology, parallel and distributed computing and heterogeneous computing. ? Experience in Embedded Computer Vision ? Experience with CUDA, OpenCL, OpenMP, DirectX and OpenGL. ? Experience with Deep Learning techniques and tools, especially in Computer Vision domains. ? Expertise in pattern recognition and machine learning techniques: unsupervised, and supervised learning, stochastic optimization (simulated annealing, gradient descent, etc.), dimensionality reduction, feature selection, etc. ? Fusion of different modalities (e.g., optical, depth, radar, etc.). ? Signal processing. Additional Comments This position is based at UTRC?s European hub in Cork, Ireland. To be eligible to apply, candidates must be legally entitled to work and reside in Ireland. Candidates can apply online at: http://www.utrc.utc.com/ by selecting the ?Careers?, then ?Job Postings (International)?, and then UTRCI Research Scientist, Computer Vision and Visual Surveillance Enquiries can be sent to Dr. Jaume Amores at amoresj at utrc.utc.com or Dr. Antonio Penta at pentaa at utrc.utc.com United Technologies Corporation is An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer Jaume Amores, Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist United Technologies Research Center, Ireland Address: 4th Floor, Penrose Business Centre, Penrose Wharf, Cork, Ireland. E-mail: AmoresJ at utrc.utc.com Office: +353 (0)21 455 2393 Fax: +353 21 450 8445 Jaume Amores, Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist United Technologies Research Center, Ireland Address: 4th Floor, Penrose Business Centre, Penrose Wharf, Cork, Ireland. E-mail: AmoresJ at utrc.utc.com Office: +353 (0)21 455 2393 Fax: +353 21 450 8445 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Tue Jul 11 11:03:17 2017 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 11:03:17 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Neuroscience Gateway Workshop at SFN 2017 meeting Message-ID: <79f12970-9e16-8ec0-09e4-3afebdcd6f28@yale.edu> Using the Neuroscience Gateway Portal for Parallel Simulations Saturday, Nov. 11 from 9 AM to noon at downtown Washington DC location. This workshop combines didactic presentations and hands-on instruction on how to use the Neuroscience Gateway Portal (NSG) for computationally intensive simulations and data analysis. NSG eliminates most technical and adminstrative barriers to using high performance computing resources, and even gives away free CPU time on parallel supercomputers. Software currently installed on NSG includes BluePyOpt, Brian, CARLsim, Freesurfer, GENESIS, MATLAB, MOOSE, NEST, NEURON, PyNN, and the Virtual Personalized Multimodal Connectome Pipeline. The registration deadline for this workshop is Friday Oct. 27, but you should sign up early because space is limited. See https://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/nsg2017/nsg2017.html for more information and a link to the registration form. --Ted From Harel.Shouval at uth.tmc.edu Tue Jul 11 14:15:19 2017 From: Harel.Shouval at uth.tmc.edu (Shouval, Harel) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 18:15:19 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc Position: Learning Dynamics in Recurrent Networks Message-ID: <1754C9FE-F1CF-4338-A169-FD0560D047EF@uth.tmc.edu> A postdoc position is available in the Shouval lab. The Postdoc will work on a project funded by the BRAIN grant: ?Learning spatio-temporal statistics from the environment in recurrent networks?. In this project we will model both recurrent network models, and also the learning rules that allow them to learn their dynamics from environmental cues. This project is a collaboration between the lab of Harel Shouval at the University of Texas in Houston, and the lab of Nicolas Brunel at Duke. This is a two-year position and it can start immediately. The Shouval lab is a leader in developing models of synaptic plasticity and understanding their impact on learning and memory. The models we develop span from the molecular level and up to the systems level. In our some of our recent work we study the impact of synaptic plasticity on recurrent network dynamics and on incorporating reinforcement learning into biophysical plasticity models. We use both computational and analytical techniques to study these issues. The Shouval lab is located in the department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, in the UT medical school. Houston has a thriving Neuroscience community and it is an excellent environment for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience. There is a high concentration of Theoretical Neuroscience labs at the different Houston area Universities (Baylor, Rice, UH, UT). Our Theoretical Neuroscience community is highly collaborative and there is a joint organization to foster these collaborations; the Gulf Coast Consortium in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience (GCC-TCN). We hold an annual conference, joint graduate courses and a journal club. The ideal candidate will have a PhD in Computational Neuroscience with strong analytical and computational skills. I will also consider candidates with a background in the Physical or Computational Sciences who would like to become a Theoretical Neuroscientists. If you want to apply please send me your CV, and a brief cover letter that includes names of possible references. I will also be happy to answer any question you might have about the project or the position. Harel Shouval Professor Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy The University of Texas Medical School, Houston Director of the Neuroscience Graduate program Email: harel.shouval at gmail.com Web: https://med.uth.edu/nba/faculty/harel-shouval/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dengdehao at gmail.com Wed Jul 12 06:14:33 2017 From: dengdehao at gmail.com (Teng Teck Hou) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2017 18:14:33 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: [INNS-BDDL 2018] Call for Papers Message-ID: <00c301d2faf7$a9b80040$fd2800c0$@gmail.com> [Apologies for cross-postings] ########################################################### CALL FOR PAPERS The 3rd INNS Conference on Big Data and Deep Learning 2018 April 17-19, 2018, Bali, Indonesia Homepage: http://www.innsbigdata2018.org #######################Description:###################### The International Neural Network Society (INNS) is the premiere organization for individuals interested in a theoretical and computational understanding of the brain and applying that knowledge to develop new and more effective forms of machine intelligence. INNS was formed in 1987 by the leading scientists in the neural network field. Researchers and colleagues who work in the area of big data and machine learning, we are happy to announce "The 3 rd INNS Conference on Big Data and Deep Learning 2018 (INNS BDDL 2018) will be held on April 18 ? 19, 2018 in Sanur ? Bali, Indonesia. The aim of this conference is to create a valuable and important forum for scientists and engineers throughout the world to present the latest research findings and idea at the forefront of Big Data and Deep Learning. Accepted papers will be published by Elsevier, Scopus indexed. Several papers will be selected for possible publication in top journals. The conference will feature a comprehensive technical program with technical tracks on: Track 1: Big Data Track 2: Big Data Algorithms Track 3: Deep Learning Track 4: Application Areas Important Dates ################################################################### * Tutorial and workshop proposals (Submission) 15 September 2017 * Tutorial and workshop proposals (Decision) 30 September 2017 * Paper submission 2 November 2017 * Decision notification 31 December 2017 * Conference 17 - 19 April 2018 ################################################################### Previous INNS Conference: INNS 2016 in Thessaloniki, Greece INNS 2015 in San Francisco, USA #################### Organizing committees ############### General chairs Seiichi Ozawa, Kobe University, Japan Ah-Hwee Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Program Chairs Plamen P. Angelov, Lancaster University, UK Asim Roy, Arizona State University, USA Mahardhika Pratama, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Local Committee Chairs Dieky Adzkiya, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Advisory Board Yew-Soon Ong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Robert Kozma, University of Memphis, USA Sankar K. Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, India Haibo He, University of Rhode Island, USA Witold Pedrycz, University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada Leszek Rutkowski, Czestochowa University of Technology, Poland Nikola Kasabov, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Fernando Gomide, University of Campinas, Brazil Marley Vellasco, Pontif?cia Universidade Cat?lica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Yoonsuck Choe, Texas A&M University Minho Lee, Kyungpook National University, South Korea Bao-Liang Lu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Irwin King, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong kong Mohammad Nuh, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Joni Hermana, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Heru Setyawan, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Tutorials/Workshop Chairs Igor Skrjanc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Sundaram Suresh, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Poster Sessions Chairs Eko Setiadji, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Agus Salim, La Trobe University, Australia Special Sessions Chairs Justin Wang, La Trobe University, Australia Yongping Pan, National University of Singapore, Singapore Panel Chairs Sreenatha Anavatti, University of New South Wales, Australia Mukesh Prasad, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Achmad Affandi, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Awards Chairs Tapabrata Ray, University of New South Wales, Australia Dejan Dovzan, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Richard J. Oentaryo, McLaren Applied Technologies, Singapore Publication Chairs Edwin Lughofer, Johannes Kepler University, Austria Jose Antonio Iglesias, Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain Moamar Sayed?Mouchaweh, Institute Mines Telecom Lille Douai, France Publicity Chair Simone Scardapane, Sapienza University, Italy Teng Teck Hou, Singapore Management University, Singapore Hendro Nurhadi, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia International Liaison Chairs Yun Sing Koh, University of Auckland, New Zealand Deepak Puthal, University of Technology Sydney, Australia Wirawan, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Webmaster Mohamad Abdul Hady, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Andri Ashfahani, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia Choiru Za?in, La Trobe University, Australia ###### Topics and Areas include, but not limited to the following###### >>BIG DATA Autonomous, online, incremental learning in big data High dimensional data, feature selection, feature transformation for big data Scalable algorithms for big data Big data analytics Data stream analytics Parallel & distributed computing for big data analytics (cloud, map-reduce, etc.) Online learning Online multimedia/stream/text analytics Link and graph mining Big data and cloud computing, large scale stream processing on the cloud Big data and collective intelligence/collaborative learning Big data and hybrid systems Big data and self-aware systems Big data and infrastructure Big data visualization >>Big Data Algorithm Neuromorphic hardware for scalable machine learning Evolving systems for big data analytics Evolutionary systems and big data Fuzzy systems and big data Cognitive modelling and big data Probabilistic approach for big data Concept drift detection for big data Granular computing for big data Transfer learning for big data >>Deep Learning Deep belief network Convolutional neural network Long short term memory Deep network architecture Deep autoencoder Deep stacked network Deep learning for natural language processing Deep learning for machine vision Evolving deep network Transfer learning in deep learning Online deep learning >>Application Areas Banking and Securities Communications, Media and Entertainment Healthcare Providers Education Manufacturing & Natural Resources Government Insurances Retail & Wholesale Trade Transportation Energy & Utilities, Etc. ##########################Sponsoring Organizations########################## * INNS - International Neural Network Society * MTC - Mechatronic Technology Center, Institut Tecknologi Sepuluh Nopember ############################################################################ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From v.steuber at herts.ac.uk Wed Jul 12 06:39:25 2017 From: v.steuber at herts.ac.uk (Steuber, Volker) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2017 10:39:25 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Vice Chancellor's 5-year Research Fellowship in Biocomputation, Mental Health and Wellbeing (University of Hertfordshire, U.K.) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1499855958631.14306@herts.ac.uk> Research Fellow: Biocomputation, Mental Health and Wellbeing University of Hertfordshire - School of Computer Science Location: Hatfield Salary: ?32,004 to ?38,183 Grade 7 p.a. Hours: Full Time Contract Type: Fixed-Term/Contract Placed on: 27th June 2017 Closes: 21st August 2017 Job Ref: 014834 FTE 1.0 FTE working 37 hours per week Duration of Contract: Fixed term contract 5 years from October 2017 Qualifications required: Very strong PhD degree in a quantitative research-oriented discipline, examples are computer science, mathematics, physics and neuroscience; excellent programming skills in at least one major computer language (essential), and very strong mathematical background, with particular emphasis on areas such as computer algebra, Krohn-Rhodes algebraic automata theory and language theory, discrete/continuous/constructive dynamical systems theory, group theory, algebraic topology, information theory, probability theory and statistics, and mathematical methods for computational intelligence. Background in computational neuroscience, including processing and analysis of EEG data, especially EEG microstates, is highly desirable. Experience writing high-quality research publications (essential) and grant applications (desirable), as well as excellent communication skills (essential). Successful history of working in multidisciplinary teams (highly desirable). Description of the research activity and area: Algorithms and Biocomputation are growing areas of research excellence at the University of Hertfordshire. This Fellowship targets the development and application of our novel computational and mathematical methods (e.g., automata-, language-theoretic and algebraic methods; computational mechanics and Krohn-Rhodes computational algebraic biology) to biological systems. The Research Fellow will support ongoing and future work characterizing the neurodynamical spatio-temporal structure of human mental states led by Professor Chrystopher L. Nehaniv and external collaborator Dr Elena Antonova (Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King?s College London). Our current BIAL Foundation grant focuses on using EEG microstate ?grammars? to distinguish different mental states in expert meditators. EEG microstates are quasi-stable maps of electric potential landscapes of short duration, typically classed in a small number of discrete types analogous to ?letters? of an alphabet. The tendency for simple EEG microstate transitions between certain pairs of these discrete types has already been shown to characterize clinical populations (people with schizophrenia or Alzheimer?s vs. healthy controls). Our current research targets finer understanding of richer temporal neurodynamical structure and patterns, using these novel computational methods, toward harnessing their potential eventually for applications in Health and Wellbeing as a diagnostic tool for different clinical populations. The Fellow will reinforce the established collaboration with KCL, supporting validation and development of our methods toward their eventual application in clinical diagnosis and mental illness prevention, as well as in promotion of wellbeing. The Fellow will be expected to publish in high-impact journals and present conference papers together with Professor Nehaniv and Dr Antonova, to contribute to writing grant applications to national and international funding bodies [e.g., Wellcome Trust, EPSRC/BBSRC/MRC, European Commission, and other funding agencies], and contribute to REF outputs of the School of Computer Science. In accord with the CONCORDAT for professional development of researchers, the candidate may be afforded the opportunity to undertake a limited amount of appropriate teaching (upon mutual agreement). The Royal Society / Wolfson Biocomputation Research Laboratory at the University of Hertfordshire has a long history of interdisciplinary innovation in computational methods for systems biology and neural systems, as well as applications of bioinspired-methods to other fields. It enjoys close interdisciplinary links to the Adaptive Systems and Algorithms Research Groups, whose interests include mathematical computer science, compilers, security, networks, artificial Intelligence robotics, artificial life, language acquisition, human-robot interaction, etc., and have labs equipped with humanoid and non-humanoid robots, as well as 3D printing facilities. External research connections to UK, European and international partners (e.g. University of California, Berkeley; Univ. Debrecen and Renyi Institute, Hungary; Sardex, Italy; etc) are supported through numerous research council and EC-funded collaborations and projects. Skills and experience needed: The Fellow will have established him/herself as an independent researcher, capable of establishing a programme of research activity within the scope of the project. S/he will have excellent oral and written communication skills in both spoken and written English and a track record of publications in high impact journals. The Fellow will be expected to build capacity in the area of Biocomputation and participate in attracting external funding, previous success being a desirable attribute. S/he should be able to establish good working relationships, and work closely with members of the Centre for Computer Science and Informatics Research and the School of Computer Science, at the University of Hertfordshire and with partner organisations as appropriate. The fellow should have knowledge of research methodology appropriate for the subject area and knowledge of appropriate databases for the discipline and ability to conduct literature searches in the discipline using appropriate electronic resources. Contact Details: Informal enquiries can be made to Professor Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, email: C.L.Nehaniv at herts.ac.uk tel: +44 1707 284470 The University offers a range of benefits including a pension scheme, professional development, family friendly policies, child care vouchers, a fee waiver of 50% for all children of staff under the age of 21 at the start of the course, discounted memberships at the Hertfordshire Sports Village and generous annual leave. To make a formal application, follow links and apply on-line: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BCH822/research-fellow-biocomputation-mental-health-and-wellbeing/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcobarilr at gmail.com Thu Jul 13 06:20:03 2017 From: marcobarilr at gmail.com (Marco Barilari) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 12:20:03 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position in Italy -- deadline approaching -- computational neuroscience, computational linguistics, brain plasticity, language processing in blind individuals. Message-ID: *Postdoctoral Position: *Language processing in blind individuals. Applications for a post-doctoral position are invited in the context of a joint research project between the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste and the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) in Trento (Italy). The project is funded by a PRIN grant from the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR). The project is dedicated to investigate the neural circuits involved in semantic processes and their plasticity, comparing sighted and blind individuals using *combined MEG/fMRI methodologies*. The project is coordinated by Prof. Davide Crepaldi [ http://www.davidecrepaldi.net] and Prof. Olivier Collignon [ https://sites.google.com/site/collignonlab/home]. SISSA and the CIMeC are ranked among the top research universities in Italy, and they both offer a friendly international environment with state-of-the-art research tools, including MRI, EEG, MEG, TMS, eye tracking, motion tracking, and access to neuropsychological patients. English is the official language at both institutions, where a large portion of the faculty, post-docs and students come from a wide range of countries. Moreover, both Trieste and the Trentino region are consistently at the top levels for quality of life, with fantastic nature (the Dolomite, lake Garda, the Triestinian Karst) and a vibrant cultural environment (Trento film festival, Christmas markets, la Barcolana, Trieste jazz festival). Two kinds of profiles are eligible for this position. The candidate may have experience in *computational neuroscience* with EEG/MEG and/or fMRI research, with strong skills and interest in methodological development (brain connectivity, pattern recognition, machine learning, multivariate analysis). The candidate may also/either have experience in the field of *computational linguistics*, distributional semantics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Experience in research with special populations is a plus but not a necessity. We are seeking for candidates with clear potential for publication in high?impact neuroscience/experimental psychology journals, attention to details, and good attitude towards teamwork. Knowledge of Italian language is a bonus but not required. The commitment is for two years, with a competitive European-level salary, depending upon qualifications and experience. Ideal starting date would be around September 2017. The deadline for the application is *17/7/2017*. More specific information on the application process (and the official call) is available at this website: https://www.sissa.it/grants-collaborations-research-activities. Informal inquiries are most welcome with davide.crepaldi at sissa.it, and/or olivier.collignon at unitn.it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marlin at cs.umass.edu Thu Jul 13 11:19:45 2017 From: marlin at cs.umass.edu (Benjamin Marlin) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 11:19:45 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: JOB: Postdoctoral Research Associate-Machine Learning for Data Science at UMass Amherst Message-ID: <16211E83-6B94-4006-A7CB-A6F40DFADAD5@cs.umass.edu> The College of Information and Computer Sciences is looking for a Postdoctoral Research Associate to work in the Machine Learning for Data Science lab. For a complete position announcement including minimum qualifications and application instructions, please see: https://umass.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdetails.jsp?JOBID=86436 The University of Massachusetts Amherst is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer of women, minorities, protected veterans and individuals with disabilities and encourages applications from these and other protected group members. -Ben Marlin -- Benjamin M. Marlin Assistant Professor Co-Director, Machine Learning for Data Science Lab Director of Educational Programs, Center for Data Science College of Information and Computer Sciences University of Massachusetts Amherst Web: www.cs.umass.edu/~marlin eMail: marlin at cs.umass.edu From gianluca.baldassarre at gmail.com Thu Jul 13 12:48:28 2017 From: gianluca.baldassarre at gmail.com (Gianluca Baldassarre ) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 18:48:28 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [meetings] IMOL2017: EXTENDED DEADLINE for posters and participation Message-ID: *** Apologies for cross-posting *** Dear colleagues, this mail is to inform you that *the deadline* of the call for participation and poster submission to "IMOL2017 ? Third International Workshop on Intrinsically Motivated Open-ended Learning" that will be held in Rome, October 4th-5th-6h, 2017, *has been extended from July 16th to July 23rd.* IMOL 2017 is the third international workshop on Intrinsically Motivated Open-ended Learning. Following previous editions, IMOL 2017 aims to further explore the promise of intrinsically motivated open-ended lifelong learning in robots and artificial systems. More info available at imol-conf.org and below. Best wishes, the organizers: Gianluca Baldassarre, Vieri Giuliano Santucci, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Andrew Barto ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- *IMOL2017 ? Third International Workshop on Intrinsically Motivated Open-ended Learning* Organizers: Gianluca Baldassarre, Vieri Giuliano Santucci, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Andrew Barto We are pleased to announce the ?Third International Workshop on Intrinsically-Motivated Open-ended Development (IMOL2017)?, which will be held in Rome, Italy, on 4-5-6 October 2017 in a beautiful central location . All information regarding the workshop, including an extended description of the its scope, can be found in the website imol-conf.org Following two previous workshops, the highly focused ?Third International Workshop on Intrinsically-Motivated Open-ended Development (IMOL2017)? aims to further explore the promise of intrinsically motivated open-ended lifelong learning. The workshop aims to be a highly interactive event. To this purpose, it will feature high profile keynote presentations and the participation of an audience of about 60 people. It will foster close interaction among the participants by enabling intense peer-to-peer discussions, poster sessions, and collective round tables directed toward specific objectives. It will take place at a lovely venue in the center of Rome fostering interactions, with evenings devoted to autonomous exploration of the city. It will be followed by a call for papers to be published in an open journal special issue (e.g. a Frontiers in Neurorobotics Research Topic). *Aims of the Workshop* The Workshop will occur over three whole days, with the last session of each day dedicated to a plenary discussion targeting three important topics: (1) The identification of the most important open challenges in the field of autonomous open-ended lifelong learning, with the aim of compiling a list of high-impact goals identified as important next-steps. (2) The definition of one or more benchmarks for evaluating models and architectures for autonomous open-ended learning (at a later date, an open competition will be held based on the benchmark). (3) The identification of the most promising approaches and techniques to tackle the open challenges identified under point (1). *Topics of interest* - Autonomous robots lifelong learning - Multi-task reinforcement learning - Deep reinforcement learning - Intrinsic motivations - Curriculum learning - Goal self-generation - Multiple task solution and parameterized skills - Neural/probabilistic representations and abstractions Architectures for open-ended learning - Goal-based skill learning - Knowledge transfer and avoidance of catastrophic forgetting - Compositionality and chunking - Hierarchies of goals and skills - Mitigating risks of real-world deployment of open-ended learning systems *Current list of invited speakers* - Baldassarre, Gianluca - Barto, Andrew - Bellemare, Marc - Calinon, Sylvain - Cangelosi, Angelo - Konidaris, George - Merrick, Kathryn - Natale, Lorenzo - O?Regan, Kevin - Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves - Peters, Jan - Polani, Daniel - Reinhart, Felix - Rolf, Matthias - Ruecker, Elmar - Santucci, Vieri Giuliano - Stulp, Freek - Triesch, Jochen - Uchibe, Eiji *Call for Application* Participation in the workshop is free of charge and includes the lunches for the three days. However, the workshop is limited to a restricted number of people given the capacity of the venue and the aim of the event. Prospective attendees should express their interest in participating by submitting the form downloadable from the link below, and their willingness (or not) to contribute a poster. In this case, people is also invited to submit a short/extended abstract (max 2 pages), possibly including figures. The submissions will be selected on the basis of the quality and of how well they fit the workshop?s aims. Both senior and young researchers, including Ph.D. students, are encouraged to submit to ensure a full representation of the community. Moreover, applicants are also requested to indicate in the form their willingness to participate in a special issue in Frontiers in Neurorobotics. This request aims to investigate the overall interest for the initiative, which will be followed by a standard Frontiers call after the workshop. *Application deadline: [EXTENDED] July 23th, 2017Notification of acceptance: July 27th, 2017* Please submit the form downloadable here and the optional abstract (subject: ?IMOL2017 submission: name, last name?) to: imol.conf at gmail.com -- .|.CS...|.......|...............|..|......US.|||.|||||.||.||||..|...|....... Gianluca Baldassarre, Ph.D., Laboratory of Computational Embodied Neuroscience, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (LOCEN-ISTC-CNR), Via San Martino della Battaglia 44, I-00185 Roma, Italy E-mail: gianluca.baldassarre at istc.cnr.it Web: http://www.istc.cnr.it/people/gianluca-baldassarre Tel: +39 06 44 595 231 Fax: +39 06 44 595 243 Motto: 'Learn from the past, live in(tensely) the present, dream for the future' Life mission statement: 'Serve humanity through core knowledge' ...CS.|||.||.|||.||..|.......|........|...US.|.|....||..|..|......|......... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de Thu Jul 13 14:18:41 2017 From: florian.roehrbein at in.tum.de (Florian Roehrbein) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 20:18:41 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Calls for Expression of Interest Message-ID: The Human Brain Project (HBP) aims to bring a large number of users to the HBP-Joint Platform to make it even more attractive for the external science community and to foster new collaborations across the full width of the HBP?s Subprojects (including Neurorobotics). To achieve this, a substantial amount of funding is available in the next two-year funding period for partner organisations to help contribute. The HBP is asking potential new Partners to submit proposals that will directly contribute to the development of the HBP Platforms and increase the scope of their application, in terms of neuroscience and clinical research. The selected Partners will become full Partners in the HBP Consortium. The projects will run from April 2018 to March 2020. Please note that for some of the CEoIs, current Partners of the HBP Consortium are explicitly invited to write a proposal with new Partners and apply together. For all details see https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/collaborate/open-calls ---------------------------------------------------------- Priv.-Doz. Dr. Florian Roehrbein Program Director HBP Neurorobotics http://neurorobotics.net/ Technical University of Munich Department of Informatics VI Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748 Garching, Germany -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aw665 at cam.ac.uk Thu Jul 13 17:43:43 2017 From: aw665 at cam.ac.uk (Adrian Weller) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 17:43:43 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Clarification on format: Reliable Machine Learning in the Wild at ICML 2017, deadline 17 July Message-ID: <04f901d2fc21$19a045a0$4ce0d0e0$@cam.ac.uk> Papers submitted to the workshop should be up to four pages long excluding references and in ICML 2017 format. *Authors with a relevant submission to the main conference of either ICML or NIPS are invited to submit their paper as is.* Thanks, Dylan, Jacob, Smitha and Adrian From: Adrian Weller [mailto:aw665 at cam.ac.uk] Sent: Sunday, July 9, 2017 6:49 PM Cc: 'Dylan Hadfield-Menell' ; 'Jacob Steinhardt' ; 'Smitha Milli' Subject: CfP: Reliable Machine Learning in the Wild at ICML 2017, deadline 17 July Final call for Papers for ICML 2017 Workshop on Reliable Machine Learning in the Wild, please forward to others who may have interest. Workshop website https://sites.google.com/site/wildml2017icml/ When can we trust that a system that has performed well in the past will continue to do so in the future? Designing systems that are reliable in the wild is essential for high stakes applications such as self-driving cars and automated surgical assistants. This workshop aims to bring together researchers in diverse areas such as reinforcement learning, human-robot interaction, game theory, cognitive science, and security to further the field of reliability in machine learning. We will focus on three aspects - robustness (to adversaries, distributional shift, model misspecification, corrupted data); awareness (of when a change has occurred, when the model might be miscalibrated, etc.);and adaptation (to new situations or objectives). We aim to consider each of these in the context of the complex human factors that impact the successful application or meaningful monitoring of any artificial intelligence technology. Together, these will aid us in designing and deploying reliable machine learning systems. We are seeking submissions that deal with the challenges of reliably applied machine learning techniques in the real world. Some possible questions touching on each of these categories are given below, though we also welcome submissions that do not directly fit into these categories. * Robustness: How can we make a system robust to novel or potentially adversarial inputs? What are ways of handling model mis-specification or corrupted training data? What can be done if the training data is potentially a function of system behavior or of other agents in the environment (e.g. when collecting data on users that respond to changes in the system and might also behave strategically)? * Awareness: How do we make a system aware of its environment and of its own limitations, so that it can recognize and signal when it is no longer able to make reliable predictions or decisions? Can it successfully identify "strange" inputs or situations and take appropriately conservative actions? How can it detect when changes in the environment have occurred that require re-training? How can it detect that its model might be mis-specified or poorly-calibrated? * Adaptation: How can machine learning systems detect and adapt to changes in their environment, especially large changes (e.g. low overlap between train and test distributions, poor initial model assumptions, or shifts in the underlying prediction function)? How should an autonomous agent act when confronting radically new contexts? * Monitoring: How can we monitor large-scale systems in order to judge if they are performing well? If things go wrong, what tools can help? * Value Alignment: For systems with complex desiderata, how can we learn a value function that captures and balances all relevant considerations? How should a system act given uncertainty about its value function? Can we make sure that a system reflects the values of the humans who use it? * Reward Hacking: How can we ensure that the objective of a system is immune to reward hacking? Reward hacking is a way that the system can attain high reward that was unintended by the system designer. For example see https://blog.openai.com/faulty-reward-functions/ * Human Factors: Actual humans will be interacting and adapting to these systems when they are deployed. How do properties of humans affect the guarantees of performance that the system has? What if the humans are suboptimal or even adversarial? How to submit Papers submitted to the workshop should be up to four pages long excluding references and in ICML 2017 format. They should be submitted via Easychair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rmlw17 . As the review process is not blind, authors can reveal their identity in their submissions. Accepted submissions will be presented as posters or talks. We will accept submissions at two deadlines. One earlier deadline, with an earlier acceptance notification, and one later one. Our goal is to allow for late submission to the extent that we can, while still allowing some people to get early confirmation of paper acceptance, which they might need in order to arrange travel in time. Important Dates: Submission deadline 1: 16 June 2017 Acceptance notification 1: 1 July 2017 Submission deadline 2: 17 July 2017 Acceptance notification 2: 31 July 2017 Final camera-ready versions of accepted papers: 5 August 2017 Workshop: 11 August 2017 Thank you, Dylan, Jacob, Smitha and Adrian ---------------------------------------------- Adrian Weller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From J.Verhoef at donders.ru.nl Fri Jul 14 07:10:09 2017 From: J.Verhoef at donders.ru.nl (Verhoef, J.P. (Julia)) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 11:10:09 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Three Positions in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' (0.8-1.0 FTE) Message-ID: <11E9E0B371DBAE4EB859A9CC30606A0407EF25CC@exprd04.hosting.ru.nl> Three Positions in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' (0.8-1.0 FTE) Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' Vacancy number: 30.06.17 Application deadline: September 10, 2017, 23.59 CET [Logo][Logo NWO] Responsibilities We are looking for highly motivated candidates to enrich a unique research consortium aiming to unravel the neurocognitive mechanisms of language at multiple levels. The goal is to understand both the universality and the variability of the human language faculty from genes to behaviour. Currently, our consortium advertises 2 Postdoc positions and 1 RA position. These positions provide the opportunity for conducting world-class research as a member of an interdisciplinary team. Each position has its own requirements and profile. Click here for more information on the advertised positions. www.languageininteraction.nl/jobs/BQthird.html Work environment The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. The Language in Interaction research consortium, sponsored by a large grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language. In addition to excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition, our consortium provides state-of-the-art research facilities and a research team with ample experience in the complex research methods that will be invoked to address the scientific questions at the highest level of methodological sophistication. These include methods from genetics, neuroimaging, computational modelling, and patient-related research. This consortium realises both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else. We have identified five Big Questions (BQ) that are central to our understanding of the human language faculty. These questions are interrelated at multiple levels. Teams of researchers will collaborate to collectively address these key questions of our field. Our five Big Questions are: BQ1: The nature of the mental lexicon: How to bridge neurobiology and psycholinguistic theory by computational modelling? BQ2: What are the characteristics and consequences of internal brain organization for language? BQ3: Creating a shared cognitive space: How is language grounded in and shaped by communicative settings of interacting people? BQ4: Variability in language processing and in language learning: Why does the ability to learn language change with age? How can we characterise and map individual language skills in relation to the population distribution? BQ5: How are other cognitive systems shaped by the presence of a language system in humans? Successful candidates will be appointed at one of the consortium?s home institutions, depending on the position applied for. All successful candidates will become members of our Big Question teams. The research is conducted in an international setting at all participating institutions. English is the lingua franca. What we expect from you Each position has its own requirements and profile. More information on: www.languageininteraction.nl/jobs/BQthird.html General requirements for all positions are: ? a degree in one of the fields indicated for the positions; ? strong motivation; ? excellent proficiency in written and spoken English. What we have to offer ? employment: 0.8-1.0 FTE; ? you will be appointed at one of the consortium's home institutions, depending on the position applied for; ? terms of employment depend on the embedding institution; ? the institutes involved have regulations in place that enable their staff to create a good work-life balance. Other Information All institutes involved are equal opportunity employers, committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community, and as such encourage applications from women and minorities. Would you like to know more? Further information on: the Language in Interaction Consortium Further information on the different positions, including terms of employment and contacts. Additional information can be obtained from the contacts for the different positions. Are you interested? You should upload your application (attn. of Prof. dr. P. Hagoort) using the button 'Apply'. Your application should include (and be limited to) the following attachments: ? a cover letter quoting at the top the number of the position you apply for, ? your curriculum vitae, including a list of publications and the names of at least two persons who can provide references. Please apply before September 10, 2017, 23:59 CET. For more information on your application: +31 24 3611173. No commercial propositions please. Big Question 1 Scientific summary The big question this project addresses is how to use computational modelling to link levels of description, from neurons to cognition and behaviour, in understanding the language system. We focus on the mental lexicon and aim to characterise its structure in a way that is precise and meaningful in neurobiological and psycholinguistic terms. Our overarching goal is to devise causal/explanatory models of the mental lexicon that can explain neural and behavioural data. This will significantly deepen our understanding of the mental lexicon, lexical access, and lexical acquisition. Postdoc Position - BQ1-1 Content Description The key question addressed in this project is how to learn word vector representations that encode the combinatorial properties of words required to account for complex linguistic phenomena. Current distributional semantics models typically ignore the hierarchical structure of the sentences in which they occur. They yield word representations that capture semantic similarity among concrete nouns and verbs very well, but have less to say about more abstract semantic and syntactic properties. In contrast, in all major frameworks in theoretical linguistics, the lexicon contains rich information about each word: not only about its (referential) semantics, but also about its morphosyntactic category and other combinatorial properties. In this project we study, in machine-learned vector-space models, the concrete linguistic phenomena that have motivated the properties of existing linguistic formalisms (such as CCG, TAG, HPSG, CxG, Simpler Syntax, GB, and MG). The project will first identify among those linguistic phenomena the ones most useful for evaluating the vector-space models. We will then work on techniques to investigate how these existing neural models deal with the phenomena in question, and, importantly, how to quantify the performance of these models on these phenomena. Requirements You should have a PhD degree (or equivalent) in (computational) linguistics, or another relevant field of study. A strong background in syntax, formal semantics and/or parsing is required: you should be familiar with various formalisms for lexical and compositional semantics and syntax, and with a range of linguistic phenomena that motivate these formalisms. Knowledge of methods in distributional semantics and machine learning for Natural Language Processing is desirable, as is previous experience with vector space models of semantic compositionality. An active interest in the cognitive science and neuroscience of language is essential. Preference will be given to candidates whose profile stands out in comparison with international peers. Embedding and Terms of employment You will be based at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, at the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. * Employment: 1.0 FTE; * in addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus; * a maximum gross monthly salary of ?4,757 based on a 38-hour working week (salary scale 11); * you will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 30 months. * the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of Dutch Universities is applicable to this position; * you will be classified as a Researcher, Level 3 in the Dutch university job-ranking system (UFO); * the institute involved has regulations in place that enable its staff to create a good work-life balance. Further information about position BQ1-1: Please contact: Dr. Willem Zuidema (zuidema at uva.nl) and Raquel Fern?ndez (raquel.fernandez at uva.nl) Big Question 4 Scientific summary We aim to characterise variation in language processing and learning skills and to determine how these variations relate to those in the underlying biology of individual participants. The project has two strands: Strand A focuses on language processing skills in young adults, and Strand B on language learning skills in children and adults. Strand A will develop a comprehensive battery of language tasks targeting sound, meaning, and grammatical processing of words and longer utterances during speaking and listening. In addition, tasks will be selected or developed assessing general cognitive skills that are likely to affect performance in language tasks. Strand B uses variability in learning ability to investigate why second-language acquisition can become harder in adulthood. It will consist of two sub-projects, one on grammar learning and one on word learning. In each sub-project, a large number of child, adolescent and adult Dutch participants (aged 8-30 years) will be tested using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques. The main research questions are: (a) Why do some individuals find it easier to learn language? and (b) Which aspects of language learning change with age, and why? Two four-year full-time positions are currently open in Strand B. The preferred starting date for both positions is November 1st 2017. Postdoc Position ? BQ4-1 Content Description You will have two primary responsibilities. The first is to coordinate and manage Strand B as a whole (e.g. interfacing between research assistants and senior researchers, planning experiment preparation, data collection and data analysis, and coordinating joint work with Strand A). The second responsibility is to develop, conduct and manage the sub-project within Strand B on grammar learning. The behavioural tasks in this sub-project will include a battery of cognitive tests, the battery of language tasks generated by Strand A, measures of English proficiency, and, critically, a training task on a new aspect of grammar. Neuroimaging will include functional MRI and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). The goal is to characterise variability in grammar learning abilities by linking performance on the training task to the other behavioural data and to the functional and structural neural measures. This postdoctoral position will enable you to advance your scientific career. Requirements You should ? have a PhD degree (or equivalent) in the cognitive neuroscience of language learning or of human memory, or in a closely-related field of study. ? be familiar, ideally, with running MRI experiments and with analysing MRI data (including DTI data), with carrying out psycholinguistic and/or learning experiments, with research on individual differences, and with testing children. ? have excellent organisational and communication skills and programming abilities. ? have knowledge and hands-on experience in current data analyses techniques. ? have demonstrable interest in language acquisition and the cognitive neuroscience of language. ? be a proficient speaker of Dutch. Applications from excellent candidates with a less than ideal profile will also be considered. Women and members of minority groups are especially encouraged to apply. Embedding and Terms of employment You will be based at the Donders Institute - Centre for Cognition, Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. ? Employment: 1.0 FTE; ? in addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus; ? a maximum gross monthly salary of ?4,757 based on a 38-hour working week (salary scale 11); ? you will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 30 months. ? the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of Dutch Universities is applicable to this position; ? you will be classified as a Researcher, Level 3 in the Dutch university job-ranking system (UFO); ? the institute involved has regulations in place that enable its staff to create a good work-life balance. Further information about position BQ4-1 Please contact: Prof. James McQueen (j.mcqueen at donders.ru.nl), Dr. Kristin Lemh?fer (k.lemhofer at donders .ru.nl) or Dr. Gabriele Janzen (gabriele.janzen at donders.ru.nl). Research Assistant Position ? BQ4-2 Content Description You will support the postdoc and other staff with the research of Strand B of Big Question 4. Tasks will include (a) the preparation of materials for experiments, (b) the recruitment of a large sample of child, adolescent and adult participants, (c) the collection of behavioural and MRI data from those participants, (c) the archiving of those data, and, possibly, (d) some aspects of data analysis. You will work in the team of researchers engaged in Strand B and, more broadly, coordinate with those working on Strand A. You will work not only on the grammar-learning sub-project (see advertised postdoc position BQ4-1) but also on the other sub-project of Strand B, which is on word learning. You will take part in a novel and exciting project designed to address why there are individual differences in language learning ability. This position will enable you to advance your career in science (e.g. it will be excellent preparation for a PhD). Requirements You should ? have completed, with good grades, a Bachelor?s or (Research) Master?s degree in psychology, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, or a closely-related field of study. ? be familiar, ideally, with running experiments with human subjects (MRI experiments and/or behavioural experiments in psycholinguistics and/or human memory and/or individual differences). ? have experience with testing large numbers of participants. Experience with testing children would be especially welcome. ? have excellent organizational and communicative skills and programming abilities. ? have demonstrable interest in language acquisition and the cognitive neuroscience of language. ? be a proficient speaker of Dutch. It would be preferred if you had experience with analysis of large datasets on behavioural and/or neuroimaging measures. Applications from excellent candidates with a less than ideal profile will also be considered. Women and members of minority groups are especially encouraged to apply. Embedding and Terms of employment You will be based at the Donders Institute, RadboudUMC, Nijmegen, Netherlands. ? Employment: 0.8-1.0 FTE; ? in addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus; ? a maximum gross monthly salary of ?2,980 based on a 36-hour working week (salary scale 7); ? you will be appointed for a period of 24 months with possibilities for extension; ? the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of Dutch University Medical Centres is applicable to this position; ? the institute involved has regulations in place that enable its staff to create a good work-life balance. Further information about position BQ4-2 Please contact: Prof. James McQueen (j.mcqueen at donders.ru.nl), Dr. Kristin Lemh?fer (k.lemhofer at donders .ru.nl) or Dr. Gabriele Janzen (gabriele.janzen at donders.ru.nl). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 40202 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2461 bytes Desc: image002.jpg URL: From shuaili.sli at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 10:18:35 2017 From: shuaili.sli at gmail.com (Shuai Li) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 15:18:35 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers - The FICC 2018 at Singapore, Paper Submission Due: August 1st 2017 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018, 5-6 April 2018, Singapore Information and Communication is playing an increasing role in society and within our lives. Recognizing this, FICC 2018 aims to provide a forum for researchers from both academia and industry to share their latest research contributions, future vision in the field and potential impact across industries. This conference will feature paper presentations, poster presentations, tutorials, project demonstrations, as well as keynote speech by renowned technology experts and authorities. FICC is part of the SAI Conferences, a group of annual conferences produced by The Science and Information (SAI) Organization, based in the United Kingdom. Previous conferences include Future Technologies Conference (FTC) in San Francisco, Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) in London and Computing Conference in London. FICC 2018 aims to provide a forum for researchers from both academia and industry to share their latest research contributions, future vision in the field and potential impact across industries. Join us to explore discovery, progress, and achievements related to Communication, Data Science, Computing and Internet of Things. The conference program will include paper presentations, poster sessions and project demonstrations, along with prominent keynote speakers and industrial workshops. Proceedings will be published in IEEE Xplore and indexed in Scopus, IET Inspec and many more. Paper Submission Due : 01 August 2017 Acceptance Notification : 01 September 2017 Author Registration : 01 October 2017 Camera Ready Submission : 15 October 2017 For other details please visit: http://www.saiconference.com/FICC Should you have any other concern feel free to contact: Dr. Shuai Li University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Email: sl814 at cam.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From poma at mmmi.sdu.dk Fri Jul 14 12:33:48 2017 From: poma at mmmi.sdu.dk (Poramate Manoonpong) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:33:48 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: [job] PhD position available for proactive human-robot interaction, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Message-ID: <45ec7ac301dc4c329475433616dc97a2@mmmi.sdu.dk> PhD position available for proactive human-robot interaction, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark The Embodied AI and Neurorobotics invites, part of Centre for BioRobotics (CBR) at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at the University of Southern Denmark, is offering: One PhD positions starting from September 1, 2017. Applications are invited from candidates with a master's degree. The candidate will focus on developing embodied neural mechanisms for multi-sensory integration, proactive robot control, and action sequence learning for proactive human-robot interaction in Welfare domain. The candidate will also be part of our project Health-CAT: "Health Care Assisting Technology" recently funded by the Interreg program. A part of the project aims to develop high-level (neural) control of a mobile service robot to efficiently assist and interact with people/nurses in hospital environments. The successful candidate will be expected to have an academic university degree in the field of artificial intelligence, computer science, control system engineering, robotics, or a quantitative field. A background in multi-sensory integration, machine learning, dynamic neural fields, complex signal processing, hardware implementation, and robotics as well as good programming skills (e.g., ROS, C, C++, MatLab, Java) are desirable. Further information is available from Associate Professor Poramate Manoonpong (email: poma at mmmi.sdu.dk ). Please refer to the official advert [1] for application details and guideline. The deadline for applications via the online system [1] is 30/07/2017. [1] http://www.sdu.dk/da/service/ledige_stillinger Best regards Poramate Manoonpong Associate Professor SDU Embodied Systems for Robotics and Learning, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute T +45 65 50 86 98 poma at mmmi.sdu.dk University of Southern Denmark Campusvej 55 DK-5230 Odense M www.sdu.dk [http://cdn.sdu.dk/img/sdulogos/SDU_BLACK_signatur.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 1388 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: From poma at mmmi.sdu.dk Fri Jul 14 12:48:07 2017 From: poma at mmmi.sdu.dk (Poramate Manoonpong) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:48:07 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: [jobs] Postdoc position available for proactive human-robot interaction, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Message-ID: <2836a41ec93a4959ac7d1b83af4e7dbe@mmmi.sdu.dk> Postdoc position available for Proactive Human-robot Interaction The Embodied AI and Neurorobotics (ENS) Lab (http://ens-lab.sdu.dk/), part of Centre for BioRobotics (CBR) at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at the University of Southern Denmark, is offering a postdoc position starting from September 2017 or as soon as possible thereafter, for up to three years. The postdoc will focus on developing embodied neural mechanisms for multi-sensory integration, proactive robot control, and action sequence learning for proactive human-robot interaction in Welfare domain. The postdoc will also be part of our project Health-CAT: "Health Care Assisting Technology" recently funded by the Interreg program. A part of the project aims to develop high-level (neural) control of a mobile service robot to efficiently assist and interact with people/nurses in hospital environments. The successful candidates will be expected to have 1) a PhD degree in artificial intelligence, computer science, control system engineering, robotics, computational neuroscience, or a quantitative field. 2) articles published in international peer-reviewed journals documenting experience with neural dynamics, learning and adaptation in neural systems, dynamic neural fields, sensor fusion, multisensory integration, complex signal processing, mobile robot control, sequence learning. 3) strong background on - multi-sensory integration, machine learning, dynamic neural fields, complex signal processing, hardware implementation, and robotics. 4) good programming skills (e.g., ROS, C, C++, MatLab, Java). Additionally, the candidate should have excellent writing skills and be able to work independently. The successful candidate for the position will be affiliated to the Embodied AI and Neurorobotics Lab at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, the University of Southern Denmark. Further information is available from Associate Professor Poramate Manoonpong (email: poma at mmmi.sdu.dk ). Please refer to the official advert [1] for application details and guideline. The deadline for applications via the online system [2] is 30/07/2017. [1] https://www.jobindex.dk/jobannonce/jobnet/7372149 [2] https://ssl1.peoplexs.com/Peoplexs22/CandidatesPortalNoLogin/ApplicationForm.cfm?CustomerCode=syd1&PortalID=3797&VacatureID=913900 Best regards Poramate Manoonpong Associate Professor SDU Embodied Systems for Robotics and Learning, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute T +45 65 50 86 98 poma at mmmi.sdu.dk University of Southern Denmark Campusvej 55 DK-5230 Odense M www.sdu.dk [http://cdn.sdu.dk/img/sdulogos/SDU_BLACK_signatur.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 1388 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: From matthieu.gilson at upf.edu Fri Jul 14 09:21:08 2017 From: matthieu.gilson at upf.edu (Matthieu Gilson) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 15:21:08 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop "Fingerprints of brain dynamics estimated from neuroimaging data" Message-ID: Dear all, We woul like to remind you about the following workshop at the CNS conference in Antwerp: https://matthieugilson.eu/workshop_CNS2017.html Best regards, Matthieu Gilson and Tim van Hartevelt -------------------------------- Fingerprints of brain dynamics estimated from neuroimaging data and application to discrimination between individuals, tasks and/or conditions CNS 2017 in Antwerp (Belgium) 19 July 2017 The functioning of the brain relies on detailed interactions between specialised neuronal subsystems, implementing joint segregation and integration of information such as sensory stimuli, memory tokens and intentions. Nowadays, neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, EEG, MEG, etc.) provide indirect measurements of the neuronal activity at the whole-brain level. Recent efforts have focused on extracting fingerprints of the measured brain dynamics to discriminate between tasks, conditions (e.g., sleep vs. awake) or individuals. For example, given a dynamic network model, whole-brain effective connectivity describes the interaction scheme between regions for each condition, which can be quantitatively compared. The goal of this workshop is to review both data-analysis methods and model-based approaches that have attacked this problem. Schedule: * *9.00am:* presentation of the workshop (Matthieu and Tim) * *9.15am:* Tim van Hartevelt (Oxford U, UK) replacing Henrique Fernandes (U Aarhus, Denmark): Brain fingerprints of structural connectivity in health and disease. * *9.45am:* Dante Mantini (KU Leuven, Belgium): Detecting large-scale brain networks using high-density electroencephalography * *10.15am:* coffee break (45 min) * *11.00am:* Demian Battaglia (INSERM, Marseille, France): Functional connectivity dynamics descriptors as fingerprints of cognitive aging * *11.30am:* Emily Finn (NIMH, Bethesda, USA): Can we manipulate brain state to emphasize individual differences in functional connectivity? * *12.00pm:* lunch * *2.00pm:* Joana Cabral (Oxford U, UK): Spontaneous switching between states of functional connectivity relates to cognitive performance in healthy older adults * *2.30pm:* Thomas Bolton (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland): Shedding light on resting-state dynamic functional network interactions by sparse coupled hidden Markov models * *3.00pm:* Karl Friston (UCL, London, UK): Dynamic causal modelling and network discovery * *3.30pm:* coffee break (30 min) * *4.00am:* Anish Mitra (U Washington, St Louis, USA): Structured temporal sequences in spontaneous human brain activity * *4.30pm:* Vicente Pallares (U Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain): Whole-brain effective connectivity from fMRI resting-state data discriminates between individuals * *5.00pm* concluding remarks -- Matthieu Gilson Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From d.polani at herts.ac.uk Fri Jul 14 23:21:03 2017 From: d.polani at herts.ac.uk (Daniel Polani) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 04:21:03 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Vice Chancellor's 5-year Research Fellowship: Information Theory for AI and Robotics Message-ID: <22889.35359.63377.519580@gargle.gargle.HOWL> //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Vice Chancellor's 5-year Research Fellowship Research Fellow in Information Theory for AI and Robotics School of Computer Science, College Lane, Hatfield //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Vacancy details: UH7: GBP 32,004 - GBP 38,183 per annum, dependent on skills and experience. FTE: Full Time, working 37 hours per week (1.0 FTE) Duration of Contract: 5 years from October 2017 Qualifications required: Very strong PhD degree in a quantitative research-oriented discipline, examples are computer science, mathematics or physics, excellent programming skills in at least one major computer language (essential), and very strong mathematical background, with particular emphasis on the areas of probabilistic modeling, information theory, and/or stochastic control. Description of the research activity and area: The research will comprise information-theoretic approaches to Artificial Intelligence and Robotics problems; this will include, but not be limited, to established routes such as intrinsic motivation generation, together with curious behaviour generation using informational principles, control under informational constraints, novel directions in utilizing information-theoretic methodologies for principled approaches to cognitive modeling, both for the theoretical analysis and the construction (in simulation or hardware) of intelligent sensorimotor systems. The research is based in the SEPIA (Sensor Evolution, Processing, Information and Actuation) unit, which has a very strong international profile in principled, especially informational, methods in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life. The group?s facilities include a RoboCup lab equipped with humanoid robots, playing fields, and 3D printing facilities; there will be the opportunity to collaborate with the RoboCup team, and EU Horizon 2020-funded projects socSMCs and WiMUST. The candidate is expected to regularly publish papers in high-tier outlets (journals and conferences) and contribute to the REF outputs of the School. In accord with the CONCORDAT for professional development of researchers, the candidate may be afforded the opportunity to undertake a limited amount of appropriate teaching (upon mutual agreement). Skills and experience needed: The Fellow will have established him/herself as an independent researcher, capable of establishing a programme of research activity within the scope of the project. S/he will have excellent oral and written communication skills in both spoken and written English and a track record of publications in high impact journals. The Fellow will be expected to build capacity in the area of Information Theory and participate in attracting external funding, previous success being a desirable attribute. S/he should be able to establish good working relationships, and work closely with members of the Centre and the broader School of Computer Science, at the University of Hertfordshire and with partner organisations as appropriate. The Fellow should have knowledge of research methodology appropriate for the subject area and knowledge of appropriate databases for the discipline and ability to conduct literature searches in the discipline using appropriate electronic resources. The University offers a range of benefits including a pension scheme, professional development, family friendly policies, child care vouchers, a fee waiver of 50% for all children of staff under the age of 21 at the start of the course, discounted memberships at the Hertfordshire Sports Village and generous annual leave. Pay scale : Uh Grade 07 Academic Contact person : Professor Daniel Polani Vacancy ID : 014833 Contact telephone : +44 1707 284380 Closing date : 21-Aug-2017 Contact email : d.polani at herts.ac.uk To make a formal application, follow links and apply on-line: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BCH970/research-fellow-information-theory-for-ai-and-robotics/ From mfasli at essex.ac.uk Sat Jul 15 11:38:55 2017 From: mfasli at essex.ac.uk (Fasli, Maria) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 15:38:55 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Final CFP Deadline: 23rd July; Frontiers and Advances in Analytics and Data Science Conference, Xian, 23-25 October 2017 Message-ID: **** Apologies for cross postings **** FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS ? DEADLINE 23RD JULY 1st International Conference on the Frontiers and Advances in Data Science (FADS) 23-25 October 2017, Xian, China http://www.fads.org.uk Our lives and society have been transformed by advances in modern information and communication technologies. Devices such as mobile phones and tablets and applications such as social networks have changed how we interact with the world around us and each other and the way we conduct business, government and science. With computational technologies permeating almost all aspects of human activity the amount of data being generated is constantly increasing and we are surrounded by a wealth of new forms of data. We are at the cusp of a new data and information revolution. This proliferation of data calls for novel, multi and interdisciplinary approaches in data science and analytics to tackle the problems that data pose. New approaches for harnessing data and drawing insights will bring huge benefits to fields as diverse as health, finance, running smarter cities, the environment, business and public policy. The First International Conference on Frontiers and Advances in Data Science (FADS) will bring together scientists, professionals, industry practitioners and users from range of disciplinary backgrounds and application domains to share knowledge and the latest developments in data science and analytics. We invite the submission of original and previously unpublished theoretical and practical work in all fields of data science and analytics including methodologies and techniques for big data. All submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee on the basis of novelty, technical quality, relevance to the conference theme, significance, and clarity of presentation. Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore and selected papers will be invited to a special Journal issue. Further information is available from the FADS 2017 website http://www.fads.org.uk FADS welcomes submissions on (but not limited to) the following topics: Data Science Foundations ? Machine Learning ? Mathematical and statistical models ? Novel theoretical models ? Computational Models ? Preprocessing and dimensionality reduction ? Efficiency and complexity ? Optimization Analytics ? Multi-stream reasoning and analytics ? Text analysis and mining ? Causal inference ? Visualisation ? Modelling complex and big data ? Personalisation analytics and recommender systems ? Social network analytics ? Multimedia/image processing and analytics ? Information retrieval and search ? Semantic information extraction and reasoning Data Infrastructure and Management ? New data standards ? Data cleansing ? Data integration ? Data sharing ? Data linkage ? Data curation and publishing ? Cloud/Grid/Stream Computing architectures ? Distributed and parallel/high performance processing ? Data warehouses ? Open platforms for analytics ? Big data architectures and platforms Security, governance and privacy ? Governance ? Intrusion, anomaly and threat detection ? Data integrity ? Data security and risk ? Trust and trust management ? Privacy preserving techniques and anonymisation ? Privacy protection standards and policies ? Legal aspects of analytics and big data Social and economic aspects ? Ethical considerations in the era of analytics and big data ? New business models ? Sociological aspects of analytics and big data ? Analytics and big data for sustainable development ? Analytics and big data for the social good ? Analytics and big data for the supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Applications ? Scientific applications of analytics and big data ? Internet of Things ? Internet of Persons ? Smart Cities and Transport ? Business and Finance Analytics ? Healthcare analytics and decision support ? Decision making and support systems ? Analytics and big data for policy making and the public sector ? Social networks and applications ? Industrial applications of analytics and big data ? Analytics for telecommunications and networks applications Important Dates Paper Submission deadline: 23rd July 2017 Notification of acceptance: 20th August 2017 Camera-ready Manuscript: 1st September 2017 Registration deadline: (for accepted papers): 10th September 2017 For more information please visit the FADS Conference webpage: http://www.fads.org.uk Conference Organisation General Chairs ? Prof Maria Fasli, UNESCO Chair in Analytics and Data Science, University of Essex ? Prof Peng Jinye, Dean of School of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University Program Chairs ? Prof Hangzai Luo, Northwest University, China ? Prof Frank Wang, University of Kent, UK ? Prof Mohammad Essaaidi, ENSYAS, Morocco ? Prof Bruce Bassett, University of Cape Town; AIMS, South Africa Contact Information fads at essex.ac.uk; iads at essex.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikkelsen.kaare at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 00:14:52 2017 From: mikkelsen.kaare at gmail.com (Kaare Mikkelsen) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 06:14:52 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Smart Brain Monitoring, University of Oxford Message-ID: (apologies for cross-posting) To whom it may concern: We are seeking a full-time Postdoctoral Research Assistant to join the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, in the Department of Engineering Science (Headington). The post is funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and is initially fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension. As part of a team developing novel technology and algorithms for monitoring brain activity, sleep and circadian patterns of patients with RBD and Parkinson?s in home settings, you will be responsible for designing a system for a user-friendly behind the ear sleep sensor with integrated analytics for long-term monitoring of electrical biomarkers, sleep and circadian rhythms at home. This work is undertaken as part of a collaboration with the neurology Department of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. You will have a PhD (or near completion) in a relevant computer science, engineering, maths or technology subject and will possess expertise in neuroscience, information engineering, signal processing, or a cognate discipline. You will have experience of working in a highly interdisciplinary team. Informal enquiries may be addressed to Professor Maarten De Vos ( maarten.devos at eng.ox.ac.uk). You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, including a brief statement of research interests (describing how past experience and future plans fit with the advertised position), CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application. Only applications received online before 12.00 noon on 16 August 2017 can be considered. The Department holds an Athena Swan Bronze award, highlighting its commitment to promoting women in Science, Engineering and Technology. *Contact: Professor Maarten de Vos * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From poirazi at imbb.forth.gr Mon Jul 17 01:54:04 2017 From: poirazi at imbb.forth.gr (Yiota Poirazi) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 08:54:04 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: Creating a list of the most important computational predictions Message-ID: Dear all, I believe you would agree that, the greatest recognition of our computational work comes with the experimental verification of our computational predictions. To highlight the most important outcomes of our theoretical work and facilitate a closer interaction with experimental labs so as to increase the chances of our predictions being experimentally tested, I would like to encourage you to nominate your favorite prediction at the following google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJZ2RrXJ0nZonIuyNzN0Cl gXDKDb7xTzoJOiqZTGxm9Kh7ow/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link This effort is already endorsed by the OCNS Board of directors and started yesterday during the CNS 2017 meeting in Antwerp. The resulting list will be posted on the CNS 2017 web site and disseminated in social media, as a reference for experimentalists. Thank you very much for supporting this important effort! Best wishes, Panayiota Poirazi -- Panayiota Poirazi, Ph.D. Research Director Computational Biology Laboratory Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) Foundation of Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) Vassilika Vouton, P.O.Box 1385, GR 70013, Heraklion, Crete GREECE Tel: +30 2810 391139 Fax: +30 2810 391101 ?mail: poirazi at imbb.forth.gr Lab site: www.dendrites.gr FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From masoud.ghodrati at monash.edu Mon Jul 17 04:17:11 2017 From: masoud.ghodrati at monash.edu (Masoud Ghodrati) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 18:17:11 +1000 Subject: Connectionists: Review article: Towards building a more complex view of the lateral geniculate nucleus: Recent advances in understanding its role Message-ID: Dear vision scientists, We would like to draw your attention to our recent review paper entitled "Towards building a more complex view of the lateral geniculate nucleus: Recent advances in understanding its role " published in Progress in Neurobiology, Jun 2017. We hope that this review can link different findings about the LGN function and opens new research avenues in the field. *Recent evidence shows that lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) has more sophisticated functions than a mere relaying hub. We provide a rather unfiltered and eclectic review of the LGN functions, with some focus on its computational role, as well as its role in higher level cognitive process (specifically higher level vision). **In particular, we argue that the LGN has a variety of complex nonlinear behaviors (perhaps the most interesting nonlinearity involves feedback from cortex). We suggest further development of feedback models of high-level vision considering the LGN function. Because of LGN?s contribution in temporal aspects of object processing, modeling LGN function particularly becomes more important when considering non-stationary stimuli (such as videos). Predictive coding and expectation coding models are in this direction.* Actual link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301008215300757 Here is authors? free PDF version of the manuscript: https://goo.gl/KCmUR7 Best -- *_____________________________________________________________* Masoud Ghodrati, Department of Physiology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. E-mails: masoud.ghodrati at monash.edu Web pages (Personal) : https://sites.google.com/site/masoudghodrati1985/ *_____________________________________________________________* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aschmidt at nld.ds.mpg.de Mon Jul 17 06:41:31 2017 From: aschmidt at nld.ds.mpg.de (Alexander Schmidt) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 12:41:31 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Only one week left: Summer school on Advanced Computational Neuroscience, Germany Message-ID: %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Advanced COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE Summer School in G?ttingen, Germany ?Neural circuit theories for primate cognition? September 02nd - 10th, 2017 *ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT --- REGISTRATION **DEADLINE *Ju**ly**2**3**, 201**7**** %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Please, feel free to distribute this email to students and postdocs potentially interested in the school. The aCNS school within the Advanced Computational Neuroscience School in the Emotion-Cognition-Link-Series is a *9**-day intensive course* in *mathematical and computational neuroscience*. It offers an intensive pedagogy of advanced mathematical and computational tools to students working in computational neuroscience and already familiar with its interdisciplinary nature and is designed to qualify young researchers to push the frontiers of the field. The following researchers are in charge of the 4 two-day theoretical blocks and 4 evening lectures: * Nicolas Brunel , /University of Chicago/, Chicago, USA * Alexander Gail , /German Primate Center/, G?ttingen, Germany * Raoul Memmesheimer , /University of Bonn/, Bonn, Germany * John Beggs , /University of //Indiana/, Bloomington, USA * Julia Fischer , /German Primate Center/, G?ttingen, Germany * Eckart Altenm?ller , /University for Music and Theater/, Hanover, Germany * Annekathrin Schacht , /University of G?ttingen/, G?ttingen, Germany * Georg Martius , /M//PI//for Intelligent Systems/, T?bingen, Germany The consecutive two day thematic blocks are dedicated to mathematical approaches to circuit dynamics. Each lecturer will give a self-contained introduction to a particular set of theoretical tools in a block of two morning lectures. In the afternoon, participants will work on problem sets designed to develop proficiency in both the mathematical and computational tools learned earlier that day. An additional set of evening ?easy? lectures will give the opportunity to discuss significant advances in the field. The course takes place at the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics of the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, G?ttingen. Registration fee is 200 ?. Course language is English. Housing is provided by the school. Travel grants can be applied for. *Only 15 participants will accepted. We invite applicants to apply by filling out the application form at:* *www.bccn-goettingen.de* *and have their reference letters submitted by *July 23, 2017*.* Best regards and looking forward to seeing you in G?ttingen, B. Feulner, D. Regel, A. Schmidt and J. Wilting (local committee, PhD students) on behalf of the course directors Prof. F. Wolf and Prof. A. Schacht -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: acns_poster_100dpi.png Type: image/png Size: 1148076 bytes Desc: not available URL: From juergen at idsia.ch Mon Jul 17 06:23:16 2017 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 12:23:16 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ERC Grant: Jobs for PostDocs & PhD Students at the Swiss AI Lab, IDSIA In-Reply-To: <74D7495B-FA5A-4DAE-B1DF-F058AAEA06E1@idsia.ch> References: <74D7495B-FA5A-4DAE-B1DF-F058AAEA06E1@idsia.ch> Message-ID: <6A5ED248-1217-4BBE-B258-AAB8695A0B2B@idsia.ch> In 2017 and 2018, we intend to hire numerous PhD students and postdocs on the ERC Advanced Grant "Recurrent Neural Networks and Related Machines That Learn Algorithms? and other grants. Blurb: Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are general parallel-sequential computers. Some learn their programs or weights. Our LSTM was the first RNN to win machine learning contests, and is now available to billions of users through the world's most valuable public companies, e.g., for speech recognition on over 2 billion smartphones, language translation, etc. Nevertheless, in lots of real-world tasks RNNs do not yet live up to their full potential. Although universal in theory, in practice they fail to learn certain important types of algorithms. This ERC project will go beyond today's best RNNs through novel RNN-like systems that address some of the biggest open RNN problems and hottest RNN research topics including attention & fast weights, RNN-based reinforcement learning, optimal transfer learning, and metalearning. We have direct access to the fastest supercomputer in the Western world (and the world's 3rd fastest, as of June 2017), with over 5000 GPUs, also based in Lugano, Switzerland. We don't want to rush it, and will take our time to find excellent collaborators. More details and instructions under http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/erc2017.html J?rgen Schmidhuber, Scientific Director, Swiss AI Lab, IDSIA Professor of AI, USI & SUPSI, Switzerland Chief Scientist, NNAISENSE http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/whatsnew.html . From naotsu at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 09:26:30 2017 From: naotsu at gmail.com (Naotsugu Tsuchiya) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 21:26:30 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position on integrated information theory at Tononi's lab Message-ID: Open positions July 7, 2017 Wisconsin Institute for Sleep and Consciousness Prof. Giulio Tononi University of Wisconsin?Madison Several postdoctoral positions are available at the Wisconsin Institute for Sleep and Consciousness in the laboratory of Prof. Giulio Tononi to study complex systems within the framework of integrated information theory (IIT). Immediate funding is available for a range of projects including the foundational development of IIT?s mathematical framework, the development of practical measures of integrated information, and their applications to complex systems (biological and artificial). Required: Strong training in an analytically rigorous discipline such as theoretical or computational biology/neuroscience, physics, mathematics, computer science, or engineering Programming experience (knowledge of MATLAB, Python, and/or C++ is of advantage) Preferred: Experience in information theory and complex systems Interest in the philosophy of causation Appointments are renewable from year to year for up to three years, starting as soon as possible or until the positions are filled. Postdoc salaries correspond to the National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award (NRSA) stipend schedule for postdoc trainees, based on number of years of postdoctoral experience. Candidates should send a CV, brief statement (500 words maximum) describing their research interests and potential role within the lab, and email addresses and phone numbers of three references to: Giulio Tononi, MD, PhD (gtononi at wisc.edu) For more information, contact Larissa Albantakis, PhD (albantakis at wisc.edu) or William Marshall, PhD (wmarshall3 at wisc.edu) -- -- *Nao (Naotsugu) Tsuchiya* Associate Professor *Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences* Attention and Memory Program School of Psychological Sciences Monash University 770 Blackburn Monash Brain Imaging facility, Clayton, VIC 3800 Australia T: +61 3 9905 4564 E: naotsugu.tsuchiya at monash.edu W: homepage: http://users.monash.edu.au/~naotsugt/Tsuchiya_Labs_Homepage http://med.monash.edu.au/psych/email-sig/miccn-email-sig.jpg 2. ARC Future Fellow 3. Visiting Researcher at Department of Dynamic Brain Imaging, Advanced Telecommunications Research (ATR), Japan 4. Visiting Researcher at CiNet, Osaka University, Japan orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-8701 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mathieu.daquin at insight-centre.org Mon Jul 17 11:13:36 2017 From: mathieu.daquin at insight-centre.org (Mathieu D'Aquin) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 16:13:36 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [CFP - Deadline Extension] Re-Coding Black Mirror workshop at ISWC 2017 - Vienna Message-ID: Call for papers Re-coding Black Mirror- https://kmitd.github.io/recoding-black-mirror/ Half day workshop at the 16th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2017) 22 October 2017, Vienna ** Deadline for submission extended to 28th July 2017 ** Black Mirror is a British sci-fi series directed by Charlie Brooker portraying a dystopian future emanating from the wide use of digital advancements. Even though Black Mirror?s episodes do not entirely rely on the widespread availability of existing technology, some of the advancements presented are not from such a distant future. The ethical and social implications emerging from the increasing reliance on digital media -partly depicted in the series- has been a longstanding debate in critical studies underlying issues around privacy, social control, social and individual justice and other key values around Democracy such as freedom of speech. Computer science has picked up on such kind of issues focusing mainly on privacy offering technical solutions such as privacy by design and encryption amongst other tools. Re-coding Black Mirror is a half-day workshop which aims at promoting a dialogue between semantic web researchers and social scientists to address emerging social phenomena from different perspectives looking at case scenarios similar to the ones depicted in Black Mirror and explore potential semantic solutions to societal and ethical challenges. It will also be a forum for raising opportunities of networking with scholars from different fields to explore novel research problems that can be relevant to both communities. TOPICS Re-coding Black Mirror is essentially about creating connections between researchers building semantic web technologies and interested in their potential future implication on society, and researchers studying such impact of technology interested in the societal and ethical risks of such technological advances. We therefore expect two different types of works to be presented at the workshop, as described below. We provide brief summaries of examples of what those kinds of work could be. Possible submissions are of course not restricted to those examples, but works addressing those scenarios would be very much welcome too. * Works showing how semantic web technologies can enable scenarios like the ones depicted in Black Mirror: Here we are looking at how ongoing research in the semantic web community could lead to technological advances similar to what is presented in one specific episode (or a set of episodes if it is a recurring trend). For example: - How could advances in semantically combining results in natural language processing and social media analysis lead to the ability to create a bot mimicking the personality of a dead person from their online contributions? (S2E1) - How could semantic technologies be used to integrate information about another person from multiple online sources (digital footprinting), providing a mean for stalking or even blackmailing them? (S3E3) * Works showing how semantic web technologies can be used to prevent or reduce the risks depicted in Black Mirror: Many of the episodes in Black Mirror rely on a practice and use of technology which is either unexpected in itself, or which consequences are unexpected. Here we are looking at how semantic web technologies could reduce those risks. For example: - How could relying on semantic relations between people and information about their network/context prevents the appearance of extreme cases in user ratings? (S3E1) - How could semantic content and network analysis be used to reduce or counter the spread of hate on social media? (S3E6) SUBMISSION Please submit your contribution to the workshop by July 28th 2017 (23:59 Hawaii time, extended deadline) through the easychair system (see [1]). We accept three categories of submissions: full papers (max 12 pages) on research and applied technologies, short papers (max 6 pages) about visions and positions on forthcoming challenges and two page abstracts on the societal and ethical risks of the aforementioned technologies. All papers should be formatted using the Springer LNCS template and submitted as PDF (see [2]). We expect each paper to take as a starting point one futuristic scenario, either directly from Black Mirror or of a similar nature, as motivation for the work presented. ORGANISERS - PINELOPI TROULLINOU, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK - MATHIEU D'AQUIN, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUI Galway, Ireland - ILARIA TIDDI, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK PROGAMME COMMITTEE Kirstie Ball, School of Management, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom Pompeu Casanovas, Institute of Law and Technology, Universidad Aut?noma de Barcelona, Spain Lina Dencik, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, United Kingdom Sara Degli Esposti, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, Universdad Oberta de Catalunya, Spain Stefan Dietze, L3S Research Cente, University of Leipzig, Germany Seda Guerses, COSIC Research Group, K.U. Leuven, Belgium Pascal Hitzler, Data Semantics Laboratory, Wright State University, U.S.A. Sabrina Kirrane, Institute for Information Business, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria Matthias Leese, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Liisa M?kinen, Social and Public Policy, University of Helsinki, Finland Andrea Mannocci, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, United Kingdom Angelo Antonio Salatino, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, United Kingdom Rapha?l Troncy, Data Science Department, EURECOM, France Daniel Trottier, Department of Media and Communication, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands Dimitris Tsapogas, Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Nikolas Thomopoulos, Systems Management and Strategy, University of Greenwich, United Kingdom Lachlan Urquhart, Information Technology Law, Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, United Kingdom Frank Van Harmelen, Network Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Pieter Verdegem, School of Media, Arts & Design, University of Westminster, United Kingdom Serena Villata, SPARKS-WIMMICS, INRIA, France [1] https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rbm2017 [2] https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ale at sissa.it Mon Jul 17 14:05:25 2017 From: ale at sissa.it (Alessandro Treves) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 20:05:25 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc + 2 PhD students in limbo, SISSA, Trieste Message-ID: <20170717200525.Horde.JFe7Ax8V4mxZbPxlQvX0RfA@webmail.sissa.it> A postdoc is sought to join a HFSP-funded project to study analog cortical computations in linguistic processes. A collaboration with Naama Friedmann (TAU) and Remi Monasson (ENS). Ideal candidates have a flair for (some) language, come from a background we have not thought of and seek to get to places where they have not been, at the crossroads between neuroscience, complex systems, and poetry. Two PhD students from outside Italy are sought to later join as ESRs the EU Training Network M-GATE, on hippocampal memory functions. A network of 7 institutes + 4 companies, coordinated by Francesco Battaglia (Nijmegen). Ideal candidates, who can be of any nationality but must not have spent much time in Italy in the last 3 years, enjoy analytical, mathematical and computational excursions when in search of fundamental network understanding. Deadline August 31st, 2017. Formal applications eventually needed, but please see first obsolete limbo information http://people.sissa.it/~ale/limbo.html and contact ale at sissa.it well in advance. -- Alessandro Treves http://people.sissa.it/~ale/limbo.html SISSA - Cognitive Neuroscience, via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy +39-040-3787623 Ambassador (BlaBlaCar) +39-349-2504602 From shuaili.sli at gmail.com Tue Jul 18 03:56:21 2017 From: shuaili.sli at gmail.com (Shuai Li) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 08:56:21 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP - The IEEE International Conference ICICT at India, Due: 4 Aug 2017 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The IEEE 2nd International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies (2nd ICICT 2017) is being organized on August 24-25, 2017 at Hotel Arcadia, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. This conference is technically sponsored by IEEE Madras section AES Chapter.2nd ICICT 2017 will provide an outstanding international forum for sharing knowledge and results in all fields of science, engineering and Technology. 2nd ICICT provides quality key experts who provide an opportunity in bringing up innovative ideas. Recent updates in the in the field of technology will be a platform for the upcoming researchers. The conference will be Complete, Concise, Clear and Cohesive in terms of research related to science and Technology. ORIGINAL AND HIGH QUALITY RESEARCH PAPERS ARE SOLICITED IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY. Including but not limited to the following topics. Data Communication and Computer Networking - Cryptography - High Speed Networks - Mobile Computing - Mobile Networks & Wireless LAN - Optical Networking - Network Based Applications - Network Security - Next Generation Web - Recent Trends in Computer Networks - Wireless and Adhoc Network - Wireless Multimedia systems Software Engineering - Agile Software Development - Architecture and Design - Aspect-Orientation - Cloud-Computing - Data Mining Systems - Dependability, Safety, and Reliability - Development Tools and Environments - Databases - Data Warehousing Systems - Empirical Software Engineering - Formal Methods - Human-Computer Interaction - Information Privacy and Security - Process Modeling - Query Processing and Optimization - Programming Languages - Refactoring - Requirements Engineering - Search-Based Software Engineering - Software Economics and Metrics - Software Evolution and Maintenance - Software Reuse - Software Testing and Analysis - Software Visualization - Software Validation and Verification - Recent Trends in Software Engineering Machine Learning and Optimization - Artificial Intelligence - Big Data Analysis, Security Issues in Big Data - Cloud / Grid / Distributed Computing - Cognitive Science - Component Analysis - Data & Knowledge Engineering - Digital Image Processing - Evolutionary Optimization - Information Theoretic Learning - Intrusion Detection/Prevention Techniques - Multi Agent Systems - Multimedia Technologies - Optimization Technique - Recent Trends in Machine Learning - Robotics and Automation - Statistical Learning VLSI Design and Automation - Communication Circuits - Device/Circuit Simulation and Modeling - Digital Circuits and ASIC - Electronic System Level Design - Emerging Trends and Development in VLSI - Embedded Systems - Low Power CMOS Design - Logic Synthesis and Physical Design - MEMS and Sensors Design - RF, Analog and Mixed-Signal Circuits - System-on-Chip and Network-on-Chip - VLSI Testing and Reliability Aerospace Computing - Aerospace systems and software engineering; - Verification and validation of embedded systems; - Machine learning, and knowledge management for aerospace systems; - Human-automation interaction and - Systems health management for aerospace systems. - Applications of autonomous systems, - Systems engineering principles, and - Safety and mission assurance For other details please visit: http://icoict.com/index.html Should you have any other concern feel free to contact: Dr. Shuai Li University of Cambridge United Kingdom Email: sl814 at cam.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.a.wiering at rug.nl Tue Jul 18 05:13:10 2017 From: m.a.wiering at rug.nl (Wiering, M.A.) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 11:13:10 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers: BNAIC 2017 Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS: BNAIC 2017 November 8-9, 2017, Groningen, The Netherlands http://bnaic2017.ai.rug.nl/ ===================================== Dear colleague, This year, the 29th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2017) is organized by the University of Groningen, Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Engineering, under the auspices of the Benelux Association for Artificial Intelligence (BNVKI) and the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems (SIKS). BNAIC 2017 will be held in Het Kasteel, Groningen, The Netherlands, on Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 November, 2017. BNAIC 2017 will include invited speakers, research presentations, posters and demonstrations. Also, a number of special sessions will be organized, including a ?research meets business? session. Researchers are invited to submit unpublished original research on all aspects of Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, high-quality research results already published at international AI conferences or in AI journals are also welcome. Four types of submissions are invited: Type A: REGULAR PAPERS Papers presenting original work that advances Artificial Intelligence. In addition to papers on original work, position and review papers are also welcomed. These contributions should address a well-developed body of research, an important new area, or a promising new topic, and provide a big picture view. Type A-papers can be long or short. Long papers should be 10-15 pages, short papers 6-10 pages. Contributions will be reviewed on overall quality and relevance. Type A-Papers can be accepted for either oral or poster presentation. Type B: COMPRESSED CONTRIBUTIONS Abstracts of already published work. Papers that have been accepted after June 1, 2016 for AI-related refereed conferences or journals can be resubmitted and will be accepted as compressed contributions. Authors are invited to submit the officially published version (without page restriction) together with a 2-page abstract. Type B-Papers will be accepted for either oral or poster presentation. Authors may submit at most one type B-paper of which they are the corresponding author. Type C: DEMONSTRATIONS Demonstration abstracts. Proposals for demonstration should be submitted as a 2-page abstract together with a short video illustrating the working of the system (not exceeding 15 minutes). Demonstrations will be evaluated based on their originality and innovative character, the technology deployed, the purpose of the systems in interaction with users and/or other systems, and their economic and/or societal potential. Any system requirements should also be mentioned. Type D: THESIS ABSTRACTS Abstracts of graduation reports. Bachelor and Master students are invited to submit a 2-page abstract of their completed AI-related thesis. Supervisors should be listed. The thesis should be accepted after June 1, 2016. Type D-papers will be judged on relevance for the conference and originality. Type D-Papers can be accepted for either oral or poster presentation. Accepted contributions within all four categories will be included in the online conference proceedings. All contributions should be written in English, using the Springer CCIS/LNCS format (see http://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings- guidelines) and submitted electronically via EasyChair ( https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bnaic2017). Submission implies willingness of at least one author to register for BNAIC 2017 and present the paper. For each paper, a separate author registration is required. We are aiming to continue the collaboration with Springer (that started in 2016) to produce postproceedings in their CCIS series. DATES Sept 5, 2017 submission deadline Oct 12, 2017 author notification Oct 26, 2017 camera ready versions for the online conference versions Nov 8-9, 2017 conference Best regards, Bart Verheij & Marco Wiering Conference Chairs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Pavis at iit.it Tue Jul 18 09:17:55 2017 From: Pavis at iit.it (Pavis) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:17:55 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP - ICCV 2017 Int'l Workshop on Manifold Learning: from Euclid to Riemann Message-ID: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C8878C4E5AC@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> APOLOGIES FOR MULTIPLE POSTING ************************************** ICCV 2017 International Workshop on Manifold Learning: from Euclid to Riemann 28 October 2017 In conjunction with ICCV 2017, Venice, Italy Webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/maniflearn/ Contact: maniflearn at googlegroups.com *** Paper submission deadline is approaching, July 20, 2017 *** *** Unfortunate ICCV papers on related subject are very welcome *** IMPORTANT DATES PAPER SUBMISSION: July 20th, 2017 Author Notification: August 20th 2017 Camera Ready: August 25th , 2017 Workshop: October 28th, 2017 CALL FOR PAPERS Manifold Learning (ML) has been the subject of intensive study over the past two decades in the computer vision and machine learning communities. Originally, manifold learning techniques aim to identify the underlying structure (usually low-dimensional) of data from a set of observations (in the form of high-dimensional vectors). The recent advances in deep learning make one wonder whether data-driven learning techniques can benefit from the theoretical findings from ML studies. This innocent looking question becomes more important if we note that deep learning techniques are notorious for being data-hungry and supervised (mostly). On the contrary, many ML techniques unravel data structures without much supervision. This workshop considers itself as the frontier to raise the question of how classical ML techniques can help deep learning and vice versa and targets studies and discussions that bridge the gap. In this workshop, we will explore the latest development in machine learning techniques developed to work on/benefit from the non-linear manifolds. We will also target challenges and future directions related to the application of non-linear geometry, Riemannian manifolds in computer vision and machine learning. This workshop also acts as an opportunity for cross-disciplinary discussions and collaborations. We encourage discussions on recent advances, ongoing developments, and novel applications of manifold learning, optimization, feature representations and deep learning techniques. We are soliciting original contributions that address a wide range of theoretical and practical issues including, but not limited to Theoretical Advances related to manifold learning such as: - Dimensionality Reduction (e.g., Locally Linear Embedding, Laplacian Eigenmaps and etc.) - Clustering (e.g., discriminative clustering) - Kernel methods - Hashing - Feature learning - Metric Learning - Subspace Methods (e.g., Subspace clustering) - Advanced Optimization Techniques (constrained and non-convex optimization techniques on non-linear manifolds) - Mathematical Models for learning sequences - Mathematical Models for learning Shapes - Deep learning and non-linear manifolds - Low-rank factorization methods and Applications, such as: - Biometrics - Image/video recognition - Action/activity recognition - Facial expressions recognition - Learning and scene understanding - Medical imaging - Robotics and other related topics not listed above. INVITED SPEAKERS Prof. Pierre Absil (Department of Mathematical Engineering, University of Louvain, Belgium) Home Page: https://sites.uclouvain.be/absil/ Talk Title: Fittingcomposite B?zier curves on manifolds and their applications in computer vision Abstract: https://sites.google.com/site/maniflearn/invited-speakers Prof. Cristian Sminchisescu (Mathematical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden) Home Page: http://www.maths.lth.se/matematiklth/personal/sminchis/index.html Talk Title: Deep Structured Models for Visual Recognition Abstract: https://sites.google.com/site/maniflearn/invited-speakers Dr. Minh Ha Quang (IIT Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy) Home Page: https://www.iit.it/people/minh-haquang Talk Title: Infinite-dimensional covariance operators and their applications in computer vision Abstract: https://sites.google.com/site/maniflearn/invited-speakers Dr. Pavan Turaga (Arizona State University, USA) Home Page: http://www.public.asu.edu/~pturaga/Welcome.html Talk Title: Geometric Methods in Modeling Dynamical Phenomenon: Applications in Video Analysis Abstract: https://sites.google.com/site/maniflearn/invited-speakers WORKSHOP CHAIRS Prof. Mohamed Daoudi (IMT Lille Douai, CRIStAL UMR CNRS, France) Dr. Mehrtash Harandi (Data61-CSIRO and Australian National University, Australia) Prof. Vittorio Murino (IIT Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy) Prof. Richard Hartley (Australian National University and Data61-CSIRO, Australia SUBMISSION AND REVIEW PROCESS All submissions will be handled electronically via the conference?s CMT Website (https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/MANIFLEARN2017). Submitted papers must be no longer than 8 pages following the official ICCV guideline http://iccv2017.thecvf.com/submission/main_conference/author_guidelines. ManifLearn reviewing will be double-blind. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three reviewers for originality, significance, clarity, soundness, relevance and technical contents. Papers that are not blind, or do not use the template, or have more than 8 pages (excluding references) will be rejected without review. From Harel.Shouval at uth.tmc.edu Tue Jul 18 10:03:24 2017 From: Harel.Shouval at uth.tmc.edu (Shouval, Harel) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:03:24 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc Position: Learning Dynamics in Recurrent Networks [CORRECTION] Message-ID: [The previous posting had a typo in the email address ? the correct address is harel.shouval at uth.tmc.edu] Previous posting below this: A postdoc position is available in the Shouval lab. The Postdoc will work on a project funded by the BRAIN grant: ?Learning spatio-temporal statistics from the environment in recurrent networks?. In this project, we will model both recurrent network models, and also the learning rules that allow them to learn their dynamics from environmental cues. This project is a collaboration between the lab of Harel Shouval at the University of Texas in Houston, and the lab of Nicolas Brunel at Duke. This is a two-year position and it can start immediately. The Shouval lab is a leader in developing models of synaptic plasticity and understanding their impact on learning and memory. The models we develop span from the molecular level and up to the systems level. In our some of our recent work we study the impact of synaptic plasticity on recurrent network dynamics and on incorporating reinforcement learning into biophysical plasticity models. We use both computational and analytical techniques to study these issues. The Shouval lab is located in the department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, in the UT medical school. Houston has a thriving Neuroscience community and it is an excellent environment for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience. There is a high concentration of Theoretical Neuroscience labs at the different Houston area Universities (Baylor, Rice, UH, UT). Our Theoretical Neuroscience community is highly collaborative and there is a joint organization to foster these collaborations; the Gulf Coast Consortium in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience (GCC-TCN). We hold an annual conference, joint graduate courses and a journal club. The ideal candidate will have a PhD in Computational Neuroscience with strong analytical and computational skills. I will also consider candidates with a background in the Physical or Computational Sciences who would like to become a Theoretical Neuroscientists. If you want to apply please send me your CV, and a brief cover letter that includes names of possible references. I will also be happy to answer any question you might have about the project or the position. Harel Shouval Professor Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy The University of Texas Medical School, Houston Director of the Neuroscience Graduate program Email: harel.shouval at uth.tmc.edu Web: https://med.uth.edu/nba/faculty/harel-shouval/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mpavone at dmi.unict.it Tue Jul 18 10:10:10 2017 From: mpavone at dmi.unict.it (Mario Pavone) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 16:10:10 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 2017 IEEE Symposium on Immune Computation @ IEEE SSCI 2017 Message-ID: <20170718161010.Horde.NyLNCOph4B9ZbhbC4R4QYQA@mbox.dmi.unict.it> Dear Colleagues, Late submissions possible till July 31. If you plan to submit papers, please send us a messages. Best regards, Mario. ====================================== 2017 IEEE Symposium on Immune Computation (IEEE IComputation' 17) The 2017 IEEE Symposium on Immune Computation (IEEE IComputation 2017) is a part of the IEEE Symposium Series of Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI 2017). http://www.ele.uri.edu/ieee-ssci2017/IComputation.htm The aims of this symposium are: (1) to present the state-of-the-art research on immune computation; (2) to provide a forum to disseminate their recent advances and views on future perspectives in the field; (3) to offer new conceptual models for understanding the dynamics that underlie the immune system, and (4) to provide a unique event where computer scientists, engineers, immunologists, biologists, physicists, etc., may compare to each other their expertises in an interdisciplinary vision. Accepted papers will be published in IEEE proceedings Important Dates Full paper submission due: July 16, 2017 (late submissions possible till July 31) Notification of acceptance: August 27, 2017 Final paper submission due: September 24, 2017 Symposium Co-Chairs Carlos A. Coello Coello, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico Licheng Jiao, Xidian University, China Wenjian Luo, University of Science and Technology, China Ramit Mehr, Bar-Ilan University, Israel Mario Pavone, University of Catania, Italy From sophon at sugano.mech.waseda.ac.jp Wed Jul 19 02:50:09 2017 From: sophon at sugano.mech.waseda.ac.jp (Sophon SOMLOR) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2017 15:50:09 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: [meeting] (Deadline Extended) Call for Contributions: SII2017 Special Session on "Distributed Haptic Sensor Integration", Deadline July 31 Message-ID: Dear all, We are calling for contributions for the 2017 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration Special Session on ?Distributed Haptic Sensor Integration? http://www.sii2017.org/uploads/Approved_SS_Prosals/SS11.pdf Haptic sensors can provide rich information about the contact state and can be used for various applications such as user interfaces or collaborative robots. Spatially distributed sensing points, for example integrated in an artificial skin, can potentially provide detailed tactile information. Embedded electronics and distributed computation are necessary to facilitate the integration; otherwise, an overwhelming amount of wires would require too much space. Advanced algorithms are needed to analyze and interpret the haptic data fast and accurate. This special session, therefore, aims to bring together experts in the fields of developing and integrating haptic sensors and tactile data analysis. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Haptic sensor development and integration - Multimodal distributed tactile sensors - Modular skin sensors; - Soft/flexible/stretchable sensors; - Large-scale data processing of tactile information - Use of tactile data for interaction control - Integration of haptic data with other sensing modalities (e.g. vision, inertial sensing) Submissions Procedure: All the instructions for paper submission are included in the conference website http://www.sii2017.org . A good quality paper may be considered for publication in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics subject to further rounds of review. ***Deadlines*** Reception of full paper: *July 31, 2017* Paper acceptance notification: *September 20, 2017* Camera ready paper reception: *October 20, 2017* For questions, please contact: dhsi.sii2017 at gmail.com Kind regards, ================================================ Dr. Sophon Somlor Junior Researcher Top Global University Project Unit for Frontier of Embodiment Informatics?ICT and Robotics Faculty of Science and Engineering Waseda University ????? ????? ??????????????? ICT????????? ????? ???? ???? ================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kerstin.ritter at bccn-berlin.de Wed Jul 19 07:02:51 2017 From: kerstin.ritter at bccn-berlin.de (Kerstin Ritter) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:02:51 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?PhD_scholarship_=22Deep_Learning_in_cli?= =?utf-8?q?nical_neuroimaging=22=2C_Charit=C3=A9_Berlin?= In-Reply-To: <1602888273.773897.1500460237714.JavaMail.root@comms> Message-ID: <1272448662.775054.1500462171659.JavaMail.root@comms> Dear all, I am offering a PhD scholarship in "Deep Learning in clinical neuroimaging" at Charit? Berlin, starting in October 2017 (initially for 2 years). See announcement below: _________________________________________ Deep Learning in clinical neuroimaging PhD scholarship (starting October 2017, initially for 2 years) At the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (Charit?), we are looking for a motivated and highly talented PhD student for various research questions within the interdisciplinary field of deep learning and clinical neuroimaging. In particular, we employ convolutional neural networks for finding new representations from neuroimaging data in order to predict disease conversion and future clinical disability in neurological as well as psychiatric diseases. Whereas previous disease decoding approaches mostly relied on expert-based extraction of features in combination with standard classification algorithms and thus strongly depend on the choice of data representation, convolutional networks are capable of learning hierarchical information directly from raw imaging data. By this, they have a great potential for finding unexpected and latent data characteristics and might perform as a real ?second reader?. A major focus will be on visualization techniques to make the learned content of convolutional neural networks visible. Requirements for the PhD student: - Very good degree in computer science, mathematics, physics, psychology, computational neuroscience or related subject. - Very good programming skills (e.g. Python) - Experience in machine learning - Good writing and communication skills (in English) Please send your application (motivation+CV) in one pdf-file (in English or German) to: Dr. Kerstin Ritter Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Bernstein-Zentrum f?r Computational Neuroscience Charit? - Universit?tsmedizin Berlin Sauerbruchweg 4, Charit?platz 1, 10117 Berlin Tel.: + 49 30 450 539364; Email: kerstin.ritter at bccn-berlin.de _________________________________________________ Thank you very much! Best wishes, Kerstin Ritter _______________________________________________ Dr. rer. nat. Kerstin Ritter, n?e Hackmack Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging Charit? - Universit?tsmedizin Berlin Sauerbruchweg 4, Charit?platz 1, 10117 Berlin Tel.: 0176 61503246 From timvogels at gmail.com Wed Jul 19 19:53:12 2017 From: timvogels at gmail.com (Tim Vogels) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:53:12 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd announcement: Computational Neuroscience in Africa: isiCN IMBIZO 18 Message-ID: <6DEA4143-E0CA-4035-9E63-013446305D4F@gmail.com> Dear all, we would like to draw your attention to the IBRO SIMONS COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE IMBIZO #isiCNI2018 Get to know (and help to build) African Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience. from 7 - 28 January 2018, Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town, South Africa http://isicni.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Application deadline: 15th August 2017 The #isiCNI2018 is a southern hemisphere summer school aiming to promote computational neuroscience in Africa. It will bring together international and local students under the tutelage of the world's leading experts in the field. Like its international sister courses, this three-week summer school aims to teach central ideas, methods, and practices of modern computational neuroscience through a combination of lectures and hands-on project work. Mornings will be devoted to lectures on topics across the breadth of experimental and computational neuroscience. The rest of the day will be spent working on research projects under the close supervision of expert tutors and faculty. Individual research projects will focus on the modelling of neurons, neural systems, behaviour, the analysis of state-of-the-art neural data, and the development of theories to explain experimental observations. Who should apply? This course is aimed at Masters and PhD level students though Honours or Postdoctoral students may also apply. Students should sufficient quantitative skills, (e.g. a background in mathematics, physics, computer science, statistics, engineering or related field). Some knowledge of neural biology will be useful but not essential. Experimental neuroscience students are encouraged to apply, but should ensure that they have a reasonable level of quantitative proficiency (i.e. at least second-year level mathematics or statistics and have done at least one course in computer programming). Please distribute this information as widely as you can. Essential details * Fee (which covers tuition, lodging, and meals): 1100 EUR * Generous scholarships and travel stipends are available based on merit and need * Application deadline: 15th August 2017 * Notification of results: End of September 2017 Information and application http://isicni.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Application form http://tinyurl.com/yc6zbvpo Questions? isicn.imbizo at gmail.com What is an Imbizo? \?m?bi?z?\ | Xhosa - Zulu A gathering of the people to share knowledge. FACULTY Larry Abbott - Columbia University Adrienne Fairhall - Washington University Surya Ganguli* - Stanford University Peter Latham - University College London Blake Richards - University of Toronto Timothy Lillicrap - Google DeepMind Mate Lengyel - University of CambridgeJoseph Raimondo - University of Cape Town Yiota Poirazi - Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas Srikanth Ramaswamy - EPFL Lausanne Tim Vogels - University of Oxford Byron Yu - Carnegie Mellon University Alex Antrobus (Gatsby Unit, UCL) Athanasia Papoutsi (Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas) William Podladski (University of Oxford ) Friedemann Zenke (Stanford University / University of Oxford) and others, to be announced *not confirmed DIRECTORS Peter Latham (Gatsby Unit for Computational Neuroscience, UCL, UK) Joseph Raimondo (University of Cape Town, South Africa) Tim Vogels (University of Oxford, UK) Sponsors The isiCNI is made possible by the generous support from the Simons Foundation (https://www.simonsfoundation.org ) and IBRO, the International Brain Research Organisation (http://ibro.info ) Organizational Affiliates University of Cape Town, University College London, University of Oxford, TReND in Africa , CNCB , Gatsby Foundation , IBRO African Center for Advanced Training in Neurosciences at UCT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nicolas.Rougier at inria.fr Thu Jul 20 00:59:32 2017 From: Nicolas.Rougier at inria.fr (Nicolas P. Rougier) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 06:59:32 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Sustainable computational science: the ReScience initiative Message-ID: <6831CC6B-B9A1-4342-BAC9-CDEC3FB0B685@inria.fr> Dear all, It's my pleasure to announce we've just published a preprint explaining the ReScience initiative as well as a proposal for sustainable computational science. You can read it at https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.04393 Sustainable computational science: the ReScience initiative Computer science offers a large set of tools for prototyping, writing, running, testing, validating, sharing and reproducing results, however computational science lags behind. In the best case, authors may provide their source code as a compressed archive and they may feel confident their research is reproducible. But this is not exactly true. James Buckheit and David Donoho proposed more than two decades ago that an article about computational results is advertising, not scholarship. The actual scholarship is the full software environment, code, and data that produced the result. This implies new workflows, in particular in peer-reviews. Existing journals have been slow to adapt: source codes are rarely requested, hardly ever actually executed to check that they produce the results advertised in the article. ReScience is a peer-reviewed journal that targets computational research and encourages the explicit replication of already published research, promoting new and open-source implementations in order to ensure that the original research can be replicated from its description. To achieve this goal, the whole publishing chain is radically different from other traditional scientific journals. ReScience resides on GitHub where each new implementation of a computational study is made available together with comments, explanations, and software tests. Nicolas From srikanth.ramaswamy at epfl.ch Thu Jul 20 05:40:20 2017 From: srikanth.ramaswamy at epfl.ch (Ramaswamy Srikanth) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 09:40:20 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Neuromodulation of Neural Microcircuits NM2 Conference 2017 Message-ID: <970D89E4-D3E3-493E-8D26-B1D18B6B6B74@epfl.ch> We are delighted to announce the upcoming Neuromodulation of Neural Microcircuits (NM2) Conference 2017. The NM2 Conference will be held at the EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland on the 18th and 19th of Sep. 2017 and at the Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland on the 20th of Sep. 2017. Neuromodulators dynamically reconfigure neural microcircuits and shape brain states by controlling the function of neurons and glia, dendrites, and synapses. NM2 will bring together world-leading experts to: ? Identify the state-of-the-art mechanisms of the neuromodulation of neural microcircuits ? Illuminate various strategies enabling the measurement of neuromodulatory states in brain health and disease ? Integrate knowledge to build a unifying view of the neuromodulation of different brain regions ? Inform and attract new talent to drive forward neuromodulation research ? Inspire future directions that will transform our understanding of the neuromodulation of brain function and dysfunction and therapeutic intervention NM2 has an exciting program with a stimulating lineup of speakers! Please mark your calendars to participate in shaping the future course of neuromodulatory research! Registration includes coffee breaks, lunch, refreshments and poster sessions. PhD. students and postdocs are particularly encouraged to apply for several travel awards by submitting poster abstracts. Some abstracts will be selected for flash talks. Early bird registration is open until July 31st, 2017. Abstract submission is open until August 13th, 2017. We look forward to welcoming you at NM2 in beautiful Switzerland! Best regards from the scientific committee of NM2, Srikanth Ramaswamy Henry Markram Mriganka Sur Anita Disney Menahem Segal Michael Hasselmo Seung-Hee Lee Alexander Thiele Amy Arnsten [cid:CCBC7D9D-9041-4146-88BA-CC744BDBB811 at epfl.ch] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 78961 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: From hava.siegelmann at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 06:23:20 2017 From: hava.siegelmann at gmail.com (Hava Siegelmann) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 06:23:20 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Collecting Information: Growing abstraction representations in neural networks Message-ID: Hi Friends and colleagues, I'm looking to compile the evidence / proofs of concepts - on abstraction representation in connectionists architectures. Can you please suggest anything you know of? Please reply to both emails: hava.siegelmann at gmail.com again1 at jhmi.edu Best regards Hava -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vcutsuridis at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 14:05:27 2017 From: vcutsuridis at gmail.com (Vassilis Cutsuridis) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 19:05:27 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentship in Computational Neuroscience/Machine Learning Message-ID: PhD Position in Computational Neuroscience/Machine learning MLearn Research Group School of Computer Science University of Lincoln UK Applications are invited for a PhD position in the MLearn Research Group at the University of Lincoln. Projects involve the development and simulation of models of neurons and neuronal networks hippocampal memory functions (Cutsuridis V, et al. (2010). Encoding and retrieval in the hippocampal CA1 microcircuit model. *Hippocampus*, 20(3): 423-446) and/or applications of machine learning (deep learning) techniques for the analysis of data. A description of our research interests and a list of publications can be found on our webpage (http://mlearn.lincoln.ac.uk/). Applicants should have excellent computational and numerical skills and a very good first degree in computer science, biology, maths, physics, neuroscience, or a related discipline. Successful candidates are eligible for a research studentship award from the University (GBP 14,553 per annum bursary plus payment of the student fees). This studentship is only open to UK and EU students. The ideal candidate should be highly motivated, technically skilled, a team player and driven to push forward the development of the next generation of deep associative memory neural-networks. Your written and spoken English skills should be excellent. As a PhD student, you may also have the opportunity to teach as a demonstrator in the School of Computer Science. Research in Computer Science at the University of Lincoln has been recognised as internationally excellent and world leading. The School of Computer Science provides a very stimulating environment, offering a large number of specialised and interdisciplinary seminars as well as general training and researcher development opportunities. The University is situated in Lincoln, two hours north of London. Please contact Dr Vassilis Cutsuridis (vcutsuridis at lincoln.ac.uk) or Prof. Stefanos Kollias (skollias at lincoln.ac.uk) for informal enquiries. If you?re interested in this position and you would like to apply, please send your CV, statement of research interests, three reference letters and a photo to Dr. Vassilis Cutsuridis: vcutsuridis at lincoln.ac.uk Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis, so please apply as soon as possible. Kind regards, Vassilis --- Dr Vassilis Cutsuridis School of Computer Science University of Lincoln Lincoln LN6 7TS U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 1522 83 5107 Email: vcutsuridis at lincoln.ac.uk Web: http://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/vcutsuridis Personal Web: http://www.vassiliscutsuridis.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de Thu Jul 20 07:55:09 2017 From: barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Pablo Barros) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 13:55:09 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [CFP] Computational Models for Crossmodal Learning Workshop at ICDL-EPIROB 2017 - Lisbon Message-ID: <240142e6-d4e1-793a-cd1e-5bded8bec2cb@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS International workshop: Computational Models for Crossmodal Learning In conjunction with the 7th Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EPIROB) Lisbon - Portugal - September 18, 2017 Website: https://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/wtm/WorkshopCrossmodalLearning2017/index.php I. Aim and Scope The ability of processing crossmodal information is a fundamental feature of the brain that provides a robust perceptual experience for an efficient interaction with the environment. Consequently, the integration of multisensory information plays a crucial role in autonomous systems to create robust and meaningful representations of objects and events. For dealing with real-world information, an autonomous, intel- ligent system must be capable of processing, integrating, and segregating different modalities for the purpose of coherent perception, decision-making, and cognitive learning. Recent neurophysiological findings in cross- modal learning have inspired novel computational models with the aim to trigger biologically inspired behavioral responses. A rich set of neural mechanisms support the integration and segregation of multimodal stimuli, providing the means to efficiently solve conflicts across modalities. This workshop aims to join research from psychology, computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and cognitive robotics to discuss current research on crossmodal learning mechanisms both from the theoretical and modelling perspective. Possible avenues for future research in the field of crossmodal learning are principal topics of a discussion panel. II. Target Audience This workshop is open to doctoral students and senior researchers working in computer and cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience and related areas with the focus on crossmodal learning. III. Keynote Speakers - Yulia Sandamirskaya, University of Zurich, Switzerland - Yukie Nagai, University of Osaka, Japan - Charles Spence, University of Oxford, UK - Stefan Wermter, University of Hamburg, Germany IV. Submission - For paper submission, use the following IEEE template (double column): - Submitted papers should be limited to 2 pages (extended abstract) or 4 pages maximum (short paper). - Send your pdf file to both: barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de AND jirak at informatik.uni-hamburg.de - The primary list of topics covers the following topics (but not limited to): - Machine learning and neural networks for multimodal learning - Behavioral studies on crossmodal learning - Models of crossmodal attention and perception - New theories and findings on crossmodal processing - Bio-inspired approaches for multisensory integration - Deep learning architectures for multimodal perception - Multimodal systems for robotics. Selected contributions will be presented during the workshop as spotlight talks and in a poster session. Contributors to the workshop will be invited to submit extended versions of the manuscripts to a special issue to be arranged. Submissions will be peer reviewed consistent with the journal practices. V. Important Dates - Paper submission deadline: 31.07.2017 (strict) - Notification of acceptance: 15.08.2017 - Camera-ready version: 25.08.2017 - Workshop: 18-September-2017 VI. Organizers Pablo Barros, German I. Parisi, Doreen Jirak, Hamburg University, Germany, www.knowledge-technology.info Bruno Fernandes, Universidade de Pernambuco, Brazil -- Dr.rer.nat. Pablo Barros Research Associate Knowledge Technology Department of Informatics University of Hamburg Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany Phone: +49 40 42883 2535 Fax: +49 40 42883 2515 barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de https://www.inf.uni-hamburg.de/en/inst/ab/wtm/people/barros.html www.knowledge-technology.info From lchen at udc.edu Thu Jul 20 22:42:29 2017 From: lchen at udc.edu (Chen, Li) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2017 02:42:29 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PSIVT in Wuhan, China - Nov 20-24, 2017 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: PSIVT in Wuhan, China - Nov 20-24, 2017. The 8th Pacific-Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology invites submissions (deadline: July 28, 2017). All accepted papers will be indexed by EI. Selected high quality papers will be published on the special issue of SCI journals. ?IJPRAI , IJDCF? Proceedings are published in Springer?s LNCS, and the conference is endorsed by the IAPR. Previous issues of PSIVT have been in Taiwan, Chile, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Mexico, and New Zealand. Visit http://www.psivt2017.org PSIVT 2017 is seeking high quality submissions in the broad field of image and video technology. The topics of interests include, but are not limited to the following: Imaging and Graphics Hardware and Visualization. Image/Video Coding and Transmission. Image/Video Processing and Analysis. Image/Video Retrieval and Scene Understanding. Applications of Image and Video Technology. Biomedical Image Processing and Analysis. Biometrics and Image Forensics. Computational Photography and Arts. Computer and Robot Vision. Pattern Recognition. Video Surveillance. PSIVT2017 also organizes workshops in several specialized technical topics. Please visit our website for details. Important Dates: Paper submission: July 28, 2017 Notification of acceptance: August 25, 2017 Camera-ready submission: September 07, 2017 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cl at cmu.edu Thu Jul 20 17:02:41 2017 From: cl at cmu.edu (Christian Lebiere) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 17:02:41 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: CFP Extension: A Standard Model of the Mind Message-ID: *The deadline for this CFP has been extended to July 30.* Invitation to submit a position paper to the AAAI 2017 Fall Symposium on A Standard Model of the Mind The purpose of this symposium is to engage the international research community in developing a standard model of the mind, with a focus specifically on human-like minds, which include human minds but also artificial minds that are either inspired by human ones or are similar because of common functional goals. The notion of a standard model has its roots in particle physics, where it is assumed to be internally consistent, yet still have major gaps; and serves as a cumulative reference point for the field while driving efforts to both extend and revise it. A standard model of the mind could yield similar benefits while also guiding experimentation, application, extension, interpretation, evaluation, and comparison. The intent is not to develop a single implementation, model or theory that everyone would abide by and agree is correct. What is sought is a statement of the best consensus given the community's current understanding of the mind, plus a sound basis for further refinement as more is learned. A beginning was made at the 2013 AAAIFall Symposium on Integrated Cognition, followed by an effort to capture and extend that initial consensus. Truly creating a standard model requires participation by researchers from across the community; hence this symposium. Format Working sessions will focus on the concept, framework, major components, and initial draft of a standard model; on mapping of existing architectures onto the model; and on summarizing the results and looking to the future. Each session will consist of an introduction, brief statements by 3-4 panelists on their position papers, and a moderated panel discussion. The focus will be on interactions that lead to a written summary document. Submissions Position papers (up to 6 pages) can be submitted to sm at ict.usc.edu by July 30, 2017. They should address fundamental issues with the concept of a standard model, outline proposals for such a model, or suggest specific contents. While contributions from all perspectives will be considered, those arising from a cognitive architecture approach ? and yielding implications for the computational structure and function of the mind and its parts ? are expected to be most directly relevant. Organizing Committee John Laird (University of Michigan, laird at umich.edu), Christian Lebiere (Carnegie Mellon University, cl at cmu.edu), Paul S. Rosenbloom (University of Southern California,rosenbloom at usc.edu) For More Information People considering writing position papers are encouraged to visit the symposium website (http://sm.ict.usc.edu), which has additional background resources. You can also contact any member of the organizing committee. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ksmith at kth.se Sat Jul 22 03:09:45 2017 From: ksmith at kth.se (Kevin Smith) Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 00:09:45 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: [Job] PhD student in deep learning at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Sweden Message-ID: Job description: Deep learning, as a field of machine learning, has dramatically pushed the performance of many intelligent systems, but many important questions remain open for research. How should one interpret its decision making process? Can one successfully learn deep learning models without large-scale annotated data? What are the limits of its application to other fields? The role of the doctoral student will be to focus on developing theoretical advances regarding these research questions and/or applying them to general computer vision and, to a lesser extent, natural language processing. A secondary aspect involves applications with medical data. Medical data analysis is attracting attention from top players in various fields as more data and resources become available (such as Medical Imagenet by Stanford University). We will look for ways to apply the methods we develop in many exciting medical applications such as automatic diagnosis, personalized drug discovery, genetic analysis, and so forth. The specific research topics may include but are not limited to using adversarial training for unsupervised and semi-supervised learning as well as domain adaptation, uncertainty estimation of a deep network?s output, understanding deep networks and its inner workings, and applying state-of-the-art models to highly impactful medical applications such as cancer prediction in medical data. Should the student be willing and experienced enough in deep learning, she/he will have some freedom to steer the direction of research. This is a four (4) year time-limited position with full funding and support for travel to conferences, etc. It can be extended up to five (5) years with the inclusion of a maximum of 20% departmental duties, typically teaching. In order to be employed, you must apply and be accepted as a doctoral student at KTH. The starting date is open for discussion, though we would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible. Qualifications: A Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or a closely related field is required. Preference will be given to applicants with a Master's degree or current Master students who are about to complete their degree. Applicants should have a good knowledge of English and ability to express themselves clearly both in speech and writing. The successful candidate must be strongly motivated for doctoral studies, must have demonstrated the ability to work independently and to perform critical analysis. They must also possess excellent cooperative and communication skills. Of highest importance is prior experience/education in both theory and practice of machine learning, specially deep learning. We prefer experienced users of deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, Torch, Keras, Theono, Caffe, CNTK, MXNet. Proficiency in one or two scientific computing language(s) (R, Matlab, Python) is required. Also desirable is prior experience with parallel programming environments, familiarity with Linux administration, experience with image analysis (especially medical or microscopy), experience with C++ programming, and working with remote HPC and cloud services. Application: Log into KTH's recruitment system in order to apply to this position (*https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/lediga-jobb/what:job/jobID:156210/where:4/ *). You are responsible to ensure that your application is complete according to the ad. Applications shall include the following documents: 1. Statement of interest and brief description of experience in machine learning, and/or deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. 2. Curriculum vitae 3. Transcripts from university/university college 4. Letter of recommendation and contact information from two references 5. An example of the applicant?s original technical writing, e.g., thesis, technical report, or scientific paper Please observe that all material needs to be in English. Your complete application must be received at KTH no later than 01.Oct.2016 11:59 PM CET About KTH and Science for Life Laboratory: KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (www.kth.se) is one of Europe?s leading technical and engineering universities, as well as a key centre of intellectual talent and innovation. We are Sweden?s largest technical research and learning institution and home to students, researchers and faculty from around the world. Our research and education covers a wide area including natural sciences and all branches of engineering, as well as in architecture, industrial management, urban planning, history and philosophy. The position will be formally placed with the department for Computational Science and Technology (CST) at KTH ( https://www.kth.se/en/csc/forskning/cst), but work will be carried out at the Science for Life Laboratory (www.scilifelab.se). The Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) is a collaboration between four universities in Stockholm and Uppsala: Karolinska Institutet, KTH, Stockholm University and Uppsala University. It combines advanced technology with broad knowledge in translational medicine and molecular life sciences. Since 2013, SciLifeLab has a mission from the Swedish government to run infrastructure to support researchers nationally and to be an internationally leading center for large-scale analyses in molecular life sciences targeting research in health and environment. Other details: Type of employment: Temporary position longer than 6 months Contract type: Full time First day of employment: According to agreement Salary: Monthly salary Number of positions: 1 Working hours: 100% City: Stockholm County: Stockholms l?n Country: Sweden Reference number: D-2017-0457 Contact: Maria Engman / HR Administrator, maengm at kth.se Kevin Smith, Assistant Professor, ksmith at kth.se -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From masulli at disi.unige.it Sat Jul 22 01:41:27 2017 From: masulli at disi.unige.it (Francesco Masulli) Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 07:41:27 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Post-Doc position in Computational Intelligence at DIBRIS - Genova (Italy) Message-ID: A one-year funded Post-Doc position in Computational Intelligence at is available at DIBRIS - University of Genoa, (Italy). The deadline for application is 21 Aug 2017 at 12.00 (Italian time) and the fellowship should start in Dec 2017. Project title: Unbounded data streams learning: unsupervised methods and their applications. Research activity: The project addresses the problem of clustering unstructured, non-stationary data streams. Objectives: (1, methodological) Extension of the Graded Possibilistic Clustering method to data streams; (2, methodological) Extension of spectral clustering to streams with complexity control; (3, applicative) Applications to problems in urban traffic forecasting (smart cities), web session analysis, wearable sensors for health monitoring. Existing methods will be adapted to accept incremental updates, and learning will be controlled through appropriate objectives connecting model parameters to measures of fit and of model complexity to allow updates when needed and to the extent needed. Required qualification: PhD and/or Master in Computer Science, Electronics, Bio-Engineering, Physics, or Mathematics. We are looking for a self-motivated candidate, interested in the mathematical aspects of her/his research, in the development of new methods for intelligent data analysis, and in technology transfer, and skilled in programming and in thorough experimental data analysis. Italian and international candidates are invited to send their cv, a letter of motivation, and the name/email-addresses of some referees to Prof. Stefano Rovetta A.S.A.P. http://www.disi.unige.it/person/MasulliF/ricerca/Post-Doc-in-Genoa-2017.html From shuaili.sli at gmail.com Sat Jul 22 03:28:32 2017 From: shuaili.sli at gmail.com (Shuai Li) Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 08:28:32 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP || The SAI's FICC 2018@Singapore || Paper Submission Due: 1st August 2017 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018, 5-6 April 2018, Singapore Information and Communication is playing an increasing role in society and within our lives. Recognizing this, FICC 2018 aims to provide a forum for researchers from both academia and industry to share their latest research contributions, future vision in the field and potential impact across industries. This conference will feature paper presentations, poster presentations, tutorials, project demonstrations, as well as keynote speech by renowned technology experts and authorities. FICC is part of the SAI Conferences, a group of annual conferences produced by The Science and Information (SAI) Organization, based in the United Kingdom. Previous conferences include Future Technologies Conference (FTC) in San Francisco, Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) in London and Computing Conference in London. FICC 2018 aims to provide a forum for researchers from both academia and industry to share their latest research contributions, future vision in the field and potential impact across industries. Join us to explore discovery, progress, and achievements related to Communication, Data Science, Computing and Internet of Things. The conference program will include paper presentations, poster sessions and project demonstrations, along with prominent keynote speakers and industrial workshops. Proceedings will be published in IEEE Xplore and indexed in Scopus, IET Inspec and many more. Paper Submission Due : 01 August 2017 Acceptance Notification : 01 September 2017 Author Registration : 01 October 2017 Camera Ready Submission : 15 October 2017 FICC 2018 TRACKS +Communication Cellular Networks Sensing and Sensor Networks Geographic information systems Cloud Networking Signal processing Virtualization Machine to Machine (M2M) Cognitive Radio Body Area Networks Satellite and Optical Communication +Data Science Data Mining Big Data Statistical Analysis Decision Trees Deep Learning Machine Learning Semantic Web Web Services and analytics Clustering and classification Fuzzy Logic +Ambient Intelligence Internet of Things Intelligent Agents Smart Grids Smart Cities Agents and Multi-agent Systems Assistive Technologies Affective computing Intelligent transportation Context-aware pervasive systems Emergency and safety systems +Networking Mobile Adhoc Networks Open Spectrum Solutions Software defined networking Network mobility management Routing Protocols Antennas and propagation MIMO advances Game Theory QoS and Scheduling Vehicular Networks +Computing Cloud Computing Quantum Computing Grid Computing High Performance Computing Parallel Computing Distributed Computing Human-centric Computing Ubiquitous Computing Bioinformatics and Bio-Inspired Computing Social Computing +Security and Privacy Mobile and wireless security Biometric security Intrusion Detection Database security Cryptography Access control Denial of service protection Information hiding Monitoring and surveillance Privacy and data protection +Review Process The review process will be double-blind. Therefore, please anonymize your submission. This means that all submissions must contain no information identifying the author(s) or their organization(s): Do not put the author(s) names or affiliation(s) at the start of the paper, anonymize citations to and mentions of your own prior work that are directly related to your present work, and do not include funding or other acknowledgments. Each paper will be reviewed by at least three regular PC members or two senior PC members. The acceptance decisions will take into account paper novelty, technical depth, elegance, practical or theoretic impact, and presentation. Original: the paper explores a new idea, project or issue; discusses existing research with promise of new insight, discusses new research; or presents new ways of considering existing information Engaging: presentation format will involve the audience in some way, or has high potential to attract conference attendees by addressing needs of the community Significant: the paper raises and discusses issues important to improving the effectiveness and/or sustainability of open education efforts, and its contents can be broadly disseminated and understood Quality: claims are supported by sufficient data; claims draw upon relevant literature; and limitations are described honestly Relevant: the paper addresses one or more of the themes of the conference +Post Conference Publication and Indexing All FICC 2018 presented papers will be published in the conference proceedings and submitted for indexing to IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Inspec, Google Scholar and more. The conference proceedings USB and Certificate of Presentation will be distributed to the conference participants at the conference registration desk. Authors of selected outstanding papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for consideration of publication in the following: Springer Book Series - Studies in Computational Intelligence, Indexed by DBLP, Ulrichs, SCOPUS, MathSciNet, Current Mathematical Publications, Mathematical Reviews, Zentralblatt Math: MetaPress and Springerlink. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications(IJACSA), Indexed by Thomson Reuters Web of Science, EBESCO, Inspec and many more For other details please visit: http://www.saiconference.com/FICC Should you have any other concern feel free to contact: Dr. Shuai Li University of Cambridge United Kingdom Email: sl814 at cam.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bcbt at upf.edu Sun Jul 23 10:03:52 2017 From: bcbt at upf.edu (=?UTF-8?Q?BCBT=2C_B=C3=BAstia_Compartida?=) Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 07:03:52 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: [Summer School] Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology 2017. Message-ID: *Application deadline: August 1, 2017* For more information on how to apply, please go to BCBT2017-Eventum UPF **Apologies for cross posting** -------------------------------------------------- *Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summer School - BCBT2017* University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. 30 August - 8 September 2017 BCBT2017-Eventum UPF Join us for the 10th edition of *"Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology summer school - BCBT2017 *" to be held 30 August-8 September 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. The BCBT summer school is positioned at the interface between biology and future and emerging technologies with an emphasis on the principles underlying brains and their translation to avant-garde technologies. BCBT promotes a shared systems-level understanding of the functional architecture of the brain and its possible emulation in artificial systems. The summer school has been part of a series of events organized by the European coordination action Convergent Science Network of Biomimetics and Neurotechnology (*http://csnetwork.eu/ * ). This year the school is supported by UPF ERC project CDAC that investigates the role of consciousness in adaptive behavior combining empirical, computational and robot-based approach. BCBT is also supported by EPISENSE , a subproject of the Human Brain Project (HBP) that investigates brain mechanisms of perception and memory; and by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia - IBEC This is the 10th year of BCBT, which has run with great success in previous years thanks to an excellent line-up of outstanding speakers (see bcbt.upf.edu for previous editions of the school). BCBT lectures are available online with the BCBT *Podcast interviews *with many of the BCBT speakers. We are happy to announce that *Nobel Laureate Edvard Moser will join BCBT on the 4th of September!* BCBT caters to students and researchers involved in projects that are in the ambit of ?BIO-ICT convergence?, "Brain Inspired ICT", ?Cognitive systems-robotics?, ?Cognitive and neural systems?, ?Foundations of social cognition?. BCBT will offer up to 30 student slots for the practical workshops, while as many researchers can register to attend the presentations and discussion sessions as they are interested. The atmosphere of the BCBT summer school is informal with the goal to stimulate in-depth discussion. There are 2 or 3 presentations in the morning, with the afternoons reserved for tutorials and projects for student participants and road-mapping workshops or further discussion for senior scientists. For the 2017 edition, we plan a *1st week* of the school addressing *Neural Basis of Consciousness *while the *2nd week* will include presentations aimed at the investigation of *Learning and Memory, Brain Function and Behavior**.* Friday 8 is reserved for the presentation of the student projects to which everybody is invited. *BCBT is organized by* Paul Verschure, ICREA, IBEC and University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, ES, Tony Prescott, Sheffield University, UK Anna Mura, University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, ES -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chriskanan at gmail.com Sun Jul 23 11:24:03 2017 From: chriskanan at gmail.com (Christopher Kanan) Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 05:24:03 -1000 Subject: Connectionists: MBCC 2017: ICCV Workshop on Mutual Benefits of Cognitive and Computer Vision - Call For Papers Message-ID: ## CALL FOR PAPERS (CfP) ## ICCV International Workshop on ?Mutual Benefits of Cognitive and Computer Vision (MBCC)? 29 October 2017 Venice, Italy (https://sites.google.com/site/mbcc2017w/home) _____________ Aim and Scope As researchers working at the intersection of biological and machine vision, we have noticed an increasing interest in both communities to understand and improve on each other?s insights. Recent advances in machine learning (especially deep learning) have led to unprecedented improvements in computer vision. These deep learning algorithms have revolutionized computer vision, and now rival humans at some narrowly defined tasks such as object recognition (e.g., the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge). In spite of these advances, the existence of adversarial images (some of which have perturbations imperceptible to humans) and rather poor generalizability across datasets point out the flaws present in these networks. On the other hand, the human visual system remains highly efficient at solving real-world tasks and capable of solving many visual tasks. We believe that the time is ripe to have extended discussions and interactions between researchers from both fields in order to steer future research in more fruitful directions. This workshop will compare human vision to state-of-the-art machine perception methods, with specific emphasis on deep learning models and architectures. Our workshop will address many important questions. They include: 1) What are the representational differences between human and machine perception? 2) What makes human vision so effective? and 3) What can we learn from human vision research? Addressing these questions is not as difficult as previously thought due to technological advancements in both computational science and neuroscience. We can now measure human behavior precisely and collect huge amounts of neurophysiological data using EEG and fMRI. This places us in a unique position to compare state-of-the-art computer vision models and human behavioral/neural data, which was impossible to do a few years ago. However, this advantage also comes with its own set of problems: Which task/metric to use for comparison? What are the representational similarities? How different are the computations in a biological visual system when compared to an artificial vision system? How does human vision achieve invariance? This workshop is a great opportunity for researchers working on human and/or machine perception to come together and discuss plausible solutions to some of the aforementioned problems. ______ Topics for submission include but are not limited to: - architectures for processing visual information in the human brain and computer vision (e.g. feedforward vs feedback, shallow vs deep networks, residual, recurrent, etc) - limitations of existing computer vision/deep learning systems compared to human vision - learning rules employed in computer vision and by the brain (e.g. unsupervised/semi-supervised learning, Hebb rule, Spike timing dependent plasticity) - representations/features in humans and computer vision - tasks/metrics to compare human and computer vision (e.g. eye fixation, reaction time, rapid categorization, visual search) - new benchmarks (e.g. datasets) - generalizability of machine representation to other tasks - new techniques to measure and analyze human psychophysics and neural signals - the problem on invariant learning - conducting large-scale behavioral and physiological experiments (e.g., fMRI, cell recording) ______________ Invited Speakers We have invited leading researchers from both Cognitive Science and Computer Vision to inspire discussions and collaborations. 1. Michael Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University 2. Davide Zoccolan, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy ___________________ Submission Guidelines We are inviting both full paper (5-8 pages) and extended abstract (2-4 pages) submissions to the workshop. Submitted papers must follow the ICCV paper format and guidelines (available on the ICCV 2017 webpage). All submissions will be handled via the CMT website: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/MBCC2017/ Full papers: The submitted papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages, including figures and tables; additional pages must contain only cited references. The review will be double-blind. Please make sure all authors or references to authors are anonymized. Full paper submissions must not have been published before. Extended abstracts: We invite submissions of extended abstracts of ongoing or already published work as well as demos or prototype systems (ICCV format). Authors are given the opportunity to present their work to the right audience. The review will be single-blind. ______________ Important Dates Full Paper submission: August 1st, 2017 Extended Abstract submission: August 5th, 2017 Notification of acceptance: August 15th, 2017 Camera-ready paper due: September 30th, 2017 Workshop: October 29th, 2017 (Morning Session) _____________________________ Workshop Organizing Committee Ali Borji, University of Central Florida Pramod RT, Indian Institute of Science Elissa Aminoff, Fordham University Christopher Kanan, Rochester Institute of Technology _______ Contact mbccw.iccv2017 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcello.pelillo at gmail.com Sun Jul 23 09:39:53 2017 From: marcello.pelillo at gmail.com (Marcello Pelillo) Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 15:39:53 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CfP: EMMCVPR 2017 (Venice, Italy) (co-located with ICCV 2017) Message-ID: Final Call for Papers ? *?>>> ?Submission deadline? (extended)?: ?10? ?August 2017 <<<* *EMMCVPR 2017* *11th International Conference on Energy Minimization Methods inComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition* 30 October ? 1 November 2017 Venice, Italy (Co-located with ICCV 2017 ) http://www.dsi.unive.it/emmcvpr17 Energy minimization methods have become an established computational paradigm in computer vision and pattern recognition. EMMCVPR is a regular bi-annual conference dedicated to advancing the state of the art in this field. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the workshop series, with the inaugural meeting having taken place in Venice in 1997 , and we will celebrate it by bringing it back to Venice. The conference will be co-located with ICCV 2017 , the International Conference on Computer Vision. The scientific program will include the presentation of invited plenary talks and contributed research papers. ?See the workshop's website for details. -- Marcello Pelillo, *FIEEE, FIAPR* Professor of Computer Science Ca' Foscari University of Venice *Director*, European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT) Ca' Minich S. Marco 2940, 30124 Venezia, Italy Tel: (39) 041 2347588 - Fax: (39) 041 2347589 http://www.unive.it/eclt *Head*, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Lab DAIS - Campus Scientifico Via Torino 155, 30172 Venezia Mestre, Italy Tel: (39) 041 2348440 - Fax: (39) 041 2348419 http://www.dais.unive.it E-mail: marcello.pelillo at gmail.com URL: http://www.dsi.unive.it/~pelillo -- Marcello Pelillo, *FIEEE, FIAPR* Professor of Computer Science Ca' Foscari University of Venice *Director*, European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT) Ca' Minich S. Marco 2940, 30124 Venezia, Italy Tel: (39) 041 2347588 - Fax: (39) 041 2347589 http://www.unive.it/eclt *Head*, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Lab DAIS - Campus Scientifico Via Torino 155, 30172 Venezia Mestre, Italy Tel: (39) 041 2348440 - Fax: (39) 041 2348419 http://www.dais.unive.it E-mail: marcello.pelillo at gmail.com URL: http://www.dsi.unive.it/~pelillo -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From padsmagt at gmail.com Mon Jul 24 03:03:25 2017 From: padsmagt at gmail.com (Patrick van der Smagt) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2017 09:03:25 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [challenge] Deep Learning and Robotics Challenge in Munich Message-ID: <53fd0491-2279-4e41-88ad-a2e616708e3b@Spark> Volkswagen Group Fundamental AI Research---a part of the Data:Lab in Munich---invites students to join the 2017 Deep Learning and Robotics Challenge. The challenge is scheduled to take place from September 11 to October 13, 2017. ?You will collaborate with your peers in small groups to solve a robotics challenge while developing and using deep-learning methodologies in a Python-environment with TensorFlow. All groups will compete to have their robot solve the set task as efficiently as possible. The challenge will be crowned with a ceremony at GTC Europe (Oct. 10--12 in Munich) for the winning team. ?We ask you to open-source all your related code. ?Your major input will be related to machine learning, but also to robotics. The DLRC is set up in collaboration with NVIDIA. In this collaboration, we will provide you with a compute infrastructure based on DGX-1, 1080s and Jetsons. ?During your stay at the Data:Lab, you will be paid a salary, which you can use to cover your living expenses or visit the Oktoberfest. Further information and application through?http://argmax.ai/#dlrc. ?Application deadline: July 31, 2017. ?Feel free to contact us for further information. Patrick van der Smagt Director of AI Research Volkswagen Group, Data:Lab Munich -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Mon Jul 24 04:29:22 2017 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2017 10:29:22 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Comprehensibility & Explanation in AI and ML (CEx) @ AI*IA 2017: DEADLINE EXTENSION (August 01, 2017) Message-ID: <000201d30456$f42c5140$dc84f3c0$@gmail.com> === Comprehensibility and Explanation in AI and ML (CEx) @ AI*IA 2017 === Location: University of Bari (Bari, Italy). Date: Nov. 14 & 15 XOR Nov. 16 & 17, 2017. Hosted at: AI*IA 2017, the 16th International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (http://aiia2017.di.uniba.it/). == WORKSHOP WEBSITE == http://cex.inf.unibz.it == INVITED SPEAKERS == Barbara Hammer, University of Bielefeld Luc Steels, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona == REGISTRATION == Registration for the workshop is handled via the main conference website. Please consult http://aiia2017.di.uniba.it/ for details. == CALL FOR PAPERS == ** Mission Statement ** CEx addresses fundamental questions for the nature of "comprehensibility" and "explanation" in an AI and ML context from a theoretical and an applied perspective. Research into philosophical approximations to what an explanation in AI and ML is (or can be) or how the comprehensibility of an intelligent system can formally be defined will be presented next to work addressing practical questions of how to assess a systems comprehensibility from a psychological perspective, or how to design and build better explainable AI and ML systems. ** Fields of Interest ** The workshop brings together a diverse audience, including... - ...participants from core areas of AI and ML,... - ...ontologists,... - ...cognitive scientists,... - ...psychologists,... - ...HCI researchers,... - ...and practitioners from industry and business contexts. ** Accepted Submission Formats ** Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit original papers that have not been submitted for review or published elsewhere: - Submitted papers must be written in English, must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS style (templates and sample files are available from https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gui delines). - FULL PAPERS: Research and experience papers should not exceed 10 pages (excluding references/bibliography). - SHORT PAPERS: Position papers or technical notes should not exceed 6 pages (excluding references/bibliography). - All submitted papers will be judged based on their relevance, originality, significance, technical quality, and organisation. ** Submission Website ** Submissions to CEx @ AI*IA 2017 should be made via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cexaiia2017 ** Presentation ** Selected papers will be presented during the workshop. The workshop will include extra time for discussion of the presentations allowing the group to have a better understanding of the issues, challenges, and ideas being presented. ** Publication ** Accepted papers will be published in official workshop proceedings within the CEUR-WS.org series. Depending on the number and quality of accepted papers, the organizers will consider organizing a special issue of a journal as follow-up publication. == IMPORTANT DATES == Deadline for paper submission: August 01, 2017 (anywhere on this planet) Notification of paper acceptance/rejection: September 10, 2017 Camera-ready paper due: September 30, 2017 Workshop date: Nov. 14 & 15 XOR Nov. 16 & 17, 2017 == WORKSHOP ORGANISERS == - Tarek R. Besold (University of Bremen, Germany) - Oliver Kutz (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy) == PROGRAMME COMMITTEE == - John Bateman, University of Bremen - Joanna Bryson, University of Bath - Derek Doran, Wright State University - Artur Garcez, City, University of London - Yasemin Erden, St. Mary, London - Barbara Hammer, University of Bielefeld - Caroline Jay, University of Manchester - Kristian Kersting, Technical University Darmstadt - Antonio Lieto, University of Turin - Fiona McNeill, Heriot-Watt University - Rafael Penaloza, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano - Sarah Schulz, University of Stuttgart - Gem Stapleton, University of Brighton - Serge Thill, University of Sk?vde - Leon van der Torre, University of Luxembourg - Rebekah Wegener, RWTH Aachen University - Christina Zeller, University of Bamberg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From poirazi at imbb.forth.gr Mon Jul 24 07:48:42 2017 From: poirazi at imbb.forth.gr (Yiota Poirazi) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2017 14:48:42 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: REMINDER: Creating a list of the most important computational predictions Message-ID: Dear colleagues, first I'd like to thank everyone who responded already. It's great to see many people embracing this idea! We are currently at over 30 nominations within a week, and hope the number will increase much more! Nominate your favorite computational prediction here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJZ2RrXJ0nZonIuyNz N0ClgXDKDb7xTzoJOiqZTGxm9Kh7ow/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link *The resulting list will serve as a reference for experimentalists interested in testing what our community thinks as the most important, testable -yet untested- computational predictions of our time!* all the best, Yiota -- Panayiota Poirazi, Ph.D. Research Director Computational Biology Laboratory Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) Foundation of Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) Vassilika Vouton, P.O.Box 1385, GR 70013, Heraklion, Crete GREECE Tel: +30 2810 391139 Fax: +30 2810 391101 ?mail: poirazi at imbb.forth.gr Lab site: www.dendrites.gr FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Mon Jul 24 16:13:17 2017 From: bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Barbara Hammer) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2017 22:13:17 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers Workshop NC^2 at GCPR Message-ID: Reminder: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS for NC^2 The 8th Workshop New Challenges in Neural Computation and Machine Learning (NC^2) will be held in conjunction with GCPR'17 (https://gcpr2017.dmi.unibas.ch/en/) at September, 12th, 2016, in Basel, Switzerland. See: http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~bhammer/GINN/NC2/ Submission deadline at 31. July 2017. INVITED SPEAKERS: Frank Hutter, Thomas Martinetz ORGANIZERS: Barbara Hammer, Thomas Martinetz, Thomas Villmann PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Michael Biehl, Tarek Besold, Joschka Boedecker, Kerstin Bunte, Benoit Frenay, Andrej Gisbrecht, Fred Hamker, Sven Hellbach, Christian Igel, Paulo Lisboa, Alessio Micheli, Madalena Olteanu, Felix Reinhart, Franco Scarselli, Frank-Michael Schleif, Fiedhelm Schwenker, Udo Seiffert, Peter Tino, Heiko Wersing, Rolf W?rtz -- Prof. Dr. Barbara Hammer CITEC centre of excellence Bielefeld University D-33594 Bielefeld Phone: +49 521 / 106 12115 Fax: +49 521 / 106 12181 From climate.informatics.workshop at gmail.com Mon Jul 24 18:22:04 2017 From: climate.informatics.workshop at gmail.com (Climate Informatics) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2017 15:22:04 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: 2017 Paper Submission Deadline Extension Message-ID: *Paper Deadline Extension: July 29th* Climate Informatics 2017 is extending the deadline for submitting short papers (maximum length: 3 pages) to *Saturday, July 29th.* The authors of the most highly ranked papers will be invited to submit their articles for consideration of publication in a special Climate Informatics issue of *Environmetrics*. Please submit your papers at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ci2017 Thanks to generous support from our sponsors, CI2017 also has travel support available for those submitting papers. Please apply for travel support by August 5th at: https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/events/workshops/climate-informat ics/2017/application-travel-support Paper submissions guidelines can be found here: https://www2.cisl.ucar.e du/events/workshops/climate-informatics/2017/paper-submission-guidelines For more information about the workshop, please visit https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/events/workshops/climate-in formatics/2017/climate-informatics-workshop Registration information is also now available at https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/events/workshops/climate-infor matics/2017/registration ------------------------------ *When: *Thursday, September 21, 2017 to Friday, September 22, 2017 Plus optional Hackathon: Wednesday, September 20, 2017 *Where:* Mesa Lab, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO *Website:* https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/events/workshops/climate -informatics/2017/climate-informatics-workshop *Twitter:* @Climformatics Workshop Overview: Climate informatics broadly refers to any research combining climate science with approaches from statistics, machine learning and data mining. The Climate Informatics workshop series, now in its seventh year, seeks to bring together researchers from all of these areas. We aim to stimulate the discussion of new ideas, foster new collaborations, grow the climate informatics community, and thus accelerate discovery across disciplinary boundaries. The format of the workshop seeks to overcome cross disciplinary language barriers and to emphasize communication between participants by featuring a hackathon, invited talks, panel discussions, posters and breakout sessions. Short Papers:Submission Deadline: *July 29th*, 2017 We encourage conference paper submissions up to four pages on topics anywhere at the interface of climate science and machine learning, statistics, data mining, or related fields. Reviews, position papers, and works in progress, are also encouraged. Topics include but are not limited to: - Machine learning, statistics, or data mining, applied to climate science - Management and processing of large climate datasets - Long and short term climate prediction - Ensemble characterization of climate model projections - Paleoclimate reconstruction - Uncertainty quantification - Spatiotemporal methods applied to climate data - Time series methods applied to climate data - Methods for modeling, detecting and predicting climate extremes - Climate change attribution - Dependence and causality among climate variables - Detection and characterization of climate teleconnections - Data assimilation - Climate model parameterizations - Hybrid methods - Other data science approaches at the nexus of climate and earth system sciences Keynote Speakers: Alexis Hannart - Franco-Argentine Institute on Climate Studies and their Impacts (IFAECI) and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Dr. Hannart is a researcher at the Franco-Argentine Institute for Climate Studies and Impacts (IFAECI), an international laboratory of the CNRS based in Buenos Aires. Its main research topic concerns the detection and attribution of climate change, the purpose of which is to highlight possible causal links between the observed climatic responses (long-term trends or punctual events) and external (natural forcings or anthropogenic) for which it develops statistical methods. Robert Lund - Clemson University Dr. Lund received his Ph.D. degree in Statistics from The University of North Carolina in 1993. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Clemson University. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and was the 2005-2007 Editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Reviews Section. He has published over 70 refereed papers and has graduated 15 doctoral students. His interests are in time series, applied probability, statistical climatology, and veterinary disease mapping. Elisabeth Moyer - University of Chicago Dr. Moyer?s research interests fall in two main threads. The first includes the use of the isotopic composition of atmospheric water vapor as a tracer of convective processes, cirrus formation, and stratosphere-troposphere exchange; and the design of spectroscopic techniques for in-situ trace gas measurements. The second includes climate (and human) response to greenhouse-gas forcing; development of tools for impacts assessment; statistical emulation of climate model output; and climate and energy policy evaluation. Prabhat - National Energy Research Computing Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Prabhat leads the Data and Analytics Services team at NERSC. His current research interests include scientific data management, parallel I/O, high performance computing and scientific visualization. He is also interested in applied statistics, machine learning, computer graphics and computer vision. Prabhat received an ScM in Computer Science from Brown University (2001) and a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT-Delhi (1999). He is currently pursuing a PhD in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at U.C. Berkeley. Sai Ravela - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Within the broader arena of estimation, control and information theories, and topics in statistical pattern recognition and statistical inference and learning, Dr. Ravela's focus is on the design of numerical methods for succinctly representing stochastic signals and systems. Research in his group develops new algorithms to overcome the "curses" of nonlinearity, dimensionality and uncertainty inference problems, such as estimation, planning and control and key characteristics of data-driven applications and cyber-physical systems with applications including tracking, autonomous sampling and mapping, data assimilation and uncertainty quantification. Organizing Committee: Workshop Co-Chairs: Andy Rhines, University of Washington Slava Lyubchich, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Program Committee Co-Chairs: Nikunj C. Oza, NASA Eniko Szekely, New York University Publicity and Publications Chair: Erich Seamon, University of Idaho Travel and Budget Chair: Mohammad Gorji, Syntelli Solutions Inc. Steering Committee: Imme Ebert-Uphoff, Colorado State University Claire Monteleoni, George Washington University Doug Nychka, National Center for Atmospheric Research Local Administrative Support: Michelle Patton, NCAR Cecilia Banner, NCAR -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcel.van.gerven at gmail.com Tue Jul 25 13:33:29 2017 From: marcel.van.gerven at gmail.com (Marcel van Gerven) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2017 19:33:29 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Two Assistant Professors and One Associate Professor for Artificial Intelligence (1.0 FTE) Message-ID: <2889E61A-E4D2-4EF3-9D51-0673530F3D9F@gmail.com> Two Assistant Professors and One Associate Professor for Artificial Intelligence (1.0 FTE) Given the rapidly growing number of students, the Artificial Intelligence department at Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands) is seeking two assistant professors and one associate professor. As part of the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, the department has a distinct neurocognitive focus and close interactions with the computer science, neuroscience and psychology departments. The department?s ambitions are (1) to develop intelligent machines that show human-level performance in challenging real-world settings, (2) to understand the computational basis of the human mind and (3) to improve the interaction between humans and machines. We seek candidates who conduct foundational research in AI (e.g. probabilistic modelling, neural networks, reinforcement learning, or multi-agent systems) and/or create innovative future technology (e.g. cognitive robotics, cognitive computing, data science, smart systems, brain-machine interfacing, or augmented/virtual reality) that has significant societal impact and will improve the way we live our lives. You will be expected to: ? develop courses and conduct teaching at undergraduate and post-graduate levels; ? perform top-quality research in Artificial Intelligence; ? establish and execute an externally funded research programme; ? interact and collaborate with other researchers and specialists in academia and/or industry; ? be an inspiring member of our staff and have excellent communication skills. What we expect from you: ? a PhD degree in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Cognitive Science, Computational Neuroscience or a related discipline and several years of post-doctoral experience. ? excellent track record in scientific research, as evidenced by publications in academic journals. ? proven ability to provide inspiring teaching in English. ? Dutch university teaching qualification or the willingness to obtain one. ? experience in the acquisition of external funding and an entrepreneurial mindset. ? ability to work with others in a team. What we have to offer: ? employment: 1.0 FTE; ? in addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus; ? depending on your profile, you will be appointed as an Assistant Professor (maximum gross monthly salary of ?4,757, based on a 38-hour working week, scale 11) or Associate Professor (maximum gross monthly salary of ?5,861 based on a 38-hour working week, scale 13); ? the duration of the tenure track will depend on your expertise and experience; ? you will be classified as an Assistant Professor (Universitair docent) or as an Associate Professor (Universitair hoofddocent), Level 2 in the Dutch university job-ranking system (UFO). If you are interested, please use the following link for further information and to apply: http://www.ru.nl/werken/details/details_vacature_0/?recid=598175 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andy at simula.no Tue Jul 25 06:11:39 2017 From: andy at simula.no (Andy Edwards) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2017 12:11:39 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Please post: postdoctoral fellowship available Message-ID: Postdoctoral fellowship in computational neuroscience: Simula, Oslo Simula Research Laboratory is pleased to offer a 4-year postdoctoral fellowship in computational modelling of multiscale processes in neuroplasticity. Please see the full position description and requirements at our applications page: https://www.simula.no/about/job/postdoctoral-fellowship-neur al-systems-modeling Andy Edwards Senior Scientist Simula Research Laboratory -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gros at itp.uni-frankfurt.de Wed Jul 26 06:15:35 2017 From: gros at itp.uni-frankfurt.de (Claudius Gros) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2017 12:15:35 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in computational neuroscience / neuro-robotics Message-ID: I would like to brink your attention our PhD-program in Computational Neurosciences / Complex Dynamical Systems at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany Field(s): computational neurosciences, complex systems, theory neural networks, simulated robotics, dynamical systems. Application deadline: August 11, 2017 Contact: Prof. Claudius Gros, cgr[@]itp.uni-frankfurt.de We are developing new models and generative principles for the brain using a range of toolsets from dynamical systems theory and computational neurosciences. Examples are new objective functions and generating functionals for the sensori-motor loop, transient state dynamics and self-limiting Hebbian plasticity rules. Several subjects are available for the announced PhD thesis including the generation of transient state dynamics through short-term synaptic plasticity, the study of the stationarity principle for statistical learning and/or the generation of motor primitives through self-organized embodiment within the sensori-motor loop. The work will include analytic investigations and numerical simulations of neural networks and/or of simulated robots, using the toolset of dynamical systems theory. The candidate must have a Diploma/Master in physics, an excellent academic track record and good computational skills. Experience or strong interest in the fields of complex systems, computational neurosciences, dynamical systems theory and/or artificial or biological cognitive systems is expected. The degree of scientific research experience needs to be on the level of a German Diploma/Master The appointment will start summer/fall 2017, for up to three years. Interested applicants must submit a curriculum vitae, a list of publications and copies of the academic record. Name, affiliation and email of one or more potential references are to be given. Claudius Gros http://www.itp.uni-frankfurt.de/~gros ------------------------------------- General information on the University of Frankfurt and its employment policy. With its around 46000 students and 4600 employees, the Goethe University in Frankfurt is the largest university in the state of Hessen and an internationally renowned, important regional employer. Numerous quality and performance oriented internal reforms have been initiated in the recent years. The reorganized campuses for natural sciences and humanities offer an ideal environment for research and education. Since 2008, the Goethe University is a foundation under public law and enjoys full administrative autonomy. The fixed-term employment of the academic staff is subject to the provisions of the Temporary Science Employment Law (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz) and the Hessian Higher Education Act (Hessisches Hochschulgesetz). The University advocates gender equality and therefore strongly encourages women to apply. People with disabilities are given preference if equally qualified. ### ### Prof. Dr. Claudius Gros ### http://itp.uni-frankfurt.de/~gros ### ### Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems, A Primer ### A graduate-level textbook, Springer (2008/10/13/15) ### ### Mageia, das Buch der Farben ### http://www.buchderfarben.de ### From jj at udc.es Wed Jul 26 20:45:39 2017 From: jj at udc.es (Juan =?utf-8?Q?Jes=C3=BAs?= Romero Cardalda) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 02:45:39 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: CFP. Evomusart 2018. International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design In-Reply-To: <1367867478.9825305.1501116275597.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> References: <1387966128.9529076.1500932222334.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <567901650.9824787.1501114529207.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1997990821.9824805.1501114559208.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1643675527.9824815.1501114581862.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1252994070.9824822.1501114612602.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1106110746.9824829.1501114640711.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1415273995.9824845.1501114671965.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1367867478.9825305.1501116275597.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> Message-ID: <1839056711.9825342.1501116339883.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> Please distribute (Apologies for multiple posting) ------------------------------------------------ Call for papers for the 7th EVOMUSART conference ------------------------------------------------ The 7th International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (evoMUSART) will be held in Parma in 4-6 April 2018, 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 2017 Notification to authors: 3 January 2018 Camera-ready deadline: 15 January 2018 Evo*: 4-6 April 2018 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/evomusart18/ (which should be online soon). The deadline for submission is 1 November 2017, and acceptance notification on 3 January 2018. 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. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Generation: * 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. * Robotic-Based Evolutionary Art and Music; * Other related artificial intelligence or generative techniques in the fields of Computer Music, Computer Art, etc.; Theory: * Computational Aesthetics, Experimental Aesthetics; Emotional Response, Surprise, Novelty; * Representation techniques; * Surveys of the current state-of-the-art in the area; identification of weaknesses and strengths; comparative analysis and classification; * Validation methodologies; * Studies on the applicability of these techniques to related areas; * New models designed to promote the creative potential of biologically inspired computation; Computer Aided Creativity and computational creativity: * Systems in which computational intelligence is used to promote the creativity of a human user; * New ways of integrating the user in the evolutionary cycle; * Analysis and evaluation of: the artistic potential of biologically inspired art and music; the artistic processes inherent to these approaches; the resulting artefacts; * Collaborative distributed artificial art environments; Automation: * Techniques for automatic fitness assignment * Systems in which an analysis or interpretation of the artworks is used in conjunction with computational intelligence techniques to produce novel objects; * Systems that resort to computational intelligence approaches to perform the analysis of image, music, sound, sculpture, or some other types of artistic object or resource. More information on the submission process of evoMUSART 2018 can be found at http://www.evostar.org/2018/cfp_evomusart.php Past Evomusart papers can be found http://evomusart-index.dei.uc.pt/ We look forward to seeing you in Parma in 2018! The evoMUSART 2018 organisers From kerstin at nld.ds.mpg.de Thu Jul 27 10:14:00 2017 From: kerstin at nld.ds.mpg.de (Mosch, Kerstin) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 16:14:00 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 4 days left for abstract submission - Bernstein Conference 2017 - Call for Abstracts Message-ID: <09951d34-94e0-1f12-8a45-c019ec8ea114@nld.ds.mpg.de> *REMINDER: * *Call for Abstracts: Bernstein Conference 201**7* * **Deadline for abstract submission:* June 28, 2017 for abstracts aimed as contributed talks and posters *July 31, 2017 abstracts aimed as posters only* ************************************************************** Satellite Workshops September 12-13, 2017 Main Conference September 13-15, 2017 PhD Symposium September 12 & 15, 2017 ************************************************************** The Bernstein Conference started out as the annual meeting of the Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience and has become the largest annual Computational Neuroscience conference in Europe with more than 500 international participants in recent years. This year the conference is organized by the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience G?ttingen. The main conference (Sep 13-15, 2017) will be accompanied by satellite workshops (Sep 12-13, 2017) and a PhD symposium (Sep 12 & 15, 2017). An important part of the main conference will be the two poster sessions. We are now inviting the submission of abstracts from all relevant areas. Authors of most accepted abstracts will get the chance for a poster presentation, a small number of abstracts will be selected for contributed talks during the main conference. Please note the earlier submission deadline for authors applying for a talk. All accepted abstracts will be published online and will be citable via Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). *DETAILS FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION:* Please note that the submission of an abstract does not replace the conference registration (www.bernstein-conference.de/registration ). Poster space is limited and early submission is encouraged. For abstract submission visit: www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-conference/2017/abstracts *ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINES:* Posters to be considered as contributed talks: June 28, 2017 Other posters: July 31, 2017 *TRAVEL GRANTS* To support the participation of young researchers at the Bernstein Conference, the Bernstein Coordination Site offers 10 Travel Grants, each endowed with 500 ?. Please find further information under www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-conference/2017/travel-grant *CONFERENCE DETAILS:* Conference registration is *OPEN* Early registration deadline: July 09, 2017 *ACCOMMODATION AND HOTEL RESERVATION:* *We strongly recommend early room booking!* *The number of available accommodation is limited due to several concurrent events. And many Hotels in G?ttingen are already booked out for that week!* We arranged for room contingents in a variety of hotels that you may book by yourself by email or phone. Please follow the instructions at our Accommodations Website (http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017/venue/accommodation). We would like to emphasize that these room contingents will be held open up to different expiration dates depending on the hotel (or until they are filled). Many expiration dates are already mid of June 2017. We strongly encourage participants to share rooms and to book rooms as a group. *We emphasize that it will be very difficult to book accommodation beyond the expiration dates. * Please find a list of the hotels at our Accommodations Website. VENUE Satellite Workshops, Main Conference and PhD Symposium: The Central Lecture Hall (ZHG), Platz der G?ttinger Sieben 5, 37073 G?ttingen, Germany VENUE Public Lecture: Alte Mensa, Wilhelmsplatz 1, 37073 G?ttingen, Germany, September 13, 2017, 8 pm For more information on the conference, please visit the websitehttp://www.bernstein-conference.de We are looking forward to welcoming you in G?ttingen! Program chair: Fred Wolf Koordinator: Zrinka Gattin Co-Organizers: Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS): Alexandra Stein, Kerstin Schwarzwaelder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From icaart at insticc.info Fri Jul 28 06:29:43 2017 From: icaart at insticc.info (icaart at insticc.info) Date: 28 Jul 2017 11:29:43 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP ICAART 2018 - 10th Int.l Conf. on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (Funchal, Madeira/Portugal) Message-ID: <20170728102945.18122.1C6347401E5C2F3E@insticc.info> SUBMISSION DEADLINE 10th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence Submission Deadline: July 31, 2017 http://www.icaart.org/ January 16 - 18, 2018 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. ICAART is organized in 2 major tracks: - Agents - Artificial Intelligence Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE CIS. In Cooperation with APPIA, AEPIA, AIXIA, Iberamia, EUSFLAT, APRP, EurAI, IFSA, AAAI, ACM SIGAI. With the presence of internationally distinguished keynote speakers: Luc Steels, ICREA, Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC) Barcelona, Spain Virginia Dignum, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Eduard Hovy, Carnegie Mellon University, United States Lu?s Antunes, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). Should you have any question please don?t hesitate contacting me. Kind regards, ICAART Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2? esq. 2910-595 Setubal, Portugal Tel: +351 265 520 185 Fax: +351 265 520 186 Web: http://www.icaart.org/ e-mail: icaart.secretariat at insticc.org From mpavone at dmi.unict.it Fri Jul 28 06:00:34 2017 From: mpavone at dmi.unict.it (Mario Pavone) Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2017 12:00:34 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Final CFP: IEEE Symposium on Immune Computation @ IEEE SSCI 2017, Hawaii, USA Message-ID: <20170728120034.Horde.JAzZX_ph4B9ZewtCmbxhfwA@mbox.dmi.unict.it> 2017 IEEE Symposium on Immune Computation (IEEE IComputation' 17) Part of the IEEE Symposium Series of Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI 2017). http://www.ele.uri.edu/ieee-ssci2017/IComputation.htm *** DEADLINE: 7th August 2017 *** *** NEWS: the best accepted papers will be considered for a special issue in Swarm and Evolutionary Computation journal, Elsevier. The aims of this symposium are: (1) to present the state-of-the-art research on immune computation; (2) to provide a forum to disseminate their recent advances and views on future perspectives in the field; (3) to offer new conceptual models for understanding the dynamics that underlie the immune system, and (4) to provide a unique event where computer scientists, engineers, immunologists, biologists, physicists, etc., may compare to each other their expertises in an interdisciplinary vision. Accepted papers will be published in IEEE proceedings * Important Dates Full paper submission due: August 7, 2017 Notification to authors: September 4, 2017 Final paper submission: October 1, 2017 * Symposium Co-Chairs Carlos A. Coello Coello, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico Licheng Jiao, Xidian University, China Wenjian Luo, University of Science and Technology, China Ramit Mehr, Bar-Ilan University, Israel Mario Pavone, University of Catania, Italy From visigrapp at insticc.info Fri Jul 28 10:21:38 2017 From: visigrapp at insticc.info (visigrapp at insticc.info) Date: 28 Jul 2017 15:21:38 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP VISAPP 2018 - Int.l Conf. on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (Funchal, Madeira/Portugal) Message-ID: <20170728142140.18543.5FFE8BE6D09EFCA6@insticc.info> SUBMISSION DEADLINE International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications Submission Deadline: July 31, 2017 http://www.visapp.visigrapp.org/ January 27 - 29, 2018 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. VISAPP is organized in 5 major tracks: - Image Formation and Preprocessing - Image and Video Analysis - Image and Video Understanding - Applications and Services - Motion, Tracking and Stereo Vision In Cooperation with AFIG, Eurographics. With the presence of internationally distinguished keynote speakers: Carol O'Sullivan, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Alexander Bronshtein, Israel Institute of Technology,Tel Aviv University and Intel Corporation, Israel Falk Schreiber, University of Konstanz, Germany and Monash University Melbourne, Australia Catherine Pelachaud, CNRS/University of Pierre and Marie Curie, France A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). Should you have any question please don?t hesitate contacting me. Kind regards, VISAPP Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2? esq. 2910-595 Setubal, Portugal Tel: +351 265 520 184 Fax: +351 265 520 186 Web: http://www.visapp.visigrapp.org/ e-mail: visapp.secretariat at insticc.org From mark.humphries at manchester.ac.uk Sun Jul 30 06:45:11 2017 From: mark.humphries at manchester.ac.uk (Mark Humphries) Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2017 10:45:11 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Register now for the Integrated Systems Neuroscience 2017 meeting (Manchester, UK) Message-ID: The Integrated Systems Neuroscience meeting (7-8th September 2017, Manchester, UK) is an international conference at the interface of systems and computational neuroscience. This year we have an exciting programme featuring leading researchers in cortical dynamics and plasticity, hippocampal coding, and the neural basis of movement - including cutting-edge work on whole-brain imaging in C Elegans. A poster session with drinks reception will be held on the first evening. Come join us for two days of beautiful neuroscience! (fee of ?75 includes all refreshments, drinks reception, and lunch on the second day) Registration deadline: August 11th 2017 For registration, programme, and further information please visit: https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/conferences-meetings/isn2017/ Questions? Email: isn2017 at manchester.ac.uk Speakers: Rune Berg (Copenhagen University) Tiago Branco (Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits) Neil Burgess (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL) Megan Carey (Champalimaud Institute, Lisbon) Claudia Clopath (Imperial College, London) Kate Jeffery (UCL) Christian Machens (Champalimaud Institute, Lisbon) Jonathan Pillow (Princeton) Simon Peron (New York University) Manuel Zimmer (IMP, Austria) Organisers: Mark Humphries & Rasmus Petersen (University of Manchester) Sponsors: we gratefully acknowledge the support of the Medical Research Council _____________________________________________________________________________ Dr Mark Humphries | MRC Senior non-Clinical Research Fellow | Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health http://www.systemsneurophysiologylab.manchester.ac.uk/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu Fri Jul 28 09:27:25 2017 From: dwang at cse.ohio-state.edu (DeLiang Wang) Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2017 09:27:25 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL NETWORKS, Aug. 2017 Message-ID: Neural Networks - Volume 92, August 2017 http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks Special Issue on "Advances in Cognitive Engineering Using Neural Networks" Guest editorial Minho Lee, Steven Bressler, Robert Kozma How can a recurrent neurodynamic predictive coding model cope with fluctuation in temporal patterns? Robotic experiments on imitative interaction Ahmadreza Ahmadi, Jun Tani Dual-memory neural networks for modeling cognitive activities of humans via wearable sensors Sang-Woo Lee, Chung-Yeon Lee, Dong-Hyun Kwak, Jung-Woo Ha, Jeonghee Kim, Byoung-Tak Zhang Understanding human intention by connecting perception and action learning in artificial agents Sangwook Kim, Zhibin Yu, Minho Lee Application of structured support vector machine backpropagation to a convolutional neural network for human pose estimation Peerajak Witoonchart, Prabhas Chongstitvatana Two-stage sparse coding of region covariance via Log-Euclidean kernels to detect saliency Ying-Ying Zhang, Cai Yang, Ping Zhang Evaluating deep learning architectures for Speech Emotion Recognition Haytham M. Fayek, Margaret Lech, Lawrence Cavedon Weighted spatial based geometric scheme as an efficient algorithm for analyzing single-trial EEGS to improve cue-based BCI classification Fatemeh Alimardani, Reza Boostani, Benjamin Blankertz Prediction of advertisement preference by fusing EEG response and sentiment analysis Himaanshu Gauba, Pradeep Kumar, Partha Pratim Roy, Priyanka Singh, Debi Prosad Dogra, Balasubramanian Raman A Hypergraph and Arithmetic Residue-based Probabilistic Neural Network for classification in Intrusion Detection Systems M.R. Gauthama Raman, Nivethitha Somu, Kannan Kirthivasan, V.S. Shankar Sriram From jj at udc.es Fri Jul 28 18:57:03 2017 From: jj at udc.es (Juan =?utf-8?Q?Jes=C3=BAs?= Romero Cardalda) Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2017 00:57:03 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: CFP. Evomusart 2018. International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design In-Reply-To: <1950417037.10174681.1501282583432.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> References: <1387966128.9529076.1500932222334.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <996774833.10174332.1501282018441.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <2068410070.10174578.1501282214680.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1443639114.10174624.1501282355417.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1704271588.10174657.1501282477628.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <92513654.10174672.1501282521610.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <408247040.10174680.1501282552142.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> <1950417037.10174681.1501282583432.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> Message-ID: <935556852.10174715.1501282623645.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> Please distribute (Apologies for multiple posting) ------------------------------------------------ Call for papers for the 7th EVOMUSART conference ------------------------------------------------ The 7th International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (evoMUSART) will be held in Parma in 4-6 April 2018, 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 2017 Notification to authors: 3 January 2018 Camera-ready deadline: 15 January 2018 Evo*: 4-6 April 2018 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/evomusart18/ (which should be online soon). The deadline for submission is 1 November 2017, and acceptance notification on 3 January 2018. 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. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Generation: * 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. * Robotic-Based Evolutionary Art and Music; * Other related artificial intelligence or generative techniques in the fields of Computer Music, Computer Art, etc.; Theory: * Computational Aesthetics, Experimental Aesthetics; Emotional Response, Surprise, Novelty; * Representation techniques; * Surveys of the current state-of-the-art in the area; identification of weaknesses and strengths; comparative analysis and classification; * Validation methodologies; * Studies on the applicability of these techniques to related areas; * New models designed to promote the creative potential of biologically inspired computation; Computer Aided Creativity and computational creativity: * Systems in which computational intelligence is used to promote the creativity of a human user; * New ways of integrating the user in the evolutionary cycle; * Analysis and evaluation of: the artistic potential of biologically inspired art and music; the artistic processes inherent to these approaches; the resulting artefacts; * Collaborative distributed artificial art environments; Automation: * Techniques for automatic fitness assignment * Systems in which an analysis or interpretation of the artworks is used in conjunction with computational intelligence techniques to produce novel objects; * Systems that resort to computational intelligence approaches to perform the analysis of image, music, sound, sculpture, or some other types of artistic object or resource. More information on the submission process of evoMUSART 2018 can be found at http://www.evostar.org/2018/cfp_evomusart.php Past Evomusart papers can be found http://evomusart-index.dei.uc.pt/ We look forward to seeing you in Parma in 2018! The evoMUSART 2018 organisers From mail at mkaiser.de Thu Jul 27 11:48:41 2017 From: mail at mkaiser.de (Marcus Kaiser) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 16:48:41 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PostDoc position: Modelling brain network stimulation in epilepsy patients Message-ID: Dear all, a 3-year PostDoc position for developing computational models of optogenetic stimulation in epilepsy patients is available within my lab as part of the CANDO project at Newcastle University. *** About CANDO *** CANDO (Controlling Abnormal Network Dynamics using Optogenetics, http://www.cando.ac.uk/) is a world-class, multi-site, cross-disciplinary project to develop a cortical implant for optogenetic neural control. The goal is to create a first-in-human trial in patients with focal epilepsy. This seven year, ?10M Innovative Engineering for Health Award, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) involves a team of over 30 neuroscientists, engineers and clinicians based at Newcastle University , Imperial College London , University College London and The Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust . *** Available RA position *** As part of this project, the lab of Prof. Marcus Kaiser ( http://www.dynamic-connectome.org/ ) is seeking a talented and enthusiastic research fellow with a PhD awarded, or a PhD thesis about to be submitted, in computational biology or related subjects. Objectives of this position are, first, to extend simulations of human brain activity at the local and global level of epilepsy patients. Second, the effect of stimulation on ongoing activity will be studied. Third, dynamical systems theory, control theory, and extensive simulations will be used to find optimal stimulation approaches that can reach desired oscillation patterns with minimal stimulation. Simulations will be informed by invasive recordings and non-invasive brain connectivity measurements in human epilepsy patients. Good communication skills, very strong dynamics modelling skills, and a track record of previous peer-reviewed journal publications. You will have experience with modelling brain rhythms and dynamical systems. The position will include brief visits to our partners in the UK and abroad. *** Research Environment *** Neuroinformatics at Newcastle University in the UK covers a range of topics from electrophysiology to neuroimaging. We are among the pioneers in connectome analysis and the establishment of large-scale neuroscience data management and analysis platforms. Our strength is a close collaboration between computational, experimental, and clinical researchers. We currently have a team of 14 faculty members in the areas of Neuroinformatics and Neurotechnology: http://neuroinformatics.ncl.ac.uk/ Overall, more than 100 faculty members perform research in the neurosciences. *** Life in Newcastle *** The region of Newcastle has around one million inhabitants and a high quality of life . Newcastle University is based in the city centre, 20 minutes away from the beach, the train station or the airport. Newcastle airport provides links to most European countries as well as to the USA. *** How to Apply *** To apply, follow the information at http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BCX660/research-assistant-associate-computational-models-of-epileptic-brain-tissue-d80409r/ The deadline is Wednesday 16 August. For further information, contact Prof. Marcus Kaiser, Marcus.Kaiser at ncl.ac.uk Best, Marcus -- Marcus Kaiser, Ph.D. FRSB @ConnectomeLab Professor of Neuroinformatics Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex Biosystems (ICOS) Research Group School of Computing Urban Sciences Building Newcastle University 1 Science Square Science Central Newcastle upon Tyne NE5 5TG UK Lab website: http://www.dynamic-connectome.org/ Neuroinformatics at Newcastle: http://neuroinformatics.ncl.ac.uk/ Neuroinformatics UK: http://www.neuroinformatics.org.uk/ Neuroinformatics one-year master programme: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/neuroinformatics/study/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From biostec at insticc.info Fri Jul 28 06:29:27 2017 From: biostec at insticc.info (biostec at insticc.info) Date: 28 Jul 2017 11:29:27 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP BIOSTEC 2018 - 11th Int.l Joint Conf. on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (Funchal, Madeira/Portugal) Message-ID: <20170728102929.18122.8DA702462FB6839B@insticc.info> SUBMISSION DEADLINE 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies Submission Deadline: July 31, 2017 http://www.biostec.org/ January 19 - 21, 2018 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. In Cooperation with EUROMICRO, EAMBES, ISCB, BMES, AAAI, ISfTeH, ACM SIGAI, ACM SIGBio. With the presence of internationally distinguished keynote speakers: Anatole L?cuyer, Inria Rennes/IRISA, Hybrid Research Team, France Corina Sas, Lancaster University, United Kingdom Dinesh Kumar, RMIT University, Australia Maximiliano Romero, Universit? Iuav di Venezia, Italy A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). Should you have any question please don?t hesitate contacting me. Kind regards, BIOSTEC Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2? esq. 2910-595 Setubal, Portugal Tel: +351 265 100 033 Fax: +351 265 520 186 Web: http://www.biostec.org/ e-mail: biostec.secretariat at insticc.org From mfasli at essex.ac.uk Thu Jul 27 15:39:27 2017 From: mfasli at essex.ac.uk (Fasli, Maria) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 19:39:27 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Extended deadline (10th August): Frontiers and Advances in Analytics and Data Science Conference Message-ID: *** Apologies for cross-postings *** FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS ? EXTENDED DEADLINE 10TH AUGUST 1st International Conference on the Frontiers and Advances in Data Science (FADS) Technically co-sponsored by IEEE (UK & RI Computer Section; Xian Section) 23-25 October 2017, Xian, China http://www.fads.org.uk Our lives and society have been transformed by advances in modern information and communication technologies. Devices such as mobile phones and tablets and applications such as social networks have changed how we interact with the world around us and each other and the way we conduct business, government and science. With computational technologies permeating almost all aspects of human activity the amount of data being generated is constantly increasing and we are surrounded by a wealth of new forms of data. We are at the cusp of a new data and information revolution. This proliferation of data calls for novel, multi and interdisciplinary approaches in data science and analytics to tackle the problems that data pose. New approaches for harnessing data and drawing insights will bring huge benefits to fields as diverse as health, finance, running smarter cities, the environment, business and public policy. The First International Conference on Frontiers and Advances in Data Science (FADS) will bring together scientists, professionals, industry practitioners and users from range of disciplinary backgrounds and application domains to share knowledge and the latest developments in data science and analytics. Further information is available from the FADS 2017 website http://www.fads.org.uk Keynote Speakers ? Prof Xueqi Cheng, Vice Director of the Institute for Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of CAS Key Laboratory of Network Data Science and Technology, China ? Dr Sudeep Das, Senior Researcher in Personalisation Algorithms, Netflix, California CALL FOR PAPERS http://www.fads.org.uk/fads-2017/call-for-papers/ We invite the submission of original and previously unpublished theoretical and practical work in all fields of data science and analytics including methodologies and techniques for big data. All submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee on the basis of novelty, technical quality, relevance to the conference theme, significance, and clarity of presentation. Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore. The IEEE Xplore proceedings will be submitted for inclusion to Elsevier EI for indexing. We are in the process of arranging special issues in the Journal of Future Generation Computer Systems and the Journal of Information Processing and Management. Selected papers from the conference and special sessions will be invited for submission to the special issues. FADS welcomes submissions on (but not limited to) the following topics : Data Science Foundations ? Machine Learning ? Mathematical and statistical models ? Novel theoretical models ? Computational Models ? Preprocessing and dimensionality reduction ? Efficiency and complexity ? Optimization Analytics ? Multi-stream reasoning and analytics ? Text analysis and mining ? Causal inference ? Visualisation ? Modelling complex and big data ? Personalisation analytics and recommender systems ? Social network analytics ? Multimedia/image processing and analytics ? Information retrieval and search ? Semantic information extraction and reasoning Data Infrastructure and Management ? New data standards ? Data cleansing ? Data integration ? Data sharing ? Data linkage ? Data curation and publishing ? Cloud/Grid/Stream Computing architectures ? Distributed and parallel/high performance processing ? Data warehouses ? Open platforms for analytics ? Big data architectures and platforms Security, governance and privacy ? Governance ? Intrusion, anomaly and threat detection ? Data integrity ? Data security and risk ? Trust and trust management ? Privacy preserving techniques and anonymisation ? Privacy protection standards and policies ? Legal aspects of analytics and big data Social and economic aspects ? Ethical considerations in the era of analytics and big data ? New business models ? Sociological aspects of analytics and big data ? Analytics and big data for sustainable development ? Analytics and big data for the social good ? Analytics and big data for the supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Applications ? Scientific applications of analytics and big data ? Internet of Things ? Internet of Persons ? Smart Cities and Transport ? Business and Finance Analytics ? Healthcare analytics and decision support ? Decision making and support systems ? Analytics and big data for policy making and the public sector ? Social networks and applications ? Industrial applications of analytics and big data ? Analytics for telecommunications and networks applications *** Special Sessions *** http://www.fads.org.uk/fads-2017/special-sessions/ ? Blockchain Technology ? Task Scheduling in Cloud Computing ? Cloud Data Governance ? Manufacturing Informatics ? Data Science and Cloud Computing Important Dates Paper Submission deadline: 10th August 2017 Paper Submission Deadline for Special Sessions: 20th August 2017 Notification of acceptance: 5th September 2017 Camera-ready Manuscript: 15th September 2017 Registration deadline (early and for accepted papers): 15th September 2017 For more information please visit the FADS Conference webpage: http://www.fads.org.uk Conference Organisation General Chairs ? Prof Maria Fasli, UNESCO Chair in Analytics and Data Science, University of Essex ? Prof Peng Jinye, Dean of School of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University Program Chairs ? Prof Hangzai Luo, Northwest University, China ? Prof Frank Wang, University of Kent, UK ? Prof Mohammad Essaaidi, ENSYAS, Morocco ? Prof Bruce Bassett, University of Cape Town; AIMS, South Africa Special Sessions Chair ? Dr Elhadj Benkhelifa, University of Staffordshire University, UK Contact Information fads at essex.ac.uk; iads at essex.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From icpram at insticc.info Fri Jul 28 06:29:59 2017 From: icpram at insticc.info (icpram at insticc.info) Date: 28 Jul 2017 11:29:59 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP ICPRAM 2018 - 7th Int.l Conf. on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods (Funchal, Madeira/Portugal) Message-ID: <20170728103000.18122.45C5C5DE69FB6895@insticc.info> SUBMISSION DEADLINE 7th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods Submission Deadline: July 31, 2017 http://www.icpram.org/ January 16 - 18, 2018 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. ICPRAM is organized in 2 major tracks: - Theory and Methods - Applications In Cooperation with AAAI, AIXIA, APRP, INNS. With the presence of internationally distinguished keynote speakers: Rita Cucchiara, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy Edwin Hancock, York University, United Kingdom Xiaoyi Jiang, University of M?nster, Germany Alfred Bruckstein, Technion, Israel A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). Should you have any question please don?t hesitate contacting me. Kind regards, ICPRAM Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2? esq. 2910-595 Setubal, Portugal Tel: +351 265 520 185 Fax: +351 265 520 186 Web: http://www.icpram.org/ e-mail: icpram.secretariat at insticc.org From sylvain.calinon at gmail.com Sat Jul 29 02:17:17 2017 From: sylvain.calinon at gmail.com (Sylvain Calinon) Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2017 08:17:17 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [jobs] Idiap/EPFL (Switzerland): 3 PhD positions in perception, robot skill learning and HRI Message-ID: <688e8c41-f758-a339-6550-9e23a68b92bf@gmail.com> Dear Colleagues, The Perception and Activity Understanding group (Jean-Marc Odobez, http://www.idiap.ch/~odobez/) and the Robot Learning and Interaction group (Sylvain Calinon, http://calinon.ch) at the Idiap Research Institute (http://www.idiap.ch) seek 3 PhD candidates for a Swiss NSF funded project aiming to study robot skills acquisition through active learning and social interaction strategies (ROSALIS, see below). The 3 PhD students will collaborate together, with 3 axes of research: 1) skill learning (Calinon) 2) perception (Odobez) 3) interaction modeling (Odobez+Calinon). The preferred axis/axes of research must be mentioned in the application. The project will start in early 2018, but positions can start earlier. The ideal PhD candidate should hold a MS degree in computer science, engineering, physics or applied mathematics. S/he should have a background in statistics, linear algebra, signal processing and programming. The positions are for 4 years, provided successful progress, and should lead to a dissertation. The selected candidates will become doctoral students at EPFL provided acceptance by the Doctoral School at EPFL (http://phd.epfl.ch/applicants). Annual gross salary ranges from 47,000 CHF (first year) to 50,000 CHF (last year). Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, a detailed CV, and the names of three references (or recommendation letters) through the Idiap online recruitment system: http://www.idiap.ch/education-and-jobs/job-10222. Interviews will start on *September 1st, 2017*. Late applications will be treated depending on whether positions have been filled or not. --- About ROSALIS: Most efforts in robot learning from demonstration are turned toward developing algorithms for the acquisition of specific skills from training data. While such developments are important, they often do not take into account the social structure of the process, in particular, that the interaction with the user and the selection of the different interaction steps can directly influence the quality of the collected data. In ROSALIS, we propose to rely on natural interactions for skill learning, involving queries about the skills, and demonstrations made by both the human and the robot to show what it has learned. The research will advance on several fronts. First, for skills representation, the robot learners will require an appropriate level of plasticity, allowing them to adapt, refine or freeze a skill primitive currently being learned. Furthermore, active learning methodologies will be developed, relying on heterogeneous sources of information (demonstrations, feedback labels, properties), allowing to make hypotheses about the skill invariants and to suggest demonstrations or queries. Secondly, to allow natural interactions, we will design perception algorithms to provide a higher level understanding of people behaviors and intentions, including gaze information and multimodal action recognition and segmentation. The different mechanisms will be integrated for modeling the interaction, implying the coordination (selection, timing) of the different interaction units. We target applications of robots in both manufacturing (with Baxter and Franka robots) and home/office environments (with the Pepper robot), both requiring re-programming in an efficient and personalized manner. --- About Idiap: Idiap is an independent, not-for-profit, research institute recognized and funded by the Swiss Federal Government, the State of Valais, and the City of Martigny. Idiap offers competitive salaries and conditions at all levels in a young, high-quality, dynamic, and multicultural environment. Idiap is an equal opportunity employer and is actively involved in the "Advancement of Women in Science" European initiative. The Institute seeks to maintain a principle of open competition (on the basis of merit) to appoint the best candidate, provides equal opportunity for all candidates, and equally encourage both genders to apply. Idiap is located in the town of Martigny in Valais, a scenic region in the south of Switzerland, surrounded by the highest mountains of Europe, and offering exceptional quality of life, exciting recreational activities, including hiking, climbing and skiing, as well as varied cultural activities. It is within close proximity to Lausanne and Geneva. Although Idiap is located in the French part of Switzerland, English is the official working language. Free French lessons are also provided on a complimentary basis. For frequently asked questions (FAQs) about living in Switzerland, please go to http://www.idiap.ch/en/faq From abhijin at bi.vt.edu Sun Jul 30 18:53:59 2017 From: abhijin at bi.vt.edu (Abhijin Adiga) Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2017 18:53:59 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral positions at NDSSL, Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech Message-ID: The Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory (NDSSL) invites applications for postdoctoral associates in the fields of high performance computing, data analytics and statistics. NDSSL is part of the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech, and is a world-class group of interdisciplinary researchers who develop synthetic information systems and associated analytical methods for studying large-scale complex socio-technical systems. The emphasis is real-time team science with direct implications to policy-making, while also contributing to the scientific literature in a significant way. Please see https://www.bi.vt.edu/ndssl/research for more details on some of NDSSL?s research projects. A successful postdoctoral applicant will: - Possess a strong academic record during their PhD with publications in high impact journals/conferences. - Exhibit excellent oral and written communication skills. - Be a strongly motivated, enthusiastic and self-driven individual who excels in a highly collaborative environment. Aptitude for creative problem solving would be encouraged. During their stay in the group the postdoctoral scholars will be expected to work on both theoretical and applied aspects of real-world problems arising in a number of areas, including public health, social science and systems biology. They are expected to publish high quality research in high impact venues, and will have opportunity to collaborate in highly multi-disciplinary teams. We welcome applications in the following areas. High Performance Computing: this includes areas related to the design and implementation of network algorithms and agent-based simulations for biological and socio-technical systems in current as well as emerging models of high performance computing. Data and Network Analytics and Statistics: this includes the areas of very large-scale data mining and analysis, statistics, social network analysis, database theory, streaming algorithms, machine learning, visualization, as well as working with Big Data tools such as Hadoop and Spark. Applications will be considered immediately until position(s) are filled. Please send your CV and a research statement to Abhijin Adiga ( abhijin at bi.vt.edu). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de Mon Jul 31 12:27:04 2017 From: barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Pablo Barros) Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2017 18:27:04 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: [CFP] Extended Deadline for the Computational Models for Crossmodal Learning Workshop at ICDL-EPIROB 2017 - Lisbon Message-ID: <12d9a203-159a-01d4-5560-d3987b41dd0f@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> THIRD CALL FOR PAPERS *Extended Deadline* International workshop: Computational Models for Crossmodal Learning In conjunction with the 7th Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EPIROB) Lisbon - Portugal - September 18, 2017 Website: https://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/wtm/WorkshopCrossmodalLearning2017/index.php I. Aim and Scope The ability of processing crossmodal information is a fundamental feature of the brain that provides a robust perceptual experience for an efficient interaction with the environment. Consequently, the integration of multisensory information plays a crucial role in autonomous systems to create robust and meaningful representations of objects and events. For dealing with real-world information, an autonomous, intel- ligent system must be capable of processing, integrating, and segregating different modalities for the purpose of coherent perception, decision-making, and cognitive learning. Recent neurophysiological findings in cross- modal learning have inspired novel computational models with the aim to trigger biologically inspired behavioral responses. A rich set of neural mechanisms support the integration and segregation of multimodal stimuli, providing the means to efficiently solve conflicts across modalities. This workshop aims to join research from psychology, computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and cognitive robotics to discuss current research on crossmodal learning mechanisms both from the theoretical and modelling perspective. Possible avenues for future research in the field of crossmodal learning are principal topics of a discussion panel. II. Target Audience This workshop is open to doctoral students and senior researchers working in computer and cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience and related areas with the focus on crossmodal learning. III. Keynote Speakers - Yulia Sandamirskaya, University of Zurich, Switzerland - Yukie Nagai, University of Osaka, Japan - Charles Spence, University of Oxford, UK - Stefan Wermter, University of Hamburg, Germany IV. Submission - For paper submission, use the following IEEE template (double column): - Submitted papers should be limited to 2 pages (extended abstract) or 4 pages maximum (short paper). - Send your pdf file to both: barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de AND jirak at informatik.uni-hamburg.de - The primary list of topics covers the following topics (but not limited to): - Machine learning and neural networks for multimodal learning - Behavioral studies on crossmodal learning - Models of crossmodal attention and perception - New theories and findings on crossmodal processing - Bio-inspired approaches for multisensory integration - Deep learning architectures for multimodal perception - Multimodal systems for robotics. Selected contributions will be presented during the workshop as spotlight talks and in a poster session. Contributors to the workshop will be invited to submit extended versions of the manuscripts to a special issue to be arranged. Submissions will be peer reviewed consistent with the journal practices. V. Important Dates - Paper submission deadline: 11.08.2017 (Extended) - Notification of acceptance: 25.08.2017 - Camera-ready version: 05.09.2017 - Workshop: *18-September-2017* VI. Organizers Pablo Barros, German I. Parisi, Doreen Jirak, Hamburg University, Germany, www.knowledge-technology.info Bruno Fernandes, Universidade de Pernambuco, Brazil -- Dr.rer.nat. Pablo Barros Research Associate Knowledge Technology Department of Informatics University of Hamburg Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany Phone: +49 40 42883 2535 Fax: +49 40 42883 2515 barros at informatik.uni-hamburg.de https://www.inf.uni-hamburg.de/en/inst/ab/wtm/people/barros.html www.knowledge-technology.info From iceis at insticc.info Mon Jul 31 11:05:13 2017 From: iceis at insticc.info (iceis at insticc.info) Date: 31 Jul 2017 16:05:13 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP ICEIS 2018 - 20th Int.l Conf. on Enterprise Information Systems (Funchal, Madeira/Portugal) Message-ID: <20170731150513.14889.5C899DC7A30B1D81@insticc.info> SUBMISSION DEADLINE 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems Submission Deadline: October 18, 2017 http://www.iceis.org/ March 21 - 24, 2018 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. ICEIS is organized in 6 major tracks: - Databases and Information Systems Integration - Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems - Information Systems Analysis and Specification - Software Agents and Internet Computing - Human-Computer Interaction - Enterprise Architecture In Cooperation with SWIM, AAAI. With the presence of internationally distinguished keynote speakers: Alexander Brodsky, George Mason University, United States Plamen Angelov, Lancaster University, United Kingdom A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). Should you have any question please don?t hesitate contacting me. Kind regards, ICEIS Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2? esq. 2910-595 Setubal, Portugal Tel: +351 265 520 184 Fax: +351 265 520 186 Web: http://www.iceis.org/ e-mail: iceis.secretariat at insticc.org From complexis at insticc.info Mon Jul 31 11:05:01 2017 From: complexis at insticc.info (complexis at insticc.info) Date: 31 Jul 2017 16:05:01 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP COMPLEXIS 2018 - 3rd Int.l Conf. on Complexity, Future Information Systems and Risk (Funchal, Madeira/Portugal) Message-ID: <20170731150502.14889.EB75FE451802D5CF@insticc.info> SUBMISSION DEADLINE 3rd International Conference on Complexity, Future Information Systems and Risk Submission Deadline: October 16, 2017 http://www.complexis.org/ March 20 - 21, 2018 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. COMPLEXIS is organized in 7 major tracks: - Complexity in Informatics, Automation and Networking - Complexity in Biology and Biomedical Engineering - Complexity in Social Sciences - Complexity in Computational Intelligence and Future Information Systems - Complexity in EDA, Embedded Systems, and Computer Architecture - Network Complexity - Complexity in Risk and Predictive Modeling In Cooperation with IFSR, EATCS. With the presence of internationally distinguished keynote speakers: Ernesto Estrada, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/). Should you have any question please don?t hesitate contacting me. Kind regards, COMPLEXIS Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2? esq. 2910-595 Setubal, Portugal Tel: +351 265 520 184 Fax: +351 265 520 186 Web: http://www.complexis.org/ e-mail: complexis.secretariat at insticc.org