<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)">
<style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:PMingLiU;
panose-1:2 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Aptos;
panose-1:2 11 0 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@PMingLiU";
panose-1:2 1 6 1 0 1 1 1 1 1;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#467886;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
span.apple-tab-span
{mso-style-name:apple-tab-span;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang="EN-US" link="#467886" vlink="#96607D" style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Apologies for Cross posting<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">----------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Dear all</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">We are pleased to announce the Grand Challenge on “</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#0F4761">Neural Decoding for Motor Control of non-Human Primates”
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">at IEEE BioCAS 2024.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">About</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The need to restore their ability to perform activities for daily living has motivated the development of a host of assistive technologies. The most promising among the reported ones is the intra-cortical
Brain-Machine Interface (iBMI). iBMIs aim to substantially improve patients' lives affected by spinal cord injury or debilitating neurodegenerative disorders such as tetraplegia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis etc.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">An important block in the signal processing chain is the intention decoder that converts the neural signal to a command for driving an actuator (e.g. wheelchair, cursor in screen etc.). While Kalman
Filters have been the algorithm of choice historically, the recent improvements of deep neural networks (DNN) raise the question whether they can outperform traditional signal processing techniques. Moreover, integrating such decoders in the implant can provide
an effective solution to data compression which is urgently needed to enable wireless iBMIs. However, the computational complexity of the decoder has to be reduced to fit within the power budget of an implant. Recent advances in DNN techniques such as model
compression, quantization and new networks like spiking neural networks may offer solutions in this direction.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">This
<i>IEEE BioCAS Grand Challenge</i> is geared in that direction and aims to push the boundary for neural decoder design toward next-generation BMI systems. We leverage the framework of Neurobench (</span><span style="color:black"><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.04640"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1155CC">https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.04640</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">)
developed for benchmarking neuromorphic systems to enable fair comparisons between different decoder designs.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Timeline</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Start of Registration
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Friday, Apr 26, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Start of Project Submission
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Wednesday, May 1, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">End of Registration/ Regular Paper Submission
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Friday, May 27, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">End of Project Submission
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Friday, Aug 2, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Author Notification Date
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Friday, Aug 16, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Final paper submission deadline
<span class="apple-tab-span"> </span> </span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Friday, Sep 6, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Conference Registration
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:red">Friday, Oct 4, 2024</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Participation</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:29.0pt;background:white">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">1.</span><span style="font-size:7.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">The competition is open to individuals, colleges/universities, scientific research institutions, and enterprises. The maximum number of team members is 3.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:29.0pt;background:white">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">2.</span><span style="font-size:7.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">To ensure compliance with local regulations during the competition, all participants should comply with the export control laws of their country. In case of any negative impact on the competition
due to violation of any export control laws, the team members reserve the right to disqualify the relevant contestants and take legal action.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:29.0pt;background:white">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">3.</span><span style="font-size:7.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">
</span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">Participants shall express their interest to participate in this Grand Challenge by filling in the application form (</span></b><span style="color:black"><a href="https://forms.gle/XGu4Bo9qq2YEYWWe6"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#1155CC">https://forms.gle/XGu4Bo9qq2YEYWWe6</span></b></a></span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">
). They have to further submit an abstract in the Conference paper submission website (</span></b><span style="color:black"><a href="https://2024.ieee-biocas.org/Call-for-Papers"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#1155CC">https://2024.ieee-biocas.org/Call-for-Papers</span></b></a></span><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#303133">)
choosing the track as “Grand Challenge”, by <u>May 27, 2024</u>.</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-size:22.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Awards</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Top performing teams will be invited to submit papers in a week after their notification on Aug 16. Do note that gaining one of the top places on the leaderboard does not necessarily mean the acceptance
of your paper –the paper will still go through a peer review process and may be rejected. The winning entries may however present their work at the conference regardless of paper acceptance. They will also receive certificates.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">For further details of datasets and evaluation metrics, please check the Biocas website:</span><span style="color:black"><a href="http://2024.ieee-biocas.org/"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#1155CC">http://2024.ieee-biocas.org/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">You may also email the organizers as listed below. We look forward to receiving your submissions!</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Thanking you,</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:24.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Organizers</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Biyan Zhou,<b>
</b>City University of Hong Kong </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Pao-Sheng Vincent Sun, City University of Hong Kong</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Jason Yik, Harvard University</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Charlotte Frenkel, Delft University of Technology </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Vijay Janapa Reddi, Harvard University </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Arindam Basu, City University of Hong Kong </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">(Email:
<a href="mailto:byzhou4-c@my.cityu.edu.hk">byzhou4-c@my.cityu.edu.hk</a>; <a href="mailto:vincesun-c@my.cityu.edu.hk">
vincesun-c@my.cityu.edu.hk</a>; <a href="mailto:jyik@g.harvard.edu">jyik@g.harvard.edu</a> )</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">-- <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">Arindam Basu<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">Professor, Dept. of EE<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">City University of Hong Kong<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">Associate EiC, IEEE TBCAS<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">Editorial Board Member of IOP Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">Associate Editor of IEEE Sensors & Frontiers in Neuroscience<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<p style="font-size: x-small; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: italic">
Disclaimer: This email (including any attachments) is for the use of the intended recipient only and may contain confidential information and/or copyright material. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and delete this
email and all copies from your system. Any unauthorized use, disclosure, reproduction, copying, distribution, or other form of unauthorized dissemination of the contents is expressly prohibited.</p>
</body>
</html>