Announcement and call for abstracts for Feb. conference

[B344DSL@UTARLG.UTA.edu]

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

          WORKSHOP ON

OPTIMALITY IN BIOLOGICAL AND ARTIFICIAL NETWORKS?

Sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics (MIND) and the Texas
SIG of the International Neural Network Society (INNS).  To be held at a loca-
tion to be announced in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Thursday through Saturday,
February 6-8, 1992.

Confirmed speakers include:

	Stephen Grossberg (Boston University)
	Stephen Hampson (University of California, Irvine)
	Karl Pribram (Radford University)
	Harold Szu (Naval Surface Warfare Center)
	Graham Tattersall (University of East Anglia)

The focus of this conference will be twofold: (1) how to optimize different
aspects of neural and cognitive function and (2) whether particular natural or
artificial solutions to specific neural or cognitive problems are in fact opti-
mal.  Specific problems to which these optimality considerations are applied will be taken from many areas including goal direction and planning, adaptive cat-
egorization, sensory perception, and motor control.

The talks will be an hour each for invited speakers and 45 minutes each for contributed speakers, with time afterwards for questions.  Speakers will not be re-
quired to write a paper, but will be invited to contribute chapters to a book 
several months after the conference.  Books based on two previous MIND conferen-
ces  -- on Motivation, Emotion, and Goal Direction in Neural Networks and NeuralNetworks for Knowledge Representation and Inference -- are now being published
by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Registration for the conference will be $80 for non-students, $20 for students,
with a $10 rebate for MIND or Texas SIG membership.  We will try to arrange for
discounted air fares from American Airlines as we have done in the past.  Those
interested in presenting should send me a short (1-3 paragraph) abstract by
December 1, 1991, using either e-mail, FAX, or snail mail.  Notification of ac-
ceptance will be given December 15, 1991.  We will not be holding parallel ses-
sions, so there are limitations on the number of speakers.  However, individu-
als who send high-quality abstracts that cannot be accommodated in actual talks
will have space to present their work in posters at the conference, and will 
also be invited to contribute to the book.

	Prof. Daniel S. Levine
	Department of Mathematics
	University of Texas at Arlington
	Arlington, TX 76019-0408 

	e-mail: b344dsl at utarlg.uta.edu
	FAX: 817-794-5802
	Telephone: 817-273-3598