Call for Workshop Presenters

[Scott_Fahlman@SEF-PMAX.SLISP.CS.CMU.EDU]

As you may have seen in the NIPS*92 workshop program, I will be running a
session entitled "Reading the Entrails: Understanding What's Going On
Inside a Neural Net".  This will take place on December 4 in Vail,
Colorado.

We will have a total of four hours for this workshop, which means we can
accommodate 6-8 presentations of about 20 minutes each (plus ample time for
discussion).  Several presentation slots are still open.

I would like to hear from any of you who would like to present a technique
that you have found useful for understanding what's going on inside a
network, either during or after training.  You don't necessarily have to be
the person who *invented* the technique, though you should have some real
hands-on experience.  As a presenter, you should describe how a specific
technique works, show (perhaps with diagrams or a videotape) how the
technique was applied to some specific problem, and describe what useful
insights resulted from this application.

Specific issues we would like to hear about include the following:

* How do you extract a set of rules (symbolic or fuzzy) from a trained
  neural network?  Under what conditions is this possible?

* How do you explain an individual network output or action in terms of the
  networks inputs and structure?  Which inputs are most responsible for
  this output?

* What are the best ways to visualize weights, unit states, and their
  trajectories over time?  How can we visualize the joint behavior of a
  large number of units?

* What can we learn from receptive-field diagrams for the hidden units?

* How can we understand the behavior of recurrent and time-domain
  networks?  (Extracting equivalent finite-state machines, etc.)

* Learning pathologies and what they look like.

If you would like to present something along these lines, please contact me
by E-mail (sef at cs.cmu.edu) and let me know what you would like to describe.

By the way, none of the NIPS workshops are limited to presenters only.
People who want to show up and listen are welcome, as long as there is
room.  It is suggested that you register pretty soon, however.
All inquiries for registration information should go to

	NIPS*92 Registration
	SIEMENS Research Center
	755 College Rd. East
	Princeton, NJ 08550

	phone 609-734-3383
	email kic at learning.siemens.com

See you in Vail!

-- Scott

===========================================================================
Scott E. Fahlman
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Internet: sef+ at cs.cmu.edu