Announcement for Neuromorphic Engineering workshop in Telluride in 95

[Christof Koch]

                  CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IN  A WORKSHOP ON 

                       "NEUROMORPHIC  ENGINEERING"

                            JUNE 25 - JULY 8, 1995

                             TELLURIDE, COLORADO

            Deadline for application is April 24, 1995.

Christof Koch (Caltech) and Terry Sejnowski (Salk Institute/UCSD)
invite applications for one two-week workshop that will be held in 
Telluride, Colorado in 1995. 

The first Telluride Workshop on Neuromorphic Engineering was held in
July, 1994 and was sponsored by the NSF.  A summary of the 94  workshop
and a list of participants is available over MOSAIC:

http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~timmer/telluride.html   OR
http://www.salk.edu/~bryan/telluride.html

GOALS:

Carver  Mead introduced the  term "Neuromorphic Engineering" for a new
field  based on   the   design and fabrication   of  artificial neural
systems, such as vision  systems, head-eye systems, and roving robots,
whose   architecture and  design principles   are  based  on those  of
biological nervous  systems. The  goal of  this  workshop is to  bring
together young  investigators and   more established researchers  from
academia  with  their    counterparts   in industry      and  national
laboratories, working on  both neurobiological as  well as engineering
aspects of sensory systems and sensory-motor integration. The focus of
the workshop will be  on  ``active" participation, with  demonstration
systems and hands-on-experience for all participants.

Neuromorphic  engineering  has   a  wide  range of  applications  from
nonlinear adaptive control  of complex systems  to the design of smart
sensors. Many of the fundamental principles in this field, such as the
use of learning   methods and the   design of  parallel hardware,  are
inspired by   biological systems.  However,  existing applications are
modest and the  challenge of scaling  up from small  artificial neural
networks and designing  completely  autonomous systems at the   levels
achieved by biological  systems lies ahead. The  assumption underlying
this two  week  workshop is  that the next  generation of neuromorphic
systems would benefit  from closer attention  to the principles  found
through experimental and theoretical studies of brain systems.

The  focus  of the first  week  is on  exploring  neuromorphic systems
through the  medium  of analog VLSI   and will be organized  by Rodney
Douglas  (Oxford)  and Misha Mahowald   (Oxford).  Sessions will cover
methods for the   design  and fabrication of  multi-chip  neuromorphic
systems.  This   framework is suitable   both  for creating analogs of
specific biological systems, which can serve as a modeling environment
for biologists,  and as  a tool  for engineers  to  create cooperative
circuits based on  biological principles.   The workshop will  provide
the  community   with  a    common  formal language    for  describing
neuromorphic systems.

Equipment  will be  available for   participants to evaluate  existing
neuromorphic  chips  (including   silicon  retina,  silicon   neurons,
oculomotor system).

The  second  week   of  the course    will  be  on   vision  and human
sensory-motor coordination  and will be organized  by Dana Ballard and
Mary Hayhoe (Rochester).  Sessions will cover issues of  sensory-motor
integration in the mammalian brain. Special emphasis will be placed on
understanding neural algorithms used  by  the brain which can  provide
insights into  constructing electrical  circuits which  can accomplish
similar tasks.  Issues to be covered will include spatial localization
and constancy,  attention, motor planning, eye  movements, and the use
of visual motion  information  for motor  control.  These  researchers
will also be   asked   to bring their own   demonstrations,  classroom
experiments, and software for computer models.

Demonstrations will  include    a  robot head active    vision  system
consisting of a three degree-of-freedom  binocular camera system  that
is fully  programmable.  The vision   system  us based  on a  DataCube
videopipe which in turn provides drive  signals to the three motors of
the head.

FORMAT:

Time  will be divided between  lectures, practical  labs, and interest
group meetings. There will be three lectures in the morning that cover
issues that  are important to the  community in general.   In general,
one lecture  will be neurobiological,   one computational, and  one on
analog VLSI.  Because of  the diverse range  of backgrounds  among the
participants, the majority of these lectures will be tutorials, rather
than detailed  reports of  current  research.  These lectures  will be
given by  invited speakers.  Participants will be  free to explore and
play  with whatever  they choose  in the  afternoon. Participants  are
encouraged to bring  their own material to share  with  others.  After
dinner,  participants  will  get  together  more  informally  to  hear
lectures and demonstrations.

LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS:

The workshop  will  take   place  at the  "Telluride   Summer Research
Center,"  located in the  small town  of Telluride,  9000 feet high in
Southwest Colorado, about 6 hours  away from Denver  (350 miles) and 4
hours  from Aspen. Continental and United  Airlines provide many daily
flights directly into Telluride. Participants will be housed in shared
condominiums, within   walking distance  of the  Center.  Bring hiking
boots  and a   backpack,  since Telluride is  surrounded  by beautiful
mountains.

The    workshop  is      intended   to    be   very  informal      and
hands-on. Participants are     not  required to  have  had    previous
experience   in analog VLSI circuit   design, computational or machine
vision, systems level neurophysiology  or  modeling the brain  at  the
systems level. However,  we strongly encourage active researchers with
relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories
to apply, in particular if they are prepared to  talk about their work
or to bring demonstrators to Telluride (e.g. robots, chips, software).

Internet access will be provided.   Technical staff present throughout
the workshops will assist with software and hardware problems. We will
have a  network  of SUN  workstations running  UNIX   and PCs  running
windows and LINUX.

Up  to $500  will be reimbursed  for  domestic travel  and all housing
expenses will be  provided. Participants are  expected to pay for food
and incidental  expenses and are expected to  stay for the duration of
this two week workshop.

PARTIAL LIST OF INVITED LECTURERS:

Richard Anderson, Caltech.
Chris Atkeson, Georgia Tech.
Dana Ballard, Rochester.
Kwabena Boahen, Caltech.
Avis Cohen, Maryland.
Tobi Delbruck, Arithmos, Palo Alto.
Steve DeWeerth, Georgia Tech.
Steve Deiss, Applied NeuroDynamics, San Diego.
Chris Dioro, Caltech.
Rodney Douglas, Oxford and Zurich. 
John Elias, Delaware University.
Mary Hayhoe, Rochester.
Christof Koch, Caltech. 
Steve Lisberger, UC San Francisco: Oculomotor System.
Shih-Chii Liu, Caltech  and Rockwell.
Jack Loomis, UC Santa Barbara.
Jonathan Mills, Indiana University.
Misha Mahowald, Oxford and Zurich. 
Mark Tilden, Los Alamos: Multi-legged Robots.
Terry Sejnowski, Salk Institute and UCSan Diego. 
Mona Zaghoul, George Washington University.

HOW TO APPLY:

The deadline for receipt of applications is April 24, 1995

Applicants  should  be  at the  level  of graduate  students  or above
(i.e. post- doctoral  fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff
and   the  equivalent    positions     in   industry   and    national
laboratories).   We actively encourage   qualified  women and minority
candidates to apply.

Application should include:

1. Name, address, telephone, e-mail, FAX, and minority status (optional).
2. Curriculum Vitae.
3. One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop.
4. Description of special equipment needed for demonstrations that could be 
brought to the workshop. 
5. Two letters of recommendation

Complete applications should be sent to:

Prof. Terrence Sejnowski
The Salk Institute
10010 North Torrey Pines Road
San Diego, CA  92037

email: terry at salk.edu

FAX:  (619) 587 0417

Applicants will be notified around  May 1, 1995.