International Workshop

[Johan.Suykens@esat.kuleuven.ac.be]

 Second call for papers

 International Workshop on 

  ***  ADVANCED BLACK-BOX TECHNIQUES FOR NONLINEAR MODELING:
       THEORY AND APPLICATIONS                                *** 

 with  !!!  TIME-SERIES PREDICTION COMPETITION !!!


 Date:            July 8-10, 1998
 Place:           Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
 On-line Info:    http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/workshop/

 Organized at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT-SISTA) and the 
 Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Networks (ICNN) in the framework of the 
 project KIT and the Belgian Interuniversity Attraction Pole IUAP P4/02.
 In cooperation with the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.


 * GENERAL SCOPE

   The rapid growth of the field of neural networks, fuzzy systems
   and wavelets is offering a variety of new techniques for modeling
   of nonlinear systems in the broad sense. These topics have been 
   investigated from differents points of view including statistics,
   identification and control theory, approximation theory, signal
   processing, nonlinear dynamics, information theory, physics and 
   optimization theory among others. The aim of this workshop is to serve 
   as an interdisciplinary forum for bringing together specialists in these
   research disciplines. Issues related to the fundamental theory as well
   as real-life applications will be addressed at the workshop.


 * TIME-SERIES PREDICTION COMPETITION

   Within the framework of this workshop a time-series prediction 
   competition will be held. The results of the competition will be
   announced during the workshop, where the winner will be awarded.
   Participants in the competition are asked to submit their predicted
   data together with a short description and references of the 
   methods used. In order to stimulate wide participation in the 
   competition, attendance of the workshop is not mandatory but 
   is of course encouraged. All information about this contest is available
   at http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/workshop/ .


 * INVITED SPEAKERS (confirmed)

   L. Feldkamp (Ford Research, USA)     -  Extended Kalman filtering 
   C. Micchelli (IBM T.J. Watson, USA)  -  Density estimation 
   U. Parlitz (Gottingen, Germany)      -  Nonlinear time-series analysis
   J. Sjoberg (Goeteborg, Sweden)       -  Nonlinear system identification 
   S. Tan (Beijing, China)              -  Wavelet-based system modeling   
   V. Vapnik (AT&T Labs-Research, USA)  -  Support vector method of function
                                           estimation
   M. Vidyasagar (Bangalore, India)     -  Statistical learning theory 
   V. Wertz (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) -  Fuzzy modeling

   A workshop book containing the invited talks will be published by Kluwer
   and will be available at the workshop.


 * TOPICS include but are not limited to

   Nonlinear system identification     Backpropagation
   Time series analysis                Learning and nonlinear optimization
   Multilayer perceptrons              Recursive algorithms
   Radial basis function networks      Extended Kalman filtering
   Fuzzy modelling                     Embedding dimension
   Wavelets                            Subspace methods
   Piecewise linear models             Identifiability             
   Mixture of experts                  Model selection and validation
   Universal approximation             Simulated annealing
   Recurrent networks                  Genetic algorithms
   Regularization                      Forecasting
   Bayesian estimation                 Frequency domain identification
   Density estimation                  Classification
   Information geometry                Real-life applications
   Generalization                      Software


 * REGISTRATION

   Registration fee: 6500 BF for IEEE members and students, and 
   7500 BF for others (1 US Dollar is approximately 37.5 BF).
   It includes the workshop book, proceedings, lunches, dinners,
   refreshments/coffee. For registration form and payment, see
   http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/workshop/ .
 

 * HOTEL INFORMATION

   A block of rooms has been reserved at Begijnhof Congreshotel,
   New Damshire, Holiday Inn and Ibis. For more information in order 
   to contact the hotels, see http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/workshop/.


 * IMPORTANT DATES

       Deadline paper submission:    April   2, 1998
       Notification of acceptance:   May     4, 1998
       Workshop:                     July 8-10, 1998        

   Time-series competition:

       Deadline data submission:     March  20, 1998


 * Chairman: 

       Johan Suykens 
       Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
       Departement Elektrotechniek - ESAT/SISTA
       Kardinaal Mercierlaan 94 
       B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee), Belgium 
       Tel: 32/16/32 18 02
       Fax: 32/16/32 19 70
       Email: Johan.Suykens at esat.kuleuven.ac.be

   Program Committee: 

   B. De Moor, E. Deprettere, D. Roose, J. Schoukens, S. Tan, 
   J. Vandewalle, V. Wertz, Y. Yu