From georg at ai.univie.ac.at Tue Feb 1 09:26:01 2000 From: georg at ai.univie.ac.at (Georg Dorffner) Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 15:26:01 +0100 Subject: Call f.Part.: Future of Neural Networks - Virtual Workshop Message-ID: <3896ECF9.673E6ACE@ai.univie.ac.at> NEuroNet, the European "network of excellence" on neural networks, invites you to participate in the =============================================== Open Virtual Workshop "The Future and Prospects of Neural Networks" http://www.ai.univie.ac.at/neuronet/workshop =============================================== The goal of this workshop is to collect views and comments from neural network researchers as to where the field is likely to be going in the near and medium-term future. The discussion started as a "real" workshop in Edinburgh (in the framework of ICANN'99). All contributions are available on the web now (text, images, audio files) to let you recapture that discussion. Now everybody else is invited to send their comments, questions, or short position papers. For more details see the above link. Thanks in advance for participating! Georg Dorffner ----------- NEuroNet is sponsored by the European Commission http://www.kcl.ac.uk/neuronet From halici at metu.edu.tr Tue Feb 1 11:11:24 2000 From: halici at metu.edu.tr (Ugur HALICI) Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 18:11:24 +0200 Subject: CFP:WCNA special session on NN, CVis Message-ID: <389705AC.5CE0E4CF@metu.edu.tr> The third World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts under the auspices of the International Federation of Nonlinear Analysts (IFNA) is to be held during July 19-26, 2000 in Catania, Sicily, Italy. If interested in submitting paper for special sessions on -Neural Networks -Computer Vision please contact Ugur Halici e-mail: halici at metu.edu.tr until February 15, by sending 1 page abstract. The Proceedings for the third World Congress will be published by Elsevier Science Publishers, Ltd.as a special series of the Journal of Nonlinear Analysis after a refereeing process. Deadline for submission of papers for refereeing is September 30, 2000. More information about WCNA can be reached at http://www.fit.edu/AcadRes/math/wcna/wcna2000.htm From aapo at james.hut.fi Tue Feb 1 05:52:52 2000 From: aapo at james.hut.fi (Aapo Hyvarinen) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 12:52:52 +0200 (EET) Subject: ICA2000 final CFP Message-ID: Final Call for Papers: ------------- I C A 2000 ------------- International Workshop on INDEPENDENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS and BLIND SIGNAL SEPARATION 19-22 June 2000 Helsinki, Finland http://www.cis.hut.fi/ica2000/ Submission deadline: 1 March 2000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AIMS AND SCOPE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This workshop is the second in the series initiated by the highly succesful ICA'99 workshop in Aussois, France. It is devoted to recent advances in Independent Component Analysis and Blind Signal Separation. An important goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers from artificial neural networks, signal processing, and other related fields to provide interdisciplinary exchange. Papers describing original work on ICA and BSS are invited. Relevant topics include, for example: - Theory and estimation methods - Extensions of basic models - Convolutive and noisy mixtures - Nonlinear methods - Hardware implementations - Audio and telecommunications applications - Biomedical applications - Data mining applications - Image processing applications - Sensory coding models ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAPER SUBMISSION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Important dates: 1 March, 2000 Submission of camera-ready paper 15 April, 2000 Notification of acceptance 19-22 June, 2000 Workshop Papers must be max. 6 pages, and should use IEEE conference style. The submission is electronic through the Internet. To submit a paper, follow the instructions on the ICA2000 home page. Submitted files should be in PostScript or PDF format. The submitted papers should be in the final camera-ready form, suitable for publication in the proceedings. The submitted papers will be peer-reviewed, and acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. All the papers presented at the workshop will be published in the Proceedings of ICA 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- L. Almeida, IST/INESC, Portugal S.-I. Amari, RIKEN, Japan A. Bell, Interval Research, USA J.-F. Cardoso, ENST, France A. Cichocki, RIKEN, Japan P. Comon, Universite de Nice, France S. Douglas, Southern Methodist University, USA C. Fyfe, Univ. of Paisley, UK S. Haykin, McMaster University, Canada A. Hyvarinen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland C. Jutten, INPG, France J. Karhunen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland S. Kassam, Univ. of Pennsylvania, USA V. Koivunen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland T.-W. Lee, Salk Institute, USA R.-W. Liu, Univ. of Notre Dame, USA P. Loubaton, Universite de Marne la Vallee, France K.-R. Mueller, GMD First, Germany B. Olshausen, UC Davis, USA E. Oja, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland P. Pajunen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland J. Principe, Univ. of Florida, USA T. Sejnowski, Salk Institute, USA K. Torkkola, Motorola Corporate Research, USA J. Tugnait, Auburn University, USA L. Xu, The Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, China ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General Chair: E. Oja Program Chair: J. Karhunen Local Arrangements Chair: V. Koivunen Publications Chair; P. Pajunen Publicity Chair; A. Hyvarinen Treasurer: J. Iivarinen Web Master: J. Sarela ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COOPERATING SOCIETIES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- European Neural Network Society, IEEE Signal Processing Society, EURASIP, IEEE Neural Networks Council, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- web site http://www.cis.hut.fi/ica2000/ email ica2000 at mail.cis.hut.fi postal mail ICA 2000, P.O.Box 5400 Lab of Comp. and Info. Science Helsinki Univ. of Technology FIN-02015 HUT, Finland ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jose at tractatus.rutgers.edu Tue Feb 1 12:34:48 2000 From: jose at tractatus.rutgers.edu (Stephen Hanson) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 12:34:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: RUTGERS-NEWARK PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATE PROGRAM FELLOWSHIPS Message-ID: <200002011734.MAA06003@tractatus.rutgers.edu> RUTGERS UNIVERSITY- Graduate Program in PSYCHOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATE PROGRAM- Newark Campus GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS. Fall 00 The graduate program seeks students for FALL 00. Interested applicants from Psychology, Computer Science or Cognitive Science undergrad programs are encouraged to apply. The program provides comprehensive training in COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE and COGNITIVE SCIENCE. These fellowships are competitive and focus in neuro-imaging, computation and cognitive science/perception research. The Rutgers-Newark Psychology Department and UMDNJ have recently acquired a 3T magnet (SIEMENS ALLEGRA) and a Neuroimaging center. Application Deadline is March 1, 2000. Please send enquiries and applications to Professor S. J. Hanson, Chair, Department of Psychology Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102. Email enquirys can be made to jose at psychology.rutgers.edu also please see our web page for more information on the graduate faculty and program http://www.psych.rutgers.edu From stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk Wed Feb 2 06:45:52 2000 From: stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk (Stefan.Wermter) Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 11:45:52 +0000 Subject: 3 lecturer/senior lecturer positions Message-ID: <389818F0.3B15FC53@sunderland.ac.uk> As a result of recent expansions opportunities have arisen to make several appointments at the University of Sunderland. People on this list might be particularly interested in lecturer/ senior lecturer positions in the areas below, including intelligent systems where we focus in particular on neural adaptive systems, hybrid neural symbolic systems, natural language engineering and we welcome applications in this area. ---------------------------------- Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Opportunities in Computing and Engineering at the University of Sunderland Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Computing - 3 Posts To contribute to teaching, research and other initiatives in computing, particularly in the areas of Software Engineering/Programming; and/or Networks/Communications. You should have experience in one of these key areas as well as the enthusiasm to make a strong contribution to our research and reach-out activities. You will join a large and enthusiastic team of staff delivering a range of computing programmes, and undertaking research in the areas of software engineering, intelligent systems, human computer systems and decision support systems. Ref No: CETL64 Salary at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer 14,902 - 30,636. Informal enquiries welcomed by Professor Peter Smith on (0191) 515 2761 or email peter.smith at sunderland .ac.uk A Relocation Package is available in approved cases. Submit your CV with a letter of application detailing current salary and two referees, quoting appropriate vacancy title and reference number, to the Personnel Department, University of Sunderland, Langham Tower, Ryhope Road, Sunderland, SR2 7EE or email employee.recruitment at sunderland.ac.uk Closing Date: 29th February 2000 Working Towards Equal Opportunities -------------------------------------- *************************************** Professor Stefan Wermter Research Chair in Intelligent Systems University of Sunderland Centre of Informatics, SCET St Peters Way Sunderland SR6 0DD United Kingdom phone: +44 191 515 3279 fax: +44 191 515 2781 email: stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0stw/ http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/ **************************************** From oreilly at grey.colorado.edu Thu Feb 3 00:15:48 2000 From: oreilly at grey.colorado.edu (Randall C. O'Reilly) Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 22:15:48 -0700 Subject: Postdoc in Computational CogNeuro Message-ID: <200002030515.WAA02702@grey.colorado.edu> Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab University of Colorado Boulder Postdoctoral Position A postdoctoral position is available starting immediately for someone interested in pursuing neuroscience-based computational modeling approaches to cognition. The nature of the position is somewhat flexible, depending upon the individual's interest and expertise, with the following topics being of specific interest: * Models in cognitive domains where traditional approaches, and recent neural network models, have relied on structured representations. The approach is to use powerful learning mechanisms to develop systematic, distributed representations at multiple levels of abstraction, and test for the ability of these representations to behave in a systematic, structured manner. Cognitive domains of interest are spatial relationships, mental models of causal domains, and language comprehension. * Models of the basal ganglia/prefrontal cortex activation-based memory system, with the idea that the prefrontal cortex is specialized for maintaining information in an active state, while the basal ganglia are important for initiating the updating of these active representations. Reinforcement-based learning mechanisms are thought to be important for this system. * Models of the specialized roles of the hippocampus and neocortex in learning and memory. The primary requirement for the position is a Ph.D. in the cognitive, computational, or neurosciences, and extensive experience with computational modeling work, either at the PDP/connectionist or detailed biophysical level. The position will be supervised by Dr. Randall O'Reilly at the Department of Psychology and Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For more information about the research, the computational cognitive neuroscience lab, and other associated faculty, see http://psych.colorado.edu/~oreilly and associated links. Interested individuals should send a curriculum vitae, representative publications, a statement of research interests, and three letters of reference via email to oreilly at psych.colorado.edu or via snail mail to Randall O'Reilly, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder, Campus Box 345, Boulder, CO 80309-0345. Applications will be reviewed as they are received, continuing until the position is filled. The University of Colorado is an equal opportunity employer; minorities and women are encouraged to apply. From carlos at comp.ita.cta.br Thu Feb 3 14:40:43 2000 From: carlos at comp.ita.cta.br (Carlos Henrique Costa Ribeiro) Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 17:40:43 -0200 Subject: 1st CFP - SBRN2000 Rio Message-ID: <200002031940.RAA31920@comp.ita.cta.br> _____________________________________________________________________ FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS SBRN'2000 - VIth BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON NEURAL NETWORKS http://www.iltc.br/sbrn2000/ Rio de Janeiro, November 22-25, 2000 SBRN'2000 is the 6th edition of a forum, held biannually in Brazil, dedicated to neural networks (NNs) and to other models of computational intelligence. Rio de Janeiro, a city unique for its natural beauty, is the location of SBRN'2000. Rio is a great place and has the rhythm to bring people together in a stimulating discussion about research, development, applications, new technologies and advances in neural networks. Sponsored by SBC - The Brazilian Computer Society Co-Sponsored by SIG/INNNS/Brazil Special Interest Group of the International Neural Networks Society in Brazil Organised by COPPE/UFRJ and ILTC Published by IEEE Computer Society Deadlines: Submission: 19 June 2000; Acceptance: 31 July 2000; Camera-ready: 21 August 2000 Non-exhaustive list of topics which will be covered during SBRN'2000: Applications: finances, data mining, neurocontrol, time series forecasting; Architectures: cellular NNs, hardware and software implementations, new models, weightless models; Cognitive Sciences: adaptive behaviour, natural language, mental processes; Computational Intelligence: evolutionary systems, fuzzy systems, hybrid systems; Learning: algorithms, evolutionary and fuzzy techniques, reinforcement learning; Neurobiological Systems: bio-inspired systems, biologically plausible networks, vision; Neurocontrol: robotics, dynamic systems, adaptive control; Neurosymbolic processing: hybrid approaches, logical inference, rule extraction, structured knowledge; Pattern Recognition: signal processing, artificial/computational vision; Theory: radial basis functions, Bayesian systems, function approximation; Invited Speakers: Dana Ballard (University of Rochester, USA)* Ernesto Burattini (Istituto di Cibernetica-CNR, Italy)* Marie Cottrell (Universite d'Evry/SAMOS-Paris I, France) Jerome Feldman (ICSI-Berkeley, USA)* Maria Eunice Gonzales (UNESP-RC, BR)* Antonia J. Jones (Univ. of Wales at Cardiff, UK) Noel Sharkey (Univ. of Shefield, UK)* Sebastian Thrun (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)* *(confirmed) Paper Submission: Prospective authors are invited to submit 10-pages, 12 point single column papers (postscript or pdf format) written in English, Portuguese or Spanish. Submission must be made electronically, according to the following procedure. Use the last name of the contact author to name the postscript or pdf file (e.g., einstein.ps); add numerals for submitting more than one paper with the same contact author (e.g., einstein1.ps, einstein2.ps). Large postscript files can be compressed as .zip, .gz or .Z file (in this case, the file must have the corresponding extension , e.g., einstein.ps.gz). Submit the paper by email to sbrn2000 at comp.ita.cta.br by sending a submission notice, with your (possibly compressed) postscript or pdf file as an attachment. In the submission notice, include ONLY the following information (please, put one item per line to allow easy automatic processing): full title of the paper, authors' first and last names, authors' affiliations, technical area, keywords, corresponding author (name, postal address, e-mail address, phone and fax numbers), preferred mode of presentation (oral or poster), and the abstract of the paper. The submission notice must be in plain ASCII text. Use the name of the submitted file as subject of the message. Do not include in the paper any information concerning the authors, the presentation, or the technical area. If you have any problem concerning this submission procedure, contact the conference organisers by email. The first volume of the Proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press, in time for distribution at the symposium. It will include only accepted papers written in English and abstracts of accepted papers written in Portuguese or Spanish. A second volume will be issued as a CD-ROM, and will contain accepted papers originally written in Portuguese or Spanish. General Chair: Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ/ILTC, Brazil) felipe at cos.ufrj.br Program Chair: Carlos H. C. Ribeiro (ITA, Brazil) carlos at comp.ita.cta.br Tutorials Chair: Antonio C. S. Branco (ILTC, Brazil) branco at iltc.br Steering Comittee: Aluizio F. R. Araujo (USP-SC, BR) Antonio de P. Braga (UFMG, BR) Walmir M. Caminhas (UFMG, BR) Andre P. L. F. Carvalho (USP-SC, BR) Edson Costa B.C. Filho (UFPE, BR) Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ, BR) Teresa B. Ludermir (UFPE, BR) Carlos H. C. Ribeiro (ITA, BR) Germano Vasconcelos (UFPE, BR) Gerson Zaverucha (UFRJ, BR) Program Comittee (temptative): Paulo J. L. Adeodato (UFPE, BR) Igor Aleksander (Imperial College, UK) Nigel M. Allinson (UMIST, UK) James A. Anderson (Brown Univ., USA) Aluizio F. R. Araujo (USP-SC, BR) Dana Ballard (Univ. of Rochester, USA) Valmir C. Barbosa (UFRJ, BR) Valeriu Beiu (Los Alamos Lab., USA) Amit Bhaya (UFRJ, BR) Antonio de P. Braga (UFMG, BR) Ernesto Burattini (I. di Cibernetica-CNR, IT) Euvaldo Cabral (USP, BR) Walmir M. Caminhas (UFMG, BR) Andre P. L. F. Carvalho (USP-SC, BR) Edson Costa B.C. Filho (UFPE, BR) Marie Cottrell (Univ. d'Evry/Paris I, FR) Massimo De Gregorio (I. di Cibernetica-CNR, IT) Phillipe DeWilde (Imperial College, UK) Max S. Dutra (UFRJ, BR) Alexandre Evsukoff (UFRJ/ILTC, BR) Jerome Feldman (ICSI-Berkeley, USA) Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ/ILTC, BR) Sergio E. Goncalves (UFRJ, BR) Maria Eunice Gonzales (UNESP-RC, BR) Helge Ritter (Bielefild Univ., DE) Antonia J. Jones (Univ. of Wales, UK) Lokesh Kalia (Imperial College, UK) Nikola Kasabov (Univ. of Otago, NZ) Eugenius Kaskurewicz (UFRJ, BR) Priscila M. V. Lima (ILTC-RJ, BR) Teresa B. Ludermir (UFPE, BR) Weber Martins (UFG, BR) Helen Morton (Brunel Univ., UK) Cairo L. Nascimento Jr (ITA, BR) Wilson R. de Oliveira Jr (UFPE, BR) Nizam Omar (ITA, BR) Marco A. Pacheco (PUC-RJ, BR) Luiz A. Pessoa (NIH, USA) Carlos H. C. Ribeiro (ITA, BR) Roseli A. F. Romero (USP-SC, BR) Sandra Sandri (INPE, BR) Jose M. Seixas (UFRJ, BR) Amanda Sharkey (Univ. of Shefield, UK) Noel Sharkey (Univ. of Shefield, UK) Jude W. Shavlik (Univ. of Wisconsin, USA) Marcilio C. P. de Souto (UFPE, BR) Csaba Szepesvari (Mindmaker Ltd., HG) Harold Szu (U. of SW Lousiana, USA), Guglielmo Tamburrini (Univ. di Pisa, IT) Sebastian Thrun (Carnegie Mellon, USA) Antonio C. G. Thome (UFRJ, BR) Germano Vasconcelos (UFPE, BR) Marley Vellasco (PUC-RJ, BR) Vincent Vigneron (Univ. d'Evry/Paris I, FR) Takeshi Yamakawa (Kyushu, JP), Takashi Yoneyama (ITA, BR) Gerson Zaverucha (UFRJ, BR) Jack M. Zurada (Univ. of Louisville, USA) Organizing Comittee: Antonio C. S. Branco (ILTC-RJ) Max S. Dutra (UFRJ) Alexandre Evsukoff (UFRJ/ILTC-RJ) Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ/ILTC-RJ) Cassiano L. Froes da Silva (Uniway/Citybank-RJ) Marco A. Pacheco (PUC-RJ) Marley Vellasco (PUC-RJ) Zhijun Yang (UFRJ) From duch at phys.uni.torun.pl Fri Feb 4 05:41:06 2000 From: duch at phys.uni.torun.pl (Wlodzislaw Duch) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 11:41:06 +0100 Subject: Request for reviews Message-ID: <001601bf6efc$57a665c0$04054b9e@phys.uni.torun.pl> As the newly appointed "book and media review" editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks I'd welcome proposals for book (NN, CI, soft computing, connectionist, behavioral neurophysiology etc.) and media reviews (web sites, bibliographical databases, CD-ROMs etc). Regards, Wlodek Duch From diane at cs.cmu.edu Fri Feb 4 15:22:48 2000 From: diane at cs.cmu.edu (Diane Stidle) Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 15:22:48 -0500 Subject: CALD is seeking applications Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000204152248.01461dd0@ux5.sp.cs.cmu.edu> CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY The Center for Automated Learning and Discovery (CALD) at Carnegie Mellon University is seeking applications at all levels for tenured and tenure track positions. We are looking for candidates with excellent research and teaching records and a strong commitment to cross-disciplinary work. Specifically, successful candidates are expected to strengthen ties between the various departments in CALD. CALD is a cross-disciplinary center, that includes the Departments of Statistics, Computer Science, Robotics, Language Technology Institute (LTI), Philosophy, Psychology and CNBC (Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition). The focus is on machine learning, data mining and statistics, with faculty drawn from computer science, philosophy, statistics, and other units around the university. CALD currently has 16 industrial sponsors. For more details about CALD see, www.cs.cmu.edu/~cald The starting date can be as early as July 1, 2000. Priority will be given to applications received before March 1, 2000. Please send a C.V., 3 letters of recommendation, a statement of research and teaching interests and copies of any relevant papers to: Diane Stidle (diane at cs.cmu.edu) CALD - Wean Hall Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Carnegie Mellon is an AA/EEO institution. From uwe.zimmer at gmd.gr.jp Mon Feb 7 02:23:02 2000 From: uwe.zimmer at gmd.gr.jp (Uwe R. Zimmer) Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 16:23:02 +0900 Subject: workshop: Autonomous Artificial Systems exploring hostile environments Message-ID: <389E72D2.99CCE227@gmd.gr.jp> Workshop-Announcement ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop on: Autonomous artificial systems exploring hostile environments http://www.gmd.gr.jp/JRL/events.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- as part of the International NAISO Congress on Information Science Innovations (ISI'2001) March 18th, 2001 at the American University of Dubai, U.A.E. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The depths of the oceans, the heats of volcanos, the cold of Antarctica, as well as remote planets are getting more and more technically accessible. Still these areas are too wide or too dangerous to be explored by humans directly. Thus we will be requested to send artificial scouts from which we expect at least that they are coming back or transmitting relevant information before they disintegrate. Furtheron these creatures will be required to develop geographical abilities like for instance navigating a second time exactly to a formerly discovered place or delivering spatio-temporal models of various kinds. Still most of our exploring vehicles from today are relying on the existence of permanent wireless connections, global positioning systems, or local geographic maps. Under the ice of Antarctica and most other places considered here, none of this infrastructure will be available. Therefore actual exploration abilities are expected to be bundled with a real enhancement of autonomy. This is what this workshop is about. All presenters and audience submitting or exploiting fields like: o On-line, life-long, or real-time adaptation/learning o Spatio-temporal modeling (e.g. mapping, identification of dynamical systems) o Dynamical systems o Motion control o Sensor data fusion o Navigation .. working in applications addressing o Exploration (deep sea, volcanoes, planets, ...) o Search (Resources: manganese, oil, gas ... Lost & found: airplanes, ships, ...) o Rescue (earthquake/landslide/flood disasters) o Monitoring (environmental, geological, biological, ...) o ... or other forms of autonomy in natural environments .. or considering social aspects including o Information about currently unknown areas o Emergency technologies o Environmental monitoring are very welcome. Chair: Uwe R. Zimmer Program commitee: Andreas Birk Thomas Christaller Holk Cruse Walter J. Freeman John Hallam Ulrich Nehmzow Rolf Pfeifer Noel Sharkey Jun Tani Roy M. Turner Tamaki Ura David Wettergreen Deadline for manuscript submissions (6 pages max): June 30, 2000 Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2000 Delivery of full papers: November 30, 2000 Workshop: March 18th, 2001 Please send any inquiries regarding this workshop to: isi-ws at gmd.gr.jp From benus at elf.stuba.sk Mon Feb 7 08:58:42 2000 From: benus at elf.stuba.sk (Lubica Benuskova) Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 14:58:42 +0100 (MET) Subject: Paper on spines and LTP Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, the preprint of the following article: "The intra-spine electric force can drive vesicles for fusion: a theoretical model for long-term potentiation" Neuroscience Letters, 280(1) 2000, pp. 17-20, can be downloaded from http://www.dcs.elf.stuba.sk/~benus/#publications Abstract: We have estimated the intensity of intra-spine electric fields triggered by stimulation of excitatory spine synapses. We show that this electric force can cause fast electrophoretic movement of negatively charged vesicles which bring new postsynaptic receptors and membrane for insertion during the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP). Due to the direction of an intra-spine electric field, movement of vesicles is electrophoretically directed along the longitudal spine axis towards the spine head. Thus, the number of fused vesicles may be proportional not only to the increased calcium concentration within the spine head during the induction of LTP but also to the magnitude of electric force which drives vesicles towards the postsynaptic membrane. Lubica Benuskova, PhD ------------------------------------------------------- Slovak Technical University Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering Ilkovicova 3, 812 19 Bratislava 1, Slovakia ------------------------------------------------------- Phone: (+421 7) 602 91 696 Fax: (+421 7) 654 20 587 E-mail: benus at elf.stuba.sk, benus at dcs.elf.stuba.sk http://www.dcs.elf.stuba.sk/~benus From manav at kbkids.com Mon Feb 7 17:34:23 2000 From: manav at kbkids.com (Manavendra Misra) Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 15:34:23 -0700 Subject: Data Mining position, Denver, CO Message-ID: <389F486F.86FA21A6@kbkids.com> The following opportunity may be of interest to some Connectionists... Data Mining Expert KBkids.com is looking for an expert in data mining to be part of our business intelligence team. This person will lead our data analysis efforts in order to build a cutting edge, data warehouse-driven one-to-one marketing program. Responsibilities include: Interaction with the VPs of marketing and product development in order to define business requirements for one-to-one marketing. Working with our data warehouse lead to design a comprehensive data-mining plan. Evaluation and implementation of the data mining tools necessary to meet our needs. Required Skills: MS or higher in Computer Science or Statistics. Experience with SQL, and scripting languages in a web context, C++ and/or Java experience preferred. Experience with using data warehouses for data mining. Data analysis skills using statistical and artificial intelligence techniques and tools. Should be familiar with regression techniques, decision trees, neural networks, associative rules mining, segmentation of customer databases, clustering techniques, etc. Familiarity with data mining in a marketing environment. Familiarity with OLAP tools is a positive. Strong trouble-shooting and communication skills are required. Previous startup experience is a plus, as is knowledge of Oracle 8i. Please respond to Manavendra Misra at manav at kbkids.com Details about KBkids.com can be found at: http://www.kbkids.com/kb/hiring.html From harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk Tue Feb 8 14:23:32 2000 From: harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk (Stevan Harnad) Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 19:23:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ARE THE SENSES SEPARATE? BBS Call for Commentary Message-ID: Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article. ON SPECIFICATION AND THE SENSES by Thomas A. Stoffregen and Benoit G. Bardy http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.stoffregen.html ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/bbs.stoffregen.html *** please see also 5 important announcements about new BBS policies and address change at the bottom of this message) *** This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please reply by EMAIL by March 7th to: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences ECS: New Zepler Building University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection with a WWW browser according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. _____________________________________________________________ ON SPECIFICATION AND THE SENSES Thomas A. Stoffregen Department of Psychology P. O. Box 210376 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221-0376 USA stoffrta at email.uc.edu Benoit G. Bardy Universite de Paris Sud-XI Division of Sport Sciences (STAPS) Batiment 335, 91405 Orsay Cedex FRANCE benoit.bardy at staps.u-psud.fr KEYWORDS: epistemology, information, intersensory, perception, perceptual learning, sensory neurophysiology, sensory systems, specification. ABSTRACT: In this target article we question the assumption that perception is divided into separate domains of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. We review implications of this assumption for theories of perception, and for our understanding of ambient energy arrays (e.g., the optic and acoustic arrays) that are available to perceptual systems. We analyze three hypotheses about relations between ambient arrays and physical reality; (1) that there is an ambiguous relation between ambient energy arrays and physical reality; (2) that there is a unique relation between individual energy arrays and physical reality; (3) that there is a redundant but unambiguous relation, within or across arrays, between energy arrays and physical reality. This is followed by a review of the physics of motion, focusing on the existence and status of referents for physical motion. Our review indicates that it is not possible, in principle, for there to be a unique relation between physical motion and the structure of individual energy arrays. We argue that physical motion relative to different referents is specified only in the global array, which consists of higher-order relations across different forms of energy. The existence of specificity in the global array is consistent with the idea of direct perception, and so poses a challenge to traditional, inference-based theories of perception and cognition. However, it also presents a challenge to much work within the ecological approach to perception and action, which has accepted the assumption of separate senses. ___________________________________________________________ To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide Web or by anonymous ftp from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.stoffregen.html http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ ____________________________________________________________ *** FIVE IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS *** ------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) There have been some very important developments in the area of Web archiving of scientific papers very recently. Please see: Science: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html Nature: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html American Scientist: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/amlet.html Chronicle of Higher Education: http://www.chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are strongly encouraged to archive all their papers (on their Home-Servers as well as) on CogPrints: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ It is extremely simple to do so and will make all of our papers available to all of us everywhere at no cost to anyone. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) BBS has a new policy of accepting submissions electronically. Authors can specify whether they would like their submissions archived publicly during refereeing in the BBS under-refereeing Archive, or in a referees-only, non-public archive. Upon acceptance, preprints of final drafts are moved to the public BBS Archive: ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/index.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) BBS has expanded its annual page quota and is now appearing bimonthly, so the service of Open Peer Commentary can now be be offered to more target articles. The BBS refereeing procedure is also going to be considerably faster with the new electronic submission and processing procedures. Authors are invited to submit papers to: Email: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk Web: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk http://bbs.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/ INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) journal had only been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review. (Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential impact!). From harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk Tue Feb 8 14:18:25 2000 From: harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk (Stevan Harnad) Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 19:18:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The Magical Number 4: BBS Call for Commentators Message-ID: Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article THE MAGICAL NUMBER 4 IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY: A RECONSIDERATION OF MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY by Nelson Cowan http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.cowan.html http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ *** please see also 5 important announcements about new BBS policies and address change at the bottom of this message) *** This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please reply by EMAIL by March 7th to: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences ECS: New Zepler Building University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection with a WWW browser according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. _____________________________________________________________ THE MAGICAL NUMBER 4 IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY: A RECONSIDERATION OF MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY Nelson Cowan Department of Psychology University of Missouri 210 McAlester Hall Columbia, MO 65211, USA CowanN at missouri.edu http://web.missouri.edu/~psycowan KEYWORDS: attention, enumeration, information chunks, memory capacity, processing capacity, processing channels, serial recall, short-term memory, storage capacity, verbal recall, working memory capacity. ABSTRACT: Miller (1956) summarized evidence that people can remember about 7 chunks in short-term memory (STM) tasks. However, that number was meant more as a rough estimate and a rhetorical device than as a real capacity limit. Others have since suggested that there is a more precise capacity limit, but that it is only 3 to 5 chunks. The present target article brings together a wide variety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit is real. Capacity limits will be useful in analyses of information processing only if the boundary conditions for observing them can be carefully described. Four basic conditions in which chunks can be identified and capacity limits can accordingly be observed are: (1) when information overload limits chunks to individual stimulus items, (2) when other steps are taken specifically to block the recoding of stimulus items into larger chunks, (3) in performance discontinuities caused by the capacity limit, and (4) in various indirect effects of the capacity limit. Under these conditions, rehearsal and long-term memory cannot be used to combine stimulus items into chunks of an unknown size; nor can storage mechanisms that are not capacity-limited, such as sensory memory, allow the capacity-limited storage mechanism to be refilled during recall. A single, central capacity limit averaging about 4 chunks is implicated along with other, non-capacity-limited sources. The pure STM capacity limit expressed in chunks is distinguished from compound STM limits obtained when the number of separately held chunks is unclear. Reasons why pure capacity estimates fall within a narrow range are discussed and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed. ___________________________________________________________ To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide Web or by anonymous ftp from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.cowan.html http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ ____________________________________________________________ *** FIVE IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS *** ------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) There have been some very important developments in the area of Web archiving of scientific papers very recently. Please see: Science: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html Nature: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html American Scientist: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/amlet.html Chronicle of Higher Education: http://www.chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are strongly encouraged to archive all their papers (on their Home-Servers as well as) on CogPrints: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ It is extremely simple to do so and will make all of our papers available to all of us everywhere at no cost to anyone. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) BBS has a new policy of accepting submissions electronically. Authors can specify whether they would like their submissions archived publicly during refereeing in the BBS under-refereeing Archive, or in a referees-only, non-public archive. Upon acceptance, preprints of final drafts are moved to the public BBS Archive: ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/index.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) BBS has expanded its annual page quota and is now appearing bimonthly, so the service of Open Peer Commentary can now be be offered to more target articles. The BBS refereeing procedure is also going to be considerably faster with the new electronic submission and processing procedures. Authors are invited to submit papers to: Email: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk Web: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk http://bbs.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/ INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) journal had only been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review. (Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential impact!). From maneesh at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Wed Feb 9 17:32:44 2000 From: maneesh at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Maneesh Sahani) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 22:32:44 GMT Subject: CNS*2000 Workshops: call for proposals Message-ID: <200002092232.WAA05001@barlow.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> CALL FOR PROPOSALS CNS*2000 Workshops July 19 and 20, 2000 Brugge, Belgium Workshops focusing on current issues in computational neuroscience will be held on July 19 and 20, 2000, as part of the CNS*2000 conference in Brugge, Belgium. Potential organizers are invited to submit proposals for specific workshop topics. Workshops may fall into one of three formats: 1. Discussion Workshops (formal or informal); 2. Tutorials; and 3. Mini-symposia, or they may combine more than one of these formats. The goal of the workshops is to provide an informal forum within the CNS meeting for focused discussion of recent or speculative research, novel techniques, and open issues in computational neuroscience. Discussion workshops, whether formal (i.e., held in a conference room with projection and writing media) or informal (held elsewhere), should stress interactive and open discussions in preference to sequential presentations. Tutorials and mini-symposia provide a format for a focused exploration of particular issues or techniques within a more traditional presentation framework; in these cases too, adequate time should be reserved for questions and general discussion. The organizers of a workshop should endeavour to bring together as broad a range of pertinent viewpoints as possible. In addition to recruiting participants and moderating discussion, workshop organizers should be prepared to submit a short report, summarizing the presentations and discussion, to the workshop coordinator shortly after the conference. These reports will be included on the CNS*2000 web site. ------------------------- How to propose a workshop ------------------------- To propose a workshop, please submit the following information to the workshop chair at the address below (1) the name(s) of the organizer(s) (2) the title of the workshop (3) a description of the subject matter, indicating clearly the range of topics to be discussed (4) the format(s) of the workshop; if a discussion session, please specify whether you would like it to be held in a conference room or in a less formal setting (5) for tutorials and mini-symposia, a provisional list of speakers (6) whether the workshop is to run for one or two days Please submit proposals as early as possible by email (preferred) to cns2000workshops at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk or by post to Dr. Maneesh Sahani Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit Alexandra House 17 Queen Square London, WC1N 3AR, U.K. The descriptions of accepted workshops will appear on the CNS*2000 web site as they are received. Attendees are encouraged to check this list, and to contact the organizers of any workshops in which they are interested in participating. -- Maneesh Sahani Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit maneesh at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk 17 Queen Square, tel: +44 (0)20 7679 1187 London WC1N 3AR U.K. fax: +44 (0)20 7679 1173 From jph+ at pitt.edu Wed Feb 9 17:04:00 2000 From: jph+ at pitt.edu (John P. Horn) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 17:04:00 -0500 Subject: synaptic amplification Message-ID: <000401bf7349$92a75570$bc958e88@g.pitt.edu> Dear Connectionists: A model describing coincidence detection and its role in synaptic amplification is described in the following new paper. http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/reprint/20/3/908.pdf Paul Karila and John P. Horn Secondary Nicotinic Synapses on Sympathetic B Neurons and Their Putative Role in Ganglionic Amplification of Activity Journal of Neuroscience 20: 908-918 (2000) John P. Horn, Ph.D. Professor Department of Neurobiology University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Pittsburgh, PA 15261 Voice: 412-648-9429 FAX: (412) 648-1441 www.neurobio.pitt.edu The Department of Neurobiology www.neurobio.pitt.edu/faculty/horn.htm The Horn Lab From cindy at cns.bu.edu Wed Feb 9 15:25:40 2000 From: cindy at cns.bu.edu (Cynthia Bradford) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 15:25:40 -0500 Subject: Neural Networks: 2001 Special Issue Message-ID: <200002092025.PAA02352@retina.bu.edu> CALL FOR PAPERS A 2001 Special Issue of Neural Networks SPIKING NEURONS IN NEUROSCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Most neurons of the brain communicate using trains of brief voltage spikes that are capable of carrying complex temporal and rate codes without degradation over large spatial distances. The rates, patterns or oscillations of single spike trains as well as correlations and synchrony across different spike trains, have been studied by many investigators in both normal and clinically abnormal brain tissues. The Special Issue will incorporate invited and contributed articles that examine the importance of spiking in information processing, learning and memory. The Special Issue will cover biophysical and biochemical models of spike generation, neurophysiological and anatomical models that explore how spiking neurons influence behavior through their collective action in neural circuits and networks, as well as learning algorithms that are based on spikes. The computational power of spiking neurons for reliable communication can also be incorporated into various technologies. The Special Issue will therefore also include articles that describe software and hardware applications that are based on this mode of neuronal communication to explore its potential for solving outstanding open problems in technology. CO-EDITORS: Professor Stephen Grossberg, Boston University Professor Wolfgang Maass, Technische Universitat Graz Professor Henry Markram, Weizmann Institute for Science SUBMISSION: Deadline for submission: September 30, 2000 Notification of acceptance: December 31, 2000 Format: no longer than 10,000 words; APA format ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSION: Stephen Grossberg, Editor Neural Networks, Room 203 Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA From kak at sol.ee.lsu.edu Wed Feb 9 11:30:12 2000 From: kak at sol.ee.lsu.edu (Subhash Kak) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 10:30:12 -0600 (CST) Subject: a new paper Message-ID: <200002091630.KAA16842@pluto.ee.lsu.edu> A new paper described below may be of interest to some: Active Agents, Intelligence and Quantum Computing by Subhash Kak http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/agents.pdf Abstract: This paper reviews evidence from neuroscience and quantum computing theory in support of the notion of autonomy in the workings of cognitive processes. Deficits in speech, vision, and motor abilities are described to show how cognitive behaviour is not based just on incoming sensory data. Active agents, to which the conscious mind may not have access, are described. Recent developments in quantum computing, of relevance to machine intelligence, are also examined. For a tutorial to quantum computing and AI, see http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/qai.pdf From A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Wed Feb 9 11:21:39 2000 From: A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk (Angelo Cangelosi) Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 16:21:39 +0000 Subject: PhD studentship on modelling language evolution using NNets and GAs Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20000209162139.0079f980@csuf51.csd.plym.ac.uk> *** EPSRC Studentship available at Plymouth University, Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems *** A three year PhD studentship is available for a research project on multi-agent computational models of the evolution of language and communication. The modelling approach uses a combination of neural networks and genetic algorithms. The student must have a degree in a Cognitive Science subject, such as Psychology, Computer Science or Linguistics. A programming background is essential (preferably in C/C++). The student should also be strongly research oriented, particularly in the areas of cognitive modelling and adaptive systems. A bursary of about 6200 UK Pounds per annum will be paid to the student. The three year studentship is funded by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and managed by Dr. Angelo Cangelosi of the Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems at the University of Plymouth. The studentship is available from 1 July 2000. The research will be carried out at the Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems of the School of Computing of Plymouth University. The Centre, which is led by Professor Mike Denham, has been pursuing a research programme in the areas of computational neuroscience and neural and evolutionary computation. The Plymouth University's School of Computing has other research groups, such as the Engineering Design Centre, and the Science Technology and Art Research group. More information on the Centre and Plymouth University can be found at: http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/soc/research/neural For more information about this PhD studentship and the related research project, please contact acangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Applications should be received before 14th April. Candidates should send a CV, a description of motivations and the name and address of two referees to: Carole Watson School of Computing University of Plymouth Drake Circus Plymouth PL4 8AA United Kingdom Tel. +44 01752 232541 Fax. +44 01752 232540 Email: c.watson at plymouth.ac.uk ----- SUMMARY OF EPSRC RESEARCH PROJECT ----- The aim of this research is to investigate and develop computational models of the origins and evolution of language and communication. This modelling approach will use artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms to simulate evolving populations of interacting autonomous agents. The simulation will focus on the investigation of key questions in the theory of the evolution of language, such as the evolution and learning of symbols in neural networks, the emergence and adaptive role of lexicon and syntax, and Deacon's (1997) theory on the co-evolution of language and brain structures. A software for the simulation of the evolution of language in evolving population of neural networks will be implemented and used for experimental investigations. The research has potential applications in Robotics and Artificial intelligence for the development of adaptive and self-organising algorithms for communication in multi-agent and multi-robot systems. It is also of interest for the community of Computational Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. -------------------- Angelo Cangelosi, PhD ----------------------- Senior Lecturer, Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems School of Computing, University of Plymouth 9 Kirkby Place Plymouth PL4 8AA (UK) E-mail: a.cangelosi at plym.ac.uk WWW: http://www.techweb.plym.ac.uk/soc/staff/ tel. (office) +44 1752 232559 (fax) 44 +1752 232540 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Feb 9 04:54:34 2000 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 10:54:34 +0100 Subject: preliminary program: ESANN'2000 European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks Message-ID: ---------------------------------------------------- | | | ESANN'2000 | | | | 8th European Symposium | | on Artificial Neural Networks | | | | Bruges (Belgium) - April 26-27-28, 2000 | | | | Preliminary programme | ---------------------------------------------------- The preliminary programme of the ESANN'2000 conference is now available on the Web: http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann/programme.htm For those of you who maintain WWW pages including lists of related ANN sites: we would appreciate if you could add the above URL to your list; thank you very much! We try as much as possible to avoid multiple sendings of this call for papers; however please apologize if you receive this e-mail twice, despite our precautions. For 8 years the ESANN conference has become a major event in the field of neural computation. ESANN is a human-size conference focusing on fundamental aspects of artificial neural networks (theory, models, algorithms, links with statistics, data analysis, biological background,...). The programme of the conference can be found at the URL http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann, together with practical information about the conference venue, registration,... Other information can be obtained by sending an e-mail to esann at dice.ucl.ac.be . ===================================================== ESANN - European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann * For submissions of papers, reviews,... Michel Verleysen Univ. Cath. de Louvain - Microelectronics Laboratory 3, pl. du Levant - B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve - Belgium tel: +32 10 47 25 51 - fax: + 32 10 47 25 98 mailto:esann at dice.ucl.ac.be * Conference secretariat D facto conference services 27 rue du Laekenveld - B-1080 Brussels - Belgium tel: + 32 2 420 37 57 - fax: + 32 2 420 02 55 mailto:esann at dice.ucl.ac.be ===================================================== From MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Thu Feb 10 05:28:23 2000 From: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr (MicroNeuro2000.GenChair) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 11:28:23 +0100 Subject: MicroNeuro'2000 Conference CFP Message-ID: ==> MICRONEURO'2000 CALL FOR PAPERS <= Please apologize for multiple reception. Do NOT reply if your are not concerned. ## MICRONEURO'2000 ## 8th International Conference on Microelectronics for Neural, Fuzzy and Bio-inspired Systems Grenoble, France, September 25-27, 2000 MicroNeuro'2000 is the eighth of a series of international conferences previously held in Dortmund, Muenchen, Edinburgh, Torino, Lausanne, Dresden and Granada, in each of which around a hundred specialists have participated. The conference is dedicated to hardware implementations of artificial neural networks, fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy systems, and related bio-inspired computing architectures. The program will focus upon all aspects related to the hardware implementation of these systems, with special emphasis on specific VLSI analog, digital and pulse-coded circuits. All informations may be found at the following URL: http://www.lis.jussieu.fr/MicroNeuro2000/ ____________________ General Chair Jeanny Herault, Univ. of Grenoble, F. MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Program Chair Patrick Garda, Univ. of Paris, F. MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr Organization Chair Gerard Bouvier, Inst. Natl. Polytech., Grenoble, F. MicroNeuro2K.OrgChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Japan Chair Takeshi Yamakawa, Kyushu, Jp yamakawa at ces.kuytech.ac.jp USA Chair Andreas G. Andreou, Johns Hopkins Univ., USA andreou at cspjhu.clsp.jhu.edu Steering Committee K.Goser, Dortmund, D A.F.Murray, Edinburgh,UK A. Prieto, E U.Ramacher, Muenchen, D L. Reyneri, Torino, I B. Spaanenburg, Groningen, NL E. Vittoz, Neufchatel, CH ____________________ CONFERENCE TOPICS Categories for submissions include, but are not limited to, the following topics: VLSI circuits and system architectures Potential technologies and effects of process scaling-down Neural interfaces and sensors Hardware-oriented neural models, architectures and algorithms Neuromorphic engineering and bio-inspired microelectronics Fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy hardware Smart MEMS Single electron devices Analog implementations and prospective electronic technologies ____________________ INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS POSTSCRIPT FORMAT (mandatory) A4 page, 2 columns, 10 pt Times Roman, maximum 8 pages (detailed author guidelines are available at http://www.lis.jussieu.fr/MicroNeuro2000/ ), should be put on the ftp server: ftp.lis.jussieu.fr/pub At the same time, an e-mail should be sent to the MICRONEURO'2000 Program Chair by the author to whom all further correspondence will be sent: MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr The text of the e-mail should indicate clearly: title, corresponding author's name, affiliation, address, fax number, e-mail address, preferred presentation (oral/poster), and the topic or topics the paper best fits. Proposed contributions will be refereed, and accepted papers will appear in the proceedings of the conference, which is expected to be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press. In order to facilitate the refereeing process and an appropriate scheduling of the conference, authors are encouraged to include in their manuscripts descriptions as complete as possible of their work, including the simulation and/or experimental results available. * Proposals should be e-mailed to the Program Chair and manuscripts put on the ftp server: Prof. Patrick Garda Laboratoire des Instruments et Systemes Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Case 252 4, Place Jussieu F-75252 Paris Tel: ++33 1 44 27 75 07 Fax: ++33 1 44 27 75 09 e-mail: MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr ftp server: ftp.lis.jussieu.fr/pub * Notice that for a paper to be published in the conference proceedings, at least one of the authors should be registered. ____________________ PRESENTATION OF WORKING DEMOS A demo room will be available, where authors may show working demos of their projects and/or systems. Prospective "demonstrators" should send a short description (one page plus one photo) of the demo, including the installation requirements. * Proposals of demos should be addressed to the Organization Chair: Prof. Gerald Bouvier Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux, Inst. Natl.Polytech. 46, Av. Felix Viallet F-38031 Grenoble Cedex 1 Tel: ++33 (0)4 76 57 43 59 Fax: ++33 (0)4 76 57 47 90 MicroNeuro2K.OrgChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr => DEADLINES <= Submissions of papers and demo proposals: May 1, 2000 Notification of acceptance: June 1, 2000 Reception of accepted papers in final form: July 1, 2000 Author's registration for an accepted paper: July 1, 2000 Conference September 25-27, 2000 ____________________ VENUE The conference will take place at Villard de Lans, a pleasant village in the mountain near Grenoble. Room reservations can be made at: "Grand Hotel de Paris" (Special rates for MicroNeuro, please specify) 124 place Pierre Chabert F-38250 Villard de Lans Phone: +33 (0) 4 76 95 10 06 Fax: +33 (0) 4 76 95 10 06 e-mail: ghp at ghp-vercors.com http://www.ghp-vercors.com/ Rates (including breakfast): Single: 340 FF, Double: 215 FF / person, Students (3 per room): 157 FF / person. or in other local hotels: http://www.planete-vercors.com/la-fleur-du-roy/ http://www.roche-colombier.com/ About Grenoble http://www.ville-grenoble.fr/uk/sommaire.html * Accommodation information and inquiries should be asked to the General Chair: Prof. Jeanny H?rault Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux, Inst. Natl.Polytech. 46, Av Felix Viallet F-38031 Grenoble Cedex 1 Tel: ++33 (0)4 76 57 43 60 Fax: ++33 (0)4 76 57 47 90 MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ____________________ CONFERENCE FEES Senior researchers Before May 15: 2600 FF, After May 15: 2900 FF Students Before May 15: 1700 FF, After May 15: 1900 FF * Some fellowships may be granted to students from eastern-Europe countries, according to the available funding. Please, ask to the General Chair. MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ____________________ PROGRAM COMMITTEE (tentative and not limited, to be confirmed) J. Alspector, Col. Springs, USA X. Arreguit, Neufchatel, CH J. Austin, York, UK T. Bernard, Paris, F J. Cabestany, Barcelona, E G.Cauwenberghs, Baltimore, USA D. Collobert, Lannion, F D. del Corso, Torino, I R. Douglas, Zurich, CH P. Ienne, Muenchen, D G. Andover, Zurich, CH M. Jabri, Sydney, AU S. Jones,, UK H. Klan, Berlin, D A. Koenig, Dresden, D J. Lazzaro, Berkeley, USA J. A. Nossek, Muenchen, D E. Pasero, Torino, I F.J. Pelayo, Granada, E A. Prieto, Granada, E P. Senn, CNET, F A. Rodriguez-Vazquez, Sevilla, E U. Rueckert, Paderborn, D E. Sanchez, Lausanne, CH E. Sanchez-Sinencio, Texas, USA T. Shibata, Tokyo, Jp L. Tarassenko, Oxford, UK E. Valderrama, Barcelona, E M. Verleysen, Louvain-la-Neuve, B J. Wawrzynek, Berkeley, USA J. D. Muller, CEA, F ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE (to be extended) B. Granado, LIS, Paris, F R. Velasco, TIMA, Grenoble, F ____________________ For further information and inquiries, please contact: MicroNeuro'2000 Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux, Inst. Natl.Polytech. 46, Av Felix Viallet F-38031 Grenoble Cedex 1 Fax: ++33 (0)4 76 57 47 90 e-mail : MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at gabor.inpg.fr MicroNeuro2K.OrgChair at gabor.inpg.fr or MicroNeuro'2000 Laboratoire des Instruments et Systemes Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Case 252 4, Place Jussieu F-75252 Paris Fax: ++33 1 44 27 75 09 MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr or see http://www.lis.jussieu.fr/MicroNeuro2000/ ____________________ If you would like to be included in the mailing list in order to receive further information concerning MicroNeuro'2000, please send the here-after requested data to: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Title (Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., Prof.): First name: Last name: University or company: Address: Zip: Town: Country: E-mail: Fax: Phone: - Please keep me informed about MicroNeuro2000. - I plan to attend the conference YES NO - I intend to submit a proposal YES NO Oral presentation: Poster: Demo: Provisional title: - - - - ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| =Jeanny Herault General Chair Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux 46 Av. Felix Viallet F-38031 GRENOBLE Cedex France e-mail: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| =Jeanny Herault General Chair Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux 46 Av. Felix Viallet F-38031 GRENOBLE Cedex France e-mail: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| From actionm at cuni.cz Thu Feb 10 06:11:24 2000 From: actionm at cuni.cz (Milena Zeithamlova) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 12:11:24 +0100 Subject: NNW2000 call for papers and participation Message-ID: <01bf73b7$91452360$LocalHost@Milena> Dear colleagues, On behalf of the organizers of the Neural Network World 2000 conference, I would like to invite you to submit a paper and participate at this event, which will take place in Prague on July 9-12, 2000. The main focus of NNW2000 is the development and application of computational paradigms inspired by natural processes, namely artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, and related subjects including adaptive agents, artificial life, soft computing, etc. The conference takes place in the year of the 10th anniversary of founding the Neural Network World international scientific journal. For detailed information about the conference, have a look at: http://www.cs.cas.cz/nnw2000 or contact the organizers by email at: nnw2000 at cs.cas.cz Please, note that the submission deadline has been extended till March 10. Looking forward to seeing you in Prague. Milena Zeithamlova Action M Agency NNW 2000 - Local Arrangements actionm at cuni.cz From maxstam at bas.bg Fri Feb 11 01:26:17 2000 From: maxstam at bas.bg (maxstam) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 08:26:17 +0200 Subject: evolution of brain and language conference Message-ID: <38A3AB89.2C717101@bas.bg> CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT Title: "Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language". Hosted by Hanse Institute for Advanced Study Delmenhorst, GERMANY Primary organizers: Vittorio Gallese (University of Parma) and Maxim Stamenov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) Theme: The aim of this conference will be to bring together scholars from several disciplines and fields of study for discussion of some of the basic problems and perspectives related to the discovery of a new class of neurons in the monkey premotor cortex ? mirror neurons. The point of this discovery is that it shed new light on the neural correlate of the social sharedness of intentions and actions. The action of mirror neurons (MNs) seems to provide a bridge and mapping between one's own behavioral actions (and their potential monitoring) with the observed actions of other individuals. The consequences of this discovery can have implications for our understanding of animal communication and cognition and human cognition and consciousness and the way of their genetic inheritance and implementation in the brain. The discovery of MNs may provide a new, although still sketchy, neurobiological basis to account for the emergence of language (cf. G. Rizzolatti & M. Arbib. 1998. "Language within Our Grasp". Trends in Neurosciences 21:188-194, for orientation). This assumption is founded on the following premises: (a) Language skill has emerged through evolution by means of a process of preadaptation: specific behaviors and the nervous structures supporting them, originally selected for other purposes, acquire new functions that side and eventually supersede the previous one; (b) A continuity can be traced between language skill and pre-language brachio-manual behaviors, being the primate premotor cortex the common playground of this evolutionary continuity; (c) The specialization for language of human Broca's region derives from an ancient mechanism, the mirror system, originally devised for action understanding. The orientation of organizers is to bring together scholars interested in the co-evolution of language, cognition, and consciousness along the following lines, among others: (i) mirror neurons, the brain's microstructure and the specificity of their performance in monkeys, primates and humans in supporting high-level cognitive processing; (ii) the macrostructure of the brain and its evolution from monkeys to primates to man in the development of specific cognitive functions; (iii) the philogenetic and ontogenetic links between behavioral action, gesture, and communicative verbal action in the development of the language faculty. Conference format The conference will host 15 invited speakers. There are 24 slots available for oral presentations and 30 slots for poster presentations. Submissions are invited for selection for oral papers (with 20 min. presentation time and 10 min. discussion time), as well as for poster presentations. Unless explicitly specified, submitted abstracts will be considered for both oral and poster presentation. Posters will be displayed during the whole duration of the meeting and a special session of the conference will be dedicated to their discussion. The invited speakers who already confirmed their participation are (please note that the titles of their talks are preliminary ones): Harold BEKKERING (Munich): "The Observation and Execution of Finger and Mouth Movements"; Stein BRATEN (Oslo): "Altercentric Perception and Participation: Infant and adult dialogue partners"; Colin BROWN (Nijmegen): "Brain-Imaging Studies of Language Comprehension and Production: A focus on Broca's region"; Luciano FADIGA (Parma): tba; Leo FOGASSI (Parma): "The Neural Correlates of Action Understanding in Nonhuman Primates"; Marc JEANNEROD (Lyon): tba; Charles LI (Santa Barbara) & Jean-Marie HOMBERT (Lyon): "The Evolutionary Origin of Language: A linguistic perspective"; Michael PETRIDES (Montreal); tba; Daniel POVINELLI (New Iberia, LA): "Evolution of Cognitive Diversity"; Giacomo RIZZOLATTI (Parma): "Action Understanding in Humans"; Gerhard ROTH (Bremen): "Is the Human Brain Unique?"; Sue SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH (Atlanta, GA): "Mirror Neurons and Interspecies Intersubjectivity"; Maxim STAMENOV (Sofia): "Human Verbal Communication as Monitored Joint Action"; Michael STUDDERT-KENNEDY (New Haven, CT): "Imitation and Evolution of Particulate Speech"; Edda WEIGAND (Muenster): "Constitutive Features of Human Dialogical Interaction"; In addition to regular program, the conference will feature three evening discussions dealing with the problems of: (1) the evolution of the brain from monkeys to humans (neuroscience perspective); (2) the co-evolution of executive functions and cognitive abilities from monkeys to humans (cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience perspective); and (3) the evolution of communication and language (the perspective of the language sciences). Abstract submission: Abstracts of 500 words are requested by March 15, 2000 both for oral presentations and posters. The abstracts should be sent preferably by e-mail (in ASCII) to: hardopo at uni-bremen.de (Dr. Mechthild Harders-Opolka); gallese at ipruniv.cce.unipr.it (Dr. Vittorio Gallese); maxstam at bas.bg (Dr. Maxim Stamenov). In case an author prefers to send the abstract in hard copy, three copies of it should be sent to Dr. Mechthild Harders-Opolka, Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Lehmkuhlenbusch 4, D-27753 Delmenhorst, GERMANY. Publication policy: The organizers intend to publish a collective volume with selected contributions to the conference after the meeting takes place. Important information: Deadline for abstract submission: March 15, 2000; Confirmation of acceptance of selected papers: April 01, 2000; Time of the conference: July 05-08, 2000; Conference site: Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Lehmkuhlenbusch 4, D-27753 Delmenhorst, GERMANY; Web site: http://www.h-w-k.de. Currently only a German version is available under Veranstaltungen, geplante Tagungen. English version will become available after April 01, 2000. Conference fee: DM150,-; DM100,- for students; Questions and inquiries about the program: maxstam at bas.bg (Maxim Stamenov); Questions and inquiries about local organization, housing, etc.: hardopo at uni-bremen.de (Dr. Mechthild Harders-Opolka). From palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de Fri Feb 11 07:21:50 2000 From: palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de (Guenther Palm) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 00 13:21:50 +0100 Subject: KES2000-Sessions Message-ID: <10002111221.AA22533@neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de> CALL FOR PAPERS --------------- I am organizing two special sessions for the KES'2000 conference. The conference will take place from August 30 to September 1, 2000 in Brighton, Sussex, U.K. It is the "Fourth International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems", organized by L.C. Jain and R.J. Howlett. More information on the conference can be obtained from the KES2000 Web site: http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/ The topics of the sessions are: 1) Processing of hierarchical structures in neural networks. 2) Biomedical applications of neural networks. Accepted session contributions will be published in the conference proceedings by IEEE. For verbal presentations each paper has about 15 minutes presentation time and 5 minutes for questions. Would you or one of your co-workers be interested in contributing to one of the sessions? If so, please tell me in advance. The procedure for submissions is as follows: Send me two camera ready copies of your paper UNTIL MARCH 15, 2000 (address see below). The paper (maximally four A4 pages) has to be written according to the instructions to authors: http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/guide.htm (please ignore the upper section and start reading with point 1.). The papers will be reviewed and the results will be communicated to the authors in APRIL, 2000. Yours sincerely, Guenther Palm ------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Guenther Palm Neural Information Processing University of Ulm D-89069 Ulm Germany palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de From dagli at umr.edu Fri Feb 11 17:48:45 2000 From: dagli at umr.edu (Cihan Dagli) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 16:48:45 -0600 Subject: ANNIE 2000 Smart Engineering Systems Design Conference November 5-8, 2000 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues: On behalf of the organizing committee I would like to invite you to attend ANNIE 2000 ( http://www.umr.edu~annie/annie2000.htm ) which will be held November 5th-8th, 2000, at the Marriott Pavilion Hotel in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, USA. This will be the tenth international gathering of researchers interested in Smart Engineering System Design using neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary programming, complex systems, data mining, and rough sets. Each previous conference drew approximately 150 papers from twenty countries. The proceedings of all conferences have been published by ASME Press as hardbound books in nine volumes. The latest volume, edited by Dagli, et. al., was titled =93Smart Engineering System Design: Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, Evolutionary Programming, Data Mining, and Complex Systems.=94 You can visit ANNIE home page for details of these conferences http://www.umr.edu/~annie/ . ANNIE 2000 ( http://www.umr.edu/~annie/annie2000.htm ) will cover the theory of Smart Engineering System Design techniques, namely: neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary programming, complex systems, data mining, and rough sets. Presentations dealing with applications of these technologies are encouraged. The organizing committee invites all persons interested in Computational Intelligence to submit papers for presentation at the conference. You can submit your abstracts online at http://www.umr.edu/~annie/oas.htm . All papers accepted for presentation will be published in the conference proceedings. They will be reviewed by two referees, senior researchers in the field, for technical merit and content. AUTHORS SCHEDULE February 25, 2000: Deadline for contributed paper abstract, information sheet, and letter of intent. May 5, 2000: Deadline for full papers. June 16, 2000: Notification of status of contributed papers. July 21, 2000: Deadline for camera ready manuscripts. In addition, ANNIE 2000 will offer special sessions http://www.umr.edu/~annie/ss.htm ) on "Pattern Recognition for Safer Driving", " Evolvable Hardware", and "Black Box System Identification". There is also a one-day workshop on Neural Networks in Medicine and Biology" (http://www.umr.edu/~annie/workshop.htm ). Approximately six pages will be allocated for each accepted paper in the proceedings. All accepted papers will be published as a hardbound book by ASME Press and edited by Drs. Dagli, Buczak, Embrechts, Ersoy, Ghosh and Kercel. Authors are requested to submit the following by February 25, 2000: 1) an abstract (up to 200 words) 2) an information sheet that includes the full name of the authors, address, phone and FAX number, E-mail,Web address 3) a letter of intent Authors should forward their letter of intent, information sheet, abstract, and full paper to: Dr. Cihan H. Dagli, Conference Chair Smart Engineering Systems Laboratory Department of Engineering Management University of Missouri - Rolla 1870 Miner Circle Rolla, MO 65409-0370, USA Phone: (573) 341-6576 or (573) 341-4374 FAX: (573) 341-6567 E-Mail: annie at umr.edu -or- dagli at umr.edu Internet: http://www.umr.edu/~annie From tds at ai.mit.edu Fri Feb 11 22:39:20 2000 From: tds at ai.mit.edu (Terry Sanger) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 22:39:20 -0500 Subject: Neural Control of Movement Satellite meeting on Computational Methods Message-ID: <003701bf750a$befc6d00$8c21d1d8@sympatico.ca> This satellite conference may be of interest... And not only because it is in Key West! Here is the general description. Full details can be found at: http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/tds/ncm2000.html Satellite Meeting on Computational Models Computational Modeling has assumed a central role in the investigation of biological motor systems. Models based on mechanics, dynamics, and neural networks have provided significant insight and predictions for researchers in this field. The year 2000 satellite meeting on Computational Models of the Neural Control of Movement will be divided into 7 sessions. The first session will discuss different approaches to dividing the motor system into separate pieces that facilitate the study of motor control. Sessions 2-5 will discuss models that each address one important step in the computations involved in generating movement. The same task may be solved in different ways determined by the mechanics, computational hardware, and behavioral goals of the species being studied. Speakers are encouraged to illustrate the relationship between different algorithms that solve the same motor task, and to discuss how that particular task fits into the larger context of movement learning and execution. Session 6 will examine how the different components of the motor controller are assembled into a complete system. Session 7 will discuss how and why the system may fail, and the way in which understanding of the underlying computations may be helpful in designing medical therapies. We encourage attendees to submit abstracts for the evening poster session. Session chairpeople are: Michael Arbib, John Kalaska, Daniel Wolpert, Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, Martha Flanders, Gerry Loeb, and Jimmy Abbas. Note that the early registration deadline is February 25th! Contact Scientific Conference Planners (310)207-4345 for lodging, reservation, and registration forms. Thanks! Terry Sanger, MD PhD Toronto Western Hospital Movement Disorders Unit 399 Bathurst St. MP11-301 Toronto Ontario M5W 2S8, Canada (416)603-5990, fax: (416)603-5004 tds at ai.mit.edu From eero.simoncelli at nyu.edu Sat Feb 12 11:26:17 2000 From: eero.simoncelli at nyu.edu (Eero Simoncelli) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 11:26:17 -0500 Subject: Summer course: Computational Visual Neuroscience Message-ID: <200002121626.LAA23033@servilia.nyu.edu> Computational Neuroscience: Vision Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Summer Course 15 - 28 June 2000 Course Organizers: Eero P. Simoncelli, New York University E.J. Chichilnisky, Salk Institute Paul W. Glimcher, New York University Application Deadline: 15 March 2000 Further information and application materials: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/csh00 Description: Computational modeling and simulation have produced important advances in our understanding of neural processing. This intensive 2-week summer course focuses on areas of visual science in which interactions among psychophysics, neurophysiology, and computation have been especially fruitful. Topics to be covered this year include: neural representation and coding; photon detection and the neural basis of color vision, pattern vision, and visual motion perception; oculomotor function; and visual attention and decision-making. The course combines lectures (generally two 3-hour sessions each day) with hands-on problem solving using the MatLab programming environment in a computer laboratory. Lectures will be given by the course organizers and by invited lecturers, including: Edward Adelson (MIT), David Brainard (UC Santa Barbara), Marisa Carrasco (NYU), Sascha du Lac (Salk Institute), Wilson Geisler (UT Austin), David Heeger (Stanford U), J. Anthony Movshon (NYU), Andrew Parker (Oxford U), Fred Rieke (U Washington), Michael Shadlen (U Washington), Margaret Shiffrar (Rutgers U), Lawrence Snyder (Wash U St Louis), Stefan Treue (U Tuebingen). From tgd at CS.ORST.EDU Sat Feb 12 14:40:06 2000 From: tgd at CS.ORST.EDU (Thomas G. Dietterich) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 11:40:06 -0800 Subject: Papers: POMDP approximation; cost-sensitive learning Message-ID: <4129-Sat12Feb2000114006-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> The following papers are available from http://www.cs.orst.edu/~tgd/cv/pubs.html Bayer, V., Dietterich, T. G. (2000). A POMDP Approximation Algorithm that Anticipates the Need to Observe. Technical Report 00-30-01. Department of Computer Science, Oregon State University. Abstract: This paper introduces the even-odd POMDP, an approximation to POMDPs in which the world is assumed to be fully observable every other time step. The even-odd POMDP can be converted into an equivalent MDP, the 2MDP, whose value function, $V^*_{2MDP}$, can be combined online with a 2-step lookahead search to provide a good POMDP policy. We prove that this gives an approximation to the POMDP's optimal value function that is at least as good as methods based on the optimal value function of the underlying MDP. We present experimental evidence that the method gives better policies, and we show that it can find a good policy for a POMDP with 10,000 states and observations. Margineantu, D. D., Dietterich, T. G. (2000). Bootstrap Methods for the Cost-Sensitive Evaluation of Classifiers. Technical Report 00-30-02, Department of Computer Science, Oregon State University. Abstract: Many machine learning applications require classifiers that minimize an asymmetric cost function rather than the misclassification rate, and several recent papers have addressed this problem. However, these papers have either applied no statistical testing or have applied statistical methods that are not appropriate for the cost-sensitive setting. Without good statistical methods, it is difficult to tell whether these new cost-sensitive methods are better than existing methods that ignore costs, and it is also difficult to tell whether one cost-sensitive method is better than another. To rectify this problem, this paper presents two statistical methods for the cost-sensitive setting. The first constructs a confidence interval for the expected cost of a single classifier. The second constructs a confidence interval for the expected difference in costs of two classifiers. In both cases, the basic idea is to separate the problem of estimating the probabilities of each cell in the confusion matrix (which is independent of the cost matrix) from the problem of computing the expected cost. We show experimentally that these bootstrap tests work better than applying standard $z$ tests based on the normal distribution. From R.J.Howlett at bton.ac.uk Sat Feb 12 10:28:17 2000 From: R.J.Howlett at bton.ac.uk (Dr R.J.Howlett) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 15:28:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Neural / KBS Conference in Brighton Message-ID: ===================== KES'2000 - Last call for papers ====================== A HIGH-QUALITY CONFERENCE IN BRIGHTON, A REALLY BRILLIANT PLACE!! 4th Int. Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems & Allied Technologies -- 30th & 31st Aug, 1st Sept 2000 UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON, SUSSEX, U.K Email: kes2000 at brighton.ac.uk Web site: http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/ An IEE co-sponsored conference. -- LAST CALL FOR PAPERS ---------------------------------------------------- Papers are invited for the 4th KES conference, which promises to be a very special event, forming a truly international forum for the presentation of recent work and the exchange of ideas on Generic Intelligent Systems and Techniques, Applications of Intelligent Techniques and Related Technologies including Web-Based Systems. BRIGHTON is the most enchanting, exciting, historic, extraordinary seaside city in Britain. It has a cosmopolitan air, pubs and restaurants, feverish nightlife, heritage and an abundance of culture; the place defies comparison with anywhere else this side of the Channel. If you love life, welcome to Brighton, which is an ideal place for a meeting of prominent researchers in modern technologies. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: Please see the KES2000 web site for the format of papers and other submission details. All papers will be rigorously reviewed. DEADLINES: Receipt of papers: 1 March 2000, Acceptance notification: 1 May 2000 Receipt of final papers: 1 June 2000. All presenting authors must register with payment by the 1 June 2000 for their papers to appear in the proceedings. -- OUTLINE CONFERENCE PROGRAMME --------------------------------------------- ==== WEDNESDAY 30 AUGUST 2000 ==== TUTORIAL PROGRAMME: Pick and mix from the following half-day tutorials - Classifier fusion - Image acquisition for machine vision - Combination of supervised and unsupervised learning for RBF networks - Non-invasive data analysis - Fuzzy-neuro controller design and industrial applications - Dimensionality reduction techniques and interactive visualisation methods for multi-variate data. EVENING CONFERENCE SOCIAL RECEPTION: Drinks and an opportunity to see Brighton ==== THURSDAY 31 AUGUST & FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER ==== KEYNOTE ADDRESSES: Experts from world renowned research institutes, e.g. the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Universities of Sheffield, Tokyo and Newcastle, will give keynote addresses:- - Applications of intelligent systems to process engineering - Towards dynamic knowledge interaction, and - Computing with words, - Intelligent Engineering in Biomedicine SPECIAL SESSIONS: Prominent researchers have agreed to chair oral and poster sessions on exciting new topics, for example:- - Knowledge-based intelligent signal and image processing - Intelligent techniques for internet resources - Fusion of knowledge-based and intelligent systems - Neuro-fuzzy techniques for knowledge discovery - Applications of evolutionary algorithms for optimisation - Image processing, pattern recognition and computer vision - Novel generalised architectures for optimisation of pattern classification - Knowledge-based systems and engineering - Fuzzy systems - Neural networks for speech and vision - Quality control by artificial vision - Socialware and socialmedia - Human computer communication and control: developments and applications - Industrial applications with artificial intelligence - Intelligent techniques in communications, multi-media and the WWW - Intelligent agents for searching information on the WWW - Soft computing technologies for pattern recognition - New frontiers for logic and uncertainty by the semantic field - Interactive community media - Processing of hierarchical structures in neural networks - Biomedical applications of neural networks - Neural computing in medicine - Natural language processing - Emerging technologies in edutainment and interactive art - Metrics in neuro-dynamics - Web-based and intelligent hardware - Learning by analogy: a connectionist approach, - Intelligent virtual sensors in IC engines - Condition monitoring and diagnostics EXHIBITORS: A table top exhibition will run alongside the conference. Contact the KES2000 Secretariat for details. CONFERENCE DINNER: Thursday 31 August, pre-dinner social followed by multi- course dinner with wines. FEES: The conference fee has not been fixed yet, but we aim to keep fees low to enable the maximum to participate, and to provide a pleasurable, high- quality conference with value for money. ACCOMODATION: Low cost accommodation will be provided in new student study- rooms, or there are many hotels in the lively sea-side town of Brighton. SOCIAL PROGRAMME: In addition to the conference dinner, there will be an optional programme of trips for accompanying persons, for example to Buckingham Palace, home of the Queen and Royal Family, to Arundel Castle which has history dating over hundreds of years, Brighton Laines famous for its shops, and the Body Shop which has its headquarters in Sussex. KES2000 SECRETARIAT CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS: KES2000 Secretariat, Engineering Research Centre, School of Engineering, University of Brighton, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, BN2 4GJ, United Kingdom. Email: KES2000 at brighton.ac.uk Telephone: +44 1273 642501 Fax: +44 1273 643976 KES2000 Web site : http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/ THE SMALLPRINT! All the above information is given in good faith, but is provisional and subject to change. -- End ------------------------------------------------------- From lwchan at cse.cuhk.edu.hk Mon Feb 14 03:32:03 2000 From: lwchan at cse.cuhk.edu.hk (lwchan@cse.cuhk.edu.hk) Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 16:32:03 +0800 (HKT) Subject: Ph.D. and Master Studentships available Message-ID: <200002140832.QAA05073@ivy> Graduate Studentships and Research Assistantships available in Computer Science and Engineering Department The Chinese University of Hong Kong ------------------------------------------ Graduate Studentships (leading to Ph.D or M.Phil degrees) and Research Assistantships are available in the area of Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning (IDEAL). Research projects include : - Neural Networks - Learning Theory and Algorithm - Computational Finance - Distributed Intelligent Decision-making and Control - Machine Perception - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery - Digital Library - Multi-media Database - Agents - Voice and Pattern Recognition - Internet Searching - E-commerce The deadline for the application for admission in September 2000 is ******** 29 FEBRUARY, 2000 ******** ----------------------------------------------------------------------- In recent years, The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has expanded rapidly in enrolment, curriculum, staff, research and service to the community. As a department in the Faculty of Engineering, it offers full-time research programmes leading to the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy, a part-time research programme leading to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and a part-time taught M.Sc. programme. We have 25 full-time faculty members and the current enrolment of postgraduate students is over 200. We have many research groups which are very active and of critical sizes for discussion and information assimilation. Major equipment in the department includes a SUN Enterprise E6500 and E4500 Supercomputers with 12 processors each, a Silicon Graphics Onyx2 Graphics Supercomputer, more than 250 Sun and SGI workstations, more than 250 high speed PCs and equipment for parallel processing, multimedia and Chinese processing. All machines are connected to the departmental 100Mbps Fast Ethernet network and Gigabit Ethernet network. Through the University backbone, these machines are also connected to the Internet with high speed links. Students can also access the computing facilities of the Faculty of Engineering, the University Computer Services Centre and the computing facilities in their own Colleges. Usually both M.Phil. and Ph.D. full-time students will be given postgraduate studentship or research assistantship of at least HK$13,615 per month (7.73 HKD = 1 USD, subject to inflationary adjustment each year). Scholarships, teaching assistantships and research assistantship in other fields are also available. For on-line applications or application forms, please contact The Graduate School The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong Email Address: gradschool at cuhk.edu.hk WWW: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/grs Tel: (852) 2609 8976-7 Fax: (852) 2603 5197 Further information about the graduate program, the admission requirement, the research areas, facilities and the application procedures can be obtained via WWW (the world-wide web) at The University : http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ Graduate School : http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/grs CSE Department : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk CSE Division : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/pgm/pg.html Joint Center for Intelligence Engineering : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/rsh/lab/iel.html Email : lwchan at cse.cuhk.edu.hk Laiwan Chan, Head, Division of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. From bengioy at IRO.UMontreal.CA Wed Feb 16 17:04:44 2000 From: bengioy at IRO.UMontreal.CA (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 17:04:44 -0500 Subject: call for post-doc in machine learning and data analysis Message-ID: <20000216170444.05270@IRO.UMontreal.CA> POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH STAFF MEMBER IN STATISTICAL DATA ANALYSIS AND MACHINE LEARNING FOR HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA SETS MATHEMATICS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COMPLEX SYSTEMS (MITACS: a new Canadian Network of Centers of Excellence) Position to be held jointly at the Department of Computer Science & Operations Research and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, at the UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE POSITION: A post-doctoral position position is available at the University of Montreal within the MITACS network of centers of excellence. The main research area will be the statistical data analysis of high-dimensional data sets with machine learning algorithms, also known as, "database mining". The main research questions that will be addressed in this research are the following: - how to deal with the "curse of dimensionality": algorithms based on variable selection or based on combining many variables with different importance, while controlling generalization to avoid overfitting; - how to make inferences on the models obtained with such methods, mostly using resampling methods such as the BOOTSTRAP. This research will be performed within the MITACS project entitled "INFERENCE FROM HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA". See http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy/mitacs.html for more information on the project and http://www.mitacs.math.ca for more information on the MITACS network. The candidate will be working under the supervision of professors Yoshua Bengio (computer science and operations research) and Christian Leger (mathematics and statistics). See http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy and http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lisa for more information respectively on Yoshua Bengio and his laboratory. See http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~leger for more information on Christian Leger. ESSENTIAL SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, AND ABILITIES: Candidates must possess a recent Ph.D. in computer science, statistics, mathematics, or a related discipline, with a research background in machine learning (in particular neural networks) and/or computational statistical methods such as the bootstrap. Candidates must have excellent programming skills, with demonstrated experience. Experience in the following areas will be mostly considered: - Statistical data analysis in general, - bootstrapping methods in particular. - Machine learning algorithms in general, - artificial neural networks in particular. - Programming skills in general, - object-oriented programming, - participation in large-scale, multiple authors, software projects, - experience with C, C++ and S-Plus languages, in particular. LENGTH OF EMPLOYMENT: 1 year (with possible renewal for a second year), starting as soon as possible. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Yoshua Bengio bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca, 514-343-6804, fax 514-343-5834 or Christian Leger leger at dms.umontreal.ca 514-343-7824, fax 514-343-5700 Electronic applications (preferably as a postscript, raw text, or pdf file) are encouraged, in the form of a a Curriculum Vitae with information on academic experience, academic standing, publication list, research experience, programming experience, and any other relevant information (e.g., pointer to your web site, if possible). -- Yoshua Bengio Professeur aggrege Departement d'Informatique et Recherche Operationnelle Universite de Montreal, addresse postale: C.P. 6128 Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7 addresse civique: 2920 Chemin de la Tour, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 1J8, #2194 Tel: 514-343-6804. Fax: 514-343-5834. Bureau 3339. http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lisa From luciano at if.sc.usp.br Wed Feb 16 13:58:18 2000 From: luciano at if.sc.usp.br (Luciano Da Fontoura Costa) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 15:58:18 -0300 (EST) Subject: Review on Vision Message-ID: 16th Feb 2000 Dear Sir/Madam: We are glad to inform that we have prepared a comprehensive survey of the WWW covering a series of issues related to vision, including computer vision, image processing, computer graphics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and many, many more areas. This on-line review, which has recently been accepted for the InterJournal (http://www.interjournal.org), includes more than 300 sites rated and commented, organized as a hypertext document. The review can be found at: http://www.ime.usp.br/~cesar/revision or http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/~cesar/revision/ We would be very grateful if you could help disseminating this review and include a pointer to it in your homepage. The URL at your homepage can be included by the inserting the following HTML code in your site: ReVision: Reviewing Vision in the WEB! Suggestions and criticisms will also be very welcomed. We intend to update the survey periodically. Thanks in advance, Luciano Costa (luciano at if.sc.usp.br) and Roberto M. Cesar Jr (cesar at ime.usp.br) ===================================================================== Prof. Luciano da Fontoura Costa Coordinator - Cybernetic Vision Research Group DFI-IFSC, Universidade de Sao Paulo Caixa Postal 369 Sao Carlos, SP 13560-970 Brazil FAX: +55 162 73 9879 or +55 162 71 3616 e-mail: luciano at if.sc.usp.br Group homepage: http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/ Personal homepage: http://www.if.sc.usp.br/visao/group/members/luciano/luciano.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Comprehensive and commented review of the WWW on computer vision and related areas: http://www.ime.usp.br/~cesar/revision or http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/~cesar/revision/ Forthcoming book: Shape Analysis and Recognition (CRC Press) http://www.ime.usp.br/~cesar/shape_crc/ Scale Space without Border Shifting: http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/msskeletons/ 2000 International Conference on Mathematics and Engineering Techniques in Medicine and Biological Sciences: http://www.cns.bu.edu/metmbs/call.html BMCV2000: http://image.korea.ac.kr/BMCV2000/ On-line publications: http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/publications/ ===================================================================== END OF MESSAGE ============== From cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw Sun Feb 20 21:59:59 2000 From: cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw (Chih-jen Lin) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 10:59:59 +0800 (CST) Subject: BSVM: software for large classification problems Message-ID: <200002210259.KAA05311@ntucsa.csie.ntu.edu.tw> Dear Colleagues: We announce the release of the software BSVM, a decomposition method for support vector machines (SVM) for large classification problems. BSVM uses a decomposition method to solve a bound-constrained SVM formulation. Advantages of BSVM include 1.Using a simple working set selection which leads to faster convergences for difficult cases. 2.Using a bounded SVM formulation and a projected gradient optimization solver which allow BSVM to quickly and stably identify support vectors. 3.It naturally uses the idea of a cache. The current release (Version 1.0) is available from http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/bsvm For additional information on BSVM, see Chih-Wei Hsu and Chih-Jen Lin A simple decomposition method for support vector machines, January 2000 http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/papers/decomp.ps.gz Any comments are very welcome. Sincerely, Chih-Jen Lin Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw From maass at igi.tu-graz.ac.at Mon Feb 21 10:35:03 2000 From: maass at igi.tu-graz.ac.at (Wolfgang Maass) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 16:35:03 +0100 Subject: Workshop on Neural Network Theory in Graz Message-ID: <38B15B27.1DDDB7EC@igi.tu-graz.ac.at> Announcement of the NeuroCOLT Workshop NEW PERSPECTIVES IN THE THEORY OF NEURAL NETS May 3 to 5 , 2000 at Schloss St. Martin in Graz (Austria). Organizer: Wolfgang Maass, Graz University of Technology The goal of this workshop is to bring together leading researchers in neural network theory for an informal discussion of new results and trends. Invited speakers will give 30 minute talks, each followed by 15 minutes of discussion. The list of speakers is already fixed, but in order to facilitate discussion of very recent results the titles of the talks will be left open until April 15. In addition to these invited talks there will be a problem-session, some general discussion sessions and poster sessions with contributed papers. Each participant is invited to contribute a poster to this workshop. We limit the maximal number of participants to 60, in order to facilitate informal communication at the workshop. This workshop belongs to a series of meetings of the European NeuroCOLT network. However there is room left for 15 other participants. These slots will be filled on a first-come-first-serve basis. If you are interested in participating, please fill out the registration form on the homepage, and email it to nn2000 at igi.tu-graz.ac.at Apart from the registration form you will also find the list of speakers, description of the meeting site, travel information etc on the homepage for this workshop: http://www.tu-graz.ac.at/igi/maass/nn2000/ -Wolfgang Maass From kak at ee.lsu.edu Mon Feb 21 13:39:13 2000 From: kak at ee.lsu.edu (Subhash Kak) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 12:39:13 -0600 (CST) Subject: No subject Message-ID: <200002211839.MAA07378@ee.lsu.edu> Here is a new paper that presents an overview of some ideas of mind in ancient India that will of interest to some on the Connectionists List. http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/centers.pdf "The Gods Within: On the Vedic understanding of mind and neuroscience" by Subhash Kak Abstract: Mind is the last frontier of science. We observe the physical universe through our mind, yet we have no clear idea how mind functions, how memories are stored and recalled and what is the origin of our subjective feelings. Is this level of ignorance a result of the reductionist nature of the tools that have been used in the study of mind and consciousness? If that is so, will an approach that has a different philosophical basis help? It is for this reason we turn to an examination of Indic psychology--based on a holistic view of reality--, where the central concern is self and awareness. We provide evidence that the "gods" of Indic mythology are cognitive centers in the brain. Without forcing our own interpretation on ancient material, we let the texts speak for themselves. Parallels are drawn using our recent insights from neurscience. From Dave_Touretzky at cs.cmu.edu Tue Feb 22 02:46:01 2000 From: Dave_Touretzky at cs.cmu.edu (Dave_Touretzky@cs.cmu.edu) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 02:46:01 -0500 Subject: postdoctoral position in hippocampal modeling Message-ID: <25468.951205561@skinner.boltz.cs.cmu.edu> Postdoctoral Position in Hippocampal Modeling Applications are invited for a postdoctoral training position in hippocampal modeling at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, a joint facility of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The applicant will work with Dr. David S. Touretzky of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon and Professor William Skaggs of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh to develop large-scale attractor network models of hippocampal maps. In these models, the firing of hippocampal place cells can be visualized as a bump of activity moving over a 2D sheet. We are specifically interested in modeling the effects of sensory cues on the shape and behavior of the activity bump. Applicants with prior experience in any aspect of computational modeling of neural systems are encouraged to apply. We will also consider applicants with a background in neurophysiological recording who are interested in becoming modelers. The position is open to US citizens or permanent residents. The starting date can be any time from now through September 1. To apply, send a curriculum vitae, two sample publications, and a letter of reference from your doctoral dissertation advisor to: Dr. David S. Touretzky Computer Science Department tel. 412-268-7561. Carnegie Mellon University fax: 412-268-3608 Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891 email: dst at cs.cmu.edu From ohira at csl.sony.co.jp Tue Feb 22 04:26:10 2000 From: ohira at csl.sony.co.jp (Toru Ohira) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 18:26:10 +0900 Subject: NIPS99 paper available (T. Ohira) Message-ID: Dear Connectionists: The following NIPS99 paper is available: "Resonance in a Stochastic Neuron Model with Delayed Interaction" (T. Ohira and Y. Sato, and J. D. Cowan), Presented at NIPS99. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 12, 314-320 (2000) (SCSL-TR-99-015) ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/CSL/CSL-Papers/99/SCSL-TR-99-015.ps The related papers are also available: "Resonance with Noise and Delay" (T. Ohira and Y. Sato), Physical Review Letters, vol.82, 1999, pp. 2811-2815. (SCSL-TR-98-016) ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/CSL/CSL-Papers/98/SCSL-TR-98-016.ps.gz "Delayed Stochastic Systems" (T. Ohira and Y. Yamane), Physical Review E 61, 1247 (2000) (SCSL-TR-99-016) ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/CSL/CSL-Papers/99/SCSL-TR-99-016.ps Your comments will be welcomed. Sincerely, Toru Ohira Sony Computer Science Labs. ohira at csl.sony.co.jp http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/ohira From ale at limbo.ilas.sissa.it Tue Feb 22 16:53:04 2000 From: ale at limbo.ilas.sissa.it (Alessandro Treves) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 16:53:04 MET Subject: Postdocs and PhDs at SISSA, Trieste Message-ID: <200002221553.QAA03535@limbo.ilas.sissa.it> SISSA, the International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste, Italy, invites applications to the Cognitive Neuroscience sector at the PhD and postdoctoral levels (deadlines end of April and end of March, resp.). Candidates will be selected based on the interests of research groups: neuropsychology and frontal lobe processing (Tim Shallice and Raffaella Rumiati); psycholinguistics and cognitive science (Jacques Mehler); information-theoretic analysis and modelling of neural coding (Alessandro Treves); spatial representation in parietal cortex (Paolo Battaglini); tactile information processing and learning (Mathew E. Diamond); developmental plasticity in the visual system (Luciano Domenici). All relevant information at the URL http://www.sissa.it/cns/. From lizs at soc.plym.ac.uk Tue Feb 22 04:50:07 2000 From: lizs at soc.plym.ac.uk (Liz Stuart) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 09:50:07 +0000 Subject: PhD studentship Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20000222095007.0090fcb0@csuf51.csd.plymouth.ac.uk> EPRSC PhD Studentship A PhD student is sought for an exciting and innovative project aimed at the visualisation of large data sets recorded by Neurophysiologists. The aim of this project is to develop a new approach to the analysis of experimental data in neurophysiology based on the use of computer science techniques such as graphical engineering, visualisation and virtual reality. This new approach will provide neuroscientists with an interactive environment within which to explore their data sets. The primary focus of this research is on the analysis of multi-dimensional data sets. By navigating through these large data sets, researchers will be able to focus on particular features of the data as well as identifying overall characteristics. This will support the integration of the experimental and theoretical approaches to the analysis of neurophysiological evidence. This three year studentship is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It is managed by Dr. L. Stuart of the Centre of Neural and Adaptive Sytsems in the School of Computing at the University of Plymouth. The student will be involved in the development of software to support the visualisation of vast quantities of neurophysiological data. Much of this development will draw on current software such as VTK and VisAD as well as the development of new representations incorporating 3D technology and/or Virtual Reality. The bursary for this studentship 6200 UK Pounds. Students are permitted to supervise/teach up to six hours per week to supplement this income. The student must have a high level of knowledge and experience of C++. Additionally, they must have good oral and written communication skills in the English language. Due to the nature of the project, the student should be able to work individually and as part of a team. For more information see http:\\www.tech.plym.ac.uk\soc\research\neural\staff\lstuart\vacancy.htm or contact Dr. L. Stuart at lstuart at plymouth.ac.uk Applications should be received before 14th April 2000, but the position will remain open until a suitable candidate is found. Candidates should send a CV, a description of motivations and the name and address of two referees to: Carole Watson School of Computing, University of Plymouth Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, United kingdom Telephone: 01752 232541 Fax: 01752 232540 Email: c.watson at plymouth.ac.uk From mel at lnc.usc.edu Tue Feb 22 17:36:33 2000 From: mel at lnc.usc.edu (Bartlett Mel) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 14:36:33 -0800 Subject: 7th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation: CFP Message-ID: <38B30F71.61169ED3@lnc.usc.edu> DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: Friday, April 7, 2000 ---------------------------------- CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS --- 7th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation --- to be held at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Saturday, May 20, 2000 ------------------------------------------- website: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jsnc/ ------------------------------------------- Program Committee----------- JAMES M. BOWER Division of Biology, Caltech GARRISON W. COTTRELL Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, UCSD DONALD D. HOFFMAN Dept. of Cognitive Sciences, UCI GILLES LAURENT Division of Biology & Computation and Neural Systems Program, Caltech BARTLETT W. MEL (chair) Dept. of Biomedical Engineering & Neuroscience Program, USC SHEILA NIRENBERG Dept. of Neurobiology, UCLA STEFAN SCHAAL Dept. of Computer Science and Neuroscience Program, USC TERRENCE J. SEJNOWSKI Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UCSD/Salk Institute ---------------------------- This annual meeting rotates between institutions in Southern Califorina and this year will be hosted by the University of Southern California. The keynote address this year will be given by: Prof. Gerald M. Loeb Biomedical Engineering Department, and Fellow of the USC Alfred Mann Institute "Dialogs with the Nervous System" Submissions will be open to all members of the Neural Computation community of Southern California. Research areas include all aspects of cellular, network, and systems-level modeling, and applications of neuromorphic algorithms and hardware to problems in vision, speech motor control, cognitive function, etc. Authors are invited to contribute abstracts, which will be reviewed by the program committee (see above). The contributed program will consist of 15-minute oral presentations, as well as a poster session. Abstracts selected for either oral or poster presentation will be included in the final program. DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: Friday, April 7, 2000 As in previous years, a Proceedings consisting of short papers describing work presented at the May meeting will be published by the INC. Contributions to the Proceedings, based on both oral and poster presentations, are due after the meeting, and must be submitted no later than Friday, June 2, 2000 to: Institute for Neural Computation, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive DEPT 0523, La Jolla, CA 92093-0523. Guidelines for the submissions will be distributed to the presenters at the Symposium. As in previous years, authors will retain copyright to their papers, so that they may be resubmitted elsewhere. Submissions: ALL abstracts must be submitted electronically by April 7, 2000 through the Joint Symposium web site at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jsnc/ Abstracts may be submitted in RAW ASCII or in HTML. Please note: the abstracts may contain pointers to the authors pre-prints, Webpage, graphics and figures, provided the entire entry can be read by a web-browser. Notification of acceptance as oral or poster presentation will be e-mailed to authors by the end of April, 2000. Registration and attendance at the Symposium is open to the public. Attendees who will not present material must also register through the symposium web site. LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS ---------------------- Linda Yokote, BME Department, USC, marubaya at rcf.usc.edu, (213)740-0840 Gabriele Larmon, BME Dept, USC, larmon at bmsrs.usc.edu PROCEEDINGS ------------ Marilee Bateman, Institute for Neural Computation, UCSD, bateman at cogsci.ucsd.edu WEB SITE -------- Marionne Epalle, Engineering and Applied Science, Caltech, marionne at caltech.edu From p.v.coveney at qmw.ac.uk Fri Feb 25 06:58:33 2000 From: p.v.coveney at qmw.ac.uk (Peter Coveney) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 11:58:33 +0000 Subject: Post-doctoral research fellowship Message-ID: <4.2.2.20000225115238.020e5ab0@alpha.qmw.ac.uk> CENTRE FOR COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London United Kingdom A new appointment has now become available at the Centre for Computational Science at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. The Centre is exceptionally well resourced, with facilities that include numerous Silicon Graphics and other workstations, a 16 processor SGI Onyx2 graphical supercomputer, and high speed access to remote supercomputing facilities within the U.K., Europe and North America. POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS: Neural networks, databases and datamining Applications are invited for a special industrially-funded post-doctoral research fellowship to work on the development and implementation of smart data analysis methods (neural networks, genetic algorithms, etc.) for rapid materials characterisation and performance prediction. The project, which also involves database design and construction, is part of a large and novel international collaborative effort in high throughput measurement technology, and will involve close interaction with experimentalists. Candidates should hold a Ph.D. degree in physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, computer science or engineering. The position is available to start after 1 March 2000 for one year in the first instance, but with the possibility of renewal for a second year. Salary will be pounds sterling 22,945, inclusive of London allowance, with a bonus payable on completion of the project. Ref: 00025AmcK Informal inquiries and applications should be sent to Professor P.V.Coveney Professor Peter V Coveney Director, Centre for Computational Science Queen Mary and Westfield College University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS U.K. email: p.v.coveney at qmw.ac.uk http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/ccs tel: 44 (0)20 7882 5026 (direct)/44 (0)20 7882 3253 (secretary) fax: 44 (0)20 7882 7794 From sschaal at usc.edu Fri Feb 25 19:55:47 2000 From: sschaal at usc.edu (Stefan Schaal) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 16:55:47 -0800 Subject: Conference on Humanoid Robots Message-ID: <200002260055.QAA10031@rubens.usc.edu.> Appended you find the call for papers for the first international conference on Humanoid Robots. We are particularly interested in soliciting contributions from the learning community for this conference. Supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning are core elements in sensory motor control of a humanoid robot, the same as in biological systems. The need for algorithms that scale well to high-dimensional data, work incrementally in real-time, can integrate multi-modal information and deal with hidden state makes the area of humanoid robotics a very interesting challenge for new learning theories. With best regards, Stefan Schaal & Alois Knoll -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS -- Please circulate *** HUMANOIDS2000 *** -- The First IEEE-RAS Intern. Conf. on Humanoid Robots -- -- Co-sponsored by the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sept. 7-8, 2000 Papers should present current work, outline research programmes, and/or summarize in a tutorial style the state of the art in areas that are related to the building of, controling of , and learning in humanoid robots or that can be expected to be of importance to the field in the future. Note that we are also especially interested in connectionist and statistical learning methods as they relate to learning sensorimotor control and higher planning abilities in complex, high-dimensional movement systems. Paper submission deadline is April 21, 2000. For mor information, please visit the conference web sites at http://humanoids.uni-bielefeld.de or http://humanoids.usc.edu for further details (including a full Call for Papers in PDF and Postcript format). ______________________________________________________ Deadlines Submission: April 21, 2000 Notification: June 30, 2000 Camera-Ready Copy: August 4, 2000 ______________________________________________________ Contact address: humanoids at usc.edu ______________________________________________________ Conference Chairs: G.A.Bekey, USC (General) R.A.Brooks, MIT (Honorary) A.C.Knoll, U Bielefeld (Program) ______________________________________________________ Program Committee: M. Asada (Osaka U) C. Atkeson (Georgia Tech) T. Christaller (GMD-Bonn) T. Fukuda (Nagoya U) S. Hashimoto (U Waseda) H. Inoue (U Tokyo) K. Kawamura (Vanderbilt U) B. Keeley (U Northern Iowa) P. Khosla (CMU) T. Kobayashi (U Waseda) Y. Kuniyoshi (MITI Tsukuba) M. Mataric (USC) R. Pfeifer (U Zurich) R. Reiter (U Toronto) S. Schaal (USC) S. Sugano (Waseda U) M. Wheeler (U Stirling) S. Yuta (U Tsukuba) ______________________________________________________ Alois Knoll (knoll at ti.uni-bielefeld.de) From chaefke at ucsd.edu Sun Feb 27 22:20:16 2000 From: chaefke at ucsd.edu (chaefke@ucsd.edu) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 19:20:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paper on closed form integration of ANN Message-ID: <200002280320.TAA11967@chaefke.extern.ucsd.edu> Dear colleagues, You can find the paper "Closed Form Integration of Artificial Neural Networks With Some Applications to Finance" by Andy Gottschling, Christian Haefke and Halbert White at my webpage: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~chaefke/papers/Annint_chaefke.ps.gz or http://weber.ucsd.edu/~chaefke/papers/Annint_chaefke.pdf Abstract: Many economic and econometric applications require the integration of functions lacking a closed form antiderivative, which is therefore a task that can only be solved by numerical methods. We propose a new family of probability densities that can be used as substitutes and have the property of closed form integrability. This is especially advantageous in cases where either the complexity of a problem makes numerical function evaluations very costly, or fast information extraction is required for time-varying environments. Our approach allows generally for nonparametric maximum likelihood density estimation and may thus find a variety of applications, two of which are illustrated briefly: Estimation of Value at Risk based on approximations to the density of stock returns. Recovering risk neutral densities for the valuation of options from the option price -- strike price relation. Keywords: Option Pricing, Neural Networks, Nonparametric Density Estimation, Hypergeometric Functions; The paper prints out to 35 pages, Filesize is 150K for the gzipped version and 350K for the pdf file. Comments are highly appreciated. Best regards, Christian ******************************************************************************* * * * Christian Haefke INTERNET: chaefke at weber.ucsd.edu * * University of California, San Diego * * Department of Economics, 0508 * * 9500 Gilman Drive * * La Jolla, CA 92093-0508 * * * * * ******************************************************************************* * * * http://weber.ucsd.edu/~chaefke * * * ******************************************************************************* From bein at malachite.CS.UNLV.EDU Mon Feb 28 18:40:28 2000 From: bein at malachite.CS.UNLV.EDU (Wolfgang W Bein) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 15:40:28 -0800 Subject: Snippet Message-ID: I am the Technical Secession Chair for a session on "Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms" I am still able to accept a limited number of contributions for this session (see below for a description.) I would need an extended abstract by Friday, March 3 (up to 4 pages, but a 1 page would suffice, given the deadline) The camera ready copy is only due by April 1. The session is part of the 2000 International Conference on Mathematics and Engineering Techniques in Medicine and Biological Sciences, which is concurrent with IC-AI. There is a pointer to the relevant pages on my home-page http://www.cs.unlv.edu/~bein/ Wolf Bein Computer Science University of Nevada, Las Vegas Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms -------------------------------------- Adaptive methods play a significant role as tools in situations where more rigid methods may fail. Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Methods are inspired by concepts arising in Biology and the Cognitive Sciences. This session will highlight ongoing work relating Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Methods, as well as recent applications of these tools to Medicine and the Biological Sciences. From swindale at interchange.ubc.ca Tue Feb 29 19:05:10 2000 From: swindale at interchange.ubc.ca (Nicholas Swindale) Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 16:05:10 -0800 Subject: Postdoctoral position, visual cortex, University of British Columbia Message-ID: POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY. Department of Ophthalmology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada A position is available to study receptive field organization and topography in cat visual cortex using optical recording and silicon multi-site recording probes (see http://www.biomednet.com/biomednews/1999/SFN/day2/story_2.html) to . Applicants should have experience in visual neuroscience and strong programming skills (ideally Delphi or Visual C++ in a Windows environment). The Department of Ophthalmology at UBC has a strong basic science research group encompassing a wide range of areas in visual neuroscience, including fMRI, visual psychophysics, electrophysiology, computational neuroscience, neuroanatomy and molecular genetics. The recent formation of a Brain Research Centre at UBC promises to add further to the University's strengths in neuroscience. Vancouver (http://www.vancouver.about.com/citiestowns/vancouver/library/weekly/aa05229 9.htm) is consistently rated one of the best cities of the world in which to live. It is close to one of the best ski resorts in North America (Whistler) and there are opportunities for hiking, mountaineering, windsurfing, sailing, kayaking and other outdoor activities. The city boasts wonderful modern architecture, two symphony orchestras, a world class opera company, ethnically diverse restaurants of outstanding quality and much more. Informal enquiries and/or applications (statement of research interests, sample publications and names and addresses of three referees) can be sent to: Nicholas Swindale, Dept. of Ophthalmology, University of British Columbia, 2550 Willow St., Vancouver, B.C. Canada, V5Z 3N9 swindale at interchange.ubc.ca (http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/neurosci/faculty/swindale.html ) From georg at ai.univie.ac.at Tue Feb 1 09:26:01 2000 From: georg at ai.univie.ac.at (Georg Dorffner) Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 15:26:01 +0100 Subject: Call f.Part.: Future of Neural Networks - Virtual Workshop Message-ID: <3896ECF9.673E6ACE@ai.univie.ac.at> NEuroNet, the European "network of excellence" on neural networks, invites you to participate in the =============================================== Open Virtual Workshop "The Future and Prospects of Neural Networks" http://www.ai.univie.ac.at/neuronet/workshop =============================================== The goal of this workshop is to collect views and comments from neural network researchers as to where the field is likely to be going in the near and medium-term future. The discussion started as a "real" workshop in Edinburgh (in the framework of ICANN'99). All contributions are available on the web now (text, images, audio files) to let you recapture that discussion. Now everybody else is invited to send their comments, questions, or short position papers. For more details see the above link. Thanks in advance for participating! Georg Dorffner ----------- NEuroNet is sponsored by the European Commission http://www.kcl.ac.uk/neuronet From halici at metu.edu.tr Tue Feb 1 11:11:24 2000 From: halici at metu.edu.tr (Ugur HALICI) Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 18:11:24 +0200 Subject: CFP:WCNA special session on NN, CVis Message-ID: <389705AC.5CE0E4CF@metu.edu.tr> The third World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts under the auspices of the International Federation of Nonlinear Analysts (IFNA) is to be held during July 19-26, 2000 in Catania, Sicily, Italy. If interested in submitting paper for special sessions on -Neural Networks -Computer Vision please contact Ugur Halici e-mail: halici at metu.edu.tr until February 15, by sending 1 page abstract. The Proceedings for the third World Congress will be published by Elsevier Science Publishers, Ltd.as a special series of the Journal of Nonlinear Analysis after a refereeing process. Deadline for submission of papers for refereeing is September 30, 2000. More information about WCNA can be reached at http://www.fit.edu/AcadRes/math/wcna/wcna2000.htm From aapo at james.hut.fi Tue Feb 1 05:52:52 2000 From: aapo at james.hut.fi (Aapo Hyvarinen) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 12:52:52 +0200 (EET) Subject: ICA2000 final CFP Message-ID: Final Call for Papers: ------------- I C A 2000 ------------- International Workshop on INDEPENDENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS and BLIND SIGNAL SEPARATION 19-22 June 2000 Helsinki, Finland http://www.cis.hut.fi/ica2000/ Submission deadline: 1 March 2000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AIMS AND SCOPE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This workshop is the second in the series initiated by the highly succesful ICA'99 workshop in Aussois, France. It is devoted to recent advances in Independent Component Analysis and Blind Signal Separation. An important goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers from artificial neural networks, signal processing, and other related fields to provide interdisciplinary exchange. Papers describing original work on ICA and BSS are invited. Relevant topics include, for example: - Theory and estimation methods - Extensions of basic models - Convolutive and noisy mixtures - Nonlinear methods - Hardware implementations - Audio and telecommunications applications - Biomedical applications - Data mining applications - Image processing applications - Sensory coding models ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAPER SUBMISSION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Important dates: 1 March, 2000 Submission of camera-ready paper 15 April, 2000 Notification of acceptance 19-22 June, 2000 Workshop Papers must be max. 6 pages, and should use IEEE conference style. The submission is electronic through the Internet. To submit a paper, follow the instructions on the ICA2000 home page. Submitted files should be in PostScript or PDF format. The submitted papers should be in the final camera-ready form, suitable for publication in the proceedings. The submitted papers will be peer-reviewed, and acceptance will be based on quality, relevance and originality. All the papers presented at the workshop will be published in the Proceedings of ICA 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- L. Almeida, IST/INESC, Portugal S.-I. Amari, RIKEN, Japan A. Bell, Interval Research, USA J.-F. Cardoso, ENST, France A. Cichocki, RIKEN, Japan P. Comon, Universite de Nice, France S. Douglas, Southern Methodist University, USA C. Fyfe, Univ. of Paisley, UK S. Haykin, McMaster University, Canada A. Hyvarinen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland C. Jutten, INPG, France J. Karhunen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland S. Kassam, Univ. of Pennsylvania, USA V. Koivunen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland T.-W. Lee, Salk Institute, USA R.-W. Liu, Univ. of Notre Dame, USA P. Loubaton, Universite de Marne la Vallee, France K.-R. Mueller, GMD First, Germany B. Olshausen, UC Davis, USA E. Oja, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland P. Pajunen, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland J. Principe, Univ. of Florida, USA T. Sejnowski, Salk Institute, USA K. Torkkola, Motorola Corporate Research, USA J. Tugnait, Auburn University, USA L. Xu, The Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, China ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General Chair: E. Oja Program Chair: J. Karhunen Local Arrangements Chair: V. Koivunen Publications Chair; P. Pajunen Publicity Chair; A. Hyvarinen Treasurer: J. Iivarinen Web Master: J. Sarela ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COOPERATING SOCIETIES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- European Neural Network Society, IEEE Signal Processing Society, EURASIP, IEEE Neural Networks Council, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- web site http://www.cis.hut.fi/ica2000/ email ica2000 at mail.cis.hut.fi postal mail ICA 2000, P.O.Box 5400 Lab of Comp. and Info. Science Helsinki Univ. of Technology FIN-02015 HUT, Finland ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jose at tractatus.rutgers.edu Tue Feb 1 12:34:48 2000 From: jose at tractatus.rutgers.edu (Stephen Hanson) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 12:34:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: RUTGERS-NEWARK PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATE PROGRAM FELLOWSHIPS Message-ID: <200002011734.MAA06003@tractatus.rutgers.edu> RUTGERS UNIVERSITY- Graduate Program in PSYCHOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATE PROGRAM- Newark Campus GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS. Fall 00 The graduate program seeks students for FALL 00. Interested applicants from Psychology, Computer Science or Cognitive Science undergrad programs are encouraged to apply. The program provides comprehensive training in COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE and COGNITIVE SCIENCE. These fellowships are competitive and focus in neuro-imaging, computation and cognitive science/perception research. The Rutgers-Newark Psychology Department and UMDNJ have recently acquired a 3T magnet (SIEMENS ALLEGRA) and a Neuroimaging center. Application Deadline is March 1, 2000. Please send enquiries and applications to Professor S. J. Hanson, Chair, Department of Psychology Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102. Email enquirys can be made to jose at psychology.rutgers.edu also please see our web page for more information on the graduate faculty and program http://www.psych.rutgers.edu From stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk Wed Feb 2 06:45:52 2000 From: stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk (Stefan.Wermter) Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 11:45:52 +0000 Subject: 3 lecturer/senior lecturer positions Message-ID: <389818F0.3B15FC53@sunderland.ac.uk> As a result of recent expansions opportunities have arisen to make several appointments at the University of Sunderland. People on this list might be particularly interested in lecturer/ senior lecturer positions in the areas below, including intelligent systems where we focus in particular on neural adaptive systems, hybrid neural symbolic systems, natural language engineering and we welcome applications in this area. ---------------------------------- Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Opportunities in Computing and Engineering at the University of Sunderland Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Computing - 3 Posts To contribute to teaching, research and other initiatives in computing, particularly in the areas of Software Engineering/Programming; and/or Networks/Communications. You should have experience in one of these key areas as well as the enthusiasm to make a strong contribution to our research and reach-out activities. You will join a large and enthusiastic team of staff delivering a range of computing programmes, and undertaking research in the areas of software engineering, intelligent systems, human computer systems and decision support systems. Ref No: CETL64 Salary at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer 14,902 - 30,636. Informal enquiries welcomed by Professor Peter Smith on (0191) 515 2761 or email peter.smith at sunderland .ac.uk A Relocation Package is available in approved cases. Submit your CV with a letter of application detailing current salary and two referees, quoting appropriate vacancy title and reference number, to the Personnel Department, University of Sunderland, Langham Tower, Ryhope Road, Sunderland, SR2 7EE or email employee.recruitment at sunderland.ac.uk Closing Date: 29th February 2000 Working Towards Equal Opportunities -------------------------------------- *************************************** Professor Stefan Wermter Research Chair in Intelligent Systems University of Sunderland Centre of Informatics, SCET St Peters Way Sunderland SR6 0DD United Kingdom phone: +44 191 515 3279 fax: +44 191 515 2781 email: stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0stw/ http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/ **************************************** From oreilly at grey.colorado.edu Thu Feb 3 00:15:48 2000 From: oreilly at grey.colorado.edu (Randall C. O'Reilly) Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 22:15:48 -0700 Subject: Postdoc in Computational CogNeuro Message-ID: <200002030515.WAA02702@grey.colorado.edu> Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab University of Colorado Boulder Postdoctoral Position A postdoctoral position is available starting immediately for someone interested in pursuing neuroscience-based computational modeling approaches to cognition. The nature of the position is somewhat flexible, depending upon the individual's interest and expertise, with the following topics being of specific interest: * Models in cognitive domains where traditional approaches, and recent neural network models, have relied on structured representations. The approach is to use powerful learning mechanisms to develop systematic, distributed representations at multiple levels of abstraction, and test for the ability of these representations to behave in a systematic, structured manner. Cognitive domains of interest are spatial relationships, mental models of causal domains, and language comprehension. * Models of the basal ganglia/prefrontal cortex activation-based memory system, with the idea that the prefrontal cortex is specialized for maintaining information in an active state, while the basal ganglia are important for initiating the updating of these active representations. Reinforcement-based learning mechanisms are thought to be important for this system. * Models of the specialized roles of the hippocampus and neocortex in learning and memory. The primary requirement for the position is a Ph.D. in the cognitive, computational, or neurosciences, and extensive experience with computational modeling work, either at the PDP/connectionist or detailed biophysical level. The position will be supervised by Dr. Randall O'Reilly at the Department of Psychology and Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For more information about the research, the computational cognitive neuroscience lab, and other associated faculty, see http://psych.colorado.edu/~oreilly and associated links. Interested individuals should send a curriculum vitae, representative publications, a statement of research interests, and three letters of reference via email to oreilly at psych.colorado.edu or via snail mail to Randall O'Reilly, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder, Campus Box 345, Boulder, CO 80309-0345. Applications will be reviewed as they are received, continuing until the position is filled. The University of Colorado is an equal opportunity employer; minorities and women are encouraged to apply. From carlos at comp.ita.cta.br Thu Feb 3 14:40:43 2000 From: carlos at comp.ita.cta.br (Carlos Henrique Costa Ribeiro) Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 17:40:43 -0200 Subject: 1st CFP - SBRN2000 Rio Message-ID: <200002031940.RAA31920@comp.ita.cta.br> _____________________________________________________________________ FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS SBRN'2000 - VIth BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON NEURAL NETWORKS http://www.iltc.br/sbrn2000/ Rio de Janeiro, November 22-25, 2000 SBRN'2000 is the 6th edition of a forum, held biannually in Brazil, dedicated to neural networks (NNs) and to other models of computational intelligence. Rio de Janeiro, a city unique for its natural beauty, is the location of SBRN'2000. Rio is a great place and has the rhythm to bring people together in a stimulating discussion about research, development, applications, new technologies and advances in neural networks. Sponsored by SBC - The Brazilian Computer Society Co-Sponsored by SIG/INNNS/Brazil Special Interest Group of the International Neural Networks Society in Brazil Organised by COPPE/UFRJ and ILTC Published by IEEE Computer Society Deadlines: Submission: 19 June 2000; Acceptance: 31 July 2000; Camera-ready: 21 August 2000 Non-exhaustive list of topics which will be covered during SBRN'2000: Applications: finances, data mining, neurocontrol, time series forecasting; Architectures: cellular NNs, hardware and software implementations, new models, weightless models; Cognitive Sciences: adaptive behaviour, natural language, mental processes; Computational Intelligence: evolutionary systems, fuzzy systems, hybrid systems; Learning: algorithms, evolutionary and fuzzy techniques, reinforcement learning; Neurobiological Systems: bio-inspired systems, biologically plausible networks, vision; Neurocontrol: robotics, dynamic systems, adaptive control; Neurosymbolic processing: hybrid approaches, logical inference, rule extraction, structured knowledge; Pattern Recognition: signal processing, artificial/computational vision; Theory: radial basis functions, Bayesian systems, function approximation; Invited Speakers: Dana Ballard (University of Rochester, USA)* Ernesto Burattini (Istituto di Cibernetica-CNR, Italy)* Marie Cottrell (Universite d'Evry/SAMOS-Paris I, France) Jerome Feldman (ICSI-Berkeley, USA)* Maria Eunice Gonzales (UNESP-RC, BR)* Antonia J. Jones (Univ. of Wales at Cardiff, UK) Noel Sharkey (Univ. of Shefield, UK)* Sebastian Thrun (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)* *(confirmed) Paper Submission: Prospective authors are invited to submit 10-pages, 12 point single column papers (postscript or pdf format) written in English, Portuguese or Spanish. Submission must be made electronically, according to the following procedure. Use the last name of the contact author to name the postscript or pdf file (e.g., einstein.ps); add numerals for submitting more than one paper with the same contact author (e.g., einstein1.ps, einstein2.ps). Large postscript files can be compressed as .zip, .gz or .Z file (in this case, the file must have the corresponding extension , e.g., einstein.ps.gz). Submit the paper by email to sbrn2000 at comp.ita.cta.br by sending a submission notice, with your (possibly compressed) postscript or pdf file as an attachment. In the submission notice, include ONLY the following information (please, put one item per line to allow easy automatic processing): full title of the paper, authors' first and last names, authors' affiliations, technical area, keywords, corresponding author (name, postal address, e-mail address, phone and fax numbers), preferred mode of presentation (oral or poster), and the abstract of the paper. The submission notice must be in plain ASCII text. Use the name of the submitted file as subject of the message. Do not include in the paper any information concerning the authors, the presentation, or the technical area. If you have any problem concerning this submission procedure, contact the conference organisers by email. The first volume of the Proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press, in time for distribution at the symposium. It will include only accepted papers written in English and abstracts of accepted papers written in Portuguese or Spanish. A second volume will be issued as a CD-ROM, and will contain accepted papers originally written in Portuguese or Spanish. General Chair: Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ/ILTC, Brazil) felipe at cos.ufrj.br Program Chair: Carlos H. C. Ribeiro (ITA, Brazil) carlos at comp.ita.cta.br Tutorials Chair: Antonio C. S. Branco (ILTC, Brazil) branco at iltc.br Steering Comittee: Aluizio F. R. Araujo (USP-SC, BR) Antonio de P. Braga (UFMG, BR) Walmir M. Caminhas (UFMG, BR) Andre P. L. F. Carvalho (USP-SC, BR) Edson Costa B.C. Filho (UFPE, BR) Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ, BR) Teresa B. Ludermir (UFPE, BR) Carlos H. C. Ribeiro (ITA, BR) Germano Vasconcelos (UFPE, BR) Gerson Zaverucha (UFRJ, BR) Program Comittee (temptative): Paulo J. L. Adeodato (UFPE, BR) Igor Aleksander (Imperial College, UK) Nigel M. Allinson (UMIST, UK) James A. Anderson (Brown Univ., USA) Aluizio F. R. Araujo (USP-SC, BR) Dana Ballard (Univ. of Rochester, USA) Valmir C. Barbosa (UFRJ, BR) Valeriu Beiu (Los Alamos Lab., USA) Amit Bhaya (UFRJ, BR) Antonio de P. Braga (UFMG, BR) Ernesto Burattini (I. di Cibernetica-CNR, IT) Euvaldo Cabral (USP, BR) Walmir M. Caminhas (UFMG, BR) Andre P. L. F. Carvalho (USP-SC, BR) Edson Costa B.C. Filho (UFPE, BR) Marie Cottrell (Univ. d'Evry/Paris I, FR) Massimo De Gregorio (I. di Cibernetica-CNR, IT) Phillipe DeWilde (Imperial College, UK) Max S. Dutra (UFRJ, BR) Alexandre Evsukoff (UFRJ/ILTC, BR) Jerome Feldman (ICSI-Berkeley, USA) Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ/ILTC, BR) Sergio E. Goncalves (UFRJ, BR) Maria Eunice Gonzales (UNESP-RC, BR) Helge Ritter (Bielefild Univ., DE) Antonia J. Jones (Univ. of Wales, UK) Lokesh Kalia (Imperial College, UK) Nikola Kasabov (Univ. of Otago, NZ) Eugenius Kaskurewicz (UFRJ, BR) Priscila M. V. Lima (ILTC-RJ, BR) Teresa B. Ludermir (UFPE, BR) Weber Martins (UFG, BR) Helen Morton (Brunel Univ., UK) Cairo L. Nascimento Jr (ITA, BR) Wilson R. de Oliveira Jr (UFPE, BR) Nizam Omar (ITA, BR) Marco A. Pacheco (PUC-RJ, BR) Luiz A. Pessoa (NIH, USA) Carlos H. C. Ribeiro (ITA, BR) Roseli A. F. Romero (USP-SC, BR) Sandra Sandri (INPE, BR) Jose M. Seixas (UFRJ, BR) Amanda Sharkey (Univ. of Shefield, UK) Noel Sharkey (Univ. of Shefield, UK) Jude W. Shavlik (Univ. of Wisconsin, USA) Marcilio C. P. de Souto (UFPE, BR) Csaba Szepesvari (Mindmaker Ltd., HG) Harold Szu (U. of SW Lousiana, USA), Guglielmo Tamburrini (Univ. di Pisa, IT) Sebastian Thrun (Carnegie Mellon, USA) Antonio C. G. Thome (UFRJ, BR) Germano Vasconcelos (UFPE, BR) Marley Vellasco (PUC-RJ, BR) Vincent Vigneron (Univ. d'Evry/Paris I, FR) Takeshi Yamakawa (Kyushu, JP), Takashi Yoneyama (ITA, BR) Gerson Zaverucha (UFRJ, BR) Jack M. Zurada (Univ. of Louisville, USA) Organizing Comittee: Antonio C. S. Branco (ILTC-RJ) Max S. Dutra (UFRJ) Alexandre Evsukoff (UFRJ/ILTC-RJ) Felipe M. G. Franca (UFRJ/ILTC-RJ) Cassiano L. Froes da Silva (Uniway/Citybank-RJ) Marco A. Pacheco (PUC-RJ) Marley Vellasco (PUC-RJ) Zhijun Yang (UFRJ) From duch at phys.uni.torun.pl Fri Feb 4 05:41:06 2000 From: duch at phys.uni.torun.pl (Wlodzislaw Duch) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 11:41:06 +0100 Subject: Request for reviews Message-ID: <001601bf6efc$57a665c0$04054b9e@phys.uni.torun.pl> As the newly appointed "book and media review" editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks I'd welcome proposals for book (NN, CI, soft computing, connectionist, behavioral neurophysiology etc.) and media reviews (web sites, bibliographical databases, CD-ROMs etc). Regards, Wlodek Duch From diane at cs.cmu.edu Fri Feb 4 15:22:48 2000 From: diane at cs.cmu.edu (Diane Stidle) Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 15:22:48 -0500 Subject: CALD is seeking applications Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000204152248.01461dd0@ux5.sp.cs.cmu.edu> CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY The Center for Automated Learning and Discovery (CALD) at Carnegie Mellon University is seeking applications at all levels for tenured and tenure track positions. We are looking for candidates with excellent research and teaching records and a strong commitment to cross-disciplinary work. Specifically, successful candidates are expected to strengthen ties between the various departments in CALD. CALD is a cross-disciplinary center, that includes the Departments of Statistics, Computer Science, Robotics, Language Technology Institute (LTI), Philosophy, Psychology and CNBC (Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition). The focus is on machine learning, data mining and statistics, with faculty drawn from computer science, philosophy, statistics, and other units around the university. CALD currently has 16 industrial sponsors. For more details about CALD see, www.cs.cmu.edu/~cald The starting date can be as early as July 1, 2000. Priority will be given to applications received before March 1, 2000. Please send a C.V., 3 letters of recommendation, a statement of research and teaching interests and copies of any relevant papers to: Diane Stidle (diane at cs.cmu.edu) CALD - Wean Hall Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Carnegie Mellon is an AA/EEO institution. From uwe.zimmer at gmd.gr.jp Mon Feb 7 02:23:02 2000 From: uwe.zimmer at gmd.gr.jp (Uwe R. Zimmer) Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 16:23:02 +0900 Subject: workshop: Autonomous Artificial Systems exploring hostile environments Message-ID: <389E72D2.99CCE227@gmd.gr.jp> Workshop-Announcement ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop on: Autonomous artificial systems exploring hostile environments http://www.gmd.gr.jp/JRL/events.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- as part of the International NAISO Congress on Information Science Innovations (ISI'2001) March 18th, 2001 at the American University of Dubai, U.A.E. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The depths of the oceans, the heats of volcanos, the cold of Antarctica, as well as remote planets are getting more and more technically accessible. Still these areas are too wide or too dangerous to be explored by humans directly. Thus we will be requested to send artificial scouts from which we expect at least that they are coming back or transmitting relevant information before they disintegrate. Furtheron these creatures will be required to develop geographical abilities like for instance navigating a second time exactly to a formerly discovered place or delivering spatio-temporal models of various kinds. Still most of our exploring vehicles from today are relying on the existence of permanent wireless connections, global positioning systems, or local geographic maps. Under the ice of Antarctica and most other places considered here, none of this infrastructure will be available. Therefore actual exploration abilities are expected to be bundled with a real enhancement of autonomy. This is what this workshop is about. All presenters and audience submitting or exploiting fields like: o On-line, life-long, or real-time adaptation/learning o Spatio-temporal modeling (e.g. mapping, identification of dynamical systems) o Dynamical systems o Motion control o Sensor data fusion o Navigation .. working in applications addressing o Exploration (deep sea, volcanoes, planets, ...) o Search (Resources: manganese, oil, gas ... Lost & found: airplanes, ships, ...) o Rescue (earthquake/landslide/flood disasters) o Monitoring (environmental, geological, biological, ...) o ... or other forms of autonomy in natural environments .. or considering social aspects including o Information about currently unknown areas o Emergency technologies o Environmental monitoring are very welcome. Chair: Uwe R. Zimmer Program commitee: Andreas Birk Thomas Christaller Holk Cruse Walter J. Freeman John Hallam Ulrich Nehmzow Rolf Pfeifer Noel Sharkey Jun Tani Roy M. Turner Tamaki Ura David Wettergreen Deadline for manuscript submissions (6 pages max): June 30, 2000 Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2000 Delivery of full papers: November 30, 2000 Workshop: March 18th, 2001 Please send any inquiries regarding this workshop to: isi-ws at gmd.gr.jp From benus at elf.stuba.sk Mon Feb 7 08:58:42 2000 From: benus at elf.stuba.sk (Lubica Benuskova) Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 14:58:42 +0100 (MET) Subject: Paper on spines and LTP Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, the preprint of the following article: "The intra-spine electric force can drive vesicles for fusion: a theoretical model for long-term potentiation" Neuroscience Letters, 280(1) 2000, pp. 17-20, can be downloaded from http://www.dcs.elf.stuba.sk/~benus/#publications Abstract: We have estimated the intensity of intra-spine electric fields triggered by stimulation of excitatory spine synapses. We show that this electric force can cause fast electrophoretic movement of negatively charged vesicles which bring new postsynaptic receptors and membrane for insertion during the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP). Due to the direction of an intra-spine electric field, movement of vesicles is electrophoretically directed along the longitudal spine axis towards the spine head. Thus, the number of fused vesicles may be proportional not only to the increased calcium concentration within the spine head during the induction of LTP but also to the magnitude of electric force which drives vesicles towards the postsynaptic membrane. Lubica Benuskova, PhD ------------------------------------------------------- Slovak Technical University Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering Ilkovicova 3, 812 19 Bratislava 1, Slovakia ------------------------------------------------------- Phone: (+421 7) 602 91 696 Fax: (+421 7) 654 20 587 E-mail: benus at elf.stuba.sk, benus at dcs.elf.stuba.sk http://www.dcs.elf.stuba.sk/~benus From manav at kbkids.com Mon Feb 7 17:34:23 2000 From: manav at kbkids.com (Manavendra Misra) Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 15:34:23 -0700 Subject: Data Mining position, Denver, CO Message-ID: <389F486F.86FA21A6@kbkids.com> The following opportunity may be of interest to some Connectionists... Data Mining Expert KBkids.com is looking for an expert in data mining to be part of our business intelligence team. This person will lead our data analysis efforts in order to build a cutting edge, data warehouse-driven one-to-one marketing program. Responsibilities include: Interaction with the VPs of marketing and product development in order to define business requirements for one-to-one marketing. Working with our data warehouse lead to design a comprehensive data-mining plan. Evaluation and implementation of the data mining tools necessary to meet our needs. Required Skills: MS or higher in Computer Science or Statistics. Experience with SQL, and scripting languages in a web context, C++ and/or Java experience preferred. Experience with using data warehouses for data mining. Data analysis skills using statistical and artificial intelligence techniques and tools. Should be familiar with regression techniques, decision trees, neural networks, associative rules mining, segmentation of customer databases, clustering techniques, etc. Familiarity with data mining in a marketing environment. Familiarity with OLAP tools is a positive. Strong trouble-shooting and communication skills are required. Previous startup experience is a plus, as is knowledge of Oracle 8i. Please respond to Manavendra Misra at manav at kbkids.com Details about KBkids.com can be found at: http://www.kbkids.com/kb/hiring.html From harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk Tue Feb 8 14:23:32 2000 From: harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk (Stevan Harnad) Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 19:23:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ARE THE SENSES SEPARATE? BBS Call for Commentary Message-ID: Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article. ON SPECIFICATION AND THE SENSES by Thomas A. Stoffregen and Benoit G. Bardy http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.stoffregen.html ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/bbs.stoffregen.html *** please see also 5 important announcements about new BBS policies and address change at the bottom of this message) *** This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please reply by EMAIL by March 7th to: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences ECS: New Zepler Building University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection with a WWW browser according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. _____________________________________________________________ ON SPECIFICATION AND THE SENSES Thomas A. Stoffregen Department of Psychology P. O. Box 210376 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221-0376 USA stoffrta at email.uc.edu Benoit G. Bardy Universite de Paris Sud-XI Division of Sport Sciences (STAPS) Batiment 335, 91405 Orsay Cedex FRANCE benoit.bardy at staps.u-psud.fr KEYWORDS: epistemology, information, intersensory, perception, perceptual learning, sensory neurophysiology, sensory systems, specification. ABSTRACT: In this target article we question the assumption that perception is divided into separate domains of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. We review implications of this assumption for theories of perception, and for our understanding of ambient energy arrays (e.g., the optic and acoustic arrays) that are available to perceptual systems. We analyze three hypotheses about relations between ambient arrays and physical reality; (1) that there is an ambiguous relation between ambient energy arrays and physical reality; (2) that there is a unique relation between individual energy arrays and physical reality; (3) that there is a redundant but unambiguous relation, within or across arrays, between energy arrays and physical reality. This is followed by a review of the physics of motion, focusing on the existence and status of referents for physical motion. Our review indicates that it is not possible, in principle, for there to be a unique relation between physical motion and the structure of individual energy arrays. We argue that physical motion relative to different referents is specified only in the global array, which consists of higher-order relations across different forms of energy. The existence of specificity in the global array is consistent with the idea of direct perception, and so poses a challenge to traditional, inference-based theories of perception and cognition. However, it also presents a challenge to much work within the ecological approach to perception and action, which has accepted the assumption of separate senses. ___________________________________________________________ To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide Web or by anonymous ftp from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.stoffregen.html http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ ____________________________________________________________ *** FIVE IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS *** ------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) There have been some very important developments in the area of Web archiving of scientific papers very recently. Please see: Science: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html Nature: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html American Scientist: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/amlet.html Chronicle of Higher Education: http://www.chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are strongly encouraged to archive all their papers (on their Home-Servers as well as) on CogPrints: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ It is extremely simple to do so and will make all of our papers available to all of us everywhere at no cost to anyone. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) BBS has a new policy of accepting submissions electronically. Authors can specify whether they would like their submissions archived publicly during refereeing in the BBS under-refereeing Archive, or in a referees-only, non-public archive. Upon acceptance, preprints of final drafts are moved to the public BBS Archive: ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/index.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) BBS has expanded its annual page quota and is now appearing bimonthly, so the service of Open Peer Commentary can now be be offered to more target articles. The BBS refereeing procedure is also going to be considerably faster with the new electronic submission and processing procedures. Authors are invited to submit papers to: Email: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk Web: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk http://bbs.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/ INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) journal had only been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review. (Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential impact!). From harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk Tue Feb 8 14:18:25 2000 From: harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk (Stevan Harnad) Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 19:18:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The Magical Number 4: BBS Call for Commentators Message-ID: Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article THE MAGICAL NUMBER 4 IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY: A RECONSIDERATION OF MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY by Nelson Cowan http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.cowan.html http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ *** please see also 5 important announcements about new BBS policies and address change at the bottom of this message) *** This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please reply by EMAIL by March 7th to: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences ECS: New Zepler Building University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection with a WWW browser according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. _____________________________________________________________ THE MAGICAL NUMBER 4 IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY: A RECONSIDERATION OF MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY Nelson Cowan Department of Psychology University of Missouri 210 McAlester Hall Columbia, MO 65211, USA CowanN at missouri.edu http://web.missouri.edu/~psycowan KEYWORDS: attention, enumeration, information chunks, memory capacity, processing capacity, processing channels, serial recall, short-term memory, storage capacity, verbal recall, working memory capacity. ABSTRACT: Miller (1956) summarized evidence that people can remember about 7 chunks in short-term memory (STM) tasks. However, that number was meant more as a rough estimate and a rhetorical device than as a real capacity limit. Others have since suggested that there is a more precise capacity limit, but that it is only 3 to 5 chunks. The present target article brings together a wide variety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit is real. Capacity limits will be useful in analyses of information processing only if the boundary conditions for observing them can be carefully described. Four basic conditions in which chunks can be identified and capacity limits can accordingly be observed are: (1) when information overload limits chunks to individual stimulus items, (2) when other steps are taken specifically to block the recoding of stimulus items into larger chunks, (3) in performance discontinuities caused by the capacity limit, and (4) in various indirect effects of the capacity limit. Under these conditions, rehearsal and long-term memory cannot be used to combine stimulus items into chunks of an unknown size; nor can storage mechanisms that are not capacity-limited, such as sensory memory, allow the capacity-limited storage mechanism to be refilled during recall. A single, central capacity limit averaging about 4 chunks is implicated along with other, non-capacity-limited sources. The pure STM capacity limit expressed in chunks is distinguished from compound STM limits obtained when the number of separately held chunks is unclear. Reasons why pure capacity estimates fall within a narrow range are discussed and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed. ___________________________________________________________ To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide Web or by anonymous ftp from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.cowan.html http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ ____________________________________________________________ *** FIVE IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS *** ------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) There have been some very important developments in the area of Web archiving of scientific papers very recently. Please see: Science: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html Nature: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html American Scientist: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/amlet.html Chronicle of Higher Education: http://www.chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are strongly encouraged to archive all their papers (on their Home-Servers as well as) on CogPrints: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ It is extremely simple to do so and will make all of our papers available to all of us everywhere at no cost to anyone. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) BBS has a new policy of accepting submissions electronically. Authors can specify whether they would like their submissions archived publicly during refereeing in the BBS under-refereeing Archive, or in a referees-only, non-public archive. Upon acceptance, preprints of final drafts are moved to the public BBS Archive: ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/index.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) BBS has expanded its annual page quota and is now appearing bimonthly, so the service of Open Peer Commentary can now be be offered to more target articles. The BBS refereeing procedure is also going to be considerably faster with the new electronic submission and processing procedures. Authors are invited to submit papers to: Email: bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk Web: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk http://bbs.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/ INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) journal had only been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review. (Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential impact!). From maneesh at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Wed Feb 9 17:32:44 2000 From: maneesh at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Maneesh Sahani) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 22:32:44 GMT Subject: CNS*2000 Workshops: call for proposals Message-ID: <200002092232.WAA05001@barlow.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> CALL FOR PROPOSALS CNS*2000 Workshops July 19 and 20, 2000 Brugge, Belgium Workshops focusing on current issues in computational neuroscience will be held on July 19 and 20, 2000, as part of the CNS*2000 conference in Brugge, Belgium. Potential organizers are invited to submit proposals for specific workshop topics. Workshops may fall into one of three formats: 1. Discussion Workshops (formal or informal); 2. Tutorials; and 3. Mini-symposia, or they may combine more than one of these formats. The goal of the workshops is to provide an informal forum within the CNS meeting for focused discussion of recent or speculative research, novel techniques, and open issues in computational neuroscience. Discussion workshops, whether formal (i.e., held in a conference room with projection and writing media) or informal (held elsewhere), should stress interactive and open discussions in preference to sequential presentations. Tutorials and mini-symposia provide a format for a focused exploration of particular issues or techniques within a more traditional presentation framework; in these cases too, adequate time should be reserved for questions and general discussion. The organizers of a workshop should endeavour to bring together as broad a range of pertinent viewpoints as possible. In addition to recruiting participants and moderating discussion, workshop organizers should be prepared to submit a short report, summarizing the presentations and discussion, to the workshop coordinator shortly after the conference. These reports will be included on the CNS*2000 web site. ------------------------- How to propose a workshop ------------------------- To propose a workshop, please submit the following information to the workshop chair at the address below (1) the name(s) of the organizer(s) (2) the title of the workshop (3) a description of the subject matter, indicating clearly the range of topics to be discussed (4) the format(s) of the workshop; if a discussion session, please specify whether you would like it to be held in a conference room or in a less formal setting (5) for tutorials and mini-symposia, a provisional list of speakers (6) whether the workshop is to run for one or two days Please submit proposals as early as possible by email (preferred) to cns2000workshops at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk or by post to Dr. Maneesh Sahani Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit Alexandra House 17 Queen Square London, WC1N 3AR, U.K. The descriptions of accepted workshops will appear on the CNS*2000 web site as they are received. Attendees are encouraged to check this list, and to contact the organizers of any workshops in which they are interested in participating. -- Maneesh Sahani Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit maneesh at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk 17 Queen Square, tel: +44 (0)20 7679 1187 London WC1N 3AR U.K. fax: +44 (0)20 7679 1173 From jph+ at pitt.edu Wed Feb 9 17:04:00 2000 From: jph+ at pitt.edu (John P. Horn) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 17:04:00 -0500 Subject: synaptic amplification Message-ID: <000401bf7349$92a75570$bc958e88@g.pitt.edu> Dear Connectionists: A model describing coincidence detection and its role in synaptic amplification is described in the following new paper. http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/reprint/20/3/908.pdf Paul Karila and John P. Horn Secondary Nicotinic Synapses on Sympathetic B Neurons and Their Putative Role in Ganglionic Amplification of Activity Journal of Neuroscience 20: 908-918 (2000) John P. Horn, Ph.D. Professor Department of Neurobiology University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Pittsburgh, PA 15261 Voice: 412-648-9429 FAX: (412) 648-1441 www.neurobio.pitt.edu The Department of Neurobiology www.neurobio.pitt.edu/faculty/horn.htm The Horn Lab From cindy at cns.bu.edu Wed Feb 9 15:25:40 2000 From: cindy at cns.bu.edu (Cynthia Bradford) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 15:25:40 -0500 Subject: Neural Networks: 2001 Special Issue Message-ID: <200002092025.PAA02352@retina.bu.edu> CALL FOR PAPERS A 2001 Special Issue of Neural Networks SPIKING NEURONS IN NEUROSCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Most neurons of the brain communicate using trains of brief voltage spikes that are capable of carrying complex temporal and rate codes without degradation over large spatial distances. The rates, patterns or oscillations of single spike trains as well as correlations and synchrony across different spike trains, have been studied by many investigators in both normal and clinically abnormal brain tissues. The Special Issue will incorporate invited and contributed articles that examine the importance of spiking in information processing, learning and memory. The Special Issue will cover biophysical and biochemical models of spike generation, neurophysiological and anatomical models that explore how spiking neurons influence behavior through their collective action in neural circuits and networks, as well as learning algorithms that are based on spikes. The computational power of spiking neurons for reliable communication can also be incorporated into various technologies. The Special Issue will therefore also include articles that describe software and hardware applications that are based on this mode of neuronal communication to explore its potential for solving outstanding open problems in technology. CO-EDITORS: Professor Stephen Grossberg, Boston University Professor Wolfgang Maass, Technische Universitat Graz Professor Henry Markram, Weizmann Institute for Science SUBMISSION: Deadline for submission: September 30, 2000 Notification of acceptance: December 31, 2000 Format: no longer than 10,000 words; APA format ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSION: Stephen Grossberg, Editor Neural Networks, Room 203 Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA From kak at sol.ee.lsu.edu Wed Feb 9 11:30:12 2000 From: kak at sol.ee.lsu.edu (Subhash Kak) Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 10:30:12 -0600 (CST) Subject: a new paper Message-ID: <200002091630.KAA16842@pluto.ee.lsu.edu> A new paper described below may be of interest to some: Active Agents, Intelligence and Quantum Computing by Subhash Kak http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/agents.pdf Abstract: This paper reviews evidence from neuroscience and quantum computing theory in support of the notion of autonomy in the workings of cognitive processes. Deficits in speech, vision, and motor abilities are described to show how cognitive behaviour is not based just on incoming sensory data. Active agents, to which the conscious mind may not have access, are described. Recent developments in quantum computing, of relevance to machine intelligence, are also examined. For a tutorial to quantum computing and AI, see http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/qai.pdf From A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Wed Feb 9 11:21:39 2000 From: A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk (Angelo Cangelosi) Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 16:21:39 +0000 Subject: PhD studentship on modelling language evolution using NNets and GAs Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20000209162139.0079f980@csuf51.csd.plym.ac.uk> *** EPSRC Studentship available at Plymouth University, Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems *** A three year PhD studentship is available for a research project on multi-agent computational models of the evolution of language and communication. The modelling approach uses a combination of neural networks and genetic algorithms. The student must have a degree in a Cognitive Science subject, such as Psychology, Computer Science or Linguistics. A programming background is essential (preferably in C/C++). The student should also be strongly research oriented, particularly in the areas of cognitive modelling and adaptive systems. A bursary of about 6200 UK Pounds per annum will be paid to the student. The three year studentship is funded by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and managed by Dr. Angelo Cangelosi of the Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems at the University of Plymouth. The studentship is available from 1 July 2000. The research will be carried out at the Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems of the School of Computing of Plymouth University. The Centre, which is led by Professor Mike Denham, has been pursuing a research programme in the areas of computational neuroscience and neural and evolutionary computation. The Plymouth University's School of Computing has other research groups, such as the Engineering Design Centre, and the Science Technology and Art Research group. More information on the Centre and Plymouth University can be found at: http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/soc/research/neural For more information about this PhD studentship and the related research project, please contact acangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Applications should be received before 14th April. Candidates should send a CV, a description of motivations and the name and address of two referees to: Carole Watson School of Computing University of Plymouth Drake Circus Plymouth PL4 8AA United Kingdom Tel. +44 01752 232541 Fax. +44 01752 232540 Email: c.watson at plymouth.ac.uk ----- SUMMARY OF EPSRC RESEARCH PROJECT ----- The aim of this research is to investigate and develop computational models of the origins and evolution of language and communication. This modelling approach will use artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms to simulate evolving populations of interacting autonomous agents. The simulation will focus on the investigation of key questions in the theory of the evolution of language, such as the evolution and learning of symbols in neural networks, the emergence and adaptive role of lexicon and syntax, and Deacon's (1997) theory on the co-evolution of language and brain structures. A software for the simulation of the evolution of language in evolving population of neural networks will be implemented and used for experimental investigations. The research has potential applications in Robotics and Artificial intelligence for the development of adaptive and self-organising algorithms for communication in multi-agent and multi-robot systems. It is also of interest for the community of Computational Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. -------------------- Angelo Cangelosi, PhD ----------------------- Senior Lecturer, Centre for Neural and Adaptive Systems School of Computing, University of Plymouth 9 Kirkby Place Plymouth PL4 8AA (UK) E-mail: a.cangelosi at plym.ac.uk WWW: http://www.techweb.plym.ac.uk/soc/staff/ tel. (office) +44 1752 232559 (fax) 44 +1752 232540 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Feb 9 04:54:34 2000 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 10:54:34 +0100 Subject: preliminary program: ESANN'2000 European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks Message-ID: ---------------------------------------------------- | | | ESANN'2000 | | | | 8th European Symposium | | on Artificial Neural Networks | | | | Bruges (Belgium) - April 26-27-28, 2000 | | | | Preliminary programme | ---------------------------------------------------- The preliminary programme of the ESANN'2000 conference is now available on the Web: http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann/programme.htm For those of you who maintain WWW pages including lists of related ANN sites: we would appreciate if you could add the above URL to your list; thank you very much! We try as much as possible to avoid multiple sendings of this call for papers; however please apologize if you receive this e-mail twice, despite our precautions. For 8 years the ESANN conference has become a major event in the field of neural computation. ESANN is a human-size conference focusing on fundamental aspects of artificial neural networks (theory, models, algorithms, links with statistics, data analysis, biological background,...). The programme of the conference can be found at the URL http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann, together with practical information about the conference venue, registration,... Other information can be obtained by sending an e-mail to esann at dice.ucl.ac.be . ===================================================== ESANN - European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/esann * For submissions of papers, reviews,... Michel Verleysen Univ. Cath. de Louvain - Microelectronics Laboratory 3, pl. du Levant - B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve - Belgium tel: +32 10 47 25 51 - fax: + 32 10 47 25 98 mailto:esann at dice.ucl.ac.be * Conference secretariat D facto conference services 27 rue du Laekenveld - B-1080 Brussels - Belgium tel: + 32 2 420 37 57 - fax: + 32 2 420 02 55 mailto:esann at dice.ucl.ac.be ===================================================== From MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Thu Feb 10 05:28:23 2000 From: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr (MicroNeuro2000.GenChair) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 11:28:23 +0100 Subject: MicroNeuro'2000 Conference CFP Message-ID: ==> MICRONEURO'2000 CALL FOR PAPERS <= Please apologize for multiple reception. Do NOT reply if your are not concerned. ## MICRONEURO'2000 ## 8th International Conference on Microelectronics for Neural, Fuzzy and Bio-inspired Systems Grenoble, France, September 25-27, 2000 MicroNeuro'2000 is the eighth of a series of international conferences previously held in Dortmund, Muenchen, Edinburgh, Torino, Lausanne, Dresden and Granada, in each of which around a hundred specialists have participated. The conference is dedicated to hardware implementations of artificial neural networks, fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy systems, and related bio-inspired computing architectures. The program will focus upon all aspects related to the hardware implementation of these systems, with special emphasis on specific VLSI analog, digital and pulse-coded circuits. All informations may be found at the following URL: http://www.lis.jussieu.fr/MicroNeuro2000/ ____________________ General Chair Jeanny Herault, Univ. of Grenoble, F. MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Program Chair Patrick Garda, Univ. of Paris, F. MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr Organization Chair Gerard Bouvier, Inst. Natl. Polytech., Grenoble, F. MicroNeuro2K.OrgChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Japan Chair Takeshi Yamakawa, Kyushu, Jp yamakawa at ces.kuytech.ac.jp USA Chair Andreas G. Andreou, Johns Hopkins Univ., USA andreou at cspjhu.clsp.jhu.edu Steering Committee K.Goser, Dortmund, D A.F.Murray, Edinburgh,UK A. Prieto, E U.Ramacher, Muenchen, D L. Reyneri, Torino, I B. Spaanenburg, Groningen, NL E. Vittoz, Neufchatel, CH ____________________ CONFERENCE TOPICS Categories for submissions include, but are not limited to, the following topics: VLSI circuits and system architectures Potential technologies and effects of process scaling-down Neural interfaces and sensors Hardware-oriented neural models, architectures and algorithms Neuromorphic engineering and bio-inspired microelectronics Fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy hardware Smart MEMS Single electron devices Analog implementations and prospective electronic technologies ____________________ INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS POSTSCRIPT FORMAT (mandatory) A4 page, 2 columns, 10 pt Times Roman, maximum 8 pages (detailed author guidelines are available at http://www.lis.jussieu.fr/MicroNeuro2000/ ), should be put on the ftp server: ftp.lis.jussieu.fr/pub At the same time, an e-mail should be sent to the MICRONEURO'2000 Program Chair by the author to whom all further correspondence will be sent: MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr The text of the e-mail should indicate clearly: title, corresponding author's name, affiliation, address, fax number, e-mail address, preferred presentation (oral/poster), and the topic or topics the paper best fits. Proposed contributions will be refereed, and accepted papers will appear in the proceedings of the conference, which is expected to be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press. In order to facilitate the refereeing process and an appropriate scheduling of the conference, authors are encouraged to include in their manuscripts descriptions as complete as possible of their work, including the simulation and/or experimental results available. * Proposals should be e-mailed to the Program Chair and manuscripts put on the ftp server: Prof. Patrick Garda Laboratoire des Instruments et Systemes Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Case 252 4, Place Jussieu F-75252 Paris Tel: ++33 1 44 27 75 07 Fax: ++33 1 44 27 75 09 e-mail: MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr ftp server: ftp.lis.jussieu.fr/pub * Notice that for a paper to be published in the conference proceedings, at least one of the authors should be registered. ____________________ PRESENTATION OF WORKING DEMOS A demo room will be available, where authors may show working demos of their projects and/or systems. Prospective "demonstrators" should send a short description (one page plus one photo) of the demo, including the installation requirements. * Proposals of demos should be addressed to the Organization Chair: Prof. Gerald Bouvier Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux, Inst. Natl.Polytech. 46, Av. Felix Viallet F-38031 Grenoble Cedex 1 Tel: ++33 (0)4 76 57 43 59 Fax: ++33 (0)4 76 57 47 90 MicroNeuro2K.OrgChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr => DEADLINES <= Submissions of papers and demo proposals: May 1, 2000 Notification of acceptance: June 1, 2000 Reception of accepted papers in final form: July 1, 2000 Author's registration for an accepted paper: July 1, 2000 Conference September 25-27, 2000 ____________________ VENUE The conference will take place at Villard de Lans, a pleasant village in the mountain near Grenoble. Room reservations can be made at: "Grand Hotel de Paris" (Special rates for MicroNeuro, please specify) 124 place Pierre Chabert F-38250 Villard de Lans Phone: +33 (0) 4 76 95 10 06 Fax: +33 (0) 4 76 95 10 06 e-mail: ghp at ghp-vercors.com http://www.ghp-vercors.com/ Rates (including breakfast): Single: 340 FF, Double: 215 FF / person, Students (3 per room): 157 FF / person. or in other local hotels: http://www.planete-vercors.com/la-fleur-du-roy/ http://www.roche-colombier.com/ About Grenoble http://www.ville-grenoble.fr/uk/sommaire.html * Accommodation information and inquiries should be asked to the General Chair: Prof. Jeanny H?rault Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux, Inst. Natl.Polytech. 46, Av Felix Viallet F-38031 Grenoble Cedex 1 Tel: ++33 (0)4 76 57 43 60 Fax: ++33 (0)4 76 57 47 90 MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ____________________ CONFERENCE FEES Senior researchers Before May 15: 2600 FF, After May 15: 2900 FF Students Before May 15: 1700 FF, After May 15: 1900 FF * Some fellowships may be granted to students from eastern-Europe countries, according to the available funding. Please, ask to the General Chair. MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ____________________ PROGRAM COMMITTEE (tentative and not limited, to be confirmed) J. Alspector, Col. Springs, USA X. Arreguit, Neufchatel, CH J. Austin, York, UK T. Bernard, Paris, F J. Cabestany, Barcelona, E G.Cauwenberghs, Baltimore, USA D. Collobert, Lannion, F D. del Corso, Torino, I R. Douglas, Zurich, CH P. Ienne, Muenchen, D G. Andover, Zurich, CH M. Jabri, Sydney, AU S. Jones,, UK H. Klan, Berlin, D A. Koenig, Dresden, D J. Lazzaro, Berkeley, USA J. A. Nossek, Muenchen, D E. Pasero, Torino, I F.J. Pelayo, Granada, E A. Prieto, Granada, E P. Senn, CNET, F A. Rodriguez-Vazquez, Sevilla, E U. Rueckert, Paderborn, D E. Sanchez, Lausanne, CH E. Sanchez-Sinencio, Texas, USA T. Shibata, Tokyo, Jp L. Tarassenko, Oxford, UK E. Valderrama, Barcelona, E M. Verleysen, Louvain-la-Neuve, B J. Wawrzynek, Berkeley, USA J. D. Muller, CEA, F ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE (to be extended) B. Granado, LIS, Paris, F R. Velasco, TIMA, Grenoble, F ____________________ For further information and inquiries, please contact: MicroNeuro'2000 Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux, Inst. Natl.Polytech. 46, Av Felix Viallet F-38031 Grenoble Cedex 1 Fax: ++33 (0)4 76 57 47 90 e-mail : MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at gabor.inpg.fr MicroNeuro2K.OrgChair at gabor.inpg.fr or MicroNeuro'2000 Laboratoire des Instruments et Systemes Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Case 252 4, Place Jussieu F-75252 Paris Fax: ++33 1 44 27 75 09 MicroNeuro2K.ProgChair at lis.jussieu.fr or see http://www.lis.jussieu.fr/MicroNeuro2000/ ____________________ If you would like to be included in the mailing list in order to receive further information concerning MicroNeuro'2000, please send the here-after requested data to: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr Title (Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., Prof.): First name: Last name: University or company: Address: Zip: Town: Country: E-mail: Fax: Phone: - Please keep me informed about MicroNeuro2000. - I plan to attend the conference YES NO - I intend to submit a proposal YES NO Oral presentation: Poster: Demo: Provisional title: - - - - ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| =Jeanny Herault General Chair Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux 46 Av. Felix Viallet F-38031 GRENOBLE Cedex France e-mail: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| =Jeanny Herault General Chair Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux 46 Av. Felix Viallet F-38031 GRENOBLE Cedex France e-mail: MicroNeuro2K.GenChair at lis-viallet.inpg.fr ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| From actionm at cuni.cz Thu Feb 10 06:11:24 2000 From: actionm at cuni.cz (Milena Zeithamlova) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 12:11:24 +0100 Subject: NNW2000 call for papers and participation Message-ID: <01bf73b7$91452360$LocalHost@Milena> Dear colleagues, On behalf of the organizers of the Neural Network World 2000 conference, I would like to invite you to submit a paper and participate at this event, which will take place in Prague on July 9-12, 2000. The main focus of NNW2000 is the development and application of computational paradigms inspired by natural processes, namely artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, and related subjects including adaptive agents, artificial life, soft computing, etc. The conference takes place in the year of the 10th anniversary of founding the Neural Network World international scientific journal. For detailed information about the conference, have a look at: http://www.cs.cas.cz/nnw2000 or contact the organizers by email at: nnw2000 at cs.cas.cz Please, note that the submission deadline has been extended till March 10. Looking forward to seeing you in Prague. Milena Zeithamlova Action M Agency NNW 2000 - Local Arrangements actionm at cuni.cz From maxstam at bas.bg Fri Feb 11 01:26:17 2000 From: maxstam at bas.bg (maxstam) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 08:26:17 +0200 Subject: evolution of brain and language conference Message-ID: <38A3AB89.2C717101@bas.bg> CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT Title: "Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language". Hosted by Hanse Institute for Advanced Study Delmenhorst, GERMANY Primary organizers: Vittorio Gallese (University of Parma) and Maxim Stamenov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) Theme: The aim of this conference will be to bring together scholars from several disciplines and fields of study for discussion of some of the basic problems and perspectives related to the discovery of a new class of neurons in the monkey premotor cortex ? mirror neurons. The point of this discovery is that it shed new light on the neural correlate of the social sharedness of intentions and actions. The action of mirror neurons (MNs) seems to provide a bridge and mapping between one's own behavioral actions (and their potential monitoring) with the observed actions of other individuals. The consequences of this discovery can have implications for our understanding of animal communication and cognition and human cognition and consciousness and the way of their genetic inheritance and implementation in the brain. The discovery of MNs may provide a new, although still sketchy, neurobiological basis to account for the emergence of language (cf. G. Rizzolatti & M. Arbib. 1998. "Language within Our Grasp". Trends in Neurosciences 21:188-194, for orientation). This assumption is founded on the following premises: (a) Language skill has emerged through evolution by means of a process of preadaptation: specific behaviors and the nervous structures supporting them, originally selected for other purposes, acquire new functions that side and eventually supersede the previous one; (b) A continuity can be traced between language skill and pre-language brachio-manual behaviors, being the primate premotor cortex the common playground of this evolutionary continuity; (c) The specialization for language of human Broca's region derives from an ancient mechanism, the mirror system, originally devised for action understanding. The orientation of organizers is to bring together scholars interested in the co-evolution of language, cognition, and consciousness along the following lines, among others: (i) mirror neurons, the brain's microstructure and the specificity of their performance in monkeys, primates and humans in supporting high-level cognitive processing; (ii) the macrostructure of the brain and its evolution from monkeys to primates to man in the development of specific cognitive functions; (iii) the philogenetic and ontogenetic links between behavioral action, gesture, and communicative verbal action in the development of the language faculty. Conference format The conference will host 15 invited speakers. There are 24 slots available for oral presentations and 30 slots for poster presentations. Submissions are invited for selection for oral papers (with 20 min. presentation time and 10 min. discussion time), as well as for poster presentations. Unless explicitly specified, submitted abstracts will be considered for both oral and poster presentation. Posters will be displayed during the whole duration of the meeting and a special session of the conference will be dedicated to their discussion. The invited speakers who already confirmed their participation are (please note that the titles of their talks are preliminary ones): Harold BEKKERING (Munich): "The Observation and Execution of Finger and Mouth Movements"; Stein BRATEN (Oslo): "Altercentric Perception and Participation: Infant and adult dialogue partners"; Colin BROWN (Nijmegen): "Brain-Imaging Studies of Language Comprehension and Production: A focus on Broca's region"; Luciano FADIGA (Parma): tba; Leo FOGASSI (Parma): "The Neural Correlates of Action Understanding in Nonhuman Primates"; Marc JEANNEROD (Lyon): tba; Charles LI (Santa Barbara) & Jean-Marie HOMBERT (Lyon): "The Evolutionary Origin of Language: A linguistic perspective"; Michael PETRIDES (Montreal); tba; Daniel POVINELLI (New Iberia, LA): "Evolution of Cognitive Diversity"; Giacomo RIZZOLATTI (Parma): "Action Understanding in Humans"; Gerhard ROTH (Bremen): "Is the Human Brain Unique?"; Sue SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH (Atlanta, GA): "Mirror Neurons and Interspecies Intersubjectivity"; Maxim STAMENOV (Sofia): "Human Verbal Communication as Monitored Joint Action"; Michael STUDDERT-KENNEDY (New Haven, CT): "Imitation and Evolution of Particulate Speech"; Edda WEIGAND (Muenster): "Constitutive Features of Human Dialogical Interaction"; In addition to regular program, the conference will feature three evening discussions dealing with the problems of: (1) the evolution of the brain from monkeys to humans (neuroscience perspective); (2) the co-evolution of executive functions and cognitive abilities from monkeys to humans (cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience perspective); and (3) the evolution of communication and language (the perspective of the language sciences). Abstract submission: Abstracts of 500 words are requested by March 15, 2000 both for oral presentations and posters. The abstracts should be sent preferably by e-mail (in ASCII) to: hardopo at uni-bremen.de (Dr. Mechthild Harders-Opolka); gallese at ipruniv.cce.unipr.it (Dr. Vittorio Gallese); maxstam at bas.bg (Dr. Maxim Stamenov). In case an author prefers to send the abstract in hard copy, three copies of it should be sent to Dr. Mechthild Harders-Opolka, Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Lehmkuhlenbusch 4, D-27753 Delmenhorst, GERMANY. Publication policy: The organizers intend to publish a collective volume with selected contributions to the conference after the meeting takes place. Important information: Deadline for abstract submission: March 15, 2000; Confirmation of acceptance of selected papers: April 01, 2000; Time of the conference: July 05-08, 2000; Conference site: Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Lehmkuhlenbusch 4, D-27753 Delmenhorst, GERMANY; Web site: http://www.h-w-k.de. Currently only a German version is available under Veranstaltungen, geplante Tagungen. English version will become available after April 01, 2000. Conference fee: DM150,-; DM100,- for students; Questions and inquiries about the program: maxstam at bas.bg (Maxim Stamenov); Questions and inquiries about local organization, housing, etc.: hardopo at uni-bremen.de (Dr. Mechthild Harders-Opolka). From palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de Fri Feb 11 07:21:50 2000 From: palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de (Guenther Palm) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 00 13:21:50 +0100 Subject: KES2000-Sessions Message-ID: <10002111221.AA22533@neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de> CALL FOR PAPERS --------------- I am organizing two special sessions for the KES'2000 conference. The conference will take place from August 30 to September 1, 2000 in Brighton, Sussex, U.K. It is the "Fourth International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems", organized by L.C. Jain and R.J. Howlett. More information on the conference can be obtained from the KES2000 Web site: http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/ The topics of the sessions are: 1) Processing of hierarchical structures in neural networks. 2) Biomedical applications of neural networks. Accepted session contributions will be published in the conference proceedings by IEEE. For verbal presentations each paper has about 15 minutes presentation time and 5 minutes for questions. Would you or one of your co-workers be interested in contributing to one of the sessions? If so, please tell me in advance. The procedure for submissions is as follows: Send me two camera ready copies of your paper UNTIL MARCH 15, 2000 (address see below). The paper (maximally four A4 pages) has to be written according to the instructions to authors: http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/guide.htm (please ignore the upper section and start reading with point 1.). The papers will be reviewed and the results will be communicated to the authors in APRIL, 2000. Yours sincerely, Guenther Palm ------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Guenther Palm Neural Information Processing University of Ulm D-89069 Ulm Germany palm at neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de From dagli at umr.edu Fri Feb 11 17:48:45 2000 From: dagli at umr.edu (Cihan Dagli) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 16:48:45 -0600 Subject: ANNIE 2000 Smart Engineering Systems Design Conference November 5-8, 2000 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues: On behalf of the organizing committee I would like to invite you to attend ANNIE 2000 ( http://www.umr.edu~annie/annie2000.htm ) which will be held November 5th-8th, 2000, at the Marriott Pavilion Hotel in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, USA. This will be the tenth international gathering of researchers interested in Smart Engineering System Design using neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary programming, complex systems, data mining, and rough sets. Each previous conference drew approximately 150 papers from twenty countries. The proceedings of all conferences have been published by ASME Press as hardbound books in nine volumes. The latest volume, edited by Dagli, et. al., was titled =93Smart Engineering System Design: Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, Evolutionary Programming, Data Mining, and Complex Systems.=94 You can visit ANNIE home page for details of these conferences http://www.umr.edu/~annie/ . ANNIE 2000 ( http://www.umr.edu/~annie/annie2000.htm ) will cover the theory of Smart Engineering System Design techniques, namely: neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary programming, complex systems, data mining, and rough sets. Presentations dealing with applications of these technologies are encouraged. The organizing committee invites all persons interested in Computational Intelligence to submit papers for presentation at the conference. You can submit your abstracts online at http://www.umr.edu/~annie/oas.htm . All papers accepted for presentation will be published in the conference proceedings. They will be reviewed by two referees, senior researchers in the field, for technical merit and content. AUTHORS SCHEDULE February 25, 2000: Deadline for contributed paper abstract, information sheet, and letter of intent. May 5, 2000: Deadline for full papers. June 16, 2000: Notification of status of contributed papers. July 21, 2000: Deadline for camera ready manuscripts. In addition, ANNIE 2000 will offer special sessions http://www.umr.edu/~annie/ss.htm ) on "Pattern Recognition for Safer Driving", " Evolvable Hardware", and "Black Box System Identification". There is also a one-day workshop on Neural Networks in Medicine and Biology" (http://www.umr.edu/~annie/workshop.htm ). Approximately six pages will be allocated for each accepted paper in the proceedings. All accepted papers will be published as a hardbound book by ASME Press and edited by Drs. Dagli, Buczak, Embrechts, Ersoy, Ghosh and Kercel. Authors are requested to submit the following by February 25, 2000: 1) an abstract (up to 200 words) 2) an information sheet that includes the full name of the authors, address, phone and FAX number, E-mail,Web address 3) a letter of intent Authors should forward their letter of intent, information sheet, abstract, and full paper to: Dr. Cihan H. Dagli, Conference Chair Smart Engineering Systems Laboratory Department of Engineering Management University of Missouri - Rolla 1870 Miner Circle Rolla, MO 65409-0370, USA Phone: (573) 341-6576 or (573) 341-4374 FAX: (573) 341-6567 E-Mail: annie at umr.edu -or- dagli at umr.edu Internet: http://www.umr.edu/~annie From tds at ai.mit.edu Fri Feb 11 22:39:20 2000 From: tds at ai.mit.edu (Terry Sanger) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 22:39:20 -0500 Subject: Neural Control of Movement Satellite meeting on Computational Methods Message-ID: <003701bf750a$befc6d00$8c21d1d8@sympatico.ca> This satellite conference may be of interest... And not only because it is in Key West! Here is the general description. Full details can be found at: http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/tds/ncm2000.html Satellite Meeting on Computational Models Computational Modeling has assumed a central role in the investigation of biological motor systems. Models based on mechanics, dynamics, and neural networks have provided significant insight and predictions for researchers in this field. The year 2000 satellite meeting on Computational Models of the Neural Control of Movement will be divided into 7 sessions. The first session will discuss different approaches to dividing the motor system into separate pieces that facilitate the study of motor control. Sessions 2-5 will discuss models that each address one important step in the computations involved in generating movement. The same task may be solved in different ways determined by the mechanics, computational hardware, and behavioral goals of the species being studied. Speakers are encouraged to illustrate the relationship between different algorithms that solve the same motor task, and to discuss how that particular task fits into the larger context of movement learning and execution. Session 6 will examine how the different components of the motor controller are assembled into a complete system. Session 7 will discuss how and why the system may fail, and the way in which understanding of the underlying computations may be helpful in designing medical therapies. We encourage attendees to submit abstracts for the evening poster session. Session chairpeople are: Michael Arbib, John Kalaska, Daniel Wolpert, Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, Martha Flanders, Gerry Loeb, and Jimmy Abbas. Note that the early registration deadline is February 25th! Contact Scientific Conference Planners (310)207-4345 for lodging, reservation, and registration forms. Thanks! Terry Sanger, MD PhD Toronto Western Hospital Movement Disorders Unit 399 Bathurst St. MP11-301 Toronto Ontario M5W 2S8, Canada (416)603-5990, fax: (416)603-5004 tds at ai.mit.edu From eero.simoncelli at nyu.edu Sat Feb 12 11:26:17 2000 From: eero.simoncelli at nyu.edu (Eero Simoncelli) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 11:26:17 -0500 Subject: Summer course: Computational Visual Neuroscience Message-ID: <200002121626.LAA23033@servilia.nyu.edu> Computational Neuroscience: Vision Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Summer Course 15 - 28 June 2000 Course Organizers: Eero P. Simoncelli, New York University E.J. Chichilnisky, Salk Institute Paul W. Glimcher, New York University Application Deadline: 15 March 2000 Further information and application materials: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/csh00 Description: Computational modeling and simulation have produced important advances in our understanding of neural processing. This intensive 2-week summer course focuses on areas of visual science in which interactions among psychophysics, neurophysiology, and computation have been especially fruitful. Topics to be covered this year include: neural representation and coding; photon detection and the neural basis of color vision, pattern vision, and visual motion perception; oculomotor function; and visual attention and decision-making. The course combines lectures (generally two 3-hour sessions each day) with hands-on problem solving using the MatLab programming environment in a computer laboratory. Lectures will be given by the course organizers and by invited lecturers, including: Edward Adelson (MIT), David Brainard (UC Santa Barbara), Marisa Carrasco (NYU), Sascha du Lac (Salk Institute), Wilson Geisler (UT Austin), David Heeger (Stanford U), J. Anthony Movshon (NYU), Andrew Parker (Oxford U), Fred Rieke (U Washington), Michael Shadlen (U Washington), Margaret Shiffrar (Rutgers U), Lawrence Snyder (Wash U St Louis), Stefan Treue (U Tuebingen). From tgd at CS.ORST.EDU Sat Feb 12 14:40:06 2000 From: tgd at CS.ORST.EDU (Thomas G. Dietterich) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 11:40:06 -0800 Subject: Papers: POMDP approximation; cost-sensitive learning Message-ID: <4129-Sat12Feb2000114006-0800-tgd@cs.orst.edu> The following papers are available from http://www.cs.orst.edu/~tgd/cv/pubs.html Bayer, V., Dietterich, T. G. (2000). A POMDP Approximation Algorithm that Anticipates the Need to Observe. Technical Report 00-30-01. Department of Computer Science, Oregon State University. Abstract: This paper introduces the even-odd POMDP, an approximation to POMDPs in which the world is assumed to be fully observable every other time step. The even-odd POMDP can be converted into an equivalent MDP, the 2MDP, whose value function, $V^*_{2MDP}$, can be combined online with a 2-step lookahead search to provide a good POMDP policy. We prove that this gives an approximation to the POMDP's optimal value function that is at least as good as methods based on the optimal value function of the underlying MDP. We present experimental evidence that the method gives better policies, and we show that it can find a good policy for a POMDP with 10,000 states and observations. Margineantu, D. D., Dietterich, T. G. (2000). Bootstrap Methods for the Cost-Sensitive Evaluation of Classifiers. Technical Report 00-30-02, Department of Computer Science, Oregon State University. Abstract: Many machine learning applications require classifiers that minimize an asymmetric cost function rather than the misclassification rate, and several recent papers have addressed this problem. However, these papers have either applied no statistical testing or have applied statistical methods that are not appropriate for the cost-sensitive setting. Without good statistical methods, it is difficult to tell whether these new cost-sensitive methods are better than existing methods that ignore costs, and it is also difficult to tell whether one cost-sensitive method is better than another. To rectify this problem, this paper presents two statistical methods for the cost-sensitive setting. The first constructs a confidence interval for the expected cost of a single classifier. The second constructs a confidence interval for the expected difference in costs of two classifiers. In both cases, the basic idea is to separate the problem of estimating the probabilities of each cell in the confusion matrix (which is independent of the cost matrix) from the problem of computing the expected cost. We show experimentally that these bootstrap tests work better than applying standard $z$ tests based on the normal distribution. From R.J.Howlett at bton.ac.uk Sat Feb 12 10:28:17 2000 From: R.J.Howlett at bton.ac.uk (Dr R.J.Howlett) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 15:28:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Neural / KBS Conference in Brighton Message-ID: ===================== KES'2000 - Last call for papers ====================== A HIGH-QUALITY CONFERENCE IN BRIGHTON, A REALLY BRILLIANT PLACE!! 4th Int. Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems & Allied Technologies -- 30th & 31st Aug, 1st Sept 2000 UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON, SUSSEX, U.K Email: kes2000 at brighton.ac.uk Web site: http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/ An IEE co-sponsored conference. -- LAST CALL FOR PAPERS ---------------------------------------------------- Papers are invited for the 4th KES conference, which promises to be a very special event, forming a truly international forum for the presentation of recent work and the exchange of ideas on Generic Intelligent Systems and Techniques, Applications of Intelligent Techniques and Related Technologies including Web-Based Systems. BRIGHTON is the most enchanting, exciting, historic, extraordinary seaside city in Britain. It has a cosmopolitan air, pubs and restaurants, feverish nightlife, heritage and an abundance of culture; the place defies comparison with anywhere else this side of the Channel. If you love life, welcome to Brighton, which is an ideal place for a meeting of prominent researchers in modern technologies. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: Please see the KES2000 web site for the format of papers and other submission details. All papers will be rigorously reviewed. DEADLINES: Receipt of papers: 1 March 2000, Acceptance notification: 1 May 2000 Receipt of final papers: 1 June 2000. All presenting authors must register with payment by the 1 June 2000 for their papers to appear in the proceedings. -- OUTLINE CONFERENCE PROGRAMME --------------------------------------------- ==== WEDNESDAY 30 AUGUST 2000 ==== TUTORIAL PROGRAMME: Pick and mix from the following half-day tutorials - Classifier fusion - Image acquisition for machine vision - Combination of supervised and unsupervised learning for RBF networks - Non-invasive data analysis - Fuzzy-neuro controller design and industrial applications - Dimensionality reduction techniques and interactive visualisation methods for multi-variate data. EVENING CONFERENCE SOCIAL RECEPTION: Drinks and an opportunity to see Brighton ==== THURSDAY 31 AUGUST & FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER ==== KEYNOTE ADDRESSES: Experts from world renowned research institutes, e.g. the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Universities of Sheffield, Tokyo and Newcastle, will give keynote addresses:- - Applications of intelligent systems to process engineering - Towards dynamic knowledge interaction, and - Computing with words, - Intelligent Engineering in Biomedicine SPECIAL SESSIONS: Prominent researchers have agreed to chair oral and poster sessions on exciting new topics, for example:- - Knowledge-based intelligent signal and image processing - Intelligent techniques for internet resources - Fusion of knowledge-based and intelligent systems - Neuro-fuzzy techniques for knowledge discovery - Applications of evolutionary algorithms for optimisation - Image processing, pattern recognition and computer vision - Novel generalised architectures for optimisation of pattern classification - Knowledge-based systems and engineering - Fuzzy systems - Neural networks for speech and vision - Quality control by artificial vision - Socialware and socialmedia - Human computer communication and control: developments and applications - Industrial applications with artificial intelligence - Intelligent techniques in communications, multi-media and the WWW - Intelligent agents for searching information on the WWW - Soft computing technologies for pattern recognition - New frontiers for logic and uncertainty by the semantic field - Interactive community media - Processing of hierarchical structures in neural networks - Biomedical applications of neural networks - Neural computing in medicine - Natural language processing - Emerging technologies in edutainment and interactive art - Metrics in neuro-dynamics - Web-based and intelligent hardware - Learning by analogy: a connectionist approach, - Intelligent virtual sensors in IC engines - Condition monitoring and diagnostics EXHIBITORS: A table top exhibition will run alongside the conference. Contact the KES2000 Secretariat for details. CONFERENCE DINNER: Thursday 31 August, pre-dinner social followed by multi- course dinner with wines. FEES: The conference fee has not been fixed yet, but we aim to keep fees low to enable the maximum to participate, and to provide a pleasurable, high- quality conference with value for money. ACCOMODATION: Low cost accommodation will be provided in new student study- rooms, or there are many hotels in the lively sea-side town of Brighton. SOCIAL PROGRAMME: In addition to the conference dinner, there will be an optional programme of trips for accompanying persons, for example to Buckingham Palace, home of the Queen and Royal Family, to Arundel Castle which has history dating over hundreds of years, Brighton Laines famous for its shops, and the Body Shop which has its headquarters in Sussex. KES2000 SECRETARIAT CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS: KES2000 Secretariat, Engineering Research Centre, School of Engineering, University of Brighton, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, BN2 4GJ, United Kingdom. Email: KES2000 at brighton.ac.uk Telephone: +44 1273 642501 Fax: +44 1273 643976 KES2000 Web site : http://luna.bton.ac.uk/~kes2000/ THE SMALLPRINT! All the above information is given in good faith, but is provisional and subject to change. -- End ------------------------------------------------------- From lwchan at cse.cuhk.edu.hk Mon Feb 14 03:32:03 2000 From: lwchan at cse.cuhk.edu.hk (lwchan@cse.cuhk.edu.hk) Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 16:32:03 +0800 (HKT) Subject: Ph.D. and Master Studentships available Message-ID: <200002140832.QAA05073@ivy> Graduate Studentships and Research Assistantships available in Computer Science and Engineering Department The Chinese University of Hong Kong ------------------------------------------ Graduate Studentships (leading to Ph.D or M.Phil degrees) and Research Assistantships are available in the area of Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning (IDEAL). Research projects include : - Neural Networks - Learning Theory and Algorithm - Computational Finance - Distributed Intelligent Decision-making and Control - Machine Perception - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery - Digital Library - Multi-media Database - Agents - Voice and Pattern Recognition - Internet Searching - E-commerce The deadline for the application for admission in September 2000 is ******** 29 FEBRUARY, 2000 ******** ----------------------------------------------------------------------- In recent years, The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has expanded rapidly in enrolment, curriculum, staff, research and service to the community. As a department in the Faculty of Engineering, it offers full-time research programmes leading to the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy, a part-time research programme leading to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and a part-time taught M.Sc. programme. We have 25 full-time faculty members and the current enrolment of postgraduate students is over 200. We have many research groups which are very active and of critical sizes for discussion and information assimilation. Major equipment in the department includes a SUN Enterprise E6500 and E4500 Supercomputers with 12 processors each, a Silicon Graphics Onyx2 Graphics Supercomputer, more than 250 Sun and SGI workstations, more than 250 high speed PCs and equipment for parallel processing, multimedia and Chinese processing. All machines are connected to the departmental 100Mbps Fast Ethernet network and Gigabit Ethernet network. Through the University backbone, these machines are also connected to the Internet with high speed links. Students can also access the computing facilities of the Faculty of Engineering, the University Computer Services Centre and the computing facilities in their own Colleges. Usually both M.Phil. and Ph.D. full-time students will be given postgraduate studentship or research assistantship of at least HK$13,615 per month (7.73 HKD = 1 USD, subject to inflationary adjustment each year). Scholarships, teaching assistantships and research assistantship in other fields are also available. For on-line applications or application forms, please contact The Graduate School The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong Email Address: gradschool at cuhk.edu.hk WWW: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/grs Tel: (852) 2609 8976-7 Fax: (852) 2603 5197 Further information about the graduate program, the admission requirement, the research areas, facilities and the application procedures can be obtained via WWW (the world-wide web) at The University : http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ Graduate School : http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/grs CSE Department : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk CSE Division : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/pgm/pg.html Joint Center for Intelligence Engineering : http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/rsh/lab/iel.html Email : lwchan at cse.cuhk.edu.hk Laiwan Chan, Head, Division of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. From bengioy at IRO.UMontreal.CA Wed Feb 16 17:04:44 2000 From: bengioy at IRO.UMontreal.CA (Yoshua Bengio) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 17:04:44 -0500 Subject: call for post-doc in machine learning and data analysis Message-ID: <20000216170444.05270@IRO.UMontreal.CA> POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH STAFF MEMBER IN STATISTICAL DATA ANALYSIS AND MACHINE LEARNING FOR HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA SETS MATHEMATICS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COMPLEX SYSTEMS (MITACS: a new Canadian Network of Centers of Excellence) Position to be held jointly at the Department of Computer Science & Operations Research and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, at the UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE POSITION: A post-doctoral position position is available at the University of Montreal within the MITACS network of centers of excellence. The main research area will be the statistical data analysis of high-dimensional data sets with machine learning algorithms, also known as, "database mining". The main research questions that will be addressed in this research are the following: - how to deal with the "curse of dimensionality": algorithms based on variable selection or based on combining many variables with different importance, while controlling generalization to avoid overfitting; - how to make inferences on the models obtained with such methods, mostly using resampling methods such as the BOOTSTRAP. This research will be performed within the MITACS project entitled "INFERENCE FROM HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA". See http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy/mitacs.html for more information on the project and http://www.mitacs.math.ca for more information on the MITACS network. The candidate will be working under the supervision of professors Yoshua Bengio (computer science and operations research) and Christian Leger (mathematics and statistics). See http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy and http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lisa for more information respectively on Yoshua Bengio and his laboratory. See http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~leger for more information on Christian Leger. ESSENTIAL SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, AND ABILITIES: Candidates must possess a recent Ph.D. in computer science, statistics, mathematics, or a related discipline, with a research background in machine learning (in particular neural networks) and/or computational statistical methods such as the bootstrap. Candidates must have excellent programming skills, with demonstrated experience. Experience in the following areas will be mostly considered: - Statistical data analysis in general, - bootstrapping methods in particular. - Machine learning algorithms in general, - artificial neural networks in particular. - Programming skills in general, - object-oriented programming, - participation in large-scale, multiple authors, software projects, - experience with C, C++ and S-Plus languages, in particular. LENGTH OF EMPLOYMENT: 1 year (with possible renewal for a second year), starting as soon as possible. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Yoshua Bengio bengioy at iro.umontreal.ca, 514-343-6804, fax 514-343-5834 or Christian Leger leger at dms.umontreal.ca 514-343-7824, fax 514-343-5700 Electronic applications (preferably as a postscript, raw text, or pdf file) are encouraged, in the form of a a Curriculum Vitae with information on academic experience, academic standing, publication list, research experience, programming experience, and any other relevant information (e.g., pointer to your web site, if possible). -- Yoshua Bengio Professeur aggrege Departement d'Informatique et Recherche Operationnelle Universite de Montreal, addresse postale: C.P. 6128 Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7 addresse civique: 2920 Chemin de la Tour, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 1J8, #2194 Tel: 514-343-6804. Fax: 514-343-5834. Bureau 3339. http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~bengioy http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lisa From luciano at if.sc.usp.br Wed Feb 16 13:58:18 2000 From: luciano at if.sc.usp.br (Luciano Da Fontoura Costa) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 15:58:18 -0300 (EST) Subject: Review on Vision Message-ID: 16th Feb 2000 Dear Sir/Madam: We are glad to inform that we have prepared a comprehensive survey of the WWW covering a series of issues related to vision, including computer vision, image processing, computer graphics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and many, many more areas. This on-line review, which has recently been accepted for the InterJournal (http://www.interjournal.org), includes more than 300 sites rated and commented, organized as a hypertext document. The review can be found at: http://www.ime.usp.br/~cesar/revision or http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/~cesar/revision/ We would be very grateful if you could help disseminating this review and include a pointer to it in your homepage. The URL at your homepage can be included by the inserting the following HTML code in your site: ReVision: Reviewing Vision in the WEB! Suggestions and criticisms will also be very welcomed. We intend to update the survey periodically. Thanks in advance, Luciano Costa (luciano at if.sc.usp.br) and Roberto M. Cesar Jr (cesar at ime.usp.br) ===================================================================== Prof. Luciano da Fontoura Costa Coordinator - Cybernetic Vision Research Group DFI-IFSC, Universidade de Sao Paulo Caixa Postal 369 Sao Carlos, SP 13560-970 Brazil FAX: +55 162 73 9879 or +55 162 71 3616 e-mail: luciano at if.sc.usp.br Group homepage: http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/ Personal homepage: http://www.if.sc.usp.br/visao/group/members/luciano/luciano.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Comprehensive and commented review of the WWW on computer vision and related areas: http://www.ime.usp.br/~cesar/revision or http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/~cesar/revision/ Forthcoming book: Shape Analysis and Recognition (CRC Press) http://www.ime.usp.br/~cesar/shape_crc/ Scale Space without Border Shifting: http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/msskeletons/ 2000 International Conference on Mathematics and Engineering Techniques in Medicine and Biological Sciences: http://www.cns.bu.edu/metmbs/call.html BMCV2000: http://image.korea.ac.kr/BMCV2000/ On-line publications: http://cyvision.if.sc.usp.br/publications/ ===================================================================== END OF MESSAGE ============== From cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw Sun Feb 20 21:59:59 2000 From: cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw (Chih-jen Lin) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 10:59:59 +0800 (CST) Subject: BSVM: software for large classification problems Message-ID: <200002210259.KAA05311@ntucsa.csie.ntu.edu.tw> Dear Colleagues: We announce the release of the software BSVM, a decomposition method for support vector machines (SVM) for large classification problems. BSVM uses a decomposition method to solve a bound-constrained SVM formulation. Advantages of BSVM include 1.Using a simple working set selection which leads to faster convergences for difficult cases. 2.Using a bounded SVM formulation and a projected gradient optimization solver which allow BSVM to quickly and stably identify support vectors. 3.It naturally uses the idea of a cache. The current release (Version 1.0) is available from http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/bsvm For additional information on BSVM, see Chih-Wei Hsu and Chih-Jen Lin A simple decomposition method for support vector machines, January 2000 http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/papers/decomp.ps.gz Any comments are very welcome. Sincerely, Chih-Jen Lin Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw From maass at igi.tu-graz.ac.at Mon Feb 21 10:35:03 2000 From: maass at igi.tu-graz.ac.at (Wolfgang Maass) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 16:35:03 +0100 Subject: Workshop on Neural Network Theory in Graz Message-ID: <38B15B27.1DDDB7EC@igi.tu-graz.ac.at> Announcement of the NeuroCOLT Workshop NEW PERSPECTIVES IN THE THEORY OF NEURAL NETS May 3 to 5 , 2000 at Schloss St. Martin in Graz (Austria). Organizer: Wolfgang Maass, Graz University of Technology The goal of this workshop is to bring together leading researchers in neural network theory for an informal discussion of new results and trends. Invited speakers will give 30 minute talks, each followed by 15 minutes of discussion. The list of speakers is already fixed, but in order to facilitate discussion of very recent results the titles of the talks will be left open until April 15. In addition to these invited talks there will be a problem-session, some general discussion sessions and poster sessions with contributed papers. Each participant is invited to contribute a poster to this workshop. We limit the maximal number of participants to 60, in order to facilitate informal communication at the workshop. This workshop belongs to a series of meetings of the European NeuroCOLT network. However there is room left for 15 other participants. These slots will be filled on a first-come-first-serve basis. If you are interested in participating, please fill out the registration form on the homepage, and email it to nn2000 at igi.tu-graz.ac.at Apart from the registration form you will also find the list of speakers, description of the meeting site, travel information etc on the homepage for this workshop: http://www.tu-graz.ac.at/igi/maass/nn2000/ -Wolfgang Maass From kak at ee.lsu.edu Mon Feb 21 13:39:13 2000 From: kak at ee.lsu.edu (Subhash Kak) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 12:39:13 -0600 (CST) Subject: No subject Message-ID: <200002211839.MAA07378@ee.lsu.edu> Here is a new paper that presents an overview of some ideas of mind in ancient India that will of interest to some on the Connectionists List. http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/centers.pdf "The Gods Within: On the Vedic understanding of mind and neuroscience" by Subhash Kak Abstract: Mind is the last frontier of science. We observe the physical universe through our mind, yet we have no clear idea how mind functions, how memories are stored and recalled and what is the origin of our subjective feelings. Is this level of ignorance a result of the reductionist nature of the tools that have been used in the study of mind and consciousness? If that is so, will an approach that has a different philosophical basis help? It is for this reason we turn to an examination of Indic psychology--based on a holistic view of reality--, where the central concern is self and awareness. We provide evidence that the "gods" of Indic mythology are cognitive centers in the brain. Without forcing our own interpretation on ancient material, we let the texts speak for themselves. Parallels are drawn using our recent insights from neurscience. From Dave_Touretzky at cs.cmu.edu Tue Feb 22 02:46:01 2000 From: Dave_Touretzky at cs.cmu.edu (Dave_Touretzky@cs.cmu.edu) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 02:46:01 -0500 Subject: postdoctoral position in hippocampal modeling Message-ID: <25468.951205561@skinner.boltz.cs.cmu.edu> Postdoctoral Position in Hippocampal Modeling Applications are invited for a postdoctoral training position in hippocampal modeling at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, a joint facility of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The applicant will work with Dr. David S. Touretzky of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon and Professor William Skaggs of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh to develop large-scale attractor network models of hippocampal maps. In these models, the firing of hippocampal place cells can be visualized as a bump of activity moving over a 2D sheet. We are specifically interested in modeling the effects of sensory cues on the shape and behavior of the activity bump. Applicants with prior experience in any aspect of computational modeling of neural systems are encouraged to apply. We will also consider applicants with a background in neurophysiological recording who are interested in becoming modelers. The position is open to US citizens or permanent residents. The starting date can be any time from now through September 1. To apply, send a curriculum vitae, two sample publications, and a letter of reference from your doctoral dissertation advisor to: Dr. David S. Touretzky Computer Science Department tel. 412-268-7561. Carnegie Mellon University fax: 412-268-3608 Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891 email: dst at cs.cmu.edu From ohira at csl.sony.co.jp Tue Feb 22 04:26:10 2000 From: ohira at csl.sony.co.jp (Toru Ohira) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 18:26:10 +0900 Subject: NIPS99 paper available (T. Ohira) Message-ID: Dear Connectionists: The following NIPS99 paper is available: "Resonance in a Stochastic Neuron Model with Delayed Interaction" (T. Ohira and Y. Sato, and J. D. Cowan), Presented at NIPS99. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 12, 314-320 (2000) (SCSL-TR-99-015) ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/CSL/CSL-Papers/99/SCSL-TR-99-015.ps The related papers are also available: "Resonance with Noise and Delay" (T. Ohira and Y. Sato), Physical Review Letters, vol.82, 1999, pp. 2811-2815. (SCSL-TR-98-016) ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/CSL/CSL-Papers/98/SCSL-TR-98-016.ps.gz "Delayed Stochastic Systems" (T. Ohira and Y. Yamane), Physical Review E 61, 1247 (2000) (SCSL-TR-99-016) ftp://ftp.csl.sony.co.jp/CSL/CSL-Papers/99/SCSL-TR-99-016.ps Your comments will be welcomed. Sincerely, Toru Ohira Sony Computer Science Labs. ohira at csl.sony.co.jp http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/ohira From ale at limbo.ilas.sissa.it Tue Feb 22 16:53:04 2000 From: ale at limbo.ilas.sissa.it (Alessandro Treves) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 16:53:04 MET Subject: Postdocs and PhDs at SISSA, Trieste Message-ID: <200002221553.QAA03535@limbo.ilas.sissa.it> SISSA, the International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste, Italy, invites applications to the Cognitive Neuroscience sector at the PhD and postdoctoral levels (deadlines end of April and end of March, resp.). Candidates will be selected based on the interests of research groups: neuropsychology and frontal lobe processing (Tim Shallice and Raffaella Rumiati); psycholinguistics and cognitive science (Jacques Mehler); information-theoretic analysis and modelling of neural coding (Alessandro Treves); spatial representation in parietal cortex (Paolo Battaglini); tactile information processing and learning (Mathew E. Diamond); developmental plasticity in the visual system (Luciano Domenici). All relevant information at the URL http://www.sissa.it/cns/. From lizs at soc.plym.ac.uk Tue Feb 22 04:50:07 2000 From: lizs at soc.plym.ac.uk (Liz Stuart) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 09:50:07 +0000 Subject: PhD studentship Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20000222095007.0090fcb0@csuf51.csd.plymouth.ac.uk> EPRSC PhD Studentship A PhD student is sought for an exciting and innovative project aimed at the visualisation of large data sets recorded by Neurophysiologists. The aim of this project is to develop a new approach to the analysis of experimental data in neurophysiology based on the use of computer science techniques such as graphical engineering, visualisation and virtual reality. This new approach will provide neuroscientists with an interactive environment within which to explore their data sets. The primary focus of this research is on the analysis of multi-dimensional data sets. By navigating through these large data sets, researchers will be able to focus on particular features of the data as well as identifying overall characteristics. This will support the integration of the experimental and theoretical approaches to the analysis of neurophysiological evidence. This three year studentship is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It is managed by Dr. L. Stuart of the Centre of Neural and Adaptive Sytsems in the School of Computing at the University of Plymouth. The student will be involved in the development of software to support the visualisation of vast quantities of neurophysiological data. Much of this development will draw on current software such as VTK and VisAD as well as the development of new representations incorporating 3D technology and/or Virtual Reality. The bursary for this studentship 6200 UK Pounds. Students are permitted to supervise/teach up to six hours per week to supplement this income. The student must have a high level of knowledge and experience of C++. Additionally, they must have good oral and written communication skills in the English language. Due to the nature of the project, the student should be able to work individually and as part of a team. For more information see http:\\www.tech.plym.ac.uk\soc\research\neural\staff\lstuart\vacancy.htm or contact Dr. L. Stuart at lstuart at plymouth.ac.uk Applications should be received before 14th April 2000, but the position will remain open until a suitable candidate is found. Candidates should send a CV, a description of motivations and the name and address of two referees to: Carole Watson School of Computing, University of Plymouth Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, United kingdom Telephone: 01752 232541 Fax: 01752 232540 Email: c.watson at plymouth.ac.uk From mel at lnc.usc.edu Tue Feb 22 17:36:33 2000 From: mel at lnc.usc.edu (Bartlett Mel) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 14:36:33 -0800 Subject: 7th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation: CFP Message-ID: <38B30F71.61169ED3@lnc.usc.edu> DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: Friday, April 7, 2000 ---------------------------------- CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS --- 7th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation --- to be held at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Saturday, May 20, 2000 ------------------------------------------- website: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jsnc/ ------------------------------------------- Program Committee----------- JAMES M. BOWER Division of Biology, Caltech GARRISON W. COTTRELL Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, UCSD DONALD D. HOFFMAN Dept. of Cognitive Sciences, UCI GILLES LAURENT Division of Biology & Computation and Neural Systems Program, Caltech BARTLETT W. MEL (chair) Dept. of Biomedical Engineering & Neuroscience Program, USC SHEILA NIRENBERG Dept. of Neurobiology, UCLA STEFAN SCHAAL Dept. of Computer Science and Neuroscience Program, USC TERRENCE J. SEJNOWSKI Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UCSD/Salk Institute ---------------------------- This annual meeting rotates between institutions in Southern Califorina and this year will be hosted by the University of Southern California. The keynote address this year will be given by: Prof. Gerald M. Loeb Biomedical Engineering Department, and Fellow of the USC Alfred Mann Institute "Dialogs with the Nervous System" Submissions will be open to all members of the Neural Computation community of Southern California. Research areas include all aspects of cellular, network, and systems-level modeling, and applications of neuromorphic algorithms and hardware to problems in vision, speech motor control, cognitive function, etc. Authors are invited to contribute abstracts, which will be reviewed by the program committee (see above). The contributed program will consist of 15-minute oral presentations, as well as a poster session. Abstracts selected for either oral or poster presentation will be included in the final program. DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: Friday, April 7, 2000 As in previous years, a Proceedings consisting of short papers describing work presented at the May meeting will be published by the INC. Contributions to the Proceedings, based on both oral and poster presentations, are due after the meeting, and must be submitted no later than Friday, June 2, 2000 to: Institute for Neural Computation, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive DEPT 0523, La Jolla, CA 92093-0523. Guidelines for the submissions will be distributed to the presenters at the Symposium. As in previous years, authors will retain copyright to their papers, so that they may be resubmitted elsewhere. Submissions: ALL abstracts must be submitted electronically by April 7, 2000 through the Joint Symposium web site at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jsnc/ Abstracts may be submitted in RAW ASCII or in HTML. Please note: the abstracts may contain pointers to the authors pre-prints, Webpage, graphics and figures, provided the entire entry can be read by a web-browser. Notification of acceptance as oral or poster presentation will be e-mailed to authors by the end of April, 2000. Registration and attendance at the Symposium is open to the public. Attendees who will not present material must also register through the symposium web site. LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS ---------------------- Linda Yokote, BME Department, USC, marubaya at rcf.usc.edu, (213)740-0840 Gabriele Larmon, BME Dept, USC, larmon at bmsrs.usc.edu PROCEEDINGS ------------ Marilee Bateman, Institute for Neural Computation, UCSD, bateman at cogsci.ucsd.edu WEB SITE -------- Marionne Epalle, Engineering and Applied Science, Caltech, marionne at caltech.edu From p.v.coveney at qmw.ac.uk Fri Feb 25 06:58:33 2000 From: p.v.coveney at qmw.ac.uk (Peter Coveney) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 11:58:33 +0000 Subject: Post-doctoral research fellowship Message-ID: <4.2.2.20000225115238.020e5ab0@alpha.qmw.ac.uk> CENTRE FOR COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London United Kingdom A new appointment has now become available at the Centre for Computational Science at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. The Centre is exceptionally well resourced, with facilities that include numerous Silicon Graphics and other workstations, a 16 processor SGI Onyx2 graphical supercomputer, and high speed access to remote supercomputing facilities within the U.K., Europe and North America. POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS: Neural networks, databases and datamining Applications are invited for a special industrially-funded post-doctoral research fellowship to work on the development and implementation of smart data analysis methods (neural networks, genetic algorithms, etc.) for rapid materials characterisation and performance prediction. The project, which also involves database design and construction, is part of a large and novel international collaborative effort in high throughput measurement technology, and will involve close interaction with experimentalists. Candidates should hold a Ph.D. degree in physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, computer science or engineering. The position is available to start after 1 March 2000 for one year in the first instance, but with the possibility of renewal for a second year. Salary will be pounds sterling 22,945, inclusive of London allowance, with a bonus payable on completion of the project. Ref: 00025AmcK Informal inquiries and applications should be sent to Professor P.V.Coveney Professor Peter V Coveney Director, Centre for Computational Science Queen Mary and Westfield College University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS U.K. email: p.v.coveney at qmw.ac.uk http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/ccs tel: 44 (0)20 7882 5026 (direct)/44 (0)20 7882 3253 (secretary) fax: 44 (0)20 7882 7794 From sschaal at usc.edu Fri Feb 25 19:55:47 2000 From: sschaal at usc.edu (Stefan Schaal) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 16:55:47 -0800 Subject: Conference on Humanoid Robots Message-ID: <200002260055.QAA10031@rubens.usc.edu.> Appended you find the call for papers for the first international conference on Humanoid Robots. We are particularly interested in soliciting contributions from the learning community for this conference. Supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning are core elements in sensory motor control of a humanoid robot, the same as in biological systems. The need for algorithms that scale well to high-dimensional data, work incrementally in real-time, can integrate multi-modal information and deal with hidden state makes the area of humanoid robotics a very interesting challenge for new learning theories. With best regards, Stefan Schaal & Alois Knoll -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS -- Please circulate *** HUMANOIDS2000 *** -- The First IEEE-RAS Intern. Conf. on Humanoid Robots -- -- Co-sponsored by the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sept. 7-8, 2000 Papers should present current work, outline research programmes, and/or summarize in a tutorial style the state of the art in areas that are related to the building of, controling of , and learning in humanoid robots or that can be expected to be of importance to the field in the future. Note that we are also especially interested in connectionist and statistical learning methods as they relate to learning sensorimotor control and higher planning abilities in complex, high-dimensional movement systems. Paper submission deadline is April 21, 2000. For mor information, please visit the conference web sites at http://humanoids.uni-bielefeld.de or http://humanoids.usc.edu for further details (including a full Call for Papers in PDF and Postcript format). ______________________________________________________ Deadlines Submission: April 21, 2000 Notification: June 30, 2000 Camera-Ready Copy: August 4, 2000 ______________________________________________________ Contact address: humanoids at usc.edu ______________________________________________________ Conference Chairs: G.A.Bekey, USC (General) R.A.Brooks, MIT (Honorary) A.C.Knoll, U Bielefeld (Program) ______________________________________________________ Program Committee: M. Asada (Osaka U) C. Atkeson (Georgia Tech) T. Christaller (GMD-Bonn) T. Fukuda (Nagoya U) S. Hashimoto (U Waseda) H. Inoue (U Tokyo) K. Kawamura (Vanderbilt U) B. Keeley (U Northern Iowa) P. Khosla (CMU) T. Kobayashi (U Waseda) Y. Kuniyoshi (MITI Tsukuba) M. Mataric (USC) R. Pfeifer (U Zurich) R. Reiter (U Toronto) S. Schaal (USC) S. Sugano (Waseda U) M. Wheeler (U Stirling) S. Yuta (U Tsukuba) ______________________________________________________ Alois Knoll (knoll at ti.uni-bielefeld.de) From chaefke at ucsd.edu Sun Feb 27 22:20:16 2000 From: chaefke at ucsd.edu (chaefke@ucsd.edu) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 19:20:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paper on closed form integration of ANN Message-ID: <200002280320.TAA11967@chaefke.extern.ucsd.edu> Dear colleagues, You can find the paper "Closed Form Integration of Artificial Neural Networks With Some Applications to Finance" by Andy Gottschling, Christian Haefke and Halbert White at my webpage: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~chaefke/papers/Annint_chaefke.ps.gz or http://weber.ucsd.edu/~chaefke/papers/Annint_chaefke.pdf Abstract: Many economic and econometric applications require the integration of functions lacking a closed form antiderivative, which is therefore a task that can only be solved by numerical methods. We propose a new family of probability densities that can be used as substitutes and have the property of closed form integrability. This is especially advantageous in cases where either the complexity of a problem makes numerical function evaluations very costly, or fast information extraction is required for time-varying environments. Our approach allows generally for nonparametric maximum likelihood density estimation and may thus find a variety of applications, two of which are illustrated briefly: Estimation of Value at Risk based on approximations to the density of stock returns. Recovering risk neutral densities for the valuation of options from the option price -- strike price relation. Keywords: Option Pricing, Neural Networks, Nonparametric Density Estimation, Hypergeometric Functions; The paper prints out to 35 pages, Filesize is 150K for the gzipped version and 350K for the pdf file. Comments are highly appreciated. Best regards, Christian ******************************************************************************* * * * Christian Haefke INTERNET: chaefke at weber.ucsd.edu * * University of California, San Diego * * Department of Economics, 0508 * * 9500 Gilman Drive * * La Jolla, CA 92093-0508 * * * * * ******************************************************************************* * * * http://weber.ucsd.edu/~chaefke * * * ******************************************************************************* From bein at malachite.CS.UNLV.EDU Mon Feb 28 18:40:28 2000 From: bein at malachite.CS.UNLV.EDU (Wolfgang W Bein) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 15:40:28 -0800 Subject: Snippet Message-ID: I am the Technical Secession Chair for a session on "Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms" I am still able to accept a limited number of contributions for this session (see below for a description.) I would need an extended abstract by Friday, March 3 (up to 4 pages, but a 1 page would suffice, given the deadline) The camera ready copy is only due by April 1. The session is part of the 2000 International Conference on Mathematics and Engineering Techniques in Medicine and Biological Sciences, which is concurrent with IC-AI. There is a pointer to the relevant pages on my home-page http://www.cs.unlv.edu/~bein/ Wolf Bein Computer Science University of Nevada, Las Vegas Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms -------------------------------------- Adaptive methods play a significant role as tools in situations where more rigid methods may fail. Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Methods are inspired by concepts arising in Biology and the Cognitive Sciences. This session will highlight ongoing work relating Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Methods, as well as recent applications of these tools to Medicine and the Biological Sciences. From swindale at interchange.ubc.ca Tue Feb 29 19:05:10 2000 From: swindale at interchange.ubc.ca (Nicholas Swindale) Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 16:05:10 -0800 Subject: Postdoctoral position, visual cortex, University of British Columbia Message-ID: POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY. Department of Ophthalmology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada A position is available to study receptive field organization and topography in cat visual cortex using optical recording and silicon multi-site recording probes (see http://www.biomednet.com/biomednews/1999/SFN/day2/story_2.html) to . Applicants should have experience in visual neuroscience and strong programming skills (ideally Delphi or Visual C++ in a Windows environment). The Department of Ophthalmology at UBC has a strong basic science research group encompassing a wide range of areas in visual neuroscience, including fMRI, visual psychophysics, electrophysiology, computational neuroscience, neuroanatomy and molecular genetics. The recent formation of a Brain Research Centre at UBC promises to add further to the University's strengths in neuroscience. Vancouver (http://www.vancouver.about.com/citiestowns/vancouver/library/weekly/aa05229 9.htm) is consistently rated one of the best cities of the world in which to live. It is close to one of the best ski resorts in North America (Whistler) and there are opportunities for hiking, mountaineering, windsurfing, sailing, kayaking and other outdoor activities. The city boasts wonderful modern architecture, two symphony orchestras, a world class opera company, ethnically diverse restaurants of outstanding quality and much more. Informal enquiries and/or applications (statement of research interests, sample publications and names and addresses of three referees) can be sent to: Nicholas Swindale, Dept. of Ophthalmology, University of British Columbia, 2550 Willow St., Vancouver, B.C. Canada, V5Z 3N9 swindale at interchange.ubc.ca (http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/neurosci/faculty/swindale.html )