IEEE TNN Special Issue on temporal coding

[DeLiang Wang]

IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks Call for Papers

Special Issue on "Temporal Coding for Neural Information Processing"

Largely motivated by neurobiological discoveries, neural network
research is currently witnessing a significant shift of emphasis
towards temporal coding, which uses time as an extra degree of freedom
in neural representations.  Temporal coding is passionately debated in
neuroscience and related fields, but in the last few years a large
volume of physiological and behavioral data has emerged that supports
a key role for temporal coding in the brain.  In neural networks, a
great deal of research is undertaken under the topics of nonlinear
dynamics, oscillatory and chaotic networks, spiking neurons, and
pulse-coupled networks.  Various information processing tasks are
investigated using temporal coding, including scene segmentation,
figure-ground separation, classification, learning, associative
memory, inference, motor control, and communication.  Progress has
been made that substantially advances the state-of-the-art of neural
computing.

In many instances, however, neural models incorporating temporal
coding are driven merely by the assertion that real neurons use
impulses. It is often unclear whether, and to what extent, the
temporal aspects of the models contribute to information processing
capabilities. It is time to assess the role and potential of temporal
coding in terms of information processing performance by providing a
comprehensive view of the current approaches and issues to the neural
networks community. This special issue seeks to present, in a
collective way, research that makes a clear contribution to addressing
information processing tasks using temporal coding.  The issue is
intended not only to highlight successful use of temporal coding in
neural networks but also clarify outstanding issues for future
progress.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to the following:

- Synchrony, desynchrony, and other temporal phenomena
- Encoding and decoding in the temporal domain
- Comparative issues in rate coding and temporal coding
- Cognitive aspects of temporal/spatiotemporal phenomena in neural systems
- Effects and uses of time delays
- Potential roles of chaos, randomness and noise
- Learning for temporal codes
- Temporal/spatiotemporal information processing for:
        * Perceptual processing
        * Learning, memory, and reasoning
        * Motor control
        * Communication
- Innovative applications
- Hardware implementation

The guest editors of the special issue are:

Walter Freeman, University of California, Berkeley
Robert Kozma, University of Memphis
Andrzej Lozowski, Southern Illinois University
Ali Minai, University of Cincinnati
DeLiang Wang, Ohio State University

Manuscripts will first be screened for topical relevance, and those
that pass the screening process will undergo the standard review
procedure of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks (see the
instructions for authors for the Transactions). Paper submission
deadline is May 30, 2003, and the special issue will be published by
July 2004.  Papers should be submitted in PDF format via email to the
lead guest editor:

DeLiang Wang
Email: dwang at cis.ohio-state.edu
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~dwang