SUMMER SCHOOL ON NEURAL NETWORKS - NN2003 - First announcement

[Jorge M. Santos]

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       We apologize if you receive this announcement more than once.
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FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

*************************************************
SUMMER SCHOOL ON

NEURAL NETWORKS in SUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION,
REGRESSION and DATA MINING

July 7-11, 2003, ISEP - Porto, Portugal
*************************************************

Web page: http://www.nn.isep.ipp.pt

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Summer School will be held at Porto, Portugal, jointly organized by
the Polytechnic School of Engineering of Porto (ISEP) and the Faculty of
Engineering, Porto University (FEUP).

Following the considerable success reached by the NN2002 Summer School,
the NN2003 edition includes lectures addressing new advances both in NN
paradigms and in applications. It will run in parallel sessions allowing
each participant to tailor the school to his/her own interest.

COURSE CONTENTS

Neural networks (NN) have become a very important tool in classification
and regression tasks. The applications are nowadays abundant, e.g. in =
the
engineering, economy and biology areas. The Summer School on NN is
dedicated to explain relevant NN paradigms, namely multilayer =
perceptrons
(MLP), radial basis function networks (RBF), support vector machines=20
(SVM)
and entropy-based networks (ENN) used for classification and regression
tasks, illustrated with applications to real data. Specific topics are
also presented, namely genetic algorithms (GA) and NN, decision trees =
and
NN, co-operative structures of NN, time series analysis with NN and data
mining using NN.

Classes include practical sessions with appropriate software tools. The
trainee has, therefore, the opportunity to apply the taught concepts and
become conversant with a broad range of NN topics and applications.
Official language will be English.


TARGET AUDIENCE

Graduates and researchers interested in applying Neural networks to =
their
professional activity and as a research tool.


PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

  - Darrell Whitley (Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Colorado =
State
University, USA)

- Fernando Sereno (Assistant Professor, High School of Education,
Portugal)

- Jo=E3o Gama (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economy, University of
Porto, Portugal)

- Joaquim Marques de S=E1 (Associate Professor, Dept. Electr. and Comp.
Engineering; Fac. of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal)

- Jos=E9 Carlos Pr=EDncipe (BellSouth Professor, Director Computational
NeuroEngineering, University of Florida, USA)

- Lu=EDs Torgo (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economy, University of
Porto, Portugal)

- Mark J. Embrechts (Associate Professor, Decision Sciences and
Engineering Systems Faculty, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
N.Y., USA)

- Mohamed Kamel (Professor, Dept. of Systems Design Engineering,
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)

- Paulo Cort=EAs (Assistant Professor, University of Minho, Portugal)

- Pavel Brazdil (Full Professor, Faculty of Economy, University of =
Porto,
Portugal)

- Steve R. Gunn (Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Electronics and Computer
Science, University of Southampton, UK)



LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (LOC)

- Vitor Costa - Assistant Professor, Dept. Mathematics, ISEP, Portugal

- J. Paulo Meixedo - Assistant, Dept. Mathematics, ISEP, Portugal

- Jorge M. Santos - Assistant, Dept. Mathematics, ISEP, Portugal


PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME

A preliminary programme (including invited lecturers) and further
informations about the classes are available at the school webpage.
(http://www.nn.isep.ipp.pt)

SCHOOL LOCATION

The city of Porto will host the event, with the meeting being organized=20
by
ISEP in collaboration with FEUP. Porto is Portugal's second largest =
city,
having been classified by UNESCO as World Heritage for its old town=20
centre
at river Douro side.  It is the administrative centre of Northern of
Portugal, worldwide renown for its Port Wine Cellars. Porto has an
international airport, with connections to all major European airports.
All other public transports (train, bus, etc) can also be used to reach
Porto. It has an extensive network of buses and a tram, which makes it
very easy to stroll around the town, and train and bus connections to=20
many
tourist attractions in the region. Lisbon is three hours away by train,
and all other major Portuguese cities can be easily reached either by =
car
or by train. Important note: Visa may be required for citizens of =
several
European and overseas countries. Please contact your local Portuguese
Consulates beforehand (typically no less than one month in advance).


REGISTRATION

Please find the registration form available at the WWW site of the
conference.  Please fill at your earlier convenience the registration
form and send it to the LOC.

NOTE: Special prices will be offered to those whom attended the NN2002.

The registration fee for participants amounts to:

- Early registration fee (payed before the 15th of May)

* 300 Euro (students, ISEP and FEUP staff, and APPIA members)
and to
* 350 Euro (all other participants)

- Late registration fee (payed after the 15th of May)

* 350 Euro (students, ISEP and FEUP staff, and APPIA members)
and to
* 400 Euro (all other participants)

The registration fee includes:

* school package
* coffee breaks
* daily lunch
* welcome reception
* school banquet


All participants are required to register prior to the start of the
School - until the 15th of May - even if you choose to pay the late
registration fee at the registration desk.

Please note that the number of participants is limited, so it is
conceivable that the late registration period will effectively be
shorter than advertised.



ACCOMMODATION

The detailed procedure on how to book accommodation will be announced
later.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Special consideration will be taken to secure some support for students
and colleagues from Central and Eastern Europe. However, in the best
possible case, this support will only be partial. Please check the next
announcement or the School webpage.

SOCIAL PROGRAMME

Details on the Social and Cultural Programme for NN-2003 will be=20
announced
later.


CONTACT ADDRESS

LOC - Summer School NN-2003
Departamento de Matem=E1tica
Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
Rua Dr. Ant=F3nio Bernardino de Almeida 431
4200-072 PORTO / PORTUGAL
Email: nn-2003 at isep.ipp.pt


Programme Chair:
Prof. Marques de S=E1
Tel. 225081828 - Email:  jmsa at fe.up.pt


From: esann <esann at dice.ucl.ac.be>
To: "'Connectionists at cs.cmu.edu'" <Connectionists at cs.cmu.edu>
References: