Connectionists: "Neural-Symbolic Networks for Cognitive Capacities" - Call for Papers for a special issue of Elsevier's "Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures"

[Kai-Uwe Kuehnberger]

Call for Papers: Journal Special Issue on

== Neural-Symbolic Networks for Cognitive Capacities ==

Tarek R. Besold, Artur d'Avila Garcez, Kai-Uwe Kühnberger, Terrence C. 
Stewart

Special issue of the
Elsevier Journal on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA)
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/biologically-inspired-cognitive-architectures/

= SCOPE =

Researchers in artificial intelligence and cognitive systems modelling 
continue to face foundational challenges in their quest to develop 
plausible models and implementations of cognitive capacities and 
intelligence. One of the methodological core issues is the question of 
the integration between sub-symbolic and symbolic approaches to 
knowledge representation, learning and reasoning in cognitively-inspired 
models.

Network-based approaches very often enable flexible tools which can 
discover and process the internal structure of (possibly large) data 
sets. They promise to give rise to efficient signal-processing models 
which are biologically plausible and optimally suited for a wide range 
of applications, whilst possibly also offering an explanation of 
cognitive phenomena of the human brain.
Still, the extraction of high-level explicit (i.e. symbolic) knowledge 
from distributed low-level representations thus far has to be considered 
a mostly unsolved problem.

In recent years, network-based models have seen significant advancement 
in the wake of the development of the new "deep learning" family of 
approaches to machine learning. Due to the hierarchically structured 
nature of the underlying models, these developments have also 
reinvigorated efforts in overcoming the neural-symbolic divide.

The aim of the special issue is to bring together recent work developed 
in the field of network-based information processing in a cognitive 
context, which bridges the gap between different levels of description 
and paradigms and which sheds light onto canonical solutions or 
principled approaches occurring in the context of neural-symbolic 
integration to modelling or implementing cognitive capacities.

= TOPICS =

We particularly encourage submissions related to the following 
non-exhaustive list of topics:

- new learning paradigms of network-based models addressing different 
knowledge levels
- biologically plausible methods and models
- integration of network models and symbolic reasoning
- cognitive systems using neural-symbolic paradigms
- extraction of symbolic knowledge from network-based representations
- challenging applications which have the potential to become benchmark 
problems
- visionary papers concerning the future of network approaches to 
cognitive modelling


= SUBMISSIONS =

Deadline for submissions is *** April 16, 2014 ***.

The suggested submission category for the special issue is Research 
Article - up to 20 journal pages or 20,000 words -, while shorter 
submissions in the category Letter - up to 6 journal pages or 5000 words 
- are equally welcome.

Visionary papers dealing with the future of network approaches to 
cognitive modelling must belong to the category Research Article and are 
subject to prior acceptance by the editors. If you are planning on 
submitting to this category, please get in touch with Tarek R. Besold, 
tbesold at uni-osnabrueck.de.

Submissions shall follow the guidelines laid out for the journal 
"Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures", which can be found under
http://www.elsevier.com/journals/biologically-inspired-cognitive-architectures/2212-683X/guide-for-authors.

Contributions shall be submitted via the journal's submission system 
which can be found under http://ees.elsevier.com/bica/ and in addition 
shall be sent by email as .pdf to Tarek R. Besold, 
tbesold at uni-osnabrueck.de.

When submitting their papers online, authors are asked to select 
"Article Type" SI:Neural-Symbolic Net in order to assure identification 
of the submission as belonging to the special issue.

Please also indicate in the cover letter that the article has been 
submitted to the special issue on "Neural-Symbolic Networks for 
Cognitive Capacities".

= IMPORTANT DATES =

Deadline for submissions: April 16, 2014
Feedback to authors*: May 9, 2014
Submission of revised versions: May 19, 2014
Final notification of acceptance: May 24, 2014
Publication of the special issue: July 2014 as Vol. 9 of "Biologically 
Inspired Cognitive Architectures"
(*= Including rejection / minor revisions / acceptance.)

= GUEST EDITORS =

Tarek R. Besold, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of 
Osnabrück, Germany
Artur D'Avila Garcez, Department of Computer Science, City University 
London, UK
Kai-Uwe Kühnberger, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of 
Osnabrück, Germany
Terrence C. Stewart, Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of 
Waterloo, Canada