From marcus.hutter at gmx.net Thu May 5 04:23:05 2016 From: marcus.hutter at gmx.net (Marcus Hutter) Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 18:23:05 +1000 Subject: Connectionists: Research Fellow Position & PhD Scholarships Available at AI@RSCS@ANU Message-ID: <572B02E9.7060006@gmx.net> Research Fellow Position ------------------------ Intelligent Agents Group Research School of Computer Science Australian National University We are seeking an outstanding Research Fellow interested in Universal AI with excellent mathematical background and research expertise in * Machine Learning or * (Algorithmic) Information Theory or * (Bayesian) Statistics or * Artificial Intelligence or * related area. Possible backgrounds are a PhD, or near completion of a PhD, in mathematics, physics, computer science, engineering, or related. * Location: Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia * The new employee will interact with Marcus Hutter and other people in the RSCS at the ANU. * The position is available immediately - fixed term - for 2 years - potential prolongation by 1-2 more years. * Salary Range for Research Fellow: Level B: A$90'000 - A$100'000 per year plus 17% superannuation. * Enquiries: Prof. Marcus Hutter, E: marcus.hutter at anu.edu.au, T: +61 2 6125 1605. * Closing Date: 30 June 2016 * Further information for applicants: http://jobs.anu.edu.au/cw/en/job/508515/ http://www.hutter1.net/rsise/postdoc15.htm PhD Scholarships ---------------- We also have a number of PhD scholarships available. See http://www.hutter1.net/official/jobs.htm for details and how to apply (deadline is 31 August). Thanks for your interest ______________________ Marcus Hutter, Professor Associate Director RSCS RSISE, Room B259, Building 115 Australian National University Corner of North and Daley Road Canberra ACT 2601, Australia Phone: +61(0)2 612 51605 (time zone GMT+10:00) Fax: +61(0)2 612 58651 Email: marcus.hutter at anu.edu.au http://www.hutter1.net/ --------------------------------------------------------------- The Australian National University (ANU) is located in the city of Canberra, the Federal Capital of Australia. The ANU consistently ranks top among all Universities in the southern hemisphere, in the top 5 in the Asia/Pacific region, and in the top 50 worldwide. From randal.a.koene at gmail.com Fri May 6 10:51:37 2016 From: randal.a.koene at gmail.com (Randal Koene) Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 07:51:37 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Research Position: Brain Prosthesis Algorithms Message-ID: Brain Prosthesis Algorithms Brain science is the new rocket science. We?re building algorithms and software to correct deficits and enhance cognitive brain function using electrophysiology. We?re not making drugs or creating a brain training game, we?re using a data driven method to create neural prostheses to restore and enhance human cognitive performance. Join us in this delicious engineering opportunity in developing probabilistic kernel models of the hippocampus for a first application in memory. What we?re looking for: a data & algorithms or machine learning specialist with an exceptional aptitude for regularization and matrix algebra. Potential projects include building classification and regression models for neural spiking data, decoding of the spatio-temporal patterns of spikes with respect to behavior, analyzing large-scale complex neural data, building mixed model of point-process signals, and other data-driven modeling projects. Working with the cross-disciplinary members of our team which includes Professors at the University of Southern California (USC), you would be driving a neural system identification modeling platform that is pushing the state-of-the-art in neurocognitive therapeutics. Self-taught or via formal education, we expect not only that you meet our prerequisites on skills and mission alignment, but that you thrive in a meritocracy of mutual peer review within a first-class team. We expect that you take responsibility for your projects, demonstrate excellence, vision, and diligent but creative invention. You are the right person for this job if you are: - Strong in linear algebra/matrices, basis transformations, model order / dimension reduction, numerical methods - Strong in regression analysis, data analysis, nonlinear mathematical modeling - Results oriented, driven, flexible, adaptable, and have the courage to take on an ambitious project, because what matters most is to build a flourishing future We?d also love it if you have skills and experience in: - Either electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, statistics, computer science, computational neuroscience, or related fields - Machine learning (e.g. Bayesian, deep learning), time series analysis, pattern recognition, and point-process signal processing is highly preferred - Neural circuit modeling / exploration (e.g. discovering functional connectivity), control theory, system identification, compartmental neural modeling (e.g. NEURON) - Python, Matlab, C/C++/C#, R, Linux/Unix Exceptional team. Full-time. Benefits. Competitive compensation. Ground breaking work. To apply, please send an email with 1) CV (and list of publications) and 2) contact information for 2-3 professional references to: Dr. Randal A. Koene at brainprosthesis at gmail.com with a subject line ?Brain Prosthesis Algorithms application?. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From d.polani at herts.ac.uk Fri May 6 11:49:48 2016 From: d.polani at herts.ac.uk (Daniel Polani) Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 16:49:48 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD Studentships on Information Theory in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life Message-ID: <22316.48412.568211.790744@gargle.gargle.HOWL> ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// PhD Studentships Available on INFORMATION THEORY IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ARTIFICIAL LIFE Adaptive Systems Research Group School of Computer Science University of Hertfordshire, UK ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// We invite applications for PhD studentships in the Adaptive Systems Research Group at the University of Hertfordshire: specifically, studying principled methods (with focus on information theory) in fundamental questions of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life, including principles of cognition, and emergence (origin) of life and intelligence from first principles. Questions also include information processing in adaptive, complex and self-organizing systems in general, a research area which has witnessed a dramatic increase of interest in the last years. At the same time, our goal is to adapt these principles for AI applications and robotic devices. Mathematical tools, with special emphasis on Shannon's information theory are used to characterize and predict hypothesized biologically plausible behaviour and to construct principled AI/robotic models. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - information-theoretic treatment of the perception-action loop - theoretically grounded pathways towards self-organization in complex systems - origin of life and its links to physics - principled AI/control methods for embodied robotics - generic models for intrinsic motivation and artificial creativity - principles underlying biological computation (with opportunities to collaborate with the Biocomputation Research Group) The prospective candidates should have a very strong first degree, a keen interest in contributing to a new, and quickly expanding research area and an outstanding background in Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics or another relevant computational/quantitative discipline. In particular, they should demonstrate excellent programming skills in at least one major computer language. A mathematical/numerical background would be highly desirable. Knowledge in at least one of the following fields would be a plus: probability theory, information theory, differential geometry, control, data modelling/neural network techniques. The envisaged research will take place in the vibrant, enthusiastic and enterprising research environment of the Adaptive Systems Research Group in the School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire; there will also be the opportunity to collaborate with the socSMCs (Socializing Sensorimotor Contingencies, FET Open) and WiMUST (Widely Scalable Mobile Underwater Sonar Technology) EU Horizon 2020 projects, as well as the School's successful humanoid robot RoboCup team, the Bold Hearts. The school offers a large number of specialized and interdisciplinary seminars as well as general training opportunities. Research in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire has been recognized as excellent by the latest Research Assessment Exercise, with 50% of the research submitted being rated as world leading or internationally excellent. The University of Hertfordshire is located in Hatfield, Hertfordshire UK which is considered the "northern green belt" of London. Hatfield is close to London (less than 25 minutes by direct train to Kings Cross), has convenient access to Stansted, Luton and Heathrow airports, and, via the nearby historic town of St. Albans, also to Gatwick airport. Successful candidates are eligible for a research studentship award from the University (which includes approximately GBP 14,250 per annum bursary and the payment of the standard UK/EU student fees). Applicants from outside the UK or EU are eligible, but will have to pay half of the overseas fees out of their bursary. Closing date for application is the 30. May 2016, though excellent applications may be considered after that date. For informal inquiries on the research topic please contact: Dr. Daniel Polani (E-mail: d.polani at herts.ac.uk) Application forms are available from Lorraine Nicholls (l.nicholls at herts.ac.uk) or under the following link: http://www.herts.ac.uk/apply/schools-of-study/computer-science/our-research/the-phd-programme-in-computer-science and should be returned to: Mrs Lorraine Nicholls Research Student Administrator, STRI University of Hertfordshire College Lane Hatfield, AL10 9AB Herts Hertfordshire UK Tel: +44 1707 286083 Email: l.nicholls at herts.ac.uk Applications should also include two references and transcripts of previous academic degrees. From l.rossi at aston.ac.uk Mon May 2 12:47:05 2016 From: l.rossi at aston.ac.uk (Luca Rossi) Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 17:47:05 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position on temporal graph analysis Message-ID: Fully funded PhD studentship in Aston University, UK http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANN781/modelling-and-analysis-of-temporal-graphs/ Applications are invited for a three year Postgraduate studentship, supported by the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to be undertaken within the Computer Science Research Group at Aston University. The successful applicant will join the recently established System Analytics Research Institute. The aim of the Institute is to become a leading centre for research in applicable methods for extracting exploitable knowledge from huge amounts of interconnected, multi-scale and multivariable data and relating this knowledge to the underlying system that generates the data. The position is available to start in October 2016 (subject to negotiation) Financial Support: This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the home/EU fees rate plus a maintenance allowance (?14,296 in 2016/17). Applicants from outside the EU may apply for this studentship but will need to pay the difference between the ?Home/EU? and the ?Overseas? tuition fees (approximately ?12,000 per annum). As part of the application you will be required to confirm that you have applied for, or, secured this additional funding. Background of the Project: The analysis of network structure has attracted significant attention due to its fundamental importance in understanding the dynamics and functioning of a large number of complex systems. Although it is common practice to study static graphs, many systems are actually intrinsically dynamic, and therefore require a more expressive representation. For example, the structure of a social network is constantly evolving, with new nodes (i.e., users) being added to the network and new connections (i.e., social ties) being created and destructed. The goal of this project is to study temporal graphs and their use in structural pattern recognition and network science. You will develop a series of techniques for the analysis of temporal graphs, including generative models, complexity and similarity measures. This is an exciting opportunity to conduct ground-breaking research at the interface between pattern recognition, graph theory and network science. Person Specification: The successful applicant should have a first class or upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or a related discipline. Preferred skill requirements include knowledge/experience of structural pattern recognition and/or network science. We would particularly like to encourage applications from women seeking to progress their academic careers. Aston University is committed to the principles of the Athena SWAN Charter, recognised recently by a prestigious Silver Award to EAS, and we pride ourselves on our vibrant, friendly and supportive working environment and family atmosphere. For informal enquiries about this project and other opportunities within the Computer Science Research Group, contact Dr Luca Rossi ( http://www.cs.aston.ac.uk/~rossil/ ) by email l.rossi at aston.ac.uk. The online application form, reference forms and details of entry requirements, including English language are available at http://www.aston.ac.uk/eas/research/prospective-research-students/how-to-apply/ . Applications must also be accompanied a statement on the main themes of the research, explaining how your knowledge and experience will benefit the project. -- Luca Rossi Lecturer in Computer Science School of Engineering and Applied Science Aston University Web: http://www.cs.aston.ac.uk/~rossil/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yangxinsong93 at gmail.com Mon May 2 23:09:25 2016 From: yangxinsong93 at gmail.com (Xinsong Yang) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 11:09:25 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: BrainKDD'16 - The 3nd International Workshop on Data Mining and Visualization for Brain Science Message-ID: BrainKDD: The 3nd International Workshop on Data Mining and Visualization for Brain Science in conjunction with ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (BCB'16) October 2nd, 2016, Seattle, USA https://sites.google.com/site/brainkdd2016/ Understanding brain function is one of the greatest challenges facing science. Today, brain science is experiencing rapid changes and is expected to achieve major advances in the near future. In April 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama formally announced the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, the BRAIN Initiative. In Europe, the European Commission has recently launched the European Human Brain Project (HBP). In the private sector, the Allen Institute for Brain Science is embarking on a new 10-year plan to generate comprehensive, large-scale data in the mammalian cerebral cortex under the MindScope project. These ongoing and emerging projects are expected to generate a deluge of data that capture the brain activities at different levels of organization. There is thus a compelling need to develop the next generation of data mining, visualization and knowledge discovery tools that allow one to make sense of this raw data and to understand how neurological activity encodes information. This workshop will focus on exploring the forefront between computer science and brain science and inspiring fundamentally new ways of mining, visualization and knowledge discovery from a variety of brain data. The presentations and discussions of this workshop will lead to novel insight sand knowledge on the function and dysfunction of brain at various levels, ranging from molecular, cellular, circuitry to systems levels by mining, integrating, and interpreting large-scale, multi-modality brain data. This will be achieved by bringing together neuroscientists and computer scientists in a dedicated workshop that consists of invited talks, paper and poster presentations, and interactive panel discussions. The list of tentative topics includes: ? Mining of *in situ* hybridization and microarray gene expression data ? Mining of brain connectivity and circuitry data ? Mining of structural and functional MRI data ? Mining of EEG and related data ? Mining of temporal developing brain data ? Mining of spatial neuroimaging data ? Integrative mining of multi-modality brain data ? Mining of diseased brain data, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and schizophrenia ? Segmentation and registration of neuroimaging data ? Visualization of brain connectivity data ? Visualization of neuroimaging data ? Visualization of brain genetics data *Important Dates:* Workshop paper submissions: June 17, 2016 Workshop paper notifications: July 15, 2016 Final submission of workshop program and materials: July 29, 2016 Workshop date: October 2, 2016 All deadlines are at 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time. *Submission Instructions:* Papers should be prepared using the ACM Proceedings Format http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates#aL2 and should be at most 10 pages long. Authors are encouraged to submit shorter papers than the maximal length. Paper should be submitted in PDF format through the following link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=brainkdd2016 *Publication:* The authors of accepted workshop papers will be invited to adapt their papers for being published in BMC Bioinformatics (impact factor 2.6), or Brain Informatics, subject to additional peer reviews. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Reza.Iraji at colostate.edu Tue May 3 16:04:48 2016 From: Reza.Iraji at colostate.edu (Iraji,Reza) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 20:04:48 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: 2nd CFP: 1st International Workshop on Robot Learning and Planning at RSS 2016 Message-ID: We are pleased to invite you all to contribute to the 1st international workshop on Robot Learning and Planning (RLP 2016) at RSS 2016. The solicited papers are expected to present challenges in the related fields and potential future directions. The main purpose of this workshop is promoting dialogue and brainstorming in the "Robot Learning and Planning" to identify new research directions and underdeveloped areas. By design, we expect the submitted papers to be rather unconventional and potentially controversial to promote dialogue. To archive these discussions, the accepted papers will be published, and a summary of the discussed topics will be disseminated either in the form of a review article or a website. Selected papers will be published in Elsevier Robotics and Autonomous Journal. The main objective of this workshop is to discuss new fundamental research directions and their applications for the next generation of robots. Specific topics include but are not limited to integration or application of machine learning and planning in * Adaptive and Reconfigurable Robotic Systems * Aerial Robotics * Assembly Automation and Self-Assembly Systems * Biomedical Robotics * Bionics (biomimetic robotics, neurobotics, synthetic biological systems, and etc.) * Complex and High Dimensional Environments * Distributed Robotic Systems * Field Robotics (underwater robotics, agricultural robotics, mining robotics, and etc.) * Geometry-based Algorithms * Human-Robot Interaction * Kinematics, Dynamics, and Control * Manipulation * Mechanisms (humanoids, hands, legged systems, and etc.) * Mobile Systems and Mobility (localization, mapping, and navigation) * Search Algorithms * Scheduling * Simultaneous Learning and Planning * Task and Policy Learning and Planning Important Dates: Announcement of Call for Papers: April 11, 2016 Full Paper Submission Due: May 15, 2016 Acceptance Notification: May 29, 2016 Workshop: June 18, 2016 Program Committee: * Ali Agha, Qualcomm Research * Chuck Anderson, Colorado State University * Kostas Bekris, Rutgers University * Maren Bennewitz, University of Freiburg * Gianni Di Caro, Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale * Stefano Carpin, University of California-Merced * Hamidreza Chitsaz, Colorado State University * Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon University * Juan Cort?s, LAAS-CNRS * Angel P. del Pobil, Jaume I University * Thierry Fraichard, INRIA * Roland Geraerts, University of Utrecht * Kamal Gupta, Simon Fraser University * Adele Howe, Colorado State University * Seth Hutchinson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign * Miles J. Johnson, Toyota Technical Center * Marcelo Kallmann, University of California, Merced * Lydia Kavraki, Rice University * Sven Koenig, University of Southern California * Jyh-Ming Lien, George Mason University * Dinesh Manocha, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill * Rafael Murrieta-Cid, Center for Mathematical Research * Giuseppe Oriolo, Sapienza University of Rome * Wheeler Ruml, University of New Hampshire * Surya P. N. Singh, University of Queensland * Frank van der Stappen, Utrecht University * Chee Yap, New York University We invite submissions to our special "Robot Learning and Planning" workshop. The RLP 2016 submission website is open now to receive the submissions. ----------------------------------------------------- Reza Iraji, M.Sc. Ph.D. Candidate Department of Computer Science Colorado State University Email: iraji at colostate.edu URL: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~iraji/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From p.gleeson at ucl.ac.uk Wed May 4 10:15:30 2016 From: p.gleeson at ucl.ac.uk (Padraig Gleeson) Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 15:15:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Collaborative Development of Data-Driven Models of Neural Systems: Janelia Farm Sept 18-12 Message-ID: <572A0402.5050803@ucl.ac.uk> [Apology for cross-postings] Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce a conference on: Collaborative Development of Data-Driven Models of Neural Systems September 18-21, 2016 Janelia Farm Research Campus, Virginia, USA Deadline for registration: 18th May Detailed computational models are critical for elucidating neuronal and network function. They enable different levels of description to be linked, a wide range of neurophysiological experiments to be interpreted and quantitative predictions to be made. These factors are important for understanding large-scale complex systems, like neural circuits; however, more extensive use and scaling up of these data driven models pose challenges in ensuring that models are scientifically rigorous, as well as accessible and usable by both theoretical and experimental researchers alike. This conference will bring together a range of experimentalists, theoreticians and neuroinformatics developers with the aim of facilitating a global, open infrastructure for collaborative model development in neuroscience. *Organizers* Padraig Gleeson, University College London Angus Silver, University College London *Invited Participants* Anton Arkipov, Allen Institute for Brain Science Giorgio Ascoli, George Mason University Upinder Bhalla, National Centre for Biological Sciences Avrama Blackwell, George Mason University Kevin Briggman, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/NIH Dean Buonomano, University of California, Los Angeles Nicholas Cain, Allen Institute for Brain Science Claudia Clopath, Imperial College London Rosa Cossart, Institut de Neurobiologie de la M?diterran?e Sharon Crook, Arizona State University Andrew Davison, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Erik De Schutter, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Shaul Druckmann, Janelia Research Campus/HHMI Chris Eliasmith, University of Waterloo Jeremy Freeman, Janelia Research Campus/HHMI Michael Hausser, University College London Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski, Karolinska Institutet Fritjof Helmchen, University of Zurich David Kleinfeld, University of California, San Diego Jeff Magee, Janelia Research Campus/HHMI Robert McDougal, Yale School of Medicine Eilif Muller, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne Hanchuan Peng, Allen Institute for Brain Science Ruben Portugues, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology Mark Schnitzer, HHMI/Stanford University Ivan Soltesz, Stanford School of Medicine Nelson Spruston, Janelia Research Campus/HHMI Misha Tsodyks, Weizmann Institute of Science Registration is free, but places are limited.*Registration closes 18th May 2016*. For more details and to apply for participation go to https://www.janelia.org/you-janelia/conferences/collaborative-development-data-driven-models-neural-systems. ----------------------------------------------------- Padraig Gleeson Room 321, Anatomy Building Department of Neuroscience, Physiology& Pharmacology University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT United Kingdom +44 207 679 3214 p.gleeson at ucl.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mklados at gmail.com Sun May 8 03:35:07 2016 From: mklados at gmail.com (Manousos Klados) Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 10:35:07 +0300 Subject: Connectionists: First CfP SAN2016 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, please, accept our advanced apologies for any multiple cross-postings... The Society of Applied Neuroscience (SAN, http://www.applied-neuroscience.org/) in cooperation with the Medical School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Department of Neurology of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, have the great pleasure to invite you to the biennial meeting of the Society, SAN2016 (http://applied-neuroscience.org/san2016/), which will be held in Corfu Island, Greece between 6-9 of October, 2016. We cordially invite everyone engaged in studies of Neuroscience, to participate in the SAN2016 meeting. Apart from the highly promising scientific program, blended with numerous workshops and special sessions, there will also be a lively social program which will give our guests the opportunity to enjoy Greece and Corfu.We feel confident than you will enjoy SAN2016 both scientifically and socially as one of our main purposes is to give the chance to all colleagues to establish new fruitful international collaborations in areas of mutual academic and clinical interests. SAN2016 will bring together scientists and practitioners from a wide range of specialist fields. These include, but are not limited to: EEG/ MEG/ fMRI/ fNIRS Neurofeedback fMRI-NFB studies Brain Computer Interfaces Trans Cranial Magnetic Stimulation Peripheral Biofeedback Direct Current Stimulation Event-Related Potentials Brain Connectivity Neuronal Reorganization EEG and Cognition QEEG Diagnosis Emerging combined EEG and Virtual/augmented reality technology Instrumentation Audio-Visual Stimulation LORETA & Methodology Clinical, educational, sport and optimal performance applications Rehabilitation Integrative Therapy Complimentary evidence-based applications ...and all fields of applied neuroscience. All the above blended by an attractive selection of keynote and invited speeches, as well as, hands-on pre-conference workshops. There will be a practitioner track focusing on topical issues. The conference committee receives more proposals than space available. Careful attention to Quality of work, clarity and completeness of the submitted materials is likely to increase the chance for acceptance. All the accepted abstracts will be published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. SAN2016 abstract submission is supported by a Frontiers event and are directly submitted through the following link until the 20th of June, 2016: http://www.frontiersin.org/events/SAN2016_Meeting/3717 Numerous special issues and research topics are also planned by Society members as per tradition. We believe that SAN2016 will be a wonderful chance for you, to meet old friends and make new ones. We look forward to seeing you in Corfu, Greece! Panos Bamidis John Gruzelier Manousos Klados SAN2016 Conference Chairs Manousos Klados, PhD Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive & Brain Sciences Research Group of Neuroanatomy and Connectivity Phone: +49(0)-341-9940-2507 <+49(0)-341-9940-2507> Mobile: +49(0)-176-6988-1781 Email: klados at cbs.mpg.de Website: http://www.mklados.com Skype: mklados | Twitter: @mklados Address: Stephanstra?e 1a PC D-04103 Leipzig Germany Join us at our next event:SAN 2016 Conferece -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From malin.sandstrom at incf.org Fri May 6 02:59:04 2016 From: malin.sandstrom at incf.org (=?UTF-8?Q?Malin_Sandstr=C3=B6m?=) Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 08:59:04 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: INCF short course in neuroinformatics, Aug 31 - Sep 1 in Reading, UK Message-ID: Dear all, (apologies for cross-posting) This year, the two-day INCF short course in neuroinformatics will be held in Reading, UK on August 31 - September 1, just before INCF's Neuroinformatics 2016 . The course is intended for neuroscience researchers wishing to develop their interests in neuroinformatics as well as informatics researchers with a strong interest in neuroscience. The course is open to advanced students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty members. Basic knowledge of neuroscience is a prerequisite. Apply latest May 31! https://www.incf.org/resources/training/incf-short-course-2016 *Topics covered* data analysis and neuronal coding databases and ontologies multiscale modeling neuroengineering simulation/computation/workflows visualization dynamic field theory *Speakers* David Willshaw (Edinburgh, UK) GIacomo Indiveri (Z?rich, Switzerland) Hayriye Cagnan (Oxford, UK) Yulia Sandamirskaya (Z?rich, Switzerland) Roberto Toro (Paris, France) Gaute Einevoll (?s, Norway) Marja-Leena Linne (Tampere, Finland) Please help spread the word to prospective students! Best regards, Malin -- Malin Sandstr?m, PhD Community Engagement Officer malin.sandstrom at incf.org International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility Karolinska Institutet Nobels v?g 15 A SE-171 77 Stockholm Sweden http://www.incf.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgf at isep.ipp.pt Tue May 3 12:00:47 2016 From: cgf at isep.ipp.pt (Carlos Ferreira) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 17:00:47 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: VECPAR 2016: Registration is open Message-ID: <5728CB2F.1070600@isep.ipp.pt> The registration link is available! Please check at: http://vecpar.fe.up.pt/2016 Regarding accommodation, you can reserve it by yourself choosing any of the suggested hotels or you can request accommodation in the registration form. Besides hosting VECPAR, Portugal has some special attractions in June: June 23rd: St. John's day celebration, Porto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festa_de_S%C3%A3o_Jo%C3%A3o_do_Porto) June 23rd to June 26th: Medieval Fair, Guimar?es (http://www.guimaraesturismo.com/pages/283?geo_article_id=3226) Hope to see you soon! The VECPAR 2016 Organizing Committee. Carlos Ferreira ISEP | Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto Rua Dr. Ant?nio Bernardino de Almeida, 431 4249-015 Porto - PORTUGAL tel. +351 228 340 500 | fax +351 228 321 159 mail at isep.ipp.pt | www.isep.ipp.pt From bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Tue May 3 13:04:49 2016 From: bhammer at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Barbara Hammer) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 19:04:49 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: workshop NC^2 at GCPR'16 Message-ID: <5728DA31.2020601@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS The Workshop New Challenges in Neurocomputing and Machine Learning (NC^2) will be held in conjunction to GCPR'16 (http://www.kcmweb.de/conferences/gcpr2016/) at September, 12th, 2016, in Hanover, Germany. See: http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~bhammer/GINN/NC2/ Submissions are welcome connected to the following areas: * nonlinear dimensionality reduction, blind source separation, and visualization * incremental learning, models for large or streaming data sets * parallelization and hardware implementations * models for non-euclidean data * recursive models and dynamic systems * adaptive data representation * bio-inspired models * deep learning and end to end learning * auto-ML * model interpretability * challenges in machine learning * challenges in applications Submission deadline is 30 July 2016 INIVITED SPEAKERS: Marc Toussaint, J?rg L?cke ORGANIZERS: Barbara Hammer, Thomas Martinetz, Thomas Villmann PROGRAMM COMMITTEE: Michael Biehl, Kerstin Bunte, Benoit Frenay, Andrej Gisbrecht, Fred Hamker, Gunther Heidemann, Sven Hellbach, Christian Igel, Oliver Kramer, Paulo Lisboa, Alessio Micheli, Madalena Olteanu, Jaakko Peltonen, Felix Reinhart, Franco Scarselli, Frank-Michael Schleif, Firdhelm Schwenker, Udo Seiffert, Peter Tino, Heiko Wersing, Rolf W?rtz -- Prof. Dr. Barbara Hammer CITEC centre of excellence Bielefeld University D-33594 Bielefeld Phone: +49 521 / 106 12115 Fax: +49 521 / 106 12181 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de Mon May 9 08:04:34 2016 From: compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de (Compsens) Date: Mon, 09 May 2016 14:04:34 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?POSTDOC_/_PHD_POSITION_in_Neuroscience?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_T=C3=BCbingen=2C_Germany?= Message-ID: <20160509140434.Horde.FUqTlBkwOoTc-VkVq8B2BbL@webmail.uni-tuebingen.de> POSTDOC / PHD POSITION: NEURAL REPRESENTATION OF SOCIAL INTENTION (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tuebingen, Germany) ============================================================ The Section for Computational Sensomotorics at the Center for Integrative Neurosciences (CIN) and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research (HIH) at the University of Tuebingen invites applications for a Postdoc or a PhD student with a good mathematical background for a maximum duration of 3 years. The position is funded by a collaborative grant by the Human Frontiers Science Foundation (HFSP) as part of a collaborative project together with together with the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) and Ohio State University (OSU). The work will focus on the development of neural theories for the processing of social signals and their verification by psychophysical experiments, and in collaboration electrophysiological and fMRI experiments. What we offer: -------------- * The HIH is among the top institutions for clinical brain research in Europe and hosts 350 researchers working on different aspects of brain function, and their impairments in disease; the CIN is a leading research facility for systems neuroscience in Germany that was funded as part of the Excellence Initiative of the German government; it includes more than 80 groups from the University and the Max Planck Institutes working on neuroscience; also, the lab is part of the Bernstein Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience in T?bingen * High-end research facilities, including advanced motion capture technology (VICON), VR and augmented reality setups, game engines, state-of-the art equipment for the measurement, modeling, and analysis of human movements and social signals, including advanced methods for the generation of highly-realistic human and animal avatars * close integration with many experimental groups in T?bingen, e.g. working on physiology in nonhuman primates and rodents, relevant problems in neurology and psychiatry, and computational neuroscience * possibility of taking courses and teaching in all fields of neuroscience within the Graduate Training Center for Neuroscience, which offers about 40 courses in molecular, behavioral, and neural information processing * close interactions with high-profile research partners in Europe, Israel, and the US in the fields of systems neuroscience, clinical neuroscience, and robotics What we are looking for: ------------------------- * a highly-motivated individual with enthusiasm for research and capable of self-driven pursuing of the solution of difficult problems; high motivation to learn missing skills quickly * Masters (PhD) degree in Computer Science, Electrical / Mechanical / Biomedical Engineering, Physics, or related fields * strong mathematical background and programming skills (at least in C or Java); willingness to learn relevant techniques and software products (e.g. for computer animation, deep learning, or the simulation of spiking networks) * interest in social neuroscience, computational vision, and detailed neural circuits at the level of single cells * English speaking and writing skills. People without ambition in science who primarily look for a temporary job at a university are discouraged from applying. Committed to Equal Opportunities. Interested people should send their application, including a CV, all marks form studies, 2 letters of reference, and a research statement of about one half page (explaining how their skills might support a project about the understanding neural basis of the processing of social signals in the brain) to: Prof. Dr. Martin Giese Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de ================================================== Section for Theoretical Sensomotorics Dept. for Cognitive Neurology Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience University of Tuebingen Otfried-M?ller Str. 25 D-72076 Tuebingen GERMANY Tel.: +49 7071 2989124 Fax: +49 7071 294790 Email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de Web: http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ ============================================== -- Mirjana Angelovska Abt. Kognitive Neurologie Sektion f?r theoretische Sensomotorik AG Prof. Giese Universit?tsklink T?bingen Centrum f?r Integrative Neurowissenschaften Hertie Institut f?r klinische Hirnforschung Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25 72076 T?bingen Tel: + 49 (0)7071-2989137 Fax: + 49 (0)7071-294790 e-mail:compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de From thomas.j.palmeri at Vanderbilt.Edu Mon May 9 12:03:57 2016 From: thomas.j.palmeri at Vanderbilt.Edu (Thomas Palmeri) Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 11:03:57 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral Fellowships in Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience at Vanderbilt University Message-ID: <28701D8E-CE80-418F-8673-EC5F8591E678@vanderbilt.edu> Postdoctoral Fellowships in Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience at Vanderbilt University We eagerly seek postdoctoral fellows to join an NIH-funded project in model-based cognitive neuroscience. Applicants will join a collaboration at Vanderbilt between Thomas Palmeri, Jeffrey Schall, and Gordon Logan linking cognitive models with neural data, with the aim of developing and testing models that explain the behavioral and neural dynamics of perceptual decision making, visual search, and cognitive control. Projects variously combine cognitive modeling, neural modeling, neurophysiology and electrophysiology, and eye movements. The ideal applicant will have expertise in one or more of these areas and wish to develop new expertise linking these areas together in unique ways. Research facilities include computer workstations, laboratory behavioral testing stations, eye trackers, and a shared 6000-core / 500TB compute cluster at Vanderbilt?s ACCRE for analyses and modeling. Candidates can hold a Ph.D. in psychology, neuroscience, computer science, mathematics, engineering, or related disciplines. Candidates should have demonstrated skills in computer programming and statistical analyses; some background in computational modeling is strongly desired. Start date is negotiable, but preference will be given to candidates who can begin within six months. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis as they arrive. Salary will be based on NIH postdoctoral scale; we anticipate a three-year fellowship, pending annual review and reappointment. Applicants should send a cover letter with a brief research statement, a CV, and names and email addresses of three references to thomas.j.palmeri at vanderbilt.edu. ------------- Thomas Palmeri Professor of Psychology co-Director of Scientific Computing 507 Wilson Hall Vanderbilt University thomas.j.palmeri at vanderbilt.edu http://catlab.psy.vanderbilt.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lciti at essex.ac.uk Mon May 9 09:58:58 2016 From: lciti at essex.ac.uk (Luca Citi) Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 14:58:58 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: JOB: Two permanent academic positions - outstanding applicants in BCI and Neural Engineering invited Message-ID: <573097A2.5060202@essex.ac.uk> The Essex Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering laboratory of the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering of the University of Essex (UK) is happy to announce two permanent academic positions of Lecturer / Senior Lecturer / Reader within the school. The lectureships are formally in the general area of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, but, following the rapid expansion and the international visibility of our work in the Biomedical, Neural and Medical engineering (explicitly identified in REF 2014 feedback from the panel as one of the strengths in the school), applicants in the areas associated with the Essex BCI-NE lab will also be most welcome. Note that Lecturer is equivalent to a US assistant professor and Senior Lecturer/Reader are equivalent to a US associate professor. Readerships are awarded for particularly outstanding achievements in research. For more information on the positions and to apply please see the job details at http://bit.ly/1WkqADe . For more information about the Essex BCI-NE lab see the lab?s web site at http://essexbcis.uk/ . For more information about the School of CSEE see http://www.essex.ac.uk/csee/ . From r.herzallah at aston.ac.uk Sun May 8 15:54:28 2016 From: r.herzallah at aston.ac.uk (Herzallah, Randa) Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 19:54:28 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: =?windows-1252?q?_Fully_funded_PhD_position_on_?= =?windows-1252?q?=93Surprise=94_in_Smart_City_Data_Analytics?= In-Reply-To: <94495B92000C514BAE815CD3A0DAD6D97ABC2653@exch-mb-g50-02.campus.aston.ac.uk> References: <94495B92000C514BAE815CD3A0DAD6D97ABC2653@exch-mb-g50-02.campus.aston.ac.uk> Message-ID: <94495B92000C514BAE815CD3A0DAD6D97ABC2672@exch-mb-g50-02.campus.aston.ac.uk> Fully funded PhD studentship in Aston University, UK http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANN823/surprise-in-smart-city-data-analytics/ Applications are invited for a three year Postgraduate studentship, supported by the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to be undertaken within the Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group at Aston University. The successful applicant will join an established experimental group working on signal processing and probabilistic modelling and control of complex dynamical systems. The studentship is offered in collaboration with Living PlanIT SA. The position is available to start in October 2016 (subject to negotiation) Financial Support This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the home/EU fees rate plus a maintenance allowance (?14,296 in 2016/17). Applicants from outside the EU may apply for this studentship but will need to pay the difference between the ?Home/EU? and the ?Overseas? tuition fees (approximately ?12,000 per annum). Confirmation that this additional funding support is in place will be required as part of the application process. Background of the Project In collaboration with Living PlanIT SA, this project will focus on the data analytics, interactive visualisation and the automatic detection of surprise (anomalous behaviour) under dynamic and non-stationary situations. Using mathematical models derived from data sampled from an urban scene, this project will explore departures from expected normal behaviour of small cohorts of individuals. The analysis of video and image streams supplemented by smart phone and social media sources of information will be used to derive human-interpretable visualisation of mass information. The project will explore principled information-theoretic measures of ?surprise? denoting expected departures of predicted behaviour, which could be used as alerts feeding into decision making systems to inform town authorities or planners or control systems managing the urban environment. Person Specification The successful applicant should have a first class or upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification in areas such as Electrical & Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics or Applied Physics. Preferred skill requirements include knowledge/experience of signal processing, machine learning, time series methodologies, data mining, probabilistic modelling, and computational analysis. We would particularly like to encourage applications from women seeking to progress their academic careers. Aston University is committed to the principles of the Athena SWAN Charter, recognised recently by a prestigious Silver Award to EAS, and we pride ourselves on our vibrant, friendly and supportive working environment and family atmosphere. For informal enquiries about this project and other opportunities within the Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group, contact Randa Herzallah by email r.herzallah at aston.ac.uk or David Lowe d.lowe at aston.ac.uk The online application form, reference forms and details of entry requirements, including English language are available here. Applications must also be accompanied by a short research proposal including a brief relevant literature review linked to this project, and explaining how your knowledge and experience will benefit the project. ____________________________________________ Dr Randa Herzallah Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group Aston University Aston Triangle Birmingham, B4 7ET UK tel: +44 121 204 3533 fax: +44 121 204 3685 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.herzallah at aston.ac.uk Sun May 8 15:39:34 2016 From: r.herzallah at aston.ac.uk (Herzallah, Randa) Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 19:39:34 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position on ECG-Derived Biosignals Message-ID: <94495B92000C514BAE815CD3A0DAD6D97ABC2646@exch-mb-g50-02.campus.aston.ac.uk> Fully funded PhD studentship in Aston University, UK http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANN825/ecg-derived-biosignals/ Applications are invited for a three year Postgraduate studentship, supported by the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to be undertaken within the Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group at Aston University. The successful applicant will join an established experimental group working on signal processing and probabilistic modelling and control of complex dynamical systems. The studentship is offered in collaboration with Isansys Ltd, Oxford. The position is available to start in October 2016 (subject to negotiation) Financial Support This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the home/EU fees rate plus a maintenance allowance (?14,296 in 2016/17). Applicants from outside the EU may apply for this studentship but will need to pay the difference between the ?Home/EU? and the ?Overseas? tuition fees (approximately ?12,000 per annum). Confirmation that this additional funding support is in place will be required as part of the application process. Background of the Project In collaboration with Isansys Ltd, Oxford, this project will focus on detailed linear and nonlinear signal processing of biomedical time series derived directly from low-level sensor data. The intention is to reliably and robustly extract physiological parameters linked to raw electrocardiogram signals which would be beneficial for monitoring, prognostic prediction and advisory decision support in a clinical environment. Current approaches for extracting physiological parameters such as breathing rate, heart rate variability and other novel indicators of well-being such as the effort of breathing and signal complexity for example, will be developed to work with a full age range of patients in a hospital situation. Predictive modelling approaches in this nonstationary and uncertain environment using such indicators will be researched towards improving the capability to forewarn of impending patient distress. Person Specification The successful applicant should have a first class or upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification in areas such as Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Applied Physics or Biomedical Engineering. Preferred skill requirements include knowledge/experience of signal processing, filters, machine learning, time series methodologies, data mining and computational analysis. We would particularly like to encourage applications from women seeking to progress their academic careers. Aston University is committed to the principles of the Athena SWAN Charter, recognised recently by a prestigious Silver Award to EAS, and we pride ourselves on our vibrant, friendly and supportive working environment and family atmosphere. For informal enquiries about this project and other opportunities within the Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group, contact Randa Herzallah by email r.herzallah at aston.ac.uk or David Lowe d.lowe at aston.ac.uk The online application form, reference forms and details of entry requirements, including English language are available here. Applications must also be accompanied by a short research proposal including a brief relevant literature review linked to this project, and explaining how your knowledge and experience will benefit the project. ____________________________________________ Dr Randa Herzallah Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group Aston University Aston Triangle Birmingham, B4 7ET UK tel: +44 121 204 3533 fax: +44 121 204 3685 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sml at essex.ac.uk Wed May 11 12:05:41 2016 From: sml at essex.ac.uk (Lucas, Simon M) Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 16:05:41 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Six faculty posts (deadline early June) Message-ID: We are looking to expand our faculty with people of outstanding ability who are passionate about research and education. We have six permanent posts available at Lecturer (Assistant Prof) or Senior Lecturer / Reader (Associate Prof) level, depending on experience. The positions available are in: Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (2 Posts) Artificial Intelligence and Computational Finance (Reader only) Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (IoT) Telecoms Engineering Electronic Engineering Closing dates differ slightly depending on the post, but are in very early June. Preferred starting date: September 1, 2016 (negotiable) Salary: Lecturer: ?38,896-?46,414 per annum Reader/Senior Lecturer: ?49,230-?55,389 per annum More details: http://tinyurl.com/cseejobs Best wishes, Simon Lucas Professor Simon Lucas Head of School Computer Science and Electronic Engineering University of Essex, UK https://www.essex.ac.uk/csee/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Vittorio.Murino at iit.it Mon May 9 14:07:28 2016 From: Vittorio.Murino at iit.it (Vittorio Murino) Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 20:07:28 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Announcing RENVISION workshop - 26 July 2016, Genoa, Italy Message-ID: Apologise for multiple copies ======================================== *Call for Participation RENVISION workshop* Genova, 26th July 2016 This workshop will constitute a unique opportunity to learn about the R&D performed in the project ?Retina-inspired ENcoding for advanced VISION tasks (RENVISION)?, funded by the European Union FP7 FET (Future Emerging technology) proactive program Neuro-Bio-Inspired Systems Call 9, /to investigate pan-retinal signal processing at high spatio-temporal resolution, through neuroscientific, optical and computational approaches involving advanced pattern recognition and machine learning technologies/. In addition to the talks of RENVISION partners, presentations of invited speakers are also included, such as: Olivier Marre (Vision Institute, Paris) Katrin Franke (Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, T?bingen), Vidhyasankar Krishnamoorthy (University Medical Center, Goettingen) Stefano Panzeri and Arno Onken (Italian Institute of technology IIT, Rovereto) We believe that this will be a unique opportunity to discuss and develop very cross-disciplinary research in the field of biological and computational vision. This 1-day workshop will be held on *26th July 2016 at the Italian Institute of technology (IIT), Genoa (Italy)*, and the participation is free of charge. To register follow the link http://www.renvision-fp7.eu/index.php/renvision-workshop, deadline for registration is 20^th June 2016. The detailed working program and the list of invited speakers and contributions can be found on the webpage http://www.renvision-fp7.eu/index.php/renvision-workshop. For any further information send an email to francesca.cella.zanacchi at gmail.com Looking forward to see you in Genoa! ___________________________________ -- Vittorio Murino ******************************************* Prof. Vittorio Murino, Ph.D. Director PAVIS - Pattern Analysis & Computer Vision IIT Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Via Morego 30 16163 Genova, Italy Phone: +39 010 71781 504 Mobile: +39 329 6508554 Fax: +39 010 71781 236 E-mail:vittorio.murino at iit.it Secretary: Sara Curreli email: sara.curreli at iit.it Phone: +39 010 71781 917 http://www.iit.it/pavis ******************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From newsletter at saso-conference.org Wed May 11 06:22:45 2016 From: newsletter at saso-conference.org (=?utf-8?b?SmFuLVBoaWxpcHAgU3RlZ2jDtmZlcg==?=) Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 12:22:45 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Joint Call for Workshop Papers of SASO 2016 and ICCAC 2016 (FAS*W) Message-ID: ************************************************************************* FAS*W 2016 (SASO and ICCAC) Joint Call For Workshop Papers International Workshops on Foundations and Applications of Self-* Systems (FAS*W) Augsburg, Germany, September 12 & 16, 2016 Workshops at FAS*: DSPL: 9th International Workshop on Dynamic Software Product Lines. Variability at Runtime SASO^ST: 4th International Workshop on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organising Socio-Technical Systems AMGCC'16: 4th International Workshop on Autonomic Management of high performance Grid and Cloud Computing QA4SASO: 3rd Edition of the IEEE Workshop on Quality Assurance for Self-adaptive, Self-organising Systems DSS: The 2nd International Workshop on Data-driven Self-regulating Systems SOCO: 1st International Workshop on Self-Organising Construction eCAS: 1st eCAS Workshop on Engineering Collective Adaptive Systems ISCW: 1st International Workshop on Information Security and Privacy for Mobile Cloud Computing, Web and Internet of Things Submission deadline for all workshops: July 4, 2016 http://fasstar2016.informatik.uni-augsburg.de/ http://iccac2016.se.rit.edu/ http://uni-augsburg.de/saso2016 @SASO2016Conf ************************************************************************* 9th International Workshop on Dynamic Software Product Lines. Variability at Runtime (DSPL) Friday 16th September 2016 http://sites.lero.ie/dspl2016 Scientific Organizers * Jesper Andersson, Linnaeus University, Sweden * Rafael Capilla, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain * Holger Eichelberger, University of Hildesheim, Germany The concept of adaptation and self-adaptation of systems, in particular at runtime has caught the attention of the research community at large, both inside the domain of Software Product Lines (SPL) as well as outside SPL in areas like models-at-runtime, selfadaptive systems, ubiquitous computing, and specific application domains where runtime adaptation and post-deployment activities are required. Dynamic software product lines (DSPL) were established as a research area under the assumption that product line concepts can be very usefully applied in this context. Since its inception the DSPL-workshop addresses the mission of supporting adaptive and adaptable system development based on product line concepts. The lack of maturity and consolidation of DSPL approaches stills needs significant research effort to advance the state of the art. Our focus is to extend the community of researchers and to provide a forum for the discussion of current research on related topics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4th International Workshop on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organising Socio-Technical Systems (SASO^ST) Friday 16th September 2016 http://sasost.isse.de Scientific Organizers * Gerrit Anders, University of Augsburg * Jean Botev, University of Luxembourg, Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication, Computer Science and Communications Research Unit * Markus Esch, Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE The design and operation of computer systems has traditionally been driven by technical aspects and considerations. However, the usage characteristics of information and communication systems are both implicitly and explicitly determined by social interaction and the social graph of users. This aspect is becoming more and more evident with the increasing popularity of social network applications on the internet. This workshop will address all aspects of self-adaptive and self-organising mechanisms in socio-technical systems, covering different perspectives of this exciting research area ranging from normative and trust management systems to socio-inspired design strategies for distributed algorithms, collaboration platforms and communication protocols. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4th International Workshop on Autonomic Management of high performance Grid and Cloud Computing (AMGCC'16) Monday 12th September 2016 http://htcaas.kisti.re.kr/wiki/index.php/AMGCC16 Scientific Organizers * Jaeyoung Choi, Soongsil University, Korea * Soonwook Hwang, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Korea Grid computing leverages enormous computing resources scattered over the internet in order to integrate and form a large-scale computing platform to solve grand-scale problems. Grid computing also has had great influence on the cloud computing besides the virtualization technology, which logically decouples the physical computing resources with the computing system. Consequently, the cloud computing provides cost-effective, fast, and unlimited virtualized resources for large-scale applications. Cloud computing is also used as "utility computing" where the computing services are provided on-demand and as needs based. Thus, it is commonly deployed for various applications these days. Managing hybrid, virtualized computing resources in a large-scale cloud computing environments, however, still leaves a lot of research to be conducted. Furthermore, autonomous managements of resources in such a large scale federated hybrid computing infrastructures are crucial. In this workshop, we would like to bring researcher around the world to discuss and communicate the challenges and research results in the design, implementation, and evaluation of novel autonomous hybrid cloud resource management systems, and the theory and practice of cloud and grid resource management. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Third Edition of the IEEE Workshop on Quality Assurance for Self-adaptive, Self-organising Systems (QA4SASO) Monday 12th September 2016 http://qa4saso.isse.de Scientific Organizers * Benedikt Eberhardinger, Augsburg University, Germany, Institute for Software & Systems Engineering * Franz Wotawa, Technical University of Graz, Austria, Institute for Software Technology * Hella Seebach, Augsburg University, Germany, Institute for Software & Systems Engineering Developing self-adaptive, self-organising systems (SASO) that fulfil the requirements of different stakeholders is no simple matter. Quality assurance is required at each phase of the entire development process, starting from requirements elicitation, system architecture design, agent design, and finally in the implementation of the system. The quality of the artefacts from each development phase affects the rest of the system, since all parts are closely related to each other. Furthermore, the shift of adaption decisions from design-time to run-time -- necessitated by the need of the systems to adapt to changing circumstances -- makes it difficult, but even more essential, to assure high quality standards in these kind of systems. Accordingly, the analysis and evaluation of these self-* systems has to take into account the specific operational context to achieve high quality standards. The necessity to investigate this field has already been recognized and addressed in different communities but there exists so far no platform to bring all these communities together. Therefore, the workshop provides within its third edition an established open stage for discussions about the different aspects of quality assurance for self-adaptive, self-organising systems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2nd International Workshop on Data-driven Self-regulating Systems (DSS) Monday 12th September 2016 http://dss2016.inn.ac/ Scientific Organizers * Evangelos Pournaras, ETH Zurich * Akshay Uttama Nambi S.N., Delft University of Technology * Nik Bessis, Edge Hill University Ormskirk/UK The emergence of pervasive and ubiquitous technologies together with social media has resulted in unprecedented opportunities to reason about the complexity of our society based on magnitudes of data. Embedded ICT technologies mandate the functionality and operations of several techno-socio-economic systems such as traffic systems, transportation systems, Smart Grids, power/gas/water networks, etc. It is estimated that over 50 billion connected smart devices will be online by the year 2020. Moreover, social media provide invaluable insights about the complexity of social interactions and how these interactions influence the sustainability of several ICT-enabled techno-socio-economic systems. These observations show that regulating online the complex systems of our nowadays digital society is a grand challenge. Regulation concerns trade-offs such as the alignment of technical requirements, e.g. robustness, fault-tolerance, safety and security, with social or environmental requirements, for instance, fairness in the utilization of energy resources. The scale of nowadays data cannot tackle the challenge by itself as data may convey ungrounded correlations and biased predictions. Smart, autonomic and selfregulating mechanisms are required for filtering data streams in real-time and transform them to valuable information based on which intelligent adaptive decisions can be made in a decentralized fashion under a plethora of operational scenarios. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st International Workshop on Self-Organising Construction (SOCO) Friday 16th September 2016 http://vonmammen.org/soco2016/ Scientific Organizers * Sebastian von Mammen, University of Augsburg * Ingo Mauser, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology * Heiko Hamann, University of Paderborn Our key theme is self-organising construction and we aim at cumulating, presenting, discussing and advancing new research results from theory and practice as well as novel scientific concepts and methodologies. Originally inspired by nest construction in social insects, the general concept relies on a large number of agents that coordinate their construction efforts by prompting and reacting to local stimuli. Very recently, with the wake of robotic swarms and novel material processing approaches, including for instance 3D printing techniques and innovative deployment of carbon fibres, self-organising construction is quickly gaining tremendous transformative significance in the context of various design and construction processes. These include also the construction, extension and renovation of architectural buildings, engineering design, industrial assembly and manufacture, and landscape architecture. Aligned with the host conference, we solicit for submissions that highlight the design and management of selforganising construction from a computational perspective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st eCAS Workshop on Engineering Collective Adaptive Systems (eCAS) Monday 12th September 2016 http://ecas2016.apice.unibo.it/ Scientific Organizers * Jacob Beal, Raytheon BBN Technologies, USA * Nicola Capodieci, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy Collective Adaptive Systems (CAS) is a broad term that describes large scale systems that comprise of many units/nodes, each of which may have their own individual properties, objectives and actions. Decision-making in such a system is distributed and possibly highly dispersed, and interaction between the units may lead to the emergence of unexpected phenomena. CASs are open, in that nodes may enter or leave the collective at any time, and boundaries between CASs are fluid. The units can be highly heterogeneous (computers, robots, agents, devices, biological entities, etc.), each operating at different temporal and spatial scales, and having different (potentially conflicting) objectives and goals, even if often the system has a global goal that is pursued by means of collective actions. Our society increasingly depends on such systems, in which collections of heterogeneous 'technological nodes' are tightly entangled with human and social structures to form 'artificial societies.' Yet, to properly exploit them, we need to develop a deeper scientific understanding of the principles by which they operate, in order to better design them. This workshop solicits papers that address new methodologies, theories and principles that can be used in order to develop a better understanding of the fundamental factors underpinning the engineering and operation of such systems, so that we can better design, build, and analyse such systems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st International Workshop on Information Security and Privacy for Mobile Cloud Computing, Web and Internet of Things (ISCW) Friday 16th September 2016 https://sites.google.com/site/iscw2016/ Scientific Organizers * Dharma P. Agrawal, University of Cincinnati, USA * B. B. Gupta, National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, Haryana, India * Yaser Jararweh, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan. ISCW-2016 is the first International Workshop on Information Security and Privacy for Mobile Cloud Computing, Web and Internet of Things. The aim of ISCW-2015 is to provide a premier international platform for wide range of professions including scholars, researchers, academicians and Industry people to discuss and present the most recent security and privacy challenges and developments in 'Mobile Cloud Computing, Web and Internet of Things' from the perspective of providing security awareness and its best practices for the real world. This conference is open to submit novel and high quality research contributions in the field of information security and privacy. We anticipate that this conference will open new entrance for further research and technology improvements in this important area. From missura.olana at gmail.com Thu May 12 07:50:43 2016 From: missura.olana at gmail.com (Olana Missura) Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 07:50:43 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: ECML-PKDD 2016: The registration is now open! Message-ID: ECML-PKDD 2016: The registration is now open! All the information with regard to registration is now available at http://ecmlpkdd2016.org/attending.html#Registration. Registration is managed by Rivatour, a travel agency working in partnership with the Congress Centre. Please note that any accompanying person should submit a separate registration. Please note that at least one author for each accepted conference paper must register within July 10th. This registration is seen as a commitment to present the paper at the conference. Failure to register within this deadline will result in the paper being excluded from the proceedings and the conference program. Hope to see you there! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Wed May 11 03:49:54 2016 From: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de (Kerstin Schwarzwaelder) Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 09:49:54 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Reminder: Call for applications: Brains for Brains Young Researchers' Computational Neuroscience Award 2016 In-Reply-To: <5718CE47.5070208@fz-juelich.de> References: <5718CE47.5070208@fz-juelich.de> Message-ID: <27985be7-8551-fe57-fb03-7112393d6ad6@fz-juelich.de> Dear colleagues, Please let me remind you that, for the seventh time, the Bernstein Association for Computational Neuroscience is announcing the "Brains for Brains Young Researchers' Computational Neuroscience Award". The call is open for researchers of any nationality who have contributed to a peer reviewed publication (as coauthor) or peer reviewed conference abstract (as first author) that was submitted before starting their doctoral studies, is written in English and was accepted or published in 2015 or 2016. The award is endowed with a travel grant of 2.000 ? to cover a trip to Germany, including participation in the Bernstein Conference 2016 in Berlin (www.bernstein-conference.de), and an individually planned visit to up to two German research institutions in Computational Neuroscience. Deadline for application is May 20, 2016 (5:00 p.m. CET). Detailed information about the application procedure can be found under: www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-association/brains-for-brains-2016 For inquiries please contact bernstein.network at fz-juelich.de Best regards, Kerstin Schwarzw?lder -- Dr. Kerstin Schwarzw?lder Scientific Coordination / Management Officer Please note: Our email addresses have changed. Please use k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience | Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Branch Office of the Forschungszentrum J?lich at the University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9A | 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: (+49) 0761 203 9589 mail: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de web: www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dchau at cs.cmu.edu Wed May 11 19:41:16 2016 From: dchau at cs.cmu.edu (Polo Chau) Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 19:41:16 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: KDD'16 IDEA - Call for Vis/HCI/ML/DM/DB Papers Message-ID: <76E07AC2-F59A-43CF-881D-7A10835A7CE6@cs.cmu.edu> * * * KDD'16 IDEA - Call for Vis/HCI/ML/DM/DB Papers *** Note: this year we also welcome previously-published works *** IDEA -- Interactive Data Exploration and Analysis -- is a full-day workshop organized in conjunction with the The ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge, Discovery and Data Mining in San Francisco, USA, on 4 August 2016. Since 2013, the annul IDEA workshop has grown to become one of the largest KDD workshops, with hundreds of researchers in attendance last year. Join us this year in San Francisco! Paper submission deadline: Fri, May 27, 2016, 23:59 Hawaii Time http://poloclub.gatech.edu/idea2016/ We had three great IDEAs (pun intended), at KDD'13 (Chicago), KDD'14 (NYC) and KDD'15 (Sydney), with keynotes by Marti Hearst (UC Berkeley), Haesun Park (Georgia Tech), Ben Shneiderman (UMD), Aditya Parameswaran (UIUC), Geoff Webb (Monash University) and Jure Leskovec (Stanford University). http://poloclub.gatech.edu/idea2015/ http://poloclub.gatech.edu/idea2014/ http://poloclub.gatech.edu/idea2013/ * Workshop Goals We aim to address the development of data mining techniques that allow users to interactively explore their data, receiving near-instant updates to every requested refinement. Our focus and emphasis is on interactivity and effective integration of techniques from data mining, visualization and human-computer interaction. In other words, we explore how the best of these different, related domains can be combined such that the sum is greater than the parts. * Topics of Interest include, but are not limited to - Interactive data mining algorithms - Visualizations for interactive data mining - Demonstrations of interactive data mining - Quick, high-level data analysis methods - Any-time data mining algorithms - Visual analytics - Methods that allow meaningful intermediate results - Data surrogates - On-line algorithms - Adaptive stream mining algorithms - Theoretical/complexity analysis of instant data mining - Learning from user input for action replication/prediction - Active learning / mining * Submission Information We welcome both novel research papers, demo papers, work-in-progress papers, visionary papers, and relevant work that has been previously published, or will be presented at the main conference. All papers will be peer reviewed. Submissions should be in PDF, written in English, with a maximum of 10 pages. Shorter papers are welcome. The accepted papers will be posted on the workshop website and will not appear in the KDD proceedings. Format your paper using the standard double-column ACM Proceedings Style http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates Submit at EasyChair: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=idea16 At least one author of an accepted paper must attend the workshop to present the work. * Important Dates Submission Fri, May 27, 2016, 23:59 Hawaii Time Notification Wed, June 22, 2016 Camera-ready Wed, July 6, 2016 Workshop Sun, August 14, 2016 * Further information and Contact Website: http://poloclub.gatech.edu/idea2016/ E-mail: idea.kdd (at) gmail.com Best regards, Polo Chau, Jilles Vreeken, Matthijs van Leeuwen, Dafna Shahaf and Christos Faloutsos Cheers, Polo -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk Sun May 15 02:52:37 2016 From: ahu at cs.stir.ac.uk (Dr Amir Hussain) Date: Sun, 15 May 2016 07:52:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers: 8th International Conference on Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2016), Beijing, 28-30 Nov 2016: http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bics-2016/index.html Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS (Deadline: 10 June 2016) and SPECIAL SESSION/WORKSHOP PROPOSALS (Deadline June 1, 2016): (with apologies for any cross postings - please forward to any interested colleagues, thank you) The 8th International Conference on Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2016), is being organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Research Centre for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Institute of Automation) in Beijing, November 28-30, 2016 - in partnership with the University of Stirling (Scotland, UK), and with technical co-sponsorship of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society: http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bics-2016/index.html BICS 2016 is being held in Beijing, China, as a sequel of BICS 2004 - 2015. The first BICS 2004 was held in Stirling, Scotland, UK and the last BICS 2015 in Hefei, Anhui, China. BICS 2016 aims to provide a high-level international forum for scientists, engineers, and educators to present the state-of-the-art in brain-inspired cognitive systems research and applications in diverse fields. It will bring together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic, syntactic and computational methods both to understand the prodigious processing properties of biological systems and, specifically, of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance computational methods towards ever higher levels of cognitive competence. The conference will feature plenary lectures given by world renowned scholars, regular sessions with broad coverage, and special sessions/workshops focusing on popular and timely topics. All accepted BICS 2016 papers will be published in conference proceedings of the Springer LNAI Book series. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the leading (ISI SCI indexed) Cognitive Computation Journal (published by Springer Nature: http://Springer.com/12559 - first five year ISI impact factor: 1.73) BICS'2016 TOPICS OF INTEREST: These include, but are not limited to the following: 1. Biologically Inspired Systems (BICS-BIS) - Brain inspired systems - Brain inspired vision - Brain inspired audition and sound processing - Brain inspired other sensory modalities - Brain inspired motion processing - Brain inspired robotics - Brain inspired adaptive and control systems - Brain inspired evolutionary systems - Brain inspired oscillatory systems - Brain inspired signal processing - Brain inspired learning - Neuromorphic systems 2. Cognitive Neuroscience (BICS-CNS) - Cognitive neuroscience - Cognitive neuroscience of vision - Cognitive neuroscience of non-vision sensory modalities - Cognitive neuroscience of volition - Systems neuroscience - Attentional mechanisms - Affective systems - Language - Cortical models - Sub-cortical models - Cerebellar models - Neural correlates 3. Models of Consciousness (BICS-MoC) - World awareness - Self-awareness - Global workspace theory - Imagination - Qualia models - Virtual machine approaches - Formal models fo consciousness - Control theoretical models - Developmental/Infant models - Will and volition - Emotion and affect - Philosophical implications - Neurophysiological grounding - Enactive approaches - Heterophenomenology - Analyitic/Synthetic phenomenology 4. Neural Computation (BICS-NC) - Neuro-computational systems - Hybrid neural systems - Neural learning - Neural control systems - Neural signal processing - Architectures of neural computation - Neural devices - Neural perception and pattern classifiers - Neuro-fuzzy systems - Evolutionary neural networks - Biological neural network models - Applications - Others BICS 2016 SPECIAL SESSIONS AND WORKSHOPS: CALL FOR PROPOSALS To enhance the technical program and open the door to more specific cutting-edge topics and areas related to Brain-inspired Cognitive Systems, BICS 2016 welcomes proposals for timely Special Sessions and Workshops (which will be included in the Conference programme, in addition to regular sessions). Special sessions/workshops can cover subjects or cross-subjects belonging to any relevant BICS topic(s) of interest, or novel topic(s) related to BICS topics of interest. Papers submitted for special sessions and workshops will be peer-reviewed with the same criteria as for regular sessions. All proposals for BICS2016 Special Sessions and Workshops should contain the following information: -Title of the special session or workshop -Names, affiliations, email addresses and short bios of proposers -Description of the proposed session or workshop (including aims and scope) -List of 6-10 potential contributors Researchers interested in organizing Special Sessions/Workshops are invited to submit a formal proposal, which will be evaluated based on the timeliness of the topic, its uniqueness, and qualifications of the proposers. A tentative accept/reject decision on the proposal will be sent to proposers within one week after its receipt by the BICS 2016 Special Sessions and Workshops Chair. Accepted Special Sessions/Workshops will be listed on the website. Formal proposals (including any queries) should be submitted to the BICS 2016 Special Sessions & Workshops Chair: Dr. Jingpeng Li ( jli at cs.stir.ac.uk ). Special Sessions/Workshops proposals deadline: 1 June 2016 PAPER SUBMISSION: Papers should be limited to 8-10 pages in Springer LNCS format. Details can be found in http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bics-2016/submission.htm To submit, please login at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bics2016 IMPORTANT DATES: Paper submission deadline: June 10, 2016 Acceptance notification: August 10, 2016 Camera-ready papers due: September 10, 2016 Conference dates: November 28-30, 2016 Special Session/Workshop proposals deadline: June 1 , 2016 (acceptance notification: 8 June 2016) BICS 2016 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chairs: Cheng-Lin Liu (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Amir Hussain (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Program Chairs: Bin Luo (Anhui University, China) Kay Chen Tan (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Publicity Chairs: Cesare Alippi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Haibo He (University of Rhode Island, USA) Hussein Abbass (University of New South Wales - Canberra - Australia) Erik Cambria (NTU, Singapore) Local Organization Chair: Yi Zeng (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Publication Chair: Zhaoxiang Zhang (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Special Sessions and Workshops Chair: Jingpeng Li (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Secretariat: bics2016 at ia.ac.cn We looking forward to seeing you at BICS'2016! -- The University achieved an overall 5 stars in the QS World University Rankings 2015 The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kriegstein at cbs.mpg.de Fri May 13 09:48:20 2016 From: kriegstein at cbs.mpg.de (Katharina von Kriegstein) Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 15:48:20 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc Position in Computational Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, Germany Message-ID: <1952419827.50821.1463147300940.JavaMail.zimbra@cbs.mpg.de> Applications are welcomed for a postdoctoral research position at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI-CBS) in Leipzig, Germany in collaboration with the Technical University Dresden, Germany. The objective of the postdoctoral research project is to use computational modelling and neuroimaging to work towards a novel model for cortico-subcortical interactions for human communication signals. The project is funded by the ERC-consolidator grant SENSOCOM (http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/199655_en.html). The position will be jointly supervised by Katharina von Kriegstein at the MPI-CBS and Stefan Kiebel at the TU Dresden. The MPI-CBS offers a unique research environment with a 7.0 T MRI scanner, several 3.0 T MRI scanners, a 306 channels MEG system, TMS/tDCS laboratories, several EEG suites, and eye-tracking labs. All facilities and data analyses are supported by experienced IT specialists and physicists. The TU Dresden is one out of eleven German Universities of Excellence. It houses a state-of-the art neuroimaging centre with a strong focus on computational modelling and access to the TU Dresden high-performance computing clusters. Besides an excellent infrastructure, both centres offer an international and friendly environment with researchers from diverse backgrounds. The position is ideal for candidates interested in research at the interface between computational modelling and experimental neuroimaging. The candidates must have a PhD (or equivalent) in computational neuroscience, experimental psychology, or a related field, and should be able to demonstrate a consistently outstanding academic record, including publications. The ideal candidate will have expertise in computational neuroscience, physics, mathematics, or similar with a strong interest in implementing computational models (e.g., Bayesian filtering, hierarchical dynamic models, predictive coding) and testing these with neuroimaging experiments. The starting date for the position is flexible. Initially for two years, the position offers the possibility of extension for up to four years. Salary depends on experience and is based on regulations of the Max Planck Society. To apply, please include all documents in one PDF-file in the following order: CV, contact information of two referees, a brief statement describing your personal qualifications and future research interests, copies of up to three of your publications. Applications with the subject heading "CM 16 PD" should be sent via email to: personal at cbs.mpg.de. Closing date for applications is the 12th June 2016. Informal enquiries regarding the post should be directed to: Prof. Dr. Katharina von Kriegstein (kriegstein at cbs.mpg.de). For more information about the groups see: Prof. Katharina von Kriegstein: http://www.cbs.mpg.de/independent-research-groups/human-communication Prof. Stefan Kiebel: https://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/fakultaet_mathematik_und_naturwissenschaften/fachrichtung_psychologie/i1/ni A link to the position description is available here: http://www.cbs.mpg.de/454795/job_full_offer_10498685?c=7390 The MPI-CBS is an equal opportunities employer, committed to the advancement of individuals without regard to ethnicity, religion, gender, or disability. --- Katharina von Kriegstein Max Planck Research Group Leader Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Stephanstr. 1A, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Professor of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience Humboldt University of Berlin Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany Phone +49 (0) 341-9940-2476 Fax +49 (0) 341-9940-2448 http://www.cbs.mpg.de/independent-research-groups/human-communication From Anthony.Pipe at uwe.ac.uk Thu May 12 15:43:44 2016 From: Anthony.Pipe at uwe.ac.uk (Tony Pipe) Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 20:43:44 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Professor in Embedded Cognitive AI for Robotics at Bristol Robotics Laboratory: final re-advertisement Message-ID: <5734DCF0.8000808@uwe.ac.uk> The Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) research-and-innovation pipeline is now experiencing unprecedented growth, evidenced by substantial new research opportunities appearing across the UK and EU funding landscape. You will champion an exciting new research theme in BRL; embedded cognitive AI for robots engaged in close-proximity Human-Robot Interaction. You will build up an expert team by utilising the existing world-renowned resources at BRL, and by creating new ones. We have identified two critical application domains in which to pursue this work: i) Health-Care Technologies (HCT) focused on robotics for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), including elderly/infirm care, rehabilitation, pre and post cancer surgery support; ii) Advanced Flexible Manufacturing (AFM) including Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and elements of ?Industrie 4.0?. BRL already has an excellent internationally recognised track record in these areas, including strong connection into the related UK, EU and international research and advanced industrial communities, but critical work remains to be done. You will bring your expert knowledge to bear on our existing work in bi-directional multi-modal interactions between a human and a robot to develop a robot ?theory of mind? in order for the machine to build notions of human wants and expectations, as well as modelling its own Beliefs, Desires and Intentions. Along with the ability to vary levels of autonomy to suit a given interaction context, these are vital issues in making robots genuinely helpful, supportive and natural to interact with and, ultimately, acceptable to users. To achieve the urgently required advances in these areas, you will ideally have an established track record in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for complex on-line cognition, requiring sophisticated interaction with humans during task execution. However, we welcome applications from gifted researchers from strongly linked disciplines who are fully committed to developing the area of research outlined above. Please note, this role is equivalent to a Full Professor role at a US University. Closing date: 31 May 2016 Salary: negotiable For more information, visit: http://www.brl.ac.uk/jobsatbrl.aspx (towards the bottom of that address there is a "How to apply" link). Tony Pipe Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems Deputy Director: Bristol Robotics Laboratory Anthony.Pipe at uwe.ac.uk www.brl.ac.uk From j.jordan at fz-juelich.de Fri May 13 13:46:33 2016 From: j.jordan at fz-juelich.de (Jakob Jordan) Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 19:46:33 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Reminder: Summer School "Advanced Scientific Programming in Python" in Reading, UK, September 5--11, 2016 Message-ID: <573612F9.6070608@fz-juelich.de> Reminder: Deadline for application is 23:59 UTC, May 15, 2016. Advanced Scientific Programming in Python ========================================= a Summer School by the G-Node, and the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have evolved, only few scientists have been trained to use them. As a result, instead of doing their research, they spend far too much time writing deficient code and reinventing the wheel. In this course we will present a selection of advanced programming techniques and best practices which are standard in the industry, but especially tailored to the needs of a programming scientist. Lectures are devised to be interactive and to give the students enough time to acquire direct hands-on experience with the materials. Students will work in pairs throughout the school and will team up to practice the newly learned skills in a real programming project ? an entertaining computer game. We use the Python programming language for the entire course. Python works as a simple programming language for beginners, but more importantly, it also works great in scientific simulations and data analysis. We show how clean language design, ease of extensibility, and the great wealth of open source libraries for scientific computing and data visualization are driving Python to become a standard tool for the programming scientist. This school is targeted at Master or PhD students and Post-docs from all areas of science. Competence in Python or in another language such as Java, C/C++, MATLAB, or Mathematica is absolutely required. Basic knowledge of Python and of a version control system such as git, subversion, mercurial, or bazaar is assumed. Participants without any prior experience with Python and/or git should work through the proposed introductory material before the course. We are striving hard to get a pool of students which is international and gender-balanced. You can apply online: https://python.g-node.org Application deadline: 23:59 UTC, May 15, 2016. Be sure to read the FAQ before applying. Participation is for free, i.e. no fee is charged! Participants however should take care of travel, living, and accommodation expenses by themselves. Travel grants may be available. Date & Location =============== September 5?11, 2016. Reading, UK Program ======= - Best Programming Practices ? Best practices for scientific programming ? Version control with git and how to contribute to open source projects with GitHub ? Best practices in data visualization - Software Carpentry ? Test-driven development ? Debugging with a debuggger ? Profiling code - Scientific Tools for Python ? Advanced NumPy - Advanced Python ? Decorators ? Context managers ? Generators - The Quest for Speed ? Writing parallel applications ? Interfacing to C with Cython ? Memory-bound problems and memory profiling ? Data containers: storage and fast access to large data - Practical Software Development ? Group project Preliminary Faculty =================== ? Francesc Alted, freelance consultant, author of PyTables, Spain ? Pietro Berkes, Enthought Inc., Cambridge, UK ? Zbigniew J?drzejewski-Szmek, Krasnow Institute, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA ? Eilif Muller, Blue Brain Project, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland ? Juan Nunez-Iglesias, Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative, University of Melbourne, Australia ? Rike-Benjamin Schuppner, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Germany ? Bartosz Tele?czuk, European Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience, CNRS, Paris, France ? St?fan van der Walt, Berkeley Institute for Data Science, UC Berkeley, CA, USA ? Nelle Varoquaux, Centre for Computational Biology Mines ParisTech, Institut Curie, U900 INSERM, Paris, France ? Tiziano Zito, freelance consultant, Germany Organizers ========== For the German Neuroinformatics Node of the INCF (G-Node) Germany: ? Tiziano Zito, freelance consultant, Germany ? Zbigniew J?drzejewski-Szmek, Krasnow Institute, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA ? Jakob Jordan, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Forschungszentrum J?lich GmbH, Germany For the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading UK: ? Etienne Roesch, Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, University of Reading, UK Website: https://python.g-node.org Contact: python-info at g-node.org -- Jakob Jordan Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) Computational and Systems Neuroscience & Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6) Theoretical Neuroscience J?lich Research Centre and JARA J?lich, Germany tel.: +49 2461 61-96450 http://www.csn.fz-juelich.de/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From ps629 at columbia.edu Mon May 16 17:18:24 2016 From: ps629 at columbia.edu (Paul Sajda) Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 17:18:24 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral Research Scientist Position in Neuroimaging and Neurostimulation Message-ID: <48B0BB11-A352-4079-AD9A-53E4DEDF6684@columbia.edu> The Laboratory for Intelligent Imaging and Neural Computing (LIINC) directed by Prof. Paul Sajda at Columbia University has an immediate opening for a Postdoctoral Research Scientist (Fellow) to participate in a project focused on building and characterizing an integrated closed-loop multimodal neuroimaging and neurostimulation system for use in humans. This is a joint project with the Medical University of South Carolina (Profs. Truman Brown and Mark George ) where we are building an EEG/fMRI/TMS instrument capable of real-time and on-line neurostimulation and imaging. Our long term goal is to use the instrument for both basic science and clinical applications. The successful applicant will be involved in both developing and testing the instrument as well as conducting novel scientific experiments and clinical studies. Applicants should have a background in several of the following area: Recording and analysis of simultaneous EEG and fMRI , real-time signal processing, recording and analysis of simultaneous EEG and TMS, instrumentation (digital and analog electronics), machine learning. A Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or Neuroscience is preferred. LIINC (liinc.bme.columbia.edu ) is within the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. We are part of a dynamic and vibrant neuroengineering environment which includes the Center for Neuroengineering and Computation (cnec.columbia.edu ) the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute (zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu ) and the Data Sciences Institute (dsi.columbia.edu ). Interested candidates should send via email their CV, three representative papers, the names of three references, and cover letter to Prof. Paul Sajda (psajda at columbia.edu). The position is for one year, with the option to renew for 2-3 years, given satisfactory performance and available funding. The position is available immediately and applicants will be considered on a rolling basis. Paul Sajda, Ph.D. Professor Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Radiology Columbia University 351 Engineering Terrace Building, Mail Code 8904 1210 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10027 tel: (212) 854-5279 fax: (212) 854-8725 email: ps629 at columbia.edu http://liinc.bme.columbia.edu Editor-in-Chief IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering email: editortnsre at gmail.com http://tnsre.bme.columbia.edu Chair, IEEE BRAIN Initiative http://brain.ieee.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Fri May 13 07:26:00 2016 From: A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk (Angelo Cangelosi) Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 11:26:00 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Four Lecturer/Associate Professor posts in Big Data and Machine Learning Message-ID: Plymouth University (UK) is strategically investing in a new research group in the field of Big Data and Machine Learning, linked to the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems (CRNS) and other groups in the School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, big data techniques and applications in health care, finance, computer science, e-commerce, robotics and autonomous systems, cloud and parallel computing, and machine learning for multimodal data processing. Applicants with research track record related to machine learning, AI and robotics are particularly encouraged to apply. Four tenure-track posts are currently advertised at Lecturer and Associate Professor level. Application deadline is 12 June 2016. Two posts are open to any area of computer science and machine learning and big data http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANQ860/lecturer-senior-lecturer-in-software-engineering-and-computer-science/ One post is aimed at information systems aspects of big data and machine learning http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANQ834/lecturer-senior-lecturer-in-information-systems-and-big-data/ One post is aimed at computer networks and cloud aspects of big data http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANQ854/lecturer-senior-lecturer-in-networks-and-cloud-computing/ For informal enquiries, free to email Angelo Cangelosi (acangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk), CRNS Director, or Steve Furnell (S.Furnell at plymouth.ac.uk) Head of School ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Pavis at iit.it Wed May 18 11:26:29 2016 From: Pavis at iit.it (Pavis) Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 15:26:29 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position in automatic visual inspection at PAVIS - BC 72050 Message-ID: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C8877710919@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> Postdoc position in automatic visual inspection at PAVIS - BC 72050 Expires on: 31/05/2016 IIT was established in 2003 and successfully created alarge-scale infrastructure in Genova, a network of 10 state-of-the-art laboratories countrywide and recruited an international staff of about 1100 people from more than 50 countries. IIT's research endeavour focuses on high-tech and innovation, representing the forefront of technology with possible applications from medicine to industry, computer science, robotics, life sciences and nano-biotechnologies. The Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision department (PAVIS) at IIT is looking for a highly qualified researcher with a strong background in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, with particular emphasis on automatic visual inspection applications and other related areas (e.g., recognition, video analysis, etc.). The main mission of PAVIS is to design and develop innovative image- and video-based intelligent systems, characterized by the use of highly functional smart sensors and advanced data analytics features. PAVIS also plays an active role in supporting the other IIT research units providing scientists in Neuroscience, Nanophysics and other IIT departments/centers with ad hoc solutions. To this end, the group is involved in activities concerning computer vision and pattern recognition, machine learning, multimodal data analysis and sensor fusion, and embedded computer vision systems. The lab will pursue this goal by working collaboratively and in cooperation with external private and public partners. This call aims at consolidating PAVIS expertise in the research area of automatic visual inspection in the context of highly efficient industrial applications. The research theme is related to the creation of a novel videoscope system that can inspect industrial parts in cluttered environments. The system has to detect damages and external objects (sand, manufacturing residuals). This implies the development of novel algorithms for object detection, classification and quality control that discriminate explicitly the photometric attributes of each object part. This system will be provided as an assistive software tool but with a broad applicability in any industrial scenarios. This project will be managed in collaboration with a major industrial partner. Candidates to this position have a Ph.D. in computer vision, pattern recognition or related areas, and research experience and qualification should follow the same lines. Evidence of top quality research on the above specified areas in the form of published papers in top conferences/journals and/or patents is therefore mandatory. Experience in the preparation and management of research proposals (EU, US, national) and a few years of postdoc experience, either in academia or industrial lab, will also be duly considered. The winning candidate will also contribute to setting up new (funding) project proposals and will participate in funding activities. He/she is expected to publish his/her research results in leading international journals and conferences, supervise PhD students and collaborate with other scientists, also with different expertise. The position is offered for a period of 1 year. Salary will be commensurate to qualification and experience and in line with international standards. The workplace is Genova, Italy. Further details and informal enquires can be made by email to pavis at iit.it quoting PAVIS- BC 72050 as reference number. Please send your completed application forms along with a curriculum listing all publications (possibly including a pdf of your most representative publications), and a research statement describing your previous research experience and outlining its relevance to the above topics by email to applications at iit.it, quoting PAVIS-BC 72050 as reference number. Please also send 2 reference letters. This call will remain open and applications will be reviewed until the position is filled, but for full consideration please apply by May 31, 2016. In order to comply with the Italian law (art. 23 of Privacy Law of the Italian Legislative Decree n. 196/03), the candidate is kindly asked to give his/her consent to allow IIT to process his/her personal data. We inform you that the information you provide will be solely used for the purpose of assessing your professional profile to meet the requirements of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Your data will be processed by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, with its headquarters in Genoa, Via Morego 30, acting as the Data Holder, using computer and paper-based means, observing the rules on the protection of personal data, including those relating to the security of data. Please also note that, pursuant to art.7 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, you may exercise your rights at any time as a party concerned by contacting the Data Manager. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is an Equal Opportunity Employer that actively seeks diversity in the workforc From jeffclune at uwyo.edu Fri May 20 15:25:14 2016 From: jeffclune at uwyo.edu (Jeff Clune) Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 13:25:14 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: Seeking Postdocs for Deep Learning Research (including Deep Reinforcement Learning) Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested. A fully funded, two-year postdoc is available in Jeff Clune?s lab in the computer science department at the University of Wyoming. The research will be on areas of mutual interest in deep neural networks/deep learning, including deep reinforcement learning (in simulation and/or with physical robots). The position is available immediately, but I am flexible regarding delayed starting dates. Experience with deep learning is a huge plus, but is not required if the applicant has a background in relevant fields (e.g. math, programming, computer science, or statistics) and a desire to learn about deep neural networks. The Evolving Artificial Intelligence lab (http://EvolvingAI.org) focuses on robotics and creating artificial intelligence in neural networks, either via deep learning or evolutionary algorithms. The lab is actively engaged in research. Just in the last two years, we have received an NSF CAREER award, participated in a cover article in Nature on robotics, produced the 63rd most talked about scientific paper worldwide in 2015, and our deep learning papers were awarded oral presentations (1-6% acceptance rates) at NIPS, CVPR, ICLR, and an ICML workshop. In that same time, we also produced six papers at GECCO, including a best paper award, and a cover article for PLoS Computational Biology with a Reddit AMA about it that over 42,000 people joined to ask 1000+ questions. Additionally, our work has been covered by almost every major international news outlet. Please see http://EvolvingAI.org for more information, including : ? Short video summaries of our work and talks: http://www.evolvingai.org/videos ? Our publications: http://www.evolvingai.org/publications ? Press coverage: http://www.evolvingai.org/press ? Info on living in Wyoming and being a part of our lab: http://www.evolvingai.org/join If you are interested, please follow the instructions at http://www.evolvingai.org/join The University of Wyoming is located in Laramie, a college town in the heart of the Rocky Mountain West. Nestled between two mountain ranges, Laramie has more than 300 days of sunshine a year and is home to year-round outdoor activities including hiking, camping, rock climbing, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, fishing and mountain biking. Laramie is also near many of Colorado's major cities and university communities (e.g. Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver). The University of Wyoming is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, marital, veteran or any other legally protected status. Best regards, Jeff Clune Assistant Professor, Computer Science Director, Evolving Artificial Intelligence Lab University of Wyoming jeffclune at uwyo.edu jeffclune.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lciti at essex.ac.uk Mon May 23 06:30:31 2016 From: lciti at essex.ac.uk (Luca Citi) Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 11:30:31 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: JOB: Postdoc in Neural Engineering at University of Essex (UK) within outstanding international project - deadline 13th June Message-ID: <5742DBC7.90908@essex.ac.uk> The Essex Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering laboratory is happy to announce a postdoctoral position in the newly funded project ?Closed-Loop Multisensory Brain-Computer Interface for Enhanced Decision Accuracy?. The project is supported by the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) programme and it falls within the MURI theme ?Modeling and Analysis of Multisensory Neural Information Processing for Direct Brain-Computer Communications? which is jointly funded by the US Department of Defense and the UK Ministry of Defence. The project is in partnership with the University of Southern California, the University of California Berkeley, Harvard University, New York University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Imperial College London, and University College London. The award is initially for a three-year base period but may be extended for a further two-year period based on the project successfully achieving its planned outcomes in the first period. The Essex team will work on brain-computer interfacing, on algorithms for signal processing and extraction of information from EEG and other physiological signals, on behavioural and neuro-physiological investigations of multisensory feature binding and integration, as well as methods for predicting the level of attention and confidence in decision making of a participant from behavioural, physiological and neural data in real time. Please see full details at: http://csee.essex.ac.uk/staff/lciti/muri_cn Feel free to email me (lciti at essex.ac.uk) for an informal discussion about this post. Some of the Essential/Desirable skills are: # Knowledge and experience of signal processing # Knowledge and experience in biomedical signal analysis # A strong publication record # Significant programming ability # Experience of designing brain-computer interfaces # Experience of parametric modelling of perception and/or decision making # Experience of designing experiments with audio-visual stimulation # Knowledge of the theory and application of stochastic processes # Knowledge of Bayesian modelling and inference # Experience of dynamic causal modelling of EEG data # Knowledge of inverse modelling and source reconstruction techniques # Knowledge of techniques for multimodal and multiscale neural signal integration # Programming ability in high-level numerical computing languages (see full list at link above) From M.Tipping at bath.ac.uk Wed May 18 07:39:31 2016 From: M.Tipping at bath.ac.uk (Michael Tipping) Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 11:39:31 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Reader/Senior Lecturer/Lecturer in Machine Learning at University of Bath, UK Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, The Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath is seeking an academic with internationally leading expertise in the field of Machine Learning, excellent track record and outstanding potential to lead research activity and funding bids. Although we are planning to appoint at Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) level, we will also consider appointing to a Reader (Associate Professor) or Lecturer (Assistant Professor) post, with corresponding salary range, if that is appropriate to the successful candidate. The Department is structured in four research groups: Intelligent Systems, Visual Computing, Human-Computer Interaction and Mathematical Foundations. This appointment is part of a strategic drive to strengthen and integrate our core research areas and will complement the recent appointment of Prof Mike Tipping. The post holder will be expected to conduct excellent Machine Learning research and to create effective collaborations with Prof Tipping and colleagues across the Department's research groups and beyond. Collaborations beyond the Department will be expected to include the Bath Institute for Mathematical Innovation and national and international collaborators in academia and industry. Current industrial collaborators include The Imaginarium, The Foundry, BBC, Disney and others. Academic collaborators include UCL, Cardiff, Oxford, Tsinghua, Zhejiang, S?o Paulo and others. Applicants will normally be expected to hold a PhD and to have a developing or established international reputation for high quality publications, backed up by appropriate research funding and activity. The successful applicant will be expected to carry out and supervise research in line with targets set by the Department and to take a lead in obtaining significant funding from UK and international sources. The post holder will contribute to teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and should therefore have a continuing commitment to maintaining the University's high standards in teaching and learning, with the ability to educate and inspire some of the brightest students in the country. The post holder will also contribute to developing the importance and strength of Machine Learning in the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. The post holder will also be expected to contribute to the administration, leadership and management of the Department's activities commensurate with the level of the appointment. Both the Department and the University are committed to providing a supportive and inclusive working environment. We are working to improve the gender balance within the Department and particularly welcome applications from women. Interviews are expected to be held in June, and start date is anticipated to be September 2016. For information and to apply see: https://www.bath.ac.uk/jobs/Vacancy.aspx?ref=FY3923 For informal discussion about the role, please contact Prof Eamonn O'Neill, E.ONeill at bath.ac.uk or +44 (0)1225 383216. From Pavis at iit.it Wed May 18 11:27:31 2016 From: Pavis at iit.it (Pavis) Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 15:27:31 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD call - 2016 PhD Course on SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING, in the "COMPUTATIONAL VISION, AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION AND LEARNING (CODE 6213)" curriculum. Message-ID: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C887771096A@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> PhD call - 2016 PhD Course on SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING, in the "COMPUTATIONAL VISION, AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION AND LEARNING (CODE 6213)" curriculum. Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT - www.iit.it) together with the University of Genova opened the call for the 2016 Doctoral Course on Sciences & Technologies For Electronics & Telecommunication - Curriculum in Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. In this context, Ph.D. positions are available at the Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision (PAVIS) Dept. and at the Visual Geometry and Modeling Lab (VGM Lab) to work in Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, and more specifically on the following themes: Theme A - Computer vision for behavioral analysis and activity recognition Theme B - Computer vision for the prediction of human intentions Theme C - Part-based human body modeling for Socially-Aware Computer Vision Theme D - Crowd behavioral analysis and event recognition Theme E - Re-identification Theme F - Time-lapse Computer Vision for long-term learning Theme G - Semantic 3D scene reconstruction and modelling Theme H - Sensing humans: enhancing social abilities of the iCub platform Theme I - Biomedical imaging Theme L - Connectomics Theme M - Animal behavior analysis More info on the above research topics can be found at: https://pavisdata.iit.it/data/phd2016/ResearchThemes_IIT-PAVIS.pdf or directly asked to Prof. V. Murino (vittorio.murino at iit.it) or any other tutor indicated for each theme. The PhD program on the listed themes will take place at the PAVIS department of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) located in Genova (www.iit.it). The department focuses on activities related to the analysis and understanding of images and patterns in general, thus representing a reference for the other IIT Departments and labs which have to deal with such kind of data. The PAVIS and VGM Lab staff has a wide expertise on image processing, computer vision and pattern recognition, machine learning, and related applications (mainly surveillance/security and biomedical). For more information, you can also browse the PAVIS and VGM Lab webpages to see our activities and research at: http://old.iit.it/en/research/departments/pattern-analysis-and-computer-vision.html and www.iit.it/lines/visual-geometry-and- modelling To apply, follow the instructions indicated in this link: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ in short: a detailed CV, a research proposal under one or more themes chosen among those above indicated, reference letters, and any other formal document concerning the degrees earned. Notice that these documents are mandatory in order to consider valid the application. IMPORTANT: In order to apply, candidates must prepare a research proposal based on the research topics above mentioned. Please follow these indications to prepare it: https://pavisdata.iit.it/data/phd2016/ResearchProjectTemplate.pdf ONLINE APPLICATION DEADLINE is June 10th, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. (noon ? Italian time/CET) Strict deadline, no extension. APPLICATIONS are possible through University of Genoa ONLINE PROCEDURE ONLY - http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ From A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk Thu May 19 05:12:56 2016 From: A.Cangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk (Angelo Cangelosi) Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 09:12:56 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD in Cognitive Robotics, Plymouth University UK Message-ID: The Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at Plymouth University has an opening for a PhD opportunity in Cognitive Robotics. The PhD will specifically be on embodiment aspects of number learning in robots, under the supervision of Professor Angelo Cangelosi. This PhD is linked to a Project/Research Associate Position within the new Marie Sklodowska Curie ITN ?APRIL? (april-robots.org). The candidate will be hired by Plymouth University for a part-time position as the APRIL ITN Project Admin and Research Assistant, whilst at the same time enrolling for a part-time PhD. The net salary for this position is approximately equivalent to a UK PhD studentship bursary. To apply and for more details on this position, see link below http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANR769/project-admin-and-research-associate-cognitive-robotics-and-human-robot-interaction-april-itn/ For informal enquiry, contact Angelo Cangelosi (acangelosi at plymouth.ac.uk). Angelo Cangelosi http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/soc/staff/angelo/ ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gothard94 at gmail.com Tue May 17 15:59:33 2016 From: gothard94 at gmail.com (Katalin Gothard) Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 12:59:33 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: postdoc position available Message-ID: <10B74979-47DB-47BD-A1BC-3B1DBA3010B0@gmail.com> Postdoctoral fellowship in primate neurophysiology. The University of Arizona, College and Medicine, Department of Physiology, Tucson. Applications are invited to join a Medical Research Fund for Neuroscience and NIH funded research program investigating the neural mechanisms of emotion and social interactions in non-human primates. The applicant will carry out neural recordings from the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex of macaque monkeys using multielectrode arrays and will explore the patterns of neural activity within the brain and between brains of two monkeys engaged in social interactions. This will include, behavioral work with monkeys (training and preparation them for electrophysiological recordings), neurophysiological recordings, and data analysis. The applicant will have access to state-of-the art equipment, facilities, and will work in a team with established expertise in behavioral neurophysiology, with ample opportunity to learn new experimental approaches, techniques and methods. Candidates should have a recent PhD in systems or computational neuroscience with a track-record of first-author publications. Strong analytical and programming (Matlab or similar), skill and expertise in data analysis and statistics are essential. Individuals with strong analytical and technical skills who wish to expand into neurophysiological recordings are encouraged to apply, provided they are prepared to run quasi-independently neurophysiological experiments. Excellent written and oral English communication skills are required. The position is available from July 1st 2016, with a competitive salary commensurate with prior experience (NIH scale). The position is available with an initial appointment for one year and renewal based upon satisfactory performance. Applicants must pass background screening and health checks to be able to work with monkeys. The University of Arizona is an equal opportunity employers and women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Interested applicants should send a CV, statement of research accomplishments and interests, copies of 2-3 representative publications and contact information for 2-3 reference letters to Katalin Gothard at kgothard at email.arizona.edu or gothard94 at gmail.com Informal inquiries are welcome. Further information about the lab can be found at www.gothardlab.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From urut at caltech.edu Thu May 19 14:26:11 2016 From: urut at caltech.edu (Ueli Rutishauser) Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 11:26:11 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral fellowship in primate neurophysiology, University of Arizona (Gothard Lab) Message-ID: *Postdoctoral fellowship in primate neurophysiology.* *University of Arizona, College and Medicine, Department of Physiology, Tucson. * Applications are invited to join a Medical Research Fund for Neuroscience and NIH funded research program investigating the neural mechanisms of emotion and social interactions in non-human primates. The applicant will carry out neural recordings from the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex of macaque monkeys using multielectrode arrays and will explore the patterns of neural activity within the brain and between brains of two monkeys engaged in social interactions. This will include, behavioral work with monkeys (training and preparation them for electrophysiological recordings), neurophysiological recordings, and data analysis. The applicant will have access to state-of-the art equipment, facilities, and will work in a team with established expertise in behavioral neurophysiology, with ample opportunity to learn new experimental approaches, techniques and methods. Candidates should have a recent PhD in systems or computational neuroscience with a track-record of first-author publications. Strong analytical and programming (Matlab or similar), skill and expertise in data analysis and statistics are essential. Individuals with strong analytical and technical skills who wish to expand into neurophysiological recordings are encouraged to apply, provided they are prepared to run quasi-independently neurophysiological experiments. Excellent written and oral English communication skills are required. The position is available from July 1st 2016, with a competitive salary commensurate with prior experience (NIH scale). The position is available with an initial appointment for one year and renewal based upon satisfactory performance. Applicants must pass background screening and health checks to be able to work with monkeys. The University of Arizona is an equal opportunity employers and women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Interested applicants should send a CV, statement of research accomplishments and interests, copies of 2-3 representative publications and contact information for 2-3 reference letters to Katalin Gothard at kgothard at email.arizona.edu Informal inquiries are welcome. Further information about the lab can be found at www.gothardlab.com (Please note I am posting this on behalf of a collaborator, please do not contact me for this job). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tatsuno at uleth.ca Tue May 17 13:32:26 2016 From: tatsuno at uleth.ca (Tatsuno, Masami) Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 17:32:26 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD/MSc Student Position in Systems Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, Canada Message-ID: [Apologies for cross-postings] --- PhD/MSc Student Position in Systems Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, Canada --- One PhD/MSc student position is available immediately in the labs of Prof. Masami Tatsuno and Prof. Majid Mohajerani at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN), University of Lethbridge, Canada (http://www.uleth.ca/artsci/neuroscience/about). We investigate memory processes of the awake/sleeping brain experimentally and computationally with the goal of understanding how spontaneous neural activity during sleep facilitates performance improvement. We use the state-of-the-art multi-electrode recordings from freely behaving rodents and imaging techniques such as two-photon Calcium imaging and wide-field voltage imaging. The successful candidate will investigate how external manipulation of sleep contributes to consolidation of memory. Several different methods including transcranial direct current stimulation, targeted memory reactivation and optogenetics will be employed. The successful candidate will also have an opportunity to participate in developing a novel analysis method for neural signals and modeling memory function. A high degree of interaction with the labs in the Brain Dynamics group ( http://lethbridgebraindynamics.com ) as well as in CCBN ( http://www.uleth.ca/artsci/neuroscience ) will be also expected. Motivated candidates should email a short letter of research interest including their skills and experience, CV and the names of three references to Masami Tatsuno (tatsuno at uleth.ca). Please do not have reference letters sent unless requested. Applicants should put "SysNeuro PhD/MSc recruitment" in the subject of their email. Various funding will be available depending on the candidate's qualification. Lethbridge is located two hours from Calgary, 90 minutes from the Canadian Rockies and is a safe, family friendly environment. ********************************************* Masami Tatsuno, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Neuroscience The University of Lethbridge Email: tatsuno at uleth.ca http://lethbridgebraindynamics.com/masami_tatsuno Majid Mohajerani, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Neuroscience The University of Lethbridge Email: mohajerani at uleth.ca http://lethbridgebraindynamics.com/majid-mohajerani/ ********************************************* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pstone at cs.utexas.edu Tue May 17 22:26:02 2016 From: pstone at cs.utexas.edu (Peter Stone) Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 21:26:02 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: [Jobs] Cogitai, Inc. -- AI startup looking to hire Message-ID: <52043.1463538362@skipper.cs.utexas.edu> Cogitai, Inc., a new AI-based startup focusing on continual learning, is seeking highly skilled and motivated individuals for immediate hire. About Cogitai ============= Cogitai, Inc. is dedicated to building artificial intelligences (AIs) that learn continually from interactive experience with the real world. Our goal is to build the brains, i.e., the continual-learning AI software, that will let everyday things that sense and act get smarter, more skilled, and more knowledgeable over time with experience. This experience will be shared across things and across domains to allow the rapid scaling-up of experience-based learning. In short, we aim to become the world leader in continual learning. Positions ========= We seek ambitious and dedicated individuals at all levels of experience, ranging from Bachelors to post-Ph.D. The ideal candidate will:is 1) have extensive AI expertise, especially in reinforcement learning and/or robotics; 2) have strong system-building skills; and 3) be passionate about helping us make continual learning practical in a broad range of applications. For candidates at the Ph.D. level, 1) is more important. For candidates at the Bachelors and Masters level, 2) is more important. 3) is essential for everyone! Our Team ======== Our team consists of many of the leading minds in reinforcement learning, which is one of the core component technologies of continual learning. The three founders have a combined total of over 60 years of active research and development in AI. We also have assembled a "Brain Trust" of ten of the world's best academics in this area, who will be actively engaged in technology development for the company. Founders: Mark Ring, Peter Stone, and Satinder Singh Brain Trust: Andy Barto, Michael Bowling, Peter Dayan, Charles Isbell, Michael Littman, David Parkes, Doina Precup, Ben Van Roy, Richard Sutton, Jianwei Zhang Timeline ======== Thanks to a substantial strategic investment from Sony (see www.cogitai.com for details), as well as various other sources of funding, Cogitai is prepared to hire qualified individuals for immediate start. Individuals who prefer to start later (but still within the next several months), are also encouraged to apply. Contact ======= Webpage: http://www.cogitai.com/ If interested, contact us at hiring at cogitai.com From alberto.montebelli at gmail.com Fri May 20 13:17:04 2016 From: alberto.montebelli at gmail.com (Alberto Montebelli) Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 19:17:04 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: CfP "Workshop on Communicating Intentions in Human-Robot Interaction", New York August 31, 2016 Message-ID: [Apologies for cross-posting] =================================================== Call for papers Workshop on Communicating Intentions in Human-Robot Interaction August 31, 2016 in conjunction with IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2016) August 26-31, 2016 Columbia University, New York =================================================== ---[Dates]--- Submission deadline: June 24, 2016 (23:59 PST) Notification of acceptance: July 8, 2016 Workshop date: August 31, 2016 ---[Background and motivation]--- Research in the cognitive sciences, in particular social neuroscience, has in recent years made substantial progress in elucidating the mechanisms underlying the recognition and communication of intentions in natural human-human social interactions and in developing computational models of these mechanisms. However, there is much less research on the mechanisms underlying the human interpretation of the behavior of artifacts, such as robots or automated vehicles, and the attribution of intentions to such systems. Furthermore, robots? recognition of human intentions is arguably a prerequisite for pro-social behavior, and necessary to engage in, for instance, instrumental helping or mutual collaboration. To develop robots that can interact naturally and effectively with people therefore requires the creation of systems that can perceive and comprehend intentions in other agents. For research on social interactions between humans and robots/agents in general, and mutual recognition/communication of intentions in particular, it is therefore important to be clear about the theoretical framework and inherent assumptions underlying technological implementations. This also has ramifications for the evaluation of the quality of human-robot interactions. Overall, the role of intentions in human-robot interaction very much remains an active and growing research area in which further development is necessary, and the purpose of this workshop is to advance the state of the art in that respect. The intended audience consists of researchers from robotics, AI and the cognitive sciences. The focus is on interdisciplinary interaction. ---[Workshop Content]--- The workshop will be centered around three main activities: (i) keynote presentations to highlight the overall state of the art; (ii) paper presentations that deal with specific aspects of the work carried out by workshop participants; (iii) a round-table discussion that will allow all participants to contribute their thoughts on the open and most pressing research challenges. ---[Scope]--- Suitable topics for the workshop address intention communication in Human-Robot Interaction; for instance: * mechanisms of intention communication in Human-Robot interaction; * machine recognition of human intentions; * human recognition/attribution of robot intentions; * implications for the evaluation of HRI. We particularly encourage papers that consider mutual recognition/communication of intentions (i.e. that consider both human recognition of robot intentions and robot recognition of human intentions in given application contexts), but will also consider papers that deal with uni-directional intention recognition/communication. Papers can be pure position papers, or can substantiate their message with empirical work. Papers will be peer-reviewed and we emphasize that papers must make an interesting, relevant, and novel contribution (whether theoretical or empirical) to the state of the art. ---[Submission Instructions]--- We expect papers to be 4 - 8 pages using the IEEE conference templates (available at http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html ). Please e-mail your paper to tom.ziemke at his.se , serge.thill at his.se and alberto.montebelli at his.se by the submission deadline. ---[Publication]--- Preliminary proceedings will be published in the "Sk?vde University Studies in Informatics" series (ISSN 1653-2325). Authors have the right to opt out of these proceedings. We will further organize a Frontiers (in Neurorobotics) research topic as a venue for extended papers on the themes of the workshop. ---[Website]--- News and updates will be available at: http://www.intentions.xyz/roman-2016-workshop/ ---[Organisers]? Tom Ziemke, Link?ping University & University of Sk?vde, Sweden Serge Thill, University of Sk?vde, Sweden Alberto Montebelli, University of Sk?vde, Sweden ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Alberto Montebelli, PhD Robotics and Cognitive Systems University of Sk?vde P.O. Box 408 SE-541 28 SK?VDE SWEDEN Tel: +46 76 100 3516 Email: alberto.montebelli at his.se Web: albertomontebelli.wordpress.com ?www.intentions.xyz ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yael at Princeton.EDU Sun May 22 00:24:37 2016 From: yael at Princeton.EDU (Yael Niv) Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 04:24:37 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: FENS Brain meeting: New Insights into Psychiatric Disorders through Computational, Biological and Developmental Approaches Message-ID: <5FAB8694-5B80-4C82-9672-F33ED9EE863D@exchange.princeton.edu> New Insights into Psychiatric Disorders through Computational, Biological and Developmental Approaches September 25-28, 2016, Moltkes Pal?, Copenhagen, Denmark http://www.fens.org/Meetings/The-Brain-Conferences/New-insights-into-psychiatric-disorders-through-computational-biological-and-developmental-approaches/ Psychiatric disorders are a major health challenge in today?s world. This meeting will focus on how computational, neurobiological and developmental perspectives can inform current and future approaches to psychiatric diseases. The broader goal is to ask how contributions from these fields may assist in providing a better characterisation of these conditions, potentially also identifying novel phenotypes. These insights will hopefully provide new targets for mechanistic and genetic analysis, as well as for innovative treatment approaches. Registration is now open (early registration deadline is 22nd June, after which registration fees will increase) Fifteen travel stipends of 1,000 EUR each are available and will be awarded following the regular registration of 20th July deadline We hope to see you there! Yael Niv, Oscar Marin & John Krystal (meeting organizers) From timvogels at gmail.com Sat May 21 16:22:42 2016 From: timvogels at gmail.com (Tim Vogels) Date: Sat, 21 May 2016 21:22:42 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: SUMMER SCHOOL in JANUARY'17: IBRO SIMONS Computational Neuroscience Imbizo in Cape Town In-Reply-To: <70E38E3B-567A-4D31-9FB9-B5BEEAE9DDD2@gmail.com> References: <70E38E3B-567A-4D31-9FB9-B5BEEAE9DDD2@gmail.com> Message-ID: Dear all, We would like to draw your attention to the first IBRO SIMONS COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE IMBIZO 9 - 29 January 2017, Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town, South Africa http://isicni.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Application deadline: 31st July 2016 The #isiCNI2017 is a southern hemisphere summer school aiming to promote computational neuroscience in Africa. It will bring together international and local students under the tutelage of the world's leading experts in the field. Like its international sister courses, this three-week summer school aims to teach central ideas, methods, and practices of modern computational neuroscience through a combination of lectures and hands-on project work. Mornings will be devoted to lectures on topics across the breadth of experimental and computational neuroscience. The rest of the day will be spent working on research projects in teams of 2-3 people under the close supervision of expert tutors and faculty. Individual research projects will focus on the modeling of neurons, neural systems, behavior, the analysis of state-of-the-art neural data, and the development of theories to explain experimental observations. The course is aimed at graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from various disciplines, including neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics, psychology, and biology. Students are expected to have a keen interest and basic background in neurobiology, a solid foundation in mathematics, and some computing experience. Please distribute this information as widely as you can, especially to your African Colleagues. Essential details * Fee (which covers tuition, lodging, and meals): 1000 EUR * Generous scholarships and travel stipends are available * Application deadline: 31 July 2016 * Notification of results: September 2016 Information and application http://isicni.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk POSTER DOWNLOAD http://tinyurl.com/isiCNI2017 (please distribute) Application form http://tinyurl.com/gonst65 What is an Imbizo? \?m?bi?z?\ | Xhosa - Zulu A gathering of the people to share knowledge. Sponsors The isiCNI is made possible by the generous support from the Simons Foundation (https://www.simonsfoundation.org ) and IBRO, the International Brain Research Organisation (http://ibro.info ) Local Organiser Alex Antrobus (isicn.imbizo at gmail.com ) DIRECTORS Peter Latham (Gatsby Unit for Computational Neuroscience, UCL, UK) Joseph Raimondo (University of Cape Town, South Africa) Tim Vogels (University of Oxford, UK) FACULTY Larry Abbott - Columbia University Emery Brown - Massachusetts General Hospital/MIT/Harvard Medical School Nando deFreitas - Google DeepMind Adrienne Fairhall - Washington University Surya Ganguli - Stanford University Wulfram Gerstner - EPFL Lausanne Peter Latham - University College London Timothy Lillicrap - Google DeepMind Mate Lengyel - University of Cambridge Eve Marder - Brandeis University Joseph Raimondo - University of Cape Town Yiota Poirazi - Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas Srikanth Ramaswamy - EPFL Lausanne Rajnish Ranjan - EPFL Lausanne Tim Vogels - University of Oxford Daniel Wolpert - University of Cambridge Special Guests Alyssa Piccini Schaffer - Simons Foundation Arthur Wingfield - Brandeis University Teaching Assistants We are looking for teaching assistants. If you are interested, or you know of an able and enthusiastic postdoc or senior graduate student, please send a CV to isicn.imbizo at gmail.com . ------------------------------------------------------------- All the best, Dr Tim Vogels Sir Henry Dale Wellcome Trust and Royal Society Research Fellow Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour and Oriel College Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics University of Oxford Mansfield Road Oxford, OX1 3SR cncb.ox.ac.uk www.neurotheory.ox.ac.uk/~timv -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From e.wintersteller at icloud.com Tue May 17 09:11:52 2016 From: e.wintersteller at icloud.com (Elisabeth Wintersteller) Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 15:11:52 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: FENS Satellite 2016: Cells, Circuits and Computation - 1 July 2016 Copenhagen Message-ID: Dear colleagues , We are pleased to announce that the registration for the FENS Satellite event: Cells, Circuits and Computation: Expanding the Horizons on Big Data Analysis is open until 24 June 2016. This one day workshop takes place on 1 July 2016 in Copenhagen and is organised by the HBP Education Programme Office, the Allen Brain Institute and the Blue Brain Project. In this one day workshop immediately before FENS 2016, Allen Institute for Brain Science and Human Brain Project scientists will present brand new research discoveries and data analysis tools that have been developed from the mining and analysis of data that is publicly available online. Each presentation will also incorporate hands-on training of novel and emerging data analysis tools in effectively using the publicly available resources from both projects. Space is limited and registration is required. Please go to https://education.humanbrainproject.eu/web/hbp-education-portal/fens-2016 for more information. Registration fee: ? 50.00 for students ? 100.00 for senior scientists Coffee breaks and lunch will be provided for free. If you have any questions, please don?t hesitate and contact me. Looking forward to receiving your registrations! Best regards, Elisabeth Mag. Elisabeth Wintersteller Innsbruck Medical University Center of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Department of General Psychiatry and Social Psychiatry Experimental Psychiatry Unit Innrain 66a, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria Phone Office: +43 512 504 23779 Fax Office: +43 512 504 23716 Email: e.wintersteller at icloud.com Mobile: +43 664 8831 8313 We are now active on Facebook and Twitter! Follow us on our new social media channels. It?s a great way to keep up with the Education Programme?s latest news, event information, job offers, videos and many more. Please feel free to share our news with your friends and colleagues to help spreading our education and training opportunities among the international research community. Where to follow: Twitter: https://twitter.com/HBP_Education Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hbpeducation/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FENSsatellite_programme_BBP_AI_160225_EW.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 67363 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FENS_2016_Flyer_europe_print_160219_EW.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1122859 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dengdehao at gmail.com Sun May 22 23:30:37 2016 From: dengdehao at gmail.com (Teng Teck Hou) Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 11:30:37 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: [CALL FOR PAPERS] Special Session on Computational Intelligence Techniques and Applications at TENCON 2016 Message-ID: <00d401d1b4a3$7b26e2f0$7174a8d0$@gmail.com> [Apologies for cross-postings] ############################################### CALL FOR PAPERS TENCON 2016 Special Session - Computational Intelligence Techniques and Applications November 22 - 25, 2016, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore http://www.tencon2016.org ############################################### Computational intelligence (CI) techniques encompass good-old-fashion AI (GOFAI), soft computing and deep learning techniques. The ebb and flow of these CI techniques closely tracks the technology cycles. CI techniques such as evolutionary techniques, swarm intelligence, artificial neural network (ANN) and fuzzy logic were mere research topics for decades before suitable computing hardware is available for their use in a broad spectrum of industrial and consumer applications. Recent computing hardware and sensor technologies have also fast-tracked the research and development of many emerging CI techniques. Held annually in IEEE Region 10 since 1980, TENCON has been an important multi-disciplinary platform of IEEE Region 10 for sharing and discussing new and emerging ideas. The theme for TENCON 2016 is Future Technologies for Smart Nation. Therefore, this TENCON'16 Special Session on Computational Intelligence Techniques and Applications for Smart Nation invites all researchers to submit papers on their use of CI techniques for enabling Smart Nation. ##################Important Date################## - Open for Submission March 1st, 2016 - Submission Deadline May, 30th, 2016 - Notice of Acceptance August 1st, 2016 - Final Manuscript Submission September 10th, 2016 ################################################## ##################Topics and Areas of Interest################## This special session solicits papers addressing original works in topics and areas of interest including, but are not limited to: - Fundamental CI Methodologies o Deep learning techniques o Reinforcement learning techniques o Supervised learning techniques o Unsupervised learning techniques o Evolutionary computing techniques o Artificial Neural Networks o Swarm Intelligence o Graphical Models o Bayesian Statistics - CI in Real-World Applications o Time Series Prediction o Sensor Networks o Recommender Systems o Robotic Systems o Intelligent Transportation System o Big Data for Smart Nation o Pattern Recognition o Computer Vision and Image Understanding o Intelligent Control Systems ################################################################ ############Paper Submission and Publication############ - The best papers will be selected from the contributed papers for awards. - The presented papers will be submitted to IEEE Xplore which is indexed by major databases. - Full papers can have up to four pages in double-column IEEE Conference format. - At least one author of an accepted submission to the conference should register with a regular fee to present their work at the conference. - Any enquiry on the submission of papers can be made to Teck-Hou Teng at thteng at smu.edu.sg ######################################################## ##################Organizing Committee################## - Teck-Hou Teng, Singapore Management University - Justin Dauwels, Nanyang Technological University - Erdal Kayacan, Nanyang Technological University ######################################################## -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Eirini.Mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk Mon May 23 19:11:44 2016 From: Eirini.Mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk (Eirini Mavritsaki) Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 23:11:44 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: =?windows-1252?q?PhD_in_Investigating_oscillatory?= =?windows-1252?q?_behaviour_in_Alzheimer=92s_disease_to_establish_biomark?= =?windows-1252?q?ers=3A_an_EEG_and_computational_modelling_programme?= Message-ID: <3FCD70F47E1E99449079BAD1F20D729C5E06CF8B@EXMBXCC.staff.uce.ac.uk> Dear colleagues, please forward the email below to anyone that might be interested. Investigating oscillatory behaviour in Alzheimer?s disease to establish biomarkers: an EEG and computational modelling programme of PhD study Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship within the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Business Law and Social Sciences, Birmingham City University. Applicants need to demonstrate ability and commitment, including excellent communications skills in written and spoken English. Project Synopsis: This proposed PhD work follows high profile research by the University of Birmingham team (Prof. Kim Shapiro, Prof. Howard Bowman and Mr Ali Mazaheri). The project is collaborative work between Birmingham City University (Dr Eirini Mavritsak) and University of Birmingham (Prof. Kim Shapiro and Prof. Howard Bowman). The University of Birmingham team has access to ERP data of a semantic anomaly and word repetition task (Olichney et al, 2002). In the original analysis of the data Olichney and colleagues, the N400 component was analysed, which is related to semantic manipulation. Olichney and colleagues found evidence of N400 abnormalities in mild cognitive impairment patients, which predicted later progression to Alzhemier?s. We plan to simulate this data and the changes observed in this data by developing a computational model that is based on the sSoTS (Mavritsaki, Heinke, Humphreys and Deco, 2011) model. The synaptic currents that sSoTS contains will allow us to extract the ERP profile and simulate the above described experiment. In addition to that sSoTS model has already successfully simulated visual search outcomes for patients with Alzheimer?s (Mavritsaki and Humphreys, 2013). The project is separated into two phases: in phase 1, we plan to develop the computational model to simulate controls and mild cognitive impairment patients and in phase 2 we are planning to extend the model to allow us to predict the development of the disease based on identified biomarkers. The successful applicant will join the Centre for Applied Psychological Research (CAP Research) within the Department of Psychology at Birmingham City University. CAP Research is part of a vibrant and rapidly expanding research community, which offers applicants with an excellent opportunity to develop their research career. The applicant has the opportunity to have teaching experience, to participate in research seminars and to co-supervise undergraduate projects. The successful candidate will also be expected to attend the weekly meetings of the University of Birmingham research team. For more information please contact Dr Eirini Mavritsaki (Eirini.mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk) or Prof. Howard Bowman (H.Bowman at bham.ac.uk). Candidate Qualification and Specifications: Essential ? The applicant should hold a good undergraduate honours degree (First or 2:1) in psychology or related area. ? The applicant should have experience of computational modelling, evidenced by previous work or masters degree. ? A demonstrated understanding of research methods is essential (as evidenced by degree transcript grades for research methods and dissertation modules). ? Experience in C++ and Matlab. Desirable ? A Masters? degree in research methods, psychology or computational modelling ? Experience in EEG analysis Kind regards, Eirini ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eirini Mavritsaki, Ph.D., CPsychol Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Applied Psychological Research (CAP Research) Enterprise Coordinator for Social Sciences Department of Psychology Faculty of Business Law and Social Sciences Birmingham City University The Curzon Building 4 Cardigan Street Birmingham B4 7BD eirini.mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk 0121 331 6361 Special Issue in Frontiers 'Neuropsychology through the lenses of computational modelling' http://fron.tiers.in/go/r2e3M4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ASAHTan at ntu.edu.sg Tue May 24 22:46:36 2016 From: ASAHTan at ntu.edu.sg (Tan Ah Hwee (Assoc Prof)) Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 02:46:36 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Full Scholarships available for PhD in Cognitive Systems and Visual Computing Message-ID: PhD Programme in Cognitive Systems and Visual Computing The PhD programme in Cognitive Systems and Visual Computing is a joint programme by the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I?R) and the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (SCSE, NTU). The thematic PhD programme aims to nurture highly skilled research professionals and leaders in the fields of cognitive systems and visual computing with the vision of generating broad impact to the future industry's needs in the next 10 years. Prospects for Graduates Cognitive systems and visual computing are critical enabling technologies for building next generation software systems, especially for the healthcare and new media industries. Although related to data analytics and traditional Artificial Intelligence, cognitive systems provide a broader scope of investigation through the understanding of both human and machine intelligence. This is critical in building advanced tools that interact with human users, for example assistive robots, information agents, and interactive mobile systems. On the other hand, visual computing reinforces the interaction between human and computer using visual media and content which are becoming pervasive via mobile devices and social media. Through the collaboration between A*STAR I?R and SCSE NTU, PhD candidates in the programme will benefit from the exposure to practical problems and close connection between academic and industrial sectors. Regular seminars will be organised for the students and researchers/staff to share information and update each other on their research. Regular workshops will also be organised for the students to present their research to the relevant industry sectors (for example, homeland security, medical therapy, assisted living, robotics, and mobile consumer applications). These workshops will also facilitate industry's feedback to the students and researchers/staff on industry's trends and problems which could help to better align the students' research to these needs. Scholarship Through the collaboration between A*STAR Graduate Academy (A*GA) and NTU, candidates successfully admitted into the joint PhD programme will be supported fully either by a A*STAR Graduate Scholarship by (AGS) or Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA). Each scholarship will be awarded for a period of four (4) years. The PhD candidature is subject to confirmation two year after the award of the scholarship. For information on award details and eligibility criteria, please refer to AGS and SINGA. Research Topics Candidates will pursue a chosen research topic of interests under the broad areas of cognitive systems and visual computing. The potential research topics of interests may include but are not limited to the following * Brain Mapping and Integrated Computational Model * Neural Dynamics of Drives and Self-Awareness in Robots * Enhanced Visual Memory for Assisted Living * Modelling of Group Behaviour and Social Cognition * Attention-driven Visual Target Search * Computational visual computing * Perceptual based visual signal processing * Visual search, understanding and recognition * Social Robot Cognition Admission Criteria To apply for the PhD programme, you will need the following * A good Bachelor's or Master's degree * A good GRE score taken within the past five years * A good TOEFL score taken within last 2 years (mandatory for candidates from non-English speaking countries) * Outstanding intellectual ability and motivation * Relevant research experience and publication records (preferred) * Application Procedure Interested candidates should send a CV with supporting documents to PhD-CSVC at ntu.edu.sg. Email submission should use the subject heading of "Application for CSVC PhD Study". For more information of the PhD study, please refer to http://scse.ntu.edu.sg/Programmes/CurrentStudents/Graduate/Pages/PhD_CSVC_home.aspx ________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it, notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose its contents. Towards a sustainable earth: Print only when necessary. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From martin.giese at tuebingen.mpg.de Tue May 24 04:35:18 2016 From: martin.giese at tuebingen.mpg.de (Martin Giese) Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 10:35:18 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Junior Research Group in Biomechanical Modelling / Robotics Message-ID: JUNIOR RESEARCH GROUP: ?MULTI-LEVEL MODELING IN MOTOR CONTROL AND REHABILITATION ROBOTICS? ========================================================================================== Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), University of T?bingen, and Stuttgart Centre for Simulation Sciences (SimTech), University of Stuttgart, Germany As part of the Baden-W?rttemberg?s newly established Research Alliance ?System Mensch?; we are seeking a young, and highly-motivated researcher, als leader of the Junior Research Group (JRG) ?Multilevel modelling in motor control and rehabilitation robotics?. The JRG will have the opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary research team that profits and extends existing research collaborations between the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) at the University of T?bingen (www.cin.uni-tuebingen.de) and the Cluster of Excellence for Simulation Technology (SimTech) at the University of Stuttgart (www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de), both highly successful research facilities established by the German Excellence Initiative. Interested researchers should have an excellent early-career track record in one or more of the following areas: experimental or theoretical research in (clinical) motor control, rehabilitation, multi-scale or neuromuscular modelling, neuro-mechanical models for human-machine interaction, or translational research in rehabilitation robotics. By combining two or more of these areas, the team is supposed to develop an internationally competitive research agenda in the interdisciplinary field of motor control, biomechanical and multi-level systems modeling, or technical applications in rehabilitation robotics. The group itself will be located at the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) in T?bingen, and it will have access to additional working and high-end computing facilities at the Stuttgart Centre for Simulation Sciences (SimTech; groups Prof. Schmitt and Prof R?hrle). In addition, there will be the opportunity to interact closely with the department for Biomechatronic Systems at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) at Stuttgart. This offers the possibility to participate in the design and development of novel robot systems for rehabilitation applications with industry relevance. The group members will have the opportunity to contribute to the curriculum of the Graduate Training Centre for Neuroscience at the University of T?bingen and to the Master?s program for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Stuttgart, where a German Habilitation can be supported. The funding for this JRG group includes a position (TV-L E14) supporting the group leader and one additional position for a PhD student. The funding will be for three years with a two-year extension option for the JRG leader. The appointees will become full members of both Clusters of Excellence. According to German law, severely disabled persons with equal occupational aptitude will be given preferential consideration. Both universities promote equal opportunities in science and are committed to increasing the percentage of female scientists in teaching and research. Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. Applicants should submit a statement of research achievements and future directions with special emphasis on collaboration possibilities with groups of both universities (not to exceed 3 pages), curriculum vitae, the names and addresses of at least three referees as well as pdf files of up to 5 key publications. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 19/06/2016 All documents should be submitted electronically (as one pdf file) to: Prof. Dr. Martin A. Giese Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25 72076 T?bingen Email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de See www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ or alternatively to the partners in Stuttgart: Prof. Oliver R?hrle (roehrle at simtech.uni-stuttgart.de), and Jun. Prof. Dr. Syn Schmitt (schmitt at simtech.uni-stuttgart.de). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Prof. Dr. Martin Giese Section for Computational Sensomotorics Dept. for Cognitive Neurology Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Centre for Integrative Neurocience University Clinic Tuebingen Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25 D-72076 Tuebingen GERMANY Tel.: +49 7071 29 89124 Fax: +49 7071 29 4790 Email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de Web: http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ From kkuehnbe at uos.de Tue May 24 08:02:53 2016 From: kkuehnbe at uos.de (Kai-Uwe Kuehnberger) Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 14:02:53 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?Full_Professor_of_Cognitive_Modeling_-_?= =?utf-8?q?Institute_of_Cognitive_Science=2C_University_of_Osnabr=C3=BCck?= Message-ID: The Institute of Cognitive Science of Osnabr?ck University invites applications for the position of a Full Professor of Cognitive Modeling (salary level W2) The Institute of Cognitive Science is seeking to appoint an internationally recognized researcher contributing to an enduring enhancement of its national and international collaborative network. Description of Responsibilities: ? In research and education the successful applicant will represent the field of Cognitive Modeling in its breadth with an emphasis on the interface between symbolic and sub-symbolic neural modeling. ? She/He is particularly expected to contribute modern methods of probabilistic modeling of cognitive functions into the cooperation with the existing working groups at the Institute of Cognitive Science. ? The successful candidate takes active part in teaching at all levels of the Cognitive Science study programs (BSc, MSc, PhD). Therefore, a central precondition is teaching experience and expertise in all subdisciplines of Cognitive Science. Specifically, the successful candidate does not offer only specialist courses, but also courses covering cognitive modeling applied in the full breadth of Cognitive Science. The Institute of Cognitive Science offers international BSc/MSc/PhD study programs and all classes are taught in English. Required Qualifications: ? Qualifications include a university degree (at the level of a Master or PhD) in Cognitive Science or directly related areas, proven pedagogic and didactical skills acquired from practical experience, outstanding ability of autonomously pursuing scientific work, usually proven by an excellent PhD thesis together with additional academic achievements according to ? 25 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 a NHG (e.g. Habilitation). Special Requirements: ? In particular, it is expected that she/he has thorough knowledge as well as a coherent research program in the modeling of cognitive abilities. ? International experience acquired from employments at universities and scientific institutions abroad as well as international collaborations are highly appreciated. ? Candidates are expected to have an excellent command of both the English and German language. The position may be held full or part-time. As a certified family-friendly institution, Osnabr?ck University is committed to furthering the compatibility between work/studies and family life. Osnabr?ck University is a highly committed equal opportunity employer and strives to work towards a gender balance in schools or departments where new appointments are made. Therefore, Osnabr?ck University particularly welcomes and encourages applications from women. Furthermore, qualified applicants with disabilities will be favored. Applications with the usual documentation should be submitted by e-mail in a single PDF-file to Osnabr?ck University, Dean of School of Human Sciences, Prof. Dr. Thomas Staufenbiel, Seminarstra?e 20, 49074 Osnabr?ck (dekanatfb08 at uni-osnabrueck.de) no later than 30.06.2016. Further information can be obtained from Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe K?hnberger (kkuehnbe at uni-osnabrueck.de). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Gustau.Camps at uv.es Mon May 23 18:27:00 2016 From: Gustau.Camps at uv.es (Gustau Camps-Valls) Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 00:27:00 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: 2 PhD student positions in Machine Learning for Geosciences [ERC project] Message-ID: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 PhD student positions in Machine Learning for Geosciences [ERC project] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are searching for outstanding candidates with a strong interest in machine learning and geosciences to cover 2 PhD student positions to join the Image and Signal Processing (ISP) group in the Universitat de Valencia, Spain, http://isp.uv.es. The positions are funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant 2015-2020 entitled "Statistical Learning for Earth Observation Data Analysis" (SEDAL), http://sedalproject.wordpress.com, under the direction of Prof. Gustau Camps-Valls. More info about the openings in http://isp.uv.es/sedal.pdf *** The project and job description We aim to develop the next generation of statistical inference methods to analyze Earth Observation (EO) data. Machine learning models have helped to monitor land, oceans, and atmosphere through the analysis and estimation of climate and biophysical parameters. Current approaches, however, cannot deal efficiently with the particular characteristics of remote sensing data. We will develop advanced regression (retrieval, model inversion) methods to improve efficiency, prediction accuracy and uncertainties, encode physical knowledge about the problem, attain self-explanatory models, learn graphical causal models to explain the complex interactions between essential climate variables and observations, and discover hidden essential drivers and confounding factors in Climate/Geo Sciences. Highly motivated researchers with a degree/PhD in computer science, statistics, machine learning, electrical engineering, physics, or mathematics are encouraged to apply. All candidates should have a solid understanding and knowledge of machine learning and statistics, and being particularly interested in remote sensing and geoscience problems. The theses will be devoted to: (PhD1) regression, model inversion and time series analysis, and (PhD2) structure learning, graphical models and causal inference. In both cases, good programming skills (Matlab/Python/R/C++), a critical and organized sense for data analysis, as well as maturity and commitment, strong communication, presentation and writing skills are a big plus. *** Application details - Deadline: Send your application no later than June 1st 2016. - How? Send me: 2-pages CV, motivation letter, 3 best papers, 3 recommendation letters or contacts - When? Preferred starting dates: September 2016 - How long? 3 years contract - How much? Salary according to UV scales including social security, health insurance benefits, and travel money - Where? Valencia, Spain, Mediterranean city, nice weather, hike and beach. Excellent cost-of-living index = 55 *** Contact - Before applying: Informal inquiries may be addressed to Prof. Dr. Gustau Camps-Valls, gustau.camps at uv.es - Ready to apply? Send your dossier in one single PDF to gustau.camps at uv.es, subject: SEDAL application ------------------------------------------- Prof. Gustau Camps-Valls Image and Signal Processing Group (ISP) Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) Office: 3.2.4 Parc Cient?fic - Campus de Paterna Universitat de Val?ncia C/ Catedr?tico Jos? Beltr?n, 2 46980 Paterna, Val?ncia. Spain. Tlf: +34 963 544 064 Fax: +34 963 543 261 ? http://isp.uv.es ? http://www.uv.es/gcamps ------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From margret.franke at bccn-berlin.de Fri May 27 04:59:38 2016 From: margret.franke at bccn-berlin.de (Margret Franke) Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 10:59:38 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Bernstein Conference 2016: Registration is open In-Reply-To: <217c92c9-eb51-f3eb-0b54-b0b3a22b3402@bccn-berlin.de> References: <217c92c9-eb51-f3eb-0b54-b0b3a22b3402@bccn-berlin.de> Message-ID: <7fa8dbd3-7857-08b9-fb34-1418391773c1@bccn-berlin.de> *BERNSTEIN CONFERENCE 2016 in Berlin* Registration is open now! Please register here: http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2016/registration Early registration deadline: July 24, 2016 **************************************************************************** Satellite Workshops http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2016/satellite-workshops Main Conference http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2016 **************************************************************************** The Bernstein Conference has become the largest annual Computational Neuroscience Conference in Europe and now regularly attracts more than 500 international participants. This year, the Conference is organized by the Bernstein Center Berlin and will take place in Berlin on September 21-23, 2016. In addition, there will be a series of pre-conference satellite workshops on September 20-21, 2016. The Bernstein Conference is a single-track conference, covering all aspects of Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, and sessions for poster presentations are an integral part of the conference. The goal of the satellite workshops is to provide an informal forum for the discussion of timely research questions and challenges. For more information on the conference, please visit: www.bernstein-conference.de CONFERENCE DATE AND VENUE: Satellite Workshops September 20-21, 2016 Venue: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Seminargeb?ude am Hegelplatz, Dorotheenstr. 24, 10117 Berlin Germany Main Conference September 21-23, 2016 Venue: Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin Germany PHD Symposium: September 23-24, 2016 Venue: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Philippstr. 13 Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Michael Brecht Gustavo Deco Alain Destexhe Sophie Den?ve Udo Ernst Adrienne Fairhall Margret Franke Sonja Gr?n John-Dylan Haynes Andreas Herz Philipp H?vel Richard Kempter Klaus Obermayer Stefan Rotter Susanne Schreiber Henning Sprekeler Bernstein Coordination Site: Andrea Huber Br?samle Mareike Kardinal Kerstin Schwarzw?lder We look forward to seeing you in Berlin in September! From j.v.stone at sheffield.ac.uk Fri May 27 08:08:21 2016 From: j.v.stone at sheffield.ac.uk (James Stone) Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 13:08:21 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Book: Bayes' Rule With R Message-ID: <574838B5.70504@sheffield.ac.uk> I'd like to announce the publication of this book: Bayes' Rule With R A Tutorial Introduction to Bayesian Analysis by JV Stone Chapter 1, reviews,, and table of contents can be found here: http://jim-stone.staff.shef.ac.uk/BookBayes2012/books_by_jv_stone/index.html regards, Dr James V Stone, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK. From ps629 at columbia.edu Mon May 23 19:06:01 2016 From: ps629 at columbia.edu (Paul Sajda) Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 19:06:01 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral Research Scientist Positions in Multimodal Neuroimaging Message-ID: The Laboratory for Intelligent Imaging and Neural Computing (LIINC) directed by Prof. Paul Sajda at Columbia University has immediate openings for several Postdoctoral Research Scientists (Fellows) to participate in collaborative work with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) investigating neural structure-function relationships in the context of cognition. Specially we have ongoing projects using multi-modal neuroimaging to study rapid decision making, multi-sensory integration and expertise as realized in the human brain. We use a number of imaging modalities including simultaneous EEG/fMRI, DTI/DWI and more recently fNIRS/EEG to measure brain activity across space and time during complex tasks. We employ various types of machine learning to make inferences about cognitive state based on these neuroimaging data, ultimately relating these cognitive state estimates to behavior, either directly and/or via cognitive models. Successful applicants will have a background in several of the following area: Recording and analysis of simultaneous EEG and fMRI , DTI/DWI/DSI, design of complex behavioral experiments/tasks, signal detection theory, cognitive modeling, machine learning. A Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or Neuroscience is preferred. LIINC (liinc.bme.columbia.edu ) is within the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. We are part of a dynamic and vibrant neuroengineering environment which includes the Center for Neuroengineering and Computation (cnec.columbia.edu ) the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute (zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu ) and the Data Sciences Institute (dsi.columbia.edu ). Interested candidates should send via email their CV, three representative papers, the names of three references, and cover letter to Prof. Paul Sajda (psajda at columbia.edu ). The positions are for one year, with the option to renew for 2-3 years, given satisfactory performance and available funding. The positions are available immediately and applicants will be considered on a rolling basis. Paul Sajda, Ph.D. Professor Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Radiology Columbia University 351 Engineering Terrace Building, Mail Code 8904 1210 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10027 tel: (212) 854-5279 fax: (212) 854-8725 email: ps629 at columbia.edu http://liinc.bme.columbia.edu Editor-in-Chief IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering email: editortnsre at gmail.com http://tnsre.bme.columbia.edu Chair, IEEE BRAIN Initiative http://brain.ieee.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.kardinal at fz-juelich.de Wed May 25 09:59:39 2016 From: m.kardinal at fz-juelich.de (Mareike Kardinal) Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 15:59:39 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline extended: Call for applications: Brains for Brains Young Researchers' Computational Neuroscience Award 2016 In-Reply-To: <6399e263-8098-7efc-54c5-b31e311204a0@fz-juelich.de> References: <6399e263-8098-7efc-54c5-b31e311204a0@fz-juelich.de> Message-ID: <83fd0231-597f-6be6-02a4-f226f8c0f3ab@fz-juelich.de> Dear colleagues, Please let me remind you that, for the seventh time, the Bernstein Association for Computational Neuroscience is announcing the "Brains for Brains Young Researchers' Computational Neuroscience Award". The call is open for researchers of any nationality who have contributed to a peer reviewed publication (as coauthor) or peer reviewed conference abstract (as first author) that was submitted before starting their doctoral studies, is written in English and was accepted or published in 2015 or 2016. The award is endowed with a travel grant of 2.000 ? to cover a trip to Germany, including participation in the Bernstein Conference 2016 in Berlin (www.bernstein-conference.de), and an individually planned visit to up to two German research institutions in Computational Neuroscience. Extended deadline for application: May 30, 2016 (1:00 p.m. CET). Detailed information about the application procedure can be found under: www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-association/brains-for-brains-2016 For inquiries please contact bernstein.network at fz-juelich.de Best regards, Kerstin Schwarzw?lder -- Dr. Kerstin Schwarzw?lder Scientific Coordination / Management Officer Please note: Our email addresses have changed. Please use k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience | Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Branch Office of the Forschungszentrum J?lich at the University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9A | 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: (+49) 0761 203 9589 mail: k.schwarzwaelder at fz-juelich.de web: www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imke.brumund at uni-oldenburg.de Thu May 26 05:47:57 2016 From: imke.brumund at uni-oldenburg.de (Imke Brumund Dept. MPA) Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 11:47:57 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Post-Doc position at Oldenburg University, Dept. of Medical Physics and Acoustics Message-ID: <5746C64D.7040406@uni-oldenburg.de> The Physiology and Modeling of Auditory Perception Group headed by Prof. Dr. Sarah Verhulst at Oldenburg University, Germany, seeks a motivated *Post-Doc in hearing-impaired signal processing (full time TV-L 13 position, 3 years),* to start in the fall of 2016. The position is suitable for part-time work. The position is part of the ERC project RobSpear ?Robust Speech Encoding in Impaired Hearing? that takes an interdisciplinary approach (combining computational auditory models with EEG, psychoacoustics and machine-learning) to study sound processing in listeners with impaired hearing due to ageing or noise exposure. Both novel diagnostic methods as well as signal-processing strategies for hearing restoration are the focus of this project. The candidate will become part of a team that has a mixture of experimental and computational researchers working on hearing-impaired signal processing. This position is ideal for theoretically and computationally strong candidates interested in hearing and sound-processing related applications. Funding is available for three years. The Physiology and Modeling of Auditory Perception Group offers an international scientific environment as well as access to world-class research facilities. For more information about the group see www.uni-oldenburg.de/pmoap . Applicants for the position must hold an academic university degree (master or equivalent) and aPhD in mathematics, or physics, machine learning, auditory signal processing. Excellent coding skills (Python, Matlab) and signal processing knowledge are required, experience with auditory modeling and sound applications are a big plus. Experience with writing scientific papers and excellent written and oral English skills are required. *Project: Model-based signal-processing strategies *The project adopts computational models of the auditory system to develop signal processing, machine learning and optimization algorithms for sound encoding. Patient contact is not required, but working in a team that takes experimental (physiological and psychoacoustic) approaches to hearing is necessary. Prior experience in auditory signal processing is required. The University of Oldenburg is an equal opportunity employer and dedicated to increasing the percentage of women in science. Therefore, female candidates are especially encouraged to apply. According to ? 21, 3 NHG female applicants are to be preferentially considered in case of equal qualification. Applicants with disabilities will be preferentially considered in case of equal qualification. Applications including a CV, motivation letter, copies of higher-education degrees, grade transcripts and the name and contact details of two persons who are willing to give a reference should be sent to sarah.verhulst at uni-oldenburg.de (electronic submission preferred), or to Prof. Dr. Sarah Verhulst Medizinische Physik Universit?t Oldenburg Carl-von-Ossietzky Stra?e 9-11 D - 26111 Oldenburg For further information please contact Prof. Dr. Sarah Verhulst, Tel. (+49) 441 798 5488. Application deadline is 3 June^, 2016. -- Imke Brumund Carl von Ossietzky Universit?t Oldenburg FK VI - Dept. f?r medizinische Physik und Akustik D-26111 Oldenburg E-Mail: imke.brumund at uni-oldenburg.de www.uni-oldenburg.de Tel: +49-(0)441 - 798 - 3709, Geb?ude: W30 - 2 - 202 Tel: +49-(0)441 - 798 - 3185, Geb?ude: W30 - 3 - 316 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imke.brumund at uni-oldenburg.de Thu May 26 05:46:26 2016 From: imke.brumund at uni-oldenburg.de (Imke Brumund Dept. MPA) Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 11:46:26 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Two PhD positions at Oldenburg University, Dept. of Medical Physics and Acoustics Message-ID: <5746C5F2.4070608@uni-oldenburg.de> The Physiology and Modeling of Auditory Perception Group headed by Prof. Dr. Sarah Verhulst at Oldenburg University, Germany, seeks _two_ motivated *PhD students (65% each of full time TV-L 13 position, 3 years),* to start their projects in the fall of 2016. The positions are part of the ERC project RobSpear: ?Robust Speech Encoding in Impaired Hearing? that takes an interdisciplinary approach (combining computational auditory models with EEG, psychoacoustics and machine-learning) to study sound processing in listeners with impaired hearing due to ageing or noise exposure. Both novel diagnostic methods as well as signal-processing strategies for hearing restoration are the focus of this project. Patient contact is required. Funding is available for three years. The Physiology and Modeling of Auditory Perception Group offers an international scientific environment as well as access to world-class research facilities. For more information about the group see www.uni-oldenburg.de/pmoap . Applicants for the position must hold an academic university degree (master or equivalent). Candidates should have excellent oral and written English skills, experience with signal processing and coding (Matlab, Phython). *Project 1: Model-based hearing diagnostics*. The focus is on computational auditory modeling as well as optimizing (multichannel) EEG and otoacoustic emission methods. Auditory modeling experience is a plus, and experience with EEG recording (writing experiment code and analysis) is necessary. Background: M.Sc. in neuroscience, or acoustics, physics, electrical engineering, experimental psychology. *Project 2: Psychoacoustic sound encoding strategies.*Experience with conducting psychoacoustic experiments is necessary (writing experiment code and analysis). Background: M.Sc. in neuroscience, or acoustics, physics, electrical engineering, experimental psychology, audiology. The University of Oldenburg is an equal opportunity employer and dedicated to increasing the percentage of women in science. Therefore, female candidates are especially encouraged to apply. According to ? 21, 3 NHG female applicants are to be preferentially considered in case of equal qualification. Applicants with disabilities will be preferentially considered in case of equal qualification. Applications including a CV, motivation letter, copies of higher-education degrees, grade transcripts and the name and contact details of two persons who are willing to give a reference should be sent to: sarah.verhulst at uni-oldenburg.de (electronic submission preferred), or to: Prof. Dr. Sarah Verhulst Medizinische Physik Universit?t Oldenburg Carl-von-Ossietzky Strasse 9-11 D - 26111 Oldenburg For further information please contact Prof. Dr. Sarah Verhulst, Tel. (+49) 441 798 5488. Application Deadline: /6 June, 2016/ -- Imke Brumund Carl von Ossietzky Universit?t Oldenburg FK VI - Dept. f?r medizinische Physik und Akustik D-26111 Oldenburg E-Mail: imke.brumund at uni-oldenburg.de www.uni-oldenburg.de Tel: +49-(0)441 - 798 - 3709, Geb?ude: W30 - 2 - 202 Tel: +49-(0)441 - 798 - 3185, Geb?ude: W30 - 3 - 316 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From i.bojak at reading.ac.uk Fri May 27 06:59:13 2016 From: i.bojak at reading.ac.uk (Ingo Bojak) Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 10:59:13 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: INCF Short course 2016 "Introduction to Neuroinformatics" Message-ID: <107EBA5B-6B3A-4865-9385-8AE122081455@reading.ac.uk> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kyunghyun.cho at nyu.edu Sun May 29 15:35:43 2016 From: kyunghyun.cho at nyu.edu (Kyunghyun Cho) Date: Sun, 29 May 2016 15:35:43 -0400 Subject: Connectionists: Deep Learning Workshop at ICML'16 Message-ID: This year's Deep Learning Workshop ( https://sites.google.com/site/dlworkshop16) quite radically departs from a usual workshop format. We've chosen two topics of interest and importance: (1) deep learning in the small data regime and (2) simulation-based learning. For each topic, we've invited five awesome researchers who will discuss the topic from their expertise and address questions and comments from the audience during an extended panel discussion (1.5hr long for each session.) To make it even more engaging and wide-reaching, we're gathering comments and questions on those two topics via Reddit "Ask a Workshop Anything". We will collect and pass them on to the invited speakers so that they are ready and happy to address some of those comments. We will share the answers by the invited speakers as a form of online video recording of the workshop. Here are the links: - Session 1: https://www.reddit.com/?/icml2016_ask_a_workshop_anything_?/ - Session 2: https://www.reddit.com/?/icml2016_ask_a_workshop_anything_?/ The invited speakers are: - Session 1: Harri Valpola, Leon Bottou, Joelle Pineau, Maria-Florina Balcan and Anima Anandkumar - Session 2: Raia Hadsell, Pieter Abbeel, Gary Marcus, Marco Baroni and Sanja Fidler This workshop is organized by me, Emily Denton, Antoine Bordes, Rob Fergus and Nando De Freitas. The organizers would like to thank Brian Cheung for helping us greatly in setting up Reddit AWA, and also thank Google DeepMind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de Mon May 30 07:03:42 2016 From: compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de (Compsens) Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 13:03:42 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?Post_Doc/_PhD_Position_University_T?= =?utf-8?q?=C3=BCbingen=2C__Germany?= Message-ID: <20160530130342.Horde.YQUyqONrg-_lfktQdTExhEx@webmail.uni-tuebingen.de> POSTDOC / PHD POSITION: NEURAL REPRESENTATION OF SOCIAL INTENTION (Hertie Institute / Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tuebingen, Germany) ============================================================ The Section for Computational Sensomotorics at the Center for Integrative Neurosciences (CIN) and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research (HIH) at the University of Tuebingen invites applications for a Postdoc or a PhD student with a good mathematical background for a maximum duration of 3 years. The position is funded by a collaborative grant by the Human Frontiers Science Foundation (HFSP) as part of a collaborative project together with together with the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) and Ohio State University (OSU). The work will focus on the development of neural theories for the processing of social signals and their verification by psychophysical experiments, and in collaboration electrophysiological and fMRI experiments. What we offer: -------------- * The HIH is among the top institutions for clinical brain research in Europe and hosts 350 researchers working on different aspects of brain function, and their impairments in disease; the CIN is a leading research facility for systems neuroscience in Germany that was funded as part of the Excellence Initiative of the German government; it includes more than 80 groups from the University and the Max Planck Institutes working on neuroscience; also, the lab is part of the Bernstein Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience in T?bingen * High-end research facilities, including advanced motion capture technology (VICON), VR and augmented reality setups, game engines, state-of-the art equipment for the measurement, modeling, and analysis of human movements and social signals, including advanced methods for the generation of highly-realistic human and animal avatars * close integration with many experimental groups in T?bingen, e.g. working on physiology in nonhuman primates and rodents, relevant problems in neurology and psychiatry, and computational neuroscience * possibility of taking courses and teaching in all fields of neuroscience within the Graduate Training Center for Neuroscience, which offers about 40 courses in molecular, behavioral, and neural information processing * close interactions with high-profile research partners in Europe, Israel, and the US in the fields of systems neuroscience, clinical neuroscience, and robotics What we are looking for: ------------------------- * a highly-motivated individual with enthusiasm for research and capable of self-driven pursuing of the solution of difficult problems; high motivation to learn missing skills quickly * Masters (PhD) degree in Computer Science, Electrical / Mechanical / Biomedical Engineering, Physics, or related fields * strong mathematical background and programming skills (at least in C or Java); willingness to learn relevant techniques and software products (e.g. for computer animation, deep learning, or the simulation of spiking networks) * interest in social neuroscience, computational vision, and detailed neural circuits at the level of single cells * English speaking and writing skills. People without ambition in science who primarily look for a temporary job at a university are discouraged from applying. Committed to Equal Opportunities. Interested people should send their application, including a CV, all marks form studies, 2 letters of reference, and a research statement of about one half page (explaining how their skills might support a project about the understanding neural basis of the processing of social signals in the brain) to: Prof. Dr. Martin Giese Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de ================================================== Section for Theoretical Sensomotorics Dept. for Cognitive Neurology Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Center for Integrative Neuroscience University of Tuebingen Otfried-M?ller Str. 25 D-72076 Tuebingen GERMANY Tel.: +49 7071 2989124 Fax: +49 7071 294790 Email: martin.giese at uni-tuebingen.de Web: http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ ============================================== _______________________________________________ > cvnet mailing list > cvnet at mail.ewind.com > http://lawton.ewind.com/mailman/listinfo/cvnet -- Mirjana Angelovska Abt. Kognitive Neurologie Sektion f?r theoretische Sensomotorik AG Prof. Giese Universit?tsklink T?bingen Centrum f?r Integrative Neurowissenschaften Hertie Institut f?r klinische Hirnforschung Otfried-M?ller-Str. 25 72076 T?bingen Tel: + 49 (0)7071-2989137 Fax: + 49 (0)7071-294790 e-mail:compsens at medizin.uni-tuebingen.de From yael at Princeton.EDU Sun May 29 22:00:18 2016 From: yael at Princeton.EDU (Yael Niv) Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 02:00:18 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc position at the Niv Lab at Princeton University Message-ID: <56ADEF52-4902-4A51-8A43-7F63B261C508@exchange.princeton.edu> The lab of Dr. Yael Niv at Princeton University (http://www.princeton.edu/~nivlab) is seeking a talented postdoctoral or more senior research associate to work as part of the newly formed Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive Neuropsychiatry (ccnp.princeton.edu). Research in the lab focuses on behavioral and imaging experiments and computational modeling of learning and decision making and their interaction with attention and memory processes. The successful candidate will be exceptionally talented and motivated, with a clinical research background and a keen interest in applying methods from computational cognitive modeling to help understand and treat mental illness. The specific area of research is flexible, including anxiety and mood disorders, addiction, PTSD, OCD, schizophrenia. We are particularly looking for someone with initiative and creative ideas who will help chart a path for the lab in transitioning to research in the emerging field of computational psychiatry. The Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Psychology Department at Princeton are highly interdisciplinary and collaborative, and provide excellent support for career development. You will be joining a vibrant and international research group, and will have opportunities to interact with and learn from a large number of world-class researchers in cognitive and computational neuroscience. Initial appointments are for one year with the possibility of reappointment based on satisfactory performance and funding. Essential Qualifications: PhD in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, cognitive science, or other closely related field; a strong track record of research; and experience with research on mental illness and psychiatric populations. Preferred Qualification: Proficiency with computer programming (Matlab, Python, R or equivalent) and strong analytical and quantitative skills are strongly preferred. Experience with behavioral experiments (decision making/psychophysics) and model-based data analysis, fMRI (event related designs and model-based analysis techniques), and/or computational modeling (machine learning, reinforcement learning, Bayesian models) are an advantage, though not strictly required. If you are interested please email a CV, research statement, and contact information for at least 2 references to yael at princeton.edu, and upload these materials at https://jobs.princeton.edu (Requisition #1600435). Princeton University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. This position is subject to the University?s background check policy. From terry at salk.edu Tue May 31 19:19:00 2016 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 16:19:00 -0700 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - June 1, 2016 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Volume 28, Number 6 - June 1, 2016 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/28/6 ----- Review Electroencephalographic Motor Imagery Brain Connectivity Analysis for BCI: A Review Mahyar Hamedi, Sh-Hussain Salleh, and Alias Mohd Noor Note McCulloch-Pitts Brains and Pseudorandom Functions Vasek Chvatal, Mark Goldsmith, and Nan Yang Letters Maintaining Consistency of Spatial Information in the Hippocampal Network: A Combinatorial Geometry Model Yuri A Dabaghian Surrogate Data Methods Based on a Shuffling of the Trials for Synchrony Detection: The Centering Issue. Melisande Albert, Yann Bouret, Magalie Fromont, and Patricia Reynaud-Bouret Feature Linking Model for Image Enhancement Kun Zhan, Jicai Teng, Jinhui Shi, Qiaoqiao Li, and Mingying Wang Direct Density Derivative Estimation Hiroaki Sasaki, Yung-Kyun Noh, Gang Niu, and Masashi Sugiyama Robust Clustering Method in the Presence of Scattered Observations Akifumi Notsu, Shinto Eguchi Efficient Nonegative Matrix Factorization by DC Programming and DCA Hoai An Le Thi, Xuan Thanh Vo, and Tao Pham Dinh Robust Support Vector Machines for Classification With Non-convex and Smooth Losses Yunlong Feng, Yuning Yang, Xiaolin Huang, Siamak Mehrkanoon, and Johan A.K. Suykens ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2016 - VOLUME 28 - 12 ISSUES Student/Retired $78 Individual $138 Institution $1,108 MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209 Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-cs at mit.edu ------------ From kawanabe at atr.jp Mon May 30 00:22:24 2016 From: kawanabe at atr.jp (KAWANABE Motoaki) Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 13:22:24 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Researcher or engineer positions in theoretical visual neuroscience - ATR Brain Labs, Kyoto, Japan Message-ID: <59C36DB1-FF06-4104-B1E5-3C2FE581001E@atr.jp> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear all, I am pleased to announce that ATR Brain Labs in Kyoto, Japan has open positions for researchers or engineers in theoretical visual neuroscience. I would appreciate if you forward the following message to anyone who might be interested. Best regards, Haruo Hosoya, Senior Researcher Department of Dynamic Brain Imaging ATR Brain Labs, Cognitive Mechanisms Laboratories ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Researcher and Engineer positions at ATR Brain Labs, Kyoto, Japan Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), Kyoto, Japan, has open positions for researchers and research engineers in computational visual neuroscience. We seek for applicants who are particularly interested in theoretical studies on hierarchical vision models based on statistical learning. The studies should be motivated toward understanding of computation and representation in visual cortex, where a stronger emphasis should be put on biological connections and theoretical insights rather than short-term applicability. Specific topics may include but are not limited to: - category-specific representations in higher visual areas - visual recognition and imagery - relationship between neural activities and visual consciousness (perception) * Requirements for Researchers Applicants must have a Ph.D. or be near completion. Successful candidates will have expertise in one of the mathematical areas listed below, as well as strong interest in neuroscience and good programming experience. ? computational neuroscience, machine learning, computer vision * Requirements for Research Engineers Applicants must have good programming experience and strong motivations to take part in the research above mainly from program development. * Number of openings A few * Employment conditions Position : Full-time Researcher / Full-time Research Engineer Tenure : Single year based contract, renewable based on evaluation Treatment: Based on individual performance Work Location: Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan * Application materials Please submit the following five materials to the contact address below, either in printed or electronic form: 1 CV 2 List of publications 3 Reprints of 1-3 major publications (applicants for Researchers) or summary of past projects 4 Essay (up to two pages in A4 or letter size) describing: ? Summary of your previous research and/or development ? Interests for research ? Additional research skills not directly foreseeable from 1 or 2 5 Recommendation letters from more than two researchers If submitted in printed form, original documents will not be returned. * Judging system After documentary examination, we ask for presentation and interview if needed. * Starting date Soon (negotiable) * Deadline for application Opens until positions are filled. * Contact Department of Dynamic Brain Imaging ATR Cognitive Mechanisms Laboratories (Application for Researcher Position) 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan Email: dbi-tvn at atr.jp at=@ Web: http://www.cns.atr.jp/dbi/en/open-positons/ * Use of personal data All personal data received will be properly managed and only be used for the purpose of recruitment. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Giulio.Sandini at iit.it Mon May 30 03:53:00 2016 From: Giulio.Sandini at iit.it (Giulio Sandini) Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 07:53:00 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: BYO PhD Project Message-ID: Bring Your Own idea for a PhD project in the research areas developed at the RBCS Department of the Italian Institute of Technology and send your application to the "Bring Your Own Project" fully funded PhD position (Select Theme No. 12 in your application form)! The PhD project will be carried out at the Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences (RBCS) Department of the Italian Institute of Technology directed by Prof. Giulio Sandini. The objective of the PhD program is to form scientists and research technologists capable of working in multidisciplinary teams on projects where human factors play a crucial role in technological development and design. Robotics and neuroscience researchers in RBCS share, as a fundamental scientific objective, the study of physical and social interaction in humans and machines and focus on studies of human sensorimotor, cognitive and social interaction abilities, their implementation in the humanoid robot iCub, and on the design and assessment of assistive technologies and robotic rehabilitation devices. RBCS research facilities supports our student's research activities including the realization of ad-hoc experimental set-ups and mechatronic devices. RBCS experimental facilities include, besides the humanoid platform iCub, a fully equipped motion capture room with simultaneous electromyography recording and force-platforms, a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab, an Electrophysiology Lab for EEG recording, haptic devices for ergonomic measures of individual and dyadic interaction, robot rehabilitation devices for the upper limbs including the wrist; =========================================================================== How to apply to theme No. 12 Application deadline: 10 June 2016, Noon, Italian time =========================================================================== Please note that the positions are available through the PhD course of Bioengineering and Robotics, curriculum on Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies, offered jointly by IIT and the University of Genoa. The official calls are available here: https://www.iit.it/phd-school under the section "Research themes for the call for application to PhD Courses established in agreement with the Universit? degli Studi di Genova, XXXII cycle". Please have a look at the "tips and tricks" section which contains detailed instructions on how to apply and a list of documents you have to present. The link to the on-line application page is: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ In case of problems or questions related to the application procedure, please contact: anastasia.bruzzone at iit.it BYO is Theme No. 12 of those proposed in the same curriculum https://www.iit.it/110-phd-program-in-biorob-cognitive-robotics-2016 [PDF] Help the community with your ideas and Good Luck! Giulio Sandini -- Prof. Giulio Sandini Director Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Via Morego, 30 - 16163 Genova Italy http://www.iit.it/rbcs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Tue May 31 08:56:53 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 14:56:53 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) Special Track on Deep Learning, Knowledge Representation, and Reasoning Message-ID: <643AE88B-7F24-4633-B46D-A0DA2A743BDA@googlemail.com> Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) Special Track on Deep Learning, Knowledge Representation, and Reasoning (http://www.jair.org/specialtrack-dlkrr-call.html ) We are pleased to invite papers for submission to a JAIR special track on deep learning, KR, and reasoning, as such also naturally targeting work in neural-symbolic integration and related areas. The recent success of deep neural networks at tasks such as language modelling, computer vision, and speech recognition has attracted considerable interest from industry and academia. Achieving a better understanding and widespread use of such models involves the use of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning together with sound Machine Learning methodologies and systems. The goal of the special track is to serve as a home for the publication of leading research in deep learning towards cognitive tasks, focusing on applications of neural computation to advanced AI tasks requiring knowledge representation and reasoning. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: knowledge extraction and reasoning using deep networks, the representation of rich symbolic knowledge by neural systems, the integration of logic and probabilities using neural networks, structure learning and relational learning using recurrent networks, neural-symbolic cognitive agents and models, theory revision and transfer learning with neural networks, applications in natural language understanding, visual intelligence, audio, music and signal processing, multimodal learning, education and assessment, and other tasks of a cognitive nature. The tentative timetable for the special track looks as follows: Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2016 First round of notifications: December 1, 2016 Deadline for re-submissions: March 1, 2017 Final notifications: May 1, 2017 Final manuscripts due: June 1, 2017 We hope that this special track will provide a forum to our communities for showcasing highest-quality research and application work, by this establishing a repository which can serve as a form of "academic reference beacon" for future work to build upon. Further details concerning submission formats and procedure can be found at http://www.jair.org/specialtrack-dlkrr-call.html . On behalf of the track editor and associate editors, Tarek R. Besold (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy) Artur D?Avila Garcez (City University London, UK) Kristian Kersting (TU Dortmund, Germany) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yang at maebashi-it.org Tue May 31 08:01:20 2016 From: yang at maebashi-it.org (Yang) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 21:01:20 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Type II (Abstract) Submission - BIH' 16 Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive this more than once] The 2016 International Conference on Brain Informatics & Health (BIH'16) October 13-16, 2016, Hilton Omaha, USA Homepage: http://wibih.unomaha.edu/bih ***Type II (Abstract) Submission Deadline*** - June 20, 2016 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR TYPE II SUBMISSIONS *** KEYNOTE SPEAKERS *** Stephen Smith, Allen Institute for Brain Science Ivan Soltesz, Stanford School of Medicine *** FEATURE SPEAKERS *** Steven Schiff, Pennsylvania State University Kristen Harris, University of Texas at Austin Giulio Tononi, University of Wisconsin-Madison Bob Jacobs, Colorado College Partha Mitra, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Paola Pergami, George Washington University **************** The BIH series provides a premier forum that brings together researchers and practitioners from neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, information communication technologies, and neuroimaging technologies with the purpose of exploring the fundamental roles, interactions as well as practical impacts of Brain Informatics. BIH'16 addresses the computational, cognitive, physiological, biological, physical, ecological and social perspectives of brain informatics, with a strong emphasis on emerging trends of big data analysis and management technology for brain research, behaviour learning, and real-world applications of brain science in human health and well-being. BIH'16 will be co-located with the 2016 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference Web Intelligence (WI'16) (http://wibih.unomaha.edu/wi). Under our theme Connecting Network and Brain with Big Data, BIH'16 and WI'16 will provide a broad forum that academia, professionals and industry can use to exchange their ideas, findings and strategies in utilizing the power of human brains and man-made networks to create a better world. The attendees only need to register for one of the 2 conferences, but they can attend all sessions and social events of the 2 conferences. BIH'16 welcomes paper submissions (full paper and abstract submissions). Both research and application papers are solicited. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance and clarity. Accepted full papers will be included in the proceedings by Springer LNCS/LNAI. Tutorial, Workshop and Special-Session proposals and Industry/Demo-Track papers are also welcome. The organizers of Workshops and Special-Sessions are invited to prepare a book proposal based on the topics of the workshop/special session for possible book publication in the Springer Brain Informatics & Health book series. IMPORTANT DATES: ================ Notification of full paper acceptance: June 20, 2016 Notification of Workshop/Special-Session full paper acceptance: June 20, 2016 Submission of abstracts: June 20, 2016 Notification of abstract acceptance: July 10, 2016 Tutorial proposal submission: July 10, 2016 Tutorials, Workshop and Special-Sessions: October 13, 2016 Main conference: October 14-16, 2016 PAPER SUBMISSIONS & PUBLICATIONS: ================================= TYPE-II (Abstract Submissions; Submission Deadline: June 20, 2016): Abstracts have a word limit of 500 words. Experimental research is particularly welcome. Accepted abstract submissions will be included in the conference program, and will be published as a single, collective proceedings volume. Title: Include in the title of the abstract all words critical for a subject index. Write your title in sentence case (first letter is capitalized; remaining letters are lower case). Do not bold or italicize your full title. Author: List all authors who contributed to the work discussed in the abstract. The presenting author must be listed in the first author slot of the list. Be prepared to submit contact information as well as conflict of interest information for each author listed. Abstract: Enter the body of the abstract and attach any applicable graphic files or tables here. Do not re-enter the title, author, support, or other information that is collected in other steps of the submission form. Presentation Preference: Authors may select from three presentation formats when submitting an abstract: "poster only", "talk preferred" or "no preference". The "talk preferred" selection indicates that you would like to give a talk, but will accept a poster format if necessary. Marking "poster only" indicates that you would not like to be considered for an oral-presentation session. Selecting "no preference" indicates the author's willingness to be placed in the best format for the program. Each paper or abstract requires one sponsoring attendee (i.e. someone who registered and is attending the conference). A single attendee can not sponsor more than two abstracts or papers. Oral presentations will be selected from both full length papers and abstracts. *** Post-Conference Journal Publication *** The BIH conferences have the formal ties with Brain Informatics journal (Springer, http://www.springer.com/40708). Accepted papers from the conference, including their Best Paper Award papers, will be expanded and revised for possible inclusion in the Brain Informatics journal each year. It is fully sponsored and no any article-processing fee is charged for BIH authors. *** Topics and Areas *** Track 1: Investigations of Human Information Processing Systems (HIPS) and Computational Foundations of Brain Science Track 2: Information Technologies for Curating, Mining and Using Brain Big Data Track 3: Brain-Inspired Technologies, Systems and Applications Please find the topics and areas of interest of BIH'16 at http://wibih.unomaha.edu/bih ================================ A Celebration to the 60th Anniversary of AI ================================ This year, the Brain Informatics & Health (BIH) conference is especially dedicated to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the past years, the attempt by brain scientists to understand how the human brain works has never stopped. Meanwhile, the AI researchers also have been striving to formalize the structure and function of human brain, aiming at creating computers and computer software with capacity of intelligent behavior. By integrating techniques and academic researchers, abundant brain-inspired achievements have been yielded. Recently, the so-called neuromorphic computer architectures-chips, that mimic the human brain's ability to be both analytical and intuitive to deliver context and meaning to big data, have been invented and showed us the promising future of AI. There is never been a more exciting moment than now, in neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, and AI. Brain Informatics (BI) has extended and made use of artificial intelligence for new products, services and frameworks that are empowered by the World Wide Web. By means of brain data collected globally and systematic researches on the human brain across macro, meso, and micro scales, i.e., mind and behavior, brain cognition and structure, neuronal morphology and gene, BI is committed to developing a big data sharing mind on the Wisdom Web of Things (W2T), and disclosing the intrinsic qualities of human intelligence. As a part of the celebration to the sixty years of AI, BIH'16 will be co-located with Web Intelligence (WI) 2016, and proudly host two distinguished brain scientists, Dr. Stephen Smith and Dr. Ivan Soltesz as the BIH keynote speakers, as well as two Turing Award laureates, Dr. Leslie Valiant (Turing Award 2010) and Dr. Butler Lampson (Turing Award 1992) as the WI keynote speakers, for the community to share with their intelligent, wisdom minds. We also will organize a panel on Connecting Network and Brain with Big Data and invite keynote/feature speakers of the 2 conferences as panelists. ORGANIZERS ========== General Chairs Hesham Ali (University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) Deepak Khazanchi (University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) Yong Shi (University of Nebraska at Omaha/Chinese Academy of Sciences) BIH'16 PC Chairs Giorgio Ascoli (George Mason University, USA) Michael Hawrylycz (Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA) BIH'16 Workshop/Special-session/Tutorial Chairs Bingni Wen Brunton (University of Washington, USA) Arvind Ramanathan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA) Yi Zeng (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) BIH'16 Publicity Chairs Kate Cooper (University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) Weidong Cai (University of Sydney, Australia) Henning Muller (HES-SO, Switzerland) Local Organizing Committee Prithviraj (Raj) Dasgupta Zhengxin Chen Peter Wolcott Haifeng Guo Mark Pauley Wikil Kwak Kerry Ward Dhundy (Kiran) Bastola Kate Cooper (publicity) Bettina Lechner (webmaster) BIH Steering Committee Co-chairs Ning Zhong (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan) Hanchuan Peng (Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA) *** Contact Information *** kdempsey at unomaha.edu MikeH at alleninstitute.org ascoli at gmu.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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