From nips2007publicity at msn.com Fri Nov 2 01:58:51 2007 From: nips2007publicity at msn.com (NIPS 2007 Publicity) Date: Fri Nov 2 09:39:40 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] RE: [NIPS2007] REMINDER: Call for Demos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The last day for Conference and Workshop early registration is November 6. This is also the last day that rooms at the Westin and Hilton will be held for NIPS 2007 participants at the special rate. After that date, reservations will be accepted at the best available rate subject to room availability. Please register for the meeting and make your hotel reservations today! For meeting registration: https://nips.cc/login.php For hotel registration: https://nips.cc/Conferences/2007/Hotels -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071101/3b4b54f2/attachment.html From nips2007publicity at msn.com Fri Nov 2 02:01:53 2007 From: nips2007publicity at msn.com (NIPS 2007 Publicity) Date: Fri Nov 2 09:39:43 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] NIPS Early Registration Deadline - November 6, 2007 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The last day for Conference and Workshop early registration is November 6. This is also the last day that rooms at the Westin and Hilton will be held for NIPS 2007 participants at the special rate. After that date, reservations will be accepted at the best available rate subject to room availability. Please register for the meeting and make your hotel reservations today! For meeting registration: https://nips.cc/login.php For hotel registration: https://nips.cc/Conferences/2007/Hotels -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071101/5f9fc662/attachment.html From ebrown at Math.Princeton.EDU Fri Nov 2 20:33:24 2007 From: ebrown at Math.Princeton.EDU (Eric Shea-Brown) Date: Sat Nov 3 10:56:12 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Postdoc. position, Univ. of Washington Message-ID: RESEARCH ASSOCIATE POSITION IN MATHEMATICAL NEUROSCIENCE A research associate position in mathematical and theoretical neuroscience is available in the working group of Eric Shea-Brown at the University of Washington, Department of Applied Mathematics. In addition to research, the postdoctoral fellow will teach two one-quarter applied mathematics courses per year. Information about the department can be found at: http://www.amath.washington.edu. Research topics will be chosen to complement the individual interests and new ideas of the postdoctoral fellow, together with ongoing projects in the working group. These projects include population coding topics motivated by statistical dynamics of simple neural models, mechanisms for optimal decision making and timing, and spike time patterns and reliability in structured networks. Collaboration with experimental neuroscientists and with other theorists is the norm. The position provides a competitive annual salary and benefits. Requirements include (1) deep interest in theoretical neuroscience; (2) a PhD in mathematics, applied mathematics, computer science, theoretical biology or neurobiology, statistics, physics, engineering, or a related area; (3) an ability and affinity for communicating mathematical science clearly, both in cross-disciplinary collaborations and in the applied mathematics classroom. The University of Washington offers rich neuroscience, mathematical science, and bioengineering communities with numerous opportunities for collaboration, and Seattle offers an interesting and extremely beautiful place to live. Applicants should send a curriculum vita and a statement of research and teaching interests. Further, arrangements should be made to have three letters of recommendation sent directly to: Department of Applied Mathematics Attn: Postdoctoral search in neuroscience University of Washington Box 352420 Seattle, WA 98195-2420 Screening of applications will begin on January 15, 2008; the position has a (flexible) start date of Fall 2008. The University of Washington is building a culturally diverse faculty and strongly encourages applications from women and minority candidates. AA/EOE. From Jordi.Vallverdu at uab.cat Mon Nov 5 11:49:11 2007 From: Jordi.Vallverdu at uab.cat (=?windows-1252?Q?Jordi_Vallverd=FA?=) Date: Mon Nov 5 12:53:22 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] CALL FOR CHAPTERS AI, ROBOTICS AND EMOTIONS Message-ID: <472EF527.4030408@uab.cat> Call for Chapters /Handbook of Research on Synthetic Emotions and Sociable Robotics: New Applications in Affective Computing and Artificial Intelligence / * * *Editors: J. Vallverd?, Ph.D. & D. Casacuberta, Ph.D. * *Introduction:* Emotions are not only a basic part of rational processes, but a necessary and the most efficient way to establish a good communication and work atmosphere between humans and machines. Our attitudes towards machines are similar to those related to human beings, but we need the machine?s feedback. Therefore, first attempts to embed emotions into machines were focused on to creating machines which could simulate showing human emotional states. A second wave of research is being developed today, trying to create true synthetic emotions: that is, artificial systems with emotional regulatory systems. There are several ways to integrate emotions into artificial environments (computers and robotics), which we will cover with this new book, from robotics to artificial intelligence or ambient intelligence. This book covers all the efforts on the project to integrate emotions into artificial systems, as well as emotion simulations and emotion synthetic developments. Beyond technical aspects of these researches, we include the philosophical thoughts of several specialists about the nature of synthetic emotions. We will also review how synthetic emotions can and are actually being used in art projects, analyzing how robots can become part of an intelligent installation, or how algorithmic systems to produce artwork can benefit from an emotional implementation in them. The /Handbook of Research on Synthetic Emotions and Sociable Robotics: New Applications in Affective Computing and Artificial Intelligence/ will be most helpful as it provides comprehensive coverage and definitions of the most important issues, concepts, trends and technologies in artificial emotions and related topics. This important new publication will be distributed worldwide among academic and professional institutions and will be instrumental in providing researchers, scholars, students and professionals access to the latest knowledge related to artificial emotions. Contributions to this important publication will be made by scholars throughout the world with notable research portfolios and expertise. *Coverage:* The Handbook of Research on Synthetic Emotions and Sociable Robotics: New Applications in Affective Computing and Artificial Intelligence will provide a compendium of terms, definitions and explanations of concepts, processes and acronyms. Additionally, this volume will feature chapters (8,000-10,000 words) authored by leading experts offering an in-depth description of key terms and concepts related to different areas, issues and trends in information science and technologies in modern organizations worldwide. Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following: # Emotions. # Affective Computing. # Sociable Robots. # Synthetic Emotions. # AI?s Emotions. # Artificial Emotions. # Digital arts and emotions. # Art and AI. # Emotional interfaces. *Invited Submissions:* Individuals interested in submitting chapters (8,000-10,000 words) on the above-suggested topics or other related topics in their area of interest should submit via e-mail a 2-3 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter by December 15th, 2007. We strongly encourage other topics that have not been listed in our suggested list, particularly if the topic is related to the research area in which you have expertise. Upon acceptance of your proposal (communication on January 15th 2008), you will have until April 28th, 2008, to prepare your chapter of 8,000-10,000 words and 7-10 related terms and their appropriate definitions. Guidelines for preparing your paper and terms and definitions will be sent to you upon acceptance of your proposal. Please forward your e-mail of interest including your name, affiliation and a list of topics (5-7) on which you are interested in writing a chapter to Jordi Vallverd? or David Casacuberta, editors, at jordi.vallverdu@uab.cat or david.casacuberta@uab.cat no later than December 15th 2007. You will be notified about the status of your proposed topics by January 15th 2008. This book is tentatively scheduled for publishing by Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference), www.info-sci-ref.com, an imprint of IGI Global (formerly Idea Group, Inc.) in 2010. Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to: Jordi Vallverd? jordi.vallverdu@uab.cat David Casacuberta david.casacuberta@uab.cat From alexwade at gmail.com Mon Nov 5 18:40:33 2007 From: alexwade at gmail.com (Alex Wade) Date: Tue Nov 6 10:27:40 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Cosyne 2008 Registration and Abstract Submission Open Message-ID: <76eaaa9a0711050940q488a0b5fi7bffde68c3aae0b3@mail.gmail.com> ============================== Annual Meeting Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING WORKSHOPS 28 Feb - 2 Mar, 2008 3 - 4 Mar, 2008 Salt Lake City, Utah Snow Bird Ski Resort, Utah http://cosyne.org ============================== Cosyne 2008 Announcements: MAIN MEETING: the cosyne web site will be open for abstract submission on 1 November, and the SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS 30 NOVEMBER. The program committee is listed below. WORKSHOPS: the finalized list of workshops (further information available on the web site) is as follows: 1. Linking Auditory Neurophysiology to Perception (Schnupp) 2. The cortical microcircuit and cognitive function (Reynolds, Sommer) 3. Neurophysiology in awake, behaving rodents (Laubach, Shuler) 4. Solving systems neuroscience problems with molecular tools (Boyden) 5. Reactivation and memory consolidation (Diba, Harris) 6. Data sharing and modeling challenges in neuroscience - a first step towards predictive neuron models? (Roth, Gerstner, Sommer) 7. Top down or bottom up? Measuring, modeling, and understanding cross-scale neural interactions (Blanche, Koepsell) 8. Dynamic faces: From experiments to novel computational neural theories (Curio, Buelthoff, Giese) 9. Recent advances in activity-dependent plasticity (Munro) 10. Spiking Networks and Reinforcement Learning (Szatmary, Izhikevich) 11. Real-time processing and the processing of time (Deneve, Buonomano) 12. Characterizing and decoding distributed brain representations (Kriegeskorte, Walther, Kreiman, Kiani, Aguirre) 13. What can functional imaging tell us about population coding in sensory systems? (Gardner, Huk, Schluppeck) =================================================== PROGRAM COMMITTEE (main meeting): Matteo Carandini (chair) Dora Angelaki Mathew Diamond Allison Doupe Adrienne Fairhall Michael Hasselmo Adam Kepecs Peter Latham Klaus Obermayer Bijan Pesaran John Reynolds Daniel Wolpert EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Tony Zador (CSHL) Alex Pouget (U Rochester) Zach Mainen (CSHL) Eero Simoncelli (NYU) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chair: Eero Simoncelli (NYU) Program Chair: Matteo Carandini (Smith-Kettlewell) Workshop Chair(s): Fritz Sommer, Jascha Sohl-Dickstein (UC Berkeley) Publicity Chair: Alex Wade (Smith-Kettlewell) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071105/c3dad7bf/attachment.html From nips2007publicity at msn.com Tue Nov 6 09:12:00 2007 From: nips2007publicity at msn.com (NIPS 2007 Publicity) Date: Tue Nov 6 10:27:43 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] TODAY: NIPS Early Registration Deadline (November 6, 2007) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For those of you who have not paid for the NIPS meeting: today, November 6, is the final day to pay for discounted Early Registration. Starting November 7, normal rates will be in effect. November 6 is also the last day that rooms at the Westin and Hilton will be held for NIPS 2007 participants at the special rate. After that date, reservations will be accepted at the best available rate subject to room availability. Please register for the meeting and make your hotel reservations today! For meeting registration: https://nips.cc/Register/ For hotel registration: http://nips.cc/Conferences/2007/Hotels From dirk.hoyer at biomag.uni-jena.de Wed Nov 7 12:11:48 2007 From: dirk.hoyer at biomag.uni-jena.de (Dirk Hoyer) Date: Wed Nov 7 12:28:54 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] announcement research position Message-ID: <47319D74.4080204@biomag.uni-jena.de> *BIOMAGNETIC** CENTER**, DEPARTMENT OF NEUROLOGY* *FRIEDRICH** SCHILLER UNIVERSITY, JENA* We are pleased to announce a *RESEARCH POSITION* in the Biomagnetic Center, Department of Neurology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany in collaboration with GIPSA-lab, Images and signal Department (DIS ; C. Jutten and R. Sameni) ? joint CNRS unit UMR 5216, associated with Grenoble universities, France. The research will be devoted to the study of fetal heart rate pattern and fetal brain evoked fields in a funded clinical study ?Biomagnetic investigations of the fetal autonomic and central nervous maturation and its disturbances due to intrauterine growth restriction and glucocorticoid administration?. The ideal candidates should have capabilities and experiences in multichannel signal analysis, principal/independent component analysis, and filter techniques. Main objective of his (her) work will be the identification of Acoustic Evoked Cortical Fields from multichannel magnetic measurements. We offer the opportunity to join a highly motivated interdisciplinary research group. The selected candidate will have the chance to further develop, and extend his respective skills. We also offer the possibility to do a PhD. The appointee will receive a salary according to the German civil service pay scale (BAT IIa). The work should start as soon as possible and can be organized as 6 month full time or 12 month 50% part time job. To apply for this position please send (preferably in PDF format) a cover letter, a CV including a list of your previous scientific work and publications, and the name and electronic addresses of a mentor willing to provide a recommendation letter to Dr. Dirk Hoyer (email: dirk.hoyer@biomag.uni-jena.de). In the framework of the collaboration with Grenoble, short visits (1 week to 1 month) to Grenoble can be possible. Please, feel free to forward this announcement to anybody who might be interested. Dirk Hoyer, PhD Head of the Systems Analysis Team Biomagnetic Center, Department of Neurology Clinical Center of Friedrich Schiller University 07740 Jena, Germany http://www.biomag.uni-jena.de dirk.hoyer@biomag.uni-jena.de From rinbergd at janelia.hhmi.org Tue Nov 6 17:53:46 2007 From: rinbergd at janelia.hhmi.org (Rinberg, Dmitry) Date: Thu Nov 8 10:19:00 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Conference in Janelia Farm In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Using In vivo Physiology to Understand Neural Circuits in Genetic Systems April 20 - 23, 2008 Janelia Farm Research Campus (JFRC), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Ashburn, Virginia Registration/Abstract submission deadline: November 15th, 2007 ORGANIZERS: Vivek Jayaraman, JFRC/HHMI Dmitry Rinberg, JFRC/HHMI Rachel Wilson, Harvard University This small meeting will explore how best to use in vivo electrophysiology and functional imaging in genetic model organisms (or other systems where genetic tools can be usefully applied) to understand neural circuit function. The focus will be on recent experimental advances, future experimental plans, and general strategic and methodological issues in the design and interpretation of these experiments. We will not focus on purely technological advances. A few notable features of this single-track meeting are: (i) It will be entirely organized around workshops, each with a specific theme and consisting of multiple short talks (15 minutes each). A list of confirmed speakers and a tentative list of topics is provided below. (ii) Invited speakers will give different short talks at multiple workshops, and will be encouraged to directly address the workshop topics in their talks, and to share their views on the issues at hand using their experience and data for support. (iii) There will be a "town hall" session near the end of the meeting. All participants will be encouraged to give the organizers a few broad questions they would like posed to particular speakers of their choice. We will then select a few of these and request that a selection of invited speakers answer the questions (possibly in a panel discussion). Those interested should apply with an abstract on the Janelia conference web page: http://www.hhmi.org/janelia/conf-016.html Please note that there is a limit on the total number of participants at Janelia conferences. Participants will be selected based on how well their research fits in with the overall goals of the meeting. There is no charge to attend this workshop (i.e. no registration fee or charges for accommodation or meals). Housing will be provided on site. Keynote speaker: Eve Marder (Brandeis University) Invited speakers (confirmed): Richard Axel (Columbia University/HHMI) Cori Bargmann (Rockefeller University/HHMI) Alexander Borst (Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried) Gyorgi Buzsaki (Rutgers University, Newark) Thomas R. Clandinin (Stanford University) Yang Dan (University of California, Berkeley) Michael Dickinson (California Institute of Technology/JFRC) Michale Fee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Rainer Friedrich (Friedrich Miescher Inst for Biomedical Research, Basel) Miriam B. Goodman (Stanford University) Vivek Jayaraman (JFRC/HHMI) Gilles J. Laurent (California Institute of Technology) Shawn Lockery (University of Oregon) Markus Meister (Harvard University) Dmitry Rinberg (JFRC/HHMI) Aravi Samuel (Harvard University) William R. Schafer (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) Karel Svoboda (JFRC/HHMI) Glenn Turner (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories) Matt Wachowiak (Boston University) Rachel Wilson (Harvard Medical School) Charles Zuker (University of California San Diego/HHMI) Tentative list of workshop topics Hypotheses and Explorations: When should research be hypothesis-driven, and when should we simply observe and describe? What, in your experience, illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches? Does the "genome era" favor exploratory research or hypothesis-driven research? How important, in your view, is an explicit model of circuit function in guiding interpretation of experimental data, and at what stage is it best employed? The Decoding Problem: What is the best way to test the relevance of a neural code? How should features of neural responses be linked to downstream decoders, ethology and/or behavior? How important is this, and how can we do this correctly? Silencing and Stimulating Genetically-specified Neurons: What's the best way of designing and interpreting experiments where we either silence or microstimulate a neuron or population of neurons? Various techniques make these experiments increasingly feasible (e.g., laser ablation, synaptic silencing, channelrhodopsin stimulation, etc.). What are their limitations AND how might we work around them? "The Connectome": How important is it simply to discover which neurons in a circuit connect to each other? Do we need the resolution of the C. elegans "connectome"? Is it important to know connectivity at nanometer-scale resolution, given the enormous challenges in storing and analyzing these types of images? How can we design powerful experiments to establish connectivity on different scales? Handling Complexity: Is the brain's complexity best tackled by reducing a problem (using genetic manipulations of the circuit/simplified stimuli/constrained behavior) to what seem like its basic elements? What, in your experience, are the pros and cons of such an approach? How is it best done in a genetic model organism? What, in your experience, are good alternatives to handling complexity? What is the most useful way to interpret data from either approach? Electrophysiology and Functional Imaging: Electrophysiology permits fine sensitivity and temporal precision, while functional imaging allows simultaneous recording from many neurons. What kinds of questions can best be approached by these techniques? What are disadvantages of both approaches? How can we use these approaches to complement each other? Behavior: How can we use behavioral assays to test specific hypotheses about neural circuits? What questions are best addressed using naturalistic behaviors and when are highly constrained behaviors more useful? Is it problematic that all genetic model organisms are highly inbred? By choosing to study genetic model organisms, are we inevitably rejecting the notion that we should preferentially study virtuosic "specialists" like the barn owl? From auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch Fri Nov 9 12:45:45 2007 From: auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch (Auke Ijspeert) Date: Fri Nov 9 12:58:40 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] CFP: Adaptive Motion in Animals and Machines, AMAM08, June 1-6, 2008, Cleveland, USA Message-ID: <47344869.3010107@epfl.ch> Call for Abstracts and Participation: AMAM08 AMAM: Adaptive Motion in Animals and Machines June 1-6, 2008, Cleveland, OH, USA http://amam.case.edu AMAM08 is the fourth international symposium dedicated to the neuromechanics, sensory perception, and intelligence behind adaptive movement in animals, and the modeling, analysis, and technical development of adaptive movement in animals and machines. Previous symposia were held in Montreal, Canada (2000); Kyoto, Japan (2003); and Ilmenau, Germany (2005). The symposium will include a single track of keynote (evening), plenary, and invited seminar speakers, plus poster sessions. We will also continue the tradition of a "Robot Zoo," where researchers may demonstrate their latest machines. Poster abstracts are invited in all areas pertaining to adaptive motion in animals and machines. We especially encourage submission in the three main focus areas for AMAM08: * Robotics * Neurobiology of Movement Behavior * Functional Electrical Stimulation Confirmed keynote and plenary speakers include + Hunter Peckham + Hirosi Kimura + Ansgar B?schges + Paolo Dario + Mike Dickinson + Kiisa Nishikawa + Kier Pearson + Marc Raibert + Barry Trimmer + Barbara Webb A distinguished list of seminar speakers is also being invited. Poster abstracts (350 words) and Robot Zoo submissions are due by January 21, 2008. Notification of final acceptance will occur by March 17, 2008. Detailed submission instructions will be available at the meeting website, http://amam.case.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071109/d58c4162/attachment-0001.html From terry at salk.edu Sun Nov 11 09:32:36 2007 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Mon Nov 12 11:05:56 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Re: Neuro Thursday at NIPS 2007 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Information Processing Systems - NIPS 2007: http://nips.cc/Conferences/2007/ Conference December 3-6, 2007, Vancouver Workshop December 7-8, 2007, Whistler NEURO-THURSDAY at NIPS: Thursday, December 6 - 8:30 AM - Noon - Vancouver Thursday, December 6 (the final day of the Conference), will be devoted to Neuroscience, and will consist of a fascinating invited talk by Professor Manabu Tanifuji (Riken) on the monkey visual cortex, plus six outstanding plenary talks. In addition, all of the Neuroscience posters will take place on Wednesday night, allowing early arrivals to interact with researchers. The Wednesday night poster program will also contain many posters on Machine Learning and Computer Vision, focused on topics that are also relevant to Neuroscience. All of the morning events (including the Wednesday night Poster Session and the Spotlights that precede it) will be available for the special "Neuro-Thursday" registration rate of $50. For those attending the entire Conference, "Neuro-Thursday" is included in the registration price. 8:30 - 8:50am Misha Ahrens, Maneesh Sahani Inferring Elapsed Time from Stochastic Neural Processes 8:50 - 9:10am Omer Bobrowski, Ron Meir, Shy Shoham, Yonina Eldar A neural network implementing optimal state estimation based on dynamic spike train decoding 9:10 - 9:30am Sebastian Gerwinn, Jakob Macke, Matthias Seeger, Matthias Bethge Bayesian Inference for Spiking Neuron Models with a Sparsity Prior 9:30 - 9:50am Jonathan Pillow, Peter Latham Neural characterization in partially observed populations of spiking neurons 9:50 - 10:10am Srinjoy Mitra, Giacomo Indiveri, Stefano Fusi Learning to classify complex patterns using a VLSI network of spiking neurons 10:10 - 10:40am Break 10:40 - 11:00am Mate Lengyel, Peter Dayan Hippocampal Contributions to Control: The Third Way 11:00am - 12:00pm Invited Speaker: Manabu Tanifuji Population coding of object images based on visual features and its relevance to view invariant representation -------- Deep Learning Satellite Meeting: Foundations and Future Directions Thursday, December 6 - 2:00 to 5:30 PM - Vancouver Theoretical results strongly suggest that in order to learn the kind of complicated functions that can represent high-level abstractions (e.g. in vision, language, and other AI-level tasks), one may need "deep architectures", which are composed of multiple levels of non-linear operations (such as in neural nets with many hidden layers). Searching the parameter space of deep architectures is a difficult optimization task, but learning algorithms (e.g. Deep Belief Networks) have recently been proposed to tackle this problem with notable success, beating the state-of-the-art in certain areas. This Workshop is intended to bring together researchers interested in the question of deep learning in order to review the current algorithms' principles and successes, but also to identify the challenges, and to formulate promising directions of investigation. Besides the algorithms themselves, there are many fundamental questions that need to be addressed: What would be a good formalization of deep learning? What new ideas could be exploited to make further inroads to that difficult optimization problem? What makes a good high-level representation or abstraction? What type of problem is deep learning appropriate for? There is no charge for this Workshop or for the bus to Whistler that will leave after the Workshop; however, a separate registration is required. To register: http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lisa/twiki/bin/view.cgi/Public/DeepLearningWorkshopNIPS2007 2:00pm - 2:25pm Yee-Whye Teh, Gatsby Unit : Deep Belief Networks 2:25pm - 2:45pm John Langford, Yahoo Research: Theoretical Results on Deep Architectures 2:45pm - 3:05pm Yoshua Bengio, University of Montreal: Optimizing Deep Architectures 3:05pm - 3:25pm Yann Le Cun, New York University: Learning deep hierarchies of invariant feature 3:25pm - 3:45pm Martin Szummer, Microsoft Research: Deep networks for information retrieval 3:45pm - 4:00pm Coffee break 4:00pm - 4:20pm Max Welling, University of California: Hierarchical Representations from networks of HDPs 4:20pm - 4:40pm Andrew Ng, Stanford University: Self-taught learning: Transfer learning from unlabeled data 4:40pm - 5:00pm Geoff Hinton, University of Toronto: How the brain works 5:00pm - 5:30pm Discussion --------- NIPS Whistler Workshops Friday December 7 - Saturday December 8, 2007 - Whistler The post-Conference Workshops will be held at the Westin Resort and Spa and the Westin Hilton in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada on December 7 and 8, 2007. The Workshops provide multi-track intensive sessions on a wide range of topics. The venue and schedule facilitate informality and depth. Partial List of Workshop Topics and Organizers: Beyond Simple Cells: Probabilistic Models for Visual Cortical Processing Richard Turner, Pietro Berkes, Maneesh Sahani Hierarchical Organization of Behavior: Computational, Psychological and Neural Perspectives Yael Niv, Matthew Botvinick, Andrew Barto Large Scale Brain Dynamics Ryan Canolty, Kai Miller, Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, Thore Graepel, Ralf Herbrich Mechanisms of Visual Attention Jillian Fecteau, Dirk Walther, Vidhya Navalpakkam, John Tsotsos Music, Brain and Cognition. Part 1: Learning the Structure of Music and Its Effects On the Brain David Hardoon, Eduardo Reck-Miranda, John Shawe-Taylor Music, Brain and Cognition. Part 2: Models of Sound and Cognition Hendrik Purwins, Xavier Serra, Klaus Obermayer Principles of Learning Problem Design John Langford, Alina Beygelzimer Representations and Inference on Probability Distributions Kenji Fukumizu, Arthur Gretton, Alex Smola The Grammar of Vision: Probabilistic Grammar-Based Models for Visual Scene Understanding and Object Categorization Jan Peters, Marc Toussaint A complete list of all 25 workshop and links for more information: http://nips.cc/Conferences/2007/Program/schedule.php?Session=Workshops --------- NIPS POSTERS - Wednesday, December 5, 7:30pm - 12:00am B. Fischer - Optimal models of sound localization by barn owls S. Ghebreab, A. Smeulders, P. Adriaans - Predicting Brain States from fMRI Data: Incremental Functional Principal Component Regression M. Cerf, J. Harel, W. Einhaeuser, C. Koch - Predicting human gaze using low-level saliency combined with face detection J. Macke, G. Zeck, M. Bethge - Receptive Fields without Spike-Triggering V. Rao, M. Howard - Retrieved context and the discovery of semantic structure C. Christoforou, P. Sajda, L. Parra - Second Order Bilinear Discriminant Analysis for single trial EEG analysis P. Frazier, A. Yu - Sequential Hypothesis Testing under Stochastic Deadlines L. Buesing, W. Maass - Simplified Rules and Theoretical Analysis for Information Bottleneck Optimization and PCA with Spiking Neurons H. Lee, E. Chaitanya, A. Ng - Sparse deep belief net model for visual area V2 M. Figueroa, G. Carvajal, W. Valenzuela - Subspace-Based Face Recognition in Analog VLSI D. Gao, V. Mahadevan, N. Vasconcelos - The discriminant center-surround hypothesis for bottom-up saliency D. Mochihashi, E. Sumita - The Infinite Markov Model N. Daw, A. Courville - The rat as particle filter R. Legenstein, D. Pecevski, W. Maass - Theoretical Analysis of Learning with Reward-Modulated Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity M. Mahmud, S. Ray - Transfer Learning using Kolmogorov Complexity: Basic Theory and Empirical Evaluations A. Graves, S. Fernandez, M. Liwicki, H. Bunke, J. Schmidhuber - Unconstrained On-line Handwriting Recognition with Recurrent Neural Networks M. Mozer, D. Baldwin - Experience-Guided Search: A Theory of Attentional Control A. Yuille, H. Lu - The Noisy-Logical Distribution and its Application to Causal Inference M. Frank, N. Goodman, J. Tenenbaum - A Bayesian Framework for Cross-Situational Word-Learning A. Stocker, E. Simoncelli - A Bayesian Model of Conditioned Perception C. Kemp, N. Goodman, J. Tenenbaum - A complexity measure for intuitive theories M. Giulioni, M. pannunzi, D. Badoni, V. Dante, P. del Giudice - A configurable analog VLSI neural network with spiking neurons and self-regulating plastic synapses S. Siddiqi, B. Boots, G. Gordon - A Constraint Generation Approach to Learning Stable Linear Dynamical Systems O. Bobrowski, R. Meir, S. Shoham, Y. Eldar - A neural network implementing optimal state estimation based on dynamic spike train decoding G. Englebienne, T. Cootes, M. Rattray - A probabilistic model for generating realistic lip movements from speech A. Argyriou, C. Micchelli, M. Pontil, Y. Ying - A Spectral Regularization Framework for Multi-Task Structure Learning P. Liang, D. Klein, M. Jordan - Agreement-Based Learning F. Sinz, O. Chapelle, A. Agarwal, B. Schölkopf - An Analysis of Inference with the Universum D. Sridharan, B. Percival, J. Arthur, K. Boahen - An in-silico Neural Model of Dynamic Routing through Neuronal Coherence C. Clopath, A. Longtin, W. Gerstner - An online Hebbian learning rule that performs Independent Component Analysis N. Chapados, Y. Bengio - Augmented Functional Time Series Representation and Forecasting with Gaussian Processes Y. Teh, H. Daume III, D. Roy - Bayesian Agglomerative Clustering with Coalescents D. Endres, M. Oram, J. Schindelin, P. Foldiak - Bayesian binning beats approximate alternatives: estimating peri-stimulus time histograms S. Gerwinn, J. Macke, M. Seeger, M. Bethge - Bayesian Inference for Spiking Neuron Models with a Sparsity Prior S. Yu, B. Krishnapuram, R. Rosales, H. Steck, R. Rao - Bayesian Multi-View Learning T. Sharpee - Better than least squares: comparison of objective functions for estimating linear-nonlinear models Y. Lin, J. Chen, Y. Kim, D. Lee - Blind channel identification for speech dereverberation using l1-norm sparse learning L. Sigal, A. Balan, M. Black - Combined discriminative and generative articulated pose and non-rigid shape estimation U. Beierholm, K. Kording, L. Shams, W. Ma - Comparing Bayesian models for multisensory cue combination without mandatory integration R. Peters, L. Itti - Congruence between model and human attention reveals unique signatures of critical visual events L. Murray, A. Storkey - Continuous Time Particle Filtering for fMRI E. Neftci, E. Chicca, G. Indiveri, J. Slotine, R. Douglas - Contraction Properties of VLSI Cooperative Competitive Neural Networks of Spiking Neurons H. Chieu, W. Lee, Y. Teh - Cooled and Relaxed Survey Propagation for MRFs P. Ferrez, J. Millan - EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interaction: Improved Accuracy by Automatic Single-Trial Error Detection O. Sumer, U. Acar, A. Ihler, R. Mettu - Efficient Bayesian Inference for Dynamically Changing Graphs J. Huang, C. Guestrin, L. Guibas - Efficient Inference forDistributions on Permutations V. Singh, L. Mukherjee, J. Peng, J. Xu - Ensemble Clustering using Semidefinite Programming E. Tsang, B. Shi - Estimating disparity with confidence from energy neurons K. Ganchev, J. Graca, B. Taskar - Expectation Maximization, Posterior Constraints, and Statistical Alignment D. Wingate, S. Singh - Exponential Family Predictive Representations of State S. LAM, B. Shi - Extending position/phase-shift tuning to motion energy neurons improves velocity discrimination M. Ross, A. Cohen - GRIFT: A graphical model for inferring visual classification features from human data M. Lengyel, P. Dayan - Hippocampal Contributions to Control: The Third Way A. Christmann, I. Steinwart - How SVMs can estimate quantiles and the median M. Ahrens, M. Sahani - Inferring Elapsed Time from Stochastic Neural Processes J. Cunningham, B. Yu, K. Shenoy, M. Sahani - Inferring Neural Firing Rates from Spike Trains Using Gaussian Processes B. Blankertz, M. Kawanabe, R. Tomioka, F. Hohlefeld, V. Nikulin, K. Mueller - Invariant Common Spatial Patterns: Alleviating Nonstationarities in Brain-Computer Interfacing K. Fukumizu, A. Gretton, X. Sun, B. Schoelkopf - Kernel Measures of Conditional Dependence M. Parsana, S. Bhattacharya, C. Bhattacharyya, K. Ramakrishnan - Kernels on Attributed Pointsets with Applications P. Garrigues, B. Olshausen - Learning Horizontal Connections in a Sparse Coding Model of Natural Images N. Le Roux, Y. Bengio, P. Lamblin, M. Joliveau, B. Kegl - Learning the 2-D Topology of Images S. Mitra, G. Indiveri, S. Fusi - Learning to classify complex patterns using a VLSI network of spiking neurons V. Ferrari, A. Zisserman - Learning Visual Attributes S. Kirshner - Learning with Tree-Averaged Densities and Distributions F. Meyer, G. Stephens - Locality and low-dimensions in the prediction of natural experience from fMRI A. Sanborn, T. Griffiths - Markov Chain Monte Carlo with People J. Dauwels, F. Vialatte, T. Rutkowski, A. Cichocki - Measuring Neural Synchrony by Message Passing R. Turner, M. Sahani - Modeling Natural Sounds with Modulation Cascade Processes B. Williams, M. Toussaint, A. Storkey - Modelling motion primitives and their timing in biologically executed movements E. Bonilla, K. Chai, C. Williams - Multi-task Gaussian Process Prediction M. Bethge, P. Berens - Near-Maximum Entropy Models for Binary Neural Representations of Natural Images J. He, J. Carbonell - Nearest-Neighbor-Based Active Learning for Rare Category Detection J. Pillow, P. Latham - Neural characterization in partially observed populations of spiking neurons G. Lebanon, Y. Mao - Non-parametric Modeling of Partially Ranked Data B. Russell, A. Torralba, C. Liu, R. Fergus, W. Freeman - Object Recognition by Scene Alignment P. Berkes, R. Turner, M. Sahani - On Sparsity and Overcompleteness in Image Models Z. Barutcuoglu, P. Long, R. Servedio - One-Pass Boosting A complete schedule and abstracts of all NIPS talks and posters can be found at: http://nips.cc/Conferences/2007/Program/schedule.php?Session=Conference%20Sessions ----- From dayan at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk Tue Nov 13 15:18:16 2007 From: dayan at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk (Peter Dayan) Date: Wed Nov 14 09:40:15 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Gatsby PhD Programme In-Reply-To: <20061013122857.GA10331@flies.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> References: <20061013122857.GA10331@flies.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20071113141816.GA24562@flies.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL 4 year PhD Programme The Gatsby Unit is a centre for theoretical neuroscience and machine learning, focusing on unsupervised, semi-supervised and reinforcement learning, neural dynamics, population coding, Bayesian and nonparametric statistics and applications of these to the analysis of perceptual processing, neural data, natural language processing, machine vision and bioinformatics. It provides a unique opportunity for a critical mass of theoreticians to interact closely with each other, and with other world-class research groups in related departments at University College London (UCL), including Anatomy, Computer Science, Functional Imaging, Physics, Physiology, Psychology, Neurology, Ophthalmology and Statistics, with the cross-faculty Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning, and also with other UK and overseas universities notably, at the present time, with Cambridge in the UK, Columbia, New York and ENS, Paris. The Unit always has openings for exceptional PhD candidates. Applicants should have a strong analytical background, a keen interest in neuroscience and/or machine learning and a relevant first degree, for example in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, Psychology or Statistics. The PhD programme lasts four years, including a first year of intensive instruction in techniques and research in theoretical neuroscience and machine learning. A number of competitive fully-funded studentships are available each year (to students of any nationality) and the Unit also welcomes students with pre-secured funding or with other scholarship/studentship applications in progress. Full details of our programme, and how to apply, are available at: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/teaching/phd/ For further details of research interests please see: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/research.html Applications for 2008 entry (commencing late September 2008) should be received no later than 6 January 2008. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend interview in the week commencing 18 February 2008. From dmodha at gmail.com Thu Nov 15 08:14:56 2007 From: dmodha at gmail.com (Dharmendra Modha) Date: Fri Nov 16 10:11:39 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] New Paper: "Anatomy of a Cortical Simulator" at Supercomputing 2007 Message-ID: <001a01c82757$3ad2a320$b077e960$@com> TITLE: Anatomy of a Cortical Simulator AUTHORS: Rajagopal Ananthanarayanan and Dharmendra S. Modha, IBM Almaden Research Center CONFERENCE: Supercomputing 2007, Reno, NV, Nov 10-16 ABSTRACT: Insights into brain's high-level computational principles will lead to novel cognitive systems, computing architectures, programming paradigms, and numerous practical applications. An important step towards this end is the study of large networks of cortical spiking neurons. We have built a cortical simulator, C2, incorporating several algorithmic enhancements to optimize the simulation scale and time, through: computationally efficient simulation of neurons in a clock-driven and synapses in an event-driven fashion; memory efficient representation of simulation state; and communication efficient message exchanges. Using phenomenological, single-compartment models of spiking neurons and synapses with spike-timing dependent plasticity, we represented a rat-scale cortical model (55 million neurons, 442 billion synapses) in 8TB memory of a 32,768-processor BlueGene/L. With 1 millisecond resolution for neuronal dynamics and 1-20 milliseconds axonal delays, C2 can simulate 1 second of model time in 9 seconds per Hertz of average neuronal firing rate. In summary, by combining state-of-the-art hardware with innovative algorithms and software design, we simultaneously achieved unprecedented time-to-solution on an unprecedented problem size. LINK TO PDF FILE: http://sc07.supercomp.org/schedule/event_detail.php?evid=11063 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071114/b1920eac/attachment-0001.html From alexwade at gmail.com Fri Nov 16 17:56:14 2007 From: alexwade at gmail.com (Alex Wade) Date: Mon Nov 19 10:58:51 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Cosyne 2008 abstract deadline reminder Message-ID: <76eaaa9a0711160856l7ac3eaees7ed79f52b67f40d4@mail.gmail.com> ===================================================================== Annual Meeting Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING WORKSHOPS 28 Feb - 2 Mar, 2008 3 - 4 Mar, 2008 Salt Lake City, Utah Snow Bird Ski Resort, Utah http://cosyne.org ===================================================================== ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE for the main meeting is November 30! See http://cosyne.org/wiki/Abstract_Submission08 for further information. ===================================================================== INVITED SPEAKERS: John Assad (Harvard U.) Gyuri Buzsaki (Rutgers U.) Dimitri Chklovskii (Janelia Farm, HHMI) Karl Deisseroth (Stanford U.) Mitra Hartmann (Northestern U.) Michael Hausser (UCL) David Heeger (NYU) Sabine Kastner (Princeton U.) Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) David McAlpine (UCL) Tomaso Poggio (MIT) Krishna Shenoy (Stanford U.) Wendy Suzuki (NYU) Rachel Wilson (Harvard U.) ===================================================================== PROGRAM COMMITTEE (main meeting): Matteo Carandini (chair) Dora Angelaki Mathew Diamond Allison Doupe Adrienne Fairhall Michael Hasselmo Adam Kepecs Peter Latham Klaus Obermayer Bijan Pesaran John Reynolds Bijan Pesaran John Reynolds Daniel Wolpert ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chair: Eero Simoncelli (NYU) Program Chair: Matteo Carandini (Smith-Kettlewell) Workshop Chair(s): Fritz Sommer, Jascha Sohl-Dickstein (UC Berkeley) Publicity Chair: Alex Wade (Smith-Kettlewell) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Tony Zador (CSHL) Alex Pouget (U Rochester) Zach Mainen (CSHL) Eero Simoncelli (NYU) -- A.R. Wade Ph.D. Associate Scientist The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute 2318 Fillmore Street San Francisco, CA 94115 tel. 415 345 2083 fax. 309 416 6533 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071116/2d9b1aa5/attachment.html From patrick at memevents.com Sat Nov 17 21:59:34 2007 From: patrick at memevents.com (Patrick Donohue) Date: Mon Nov 19 10:58:55 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] The Sarah Jane Brain Project launches Message-ID: <103d01c8295c$c2a9ff30$7501000a@trustfamily.com> Dear Friends, As you recall, my two-year old daughter, Sarah Jane Donohue, was shaken by her baby nurse when she was only 5 days old breaking both collar bones, three ribs, and causing a severe brain injury. Since then, we have been working very hard with her to overcome her pediatric traumatic brain injury (PTBI). Her development is slow but we continue to see improvements. Over the past two years it has become clear the field of neuroscience and specifically pediatric neurorehabilitation is still in its infancy (think of the computer science industry in the 1960s and 1970s). With that in mind, we launched The Sarah Jane Brain Project on Monday, October 22, 2007. The Sarah Jane Brain Project is bringing researchers, medical and therapy professionals, and parents together to collaborate on the efforts to rehabilitate our children. Using the principles of Open Source for the first time, we are making medical and research history with this project. Please visit the website www.TheBrainProject.org to get a better understanding of our efforts. In addition, if you have friends, family or colleagues who are in one of the categories below, please forward this to them - they will be very interested in this project: 1) Parents or guardians of children suffering from Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury or other brain injuries 2) Researchers and students in the field of neuroscience, neuroinformatics or neurorehabilitation 3) Doctors, therapists, and other professionals working with children suffering from PTBI or other brain injuries 4) Media who cover children's health, medicine, neurology or technology Below is a copy of the press release (and here is the link to the release: Click here.). Please let me know your thoughts, any comments about the website and project, and any constructive advice. Thank you in advance for taking the time and please continue to keep Sarah Jane in your thoughts and prayers - they are working! All the best, Patrick Patrick B. Donohue, Esq. The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, Inc. 181 Broadway - Suite 300 New York, NY 10007 P.S. If you would like to be removed from future emails, please click remove . The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, Inc. For Release: Monday, October 22, 2007 Contact: Patrick Donohue 212-201-0599 / 917-681-5797 (cell) Email: Patrick@thebrainproject.org The Sarah Jane Brain Project Changes Rehabilitation For Children With Brain Injuries Using the Principles of Open Source for the First Time, www.TheBrainProject.org, Creates New Portal for Parents and Professionals Dealing With Children Suffering From Traumatic Brain Injuries New York, NY - October 22, 2007 - The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation launched the first phase of The Sarah Jane Brain Project through the web portal www.TheBrainProject.org at a press conference in New York City today. The site uses the principles of Open Source with a person's medical records for the first time in history and aims to bring parents and professionals dealing with children suffering from Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury (PTBI) together in an open and free forum. The first phase displays Sarah Jane Donohue as the model for Open Source Medicine by freely and completely disseminating all of Sarah Jane's medical records and videos of therapy treatments. This first phase will recruit additional children suffering from PTBI from around the world to be part of the Project and recruit parents and professionals from around the world to be part of the different Advisory Boards being established. Sarah Jane Donohue is! a two-year old who was shaken by her baby nurse when she was only five days old and suffered a severe brain injury. "As a father of a two-year old daughter suffering from pediatric traumatic brain injury, I am very optimistic about creating a collaborative environment so we can see our children reach their maximum potential," Sarah Jane Donohue's father, Patrick said at the press conference today. "With today's technology, we can easily create communication between a research scientist in Switzerland, a physical therapist in Florida, and a parent in Toronto to find the best practical advice and direction for our children. By putting all of Sarah Jane's information on www.TheBrainProject.org we are using the principles of Open Source for the first time to create an open, free forum." "There are tens of thousands of children across the United States and around the world who are suffering from the impact of a traumatic brain injury. The Sarah Jane Brain Project will help families help their children," said Darryl Gibbs, the Co-founder of the Cynthia Gibbs Foundation which advocates reducing incidents of child abuse and neglect and raises awareness about Shaken Baby Syndrome. "The website www.TheBrainProject.org will quickly become the most important site for these families." "The Sarah Jane Brain Project will change the paradigm of partnership between parents and professionals," said Margaret Mikol, Executive Director of SKIP of New York, a not-for-profit advocacy and case management agency for families of developmentally disabled children. "By using Open Source principles, The Sarah Jane Brain Project creates an atmosphere of shared interests - parents, professionals, and researchers - all working to enrich the lives of these children and their families." The largest killer and disabler of our children each year is brain injuries. Every year 1,000,000 kids are taken to emergency rooms with traumatic and non-traumatic brain injuries and an estimated 30,000 children become permanently disabled every year due to brain injuries. The Sarah Jane Brain Project is working to assist the rehabilitation of these children by bringing together research, medical and therapeutic professionals along with the parents and guardians of these children in a free and open online forum, www.TheBrainProject.org. This forum will be the first time the principles of open source will be used dealing directly with people. ### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071117/c0312064/attachment.html From k.gurney at sheffield.ac.uk Mon Nov 19 13:31:32 2007 From: k.gurney at sheffield.ac.uk (Kevin gurney) Date: Mon Nov 19 13:34:47 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Research Associate position at The University of Sheffield, UK Message-ID: <47418224.7030305@shef.ac.uk> This is a Research Associate post in mathematical optimization and is part of the CARMEN (Code Analysis, Repository, and Modelling for e-Neuroscience) project - www.carmen.org.uk. This is an e-Science pilot project which started in October 2006, and is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The post at Sheffield will focus on developing tools for automated parameter search within the context of building conductance-based neuronal models. This project links to the wider programme of computational neuroscience conducted within the Adaptive Behaviour Research Group (ABRG - www.shef.ac.uk/~abrg) and the appointee will become part of a vibrant and successful research team. While a knowledge of neuroscience is not a necessary prerequisite, the successful applicant has the opportunity to engage with a vibrant research culture within the Adaptive Behaviour Research Group (ABRG). Applicants should have an honours degree (or equivalent experience) in Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering or related field, and should have, or be working towards, a PhD preferably in which optimization or parameter search is a key technique. The post is tenable from 1 January 2008, or as soon as possible thereafter, for two years. Ref: R05775 Closing Date: 14/12/07 Grade: 7 Salary: ?25,134 per annum -- Kevin Gurney, PhD Professor of Computational Neuroscience Adaptive Behaviour Research Group Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK http://www.shef.ac.uk/~abrg/ ------------- From bowlby at bu.edu Mon Nov 19 16:26:31 2007 From: bowlby at bu.edu (Brian Bowlby) Date: Tue Nov 20 09:49:15 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 12th ICCNS: Call for Abstracts and Confirmed Invited Speakers Message-ID: <0C34B631-A0CE-4676-B396-1F4A2D9E80F6@bu.edu> Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email. TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS May 14 ? 17, 2008 Boston University 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA http://www.cns.bu.edu/meetings/ Sponsored by the Boston University Center for Adaptive Systems, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (http://www.cns.bu.edu/), and the Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (http://cns.bu.edu/CELEST) with financial support from the National Science Foundation This interdisciplinary conference is attended each year by approximately 300 people from 30 countries around the world. As in previous years, the conference will focus on solutions to the questions: HOW DOES THE BRAIN CONTROL BEHAVIOR? HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY EMULATE BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE? The conference is aimed at researchers and students of computational neuroscience, cognitive science, neural networks, neuromorphic engineering, and artificial intelligence. It includes invited lectures and contributed lectures and posters by experts on the biology and technology of how the brain and other intelligent systems adapt to a changing world. The conference is particularly interested in exploring how the brain and biologically-inspired algorithms and systems in engineering and technology can learn. Single-track oral and poster sessions enable all presented work to be highly visible. Three-hour poster sessions with no conflicting events will be held on two of the conference days. Posters will be up all day, and can also be viewed during breaks in the talk schedule. CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS Cynthia Breazeal (MIT Media Lab) Computational models of embodied cognition to support human-robot teamwork Gyorgy Buzsaki (Rutgers University) (Plenary Lecture) Segregation of cell assembly sequences by oscillatory synchrony Gail Carpenter (Boston University) (Plenary Lecture) Large-scale neural systems for vision and cognition Peter Dayan (University College London) The misbehaviour of value Greg DeAngelis (University of Rochester) Roles of visual area MT in depth perception Stephen Grossberg (Boston University) Cortical dynamics of attentive object recognition, scene understanding, and decision making Joy Hirsch (Columbia University) Functional specificity and cortical mechanisms that regulate emotion and cognition: What the human face tells the human brain Ranu Jung (Arizona State University) Neurotechnology for making neural circuits functional Gordon Logan (Vanderbilt University) The mysterious story of cognitive control Javier Movellan (University of California at San Diego) Developing social robots: A paradigm for the scientific study of human behavior Charan Ranganath (University of California at Davis) Relational binding in human memory John Reynolds (Salk Institute) Mapping the microcircuitry of attention: Attentional modulation varies across cell classes in visual area V4 Daniel Salzman (Columbia University) Learning about rewards and punishments in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex WORKSHOP ON DYNAMICS OF CORTICAL-HIPPOCAMPAL INTERACTIONS FOR MEMORY GUIDED BEHAVIOR Neil Burgess (University College London) Predictions of an interference model of grid cell firing Howard Eichenbaum (Boston University) Grid cells and place cells: Different roles in memory? Michael Hasselmo (Boston University) Oscillations, grid cells and episodic memory David Redish (University of Minnesota) Transiently prospective neural firing in CA3 at decision points Trygve Solstad (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) Spatial representations in hippocampus and entorhinal cortex David Touretzky (Carnegie-Mellon University) A spin-glass model of path integration in grid cells WORKSHOP ON COMPUTING WITH NEURAL INTERFACES Theodore Berger (University of Southern California) Bi-directional communication with the brain through biomimetic microelectronics John Donoghue (Brown University) Neural ensemble activity as a direct control signal in humans Donald Eddington (Harvard University) Cochlear implants Phil Kennedy (Neural Signals) Speech prosthesis: An analysis of single unit recordings from human cortex Krishna Shenoy (Stanford University) Title TBD John Wyatt (Boston Retinal Implant Project) Steps in the development of a retinal Implant CALL FOR ABSTRACTS Session Topics: * vision * object recognition * image understanding * neural circuit models * audition * neural system models * speech and language * mathematics of neural systems * unsupervised learning * robotics * supervised learning * hybrid systems (fuzzy, evolutionary, digital) * reinforcement and emotion * neuromorphic VLSI * sensory-motor control * industrial applications * cognition, planning, and attention * other * spatial mapping and navigation Contributed abstracts must be received, in English, by January 31, 2008. Email notification of acceptance will be provided by February 29, 2008. A meeting registration fee must accompany each Abstract. The fee will be returned if the Abstract is not accepted for presentation. Fees of accepted Abstracts will be returned on request only until April 11, 2008. Each Abstract must fit on one side of an 8.5" x 11" page with 1" margins on all sides in a single-spaced, single-column format with a font of 10 points or larger. The title, authors, affiliations, and surface and email addresses should begin each Abstract. A cover letter should include the abstract title; corresponding author and presenting author name, address, telephone, fax, and email address; requested preference for oral or poster presentation; and a first and second choice from the topics above, including whether it is biological (B) or technological (T) work [Example: first choice: vision (T); second choice: neural system models (B)]. Talks will be 15 minutes long. Posters will be displayed for a full day. Overhead, slide, and LCD computer projector facilities will be available for talks. Accepted Abstracts will be printed in the conference proceedings volume. No extended paper will be required. Four paper copies of the Abstract should be mailed to Cynthia Bradford, Boston University, CNS Department, 677 Beacon Street, Boston MA 02215 USA. Abstracts may also be submitted electronically as M/S Word files to cindy@bu.edu using the phrase ?12th ICCNS abstract submission? in the subject line. Fax submissions will not be accepted. REGISTRATION INFORMATION: Early registration is recommended using the registration form below. Student registrations must be accompanied by a letter of verification from a department chairperson or faculty/ research advisor. STUDENT TRAVEL FELLOWSHIPS: Fellowships for PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows who do not live in the Boston area are available to help cover travel costs. The application deadline is January 31, 2008. Email notification will occur by February 29, 2008. Fellowship applications must be submitted as paper hardcopy to the abstract submission address shown above. Each application should include the applicant's CV; faculty or PhD research advisor's name, address, and email address; relevant courses and other educational data; and a list of research articles. A letter from the listed faculty or PhD advisor on institutional stationery must accompany the application and summarize how the candidate may benefit from the meeting. Fellowship applicants who also submit an Abstract need to include the registration fee payment with their Abstract submission. Fellowship checks will be distributed after the meeting. REGISTRATION FORM Twelfth International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems May 14?17, 2008 Boston University Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems 677 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA Fax: +1 617 353 7755 Mr/Ms/Dr/Prof:_____________________________________________________ Affiliation:_________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________ City, State, Postal Code:______________________________________________ Phone and Fax:_____________________________________________________ Email:____________________________________________________________ The registration fee includes the conference proceedings volume, a reception on Friday night, and daily coffee breaks. CHECK ONE: ( ) $95 Conference (Regular) ( ) $65 Conference (Student) METHOD OF PAYMENT (please fax or mail): [ ] Enclosed is a check made payable to "Boston University" Checks must be made payable in US dollars and issued by a US correspondent bank. Each registrant is responsible for any and all bank charges. [ ] I wish to pay by credit card (MasterCard, Visa, or Discover Card only) Name as it appears on the card:___________________________________________ Type of card: _____________________________ Expiration date:________________ Account number: _______________________________________________________ Signature:____________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- Skipped content of type multipart/mixed From m.kaiser at ncl.ac.uk Mon Nov 19 21:17:33 2007 From: m.kaiser at ncl.ac.uk (m.kaiser@ncl.ac.uk) Date: Tue Nov 20 09:51:47 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 4-year PhD programme in Systems Neuroscience Message-ID: <200711192017.lAJKHXv9010735@post.webmailer.de> Dear all, we currently recruit for a Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD program in Systems Neuroscience. The program is aimed at students form the physical sciences (physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science) who are interested in experimental or theoretical neuroscience. The first year provides an introduction to neuroscience and to experimental approaches through three lab rotations. Details of the program are shown below and application details will be available later this month. The deadline for applications is 11 January. Best regards, Marcus Applications are invited for the autumn 2008 intake to the Wellcome Trust Four-year PhD Programme: ?Systems Neuroscience: From Networks to Behaviour?. The Wellcome Trust?s Four-year PhD Programmes are a flagship scheme aimed at supporting the most promising students to undertake in-depth postgraduate research training. The first year combines taught courses with laboratory rotations to broaden students? knowledge of the subject area. At the end of the first year, students will make an informed choice of their three-year PhD research project. This programme is based at Newcastle University and is aimed to provide specialised training for physical and computational scientists (e.g. physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and computer science) wishing to apply their skills to a research neuroscience career.Applicants should have, or expect to obtain, a 1st or 2:1 degree, or equivalent.Support includes a stipend for four years, PhD registration fees at UK/EU student rate, research expenses, general training funds and some travel costs. Potential applicants should contact: neurosciencepg-enquires@ncl.ac.uk More information about the programme is available at: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ion/postgrad/wellcometrust-phd.htm -- Marcus Kaiser, Ph.D. School of Computing Science University of Newcastle Claremont Tower Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, U.K. Phone: +44 191 222 8161 Fax: +44 191 222 8232 http://www.biological-networks.org/ From rnitendra at in.ibm.com Mon Nov 19 11:28:03 2007 From: rnitendra at in.ibm.com (Nitendra Rajput) Date: Tue Nov 20 09:58:47 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] CFP: IUI4DR Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces for Developing Regions with IUI 2008 (DEADLINE EXTENDED) Message-ID: THE PAPER/DEMO SUBMISSION DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO NOV 21, 2007 (11:59 pm SPAIN TIME) !!!! **** We apologise for any cross-postings **** **** Submission deadlines have been changed **** Call For Papers: Workshop on IUI4DR - Intelligent User Interfaces for Developing Regions (in conjunction with IUI '08) Canary Islands, Spain January 13, 2008 http://research.ihost.com/iui4dr Organisers: * Sheetal K. Agarwal, IBM Research, India * John Canny, UC Berkeley, USA * Apala Lahiri Chavan, Human Factors International, India * Nitendra Rajput, IBM Research, India Advisory Committee: * Michelle X Zhou, IBM T J Watson Research Center, USA Program Committee: * Ravin Balakrishnan, University of Toronto, Canada * Michael Best, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA * Mary Czerwinski, Microsoft Research, USA * Gary Geunbae Lee, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea * Sougata Mukherjea, IBM Research, India * Oscar Murillo, Microsoft, Colombia * Shimei Pan, IBM T J Watson Research Center, USA * Pearl Pu, EPFL, Switzerland * Anxo Cereijo Roibas, Vodafone, UK * Andy Smith, Thames Valley University, UK * Andrew Thatcher, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Theme: Information Technology has had significant impact on the society and has touched all aspects of our lives. So far, computers and expensive devices have fueled this growth. It has resulted in several benefits to the society. The challenge now is to take this success of IT to its next level where IT services can be accessed by masses. "Masses" here mean the people who (a) are not yet IT literate and/or (b) do not have the purchase power to use the current IT delivery mechanisms (PC centric model) and/or (c) do not find current IT solutions and services relevant to their life or business. Interestingly, a huge portion of the world's population falls in this category. To enable the IT access to such masses, this workshop aims to focus on easy-to-use and affordable, yet powerful, user interfaces that can be used by this population. The workshop aims to bring together researchers in the industry and the academia to focus on user interface issues related to designing interfaces for this population. Topics of Interest: Considering the social, cultural, educational and economic diversity of developing regions, the challenge is to develop appropriate and effective interfaces/interaction techniques that will enable these users to access services that currently remain elusive to them. The focus areas of the workshop include, but are not limited to: * Novel and effective interfaces that reduces the cognitive load on the users who usually operate in chaotic environments: People in developing regions often would access these interfaces in noisy and crowded surroundings. Providing privacy through the intelligent UI and handling the noise would be a challenge for such interfaces. * Interfaces for semi-literate and illiterate users: Iconic interfaces, speech-based interfaces and multimodal interfaces offer promising solutions to overcome literacy issues. Any other interface that does not need language skills will be of interest to this workshop. * Designs tailored to factor social and cultural issues: If an interface technology is culturally not acceptable to a society, it may not have acceptability. So interfaces that reflect the culture of the society are bound to be promising. * Shared user interfaces and devices: People developing regions seldom own a computing device on an individual basis. Access to applications or services is mainly through kiosks or phones. Most families now own a cell phone that is shared among family members. * Cost-effective interfaces: Since the purchase power of this society is not high, expensive and sophisticated interfaces may not be the right choice. Intelligent use of cost-effective devices will therefore be more acceptable for this population. We seek original, unpublished papers in the following three categories: (a) Position papers that describe novel ideas that can lead to interesting research directions, (b) Early results or work-in-progress that has significant promise, or, (c) Full papers. Papers should be of 4-6 pages in length in the IUI publication format. The LaTeX (http://www.iuiconf.org/LaTeXclassfile.zip) and Microsoft Word (http://www.iuiconf.org/chi2008pubsformat.doc) templates are available through these links. All submissions should be in the PDF format and should be submitted electronically through the IUI4DR Easychair Conference site (http://www.easychair.org/iui4dr08). Since the submission deadlines are dependent on the IUI conference, we will not be able to grant any extensions in any circumstances. Since the workshop also aims to be a meeting point for researchers working in this area, atleast one author of accepted papers should attend the workshop to present their work. Demos: In addition to the papers, participants are also invited to submit interesting demonstrations of working systems. These demos should reflect the usability of the systems for developing regions. A one page description of the system should be submitted through the workshop submission site by November 21, 2007. The description should also provide any equipment that is required for the demo. Needless to say, if accepted, the demonstrators should be able to travel to the workshop for presenting their work. Key Dates * Paper/Demo Submission Deadline: Nov 21, 2007 (11:59 pm Spain Time) * Notification: Dec 10, 2007 * Early Registration Deadline: Dec 17, 2007 * Workshop: Jan 13, 2008. Websites * IUI4DR Workshop: http://research.ihost.com/iui4dr * IUI '08 Conference : http://www.iuiconf.org/ From zhaoyanchang at hotmail.com Mon Nov 19 12:11:49 2007 From: zhaoyanchang at hotmail.com (Yanchang Zhao) Date: Tue Nov 20 09:58:49 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] CALL FOR CHAPTERS: Proposal Submission Deadline: Dec. 31, 2007 Message-ID: *********************************************************** CALL FOR CHAPTERS Proposal Submission Deadline: December 31, 2007 Post-Mining of Association Rules: Techniques for Effective Knowledge Extraction A book edited by Dr. Yanchang Zhao, Prof. Chengqi Zhang and Dr. Longbing Cao To be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group) http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~yczhao/IGI-book/CFC.htm *********************************************************** Introduction ------------ There are often a huge number of association rules discovered in a data mining practice, making it difficult for users to identify those that are of particular interest to them. Therefore, it is important to remove insignificant rules and prune redundancy as well as summarize, visualize and post-mine the discovered rules. Moreover, the information we can get from traditional association rules is very limited, so new forms of association rules are needed to discover useful and actionable knowledge. The book aims to present a whole picture of the post-analysis, summarization and new forms of association rules and introduce the up-to-date research on the above topics to extract useful knowledge from a large number of discovered association rules. The Overall Objective of the Book --------------------------------- The book will focus on the post-analysis of association rules to extract useful and actionable knowledge from a large number of discovered rules. It will cover interest, redundancy, post-mining, summarization, presentation and visualization of association rules, as well as novel forms and new trends of association rules. It will not only present academia with a systematic view of the current research progress on the above topics, but it will also help industry learn from the ideas and apply them to find actionable knowledge in real-world applications. The Target Audience ------------------- The audience of this book will be researchers in the field of data mining, postgraduate students who are interested in data mining, and industry data miners. Note that the audience is not limited to those interested in association rules because the post-mining of association rules involves clustering, classification and many other techniques of data mining, as well as statistics and artificial intelligence, which are actually beyond association rule mining itself. Recommended topics include, but not limited to: ----------------------------------------------- * Subjective & objective interestingness * Removing redundancy in association rules * Summarization and generalization of association rules * Presentation and visualization of association rules * Maintenance of association rules * Post-mining of association rules, e.g., clustering association rules * Class association rules and association classifier * Quantitative association rules and inter-transaction association rules * New forms/challenges/trends of association rules and association mining Important Dates --------------- Proposal submission deadline: December 31, 2007 Notification of proposal acceptance: January 31, 2008 Full chapter submission: April 30, 2008 Notification of chapter review: June 30, 2008 Revised chapter submission: July 30, 2008 Final notification of acceptance: August 15, 2008 Camera ready copy submission: September 15, 2008 Submission Procedure -------------------- Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December 31, 2007, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by January 31, 2008 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by April 30, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group), www.igi-global.com, publisher of the IGI Publishing (Idea Group Publishing), Information Science Publishing, IRM Press, CyberTech Publishing, Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference) and Medical Information Science Reference imprints. Detailed instructions will be available at http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~yczhao/IGI-book/CFC.htm. Contact ------- Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) to: Dr. Yanchang Zhao Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia Tel.: +61 2 6131 0264 Mobile: +61 4300 93392 Email: yczhao@it.uts.edu.au _________________________________________________________________ What are you waiting for? Join Lavalife FREE http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Flavalife9%2Eninemsn%2Ecom%2Eau%2Fclickthru%2Fclickthru%2Eact%3Fid%3Dninemsn%26context%3Dan99%26locale%3Den%5FAU%26a%3D30288&_t=764581033&_r=email_taglines_Join_free_OCT07&_m=EXT From andrew.davison at iaf.cnrs-gif.fr Tue Nov 20 11:03:28 2007 From: andrew.davison at iaf.cnrs-gif.fr (Andrew Davison) Date: Tue Nov 20 11:34:37 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Wanted: Web Application and Database Developer for neuroinformatics project Message-ID: <200711201103.28561.andrew.davison@iaf.cnrs-gif.fr> ================================================== Web Application and Database Developer The Integrative and Computational Neuroscience Unit (http://www.unic.cnrs-gif.fr/) at the Gif sur Yvette campus of the CNRS, near Paris, France, seeks a highly motivated individual to work on a neuroinformatics project in the context of a pan-European project on brain-inspired computing (http://www.facets-project.org). The project involves development of a database of experimental data from the visual system, combining diverse datasets from research labs in London, Debrecen (Hungary), Gif sur Yvette and Marseille, France, with multiple interfaces (web, web-services, and via in-house developed data analysis/acquisition software). The database will provide data for use within the FACETS project (http://www.facets-project.org) in models of visual cortex and in the development of novel analog VLSI hardware for neural circuit emulation, and will also be made available to the wider scientific community. Requirements: Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, software engineering or other field with comparable software engineering experience. Demonstrable expert-level knowledge of relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL), dynamic languages (Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, etc.), both Linux/Unix and Windows environments, and web development (AJAX, XML, DOM, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc.). Interest in neuroscience. Strong software engineering skills. Fluent English essential, ability to speak French preferred but not obligatory. Please send your CV and the contact details of three referees to andrew.davison@unic.cnrs-gif.fr, or feel free to make informal inquiries to the same address. =================================================== From gabbiani at bcm.edu Fri Nov 23 16:46:14 2007 From: gabbiani at bcm.edu (Fabrizio Gabbiani) Date: Fri Nov 23 17:19:00 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Training in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience - Houston Message-ID: <4746F5C6.7040707@bcm.edu> Graduate Training Program in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience in Houston The Houston Neuroscience community has a new program in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience based on an NIH training grant recently awarded to the Gulf Coast Consortium for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience (GCC-TCN). This consortium consists of six research institutions, Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, The University of Houston, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center. We are offering a two-year curriculum of inter-institutional courses on modeling and imaging of neural systems integrated in the Ph.D. programs of each of the participating institutions. Four graduate fellowships will be awarded each year to support trainees in their respective departments. The program seeks to recruit applicants with a strong theoretical/computational background for example, physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, or computer science, wishing to transition to a research career in neuroscience. Applicants should consult the GCC-TCN web site (http://cohesion.rice.edu/centersandinst/gcc/neuro.cfm) for information about participating departments and faculty members, and a list of available courses and other educational opportunities. Candidates should first apply to a specific Department/Institution. This is followed during the first year by an application for a GCC-TCN Fellowship through the GCC-TCN web site. For more information, please contact the representatives at the participating institutions listed below. Dr. Peter Saggau, Baylor College of Medicine (psaggau@bcm.edu) Dr. Fabrizio Gabbiani, Baylor College of Medicine (gabbiani@bcm.edu) Dr. Steve Cox, Rice University (cox@caam.rice.edu) Dr. Kresimir Josic, University of Houston (josic@math.uh.edu) Dr. Harel Shouval, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (Harel.Shouval@uth.tmc.edu) Dr. Prahlad Ram, M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center (pram@mdanderson.org) Dr. Volker Neugebauer, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (voneugeb@utmb.edu) -- Fabrizio Gabbiani phone: (713) 798 1849 Department of Neuroscience fax: (713) 798 3946 Baylor College of Medicine email: gabbiani@bcm.edu One Baylor Plaza, web: glab.bcm.tmc.edu Houston, TX 77030 From kenji at ieee.org Mon Nov 26 00:51:13 2007 From: kenji at ieee.org (Kenji Suzuki) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:38:06 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Research Assistant Positions (PhD Studentships) Message-ID: <003001c82fbe$102dd530$30897f90$@org> * We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this announcement. Research Assistant Positions (PhD Studentships) Cybernics Program, University of Tsukuba Tsukuba, Japan Ref: CYB03/R0711 http://www.cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp/jobs/CYB03R0711.html Applications are invited for research assistant positions (fully-funded PhD studentships), which cover tuition fees and living costs, who have (or expect to obtain) a Master's degree or equivalent in a relevant subject. We offer a supportive environment for individuals to work towards PhD, DEng or DMedSci qualifications. The successful candidates should be keen on their assignments, attend to their academic duties. These studentships provide students with the opportunity to work on a Cybernics research project as a research assistant. These positions are available for duration of three years. The successful candidates can be formally admitted to the PhD program, if s/he meets the University admission requirements to study for a PhD. Note that the PhD supervisor must be a faculty member related to Cybernics Program, which is listed at the website. (http://www.cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp/members.html) Students should have research interests in the field of Cybernics Program, which is a new domain of interdisciplinary academic field of human-assistive technology to enhance, strengthen, and support human's cognitive and physical functions, which challenges to integrate and harmonize humans and robots (RT: robotics technology) with the basis of information technology (IT). This challenging program will help you to develop practical and experimental skills in your chosen field. The three primary research areas are: (i) Cybernoid: robot suits, cybernic limb and hand, implanted cybernic system, subjective cognition computing, virtual human-body kernel. (ii) Next-generation interface: brain-computer interface, somato-sensory media, humanoid, medical interface, ubiquitous sensing interface, intelligent robots. (iii) Management technology for next-generation advanced systems: network security, new-generation risk management, cognitive engineering, ethical, sociological, and conceptual readiness. Please note that these studentships are available to all potential applicants and not restricted to nationals. The successful candidate must be able to start the PhD on the 1st April 2008. Interested applicants are encouraged to apply. Please complete an application form which can be downloaded from the following web site. http://www.cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp/jobs/CYB03R0711.html Please return your application by email, preferably in PDF format, to jobs.ra@cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp. You should include the ref. number you are applying for in the header of your e-mail, or standard mail envelope. For informal inquiries please contact the above address on email jobs.ra@cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp. Otherwise, if you have already decided on a research lab, try making direct contact with the faculty member (by e-mail). Tsukuba is a university and science city, located about 60 kilometers, about 45 minutes by train, or 1 hour by car, northeast of central Tokyo. Over 50 national and independently administered research organizations are concentrated in the Tsukuba Science City district, which is centered on the university. Application deadline: December 10th, 2007. --- Kenji Suzuki kenji@ieee.org University of Tsukuba, Japan http://www.iit.tsukuba.ac.jp/~kenji/ From s.klinke at usyd.edu.au Tue Nov 27 06:07:49 2007 From: s.klinke at usyd.edu.au (Sandra Klinke) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:48:56 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Physics - The University of Sydney Message-ID: <000501c830b3$752530f0$b60fa8c0@hrx.com.au> Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Physics School of Physics/Faculty of Medicine The School of Physics and Faculty of Medicine wish to make a continuing academic appointment in the area of biomedical physics of the brain at the level of Lecturer (Level B) or Senior Lecturer (Level C). In the last decade, the School of Physics and the Faculty of Medicine have established a strong program in quantitative modeling of brain dynamics and neural activity. The research program involves collaborations with local hospitals, industry, and international teams, and covers brain dynamics ranging from microscopic neural activity to whole-brain phenomena, measurement effects, and imaging. The appointee will contribute to teaching biological and biomedical physics at the undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as general physics teaching up to Honors level. The appointee will be expected to have a strong involvement in supervising postgraduate students and Honors research projects in brain modeling and related fields in biomedical physics, with an emphasis on joint projects with students and researchers from the Faculty of Medicine. The selection criteria which the successful applicant will satisfy include a PhD or equivalent qualification in physics, biomedical physics, theoretical or computational neuroscience, biomedical engineering, applied mathematics, or a closely related field, biological physics research interests that strengthen current programs, a strong relevant publication record and experience in tertiary level teaching. Other essential requirements include the ability to communicate and liaise effectively and, for the senior level of appointment, ability to attract research support, undertake administrative responsibilities, and provide leadership. The full set of selection criteria can be viewed by clicking on ?position description preview?. This is a full-time permanent position, subject to the completion of a satisfactory probation period for new appointees. Membership of a University approved superannuation scheme is a condition of employment for new appointees. Start-up funds to support the position will be negotiated. The University will support any necessary visa application by the successful candidate. All applications must be completed online by visiting the website http://positions.usyd.edu.au and searching for Reference Number 100968. Applicants should indicate the level of appointment (Lecturer or Senior Lecturer) for which they wish to be considered. The selection criteria may be viewed by clicking on ?position description preview?. To assist the selection process, applicants must address each of the essential and desirable criteria separately, in a cover letter to be uploaded as a separate document (instead of completing responses in the boxes below each selection criteria). Applicants must also attach a CV including a list of publications and the names and contact details of three referees, and must also arrange for their three referees to send their letters of recommendation directly to k.royle@usyd.edu.au by the closing date. For specific information about the position, please contact Professor Peter Robinson on +61 2 9351 3779 or email: robinson@physics.usyd.edu.au or the Head of School, Associate Professor Anne Green on +61 2 9351 2537 or email: hos@physics.usyd.edu.au. General enquiries may be directed to Fabrice No?l on +61 2 9036 7295 or email f.noel@usyd.edu.au Level B Remuneration package: AUD 83,363 - 98,993 p.a. (which includes a base salary Lecturer level AUD 70,443 - 83,651 p.a., leave loading and up to 17% employer?s contribution to superannuation) Level C Remuneration package: AUD 102,118 - 117,642 p.a. (which includes a base salary Senior Lecturer level AUD 86,291 - 99,499 p.a., leave loading and up to 17% employer?s contribution to superannuation) Closing date: 12.December.2007 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071127/0d566e22/attachment.html From ted.carnevale at yale.edu Tue Nov 27 16:05:55 2007 From: ted.carnevale at yale.edu (Ted Carnevale) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:49:38 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] NEURON 6.1.1 now available Message-ID: <474C3253.1030403@yale.edu> The latest standard release of NEURON is version 6.1.1, which is now available from http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/install/install.html . This version has bug fixes, improved performance, and new features that will benefit all users. For more information see http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/news/news_11_27_07.html --Ted From dst at cs.cmu.edu Thu Nov 29 08:29:50 2007 From: dst at cs.cmu.edu (dst@cs.cmu.edu) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:54:03 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] AAAI looking for good computational neuroscience work Message-ID: <18528.1196321390@ammon.boltz.cs.cmu.edu> Fellow Computational Neuroscientists: I'm on the program committee for the AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) Nectar track. The organizers are looking for interesting or computational neuroscience work that can be presented to the AI community. This work can already have appeared in other venues; what they care about is bringing interesting new developments to the attention of the world's best AI researchers. You can read more about the Nectar track in the call for papers below. Contact the co-chairs Regina Barzilay or Sven Koenig if you have questions. -- Dave Touretzky ================================================================ Call for Papers: AAAI-08 Nectar Program AAAI-08 will be held in Chicago from July 13-17, 2008. It will again include the Nectar track (new scientific and technical advances in research). This track aims to make the most significant AI results presented at other conferences in the last two years available to a broad AI audience. One important goal of the track is to offer researchers the opportunity to learn about areas with which they may not already be familiar. Another goal is to encourage the sort of cross-disciplinary AI work that has historically been supported by AAAI. The Nectar track will consist of papers that are based on important results that have already been published in the proceedings of at least one major conference in 2006 and 2007, as either a single paper or a series of papers. Examples of such AI conferences include AAMAS, AIIDE, ALIFE, ACL, CEC, CogSci, CP, FUZZ-IEEE, GECCO, ICAPS, ICCBR, ICML, IEEE CEC, IJCNN, ISWC, IUI, KCAP, KR, NIPS, SAT, UAI and WCCI. Examples of conferences in related fields with relevance to AI include CIKM, COLT, KDD, PODS, ICDTSIGIR, SIGGRAPH, SIGMOD, VLDB, and WWW. Papers that report on the application of AI techniques in other fields, for example bioinformatics, may also serve as the basis for Nectar papers. Authors of application papers, however, are advised that they may find the conference on Innovative Applications of AI (IAAI) a more appropriate venue for reaching the AI community since those papers can be longer and thus provide a clearer application setting in which to describe the work. Papers that have appeared in general AI conferences (such as AAAI, ECAI, IJCAI) or journals (for example, Artificial Intelligence, JAIR) cannot serve as the basis for Nectar papers since they have already been presented to the entire AI community. Submissions and Dates We solicit short submissions of up to four pages. Each submission should focus on a major result that has already been published in one or more venues as described above. A Nectar paper needs to clarify the relationship of the paper to any other AAAI-08 submissions by the authors and cannot overlap with them substantially. The Nectar paper should cite the previous publication(s) and will typically devote no more than one or two pages to summarizing the core results. The remainder of the paper should be devoted to putting the results, as well as the problem they solve, into a context that is meaningful to a wide AI audience. Nectar track papers will be presented as talks or posters at AAAI-08. The papers will also be published in the conference proceedings. Submitted papers will be reviewed according to: (1) significance of the results to the broad goals of AI, (2) potential for the results to influence research beyond their original publication venues, and (3) clarity of the presentation to AI researchers who do not have expertise in the topic described in the paper. Although papers will describe previously published results, the paper itself must be original. Authors of accepted papers will be required to transfer copyright. Papers must be received by February 19, 2008. Decisions on the acceptance of papers will be made by March 20, 2008. Additional information can be found at www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/2008/aaai08nectar.php Regina Barzilay (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cochair Sven Koenig (University of Southern California), Cochair From alongtin at uottawa.ca Wed Nov 28 20:47:50 2007 From: alongtin at uottawa.ca (Andre Longtin) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:56:17 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] UOttawa Computational Neuroscience Summer School Message-ID: <35141BE6A60459488367EDBFED55F4FB01ABDFF5@MSMAIL2.uottawa.o.univ> Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: UOsummerschool08.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 23598 bytes Desc: UOsummerschool08.pdf Url : http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071128/0dff836d/UOsummerschool08-0001.obj From smart at neuralcorrelate.com Thu Nov 29 01:01:03 2007 From: smart at neuralcorrelate.com (Susana Martinez-Conde) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:58:39 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] NSF-FUNDED 3-year POSTDOC POSITION IN MARTINEZ-CONDE LAB Message-ID: <018c01c8321a$f0334710$d099d530$@com> NSF-FUNDED 3-year POSTDOC POSITION IN MARTINEZ-CONDE LAB Research in the Martinez-Conde laboratory focuses on the neural bases of visual perception. An NSF-funded 3-year postdoctoral position is available to study the neural correlates of perceptual stability during visual fixation. Please visit our lab's website at: http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com The ideal candidate will have a strong background in psychophysics and/or computational modeling and/or single-neuron recordings and/or functional imaging, as evidenced by first-author publications. Programming experience with Matlab or C is very desirable. Salary will be commensurate with experience. A generous benefits package is offered in addition, including medical, dental, vision, and retirement (with a value equal to 24.7% of the salary). The Barrow Neurological Institute is a TOP 10 rated clinical neuroscience institute (US News and World Report), and is located in central Phoenix, the 5th largest metropolitan area in the US. Please send CV and letters of reference to: Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience Barrow Neurological Institute 350 W Thomas Rd Phoenix, AZ 85013 smart@neuralcorrelate.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Director, Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience Division of Neurobiology Barrow Neurological Institute 350 W. Thomas Rd Phoenix AZ 85013, USA Phone: +1 (602) 406-3484 Fax: +1 (602) 406-4172 Email: smart@neuralcorrelate.com http://www.neuralcorrelate.com/smc_lab/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20071128/5ccc4063/attachment.html From zhaoyanchang at hotmail.com Thu Nov 29 04:34:30 2007 From: zhaoyanchang at hotmail.com (Yanchang Zhao) Date: Fri Nov 30 13:58:42 2007 Subject: [Comp-neuro] CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS - Proposal Submission Deadline: Dec 31, 2007 Message-ID: *********************************************************** CALL FOR CHAPTERS Proposal Submission Deadline: December 31, 2007 Post-Mining of Association Rules: Techniques for Effective Knowledge Extraction A book edited by Dr. Yanchang Zhao, Prof. Chengqi Zhang and Dr. Longbing Cao To be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group) http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~yczhao/IGI-book/CFC.htm *********************************************************** Introduction ------------ There are often a huge number of association rules discovered in a data mining practice, making it difficult for users to identify those that are of particular interest to them. Therefore, it is important to remove insignificant rules and prune redundancy as well as summarize, visualize and post-mine the discovered rules. Moreover, the information we can get from traditional association rules is very limited, so new forms of association rules are needed to discover useful and actionable knowledge. The book aims to present a whole picture of the post-analysis, summarization and new forms of association rules and introduce the up-to-date research on the above topics to extract useful knowledge from a large number of discovered association rules. The Overall Objective of the Book --------------------------------- The book will focus on the post-analysis of association rules to extract useful and actionable knowledge from a large number of discovered rules. It will cover interest, redundancy, post-mining, summarization, presentation and visualization of association rules, as well as novel forms and new trends of association rules. It will not only present academia with a systematic view of the current research progress on the above topics, but it will also help industry learn from the ideas and apply them to find actionable knowledge in real-world applications. The Target Audience ------------------- The audience of this book will be researchers in the field of data mining, postgraduate students who are interested in data mining, and industry data miners. Note that the audience is not limited to those interested in association rules because the post-mining of association rules involves clustering, classification and many other techniques of data mining, as well as statistics and artificial intelligence, which are actually beyond association rule mining itself. Recommended topics include, but not limited to: ----------------------------------------------- * Subjective & objective interestingness * Removing redundancy in association rules * Summarization and generalization of association rules * Presentation and visualization of association rules * Maintenance of association rules * Post-mining of association rules, e.g., clustering association rules * Class association rules and association classifier * Quantitative association rules and inter-transaction association rules * New forms/challenges/trends of association rules and association mining Important Dates --------------- Proposal submission deadline: December 31, 2007 Notification of proposal acceptance: January 31, 2008 Full chapter submission: April 30, 2008 Notification of chapter review: June 30, 2008 Revised chapter submission: July 30, 2008 Final notification of acceptance: August 15, 2008 Camera ready copy submission: September 15, 2008 Submission Procedure -------------------- Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December 31, 2007, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by January 31, 2008 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by April 30, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group), www.igi-global.com, publisher of the IGI Publishing (Idea Group Publishing), Information Science Publishing, IRM Press, CyberTech Publishing, Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference) and Medical Information Science Reference imprints. Detailed instructions will be available at http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~yczhao/IGI-book/CFC.htm. Contact ------- Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) to: Dr. Yanchang Zhao Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia Tel.: +61 2 6131 0264 Mobile: +61 4300 93392 Email: yczhao@it.uts.edu.au _________________________________________________________________ Overpaid or Underpaid? Check our comprehensive Salary Centre http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent%2Emycareer%2Ecom%2Eau%2Fsalary%2Dcentre%3Fs%5Fcid%3D595810&_t=766724125&_r=Hotmail_Email_Tagline_MyCareer_Oct07&_m=EXT