From assc12 at ym.edu.tw Tue Jan 1 19:19:51 2008 From: assc12 at ym.edu.tw (ASSC12) Date: Wed Jan 2 09:55:11 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] ASSC12 2nd Call for Papers Message-ID: <20080101181936.M72294@ym.edu.tw> -------------------------------- SECOND CALL FOR PAPER & POSTER PROPOSALS ASSOCIATION FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 12TH ANNUAL MEETING Gis Convention Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan June 19th-22 , 2008 http://www.ym.edu.tw/assc12/ -------------------------------- Confirmed speakers: Presidential Address: David Rosenthal, City University of New York, USA Keynote Speakers: Thomas Metzinger, The Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany, topic: The Self Mitsuo Kawato, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Japan, topic: Engineering Consciousness Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Kyoto University, Japan, topic: The Mind of the Chimpanzee Susana Martinez-Conde, Barrow Neurological Institute,USA, topic: Microsaccades: Windows on the Mind Symposium Speakers: Ned Block, New York University, USA Victor Lamme, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Barbara Jones, McGill University, Canada Donald Pfaff, Rockefeller University, USA Steven Laureys, University of Liege, Belgium Adrian Owen, University of Cambridge, UK Charles Spence, Oxford University, UK Keiji Tanaka, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan Glyn Humphreys, University of Birmingham, UK Shaul Hochstein, Life Sciences Institute and Neural Computation Center, Israel Tim Bayne, University of Macquarie, Australia Ryan McKay, Queen's University Belfast, UK Ian Gold, McGill University, Canada Robyn Langdon, Macquarie University, Australia The 12th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness will be held from June 19th to June 22nd, 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan (Gis Convention Center, National Taiwan University). This is the first time for a ASSC annual meeting to be held in Asia. ASSC12 provides a chance for you to see Taipei and Taiwan, an island nation with a newly born democracy in Asia. Taipei offers an interesting combination of eastern and western cultures. Taiwan has recently been selected by the National Geographic Traveler Magazine as "probably the best traveling destination in Asia" among the 111 islands evaluated. The meeting promises to be both intellectually stimulating and culturally interesting! ASSC12 is intended to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in the scientific study of consciousness. The overall goal of the conference is to promote the scientific study of consciousness in all of its forms. Following last year's successful symposia, ASSC members are again invited to submit proposals for symposia relevant to the overall goals of the conference. Non-members can also submit proposals for tutorials. Symposia will address current empirical and theoretical issues in the study of consciousness, from the perspectives of philosophy, neuroscience, clinical medicine, psychology, and computer science. ------------------------------ THE SECOND CALL FOR PAPER AND POSTER SUBMISSIONS SUBMISSION MUST BE RECEIVED BY FEBRUARY 1, 2008! ------------------------------ Speakers in concurrent sessions are invited to talk on any topic relevant to the scientific study of consciousness. Submissions that include anthropological, evolutionary, physiological, psychological, philosophical, or computational perspectives are all welcome. Submissions for both posters and talks will be accepted (please specify preference). Any person may present only one submission, but may be co-author on more than one. Submit by filling out the appropriate forms at: http://www.ym.edu.tw/assc12/ You will be asked to include with your submission the following information: 1. Title. 2. Name, affiliation, with presenting co-author(s) designated. 3. An abstract of up to 350 words. 4. Complete contact information for the author with whom the scientific program committee will interact with about the submission 5. Whether your first preference is for an talk or poster presentation 6. Whether your topic is a scientific or philosophical presentation If you have any difficulties in submitting your proposal, or any other questions regarding the meeting, please contact assc12@ym.edu.tw. ------------------------------ REGISTRATION OPEN ON FEB. 1, 2008 ------------------------------ As in previous years, discounted registration will be available to ASSC members, who will also enjoy a range of book discounts and other member benefits. The registration discount will be greater than the cost of membership, so prospective members are encouraged to join ASSC now! To find out more about the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and to apply for membership, please consult our website at http://assc.caltech.edu/ Registration will open on Feb. 1, 2008. All questions about paper/poster submissions should be directed to the official conference email address: assc12@ym.edu.tw. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ASSC-12 Scientific Program Committee: Allen Houng & Ralph Adolphs (Co-Chairs), Shinsuke Shimojo, Max Coltheart, John Haynes, Steven Macknik, Dan Lloyd, Michael Pauen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Allen Y. Houng, Ph.D. The Local Organizer of ASSC12 Professor , Institute of Neuroscience Dean , School of Humanities and Social Sciences National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan From zhaoyanchang at hotmail.com Wed Jan 2 12:08:14 2008 From: zhaoyanchang at hotmail.com (Yanchang Zhao) Date: Wed Jan 2 12:29:54 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 2nd round CALL FOR CHAPTERS: Proposal Submission Deadline: Jan 31, 2008 Message-ID: *********************************************************** 2nd Round CALL FOR CHAPTERS Proposal Submission Deadline: January 31, 2008 Full chapter submission: April 30, 2008 http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~yczhao/IGI-book/CFC.htm *********************************************************** Title ----- Post-Mining of Association Rules: Techniques for Effective Knowledge Extraction Editors ------- Dr. Yanchang Zhao Prof. Chengqi Zhang Dr. Longbing Cao Publisher --------- IGI Global (formerly Idea Group) 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 --------------- 2nd round proposal deadline: January 31, 2008 Notification of proposal acceptance: February 28, 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 January 31, 2008, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by February 28, 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 are 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 _________________________________________________________________ New music from the Rogue Traders - listen now! http://ninemsn.com.au/share/redir/adTrack.asp?mode=click&clientID=832&referral=hotmailtaglineOct07&URL=http://music.ninemsn.com.au/roguetraders From rufin at cerco.ups-tlse.fr Wed Jan 2 13:50:59 2008 From: rufin at cerco.ups-tlse.fr (Rufin VanRullen) Date: Wed Jan 2 14:23:32 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 2 POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS: Dynamics of visual perception and attention Message-ID: <477B88B3.7020906@cerco.ups-tlse.fr> 2 POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS: Dynamics of visual perception and attention Starting date: Spring/Summer 2008 2 postdoctoral positions are available to work in collaboration with Rufin VanRullen at the CerCo in Toulouse, France. The project investigates temporal aspects of visual perception, attention and awareness, using a combination of psychophysical, neuro-imaging (EEG, fMRI) and computational tools. One position is focused on human experimentation: the successful applicant will have prior experience with at least one experimental technique, and a demonstrated interest in vision and/or attention; some programming experience is also desirable. The other position is focused on computer modeling: programming experience and a strong computational background are necessary, as well as an interest in neuroscience and/or psychology. Candidates fulfilling both the above profiles would of course be welcome. More information about the research project can be found at http://www.klab.caltech/edu/~rufin/ . French language is not a requirement but a willingness to learn would be beneficial. Net salary is about 1,850 Euros per month, according to French standards. The initial appointment is one year, with a possibility of renewing up to two more years. Additional information about the research environment in Toulouse can be viewed at http://www.cerco.ups-tlse.fr/fr_vers/cerco_eng/index.php?url=alaune.htm. Applications should be sent to Rufin VanRullen (rufin.vanrullen@cerco.ups-tlse.fr ), and should include a detailed CV including publication list, a brief statement about research interests, and the names of 2 references. Applications should be sent preferably before March 1st, 2008, but later applications will be considered until the positions are filled. Informal inquiries can also be made at any time to the same email address. Rufin VanRullen. Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, UMR 5549, Universite Paul Sabatier, CNRS, Facult? de M?decine de Rangueil, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 9, France. Tel : +33 (0)5 62 17 37 76 http://www.klab.caltech/edu/~rufin/ From roweis at cs.toronto.edu Thu Jan 3 19:16:05 2008 From: roweis at cs.toronto.edu (Sam Roweis) Date: Fri Jan 4 10:26:37 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] ICML 2008 Call for Papers Message-ID: <44b1f7e60801031016r60137429lbab9ab655a17e406@mail.gmail.com> The 25th International Conference On Machine Learning (ICML-2008) July 5-9, 2008, Helsinki, Finland http://icml2008.cs.helsinki.fi/ Call For Papers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ICML 2008 invites submission of papers on substantial, original, and previously unpublished research in all aspects of machine learning. We welcome submissions of innovative work on systems that are self adaptive, systems that improve their own performance, or systems that apply logical, statistical, probabilistic or other formalisms to the analysis of data, learning predictive models, or interaction with the environment. We welcome innovative applications, theoretical contributions, carefully evaluated empirical studies, and we particularly welcome work that combines all of these. We also encourage submissions that bridge the gap between machine learning and other fields of research. ICML 2008 will be held in Helsinki, Finland, July 5-9, 2008, and be co-located with the Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence Conference (UAI), and the Conference on Learning Theory (COLT), July 9-12. ********************************************************************** DATES: Friday February 8: Full paper submissions due (no separate abstract due date) Monday March 17: Reviews available Wednesday March 19: Author responses due Monday April 7: Acceptance notification Friday April 25: Final camera-ready version due July 5: ICML Tutorials July 6-8: ICML Conference July 9: ICML/UAI/COLT Joint Workshops Day July 10-12: UAI Conference and COLT Conferences ********************************************************************** Format of the Conference The conference will include three days of technical presentations, one day of tutorials and one day of workshops. Accepted papers will each have an oral presentation as well as a poster in an evening poster session. There will also be talks by several invited speakers, and a banquet. Awards Awards will be given for Best Paper(s), Best Student Paper(s) (first-authored by a student), Best Application Paper, 10-year Best Paper (most influential paper of ICML 1998). Submission Submission format, details and style files will soon be available on the ICML 2008 website http://icml2008.cs.helsinki.fi. Submission of papers and the paper reviewing process for ICML 2008 will be entirely electronic. Review Process Papers submitted to ICML 2008 will normally be reviewed by three (but at least two) referees. Authors will be given the opportunity to provide short feedback to the reviews before the final decision is made. Reviewing for ICML 2008 will be blind to the identities of the authors. ICML 2008 will not accept any paper that is substantially similar to another paper that is currently under review or has already been accepted for publication in a journal or another conference. Please clearly indicate which contributions are novel and which are previous work, either by the authors or others. If a paper submitted to ICML2008 and another already published or already submitted paper contain substantial overlap in content and the content is not clearly indicated (anonymously) as being previous work then the ICML submission may be rejected on the grounds of being a dual submission. Authors are also not permitted to submit their papers elsewhere during ICML's review period. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ General Chair: William Cohen Carnegie Mellon University Program Chairs: Andrew McCallum University of Massachusetts Amherst Sam Roweis University of Toronto & Google Senior Program Committee: David Blei Princeton University Leon Bottou NEC Laboratories America Michael Bowling University of Alberta Carla Brodley Tufts University Wray Buntine Australian National University Joaquin Candela Microsoft Research Michael Collins Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nello Cristianini University of Bristol Luc De Raedt University of Freiburg Pedro Domingos University of Washington Peter Flach University of Bristol David Forsyth University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Johannes Fuernkranz Technical University Darmstadt Lise Getoor University of Maryland Mark Girolami University of Glasgow Amy Greenwald Brown University Russ Greiner University of Alberta Carlos Guestrin Carnegie Mellon University Sven Koenig University of Southern California Neil Lawrence University of Manchester Ryan McDonald Google Steven Minton Fetch Technologies David Page University of Wisconsin Diona Precup McGill University Carl Rasmussen Cambridge University Nicholas Roy Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sunita Sarawagi Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Lawrence Saul University of California San Diego Dale Schuurmans University of Alberta Michele Sebag Universite Paris-Sud John Shawe-Taylor University College London Nathan Srebro Toyota Technological Institute Richard Sutton University of Alberta Yee Whye Teh Gatsby Unit, University College London Luis Torgo University of Porto Manfred Warmuth University of California Santa Cruz Max Welling University of California Irvine ChengXiang Zhai University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Alice Zheng Microsoft Research From prodrigues at liacc.up.pt Mon Jan 7 15:20:55 2008 From: prodrigues at liacc.up.pt (Pedro Pereira Rodrigues) Date: Mon Jan 7 16:18:06 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 2nd European Summer School on Knowledge Discovery for Ubiquitous Computing Message-ID: <47823547.2080904@liacc.up.pt> ================================================================= The 2nd European Summer School on Knowledge Discovery for Ubiquitous Computing http://wiki.kdubiq.org/summerschool2008/index.php/Main/Home Porto 2-9 March 2008 ================================================================= The goal of the summer school of KDubiq is to establish a common ground for the integration of the involved fields and to support the formation of a new community. Starting with an introduction into embedded systems, more specialized courses focus on wireless sensor networks and data streams. Based on a course on algorithmic foundations of distributed data mining, privacy issues, Web 2.0 and grid aspects of data mining are being taught. All courses come along with exercises for hands-on experience. From wulfram.gerstner at epfl.ch Mon Jan 7 16:25:45 2008 From: wulfram.gerstner at epfl.ch (wulfram gerstner) Date: Mon Jan 7 16:45:56 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Feb 15 - single neuron modeling competition Message-ID: <47824479.5050309@epfl.ch> Reminder - 5 weeks left to submit your model prediction to the Quantitative Single-Neuron Modeling Competition 2008 http://lcn.epfl.ch/QuantNeuronMod2008/ - 1st prize: The Swiss Single-Neuron Modeling Award (10 000 CHF*) - 2nd prize: The EPFL-Brain Mind Institute Neuron Modeling Award (500 CHF*) for details see http://lcn.epfl.ch/QuantNeuronMod2008/ Important Dates - February 15th 2008 : Submission deadline. - March 3rd-4th 2008 : Presentation of the results at the workshop on Data sharing and modeling challenges in neuroscience taking place during Cosyne 2008 meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. The organizers of the competition Wulfram Gerstner (EPFL) Thomas Berger (EPFL) Arnd Roth (UCL) From mlgamble at ucdavis.edu Tue Jan 8 01:21:44 2008 From: mlgamble at ucdavis.edu (Marissa Gamble) Date: Tue Jan 8 13:10:44 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 2008 UC-Davis ERP Boot Camp Message-ID: <5BF839D0-3CC2-4A67-AF87-F33093A8C92D@ucdavis.edu> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------- The ERP Boot Camp, an 11-day summer workshop on the ERP technique funded by NIMH, will be held July 7-17 2008 at UC-Davis. It is intended for beginning and intermediate ERP researchers, or people who are interested in getting started in ERP research. It is designed for both basic scientists and clinical researchers. The topics will include: 1) Where do ERPs come from? What do they mean? 2) ERP components 3) The design and interpretation of ERP experiments 4) EEG data acquisition 5) Filtering, artifact rejection, and artifact correction 6) Measuring and analyzing ERP components 7) ERP localization 8) Setting up and running an ERP lab The Boot Camp consists of lectures on these topics, accompanied by discussions of classic and contemporary ERP papers and guided lab activities. It is led by Steve Luck, and the faculty includes many distinguished ERP researchers from UC Davis and other universities. Participants at previous Boot Camps have come from around the world and have ranged from beginning graduate students to full professors. They have included psychologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and speech pathologists. However, predoctoral students should not apply unless they will have had at least 6 months of intensive ERP experience before attending the Boot Camp. We highly encourage the participation of individuals from underrepresented groups. Funding is available from NIMH to defray some or all of the costs of attending the Boot Camp, but is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. International participants are encouraged to apply, but they must obtain their own funding. For more information about the Boot Camp and the application procedures, see www.ERPinfo.org Applications are due on March 31, 2008. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Thank You, Marissa Gamble UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain 267 Cousteau Place Davis, CA 95618 Phone: (530) 297-4425 Fax: (530) 297-4400 Email: mlgamble@ucdavis.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080107/096196da/attachment-0001.html From bhalla at ncbs.res.in Tue Jan 8 03:41:25 2008 From: bhalla at ncbs.res.in (Upinder S. Bhalla) Date: Tue Jan 8 13:10:46 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Beta 1.0.0 release of MOOSE simulator Message-ID: <4782E2D5.4020207@ncbs.res.in> 7 January 2007 We are happy to announce the first Beta release of the Multiscale Object-Oriented Simulation Environment, MOOSE. Websites: http://moose.ncbs.res.in http://moose.sourceforge.net What is MOOSE: A GENESIS compatible (well, mostly) simulator rewritten from scratch in C++. Models everything from single molecule dynamics to large neural networks. Runs natively on Linux, Solaris, Mac, (probably other Unices), and shortly Windows. Designed for automatic parallelization and Python and XML interfaces. What to get: Binaries for your favorite platform (Optional) DOCS tree for documentation and TESTS tree for examples. (For the brave) Source tree for building the whole thing on your system. Why to get it: To begin the process of getting your GENESIS models to run on MOOSE. To help with building a next-generation simulator. What the main distro does: GENESIS scripting Kinetic simulations Single-neuron simulations Network simulations. What to do when it crashes or if it doesn't do what you need: Submit a bug report on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=165660&atid=836272 What to do if you want to contribute code: Email us! bhalla@ncbs.res.in, niraj@ncbs.res.in, subha@ncbs.res.in, raameshd@ncbs.res.in Thanks to: Developers, support from NCBS, DAE/SRC, DBT, NIH, EU-India Grid and earlier support from Biophase. Happy New Year! -- Upi Bhalla on behalf of the MOOSE team From erik at oist.jp Wed Jan 9 08:41:15 2008 From: erik at oist.jp (Erik De Schutter) Date: Wed Jan 9 11:00:46 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course 2008: Application site open Message-ID: <66C7E6EA-7CA7-4E5B-98BD-7C197996BD10@oist.jp> OKINAWA COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE COURSE 2008 Methods, Neurons, Networks and Behaviors June 15 - July 4, 2008. Okinawa, Japan http://www.irp.oist.jp/ocnc/2008 The aim of the Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course is to provide opportunities for young researchers with theoretical backgrounds to learn the latest advances in neuroscience, and for those with experimental backgrounds to have hands-on experience in computational modeling. We invite graduate students and postgraduate researchers to participate in the course, held from June 15th through July 4th, 2008 at an oceanfront seminar house of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Interested students can now apply through the course web page at http://www.irp.oist.jp/ocnc/2008 Applications will close February 17th, Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance in the 3rd week of March. Like last year, OCNC will be a comprehensive three-week course covering single neurons, networks, and behaviors with ample time for student projects. The first week will focus exclusively on methods with hands-on tutorials during the afternoons, while the second and third weeks will have lectures by international experts. We invite those who are interested in integrating experimental and computational approaches at each level, as well as in bridging different levels of complexity. The sponsor will provide lodging and meals during the course and support travel for those without funding. We hope that this course will be a good opportunity for theoretical and experimental neuroscientists to meet each other and to explore the attractive nature and culture of Okinawa, the southernmost island prefecture of Japan. Invited faculty: Arbuthnott, Gordon Bhalla, Upi Butera, Robert De Schutter, Erik Deneve, Sophie Destexhe, Alain Doya, Kenji Fairhall, Adrienne Gew?ltig, Marc-Oliver H?usser, Michael Ishii, Shin K?rding, Konrad Longtin, Andr? Montague, Read Stiefel, Klaus Tsodyks, Misha Wang, Xiao-Jing Wickens, Jeff More to be announced... From rubin at math.pitt.edu Wed Jan 9 22:06:03 2008 From: rubin at math.pitt.edu (Jonathan Rubin) Date: Thu Jan 10 10:51:33 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] upcoming meeting Message-ID: The 2008 SIAM Conference on the Life Sciences will be held August 4-7, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Montreal. We encourage you to participate in this meeting! The themes for this meeting are Biomechanics, Cell Signaling, Evolutionary Dynamics, Imaging, Neuroscience, Regulatory Networks, and Systems Biology. Plenary talks will be given by Paul Bressloff, University of Utah Richard L. Ehman, Mayo Clinic Jeff Hasty, University of California, San Diego Sharon Lubkin, North Carolina State University Ilya Shmulevich, Institute for Systems Biology Karl Sigmund, University of Vienna Kai E. Thomenius, GE Global Research Claire J. Tomlin, U. California, Berkeley and Stanford University Submissions of minisymposium proposals and contributed posters will be accepted through February 4, 2008. Please see www.siam.org/meetings/ls08 for more details, and we hope to see you in Montreal! --Jonathan Rubin, Organizing Committee Co-chair From bard at math.pitt.edu Wed Jan 9 22:40:52 2008 From: bard at math.pitt.edu (G. Bard Ermentrout) Date: Thu Jan 10 10:51:36 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Postdoctoral positions-University of Pittsburgh Message-ID: RTG Post-Doctoral Associate (www.math.pitt.edu/~cbsg -- coming soon!) The Department of Mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for postdoctoral appointment starting the Fall Term 2008 subject to final funding approval. The appointment is renewable annually to a maximum of three years. The position will likely be funded jointly by the University of Pittsburgh and a new NSF Research Training Group (RTG) grant on Complex Biological Systems across multiple space and time scales. The research areas covered by the RTG include (i) the development and analysis of mathematical models and computational algorithms for solving spatio-temporal problems arising in biology and (ii) the applications of these and other methods to problems arising in inflammation and neuroscience. To be successful, a candidate must demonstrate excellence in research, and must also have strong commitment to excellence in teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Candidates should be willing to work closely with experimentalists and clinicians. All applications must include the following: (1) a curriculum vita, (2) a personal statement addressing their research agenda, (3) a statement of teaching philosophy, (4) a completed AMS Standard Cover Sheet form and (5) at least three letters of recommendation. Applications should be submitted electronically through http://www.mathjobs.org. If the candidate is unable to submit electronically, materials may be sent to: Postdoctoral Search Committee in Complex Biological Systems, Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Review of completed files will begin on January 10, 2008 and continue until the position is filled. The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups under-represented in academia are especially encouraged to apply. NSF restrictions require that eligible candidates must be US citizens or permanent residents. From Ranu.Jung at asu.edu Wed Jan 9 17:55:55 2008 From: Ranu.Jung at asu.edu (Ranu Jung) Date: Thu Jan 10 13:03:43 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS CNS*2008 Message-ID: - From ossadtchi at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 10:53:36 2008 From: ossadtchi at gmail.com (Alex Ossadtchi) Date: Thu Jan 10 13:03:46 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] PENS Spring school: Models in neuroscience: turning experiments into knowledge Message-ID: Dear colleauges, We are pleased to announce that PENS Neuroscience school Models in Neuroscience: turning experiments into knowledge will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia from April, 27 to May, 5 2008. The school will emphasize the role of modeling as a knowledge structuring tool.The lectures will describe the use of mathematical model-based approaches to infer knowledge from the experimental data and statistical models used for establishing significance of findings. Additional goals of the school are to bridge the gap between future cellular and cognitive neuroscientists and to attract the students majoring in physics and math to the field of computational neuroscience. We welcome applications from advanced Ph.D. students and young post-docs with interest in all fields of neuroscience as well as students with physics/math major. A total of 30 students will be accepted. Meals and accomodation are covered for all accepted students, limited number of travel awards is available. Application deadline, February, 15, 2008. Registration fee: 100 Euro (fee can be waived for students with advanced records) Cellular neuroscience: biophysics of ionic channels, synaptic and circumneuronal signal transmission, synaptic plasticity, techniques of imaging and electrophysiology Cognitive neuroscience: memory, attention, language, brain imaging , multi-modal integration in cognitive data analysis, event-related potentials and fields Computational neuroscience: single-neuron and neural population modeling, dynamic causal modeling (DCM), non-parametric statistical analysis of EEG/MEG data For more information, please, visit http://www.neuroscience.spb.ru/school. Ekaterina Volokhonskaya on behalf of the organizing committee From demiralp at istanbul.edu.tr Thu Jan 10 16:57:14 2008 From: demiralp at istanbul.edu.tr (Tamer Demiralp) Date: Mon Jan 14 08:42:09 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] First Call for the International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience X (ICON X) Message-ID: -------------------------------- FIRST CALL FOR PAPER & POSTER SUBMISSIONS 10th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE (ICON X) Azka Hotel, Bodrum, Turkey -- September 1-5., 2008 http://www.iconxbodrum.org/ -------------------------------- X International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON X) is approaching and we are pleased to highlight some aspects of its exciting programme that should not be missed. ICON X is intended to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in the scientific study of cognition. The conference will address current empirical and theoretical issues in the study of cognition, from the perspectives of neuroscience, psychology, clinical medicine, and computational science. ICON X will be held from September 1st to September 5th 2008 in Bodrum, Turkey. Beyond being a lively, popular holiday resort on the Aegean Sea, Bodrum has an incredibly rich past as a place where people have lived continuously for thousands of years. Its position in or near so many of the great civilizations and events of ancient history also makes Halicarnassus (Bodrum's ancient name) an interesting site to visit. So, the meeting promises to be both intellectually stimulating and culturally interesting! Please visit the ICON X web site at www.iconxbodrum.org . On-line abstract submission and registration pages are now active. Abstract submission deadline is May 15th and early registration deadline with reduced fee is June 1st. Submissions for both posters and talks will be accepted. Any person may present only two submissions, but may be co-author on more than two. Even if you do not want to submit an abstract now, please register yourself as a user of the WEB page, so that we can inform you about the updates. We look forward to meeting you in Bodrum in September. Sincerely, Prof. Dr. Tamer Demiralp Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine Department of Physiology 34093 Capa-Istanbul, TURKEY Tel: +90 212 6352631 GSM: +90 532 3637634 Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Opening Address: ------------------------ Erol Basar Istanbul Kultur University, Turkey Keynotes: ------------- Gy?rgy Buzsaki, Rutgers University, USA Title: Internally organized cell assembly sequences and memory recall Ray Guillery, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey Title: What can Axonal Branching Patterns Tell Us about the Nature of Perceptual Processing? Onur Gunturkun, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Title: Cerebral Asymmetries: The View from the Inside Steven Hillyard, University of California at San Diego, USA Title: Electrophysiology of Visual Attention Robert T. Knight, University of California at Berkeley, USA Title: High frequency oscillations track behavior in the human neocortex Marsel Mesulam, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA Title to be announced Semir Zeki, University College of London, UK Title: The visual brain and its many consciousnesses Confirmed Symposium Speakers: ----------------------------- Amir Amedi, USA Carol Barnes, USA Canan Basar-Eroglu, Germany Aysenil Belger, USA Yehezkel Ben-Ari, France. Olivier Bertrand, France Steven Bressler, USA Robert Desimone, USA Wael El-Deredy, UK Uzay Emrah Emir, Turkey Murat Emre, Turkey Marie-Helene Giard, France Thomas Gruber, Germany Hakan G?rvit, Turkey Corinna Haenschel, Germany Christoph Herrmann, Germany Jochen Kaiser, Germany Peter Lakatos, USA Nikos Logothetis, Germany Jasna Martinovic, Germany Micah Murray, Switzerland Marcus Naumer, Germany Yuval Nir, Israel Frank Ohl, Germany Aysegul Ozerdem, Turkey Josef Parvizi, USA John Polich, USA Ivan Rektor, Czech Republic Jorge J. Riera, Japan Charles Schr?der, USA Amir Shmuel, Germany Paula Tallal, USA Kamil Uludag, Germany Pedro Valdes-Sosa, Cuba Arno Villringer, Germany Mark Wallace, UK Gorsev Yener, Turkey Juliana Yordanova, Bulgaria . -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: first_call.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 602860 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080110/b2becd7f/first_call-0001.pdf From Ranu.Jung at asu.edu Thu Jan 10 18:02:22 2008 From: Ranu.Jung at asu.edu (Ranu Jung) Date: Mon Jan 14 08:42:12 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS CNS*2008 Message-ID: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS, CNS*2008 SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 8, 2008 SUBMISSION OPEN: January 21, 2008 Seventeenth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting CNS*2008 July 19 - July 24, 2008 Portland, Oregon http://www.cnsorg.org CNS*2008 will be held in Portland, Oregon July 19-24, 2008. A welcome reception will be held on the evening of July 19th and the scientific program will start Sunday, July 20th in the morning. The main meeting will take place July 20-22 in downtown Portland at The Benson Hotel, currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a Portland landmark. The main meeting will be followed by two days of workshops, July 23-24 at the OHSU Center for Health and Healing, at the foot of the Aerial tram to OHSU. The meeting banquet will be held July 21. Submissions can include experimental, model-based, as well as more abstract theoretical approaches to understanding neurobiological computation. We especially encourage research that mixes experimental and theoretical studies. We also accept papers that describe new technical approaches to theoretical and experimental issues in computational neuroscience or relevant software packages. This year we are having a Special Session on Systems Biology and Molecular Level Modeling in Neuroscience. INVITED SPEAKERS: Upinder Bhalla (National Centre for Biological Sciences, India) Kim (Avrama) Blackwell (George Mason University) John Rinzel (New York University) Thomas Soderling (Oregon Health Sciences University) CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS: We are accepting proposals for workshops (Half-day to two days in length) (http://www.cnsorg.org/cns_meeting_workshops.htm ). If you want to propose a workshop please contact the workshop coordinator, Dieter Jaeger, at workshops@cnsorg.org. An archive of workshops held at last year's meeting is at http://www.cnsorg.org/Archives2007.htm PAPER SUBMISSION: Submissions to the meeting will take the form of a formatted abstract (to be published). Authors wanting an oral presentation are required to also submit a 1-3-page summary (for the CNS reviewers only) describing the nature, scope and main results of the work in more detail. The summaries will be reviewed to construct the oral program. Details regarding formatting of submissions will be posted at http://www.cnsorg.org . All submissions will be acknowledged by e-mail. THE REVIEW PROCESS: Submissions will be judged and accepted for the meeting based on clarity, substance and appropriateness for the meeting. It is particularly important that the biological relevance of the research be made clear. CNS strongly believes in the open exchange of ideas and rejections are usually based on absence of biological relevance (e.g., pure machine learning). We will notify authors of meeting acceptance by the first week of April. Submissions to be considered for oral presentation will be reviewed by two independent referees and results of the review process will be used to construct the oral program. In addition to perceived quality and significance, the novelty of the research and the diversity and coherence of the overall program will be considerations for selection as an oral presentation. We particularly encourage women and underrepresented minorities to apply for an oral presentation. To ensure diversity, those who have given talks in the recent past will not be selected and multiple oral presentations from the same lab will be discouraged. Most oral presentations will be 20 minutes in length, but a few papers will be selected for longer "featured oral" presentations. All accepted papers not selected for oral talks may be presented during the poster sessions. Authors will be notified of the presentation format of their papers by the end of April. ABSTRACT PUBLICATION: The formatted abstracts will again be published as a Supplement to the online journal BMC Neuroscience. Last year's abstracts are at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/8?issue=S2 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: The CNS meeting is organized by the Organization for Computational Neuroscience President: Ranu Jung (Arizona State University, USA) Program chair: Bill Holmes (Ohio University, USA) Program co-chair: Don Johnson (Rice University, USA) Local organizer: Patrick Roberts (Oregon Health Sciences University, USA) Workshop coordinator: Dieter Jaeger (Emory University, USA) Program Committee: Victoria Booth (University of Michigan, USA) Sharon Crook (Arizona State University, USA) Markus Diesmann (RIKEN, Japan) Alex Dimitrov (Montana State University, USA) Jeanette Hellgren-Kotaleski (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) Theoden Netoff (University of Minnesota, USA) Hiroshi Okamato (RIKEN, Japan) Astrid Prinz (Emory University, USA) Michelle Rudolph (CNRS, France) Harel Shouval (University of Texas Medical Center, USA) Volker Steuber (University of Herfordshire, UK) ________________________________________________________________________ _____ OCNS - Organization for Computational Neurosciences, Inc. http://www.cnsorg.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080110/2eb2f025/attachment-0001.html From john at mmmi.sdu.dk Mon Jan 14 08:29:13 2008 From: john at mmmi.sdu.dk (John Hallam) Date: Mon Jan 14 08:42:14 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] SAB 08 Submission extension to 25 January Message-ID: In response to many requests for extra time, the SAB organisers have decided to extend the deadline for paper submissions to 23:59 GMT 25 JANUARY 2008. This is a final deadline: there will be no further extension beyond this date. If you have already submitted a paper but could use the extra time to make improvements, please do submit a revised version by the new deadline. John Hallam, on behalf of the SAB Chairs From daniela.pelz at bccn-berlin.de Mon Jan 14 11:23:07 2008 From: daniela.pelz at bccn-berlin.de (Daniela Pelz) Date: Mon Jan 14 11:51:05 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] International MSc and PhD Program in Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: <478B380B.3070507@bccn-berlin.de> International Master of Science or PhD in Computational Neuroscience Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Germany The Berlin University of Technology, the Charit? Medical School and the Humboldt University of Berlin solicit applications for an international Master and PhD program in Computational Neuroscience within the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin (http://www.bccn-berlin.de). The Master program is full-time for two years, the PhD program is full-time for three years. Course language is English. There are no tuition fees. Application deadline for both programs is March 15, 2008. Courses start in October 2008. The Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin comprises 24 research groups working on all levels from single cell to macroscopic, both experimentally and theoretically. It offers a unique scientific environment to the students within the program. The master program is unique within Germany, offering students the opportunity to work early on in their career in a cutting edge interdisciplinary research field. Teaching staff includes the four newly appointed young Bernstein professors. The program currently offers 10 places with an excellent teacher to student ratio and a familiar atmosphere among students. The Master?s degree is jointly awarded by the Technische Universit?t Berlin and the Humboldt Universit?t zu Berlin. Teaching and Training follow a ?one day, one location? principle. The PhD program offers students to do research in one of the centers 24 research groups giving them a broad choice of topics and methods. At the same time, they are embedded in a scientific network where they regularly meet international scientists from their field of research. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to build up a network of their own with PhD students form other neuroscience programs within Berlin and within the Germany-wide National Network for Computational Neuroscience. All students who are interested in neuroscience and have a strong mathematical background are welcome to apply. In accordance with the interdisciplinary nature of Computational Neuroscience, the program encourages students form diverse disciplines such as natural sciences, engineering, or mathematics to apply. For further information please check www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de or send an email to graduateprograms@bccn-berlin.de -- Dr. Daniela Pelz Teaching Coordinator Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Humboldt University Philippstr. 13 House 6 10115 Berlin phone: (030) 2093-6773 fax: (030) 2093-6771 From Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu Mon Jan 14 19:21:27 2008 From: Eugene.Izhikevich at nsi.edu (Eugene M. Izhikevich) Date: Tue Jan 15 10:38:26 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Call for abstracts: COSYNE Workshop =?windows-1252?q?=93Spiking_N?= =?windows-1252?q?etworks_and_Reinforcement_Learning=94?= Message-ID: <478BA827.9000508@nsi.edu> COSYNE 2008 2-day Workshop Announcement/Call for Abstract Spiking Networks and Reinforcement Learning ORGANIZERS: Botond.Szatmary@nsi.edu Eugene.Izhikevich@nsi.edu SPEAKERS: Michael Hasselmo Moshe Abeles Peter Latham Wulfram Gerstner Walter Senn Gloster Aaron Ken Harris Guoqiang Bi Sebastian Seung Florentin Worgotter Maxim Bazhenov Eugene Izhikevich DESCRIPTION This two-day workshop will bring together eminent experimental biologists and theoretical scientists to discuss learning in spiking networks. There have been abundant experimental and theoretical results on the dynamics of spiking neurons and networks, emphasizing the importance of precise firing patterns. Likewise, reinforcement learning has a long history as a research topic in machine learning. However, there have only been a few attempts to connect this theory to neuroscience and express reinforcement learning in a framework of spiking neurons. The goal of this workshop is to enable the participants to catch up on the most recent experimental data, to introduce new theories, and to see if we can bring the theory and experimental data more closely into agreement with each other. There is a possibility to include a few more speakers. Please, submit your abstract to Botond.Szatmary@nsi.edu. Deadline for submission: Thursday, January 31, 2008. The talks will be 30 minutes long with 10-15 minutes additional discussion time. For further details and updated information please visit the http://cosyne.org/ and http://cosyne.org/wiki/Cosyne08_Spiking_Networks_and_Reinforcement_Learning web sites. -- Eugene M. Izhikevich, Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology PhD, Mathematics, http://www.nsi.edu/users/izhikevich The Neurosciences Institute, Editor-in-Chief@scholarpedia.org 10640 John J. Hopkins Drive tel:(858) 626-2063 San Diego, CA, 92121, USA fax:(858) 626-2099 From v.steuber at herts.ac.uk Mon Jan 14 19:14:08 2008 From: v.steuber at herts.ac.uk (Volker Steuber) Date: Tue Jan 15 10:38:29 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] postdoc position in computational neuroscience Message-ID: <478BA670.9000007@herts.ac.uk> Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Computational Neuroscience Science and Technology Research Institute University of Hertfordshire ?23,000 - ?25,100 p.a. 3 years fixed term contract in the first instance Closing date: 6 February 2008 Applications are invited for a three year postdoc position in computational neuroscience. The project will focus on information processing in the vestibular cerebellum and involve the construction of a detailed model of the cerebellar cortex in 3D that is based on new physiological and morphological data. The position is funded by a Systems Biology Fellowship from the BBSRC (UK) and the ANR (France) and requires close collaboration with experimental and theoretical neuroscientists at UCL, the Ecole Normale Sup?rieure, Universit? Paris Descartes and Universit? Paris 5. More details about our research interests can be found under http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqvs/ and in these recent publications: Steuber, V., Mittmann, W., Hoebeek, F.E., Silver, R.A., De Zeeuw, C.I., Hausser, M. and De Schutter, E. (2007). Cerebellar LTD and pattern recognition by Purkinje cells. Neuron 54, 121-136. Gleeson, P. Steuber, V. and Silver, R.A. (2007). neuroConstruct: A tool for modeling networks of neurons in 3D space. Neuron 54, 219-235. You should have a PhD in computational neuroscience or a related discipline. Previous experience in biologically realistic modelling and knowledge of simulation tools such as NEURON or GENESIS is not required, but would be an advantage. Good scientific communication and writing skills and the ability to work as part of a team are essential. The UH Science and Technology Research Institute has been rated as 4 (national excellence with evidence of international excellence) at the last UK university research assessment exercise. It is located in Hatfield in Hertfordshire, just north of London. The University offers a range of benefits including a final salary pension scheme, professional development, family friendly policies, child care vouchers, waiving of course fees for the children of staff at UH, discounted memberships at the Hertfordshire Sports Village and generous annual leave. Closing Date: 6 February 2008 Quote Reference: EN8363 The position is open starting from 1 March 2008. For informal enquiries contact Dr Volker Steuber (v.steuber@herts.ac.uk , Tel +44 1707 284350). Apply online at http://recruitment.herts.ac.uk/recruit or request an application pack from Human Resources on 01707 284802 (24hr voicemail), quoting the appropriate reference number. Dr Volker Steuber Senior Lecturer (Research) in Biocomputation School of Computer Science Science and Technology Research Institute University of Hertfordshire College Lane, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB UK Tel +44 (0) 1707 284350 v.steuber@herts.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080114/0328c1a5/attachment-0001.html From retienne at jhu.edu Mon Jan 14 22:46:10 2008 From: retienne at jhu.edu (Ralph Etienne-Cummings) Date: Tue Jan 15 10:38:33 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 2008 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop Announcement Message-ID: <478BD822.9000409@jhu.edu> Forgive us if you get this announcement more than once --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEUROMORPHIC COGNITION ENGINEERING WORKSHOP Sunday, JUNE 29th - Saturday, JULY 19th, 2008 Telluride, Colorado Call for Applications Deadline: March 23rd, 2008 Avis COHEN (University of Maryland) Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Ralph ETIENNE-CUMMINGS (Johns Hopkins University) Paul HASLER (Georgia Institute of Technology) Timmer HORIUCHI (University of Maryland) Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Tobias Delbruck (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Terrence SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute and UCSD) Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland) Barbara SHINN-CUNNINGHAM (Boston University) Andre van SCHAIK(University of Sydney) We invite applications for a three week summer workshop that will be held in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, June 29th to Saturday, July 19th, 2008. The application deadline is Friday, March 23rd, and application instructions are described at the bottom of this document. The 2008 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Institute for Neuroinformatics - ETHZ, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Maryland - College Park, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, University of Sydney, and the Salk Institute. Last year's workshop was an exciting event and a great success. We strongly encourage interested parties to browse through the previous workshop web pages at: http://ine-web.org/workshops/past-workshops GOALS: Neuromorphic engineers design and fabricate artificial neural systems whose detailed architecture, design, and computational principles are based on those of biological nervous systems. Over the past 12 years, this research community has focused on the understanding of low-level sensory processing and systems infrastructure; efforts are now expanding to apply this knowledge and infrastructure to addressing higher-level problems in perception, cognition, and learning. The annual three-week intensive Workshop (held in Telluride, Colorado) consists of background lectures (from leading researchers in biological, cognitive, computational, engineering and learning sciences), practical tutorials (from state-of-the-art practitioners), hands-on projects (involving established researchers and newcomers/students), and special interest discussion groups (proposed by the workshop participants). In this workshop and through the Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering (INE), the mission is to promote interaction between senior and junior researchers; to educate new members of the community; to introduce new enabling fields and applications to the community; to promote on-going collaborative activities emerging from the Workshop, and to promote a self-sustaining research field. */ /* FORMAT: The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on systems and cognitive neuroscience (in particular sensory processing, learning and memory, motor systems and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI design, mobile robots, hands-on projects, and special interest groups. Participants are required to take part and possibly complete at least one of the projects proposed. They are furthermore encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities proposed as interest and time allow. There will be two lectures in the morning that cover issues that are important to the community in general. Because of the diverse range of backgrounds among the participants, many of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by invited speakers. Participants will be free to explore and play with whatever they choose in the afternoon. Projects and interest groups meet in the late afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there will be tutorial on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, mobile robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective attention mechanisms, cognitive systems, etc. Projects that are carried out during the workshop will be centered in a number of working groups, including: * active vision * audition * motor control and locomotion * robotics * multichip communication * analog VLSI * learning and memory * neuroprosthetic systems * cognitive neuroscience and attention LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS: The summer school will take place in the small town of Telluride, 9000 feet high in Southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive away from Denver (350miles). Great Lakes Aviation and America West Express airlines provide daily flights directly into Telluride. All facilities within the beautifully renovated public school building are fully accessible to participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in ski condominiums, within walking distance of the school. Participants are expected to share condominiums. The workshop is intended to be very informal and hands-on. Participants are not required to have had previous experience in analog VLSI circuit design, computational or machine vision, systems level neurophysiology or modeling the brain at the systems level. However, we strongly encourage active researchers with relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories to apply, in particular if they are prepared to work on specific projects, talk about their own work or bring demonstrations to Telluride (e.g. robots, chips, software). Internet access will be provided. Technical staff present throughout the workshops will assist with software and hardware issues. We will have a network of PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows for the workshop projects. We also plan to provide wireless internet access and encourage participants to bring along their personal laptop. No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend that you do not rent a car. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes, rain gear, and a backpack, since Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains. Unless otherwise arranged with one of the organizers, we expect participants to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop. FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT: Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around mid April 2008. The Workshop covers all your accommodations and facilities costs. You are responsible for your own travel to the Workshop. For expenses not covered by federal funds, a Workshop registration fee is required. The fee is $500 per participant, however, due to the difference in travel cost, we offer a discount to the non-US participants. European registration fees will be reduced by $250; non-US/non-European registration fees will be reduced by $400. The cost of a shared condominium will be covered for all academic participants but upgrades to a private room will cost extra. Participants from National Laboratories and Industry are expected to pay for these condominiums. HOW TO APPLY: Applicants should be at the level of graduate students or above (i.e. postdoctoral fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff and the equivalent positions in industry and national laboratories). We actively encourage women and minority candidates to apply. The application website is (after February 15th, 2008): http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2008/apply/ Application will include: * First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address. * Curriculum Vitae. * One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop. * Two letters of recommendation (uploaded directly by references). The application deadline is Friday, March 23, 2008. Applicants will be notified by e-mail by the end of April. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Etienne-Cummings Associate Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 105 Barton Hall/3400 N. Charles St. Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 Email: retienne@jhu.edu E URL: http://etienne.ece.jhu.edu/~etienne Tel: 410 - 516 - 3494 Fax: 410 - 516 - 5566 From alessandro at idsia.ch Tue Jan 15 18:49:59 2008 From: alessandro at idsia.ch (Alessandro Antonucci) Date: Tue Jan 15 14:08:06 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 3rd SIPTA School on Imprecise Probabilities: 1st announcement Message-ID: <20080115174959.GA12150@idsia.ch> 3rd SIPTA School on Imprecise Probabilities: 1st announcement [All our apologies for cross-posting.] Third school of the Society for Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications (SIPTA), July 2-8, 2008, Montpellier, France. Dear colleagues, The Society for Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications (SIPTA) organizes the 3rd edition of its school in Montpellier, France, during 2-8 July 2008, the local organization being handled by the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Robotique et de Microelectronique (LIRMM) of the university of Montpellier. The city of Montpellier is located in the south of France, on the Mediterranean coast, and the school will be held at the Centre Regional de Documentation Pedagogique, which is located in the very centre of Montpellier. The aim of SIPTA schools is to introduce interested students and researchers with the basics of imprecise probability topics, both theoretical and applied. Some of the best specialists in different aspects of imprecise probabilities lecture, during one week time, on the main concepts and techniques associated to their area of expertise, in a friendly environment favouring interactions between participants. Topics & Lecturers Imprecise probability is used as a generic term to cover all mathematical or statistical models which measure chance or uncertainty without sharp numerical probabilities. Imprecise probability models are needed in inference problems where the relevant information is scarce, vague or conflicting, and in decision problems where preferences may also be incomplete. The topics covered this year will include: - Coherent lower previsions (Enrique Miranda, Spain, and Gert De Cooman, Belgium) - Predictive inference: from Bayesian inference to Imprecise Probability (Jean-Marc Bernard, France) - Imprecise immediate predictions (Gert De Cooman, Belgium) - Independence concepts in Imprecise Probability (Fabio Cozman, Brazil) - Possibility theory (Didier Dubois, France) - Algorithms & approximation methods for Imprecise Probability (Fabio Cozman, Brazil) - Game-theoretic probability and its link with Imprecise Probability (Glenn Shafer, USA) The final program should be announced shortly on the summer school website. Pre-registration Since the number of participants is limited, we recommend you to inform us of your intention to participate to the school as soon as possible, by pre-registering by means of a simple reply to this email, indicating your name, email, status and affiliation, or by filling the pre-registration form at the school website. More information is available at the school website: http://www.lirmm.fr/SIPTASchool08/ We are looking forward to meeting you in Montpellier. We also welcome you to circulate this announcement around you. Best regards, Jean-Marc Bernard Kevin Loquin (for the scientific and organizing committees) From Olivier.Faugeras at sophia.inria.fr Tue Jan 15 15:05:06 2008 From: Olivier.Faugeras at sophia.inria.fr (Olivier Faugeras) Date: Tue Jan 15 15:34:34 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Junior research scientist positions in computational neuroscience and brain imaging Message-ID: <478CBD92.80404@sophia.inria.fr> Junior research scientist positions in computational neuroscience and brain imaging in the Odyssee Laboratory at INRIA (France). The Odyssee laboratory (project team, http://www-sop.inria.fr/odyssee/presentation/index.en.html) at INRIA (the French Research Institute in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics) is looking for top candidates to fill one or two junior researcher positions in computational neuroscience or brain imaging (functional, anatomical) analysis, starting between September 1st and December 31st, 2008. These are tenured (permanent) positions with no teaching duties. The applicants must have a strong background in mathematics, and/or physics, and/or computational science and obtained a postdoctoral experience in computational neuroscience and/or the analysis of brain imaging data. They are expected to develop their own interdisciplinary research and to join the group efforts in the field. We have very close collaborations with several experimental groups in neurophysiology and brain imaging. Our current research topics include brain imaging techniques and inverse problems (EEG/MEG, diffusion MR imaging, optical imaging and intracellular recording) and computational neuroscience (dynamics of biophysical and spiking neuron models, mean field modelling, computational neuroscience of vision, simulation techniques). For more information, see our last activity report (http://www-sop.inria.fr/odyssee/raweb/ra07.pdf). The Odyssee group is distributed between Sophia-Antipolis (near Nice, on the French riviera) and the Ecole Normale Sup?rieure in downtown Paris (in the heart of the "Quartier Latin"), and the candidate can apply to either place. The Odyssee project team is competing with other INRIA groups for these positions hence we strongly suggest to all interested persons to contact the scientific director of the project team, Olivier Faugeras (Olivier.Faugeras@sophia.inria.fr), before starting the application procedure. Application forms must be sent in before February 20th (2008), see the following web page: http://www.inria.fr/travailler/opportunites/chercheurs/concourscr2.en.html -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- : Olivier Faugeras : http://www-sop.inria.fr/odyssee/team/Olivier.Faugeras/index.en.html : Email: Olivier.Faugeras@sophia.inria.fr : Sophia-Antipolis ENS : Tel: +334 92 38 78 31 +331 44 32 21 55 : Sec: +334 92 38 78 30 : Fax: +334 92 38 78 45 +331 44 32 21 56 --------------------------------------------------------------------- From alongtin at uottawa.ca Wed Jan 16 17:54:05 2008 From: alongtin at uottawa.ca (Andre Longtin) Date: Thu Jan 17 09:54:43 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] UOttawa Computational Neuroscience Summer School - Second Announcement Message-ID: <35141BE6A60459488367EDBFED55F4FB01D28C1E@MSMAIL2.uottawa.o.univ> 2nd COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE SUMMER SCHOOL CENTER FOR NEURAL DYNAMICS UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA JUNE 8-20, 2008 SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT We are pleased to announce the 2nd Summer School in Computational Neuroscience, which will be held from Sunday June 8, 2008 until Friday June 20, 2008 inclusively. It is organized by the Center for Neural Dynamics at the University of Ottawa. The course is directed at graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the physical sciences (e.g. physics, applied mathematics, engineering, computer science) and the life sciences (e.g. neuroscience, biology, physiology, human kinetics) who wish to develop their skills in neural data analysis and in mathematical modeling of neural activity. The topics will range from cellular to systems neuroscience, with a focus on sensory and motor systems. The course will consist of 3 hours of lectures in the mornings, followed by 3-hour MATLAB-based computer laboratories in the afternoons. Participants will pair up for these laboratories, and an effort will be made to pair someone from the life sciences with someone from the physical sciences. All classes and laboratories will be held on the main downtown campus of the University of Ottawa. The School will be held in English, although many of the lecturers also speak French. The course can be taken for credit, since it is a University of Ottawa three-credit graduate course (NSC8104). The mark will be based on work done in the computer laboratories and on the completion and presentation of a research project bv the end of the course. The first day of the school (Sunday June 8th) will be a mathematics refresher open to all participants, which will include some introduction to differential equations. Enrollment in the course will be limited to 40 participants. MATH PRE-REQUISITES: Calculus I and II, first-year university level Linear Algebra and Probability and Statistics. LIFE SCIENCES PRE-REQUISITES: first-year university level life science courses for students in the physical sciences. FACULTY Prof. Ramesh Balasubramaniam, School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa Prof. Maurice Chacron, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, Dept. Physiology, McGill Prof. Victor LeBlanc, Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa Prof. John Lewis, Biology, University of Ottawa Prof. Tim Lewis, Mathematics, University of California at Davis Prof. Andr? Longtin, Physics, Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa Prof. Len Maler, Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa TUITION see the application form at: http://www.neurodynamic.uottawa.ca/summer.html ACCOMMODATION Accommodation will be available at the New Residence of the University of Ottawa, a few minutes walk away from the Biosciences Complex, cafeterias and downtown Ottawa with its restaurants, museums etc... Accommodation consists of a single room with a double bed, with two such rooms per apartment. Each apartment has a living room, kitchen and bathroom. The cost is approximately $50 CAN per night per person, taxes included. It is unlikely that we will be able to give discounts to students who will not be attending the full school, as the accommodation fees are based on sharing a two-bedroom apartment in the New Residence. FINANCIAL SUPPORT Partial financial support is available for those demonstrating the need. IMPORTANT DATES February 15th, 2008: Application, including a letter of recommendation sent to compneuro08@uottawa.ca March 1st, 2008: Notification of acceptance and level of financial support. April 1st, 2008: Notification of acceptance by the participant. Accommodation: as soon as possible after notification of acceptance, participants can reserve their accommodation online at reserve@uottawa.ca or by phoning 1-888-564-4545. REGISTER AT: www.neurodynamic.uottawa.ca/summer.html CONTACT US: compneuro08@uottawa.ca SYLLABUS 1) Introduction to Linear and Nonlinear Dynamical Systems -solutions of linear differential equations -qualitative analysis of nonlinear differential equations 2) Single Neuron Models -ionic models -simplified deterministic models -stochastic models 3) Neural Spike Train Analysis and Modeling -basic statistics -autocorrelation, spectrum -information theory toolbox 4) Sensory Coding -artificial and naturalistic stimuli -modeling activity along the afferent pathways -modeling feedback -population coding and information theory 5) Computational and Dynamical Approaches to Motor Control -posture control and equilibrium point approaches -movement adaptation to force fields -timing and rhythmic movements -computational approaches to movement pathologies 6) Synaptic Plasticity -short term depression and facilitation -long term plasticity -implications for information processing 7) Coupled Neurons -gap junction -excitatory and inhibitory synaptic coupling -effect of coupling on neural population behavior 8) Waves of Activity in Neural Networks -neural field models -traveling waves -spiral waves -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080116/24084de6/attachment-0001.html From smart at neuralcorrelate.com Wed Jan 16 20:16:40 2008 From: smart at neuralcorrelate.com (Susana Martinez-Conde) Date: Thu Jan 17 09:54:47 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 2nd Call for Illusion Submissions: the 4th Annual Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest Message-ID: <00f801c85874$54477940$fcd66bc0$@com> **** SECOND CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE FOURTH ANNUAL BEST VISUAL ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST**** http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com *** We are happy to announce the world's 4th Annual Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest!!*** The deadline for illusion submissions is February 15th, 2008! The 2008 contest will be hosted by Stuart Anstis and held in Naples, Florida (Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, http://www.thephil.org) on Sunday, May 11th, 2008, during the week of the Vision Sciences Society conference (VSS). The Naples Philharmonic Center is an 8-minute walk from the main VSS headquarters hotel in Naples, and is thus central to the VSS conference. The 2007 annual contest, held in Sarasota, Florida, drew numerous accolades from attendees and international media coverage, as well as over *** ONE MILLION*** website hits from viewers all over the world. The First, Second and Third Prize winners were Frederick Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi and Elena Gheorghiu (McGill University, Canada), Pietro Guardini and Luciano Gamberini (University of Padova, Italy), and Arthur Shapiro and Emily Knight (Bucknell University, USA). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights from the 2007 contest, go to http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com Visual Illusion Contestants are invited to submit novel visual or multimodal illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2007) in standard image, movie or html formats. An international panel of impartial judges will rate the submissions and narrow them to the TOP TEN. Then, at the Contest Gala in Naples, the TOP TEN illusionists will present their contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to pick the TOP THREE WINNERS! The renowned sculptor and artist, Guido Moretti, has created three amazing works of art to serve as trophies for the TOP THREE winners! See the trophies at: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_ user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=98&MMN_position=41:41 Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2008 contest, as long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the top three winners in previous years. Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the authors/creators will retain full copyright. No illusions will be posted on the illusion contest's website without the creators' explicit permission. As with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere. Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Coordinator, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart@neuralcorrelate.com) until February 15, 2008. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings (if known). Illusions will be rated according to: . Significance to our understanding of the visual system . Simplicity of the description . Sheer beauty . Counterintuitive quality . Spectacularity Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last year's illusions: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award! On behalf of the Neural Correlate Society: Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Coordinator) Neural Correlate Society Executive Committee: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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://smc.neuralcorrelate.com From argunsah at su.sabanciuniv.edu Wed Jan 16 22:00:13 2008 From: argunsah at su.sabanciuniv.edu (Ali Ozgur Argunsah) Date: Thu Jan 17 09:54:49 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] M.S. and Ph.D. position in BCI research Message-ID: We are seeking graduate students at the Masters and PhD. levels interested in research in Brain-Computer Interfaces. You can learn about our lab from following link: http://vpa.sabanciuniv.edu We are currently funded by The Scientific and National Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for the project called "Development of EEG Signal Analysis Techniques for BCI Systems". Interested students should contact Dr. M?jdat ?etin (mcetin@sabanciuniv.edu) and send a resume,undergraduate (and if applicable graduate) transcript, and a brief statement of research experience and interests. For information on Dr. ?etin's recent work and publications, please see http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/mcetin . Ali Ozgur Argunsah EECS Grad. Student. From mikko.vahasoyrinki at oulu.fi Thu Jan 17 15:18:17 2008 From: mikko.vahasoyrinki at oulu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mikko_V=E4h=E4s=F6yrinki?=) Date: Fri Jan 18 09:32:52 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] post doc position in University of Oulu, Finland Message-ID: <000a01c85913$ce3f8860$ac53e782@fysik.yo.oulu.fi> Post-doctoral position in neuroscience in University of Oulu, Finland Applications are invited for a position of post-doctoral research fellow for three years between 2008-2011 in the group led by Dr. Mikko V?h?s?yrinki and prof. Matti Weckstr?m, Department of Physical Sciences and Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland JOB DESCRIPTION The appointee will be expected to conduct research as a part of a multidisciplinary research team focused on studying neural mechanisms of information processing. Peripheral visual system and downstream ganglia of the insect brain will be used as an animal model. The appointee will be given possibilities to develop her/his own interests within the general framework of the research group. We have good facilities for research at single cell, network and whole animal level. Methods used in the research range from in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology at single cell level to extracellular population recordings combined with closed-loop behavioral paradigms. Mathematical modeling and computational neuroscience methods form essential part of our research approach and this may also be part of the research done by the appointee. We are actively collaborating with several other laboratories abroad, and the work may also include visits or collaboration with those groups. Additional information can be found in the extract from http://cc.oulu.fi/~mtw/group.html QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED a) A completed PhD in biophysics, physics, theoretical physics, neuroscience, or a related suitable discipline. Applications are also welcomed from students who will obtain their PhD degree in the immediate future. b) Practical experience of electrophysiology either at single cell or network level. Modelling experience is considered an advantage. c) The ability to communicate effectively and clearly in English, both orally and in writing d) Commitment and self-motivation to work according to high standards and in challenging projects e) Ability to work in an independent fashion but also act as a member of a multidisciplinary research team. POSSIBILITIES OFFERED a) competitive salary with full social and health insurance of the Finnish public system. b) enthusiastic research environment with good facilities c) good research models for high-quality work in neuroscience ENQUIRIES Initial appointments will be made for a probationary period until the end of 2008, or as agreed. All enquires and applications (either formal or informal) are welcomed and should be made to Dr. V?h?s?yrinki (mikko.vahasoyrinki@oulu.fi) or to prof. Weckstr?m (matti.weckstrom@oulu.fi). Best Regards, Dr. Mikko V?h?s?yrinki Academy Research Fellow University of Oulu Department of Physical Sciences Division of Biophysics, PO.BOX 3000 90014 Oulun yliopisto, Finland Phone: +358-8-553 1110 Mobile: +358-45-114 9188 Fax: +358-8-553 1101 From pz at hms.harvard.edu Fri Jan 18 01:06:28 2008 From: pz at hms.harvard.edu (Dr. J. S. Pezaris) Date: Fri Jan 18 09:32:55 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] AREADNE 2008 Call for Abstracts Message-ID: <200801180006.m0I06SVX004147@w000138203w.mgh.harvard.edu> CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT and CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AREADNE 2008 Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles June 26 - 29, 2008 Nomikos Conference Center Santorini, Greece http://www.areadne.org info@areadne.org INTRODUCTION One of the fundamental problems in neuroscience today is to understand how the activation of large populations of neurons give rise to higher order functions of the brain including learning, memory, cognition, perception, action and ultimately conscious awareness. Electrophysiological recordings in behaving animals over the past forty years have revealed considerable information about what the firing patterns of single neurons encode in isolation, but it remains largely a mystery how collections of neurons interact to perform these functions. Recent technological advances have for the first time provided a glimpse into the global functioning of the brain. These technologies include functional magnetic resonance imaging, optical imaging methods including intrinsic, voltage-sensitive dye, and two-photon imaging, high-density electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography, and multi-microelectrode array electrophysiology. These technologies have expanded our knowledge of brain functioning beyond the single neuron level. At the same time, our understanding of how neuronal ensembles carry information has allowed the development of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) to enhance the capabilities of patients with sensory and motor deficits. Knowledge of how neuronal ensembles encode sensory stimuli has made it possible to develop perceptual BMIs for the hearing and visually impaired. Likewise, research in how neuronal ensembles decode motor intentions has resulted in motor BMIs by which people with severe motor disabilities can control external devices. CONFERENCE MISSION First and foremost, this conference is intended to bring scientific leaders from around the world to present their recent findings on the functioning of neuronal ensembles. Second, the meeting will provide an informal yet spectacular setting on Santorini in which attendees can discuss and share ideas outside of the presentations at the conference center. Third, this conference continues our long term project to form a systems neuroscience research institute within Greece to conduct state-of-the-art research, offer meetings and courses, and provide a center for visiting scientists from around the world to interact with Greek researchers and students. FORMAT AND SPEAKERS The conference will span four days, in morning and early evening sessions. Confirmed speakers include experts in the field of multi-neuron experiment and analysis (in alphabetic order): Larry Abbott, John Assad, John Dani, John Donoghue, Jennifer Groh, Naoum Issa, Nancy Kopell, George Kostopoulos, Gilles Laurent, Nikos Logothetis, Lee Miller, Jason MacLean, Eve Marder, Tony Movshon, Bill Newsome, Catherine Ojakangas, Tatiana Pasternak, Desmond Patterson, Yiota Poirazi, Alex Pouget, Erin Schuman, Krishna Shenoy, Murray Sherman, and Sara Solla. CALL FOR ABSTRACTS We are currently soliciting abstracts for poster presentation. Submissions will be accepted electronically, and must be received by March 8, 2008. Automated email acknowledgment of submission will be provided, and manual verification will be made a few days after submission. Notification of acceptance will be provided by April 3, 2008. Please see our on-line Call for Abstracts at http://areadne.org/call-for-abstracts.html for additional details. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE John Pezaris, Co-Chair Nicho Hatsopoulos, Co-Chair Dora Angelaki Catherine Ojakangas Thanos Siapas Andreas Tolias SPONSORS The AREADNE 2008 Conference is being sponsored by the Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Neuroengineering Research, University of Chicago and Illinois Institute of Technology. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION For further information please see the conference web site http://www.areadne.org or send email to info@areadne.org. -- Dr. J. S. Pezaris Massachusetts General Hospital 55 Fruit Street Boston, MA 02114, USA john@areadne.org From john at mmmi.sdu.dk Fri Jan 18 09:10:38 2008 From: john at mmmi.sdu.dk (John Hallam) Date: Fri Jan 18 09:32:58 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Two Post-doc Jobs at SDU, Odense, deadline 28/2-08 Message-ID: (Apologies if you see this more than once.) Please pass this message on to people you know who may be interested. Two post-doctoral jobs are open at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense working on biologically based robotics. Closing date for applications is 28 January 2008. The first post is associated with the ChiRoPing project, which aims to build active sonar sensors based on bat biosonar: for more details see www.chiroping.org. To apply for the job at SDU, follow the procedure in the advert here: http://www.jobs.sdu.dk/vis_stilling.php?id=3968&lang=eng The second post is associated with the CILIA project, which is studying the principles underpinning the use of hair sensors in three animal groups (see www.cilia-bionics.org). The principle task of the applicant will be to work on robotic demonstrators that use hair-based flow sensing for navigation and mapping. To apply for this post, follow the procedure in this advert: http://www.jobs.sdu.dk/vis_stilling.php?id=3969&lang=eng Both posts are for 1 year in the first instance, with extension being possible by mutual agreement after that period. For further job details on either post contact John Hallam . From lucas.paletta at joanneum.at Fri Jan 18 17:09:09 2008 From: lucas.paletta at joanneum.at (Paletta, Lucas) Date: Sat Jan 19 11:51:23 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] CfP(3): Intl. Workshop on ATTENTION in COGNITIVE SYSTEMS (WAPCV 2008) - **new deadline** Message-ID: <3477C5E5CA395A4F897F6E3D5DE8091A84BA4E@RZJC2EX.jr1.local> -------------------------------------------------- 3rd CALL FOR PAPERS 5th International Workshop on ATTENTION IN COGNITIVE SYSTEMS WAPCV 2008 May 12, 2008, Santorini, Greece http://dib.joanneum.at/wapcv2008/ associated with ICVS 2008 (http://icvs2008.info/Workshops.htm) --------------------------------------------------- NEWS: ** FINAL EXTENSION OF PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE ** Full paper submission: January 27, 2008 (hard deadline) Notification of acceptance: February 28, 2008 Final paper submission: March 25, 2008 Workshop day: May 12, 2008 INVITED SPEAKERS Steve Yantis, Johns Hopkins University, USA http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~yantis/ John M. Findlay, Durham University, UK http://www.dur.ac.uk/psychology/staff/?username=dps0jmf SCOPE The capacity to attend to the relevant has been part of AI systems since the early days of the discipline. Currently, with respect to the design and computational modeling of artificial cognitive systems, selective attention has again become a focus of research, and one sees it important for the organization of behaviors, for control and interfacing between sensory and cognitive information processing, and for the understanding of individual and social cognition in humanoid artifacts. While visual cognition obviously plays a central role in human perception, findings from neuroscience and cognitive psychology have informed us on the perception-action nature of cognition. In particular, the embodiment in sensory-motor intelligence requires a continuous spatio-temporal interplay between interpretations from various perceptual modalities and the corresponding control of motor activities. In addition, the process of selecting information from the incoming sensory stream, in tune with contextual processing on a current task and global goals, becomes a challenging control issue within the viewpoint of focused attention. Seemingly attention systems must operate at many levels and not only at interfaces between a bottom-up driven world interpretation and top-down driven information selection. One may consider selective attention as part of the core of artificial cognitive systems. These insights have already produced paradigmatic changes in several AI-related disciplines, such as, in the design of behavior based robotics and the computational modeling of animats. Within the context of the engineering domain, the development of enabling technologies such as autonomous robotic systems, miniaturized mobile - even wearable - sensors, and ambient intelligence systems involves the real-time analysis of enormous quantities of data. These data have to be processed in an intelligent way to provide "on time delivery" of the required relevant information. Knowledge has to be applied about what needs to be attended to, and when, and what to do in a meaningful sequence, in correspondence with visual feedback. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: ** Techniques, modelling, and concepts: Computational architectures for attention Biologically inspired attention Attentive control of robot systems Aspects of attention in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy Attention and control of machine vision processes Attention in object recognition and detection Attention and contextual modelling Attention in multimodal information fusion Attention in affordance perception Performance measures for attention enabled artificial systems Machine learning and feature selection in robot perception Decision making and attention Robust statistical techniques for attention Perceptual organisation Evolutionary aspects of attention ** Application related topics of interest: Attentive multimodal interfaces Attentive robotic systems Autonomous intelligent systems Mobile Mapping systems Video surveillance Video and image retrieval Industrial inspection Remote sensing Medical computer vision Usability research CONFERENCE CHAIRS Lucas Paletta, Joanneum Research, Austria John K. Tsotsos, York University, Canada PROGRAM COMMITTEE Leonardo Chelazzi, University of Verona, Italy James J. Clark, McGill University, Canada J.M. Findlay, Durham University, UK Simone Frintrop, University of Bonn, Germany Fred Hamker, University of Muenster, Germany Dietmar Heinke, University of Birmingham, UK Laurent Itti, University of Southern California, CA, USA Christof Koch, California Institute of Technology, CA, USA Ilona Kovacs, Budapest Univ. of Technology, Hungary Eileen Kowler, Rutgers University, NJ, USA Michael Lindenbaum, Technion, Israel Larry Manevitz, University of Haifa, Israel Baerbel Mertsching, University of Paderborn, Germany Giorgio Metta, University of Genoa, Italy Vidhya Navalpakkam, California Institute of Technology, CA, USA Aude Oliva, MIT, MA, USA Kevin O'Regan, Universite de Paris 5, France Fiora Pirri, University of Rome, La Sapienza, Italy Marc Pomplun, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA Catherine Reed, University of Denver, CO, USA Ronald A. Rensink, University of British Columbia, BC, Canada Erich Rome, Fraunhofer IAIS, Germany John G. Taylor, King's College London, UK Jochen Triesch, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany Nuno Vasconcelos, University of California San Diego, CA, USA Chen Yu, University of Indiana, IN, USA Tom Ziemke, University of Sk?vde, Sweden AUTHOR GUIDELINES Publication of the proceedings will be in LNCS/LNAI Springer format. Submitted papers should not exceed 14 pages in Springer format. Appropriate style files can be downloaded from http://www.springer.com/dal/home/computer/lncs (please consult instruction for authors of Springer proceedings). The organizers expect submissions in PDF format. We will perform double-blind reviews, i.e., author information must be hidden in the paper: blank author fields, no acknowledgment information, own papers should be cited only if mandatory. Please look at http://dib.joanneum.at/wapcv2008/ for electronic paper submission. Papers will be considered for review that have also been submitted to the main ICVS conference. Double submission must be indicated by authors, and the workshop organizer must be given a copy of the IJCAI reviews. In case we receive a reasonable number of high quality contributions we will consider the organization of a poster session to inform - in addition to the about all related ongoing activities in this field. PROCEEDINGS Accepted contributions will be provided on CD-ROM as hand-outs to participants at the workshop site. It is intended to publish post-conference proceedings of selected, revised and invited papers of the workshop in Springer LNAI - see LNCS 3368 about WAPCV 2004; LNAI 4840 about WAPCV 2007 in print. PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS WAPCV 2007, Hyderabad, India (IJCAI) - http://dib.joanneum.at/wapcv2007 WAPCV 2005, San Diego, USA (CVPR) - http://dib.joanneum.at/wapcv2005 WAPCV 2004, Prague, Czech Republic (ECCV) - http://dib.joanneum.at/wapcv2004 WAPCV 2003, Graz, Austria (ICVS) - http://dib.joanneum.at/wapcv2003 CONTACT Dr. Lucas Paletta JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH Institute of Digital Image Processing Wastiangasse 6, 8010 Graz, Austria Phone: +43 (316) 876 1769 Fax: +43 (316) 876 91769 E-mail: lucas.paletta@joanneum.at Web: http://dib.joanneum.at/cape Prof. John K. Tsotsos Department. of Computer Science & Engineering York University 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ont. M3J 1P3, Canada Phone: +1 416-736-2100 - 70135 Fax: +1 416-736-5872 Email: tsotsos.cse@yorku.ca Web: http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~tsotsos/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080118/687780ba/attachment-0001.html From josic at math.uh.edu Mon Jan 21 00:00:54 2008 From: josic at math.uh.edu (Kresimir Josic) Date: Tue Jan 22 09:45:36 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] REU in theoretical and computational neuroscience Message-ID: <3BDBBD32-6200-4DF1-ADB6-166A65E851AE@math.uh.edu> I would appreciate it if the following announcement could be posted to the mailing list. Thank you, Kresimir Josic ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------ Undergraduate Summer Internship in Theoretical & Computational Neuroscience at Rice University, Houston, TX Application Deadline is February 29, 2008 Research training in theoretical and computational neuroscience **** Leadership, mentorship and social retreats **** Special seminars and career development workshops **** A $4,500 stipend and up to $800 in travel support For details see: http://cohesion.rice.edu/centersandinst/gcc/neuro_about.cfm?doc_id=12025 From richard.naud at epfl.ch Mon Jan 21 12:48:59 2008 From: richard.naud at epfl.ch (Richard Naud) Date: Tue Jan 22 09:45:39 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Single-Neuron Modeling award and competition - Second Posting Message-ID: <04D0BE90-D48E-424A-81FB-61FA87CAE168@epfl.ch> Quantitative Single-Neuron Modeling Competition 2008 http://lcn.epfl.ch/QuantNeuronMod2008/ - 1st prize: The Swiss Single-Neuron Modeling Award (10 000 CHF*) - 2nd prize: The EPFL-Brain Mind Institute Neuron Modeling Award (500 CHF*) for details see http://lcn.epfl.ch/QuantNeuronMod2008/ PLEASE NOTE DATA UPDATE IN CHALLENGE A. Important Dates - February 15th 2008 : Submission deadline. - March 3rd-4th 2008 : Presentation of the results at the workshop on Data sharing and modeling challenges in neuroscience taking place during Cosyne 2008 meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. The organizers of the competition Wulfram Gerstner (EPFL) Thomas Berger (EPFL) Arnd Roth (UCL) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080121/820bbe06/attachment.html From jeedward at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 01:13:48 2008 From: jeedward at gmail.com (John E. Edward) Date: Tue Jan 22 11:00:26 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Special session on computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics: final call for papers Message-ID: Dear Colleague There is a special session on computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics that is jointly organzied by the 2008 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR-08) and the 2008 International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics and Chemoinformatics (BCBGC-08). This session focuses on all areas of computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics. The topics include but will not be limited to: - Neuroscience data and knowledge bases - Analytical and modelling tools and techniques for neural data analysis - Computational models of brain function at multiple levels (from molecular and all the way to behavioral) The draft paper submission is February 4 2008. Please specify "computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics session paper submission" in the subject line of your email, while submitting the paper. Please see the website: http://www.promoteresearch.org for more details on these conferences and paper submission procedure. Sincerely John Edward Organizing committee member -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080121/b4c200bc/attachment.html From assc12 at ym.edu.tw Wed Jan 23 03:29:53 2008 From: assc12 at ym.edu.tw (ASSC12) Date: Wed Jan 23 10:37:21 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] [CFP] First ASSC in Asia-ASSC12 Message-ID: <00a001c85d67$d66f9270$080ba8c0@CRC01> Don't forget to come to the great event in consciousness--the first ASSC annual meeting in Asia! This is a meeting guaranteed to be exciting as well as exotic! Taipei provides a wealth of resources to explore, from the most traditional Chinese cultures, exotic blend of modern/traditional influences of the East and West, to its dazzling variety of natural landscapes and wildlife. Don't miss out this event in Taipei and join top consciousness researchers around the world in one of the most exciting meetings to be remembered! Allen Houng & Ralph Adolphs Co-Chairs, Scientific Program Committee, ASSC12 ASSOCIATION FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 12TH ANNUAL MEETING Gis Convention Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan June 19-22, 2008 http://www.ym.edu.tw/assc12/ -------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE JUST AROUND THE CORNER! SUBMISSION MUST BE RECEIVED BY FEBRUARY 1,2008! -------------------------------------------------- Confirmed speakers and workshops include: Presidential Address: David Rosenthal, City University of New York, USA Keynote Speakers: Thomas Metzinger, The Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany, topic: The Self Mitsuo Kawato, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Japan, topic: Engineering Consciousness Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Kyoto University, Japan, topic: The Mind of the Chimpanzees Susana Martinez-Conde, Barrow Neurological Institute, USA, topic: Microsaccades: Windows on the Mind Confirmed Symposium Speakers: Ned Block, New York University, USA Victor Lamme, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Sid Kouider, Ecole Normale Superieure, France Barbara Jones, McGill University, Canada Donald Pfaff, Rockefeller University, USA Steven Laureys, University of Liege, Belgium Haibo Di, Zhejiang University, China Charles Spence, University of Oxford, UK Keiji Tanaka, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan Glyn Humphreys, University of Birmingham, UK Shaul Hochstein, Life Sciences Institute and Neural Computation Center, Israel Tim Bayne, University of Oxford, UK Ryan McKay, Queen's University Belfast, UK Ian Gold, McGill University, Canada Robyn Langdon, Macquarie University, Australia Confirmed Tutorial Workshops: Antoine Bechara, topic: Emotion, Feeling, and Interoception Juliane Wilcke, topic: The Evolutionary Function of Consciousness Jennifer Windt /Thomas Metzinger, topic: Dreaming Tim Bayne & Jakob Hohwy, topic: Conscious States and Conscious Creatures: Explanatory Strategies in The Science of Consciousness Andrew Brook, topic: Consciousness Terminology Shigeru Kitazawa & Shin'ya Nishida, topic: Adaptive Anomalies in Conscious Time Perception Speakers in concurrent sessions are invited to talk on any topic relevant to the scientific study of consciousness. Submissions that include anthropological, evolutionary, physiological, psychological, philosophical, or computational perspectives are all welcome.Submissions for both posters and talks will be accepted (please specify preference). Any person may present only one submission, but may be co-author on more than one. Submit by filling out the appropriate forms at: http://www.ym.edu.tw/assc12/ ------------------------------ REGISTRATION OPEN ON FEB. 1, 2008 ------------------------------ As in previous years, discounted registration will be available to ASSC members, who will also enjoy a range of book discounts and other member benefits. The registration discount will be greater than the cost of membership, so prospective members are encouraged to join ASSC now! To find out more about the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and to apply for membership, please consult our website at http://assc.caltech.edu/ Registration will open on Feb. 1, 2008. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ASSC-12 Scientific Program Committee: Allen Houng & Ralph Adolphs (Co-Chairs), Shinsuke Shimojo, Max Coltheart, John Haynes, Steven Macknik, Dan Lloyd, Michael Pauen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From jeedward at gmail.com Wed Jan 23 00:54:19 2008 From: jeedward at gmail.com (John E. Edward) Date: Wed Jan 23 10:38:14 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] MULTICONF-08 Final call for papers Message-ID: MULTICONF-08 Final call for papers The 2008 MULTICONF (website: www.PromoteResearch.org) will be held during July 7-10 2008 in Orlando, FL, USA. We invite draft paper submissions and the deadline for paper submission is very close. The event consists of the following conferences. ? International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR-08) ? International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Control Systems (ARCS-08) ? International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics and Chemoinformatics (BCBGC-08) ? International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems and Web Technologies (EISWT-08) ? International Conference on High Performance Computing, Networking and Communication Systems (HPCNCS-08) ? International Conference on Software Engineering Theory and Practice (SETP-08) ? International Conference on Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (TMFCS-08) The website contains more details. Sincerely John Edward -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080122/6db5ab86/attachment-0001.html From darioringach at mac.com Wed Jan 23 22:31:04 2008 From: darioringach at mac.com (Dario Ringach) Date: Thu Jan 24 10:39:57 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Postdoctoral position: Modeling of cortical micro-circuitry Message-ID: <55A480B1-921C-43AF-BDB9-939AB0C6BEE3@mac.com> An NIH-funded postdoctoral position to conduct theoretical studies of cortical wiring and map organization is available immediately in Dr. Dario Ringach's Laboratory in the Department of Neurobiology at UCLA. The goal of the project is to investigate the hypothesis that the basic organization of receptive fields and cortical maps is linked to the spatial statistics of retinal ganglion cell mosaics along with simple statistical thalamo-cortical rules of connectivity (for a background on this topic see: Ringach, Haphazard wiring..., J. Neurophysiology, 2004; Ringach, PLoS ONE, 2007). Candidates should have a strong research background in computational neuroscience and have a PhD and extensive research experience. Applicants should send their CV, research statement and names of three references to: dario@ucla.edu This position has no restriction on nationality or California residency status. Salary and rank will be commensurate with experience and at NIH levels. UCLA has a vibrant biological/mathematical vision, cognitive and imaging community (see http://visciences.ucla.edu/), great cultural events right on-campus (such as http://www.uclalive.org/ and http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/screenings/screenings.html) and, needless to say, beautiful weather and beaches -- all creating an ideal environment for the theoretician. Dario Ringach, Associate Professor Department of Neurobiology and Psychology Biomedical Engineering Program Jules Stein Eye Institute David Geffen School of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles dario@ucla.edu | http://web.mac.com/darioringach -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080123/967755e9/attachment.html From lauferl at ceu.hu Thu Jan 24 02:21:40 2008 From: lauferl at ceu.hu (Laszlo Laufer) Date: Thu Jan 24 10:56:26 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Complex Systems and Social Simulations Summer School, CEU Message-ID: <4797F6340200009D00009EB1@raffaello.ceu.hu> **** Apologies for cross-posting **** Complex Systems and Social Simulations, CEU Summer University in Budapest July 7 - 18, 2008 Web site: http:// www.sun.ceu.hu/complex-systems/ Application deadline for scholarship applications: 14 February, 2008 Application deadline for fee-paying applications: 30 May, 2008 Course Directors: Laszlo Gulyas, Collegium Budapest and AITIA Inc., Budapest, Hungary; Gyorgy Kampis, Collegium Budapest and E?tv?s University, Hungary Course Manager: Laszlo Laufer (lauferl@ceu.hu), Central European University and Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary Course Faculty: Petra Ahrweiler, National Institute of Technology Management, UCD School of Business Stefano Battiston, Eidgen?ssische Technische Hochschule Z?rich Lars-Erik Cederman, ETH Z?rich Laszlo Gulyas, Collegium Budapest and AITIA Inc, Budapest George Kampis, Collegium Budapest Krzystof Kurowski, Poznanskie Centrum Superkomputerowo Sieciowe, Poznan Scott Page, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Flaminio Squazzoni, University of Brescia, Italy Klaus G. Troitzsch, University of Koblenz Target group: MA and Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty, researchers and professionals. Undergraduates without a university degree will not be considered. Course Summary: The terms Complex Systems (CSs) denotes an inderdisciplinary research methodology currently successful in the social sciences and elsewhere. CS research originated from phyiscs and nonlinear systems some decades ago but its models have soon permeated distant fields as economy, political science or more recently sociology. As implied by the name, a CS is essentially a system of many complicated interactions. Complex Systems methodology has developed sophisticated yet well understood tools to cope with this challenge. In social systems the essence of CS is the characterization of the distributed dynamics of how the interaction of many actors and variables leads to predictable phenomena, that often involve hierarchy, emergence, dynamic structures and large scale transitions. Each day in the course focuses on one tool of this encompassing methodology. CS methods include various mathematical models (nonlinear systems, networks, statistical approaches), computer simulations (e.g. systems dynamics, agent-based modeling). CS simulations are highly computation intensive and pose problems of supercomputing and parallelization. The CSSS course offers lectures, tutorials and discussions on the whole spectrum of the above. Lectures are from leading experts, specifically focusing on CS concepts, modeling and (social) simulation, followed by discussion. Topics: CSS and Innovation, Social Networks, CSS in Political Science, CSS Tools with a Special Emphasis on Simulation, Bio-Inspired CSS Models, Efficient Studies of CSS: Supercomputers and Grids, Evolutionary Game Theory and Social Systems, CSS in Socio-Economics, CSS in Sociology The language of instruction: English Tuition fee: The 500 EUR/2 weeks. Application deadline: For scholarship applicants: February 14, 2008; For fee-paying applicants: May 30, 2008 Online application: https://online.ceu.hu/osun/osun (attachments to be sent via email to summeru@ceu.hu For further information queries can be directed to the SUN office by email (summeru@ceu.hu), via skype (ceu-sun) or telephone (00-36-1-327-3811). From Christina.Weaver at mssm.edu Thu Jan 24 01:58:05 2008 From: Christina.Weaver at mssm.edu (Weaver, Christina) Date: Thu Jan 24 10:56:35 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] New Paper: Neuronal Firing Sensitivity to Morphologic and Active Membrane Parameters, PLoS Comput Biol. (2008) Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I would like to call your attention to our recent publication, highlighted in my presentation at CNS*07: Weaver, C.M. and Wearne, S.L. Neuronal Firing Sensitivity to Morphologic and Active Membrane Parameters. PLoS Comput Biol. 2008 Jan 18;4(1):e11 Abstract: Both the excitability of a neuron's membrane, driven by active ion channels, and dendritic morphology contribute to neuronal firing dynamics, but the relative importance and interactions between these features remain poorly understood. Recent modeling studies have shown that different combinations of active conductances can evoke similar firing patterns, but have neglected how morphology might contribute to homeostasis. Parameterizing the morphology of a cylindrical dendrite, we introduce a novel application of mathematical sensitivity analysis that quantifies how dendritic length, diameter, and surface area influence neuronal firing, and compares these effects directly against those of active parameters. The method was applied to a model of neurons from goldfish Area II. These neurons exhibit, and likely contribute to, persistent activity in eye velocity storage, a simple model of working memory. We introduce sensitivity landscapes, defined by local sensitivity analyses of firing rate and gain to each parameter, performed globally across the parameter space. Principal directions over which sensitivity to all parameters varied most revealed intrinsic currents that most controlled model output. We found domains where different groups of parameters had the highest sensitivities, suggesting that interactions within each group shaped firing behaviors within each specific domain. Application of our method, and its characterization of which models were sensitive to general morphologic features, will lead to advances in understanding how realistic morphology participates in functional homeostasis. Significantly, we can predict which active conductances, and how many of them, will compensate for a given age- or development-related structural change, or will offset a morphologic perturbation resulting from trauma or neurodegenerative disorder, to restore normal function. Our method can be adapted to analyze any computational model. Thus, sensitivity land scapes, and the quantitative predictions they provide, can give new insight into mechanisms of homeostasis in any biological system. URL: http://compbiol.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.0040011 Best regards, Christina Weaver From jeedward at gmail.com Mon Jan 28 02:33:07 2008 From: jeedward at gmail.com (John E. Edward) Date: Mon Jan 28 08:50:55 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] AIPR-08 Final Call for papers Message-ID: AIPR-08 Final Call for papers The 2008 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR-08) (website: www.PromoteResearch.org) will be held during July 7-10 2008 in Orlando, FL, USA. We invite draft paper submissions and the deadline for draft paper submission is approaching very soon. The conference will be held at the same time and place where several other major events are taking place. The website contains more details. Sincerely John Edward -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080127/e57cb1a2/attachment.html From klyachko at salk.edu Mon Jan 28 22:26:24 2008 From: klyachko at salk.edu (Vitaly Klyachko) Date: Tue Jan 29 10:44:00 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Postdoctoral Position Available In Computational Neuroscience Message-ID: <10120.216.165.126.18.1201555584.squirrel@helix.salk.edu> Dear Colleagues, I would greatly appreciate your help in identifying interested candidates for a postdoctoral position in Computational Neuroscience at NYU. Please let your colleagues know about this opportunity and post this ad in your department if possible. Thank you very much for your help, Vitaly _________________________________________ Vitaly Klyachko, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Smilow Neuroscience Program Department of Physiology and Neuroscience New York University School of Medicine 522 First Ave, Rm 604 New York, NY 10016 phone:(212)263-9133 email:klyachko@salk.edu ___________________________________________ POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AVAILABLE IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE FUNDED POSTDOCTORAL POSITION with emphasis on Computational Neuroscience is available for a highly motivated candidate at New York University School of Medicine. We are a recently established lab dedicated to studying (1) the mechanisms of synaptic transmission at individual synapses and (2) the role of rapid synaptic plasticity in information processing by individual synapses and functional neural circuits. The lab utilizes cutting-edge imaging and electrophysiological tools in combination with image analysis and computational techniques to approach these questions. More information can be found on the lab web site: http://www.med.nyu.edu/research/klyacv01.html Successful candidates will be in charge of the computational aspects of these projects and will be able to combine them with experimental approaches if desired. Qualified applicants are expected to hold a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in math, physics, engineering or life sciences, have extensive experience in computational/statistical methods or image analysis techniques. In depth knowledge of Matlab is essential. Trainees will work in a highly interactive multidisciplinary research environment in a brand new Smilow Research Center at NYU located in the heart of Manhattan. Highly competitive salary and benefits are available and will commensurate with experience. University-subsidized housing within a walking distance from the NYU Medical School is available. Interested applicants should provide their CV, a brief description of research interests, and the names of three references via email to: Vitaly Klyachko, Ph.D. Smilow Neuroscience Program, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, New York University School of Medicine. E-mail: Klyachko@salk.edu -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: NYU_postdoc_comp_neuro.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 37843 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080128/b9d6ea57/NYU_postdoc_comp_neuro-0001.pdf From dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de Tue Jan 29 09:42:01 2008 From: dancoisne at bccn.uni-freiburg.de (Florence Dancoisne) Date: Tue Jan 29 10:44:03 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 13th ACCN - second announcement - registration open Message-ID: <479EE6D9.6000906@bccn.uni-freiburg.de> 13th ADVANCED COURSE IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE (A Bernstein/Gatsby Neuroscience School) Second Announcement August 4th - 29th, 2008 Freiburg, Germany DIRECTORS: * Israel Nelken (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel) * Nicolas Brunel (CNRS Paris) * John Rinzel (NYU, New York, USA) * Peter Latham (University College London, UK) LOCAL ORGANIZER: * Florence Dancoisne (Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Freiburg) After three years in Arcachon (France), the Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience will be held in Freiburg in Breisgau (Germany) this year for its 13th edition, and until 2010. The Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience is for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in learning the essentials of the field. The course has two complementary parts. Mornings are devoted to lectures given by distinguished international faculty on topics across the breadth of experimental and computational neuroscience. During the rest of the day, students are given practical training in the art and practice of neural modelling, by pursuing a project of their choosing under the close supervision of expert tutors. The first week of the course introduces students to essential neurobiological concepts and to the most important techniques in modelling single cells, networks and neural systems. Students learn how to solve their research problems using software packages such as MATLAB, NEST, NEURON, XPP, etc. During the following three weeks the lectures cover specific brain areas and functions. Topics range from modelling single cells and subcellular processes through the simulation of simple circuits, large neuronal networks and system level models of the brain. The course ends with project presentations by the students. The course is designed for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from a variety of disciplines, including neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics and psychology. Students are expected to have a keen interest and basic background in neurobiology as well as some computer experience. Students of any nationality can apply. A maximum of 30 students will be accepted. The current fee for the course will be EUR 500; this will cover tuition, lodging, breakfast and dinner. There will be a limited number of course fee scholarships, and travel stipends available for students who need financial help for attending the course. We specifically encourage applications from researchers who work in the developing world. These students will be selected according to the normal submission procedure. Applications, including a description of the target project must be submitted electronically (see below) and will need to be accompanied by the names and email details of two referees who have agreed to furnish references. Applicants will need to ensure that their referees have submitted their references. Applications will be assessed by a committee, with selection being based on the following criteria: the scientific quality of the candidate (CV) and of the project, the recommendation letters, and evidence that the course will afford substantial benefit to the candidate. Please apply electronically using a web browser. More information and access to the application database: http://www.neuroinf.org/courses/EUCOURSE/F08/index.shtml Contact address: * Fiona Siegfried Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Freiburg Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg Hansastrasse 9A 79104 Freiburg Germany * mail: siegfried@bccn.uni-freiburg.de Application deadline: March 28th, 2008 Deadline for letters of recommendation: March 28th, 2008 Notification of results: April 25th, 2008 INVITED FACULTY (* = confirmed) Ad Aertsen, U. Freiburg, Germany* Amos Arieli, Weizmann Institute, Israel* Jeff Beck, U. of Rochester, USA* Nathaniel Daw, NYU, USA* Erik De Schutter, OIST, Japan Alain Destexhe, CNRS Gif, France* Wulfram Gerstner, EFPL, Switzerland Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, Honda, Germany* Zhaoping Li, UCL, UK* David Hansel, CNRS Paris, France* Yael Niv, Princeton, USA* Stefano Panzeri, U. of Manchester, UK* Jonathan Pillow, UCL, UK* Yifat Prut, Hebrew U. Israel* Yasser Roudi, UCL, UK* Idan Segev, Hebrew U., Israel* Haim Sompolinsky, Hebrew U., Israel Karl Svoboda, Cold Spring Harbor, USA Alex Thomson, UL, UK* Mark Van Rossum, U. of Edinburgh, UK* TUTORS(all confirmed) Janet Best, Ohio State, USA Hermann Cuntz, UCL, UK Moritz Helias, U. Freiburg, Germany Alex Lerchner, UCL, UK Tim Vogels, Columbia, USA more to be invited SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR Bernd Wiebelt, U. Freiburg, Germany -- Florence Dancoisne Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Freiburg Administrative Coordinator Hansastr. 9A D-79104 Freiburg http://www.bccn.uni-freiburg.de phone: + 49 761 203 9314 fax: + 49 761 203 9559 From m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk Tue Jan 29 12:23:32 2008 From: m.montemurro at manchester.ac.uk (Marcelo Montemurro) Date: Tue Jan 29 13:30:35 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] Manchester Workshop on Local Field Potentials Message-ID: Dear all, we are pleased to invite you to attend the Workshop "Local field potentials as a vista on the function of neural circuits: Advances and challenges for computational and mathematical Neuroscience", funded by the EPSRC through the UK Mathematical Neuroscience Network , the Manchester Neuroscience Research Institute, and the Faculty of Life Sciences of the University of Manchester. The event will bring together a number of leading international speakers to present cutting edge research on brain oscillations from a broad perspective. The date, time and venue for the workshop are as follows: 4 April 2008, from 10:30 to 17:30 The University of Manchester Faculty of Life Sciences Smith Building, Lecture Theatre, Rumford Street St. Further details and travel information can be found at http://neuralcoding.googlepages.com/manchesterlfpworkshop Registration and attendance are free. However, places are limited, so we suggest that you register as soon as possible by sending an email to neuralcoding@gmail.com (complimentary buffet lunch will be provided). Confirmed speakers: * Stuart Baker (University of Newcastle): Correlating LFP with the periphery: corticomuscular coherence and directed coherence * Nicolas Brunel (University of Paris V) : Fast oscillations in network models. * Jozsef Csicsvari (University of Oxford): The role of network oscillations in organising hippocampal cell assemblies. * Alain Destexhe (CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette): The 1/f frequency scaling of local field potentials and its relation to neuronal activity * Rosalyn Moran (University College London): Bayesian Inference on population synaptic physiology using Neural Mass Models of Local Field Potentials * Stefano Panzeri (University of Manchester): The information content of local field potentials and spikes in visual cortex A limited number of small bursaries to support the travel of PhD students and postdocs are available for participants traveling within the UK. To apply, send an email to neuralcoding@gmail.com . Regards, Marcelo Montemurro Stefano Panzeri Rasmus Petersen -- Dr. Marcelo A. Montemurro Faculty of Life Sciences University of Manchester Jackson's Mill, G7 PO Box 88 Sackville St Manchester M60 1QD United Kingdom phone : +44(0)161 306 3883 fax : +44(0)161 236 0409 e-mail: m.montemurro@manchester.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.neuroinf.org/pipermail/comp-neuro/attachments/20080129/d35b9876/attachment.html From hitzler at aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de Tue Jan 29 18:50:05 2008 From: hitzler at aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de (Pascal Hitzler) Date: Wed Jan 30 09:18:28 2008 Subject: [Comp-neuro] 1st CfP: ECAI-08 Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning, NeSy'08 Message-ID: <479F674D.6020706@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de> FourthInternational Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning Workshop at ECAI2008, Patras, Greece, July 2008 http://www.neural-symbolic.org/NeSy08/ NeSy'05 took place at IJCAI-05 NeSy'06 took place at ECAI2006 NeSy'07 took place at IJCAI-07 Call for Papers --------------- Artificial Intelligence researchers continue to face huge challenges in their quest to develop truly intelligent systems. The recent developments in the field of neural-symbolic integration bring an opportunity to integrate well-founded symbolic artificial intelligence with robust neural computing machinery to help tackle some of these challenges. The Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning is intended to create an atmosphere of exchange of ideas, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of the key topics related to neural-symbolic integration. Topics of interest include: * The representation of symbolic knowledge by connectionist systems; * Learning in neural-symbolic systems; * Extraction of symbolic knowledge from trained neural networks; * Reasoning in neural-symbolic systems; * Biological inspiration for neural-symbolic integration; * Neural networks and probabilities; * Applications in robotics, semantic web, engineering, bioinformatics, etc. Submission Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit original papers that have not been submitted for review or published elsewhere. Submitted papers must be written in English and should not exceed 5 pages in the case of research and experience papers, and 2 pages in the case of position papers (including figures, bibliography and appendices) in ECAI2008 format as described in the ECAI2008 submissions and style guide (http://www.ece.upatras.gr/ecai2008/substyles.htm). All submitted papers will be judged based on their quality, relevance, originality, significance, and soundness. Papers must be submitted directly by email in PDF format to nesy@soi.city.ac.uk Presentation Selected papers will have to be presented during the workshop. The workshop will include extra time for audience discussion of the presentation allowing the group to have a better understanding of the issues, challenges, and ideas being presented. Publication Accepted papers will be published electronically in the CEUR workshop proceedings (bearing an ISSN number). Hardcopies will be distributed during the workshop. Authors of the best papers will be invited to submit a revised and extended version of their papers to the Journal of Logic and Computation, OUP. Important Dates Deadline for submission: May 9th, 2008 Notification of acceptance: May 30th, 2008 Camera-ready paper due: June 6th, 2008 Workshop date: July 21st or 22nd, 2008 ECAI2008 main conference dates: 21st to 25th of July, 2008 Wo