- Comp-neuro - lists.cnsorg.org

Postdoc and grad student positions at intersection of AI and Neuroscience

by Luczak, Artur

Dear All, We are looking for postdocs and graduate students (Master’s and/or Ph.D. levels) to use inspirations from neuroscience to make better AI and conversely to apply AI to better understand brain function and behaviour. Projects will be related to our recent work: Neurons learn by predicting future activity. Nature Machine Intelligence 2022 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-021-00430-y Predictive neuronal adaptation as a basis for consciousness. Front in Sys Neurosci 2022 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2021.767461/full Miniaturized head-mounted microscope for whole-cortex mesoscale imaging in freely behaving mice. Nature Methods 2021 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-021-01104-8 A Matlab-based toolbox for characterizing behavior of rodents engaged in string-pulling. Elife 2020 https://elifesciences.org/articles/54540 Challenges of a small world analysis for the continuous monitoring of behavior in mice. Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews 2022 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763422001105 Data-driven analyses of motor impairments in animal models of neurological disorders. PLoS Biology 2019 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.30005… The project is a collaborative effort between the research groups of Majid Mohajerani (http://lethbridgebraindynamics.com/majid-mohajerani/) and Artur Luczak (http://lethbridgebraindynamics.com/artur-luczak/) Successful candidates will join the highly collaborative and interdisciplinary Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience and Brain Dynamics group. We are located close to Rocky Mountains, Lethbridge has the largest number of sunny days in Canada, and it is the most affordable city for young people in Canada (https://dailyhive.com/calgary/alberta-city-most-affordable-young-people ). The applications review will start on Aug 15th till the positions are filled. Interested applicants must send an email to Dr Mohajerani (mohajerani(a)uleth.ca<mailto:mohajerani@uleth.ca>) and Dr. Luczak (luczak(a)uleth.ca<mailto:luczak@uleth.ca>) and include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, a brief statement of research interests, and contact information of three references. Cheers, Artur

July 26, 2022

Several PhD positions in clinical EEG and MEG at SFU, Vancouver

by Vasily Vakorin

Dear moderators, Can you please post this ad? Thank you. Several PhD positions in clinical EEG and MEG at SFU, Vancouver Several funded Ph.D. positions are available at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada), at the Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology and the School of Engineering Science. Ph.D. candidates will focus on research in neurophysiology, such as electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), and machine learning to study clinical populations. Two Ph.D. projects will use clinical routine EEG recorded and evaluated in public hospitals in the process of neurological evaluation to predict patients’ clinical profiles. The other project will apply MEG to explore cortico-cerebellar brain networks in children with autism. Ph.D. candidates are expected to get experience with digital signal processing, multivariate statistics, predictive analytics (deep learning and classical machine learning) and data analysis with applications in clinical and cognitive neuroscience, and further develop scientific programming skills (Python). The ideal start date is September 2022, but in general it is flexible. For more information, please contact Dr. Sam Doesburg, Dr. Teresa Cheung, and Dr. Vasily Vakorin: https://www.bcni-sfu.net . If you are interested, please send your cover letter and CV to vvakorin(a)sfu.ca . Please name the attached files according to the format: Lastname_Firstname_cv.pdf and Lastname_Firstname_coverletter.pdf . Thank you, Vasily Vakorin, Ph.D. Scientist & NeuroInformatics Lead - Behavioral & Cognitive Neuroscience Institute Adjunct Professor - Biomedical Physiology & Kinesiology Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada Affiliated Researcher - Fraser Health Authority, British Columbia email: vvakorin(a)sfu.ca

July 26, 2022

AMALEA workshop September 12-16

by Michael Biehl

On behalf of Prof. Dr. Nicolai Petkov (www.cs.rug.nl/~petkov) *International workshop on Applications of Machine Learning and Neural Networks* *AMALEA, 12-16 Sept 2022, Cetraro, Calabria, Italy* Dear colleagues and friends, There are a few rooms still available for AMALEA - APPLICATIONS OF MACHINE LEARNING International Workshop, Cetraro, Italy, September 12-16, 2022 http://amalea.web.rug.nl/index.html Venue: Grand Hotel San Michele on the West, Tyrrhenian sea coast of Southern Italy with a surrounding own land estate, golf course, private beach and a conference center. Photo gallery Aim: to provide a discussion forum for scientists from different disciplines where they can inspire and learn from each other, meet new people and form new research alliances. Format: a single track for talks from 10:00-12:30H and 17:00-19:30H in the conference center. Enough time for discussions outside the conference room: during breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea, at lunch in the private beach restaurant, in the afternoon break on the private beach, at dinner on the hotel terrace and after dinner listening to the life piano music in the grand salon. Please visit the workshop website for further information and contact. -- --------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Michael Biehl Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence P.O. Box 407, 9700 AK Groningen The Netherlands https://www.cs.rug.nl/~biehl m.biehl(a)rug.nl

July 26, 2022

Sergey Levine speaking on July 28 in Developing Minds global online lecture series

by Jochen Triesch

Dear colleagues, On July 28, the Developing Minds global online lecture series will feature Sergey Levine, UC Berkeley, USA: "From Reinforcement Learning to Embodied Learning“ https://sites.google.com/view/developing-minds-series/home The live event will take place via zoom at: 09:00 PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) 16:00 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) 18:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time) 01:00 JST, July 29 (Japan Standard Time) To participate please register here: https://sites.google.com/view/developing-minds-series/home Abstract Reinforcement learning provides one of the most widely studied abstractions for learning-based control. However, while the RL formalism is elegant and concise, real-world embodied learning problems (e.g., in robotics) deviate substantially from the most widely studied RL problem settings. The need to exist in a real physical environment challenges RL methods in terms of generalization, robustness, and capacity for lifelong learning -- all aspects of the RL problem that are often neglected in commonly studied benchmark problems. In this talk, I will discuss how we can devise a framework for learning-based control that is at its core focused on generalization, robustness, and continual adaptation. I will argue that effective utilization of previously collected experience, in combination with multi-task learning, represents one of the most promising paths for tackling these challenges, and present recent research in RL and robotics that studies this perspective. Bio Sergey Levine received a BS and MS in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2009, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2014. He joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley in fall 2016. His work focuses on machine learning for decision making and control, with an emphasis on deep learning and reinforcement learning algorithms. Applications of his work include autonomous robots and vehicles, as well as computer vision and graphics. His research includes developing algorithms for end-to-end training of deep neural network policies that combine perception and control, scalable algorithms for inverse reinforcement learning, deep reinforcement learning algorithms, and more. Web: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~svlevine/ The talk will also be recored and the recording made available via the web page: https://sites.google.com/view/developing-minds-series/home Stay healthy, Jochen Triesch -- Prof. Dr. Jochen Triesch Johanna Quandt Chair for Theoretical Life Sciences Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and Goethe University Frankfurt http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/~triesch/ Tel: +49 (0)69 798-47531 Fax: +49 (0)69 798-47611

July 26, 2022

Announcement: spiking neural networks workshop Nov 9-10, deadline Sept 28

by Goodman, Daniel F M

We will be holding the third incarnation of our annual workshop SNUFA<http://snufa.net/2022/> on spiking neural networks. This online workshop brings together hundreds of researchers in the fields of computational neuroscience, machine learning, and neuromorphic engineering to present their work and discuss ways of translating these findings into a better understanding of neural circuits. Topics include artificial and biologically plausible learning algorithms and the dissection of trained spiking circuits toward understanding neural processing. We have a manageable number of talks with ample time for discussions. Key information * The workshop will take place 9-10 November in the afternoons (central europe timezone). * Registration is free but mandatory. Click here to register<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/snufa-workshop-2022-tickets-387490864607>. * Abstract submission deadline is 28 September. Click here to submit<https://forms.office.com/r/izX1Wimhy6>. * Final decisions by 12 October. Invited speakers * Charlotte Frenkel<https://chfrenkel.github.io/>, TU Delft * Priya Panda<https://intelligentcomputinglab.yale.edu/>, Yale * Yiota Poirazi<http://dendrites.gr/>, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) * Yonghong Tian<https://www.pkuml.org/>, Peking University Abstracts will be made publicly available at the end of the abstract submissions deadline for blinded public comments and ratings. We will select the most highly rated abstracts for contributed talks, subject to maintaining a balance between the different fields of, broadly speaking, neuroscience, computer science and neuromorphic engineering. Abstracts not selected for a talk will be presented as posters, and there is an option to submit an abstract directly for a poster and not a talk if you prefer. The workshop will also feature a debate with all speakers invited. The subject of the debate is yet to be decided - please do get in touch if you have a fun idea! To get a feel for the workshop, take a look at our previous incarnations on YouTube for 2020<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL09WqqDbQWHFvM9DFYkM_GfnrVnIdLRhy> and 2021<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL09WqqDbQWHEqm1_3a620tKUKnC6FgBrG>. Many thanks, and hope to see you there, The SNUFA executive committee, Dan Goodman Friedemann Zenke Katie Schuman Tim Masquelier

July 22, 2022

[jobs] 2 year independent Postdoc position in human centered AI (German required)

by Laurenz Wiskott

The Institute for Neural Computation of the Faculty of Computer Science is looking for a Postdoc (m,f,x) for 2 years, full-time, TVL E13 The Institute for Neural Computation is part of the Faculty of Computer Science at the Ruhr-University Bochum, see https://www.ini.rub.de/. It focuses on the dynamics and learning of perception and behavior on a functional level but is otherwise very diverse, ranging from neurophysiology and psychophysics over computational neuroscience to machine learning and technical applications. There is an open position for a postdoc in the group of Prof. Dr. Laurenz Wiskott to be filled October 1st. The project is part of the competence center HUMAINE for human-centered artificial intelligence, see https://humaine.info/, and will be developed in close collaboration with colleagues at RUB and application partners in industry, among others. We offer: * An interesting interdisciplinary environment in the field of Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning. * Opportunity to develop an independent research profile and your own research group. * Opportunity to pursue further scientific qualification. * Diverse and interesting contacts at the university, in transfer, and in industry. * A lot of room for own ideas and initiatives. Your tasks: * Acquiring and maintaining industry contacts. * Scientific advice for companies to help them introduce AI in work processes. * Advising corresponding PhD and student projects. * Coordination of events and teaching of advanced training courses about human-centered AI for developers and decision makers in industry Your profile: * Very good PhD in mathematics, computer science, engineering, or a related field * Solid knowledge in Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning. * Good programming and mathematical skills * Good command of German. * Good organizational and communicative abilities. * Advantageous: + Experience in industry cooperations and interdisciplinary projects. + Programming skills in Python. Our offerings: * Challenging and varied tasks with a high degree of personal responsibility * Support from and cooperation with competent colleagues * A dynamic environment * Fair and flexible working hours * Support in reconciling family and work/academics (including childcare placement, holiday offers, mobile children's room) Additional information: The load of teaching will be calculated according to § 3 of Lehrverpflichtungsverordnung (state of North Rhine-Westphalia). Contact details for your application: Prof. Dr. Laurenz Wiskott, Phone: +49234 32 27997 Travel expenses for interviews cannot be refunded. For information on the collection of personal data in the application process see: https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/information-collection-personal-data-appl…. We are looking forward to receiving your application with the specification ANR: 800 until 08.08.2022, send by e-mail to the following address: laurenz.wiskott(a)rub.de extent: full-time duration: temporary beginning: as soon as possible application dateline: 08.08.2022 The Ruhr-Universität Bochum is one of Germany’s leading research universities, addressing the whole range of academic disciplines. A highly dynamic setting enables researchers and students to work across the traditional boundaries of academic subjects and faculties. To create knowledge networks within and beyond the university is RUB’s declared aim. The Ruhr-Universität Bochum stands for diversity and equal opportunities. For this reason, we favour a working environment composed of heterogeneous teams, and seek to promote the careers of individuals who are underrepresented in our respective professional areas. The Ruhr-Universität Bochum expressly requests job applications from women. In areas in which they are underrepresented they will be given preference in the case of equivalent qualifications with male candidates. Applications from individuals with disabilities are most welcome. __________________________________________________________________________ Prof. Dr. Laurenz Wiskott room: NB 3/29 Institut für Neuroinformatik phone: +49 234 32-27997 Ruhr Universität Bochum fax: +49 234 32-14210 D-44780 Bochum, Germany https://www.ini.rub.de/PEOPLE/wiskott/ laurenz.wiskott(a)rub.de __________________________________________________________________________

July 22, 2022

Reminder: SMILES workshop call extended 28th July

by Xavier Hinaut

The SMILES (Sensorimotor Interaction, Language and Embodiment of Symbols) Workshop will take place both on site and virtually at the ICDL 2022 (International Conference on Developmental Learning). * Call for abstracts : - Deadline extended: July 28th - Abstracts call: from 1/2 page to 2 pages (onsite and virtual participation are possible) - Abstract format: same as ICDL conference https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html - Submissions: smiles.conf(a)gmail.com + indicate if you will be onsite or online - Workshop dates: September 12, 2022 - Venue onsite: Queen Mary University of London, UK. - Venue online: via Zoom and Discord group. - Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/B8xbemQS <https://discord.gg/B8xbemQS> Accepted abstract will be asked to make a short video or poster for the workshop. * Workshop Short Description On the one hand, models of sensorimotor interaction are embodied in the environment and in the interaction with other agents. On the other hand, recent Deep Learning development of Natural Language Processing (NLP) models allow to capture increasing language complexity (e.g. compositional representations, word embedding, long term dependencies). However, those NLP models are disembodied in the sense that they are learned from static datasets of text or speech. How can we bridge the gap from low-level sensorimotor interaction to high-level compositional symbolic communication? The SMILES workshop will address this issue through an interdisciplinary approach involving researchers from (but not limited to): - Sensori-motor learning, - Symbol grounding and symbol emergence, - Emergent communication in multi-agent systems, - Chunking of perceptuo-motor gestures (gestures in a general sense: motor, vocal, ...), - Compositional representations for communication and action sequence, - Hierarchical representations of temporal information, - Language processing and language acquisition in brains and machines, - Models of animal communication, - Understanding composition and temporal processing in neural network models, and - Enaction, active perception, perception-action loop. * More info - contact: smiles.conf(a)gmail.com - organizers: Xavier Hinaut, Clément Moulin-Frier, Silvia Pagliarini, Joni Zhong, Michael Spranger, Tadahiro Taniguchi, Anne Warlaumont. - invited speakers (coming soon) - workshop website (updated regularly): https://sites.google.com/view/smiles-workshop/ <https://sites.google.com/view/smiles-workshop/> - ICDL conference website: https://icdl2022.qmul.ac.uk/ <https://icdl2022.qmul.ac.uk/> Xavier Hinaut on behalf of the SMILES workshop organisers: - Xavier Hinaut, Inria, Bordeaux, France - Clément Moulin-Frier, Inria and Ensta ParisTech, Bordeaux, France - Anne Warlaumont, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA - Silvia Pagliarini, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA - Michael Spranger, Sony AI and Sony CSL, Tokyo, Japan - Tadahiro Taniguchi, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan - Junpei Zhong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China Xavier Hinaut Inria Research Scientist www.xavierhinaut.com <http://www.xavierhinaut.com/> -- +33 5 33 51 48 01 Mnemosyne team, Inria, Bordeaux, France -- https://team.inria.fr/mnemosyne <https://team.inria.fr/mnemosyne> & LaBRI, Bordeaux University -- https://www4.labri.fr/en/formal-methods-and-models <https://www4.labri.fr/en/formal-methods-and-models> & IMN (Neurodegeneratives Diseases Institute) -- http://www.imn-bordeaux.org/en <http://www.imn-bordeaux.org/en> --- Our new release of Reservoir Computing library: https://github.com/reservoirpy/reservoirpy <https://github.com/reservoirpy/reservoirpy>

July 21, 2022

INCF IC survey on barriers to neuroscience data sharing and reuse - please forward

by Malin Sandström

The INCF <https://incf.org/> Infrastructure Committee <https://incf.org/about/governance/infrastructure-committee-ic> has created a brief (~2 min) anonymous survey to chart barriers to data sharing and reuse among neuroscience researchers worldwide. The results will be made public, and will be used by INCF and collaborators to develop strategies and activities for supporting the global neuroscience community. To have real impact, the survey needs to reach the broadest possible range of neuroscience researchers. We would be very grateful for your help in spreading the word to your friends and colleagues - the more responses we get, the more valuable and useful the survey will be! Take the survey <https://forms.gle/Gnq8Eb7eMFg1JxBJ7> *No personal data will be collected within this survey, but please note that the survey uses Google Forms; their privacy policies can be found here <https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US>. Follow the link to the survey if you agree with these policies. Best regards, Malin Sandström on behalf of the INCF Infrastructure Committee -- Malin Sandström, PhD Community Engagement Officer malin.sandstrom(a)incf.org ORCID: 0000-0002-8464-2494 International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility Karolinska Institutet Nobels väg 15 A SE-171 77 Stockholm Sweden http://www.incf.org

July 21, 2022

Registration for "Simulate with EBRAINS" training is *open*

by Lührs, Anna

Dear all, We are happy to announce that the registration for our workshop Simulate with EBRAINS How to use EBRAINS research infrastructure and Fenix resources for simulations on a scale from molecules via small and large networks of point or structured spiking neurons to simplified whole brain activity and virtual environments is now open! The workshop will take place virtually from 7-10 November 2022. Registration is free but required. The workshop is open to anyone, with sessions designed for beginners but also at a more advanced level. More information: https://flagship.kip.uni-heidelberg.de/jss/HBPm?m=showAgenda&meetingID=242 <https://flagship.kip.uni-heidelberg.de/jss/HBPm?m=showAgenda&meetingID=242> We are looking forward to e-meet you “there”! Best regards, Anna Lührs on behalf of the organising team

July 21, 2022

notice of UCSD postdoctoral position

by Scott Makeig

We have two postdoctoral positions open in projects to work with the very large and growing corpus of simultaneous EEG, eye tracking, and hand movement data being collected by the Child Mind Institute in New York. These projects are aimed at leading edge advances in EEG and concurrent EEG/behavioral (MoBI) analysis. Please contact me for more information. Basic information about the 1st position is below. Scott Makeig Postdoctoral Scholar - The Institute for Neural Computation (INC) (JPF03263) Job #JPF03263 INSTITUTE NEURAL COMPUTATION / Research / UC San Diego Apply now: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03263/apply View this position online:https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03263 APPLICATION WINDOW Open date: July 19th, 2022 Next review date: Tuesday, Jul 26, 2022 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee. Final date: Wednesday, Jul 19, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled. POSITION DESCRIPTION Drs. Scott Makeig and Arnaud Delorme of the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience (SCCN), at UC San Diego, are seeking a postdoctoral researcher to work on a potentially three-year compute-intensive neuroimaging project between SCCN (sccn.ucsd.edu) and the Child-Mind Institute of New York ( childmind.org) This Healthy Brain Network (HBN) project ( healthybrainnetwork.org) is collecting MR, eye tracking, and high-density EEG data from up to 10,000 children as they perform cognitive tasks and watch movie/animations. This collaboration, with Dr. Michael Milham (CMI/HBN) and colleagues, seeks to (1) develop a library of terms for the Hierarchical Event Descriptor system (HED-3G) (hedtags.org) and open-source tools for annotating events in movies to operate both standalone and in connection with our EEGLAB signal processing environment ( sccn.ucsd.edu/eeglab) running on Matlab. (2) After annotating the HBN short films, the HBM data will be exported to OpenNeuro (openneuro.org) under BIDS standards (bids.neuroimaging.io), and will be made available via the forthcoming NEMAR data portal (nemar.org) for processing on the XSEDE high-performance computer network via the Neuroscience Gateway (NSG, nsgportal.org) The HBN M/EEG and behavioral/eye tracking data will be analyzed at the source and source network levels (Akalin Acar & Makeig, 2021) using advanced applications of Independent Component Analysis (Makeig et al., 1996; Delorme et al., 2012), Bayesian source and network clustering using SCALE- optimized forward head models (Akalin Acar et al., 2016, 2020). Tools and pipelines developed in the project will be made available in EEGLAB and through NSG. Our neuroscientific goal is to model the development of cortical EEG source dynamics and associated eye gaze patterns during viewing of 'moving pictures', and to model and explore individual differences in these processes. The Office of Research Affairs and INC at UC San Diego is committed to academic excellence and diversity. The University of California employs about 5,963 postdoctoral scholars (approx. 1,200 at UCSD) who contribute to the academic community by enhancing the research and education programs of the university. The postdoctoral experience emphasizes scholarship and continued research training. UC's postdoctoral scholars bring expertise and creativity that enrich the research environment for all members of the UC community, including graduate and undergraduate students. Appointment durations vary depending on the length of the research project and availability of funding. Total duration of an individual’s postdoctoral service may not exceed five years, including postdoctoral service at other institutions. The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) is the exclusive representative of the postdoctoral scholars. Applicants should submit their detailed statement of experience and specific qualifications related to this position with their application. Review of applications will commence on July 12, 2022 and will continue until a qualified candidate is selected. Salary is commensurate with qualifications and based on published University of California pay scales. QUALIFICATIONS Basic qualifications (required at time of application) Doctorate degree or its equivalent in fields related to Computational or Cognitive Neuroscience or Biomedical Engineering. Appointment is dependent on academic experience, scholarly achievements, skills and knowledge and needs of the project. Candidates must be able to work remotely as needed, but must be, or be able to be in residence in the United States. Preferred qualifications Postdoctoral or equivalent experience, and commitment to mentoring and research training service to build equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful applicant will have a strong background in signal processing and computer science, and an interest in contributing to cognitive neuroscience. -- Scott Makeig, Research Scientist and Director, Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, Institute for Neural Computation, University of California San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093-0559, http://sccn.ucsd.edu/~scott

July 20, 2022