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[publication and call for dialog] IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development, Spring 2015
by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer July 31, 2015

July 31, 2015

Dear colleagues, I am happy to announce the release of the latest issue of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development (open access). This is the biannual newsletter of the computational developmental sciences and developmental robotics community, studying mechanisms of lifelong learning and development in machines and humans. It is available at: https://flowers.inria.fr/AMDNL-V12-N1.pdf Featuring dialog: === “Will social robots need to be consciously aware?” === Dialog Initiated by Janet Wiles, with responses from Axel Cleeremans, Yasuko Kitano, Cornelius Weber and Stefan Wermter, Justin Hart and Brian Scassellati, Juyang Weng, Guy Hoffman and Moran Cerf. Several dimensions of the question stand out. First, as we are very far from understanding what “consciousness” is, it appears that building robots capable of various forms of self- and other- awareness, and importantly how they can develop progressively these capabilities, can be very useful in the quest to unveil the underlying mechanisms. Second, as consciousness is a multiscale complex systems, multiple approaches and perspectives need to be taken in this process of robot building. Third, when one looks at applications, it is the function, and not the nature, of consciousness which becomes the relevant angle of analysis, and several ethical questions arise. Call for new dialog: === "Representational redescription: the next challenge?" === New dialog initiated by Stéphane Doncieux It has long been known in AI that having a good representation is key for machines to solve complex problems. However, so far good representations have been pre-programmed by engineers. What technical approaches could we imagine to allow machines to select, and even more important to find, new spaces of representations? Are techniques like deep learning general enough for realising such a challenge for lifelong learning robots? Do we need other approaches such as Darwinian mechanisms operating in the brain, like in neural Darwinism? Those of you interested in reacting to this dialogue initiation are welcome to submit a response by October 30th, 2015. length of each response must be between 600 and 800 words including references (contact pierre-yves.oudeyer(a)inria.fr) You will also find news about the latest activities of the AMD Technical Committee and the ICDL-Epirob 2015 conference, and a call for candidates to become the new editor of the newsletter. As I have been editor of the newsletter for around 8 years, and I have now the AMD TC Chair duty, it is now time for other ideas and energies to take the lead of the newsletter. I take this opportunity to thank Fabien Benureau for his help as editorial assistant. Let me remind you that previous issues of the newsletter are all open-access and available at: http://www.cse.msu.edu/amdtc/amdnl/ I wish you a stimulating reading! Best regards, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Editor of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development Chair of the IEEE CIS AMD Technical Committee on AMD Research director, Inria Head of Flower project-team Inria and Ensta ParisTech, France http://www.pyoudeyer.com https://flowers.inria.fr http://www.poppy-project.org

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Call for participation: SASO'15, 21-25 September, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by F. Armetta July 29, 2015

July 29, 2015

(Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this call) ***************************************************************************************** CALL FOR PARTICIPATION The Ninth IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO 2015) MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts; 21-25 September 2015 https://saso2015.mit.edu/ Part of FAS* -- Foundation and Applications of Self-* Computing Conferences Co-located with: The International Conference on Cloud and Autonomic Computing (CAC 2015) The 15th IEEE Peer-to-Peer Computing Conference (P2P 2015) ***************************************************************************************** GREATLY REDUCED HOTEL RATES AVAILABLE TILL AUGUST 21! The 2015 edition of the SASO conference series will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hosted by MIT in the week of September 21 to September 25, 2015. The aim of the Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing systems conference series (SASO) is to provide a forum for the foundations of a principled approach to engineering systems, networks and services based on self-adaptation and self-organization. The ninth edition of the SASO conference embraces the inter-disciplinarity and the scientific, empirical and application dimensions of self-* systems; it thus aims to attract participants with different backgrounds, to foster cross-pollination between research fields, and to expose and discuss innovative theories, design principles, frameworks, methodologies, tools, and applications. -------------------- Registration -------------------- The Early Registration deadline is September 4, 2015. Deadline for reduced hotel rates is August 21, 2015. Registration is available at: https://saso2015.mit.edu/registration A single registration fee includes access to the main conference, tutorials, workshops, and the doctoral symposium. Moreover, it includes a conference kit with electronic proceedings, all coffee breaks, lunches, free entrance to the Welcome Reception and Conference Dinner. -------------------- Technical Program -------------------- We are happy to announce that we will be able to offer six keynotes together with CAC and P2P, including among others: * Albert-László Barabási, Center for Complex Network Research - Barabási Lab, Northeastern University Physics Department * Yang-Yu Liu, Harvard Medical School * Azer Bestavros, Boston University * Ozalp Babaoglu, University of Bologna. Full papers: * An Approach to Robust Resource Allocation in Large-Scale Systems of Systems * Multi-satellite mission planning using a self-adaptive multi-agent system * Distributed Recovery for Enterprise Services * Self-organising Zooms for Decentralised Redundancy Management in Visual Sensor Networks * Active Learning for Efficient Sampling of Control Models of Collectives * Distributed Current Flow Betweenness Centrality * Multi-agent Self-organization and Reorganization to Adapt M2M Infrastructures * Darwin in Smart Power Grids - Evolutionary Game Theory for Analyzing Self-Organization in Demand-Side Aggregation * A Generic Social Capital Framework for Optimising Self-Organised Collective Action * Foraging-inspired Self-organisation for Terrain Exploration with Failure-prone Agents * Efficient Engineering of Complex Self-Organizing Systems by Self-Stabilising Fields * PeerMatcher: Decentralized Partnership Formation * Combining Conflicting Environmental and Task Requirements in Evolutionary Robotics * Self-managed sensor network scheduling using Bayesian dynamic linear models Short papers: * A Mutual Influence Detection Algorithm for Systems with Local Performance Measurement * Value-Sensitive Design of Self-Organisation * Ashbian homeostasis as non-autonomous adaptation * Reciprocal Agents for Self-Organization in Large-Scale Allocation Problems Posters: * Social Amoeba Dictyostelium Discoideum As an Inspiration for Swarm Robotics * Creating Complex Applications Via Self-Adapting Autonomous Agents in an Intelligent System Framework * Self-directed weight management by feedback from a self-adaptive metabolic health monitoring system * Cyber-Physical-Social System Self-Organization: Ontology-Based Multi-Level Approach and Case Study * Citizen-driven flood mapping in Jakarta - A self-organising socio-technical system * Hierarchical Service-Oriented Architecture for Development of Autonomic Systems * Sustainable Safety in Mobile Multi-Robot Systems via Collective Adaptation * Towards a spatial language for run-time assessments in self-organizing systems Demo: * Towards Self-Adaptation on Real-World Hardware: a Preliminary Lightweight Programming Framework In addition, six workshops are planned to be available to conference attendees free of charge: * 3rd Workshop on Fundamentals of Collective Adaptive Systems (FoCAS) http://focas.eu/saso-2015/ * 2nd Workshop on Quality Assurance for Self-Adaptive, Self-Organising Systems (QA4SASO) http://qa4saso.isse.de * 1st Workshop on Spatial and COllective PErvasive Computing Systems (SCOPES) http://www.spatial-computing.org/scopes * 9th Workshop on Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPL) http://www.lero.ie/dspl2015 * Workshop on Diagnosing, Reacting, Evading And Manoeuvring (DREAM) http://www.dollabs.com/saso2015ahansdreamworkshop * 3rd Workshop on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organising Socio-Technical Systems (SASO^ST) http://sasost.isse.de Several tutorials, including: * "Enabling Software-Defined Federations using CometCloud". Organizers: Javier Diaz-Montes, Manish Parashar (Rutgers University) * "Fundamentals of Autonomic Cloud Security". Organizer: Salim Hariri (University of Arizona) Doctoral symposium, including research ideas on: * Cross layer Anomaly based intrusion detection system * Testing Self-Organizing, Adaptive Systems * Incentive Mechanisms for Social Computing * Quality trade-offs in self-protecting systems * Network Attack Detection and Mitigation * Multi-Agent Collaboration in Distributed Self-Adaptive Systems * Keynote by Dr. Jeremy Pitt (Imperial College London): "How To Get a PhD in Self-Organizing Systems" The detailed program of scientific papers and posters is available at: https://saso2015.mit.edu/accepted-papers -------------------- Social events -------------------- Welcome Reception at the MIT Museum (Tuesday) http://web.mit.edu/museum/ Dinner Cruise in Boston Bay (Wednesday) -------------------- Venue and accommodation -------------------- The conference will take place at the Boston Marriott Cambridge Hotel at the edge of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are special rates available for participants. For more information, please refer to http://saso2015.mit.edu/venue Greatly reduced rates for rooms at the conference hotel are available until August 21. Details are available at http://saso2015.mit.edu/venue Hotels near the venue may be found at the MIT Institute Events site: http://web.mit.edu/institute-events/visitor/stay.html --------------------- Organisation --------------------- General Chairs Howard E Shrobe, MIT CSAIL, Cambridge, MA, USA Julie A McCann, Imperial College London, UK Programme Chairs Gregory Sullivan, Draper Labs, Cambridge, MA, USA Emma Hart, Director CEC, Edingurgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland Jan-Philipp Steghöfer, University of Gothenburg and Chalmers Technical University, Gothenburg, Sweden Local Arrangements Chair Paul Robertson, Dynamic Object Labs, Lexington, MA, USA

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Four faculty positions in statistics and stochastics
by Robert Rosenbaum July 27, 2015

July 27, 2015

The Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Notre Dame is seeking applications for a total of four faculty positions, three in statistics and one in stochastics. Ideally, one of the statistics positions will be at the post-tenure level (associate or full professor) and the remainder will be tenure track (assistant professor). The department is highly supportive of collaborative and interdisciplinary research and encourages applications from computational neuroscientists. Feel free to contact me (Robert.Rosenbaum(a)nd.edu) with general questions about the department, etc. Applicants for the post-tenure job are invited to contact the chair, Andrew Sommese (sommese(a)nd.edu) For more information and to apply, see here for statistics: http://apply.interfolio.com/30595 and here for stochastics: http://apply.interfolio.com/30609 — Robert Rosenbaum Assistant Professor Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics University of Notre Dame

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IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (CIM) Special Issue: “Model Complexity, Regularization and Sparsity”
by Giacomo Boracchi July 26, 2015

July 26, 2015

*Call for Papers* *IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine* *Special Issue on “Model Complexity, Regularization and Sparsity”* http://home.deib.polimi.it/boracchi/events/ModelComplexity.html *Aims and Scope* The effective management of solution complexity is one of the most important issues in addressing Computational Intelligence problems. Regularization techniques control model complexity by taking advantage of some prior information regarding the problem at hand, represented as penalty expressions that impose these properties on the solution. Over the past few years, one of the most prominent and successful types of regularization has been based on the *sparsity* prior, which promotes solutions that can be expressed as a linear combination of a few atoms belonging to a *dictionary*. Sparsity can in some sense be considered a “measure of simplicity“ and, as such, is compatible with many nature-inspired principles of Computational Intelligence. Nowadays, sparsity has become one of the leading approaches for learning adaptive representations for both descriptive and discriminative tasks, and has been shown to be particularly effective when dealing with structured, complex and high-dimensional data. Regularization, including sparsity and other priors to control the model complexity, is often the key ingredient in the successful solution of difficult problems; it is therefore not surprising that these aspects have also recently gained a lot of attention in big-data processing, due to unprecedented challenges associated with the need to handle massive datastreams that are possibly high-dimensional and organized in complex structures. This special issue aims at presenting the most relevant regularization techniques and approaches to control model complexity in Computational Intelligence. Submissions of papers presenting regularization methods for Neural Networks, Evolutionary Computation or Fuzzy Systems, are welcome. Submissions of papers presenting advanced regularization techniques in specific, but relevant, application fields such as data/datastream-mining, classification, big-data analytics, image/signal analysis, natural-language processing, are also encouraged. *Topics of Interest* · Regularization methods for big and high-dimensional data; · Regularization methods for supervised and unsupervised learning; · Regularization methods for ill-posed problems in Computational Intelligence; · Techniques to control model complexity; · Sparse representations in Computational Intelligence; · Managing model complexity in data analytics; · Effective priors for solving Computational Intelligence problems; · Multiple prior integration; · Regularization in kernel methods and support vector machines. *Important Dates* · 22nd January, 2016: Submission of Manuscripts · 30th March, 2016: Notification of Review Results · 30th April, 2016: Submission of Revised Manuscripts · 15th June, 2016: Submission of Final Manuscripts · November, 2016: Special Issue Publication *Submission Process* The maximum length for the manuscript is typically 20 pages in single column with double-spacing, including figures and references. Authors of papers should specify in the first page of their manuscripts the corresponding author’s contact and up to 5 keywords. Additional information about submission guidelines and information for authors is provided at the IEEE CIM website. <http://cis.ieee.org/ieee-computational-intelligence-magazine/134-ieee-compu…> Submission instructions can be found at http://home.deib.polimi.it/boracchi/events/ModelComplexity.html <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ieeecim1116> *Guest Editors* *Prof. Cesare Alippi,* Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Biongegneria, Politecnico di Milano, via Ponzio 34/5, Milano, 20133, Italy email: cesare.alippi(a)polimi.it *Dr. Giacomo Boracchi*, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Biongegneria, Politecnico di Milano, via Ponzio 34/5, Milano, 20133, Italy email: giacomo.boracchi(a)polimi.it *Dr. Brendt Wohlberg*, Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos NM 87545, USA email: brendt(a)lanl.gov -- Giacomo Boracchi, PhD DEIB - Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano Via Ponzio, 34/5 20133 Milano, Italy. Tel. +39 02 2399 3467 http://home.dei.polimi.it/boracchi/

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Special Issue on Applications of Operations Research in Neuroscience -- Deadline Extension to October 1.
by Ruben Tikidji-Hamburyan July 24, 2015

July 24, 2015

Dear Colleagues, [We apologize if you have received multiple copies of this message] We would like to draw your attention to the special volume on "Applications of Operations Research for Neuroscience" in the Annals of Operations Research. We cordially invite researchers in neuroscience who use operations research methods and related mathematical fields to contribute to this special issue. Recent technological and theoretical advances offer promising opportunities for better understanding of the nervous system at the quantitative level. New optogenetic, in vitro and in vivo multielectrode recording, neuroimaging, brain imaging, and other modern techniques provide high-quality data that can be used in elucidating the fundamental mechanisms of information processing in neural system. The rapidly growing pool of experimental data has triggered the development of new mathematical models, which can provide new insights into the functioning of the nervous system at various scales ranging from that of molecular biology to that of the organizational principles of behavior and cognition. Sophisticated analyses of intracellular signalling or dynamics in heterogeneous neural networks, conditional behavior or connections of brain regions in decision-making lead to theoretical problems addressed by operations research. The special volume will cover a broad range of topics in the field of neuroscience, which use operations research approaches and methods. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following areas of neuroscience: * intracellular signaling and regulation * synaptic plasticity * dynamics in heterogeneous neural networks * intelligent systems and control * perceptual, cognitive and behavioral functions * learning and memory * spatio-temporal network analysis * combinatorial optimization * signal and information processing * neuroimaging and functional brain imaging processing * computational modelling and simulation The use of methods from modern operations research is a prerequisite for any paper submitted to this special volume to enter the reviewing process. Extended submission deadline of full papers: October 1, 2015. Submission Details: The format of manuscripts for the Annals of Operations Research as well as guidelines can be found on the web page of Springer, the publisher of the journal: http://www.springer.com/business/operations+research/journal/10479 Authors should submit a cover letter mentioning that the paper is for a special volume, along with and a manuscript via the journal's online submission site: http://www.editorialmanager.com/anor More details can be found in the Call for Paper attached to this e-mail. Annals of Operations Research is abstracted and indexed in the following databases: Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded (SciSearch), Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, SCOPUS, INSPEC, Zentralblatt Math, Google Scholar, EBSCO, CSA, ProQuest, ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide, Academic OneFile, Academic Search, Computer Abstracts International Database, Computer Science Index, CSA Environmental Sciences, Current Contents/Engineering, Computing and Technology, DBLP, ECONIS, Expanded Academic, International Abstracts in Operations Research, Mathematical Reviews, OCLC, SCImago, STMA-Z, Summon by ProQuest. Please consider sharing this call for papers with any researchers who might be interested in contributing. On behalf of special volume guest editors, Ruben Tikidji-Hamburyan ------- Ruben Tikidji-Hamburyan,Ph.D. Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy Health Sciences Center Louisiana State University New Orleans, LA, 70112

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Summerschool on Neurocomputational Models of Speech Processing in Aachen, Germany
by Kröger, Bernd Joachim July 24, 2015

July 24, 2015

Dear comp-neuro Please forward: Summerschool: Neurocomputational Models of Speech Processing 14th to 18th of September 2015 Topic: Constructing a Neurocomputational Model of Speech Processing Date: Starting 14th of September for one week Location: RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany Costs: Accomodation at RWTH Aachen University Guest House: round about 80€ (Single or Double) per day. Food: round about 30€ per day. Workshop is free. Accomodation and food will be arranged by Bernd Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu. Please contact bkroeger(a)ukaachen.de Next airport to Aachen, Germany: Duesseldorf International Airport, Germany Planned scedule: 1st day: 9-12am: Lecture (Bernd Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu) Introduction to Neurocomputational Models of Speech Production including learning szenarios occurring in speech acquisition. Afternoon 2-5pm: Discussion and computer exercises in NENGO www.nengo.ca or other neural processing toolboxes 2nd day: 9-12am: Lecture (Bernd Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu) Introduction to Neurocomputational Models of Speech Perception and Comprehension Afternoon 2-5pm: Discussion and Computer exercises in NENGO www.nengo.ca and other Neural Processing Toolboxes 3rd day: 9-12am: Lecture (Bernd Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu) Introduction to a physiological and acoustic model of speech production (www.VocalTractLab.de) Afternoon 2-5pm: How to integrate VocalTractLab into an Neurocomputational Model of Speech Processing 4th and 5th day: 9am-5pm: Programming exercises and introduction to available speech data bases) Summerschool takes place with more than 5 üarticipants -- Prof. Dr. Bernd J. Kröger Department of Phoniatrics, Pedaudiology, and Communication Disorders Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstraße 30, D-52074 Aachen, Germany Email: bernd.kroeger(a)rwth-aachen.de Homepage: www.speechtrainer.eu

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Postdoc and graduate student positions in computational neuroscience and machine learning
by Jakob Macke July 24, 2015

July 24, 2015

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[Last CFP] Extended paper submission deadline to August 16 2015
by Teng Teck Hou July 24, 2015

July 24, 2015

(We apologize for multiples copies) - Please distribute this CFP among your colleagues and students IEEE Conference on Evolving and Adaptive Intelligence Systems - EAIS 2015 Douai, France, December 13, 2015 http://conference.mines-douai.fr/eais2015/ The paper submission deadline is extended to August 16, 2015 (Hard deadline, no more extension) * IMPORTANT DATES * ---------------------------------------------------------------- Paper Submission Due: Extended to August 16, 2015 (Hard deadline, no more extension) Notification of Acceptance: October 1st, 2015 Camera-Ready Papers Due: November 1st, 2015 Registration Deadline: November 1st, 2015 All accepted papers will be published in the conference Proceedings and submitted to IEEE for inclusion to IEEE Xplore. Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions for possible inclusion in a special issue of the journal Evolving Systems (Springer). It is our pleasure to announce the two keynotes "Real Time Data Mining" and "Active online learning". The social program includes a visit to the prestigious museum of Le Louvre-Lens. A tour will be organized in "La Grande Galerie" exhibition space where you could discover some of the greatest masterpieces and the greatest artists of the Louvre museum. In addition, you will have the opportunity to enjoy the hospitality and cultural heritage of Douai (City town belfry historical building designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Site, the Chartreuse museum, the Northern French Cuisine ). * CONTEXT * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- IEEE EAIS 2015 will be held in Douai, a beautiful city located in the north of France close to Brussels and Paris. IEEE EAIS 2015 will provide a friendly atmosphere and will be a leading international forum focusing on the discussion of recent advances, the exchange of recent innovations, and the outline of open important future challenges in the area of Evolving and Adaptive Intelligent Systems. Over the past decade, this area has emerged to play an important role on a broad international level in todays real-world applications, especially those ones with high complexity and dynamics change. Its embedded modeling and learning methodologies are able to cope with real-time demands, changing operation conditions, varying environmental influences, human behaviors, knowledge expansion scenarios, and drifts in on-line data streams. EAIS 2015 is an IEEE sponsored conference which is organized by the IEEE Technical Committee on Evolving and Adaptive Intelligent Systems, SMC Society. EAIS conference series has a history starting in 2006 in Lake District, England. It was held after that in Germany, USA, France, Spain, Singapore and Austria. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit extended versions for a possible inclusion in a special issue of the journal Evolving Systems (Springer). * AREAS OF INTEREST * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: Basic Methodologies Evolving Soft Computing Techniques Evolving Fuzzy Systems Evolving Rule-Based Classifiers Evolving Neuro-Fuzzy Systems Adaptive Evolving Neural Networks On-line Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms Data Stream Mining Incremental and Evolving Clustering Approaches Adaptive Pattern Recognition Incremental and Evolving ML Classifiers Adaptive Statistical Techniques Evolving Decision Systems Advanced Concepts Drifts and Shifts in Data Streams Stability, Robustness, Convergence in Evolving Systems On-line Feature Selection and Dimension Reduction On-line Active and Semi-supervised Learning On-line Complexity Reduction Computational Aspects Interpretability Issues Incremental Adaptive Ensemble Methods On-line Bagging and Boosting Self-monitoring Evolving Systems Human-Machine Interaction Issues Hybrid Modeling Transfer Learning Reservoir Computing Real-world Applications EIS for On-Line Modeling and System Identification EIS for Time Series Prediction EIS for Data Stream Mining and Adaptive Knowledge Discovery EIS in Robotics, Intelligent Transport and Advanced Manufacturing EIS in Advanced Communications and Multi-Media Applications EIS in Bioinformatics and Medicine EIS in On-line Quality Control and Fault Diagnosis EIS in Condition Monitoring Systems EIS in Adaptive Evolving Controller Design EIS in User Activities Recognition EIS in Huge Database and Web Mining EIS in Visual Inspection and Image Classification EIS in Cloud Computing EIS in Multiple Sensor Networks EIS in Query Systems and Social Networks * SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS * --------------------------------------------------- Full papers - max. 8 pages IEEE style (double-column). Short Papers - max. 4 pages IEEE style (double-column). * INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME COMMITTEE * ------------------------------------------------------------------ Plamen Angelov, Lancaster University, UK Dimitar Filev, Ford Motor Co., USA Nikola Kasabov, AUT, New Zealand * ORGANIZING PROGRAMME COMMITTEE * ------------------------------------------------------------ Chair: Moamar Sayed-Mouchaweh, Mines Douai, Institut Mines-Télécom, France Co-chair: Stéphane Lecoeuche, Mines Douai, Institut Mines-Télécom, France Publication Chairs: José A. Iglesias, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain Edwin Lughofer, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria Local Arrangement Chair: Anthony Fleury, Mines Douai, Institut Mines-Télécom, France Muriel Morgan, Mines Douai, Institut Mines-Télécom, France Web & Publicity Chairs: Teck-Hou Teng, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Mihaly Petreczky, Mines Douai, Institut Mines-Télécom, France Vincent Lecocq, Mines Douai, Institut Mines-Télécom, France Houari * SPONSORED BY * ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IEEE Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society. * ORGANIZED BY * ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IEEE Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society Technical Committee on Evolving Intelligent Systems Ecole des Mines de Douai, Département Informatique et Automatique, France ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------

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CARLsim 3.0.2 released
by Michael Beyeler July 23, 2015

July 23, 2015

Dear colleagues, Many of you may be interested in our latest software release of the CARLsim simulator. CARLsim is an efficient, easy-to-use, GPU-accelerated library for simulating large-scale spiking neural network (SNN) models with a high degree of biological detail. Software and documentation can be found at: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma/CARLsim This release is in conjunction with our latest publications, which highlight CARLsim’s latest features. * Beyeler, M., Carlson, K.D., Chou, T.S., Krichmar, J.L., Dutt, N., (2015) CARLsim 3: A User-Friendly and Highly Optimized Library for the Creation of Neurobiologically Detailed Spiking Neural Networks. Paper presented at: International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (Killarney, Ireland). * Beyeler, M., Richert, M., Dutt, N.D., and Krichmar, J.L. (2014). Efficient Spiking Neural Network Model of Pattern Motion Selectivity in Visual Cortex. Neuroinformatics. * Carlson, K.D., Nageswaran, J.M., Dutt, N., and Krichmar, J.L. (2014). An efficient automated parameter tuning framework for spiking neural networks. Frontiers in Neuroscience 8. * Carlson, K.D., Richert, M., Dutt, N., and Krichmar, J.L. (2013). Biologically Plausible Models of Homeostasis and STDP: Stability and Learning in Spiking Neural Networks. Paper presented at: International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (Dallas, TX). If you have recently used CARLsim in one of your scientific publications, let us know so that we can add your paper to the list. CARLsim 3.0.2 Release Highlights --------------------------------------------- * improved platform compatibility (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows) * real-time and offline data analysis tools * an automated parameter tuning interface that utilizes evolutionary algorithms to construct functional SNNs * an expanded STDP implementation, which includes dopaminergic neuromodulation * an exhaustive User Guide and Tutorials * much improved code base, which includes a test suite for functional code verification Best regards from the CARLsim team, Michael Beyeler Kristofor Carlson Ting-Shuo Chou Nikil Dutt Jeff Krichmar -- Michael Beyeler Ph.D. Candidate Cognitive Anteater Robotics Lab (CARL) 2236 Cognitive & Behavioral Science Gateway University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA http://sites.uci.edu/mbeyeler

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PhD position announcement in computational neuroscience
by Mike X Cohen July 22, 2015

July 22, 2015

Mike X Cohen and Paul Tiesinga are searching for a PhD Candidate to work on a project entitled “Midfrontal Cortex Theta Oscillations: Causes and Consequences”. This project is funded by the European Research Council and is hosted by the Donders Centre for Neuroscience. Theta-band oscillations (~6 Hz) in the medial prefrontal cortex are a signature of several important cognitive functions, including behaviour monitoring, action adjustments and feedback-driven learning. Although this consistent finding has emerged in several species including humans, monkeys, and rats, little is known about the microcircuits in the medial prefrontal cortex that generate theta oscillations and the role of those oscillations in the neural computations underlying cognitive control functions. In this project, we aim to gain more insight into these processes by employing biophysically-informed computational models to simulate the genesis and significance of midfrontal theta for coordinating local and long-range network dynamics. Empirical experiments in humans and rodents may be incorporated into the research in order to test/refine the models. Please see http://www.ru.nl/overons/werken-radboud/details/details_vacature_0/?recid=5… for additional details. -- Mike X Cohen, PhD mikexcohen.com

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