- Comp-neuro - lists.cnsorg.org

The Virtual Brain Node #3 Workshop - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

by Tanya Brown

** *NODE#3* : Training Workshop Chicago, IL - SfN 2015 Conference *October 16, 2015* www.thevirtualbrain.org/node3 In this workshop we will explain the fundamental principles of full brain network modelling using the open source neuroinformatics platform *The Virtual Brain (TVB)*. This simulation environment enables the biologically realistic modelling of network dynamics using Connectome-based approaches across different brain scales. Configurable brain network models generate macroscopic neuroimaging signals including functional MRI (fMRI), intracranial and stereotactic EEG, surface EEG and MEG for single subjects. Researchers from different backgrounds can benefit from an integrative software platform including a supporting framework for data management (generation, organization, storage, integration and sharing) and a simulation core written in Python. The architecture of TVB supports interaction with MATLAB packages, for example, the well-known Brain Connectivity Toolbox. *Workshop Goals:* to create a conceptual and technical understanding of the various network modelling approaches in TVB; familiarization with TVB graphical user interface, Python and Matlab programming environment and data formats. *Workshop Format: * lectures and hands-on tutorials - *space is limited** ================================================================== *For more details and registration, please visit our website <http://www.thevirtualbrain.org/>: * *http://www.thevirtualbrain.org/node3 <http://www.thevirtualbrain.org/node3>* ================================================================== *Important Dates:* - August 10, 2015 – Registration Open - *space is limited** - October 9, 2015 – Registration Closed - October 16, 2015 – TVB NODE#2 Training Workshop *Location:* Hyatt Regency Chicago Downtown Hotel <http://chicagoregency.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html> 151 East Wacker Drive Chicago, IL, 60601, USA *Note: This is a Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2015 conference official satellite event.* With our best regards, *The TVB Team <http://www.thevirtualbrain.org/tvb/zwei/team>* -- *Tanya Brown* Program Manager - The Virtual Brain Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest 416-785-2500 x 2782 tbrown(a)research.baycrest.org

Aug. 14, 2015

Deep Learning and Continuous Time Computing - Track at SAC 2016 - Second CFP

by Davide Zambrano

Dear all, This is a Second Call for Paper to join our track at SAC 2016. The deadline for the submission of papers and SRC research abstract is September 11, 2015. Apologies for cross posting. Best regards. ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) 2016 The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing in Pisa, Italy, April 3 – 8, 2016. (webpage : http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2016/ <http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2016/>) Deep Learning and Continuous-Time Computing (webpage : http://event.cwi.nl/sac2016/ <http://event.cwi.nl/sac2016/>) Topics of interests: Deep learning Continuous-time learning Spiking Neural Networks Asynchronous computation Large scale parallel simulations and computing Neuromorphic computing Important Dates are published on the Conference <http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2016/>or Track <http://event.cwi.nl/sac2016/>webpages. Track Program Committee: Sander Bohte, CWI Amsterdam (NL) (Track Chair — email to s.m.bohte(a)cwi.nl <mailto:s.m.bohte@cwi.nl> ) Davide Zambrano, CWI Amsterdam (NL) (Track Chair — email to d.zambrano(a)cwi.nl <mailto:d.zambrano@cwi.nl> ) Thomas Nowotny, University of Sussex (UK) Stephen Furber, University of Manchester (UK) Karl Tuyls, University of Liverpool (UK) Shih-Chii Liu, University of Zurich/ETH Zurich (CH) Robert Babuska, Delft University of Technology (NL) Andre Gruning, University of Surrey (UK) Max Welling, University of Amsterdam (NL) Narayan Srinavasa, HRL Laboratories LLC (USA) Eleni Vasilaki, University of Sheffield (UK) Giacomo Indiveri, University of Zurich/ETH Zurich, (CH) Important notice: Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper, poster, or SRC abstract in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper. This is a requirement for including the work in the ACM/IEEE digital library. No-show of registered papers, posters, and SRC abstracts will result in excluding them from the ACM/IEEE digital library. Dr. Davide Zambrano PostDoc at CWI, Amsterdam (NL) MSc in Biomedical Eng. - PhD in Biorobotics D.Zambrano(a)cwi.nl Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) Science Park, 123 1098 XG - Amsterdam

Aug. 14, 2015

Reminder: Call for Papers: "Intelligent Music Systems and Applications" (Special Issue of the ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology)

by perfe

Please re-distribute (and accept our apologies for any cross-posting) We are happy to announce the following call for papers: =========================================================== ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology Special Issue on Intelligent Music Systems and Applications http://www.cp.jku.at/journals/tist_imsa_2015_cfp.html =========================================================== With the advent of music information retrieval (MIR), intelligent technologies have become an essential part of music systems and applications. This is evidenced by today’s omnipresence of digital online music stores and streaming services, which rely on music recommenders, automatic playlist generators, and music browsing interfaces. A large amount of MIR research leading to intelligent music applications deals with the extraction of musical and acoustic information directly from the audio signal using signal processing techniques. Other strategies exploit contextual aspects of music, not present in the signal, for example, community meta-data and trails of user interaction, as found, for instance, on social media platforms. Recently, also user-centric aspects are being considered, such as affect, personality, and user context. Intelligent music systems have also been developed as music creation tools, in which case the modeling of a composer's preferences or of genre/stylistic features are required. Topics of interest ------------------ This special issue addresses all aspects of music information, i.e., music content, context, and user aspects. Highest quality research that has not been published, nor is under review elsewhere, targeting one or more of the following topics in the context of intelligent music systems and applications is welcome: • Music Information Systems • Music Recommendation and Playlist Generation • Intelligent Music and Audio Browsing Interfaces • Games Based on Intelligent Music Analysis • Automatic Accompaniment or Real-time Tracking of Performances • Music Synthesis • Automatic Composition • Automatic Lyrics Generation • MIR in the Music Production Domain • Semantic Content Analysis, Knowledge Extraction, and Music Indexing • Collaborative Tags, Social Media Mining, Network Analysis • User Modeling and Personalized Music Systems • Personality, Emotion, and Affect • Hybrid Systems using Content and Context • Multimedia Approaches to MIR and Cross-media Recommendation • Large-Scale Music Retrieval • Evaluation, Mining of Ground Truth, and Data Collections Schedule -------- Paper Submission Deadline September 27, 2015 Notification after First Review Cycle December 20, 2015 Paper Revisions Deadline February 21, 2016 Final Notification April 24, 2016 Submission of Camera Ready Paper May 22, 2016 Manuscript submission --------------------- Please submit your manuscript through the ACM TIST submission system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tist (select "Special Issue: Intelligent Music Systems and Applications" as the manuscript type). Submissions must adhere to the ACM TIST instructions and guidelines for authors available at http://tist.acm.org/authors.html. Guest editors ------------- Markus Schedl Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria Yi-Hsuan Yang Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan Perfecto Herrera Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain Contact ------- If you have any further questions, please contact us via e-mail: Markus Schedl (markus.schedl(a)jku.at) Yi-Hsuan Yang (yang(a)citi.sinica.edu.tw) and Perfecto Herrera (perfecto.herrera(a)upf.edu)

Aug. 14, 2015

Postdoc job: Connectivity analysis in Brisbane, University of Queensland

by Ross Cunnington

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Applications are invited for a position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute (www.qbi.uq.edu.au) and Science of Learning Research Centre (www.slrc.org.au) Brisbane Australia. Research will involve modelling of connectivity using graph theoretical analysis, applied to physiological data recorded from students in school classrooms. This is a large and unique collaboration between neuroscience and education, bringing brain connectivity modelling methods to examine inter-person connectivity in school classrooms. Applicants must have a PhD in cognitive or computational neuroscience or a related area and strong research experience in connectivity data modelling. This position would suit someone with experience in brain connectivity analysis looking to further develop techniques to apply in novel ways. See more details at: http://jobs.uq.edu.au/caw/en/job/497744/postdoctoral-research-fellow CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 28 AUGUST -+- A/Prof Ross Cunnington, Principal Research Fellow School of Psychology & Queensland Brain Institute University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Phone: +61 7 3346 6330

Aug. 14, 2015

desperately seeking neural data scientists

by Liam Paninski

Hi all (apologies for the cross-post) - we have multiple postdoctoral positions open in statistical neuroscience and machine learning. Full details here: http://grossmancenter.columbia.edu/postdoc.html, and copied below. Please share with anyone who might be interested. L Postdoctoral positions in statistical neuroscience and machine learning Multiple postdoctoral positions are available immediately in Columbia University's Grossman Center for the Statistics of the Mind, a new center focusing on the intersection of neuroscience, machine learning, and statistics. The Grossman Center bridges Columbia's Statistics and Neuroscience departments, and is closely integrated with the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. The Grossman Center is part of Columbia's larger, growing initiatives in neuroscience and data sciences, all located in New York City. The principal appointments will be in the Statistics department, in the research groups of Liam Paninski and/or John Cunningham, with ample opportunities for interaction with an exceptional group of experimental and theoretical collaborators, including M. Churchland, L. Abbott, D. Blei, R. Yuste, R. Bruno, T. Jessell, K. Miller, E. Hillman, E.J. Chichilnisky, E. Simoncelli, K. Shenoy, M. Ahrens, and more. Requirements: Qualifications include primarily a strong research portfolio in computational neuroscience, statistical neuroscience, machine learning, or a related field. Backgrounds in analyzing large neural datasets, modeling complex neural systems, and cutting-edge machine learning will be particularly valuable. These positions are highly quantitative and highly interdisciplinary; applicants should have a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Statistics, Machine Learning, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or Computational Neuroscience. Appointment: The initial appointments will be for one year, and are renewable. Salaries will be set based on experience and skills. Applicants should send email to "grossman at stat dot columbia dot edu" providing: 1. a one-page description of past research experience 2. a one-page description of future research interests and goals 3. a resume of educational and research experience, including publications 4. names of at least two people that could provide letters of reference All materials should be in pdf or plain text. Applications will be reviewed as they arrive until the positions are filled; interested candidates are encouraged to express their interest early. Due to demand, we may not be able to reply to all applications.

Aug. 12, 2015

PhD scholarships in Applied Computing in Biology, Medicine and Health

by Marc de Kamps

PhD scholarships in Applied Computing in Biology, Medicine and Health School of Computing, University of Leeds, UK Closing date for applications: 30 August 2015 The School of Computing, at the University of Leeds, ranked in the top 10 for research impact in the UK Research Excellence Framework REF2014, is offering up to five fully funded UK/EU PhD scholarships. This is an exciting opportunity for prospective UK/EU PhD students to engage in world class research from theoretical foundations of computer science through to highly applied computational modelling and systems engineering. Each scholarship covers fees, stipend and research training support. The scholarships are fully supported by School and the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council); however, requests for part-funding will also be considered where the balance is covered from elsewhere. We welcome applications within the research theme of Applied Computing in Biology, Medicine and Health: Our cross-disciplinary and highly collaborative research involves expertise spanning computer vision, data mining and visual analytics methods for Big Data, scientific computation, secure systems architectures, computational biology/neuroscience and bio-robotics. Topics include: Computational Neuroscience: development of cutting edge neuro-informatics frameworks; modelling dynamics of neural circuits and systems as part of the Human Brain Project; modelling adaptive sensory-motor control and biomechanics of animal behaviour; bio-robotic applications; Computational and Systems Biology: in-silico modelling of biological systems, from molecular and cellular dynamics to whole tissues, within basic biomedical research and as a pre-screening tool to accelerate the development of novel therapeutic products; Biomedical Image Analysis: development of novel image analysis techniques for computer assisted diagnosis, bio-mechanical modelling and surgical planning and training. Medical and Health Informatics: advanced process, text and data mining and novel visualization tools for analysing electronic health records, in the new £15m Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA). How to apply: Formal applications for research degree study should be made on-line through www.leeds.ac.uk/info/125187/applying_for_research_degrees Please state clearly on the funding section of the application form that you wish to be considered for scholarship 'PhD scholarship Computing (FAO Dr Raymond Kwan)'. Additional information: If English is not your first language, then candidates must also meet the University's English language requirements. Academic requirement: UK 2.1 Bachelor (or equivalent) and/or MSc with merit Web: http://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/computing/

Aug. 11, 2015

Final Call for Goettingen's Advanced Computational Neuroscience Summer School

by Agostina Palmigiano

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Applications are invited for the Advanced COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE Summer School in Göttingen, Germany September 02th - 12th, 2015 Application Deadline* August 17, 2015* %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% The aCNS School is a 10-day intensive course in mathematical and computational neuroscience. It offers students working in computational neuroscience and already familiar with its interdisciplinary nature, an intensive pedagogy of advanced theoretical and computational tools, designed to qualify young researchers to push the frontiers of the field. The course counts with and introductory day + 4 two-day blocks in charge of the following researchers: * Yoram Burak, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel * Maneesh Sahani, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL, Longon, England * Sara Solla, Nothwestern University, Chicago, USA * John Hertz, Niels Bohr Institute, Stockholm, Sweden * Moritz Helmstaedter, MPI for Brain research, Frankfurt, Germany The consecutive two day thematic blocks are dedicated to theoretical perspectives on neural assemblies. Each lecturer will give a self-contained introduction to a particular set of theoretical tools in a block of two morning lectures. In the afternoon, participants will work on problem sets designed to develop proficiency in these theoretical tools and approaches. An additional set of evening ‘easy’ lectures will give the opportunity to discuss significant advances in the field. These are held by: * David Hansel, University Paris Descartes, France * Walter Stühmer, MPI for Experimental Medicine, Göttingen, Germany * Alexander Gail, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany The course takes place at the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics of the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen. There is no registration fee. Course language is English. We invite applicants to apply by filling out the application form at: http://www.bccn-goettingen.de/events/cns-course <http://www.bccn-goettingen.de/events/cns-course> by *August 17, 2015* Organizers: Rainer Engelken, Joscha Liedtke, Agostina Palmigiano, Maximilian Puelma Touzel, Manuel Schottdorf Looking forward to seeing you in Göttingen, Agostina Palmigiano ___________________________ Agostina Palmigiano Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization Am Fassber 17, 37077 Goettingen +49 551 5176 421 office +49 163 882 6689 mobile http://www.nld.ds.mpg.de/ <http://www.nld.ds.mpg.de/> ___________________________

Aug. 10, 2015

Importance of Lateral Connections in the Parietal Cortex for Generating Motor Plans

by Jeff Krichmar

Dear Colleagues, I would like to draw your attention to our recent publication on a model of Parietal Cortex and a methodology to construct neurobiologically plausible architectures. I think it might be of interest to many of you. Asher, D.E., Oros, N., and Krichmar, J.L. (2015). The Importance of Lateral Connections in the Parietal Cortex for Generating Motor Plans. PLoS ONE 10, e0134669. http://www.plosone.org/article/citationList.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F… Substantial evidence has highlighted the significant role of associative brain areas, such as the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in transforming multimodal sensory information into motor plans. However, little is known about how different sensory information, which can have different delays or be absent, combines to produce a motor plan, such as executing a reaching movement. To address these issues, we constructed four biologically plausible network architectures to simulate PPC: 1) feedforward from sensory input to the PPC to a motor output area, 2) feedforward with the addition of an efference copy from the motor area, 3) feedforward with the addition of lateral or recurrent connectivity across PPC neurons, and 4) feedforward plus efference copy, and lateral connections. Using an evolutionary strategy, the connectivity of these network architectures was evolved to execute visually guided movements, where the target stimulus provided visual input for the entirety of each trial. The models were then tested on a memory guided motor task, where the visual target disappeared after a short duration. Sensory input to the neural networks had sensory delays consistent with results from monkey studies. We found that lateral connections within the PPC resulted in smoother movements and were necessary for accurate movements in the absence of visual input. The addition of lateral connections resulted in velocity profiles consistent with those observed in human and non-human primate visually guided studies of reaching, and allowed for smooth, rapid, and accurate movements under all conditions. In contrast, Feedforward or Feedback architectures were insufficient to overcome these challenges. Our results suggest that intrinsic lateral connections are critical for executing accurate, smooth motor plans. Best regards, Jeff Krichmar Department of Cognitive Sciences 2328 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-5100 jkrichma(a)uci.edu http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma

Aug. 10, 2015

Postdoc position in machine vision – Serre lab, Brown University (Providence, RI)

by Thomas Serre

The computational vision research group, headed by Dr. Thomas Serre at Brown University, has an opening for a postdoctoral fellow to work on the automated analysis of behavior. In particular, we are looking for a computer scientist interested in the development of computer vision algorithms to automate the video analysis of behavioral data with a range of applications from the study of bird cognition in the wild to rodents in their home cage to people in their homes. Candidates are expected to have a solid background in modern computer vision and machine learning methods. An interest in biology and applications of computer vision to the biological sciences would also be a strong plus but this is not a requirement for the position. The initial appointment is for 12 months, renewable for another year, and potentially longer depending on funding. The start date is negotiable though an early start is strongly preferred. Salary is commensurate with experience and is competitive. Representative recent work related to the project: H. Jhuang, E. Garrote, X. Yu, V. Khilnani, T. Poggio and A. Steele and T. Serre. Automated home-cage behavioral phenotyping of mice. In: Nature Communications 1(1), doi:10.1038/ncomms1064, 2010 H. Kuehne, A. Arlsan & T. Serre. The language of actions: Recovering the syntax and semantics of goal-directed human activities. In: Proceedings of 2014 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2014), IEEE Computer Society Press, Columbus, Ohio, 2014 Research group: Our research group is located within the Department of Cognitive Linguistic & Psychological sciences at Brown University. We maintain strong ties with the computer science, engineering and applied math departments as part of the Brain Institute. Through Brown’s Center for Computation and Visualization (https://www.ccv.brown.edu) our group has access to a state-of-the-art computing facility with includes over 300K GPU cores and over 500 Teraflops of GPU computing power. Information about Dr. Serre and his research group can be found at http://serre-lab.clps.brown.edu. Requirements: Applicants are expected to have finished, or be about to finish their Ph.D. degrees. They must have a strong background in computer vision and/or machine learning, with a track record of relevant publications at top venues (such as NIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ICML or ECCV). Excellent programming skills are required (C/C++/Matlab/Python). Programming experience in CUDA and/or parallel computing would be a strong plus. Application: Please send your applications by email to thomas_serre(a)correct_university_name.edu where correct_university_name should be replaced by ‘brown'. Please include a brief statement of interests, a curriculum vita, a list of publications and contact details for 2-3 letters of reference (no letters required at this stage). There is no deadline for the application but applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as the position will be filled as soon as a suitable applicant is found.

Aug. 10, 2015

2nd announcement: Summerschool "Neurocomputational Models of Speech Processing", 14th to 18th of Sept. 2015, Aachen Germany

by Kröger, Bernd Joachim

Summerschool: Neurocomputational Models of Speech Processing 14th to 18th September 2015 Topic: Constructing a Neurocomputational Model of Speech Processing Date: 14th to 18th of September 2015 Location: RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany Costs: Accommodation at RWTH Aachen University Guest House or A&O-Hostel or other hotel in Aachen city: round about 80€ (Single or Double) per day; Food round about 30€ per day. Workshop is free. Accommodation and food will be arranged by Bernd J. Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu. Please contact bkroeger(a)ukaachen.de Next airport to Aachen, Germany: Duesseldorf International Airport, Germany Planned schedule: 1st day: 9-12am: Lecture (Bernd J. Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu<http://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<http://www.nengo.ca> or Neural Processing Toolboxes of your choice 2nd day: 9-12am: Lecture (Bernd J. Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu<http://www.SpeechTrainer.eu>: Introduction to Neurocomputational Models of Speech Perception and Comprehension Afternoon 2-5pm: Discussion and Computer exercises in NENGO www.nengo.ca<http://www.nengo.ca> or Neural Processing Toolboxes of your choice 3rd day: 9-12am: Lecture (Bernd J. Kröger www.SpeechTrainer.eu<http://www.SpeechTrainer.eu>): Introduction to a physiological and acoustic model of speech production ( www.VocalTractLab.de<http://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 Please contact: 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<http://www.speechtrainer.eu>

Aug. 10, 2015

2nd call for posters/registration: Orbitofrontal Cortex and Cognition in the City of Lights, Sept 30 – Oct 2, 2015 @ Paris, France

by Mehdi Khamassi

[Please accept our apologies if you get multiple copies of this message] Dear colleagues, The "Orbitofrontal Cortex and Cognition in the City of Lights" meeting will take place in Paris, France, on Sept 30th - Oct 2nd 2015. Confirmed speakers are: Tim Behrens, Yogita Chudasama, Howard Eichenbaum, Lesley Fellows, Jay Gottfried, Shannon Gourley, Christina Gremel, Ben Hayden, Patricia Janak, Thorsten Kahnt, Daeyeol Lee, Elisabeth Murray, Yael Niv, John O'Doherty, Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, Mathias Pessiglione, Angela Roberts, Peter Rudebeck, Matthew Rushworth, Geoffrey Schoenbaum, Wolfram Schultz, Matthew Shapiro, Philippe Tobler, Jonathan Wallis, Catharine Winstanley. The deadlines for poster submission and registration (via the website: http://ofc2015.isir.upmc.fr) have both been extended to September 6^th . Please circulate widely and encourage your colleagues and team members to attend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX AND COGNITION IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS (OFC 2015) Sept 30-Oct 2, 2015, Paris, France Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière, Hôpital La Pitié Salpêtrière, Paris, France. & Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. http://ofc2015.isir.upmc.fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRESENTATION: The Third Quadrennial Meeting on Orbitofrontal Cortex Function which will take place in Paris, France, on Sept 30th – Oct 2nd 2015 at the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière, Paris, France. The objective of this three day meeting is to bring together researchers with a deep interest in the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in supporting cognition (behavior, learning, decision-making) across species. The meeting is the third, following up on similar meetings in 2007 and 2011. As such, it is intended to focus specifically on new ideas and research that has influenced the field over the past 4 years and that appear likely to lead the way into the next 4 years. The meeting consists of both invited talks and poster sessions. The invited talks are loosely organized into six different sessions that are titled to reflect the various stages of processing underlying cognition. Talks will be relatively short with ample time for questions and discussion after each talk and sub-group of talks. Poster sessions will be interspersed to allow participants to interact and present their own unique findings of relevance to advancing our understanding of this fascinating brain region. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Tim Behrens (Oxford University, UK) Yogita Chudasama (McGill University, Canada) Howard Eichenbaum (Boston University, USA) Lesley Fellows (McGill University, Canada) Jay Gottfried (Northwestern University, USA) Shannon Gourley (Emory University, USA) Christina Gremel (UCSD, USA) Ben Hayden (University of Rochester, USA) Patricia Janak (John Hopkins, USA) Thorsten Kahnt (Northwestern University, USA) Daeyeol Lee (Yale University, USA) Elisabeth Murray (NIMH, USA) Yael Niv (Princeton University, USA) John O'Doherty (Caltech, USA) Camillo Padoa-Schioppa (Washington Univ. St Louis, USA) Mathias Pessiglione (INSERM-ICM, France) Angela Roberts (Cambridge University, UK) Peter Rudebeck (Mount Sinai School, USA) Matthew Rushworth (Oxford University, UK) Geoffrey Schoenbaum (NIDA-NIH, USA) Wolfram Schultz (Cambridge University, UK) Matthew Shapiro (Mount Sinai School, USA) Philippe Tobler (University of Zurich, Switzerland) Jonathan Wallis (University of California at Berkeley, USA) Catharine Winstanley (University of British Columbia, Canada) IMPORTANT DATES: September 6, 2015 Deadline for Poster Submission September 6, 2015 Deadline for Registration Sept 30-Oct 2, 2015 Symposium Venue ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Jay Gottfried (Northwestern University, USA) Mehdi Khamassi (CNRS / UPMC, Paris, France) Elisabeth Murray (NIMH, USA) Mathias Pessiglione (INSERM / ICM, France) Geoffrey Schoenbaum (NIDA-NIH, USA) CONTACT INFORMATION : Website, registration, poster submission and detailed program: http://ofc2015.isir.upmc.fr Contact: ofc2015 [ at ] isir.upmc.fr / ofc2015-registration(a)isir.upmc.fr <mailto:ofc2015-registration@isir.upmc.fr> -- Mehdi Khamassi, PhD Researcher (CNRS) Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (UMR7222) CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie Pyramide, Tour 55 - Boîte courrier 173 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France tel: + 33 1 44 27 28 85 fax: +33 1 44 27 51 45 cell: +33 6 50 76 44 92 http://people.isir.upmc.fr/khamassi

Aug. 7, 2015

Starlab is looking for a Neuroscience Data Scientist

by Aureli Soria-Frisch

Starlab Barcelona is hiring! We are looking for a Data Scientist to help us achieve novel and challenging milestones. Starlab, a private R&D company based in Barcelona (Spain) and Oxford (UK), is looking for an exceptional data scientist with a very hands-on attitude to join our neuroscience team. The successful candidate will work at the forefront of neuroscience research with a focus on real-world applications in close contact with our sister company Neuroelectrics, a world leader in wireless neuromonitoring and neuromodulation technologies. See more at: http://www.starlab.es/js-2015-07-neuroscience-data-scientist/ ________________________________________ Aureli Soria-Frisch (Dr.-Ing.) R&D Manager Neuroscience Research - Starlab Consulting Division Barcelona Offices: Av. Tibidabo, 47 bis - 08035 Barcelona - Spain tel. +34 93 254 03 70, +34 93 254 03 66, Ext -39 United Kingdom Offices: Building R103 - Room 1-11 - Harwell Oxford - Didcot OX11 0QX - UK tel. +44 1865589777 skype aureli.soria-frisch e-mail aureli.soria-frisch(a)starlab.es linkedin es.linkedin.com/pub/aureli-soria-frisch/6/b93/294/ ________________________________________ Starlab, Living Science http://starlab.es Click here to read our e-mail confidentiality and data protection policy

Aug. 7, 2015

Workshop on parallel computing resource for modeling and brain image analysis

by Ted Carnevale

What: Using the Neuroscience Gateway Portal for Parallel Simulations A Satellite Symposium at the 2015 Society for Neuroscience Meeting Where: Lodation to be announced in downtown Chicago, IL When: 9 AM - Noon on Saturday, October 17, 2014 Speakers to include: Amit Majumdar, Subha Sivagnanam, and Padraig Gleeson Registration deadline: Friday, October 2, 2015 This workshop is for neuroscientists who need to use parallel supercomputers for large modeling projects, or analysis and visualization of brain imaging data. With support from NSF, we have been developing the Neuroscience Gateway Portal (NSG) http://www.nsgportal.org/, which * provides free CPU time on NSF-supported high performance computing resources * has a browser-based interface that simplifies the tasks of uploading models, specifying job parameters, monitoring job status, and storing and retrieving output data * already has many widely-used simulatiors optimally installed and configured, including NEST, Pynn, Brian, GENESIS3, NEURON and MOOSE. Also available is the FreeSurfer suite of tools for analyzing and visualizing structural and functional brain imaging data. The workshop will combine didactic presentations by NSG's developers, discussions with experienced users, and hands on instruction in how to use the portal. Come find out how the NSG can be useful in your own research! For more information and the online registration form see http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/nsg2014/nsg2014.html --Ted

Aug. 4, 2015

Book: Bayes' Rule With MatLab

by James Stone

I'd like to announce the publication of this book: Bayes' Rule With MatLab A Tutorial Introduction to Bayesian Analysis by JV Stone Reviews, synopsis, and table of contents can be found here: http://jim-stone.staff.shef.ac.uk/BookBayes2012/BayesRuleBookMain.html regards, Dr Jim Stone University of Sheffield, UK. http://jim-stone.staff.shef.ac.uk/BookBayes2012/books_by_jv_stone/index.html

Aug. 4, 2015

Job Posting: Research Engineer or Scientist in Machine Learning

by Behnood Gholami

*Research Engineer/Scientist, Machine Learning* *AreteX Engineering – New York, NY* AreteX Engineering, a medical technology startup company accelerating the use of information technology in healthcare, has an immediate opening for a Research Engineer/Scientist in its office located in New York City, SoHo district. AreteX is a former resident of the Harvard Innovation Lab (ilab) and a current resident of the NYU Incubator. The company has received grants from the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation. The position involves developing machine learning algorithms for innovative biomedical technologies involving physiological signal processing and big data. We are looking for a self-motivated, highly talented individual with an excellent background in machine learning (statistical learning theory). The successful candidate will work closely with a team of physicians, nurses, engineers, and scientists in designing new clinical decision support systems. Candidates with experience in the analysis of experimental data derived from---but not limited to---auditory/visual/cross-sensory psychophysical, EEG, ECG, and galvanic-skin conductance, data would be given a higher priority. *Minimum Requirements:* - MS or PhD in computer science, electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, applied mathematics, or a similar discipline. - Expertise and innovation in methods, theory, and application of machine learning and data mining with a broad understanding of methodological approaches and proficiency in practice. - Expert abilities to work with new data sets regardless of prior exposure to current topic. - Strong interest in research and learning new technologies. - Proficient at writing technical papers/reports/presentations. - Experience with Python. - Familiarity with large data sets, cloud-based development and deployment, open source practices and frameworks is a plus. - Applicants must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals or U.S. permanent residents. *Responsibilities* - Collaborate with a team of machine learning, control engineering, and signal processing researchers. - Provide technical expertise to address supervised and unsupervised learning problems in an applied research environment. - Develop and deploy modern machine learning and statistical methods (CART and Random Forests, deep learning, clustering and classification algorithms, Bayesian models, neural networks, support vector machines, and probabilistic graphical models) for finding patterns and models from physiological data. *Preferred Qualifications:* - Prior expertise and exposure using non-invasive human physiological measures such as EEG, ECG, galvanic-skin conductance, or other categorically similar methodologies. - Prior experience in feature extraction from physiological signals. - Experience working with quantitative methods of neural data analysis. - Experience with speech, audio, or video technologies. Send your cover letter and CV to info(a)aretexeng.com. -- -- Behnood Gholami, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer AreteX Engineering 137 Varick St., 2nd Floor New York, NY 10013 Phone: (347) 774-1617

Aug. 4, 2015

The KARA ONE Database: Phonological Categories in imagined and articulated speech

by frank

We are making 24 GB of a new dataset, called Kara One, freely available. This database combines 3 modalities (EEG, face tracking, and audio) during imagined and articulated speech using phonologically-relevant phonemic and single-word prompts. It is the result of a collaboration between the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (in the University Health Network) and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. In the associated paper (abstract below), we show how to accurately classify imagined phonological categories solely from EEG data. Specifically, we obtain up to 90% accuracy in classifying imagined consonants from imagined vowels and up to 95% accuracy in classifying stimulus from active imagination states using advanced deep-belief networks. Data from 14 participants are available here: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~complingweb/data/karaOne/karaOne.html [1]. If you have any questions, please contact Frank Rudzicz at frank(a)cs.toronto.edu. Best regards, Frank PAPER Shunan Zhao and Frank Rudzicz (2015) Classifying phonological categories in imagined and articulated speech. _In Proceedings of ICASSP 2015_, Brisbane Australia ABSTRACT This paper presents a new dataset combining 3 modalities (EEG, facial, and audio) during imagined and vocalized phonemic and single-word prompts. We pre-process the EEG data, compute features for all 3 modalities, and perform binary classiﬁcation of phonological categories using a combination of these modalities. For example, a deep-belief network obtains accuracies over 90% on identifying consonants, which is signiﬁcantly more accurate than two baseline support vector machines. We also classify between the different states (resting, stimuli, active thinking) of the recording, achieving accuracies of 95%. These data may be used to learn multimodal relationships, and to develop silent-speech and brain-computer interfaces. Links: ------ [1] http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~complingweb/data/karaOne/karaOne.html

Aug. 3, 2015

PhD Studentships – Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems (CRNS), Plymouth University, UK

by Roman Borisyuk

PhD Studentships – Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems (CRNS), Plymouth University, UK Following on the exceptional performance of Plymouth University in the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014, the university is now advertising the availability of 50 PhD studentships for study commencing in 2015/16. Of these studentships, at least two will be allocated to research projects and supervisors of the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems (CRNS), within the Faculty of Science and Engineering. The first studentship can cover any topic within the CRNS research areas: * Cognitive and Humanoid Robotics * Computational Neuroscience * Artificial Intelligence The second studentship will focus on Autonomous Systems, possibly with relevance to unmanned marine systems, and will be in collaboration with the School of Marine Science and Engineering: For more details on the CRNS research projects, interests and supervisors, see: https://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/research/crns/Pages/default.aspx For general information on the studentships and application procedure, see: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/student-life/your-studies/the-graduate-school/fu… We recommend that in the application form and cover letter you specify a research topic and preferred supervisor. You are also encouraged to contact the individual supervisors before applying, for informal discussion. The application deadline is 15 September 2015 Roman Borisyuk, DSc, PhD Professor of Computational Neuroscience School of Computing and Mathematics University of Plymouth A224, Portland Sq Plymouth, PL4 8AA UK Phone: +44 (0) 1752 584949 E-mail: RBorisyuk(a)plymouth.ac.uk<mailto:RBorisyuk@plymouth.ac.uk> ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]<http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form.

Aug. 3, 2015

Call for participation NEUROMOD'2015, Neurotechnix'2015, 16-17 November, Lisbon

by Jaime Ibánez Pereda

(Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this call) ******************************************************************************************* Dear colleagues, We are pleased to invite you to participate in the upcoming “Symposium on Neuromodulation-based Approaches for Neural Rehabilitation - NEUROMOD 2015”, to be held on November 16-17, at the Neurotechnix 2015 conference, in Lisbon. NEUROMOD website: http://www.neurotechnix.org/neuromod.aspx IMPORTANT DATES: Paper Submission: September 10, 2015 Authors Notification: September 25, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: October 6, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DESCRIPTION Neuromodulation is a rapidly-growing field, encompassing the application of targeted electrical/chemical/biological stimuli to the nervous system in order to improve function and quality of life. At present, an increasing number of implantable and non-invasive techniques are being proposed and made available to the clinicians, to stimulate CNS plasticity and foster recovery from motor, neurological and psychiatric disorders. Advancing in the field of neuromodulation represents challenges to build accurate neurophysiological models, understanding mechanisms of neuromodulation at cellular and systems levels, defining optimal engineering methodologies, and developing clinical application to treat patients. This session provides an opportunity for researchers/engineers/clinicians to present and discuss novel neurorehabilitation paradigms based on neuromodulation targeted at the spinal and/or supraspinal level. Top quality papers at NEUROMOD will be eligible for inclusion in the post-congress IOP journal of best papers or even for the best-paper award to be presented at the main congress, NEUROTECHNIX. This special session/symposium is part of the International Congress on Neurotechnology, Electronics and Informatics (NEUROTECHNIX - http://www.neurotechnix.org/) which is sponsored by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information and Control and Communication (INSTICC) and held in Cooperation with the Associacao Portuguesa de EEG e Neurofisiologia ClÌnica (APEEGNC), Neurotech Network, International Neural Network Society (INNS), Nansen Neuroscience Network, World Federation for NeuroRehabilitation (WFNR), Sociedade Portuguesa de Neurologia (SPN), International Neuromodulation Society (INS), International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology (IFCN) and International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). All accepted Extended Abstracts will be published in the Book of Abstracts of the congress and on CD-ROM support, without ISBN. All accepted Complete Papers (full and short) will be published in the Congress Proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. All papers presented at the congress venue will also be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library. SCITEPRESS is a member of CrossRef and every paper is given a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). The Congress Proceedings will be submitted to appropriate indexes for indexation. A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers may be published by IOP Publishing on Journal of Neural Engineering. With this workshop we would like to bring together different researchers already active in the development of new neuromodulation techniques and protocols, with the goal of identifying the optimal developments and assessment strategies to be targeted in future studies and applications. Please check further details at the Special Session website available at: http://www.neurotechnix.org/neuromod.aspx Should you have any question or suggestions please don't hesitate to contact us. CO-CHAIRS: Stefano Piazza, Neural Rehabilitation Group, CSIC, Spain Jaime Ibanez, Neural Rehabilitation Group, CSIC, Spain Julian Taylor, HNP Toledo, Spain and Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research, United Kingdom

Aug. 2, 2015

[publication and call for dialog] IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development, Spring 2015

by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer

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

July 31, 2015

Call for participation: SASO'15, 21-25 September, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

by F. Armetta

(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

July 29, 2015

Four faculty positions in statistics and stochastics

by Robert Rosenbaum

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

July 27, 2015

IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (CIM) Special Issue: “Model Complexity, Regularization and Sparsity”

by Giacomo Boracchi

*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/

July 26, 2015

Special Issue on Applications of Operations Research in Neuroscience -- Deadline Extension to October 1.

by Ruben Tikidji-Hamburyan

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

July 24, 2015

Summerschool on Neurocomputational Models of Speech Processing in Aachen, Germany

by Kröger, Bernd Joachim

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

July 24, 2015

Postdoc and graduate student positions in computational neuroscience and machine learning

by Jakob Macke

July 24, 2015

[Last CFP] Extended paper submission deadline to August 16 2015

by Teng Teck Hou

(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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------

July 24, 2015

CARLsim 3.0.2 released

by Michael Beyeler

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

July 23, 2015

PhD position announcement in computational neuroscience

by Mike X Cohen

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

July 22, 2015

Bernstein Conference: Early registration ends on July 24, 2015

by Seeger, Simone

BERNSTEIN CONFERENCE 2015 in Heidelberg Early registration ends on July 24, 2015! Please register here<https://mi3.lambdalogic.de/forms/Bernstein2015.do>. *************************************************************************** Satellite Workshops<http://www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-conference/2015/satellite-workshops> September 14, 2015 Main Conference<http://www.nncn.de/en/bernstein-conference/2015/program> September 15-17, 2015 *************************************************************************** The Bernstein Conference has become the largest annual Computational Neuroscience Conference in Europe and now regularly attracts more than 500 international participants. This year, the Conference is organized by the Bernstein Center Heidelberg-Mannheim and will take place in Heidelberg on September 15-17, 2015. In addition, there will be a series of pre-conference satellite workshops on September 14, 2015. The Bernstein Conference is a single-track conference, covering all aspects of Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, and sessions for poster presentations are an integral part of the conference. The Bernstein conference will also feature a series of satellite workshops on September 14, 2015. The goal is to provide an informal forum for the discussion of timely research questions and challenges. For more information on the conference, please visit: http://www.bernstein-conference.de<https://mail.zi-mannheim.de/OWA/redir.aspx?C=mYOXLQcyKEWWGs2ITdwALYoLj0aoVt…> CONFERENCE DATE AND VENUE: Satellite Workshops September 14, 2015 Main Conference September 15-17, 2015 Venue: Neue Universität, Grabengasse 3-5, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany PHD STUDENT EVENT: September 17-18, 2015 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Peter Bastian Andreas Draguhn Daniel Durstewitz Martin Gerchen Joachim Hass Elke Jochum Peter Kirsch Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg Christoph Schuster Simone Seeger We look forward to seeing you in Heidelberg in September! *** Simone Seeger, M.A. Administration Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit Postfach 12 21 20, 68072 Mannheim J5, 68159 Mannheim Telefon: 0621/1703-1326 oder 06221/54-8310 Fax: 0621/1703-2915 E-Mail: Simone.Seeger(a)zi-mannheim.de<mailto:Simone.Seeger@zi-mannheim.de> Internet: http://www.bccn-heidelberg-mannheim.de<http://www.bccn-heidelberg-mannheim.de/>

July 22, 2015

CFP: ICDM Workshop HealthMining 2015 and HISS Special Issue (Deadline extended: Aug 3, 2015)

by william

[Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email] CALL FOR PAPERS (Submission Deadline Extended: >>>Aug 3<<<, 2015) HEALTHMINING 2015 - The ICDM Workshop on Data Mining and Decision Analytics on Public Health and Wellness (URL: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/~healthmining2015/) In conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM 2015) >>> SPECIAL ISSUE <<< Selected papers of the workshop will be invited for revision to be included in a special issue to be published in Health Information Science and Systems (URL: http://www.hissjournal.com/) AIMS and SCOPE For many years, data mining and decision analytics techniques have already been extensively applied to various domains, such as smart environments, social networks, marketing, and web technology. The focus of this workshop is mainly on the issues and challenges of data mining techniques with the purpose of improving human well-being and quality of life. It is expected that the workshop may increase the diversity of application areas that can benefit from data mining. At the same time, it is also desirable that the discussion and vision of this workshop would also offer further insights into, as well as new tools for, the issues of data collection, processing, system modeling, simulation and optimization arising from various public health topics. The objective of this workshop is to serve as a venue for researchers to discuss how data mining and analytics methods can contribute to improving public health quality in clinical, medical/biomedical, and healthcare systems in smart ways, including evidence-based medicine, personalized treatment and healthcare, assistive technology and active surveillance and control of diseases. In addition to mining statistical regularities, associations, or causalities from large-scale health-related datasets, it would be more desirable to further investigate how the results can effectively and efficiently support decision-making, system modeling, optimization, and simulation in various healthcare systems. TOPICS OF INTEREST - Large-scale data acquisition and management issues for public health - Social and other network-based analysis for public health - Medical big data mining and innovative applications - Mining risk patterns in medical data - Mental and physical health data integration - Biomarker discovery and biomedical data mining - Clinical data mining for practice knowledge building - Data mining from clinical decision-making, and practitioner reflection - Data mining from genetic data of diseases - Data mining for disease profiling and personalized treatment - Data mining for (active) syndromic surveillance - Data mining for infectious/chronic disease epidemiology and control - Data mining for exploring hidden patterns in clinical systems - Data mining for medical/biomedical, and healthcare systems - Data mining for assistive environments - Data modeling and information management forpervasive assistive environments - Data mining and knowledge modeling for wellness - Spatiotemporal data exploration and mining of diseases - Unstructured data mining in medicine and healthcare - Semantic data mining in medicine and healthcare - Scalable data integration in medicine and healthcare - Evidence-based decision-support systems - Healthcare knowledge abstraction, classification, and summarization - Healthcare knowledge computerization, execution, inference, and representation IMPORTANT DATES - Paper Submission Due: >>>Aug 3<<<, 2015 - Paper Notification Date: Sep 1, 2015 - Workshop Date: Nov 13, 2015 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE - William K. Cheung, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong - Jiming Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong - Parisa Rashidi, University of Florida, USA - Fei Wang, University of Connecticut, USA Department of Computer Science: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk HKBU Faculty of Science: http://www.sci.hkbu.edu.hk Disclaimer: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/disclaimer

July 21, 2015

NEURAL COMPUTATION - August 1, 2015

by Terry Sejnowski

Neural Computation - Volume 27, Number 8 - August 1, 2015 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/27/8 ----- Article A Statistical Framework to Infer Delay and Direction of Information Flow From Measurements of Complex Systems Johannes Schumacher, Thomas Wunderle, Pascal Fries, Frank Jakel, and Gordon Pipa *FREE* Letters An Empirical Model for Reliable Spiking Activity Wanjie Wang, Shreejoy J Tripathy, Krishnan Padmanabhan, Nathaniel N. Urban, and Robert E. Kass Inheritance of Hippocampal Place Fields Through Hebbian Learning: Effects of Theta Modulation and Phase Precession on Structure Formation Tiziano D'Albis, Jorge Jaramillo, Henning Sprekeler, and Richard Kempter Competitive STDP Learning of Overlapping Spatial Patterns Dalius Krunglevicius A Reward-Maximizing Spiking Neuron as a Bounded Rational Decision-Maker Felix Leibfried, Daniel A. Braun Optimality of Upper-Arm Reaching Trajectories Based on the Expected Value of the Metabolic Energy Cost Yoshiaki Taniai, Jun Nishii Active Learning Using Hint Information Chun-Liang Li, Chun-Sung Ferng, and Hsuan-Tien Lin Subsampled Hessian Newton Methods for Supervised Learning Chien-Chih Wang, Chun-Heng Huang, and Chih-Jen Lin Minimal Sign Representation of Boolean Functions: Algorithms and Exact Results for Low Dimensions Can Eren Sezener, Erhan Oztop ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2015 - VOLUME 27 - 12 ISSUES Student/Retired $75 Individual $134 Institution $1,075 MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209 Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-cs(a)mit.edu ------------

July 20, 2015

Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience - recent articles

by Stephen Coombes

Dear all, The Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience publishes research articles on the mathematical modeling and analysis of all areas of neuroscience. The current list of journal articles is available at http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/ : Conditions for Multi-functionality in a Rhythm Generating Network Inspired by Turtle Scratching Snyder AC and Rubin JE http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/content/5/1/15 The Minimal k-Core Problem for Modeling k-Assemblies Wood CI and Hicks IV http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/content/5/1/14 Stochastic Synchronization in Purkinje Cells with Feedforward Inhibition Could Be Studied with Equivalent Phase-Response Curves Verduzco-Flores S http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/content/5/1/13 Orientation Maps in V1 and Non-Euclidean Geometry Afgoustidis A http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/content/5/1/12 On the Effects on Cortical Spontaneous Activity of the Symmetries of the Network of Pinwheels in Visual Area V1 Veltz R, Chossat P and Faugeras O http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/content/5/1/11 and see also the recent Special Issue on Stochastic Network Models in Neuroscience http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/series/SNMN<http://www.mathematical-neuroscience.com/series/UB> All articles are Open Access. Best regards, Steve ------------------------------------------------------- Stephen Coombes Professor of Applied Mathematics School of Mathematical Sciences Nottingham, UK Tel: 0115 846 7836 http://www.maths.nott.ac.uk/~sc/ ------------------------------------------------------- This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.

July 20, 2015

WORKHOP Nonlinear Dynamics in Computational Neuroscience, Turin 7-9 sept 2015

by Alessandro Torcini

Deadline 30th August: Nonlinear Dynamics in Computational Neuroscience: from Physics and Biology to ICT to be held on September 07-09, 2015 in Turin, Italy Organizers: Fernando Corinto (Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy) and Alessandro Torcini (ISC-CNR, Florence, Italy) More information on the workshop can be found in the web page: http://www.neuro-eng-comp.polito.it/workshop/ Confirmed invited speakers include Cristina Becchio (University of Turin, Italy) Ruben Moreno Bote (CIBERSAM - Barcelona, Spain) George Bourianov (Intel/University of Texas at Austin, USA) Emilio Carbone (University of Turin, Italy) Stephen Coombes (University of Nottingham, UK) Steve Furber (The University of Manchester, UK) Julius Georgiou (University of Cyprus, Cyprus) Viktor Jirsa (INSERM - Marseille, France) Luke P. Lee (UC Berkeley, USA) Stefano Luccioli (ISC CNR - Florence, Italy) Maurizio Mattia (ISS - Roma, Italy) Benedetto Sacchetti (University of Turin, Italy) Maria Sanchez-Vives (IDIBAPS - Barcelona, Spain) Ronald Tetzlaff (TU Dresden, Germany) The poster can be downloaded from here http://goo.gl/CDY0Eg The workshop is kindly supported by the: SICC - Italian Society for Chaos and Complexity, IEEE CASS Outreach 2015 Initiative, CRT Foundation, Marie Curie Initial Training project NETT - Neural Engineering Transformative Technologies, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Italy)

July 19, 2015

Postdoctoral Position in Computational Neuroscience at IUPUI

by Yaroslav Molkov

A postdoctoral/research associate position in computational neuroscience for the duration of up to two years is available in the externally funded project focusing on multiscale computational modeling of motor control mechanisms, involving interactions between basal ganglia, thalamus, cerebellum, cortex, and spinal cord in connection with realistic simulation of pathological changes in motor control during Huntington’s disease. This collaborative project is performed jointly by the groups of Drs. Ilya Rybak (Dept. of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA) and Yaroslav Molkov (Dept. of Mathematical Science, Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, USA). Applicants must have a PhD degree in Neuroscience, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or a related discipline, a *strong research record*, and excellent C++ programming skills. Previous experience in computational neuronal modeling is a plus. Interested candidates are encouraged to contact Dr. Molkov ( ymolkov(a)iupui.edu) by email. To apply, please send an email along with (1) curriculum vitae; (2) a cover letter describing previous research experience and interests; (3) the names and contact information of three references. I will be available to answer questions and discuss this job opportunity with potential candidates at the CNS’2015 meeting in Prague, Czech Republic (July 18-23). Please email me to arrange a meeting. ================================= Yaroslav Molkov, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis Department of Mathematical Sciences 402 N. Blackford St, LD 270, Indianapolis, IN 46202 Office: LD 224U Phone: (317) 274-6934 Fax: (317) 274-3460 Email: ymolkov(a)iupui.edu

July 16, 2015

Postdoc in Computational Visual Neuroscience (Alicante-Valencia, SPAIN)

by Jesus Malo Lopez

The Neuroscience Institute of Alicante (CSIC) and the Universitat de Valencia are involved on a multiyear project to study neural computation and coding in visual cortex. We have an opening for a 3 year postdoc position to model information processing in the retina-cortex pathway. Job title: "The human camera: compressive sensing in brain networks and decoding from neural responses" (see additional information about the project at http://isp.uv.es/bmi.html ) Applications are invited for the above position to work with Dr. Luis Martinez (Neuroscience Institute of Alicante, CSIC, http://thevisualanalogylab.wix.com/valab) and Dr. Jesús Malo (Image & Signal Processing Lab, Universitat de Valencia, http://isp.uv.es ). The aim of this work is understanding dimensionality reduction in the retina-cortex bottleneck and enabling image reconstruction from actual neural recordings at cortical level. The "Human Camera" could be seen as a new Brain Machine Interface for image transmission in which the nontrivial/adaptive feature extraction stage is done by a brain instead of by the conventional compression algorithm. The input signal should be reconstructed from the neural signal at the receiver. Candidates must be in possession of a doctoral degree in computational neuroscience, machine learning, physics, mathematics or engineering. Preference will be given to candidates with experience and genuine interest in vision science phenomena and models. Work will be developed both at the Neuroscience Institute of Alicante and at the Universitat de València, with strong collaboration between the experimental and theoretical members of the team. Salary: according to CSIC Postdoc scales including social security, health insurance benefits, and travel money. Contact: Please email jesus.malo(a)uv.es or luis.m.martinez.otero(a)gmail.com for any queries about the position.

July 16, 2015

Special Issue on Emerging Spatial Competences: From Machine Perception to Sensorimotor Intelligence

by Agostino Gibaldi

APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING. Dear Researcher, we are very glad to inform you that the Special Issue “Emerging Spatial Competences: From Machine Perception to Sensorimotor Intelligence” (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09218890) has been published on the Robotics and Autonomous System Journal (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/robotics-and-autonomous-systems) The aim of this special issue is to survey a state of the art of methodologies, concepts, algorithms and techniques that would serve as bricks on which to build and develop artificial agents with such a spatial competence; perceptual and cognitive understanding of space should emerge from sensorimotor exercise. The Special Issue includes 13 papers (acceptance rate 40%) plus the editorial: Emerging spatial competences: From machine perception to sensorimotor intelligence Agostino Gibaldi, Silvio P. Sabatini, Sylvain Argentieri, Zhengping Ji Self-calibrating smooth pursuit through active efficient coding C. Teulière, S. Forestier, L. Lonini, C. Zhang, Y. Zhao, B. Shi, J. Triesch Learning the visual–oculomotor transformation: Effects on saccade control and space representation Marco Antonelli, Angel J. Duran, Eris Chinellato, Angel P. del Pobil Autonomous learning of disparity–vergence behavior through distributed coding and population reward: Basic mechanisms and real-world conditioning on a robot stereo head Agostino Gibaldi, Andrea Canessa, Fabio Solari, Silvio P. Sabatini A developmental where–what network for concurrent and interactive visual attention and recognition Zhengping Ji, Juyang Weng Learning agent’s spatial configuration from sensorimotor invariants Alban Laflaquière, J. Kevin O’Regan, Sylvain Argentieri, Bruno Gas, Alexander V. Terekhov Trainable sensorimotor mapping in a neuromorphic robot Jörg Conradt, Francesco Galluppi, Terrence C. Stewart Cortically inspired sensor fusion network for mobile robot egomotion estimation Cristian Axenie, Jörg Conradt Deep unsupervised network for multimodal perception, representation and classification Alain Droniou, Serena Ivaldi, Olivier Sigaud Support relation analysis and decision making for safe robotic manipulation tasks Rasoul Mojtahedzadeh, Abdelbaki Bouguerra, Erik Schaffernicht, Achim J. Lilienthal Model-free incremental learning of the semantics of manipulation actions Eren Erdal Aksoy, Minija Tamosiunaite, Florentin Wörgötter Human motion based intent recognition using a deep dynamic neural model Zhibin Yu, Minho Lee Hybrid learning model and MMSVM classification for on-line visual imitation of a human with 3-D motions Chih-Lyang Hwang, Bo-Lin Chen, Hsing-Hao Huang, Huei-Ting Syu Interfacing robotic tactile sensation with human vibrotactile perception for digit recognition Anwesha Khasnobish, Shreyasi Datta, Dwaipayan Sardar, D.N. Tibarewala, Amit Konar Cordially, the Guest Editors: Agostino Gibaldi and Silvio P. Sabatini Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering PSPC Lab (www.pspc.unige.it) University of Genoa, Italy Sylvain Argentieri Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR), Sorbonne Universités, UPMC University, Paris 06, France Zhengping Ji Advanced Image Research Laboratory (AIRL), Samsung, Pasadena, CA, USA

July 15, 2015

Software for Non-parametric directionality analysis

by David Halliday

[Apologies for cross posting] MATLAB software to implement non-parametric directionality analysis for spike-train and time-series data is available for free download from the NeuroSpec archive. A user guide and demonstration scripts are included. http://www.neurospec.org/ An accompanying journal article is published in the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience: "Nonparametric directionality measures for time series and point process data", J. Integr. Neurosci., 14, 253-277 (2015). DOI: 10.1142/S0219635215300127 http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0219635215300127 Abstract The need to determine the directionality of interactions between neural signals is a key requirement for analysis of multichannel recordings. Approaches most commonly used are parametric, typically relying on autoregressive models. A number of concerns have been expressed regarding parametric approaches, thus there is a need to consider alternatives. We present an alternative nonparametric approach for construction of directionality measures for bivariate random processes. The method combines time and frequency domain representations of bivariate data to decompose the correlation by direction. Our framework generates two sets of complementary measures, a set of scalar measures, which decompose the total product moment correlation coefficient summatively into three terms by direction and a set of functions which decompose the coherence summatively at each frequency into three terms by direction: forward direction, reverse direction and instantaneous interaction. It can be undertaken as an addition to a standard bivariate spectral and coherence analysis, and applied to either time series or point-process (spike train) data or mixtures of the two (hybrid data). In this paper, we demonstrate application to spike train data using simulated cortical neurone networks and application to experimental data from isolated muscle spindle sensory endings subject to random efferent stimulation. - David Halliday Department of Electronics University of York YORK YO10 5DD, UK. E-Mail: david.halliday(a)york.ac.uk

July 14, 2015

Tutorial on Interfaces in Computational Neuroscience Software

by Jochen Martin Eppler

[Sorry if you receive this mail through multiple channels] This is to inform you about the CNS2015 tutorial entitled "Interfaces in Computational Neuroscience Software". In the tutorial, Jochen M. Eppler (Research Centre Jülich, Germany), Mikael Djurfeldt (INCF and KTH PDC, Sweden) and Janne Moren (OIST and RIKEN AICS, Japan) will present the combined use of the tools NEST, CSA and MUSIC. Introductory talks will explain the concepts behind the tools and libraries, while hands-on sessions will allow the participants to gather some experience with them. The software for the hands-on sessions will be provided in the form of a virtual machine image readily usable on top of your laptop. More information on the tutorial can be found on the homepage of the meeting at http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2015-tutorials#t6 Looking forward to seeing you in Prague! Best regards, Jochen Eppler -- Dr. Jochen Martin Eppler Phone: +49 2461 61-9471 ---------------------------------- Simulation Laboratory Neuroscience Jülich Supercomputing Centre Institute for Advanced Simulation ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 14, 2015

Job posting: 5 PhD Positions in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction'

by Lorenz, C.M.

Job posting: 5 PhD Positions in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' We are looking for highly motivated PhD candidates to enrich a unique consortium of researchers that aims to unravel the neurocognitive mechanisms of language at multiple levels. The goal is to understand both the universality and the variability of the human language faculty from genes to behaviour. The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. This research consortium sponsored by a large grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific research (NWO) brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language. The research team consists of 43 Principal Investigators. In addition to the excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition, our consortium provides state-of-the-art research facilities and a research team with ample experience in the complex research methods that will be invoked to address the scientific questions at the highest level of methodological sophistication. These include methods from genetics, neuroimaging, computational modelling, and patient-related research. This consortium realizes both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else. Currently, the consortium advertises five PhD positions for a period of 4 years. These positions provide the opportunity for conducting world-class research as a member of an interdisciplinary team. Maximum salary: €2,717 gross/month Closing date for application: 04 October 2015, 23:59 CET For more information on the PhD positions and how to apply: https://www.languageininteraction.nl/ThirdCallGeneral.html <https://www.languageininteraction.nl/ThirdCallGeneral.html>

July 14, 2015

CFP: The First International Workshop on Computational Models of the Visual Cortex (CMVC) as part of the BICT, New York, 3-5 Dec 2015

by George Azzopardi

Dear All, We are pleased to announce The First International Workshop on Computational Models of the Visual Cortex (CMVC) as part of the BICT (Bio-inspired Information and Communication Technologies) conference, which will be held in New York City, New York, 3-5 December (http://bionetics.org/2015/show/home) Background Much has been advanced since the early works of the Nobel prize winners Hubel and Wiesel about the function of neurons in the primary visual cortex of cats’ brains. That work has been the source of inspiration of abundant neurophysiological studies to unveil the functionality of neurons in different areas of visual cortex. These experiments resulted in large amounts of data, which could then be used to design computational models to behave similarly to certain neurons in visual cortex. The contribution of such models is two-fold. They contribute to the better understanding of how visual information is processed in the brain, and they also contribute for the development of more robust algorithms in computer vision applications. The aim of this workshop is to bring together recent development of computational modelling of the visual cortex of the brain: Single cell modeling. Hierarchy of visual cortex areas Feedforward, feedback and inhibitory mechanisms. The appearance of neuronal properties: sparsity and selectivity. Circuitry: hierarchical representations and connections between layers. Selecting where to look: saliency and attention. Object recognition Contour detection Stereo Learning Important Dates Full papers due: July 31, 2015 Authors Notified: August 31, 2015 Camera-ready due: September 30, 2015 Paper submission We invite you to submit regular papers (up to 8 pages each), short papers (up to 4 pages each) or poster/demo papers (up to 2 pages each) in ACM's paper template. Up to two extra pages are allowed for each paper with extra page charges. See http://bionetics.org/2015/show/initial-submission for more details. Only PDF format is acceptable. Papers must be submitted to EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cmvc2015 For more information about the CMVC workshop please visit: http://cmvc.bionetics.org/2015/show/home Sincerely yours, Antonio Rodriguez-Sanchez, PhD George Azzopardi, PhD Co-chairs of CMVC’2015

July 14, 2015

NEURON course and NSG Workshop at SFN 2015 meeting

by Ted Carnevale

Two events of particular interest to computational neuroscientists will be presented as satellite sessions to the 2015 SFN meeting in Chicago. Using NEURON to Model Cells and Networks Friday, Oct. 16 from 9 AM to 5 PM at a site in downtown Chicago This course provides a practical introduction to building and using models of neurons and networks with NEURON. Covered topics include basic concepts, workflow for building and using models, speeding up simulations with parallel hardware from multicore personal computers to massively parallel supercomputers, using Python with NEURON, and modeling reactive diffusion with the RxD class. Using the Neuroscience Gateway Portal for Parallel Simulation Saturday, Oct. 17 from 9 AM to noon at a site in downtown Chicago This workshop combines didactic presentations with hands on instruction on how to use the Neuroscience Gateway Portal (NSG) for parallel simulations. NSG eliminates most adminstrative and technical barriers to using high performance computing resources--it even gives away free CPU time. Simulators that are currently installed on NSG include NEST, PyNN, Brian, GENESIS3, NEURON, and MOOSE. Also available is FreeSurfer, a set of tools for analysis and visualization of structural and functional brain imaging data. Friday, Oct. 2, is the registration deadline for both of these events, but you should sign up early because space is limited. See https://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/courses for more information and links to registration forms. --Ted

July 13, 2015

Workshop at CNS2015 on Dopamine neurons and the circuits they participate in

by Canavier, Carmen C.

Title: Computational Models of Midbrain Dopamine Neurons and Dopaminergic Signaling Organizer: Carmen Canavier ccanav(a)lsuhsc.edu<mailto:ccanav@lsuhsc.edu> July 23, Prague, Room RB209 (subject to change) Description: This workshop features recent experimental and modeling work on SNc and VTA dopamine neurons in the context of addiction, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. Time Speaker Title 9-9:30 Alexey Kuznetsov A model for VTA circuitry: toolbox for the study of addictions 9:30-10 Eleftheria Pissadaki From the axons of the SNc dopamine neurons to their dendritic processes: further clues to susceptibility in Parkinson's disease 10-10:30 COFFEE BREAK 10:30-11 Rebekah Evans T type calcium channels trigger a hyperpolarization induced after depolarization (HI-ADP) in SNc dopamine neurons 11-11:30 Andy Oster VTA Dopamine Neuron Dynamics: response to ramping applied currents 11:30-12:00 Carmen Canavier Dynamic Diversity of Dopamine Neurons 12:00-1:30 LUNCH BREAK 1:30-2 Guillaume Drion Potential functional implications of a hidden variability in SNc DA neuron excitability 2-2:30 Jinyoung Jang Spontaneous firing system in the midbrain dopamine neu- ron 2:30-3 Boris Gutkin VTA circuit models and nicotine/alcohol effects on DA dynamics 3-3:30 DISCUSSION AND CLOSING REMARKS

July 13, 2015

Workshop at CNS2015: Open Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience

by Padraig Gleeson

[Apology for cross-postings] Announcing a workshop at the CNS2015 meeting in Prague, Thursday July 23: Open Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience http://opensourcebrain.org/docs/Help/Meetings#CNS_2015 Building and analysing biophysically and anatomically detailed neuronal networks is a complex and time consuming task, which ideally involves researchers with a range of backgrounds and technical skills. However, most labs cannot expect to have all of these researchers present at any given time. This can lead to stalled projects, lost data and software and needless repetition of experimental and computational work. A number of initiatives have been started which address these issues. Some are creating public resources with freely available data to constrain such models. Others are using best practices from open source software development to encourage building and sharing of models in a collaborative environment. This workshop will serve as an informative introduction to these projects as well as a discussion forum for getting feedback and gathering requirements from the community for the developers of these initiatives. There are still a number of slots available for *5-10 minute lightning talks*, so if you are involved in a project in this area and wish to publicise it, please get in contact. *Confirmed speakers:* Jan Antolik (CNRS) Collaboration in neuronal modelling: model sharing, workflows and provenance Nicholas Cain (Allen Brain Institute) Resources for Open Collaboration at the Allen Brain Institute <http://www.brain-map.org/> Padraig Gleeson (University College London) NeuroML <https://neuroml.org/> & the Open Source Brain Initiative <http://opensourcebrain.org/> Adrian Quintana (University College London) Geppetto <http://www.geppetto.org/>: online visualisation & simulation for neuronal models Michael Sonntag (LMU München) The NIX Project: Comprehensive Storage of Neuroscience Data and Metadata <https://github.com/G-Node/nix> Matteo Cantarelli (MetaCell Ltd) OpenWorm <http://www.openworm.org/> Aurel A. Lazar (Columbia University) Neurokernel <http://neurokernel.github.io/>: An Open Source Platform for Emulating the Fruit Fly Brain Bill Lytton (SUNY Downstate Medical Center) ModelDB <http://senselab.med.yale.edu/ModelDB/> Eilif Muller (EPFL) Human Brain Project <https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/> resources for the integrative modelling community Shreejoy Tripathy (University of British Columbia) Open electrophysiology data and Neuroelectro.org <http://neuroelectro.org/> ----------------------------------------------------- Padraig Gleeson Room 321, Anatomy Building Department of Neuroscience, Physiology& Pharmacology University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT United Kingdom +44 207 679 3214 p.gleeson(a)ucl.ac.uk -----------------------------------------------------

July 13, 2015

postdoc in computational neuroscience

by Máté Lengyel

Postdoctoral Fellow in Computational Neuroscience University of Cambridge We are seeking a highly creative and motivated postdoctoral fellow (research associate or senior research associate) to work in the group of Máté Lengyel (http://learning.eng.cam.ac.uk/Public/Lengyel/) at the Computational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge to work on circuit- and systems-level of memory, in particular the interaction between recollective and familiarity-based forms of recognition memory. The project involves collaboration with Peter Dayan (Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL), and also Richard Henson (MRC Cognition and Brain Unit, Cambridge) providing direct access to relevant behavioural and imaging data. More broadly, the group studies learning and memory from computational, algorithmic/representational and neurobiological viewpoints. Computationally and algorithmically, we use ideas from Bayesian approaches to statistical inference and reinforcement learning to characterize the goals and mechanisms of learning in terms of normative principles and behavioral results. We also perform dynamical systems analyses of reduced biophysical models to understand the mapping of these mechanisms into cellular and network models. We collaborate very closely with experimental neuroscience groups, doing in vitro intracellular recordings, multi-unit recordings in behaving animals, human psychophysical, and fMRI experiments. The successful candidate will have a strong analytical background and demonstrable interest in theoretical neuroscience. They should have or be close to completion of a PhD or equivalent in computational neuroscience, physics, mathematics, computer science, machine learning or a related field. Previous experience in computational neuroscience is not required, but preference will be given to candidates with sufficient programming skills to run numerical simulations, or expertise with neural network models, analysis of dynamical systems, and Bayesian techniques. The position is funded for several years, with an initial one-year appointment and an expectation of extension to at least two years given satisfactory performance. Salary depends on experience and is in the range £28,695 - £48,743 p.a. Further information: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/7261/ http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/7176/ For informal queries, please contact Mate Lengyel <m.lengyel(a)eng.cam.ac.uk>. Mate Lengyel -- Mate Lengyel, PhD Computational and Biological Learning Lab Cambridge University Engineering Department Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK tel: +44 (0)1223 748 532, fax: +44 (0)1223 765 587 email: m.lengyel(a)eng.cam.ac.uk web: www.eng.cam.ac.uk/~m.lengyel

July 13, 2015

Re: [Comp-neuro] Postdoc position in Large-scale Neuronal Ensemble Recordings in Sensori-motor Cortices in Behaving Marmosets

by Nicholas Hatsopoulos

Postdoctoral Position in Large-scale Neuronal Ensemble Recordings in Sensori-motor Cortices in Behaving Marmosets A postdoctoral position is available starting in the fall of 2015 to characterize the spatio-temporal organization of sensori-motor cortical activity at multiple spatial scales associated with upper limb movements of behaving marmosets. This project involves high density multi-electrode array recordings as well as calcium fluorescence imaging from motor and somatosensory cortical sites in marmosets performing natural arm and hand movements. Facilities include a fully equipped electrophysiological laboratory with three 128-channel acquisition systems for multi-electrode recording and stimulation, calcium fluorescence imaging microscopes, and a camera-based, motion capture system. Expertise in multi-site, behavioral electrophysiology and/or calcium imaging is preferred. A strong mathematical, computational, or engineering background is also desirable. Applicants should send a CV and names and addresses of two or three references to Dr. Nicholas Hatsopoulos, Department of Organismal Biology, University of Chicago, 1027 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 or by e-mail to nicho(a)uchicago.edu<mailto:nicho@uchicago.edu>. Nicholas Hatsopoulos Professor Chair, Committee on Computational Neuroscience University of Chicago Culver Hall, Room 206 1027 East 57th street Chicago, IL 60637 773-702-5594 ________________________________

July 11, 2015

ICDL-EpiRob 2015 - registration open

by Benjamin Rosman

======================================================== REGISTRATION NOW OPEN IEEE ICDL-EPIROB 2015 The Fifth Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA August 13-16, 2015 http://www.icdl-epirob.org/ Registration is now open at: http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/SoCCE/CRNS/icdl-epirob//2015/registration.html In addition to the main conference, we will have both a preconference workshop and tutorial: Morning: "Introduction to Brains as Emergent Turing Machines" (Juyang Weng) Afternoon: "Mechanisms of learning in social contexts" (Michael Goldstein, Chen Yu) == Conference description The past decade has seen the emergence of a new scientific field that studies how intelligent biological and artificial systems develop sensorimotor, cognitive, emotional and social abilities, over extended periods of time, through dynamic interactions with their physical and social environments. This field lies at the intersection of a number of scientific and engineering disciplines including Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology, Developmental Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computational Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics. Various terms have been associated with this new field such as Autonomous Mental Development, Epigenetic Robotics, Developmental Robotics, etc., and several scientific meetings have been established. The two most prominent conference series of this field, the International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) and the International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics (EpiRob), are now joining forces for the fifth time and invite submissions for a joint conference in 2015, to explore and extend the interdisciplinary boundaries of this field. == BABYBOT CHALLENGE We are excited to announce a new ICDL-EpiRob conference feature: the BABYBOT CHALLENGE. The goal of the challenge is to use the tools of developmental robotics to replicate and extend the key findings from one of three selected human-infant studies. These will be presented during a special session. == Keynote speakers Prof. Dare Baldwin, Dept. of Psychology, University of Oregon, USA Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, UK Prof. Asif Ghazanfar, Dept. of Psychology, Princeton University, USA == Program committee General Chairs: Matthew Schlesinger (Southern Illinois Univ.) Dima Amso (Brown University) Bridge Chairs: Jeffrey Krichmar (UC Irvine) Bertram Malle (Brown University) Program Chairs: Anne Warlaumont (UC Merced) Clemént Moulin-Frier (INRIA) Publications Chairs: Lisa Meeden (Swarthmore College) Publicity Chairs: Lola Cañamero (Univ. of Hertfordshire) Matthias Rolf (Osaka University) Benjamin Rosman (CSIR) Local chairs: David Sobel (Brown University) Thomas Serre (Brown University) Finance chairs: Clayton Morrison (University of Arizona) -- This message is subject to the CSIR's copyright terms and conditions, e-mail legal notice, and implemented Open Document Format (ODF) standard. The full disclaimer details can be found at http://www.csir.co.za/disclaimer.html. This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. Please consider the environment before printing this email.

July 10, 2015

Postdoctoral Position in Cybersecurity, Fordham CIS

by Henry Han

*Postdoctoral Position in Cybersecurity, Fordham CIS* *We invite applications for a postdoctoral researcher position in Cybersecurity in the Department of Computer and Information Science.*This position requires a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a closely related area with a specialization in cybersecurity. Those with expertise in network security, software security, cyber-physical systems, computer forensics, wireless security, biometrics-based security, e-Systems Security, and related areas of cybersecurity are encouraged to apply. This postdoctoral researcher will conduct high-quality research in cybersecurity and teach courses for MS program in Cybersecurity. The selected candidate can apply and compete for a tenure track position that will be available next year. *How to apply:* Send a detailed CV, research statement, teaching statement, and a list of info of 3-5 references with e-mail addresses in a single pdf file to xhan9(a)fordham.edu (Dr. Henry Han). Include job-code “POSTDOC-Cybersecurity” in subject line. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. The Department of Computer and Information Science is currently in the process of expanding its undergraduate and graduate programs in order to serve students entering the growing fields of computer science, information science, and interdisciplinary areas. Fordham's administration is committed to increasing the department's local and national distinction in research and science education. Additional new members will join the faculty in the coming years to build upon the faculty's wide range of expertise and to serve new programs. The faculty of the Department of Computer and Information Science represent a wide range of academic backgrounds, research and professional interests. Serving undergraduate majors in computer science, information science, and interdisciplinary programs in Fordham College at Rose Hill (Bronx), Fordham College at Lincoln Center (Manhattan), and the School of Professional and Continuing Education (all 3 campuses), the department also offers an MS program in Computer Science in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and an MS in Cybersecurity in the School of Professional and Continuing Studies. An MS program in Data Analytics is in its final process of development. In the thriving metropolis of New York, these programs are ideally situated for education and productivity in the computer and information sciences and industries. The department has a rich network of professionals and organizations, including loyal alumni, throughout the Metropolitan area, and students benefit from research, internship, and career opportunities afforded by the city's vast resources. Fordham University. With over 14,500 students in its 13 schools, Fordham's Carnegie classification is Research University (High Research Activity). U.S. News & World Report currently ranks Fordham 57th nationally, placing it among the Tier 1 universities. Fordham's New York City campuses in the center of Manhattan and the Bronx avail faculty and students of extraordinary resources for education, research, and service. Fordham offers its students a highly dedicated faculty, a productive research environment, emphasis on ethics and social justice, and respect for all individuals, religions, cultures, and creeds. Fordham University is an independent, Catholic University in the Jesuit tradition that welcomes applications from men and women of all backgrounds. Fordham University is committed to excellence through diversity and welcomes candidates of all backgrounds; it is an equal opportunity employer.

July 8, 2015

CFP: ICDM Workshop HealthMining 2015 and HISS Special Issue (Deadline: July 20, 2015)

by william

[Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email] CALL FOR PAPERS (Submission Deadline: July 20, 2015) HEALTHMINING 2015 - The ICDM Workshop on Data Mining and Decision Analytics on Public Health and Wellness (URL: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/~healthmining2015/) In conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM 2015) AIMS and SCOPE For many years, data mining and decision analytics techniques have already been extensively applied to various domains, such as smart environments, social networks, marketing, and web technology. The focus of this workshop is mainly on the issues and challenges of data mining techniques with the purpose of improving human well-being and quality of life. It is expected that the workshop may increase the diversity of application areas that can benefit from data mining. At the same time, it is also desirable that the discussion and vision of this workshop would also offer further insights into, as well as new tools for, the issues of data collection, processing, system modeling, simulation and optimization arising from various public health topics. The objective of this workshop is to serve as a venue for researchers to discuss how data mining and analytics methods can contribute to improving public health quality in clinical, medical/biomedical, and healthcare systems in smart ways, including evidence-based medicine, personalized treatment and healthcare, assistive technology and active surveillance and control of diseases. In addition to mining statistical regularities, associations, or causalities from large-scale health-related datasets, it would be more desirable to further investigate how the results can effectively and efficiently support decision-making, system modeling, optimization, and simulation in various healthcare systems. TOPICS OF INTEREST - Large-scale data acquisition and management issues for public health - Social and other network-based analysis for public health - Medical big data mining and innovative applications - Mining risk patterns in medical data - Mental and physical health data integration - Biomarker discovery and biomedical data mining - Clinical data mining for practice knowledge building - Data mining from clinical decision-making, and practitioner reflection - Data mining from genetic data of diseases - Data mining for disease profiling and personalized treatment - Data mining for (active) syndromic surveillance - Data mining for infectious/chronic disease epidemiology and control - Data mining for exploring hidden patterns in clinical systems - Data mining for medical/biomedical, and healthcare systems - Data mining for assistive environments - Data modeling and information management forpervasive assistive environments - Data mining and knowledge modeling for wellness - Spatiotemporal data exploration and mining of diseases - Unstructured data mining in medicine and healthcare - Semantic data mining in medicine and healthcare - Scalable data integration in medicine and healthcare - Evidence-based decision-support systems - Healthcare knowledge abstraction, classification, and summarization - Healthcare knowledge computerization, execution, inference, and representation IMPORTANT DATES - Paper Submission Due: Jul 20, 2015 - Paper Notification Date: Sep 1, 2015 - Workshop Date: Nov 13, 2015 >>> SPECIAL ISSUE <<< Selected papers of the workshop will be invited for revision to be included in a special issue to be published in Health Information Science and Systems (URL: http://www.hissjournal.com/) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE - William K. Cheung, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong - Jiming Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong - Parisa Rashidi, University of Florida, USA - Fei Wang, University of Connecticut, USA Department of Computer Science: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk HKBU Faculty of Science: http://www.sci.hkbu.edu.hk Disclaimer: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/disclaimer

July 8, 2015

Spectrum of power laws for curved hand movements

by Terry Sejnowski

Spectrum of power laws for curved hand movements Dongsung Huh and Terrence J. Sejnowski http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/02/1510208112.abstract In curved hand movements around ellipses, the speed tends to scale inversely with the curvature with a power law having an exponent of -1/3. We examined whether this well-known regularity in motor planning holds for more general shapes. Using an optimality principle, we identified a set of basis shapes, each with a single characteristic angular frequency, which subjects drew with power laws whose exponents ranged from 0 to -2/3. More general movements exhibited linear mixtures of power laws. The speed of arbitrary doodling movements with a broad spectrum of frequencies could also be predicted from the curvature with high accuracy. Terry -----

July 8, 2015

New computational challenge on Big Data and neurodegenerative diseases

by Neta Zach

Prize4Life, Sage Bionetworks and DREAM are proud to announce the launch of The DREAM ALS Stratification Prize4Life Challenge <https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2873386/wiki/>. The prize, is a computational challenge inviting bioinformatics, statisticians, computation geeks and math geniuses to work on the PRO-ACT database and identify meaningful subgroups of ALS patients. The challenge offers a $28000 prize and journal partnership with Nature Biotechnology. You can read more about it here <http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Israel-base…> or join our Webinar about it on Wednesday <https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2656120293543998721> July 8 at 11am EST. While most ALS patients die with 3-5 years, but some patients, like Stephen Hawking, survive much longer. What differentiates the Stephen Hawkings from the Lou Gehrigs? Is ALs one disease or several sub-disease? the challenge invite participants to devleop algorithms that can stratify the ALS patient population into meaningful subgroups with distinct features. You can read more about it here <http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Israel-base…> . A previous Challenge, the ALS Prediction Prize <http://www.innocentive.com/prize4life-announces-50000-als-prediction-prize-…> which ran in 2012, using only a small subset of the full database, led to the creation of solutions that are able to reduce by 20% the number of patients needed for effective ALS clinical trials, a millions of dollars reduction in the costs of each future ALS clinical trials and are used by several drug companies. Furthermore, the Challenge’s winning algorithms identified novel features of ALS pathology that are predictive of disease progression. The Challenge summary was published in Nature biotechnology <http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n1/full/nbt.3051.html> and were also covered by Science News <http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/11/crowdsourcing-project-pre…> , Science Translational Medicine <http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/264/264ec204.full> and a News and views piece in Nature biotechnology <http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n1/full/nbt.3118.html>. The ALS Stratification Challenge aims to go beyond the prediction prize and bring us one step closer to personalized medicine- to accurately and effectively identify meaningful subgroups of diverse ALS patients and the predictive models and features specific to these subgroups. Winners will win $28000 and the winning submissions with be published with a journal partnership from Nature Biotechnology. You can read more- and Join!- here <https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2873386/wiki/> Neta Zach, PhD | Chief Scientific Officer

July 7, 2015

PhD positions at LMU Munich

by Stefan Glasauer

Two PhD positions are available at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München for a fixed term of 36 months, starting 1st September 2015. Both positions are linked to the research projects “Dynamic prior and contextual calibration”, which is a part of the newly funded German research group “active perception”. The project aims to uncover the mechanism underlying dynamic contextual calibration in multimodal environments, and to develop a general Bayesian framework describing the prior updating mechanisms in contextual calibration. In particular, we plan to focus on central tendency effects (for a review, see Shi, Church & Meck, 2013, Petzschner & Glasauer, 2015) in multimodal magnitude estimation. The project is expected to establish a general computational framework to examine whether the brain uses multiple modality-specific priors or an amodal prior in contextual calibration, and how the brain resolves inconsistencies among priors, as well as how action priors are taken into consideration in magnitude estimation. Successful candidates should have an excellent M.Sc. degree, or equivalent (or be currently working towards one) in a field of cognitive or computational neuroscience. Computational modeling and programming skills in MATLAB and R are essential. Good verbal and written communication skills in English, interest and some experience in multi-disciplinary research are highly desirable. Successful candidates will be paid according to German salary scale 65% TVL-13. One candidate will work in Department of Psychology, LMU under the supervision of Zhuanghua Shi, and the other candidate in the Center for Sensorimotor Research, LMU under the supervision of Stefan Glasauer. Applicants should send a completed application form along with a cover letter detailing their research experience and interests, a CV and two academic references electronically to either Zhuanghua Shi (shi(a)psy.lmu.de) or Stefan Glasauer (s.glasauer(a)lrz.uni-muenchen.de) The closing date for applications is August 1st, 2015. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview at the beginning of August. We regret that we may not be able to respond to all applications. Applicants who have not received an offer by the end of August 2015 should consider their application has been unsuccessful on this occasion. LMU Munich is an equal opportunity employer. Applications of women and disabled persons – given similar qualification – are preferred. Applicants with children are welcome. Part-time employment is possible in principle. ------------- Dr. Zhuanghua Shi Experimental Psychology, Department Psychologie LMU München Tel: (+49) 89 2180 5213 Fax: (+49) 89 2180 5211 Lab: http://www.psy.lmu.de/exp/mlab/

July 6, 2015

Event-Driven Retina IC Designer Position

by bernabe

Apologies for Cross-Posting --------------------------- The Sevilla Microelectronics Institute (www.imse-cnm.csic.es) from the Spanish Research Council (www.csic.es) is seeking a post-doc (or highly experienced researcher) with strong analog IC design experience, preferably in vision sensors (but not mandatory). The work to be carried out will be in collaboration with French company Chronocam (http://www.chronocam.com) with the goal of developing new generations of Event-Driven Dynamic Vision Sensors. Salary is negotiable depending on experience and qualifications. Contract is for one year, extensible to two. Later on, if progress is satisfactory, the contract could be extended further or the candidate could be incorporated into Chronocam's staff. Interested candidates please contact directly bernabe(a)imse-cnm.csic.es. -- -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bernabe Linares-Barranco, PhD, IEEE Fellow Full Professor (Profesor de Investigacion) CSIC Instituto Microelectronica Sevilla (IMSE) Phone: 34-954-466643/66 National Microelectronics Center, CNM-CSIC Fax: 34-954-466600 Av. Americo Vespucio s/n E-mail: Bernabe.Linares(AT)imse-cnm.csic.es 41092 Sevilla, SPAIN URL: http://www.imse-cnm.csic.es/~bernabe -------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 6, 2015

Post-doc in multimodal neuroimaging in Munich, Germany

by Igor Yakushev

A postdoctoral position is available immediately in the Neuroimaging group (Head: Dr. Igor Yakushev) at the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Technische Universität München (TUM), Munich, Germany. Projects with include the modeling of cerebral networks and disease trajectories on the basis of brain images, as obtained using PET (amyloid, FDG), DTI, and fMRI. The group's clinical focus is neurodegenerative disorders, in particular Alzheimer’s disease. Existing data sets will provide the basis for prompt data analysis and publications. The research group is integrated into the TUM Neuroimaging Center, which possesses a broad methodological and thematic expertise: http://www.tumnic.mri.tum.de/tumnic/index.html The Dept. of Nuclear Medicine offers exciting opportunities for neuroimaging research in an interdisciplinary environment and access to state-of-the-art technology including a hybrid PET/MR scanner. You should hold a PhD or equivalent degree in a relevant discipline (e.g., computer sciences, engineering, physics, mathematics, neuroscience, medicine). Experience in image analysis tools (SPM, FSL, FreeSurfer) is desirable. Solid knowledge of programming (Matlab, Java) and statistics (SPSS, SAS, R) is advantageous. Salary is according to TV-L. The position is limited for two years, with a possibility of extension. Applications will be considered until the position has been filled. Interested researchers should submit their applications including CV, two recommendation letters (or names and contact details of personal references), and a brief letter of motivation to Dr. Yakushev at igor.yakushev(a)lrz.tum.de

July 5, 2015

Autumn school on sensorimotor foundations of social cognition

by Alexander Maye

"The sensorimotor foundations of social cognition" Autumn school Boltenhagen, Baltic Sea, Germany October 11-17, 2015 Description Sensorimotor approaches predict that social cognition does not primarily result from maintaining and running complex models of intentions and beliefs of other agents, but rather from patterns and regularities in the dynamic sensorimotor coupling between them. The school will take stock of concepts and models that follow this emerging view and illuminate them from the perspectives of relevant fields like social psychology, social cognitive neuroscience, robotics and philosophy of mind. Tangible outcomes of the school will be a set of articles on selected aspects of sensorimotor accounts of social cognition which will be authored by the participants and published in Scholarpedia (scholarpedia.org) The school will be the first in a series which is funded and organized by the EU H2020 project "Socializing sensorimotor contingencies - socSMCs" (socSMCs.eu). This year the school is organized by the Dept. of Neurophysiology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (uke.de/neurophysiology). The registration fee is 300Ä and covers participation in the school, accommodation in a single room, breakfast, lunch and three dinners. A reduced fee of 200Ä is requested from participants willing to share a double room. Participants will have to cover their own travel expenses. Content The five-day school will be structured around the following themes: * Enactive and embodied views on social cognition * Non-reductionist, interaction-based approaches to social cognition * Entrainment vs. emulation and mindreading * Dynamical systems theory and social cognition * Neural mechanisms of social interaction: toward a second-person neuroscience * Mutual prediction and adaptation in social interaction * Motor resonance during human-robot interaction The school will comprise keynote lectures in the mornings and discussion groups in the afternoons which serve for in-depth discussions of topics from the keynote lectures. Results from these discussions will be summarized and structured in drafts for Scholarpedia articles. Confirmed Speakers: Luciano Fadiga, University of Ferrara and IIT Genua, Italy Tom Froese, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico D.F. Mattia Gallotti, University College London, UK Peter E. Keller, University of Western Sydney, Australia Christian Keysers, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, John A Michael, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Albert Newen, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany Andreas Roepstorff, Aarhus University, The Netherlands Giulio Sandini, IIT Genua, Italy Cordula Vesper, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Kai Vogeley University of Cologne, Germany Date and location The school will take place from Oct. 11-17, 2015, in Boltenhagen, a nice little beach resort at the Baltic Sea and close to Hamburg (http://www.iberotel.de/iberotel-boltenhagen-ostsee-deutschland.html) Important dates: - Application deadline: August 2, 2015 - Notification of acceptance: August 14, 2015 - Summer school: October 11-17, 2015 - Technical program: October 12-16, 2015 How to apply: The school is open to PhD students and postdocs who are working on the themes addressed. Interested participants shall submit written information on their scientific background, projects involved, and motivation to attend. Admission will be on a competitive basis. Applications should be sent via email to school2015(a)socSMCs.eu. Please state on a single page (11pt font): - Your scientific background and degree - Your motivation to come to this school - The topic of your thesis (if appropriate) - Any prior knowledge in the field Further information: The forerunner project "Extending sensorimotor contingencies to cognition - eSMCs" (2011-2014) funded previous schools in this series like "The future of the embodied mind", held 2011 in San Sebasti·n, Spain (summerschool2011.esmcs.eu), the "Barcelona cognition, brain and technology summer school" in 2012 (bcbt.upf.edu/bcbt11, co-funded) and "Embodiment and Morphological Computation", held at the University of Zurich in 2013 (www.ifi.uzh.ch/ailab/summerschool2013) For further questions, please contact us: school2015(a)socSMCs.eu. -- _____________________________________________________________________ Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf; Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts; Gerichtsstand: Hamburg | www.uke.de Vorstandsmitglieder: Prof. Dr. Burkhard Göke (Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr. Dr. Uwe Koch-Gromus, Joachim Prölß, Rainer Schoppik _____________________________________________________________________ SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE PRINTING

July 3, 2015

Postdoctoral Position in Computational Neuroscience at IUPUI

by Yaroslav Molkov

A postdoctoral/research associate position in computational neuroscience for the duration of up to two years is available in the externally funded project focusing on multiscale computational modeling of motor control mechanisms, involving interactions between basal ganglia, thalamus, cerebellum, cortex, and spinal cord in connection with realistic simulation of pathological changes in motor control during Huntington’s disease. This collaborative project is performed jointly by the groups of Drs. Ilya Rybak (Dept. of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA) and Yaroslav Molkov (Dept. of Mathematical Science, Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, USA). Applicants must have a PhD degree in Neuroscience, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or a related discipline, a strong research record, and excellent C++ programming skills. Previous experience in computational neuronal modeling is a plus. Interested candidates are encouraged to contact Dr. Molkov ( ymolkov(a)iupui.edu) by email. To apply, please send an email along with (1) curriculum vitae; (2) a cover letter describing previous research experience and interests; (3) the names and contact information of three references. ================================= Yaroslav Molkov, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis Department of Mathematical Sciences 402 N. Blackford St, LD 270, Indianapolis, IN 46202 Office: LD 224U Phone: (317) 274-6934 Fax: (317) 274-3460 Email: ymolkov(a)iupui.edu

July 2, 2015

Call for posters/registration: Orbitofrontal Cortex and Cognition in the City of Lights, Sept 30 – Oct 2, 2015 @ Paris, France

by Mehdi Khamassi

[Please accept our apologies if you get multiple copies of this message] Dear colleagues, It is our great pleasure to invite you to the Third Quadrennial Meeting on Orbitofrontal Cortex Function, entitled "Orbitofrontal Cortex and Cognition in the City of Lights", which will take place in Paris, France, on Sept 30th – Oct 2nd 2015. Online registration is now open at http://ofc2015.isir.upmc.fr The deadline for poster submission is: July, 31st. The deadline for registration is: August 31st. Registration fees (250 euros) also include the social event. Please circulate widely and encourage your colleagues and team members to attend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX AND COGNITION IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS (OFC 2015) Sept 30-Oct 2, 2015, Paris, France Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière, Hôpital La Pitié Salpêtrière, Paris, France. & Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. http://ofc2015.isir.upmc.fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRESENTATION: The Third Quadrennial Meeting on Orbitofrontal Cortex Function which will take place in Paris, France, on Sept 30th – Oct 2nd 2015 at the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière, Paris, France. The objective of this three day meeting is to bring together researchers with a deep interest in the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in supporting cognition (behavior, learning, decision-making) across species. The meeting is the third, following up on similar meetings in 2007 and 2011. As such, it is intended to focus specifically on new ideas and research that has influenced the field over the past 4 years and that appear likely to lead the way into the next 4 years. The meeting consists of both invited talks and poster sessions. The invited talks are loosely organized into six different sessions that are titled to reflect the various stages of processing underlying cognition. Talks will be relatively short with ample time for questions and discussion after each talk and sub-group of talks. Poster sessions will be interspersed to allow participants to interact and present their own unique findings of relevance to advancing our understanding of this fascinating brain region. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Tim Behrens (Oxford University, UK) Yogita Chudasama (McGill University, Canada) Howard Eichenbaum (Boston University, USA) Lesley Fellows (McGill University, Canada) Jay Gottfried (Northwestern University, USA) Shannon Gourley (Emory University, USA) Christina Gremel (UCSD, USA) Ben Hayden (University of Rochester, USA) Patricia Janak (John Hopkins, USA) Thorsten Kahnt (Northwestern University, USA) Daeyeol Lee (Yale University, USA) Elisabeth Murray (NIMH, USA) Yael Niv (Princeton University, USA) John O'Doherty (Caltech, USA) Camillo Padoa-Schioppa (Washington Univ. St Louis, USA) Mathias Pessiglione (INSERM-ICM, France) Angela Roberts (Cambridge University, UK) Peter Rudebeck (Mount Sinai School, USA) Matthew Rushworth (Oxford University, UK) Geoffrey Schoenbaum (NIDA-NIH, USA) Wolfram Schultz (Cambridge University, UK) Matthew Shapiro (Mount Sinai School, USA) Philippe Tobler (University of Zurich, Switzerland) Jonathan Wallis (University of California at Berkeley, USA) Catharine Winstanley (University of British Columbia, Canada) IMPORTANT DATES: July 31, 2015 Deadline for Poster Submission August 31, 2015 Deadline for Registration Sept 30-Oct 2, 2015 Symposium Venue ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Jay Gottfried (Northwestern University, USA) Mehdi Khamassi (CNRS / UPMC, Paris, France) Elisabeth Murray (NIMH, USA) Mathias Pessiglione (INSERM / ICM, France) Geoffrey Schoenbaum (NIDA-NIH, USA) CONTACT INFORMATION : Website, registration, poster submission and detailed program: http://ofc2015.isir.upmc.fr Contact: ofc2015 [ at ] isir.upmc.fr / ofc2015-registration(a)isir.upmc.fr -- Mehdi Khamassi, PhD Researcher (CNRS) Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (UMR7222) CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie Pyramide, Tour 55 - Boîte courrier 173 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France tel: + 33 1 44 27 28 85 fax: +33 1 44 27 51 45 cell: +33 6 50 76 44 92 http://people.isir.upmc.fr/khamassi

July 2, 2015

Postdoc position in Computational Neuroscience in the Clopath lab.

by Claudia Clopath

Postdoc position in Computational Neuroscience in the Clopath lab. ----------------------------------------------------- Computational Neuroscience Laboratory Headed by Dr. Claudia Clopath Department of Bioengineering Imperial College London -----------------Requirements:----------------- The Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, headed by Dr. Claudia Clopath, is looking for a talented Postdoc, interested in working in the field of computational neuroscience, specifically addressing questions of learning and memory. The perfect candidate has a strong mathematical, physical or engineering background (or equivalent), and a keen interest in biological and neural systems. A PhD in the field of computational neuroscience is a plus. PostDoc funding is secured for at least 2 years. -----------------Research topic:----------------- Learning and memory are among the most fascinating topic of neuroscience, yet our understanding of it is only at the beginning. Learning is thought to change the connections between the neurons in the brain, a process called synaptic plasticity. Using mathematical and computational tools, it is possible to model synaptic plasticity across different time scales, which helps understand how different types of memory are formed. The PostDoc candidate will be working to build those models of synaptic plasticity, and study the functional role of synaptic plasticity in artificial neural networks. ----------------- The lab:----------------------- The Computational Neuroscience Laboratory is very young and dynamic, and publishes in prestigious journals, such as Nature and Science. It is part of the Department of Bioengineering, which conducts state-of-the-art multidisciplinary research in biomechanics, neuroscience and neurotechnology. The lab is at Imperial College London, the 3rd ranked university in Europe, is in the top 10 worldwide, and is located in the city centre of London. More information can be found at: http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/research/c.clopath/lab/ <http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/research/c.clopath/> ----------------- How to apply:----------------- Candidates should send a single pdf file, consisting of a 1-page motivation letter and CV (including publication list) to clopathlab.imperial(a)gmail.com, with the subject containing 'Postdoc2015'. In addition, candidates should organize two letters of reference to be sent to clopathlab.imperial(a)gmail.com. The position is open until filled but the earlier applications will be considered first.

July 1, 2015

Increased Impact Factor (2014/15) and Table of Contents Alert: Cognitive Computation journal (Springer): Vol.7, No.3 / June 2015 Issue

by Dr Amir Hussain

Dear Colleagues: (with advance apologies for any cross-postings) We are delighted to announce the publication of Volume 7, No.3 / June 2015 Issue, of Springer's Cognitive Computation journal - www.springer.com/12559 ================================================================ Important News: Increased Impact Factor & Six bi-monthly Journal Issues from 2015! ================================================================ As you will know, Cognitive Computation was selected for coverage in Thomson Reuter’s products and services in 2011. Beginning with V.1 (1) 2009, this publication is now indexed and abstracted in: ♦ Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch®) ♦ Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition ♦ Current Contents®/Engineering Computing and Technology ♦ Neuroscience Citation Index® Cognitive Computation received its first Impact Factor (IF) of 1.0 in 2011 The IF for 2014 has increased to 1.44 (Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports® 2014) Many congratulations to the editors, reviewers and authors! Want to be part of the growing success? Visit the journal homepage (http:// springer.com/12559) for instructions on submitting your research. ================================= Quarterly to Bi-monthly Issues, from 2015!! ================================= Due to continuously growing number of high quality submissions, the number of Issues has increased from four (quarterly Issues) to six (bi-monthly Issues) each year, starting Feb 2015! ======================================== The June 2015 Issue comprises two invited papers - the first by Guang-Bin Huang: "What are Extreme Learning Machines? Filling the Gap Between Frank Rosenblatt’s Dream and John von Neumann’s Puzzle", and the second by Asim Roy: "On Findings of Category and Other Concept Cells in the Brain: Some Theoretical Perspectives on Mental Representation"). These are followed by eight regular papers. The full listing of published articles (Table of Contents) for this June 2015 Issue can be viewed here (and also at the end of this message, followed by an overview of the previous Issues/Archive listings): http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/3/ <http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/3/> A list of the journal's most downloaded articles (which can always be read for FREE) can be found here: http://www.springer .com/biomed/neuroscience/journal/12559?hideChart=1#realtime Other 'Online First' published articles not yet in a print issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/121361/?Content+Status=Accepted All previous Volumes and Issues of the journal can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12559 ============================================ Reminder: Cognitive Computation "LinkedIn" Group: ============================================ To further strengthen the bonds amongst the interdisciplinary audience of Cognitive Computation, we have set-up a "Cognitive Computation LinkedIn group", which has over 800 members already! We warmly invite you to join us at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3155048 For further information on the journal and to sign up for electronic "Table of Contents alerts" please visit the Cognitive Computation homepage: http://www.springer.com/12559 or follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/CognComput for the latest On-line First Issues. For any questions with regards to LinkedIn and/or Twitter, please contact Springer's Publishing Editor: Marleen Moore: Marleen.Moore(a)springer.com Finally, we would like to invite you to submit short or regular papers describing original research or timely review of important areas - our aim is to peer review all papers within approximately six-eight weeks of receipt. We also welcome relevant high quality proposals for Special Issues - four are already planned for 2015-16 (for CFPs, see: http://www.springer.com/biomed/neuroscience/journal/12559?detailsPage=press ) With our very best wishes to all aspiring readers and authors of Cognitive Computation, Professor Amir Hussain, PhD (Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) E-mail: ahu(a)cs.stir.ac.uk (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Professor Igor Aleksander, PhD (Honorary Editor-in-Chief: Cognitive Computation) (Imperial College, London, UK) http://www.springer.com/12559 NEW: Open Access Springer/BMC journal: Big Data Analytics ( http://www.bdataanalytics.com/) - Now accepting submissions! NEW: Springer Series on Socio-Affective Computing: http://www.springer.com/series/13199 Also consider your work for related Book Series: SpringerBriefs on Cognitive Computation: http://www.springer .com/series/10374 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents Alert -- Cognitive Computation Vol 7 No 3, June 2015 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What are Extreme Learning Machines? Filling the Gap Between Frank Rosenblatt’s Dream and John von Neumann’s Puzzle Guang-Bin Huang http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9333-0 On Findings of Category and Other Concept Cells in the Brain: Some Theoretical Perspectives on Mental Representation Asim Roy http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9307-7 Models for Computational Emotions from Psychological Theories Using Type I Fuzzy Logic Aladdin Ayesh, William Blewitt http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9287-7 Models for Computational Emotions from Psychological Theories Using Type-II Fuzzy Logic Aladdin Ayesh, William Blewitt http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9286-8 Is Attentional Refreshing in Working Memory Sequential? A Computational Modeling Approach Sophie Portrat, Benoît Lemaire http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9294-8 Uncertain Graph Classification Based on Extreme Learning Machine Donghong Han, Yachao Hu, Shuangshuang Ai, Guoren Wang http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9295-7 Optimization of Multiuser MIMO Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks Yongqiang Hei, Wentao Li, Min Li, Zhuo Qiu, Weihong Fu http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9297-5 Word Polarity Disambiguation Using Bayesian Model and Opinion-Level Features Yunqing Xia, Erik Cambria, Amir Hussain, Huan Zhao http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9298-4 Imbalanced Learning for Air Pollution by Meta-Cognitive Online Sequential Extreme Learning Machine Chi-Man Vong, Weng-Fai Ip, Chi-Chong Chiu, Pak-Kin Wong http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9301-0 Daniel D. Hutto and Erik Myin: Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content Paulo De Jesus http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-014-9306-8 --------------------------------------------------------- Previous Issues/Archive: Overview: --------------------------------------------------------- All previous Volumes and Issues can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12559 Alternatively, the full listing of the Inaugural Vol. 1, No. 1 / March 2009, can be viewed here (which included invited authoritative reviews by leading researchers in their areas - including keynote papers from London University's John Taylor, Igor Aleksander and Stanford University's James McClelland, and invited papers from Ron Sun, Pentti Haikonen, Geoff Underwood, Kevin Gurney, Claudius Gross, Anil Seth and Tom Ziemke): http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/1/ The full listing of Vol. 1, No. 2 / June 2009, can be viewed here (which included invited reviews and original research contributions from leading researchers, including Rodney Douglas, Giacomo Indiveri, Jurgen Schmidhuber, Thomas Wennekers, Pentti Kanerva and Friedemann Pulvermuller): http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/2/ The full listing of Vol.1, No. 3 / Sep 2009, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/3/ The full listing of Vol. 1, No. 4 / Dec 2009, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/1/4/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 1 / March 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/1/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 2 / June 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/2/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 3 / Aug 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/3/ The full listing of Vol.2, No. 4 / Dec 2010, can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/2/4/ The full listing of Vol.3, No.1 / Mar 2011 (Special Issue on: Saliency, Attention, Active Visual Search and Picture Scanning, edited by John Taylor and Vassilis Cutsuridis), can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/1/ The Guest Editorial can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/hu2245056415633l/ The full listing of Vol.3, No.2 / June 2011 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/2/ The full listing of Vol. 3, No. 3 / Sep 2011 (Special Issue on: Cognitive Behavioural Systems, Guest Edited by: Anna Esposito, Alessandro Vinciarelli, Simon Haykin, Amir Hussain and Marcos Faundez-Zanuy), can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/3/ The Guest Editorial for the special issue can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4718567520t2h84/ The full listing of Vol. 3, No. 4 / Dec 2011 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/3/4/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.1 / Mar 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/1/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.2 / June 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/2/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.3 / Sep 2012 (Special Issue on: Computational Creativity, Intelligence and Autonomy, Edited by: J. Mark Bishop and Yasemin J. Erden) can be viewed here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1866-9956/4/3/ The full listing of Vol. 4, No.4 / Dec 2012 (Special Issue titled: "Cognitive & Emotional Information Processing", Edited by: Stefano Squartini, Björn Schuller and Amir Hussain, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/4/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.1 / March 2013 Special Issue titled: Computational Intelligence and Applications Guest Editors: Zhigang Zeng & Haibo He, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/1/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.2 / June 2013 Special Issue titled: Advances on Brain Inspired Computing, Guest Editors: Stefano Squartini, Sanqing Hu & Qingshan Liu, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/2/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.3 / Sep 2013 Special Issue titled: In Memory of John G Taylor: A Polymath Scholar, Guest Editors: Vassilis Cutsuridis & Amir Hussain, which is followed by a number of regular papers), can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/3/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 5, No.4 / Dec 2013, which includes regular papers (including an invited paper by Professor Ron Sun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA, titled: Moral Judgment, Human Motivation, and Neural Networks), and a Special Issue titled: Advanced Cognitive Systems Based on Nonlinear Analysis. Guest Editors: Carlos M. Travieso and Jesús B. Alonso, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/5/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.1 / Mar 2014, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/1/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.2 / June 2014, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/2/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.3 / Sep 2014, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/3/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 6, No.4 / Dec 2014 (Special Issue on Modeling emotion, behaviour and context in socially believable robots and ICT interfaces, Guest Editors: Anna Esposito, Leopoldina Fortunati, and Giuseppe Lugano) can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/6/4/page/1 The full listing of Vol. 7, No.1 / Feb 2015 can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/1/ (with the first six papers part of a Special Issue on "Neural Signal Processing", Guest Edited by: Jordi Sole´-Casals, Francois-Benoit Vialatte, Justin Dauwels. The Guest Editorial titled: "Alternative Techniques of Neural Signal Processing in Neuroengineering" is available (for free download) here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9317-0) The full listing of Vol. 7, No. 2 / April 2015, can be viewed here: http://link.springer.com/journal/12559/7/2/ This comprises a Special Issue on "Sentic Computing", Guest Edited by: E. Cambria and A. Hussain. The Guest Editorial titled: "Sentic Computing" is available (for free download) here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12559-015-9325-0 -- The University is ranked in the QS World Rankings of the top 5% of universities in the world (QS World University Rankings, 2014) The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

June 30, 2015

Reminder: Summer school on nonlinear methods, application deadline 10th of July

by Michael von Papen

Dear all, This is a reminder for the upcoming Cologne Summer School on non-linear analysis methods for master's degree and PhD students. Deadline for applications is 10th of July, 2015. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Cologne Summer School 2015: *Non-Linear Methods for Complex Systems Analysis* Date: Mon-Fri 28.09-02.10.2015 Location: *University of Cologne*, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------- This one-week summer school brings together *master's degree and PhD students from international universities* for an interdisciplinary hands-on learning experience. The workshop will introduce non-linear analysis methods using the Python toolbox pyunicorn. With the techniques presented in the summer school, such as complex networks and phase space concepts, the students will be able to characterize highly complex systems. Such systems are frequently encountered, e.g., in *biology, chemistry, economics, geoscience, neuroscience, and physics*. Lectures and computer labs will be led by Dr. Reik Donner and Marc Wiedermann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. For the complete program visit *complexsystems.uni-koeln.de/summerschool.html*. The application deadline is 10.07.2015. The summer school is organized by the Competence Area 3: Quantitative Modeling of Complex Systems of the University of Cologne. Contact: Dr. Michael von Papen (/vonpapen(a)geo.uni-koeln.de/) ------------------------------------------------------------------- *Information* The Competence Area 3: Quantitative Modeling of Complex Systems of the University of Cologne hosts a summer school to introduce novel and groundbreaking methods for the analysis of scientific data. For this matter, we bring together master's degree and PhD students from the University of Cologne and from international universities for an interdisciplinary learning experience. The aim of the summer school is not only to teach new analysis methods, but also to foster scientific collaboration and discussion between students of different fields of study. This year, the summer school of the Competence Area 3 will introduce non-linear analysis methods to study highly complex systems, which cannot be sufficiently characterized with linear methods. Such systems are frequently encountered, e.g., in biology, chemistry, economics, geoscience, neuroscience, and physics. The one-week summer school will take place from Monday to Friday, September 28 - October 2, at the University of Cologne, Germany. The strongly interdisciplinary hands-on course consists of lectures and computer labs and will provide the students with novel analysis techniques and concepts. Amongst others, the workshop will cover topics such as detrended fluctuation analysis, complex networks, scaling analysis, synchronization, transfer entropy, and causality, which help to characterize systems that are governed by non-linear processes. The summer school is led by *Dr. Reik Donner and Marc Wiedermann* from the *Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research* based on their lectures at the Humboldt University, Berlin, and their popular short-courses at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly. They will introduce the Python toolbox /pyunicorn/ for non-linear analysis along with prominent examples of modern analysis frameworks highlighting the methodological variety of complex systems based data analysis (see program below). The techniques that are taught in the summer school will be illustrated by applications to real-world data from different fields of study. The course materials will be made available to the participants after the course, including example codes for the platform-independent open-source software Python and the toolbox pyunicorn. The course will be held in English. For questions, please contact Mitch von Papen (vonpapen(a)geo.uni-koeln.de) *Program* The summer school consists of approximately the same amount of lectures and computer labs. During the lectures, the basics of the analysis methods are explained. Subsequently, these methods are applied to synthetic and real-world data in computer labs. The students work on a project in small groups and present and discuss their results at the end of the workshop. The students are introduced to the concepts of several non-linear analysis methods and will gain experience in applying the toolbox pyunicorn as well as in interpreting the results. Ideally, the summer school will enable the students to use the learned techniques on their own scientific data after the summer school. The approximate schedule for the summer school is given below. Note however, that changes may occur due to group dynamics. /Monday, September 28th/ 09:00 a.m. | Lecture 1: Introduction - linear vs. non-linear methods, Stationarity, uni- and multivariate correlation analysis, classical early warning methods, non-linearity tests and surrogate data 11:00 a.m. | Lecture 2: Long-range dependence and scaling analysis, Persistence and anti-persistence, power spectrum, Hurst exponent, detrended fluctuation analysis 02:00 p.m. | Tutorial 1: Introduction to Python, Why Python in science?, important packages for scientific computing, common data types, structure of pyunicorn 04:00 p.m. | Tutorial 2: Assignment of group projects, (6 groups a 5 persons) 07:00 p.m. | Social get-together at local brewery /Tuesday, September 29th/ 09:00 a.m. | Lecture 3: Introduction to complex networks, Mathematical representation of networks, structural network characteristics, basic network models, identification of power-laws, interconnected and multi-layer networks 11:00 a.m. | Lecture 4: Inferring networks from data, Functional network analysis (correlation networks, examples from climatology, neurophysiology and economics), visibility graphs 02:00 p.m. | Tutorial 3: tbd 04:00 p.m. | Tutorial 4: tbd /Wednesday, September 30th/ 09:00 a.m. | Lecture 5: Information theory and entropy, Basic concepts, Shannon-, Renyi- and Tsallis-entropies as statistical quantifiers, Kolmogorov-Sinai (source) entropy and estimation via block entropies, order patterns and permutation entropy, mutual information, transfer entropy and causality, independent component analysis 11:00 a.m. | Lecture 6: Synchronization, Definition and types of synchronization, phase synchronization: order parameters and phase dynamics from data, generalized synchronization 02:00 p.m. | Tutorial 5: tbd 04:00 p.m. | Tutorial 6: tbd /Thursday, October 1st/ 09:00 a.m. | Lecture 7: Phase space concepts, Phase space of dynamical systems, embedding, fractal dimensions, correlation integral and relation with entropies, entropy estimates from embedded data 11:00 a.m. | Lecture 8: Recurrence analysis, Recurrence in phase space; recurrence plots, quantification analysis and networks; multivariate generalizations; applications: synchronization analysis, coupling direction 02:00 p.m. | Tutorial 7: tbd 04:00 p.m. | Tutorial 8: tbd /Friday, October 2nd/ 09:00 a.m. | Presentation and discussion of projects 1-3 from the tutorials 11:00 a.m. | Presentation and discussion of projects 4-6 from the tutorials 02:00 p.m. | Open discussion: Outlook on contemporary developments in the field 03:30 p.m. | End of day 5: Farewell -- ------------------------------------------ UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE Institute of Geophysics & Meteorology Coordinator of Competence Area III: Quantitative Modeling of Complex Systems Dr. Michael von Papen Pohligstr. 3 (R 3.224) 50969 Cologne Tel.: +49 (0)221 470-2841 Email: vonpapen(a)geo.uni-koeln.de http://complexsystems.uni-koeln.de

June 30, 2015

Postdoctoral Positions in Computational Neuroscience at Sandia National Laboratories

by Chance, Frances S.

Colleagues, We are seeking postdoctoral researchers to join an interdisciplinary research program focused on understanding neural computation at the circuit level. Example research topics of interest include computational models of visual cortex, neural circuitry underlying perception, and the neural basis of decision-making. Candidates should have a strong background in neuroscience, and an interest in understanding of relations between neuroscience, cognitive science, and computation. Experience or familiarity with related machine-learning fields is also desired. Our department is part of a highly interdisciplinary community of researchers with interests spanning systems neuroscience and brain-inspired computing, engineering, and computer science. Successful applicants will be expected to conduct high-quality research, maintain a successful publication record in peer-reviewed journals, and develop collaborations with this vibrant and growing community. This position is located at Sandia's Albuquerque, NM, USA site. To view the full job advertisement and to apply, visit http://www.sandia.gov/careers/ and click "View All Jobs". Go to the Advanced Search, then search for Job Opening ID 650197. Please contact Frances Chance (fschanc(a)sandia.gov<mailto:fschanc@sandia.gov>) or Brad Aimone (jbaimon(a)sandia.gov<mailto:jbaimon@sandia.gov>) with any questions.

June 29, 2015

Computational Neuroscience Positions at Sandia National Laboratories

by Chance, Frances S.

Colleagues, We are seeking computational neuroscientists to join an interdisciplinary research program focused on understanding neural computation at the circuit level. Preference will be given to candidates using computational approaches, broadly defined, to understand visual cortex and perception, but we welcome applicants from all areas of computational neuroscience. Example research topics of interest include computational models of visual cortex, neural circuitry underlying perception, and the neural basis of decision-making. Candidates should have a strong background in neuroscience, and an understanding of relations between neuroscience, cognitive science, and computation. Experience or familiarity with related machine-learning fields is also desired. Our department is part of a highly interdisciplinary community of researchers with interests spanning systems neuroscience and brain-inspired computing, engineering, and computer science. Successful applicants will be expected to conduct high-quality research, maintain a successful publication record in peer-reviewed journals, and develop collaborations with this vibrant and growing community. Staff members at Sandia are expected both to contribute to ongoing projects and to develop new lines of research with potential for application in solving complex problems. This position is located at Sandia's Albuquerque, NM, USA site. Multiple positions for varying levels of experience are available. For more information and to apply, visit http://www.sandia.gov/careers/ and click "View All Jobs". Go to the Advanced Search, then search for Job Opening ID 650198. For questions please contact Frances Chance (fschanc(a)sandia.gov<mailto:fschanc@sandia.gov>) or Brad Aimone (jbaimon(a)sandia.gov<mailto:jbaimon@sandia.gov>).

June 29, 2015

Workshop on "Spike Initiation: Models & Experiments" at CNS2015 - 22/7/2015, Prague

by Giugliano Michele

Apologies for cross-posting. We would like to announce the following event ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop on "Spike Initiation: Models & Experiments"<http://www.namasen.net/drupal/sites/CNS2015Workshop/CNS2015_Workshop_-_Spik…> as part of the CNS2015<http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2015-prague> programme July 22nd, 2015, Prague, Czech Republic ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The workshop gathers leading experimentalists and theoreticians to discuss a pivotal element for our quantitative understanding of neuronal excitability: the initiation of action potentials. Phenomenological, electrophysiological, and computational aspects of spike initiation will be discussed by addressing the following questions: · What models can quantitatively account for experimental observations? · How is spike initiation regulated at different time scales? · What is the role of the various ionic channels expressed in the axonal initial segment? · What is the significance of neuronal morphology and spatial distribution of channels? · What are the functional consequences of spike initiation properties? The workshop is organised as a symposium of the CNS2015 conference<http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2015-prague> (see here<http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2015-workshops-program>). Organizers: Romain Brette, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France, Michele Giugliano, University of Antwerp (UA), Wilrijk, Belgium. Speakers: Romain Brette, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France, Martina Michalikova, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Andreas Neef, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Goettingen, Germany. Florence Cotel, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Michele Giugliano, University of Antwerp (UA), Wilrijk, Belgium. Maarten Kole, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Christian Pozzorini, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. Nadim Farzan, Federated Dept Biological Sciences, NJIT & Rutgers Univ, Newark, USA. William Spain, Washington University, Seattle, Washington, USA. Find more information online: http://www.frontiersin.org/events/Spike_Initation_Models__Experiments/3036 Michele Giugliano and Romain Brette — Michele Giugliano, PhD Dept. of Biomedical Sciences University of Antwerp Campus Drie Eiken (CDE) - D.T.657 Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk (Belgium) url: http://www.uantwerpen.be/michele-giugliano

June 29, 2015

Early bird registration extended: Swinburne Brain Imaging Symposium 2015: Principles and Applications of Magnetoencephalography

by David Liley

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION EXTENDED TO 26th July 2015 Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, is hosting a workshop to promote the unique capabilities of magnetoencephalography for basic and clinical research and clinical decision making. Running over two days from 29 to 30 July 2015 it will feature invited talks from some of the fields most important research leaders and a MEG data analysis hands-on computer workshop. Invited Speakers: Mark Woolrich (Oxford) Krish Singh (Cardiff) Vladimir Litvak (UCL) Suresh Muthukumaraswamy (Auckland) Blake Johnson (Macquarie) In addition to the keynote speakers and computer workshop there will also be an open poster session for registrants to present their work in any of the following or related thematic areas: magnetoencephalography, electroencephalography, clinical monitoring, neuroimaging, TMS, tDCS, tACS or brain-computer interfaces Poster abstract submission deadline: CLOSED Invited Symposia & Cocktail Poster Session – 29-30 July 2015: Early bird registration: full: AU$300; Student/Post-docs: AU$80. Early bird registration deadline: 26th July 2015. Standard registration: full: AU$450; Student/Early Career Researcher: AU$120. Hands-on MEG Data analysis workshop (spaces limited to 30) – 30 July afternoon: SOLD OUT For further information on the invited speakers as well as the preliminary workshop program, and how to submit abstracts and register visit: http://www.research.swinburne.edu.au/our-research/events/neuroimaging-sympo… Please forward this notice to anyone that you think might be interested. On behalf of the organizing committee David Liley, MBChB, PhD Brian Cornwell, PhD Email: megsymposium(a)swin.edu.au<mailto:megsymposium@swin.edu.au> --------------------------- Prof David Liley Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre Swinburne University of Technology P.O. Box 218 Hawthorn VIC 3122 Australia ph: +61 3 9214 8812<tel:%2B61%203%209214%208812>

June 29, 2015

Fully funded PhD position available at Ulster University (UK), in Brain-inspired Self-repairing Electronic Systems.

by Harkin, Jim

A fully funded PhD position is available at the Intelligent Systems Research Center, Ulster University, UK, in Brain-inspired Self-repairing Electronic Systems. Background Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in Brain-inspired Self-repairing Electronic Systems. The proposed PhD project work is part of the recently funded 3½ year EPSRC project ‘SPANNER’ (EP/N00714X/1) which investigates the development of brain-inspired self-repairing systems, and is in collaboration with the Department of Electronics, University of York. The PhD project will build upon existing investigations at Ulster into the development of highly reliable, large-scale computing systems, where hardware building block have been developed to support brain inspired hardware architectures. In particular, at Ulster we have shown that astrocyte cells interact with neurons to detect when a fault has occurred in the connections making up a network of neurons. We have also developed computer models that demonstrate not only how faults are detected but also how the brain performs repairs. The proposed PhD project will investigate the development of a novel self-repair strategy for computing systems. The concept will explore current thinking on how the human brain performs repair using “astrocyte” cells (glia cells), and will explore how the key principle of this mechanism can be used in the context of electronic systems to provide a novel repair strategy in hardware. Currently an existing software model of a self-repairing astrocyte-neuron network is available and this will be an initial functional specification for the self-repairing hardware strategy. The key research aim is to use the software model of the astrocyte-neuron network and explore how to effectively and efficiently map it to FPGA hardware. Synapse and neuron building blocks for FPGAs have been demonstrated by the Ulster team and will be initially used in the hardware design. The research will look to optimise the FPGA implementation for scalability and this will include the design of astrocyte cells, 3-terminal synapses and interconnectivity between cells, synapses and neurons. An FPGA-based implementation of a demonstrator will be explored to showcase the levels of resilience to injected faults. The successful candidate will be located at the Intelligent Systems Research Centre on the Magee campus of the Ulster University however, aspects of the work will require short research visits to collaborate with project partners at the University of York. Requirements Candidates should hold, or expect to hold a first or upper second class honours degree in Electronic/Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or a cognate area. Applications will be considered on a competitive basis with regard to the candidate’s qualifications, skills experience and interests. Successful candidates will enrol as of 1st October 2015, on a full-time programme of research studies leading to the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Award The studentship will comprise fees and an annual stipend of £14,057. It will be awarded for a period of up to three years subject to satisfactory progress and is tenable in the Faculty of Computing and Engineering. Further Information If you wish to receive further information please contact: Dr. Jim Harkin (jg.harkin(a)ulster.ac.uk<mailto:jg.harkin@ulster.ac.uk>) Procedure For more information on applying go to www.ulster.ac.uk/research<http://www.ulster.ac.uk/research> Apply online via www.ulster.ac.uk/applyonline<http://www.ulster.ac.uk/applyonline> Closing date and interviews The closing date for receipt of completed applications is 10th July 2015. Interviews will be held in July 2015. ________________________________ This email and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information which is covered by legal, professional or other privilege. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager at postmaster(a)ulster.ac.uk and delete this email immediately. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ulster University. The University's computer systems may be monitored and communications carried out on them may be recorded to secure the effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes. Ulster University does not guarantee that this email or any attachments are free from viruses or 100% secure. Unless expressly stated in the body of a separate attachment, the text of email is not intended to form a binding contract. Correspondence to and from the University may be subject to requests for disclosure by 3rd parties under relevant legislation. The University of Ulster was founded by Royal Charter in 1984 and is registered with company number RC000726 and VAT registered number GB672390524.The primary contact address for Ulster University in Northern Ireland is Cromore Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry BT52 1SA

June 28, 2015

Post-doctoral research position in vision and memory (I2R, Singapore)

by Cheston Tan

We are seeking an exceptional postdoctoral researcher in visual recognition, learning and memory. The position is available immediately, at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) in Singapore. The project is part of a large multidisciplinary grant (PI: Prof. Tomaso Poggio of MIT) involving multiple universities and research institutions in Singapore (SBIC/CIRC, Duke-NUS Medical School, NUS/NUH, NTU, SINAPSE). The candidate will work on visual recognition, learning and memory algorithms with a strong multidisciplinary team at I2R, and with Prof. Poggio. Collaborators include Prof. Brown Hsieh (Duke-NUS Medical School), Prof. Gabriel Kreiman (Harvard Medical School), Prof. Zhao Qi (National University of Singapore) and Dr. Demis Hassabis (Google/DeepMind). Candidates must have a PhD in computer science, neuroscience, engineering, psychology or related fields. Strong programming and quantitative skills are required. Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English. Interest in biologically-inspired approaches preferred. The appointment will be for up to 2 years (possibly with extension), with internationally-competitive salaries and benefits. Other benefits include: - Funding for international conferences and training courses - Collaboration opportunities with an excellent network of international scientists - Opportunities for attachments at MIT and the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (http://cbmm.mit.edu/) Interested candidates should send a CV, statement of research interests and three references to Dr. Cheston Tan (cheston(a)alum.mit.edu) Position will be open until filled; send applications sooner rather than later if interested. More information: - Dr. Cheston Tan: http://www.mit.edu/~cheston/CV_short.pdf - Dr. Lim Joo-Hwee: http://www.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/profile/dr-lim-joo-hwee - Institute for Infocomm Research: http://www.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/ - Working in Singapore: http://www.contactsingapore.sg/professionals/why_singapore/

June 27, 2015

ICDM Workshop HealthMining 2015 and HISS Special Issue (Deadline: July 20, 2015)

by william

[Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email] CALL FOR PAPERS HEALTHMINING 2015 - The ICDM Workshop on Data Mining and Decision Analytics on Public Health and Wellness (URL: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/~healthmining2015/) In conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM 2015) AIMS and SCOPE For many years, data mining and decision analytics techniques have already been extensively applied to various domains, such as smart environments, social networks, marketing, and web technology. The focus of this workshop is mainly on the issues and challenges of data mining techniques with the purpose of improving human well-being and quality of life. It is expected that the workshop may increase the diversity of application areas that can benefit from data mining. At the same time, it is also desirable that the discussion and vision of this workshop would also offer further insights into, as well as new tools for, the issues of data collection, processing, system modeling, simulation and optimization arising from various public health topics. The objective of this workshop is to serve as a venue for researchers to discuss how data mining and analytics methods can contribute to improving public health quality in clinical, medical/biomedical, and healthcare systems in smart ways, including evidence-based medicine, personalized treatment and healthcare, assistive technology and active surveillance and control of diseases. In addition to mining statistical regularities, associations, or causalities from large-scale health-related datasets, it would be more desirable to further investigate how the results can effectively and efficiently support decision-making, system modeling, optimization, and simulation in various healthcare systems. TOPICS OF INTEREST - Large-scale data acquisition and management issues for public health - Social and other network-based analysis for public health - Medical big data mining and innovative applications - Mining risk patterns in medical data - Mental and physical health data integration - Biomarker discovery and biomedical data mining - Clinical data mining for practice knowledge building - Data mining from clinical decision-making, and practitioner reflection - Data mining from genetic data of diseases - Data mining for disease profiling and personalized treatment - Data mining for (active) syndromic surveillance - Data mining for infectious/chronic disease epidemiology and control - Data mining for exploring hidden patterns in clinical systems - Data mining for medical/biomedical, and healthcare systems - Data mining for assistive environments - Data modeling and information management for pervasive assistive environments - Data mining and knowledge modeling for wellness - Spatiotemporal data exploration and mining of diseases - Unstructured data mining in medicine and healthcare - Semantic data mining in medicine and healthcare - Scalable data integration in medicine and healthcare - Evidence-based decision-support systems - Healthcare knowledge abstraction, classification, and summarization - Healthcare knowledge computerization, execution, inference, and representation >>> SPECIAL ISSUE <<< Selected papers of the workshop will be invited for revision to be included in a special issue to be published in Health Information Science and Systems (URL: http://www.hissjournal.com/) IMPORTANT DATES - Paper Submission Due: Jul 20, 2015 - Paper Notification Date: Sep 1, 2015 - Workshop Date: Nov 13, 2015 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE - William K. Cheung, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong - Jiming Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong - Parisa Rashidi, University of Florida, USA - Fei Wang, University of Connecticut, USA -- Dr. William K. Cheung Associate Professor and Associate Head CS Dept, Hong Kong Baptist University http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/~william Tel: (+852) 3411-5965 Fax: (+852) 3411-7892 "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit." --- Proverbs 17:22 Department of Computer Science: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk HKBU Faculty of Science: http://www.sci.hkbu.edu.hk Disclaimer: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/disclaimer Department of Computer Science: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk HKBU Faculty of Science: http://www.sci.hkbu.edu.hk Disclaimer: http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/disclaimer

June 27, 2015

Fully funded PhD position in Neural Learning / Robotics / Evolutionary Neural Networks

by Andrea Soltoggio

A fully funded PhD position is available at the Deep Automation, Learning and Evolution Lab at Loughborough University, UK, on the topics of Neural Learning / Robotics / Evolutionary Neural Networks. Loughborough University is ranked 11th in the 2016 UK League Table Ranking (http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/loughborough/performance , and is located in Loughborough, a town well connected to London by a 1h20m journey by train. Research. The focus is on developing new neural learning algorithms with possible applications to a variety of automation and machine learning problems, e.g. vision, robotics, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing technology. We seek an outstanding candidate, capable of defining their own research project and bringing novel ideas and initiatives to the lab. Working environment. The student, based at the Computer Science Department, School of Science, will have access to a number of robotic platforms, from humanoid robots, to UAVs and a number of industrial and service robots, as well as a High Performance Computing cluster and GPUs. Interdisciplinary research is encouraged across laboratories, including Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, the Intelligent Automation Lab, and the Centre for Information Management. The research group collaborates with leading national and international industrial partners. Requirements. The ideal candidate holds (or is about to obtain) a first-class honour undergraduate/postgraduate degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Electrical or Electronic Engineering, or has authored publications in recognised conferences/journals. Independent working skills are valued as well as the capability of working in a team. Collegiality and interpersonal skills are essential. Excellent English language skills are highly desired (see requirements here http://www.lboro.ac.uk/international/englang/index.htm) Period/Scholarship. Start: October 2015. Duration: 3 years. Scholarship: £14,057 per annum plus tuition fees at the UK/EU rate (currently £4,052 p.a.) Enquiries and applications. Interested candidates are invited to establish a preliminary contact with me (a.soltoggio(a)lboro.ac.uk<mailto:a.soltoggio@lboro.ac.uk>), possibly including a CV, the names and addresses of two referees, and a statement of research interest (maximum 300 words), before submitting the full application at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/apply/research/ Best regards, Andrea Soltoggio -- Dr. Andrea Soltoggio Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence Department of Computer Science and Centre for Information Management (CIM) School of Business and Economics Haslegrave Building, N.2.03 Loughborough University LE11 3TU, UK Phone: +44 (0) 1509 635748<tel:%2B44%20%280%29%201509%20635748> Email: a.soltoggio(a)lboro.ac.uk<mailto:a.soltoggio@lboro.ac.uk> Web: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/compsci/staff/dr-andrea-soltoggio.html

June 25, 2015

Job: Post-doctoral Scientist - Investigating the Feasibility of Controlling Hearing-aid Directionality Using In-Ear Electrodes to Measure Eye Position.

by Bernd Porr

Dear all, this is something for somebody who has a strong background in signal processing / biomed signal processing. If interested please contact Owen Brimijoin <owen(a)ihr.gla.ac.uk>. Best /Bernd Porr -------------------------------------------------------------------- Salary: £27,084 – 29,567 Grade: MRC - 4a Contract Type: Fixed Term, 24 months Hours: Full Time Closing Date:31 July 2015 Interview Date: 26 August 2015 The successful applicant will be based at the MRC/CSO Institute of Hearing Research (IHR) in Glasgow within the Auditory Disability and Impairment group headed by Dr William Whitmer. The successful applicant will join a small group of researchers but will work most closely with Drs Owen Brimijoin (IHR), Bernd Porr (Glasgow Uni), and Graham Naylor (Oticon) on a project investigating the feasibility of using in-ear measurements of eye position to guide hearing aid directionality. The project will use electrooculograms (EOG), optical eye and head tracking, digital signal processing, microphone arrays, as well as our extensive audiological and auditory testing facilities. Your work will consist of writing signal-processing algorithms to combine the output of an EOG amplifier, gyroscopes, and other extra-cochlear signals to yield a reliable measure of eye position that can be used to aim the directional beam of an experimental hearing aid. The work will continue with implementing these algorithms in Matlab and/or C, designing experiments to test benefit, statistical analysis of results, and delivery of these results for dissemination (conference abstracts and presentations, invited lectures and seminars, and published manuscripts in specialized and generic journals). -- http://www.berndporr.me.uk http://www.linux-usb-daq.co.uk http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3293421/ +44 (0)7840 340069

June 25, 2015

PhD fellowship on attention, mind wandering and human interaction with highly automated systems

by Arnaud Delorme

We are searching for a PhD candidate with a master degree in engineering, psychology or neuroscience and an interest in human/brain machine interfaces. Expertise in EEG and/or oculometry is expected The subject of the thesis is linked to the difficulties for human operator to control/monitor highly automated system. This performance problem remains difficult to characterize. The first goal of this project is to characterize the OOL (Out Of the Loop) performance problem at the physiological level. Particularly, we propose to document the relation between vigilance, attention and the degradation of the monitoring activities. Using EEG recordings and oculometric measures in supervisory task, we propose to study the dynamics of vigilance and attentional mechanisms during the emergence of OOL performance problem and their respective impact on the monitoring activities. These results will help us to characterize the state of the brain leading to the degradation of the monitoring activities and to develop tools for OOL episodes detection. This project will be co-directed by three researchers in interdisciplinary fields, Bruno Berberian (ONERA) who is expert in human control of highly automated systems, Arnaud Delorme (CerCo) who is expert in vigilance process and EEG signal processing, and Aurélie Campagne (LPNC) who is expert in the characterization of neurophysiological correlates of cognitive states for applications in passive brain-computer interfaces. The location of the PhD will be Salon de Provence primarily and secondarily in Grenoble. If you are interested, please send your CV, two contacts for reference, a motivation letter (max one page) and reference letters (optional) to Bruno Berberian<Bruno.Berberian(a)onera.fr>. Please group all documents into one PDF for easier processing.

June 24, 2015

Gordon Research Conference on Eye Movements

by Emilio Salinas

Readers of this list may be interested in the upcoming Gordon Research Conference on Eye Movements. This year's theme, "Integrating Perception and Action for Optimal Vision", promises to provide fresh perspectives on core oculomotor issues. The meeting is meant as an immersive experience in which participants share ideas over meals and jointly participate in scheduled and unscheduled social activities. The format provides unparalleled opportunity for participants at all career stages to share their most novel findings, foster new collaborative efforts, and chart the future directions of oculomotor research. WHAT: Call for applications for the 2015 Gordon Research Conference on Eye Movements (main meeting) and Gordon Research Seminar on Eye Movements (1-day forum for students and postdocs) DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: June 28th WHEN: July 26-31 (GRC), July 25-26 (GRS) WHERE: Bentley University, Waltham MA (just outside of Boston) HOW: Apply online - GRC application; GRS application DETAILS: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=14523 Emilio Salinas, on behalf of Terry Stanford & John Van Opstal (GRC Chairs) Doug Crawford & Marc Sommer (GRC Vice-chairs) Jaime Kaminer and Martin Bohlen (GRS Chairs)

June 24, 2015

Rapid image categorization via edge co-occurrences

by James A. Bednar

We are pleased to announce the publication of an open-access paper demonstrating a novel method for categorizing images using the statistics of their edge co-occurrences. The success of this low-level method in matching both correct and incorrect classifications by humans suggests a reinterpretation of longstanding claims for rapid hierarchical processing in the visual cortex. Laurent U. Perrinet Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone Aix Marseille Universite, CNRS James A. Bednar Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation University of Edinburgh _______________________________________________________________________________ Laurent U. Perrinet and James A. Bednar. Edge co-occurrences can account for rapid categorization of natural versus animal images. Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing Group, 5:11400, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep11400 Abstract: Making a judgment about the semantic category of a visual scene, such as whether it contains an animal, is typically assumed to involve high-level associative brain areas. Previous explanations require progressively analyzing the scene hierarchically at increasing levels of abstraction, from edge extraction to mid-level object recognition and then object categorization. Here we show that the statistics of edge co-occurrences alone are sufficient to perform a rough yet robust (translation, scale, and rotation invariant) scene categorization. We first extracted the edges from images using a scale-space analysis coupled with a sparse coding algorithm. We then computed association for different categories (natural, man-made, or containing an animal) by computing the statistics of edge co-occurrences. These differed strongly, with animal images having more curved configurations. We show that this geometry alone is sufficient for categorization, and that the pattern of errors made by humans is consistent with this procedure. Because these statistics could be measured as early as the primary visual cortex, the results challenge widely held assumptions about the flow of computations in the visual system. The results also suggest new algorithms for image classification and signal processing that exploit correlations between low-level structure and the underlying semantic category. -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

June 23, 2015

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER IN SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE

by Santamaria, Cookie

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER IN SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE The BioCircuits Institute (BCI) and Departments of Physics, Chemistry/Biochemistry, Bioengineering, and Psychology and Neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego invite applications for a postdoctoral position in systems neuroscience, for experiments leading to the neuromorphic engineering of cognitive abilities. The ideal candidate will have experience with electrophysiology, with awake behaving animals, with neural modeling, and/or with biologically inspired integrated circuits and systems. Close interaction with other project researchers in computational and theoretical neuroscience, nonlinear dynamical systems, and neuromorphic engineering is involved. We will accept applications immediately. To be considered, please submit your complete application by Friday, 31 July 2015. We will begin making selections from the completed applications on 3 August 2015. The Committee will continue to accept and review completed applications as they are received until the position is filled. Appointments are for two years (in one-year increments) with the possibility of a third. Send your statement of qualifications and interest with curriculum vitae, your two most significant publications and three letters of reference to Tim Gentner, Henry Abarbanel, Gert Cauwenberghs, Katja Lindenberg, Mikhail Rabinovich, and Terrence Sejnowski via email to: <postdoc.muri(a)gmail.com<mailto:postdoc.muri@gmail.com>>. A Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree is required prior to the appointment. UCSD is an EO/AA employer.

June 22, 2015

Development of model description languages

by Erik De Schutter

Postdoctoral researcher and staff scientist positions are available in the Computational Neuroscience Unit (https://groups.oist.jp/cnu) of Prof. Erik De Schutter at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University. We are looking for a postdoc with a computer science or engineering background who is interested in the development of XML-based methods for model description and simulation. You will collaborate with international colleagues on further development of NIneML (http://nineml.net) and deploy it within the research group. Previous experience related to collaborative projects in computational neuroscience or systems biology preferred. You will interact with other researchers and students in the lab who are working on cerebellar modeling projects or analyzing cerebellar recordings. We offer attractive financial and working conditions in an English language graduate university that emphasizes interdisciplinary research, located on the beautiful subtropical island Okinawa. Send curriculum vitae, a summary of research interests and experience, and the names of three referees to Prof. Erik De Schutter at erik(a)oist.jp

June 22, 2015

SPIKY and PySpike – Two free software packages for monitoring spike train synchrony

by Thomas Kreuz

Dear all, we would like to draw your attention to our two most recent papers and to two new software packages. *1. Two new papers:* This paper provides a detailed description of *SPIKY* (see 2.) and introduces our new measure *SPIKE-synchronization*: • Kreuz T, Mulansky M, Bozanic N: SPIKY: A graphical user interface for monitoring spike train synchrony. JNeurophysiol <http://jn.physiology.org/content/113/9/3432> 113, 3432 (2015) [PDF] <http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/thomas.kreuz/images/Kreuz_JNeurophysiol_2015…>. An overview of all three of our measures (*ISI-distance, SPIKE-distance and SPIKE-synchronization*) and their mathematical properties can be found in • Mulansky M, Bozanic N, Sburlea A, Kreuz T: A guide to time-resolved and parameter-free measures of spike train synchrony. IEEE Proceedings (in press) and arXiv [PDF] <http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.02027v2.pdf> (2015). *2. SPIKY, graphical user interface (Matlab) for monitoring spike train synchrony* Implementations of ISI-distance, SPIKE-distance, and SPIKE-Synchronization Distances, time profiles, distance matrices, selective averaging, triggered averages, dendrograms, etc. Plotting, movie generation Spike train generator, event detector (for continuous data such as EEG) Matlab with C backend (MEX) Matlab fallback if no MEX-compiler is not available Extensive documentation includes many illustrative movies Matlab source codes and all relevant papers are available on our *SPIKY download page* http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/thomas.kreuz/Source-Code/SPIKY.html For further information about new features and updates please check the *SPIKY Facebook page* https://www.facebook.com/SPIKYgui Here you'll also find a lot of documentation including many images and movies that illustrate how to use SPIKY. All of these movies can also be found on the *SPIKY Youtube channel* https://www.youtube.com/user/SPIKYgui1 *3. PySpike, open source Python library hosted on github* Implementations of ISI-distance, SPIKE-distance, and SPIKE-Synchronization Library of functions to compute distances and profiles (bivariate and multivariate), distance matrices, selective averages, etc. Helper functions for plotting, spike train generation Cython backend for optimal performance (factor 100-200 over plain Python) Python fallback if Cython is not available Extensive unit-tests that cover the API as well as the numerics Automatic build and test runs Documentation The github issues system can be used to file bug reports or request new functionality and features. *PySpike webpage* http://www.pyspike.de *PySpike github page* https://github.com/mariomulansky/PySpike Any feedback on both the papers and the software packages is very welcome. Best wishes, Thomas Kreuz -- Institute for complex systems, CNR Via Madonna del Piano 10 50119 Sesto Fiorentino (Italy) Tel: +39-349-0748506 Email: thomas.kreuz(a)cnr.it Webpage: http://www.fi.isc.cnr.it/users/thomas.kreuz/

June 21, 2015

Research Associate Position in Computational Neural Modeling (Duke University)

by Angel V. Peterchev

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE in COMPUTATIONAL NEURAL MODELING DUKE UNIVERSITY Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences An opportunity exists to join a research team working to understand and advance transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS is a non-invasive form of brain stimulation used widely as a neuroscience research tool as well as a treatment for psychiatric and neurological disorders (FDA approved for depression since 2008). We have an ongoing NIH-funded project that combines computational modeling at several scales with single neuron recordings in pre-clinical models. We seek a highly-motivated individual who is interested in developing and applying computational models of TMS. The parallel experimental component of the study provides unique opportunities to validate and calibrate computational models. This is a full-time position with University Benefits and provides exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary research and career development. This position will be jointly mentored by Angel V. Peterchev, PhD<https://sites.google.com/site/dukebrainstimulation/> (Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine) and Warren M. Grill, PhD<http://www.bme.duke.edu/faculty/warren-grill> (Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering), providing exposure to both clinical and engineering research settings. A PhD in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, neuroscience, physics, or math is required, as are excellent communication skills. Previous experience in computational neural modeling is required, and previous experience with neural stimulation is desirable. For consideration submit a CV and the names and contact information of three professional references as a .pdf file attachment to: Angel V. Peterchev, PhD Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Electrical & Computer Engineering angel.peterchev(a)duke.edu<mailto:angel.peterchev@duke.edu> Duke University is an equal opportunity / affirmative action employer.

June 21, 2015

Congratulations to the Winners of the 2015 Best Illusion of the Year Contest!

by Susana Martinez-Conde

Congratulations to the winners of the 11th annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest <http://illusionoftheyear.com/> ! Online voters around the world chose the best illusions of the year from Thursday, June 11th 7pm EST to Friday, June 12th 7PM EST. First Place and an award of $3,000 USD went to "Splitting Colors <http://illusionoftheyear.com/2015/splitting-colors/> ," a color illusion by Mark Vergeer from KU Leuven, Belgium. Second Place and an award of $2,000 USD went to "Ambiguous Garage Roof <http://illusionoftheyear.com/2015/ambiguous-garage-roof/> ," a perspective illusion by Kokichi Sugihara from Meiji University, Japan. Third Place and an award of $1,000 USD went to "The Day it Rained on Lowry <http://illusionoftheyear.com/2015/the-day-it-rained-on-lowry/> ," a motion illusion by Michael Pickard from VisuallyDirectedDesign.com in the UK. Enjoy the winning illusions and all Top 10 Finalists <http://illusionoftheyear.com/cat/top-10-finalists/2015/> at http://illusionoftheyear.com Illusion submissions <http://illusionoftheyear.com/about-the-contest/submission-instructions/> are now accepted for the 12th edition of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest, to be held in 2016. On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse The Neural Correlate Society is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote the public awareness of neuroscience research. ----------------------------------- Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology & Pharmacology Director, Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience Scholar, Empire Innovator Program State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center 450 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn NY 11203, USA Email: <mailto:smart@neuralcorrelate.com> smart(a)neuralcorrelate.com Phone: +1 718-270-4520 <http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com/> http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com

June 19, 2015

CFP 7th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence - IJCCI 2015

by Calendar Sites

Please note that the dates of the UPCOMING DEADLINES have been slightly changed. ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ CALL FOR PAPERS 7th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence IJCCI 2015 Website: http://www.ijcci.org/ November 12 14, 2015 Lisbon, Portugal <http://www.ijcci.org/Glossary.aspx#11> <http://www.ijcci.org/Glossary.aspx#11> Regular Papers Paper Submission: July 14, 2015 (extended) Authors Notification: September 18, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: October 2, 2015 <http://www.ijcci.org/Glossary.aspx#12> <http://www.ijcci.org/Glossary.aspx#12> Position Papers Paper Submission: July 14, 2015 Authors Notification: September 21, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: October 5, 2015 <http://www.ijcci.org/Glossary.aspx#46> Doctoral Consortium Paper Submission: September 3, 2015 Authors Notification: September 17, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: September 29, 2015 <http://www.ijcci.org/Glossary.aspx#42> Special Sessions Special Session Proposal: June 26, 2015 Paper Submission: September 2, 2015 Authors Notification: September 17, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: September 25, 2015 Tutorials, Demos and panels Proposals: July 27, 2015 Sponsored by: INSTICC-Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication INSTICC is Member of: WfMC Workflow Management Coalition OMG Object Management Group FIPA Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents Technically Co-sponsored by: IFAC International Federation of Automatic Control IEEE SMC - Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society In Cooperation with: AI*IA Associazione Italiana per l'Intelligenza Artificiale INNS - The International Neural Network Society AAAI Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence EUSFLAT European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology APPIA Portuguese Association for Artificial Intelligence International Fuzzy Systems Association Logistics Partner: SCITEVENTS Science and Technology Events The purpose of IJCCI is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners on the areas of Fuzzy Computation, Evolutionary Computation and Neural Computation. IJCCI is composed of three co-located conferences, each specialized in at least one of the aforementioned main knowledge areas. ECTA 2015 - 7th International Conference on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Applications PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS Agostinho Rosa, IST, Portugal Juan Julian Merelo, University of Granada, Spain CONFERENCE TOPICS * Genetic Algorithms * Machine Learning * Cognitive Systems * Artificial Life * Representation Techniques * Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization * Game Theory and Applications * Evolution Strategies * Evolutionary Robotics and Intelligent Agents * Society and Cultural Aspects of Evolution * Concurrent Co-operation * Co-evolution and Collective Behavior * Biocomputing and Complex Adaptive Systems * Bio-inspired Hardware and Networks * Swarm/Collective Intelligence * Evolutionary Art and Design * Hybrid Systems * Memetic Algorithms FCTA 2015 - 7th International Conference on Fuzzy Computation Theory and Applications PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS António Dourado, University of Coimbra, Portugal José M. Cadenas, University of Murcia, Spain CONFERENCE TOPICS * Fuzzy Hardware, Fuzzy Architectures * Soft Computing and Intelligent Agents * Mathematical Foundations: Fuzzy Set Theory and Fuzzy Logic * Approximate Reasoning and Fuzzy Inference * System Identification and Fault Detection * Fuzzy Information Retrieval and Data Mining * Fuzzy Information Processing, Fusion, Text Mining * Learning and Adaptive Fuzzy Systems * Complex Fuzzy Systems * Pattern Recognition: Fuzzy Clustering and Classifiers * Fuzzy Image, Speech and Signal Processing, Vision and Multimedia * Industrial, Financial and Medical Applications * Type-2 Fuzzy Logic * Neuro-fuzzy Systems * Fuzzy Systems Design, Modeling and Control * Real-time Learning of Fuzzy and Neuro-fuzzy Systems * Fuzzy Control * Fuzzy Systems in Robotics: Sensors, Navigation and Coordination * Software for Fuzzy Systems and Control NCTA 2015 - 7th International Conference on Neural Computation Theory and Applications PROGRAM CHAIR Kurosh Madani, University of Paris-EST Créteil (UPEC), France António Ruano, University of Algarve, Portugal CONFERENCE TOPICS * Pattern Recognition * Industrial, Financial and Medical Applications * Computational Neuroscience * Neural Network Software and Applications * Neuroinformatics and Bioinformatics * Learning Paradigms and Algorithms * Supervised and Unsupervised Learning * Adaptive Architectures and Mechanisms * Support Vector Machines and Applications * Complex Artificial Neural Network Based Systems and Dynamics * Higher Level Artificial Neural Network Based Intelligent Systems * Bio-inspired and Humanoid Robotics * Image Processing and Artificial Vision Applications * Intelligent Artificial Perception and Neural Sensors * Modular Implementation of Artificial Neural Networks * Neural based Data Mining and Complex Information Processing * Neural Multi-agent Intelligent Systems and Applications * Self-organization and Emergence * Stability and Instability in Artificial Neural Networks * Neural Network Hardware Implementation and Applications * Neural Computation issues in Social Behaviour Emergence PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. SCITEPRESS is a member of CrossRef ( <http://www.crossref.org/> http://www.crossref.org/) and every paper is given a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the <http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/Default.aspx> SCITEPRESS Digital Library . A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published by Springer in a <http://www.springer.com/series/7092> SCI Series book. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI), INSPEC, DBLP, EI (Elsevier Index) and Scopus. AWARDS The awards will be announced and bestowed at the conference closing session. Please check the websites for further information: http://www.ecta.ijcci.org/BestPaperAward.aspx <http://www.fcta.ijcci.org/BestPaperAward.aspx> http://www.fcta.ijcci.org/BestPaperAward.aspx <http://www.ncta.ijcci.org/BestPaperAward.aspx> http://www.ncta.ijcci.org/BestPaperAward.aspx IJCCI KEYNOTE LECTURES <http://www.ijcci.org/KeynoteSpeakers.aspx#1> Julian Togelius, New York University, United States <http://www.ijcci.org/KeynoteSpeakers.aspx#2> Yaochu Jin, University of Surrey, United Kingdom <http://www.ijcci.org/KeynoteSpeakers.aspx#3> Anna Esparcia-Alcázar, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain <http://www.ijcci.org/KeynoteSpeakers.aspx#4> Edwin Lughofer, Johannes Kepler University, Austria IJCCI CONFERENCE CHAIR Joaquim Filipe, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal / INSTICC, Portugal Please check further details at the conference website ( <http://www.ijcci.org/> http://www.ijcci.org/) IJCCI SECRETARIAT Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2º esq. 2910-595 Setúbal - Portugal Tel.: +351 265 100 033 Fax: +44 203 014 8813 e-mail: ijcci.secretariat(a)insticc.org

June 19, 2015

BCF/NWG Course "Analysis and Models in Neurophysiology" 2015 at the Bernstein Center Freiburg, Germany

by Birgit Ahrens

-- APPLICATION DEADLINE APPROACHING ON JUNE 30 -- BCF/NWG Course "Analysis and Models in Neurophysiology" Sunday, October 4 - Friday, October 9, 2015 Bernstein Center Freiburg, Hansastraße 9a, 79104 Freiburg, Germany Aim of the course: The course is intended to provide advanced Diploma/Masters and PhD students, as well as young researchers from the neurosciences with approaches for the analysis of electrophysiological data and the theoretical concepts behind them. The course includes various topics such as: - Neuron Models and Point Processes (Prof. Stefan Rotter) - Local field potentials (Prof. Ulrich Egert) - Neural Coding (Dr. Robert Schmidt) - Neural Decoding (Prof. Carsten Mehring) The course will consist of lectures in the morning and matching exercises using Matlab and Mathematica in the afternoon. The participants should have a basic understanding of scientific programming. This course is designated especially for advanced diploma/master students and PhD students (preferentially in their first year). Application: Please apply by sending one pdf document containing your CV and a meaningful letter of motivation to nwg-course(a)bcf.uni-freiburg.de. The letter of motivation should refer to the following points: - Reasons for wanting to take this course - Background in mathematics - Background in scientific programming - Experience in using Matlab and Mathematica - Background in neuroscience The course is limited to 20 participants. Course fees: NWG members - 50€, others - 125€ Application deadline: June 30, 2015 More information: http://www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/events/conferences-workshops/20151004-nwgcou… -- Dr. Birgit Ahrens Teaching & Training Coordinator Bernstein Center Freiburg University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9a D - 79104 Freiburg Germany Phone: +49 (0) 761 203-9575 Fax: +49 (0) 761 203-9559

June 19, 2015

NEST, The Neural Simulation Tool, now available on GitHub

by Hans Ekkehard Plesser

Dear Colleagues! Development of the widely used Neural Simulation Tool NEST for large-scale spiking neuronal network models has now moved to GitHub at https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator The code on GitHub is based on the code base for the coming NEST 2.6.1 bugfix release and is available under GNU Public License version 2 or later. By cloning NEST from our GitHub repository, you will have immediate access to all improvements in the NEST master repository. We would also like to encourage community development contributions to NEST. If you would like to contribute to NEST, you should fork NEST on GitHub and submit your contributions via pull requests. More information: - About the NEST Simulator: http://www.nest-simulator.org - About contributing to NEST: https://nest.github.io/nest-simulator/ - About the NEST Initiative: http://www.nest-initiative.org - User mailing list: http://mail.nest-initiative.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nest_user - Video about NEST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0YEiren7D0 About NEST: NEST is a simulator for spiking neural network models that focuses on the dynamics, size and structure of neural systems rather than on the exact morphology of individual neurons. The development of NEST is coordinated by the NEST Initiative. NEST is ideal for networks of spiking neurons of any size, for example: • Models of information processing e.g. in the visual or auditory cortex of mammals, • Models of network activity dynamics, e.g. laminar cortical networks or balanced random networks, • Models of learning and plasticity. Best regards, Hans Ekkehard Plesser President, The NEST Initiative -- Dr. Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Associate Professor Section Head Dept. of Mathematical Sciences and Technology Norwegian University of Life Sciences PO Box 5003, 1432 Aas, Norway Phone +47 6723 1560 Email hans.ekkehard.plesser(a)nmbu.no Home http://arken.umb.no/~plesser

June 19, 2015

Post-doc position at QMUL in 3D vision

by Miles Hansard

Post-doc position at Queen Mary, University of London: Geometric Evaluation of Stereoscopic Video. A research assistant is sought for this EPSRC project, which will develop a new approach to the evaluation of 3D content, based on computational models of visual perception. Ideas from computer vision will be used to model the geometry of binocular viewing, including the role of eye-movements. A prototype computer vision system will be developed, for the automatic analysis of disparity statistics in stereoscopic video. The output of this system will be targeted at depth-grading and other post-production tasks. The project is in conjunction with a high-profile graphics and visual effects company. There will also be opportunities to work on stereoscopic VR HMD applications. Expertise in scientific programming, including C++ and Matlab, is essential (OpenCV, R, and GPU programming would be useful). Previous work in augmented reality, 3D reconstruction, or psychophysical methods would be an advantage. Please contact Miles Hansard at Queen Mary, University of London (http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~milesh/) for further information. All nationalities are eligible to apply. For details and procedure see: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ATW277/research-assistant/ -- http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~milesh/

June 18, 2015

Aspect of Neuroscience 2015 - invitation for the conference

by Daniel Borek

Dear Friends, On behalf of the Board of the Neurobiology Student Scientific Association operating at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw I would like to invite you to the 5th International Conference " Aspects of Neuroscience" that will be held in Warsaw, Poland, from November 27th to 29th 2015. As in the following years, this time the Conference also consists of poster and report symposia. November symposia will be devoted to: Neurobiology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics. Each of the thematic symposium will be preceded by a lecture delivered by one of the guests, a specialist of a given domain. During the last editions of the conference we had privilege to host such outstanding neuroscientists as Prof. Semir Zeki, Prof. Richard Frackowiak or Prof. Bruce Graham. The conference is intended for students, doctoral students and research workers related to neuroscience. The student lectures will take place simultaneously in two rooms, in basic and extended version. The basic session provides an opportunity to present theoretical and review talks for the students who do not conduct their own research yet. We would like the conference to gather academics with different background and level of expertise, who share the common passion for neuroscience. Language of conference is English. Registration for the conference will be open from July 1st. More information about conference and the whole Project: www.neuronauka.org/eng Find us on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AspectsOfNeuroscience?fref=ts Yours sincerely, Daniel Borek Neurobiology Student Scientific Association at the University of Warsaw Organizing Committee of the International Conference of Students and Young Scientists "The Aspects of Neuroscience"

June 18, 2015

NEURAL COMPUTATION - July 1, 2015

by Terry Sejnowski

Neural Computation - Volume 27, Number 7 - July 1, 2015 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/27/7 ----- Articles Unifying Blind Separation and Clustering for Resting-State EEG/MEG Functional Connectivity Analysis Jun-ichiro Hirayama, Takeshi Ogawa, and Aapo Hyvarinen Attentional Bias Through Oscillatory Coherence Between Excitatory Activity and Inhibitory Minima Sebastian Blaes, Thomas Burwick Letters Clusterless Decoding of Position From Multiunit Activity Using a Marked Point Process Filter Xinyi Deng, Daniel F. Liu, Kenneth Kay, Loren M. Frank, and Uri T. Eden A Hebbian/Anti-Hebbian Neural Network for Linear Subspace Learning: A Derivation From Multidimensional Scaling of Streaming Data Cengiz Pehlevan, Tao Hu, and Dmitri B. Chklovskii Learning Slowness in a Sparse Model of Invariant Feature Detection Thusitha N. Chandrapala, Bertram E. Shi On the Spike Train Variability Characterized by Variance-to-mean Power Relationship Shinsuke koyama Comments and Correction on "U-Processes and Preference Learning" (Neural Computation Vol. 26, Pp. 2896-2924, 2014) Wojciech Rejchel, Hong Li, Chuanbao Ren, and Luoqing Li ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2015 - VOLUME 27 - 12 ISSUES Student/Retired $75 Individual $134 Institution $1,075 MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209 Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-cs(a)mit.edu ------------

June 18, 2015

Open position in Juelich, Germany: Koordinator Software Development

by Martina Reske

Das Forschungszentrum Jülich betreibt interdisziplinäre Spitzenforschung und stellt sich drängenden Fragen der Gegenwart. Es leistet Beiträge zur Lösung großer gesellschaftlicher Herausforderungen in den Bereichen Energie und Umwelt sowie Information und Gehirn. Mit mehr als 5.500 Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern gehört es als Mitglied der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft zu den großen interdisziplinären Forschungszentren Europas. Das Supercomputing Centre, als Standort eines der leistungsfähigsten Rechner, übernimmt eine führende Rolle in der europäischen Exascale Strategie. Das Institut für Neurowissenschaften und Medizin (INM) erforscht im Rahmen des Programms “Decoding the Human Brain” die Organisation des menschlichen Gehirns auf seinen verschiedenen räumlichen und zeitlichen Skalen. Die moderne neurowissenschaftliche Grundlagenforschung erfordert Modellierung und Simulation auf Hochleistungsrechnern, um der Komplexität des Gehirns zu begegnen und Einsicht in seine Arbeitsweise zu gewinnen. Das entstehende Wissen ermöglicht dann die Translation in die klinische Anwendung, um neurologische und mentale Erkrankungen besser zu verstehen, zu diagnostizieren und zu therapieren – Aufgaben, die in einer älter werdenden Gesellschaft von höchster Bedeutung sind. Darüber hinaus werden aber auch Impulse für neue Rechnergenerationen und deren Betrieb gegeben. Das INM-6, Computational and Systems Neuroscience, erstellt mathematische Modelle der Dynamik und Funktion neuronaler Schaltkreise. Dazu gehören die modellgetriebene Analyse der Aktivität und Struktur des Gehirns sowie die Simulation biologisch realistischer Modelle. Die Entwicklung entsprechender Simulationstechnologie und Analysewerkzeuge ist eine wesentliche Komponente der Forschung. Das INM-6 entwickelt zusammen mit seinen Partnern in einem Open Source Ansatz den führenden Code für Simulationen auf der Gehirnskala mit der Auflösung von Nervenzellen (NEST), ist gleichzeitig Teil des Institute of Advanced Simulation (IAS-6, Theoretical Neuroscience) und beherbergt die Coordination Site (BCOS) des nationalen Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience. Verstärken Sie diesen Bereich als Koordinator Software Entwicklung (w/m) Ihre Aufgaben: * Koordination der Roadmap und der Releases der Simulations-Software NEST * regelmäßige Vorbereitung von und Teilnahme an Koordinierungstreffen und Videokonferenzen zusammen mit oder in Vertretung der Institutsleitung * direkte Betreuung von Wissenschaftlerinnen/Wissenschaftlern und Doktorandinnen/Doktoranden in Bezug auf Software-Entwicklung * Erstellen von Projektberichten und Anträgen * Repräsentation der Simulations-Software auf internationalen Tagungen * Beteiligung an der Weiterentwicklung von Programmen zur Analyse neuronaler Vielkanaldaten * Vertretung des Koordinators Wissenschaftliches Rechnen Ihr Profil: * ein abgeschlossenes Hochschulstudium der Informatik, Mathematik oder Physik * tiefe Kenntnisse/Erfahrungen in C und C++, Python sowie parallelem und verteiltem Rechnen * Fähigkeit und Bereitschaft zu eigenverantwortlichem Handeln, Führungsfähigkeit * Fähigkeit und Bereitschaft selbstständig Projektberichte abzufassen * Erfahrung im Projekt- und Qualitätsmanagement * neurowissenschaftliche Grundkenntnisse, insbesondere neuronaler Dynamik sind von Vorteil * sicheres Auftreten und Kommunikationsvermögen sowie ausgeprägte Fähigkeit zur kooperativen Zusammenarbeit in einer interdisziplinären Arbeitsumgebung * hohe soziale Kompetenz und Fähigkeit zur kooperativen Zusammenarbeit im Team * Bereitschaft zu Reisen * strukturierte und systematische Arbeitsweise * überdurchschnittliches mündliches und schriftliches Kommunikationsvermögen in deutscher und englischer Sprache Unser Angebot: * Integration in ein interdisziplinäres und internationales Institut * Arbeit in einem kreativen Team mit internationaler Perspektive * Zugang zu modernsten Supercomputern und neuromorpher Hardware * die Möglichkeit, Design-Entscheidungen in einem großen Software-Projekt wesentlich mitzubestimmen und zu prägen * enge Zusammenarbeit mit dem Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) und seiner Exascale Strategie insbesondere dem Simulation Laboratory Neuroscience * hohe Sichtbarkeit durch Vertretung der Institutsleitung bei internationalen Projekttreffen * Beteiligung an Publikationen in der Spitzenforschung zur Simulationstechnologie * Arbeit auf Weltniveau an der Grenze zwischen Neurowissenschaft und Technologie an den komplexesten bekannten Systemen * ein grüner wachsender Campus mit den besten weltweit verfügbaren wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen, nahe den kulturellen Zentren Köln, Düsseldorf und Aachen * eine zunächst auf 2 Jahre befristete Stelle mit der Möglichkeit einer längerfristigen Perspektive * Vergütung und Sozialleistungen nach dem Tarifvertrag des öffentlichen Dienstes (TVöD-Bund) Das Forschungszentrum Jülich möchte mehr Mitarbeiterinnen in diesem Bereich beschäftigen. Wir sind daher an der Bewerbung von Frauen besonders interessiert. Bewerbungen schwerbehinderter Menschen sind uns willkommen. Wir freuen uns auf Ihre Bewerbung, möglichst über unser Online-Bewerbungssystemhttp://www.fz-juelich.de/SharedDocs/Stellenangebote/_common/dna/2015-126-DE-INM-6.html?nn=363560 bis zum 07.07.15 unter Angabe der Kennziffer 2015-126. -- Dr. Martina Reske Scientific Coordinator Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) Computational and Systems Neuroscience & Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6) Theoretical Neuroscience Jülich Research Centre and JARA Jülich, Germany Work +49.2461.611916 Work Cell +49.151.26156918 Fax +49.2461.619460 www.csn.fz-juelich.de<http://www.csn.fz-juelich.de> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 17, 2015

Postdoctoral Position in Computational Neuroscience at IUPUI

by Yaroslav Molkov

A postdoctoral/research associate position in computational neuroscience for the duration of up to two years is available in the externally funded project focusing on multiscale computational modeling of motor control mechanisms, involving interactions between basal ganglia, thalamus, cerebellum, cortex, and spinal cord in connection with realistic simulation of pathological changes in motor control during Huntington’s disease. This collaborative project is performed jointly by the groups of Drs. Ilya Rybak (Dept. of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA) and Yaroslav Molkov (Dept. of Mathematical Science, Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, USA). Applicants must have a PhD degree in Neuroscience, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or a related discipline, a strong research record, and excellent C++ programming skills. Previous experience in computational neuronal modeling is a plus. Interested candidates are encouraged to contact Dr. Molkov ( ymolkov(a)iupui.edu) by email. To apply, please send an email along with (1) curriculum vitae; (2) a cover letter describing previous research experience and interests; (3) the names and contact information of three references. ================================= Yaroslav Molkov, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis Department of Mathematical Sciences 402 N. Blackford St, LD 270, Indianapolis, IN 46202 Office: LD 224U Phone: (317) 274-6934 Fax: (317) 274-3460 Email: ymolkov(a)iupui.edu

June 17, 2015

Postdoctoral position in computational neuroscience

by Maxim Bazhenov

Applications are invited for post-doctoral research positions in the laboratory of Dr. Maxim Bazhenov at the University of California, Riverside to study role of sleep in memory and learning. This computational neuroscience project involves close collaboration with several experimental laboratories. The ultimate goal of this work is to understand how the interaction among brain areas during different stages of sleep leads to consolidation of memory for recent learning. The successful candidate will be responsible for the design of the anatomically realistic brain network models based on existing experimental data. These models will be used to understand network dynamics that are involved in the processes of memory consolidation, as well as guide data analysis and produce novel experimental predictions. Qualified applicants are expected to have experience in computational/theoretical neuroscience and neural modeling. Programming experience with C/C++ is required. Knowledge of PYTHON or MATLAB is a plus. The University of California offers excellent benefits. Salary is based on research experience. The initial appointment is for 1 year with a possibility of extension. Applicants should send a brief statement of research interests, a CV and the names of three references to Maxim Bazhenov at maksim.bazhenov(a)ucr.edu -- Maxim Bazhenov, Ph.D. Professor, Cell Biology and Neuroscience University of California Riverside, CA 92521 Ph: 951-827-4370 http://biocluster.ucr.edu/~mbazhenov/

June 16, 2015

PhD in computational neuroscience, Zurich

by Jean-Pascal Pfister

Applications are invited for one PhD student position at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (ETHZ, UZH) in Zurich. The position is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant entitled "Inference and Learning with Spiking Neurons". The PhD student will be supervised by Jean-Pascal Pfister in the Theoretical Neuroscience Group. There are several lines of evidence indicating that the human brain performs near Bayesian optimal inference in a wide range of tasks, but it remains unclear how this inference can be implemented in the brain. The aim of the project is to determine how Bayesian inference and learning can be implemented at the level of neurons and synapses. The Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich (which is a joint institute belonging to both the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) and the University of Zurich) offers an ideal environment for studying Computational Neuroscience due to the presence of multiple theoretical and experimental labs. The candidate should hold a Diplom/Master degree in Physics, Mathematics, Machine learning, Computational Neuroscience or a related field. He/she should have a very strong mathematical background, good programming skills and interests in theoretical neuroscience. The position is offered for a period of three years, starting before the 1st of September 2015. Salary scale is provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation (www.snf.ch) The applicant should submit (by email) a CV, a statement of research interests, 2 reference letters, marks obtained for the Diploma/Master, abstract of the Diploma/Master to Jean-Pascal Pfister (jpfister(a)ini.uzh.ch) Deadline for application is 15th of July 2015 or until the position is filled. Jean-Pascal Pfister --------------------------------- Prof. Jean-Pascal Pfister Theoretical Neuroscience Group Institute of Neuroinformatics University of Zurich and ETH Zurich Winterthurerstrasse 190 8057 Zurich, Switzerland www.ini.uzh.ch/~jpfister <http://www.ini.uzh.ch/~jpfister> Tel: +41 44 635 30 79

June 16, 2015

PhD/Postdoc positions for neural processor project NPP

by Michael Pfeiffer

We have a number of available PhD and postdoc positions available now for the Neuromorphic Processor Project (NPP). NPP is a 3 year project that started 1 May 2015. NPP will develop theory, architectures, and FPGA implementations targeting specific applications of deep neural network technology in vision and audition. Deep learning has become the state-of-the-art machine learning approach for sensory processing applications, and this project aims towards real-time, low-power, brain-inspired solutions targeted at full-custom SoC integration. A particular aim of the NPP is to develop efficient data-driven deep neural network architectures that can enable always-on operation on battery-powered mobile devices in conjunction with event-driven sensors. PhD and postdoc positions are available now in theory, hardware architectures, and applications of these networks. For the theory part of the project we are specifically looking for PhD candidates with experience in deep neural networks and/or spiking neural networks, or deep learning applications in vision and audition. The project team includes academic partners in the USA, Canada, and Spain. The project is coordinated by the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI) at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich (www.ini.uzh.ch ). INI is a joint institute of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich and has been cited in IEEE Spectrum and Scientific American as one of the world’s leading organizations in the development of neuromorphic sensing and computing technology. The lead NPP PI is Prof. Tobi Delbruck. Other NPP PIs at INI are Dr. Shih-Chii Liu, Dr. Michael Pfeiffer, and Prof. Giacomo Indiveri. Please see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MLoZRAYu_--ZH2ORIoqLPLzJs2spXRM0kO2A2QZ… for more details and information on how to apply. Best regards, Michael Pfeiffer, Tobi Delbruck, Shih-Chii Liu, and Giacomo Indiveri -- ========================================= Dr. Michael Pfeiffer Group leader, Program coordinator NSC Institute of Neuroinformatics University of Zurich and ETH Zurich Winterthurerstrasse 190 CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland Tel. +41 44 635 30 45 Fax +41 44 635 30 53 pfeiffer (at) ini.phys.ethz.ch http://www.ini.uzh.ch/~pfeiffer/ =========================================

June 15, 2015

4th Edition of Complex Systems Primer available

by Claudius Gros

Dear Colleagues, It is a pleasure to announce the availability of the 4th edition of the textbook Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems: A Primer (Springer Complexity, Softcover) ISBN: 978-3-319-16264-5 (Print) 978-3-319-16265-2 (Online) by Claudius Gros Complex and adaptive dynamical systems are ubiquitous and the brain constitutes a prominent example. The goal of this book is to provide a general entry point to complex and dynamical systems based on network architectures. ------------------------------------------------------- cover-text: ---------- This primer offers an introduction to the central concepts at the basis of our modern understanding of complex and emergent behavior, together with a detailed coverage of the mathematical methods. All calculations are presented step by step and are straightforward to follow. This new forth edition is fully reorganized and comes with new chapters, figures and exercises. The core of modern complex system sciences are presented in the first chapters, covering network theory, dynamical systems, bifurcation and catastrophe theory, chaos and adaptive processes together with the principle of self-organization in reaction-diffusion systems and social animals. Modern information theoretical principles are treated in further chapters, together with the concept of self-organized criticality, gene regulation networks, hypercycles and coevolutionary avalanches, synchronization phenomena, absorbing phase transitions and the cognitive system approach to the brain. Technical course prerequisites are the standard mathematical tools for an advanced undergraduate course in the natural sciences or engineering. Each chapter comes with exercises and suggestions for further reading, with the solutions to the exercises being provided in the last chapter. ------------------------------------------------------- content: -------- * Chapter 1: Graph Theory and Small-World Networks * Chapter 2: Bifurcations and Chaos in Dynamical Systems * Chapter 3: Dissipation, Noise and Adaptive Systems * Chapter 4: Self Organization and Pattern Formation * Chapter 5: Complexity and Information Theory * Chapter 6: Cellular Automata and Self-Organized Criticality * Chapter 7: Random Boolean Networks * Chapter 8: Darwinian Evolution, Hypercycles and Game Theory * Chapter 9: Synchronization Phenomena * Chapter 10: Elements of Cognitive System Theory * Chapter 11: Solutions to the exercises ------------------------------------------------------- Sincerely, Claudius Gros ***************************************** *** Prof. Dr. Claudius Gros *** *** +49 (0)69 798 47818 *** *** http://itp.uni-frankfurt.de/~gros *** ***************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------- --- Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems, A Primer --- --- A graduate-level textbook, Springer (2008/10/13/15) --- -----------------------------------------------------------

June 15, 2015

Interdisciplinary PhD Position in Computational Neuroscience of Vision: Active Efficient Coding (AEC)

by Jochen Triesch

Apologies for cross posting. Please forward to interested students. We have an open PhD student position in my lab (http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/de/neuro/triesch) at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) in Frankfurt, Germany to explore the new area of active efficient coding (AEC), a recently formulated generalization of the efficient coding hypothesis to active perception. The basic idea of AEC is that sensory systems learn to use their motor degrees of freedom to contribute to the efficient encoding of sensory signals. Along these lines, we have developed computational models for the self-calibration of active stereo and motion vision [1,2,3]. These models simultaneously learn a sensory representation with sparse coding approaches and controllers for their eye movements through reinforcement learning. Both learning components aim to maximize the overall coding efficiency of the system, which leads to fully self-calibrating sensory-motor loops for active stereo vision (dispartiy tuning and vergence control) and motion vision (motion tuning and pursuit movements). To the best of our knowledge, these models are the first ever to demonstrate how such self-calibration can emerge from a generic efficient coding objective. We have also validated the approach on robots such as the iCub (http://www.icub.org) The work will be performed in a stimulating interdisciplinary environment with ample opportunities for collaboration with neuromorphic engineers, neuroscientists, roboticists, psychologists, and clinicians across the globe. Possible research directions include better understanding how and why such self-calibration can go awry in clinical conditions such as strabism and amblyopia, implementations on neuromorphic hardware and many others. We are seeking an outstanding and highly motivated PhD student for this project. Applicants should have obtained a Masters degree (or equivalent) in Computational Neuroscience or a related field. The ideal candidate will have excellent programming skills (Matlab, Python, C/C++), very good analytic skills, and a broad knowledge of computational neuroscience, machine learning, computer vision, robotics, signal processing and statistics. Furthermore, specific expertise in visual neuroscience, information theory, sparse coding models, and reinforcement learning are desirable. Experience with programming Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) would be a plus. The position can be filled immediately. The Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies is a research institution dedicated to fundamental theoretical research in various areas of science. It is embedded into Frankfurt's recently established natural science research campus. Frankfurt itself is the hub of one of the most vibrant metropolitan areas in Europe. It boasts a rich culture and arts community and repeatedly earns highest rankings in worldwide surveys of quality of living. Applications should include a statement of research interests, CV and contact information for at least two references. Send applications to application(a)fias.uni-frankfurt.de. Review of applications will begin immediately. [1] A Unified Model of the Joint Development of Disparity Selectivity and Vergence Control. Zhao Y, Rothkopf CA, Triesch J, Shi B. IEEE Int. Conf. on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL), 2012. (Paper of excellence award.) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6400876 [2] Robust active binocular vision through intrinsically motivated learning L. Lonini, S. Forestier, C. Teulière, Y. Zhao, B. Shi, J. Triesch, frontiers in Neurorobotics, 2013. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnbot.2013.00020/full [3] Self-calibrating smooth pursuit through active efficient coding C. Teulière, S. Forestier, L. Lonini, C. Zhang, Y. Zhao, B. Shi, J. Triesch, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2014 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921889014002486 -- Prof. Dr. Jochen Triesch Johanna Quandt Research Professor Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/~triesch/ Tel: +49 (0)69 798-47531 Fax: +49 (0)69 798-47611

June 14, 2015

CFP: The First International Workshop on Computational Models of the Visual Cortex (CMVC) as part of the BICT, New York, 3-5 Dec 2015

by George Azzopardi

Dear All, We are pleased to announce The First International Workshop on Computational Models of the Visual Cortex (CMVC) as part of the BICT (Bio-inspired Information and Communication Technologies) conference, which will be held in New York City, New York, 3-5 December (http://bionetics.org/2015/show/home) Background Much has been advanced since the early works of the Nobel prize winners Hubel and Wiesel about the function of neurons in the primary visual cortex of cats’ brains. That work has been the source of inspiration of abundant neurophysiological studies to unveil the functionality of neurons in different areas of visual cortex. These experiments resulted in large amounts of data, which could then be used to design computational models to behave similarly to certain neurons in visual cortex. The contribution of such models is two-fold. They contribute to the better understanding of how visual information is processed in the brain, and they also contribute for the development of more robust algorithms in computer vision applications. The aim of this workshop is to bring together recent development of computational modelling of the visual cortex of the brain: Single cell modeling. Hierarchy of visual cortex areas Feedforward, feedback and inhibitory mechanisms. The appearance of neuronal properties: sparsity and selectivity. Circuitry: hierarchical representations and connections between layers. Selecting where to look: saliency and attention. Object recognition Contour detection Stereo Learning Important Dates Full papers due: July 31, 2015 Authors Notified: August 31, 2015 Camera-ready due: September 30, 2015 Paper submission We invite you to submit regular papers (up to 8 pages each), short papers (up to 4 pages each) or poster/demo papers (up to 2 pages each) in ACM's paper template. Up to two extra pages are allowed for each paper with extra page charges. See http://bionetics.org/2015/show/initial-submission for more details. Paper Submission Only PDF format is acceptable. Papers must be submitted to EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cmvc2015 For more information about the CMVC workshop please visit: http://cmvc.bionetics.org/2015/show/home Sincerely yours, Antonio Rodriguez-Sanchez, PhD George Azzopardi, PhD Co-chairs of CMVC’2015

June 13, 2015

CFP: 3rd International Workshop on Smart Sensor Protocols and Algorithms (SSPA 2015) - Munich, Germany, October 5-7, 2015

by Sandra Sendra

[Please accept our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email] *********************** CFP ******************************* 3rd International Workshop on Smart Sensor Protocols and Algorithms (SSPA 2015) http://jlloret.webs.upv.es/sspa2015/ in conjunction with The 8th IFIP Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference (WMNC' 15) Munich, Germany, October 5-7, 2015. http://www.wmnc2015.com/ SCOPE: Smart Sensor protocols and algorithms make use of several methods and techniques (such as machine learning techniques, decision making techniques, knowledge representation, network optimization, problem solution techniques, and so on), to establish communication between network devices. They can be used to perceive the network conditions, or the user behavior, in order to dynamically plan, adapt, decide, take the appropriate actions, and learn from the consequences of their actions. The algorithms can make use of the information gathered from the protocol in order to sense the environment, plan actions according to the input, take consciousness of what is happening in the environment, and take the appropriate decisions using a reasoning engine. Goals such as decide which scenario fits best its end-to-end purpose, or environment prediction, can be achieved with smart protocols and algorithms. Moreover, they could learn from the past and use this knowledge to improve future de! cisions. In this workshop, researchers are encouraged to submit papers focused on the design, development, analysis or optimization of smart sensor protocols or algorithms at any communication layer. Algorithms and protocols based on artificial intelligence techniques for network management, network monitoring, quality of service enhancement, performance optimization and network secure are included in the workshop. This conference edition once again targets to gather researchers from academia and industrial sectors to present analytical research, simulations, practical results, position papers addressing the pros and cons of specific proposals, and advances in sensor protocols and algorithms. The topics suggested by the conference can be discussed in term of concepts, state of the art, standards, deployments, implementations, running experiments and applications. TOPICS OF INTEREST: Authors are invited to submit complete unpublished papers, which are not under review in any other conference or journal, including, but are not limited to, the following topic areas: - Reasoning and learning techniques for sensing environment pollution - Smart route prediction in vehicular sensor networks - Smart data aggregation in vehicular sensor networks - Smart multimedia network protocols and algorithms for WSNs - Application layer, transport layer and network layer cognitive protocols - Cognitive radio network protocols and algorithms - Automatic protocols and algorithms for environment prediction - Algorithms and protocols to predict data network states - Intelligent synchronization techniques for sensor network protocols and algorithms - Smart sensor protocols and algorithms for e-health - Software applications for smart algorithms design and development in WSNs - Dynamic protocols based on the perception of their performance - Smart protocols and algorithms for Smartgrids - Protocols and algorithms focused on building conclusions for taking the appropriate actions - Smart Automatic and self-autonomous WSNs - Artificial intelligence applied in protocols and algorithms for WSNs - Smart security protocols and algorithms in WSNs - Smart cryptographic algorithms for communication in WSNs - Artificial intelligence applied to power efficiency and energy saving protocols and algorithms - Smart routing and switching protocols and algorithms in WSNs - Cognitive protocol and algorithm models for saving communication costs - Any kind of intelligent technique applied to QoS, content delivery, network Monitoring and network mobility management - Smart cooperative protocols and algorithms WSNs - Problem recognition and problem solving protocols for WSNs - Genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic and neural networks applied to WSNs IMPORTANT DATES: Submission deadline: 17th of July 2015 Author notification: 14th of August 2015 Camera-ready version: 27th of August 2015 Workshop Dates: 5-7th of October 2015 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished papers. Papers presenting original and unpublished work are invited and will be evaluated based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of exposition. All submissions should be written in English. Authors guidelines can be found at: http://jlloret.webs.upv.es/sspa2015/cfp.html The IEEE LaTeX and Microsoft Word templates, as well as related information, can be found at: http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/pubs/transactions/stylesheets.html. Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all submissions must be done through EDAS. To submit a paper, please click on the following link: https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=19893&track=71089 SPECIAL ISSUES: The extended version of selected papers will be invited to submit to a Special Issue on Smart Protocols and Algorithms in the International Journal Network Protocols and Algorithms (1943-3581). Network Protocols and Algorithms is an online international journal, peer-reviewed, indexed by many prestigious data bases and published by Macrothink Institute. COMMITTEES: General Chairs Jaime Lloret Mauri, Universitat Polit�cnica Val�ncia, Spain TPC Chairs Miguel Garcia Pineda, Universidad de Valencia, Spain Sandra Sendra, Unviversitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain Web Chair Alejandro C�novas Solbes, Universitat Polit�cnica Val�ncia, Spain

June 13, 2015

Tentative program now available for IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction & Control

by Levin Kuhlmann

The tentative full program of talks and events for the 7th International Workshop on Seizure Prediction (IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction & Control; at Melbourne, Australia; 3-6 August 2015) is now available for download at the following link: http://www.iwsp7.org/program/IWSP7_MEMBC15_Tentative_Program.pdf At a glance, the first day on Monday August 3 will be an educational day, giving people an opportunity to learn more about epilepsy from the perspectives of the different disciplines of science, engineering & medicine. On the first night there will be a networking reception and the poster session. The next two days will involve a full schedule of talks with the conference dinner on the night of Tuesday August 4. On Thursday August 6 there will be an overlap day between IWSP7 and the Melbourne Epilepsy meeting (ME@MBC'15 - which brings together the best of Melbourne Epilepsy research). IWSP7 registrants will also have the option to freely participate in the ME@MBC'15 events including its second day on the morning of Friday August 7. A final full program for IWSP7 including abstracts will be available soon. Don't forget to register for IWSP7 before the early bird deadline of 30th June 2015 and save! Go to www.iwsp7.org<http://www.iwsp7.org> to register. More details on the conference are provided below. The 7th International Workshop on Seizure Prediction (IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction & Control) will bring together world leading epileptologists, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, neurosurgeons and neuroscientists to focus on epilepsy research in Melbourne Australia from 3-6 August 2015. Invited Speakers Catalina Alvarado-Rojas, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia (Cross-frequency coupling and seizure prediction) Samuel Berkovic, University of Melbourne, Australia (Genetics and individual-specific nature of epilepsy) Sydney Cash, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA (Cortical physiology and epilepsy) Antonio Dourado, University of Coimbra, Portugal (Seizure Prediction and the EPILEPSIAE project) Bin He, University of Minnesota, USA (EEG-based imaging to localise seizure and high frequency activity) Louis Lemieux, University College London, UK (Multi-modal imaging of human epileptic zone and networks) Liset Menendez de la Prida, Instituto Cajal - CSIC, Spain (Sources of functional heterogeneity in the cellular activity of hippocampal microcircuits in temporal lobe epilepsy) Martha Morrell, Stanford University, Neuropace, USA (Responsive seizure control and its clinical implications) Philippe Ryvlin, Lyon University, France (Vagal nerve stimulation and seizure prediction) Bjoern Schelter, University of Aberdeen, UK (Recent advances in data-based modelling and their role in epilepsy research) Steven Schiff, Penn State University, USA (Unification of spikes, seizures and spreading depression) Piotr Suffczynski, University of Warsaw, Poland (Modelling of neuronal and ionic dynamics during ictogenesis) John Terry, University of Exeter, UK (Modelling multiscale brain networks: seizure initiation, evolution and prediction) Gregory Worrell, Mayo Clinic, USA (Forecasting epileptic seizures in dogs) Abstract submission is now Closed. Early bird registration: full: AU$465; Student/Early Career Researcher: AU$165. Early bird registration deadline: 30th June 2015. Standard registration: full: AU$565; Student/Early Career Researcher: AU$265. 44 generous travel stipends have been awarded to participants submitting the best abstracts as determined by the IWSP7 Scientific Advisory Board. General topics covered: seizure prediction, detection and control; seizure mechanisms, animal models and human neurophysiology; neuroimaging of epilepsy/seizure localisation; computational modelling of epilepsy; epilepsy networks; high frequency oscillations; model-based estimation, statistical signal processing or control theory applied to epilepsy. For information on the tentative conference program, and how to register visit: http://www.iwsp7.org Please forward this notice to anyone that you think might be interested. We would also like to draw your attention to two partner events: Melbourne Epilepsy which brings together Melbourne's best epilepsy researchers and will overlap at the same venue with IWSP7 on August 6th, and finish by 1pm on August 7th. Attendance is free for IWSP7 registrants. Swinburne Brain Imaging Symposium 2015: Principles and Applications of Magnetoencephalography is a meeting on MEG and neuroimaging occurring in Melbourne in the week preceding IWSP7 from June 29-30 2015. http://www.research.swinburne.edu.au/our-research/events/neuroimaging-sympo… We look forward to seeing you at IWSP7! On behalf of the local organizing committee Levin Kuhlmann, PhD David B. Grayden, PhD Mark J. Cook, MD Anthony N. Burkitt, PhD Dean R. Freestone, PhD Tatiana Kameneva, PhD Alan Lai, PhD Elma O'Sullivan-Greene, PhD Andre Peterson, BSc (hons) Email: organizingcommittee(a)iwsp7.org<mailto:organizingcommittee@iwsp7.org>

June 13, 2015

Nonlinear Dynamics in Computational Neuroscience, Turin 7-9 sept 2015 (few places left)

by Alessandro Torcini

Few places left for registration at SICC workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics in Computational Neuroscience: from Physics and Biology to ICT to be held on September 07-09, 2015 in Turin, Italy Organizers: Fernando Corinto (Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy) and Alessandro Torcini (ISC-CNR, Florence, Italy) This workshop "Nonlinear Dynamics in Computational Neuroscience: from Physics and Biology to ICT” offers an unique opportunity to meet researchers working across (and between) disciplines linked to Computational Neuroscience. In particular, computational neuroscients, neurophysiologists and neural engineers will have the opportunity to present their most recent results to a young audience, constituted mainly by PhD students, and to interact directly among them. The program ranges from nonlinear dynamical approaches to the understanding of neural computation to physiology, from the simulations of brain circuits to the development of engineering devices and platforms for neuromorphic computation. The speakers will be specifically advised to perform didactic presentations of their results in order to allow the active participation to the discussion of young PhD students from different disciplines as well as to researchers interested in the field of Computational Neuroscience. Specific poster sessions will be organized with the purpose on one side to allow the young participants to present their latest results and on the other side to increase the opportunity of networking among the participants and renowed experts of the discipline. This workshop represents the 10th of a series of tutorial workshops annually organized by the Italian Society of Chaos and Complexity (SICC) to explore the emergence of new research fields, where nonlinear dynamics and control theory can play a relevant role. These workshops have been traditionally devoted to an audience mainly constituted by PhD students or young researchers working in complex systems. A poster session will be running during all the event and aimed to let all the participants to present their recent results. More information on the workshop can be found in the web page: http://www.neuro-eng-comp.polito.it/workshop/ Confirmed invited speakers include Cristina Becchio (University of Turin, Italy) Ruben Moreno Bote (CIBERSAM - Barcelona, Spain) George Bourianov (Intel/University of Texas at Austin, USA) Emilio Carbone (University of Turin, Italy) Stephen Coombes (University of Nottingham, UK) Steve Furber (The University of Manchester, UK) Julius Georgiou (University of Cyprus, Cyprus) Viktor Jirsa (INSERM - Marseille, France) Luke P. Lee (UC Berkeley, USA) Stefano Luccioli (ISC CNR - Florence, Italy) Maurizio Mattia (ISS - Roma, Italy) Benedetto Sacchetti (University of Turin, Italy) Maria Sanchez-Vives (IDIBAPS - Barcelona, Spain) Ronald Tetzlaff (TU Dresden, Germany) The poster can be downloaded from here http://goo.gl/CDY0Eg The workshop is kindly supported by the: SICC - Italian Society for Chaos and Complexity, IEEE CASS Outreach 2015 Initiative, CRT Foundation, Marie Curie Initial Training project NETT - Neural Engineering Transformative Technologies, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Italy)

June 12, 2015

Job posting: PhD Traineeship in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction'

by Lorenz, C.M.

PhD Traineeship in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' Maximum salary: € 2,717 gross/month Closing date: 05 July 2015, 23:59 CET More information: http://www.ru.nl/newstaff/vacaturebeschrijving?tk=uk&recid=556519 The Dutch research consortium 'Language in Interaction' invites applications for a 4-year PhD traineeship on the topic of computational cognitive models of psycholinguistic processes. You will carry out research as a member of one of the PI-groups of the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University under supervision of Dr. Stefan Frank. The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. The research consortium 'Language in Interaction', sponsored by a large grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific research (NWO), brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language. The consortium has representatives from seven universities and one research institute in the Netherlands. These are Radboud University (RU), University of Amsterdam (UvA), University of Maastricht (UM), Leiden University (LU), Utrecht University (UU), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Tilburg University (TiU), and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (MPI). Excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition is combined with state-of-the-art research facilities and a research team with ample experience in complex research methods and utilization. Together, this consortium realizes both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else in the world. The current position will be embedded in the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University. This centre conducts research in an international setting. English is the lingua franca. Your graduate training will take place in the International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences. Click here for more information on this PhD position and how to apply. http://www.ru.nl/newstaff/vacaturebeschrijving?tk=uk&recid=556519

June 12, 2015

postdoc in computational neuroscience

by Máté Lengyel

Postdoctoral Fellow in Computational Neuroscience University of Cambridge We are seeking a highly creative and motivated postdoctoral fellow (research associate or senior research associate) to work jointly in the groups of Guillaume Hennequin and Mate Lengyel at the Computational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge (http://learning.eng.cam.ac.uk/) Our groups study dynamics and computation in neural circuits using a combination of approaches from dynamical systems, control theory, and statistical inference. The jointly led project will combine normative with bottom-up approaches to study the neural implementation of challenging computations. Areas of interest include balanced network dynamics, synaptic plasticity, and Bayesian inference. The successful candidate will have a strong analytical background and demonstrable interest in theoretical neuroscience. They should have or be close to completion of a PhD or equivalent in computational neuroscience, physics, mathematics, computer science, machine learning or a related field. Previous experience in computational neuroscience is not required, but preference will be given to candidates with sufficient programming skills to run numerical simulations, or expertise with neural network models, analysis of dynamical systems, and Bayesian techniques. The appointment will be for 1 year initially (extendable subject to funding) starting 1 October 2015 or as soon as possible thereafter. Salary depends on experience and is in the range £28,695 - £48,743 p.a. Further information: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/7261/ http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/7176/ For informal queries, please contact Guillaume Hennequin <g.hennequin(a)eng.cam.ac.uk> or Mate Lengyel <m.lengyel(a)eng.cam.ac.uk>. Mate Lengyel -- Mate Lengyel, PhD Computational and Biological Learning Lab Cambridge University Engineering Department Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK tel: +44 (0)1223 748 532, fax: +44 (0)1223 765 587 email: m.lengyel(a)eng.cam.ac.uk web: www.eng.cam.ac.uk/~m.lengyel

June 12, 2015

PhD positions in language and sensorimotor cognition, Otago University, New Zealand

by Alistair Knott

We are seeking applications for PhD positions in neural network modelling of human language: specifically, in developing neural network models of the interface between language and the sensorimotor system. Projects include modelling the interface between language and visual attention/visual object classification mechanisms, and modelling the interface between language and action execution/action perception mechanisms. The positions are based at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Otago in New Zealand, under the supervision of Alistair Knott and Lubica Benuskova. The department has an active neural networks programme, with five academic staff working in this area, and two more working in related areas of computer vision. The PhD projects relate to an ongoing project funded by the New Zealand Marsden fund, Does language mirror the structure of sensorimotor cognition?, funded by the New Zealand Marsden Fund. Otago University’s PhD scholarships are open to qualified students from any country, and cover both course fees and living expenses. To be considered for a PhD scholarship, applicants must have at least a four-year undergraduate degree in Computer Science. Applicants must also have a research project worth at least 25% of a full-time load in their final year, and must have an 'A' average or better in their final year of study. To be considered for the current PhD projects, applicants must also have some experience in Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics or Cognitive Science. If you have questions about the PhD projects, please contact Alistair Knott (alik(a)cs.otago.ac.nz) If you wish to apply for a PhD position, please email Alistair Knott (alik(a)cs.otago.ac.nz) attaching an electronic copy of your transcript for your Bachelor's degree. If you have a Master's degree, or are currently enrolled in one, please attach your Master's transcript (up to the present) and, if possible, an abstract of your thesis. If you have publications, please select your single best publication and send a PDF version of that, identifying the conference or journal that accepted it in sufficient detail to allow verification. **Kindly don't send zip files, as our antivirus software quarantines them.** The deadline for applications is June 30th. Otago University is in Dunedin, a university town on the South-East coast of New Zealand's South Island. Dunedin sits on a spectacular harbour, with unspoiled beaches for wildlife and surfing, and lies within a few hours' drive of Queenstown and Wanaka in the Southern Alps. For more information about Otago, Dunedin, and our department: - http://www.otago.ac.nz/ - http://www.otago.co.nz/ - http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/

June 11, 2015

CFP The 9th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - BIOSTEC 2016

by Calendar Sites

CALL FOR PAPERS The 9th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies BIOSTEC 2016 Website: http://www.biostec.org/ 21 - 23 February, 2016 Rome, Italy Regular Papers Paper Submission: September 10, 2015 Authors Notification: December 2, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: December 16, 2015 Position Papers Paper Submission: November 2, 2015 Authors Notification: December 4, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: December 18, 2015 Workshops Workshop Proposal: September 11, 2015 Doctoral Consortium Paper Submission: December 3, 2015 Authors Notification: December 11, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: December 22, 2015 Special Sessions Special Session Proposal: September 23, 2015 Paper Submission: November 23, 2015 Authors Notification: December 9, 2015 Camera Ready and Registration: December 17, 201 <http://www.ic3k.org/Glossary.aspx#43> Tutorials, Demos and Panels Proposals October 16, 2015 Sponsored by: INSTICC - Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication INSTICC is Member of: WfMC Workflow Management Coalition OMG Object Management Group FIPA Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents In Cooperation with: AAAI Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence EUROMICRO ESEM - European Society for Engineering and Medicine ISfTeH - International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth BMES - Biomedical Engineering Society EURASIP - European Association for Signal Processing Logistics Partner: SCITEVENTS Science and Technology Events The purpose of BIOSTEC is to bring together researchers and practitioners, including engineers, biologists, health professionals and informatics/computer scientists, interested in both theoretical advances and applications of information systems, artificial intelligence, signal processing, electronics and other engineering tools in knowledge areas related to biology and medicine. BIOSTEC is composed of five co-located conferences, each specialized in a different knowledge area. BIODEVICES 2016 The 9th International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices Program Chair James Gilbert, University of Hull, United Kingdom CONFERENCE TOPICS * Emerging Technologies * Biomedical Instrumentation * Biomedical Equipment * Biomedical Sensors * Biomedical Metrology * Health Monitoring Devices * Low-power Design * Electrical Bio-impedance * Bio-electromagnetism * Biorobotics * Biocomputing and Biochips * Implantable Electronics * Wireless Systems and Biotelemetry * Biomaterials * MEMS * Nanotechnologies * Biomechanical Devices * Artificial Limbs * Technologies Evaluation * Electrocardiography and Heart Monitoring * Computational Physiology (virtual organs) * Brain-computer Interfaces * Spectroscopic Applications * Imaging and Visualization Devices * Rehabilitation Technology * Lab on a Chip and Microfluidic Devices * Mobile and Wearable Devices BIOIMAGING 2016 The 3rd International Conference on Bioimaging Program Chair Haim Azhari, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Israel CONFERENCE TOPICS * Medical Imaging and Diagnosis * Image Processing Methods * Image Fusion Methods * Feature Recognition and Extraction Methods * Biomechanical Imaging * Image Archiving and Communication * Telemedicine and Virtual Environments * Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) * Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Fmri) * Single-photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) * Positron Emission Tomography (PET) * High Resolution Research Tomography (HRRT) * Magnetoencephalography (MEG) * Ultrasound and Optical Imaging * Optical Elastography * X-ray Microscopy * Biophotonics * Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) * Conventional Microscopy * Confocal Microscopy * Fluorescent Microscopy * Quantitative Bioimaging * Structural Biology * Brain Function Analysis * Hemodynamics Imaging * Histology and Tissue Imaging BIOINFORMATICS 2016 The 7th International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms Program Chair Hesham Ali, University of Nebraska at Omaha, United States CONFERENCE TOPICS * Simulation * Computational Intelligence * Genomics and Proteomics * Sequence Analysis * Structural Bioinformatics * Image Analysis * Visualization * Databases and Data Management * Data mining and Machine Learning * Biostatistics and Stochastic Models * Pharmaceutical Applications * Systems Biology * Algorithms and Software Tools * Web Services in Bioinformatics * Computational Molecular Systems * Immuno- and Chemo-informatics * Pattern Recognition, Clustering and Classification * Structure Prediction * Model Design and Evaluation * Transcriptomics * Next Generation Sequencing * Structural Variations BIOSIGNALS 2016 The 9th International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing Program Chair Carla Quintão, FCT-UNL, Portugal CONFERENCE TOPICS * Speech Recognition * Neural Networks * Biometrics * Pattern Recognition * Medical Signal Acquisition, Analysis and Processing * Wearable Sensors and Systems * Real-time Systems * Evolutionary Systems * Acoustic Signal Processing * Time and Frequency Response * Wavelet Transform * Medical Image Detection, Acquisition, Analysis and Processing * Physiological Processes and Bio-signal Modeling, Non-linear Dynamics * Cybernetics and User Interface Technologies * Electromagnetic fields in biology and medicine * Fuzzy Systems and Signals * Monitoring and Telemetry * Cardiovascular Signals * Image Analysis and Processing * Detection and Identification * Motion Control HEALTHINF 2016 The 9th International Conference on Health Informatics Program Co-chairs Jan Sliwa, Independent, Switzerland Carolina Ruiz, WPI, United States CONFERENCE TOPICS * Datamining * Knowledge Management * Decision Support Systems * Interoperability * Telemedicine * Medical and Nursing Informatics * Confidentiality and Data Security * Wearable Health Informatics * Semantic Interoperability * Therapeutic Systems and Technologies * Physiological Modeling * Databases and Datawarehousing * Cognitive Informatics * Affective Computing * Human-machine Interfaces for Disabled Persons * ICT, Ageing and Disability * Design and Development Methodologies for Healthcare IT * Mobile Technologies for Healthcare Applications * Evaluation and Use of Healthcare IT * Healthcare Management Systems * E-Health * Development of Assistive Technology * Electronic Health Records and Standards * Software Systems in Medicine * Pervasive Health Systems and Services * e-Health for Public Health * Clinical Problems and Applications * Data Visualization * Pattern recognition and Machine Learning * Practice-based Research Methods for Healthcare IT BIOSTEC KEYNOTE LECTURE Hayit Greenspan, Tel Aviv University, Israel PUBLICATIONS All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. SCITEPRESS is member of CrossRef ( <http://www.crossref.org/> http://www.crossref.org/) All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the <http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/Default.aspx> SCITEPRESS Digital Library. The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI), INSPEC, DBLP, EI (Elsevier Index) and Scopus. AWARDS The awards will be announced and bestowed at the conference closing session. Please check the websites for further information: http://www.biodevices.biostec.org/BestPaperAward.aspx http://www.bioimaging.biostec.org/BestPaperAward.aspx http://www.bioinformatics.biostec.org/BestPaperAward.aspx http://www.biosignals.biostec.org/BestPaperAward.aspx http://www.healthinf.biostec.org/BestPaperAward.aspx BIOSTEC CONFERENCE CO - CHAIRS Ana Fred, Instituto de Telecomunicações / IST, Portugal Hugo Gamboa, CEFITEC / FCT - New University of Lisbon, Portugal Please check further details at the conference website http://www.biostec.org/ BIOSTEC Secretariat Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2º esq. 2910-595 Setúbal - Portugal Tel.: +351 265 100 033 Fax: +44 203 014 8813 e-mail: biostec.secretariat(a)insticc.org

June 11, 2015

Deep Learning and Continuous Time Computing - Track at SAC 2016 - Call for Papers

by Davide Zambrano

Dear all, Please consider joining our track at SAC2016. Apologies for cross posting. Best regards. ————————————————————————————————————— ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) 2016 The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing in Pisa, Italy, April 3 – 8, 2016. (webpage : http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2016/) Deep Learning and Continuous-Time Computing (webpage : http://event.cwi.nl/sac2016/) ————————————————————————————————————— SAC 2016: For the past thirsty years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from around the world. SAC 2016 is sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP), and will be hosted by the University of Pisa and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna University, Italy. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the objectives of Machine Learning: how to create computers capable of intelligent behavior. Deep Learning in artificial neural networks represents a remarkable step toward this direction. Current state-of-the-art AI in the form of deep neural networks has recently demonstrated breakthrough performance in various AI-cognitive tasks, from image and speech recognition to natural language generation and playing ATARI games. However, in real-world applications like video processing or robot control, a deep neural network has then to be updated continuously, causing a high computational load. Specialized acceleration hardware is being developed for deep learning in continuous-time environments. In addition, or alternatively, Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) represent another possible solution for efficient continuous-time representation and computing in deep neural networks. This Track aims to consolidate the current state-of-the-art in deep learning, continuous-time computing, spiking neural networks and related acceleration hardware tools (such as GPUs, SpiNNaker or Neuromorphic Silicon systems) showing recent and future progresses of this rising and growing research field. ————————————————————————————————————— Topics of interests: Deep learning Continuous-time learning Spiking Neural Networks Asynchronous computation Large scale parallel simulations and computing Neuromorphic computing ————————————————————————————————————— Important Dates are published on the Conference or Track webpages. ————————————————————————————————————— Track Program Committee: Sander Bohte, CWI Amsterdam (NL) (Track Chair — email to s.m.bohte(a)cwi.nl ) Davide Zambrano, CWI Amsterdam (NL) (Track Chair — email to d.zambrano(a)cwi.nl ) Thomas Nowotny, University of Sussex (UK) Steven Furber, University of Manchester (UK) Karl Tuyls, University of Liverpool (UK) Shih-Chii Liu, University of Zurich/ETH Zurich (CH) Robert Babuska, Delft University of Technology (NL) Andre Gruning, University of Surrey (UK) Max Welling, University of Amsterdam (NL) Narayan Srinavasa, HRL Laboratories LLC (USA) Eleni Vasilaki, University of Sheffield (UK) ————————————————————————————————————— Important notice: Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper, poster, or SRC abstract in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper. This is a requirement for including the work in the ACM/IEEE digital library. No-show of registered papers, posters, and SRC abstracts will result in excluding them from the ACM/IEEE digital library. ————————————————————————————————————— Dr. Davide Zambrano PostDoc at CWI, Amsterdam (NL) MSc in Biomedical Eng. - PhD in Biorobotics D.Zambrano(a)cwi.nl Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) Science Park, 123 1098 XG - Amsterdam

June 11, 2015

two postdoctoral positions in recording and statistical analysis of population activity

by Gergo Orban

We are inviting applications for two postdoctoral positions at the Pattern Research Group which is affiliated with the MTA Wigner ResearchCentre for Physics (Budapest, Hungary) and MTA Institute for Experimental Medicine and is sponsored by a prestigious National Brain Research Program grant. The primary focus of the research group is the characterization of activity patterns of large-scale neural populations in the hippocampus and the understanding of the computational principles underlying its dynamically changing states. The unparalleled performance of the nervous system is due to the fast and parallel processing of information that is achieved by the coherent activity of networks of neurons. Recent advancements in recording techniques provides access to high temporal resolution data from hundreds of identified neurons during task performance of animals. Understanding the organizational principles underlying the high-dimensional activity patterns has become a fundamental challenge of neurobiology. We are seeking highly motivated candidates for one post in computational/theoretical neuroscience and one in electrophysiology to work on a project that is based on a strong collaboration between neurophysiology and theoretical neuroscience. Details of the two posts can be found below. Postdoctoral fellow in theoretical/computational neuroscience The ideal candidate has a strong mathematical background, preferably with a PhD in physics, computer science, or mathematics or other quantitative disciplines. Besides mathematical skills, the position requires competence in programming (e.g. matlab, R, python, or C++). Candidates with training or research experience in statistics, machine learning, computational modelling, dynamical systems are especially encouraged to apply. Training in neuroscience is not required but the applicant has to demonstrate his/her willingness to acquire the necessary background for the project. High dimensional neuronal data is recorded by the experimental part of the group (Attila Gulyas, Institute for Experimental Medicine) but the candidate will have the opportunity get experience with cutting-edge neuronal recording techniques to design of novel experiments based on the analysis of the recorded data. The successful applicant will be co-supervised by Gergő Orbán and András Telcs. Postdoctoral fellow or PhD student in hippocampal electrophysiology The ideal candidate has a strong background in in vitro or in vivo electrophysiology or optical imaging to take part of this challenge and to work on a project that is based on a strong collaboration between neurophysiology and theoretical neuroscience. The primary task of the candidate will be to set up the equipment and to monitor the activity of large (>100) populations of hippocampal neurons in vitro, and later in head-restrained mice using optical imaging techniques and genetically expressed Ca2+ indicators. Preprocessing and to a given depth the analysis of the rough data also expected. The high-level analysis of the recorded data is performed by the theoretical part of the group (led by András Telcs and Gergő Orbán, MTA Wigner Centre for Physics) but basic knowledge of statistics is essential and previous experience with signal processing or programming (Igor, Python, Matlab or similar language) is advantageous and contribution to that part of the project is expected, based on the load of the experimental part. The applicant will be supervised by Attila Gulyás. The expected starting date of the position is 1 September 2015 but the start date of the position is negotiable. Initial appointment is made for one year but can be extended to three years upon successful evaluation. The work is based in the PATTERN lab at the MTA Wigner Institute (Budapest, Hungary) but requires regular interactions with the experimental partners at the Institute for Experimental Medicine (Budapest). For further information please visit the project website, http://pattern.wigner.mta.hu <http://pattern.wigner.mta.hu/>. For informal inquiries please contact Gergo Orban (orban.gergo(a)wigner.mta.hu <mailto:orban.gergo@wigner.mta.hu>) or Andras Telcs (telcs.szit.bme(a)gmail.com <mailto:telcs.szit.bme@gmail.com>). Please send applications, including CV, a research statement and contact information of two references by email to András Telcs before 30 June.

June 10, 2015

Postdoctoral position on assessing auditory cognition to implement neurofeedback in hearing aids

by Tobias Reichenbach

Applications are invited for a Research Associate to work on project in auditory cognitive neuroscience at Imperial College London. The project is part of an exciting multi-centre effort with the Universities of Southampton and Manchester to employ neurofeedback for building 'smart' hearing aids. The successful candidate will join the group of Tobias Reichenbach (http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/research/reichenbach) The project is further embedded in the Centre for Neurotechnology at Imperial College (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/neurotechnology <http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/neurotechnology>). The project's goal is to develop experimental paradigms and associated data analytics to predict a person's speech comprehension based on non-invasive electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements of his or her brain activity in response to natural speech. This will employ advanced data analytics to correlate EEG responses to key aspects of speech, such as its envelope. The project will further investigate how these EEG assessments can be employed to fit and adapt the settings of a hearing aid in order to maximize its usefulness for a hearing-impaired person. Applicants should have a PhD (or equivalent) in computing, engineering, neuroscience or physical sciences with experience in signal processing as well as neuroimaging. For an informal discussion please contact Dr Tobias Reichenbach (email: reichenbach(a)imperial.ac.uk <mailto:a.kedgley@imperial.ac.uk>; telephone: +44 (0)20 759 46370). Our preferred method of application is online via our website http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/employment <http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/employment>. (Select “Job Search” then enter the job title or vacancy reference number into “Keywords”). Please complete and upload an application form as directed quoting reference number EN20150202FH. Alternatively, if you are unable to apply online, please email Edit Toth on etoth(a)imperial.ac.uk <mailto:etoth@imperial.ac.uk> to request an application form. The preferred starting date is September 2015. Applications received before the 6th of July 2015 will receive full consideration. ------------------------------------------- Tobias Reichenbach Lecturer, Biophysics of Hearing Editor, Heliyon Department of Bioengineering Imperial College London South Kensington Campus SW7 2AZ London, UK http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/research/reichenbach/

June 10, 2015