- - - Call for Abstracts: Deadline Approaching: July 31 - - - COGNITIVE COMPUTING: MERGING CONCEPTS WITH HARDWARE December 18-20, 2018, Hannover, Germany http://www.cognitive-comp.org/ ** An interdisciplinary networking event / scientific conference ** We would like to draw your attention to a slightly unorthodox scientific community event that could be realized with the generous support from the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany’s largest private organization for the advancement of scientific research. The aim of this event is to work towards a general, productive, and rigorous theory of “computing” in non-digital, nonlinear physical substrates. Biological brains and unconventional computing machines would become understandable as different instantiations of the same underlying principles. Three scientific communities, namely • cognitive and computational neurosciences, • theory of computation, and • nonlinear materials, devices and systems have since long been exploring diverse facets of such principles of non-digital computing. But differences in terminology, discipline-specific objectives and a scattered spectrum of formal methods have handicapped cross-fertilization. Everything in this conference is geared toward stimulating linkages between these fields: • single-track with rather few, rather long oral presentations, • long break and poster session times for person-to-person talking, • keynote and plenary speakers of interdisciplinary renown, • a limited (200) number of participants, • a splendid setting in the Castle of Herrenhausen, a heritage of the Kings of Hannover, with adjoining hectares of classical French gardening. Invited speakers: • Kwabena Boahen, Stanford University • Joanna J. Bryson, Univ. of Bath and Princeton University • Chris Eliasmith, University of Waterloo • Edward A. Lee, UC Berkeley • Demetri Psaltis, EPFL Lausanne • Pieter Roelfsema, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience • Susan Stepney, University of York • Ipke Wachsmuth, University of Bielefeld • David Wolpert, Santa Fe Institute We solicit the submission of 2-page abstracts, with themes oriented toward our five topical sessions: • applications of unconventional computing systems, • theoretical concepts and mathematical foundations, • neuromorphic hardware, • novel physical substrates, • guides from neuroscience for computing technologies, encouraging survey / introductory / didactic contributions (besides the standard discipline-specific result reports which are also possible). Detailed information can be found on http://www.cognitive-comp.org/ and in the Call for Abstracts that is posted there. Timelines: • Abstract submission: July 31 • Notification of acceptance: September 30 • Final abstract for online publication: October 31 Registration fees: • Students (incl. PhD students): 150 Euro • Others (academic): 300 Euro • Industry: 900 Euro Contributors of accepted oral presentations will be exempted from fees and will receive travel refunding. The organizers: • Daniel Brunner (photonics, neuromorphic architectures; University of Besançon) • Herbert Jaeger (machine learning, nonlinear dynamics; Jacobs University Bremen) • Stuart Parkin (nano systems, quantum electronic materials; Max-Planck-Institute for Microstructure Physics, Halle) • Gordon Pipa (neuroinformatics and cognitive computing; University of Osnabrück)