CALL FOR PAPERS (Deadline: 10 June 2016) and SPECIAL SESSION/WORKSHOP PROPOSALS (Deadline June 1, 2016): (with apologies for any cross postings - please forward to any interested colleagues, thank you) The 8th International Conference on Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2016), is being organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Research Centre for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Institute of Automation) in Beijing, November 28-30, 2016 - in partnership with the University of Stirling (Scotland, UK), and with technical co-sponsorship of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society: http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bics-2016/index.html BICS 2016 is being held in Beijing, China, as a sequel of BICS 2004 - 2015. The first BICS 2004 was held in Stirling, Scotland, UK and the last BICS 2015 in Hefei, Anhui, China. BICS 2016 aims to provide a high-level international forum for scientists, engineers, and educators to present the state-of-the-art in brain-inspired cognitive systems research and applications in diverse fields. It will bring together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic, syntactic and computational methods both to understand the prodigious processing properties of biological systems and, specifically, of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance computational methods towards ever higher levels of cognitive competence. The conference will feature plenary lectures given by world renowned scholars, regular sessions with broad coverage, and special sessions/workshops focusing on popular and timely topics. All accepted BICS 2016 papers will be published in conference proceedings of the Springer LNAI Book series. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the leading (ISI SCI indexed) Cognitive Computation Journal (published by Springer Nature: http://Springer.com/12559 - first five year ISI impact factor: 1.73) BICS'2016 TOPICS OF INTEREST: These include, but are not limited to the following: 1. Biologically Inspired Systems (BICS-BIS) - Brain inspired systems - Brain inspired vision - Brain inspired audition and sound processing - Brain inspired other sensory modalities - Brain inspired motion processing - Brain inspired robotics - Brain inspired adaptive and control systems - Brain inspired evolutionary systems - Brain inspired oscillatory systems - Brain inspired signal processing - Brain inspired learning - Neuromorphic systems 2. Cognitive Neuroscience (BICS-CNS) - Cognitive neuroscience - Cognitive neuroscience of vision - Cognitive neuroscience of non-vision sensory modalities - Cognitive neuroscience of volition - Systems neuroscience - Attentional mechanisms - Affective systems - Language - Cortical models - Sub-cortical models - Cerebellar models - Neural correlates 3. Models of Consciousness (BICS-MoC) - World awareness - Self-awareness - Global workspace theory - Imagination - Qualia models - Virtual machine approaches - Formal models fo consciousness - Control theoretical models - Developmental/Infant models - Will and volition - Emotion and affect - Philosophical implications - Neurophysiological grounding - Enactive approaches - Heterophenomenology - Analyitic/Synthetic phenomenology 4. Neural Computation (BICS-NC) - Neuro-computational systems - Hybrid neural systems - Neural learning - Neural control systems - Neural signal processing - Architectures of neural computation - Neural devices - Neural perception and pattern classifiers - Neuro-fuzzy systems - Evolutionary neural networks - Biological neural network models - Applications - Others BICS 2016 SPECIAL SESSIONS AND WORKSHOPS: CALL FOR PROPOSALS To enhance the technical program and open the door to more specific cutting-edge topics and areas related to Brain-inspired Cognitive Systems, BICS 2016 welcomes proposals for timely Special Sessions and Workshops (which will be included in the Conference programme, in addition to regular sessions). Special sessions/workshops can cover subjects or cross-subjects belonging to any relevant BICS topic(s) of interest, or novel topic(s) related to BICS topics of interest. Papers submitted for special sessions and workshops will be peer-reviewed with the same criteria as for regular sessions. All proposals for BICS2016 Special Sessions and Workshops should contain the following information: -Title of the special session or workshop -Names, affiliations, email addresses and short bios of proposers -Description of the proposed session or workshop (including aims and scope) -List of 6-10 potential contributors Researchers interested in organizing Special Sessions/Workshops are invited to submit a formal proposal, which will be evaluated based on the timeliness of the topic, its uniqueness, and qualifications of the proposers. A tentative accept/reject decision on the proposal will be sent to proposers within one week after its receipt by the BICS 2016 Special Sessions and Workshops Chair. Accepted Special Sessions/Workshops will be listed on the website. Formal proposals (including any queries) should be submitted to the BICS 2016 Special Sessions & Workshops Chair: Dr. Jingpeng Li ( jli@cs.stir.ac.uk ). Special Sessions/Workshops proposals deadline: 1 June 2016 PAPER SUBMISSION: Papers should be limited to 8-10 pages in Springer LNCS format. Details can be found in http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bics-2016/submission.htm To submit, please login at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bics2016 IMPORTANT DATES: Paper submission deadline: June 10, 2016 Acceptance notification: August 10, 2016 Camera-ready papers due: September 10, 2016 Conference dates: November 28-30, 2016 Special Session/Workshop proposals deadline: June 1 , 2016 (acceptance notification: 8 June 2016) BICS 2016 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chairs: Cheng-Lin Liu (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Amir Hussain (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Program Chairs: Bin Luo (Anhui University, China) Kay Chen Tan (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Publicity Chairs: Cesare Alippi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Haibo He (University of Rhode Island, USA) Hussein Abbass (University of New South Wales - Canberra - Australia) Erik Cambria (NTU, Singapore) Local Organization Chair: Yi Zeng (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Publication Chair: Zhaoxiang Zhang (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Special Sessions and Workshops Chair: Jingpeng Li (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK) Secretariat: bics2016@ia.ac.cn We looking forward to seeing you at BICS'2016! -- The University achieved an overall 5 stars in the QS World University Rankings 2015 The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.