Tuesday, March 6, 2012

[Comp-neuro] APPLICATION DEADLINE 30th March 2012: Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Deadline is March 30th, 2012

NEUROMORPHIC COGNITION ENGINEERING WORKSHOP
www.ine-web.org

Sunday July 1st - Saturday July 21st, 2012, Telluride, Colorado
We invite applications for a three-week summer workshop that will be
held in Telluride, Colorado Sunday July 1st - Saturday July 21st, 2012,
2012. The application deadline is *Friday, March 30th* and application
instructions are described at the bottom of this document.

The 2012 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering is
sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Neuromorphic
Engineering, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Institute for
Neuroinformatics - University and ETH Zurich, Georgia Institute of
Technology, University of Maryland - College Park, Johns Hopkins
University, Boston University, University of Sydney,
University of Florida - Gainesville and the Salk Institute.

Directors:
Ralph Etienne-Cummings, Johns Hopkins University
Timothy Horiuchi, University of Maryland, College Park
Tobi Delbruck, Institute for Neuroinformatics, Zurich
Workshop Advisory Board:
Andreas ANDREOU (The Johns Hopkins University)
Andre van SCHAIK (University Western Sydney)
Avis COHEN (University of Maryland)
Barbara SHINN-CUNNINGHAM (Boston University)
Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich,
Switzerland)
Jonathan TAPSON (University Western Sydney and University of Cape Town)
Jennifer Olsen HASLER (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics, UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland)
Malcolm SLANEY (Yahoo Research)

Previous year workshop can be found at:
ine-web.org/workshops/workshops-overview/index.html and last
year's wiki is https://neuromorphs.net/nm/wiki/2011 .

GOALS:

Neuromorphic engineers design and fabricate artificial neural systems
whose organizing principles are based on those of biological nervous
systems. Over the past 17 years, this research community has focused on
the understanding of low-level sensory processing and systems
infrastructure; efforts are now expanding to apply this knowledge and
infrastructure to addressing higher-level problems in perception,
cognition, and learning. In this 3-week intensive workshop and through
the Institute for Neuromorphic Engineering (INE), the mission is to
promote interaction between senior and junior researchers; to educate new
members of the community; to introduce new enabling fields and
applications to the community; to promote on-going collaborative
activities emerging from the Workshop, and to promote a self-sustaining
research field.

FORMAT:

The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on
systems and cognitive neuroscience (in particular sensory processing,
learning and memory, motor systems and attention), practical tutorials
on analog VLSI design, mobile robots, hands-on projects, and special
interest groups. Participants are required to take part and possibly
complete at least one of the projects proposed. They are furthermore
encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities
proposed as interest and time allow. There will be two lectures in the
morning that cover issues that are important to the community in
general. Because of the diverse range of backgrounds among the
participants, some of these lectures will be tutorials, rather than
detailed reports of current research. These lectures will be given by
invited speakers. Projects and interest groups meet in the late
afternoons, and after dinner. In the early afternoon there will be
tutorials on a wide spectrum of topics, including analog VLSI, mobile
robotics, auditory systems, central-pattern-generators, selective
attention mechanisms, cognitive systems, etc.
2012 TOPIC AREAS:
"Learning and Computational Intelligence in Neuromorphic Cognitive Systems"
(Gert Cauwenberghs and Giacomo Indiveri)
"Integrating Perception, Cognition, and Action in Neuromorphic Hardware
and Software"
(Kwabena Boahen and Chris Eliasmith)
"Human Attention in the Machine"
(Shihab Shamma and Barbara Shinn-Cunningham)
"Social Neuroscience and Robotic Pet Project"
(Sergi Bermudez and Ulysses Bernardet)
In addition, there will be a number of ad-hoc tutorials (featuring Rajit
Monahar, Jennifer Hasler and Scott Koziol), demonstrations, and
discussion groups that will focus on important issues in the research
community.
Terry Sejnowski – Computational Neuroscience (invitational mini-workshop)
LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS:

The summer school will take place in the small town of Telluride, 9000
feet high in southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive away from Denver
(350 miles). Great Lakes Aviation and America West Express airlines
provide daily flights directly into Telluride. All facilities within the
beautifully renovated public school building are fully accessible to
participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in ski
condominiums, within walking distance of the school. Participants are
expected to share condominiums.

The workshop is intended to be very informal and hands-on. Participants
are not required to have had previous experience in analog VLSI circuit
design, computational or machine vision, systems level neurophysiology
or modeling the brain at the systems level. However, we strongly
encourage active researchers with relevant backgrounds from academia,
industry and national laboratories to apply, in particular if they are
prepared to work on specific projects, talk about their own work or
bring demonstrations to Telluride (e.g. robots, chips, software).
Wireless internet access will be provided. Technical staff present
throughout the workshops will assist with software and hardware issues.
We will have a network of PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows for
the workshop projects. We encourage participants to bring along their
personal laptop.

No cars are required. Given the small size of the town, we recommend
that you do not rent a car. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes, rain gear,
and a backpack, since Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains.

Unless otherwise arranged with one of the organizers, we expect
participants to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop.

------ FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS: ------

Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around the April 15th, 2012.
The Workshop covers all your accommodations and facilities costs for the
3 weeks
duration. You are responsible for your own travel to the Workshop. For
expenses not
covered by federal funds, a Workshop registration fee is required. The
fee is $700 per participant, however, due to the difference in travel
cost, we offer a discount to participants outside of the US, Canada and
Mexico.
European registration fees will be reduced to $450; non-US/non-European
registration fees will be reduced to $300. The cost of a shared condominium
will be covered for all academic participants but upgrades to a private
room will
cost extra. Participants from National Laboratories and Industry are
expected to pay
for these condominiums.

------ HOW TO APPLY: -------

Applicants should be at the level of graduate students or above (i.e.
postdoctoral fellows, faculty, research and engineering staff and the
equivalent positions in industry and national laboratories). We actively
encourage women and minority candidates to apply.

Anyone interested in proposing or discussing specific projects should
contact the
appropriate topic leaders directly.

The application website is (after February 15th, 2012):
ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2012/apply-info

Application information needed:
* contact email address
* First name, Last name, Affiliation, valid e-mail address.
* Curriculum Vitae (a short version, please).
* One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop,
including possible ideas for workshop projects.
Please indicate which topic areas you would most likely join.
* Two letters of recommendation (uploaded directly by references).

The application deadline is March 30th, 2012.
Applicants will be notified by e-mail.

15th February, 2012 - Applications accepted on website
30th March, 2012 - Applications Due
15th April, 2012 - Notification of Acceptance

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