Sunday, May 5, 2013

[Comp-neuro] CfP: Neural Information Processing Systems 2013

Neural Information Processing Systems Conference and Workshops
December 5-10, 2013
Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA

http://nips.cc/Conferences/2013/

Deadline for Paper Submissions: Friday, May 31, 2013, 11 pm Universal Time (4
pm Pacific Daylight Time). Submit at:
https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/NIPS2013/

Submissions are solicited for the Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference on Neural
Information Processing Systems, an interdisciplinary conference that brings
together researchers in all aspects of neural and statistical information
processing and computation, and their applications. The conference is a
highly selective, single track meeting that includes oral and poster
presentations of refereed papers as well as invited talks. The 2013
conference will be held on December 5-8 at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. One day of
tutorials (December 5) will precede the main conference, and two days of
workshops (December 9-10) will follow it at the same location. Note that
differently from previous years, the conference will start on a Thursday.

Web URL: https://nips.cc/Conferences/2013/CallForPapers_______________________________________________
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[Comp-neuro] Fully funded PhD Studentship, Fast and Furious: the nature of anticipation

Dear All

Fully funded PhD Studentship, Fast and Furious: the nature of anticipation, is available at the School of Systems Engineering, Univerisity of Reading.
For the Project summary, please see below or go to the website,


Informal enquiries about the project can be addressed to the project supervisors,
Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi (y.hayashi@reading.ac.uk) and Prof Slawomir J. Nasuto (s.j.nasuto@reading.ac.uk).

Looking forward for your enquiries and application.

With the best regards,

Yoshikatsu Hayashi (PhD)
Lecturer in Cybernetical Physics, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading

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Project Title: Fast and Furious: the nature of anticipation

Supervisor: Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi and Prof Slawomir J. Nasuto School
Department: Cybernetics Group, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading

Overview: We make split second decisions and actions at each step of our lives. Engaging in such activities is critically dependent on ability to anticipate future outcomes. Anticipation has been postulated as one of the most generic forms of information processing in perception, motor control, and coordination of interactions with the environment or the other members of the society. Yet the nature of the anticipation mechanisms is not well understood and the fundamental assumptions behind some of the proposals are hotly debated.

The project will develop and apply tools from nonlinear dynamical modelling and signal analysis in order to investigate the mechanisms of anticipation using motion tracking experimental paradigm where two subjects learn via interaction to perform coherently their motion. The project will also involve development of novel techniques of simultaneous EEG scanning of two subjects which will further inform us about the neural mechanisms underlying anticipation.

We are inviting applications from dedicated candidates enthusiastic about the research and interested in interdisciplinary study in neuroscience, cognitive science and cybernetical physics, combining experimental, analytic and computational techniques, who are also interested in potential fundamental larger questions related to their line of enquiry. The suitable candidate should have excellent analytic skills, good familiarity with programming and be keen to develop experimental and cognitive expertise through their study.

The candidate will work as a member of the Brain Embodiments Lab – a thriving interdisciplinary research community which will offer an excellent support and possibility of interactions with researchers and students investigating the role of the close loop between brain, body and the dynamic environment in cognitive and neural information processing.


Eligibility: Applicants should hold a minimum of a UK Honours Degree at 2:1 level or equivalent in a relevant subject such as systems and control engineering, cybernetics, physics, or mathematics. Please note that due to restrictions on the funding this studentship is for UK/EU applicants only.

Funding Details: Studentship will cover Home/EU Fees and pay the Research Council minimum stipend (£13,726 for 2013/14) for up to 3 years. The studentship will begin in October 2013.

How to apply: To apply for this studentship please submit an application for a PhD in Cybernetics to the University at www.reading.ac.uk/graduateschool/prospectivestudents/gs-how-to-apply.aspx Please quote the reference GS13-14 in the 'Scholarships applied for' box which appears within the Funding Section of your online application.

(Important note - Applications which do not include the correct reference or subject area stated above may be missed.)

Once you have submitted your application, you should receive an email to confirm receipt of your application. You should forward this email, along with a covering letter, to the School of Systems Engineering Postgraduate Administrator, Mrs Nellie Round (n.round@reading.ac.uk).

Application Deadline: Friday 31st May 2013, interviews w/c 10 June.

Further Enquiries: Please contact Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi, email y.hayashi@reading.ac.uk, telephone +44 (0)118 378 5024.

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-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yoshikatsu Hayashi (PhD)
Lecturer in Cybernetical Physics

Address: School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading, 
PO Box 225, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AY, UK
Tel: +44-118-378-5024
E-mail: y.hayashi@reading.ac.uk
Website: http://bel.reading.ac.uk/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday, May 4, 2013

[Comp-neuro] Neuroscience stream at AACIMP-2013 Summer School, August 1-17 Kyiv, Ukrain. The early registration deadline has been extended to May, 20.

Dear colleagues,

Please draw attention of your undergraduate and first year PhD students
as well as other beginners in Neuroscience, that seats are
available in Neuroscience stream at VIII Summer School
"Achievements and Applications of Contemporary Informatics, Mathematics
and Physics" (AACIMP-2013), August 1 to 17 Kyiv, Ukrain.

Registration is limited, and the early registration deadline has been
extended to May 20, 2013; late registration deadline is June 1, 2013.
Full information about the stream and school in general is available
online by the following link http://summerschool.ssa.org.ua and given
below in a short form.


Thanks,
Ruben

---
Ruben Tikidji-Hamburyan, PhD
Department cell biology and anatomy,
Health Sciences Center,
Louisiana State University,
New Orleans, LA,USA.


========================================================================

Stream Neuroscience
VIII Summer School "Achievements and Applications of Contemporary
Informatics, Mathematics and Physics" (AACIMP-2013)

The stream "Neuroscience" includes a broad range of topics from
subcellular level to cognition and social behaviour considered mainly
from computational point of view. It provides all required information
to understand the biological bases of modelled processes.

Preliminary topics of the stream are:
Neurodynamic, types of excitability, bursting and bistability
Dynamic clamp or Neuron-Computer Interface
Spatial property of neurons, multicompartment models
Local and global neural networks, synchronization and oscillations
Brain networks, specific mediator systems and behavior
Molecular and cellular mechanisms of pain
Specific perceptions: Auditory, Visual, Somatosensory
Brain-Computer Interface

Prerequisites: no prior knowledge in the field is expected.

Tutors:
Dr. Anton Chizhov, Senior Researcher, Ioffe Physical Technical
Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Dr. Gennady S. Cymbalyuk, Assistant Professor, Dynamical Neuroscience
Laboratory, Neuroscience Institute, Georgia State University, Atlanta
USA.

Prof. Witali Dunin-Barkowski, Professor, Department of
Neuroinfomatics, Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis,
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

Ilya Kuzovkin, MSc., researcher at the Department of Computer Science,
University of Tartu, Estonia.

Dr. Sergiy Yakovenko, Assistant Professor, Neural Engineering
Laboratory, West Virginia University School of Medicine, WV, USA.

Dr.Pavel Belan, Researcher, Head of the Research Group, Bogomolets
Institute of Physiology of the NASU, Kyiv, Ukraine (confirmation is
expected)

Dr. Evgenia Belova, Senior Researcher, A.B. Kogan Research Institute
for Neurocybernetics, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don,
Russia (confirmation is expected)

Dr. Romain Brette, Assistant Professor, hearing lab at Ecole Normale
Supérieure, Paris, France; Membre, Institut Universitaire de France
(confirmation is expected)

Dr. Nana Voitenko, Associate Professor, Deputy Director, Assistant head
of Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Physics and
Technology Center of the NASU, Bohomoletz Institute of Physiology NASU,
Kyiv, Ukraine (confirmation is expected)

Dr. Carl van Vreeswijk, Research Scientist, French National Centre for
Scientific Research, Paris, France (confirmation is expected)

(Confirmation from a certain number of lecturers is expected.)

The stream "Neuroscience" is a part of the VIII Summer School
"AACIMP-2013" that will take place at the National Technical University
of Ukraine "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" (Kyiv, Ukraine), August 1 – 17,
2013. It will include lectures, seminars and workshops as well as
social program.

In order to apply for participation in the stream, applicants need to
complete and submit the Summer School online application form -
http://summerschool.ssa.org.ua/. Programme committee will make the
decision on applicant's admission within a month from the date of
submitting the application form.

Early registration deadline is May 1, 2013; late registration deadline
is June 1, 2013.

Detailed information and application form are available on the
AACIMP-2013 website at http://summerschool.ssa.org.ua

Organizing Committee:
Student Science Association
37, Peremohy avenue, building 1, room 299(15)
03056, Ukraine, Kyiv,
Telephone/Fax: +38 044 454 9243
Web: http://ssa.org.ua
E-mail: summerschool@ssa.org.ua
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Thursday, May 2, 2013

[Comp-neuro] Fwd: Workshop at CNS 2013

We have 2 empty slots for oral contributed presentations (15 minutes each)
at the following workshop

Relevance of Synaptic Plasticity for Multistable Behaviour in Neural Systems

organized by

Alessandro Torcini (Institute of Complex Systems, Firenze, Italy)

Christian Hauptmann (Research Center Juelich, Juelich, Germany)

at

TwentySecond Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting CNS*2013

CNS*2013, July 18, 2013 in Paris

Details on the workshop can be found here

http://neuro.fi.isc.cnr.it/index.php?page=CNS2013


If you are interested to submit a proposal send an abstract
with references to

alessandro.torcini@cnr.it and c.hauptmann@fz-juelich.de

within 01st June 2013

the selected oral presentations will be notified by June 15th
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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

[Comp-neuro] NEURON 2013 Summer Course

Space is still available in the NEURON 2013 Summer Course, but the
registration deadline is Friday, May 24, so you should act soon
if you want to learn the latest about constructing and using
models with NEURON. For a course description and the on-line
registration form, see
http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/courses/nscsd2013/nscsd2013.html

I should also mention that, in response to requests from
registrants who have already signed up, we are offering
the option of additional instruction on network models and
simulations with parallel hardware. This material will be
covered in a day and a half of lectures and exercises
that will start immediately after the end of the regular
Summer Course; a supplementary fee of $350 will be charged
to cover the cost of extra handout materials, catering,
and on-campus housing for two extra nights.

--Ted
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[Comp-neuro] Last Call for RSS Workshop on Active learning in robotics: Exploration, Curiosity, and Interaction

Last Call!

Robotics Science and Systems, June 27, Berlin
Workshop on Active learning in robotics: Exploration, Curiosity, and Interaction

Workshop description

Applications of robots are expanding at a fast rate and are expected to operate in less controllable and harder to model domains. Learning and adaptation becomes essential to deploy robots that continuously interact with the environment, acquire new data during operation and use them to improve its performance by developing new skills or improving and adapting its models.

How should a robot acquire and use this stream of data? How can it close the action-perception loop to efficiently learn models and acquire skills? Researchers in robotics, statistics and machine learning have answered these questions from different perspectives and setups: active learning, submodular optimization, exploration strategies, multi-armed bandits among many others. All such approaches provide ways for the robot to choose better data to learn, reducing the time and energy used while at the same time improving generalization capabilities.

The goal of this workshop is to show how formalisms developed in different communities can be applied in a multidisciplinary context as it is robotics research. It will bring together researchers to build bridges between these different perspectives and to exchange ideas about representations and methods for active learning in robotics. In addition to the classical exploration problem, the workshop will also explore connections with new trends such as using intrinsic motivation to model curiosity and drive exploration towards the acquisition of unknown skills or the development of active strategies for human-robot interaction in the context of co-working or learning from a human teacher.

Keywords:
Active Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Markov Decision Processes, Exploration/Exploitation, Intrinsic Motivation

Call for contributions:

We solicit contributed presentations in all areas of active learning applied in robotics including, but not limited to: exploration, reinforcement learning, active sensing and perception, intrinsic motivation, active manipulation, human-robot co-working. The workshop aims to foster discussion between the different active strategies. Therefore, we will accept already published materials as well as unpublished work. Contributions will be evaluated in terms of its relevance to the workshop topic. Accepted contributions will be given an oral presentation or poster (plus spotlight talk) at the workshop.

Important dates:

Paper Submission: May 7, 2013
Paper Notification: May 15, 2013
Workshop Dates: June 27, 2013

Submission can be done at:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rss13-ws-alr

See webpage for more details:

https://webdiis.unizar.es/~montesan/web/index.php/rss2013wsactivelearning


---------------------------------------------------------------
Manuel Lopes - Researcher flowers.inria.fr/mlopes
FLOWERS team Phone: +33524574179
200, avenue de la Vieille Tour
33405 Talence, Cedex, France
---------------------------------------------------------------
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[Comp-neuro] Submissions to RLDM2013 are now open (deadline: June 16)

The 1st Multidisciplinary Conference on
Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM2013)
www.rldm.org

Oct 25-27, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
======================================================

Submissions to RLDM2013 are now being accepted at
https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/RLDM2013
Deadline: 16 June 2013, midnight UTC-11

We invite extended abstracts for contributed poster presentations. We
welcome submissions of original research related to "learning and
decision making over time to achieve a goal", coming from any
discipline or disciplines, describing empirical results from human,
animal, robot or artificial agent experiments, and/or theoretical
work, simulations and modeling. Contributions should be aimed at an
interdisciplinary audience, but not at the expense of technical
excellence. This is an abstract-based meeting, with no published
conference proceedings. As such, work that is intended for, or has
been submitted to, other conferences or journals is also welcome,
provided that the intent of communication to other disciplines is
clear.

Submissions should consist of a summary (max 2000 characters; text
only), and an extended abstract of between one and four pages
(including figures and references). LaTeX and RTF templates, and
sample submissions, are available from www.rldm.org/submit.html

To submit your abstract please go to
https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/RLDM2013

Submissions will be reviewed for relevance to the topic and for
quality. Exceptional abstracts will be selected for poster spotlight
presentations, and for a best poster talk.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Submissions open: 1 May 2013
Submissions close: 16 June 2013, midnight UTC-11 (American Samoa Time)
Notification of acceptance: by early August, 2013
Early registration: 31 August 2013
Meeting: 25-27 October 2013, Princeton, NJ

To ensure that you receive future announcements about RLDM2013 please
join our mailing list at http://tinyurl.com/RLDMlist (you must log in
to google to see the "join list" button, and choose 'all emails' in
the options).

RLDM2013 confirmed speakers: http://rldm.org/rldm2013/list-of-speakers/
RLDM2013
Programme Committee: http://rldm.org/rldm2013/committees/rldm2013-pc/ (TBD)_______________________________________________
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