Please accept our apology for cross-postings.
This is the second call for the Telluride Workshop application
announcement
(also at
http://www.ini.unizh.ch/telluride2000/tell2001_announcement.html)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NEUROMORPHIC ENGINEERING WORKSHOP
Sunday, JULY 1 - Saturday, JULY 21, 2001
TELLURIDE, COLORADO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avis COHEN (University of Maryland)
Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics,
UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Timmer HORIUCHI (University of Maryland)
Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics,
UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Christof KOCH (California Institute of Technology)
Terrence SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute and UCSD)
Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We invite applications for a three week summer workshop that will be
held in Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, July 1 to Sunday, July 21,
2001. The application deadline is Friday, March 7, and application
instructions are described at the bottom of this document.
The 2000 summer workshop on "Neuromorphic Engineering", sponsored by
the National Science Foundation, the Gatsby Foundation, Whitaker
Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and by the Center for
Neuromorphic Systems Engineering at the California Institute of
Technology, was an exciting event and a great success. A detailed
report on the workshop is available at
http://www.ini.unizh.ch/telluride2000.
We strongly encourage interested parties to browse through the previous
workshop web pages: http://www.ini.unizh.ch/telluride2000/
GOALS:
Carver Mead introduced the term "Neuromorphic Engineering" for a new
field based on the design and fabrication of artificial neural
systems, such as vision systems, head-eye systems, and roving robots,
whose architecture and design principles are based on those of
biological nervous systems. The goal of this workshop is to bring
together young investigators and more established researchers from
academia with their counterparts in industry and national
laboratories, working on both neurobiological as well as engineering
aspects of sensory systems and sensory-motor integration. The focus of
the workshop will be on active participation, with demonstration
systems and hands-on-experience for all participants. Neuromorphic
engineering has a wide range of applications from nonlinear adaptive
control of complex systems to the design of smart sensors. Many of the
fundamental principles in this field, such as the use of learning
methods and the design of parallel hardware (with an emphasis on
analog and asynchronous digital VLSI), are inspired by biological
systems. However, existing applications are modest and the challenge
of scaling up from small artificial neural networks and designing
completely autonomous systems at the levels achieved by biological
systems lies ahead. The assumption underlying this three week workshop
is that the next generation of neuromorphic systems would benefit from
closer attention to the principles found through experimental and
theoretical studies of real biological nervous systems as whole
systems.
FORMAT:
The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on
systems neuroscience (in particular learning, oculo-motor and other
motor systems and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI
design, small mobile robots (Koalas and Kheperas), hands-on projects,
and special interest groups. Participants are required to take part
and possibly complete at least one of the projects proposed (soon to
be defined). 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, the majority of
these lectures will be tutorials, rather than detailed reports of
current research. These lectures will be given by invited speakers.
Participants will be free to explore and play with whatever they
choose in the afternoon. Projects and interest groups meet in the late
afternoons, and after dinner. The analog VLSI practical tutorials
will cover all aspects of analog VLSI design, simulation, layout, and
testing during the three weeks of the workshop. The first week covers
basics of transistors, simple circuit design and simulation. This
material is intended for participants who have no experience with
analog VLSI. The second week will focus on design frames for silicon
retinas, from the silicon compilation and layout of on-chip video
scanners, to building the peripheral boards necessary for interfacing
analog VLSI retinas to video output monitors. Retina chips will be
provided. The third week will feature sessions on floating gates,
including lectures on the physics of tunneling and injection, and on
inter-chip communication systems. We will also feature a tutorial on
the use of small, mobile robots, focusing on Koala's, as an ideal
platform for vision, auditory and sensory-motor circuits.
Projects that are carried out during the workshop will be centered in a
number of working groups, including:
* active vision
* audition
* olfaction
* motor control
* central pattern generator
* robotics, multichip communication
* analog VLSI
* learning
The active perception project group will emphasize vision and human
sensory-motor coordination. Issues to be covered will include spatial
localization and constancy, attention, motor planning, eye movements,
and the use of visual motion information for motor
control. Demonstrations will include a robot head active vision system
consisting of a three degree-of-freedom binocular camera system that
is fully programmable.
The central pattern generator group will focus on small walking and
undulating robots. It will look at characteristics and sources of
parts for building robots, play with working examples of legged and
segmented robots, and discuss CPG's and theories of nonlinear
oscillators for locomotion. It will also explore the use of simple
analog VLSI sensors for autonomous robots.
The robotics group will use rovers and working digital vision boards
as well as other possible sensors to investigate issues of
sensorimotor integration, navigation and learning.
The audition group aims to develop biologically plausible algorithms
and aVLSI implementations of specific auditory tasks such as source
localization and tracking, and sound pattern recognition. Projects
will be integrated with visual and motor tasks in the context of a
robot platform.
The multichip communication project group will use existing interchip
communication interfaces to program small networks of artificial
neurons to exhibit particular behaviors such as amplification,
oscillation, and associative memory. Issues in multichip communication
will be discussed.
LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS:
The workshop will take place in the small town of Telluride, 9000 feet
high in Southwest Colorado, about 6 hours drive away from Denver (350
miles). America West and United 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). Internet access will be
provided. Technical staff present throughout the workshops will
assist with software and hardware issues. We will have a network of
workstations running UNIX and PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows.
No cars are required. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes 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 ARRANGEMENT:
Notification of acceptances will be mailed out around March 9, 2001.
Participants are expected to pay a $275.00 workshop fee at that time
in order to reserve a place in the workshop. 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.
Travel reimbursement of up to $500 for US domestic travel and up to
$800 for overseas travel will be possible if financial help is needed
(Please specify on the application).
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 qualified women and minority candidates to apply.
Application should include:
* First name, Last name, valid email address.
* Curriculum Vitae.
* One page summary of background and interests relevant to the
workshop.
* Description of special equipment needed for demonstrations that
could
be brought to the workshop.
* Two letters of recommendation
Complete applications should be sent to:
Terrence Sejnowski
The Salk Institute
10010 North Torrey Pines Road
San Diego, CA 92037
email: telluride@salk.edu
FAX: (858) 587 0417
DEADLINE: March 7, 2001
Applicants will be notified by email around March 21, 2001
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 27 2001 - 10:39:55 PST