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Neuron Digest Volume 07 Number 31
Neuron Digest Saturday, 1 Jun 1991 Volume 7 : Issue 31
Today's Topics:
Short Course on Genetics Algorithms at Stanford This July
Info on Snowflake diagrams for spike train analysis
Bibliographic Databases
Grad research assistant position available
I NEED TO LOCATE SOME TECH REPORTS
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BIONS
a new book on speech recognition
Transportation Applications
Deadline Extension of IJCNN'91 Singapore
Send submissions, questions, address maintenance and requests for old issues to
"neuron-request@hplabs.hp.com" or "{any backbone,uunet}!hplabs!neuron-request"
Use "ftp" to get old issues from hplpm.hpl.hp.com (15.255.176.205).
------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Short Course on Genetics Algorithms at Stanford This July
From: John Koza <koza@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Tue, 21 May 91 14:51:01 -0700
SHORT COURSE ON GENETIC ALGORITHMS AT STANFORD
A five-day short course entitled "Genetic Algorithms in Search,
Optimization, and Machine Learning" will be presented at Stanford
University's Western Institute in Computer Science on July 22-26 by David
E. Goldberg (Illinois) and John R. Koza (Stanford). The course presents
in-depth coverage of GA mechanics, theory, and application in search,
optimization, and machine learning. Students will be encouraged to solve
their own problems in hands-on computer workshops monitored by the course
instructors. For further information regarding this course contact
Joleen Barnhill, Western Institute in Computer Science, PO Box 1238,
Magalia, CA 95954, (916) 873-0575, email: barnhill@hudson.stanford.edu.
------------------------------
Subject: Info on Snowflake diagrams for spike train analysis
From: "David C. Tam" <dtam@next-cns.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 May 91 20:08:59 -0600
This is a brief summary of the information on "snowflake" diagrams in
Neurobiological Signal Analysis in reply to the request by Judea Pearl
(via kroger@cognet.ucla.edu).
Snowflake scatter diagram was one of the spike train analytical methods
introduced by Donald Perkel and George Gerstein et al in the 1970's to
analyze the correlation between firing intervals among 3 neurons.
Background: Spike trains are time-series of action potentials recorded
from biological neurons. Since the firing times of spikes by neurons
vary in time (i.e., they jitter in time), the analysis of the timing
relationships between the firing of neurons require specialized
statistical methods which deals with pulse-codes. The most often used
statistics is the correlation analysis (which is also developed by Donald
Perkel and George Gerstein et al earlier in the 1960's to analyze spike
train data).
Snowflake analysis and correlation analysis are similar in the following
ways: Whereas correlation analysis establishes statistics for pair-wise
correlation between 2 spike trains (neurons), snowflake analysis
establishes statistics for 3-wise correlation among 3 neurons. Whereas
correlation analysis establishes statistics for all higher-order firing
intervals between neurons, snowflake analysis establishes statistics for
only first-order intervals.
Snowflake diagram and joint-interval histogram are similar in the
following ways: Whereas joint-interval scatter diagram has 2 orthogonal
axes (in a 2-D plane) for displaying the adjacent cross-interval between
2 neurons, snowflake scatter diagram has 3-axes (each 120 degrees from
each other) in a 2-D plane for displaying the adjacent cross-interval
between 3 neurons. They both establish first-order interval statistics.
I have worked with Donald Perkel until he deceased, but George Gerstein
is still at Univ. of Penn. I have worked on numerous spike train
analytical methods including snowflake diagram. I have also developed
other similar spike train analysis techniques, so further detailed
questions can be directed to me (David Tam, e-mail:
dtam@next-cns.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu) if needed.
Related references:
Perkel, D.H., Gerstein, G.L., Smith, M.S. and Tatton, W.G. (1975)
Nerve-impulse patterns: a quantitative display technique for three
neurons, Brain Research. 100: 271-296.
Gerstein, G. L. and Perkel, D. H. (1972) Mutual temporal relationships
among neuronal spike trains, Biophysical Journal. 12: 453-473.
Perkel, D.H., Gerstein, G.L. and Moore, G.P. (1967) Neuronal spike trains
and stochastic point process. I. The single spike train. Biophysical
Journal. 7: 391-418.
Perkel, D.H., Gerstein, G.L. and Moore, G.P. (1967) Neuronal spike trains
and stochastic point process. II. Simultaneous spike trains.
Biophysical Journal. 7: 419-440.
Tam, D.C, Ebner, T.J. and Knox, C.K. (1987) Conditional cross-interval
correlation analyses with applications to simultaneously recorded
cerebellar Purkinje neurons. Journal of Neurosci. Methods. 23: 23-33.
------------------------------
Subject: Bibliographic Databases
From: mike@park.bu.edu
Date: Wed, 22 May 91 23:02:30 -0400
I would like to merge the Krogh BiBTeX database with others which outside
users might provide. If people send me BibTeX databases, I will attempt
to merge this with the Krogh database and post the enlarged BiBTeX
database to neuroprose. This enlarged database will be submitted to
neuroprose directory on cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu.
-mike
Boston University (617-353-7857) Email: mike@bucasb.bu.edu
Smail: Michael Cohen 111 Cummington Street, RM 242
Center for Adaptive Systems Boston, Mass 02215
Boston University
------------------------------
Subject: Grad research assistant position available
From: jones@cis.uab.edu (Warren Jones)
Date: Thu, 23 May 91 08:10:48 -0500
UAB
GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSTION AVAILABLE
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Contact: Warren Jones at jones@cis.uab.edu
Position: Our neural network research group has been allocated a Graduate
Research Assistantship position for 1991-92. This authorization
was made late in the year, so we are using this media as a fast
way to get the word out. The ideal candidate would qualify for
admission into our Ph.D. program, have a strong mathematics
background, a masters degree in computer science with
coursework and experience in the use and development of neural
network models. We are particularly interested in parallel
processing approaches to the training problem for feed-forward
networks. Our current application domain is EKG data. The
stipend for this Assistantship is $7,600 and full tuition.
Department: The two major research directions in the department are high
performance computing and graphics/image processing. There
are also opportunities for biomedical computing applications
through faculty collaborations with the UAB Medical Center.
The department laboratory facilities include a network of Sun
3 and Sun 4 workstations and servers, a microVAX, a 30
processor Sequent Balance 21000 parallel computer and high
speed access to the Alabama Supercomputer Center Cray XMP as
well as a recently acquired 128 processor NCUBE system. The
Department is also a University Affiliate of the Argonne
National Laboratory Advanced Computing Research
Facility(ACRF) and the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. These affiliations facilitate both training
and research for our students and faculty on high performance
systems such as Cray YMP, Cray 2, Thinking Machines CM-2,
Alliant FX/80 and others.
University: UAB is has an enrollment of approximately 15,500 students
pursuing their education on the 270 acre campus located on
the southside of Birmingham. The major units within the
university are the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Arts and
Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Natural Sciences
and Mathematics, Business, Education, Engineering, Public and
Allied Health, Optometry and Nursing. The Department of
Computer and Information Sciences is located within the
School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
UAB ranks among the top public institutions in the country in
terms of federal research and development support, having
attracted more than $100 million per year.
Birmingham: Birmingham is a major metropolitan area of almost 900,000 and
is a southeastern center of finance, telecommuications and
medicine. A wide variety of cultural and sports attractions
are available, including the symphony, ballet, theater and
UAB Blazers basketball. The area has a pleasant climate all
year. Both the Gulf Coast and the Great Smoky Mountains are
only a four hour drive by car.
If you are interested please contact me at the above internet address and
we can provide you with additional information and answer any questions
you may have.
------------------------------
Subject: I NEED TO LOCATE SOME TECH REPORTS
From: Wan Kong Wah <ISSWANKW%NUSVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 24 May 91 15:15:15 +0700
Hello,
My name is Wan Kong Wah. I am from Institute of Systems Science,
National University of Singapore. Currently, I am research in the boundary
contour system proposed by Steven Grossberg.
I need to locate several of his reports. Can you help me by either
sending them to me or tell me which ftp sites I can get them from ?
The reports are :
1. Supervised Real-Time Learning and Classification of Nonstationary Data
By a Self-Organizing Neural Network, CAS/CNS-TR-91-001
2. Fuzzy Art : An Adaptive Resonance Algorithm for Rapid, Stable
Classification of Analog Patterns CAS/CNS-TR-91-006
3. Preattentive Texture Segmentation and Grouping by the Boundary Contour
System CAS/CNS-TR-91-008
4. Invariant Recognition of Cluttered Scenes by a Self-Organizing Art-
Architecture : Figure Ground Separation CAS/CNS-TR-91-012
Thank you.
Regards,
Kong Wah
------------------------------
Subject: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BIONS
From: Stephen Smoliar <ISSSSM%NUSVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 26 May 91 15:16:38 +0700
It was with a fair amount of curiosity that I responded to Mark Ring's
announcement of the availability of his paper, "Incremental Development
of Complex Behaviors through Automatic Construction of Sensory-motor
Hierarchies." Papers which come on that strong often tend to deliver far
less than they promise. This one seems to have hooked my curiosity,
however; and, in the interest of trying to drum up some discussion, I
wanted to raise some questions basically inspired by the final sections
on related work and conclusions.
In the case of citing related work, I think that Ring may have committed
two "sins of omission" (which are probably not even major enough to be
called "sins"). The more important is that the approach he advocates
seems quite consisted with the approach which Minsky seems to be trying
to pursue in THE SOCIETY OF MIND. I think there is a good chance that
bions are the sorts of computational elements from which Minsky-like
agents might ultimately be built; and I, for one, would be interested in
some discussion on this observations.
Another point involving related work is that I suspect the resemblance to
LISP (and there is no denying that resemblance) is more than superficial.
Basically, LISP taught us that an ordered pair of pointers is all you
need to build hierarchical structures of arbitrary complexity.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the sorts of hierarchies
which Ring is interested in developing should end up being built of the
same basic stuff with only minor variations applied to allow for a
different regimen of control.
My greatest disappointment was that the one example which was invoked in
order to demonstrate bions was just not very realistic. I would be very
interested in just how much has been done with bions so far. Can they,
for example, be invoked for the sort of learning one might wish to
associate with a Brooks- like robot?
Another question concerns this whole premise of incremental development.
Being able to build hierarchies from behaviors which are already in your
repertoire is certainly a good thing, but where do you start? Where does
an agent's inital set of behaviors come from? My inclination would be to
turn to the work of Edelman for an answer here and consider the
possibility of a selectionist mechanism working of shaking down an
extremely vast repertoire of behaviors, sifting it down to a viable set
of building blocks.
I am also a bit concerned about putting too much "chunking" effort into a
single bion. A "chunked" bion can, indeed, encapsulate a rather complex
pattern of behavior; but that behavior may involve some number of
low-level decisions which have to be satisfied before it can terminate.
(This is even apparent in the relatively simple wall-avoiding example
which is given.) The point is that what Ring chooses to call "intention"
may be based on a set of assumed conditions, and the discovery that some
of those conditions do not hold may only arise while trying to satisfy
the intention. In other words there may be grounds for a "chunked" bion
to start up; but those grounds to not guarantee that it will ever
terminate. I think it is necessary to consider to what extent this is an
important issue and would welcome both a response from Ring and further
discussion on the matter.
Acknowledge-To: <ISSSSM@NUSVM>
------------------------------
Subject: a new book on speech recognition
From: Xuedong.Huang@SPEECH2.CS.CMU.EDU
Date: Tue, 28 May 91 21:10:00 -0400
New Book in the Edinburgh Information Technology Series (EDITS 7)
=================================================================
X.D. Huang, Y. Ariki, and M. Jack:
"Hidden Markov Models for Speech Recognition",
Edinburgh University Press, 1990, 30 Pounds.
(ISBN 0 7486 0162 7).
"Despite the fact that the hidden Markov model approach to speech
recognition is now considered a mature technology, there are very few
textbooks which cover the subject in any depth. This new addition to the
Edinburgh EDITS series is therefore very welcome. ... I know of no other
comparable work and it is therefore a timely and userful addition to the
literature"
-- Book review, Computer Speech and Language
To order, contact Edinburgh University Press. For more information,
contact xdh@speech2.cs.cmu.edu.
------------------------------
Subject: Transportation Applications
From: martin@business.carleton.ca (Martin Laplante)
Date: Thu, 30 May 91 07:04:14 -0400
I am doing a study for the Canadian Department of Transportation on
potential applications of neural nets in the transportation sector. I
would appreciate any references, descriptions of work in progress, or
even good ideas that you don't mind me quoting. The scope is pretty
wide, including air, road, rail, and water. Typical applications involve
navigation, routing, autonomous vehicles, fleet operations, airport
security, traffic control, and specific transportation applications of
speech recognition, OCR, and fare-setting.
------------------------------
Subject: Deadline Extension of IJCNN'91 Singapore
From: hwang@pierce.ee.washington.edu ( J. N. Hwang)
Date: Mon, 27 May 91 08:09:20 -0700
If you are inclined to waiting to the last minute to submit conference
papers, you will be happy to learn that the deadline for submission of
papers to the IJCNN'91 Singapore has been extended to June 30, 1991.
IJCNN'91 Publicity Committee
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
IJCNN'91 SINGAPORE, CALL FOR PAPERS
CONFERENCE: The IEEE Neural Network Council and the international
neural network society (INNS) invite all persons interested in
the field of Neural Networks to submit FULL PAPERS for possible
presentation at the conference.
FULL PAPERS: must be received by "June 30", 1991. All submissions
will be acknowledged by mail. Authors should submit their work
via Air Mail or Express Courier so as to ensure timely arrival.
Papers will be reviewed by senior researchers in the field, and
all papers accepted will be published in full in the conference
proceedings. The conference hosts tutorials on Nov. 18 and tours
arranged probably on Nov. 17 and Nov. 22, 1991. Conference sess-
ions will be held from Nov. 19-21, 1991. Proposals for tutorial
speakers & topics should be submitted to Professor Toshio Fukuda
(address below) by Nov. 15, 1990.
TOPICS OF INTEREST: original, basic and applied papers in all areas
of neural networks & their applications are being solicited. FULL
PAPERS may be submitted for consideration as oral or poster pres-
entation in (but not limited to) the following sessions:
-- Associative Memory -- Sensation & Perception
-- Electrical Neurocomputers -- Sensormotor Control System
-- Image Processing -- Supervised Learning
-- Invertebrate Neural Networks -- Unsupervised Learning
-- Machine Vision -- Neuro-Physiology
-- Neurocognition -- Hybrid Systems (AI, Neural
-- Neuro-Dynamics Networks, Fuzzy Systems)
-- Optical Neurocomputers -- Mathematical Methods
-- Optimization -- Applications
-- Robotics
AUTHORS' SCHEDULE:
Deadline for submission of FULL PAPERS (camera ready) June 30, 1991
Notification of acceptance Aug. 31, 1991
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Eight copies (One original and seven photocopies)
are required for submission. Do not fold or staple the original, camera
ready copy. Papers of no more than 6 pages, including figures, tables
and references, should be written in English and only complete papers
will be considered. Papers must be submitted camera-ready on 8 1/2" x
11" white bond paper with 1" margins on all four sides. They should be
prepared by typewriter or letter quality printer in one-column format,
single-spaced or similar type of 10 points or larger and should be
printed on one side of the paper only. FAX submissions are not acceptable.
Centered at the top of the first page should be the complete title,
author name(s), affiliation(s) and mailing address(es). This is
followed by a blank space and then the abstract, up to 15 lines, followed
by the text. In an accompanying letter, the following must be included:
-- Corresponding author: -- Presentation preferred:
Name Oral
Mailing Address Poster
Telephone & FAX number
-- Technical Session: -- Presenter:
1st Choice Name
2nd Choice Mailing Address
Telephone & FAX number
FOR SUBMISSION FROM JAPAN, SEND TO:
Professor Toshio Fukuda
Programme Chairman
IJCNN'91 SINGAPORE
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-Ku
Nagoya 464-01 Japan.
(FAX: 81-52-781-9243)
FOR SUBMISSION FROM USA, SEND TO:
Ms Nomi Feldman
Meeting Management
5565 Oberlin Drive, Suite 110
San Diego, CA 92121
(FAX: 81-52-781-9243)
FOR SUBMISSION FROM REST OF THE WORLD, SEND TO:
Dr. Teck-Seng, Low
IJCNN'91 SINGAPORE
Communication Intl Associates Pte Ltd
44/46 Tanjong Pagar Road
Singapore 0208
(TEL: (65) 226-2838, FAX: (65) 226-2877, (65) 221-8916)
------------------------------
End of Neuron Digest [Volume 7 Issue 31]
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