NIPS*2003		www.nips.cc Vancouver, Canada, December 8-13		Neural Information Processing Systems: Natural and Synthetic
						You are invited to participate in the Seventeenth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, which is the premier scientific meeting on neural computation. The Conference is extraordinarily interdisciplinary, with contributions from many intellectual communities united by an interest in the study of artificial and natural neural information processing. Interdisciplinary interactions are encouraged by having a single track of presentations and high-quality poster sessions. Presentation topics include learning algorithms and architectures, learning theory, neuroscience, cognitive science, vision, speech and signal processing, reinforcement learning and control, implementations,and diverse applications. All papers have been rigorously reviewed (with a 30% acceptance rate). The Conference is preceeded by one day of tutorials and is followed by two days of workshop sessions in nearby Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. (Click here for enlarged Vancouver image.) Note that NIPS provides its PAPERS ONLINE. Previous NIPS Conferences NIPS*2002 here. NIPS conferences of previous years here. Important Dates Tutorials: Dec 8, 2003 Conference: Dec 9, 10, 11 (until noon), 2003 Workshops: Dec 11 (evening reception), 12, 13, 2003 Poster presentations: Dec 9, 10, 2003 Demonstrations: Dec 9, 10, 2003 Camera-ready papers due: tba (early 2004) Conference Format The new Demonstrations component of the Conference program will enable researchers to highlight scientific advances, systems, and technologies in ways that go beyond conventional poster presentations. It will provide a unique forum for demonstrating advanced technologies both hardware and software and fostering the direct exchange of knowledge. The Tutorial Program provides a choice of six two-hour tutorials by leading scientists. The topics span a wide range of subjects including neuroscience, learning algorithms and theory, bioinformatics, image processing and data mining. The Workshop Program will include 15 workshops covering a wide range of topics from neuroscience to machine learning. The workshop schedule allows time for informal discussions, skiing and other winter sports. Organization Organizing Committee General Chair: Sebastian Thrun, Carnegie Mellon University Program Chair: Lawrence Saul, University of Pennsylvania Tutorials Chair: Sam Roweis, University of Toronto Workshops Co-Chairs: Robert Jacobs, Rochester University Satinder Singh Baveja, University of Michigan Publications Chair: Bernhard Schoelkopf, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Demonstrations Co-Chairs: Shih-Chii Liu, ETH/University of Zurich Tobi Delbruck, ETH/University of Zurich Publicity Chair: Klaus Robert Mueller, Fraunhofer FIRST Volunteers Director: Dale Schuurmans, University of Waterloo Workflow Master: John Blitzer Program Committee Lawrence Saul (chair), University of Pennsylvania Peter Bartlett, University of California at Berkeley Samy Bengio, IDIAP Chris Burges, Microsoft Rich Caruana, Cornell University Ralph Etienne-Cummings Johns Hopkins University Geoff Hinton, University of Toronto John Lafferty, Carnegie Mellon University Michael Lewicki, Carnegie Mellon University Michael Littman Rutgers University Andrew McCallum, University of Massachusetts Amherst Rajesh Rao, University of Washington Jianbo Shi, University of Pennsylvania Richard Shiffrin, Indiana University Yoram Singer, Hebrew University Alexander Smola, Australian National University Martin Wainwright, University of California at Berkeley NIPS Foundation Board, Officers, and Office
		Submission Deadline for Regular Papers: June 6, 2003
	Call for papers (deadline: June 6, 2003) Call for workshop proposals (deadline: August 1, 2003) Call for demonstrations (deadline: August 1, 2003) Click to download the NIPS*2003 formatting instructions [.ps] [.pdf]. LaTeX: [.tex], (LaTeX 2.09 [.sty]), (LaTeX 2e [.sty]). MS Word: [.rtf].
		Tutorials and Conference
Conference Invited Speakers
		Anders Dale, Harvard University: Relating Brain Imaging Signals to Biophysical Models of Neuronal Circuits
		Paul Ekman, UC San Francisco: About Face: What We Have Learned Through Measuring Facial Movements
		Michale Fee, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies: Time and Sequence in the Brain: Insights from a Songbird
		Marc Mezard, Universite de Paris Sud: Analytic and Algorithmic Solutions of Random Satisfiability Problems
		Elissa Newport, University of Rochester: Statistical Language Learning in Human Infants and Adults
		David Salesin, University of Washington and Microsoft Research: The Need for Machine Learning in Computer Graphics
Tutorial Topics
		Stephen Boyd, Stanford University: Convex Optimization and Applications
		David Karger, MIT: Algorithmic Tools Applied to Learning and Inference Problems
		Daniel D. Lee, University of Pennsylvania: Learning in Sensorimotor Systems
		David Lowe, University of British Columbia: Real-time Object Recognition using Invariant Local Image Features
		Zach Mainen, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: Neural Coding and the Olfactory System
		Klaus-Robert Mueller, Fraunhofer FIRST: Towards Brain Computer Interfacing
Tutorials and Conference Schedule
		Monday, Dec. 8 8:00am - 6:00pm Registration 9:30am - 5:30pm Tutorials 7:00pm - 10:00pm Conference Banquet
		Tuesday, Dec. 9 and Wednesday, Dec. 10 8:00am - 6:00pm Registration 8:30am - 12:00pm Sessions 2:00pm - 5:30pm Sessions 1:00pm - 6:00pm Poster Setup and Preview 7:30pm - 10:30pm Poster Session and Demonstration Sessions
		Thursday, Dec. 11 8:30am - 12:00pm Sessions 2:00pm - 3:30pm Buses Depart for Workshops
		Workshops
Workshops Schedule		The workshops will be held in Whistler.
		Thursday, Dec. 11 6:30pm - 8:30pm Welcoming Reception and Registration
		Friday, Dec. 12 7:00am - 11:00am Registration 7:30am - 10:30am Workshop Sessions 4:00pm - 7:00pm Workshop Sessions
		Saturday, Dec. 13 7:30am - 10:30am Workshop Sessions 4:00pm - 7:00pm Workshop Sessions 7:30pm - 10:30pm Banquet and Wrap-up
About this Webpage		The temporary webmaster for this page, until the full-blown NIPS*2003 webpage appears, is Sebastian Thrun.
Acknowledgments		Thanks to Alex Gray, long-time former NIPS webmaster, for his continued support of this Web site as NIPS transitions to a new design. Thanks also to Doug Baker of Eizel Technologies, another former NIPS webmaster, for help in writing the NIPS travel grant script, to Dana Dahlstrom of UCSD for creating updated versions of the NIPS formatting files, and to Leemon Baird of the Air Command and Staff College, for creating the original .rtf file. Lucifer yellow stain of the LGMD neuron (top left) courtesy of Drs. Krapp, Gabbiani, Koch, and Laurent.