To further put my money where my mouth is, in regards to my support for open source textbooks, I'm following up Monday's post by making the outline of my open source textbook, Intelligent Information Systems, available online. The outline is in PDF format, and is available at the following address:
http://mike.watts.net.nz/IIS_Outline.pdf
Readers are encouraged to comment on the outline via the comments section of this blog - I want to hear your opinions!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
WCCI 2012 Panel Session on Computational Intelligence in Education and University Curricula
The following panel session at WCCI 2012 is organised by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society's Curriculum Subcommittee (which I happen to serve on), and will be held Thursday, June 14, 4:10-5:10pm.
Chairs: Robert Kozma and Jennie Si
Panelists: Haibo He, Janusz Kaczprzyk, Jim Keller, Luis Magdalena, Marios Polycarpou, Lipo Wang
Computational Intelligence is a relatively new research field. A lot of educational materials have been created in various fields of CI in the past decades. However, due to the field's relatively youth, its fundamental achievements has not been organized into a comprehensive curriculum yet. It is crucial for the development of the field to have high-quality educational materials on the state of art of CI. This allows attracting and educating talented and enthusiastic students and documenting the progress in the field. The panel will discuss various areas of CI education, including existing databases and course materials, online resources and video lectures, development of new textbooks, open-source software, and others. Various recommendations for future actions will be discussed as well.
Chairs: Robert Kozma and Jennie Si
Panelists: Haibo He, Janusz Kaczprzyk, Jim Keller, Luis Magdalena, Marios Polycarpou, Lipo Wang
Computational Intelligence is a relatively new research field. A lot of educational materials have been created in various fields of CI in the past decades. However, due to the field's relatively youth, its fundamental achievements has not been organized into a comprehensive curriculum yet. It is crucial for the development of the field to have high-quality educational materials on the state of art of CI. This allows attracting and educating talented and enthusiastic students and documenting the progress in the field. The panel will discuss various areas of CI education, including existing databases and course materials, online resources and video lectures, development of new textbooks, open-source software, and others. Various recommendations for future actions will be discussed as well.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Reminder: paper submission deadline for AI'12
A reminder that the deadline for submitting papers to the 25th Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AI) 2012 is 29 June, 2012. This conference will be held in Sydney, Australia, 4-7 December, 2012.
Monday, May 28, 2012
An experiment in open-source textbooks
I am thinking of writing a textbook. Actually, I'm working on three at the moment, one of which is a research monograph, but the one that it most relevant to this post is tentatively titled Intelligent Information Systems, and will cover neural networks, fuzzy systems and evolutionary algorithms at an undergraduate level. I also expect it would be useful for researchers from other disciplines who want to apply methods in computational intelligence to their own research, and to software engineers who want to solve real-world problems with computational intelligence.
In line with this post, I am seriously considering making Intelligent Information Systems available as an open-source textbook. But before I do, I need some encouragement. So I'm asking you, my dear readers, to encourage me. If you think you would assign an open-source textbook on this topic to a class, or that you would buy a self-published textbook, let me know in the comments. If you could see yourself contributing some other way, let me know, too.
It's up to you good folk to push me to do this!
In line with this post, I am seriously considering making Intelligent Information Systems available as an open-source textbook. But before I do, I need some encouragement. So I'm asking you, my dear readers, to encourage me. If you think you would assign an open-source textbook on this topic to a class, or that you would buy a self-published textbook, let me know in the comments. If you could see yourself contributing some other way, let me know, too.
It's up to you good folk to push me to do this!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Competition Call for IEEE CIS GOLDs and Students: Pitch your CI Research Idea and Win an iPad 2!!!
The following is cross-posted from the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society blog.
The CIS GOLD subcommittee is hosting a “Novel CI Research Idea Pitch” competition during the Student and GOLD reception at WCCI 2012 in Brisbane Australia.
Your Challenge: Design a one-page research proposal of your Computational Intelligence idea and get a chance to pitch your idea to a panel of CI experts and your peers using an “elevator pitch” (3 minute time limit). An “elevator pitch” is a short summary of a research idea. The research area must be “computational intelligence” and the participants must “sell” their idea to the judges to qualify for prizes. A panel of three CI experts will select 3 best pitches and the audience (your peers) will rank 1st, 2nd and 3rdwinner through secret ballot. Prizes will include 1 iPad for 1st winner, certificates and free full year IEEE CIS memberships. Register now for a chance to be heard!
Submission Guidelines: Interested GOLDs and Students should consult the full Brief and Submission Guidelines by going to http://tinyurl.com/cp8kdw8. Registration and submission deadline is June 11th 2012, Midnight EST. (You can register for the competition without submitting the research summary).
Register Now (Space is Limited!): http://tinyurl.com/7tror22
The CIS GOLD subcommittee is hosting a “Novel CI Research Idea Pitch” competition during the Student and GOLD reception at WCCI 2012 in Brisbane Australia.
Your Challenge: Design a one-page research proposal of your Computational Intelligence idea and get a chance to pitch your idea to a panel of CI experts and your peers using an “elevator pitch” (3 minute time limit). An “elevator pitch” is a short summary of a research idea. The research area must be “computational intelligence” and the participants must “sell” their idea to the judges to qualify for prizes. A panel of three CI experts will select 3 best pitches and the audience (your peers) will rank 1st, 2nd and 3rdwinner through secret ballot. Prizes will include 1 iPad for 1st winner, certificates and free full year IEEE CIS memberships. Register now for a chance to be heard!
Submission Guidelines: Interested GOLDs and Students should consult the full Brief and Submission Guidelines by going to http://tinyurl.com/cp8kdw8. Registration and submission deadline is June 11th 2012, Midnight EST. (You can register for the competition without submitting the research summary).
Register Now (Space is Limited!): http://tinyurl.com/7tror22
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Publishing and perishing under gameable metrics
My alma mater is in the New Zealand news again, and again it is to do with gaming the metrics by which the research performance of New Zealand tertiary institutions are measured. This time, the article describes how many staff with poor publishing records have been made redundant from the university (that is, they have lost their jobs) prior to the assessment later this year. While I have little sympathy for those in permanent lecturing positions who do not publish (see my previous comments here and here) in this case it seems like the staff who have lost their jobs are predominantly teaching staff, or staff who are still developing their research record (see this post from one who lost her job for the same reason some time ago). If that is the case, then I have to say that the university administration is making a mistake.
Teaching takes a lot of time and energy (my last semester teaching at Otago, I was in the office at least six days a week, and often worked from 7:30 in the morning to 9 or 10 at night). The purpose of having teaching-only staff is to take some of that load off of the lecturers so that they can do their research. Indeed, the major thrust of the article is that the redundancies are putting more stress on the remaining staff, as they are having to pick up extra teaching in addition to lifting their own research outputs. While the teaching load could in theory be reduced by hiring contract lecturers (who would not, as I understand it, be assessed) I have already posted on why this is a bad idea.
From my research with evolutionary algorithms, I know that optimising to one criteria or metric seldom results in optimal or robust systems. By optimising their staff to one (flawed and gameable) metric, the University of Otago is reducing the robustness of their institution. The long-term outcome of these redundancies is yet to be seen, but I do not think that it will be good for anyone concerned. Non-performers need to be removed, for sure, but early-career researchers need coaching and leadership to develop. They don't need the great big stick stick of the threat of redundancy waved at them (such threats are more often than not a sign of dysfunctional management, rather than a sign of competent leadership).
Ultimately, only those who set the metrics can resolve this situation. As long as a metric can be gamed, then institutions will game them. In the meantime, people will have their lives upended and their careers destroyed by narrow-minded administrators and cynical political operators who are trying to wring a few more points out of the system to make themselves look good.
Teaching takes a lot of time and energy (my last semester teaching at Otago, I was in the office at least six days a week, and often worked from 7:30 in the morning to 9 or 10 at night). The purpose of having teaching-only staff is to take some of that load off of the lecturers so that they can do their research. Indeed, the major thrust of the article is that the redundancies are putting more stress on the remaining staff, as they are having to pick up extra teaching in addition to lifting their own research outputs. While the teaching load could in theory be reduced by hiring contract lecturers (who would not, as I understand it, be assessed) I have already posted on why this is a bad idea.
From my research with evolutionary algorithms, I know that optimising to one criteria or metric seldom results in optimal or robust systems. By optimising their staff to one (flawed and gameable) metric, the University of Otago is reducing the robustness of their institution. The long-term outcome of these redundancies is yet to be seen, but I do not think that it will be good for anyone concerned. Non-performers need to be removed, for sure, but early-career researchers need coaching and leadership to develop. They don't need the great big stick stick of the threat of redundancy waved at them (such threats are more often than not a sign of dysfunctional management, rather than a sign of competent leadership).
Ultimately, only those who set the metrics can resolve this situation. As long as a metric can be gamed, then institutions will game them. In the meantime, people will have their lives upended and their careers destroyed by narrow-minded administrators and cynical political operators who are trying to wring a few more points out of the system to make themselves look good.
Monday, May 21, 2012
The problem with academic journals: An update
A brief update on the status of the Elsevier boycott (described here): to date, more than 11 000 academics have pledged to not review, submit or do editorial work for any Elsevier journals. My previous post has already described why I oppose such a boycott of a single publisher, and I expect that this boycott is going to cause some unanticipated consequences.
I suspect that this boycott explains why the papers I have under review in Ecological Modelling and Ecological Informatics are taking so long to go through the review process: it's hard enough finding reviewers as it is, and with people refusing to review for Elsevier, it's going to get even harder. That's not punishing Elsevier, that's punishing the researchers who are trying to get their work published and advance their careers.
As I said before, the way real change will come about is by the top researchers supporting open-access journals. At least one of the people who could do this has just done so: Winston Hide, an associate editor at the highly-ranked Elsevier journal Genomics has just resigned from the editorial board, with the avowed intention of focusing his energies on open-access alternatives. I can only hope that some of the top researchers in computational intelligence will do the same.
I suspect that this boycott explains why the papers I have under review in Ecological Modelling and Ecological Informatics are taking so long to go through the review process: it's hard enough finding reviewers as it is, and with people refusing to review for Elsevier, it's going to get even harder. That's not punishing Elsevier, that's punishing the researchers who are trying to get their work published and advance their careers.
As I said before, the way real change will come about is by the top researchers supporting open-access journals. At least one of the people who could do this has just done so: Winston Hide, an associate editor at the highly-ranked Elsevier journal Genomics has just resigned from the editorial board, with the avowed intention of focusing his energies on open-access alternatives. I can only hope that some of the top researchers in computational intelligence will do the same.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Call for papers: INNS-WC 2012
INNS-WC2012 – 2012 International Neural Network Society Winter Conference
Bangkok, Thailand, October 3-5, 2012
http://inns.sit.kmutt.ac.th/wc2012/
Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: May 31, 2012
Notification of acceptance: June 30, 2012
Camera-ready paper: July 31, 2012
The 3rd International Neural Network Society Winter Conference (INNS-WC2012) will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 3-5, 2012. INNS-WC2012 aims to bring together scientists, practitioners, and students worldwide, to discuss the past, present, and future challenges and trends in the area of natural and machine intelligence. This event has been a bi-annual conference of the International Neural Network Society (INNS) to provide a forum for international researchers to exchange latest ideas and advances on neural networks and related discipline. INNS-WC2012 solicits contributions to the following tracks in natural and machine intelligence and related areas:
Prospective authors are invited to submit original, high quality manuscripts of up to twelve (12) pages electronically. Short papers of 4-6 pages will also be considered. The submission must conform to the Elsevier Procedia Computer Science format. All accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of INNS-WC2012 as anElsevier Procedia Computer Science open access volume (indexed by EI, Scopus and Conference Proceedings Citation Index - formerly ISI Proceedings). Extended version of selected papers may be invited for publication in special issues of international journals after the conference. All submissions will be checked by VeriGuide for originality.
The range of topics for the general conference track on
"Trends in Natural and Machine Intelligence" includes but is not limited to
The range of topics for the INNS Symposium on Nature Inspired Creativity (SoNIC2012) includes but is not limited to
The range of topics for the INNS Symposium on Vision and Image Processing (SoVIP2012) includes but is not limited to:
The range of topics for the INNS Symposium on Data Analytics and Competitions (SoDAC2012) includes but is not limited to:
Bangkok, Thailand, October 3-5, 2012
http://inns.sit.kmutt.ac.th/wc2012/
Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: May 31, 2012
Notification of acceptance: June 30, 2012
Camera-ready paper: July 31, 2012
The 3rd International Neural Network Society Winter Conference (INNS-WC2012) will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 3-5, 2012. INNS-WC2012 aims to bring together scientists, practitioners, and students worldwide, to discuss the past, present, and future challenges and trends in the area of natural and machine intelligence. This event has been a bi-annual conference of the International Neural Network Society (INNS) to provide a forum for international researchers to exchange latest ideas and advances on neural networks and related discipline. INNS-WC2012 solicits contributions to the following tracks in natural and machine intelligence and related areas:
- INNS-WC general track: Trends in Natural and Machine Intelligence
- INNS Symposium on Nature Inspired Creativity (SoNIC2012)
- INNS Symposium on Vision and Image Processing (SoVIP2012)
- INNS Symposium on Data Analytics and Competitions (SoDAC2012)
Prospective authors are invited to submit original, high quality manuscripts of up to twelve (12) pages electronically. Short papers of 4-6 pages will also be considered. The submission must conform to the Elsevier Procedia Computer Science format. All accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of INNS-WC2012 as anElsevier Procedia Computer Science open access volume (indexed by EI, Scopus and Conference Proceedings Citation Index - formerly ISI Proceedings). Extended version of selected papers may be invited for publication in special issues of international journals after the conference. All submissions will be checked by VeriGuide for originality.
The range of topics for the general conference track on
"Trends in Natural and Machine Intelligence" includes but is not limited to
- Autonomous machine learning
- Neural network theory & models
- Computational neuroscience
- Cognitive models
- Brain-machine interfaces
- Embodied robotics
- Evolutionary neural systems
- Neurodynamics
- Neuroinformatics
- Neuroengineering
- Neural hardware
- Neural network applications
- Pattern recognition
- Machine vision
- Speech science and technology
- Collective intelligence
- Hybrid systems
- Self-aware systems
- Data mining
- Sensor networks
- Agent-based systems
- Computational biology
- Bioinformatics
- Artificial life
SoNIC2012
The range of topics for the INNS Symposium on Nature Inspired Creativity (SoNIC2012) includes but is not limited to
- Application of Nature Inspired Computing in Creative Industries:
- Creative computing for digital media
- Computer aided design
- Computer generated special effects for film
- Cartoon animation
- Games
- Music
- Edutainment, etc.
- Art and Cognition:
- Art and the Brain
- Creative process
- Emotion and meaning in paintings, music, sculptures, poetry, etc.
- Generative Art:
- Systems that create drawings, images, animations, sculptures, poetry, text, graphic designs, musical pieces, sound-fonts, sound effects, film music, etc.
- Aesthetic evaluation:
- Aesthetic analysis of film, image, music, sound, sculpture, etc.
SoVIP2012
The range of topics for the INNS Symposium on Vision and Image Processing (SoVIP2012) includes but is not limited to:
- Low-level image processing
- Feature extraction and image description
- Image classification and clustering
- 3D sensing and depth measuring systems
- 3D object modeling and reconstruction
- Tracking and surveillance
- Motion estimation
- Human gesture recognition
- Human motion analysis
- Human face detection and tracking
- Human-robot interactions
- Robot intelligence
- Humanoid and mobile robotics
- Video indexing and retrieval
- Intelligent compression of massive imaging data
- Bio-medical imaging applications
- Bio-robotics
- Biometrics
SoDAC2012
The range of topics for the INNS Symposium on Data Analytics and Competitions (SoDAC2012) includes but is not limited to:
- Business intelligence
- Air quality and environmental issues
- Chemo-informatics
- Social networks and analytics
- Speech prosody
- Geo-informatics
- Neuro-informatics
- Internet and web analytics
- Data visualization techniques
- Data quality analysis
- Decision support and analytics
- Knowledge management and discovery
- Advanced database analytics
- Content and information retrieval
- Modeling and simulation of complex systems
- Optimization techniques
- Bio-data analysis
- Complex scheduling problems
- Scalability of data analysis
- Data competitions
Collocated Conferences
- The 3rd International Conference on Computational Systems-Biology and Bioinformatics (CSBio2012 - www.csbio.org)
- The 11th International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB2012 - www.incob2012.org)
Thursday, May 17, 2012
IEEE CIS Facebook Photo Competition
The IEEE Computational Intelligence Society are running a photo competition on Facebook. See the flyer below to find out how to enter.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Reminder: paper submission deadline for CISE 2012
A reminder that the deadline for papers submitted to the 4th International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering (CISE) 2012 is 11 June 2012. This conference will be held in Wuhan, China, December 14-16, 2012.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Call for papers: Fuzz-IEEE 2013
The deadline for submitting papers to the IEEE Conference on Fuzzy Systems (Fuzz-IEEE) 2013 is 5 January, 2013. This conference will be held in Hyderabad, India, 7-10 July, 2013.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Call for papers: IJCNN 2013
The deadline for submitting papers to the IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) 2013 is February 1, 2013. This conference will be held in Dallas, Texas, August 4-9, 2013.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Call for papers: CEC 2013
The deadline for submitting papers to the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2013 is February 15, 2013. This conference will be held in Cancun, Mexico, June 20-23, 2013.
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