CALL FOR PAPERS � NIPS*2006

Deadline for Paper Submissions:  June 9, 2006

Submissions are solicited for the twentieth annual meeting of an
interdisciplinary conference (December 5-7) which brings together
researchers interested in all aspects of neural and statistical processing
and computation. The conference will include invited talks as well as oral
and poster presentations of refereed papers. It is single track and highly
selective. Preceding the main conference will be one day of tutorials
(December 4), and following it will be two days of workshops at
Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort (December 8-9).

Invited Speakers:  To be announced.

Tutorial Speakers:  To be announced.

Submissions: Papers are solicited in all areas of neural information
processing, including (but not limited to) the following:
* Algorithms and Architectures: statistical learning algorithms, neural
networks, kernel methods, graphical models, Gaussian processes,
dimensionality reduction and manifold learning, model selection,
combinatorial optimization.
* Applications: innovative applications or fielded systems that use machine
learning, including systems for time series prediction, bioinformatics,
text/web analysis, multimedia processing, and robotics.
* Brain Imaging: neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience, EEG
(electroencephalogram), ERP (event related potentials), MEG
(magnetoencephalogram), fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), brain
mapping, brain segmentation, brain computer interfaces.
* Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence: theoretical, computational,
or experimental studies of perception, psychophysics, human or animal
learning, memory, reasoning, problem solving,  natural language processing,
and neuropsychology.
* Control and Reinforcement Learning: decision and control, exploration,
planning, navigation, Markov decision processes, game-playing, multi-agent
coordination, computational models of classical and operant conditioning.
* Hardware Technologies: analog and digital VLSI, neuromorphic engineering,
computational sensors and actuators, microrobotics, bioMEMS, neural
prostheses, photonics, molecular and quantum computing.
* Learning Theory: generalization, regularization and model selection,
Bayesian learning, spaces of functions and kernels, statistical physics of
learning, online learning and competitive analysis, hardness of learning and
approximations, large deviations and asymptotic analysis, information
theory.
* Neuroscience: theoretical and experimental studies of processing and
transmission of information in biological neurons and networks, including
spike train generation, synaptic modulation, plasticity and adaptation.
* Speech and Signal Processing: recognition, coding, synthesis, denoising,
segmentation, source separation, auditory perception, psychoacoustics,
dynamical systems, recurrent networks, Language Models, Dynamic and Temporal
models.
* Visual Processing: biological and machine vision, image processing and
coding, segmentation, object detection and recognition, motion detection and
tracking, visual psychophysics, visual scene analysis and interpretation.

Review Criteria: New as of 2006, NIPS submissions will be reviewed
double-blind: the reviewers will not know the identities of the authors.
Submissions will be refereed on the basis of technical quality, novelty,
potential impact on the field, and clarity. There will be an opportunity
after the meeting to revise accepted manuscripts. We particularly encourage
submissions by authors new to NIPS, as well as application papers that
combine concrete results on novel or previously unachievable applications
with analysis of the underlying difficulty from a machine learning
perspective.

Paper Format: The paper format is fully described at
http://research.microsoft.com/conferences/nips06/. Please use the latest
style file for your submission.

Submission Instructions: NIPS accepts only electronic submissions at
http://papers.nips.cc. These submissions must be in postscript or PDF
format. The Conference web site will accept electronic submissions from May
26, 2006 until midnight, June 9, 2006, Pacific daylight time.

Demonstrations: There is a separate demonstration track at NIPS. Authors
wishing to submit to the demonstration track should consult the conference
web site.

Organizing Committee:
  General Chair --- Bernhard Schölkopf (MPI for Biological Cybernetics)
  Program Chair --- John Platt (Microsoft Research)
  Tutorials Chair --- Daphne Koller (Stanford)
  Workshop Chairs --- Charles Isbell (Georgia Tech)
                      Rajesh Rao (University of Washington)
  Demonstrations Chairs --- Alan Stocker (New York University)
                            Giacomo Indiveri (UNI ETH Zurich)
  Publications Chair --- Thomas Hofmann (TU Darmstadt)
  Volunteers Chair --- Fernando Perez Cruz (Gatsby Unit, London)
  Publicity Chair --- Matthias Franz (Max Plack Institute, Tübingen)
  Online Proceedings Chair --- Andrew McCallum (Univ. Massachusetts,
Amherst)

Program Committee:
  Chair --- John Platt (Microsoft Research)
  Bob Williamson (National ICT Australia)
  Cordelia Schmid (INRIA)
  Corinna Cortes (Google)
  Dan Ellis (Columbia University)
  Dan Hammerstrom (Portland State University)
  Dan Pelleg (IBM)
  Dennis DeCoste (Yahoo Research)
  Dieter Fox (University of Washington)
  Hubert Preissl (University of Tuebingen)
  John Langford (Toyota Technical Institute)
  Kamal Nigam (Google)
  Kevin Murphy (University of British Columbia)
  Koji Tsuda (MPI for Biological Cybernetics)
  Maneesh Sahani (University College London)
  Neil Lawrence (University of Sheffield)
  Samy Bengio (IDIAP)
  Satinder Singh (University of Michigan)
  Shimon Edelman (Cornell University)
  Thomas Griffiths (UC Berkeley)

Deadline for Paper Submissions: June 9, 2006