HHMI Investigator National Competition

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) seeks to appoint up to 30 new biomedical researchers through a national open competition. The initiative represents an investment of approximately $200 million in basic biomedical research by the Institute.

This HHMI investigator competition is open to scientists at more than 200 eligible institutions who study significant biological problems in all of the biomedical disciplines, as well as in adjacent fields such as biophysics, chemical biology, biomedical engineering, and computational biology. Plant scientists, experimental evolutionary biologists, and patient-oriented researchers are welcome to apply. Those selected in this competition will receive a five-year appointment to HHMI, which is renewable pending favorable scientific review.

http://www.hhmi.org/news/HHMI20120315.html

32th MaxEnt 2012

 

the 32th Workshop on Bayesian Inference and
Maximum Entropy methods in science and engineering
at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasmaphysics in Garching/Munich (15.July-20.July 2012)
welcomes the submission of abstracts for oral and poster presentations.

Abstracts (limited to one page) of proposed contributions
should be submitted following the guidelines provided on the
website

http://www.ipp.mpg.de/maxent2012

by ***  May, 01, 2012. ***

Especially encouraged are
papers whose content is novel, either conceptually or as innovative application of Bayesian Inference.
Abstracts are designated for either platform or poster sessions; awards are presented to the best poster.
Notification of the decision of the program committee will be
by May 15, 2012.

The workshop includes tutorials, state-of-the-art lectures, poster presentations and contributed papers. Selected papers will be edited and published in a book.
Topics addressed include

     * Bayesian graphical models
     * Experimental design
     * ICA/Blind source separation
     * Image reconstruction
     * Machine Learning
     * Markov chain Monte Carlo Methods
     * Neural nets
     * Quantum mechanics
     * Philosophy of science
     * Real world applications in various fields of science (e.g.
       astrophysics, plasma physics, material science, metrology,
       meteorology, biology, robotics,...)

On behalf of the organizing committee
Udo von Toussaint

Neural interactions and affect: basic & clinical perspectives Conference

Neural interactions and affect: basic & clinical perspectives
Conference at the University of Reading, United Kingdom
16-17th April, 2012

The last decade has seen an unprecedented expansion in research on the
neural basis of human emotions and affective disorders. Distinct brain
regions have been linked to reward, motivation, threat and aversion,
largely through neuroimaging studies building on knowledge gained from
studies of other animals. Changes in the functioning of these regions
have been linked to a number of mood and affective disorders.
Recently, scientists have become interested in how the dynamic
interactions between multiple neural systems give rise to our
emotions, and motivate and modulate our behaviours and decisions. Such
time-dependent processes occur on scales ranging from milliseconds in
the case of neuronal interactions, through seconds in learning,
conditioning and habituation, through to years in the case of the
lifetime development and decline.

This symposium brings together basic and clinical scientists from a
variety of fields who approach the topic from different perspectives.
The objective is to provide a richly interactive environment for
scientific interchange between biological, medical, psychological and
physical scientists interested in new perspectives and techniques to
push forward research in the field.

Over the two days, a mix of keynote lectures, workshops and poster
sessions will encourage interaction between senior and junior
researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds. A large amount of
time dedicated to discussion will be a feature of all the symposium
sessions.

Confirmed Invited Speakers
Sonia Bishop, UC Berkeley/ University of Oxford
Gilles Pourtois, Ghent University, Belgium
Rudi de Raedt, Ghent University, Belgium
Henrik Walter, Medical University Charité, Berlin, Germany
Martin Walter, Medical University Magdeburg, Germany
Paul Whalen, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA

News of further speakers will be forthcoming.

Registration
Registration is free for research staff and postgraduate students of
non-profit/academic research institutions
To register, please send an email with the subject line "April Neural
Interactions Conference" to CINN@reading.ac.uk with the following
information:

Name
Affiliation
Position (PhD, Postdoc, Ass. Prof. etc)
Topic of Research

In addition, there will be a poster session and a limited number of
places for spoken presentations. If you wish to present either a
poster or a talk, please include a title, authors, preference for
poster or talk, and 250 word abstract. Those who request a talk who
can't be accommodated will be allocated to a poster session.

Travel and accommodation will need to be arranged by attendees.
Reading is well served by train (25 minutes from central London, 35
minutes from Oxford) and is a 35 minute bus ride from Heathrow
Airport. Reading has a variety of hotel accommodation available - more
information will be circulated in the coming days. The University
campus is a short taxi ride from the centre of town. Regular buses
also serve the university, or for those who enjoy some exercise, it is
a pleasant 40 minute walk.

This conference is made possible with the support of the EPSRC, BBSRC & CINN.

11th Brain Connectivity Workshop (BCW’2012)

  

The 11th Brain Connectivity Workshop (BCW’2012) will be held on June 6-8, 2012, in Chengdu, China. It will be hosted by LIAMA Center for Computational Medicine at CASIA (Institute of Automation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the School of Life Science and Technology ( the '111' project on NeuroInformation) at the University of Electronic Technology and Science of China. It will be held just before the Organization of Human Brain Mapping Meeting in Beijing, June 10-14, 2012. The BCW’2012 will consist of a two day main workshop, featuring talks by leading international experts and a one day educational course designed to bring participants up to speed in cutting edge issues of Brain Connectivity. The main topics of this year will be as follows:

Structural Connectivity: From Micro to Macro
Foundations of Brain Connectivity Methods
Brainnetome Meets Genome
Clinical Applications of Brain Connectivity

BCW has been going for 10 years now (http://www.brain-connectivity-workshop.org/), and is the major forum to discuss the broad and complex issues relating to brain connectivity. A unique character of the workshop is the format that emphasizes discussion over extensive presentations. Following the tradition of this workshop series, each of the invited speakers in the main workshop is requested to limit their presentation to 15 minutes and then lead a 30 minutes discussion focused on that topic. This format has been successful since the meeting's inception, and has always resulted in extensive and invigorating debate. Moreover, this year, each session chair of the main workshop will be asked to deliver a 15 minutes presentation to outline the scope and main challenges that they see of relevance to that session.

As an essential part of BCW’2012, the one day educational course will also occur: Eight leading experts in this field will deliver introductory lectures in different fields of Brain Connectivity. In fact, in previous years most of the registrants of the main workshop also attend and contribute to questions in the educational course.

We look forward to seeing you at BCW’2012!

OrganizersTianzi Jiang (Chair) Pedro Valdes-Sosa Michael Breakspear Dezhong Yao

Contact UsLIAMA Center for Computational Medicine Institute of Automation The Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 Email: brainnetome@nlpr.ia.ac.cn Phone: +86-10-6262 9189

Symposium for Neuroimaging Advances in Paediatrics (SNAP)

Title:        Symposium for Neuroimaging Advances in Paediatrics (SNAP)
Date:       Friday 4th May 
Venue:     Ella Latham Theatre,  Royal Children’s Hospital, Flemington
Rd, Parkville

Registrations open Monday 20th February  www.trybooking.com/20955 
Numbers strictly limited.
For more information contact 2012snap@gmail.com 

You are invited to take this rare opportunity to learn from
internationally renowned speakers and to network with others in the
field. This one-day symposium will equip you with 10 Things you should
know about... atlas construction, voxel based morphometry, fMRI and
resting state data analysis, diffusion weighted imaging, perfusion
imaging, and more! The symposium will also cover applications of
paediatric neuroimaging, including 10 things neuroimaging has told us
about... neurodevelopment, premature birth and childhood head injury.

Guest speakers include:  
-        Marko Wilke (Children’s Hospital, University of Tübingen) 
-        Gareth Barker (Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London)
-        Mark Jenkinson (FMRIB Centre, University of Oxford)
-        Clare Kelly (New York University)
-        Derek Jones (Cardiff University)
-        Fernando Calamante (Brain Research Institute)
-        Rhoshel Lenroot (University of New South Wales)
-        Vicki Anderson (Murdoch Childrens Research Institute)

HIVE Workshop Berlin 2012 on Brain Stimulation

 

Hyper-Interaction Viability Experiments Workshop

http://hive-eu.org/hive2012/home

Could computers someday interact directly with the human brain? This is the motto of the HIVE project. The goal of the workshop is to present research toward developing a new generation of powerful and controllable non-invasive brain stimulation technologies.

We hereby invite contributions to this second public HIVE workshop,  to be held in Berlin on April 27-28th, 2012. Submission deadline for Abstracts is 11th March.

Contributions must be of a high scientific level, and typically would describe, attempt to understand, or engineer brain stimulation phenomena as well as clinical applications. Submission page instructions are here: http://hive-eu.org/node/317

Researchers with new results working in any the following research areas are encouraged to submit abstracts:

-Biophysical models of current flow in the brain
-Neuron-current interaction models
-Inverse modeling of neural activity
-Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) for communication
-tDCS, tACS, TMS experimental results
-Neurofeedback and neuromodulation
-Real-time EEG monitoring
-EEG-fMRI relationships
-Brain stimulation for therapy (sleep, improved consciousness)
-New technologies (hardware, software, algorithms) for hyper-interaction or CBI

Submitted papers will be rated by the scientific committee on quality and relevance to the goals of HIVE. The best papers will be awarded with an oral presentation, and the remaining papers may be presented as posters and will be discussed during breaks or at the end of the day. We look forward to an exciting conference with most stimulating discussions.  Best abstracts and presentations will be selected for publication in a Special Issue of the journal "Physiological Measurement": http://iopscience.iop.org/0967-3334/

2nd International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in NeuroImaging (PRNI 2012)

CALL FOR PAPERS

2nd International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in NeuroImaging (PRNI 2012)


Multivariate and predictive analysis of neuroimaging data has gained ground
very rapidly in the community over the past few years, leading to impressive
results in cognitive, affective, and clinical neurosciences. Innovations in
machine learning, such as mixed-norm regularisation, multiple kernel learning,
and online learning have been incorporated swiftly, and novel methods are 
emerging which are specifically tuned to the constraints of neuroimaging data,
prompting advances in areas such as structured sparsity or covariate
modelling. Pattern recognition and machine learning conferences now typically
feature a neuroimaging workshop, while neuroscience and brain imaging
meetings dedicate sessions and track to "brain decoding" and multivariate
predictive methods. Thus, a rich two-way flow has been established between
disciplines.

After Istanbul (Workshop on Brain Decoding 2010) and Seoul
(PRNI 2011), it is the intention of the 2nd International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in NeuroImaging to continue facilitating exchange of ideas between scientific communities, with a particular interest in the link between mass-univariate, post-hoc modelling and multivariate predictive models.

** Topics of interest
PRNI welcomes original papers on multivariate predictive models of
neuroimaging data, using e.g. fMRI, sMRI, EEG, MEG, ECoG modalities,
including but not limited to the following topics:

* Learning from neuroimaging data
Online, incremental, and adaptive learning
Modality combinations
Optimisation and regularisation
Graph-based techniques and graphical models

* Interpretability of models and results
High-dimensional data visualisation
Multivariate and multiple hypothesis testing
Links between brain structure and function
Summarisation / presentation of inference results

* Applications
Disease diagnosis and prognosis
Real-time fMRI
Resting-state modelling
Cognitive neurosciences


** Submission Guidelines and Proceedings
Authors should prepare full papers with a maximum length of 4 pages (double-column, IEEE style, PDF) for review. Proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Science Society in electronic format. They will be permanently available on the IEEExplore and IEEE CS Digital Library online repositories, and indexed in IET INSPEC, EI Compendex (Elsevier), Thomson ISI, and others. Participants will receive a CDROM. The workshop website has all the details:

http://www.mlnl.cs.ucl.ac.uk/prni2012/

** Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: 1st of April, 2012
Acceptance notification: 7th of May, 2012
Workshop: July 2-4, 2012

Advanced Scientific Programming in Python

 
a Summer School by the G-Node and the Institute of Experimental and

Applied Physics, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and
debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have
evolved, only few scientists actually use them. As a result, instead
of doing their research, they spend far too much time writing
deficient code and reinventing the wheel. In this course we will
present a selection of advanced programming techniques,
incorporating theoretical lectures and practical exercises tailored
to the needs of a programming scientist. New skills will be tested
in a real programming project: we will team up to develop an
entertaining scientific computer game.

We use the Python programming language for the entire course. Python
works as a simple programming language for beginners, but more
importantly, it also works great in scientific simulations and data
analysis. We show how clean language design, ease of extensibility,
and the great wealth of open source libraries for scientific
computing and data visualization are driving Python to become a
standard tool for the programming scientist.

This school is targeted at Master or PhD students and Post-docs from
all areas of science. Competence in Python or in another language
such as Java, C/C++, MATLAB, or Mathematica is absolutely required.
Basic knowledge of Python is assumed. Participants without any prior
experience with Python should work through the proposed introductory
materials before the course. 

Date and Location
=================
September 2—7, 2012. Kiel, Germany.

Preliminary Program
===================
Day 0 (Sun Sept 2) — Best Programming Practices
  - Best Practices, Development Methodologies and the Zen of Python
  - Version control with git
  - Object-oriented programming & design patterns
Day 1 (Mon Sept 3) — Software Carpentry
  - Test-driven development, unit testing & quality assurance
  - Debugging, profiling and benchmarking techniques
  - Best practices in data visualization
  - Programming in teams
Day 2 (Tue Sept 4) — Scientific Tools for Python
  - Advanced NumPy
  - The Quest for Speed (intro): Interfacing to C with Cython
  - Advanced Python I: idioms, useful built-in data structures, 
    generators
Day 3 (Wed Sept 5) — The Quest for Speed
  - Writing parallel applications in Python
  - Programming project
Day 4 (Thu Sept 6) — Efficient Memory Management
  - When parallelization does not help:
    the starving CPUs problem
  - Advanced Python II: decorators and context managers
  - Programming project
Day 5 (Fri Sept 7) — Practical Software Development
  - Programming project
  - The Pelita Tournament

Every evening we will have the tutors' consultation hour: Tutors
will answer your questions and give suggestions for your own
projects.

Applications
============
You can apply on-line at http://python.g-node.org

Applications must be submitted before 23:59 UTC, May 1, 2012.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by June 1, 2012.

No fee is charged but participants should take care of travel,
living, and accommodation expenses.  Candidates will be selected on
the basis of their profile. Places are limited: acceptance rate last
time was around 20%.  Prerequisites: You are supposed to know the
basics of Python to participate in the lectures. You are encouraged
to go through the introductory material available on the website.

Faculty
=======
  - Francesc Alted, Continuum Analytics Inc., USA
  - Pietro Berkes, Enthought Inc., UK
  - Valentin Haenel,  Blue Brain Project, École Polytechnique
    Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
  - Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek, Faculty of Physics, University of
    Warsaw, Poland
  - Eilif Muller, Blue Brain Project, École Polytechnique Fédérale
    de Lausanne, Switzerland
  - Emanuele Olivetti, NeuroInformatics Laboratory, Fondazione Bruno
    Kessler and University of Trento, Italy
  - Rike-Benjamin Schuppner,  Technologit GbR, Germany
  - Bartosz Teleńczuk, Unité de Neurosciences Information et
    Complexité, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
  - Stéfan van der Walt, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute,
    University of California Berkeley, USA
  - Bastian Venthur, Berlin Institute of Technology and Bernstein
    Focus Neurotechnology, Germany
  - Niko Wilbert, TNG Technology Consulting GmbH, Germany
  - Tiziano Zito, Institute for Theoretical Biology,
    Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

Organized by Christian T. Steigies and Christian Drews of the
Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics,
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel , and by Zbigniew
Jędrzejewski-Szmek and Tiziano Zito for the German Neuroinformatics
Node of the INCF. 

Website:  http://python.g-node.org
Contact:  python-info@g-node.org

Python Training for Scientists and Engineers

Learn NumPy and Much More
=========================

Scientists like Python. If you would like to learn more about
important libraries for scientific applications, you might be
interested in these courses.

The course in Germany covers:

- Overview of libraries
- NumPy
- Data storage with text files, Excel, netCDF and HDF5
- matplotlib
- Object oriented programming for scientists
- Problem solving session

The course in the USA covers all this plus:

- Extending Python in other languages
- Version control
- Unit testing


More details below.

If you have any questions about the courses, please contact me.

Mike


Python for Scientists and Engineers (Germany)
---------------------------------------------

A three-day course covering all the basic tools scientists and engineers need.
This course requires basic Python knowledge.

Date: 19.01.-21.01.2012
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Trainer: Mike Müller
Course Language: English
Link: http://www.python-academy.com/courses/python_course_scientists.html


Python for Scientists and Engineers (USA)
-----------------------------------------

This is an extend version of our well-received course for
scientists and engineers. Five days of intensive training
will give you a solid basis for using Python for scientific
an technical problems.

The course is hosted by David Beazley (http://www.dabeaz.com).

Date: 27.02.-02.03.2012
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Trainer: Mike Müller
Course Language: English
Link: http://www.dabeaz.com/chicago/science.html

The 3rd UHF User Meeting

Minneapolis, MN // October 16-18, 2011

The 3rd UHF User Meeting  

• Welcome
• Register
• Agenda
• Accommodations
• Directions and Destination Information

7T - Today's Ideas Create the Clinical Future of MRI

We are pleased to invite you to our 3rd UHF User Meeting taking place in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

As you know, collaboration is very important in this field.  Sharing the experiences, knowledge and wisdom that we have gained working in a non-routine and experimental environment is essential for success.  The 2011 meeting will feature two full days of education and dialogue with 7T and experimental MR users from all over the world.  Don't miss the opportunity to join us and other Siemens MR users for this informative meeting. 

 

Meeting Details:

October 16, 2011	Opening Reception at the CMRR, University of Minnesota
October 17 -18, 2011	Sessions & Presentations at the Graves 601 Hotel, Minneapolis

    

We kindly ask that you register before September 23, 2011.

Please complete registration by clicking on the 'Registration' tab located to the right.

If you require assistance with registration, please contact Jeannie Wert via email: jeannie.m.wert@siemens.com

SCO2012 and PyHPC2011: Python in science

ESCO 2012 - European Seminar on Coupled Problems
=================================================

ESCO2012 http://esco2012.femhub.com/ is the 3rd event in a series of
interdisciplineary meetings dedicated to computational science challenges
in multi-physics and PDEs.

I was invited as ESCO last year. It was an aboslute pleasure, because it
is a small conference that is very focused on discussions. I learned a
lot and could sit down with people who code top notch PDE libraries such
as FEniCS and have technical discussions. Besides, it is hosted in the
historical brewery where the Pilsner was invented. Plenty of great beer.

Application areas
------------------

Theoretical results as well as applications are welcome. Application
areas include, but are not limited to: Computational electromagnetics,
Civil engineering, Nuclear engineering, Mechanical engineering,
Computational fluid dynamics, Computational geophysics, Geomechanics and
rock mechanics, Computational hydrology, Subsurface modeling,
Biomechanics, Computational chemistry, Climate and weather modeling, Wave
propagation, Acoustics, Stochastic differential equations, and
Uncertainty quantification.

Minisymposia
* Multiphysics and Multiscale Problems in Civil Engineering
* Modern Numerical Methods for ODE
* Porous Media Hydrodynamics
* Nuclear Fuel Recycling Simulations
* Adaptive Methods for Eigenproblems
* Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Electromagnetics
* Undergraduate Projects in Technical Computing

Software afternoon
-------------------

Important part of each ESCO conference is a software afternoon featuring
software projects by participants. Presented can be any computational
software that has reached certain level of maturity, i.e., it is used
outside of the author's institution, and it has a web page and a user
documentation. 

Proceedings
-----------

For each ESCO we strive to reserve a special issue of an international
journal with impact factor. Proceedings of ESCO 2008 appeared in Math.
Comput. Simul., proceedings of ESCO 2010 in CiCP and Appl. Math. Comput.
Proceedings of ESCO 2012 will appear in Computing.

Important Dates
* December 15, 2011: Abstract submission deadline.
* December 15, 2011: Minisymposia proposals.
* January 15, 2012: Notification of acceptance.

PyHPC: Python for High performance computing
--------------------------------------------

If you are doing super computing, SC11, (
http://sc11.supercomputing.org/) the Super Computing conference is the
reference conference. This year there will a workshop on high performance
computing with Python: PyHPC
(http://www.dlr.de/sc/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1183/1638_read-31733/).

At the scipy conference, I was having a discussion with some of the
attendees on how people often still do process management and I/O with
Fortran in the big computing environment. This is counter productive.
However, has success stories of supercomputing folks using high-level
languages are not advertized, this is bound to stay. Come and tell us
how you use Python for high performance computing!

Topics
* Python-based scientific applications and libraries
* High performance computing
* Parallel Python-based programming languages
* Scientific visualization
* Scientific computing education
* Python performance and language issues
* Problem solving environments with Python
* Performance analysis tools for Python application

Papers

We invite you to submit a paper of up to 10 pages via the submission
site. Authors are encouraged to use IEEE two column format.

Important Dates
* Full paper submission: September 19, 2011
* Notification of acceptance: October 7, 2011
* Camera-ready papers: October 31, 2011

Hull York Medical School - Chair in Neuroscience

The Hull York Medical School is seeking candidates for a full
Professorship in Neuroscience

full details can be obtained from
http://www.hyms.ac.uk/jobs/leading_researchers.aspx

This post is part of a strategic plan to develop a research portfolio
within the newly formed HYMS Centre for Neuroscience, one of five
interactive and dynamic centres within the Medical School. The
successful candidate for this post will have an outstanding research
record demonstrating their commitment to research, innovative
leadership, teaching and learning. He or she will be expected to exploit
the considerable opportunities for collaborative research with
colleagues and existing research teams in the Universities of Hull and York.

The individual will have a specific remit to complement and enhance the
research activities of the Wellcome-Wolfson Centre for Hyperpolarisation
in MRI. The Centre is a new facility being developed within the
University of York. It has been formed to take a major advance in
molecular imaging from the bench to the bedside. The facility will house
state-of-the-art preclinical scanning facilities, NMR, DNP and extensive
synthetic and analytical chemistry capabilities, that support the
development of the use of nuclear spin hyperpolarisation in a wide range
of biomolecules, models of disease processes and eventually, in clinical
practice.

Candidates with expertise in the study of molecular or imaging
neuroscience are particularly encouraged to apply, although any research
programme that extends our current strengths of neuroscience, imaging
and chemistry would be considered. In addition to the development of a
research programme, the post holders will contribute to the teaching of
neuroscience and imaging science to undergraduate students studying
medicine and biomedical science.

Enquiries should be directed to Prof Tony Kendrick, Dean of HYMS,
email:Tony.Kendrick@hyms.ac.uk, Prof. Simon Duckett (Hyperpolarisation)
email sbd3@york.ac.uk, Prof Gary Green (Imaging) email
Gary.Green@york.ac.uk, or Prof Tony Morland (Neurosciences)
Antony.Morland@.york.ac.uk, can be approached with specific enquiries
about the current research environment.

Further details, including an outline Job description and Person
specification, are available in the briefing document.
http://www.hyms.ac.uk/jobs/HYMS_candidate_brief.pdf

How to Apply
If you are ambitious, and have the drive and ability to help us to
continue to develop as a top 10 medical school, we would be delighted to
hear from you. Applicants must have a higher degree (MD/PhD) in a
relevant subject as well as

    * Have significant experience of teaching and research in a higher
education setting;
    * Have a strong record of peer reviewed publications;
    * Have a strong record of successful competitive applications for
externally funded research including as Principal/Chief Investigator.


Salary will depend on the level of appointment, and whether clinical or
non-clinical.

The closing date for applications is 10 October 2011.

-- Gary Green

York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG


http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/about-us/people/ggrg

tel. +44 (0) 1904 435349
PA - Claire Fox :  +44 (0) 1904 435329  or Claire.Fox@ynic.york.ac.uk

fax  +44 (0) 1904 435356
mobile +44 (0) 788 191 3004

2011 MICCAI Workshop on
Multi-Atlas Labeling and Statistical Fusion (MALSF'11)

Thursday, September 22th, 2011, 8am to 12pm 
Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Website: https://masi.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/workshop/
Paper submission deadline: June 3rd, 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

Characterization of anatomical structure through segmentation has become essential for morphological assessment and localizing quantitative measures. Yet, determining consistent and valid segmentations remains a challenging technical and research objective. Manual labeling paradigms are time consuming and limited by inter- and intra-expert variability, while, appearance modeling approaches are difficult to generalize and susceptible to variations in image acquisition parameters and the artifacts.

Segmentation through registration and atlas label transfer has proven to be a flexible and fruitful approach as efficient, non-rigid image registration methods have become prevalent. Label transfer segmentation using multiple atlases has helped to bring statistical fusion, shape modeling, and meta-analysis techniques to the forefront of segmentation research. New innovations at each stage of analysis, from atlas creation, atlas selection/rejection, registration, fusion, modeling, and meta-analysis will be essential for continued success and translation into the clinic. The workshop will provide a snapshot of the current progress in the field.

WORKSHOP TOPICS

Full-length papers are invited in (but not limited to) the following areas:
* Multi-atlas registration
* Statistical methods for label fusion
* Theory and applications with discrete, continuous, or non-traditional label types
* Manifolds methods and applications for voxel, volume, surface, or non-traditional multi-atlas representations
* Atlas design, selection, and exclusion
* Multi-atlas informed and augmented approaches, including shape modeling
* Applications of multi-atlas methods for segmentation and labeling
* Visualization and hypothesis exploration approaches using multi-atlases

Papers accepted at the main conference may not be double-submitted to MALSF'11.

ORGANIZERS

Bennett Landman, Vanderbilt URL
Simon Warfield, Harvard URL

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Paul Aljabar, Imperial College London URL
Benoit Dawant, Vanderbilt URL
Dzung Pham, Henry M. Jackson Foundation URL
Jerry Prince, Johns Hopkins URL
Torsten Rohlfing, Stanford URL
Dinggang Shen UNC Chapel Hill URL
T. Robin Langerak, Utrecht URL
Paul Thompson URL
Paul Yushkevich, UPENN URL

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper Submission 6/3/2011 11:59:00 PM PDT
Review Deadline 7/1/2011 5:00:00 PM
Author Notification 7/8/2011 5:00:00 PM
Camera Ready Proof 7/13/2011 5:00:00 PM
Workshop 9/22/2011 AM Session

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Papers submitted to the workshop should conform to the MICCAI formatting instructions, with few minor modifications explained below:
* Papers should be in the LNCS style
* Suggested length is 8 pages, maximum length is 12 pages
* Submitted in PDF format
* Color illustrations in the PDF are not subject to fees
* Details of the online submission system will be announced shortly on the workshop webpage
* https://masi.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/workshop

We look forward to seeing you in Toronto!
MALSF'11 organizers

Python in Neuroscience satellite 2011 
Paris, Ecole Normale Supérieure, August 29-30 2011 (after Euroscipy) 
The “Python in Neuroscience” workshop aims at gathering researchers who
develop or use software tools in different branches of neuroscience in
order to share ideas, concepts, tools and to foster collaborative
projects based on the Python language. 

Main Topics 
============

* tools for neural simulation, 
* electrophysiology data analysis, 
* data management and databasing in neuroimaging and neuroscience, 
* stimulus generation 
* neuroimaging data processing 
* workflows and pipelines for data processing 
* massive computation facilities for simulation and data analysis in 
  neuroscience 
* visualization tools in neuroscience and neuroimaging 

Call for Contributions 
========================

We are soliciting contributions that deal with the above topics using
Python tools, including research projects and software presentations,
with the hope of interesting a broader community, including e.g.
neuroscience and neuroimaging. 

Important dates
================

Abstract submission deadline: June 1st, 2011 
Final program: June 30th, 2011 
Workshop: August 28-20, 2011 
Submission guidelines 
* We solicit talk proposals in the form of a one-page long abstract. 
* The condition for acceptance is that the abstract fits well with the 
  workshop theme. 
* Oral and poster presentations will be allocated depending on the number of 
  contributions. 

Website 
http://pythonneuro.sciencesconf.org/ 
Contact: bertrand.thirion@inria.fr 

Chairs 
* Bertrand Thirion (INRIA Saclay) 
* Romain Brette (ENS Paris) 
Program committee 
* Eilif Müller, Blue Brain Project, EPFL Laussane 
* Gaël Varoquaux, INSERM U992, Saclay 
* Raphaël Ritz, INCF, Stockholm, Sweden 
* Laurent Perrinet, INCM, Marseille 
* Andrew Davison, UNIC, CNRS, Gif

Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Stanford University Functional Imaging in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (FIND) Lab

Stanford FIND Lab (http://findlab.stanford.edu), under the direction of Michael Greicius, is seeking to hire a postdoctoral fellow for a minimum two-year position. The fellowship will focus on (1) developing a deeper understanding of the genetic basis of functional brain networks in humans and (2) developing brain network imaging measures for the study of neuropsychiatric disorders. The fellow will work closely with Dr. Greicius in developing novel approaches to the analysis of functional brain networks through the study of several datasets including the Allen Institute Human Brain Atlas (http://human.brain-map.org), the ADNI dataset (http://adni.loni.ucla.edu), and several FIND Lab datasets. The ideal candidate will have a strong methods background in imaging genetics or related fields (neurogenetics, imaging, computational neuroscience) coupled with excellent writing skills. Extensive programming experience and/or expertise in classification algorithms would constitute additional advantages and could compensate for less experience in imaging genetics. MDs, PhDs, or MD/PhDs are all encouraged to apply. Interested candidates should email Dr. Greicius directly, greicius@stanford.edu , with a cover letter and CV. Qualified candidates will be asked to have 3 letters of reference forwarded to Dr. Greicius. The position can begin as early as May 1, 2011.

Research Fellow on Imaging Neurodegeneration

SBIC Singapore

Several postdoc positions are available in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Group, Singapore Bioimaging Consortium (SBIC) in Singapore. The research focus of the group is on the development of MRI methods and imaging biomarkers for detection of neurodegeneration and regeneration in rodent models. One project is to study the structural and functional connectivity in rat/mouse models of axonal degeneration using techniques such as DTI, magnetization transfer, resting-state fMRI, etc. The other project is to develop functional imaging, including BOLD/CBV fMRI, perfusion, manganese enhanced MRI, CEST and PET, to understand how metabolic disorders such as diabetes exacerbate neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. We have very active interdisciplinary research teams consisting of people from engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience backgrounds. We also have extensive collaboration with major pharmaceutical companies to develop new methods for evaluating drug effects in the brain.

The successful candidate will have chance to work at the Clinical Imaging Research Center to translate the methods into clinical applications. The center currently hosts a Siemens 3T TIM Trio system and is expanding to include more imaging modalities and higher field MRI.

Institute and Resources:

SBIC is a national research institute dedicating on advancing pre-clinical imaging and its translation to clinical applications. SBIC is composed of four major labs studying from animal models, imaging probe design, imaging techniques, to data processing. For further information about SBIC, please visit our website: http://www.sbic.a-star.edu.sg/.

The lab currently hosts a Varian 9.4T MRI, a Bruker 7T ClinScan MRI, a Bruker 400MHz NMR, a NanoSPECT/CT, a Siemens microPET/CT, and a hyperpolarizer (Hypersense). Another 9.4T MRI and a 600MHz NMR microimager will be installed in 2012. Other facilities include a chemistry lab for imaging probe development, a molecular biology lab for developing transgenic animal models, and the SBIC-Nikon imaging center, which hosts all the advanced live cell optical imaging systems by Nikon. We also have access to animal behavior and radiochemistry facilities.

Qualifications:

We welcome highly-motivated people who want to explore new ideas and multidisciplinary researches to apply. Preferred background includes, but not limited to, neuroscience, physics, and engineering. Prior experience with in vivo MRI/NMR, programming language (C or Matlab), image processing and rodent imaging is preferred.

Contact Info:

Interested candidates should submit his/her CV to the following address: recruit@sbic.a-star.edu.sg.

Research Fellow on Functional Neuroimaging

Postdoc positions are available in the Clinical Imaging Research Centre (CIRC) in Singapore. CIRC is a national research institute jointly funded by the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC, A*STAR) and the National University of Singapore dedicated on advancing imaging techniques for clinical applications.

The research focus is on the development of quantitative arterial spin labeling perfusion MRI and fMRI methods to evaluate the disease progress and drug effects. One project is to detect functional connectivity and its correlation with structural connectivity and perfusion in brain development, stroke and dementia. Another project is to study the pharmacological activation and modulation of the brain function. The results will be correlated or validated by other imaging modality like PET. We have active collaboration with clinician in the National University Hospital, KK Children and Women Hospital and pharmaceutical companies. The postdoc will also have close interaction with scientists working in pre-clinical imaging at the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium to translate knowledge/methods between bench and bedside.

Facility and Equipment:

The Clinical Imaging Research Centre currently hosts a Siemens 3T TIM Trio system and is expanding to incorporate a cyclotron, radiochemistry, PET/CT, MRI-PET, and another high field MRI in 2011 with the opening of the new CIRC building.

Qualifications:

We welcome highly-motivated people who want to explore new ideas and multidisciplinary researches to apply. Preferred Ph.D. background includes, but not limited to, physics, computer science, neuroscience and engineering. Prior experience with programming language (C or Matlab) and/or MRI are required. Experience with sequence programming (especially IDEA) is preferable.

The position will start with a 3-year contract and can be renewed depending on performance. The salary is competitive based on experience.

Contact Info:

Interested candidates should submit his/her CV to the following address: CIRC-Recruit@bmsi.a-star.edu.sg.

35th Steenbock Symposium 'Advances in Biomolecular NMR'

June 26-28, 2011
Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
 

Registration and abstract submission for the 35th Steenbock Symposium
'Advances in Biomolecular NMR' are now open!

http://www.biochem.wisc.edu/seminars/steenbock/symposium35/

The 35th Steenbock Symposium 'Advances in Biomolecular NMR' will be
held June 26-28, 2011 at the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery on the
campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin.
This symposium will honor the career of John L. Markley, Steenbock
Professor of Biomolecular Structure, Department of Biochemistry,
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through his service to the NMR
community and leadership of the National Magnetic Resonance Facility
at Madison (NMRFAM), the Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank
(BMRB) and the Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics, Professor
Markley has made enormous contributions to the field of biomolecular
NMR.

The Symposium will have presentations from leaders in the field of
biological NMR spectroscopy and in various fields of biochemistry who
collaborate on protein structure-function studies with Professor
Markley and NMRFAM. Topics will include applications of NMR
spectroscopy to study the dynamics and structure-function
relationships of proteins and nucleic acids, high-throughput structure
determination, metabolomics, and natural products. A poster session
will provide those attending the symposium an opportunity to present
their recent work in biological NMR spectroscopy. A full list of
speakers is included below.

The 35th Steenbock will be held Sunday, June 26 to Tuesday, June 28, 2011.

REGISTRATION IS NOW AVAILABLE. Please visit:
http://www.biochem.wisc.edu/seminars/steenbock/symposium35/register.aspx

Below are some of the details about registration:
The Registration fee includes admission to talks and poster session,
abstract book, scheduled breaks, and the reception on Sunday, June 26,
breaks on Monday, June 27, and Tuesday, June 28.

The banquet will be held on the evening of Monday, June 27. (correction!)

Fees:
Early - Full Registration $200.00 by 05/15/2011
Early - Student Registration $175.00 by 05/15/2011

Banquet $50

Registration Deadlines: Early registration will last until May 15.
After May 15 rates will increase by $50. The late registration
deadline is June 15. After that date, you must register at the door
with payment by check or cash.

Poster Abstract Deadline: April 15, 2011
INFORMATION ABOUT ABSTRACTS FOR THE POSTER SESSIONS IS ALSO NOW
AVAILABLE. Please visit
http://www.biochem.wisc.edu/seminars/steenbock/symposium35/abstract_guidelines.aspx.

Cancellation Policy: If you cancel before June 15, your registration
fee will be refunded, minus a $50 administrative fee. No refunds for
cancellations received on or after June 15.

The symposium will begin with a reception on Sunday, June 26. It is
expected to end in the afternoon of Tuesday June 28.

Sponsors:
Bruker BioSpin
Promega
ISOTEC, Shigemi
Agilent Technologies, Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, Scientific
Protein Laboratories, Wilmad-Labglass,
Daedalus Innovations LLC

Thanks and hope to see you in June,
Speakers:

Hashim Al-Hashimi - University of Michigan
Cheryl Arrowsmith - University of Toronto
Ad Bax - The National Institutes of Health
Tim Bugni - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Sam Butcher - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Silvia Cavagnero - University of Wisconsin-Madison
David Cowburn - Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Hector DeLuca - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Art Edison - University of Florida
Juli Feigon - University of California Los Angeles
Kevin Gardner - University of Texas Southwestern
Mark Girvin - Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Angela M. Gronenborn - University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Andrew Hinck - The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Jeffrey C. Hoch - University of Connecticut Health Center
Charles Hoogstraten - Michigan State University
Mitsu Ikura - University of Toronto
Oleg Jardetzky - Stanford University
Masatsune Kainosho - Tokyo Metropolitan University
Robert Kaptein - Utrecht University
Slobodan Macura - Mayo Foundation
Gaetano Montelione - Rutgers University
James Prestegard - University of Georgia
Michael Reily - Bristol-Myers Squibb
Gordon Roberts - University of Leicester
Heinz Ruterjans - University of Frankfurt
Richard Vierstra - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Brian Volkman - Medical College of Wisconsin
Gerhard Wagner - Harvard University

Organizers:
Sam Butcher
Eldon Ulrich
Milo Westler

-- 
-- Milo
===================================================
National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison
      An NIH-Supported Resource Center

W. Milo Westler, Ph.D.

NMRFAM Director
Senior Scientist
       and
Adjunct Professor
433 Babcock Drive
Department of Biochemistry
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI USA 53706-1544
EMAIL: milo@nmrfam.wisc.edu
PHONE: (608)-263-9599
FAX: (608)-263-1722

Brain Connectivity Workshop - Montreal 2011 21 – 23 June 2011 http://bcw2011.org/ The Brain Connectivity Workshop series aims to bring together experts in computational neuroscience, neuroscience methodology and experimental neuroscience with a special interest in understanding the tripartite relationship between anatomical connectivity, brain dynamics and cognitive function. The first BCW was organized by Rolf Kotter and Karl Friston in April 2002 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Since then, the workshop is a yearly recurrent event organized by a different institution around the globe. The 2-day workshop is preceded by a 1-day Brain Connectivity Course, in which brain connectivity experts will introduce the concepts underlying the current state-of-the-art methodologies and experimental designs. This year, the first day course will introduce dynamical systems, graph theory and network analysis, diffusion imaging, genetics and connectivity, cortical oscillations and connectivity of the developing brain. For a detailed program and registration, please see http://bcw2011.org/

EDUCATION SESSION

Viktor Jirsa (dynamical systems) : "Nonlinear Dynamics in Neuroscience"
Ed Bullmore (graph theory and network analysis)
Pierre Bellec (Data driven network organization)
Patrick Haggman (diffusion imaging)
Jacques Michaud (genetics and connectivity)
Petra Ritter (cortical oscillations)
Jay Giedd (connectivity of the developing brain)

PROGRAM

Day 1

Rolf Kotter Lecture: Karl Friston - A Tribute to Rolf Kotter
Allard Roebroeck (analysis of connectivity)
Jin Hyung Lee (imaging animal models & connectivity)
Markus Kaiser (imaging animal models, connectivity and epilepsy)

Di Cristo, Graziella (interneurons and development)
Thomason, M (genetic determine of functional connectivity in development)
Taga, G (NIRS imaging of connectivity in development)
Fair, Damien (graph theory metrics and development)

Day 2

Evans, A (life span changes in structural connectivity/morphology)
Valdez-Sosa, Pedro (connectivity in development)
Tononi, G (principles of information integration and network formation)
Bernard, Christophe (local network dynamics in epilepsy) : "Seizures: is the underlying mechanism as simple as a noise-driven emergent property of immature neuronal networks?"
Carmant, Lionel (connectivity in the infant epileptic brain)
Breakspear, M (dynamical systems approach to understanding epilepsy propagation)

Neuroimaging Data Processing Workshop

23-24 March 2011

Edinburgh, UK

http://nipype.blogspot.com 

Day 1 Nipype (23/03/11) - Neuroimaging

1. 9-9.45: Introduction to nipype (Satra Ghosh)

• Nipype: Opensource platform for unified and replicable interaction with existing neuroimaging tools

2. 10-10.45: fMRI use case (Cyril Pernet)
3. 11-11.45: DTI use case (Mark Bastin and Colin Buchanan)
4. 12-11.45: Extending nipype (Chris Gorgolewski)

Afternoon (2-5pm):

1. Hands on session

Day 2 INCF (24/03/11) - Neuroinformatics

1. 9-9.30: (JB Poline)
2. 9.30-10.15: (Yannick Schwartz) pyxnat: XNAT in Python
3. 10.30-10.50: (Vincent Frouin) Computation of map association scores in imaging genetics with nipype/pyxnat
4. 11.00-11.45: (Stephan Gerhard) Connectome Viewer and the Connectome File Format

Afternoon (1-5pm)

1. 1-2: Connectome viewer demo
2. 2-5: Hands on and Interactive Q&A session

Advanced Scientific Programming in Python

========================================= 
a Summer School by the G-Node and the School of Psychology,
University of St Andrews

Scientists spend more and more time writing, maintaining, and
debugging software. While techniques for doing this efficiently have
evolved, only few scientists actually use them. As a result, instead
of doing their research, they spend far too much time writing
deficient code and reinventing the wheel. In this course we will
present a selection of advanced programming techniques,
incorporating theoretical lectures and practical exercises tailored
to the needs of a programming scientist. New skills will be tested
in a real programming project: we will team up to develop an
entertaining scientific computer game.

We use the Python programming language for the entire course. Python
works as a simple programming language for beginners, but more
importantly, it also works great in scientific simulations and data
analysis. We show how clean language design, ease of extensibility,
and the great wealth of open source libraries for scientific
computing and data visualization are driving Python to become a
standard tool for the programming scientist.

This school is targeted at PhD students and Post-docs from all areas
of science. Competence in Python or in another language such as
Java, C/C++, MATLAB, or Mathematica is absolutely required. Basic
knowledge of Python is assumed. Participants without any prior
experience with Python should work through the proposed introductory
materials before the course.

Date and Location
=================
September 11—16, 2011. St Andrews, UK.

Preliminary Program
===================
Day 0 (Sun Sept 11) — Best Programming Practices
  - Agile development & Extreme Programming 
  - Advanced Python: decorators, generators, context managers
  - Version control with git 
Day 1 (Mon Sept 12) — Software Carpentry
  - Object-oriented programming & design patterns
  - Test-driven development, unit testing & quality assurance
  - Debugging, profiling and benchmarking techniques
  - Programming in teams 
Day 2 (Tue Sept 13) — Scientific Tools for Python
  - Advanced NumPy 
  - The Quest for Speed (intro): Interfacing to C with Cython
  - Best practices in data visualization 
Day 3 (Wed Sept 14) — The Quest for Speed 
  - Writing parallel applications in Python
  - Programming project 
Day 4 (Thu Sept 15) — Efficient Memory Management
  - When parallelization does not help:
    the starving CPUs problem 
  - Data serialization: from pickle to databases
  - Programming project 
Day 5 (Fri Sept 16) — Practical Software Development
  - Programming project
  - The Pac-Man Tournament

Every evening we will have the tutors' consultation hour: Tutors
will answer your questions and give suggestions for your own
projects.

Applications
============
You can apply on-line at http://python.g-node.org

Applications must be submitted before May 29, 2011. Notifications of
acceptance will be sent by June 19, 2011.

No fee is charged but participants should take care of travel,
living, and accommodation expenses. 
Candidates will be selected on the basis of their profile. Places
are limited: acceptance rate in past editions was around 30%.
Prerequisites: You are supposed to know the basics of Python to
participate in the lectures. Please consult the website for a list
of introductory material.

Faculty
======= 
- Francesc Alted, author of PyTables, Castelló de la Plana, Spain 
- Pietro Berkes, Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis
  University, USA 
- Valentin Haenel, Berlin Institute of Technology and Bernstein
  Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Germany 
- Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek, Faculty of Physics, University of
  Warsaw, Poland 
- Eilif Muller, The Blue Brain Project, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale
  de Lausanne, Switzerland 
- Emanuele Olivetti, NeuroInformatics Laboratory, Fondazione Bruno
  Kessler and University of Trento, Italy 
- Rike-Benjamin Schuppner, Bernstein Center for Computational
  Neuroscience Berlin, Germany 
- Bartosz Teleńczuk, Institute for Theoretical Biology,
  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
- Bastian Venthur, Berlin Institute of Technology and Bernstein
  Focus: Neurotechnology, Germany 
- Pauli Virtanen, Institute for Theoretical Physics and
  Astrophysics, University of Würzburg, Germany 
- Tiziano Zito, Berlin Institute of Technology and Bernstein Center
  for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Germany

Organized by Katharina Maria Zeiner and Manuel Spitschan of the
School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, and by Zbigniew
Jędrzejewski-Szmek and Tiziano Zito for the German Neuroinformatics
Node of the INCF.  

Website:  http://python.g-node.org
Contact:  python-info@g-node.org