[pymvpa] CFP: MLINI 2014 - 4th NIPS Workshop on Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging: Beyond the Scanner

[Brian Murphy]

Call for Papers  

MLINI 2014 - 4th NIPS Workshop on Machine Learning and Interpretation in
Neuroimaging: Beyond the Scanner

https://sites.google.com/site/mlininips2014/

Friday, December 12, 2014, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 

Submission deadline: October 10th, 2014
 
Workshop Overview:
-----------------------
MLINI workshop focuses on  machine learning approaches in neuroscience,
neuroimaging, with an extension to behavioral experiments and
psychology. This year, our focus is specifically on  "Going Beyond the
Scanner", which includes making inferences  about  mental states of a
subject  from ''cheaper'' (as opposed to fMRI) behavioral data such as
subject's speech and/or text, audio, video, EEG and signals collected
from various wearable devices.

We believe that machine learning has a prominent role in shaping how
questions in neuroscience are framed, and that the machine-learning mind
set is now entering modern psychology and behavioral studies. It is also
equally important  that  practical applications in these fields motivate
a rapidly evolving line or research in the machine learning community.
In parallel, there is an intense interest in learning more about brain
function in the context of rich naturalistic environments and scenes.
Efforts to go beyond highly specific paradigms that pinpoint a single
function, towards schemes for measuring the interaction with natural and
more varied scene are made. In this context, many controversies and open
questions exist.

The goal of the workshop is to pinpoint the most pressing issues and
common challenges across the fields, and to sketch future directions and
open questions in the light of novel methodology. The proposed workshop
is aimed at offering a forum that joins machine learning, neuroscience,
and psychology community, and should facilitate formulating and
discussing the issues at their interface.  Motivated by the previous
workshops in this series, MLINI ‘11, MLINI’12, and MLINI’13, we will
center this workshop around invited talks and a panel discussion.
Triggered by the discussions, this year we plan to adapt the workshop
topics to a less traditional scope neuroimaging scope and investigate
the role of  behavioral models and psychology,  including topics such as
psycholinguistics.

Open questions and possible topics for contribution include, but are not
limited to, the following:

- How can we move towards more naturalistic stimuli, tasks and paradigms
in neuroimaging and neuro-signal analysis? 

- What kind of mental states can be inferred from cheaper and easier to
collect  data sources (as an alternative  to fMRI),  such as text,
speech, audio, video, EEG, and wearable devices? 

- How can we leave the lab when acquiring neuroimaging data, towards
exploiting mobile acquisition (EEG and NIRS)? 

- What type of features should be extracted from naturalistic stimuli
such as text, voice, etc., to detect specific mental states and/or
mental disorders?

- How can we combine traditional neuroimaging with naturalistic data
collected from a subject or group of subjects?

- In general,  can we characterize situations when multivariate
predictive  analysis (MVPA) and inference methods are better suited for
brain imaging analysis than more traditional techniques? 

- Given recent advances of  deep learning in image analysis and other
applications, a natural question to ask is whether neuroimaging analysis
can benefit from such approaches? 

- How well can functional networks and dynamical models capture the
brain activity, and when using network and dynamics information is
superior to standard  task-based brain activations?
 

Workshop Format:
--------------------------

In this one-day workshop we will explore perspectives and novel
methodology at the interface of Machine Learning, Inference,
Neuroimaging and Neuroscience. We aim to bring researchers from machine
learning and neuroscience community together, in order to discuss open
questions, identify the core points for a number of the controversial
issues, and eventually propose approaches to solving those issues. Each
session will be opened by several invited talks, and an in depth
discussion. This will be followed by original contributions. Original
contributions will also be presented and discussed during a poster
session. The workshop will end with a panel discussion, during which we
will address specific questions, and invited speakers will open each
segment with a brief presentation of their opinion.

Paper Submission:
--------------------------
We seek for submission of original (previously unpublished) research
papers. The length of the submitted papers should not exceed 8 pages in
Springer format,  excluding the references (LaTeX2e style  files are
available on the workshop page).
Submission of previously published work is possible as well, but the
authors are required to mention this explicitly. Previously published
work can be presented at the workshop, but will not be included into the
workshop proceedings (which are considered peer-reviewed publications of
novel contributions).  Moreover, the authors are welcome to present
their novel work but choose to opt out of the workshop proceedings in
case they have alternative publication plans. 
 
Important dates:
--------------------------
-  October 10, 2014 - paper submission
-  October 24, 2014  -  notification of acceptance/rejection
-  December 12, 2014 -  Workshop at Montreal, Quebec, Canada , following
the NIPS conference

Organizing Committee:
--------------------------
Guillermo Cecchi (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center)
Kai-min Kevin Chang (Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon
University)
Georg Langs (Medical University of Vienna, CSAIL, MIT)
Brian Murphy (Machine Learning Department, Carngie Mellon University)
*Irina Rish (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center)  - main contact
Leila Wehbe (CMU)