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Call for Papers, MRC 2008 Fifth International Workshop on Modelling and Reasoning in Context In conjunction with the Third International Conference on Human Centered Processes (HCP-2008), at Delft University of Technology Submission deadline: March 14, 2008 http://events.idi.ntnu.no/mrc2008 Where traditional software applications "know" by design in which situations they are to function, applications in pervasive computing and ambient intelligence do not necessarily have this luxury. Due to the very nature of the dynamism in the world with which these systems interact, they have to dynamically adapt their behaviour in run time. To do this, they must be able to somehow interpret the environment in which they are situated. This ability is often referred to as being context aware, or even situation aware. Being aware of the environment facilitates the ability to adapt behaviour by being context sensitive. Context sensitive proc...

AAAI-08 Workshop on What Went Wrong and Why: Lessons from AI Research and Applications CALL FOR PAPERS Submissions due: April 7th, 2008 Bugs, glitches, and failures shape research and development by charting the boundaries of technology; they identify errors, reveal assumptions, and expose design flaws. When a system works we focus on its input/output behavior, but when a problem occurs, we examine the mechanisms that generated behavior to account for the flaw and hypothesize corrections. This process produces insight and forces incremental refinement. In a sense, failures are the mother of necessity, and therefore the grandmother of invention. Unfortunately, bugs, glitches, and failures are rarely mentioned in academic discourse. Their role in informing design and development is essentially lost. The first What Went Wrong and Why workshop during the 2006 AAAI spring symposium [1,2] started to address this gap by inviting AI researchers and system develop...

CALL FOR PAPERS: Epigenetic Robotics 2008 31 July - 2 August, 2008, Brighton, UK Eighth International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org Email: epirob08@epigenetic-robotics.org 2008 Conference Theme Evolution and Development: Related Processes of Change Location: University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Important Dates: 1 April 2008: Deadline for submission of papers & posters 31 May 2008: Notification of acceptance of papers & posters 30 June 2008: Deadline for camera ready papers 31 July - 2 August 2008: EpiRob08 @ Brighton Keynote Speakers Prof. Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv University, Israel) Prof. Susan Oyama (John Jay College, New York, USA) Dr. Domenico Parisi (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, CNR, Rome, Italy) (more to be announced) Conference Theme: In the past 7 years, the Epigenetic Robotics annual conference has established...

Assistant Professor Ethics & Technology Delft University of Technology, Engineering & Reflection Association of Universities in The Netherlands - VSNU 2 PhDs in Philosophy of Technology Delft University of Technology, Engineering & Reflection Association of Universities in The Netherlands - VSNU

Call for Papers - New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia Editor: Doug Tudhope ( dstudhope@glam.ac.uk ) Associate Editor: Daniel Cunliffe ( djcunlif@glam.ac.uk ) Faculty of Advanced Technology, University of Glamorgan, UK Submission deadline: January 16, 2008 Acceptance notification: February 27, 2008 Final manuscripts due: April 9, 2008 NRHM covers hypermedia, hypertext, interactive multimedia and related technologies. We invite papers on the following topics and related issues: - Conceptual basis of hypertext systems cognitive aspects design strategies - Intelligent and adaptive hypermedia knowledge representation knowledge organisation systems and services the semantic web - Multimedia issues time and synchronisation; link dynamics audio/image/video processing and compression content-based retrieval - Interaction navigation and browsing; search systems; studies of information seeking and navigation behaviour; testi...

The CCSR has successfully submitted a first stage proposal for a COST Action on the topic of "Researching Ethics of ICT in the European Knowledge Society" and have been invited to submit a full proposal. COST is one of the oldest European instruments. It does not fund research but supports cooperation. For more information on COST, please check http://www.cost.esf.org/ . If you are actively pursuing research in the area and are interested in exchanging ideas on your research with others, then I would like to invite you to join the proposal. Member States of COST include all Members of the EU, Turkey, Israel, and Switzerland. If you are working in a COST signatory state, then you are eligible to be part of the Action. But even if you are not, there may be ways for you to contribute. If you are interested, please send your name, email, affiliation, and postal address to: Dr. Bernd Carsten Stahl , http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~bstahl/ He will enrol you...

2nd Call for Papers Robotics and Autonomous Systems Journal Special issue on Semantic Knowledge in Robotics SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED: FEBRUARY 4 (Final extension!) AIMS AND OBJECTIVES There is a growing tendency to introduce high-level semantic knowledge into robotic systems. This tendency is visible in different forms within several areas of robotics. Recent work in mapping and localization tries to extract semantically meaningful structures from sensor data during map building, or to use semantic knowledge in the map building process, or both. A similar trend characterizes the cognitive vision approach to scene understanding. Recent efforts in human-robot interaction try to endow the robot with some understanding of the human meaning of words, gestures and expressions. Ontological knowledge is increasingly being used in distributed systems in order to allow automatic re-configuration in the areas of flexible automation and of ubiquitous robotics. ...

COMPUTING AND PHILOSOPHY E-CAP 2008@LIRMM, France, June 16-18, 2008 http://www.lirmm.fr/ECAP08/ Conference Chair: Jean Sallantin js@lirmm.fr E-CAP 2008 is generously supported by CNRS, Province Languedoc/Roussillon, University Montpellier II ECAP is the European conference on Computing and Philosophy, the European affiliate of the International Association for Computers and Philosophy (IACAP): see www.ia-cap.org for further information. IMPORTANT DATES February 15 , 2008 Submission of extended abstracts March 17, 2008 Notification of acceptance April 30, 2008 Early registration deadline June 16-18, 2008 Conference GENERAL INFORMATION From Monday 16 to Wednesday 18 June 2008 the Sixth International European Conference on COMPUTING AND PHILOSOPHY will be held on the Campus of the University for Science and Technology, Montpellier, France. PROGRAM Continuing the...

Call for participation, Thematic Winter School UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOR FROM VIDEO SEQUENCES 9-14 March 2008, Les Houches, France (the village neighboring Chamonix) http://visiontrain.inrialpes.fr/?page=school4 The thematic school is organized jointly by three European consortiae: Marie-Curie networks VISIONTRAIN and WARTHE, and by the IST STREP project POP (Perception on Purpose). The school is intended mainly for PhD students and young researchers. The number of participants is limited to 70. The school program is multidisciplinary in order to be interesting also to researchers outside the field of computer vision, e.g., in cognitive sciences, psychology, psychophysics. The industrial state-of-the-art in video surveillance will be addressed by some of the speakers too. There will be space for personal interactions and skiing at the school. Deadline for early payment (reduced rate): Feb 5, 2008. Core talk speakers: Aaron Bobick (...

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of Information, Communication & Society on ICTs & SD Information and Communication Technologies and Sustainable Development Guest Editors: Gunilla Bradley, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg Assistant Editor: Robert Bichler, Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg Deadline for Submission: March 1, 2008 Tentative Publication Date: November, 2008 The objective of this special issue is to discuss current developments in the field of ICTs and Sustainable Development (SD) by providing a forum for both academic researchers and practitioners interested in broadening and deepening the understanding of the sustainability concept. In the discourse on sustainability there has been a shift from a focus on ecological issues towards the inclusion of broader societal issues. The so called ´Agenda 21´ (1992) in the Rio ´Earth Summit´ stated four mutually independent dimensions of ...

The Philosophy of Science Association is developing a new, compensated, position of Webmaster for the Philosophy of Science Association. The PSA Webmaster will be responsible for managing the webpage for the PSA, including but not limited to securing a host for the web site, maintaining content for the page, and supervising coding of the PSA webpage. Compensation for this position will be negotiated, and may include course reduction or summer salary. Experience and familiarity with website maintenance and philosophy of science desired. Interested individuals are invited to become familiar with the current instantiation of the PSA Website ( www.philsci.org ) and contact Gary Hardcastle, PSA Executive Secretary, at ghardcas@bloomu.edu . Gary Hardcastle Department of Philosophy Executive Secretary, Philosophy of Science Association Bloomsburg University Bloomsburg, PA 17815 570.389.4174 (office) 570.389.2094 (fax)

3rd Global Conference Visions of the Human in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction Tuesday 1st July - Thursday 3rd July 2008 Mansfield College, Oxford Call for Papers This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project aims to explore what it is to be human and the nature of human community in cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction. In particular, the project will explore the possibilities offered by these contexts for creative thinking about persons and the challenges posed to the nature and future of national, international, and global communities. Papers, short papers, and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes: the relationship between cyberculture, cyberspace, science fiction and the Machinima phenomenon; science fiction and cyberpunk as a medium for exploring the nature of persons humans and cyborgs; the synergy of humans and technology; changing views of the body; human and post-human politics; cyborg citize...

Handbook of Research on Synthetic Emotions and Sociable Robotics: New Applications in Affective Computing and Artificial Intelligence A book edited by Jordi Vallverdú, Ph.D. & David Casacuberta, Ph.D, Autonomous University of Barcelona Introduction Emotions are not only a basic part of rational processes, but a necessary and the most efficient way to establish a good communication and work atmosphere between humans and machines. Our attitudes towards machines are similar to those related to human beings, but we need the machine’s feedback. Therefore, first attempts to embed emotions into machines were focused on to creating machines which could simulate showing human emotional states. A second wave of research is being developed today, trying to create true synthetic emotions: that is, artificial systems with emotional regulatory systems. There are several ways to integrate emotions into artificial environments (computers and robotics), which we will cover w...

I thought this job adv. might be of interest. It is about the new post of Deputy Head of the Learning and Teaching Institute (AM1 grade - 3 years in the first instance), at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. The recently established Learning and Teaching Institute plays a key role in developing university Learning and Teaching strategy and supporting its implementation. It includes the Blended Learning Unit, a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The Deputy Head will make a significant contribution to the day-to-day management of the LTI. Full details are available on the HR website http://recruitment.herts.ac.uk/recruit/ To arrange an informal discussion, please contact j.r.alltree@herts.ac.uk . Jon Alltree Director of Learning and Teaching University of Hertfordshire College Lane HATFIELD AL10 9AB Tel 01707 281314 The closing date for applications is Friday 18th January 2008.

AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy In conjunction with the 2008 AISB Convention Date: 4th April 2008 Location: University of Aberdeen, Scotland Overview The convergence of computing and philosophy has a lineage going back to Leibniz but it is not until the work of Alan Turing and the appearance of electronic computers in the mid-20th century that we arrive at a practical intersection between computing and philosophy. Precursors to the theories and programs of interest to this AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy include the Turing Test as outlined in Turing's seminal reflection on thinking machines; the AI work of Herb Simon and Alan Newell with the Logic Theorist; Rosenblatt's Perceptron - a biologically inspired pattern matching device - and Grey Walter's Turtle - an early example of embodied Cybernetic Artificial Intelligence (A.I). The purpose of this symposium is to advance the philosophical study of computing in general by...

The 2008 NORTH AMERICAN COMPUTING AND PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE CALL for PAPERS and PROPOSALS DEADLINE: March 1st, 2008 Conference Theme: The Limits of Computation Keynote Speakers: Paul Thagard - "Can Computers Understand Causality" Ronald Arkin - "Ethics and Lethality in Autonomous Robots" The North American Computing and Philosophy Conference is seeking papers and proposals for its 2008 conference to be held July 10th - 12th at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This year's conference theme addresses the limits of computation. As such, individual sessions will ask questions that range over several problem domains where computers and computation are having an impact. Possible questions include: Are there limits to automatic programming? Is quantum computing subject to the same limits as Turing machine computation? Is it possible to build an ethical machine? How do computers facilitate learning? To what extent is the comput...

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy Call for Applications The 2008 Brian Michael Goldberg Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Graduate Student Application Deadline: March 1st, 2008 The International Association for Computing and Philosophy invites applications for the Goldberg Graduate Award. The purpose of the awards is to provide recognition for graduate students engaged in innovative work in the field of computing and philosophy. The winner of the award will present his or her paper at the North American Computing and Philosophy Conference, July 10th - 12th at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. (See http://ia-cap.org/na-cap08 ). Please note that only the winning submission has guaranteed acceptance for the conference; thus anyone wishing to present even if his or her submission does not win should provide a regular submission to the conference in addition to the submission to the award. For a description of the award an...