Just a reminder: early bird rates for the BCCCD12 meeting to be held
January 12-14, 2012 in Budapest, Hungary, will end on November 15th!
Rates before November 15:
Regular participants € 120
Students € 85
Rates after November 15:
Regular participants € 140
Students € 100
The registration fee includes:
» Admission to scientific sessions, poster, exhibition area
» Conference materials
» Abstract booklet
» Coffee breaks
» Conference Reception
To register, please visit our website at: http://www.asszisztencia.hu/bcccd/
3 (RENEWABLE) 2-YEAR POST-DOC POSITIONS AVAILABLE
The CIMeC-CLIC laboratory of the University of Trento, an
interdisciplinary group of researchers studying language and
conceptualization using both computational and cognitive methods
(clic.cimec.unitn.it) announces the availability of at least 3
(renewable) 2-year Post-Doc positions.
The scholarships are funded by a 5-year European Research Council
Starting Grant awarded to the COMPOSES (COMPositional Operations in
SEmantic SPACE) project (clic.cimec.unitn.it/composes), that
aims at modeling composition in distributional semantics. The project
is expected to have strong impact on both theoretical and
computational semantics, as well as their cognitive underpinnings.
* Desired Profiles *
Given the interdisciplinary nature of the project, we seek brilliant
researchers with any of the following backgrounds:
- Machine learning (areas of special interest: regression,
regularization methods, hierarchical regression, autoencoders,
curriculum learning, scaling machine learning to large multivariate
and multi-level problems, dealing with very sparse data);
- Psycholinguistics, experimental linguistics or cognitive science
(areas of special interest: systematic judgment elicitation methods
such as Likert scales or magnitude estimation, crowdsourcing,
semantic processing);
- Formal and/or computational semantics (areas of special interest:
Montague Grammar and its derivatives, distributional semantics)
Advanced programming and mathematical skills are required of
candidates from machine learning. Linguists and cognitive scientists
must possess at least basic programming skills and a reasonable
knowledge of statistics.
If you think that your background is relevant to the research program
outlined on the project website (clic.cimec.unitn.it/composes) and you
have good programming and quantitative skills, please do get in touch
even if you do not fit any of the profiles above.
All researchers are expected to have an interest in working in an
interdisciplinary environment.
* The Research Environment *
The CLIC lab (clic.cimec.unitn.it) is a unit of the University of
Trento's Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC,
http://www.unitn.it/en/cimec), an English-speaking, interdisciplinary
center for research in brain and cognition whose staff includes
neuroscientists, psychologists, (computational) linguists, computer
scientists and physicists.
CLIC consists of researchers from the Departments of Computer Science
(DISI) and Cognitive Science (DISCoF) carrying out research on a range
of topics including concept acquisition, corpus-based computational
semantics, combining NLP and computer vision, combining brain and
corpus data to study cognition, formal semantics and theoretical
linguistics. Modeling composition in distributional semantics is
increasingly a focus point of CLIC, and activity in this area will
grow considerably thanks to COMPOSES funds.
CLIC is part of the larger network of research labs focusing on
Natural Language Processing and related domains in the Trento region,
that is quickly becoming one of the areas with the highest
concentration of researchers in NLP and related fields anywhere in
Europe.
The CLIC/CIMeC laboratories are located in beautiful Rovereto, a
lively town in the middle of the Alps, famous for its contemporary art
museum, the quality of its wine, and the range of outdoors sport and
relax opportunities it offers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovereto
* Application Information *
For further information, please send an expression of interest to
marco.baroni(a)unitn.it, attaching a CV. Positions are available
immediately and open until filled.
-- Marco Baroni
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC)
University of Trento
http://clic.cimec.unitn.it/marco
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 17:42:08 +0100
From: secretariat allea <secretariat(a)allea.org>
To: secretariat allea <secretariat(a)allea.org>
Subject: Open Letter to the European Commission on Socio-economic Sciences
and Humanities research in the new FP, 2014-2020
Dear colleagues,
With this message we would like to invite you to sign an Open Letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation (http://www.eash.eu/openletter2011/), alerting her to the vital insights that Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) contribute to address Europe's and the world's Grand Societal Challenges.
In view of legislative decisions to be taken on the next 100-Billion-worth EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), the letter stresses the necessity for a varied and strong research programme in the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH): it argues that neglecting such potential contributions as SSH research has to make risks undermining the EU strategy to develop innovative, inclusive and sustainable societies. Yet, there still is a distinct danger of insufficient funding in Horizon 2020 for research areas such as cultural change, demography, education, the economy and globalisation, identity politics and social cohesion, and many others. For background information on these matters see: http://www.eash.eu/openletter2011/
The Open Letter initiative has grown out of deliberations among a number of European umbrella organisations in the area of SSH, and seeks to bring to the attention of the European Commission and national governments the concerns of the largest research community in Europe.
If you agree, that a substantial and independent SSH-centered research programme should be included in all future European Framework Programmes, we invite you to sign the Open Letter online at http://www.eash.eu/openletter2011/. Please also kindly circulate this invitation to sign among your institutions, and across your networks and subject associations.
First results of this initiative will be presented to Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn on 10 November 2011. We hope to be able to point to a high number of signatures as an expression of a groundswell of support and concern among SSH communities. The collection of signatures will, however, continue after this specific date, as the legislative decision process will last for longer.
Thank you in advance for signing and for supporting this initiative. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions: SSH-letter(a)net4society.eu<mailto:SSH-letter@net4society.eu>.
On behalf of the Inter-agency Task Group on SSH in Europe,
Dr Ruediger Klein
Executive Director
European Federation of National Academies
of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA)
P.O.Box 19121, 1000GC Amsterdam
c/o KNAW, Kloveniersburgwal 29, 1011JV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel.: +31-20-5510-722 (secretariat: -754)
ruediger.klein(a)allea.org<mailto:ruediger.klein@allea.org>
The CEU Department of Philosophy and the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS)
cordially invite you to a talk
(as part of the Philosophy Departmental Colloquium series and
the 7th Colloquium Series of the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies)
by
Alan Code (Stanford University)
on
`Aristotle on Defining the Forms of Material Objects`
Tuesday, 8 November, 2011, 4.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
This paper explores Aristotle`s account of the scientific definitions of material objects, and the way in which these definitions are responsive to their material constitution. For Aristotle, natural substances, such as plants and animals, are composites of matter and form. In Physics II.1 and Metaphysics VI.1 he advocates a view according to which the definitions of such composites must somehow contain a reference to perceptible matter. However, in Metaphysics VII.10-11 he argues that the definition of a sensible substance is an account of just its form, and its material parts are not parts of this form. Nonetheless, reference to material parts of some sort is required even for the specification of the form.
Kriszta Biber
Department Coordinator
Philosophy Department
Tel: 36-1-327-3806
Fax: 36-1-327-3072
E-mail: biberk(a)ceu.hu
The CEU Department of Philosophy and the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS)
cordially invite you to a talk
(as part of the Philosophy Departmental Colloquium series and
the 7th Colloquium Series of the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies)
by
Alan Code (Stanford University)
on
`Aristotle on Defining the Forms of Material Objects`
Tuesday, 8 November, 2011, 4.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
This paper explores Aristotle`s account of the scientific definitions of material objects, and the way in which these definitions are responsive to their material constitution. For Aristotle, natural substances, such as plants and animals, are composites of matter and form. In Physics II.1 and Metaphysics VI.1 he advocates a view according to which the definitions of such composites must somehow contain a reference to perceptible matter. However, in Metaphysics VII.10-11 he argues that the definition of a sensible substance is an account of just its form, and its material parts are not parts of this form. Nonetheless, reference to material parts of some sort is required even for the specification of the form.