1st European Workshop on Neuromorphic Systems 29-31 August 1997.

Advance Warning: The Second European Workshop on Neural Computing (EWNS2) will be held in Stirling from 3rd - 5th September 1999.

Neuromorphic systems are implementations in silicon of sensory and neural systems whose architecture and design are based on neurobiology. This growing area proffers exciting possibilities such as sensory systems which can compete with human senses and pattern recognition systems that can run in real-time. The area is at the intersection of many disciplines: neurophysiology, computer science and electrical engineering.

We are grateful to the Gatsby Foundation for their generous support of this workshop.

The meeting was held jointly by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Stirling, and the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh.

The purpose of this meeting was to bring together active researchers who can discuss the problems of this developing technology. The meeting brought together researchers who might not normally meet, for example, engineers who want to implement systems based on neurobiology, and neurobiologists who want to produce engineering implementations of systems.

The meeting is intended not only for the reporting of results, but also for discussion about the way forward in Neuromorphic systems:

What will the role of neuromorphic systems be? Are we trying to learn about animal sensory systems by rebuilding them, or are we trying to engineer new solutions to old problems in artificial sensory perception using what we know about animal senses?
Can biologically-inspired techniques provide the basis for real improvements in auditory/ visual/ olfactory/ sensorimotor systems?
How should neuromorphic systems be implemented? In software or hardware? As dedicated VLSI devices? In analogue or digital hardware? In analogue VLSI in the weak or strong inversion regions?
What do neuromorphic systems have to offer the the cognitive science community? Are they just hardware implementations of neural networks, or can what neuromorphic systems have to tell us about sensory perception and coding inform cognitive science?

Programme

Here is the Programme. May I extend my thanks to all who submitted papers.

Book and Abstracts from the Conference

We have agreed with World Scientific to produce a book from the conference. The book is now published. The title of the book is Neuromorphic systems: Enginering Silicon from Neurobiology: the publishers are World Scientific, the editors are L.S. Smith and A. Hamilton, the book is in the publishers series Progress in Neural Processing, number 10, and the ISBN is 981 02 3377 9. It is a rather nice shade of blue.

First-named authors should receive their copies direct from the publishers: other delegates will receive them from the organisers. But the books have to travel by sea from Singapore, so they may be some time.

Many thanks to all the contributors.

The abstracts from the conference are also available on the internet.

Organising Committee:

Leslie S. Smith, Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling.

Alister Hamilton, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Edinburgh.

Program Committee

Jim Austin (Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK)
Guy Brown (Department of Computing Science, Univ of Sheffield, UK)
Rodney Douglas (ETHZ, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)
Wulfram Gerstner (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland)
Alister Hamilton (Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
John Lazzaro (CS Division, University of California at Berkeley)
Wolfgang Maass (Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, T.U. Graz, Austria)
Alan Murray (Dept of Electrical Engineering, Univ of Edinburgh, Scotland)
Leslie Smith (Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, Scotland)
Eric Vittoz (EPFL, Lausanne)
Barbara Webb (Dept of Psychology, Univ of Nottingham, UK)
Misha Mahowald (ETHZ, Univ of Zurich, Switzerland) had agreed to be on the committee before her untimely death.

Leslie Smith
Department of Computing Science
University of Stirling
Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland

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