The International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) 2018

Special Session on "Advances in Reservoir Computing"

Download the call for papers (PDF)

Paper submission deadline: 15 January 2018 1 February 2018 (extended)

IEEE WCCI conference: 8-13 July2018, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Scope and Topics

During the last decade, Reservoir Computing (RC) has attested itself as a state of the art paradigm for efficient learning in the temporal domain. The extreme efficiency of the approach follows from limiting the training algorithm to only a readout component, while the temporal encoding process is carried out by a dynamical pool of recurrent neurons that, under certain conditions, is able to develop a rich representation of the temporal information even if untrained. The common paradigm has been instantiated into several models, among which the Echo State Network and the Liquid State Machine represent the most widely known ones.

Since its origins, we have witnessed a progressively increasing popularization of the RC approach, especially by virtue of its ease of implementation and its extreme training efficiency. At the same time, several theoretical research lines strongly contributed in understanding the bias of untrained recurrent models, grounding the RC methodology on a solid mathematical basis and better delineating the potentialities and downsides of the approach.

After 10 years since the introduction of the term "Reservoir Computing" into the neural networks literature, it is now time to sum up all the recent research initiatives in the field and start drawing its future. This session calls for both theoretical and applicative contributions emerging in the field of RC, aiming at stimulating an open discussion in the neural network community.

The list of relevant topics for this session includes, but is not limited to, the following:

· Novel Reservoir Computing models

· Theoretical analysis of Reservoir Computing

· Physical implementations of Reservoir Computing

· Evolutions of the RC paradigm (e.g., conceptors)

· Biological motivations and applications in Neuroscience of Reservoir Computing

· Adaptation of reservoir dynamics and of system dynamics

· Deep Reservoir Computing models

· Reservoir Computing for learning in structured domains (trees, graphs, networks, ...)

· Reservoir Computing for Big Data

· Novel application fields for the RC paradigm

Important Dates

· Paper submission deadline: 15 January 2018 1 February 2018 (extended)

· Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2018

· IEEE WCCI conference: 8-13 July2018, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Papers Submission

Papers submission for this Special Session follows the same process as for the regular sessions of WCCI 2018. For further information and news in this regard, please refer the WCCI 2018 website: http://www.ecomp.poli.br/~wcci2018/

Special Session Organizers

• Claudio Gallicchio (University of Pisa, Italy) claudio.gallicchio@unipi.it
• Alessio Micheli (University of Pisa, Italy) micheli@di.unipi.it
• Simone Scardapane (Sapienza University, Italy) simone.scardapane@uniroma1.it
• Peter Tiňo (University of Birmingham, UK) P.Tino@cs.bham.ac.uk