Friday 2 Aug, 2 p.m. — 3:30 p.m.

The recent explosion of online big data has allowed us to conduct high-resolution quantitative modeling and analysis of complex human social behaviors. This has completely changed the way of studying collective behaviors of humans in social systems. Conventional approaches that attempted to model human behaviors using mathematically rigorous yet idealized game theoretic frameworks often failed to predict real social dynamics, because humans are often irrational and do not follow well-defined decision making protocols. Big data analytics provides us with more empirical methods and tools to capture and analyze such realistic human behaviors. Read more

In nature, brains are built through a process of biological development in which many aspects of the network of neurons and connections change are shaped by external information received through sensory organs. Biological development mechanisms such as axon guidance and dendrite pruning have been shown to rely on neural activity. Despite this, most artificial neural network (ANN) models do not include developmental mechanisms and regard learning as the adjustment of connection weights, while some that do use development restrain it to a period before the ANN is used. It is worthwhile to understand the cognitive functions offered by development and to investigate the fundamental questions raised by artificial neural development. In this workshop, we will explore existing and future approaches that aim to incorporate development into ANNs. Read more

This workshop is intended to be a platform to present and discuss current approaches, advances in implementation, future vision for methodologies, and reflections of past implementations. We will aim to provide an opportunity to meet people with interests in formalizing approaches, to be exposed to current research methodologies (with emphasis on hybridization of modelling techniques) and to exchange ideas in an informal setting. Read more