Neuroscience calls for papers / publications

Call for Chapters: Machine Medical Ethics, Edited Collection

You are warmly invited to submit your research chapter for possible inclusion in an edited collection entitled Machine Medical Ethics. Target publication date: 2014.

The new field of Artificial Intelligence called Machine Ethics is concerned with ensuring that the behaviour of machines towards human users and other machines is ethical. This unique edited collection aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform for researchers in this field to present new research and developments in Machine Medical Ethics. Areas of interest for this edited collection include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Foundational Concepts

What is medical ethics?

What is machine medical ethics?

What are the consequences of creating or not creating ethical medical machines?

Can medical machines be autonomous?

Ought medical machines to operate autonomously, or under (complete or partial) human physician control?

Theories of Machine Medical Ethics

What theories of machine medical ethics are most theoretically plausible and most empirically supported?

Ought machine medical ethics be rule-based (top-down), case- based (bottom-up), or a hybrid view of both top-down and bottom-up?

Is an interdisciplinary approach suited to designing a machine medical ethical theory? (e.g., collaboration between philosophy, psychology, AI, computational neuroscience…)

Medical Machine Training

What does ethical training for medical machines consist in: ethical principles, ethical theories, or ethical skills? Is a hybrid approach best?

What training regimes currently tested and/or used are most successful?

Can ethically trained medical machines become unethical?

Can a medical machine learn empathy (caring) and skills relevant to the patient-physician relationship?

Can a medical machine learn to give an apology for a medical error?

Ought medical machines to be trained to detect and respond to patient embarrassment and/or issues of patient privacy? What social norms are relevant for training?

Ought medical machines to be trained to show sensitivity to gender, cultural and age-differences?

Ought machines to teach medicine and medical ethics to human medical students?

Patient-Machine-Physician Relationship

What role ought imitation or mimicry to play in the patient-machine-physician relationship?

What role ought empathy or caring to play in the patient-machine-physician relationship?

What skills are necessary to maintain a good patient-machine-physician relationship?

Ought medical machines be able to detect patient fakery and malingering?

Under what conditions ought medical machines to operate with a nurse?

In what circumstances should a machine physician consult with human or other machine physicians regarding patient assessment or diagnosis?

Medical Machine Physical Appearance

Is there a correlation between physical appearance and physician trustworthiness?

Ought medical machines to appear human or non-human?

Is a highly plastic human-like face essential to medical machines? Or, is a static face sufficient?

What specific morphological facial features ought medical machines to have?

Ought medical machines to be gendered or androgynous?

Ought medical machines to possess a human-like body with mobile limbs?

What vocal characteristics ought medical machines to have?

As a new field, the target audiences are expected to be from the scientists, researchers, and practitioners working in the field of machine ethics and medical ethics. The target audience will also include various stakeholders, like academics, research institutes, and individuals interested in this field, and the huge audience in the public sector comprising health service providers, government agencies, ministries, education institutions, social service providers and other types of government, commercial and not-for-profit agencies.

Please indicate your intention to submit your full paper by email to the editor who emails you with the title of the paper, authors, and abstract. The full manuscript, as PDF file, should be emailed to that same editor by the deadline indicated below. Authoring guidelines will be mailed to you after we receive your letter of intent.

Please feel free to contact the editors, Simon van Rysewyk or Dr. Matthijs Pontier, if you have any questions or concerns. Many thanks!

IMPORTANT DATES:

Intent to Submit: June 10, 2013

Full Version: October 20, 2013

Decision Date: November 10, 2013

Final Version: December 31, 2013

Editors:

Simon van Rysewyk

School of Humanities
University of Tasmania
Private Bag 41
Hobart
Tasmania 7001
Australia

Email: simonvanrysewyk@utas.edu.au

Dr. Matthijs Pontier

Post-Doctoral Researcher
The Centre for Advanced Media Research (CAMeRA)
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Buitenveldertselaan 3
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Email: matthijspon@gmail.com

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Academic Psychiatry: Psychiatric Education and Neuroscience

Over the past few decades, psychiatric research has increasingly converged on the importance of neuroscience for understanding psychopathology, the mechanisms of current treatments, and avenues for novel therapeutics. Despite these large scientific advances, education of psychiatrists in neuroscience has lagged significantly. This lag may be attributable to numerous factors, the result of which is a psychiatric workforce presently unprepared for understanding these innovations, interfacing with patients over them, and integrating neuroscientific advances into their clinical care.

Insights into and attempts to bridge the science-to-training gap, however, have already begun taking shape. These efforts have started on a small scale, but may very importantly inform broader efforts by the field to bring psychiatric practice closer into the fold of neuroscience. At the same time, there are concerns among clinicians that an exclusive focus on neuroscience may diminish the historically humanistic nature of psychiatry. To this aim, Academic Psychiatry is creating a special issue of articles that explore the nature of the gap, reasons why the training is lagging behind the science, and avenues for bridging this gap in creative ways, while being mindful to retain the many existing virtues of clinical psychiatry.

In keeping with the overall mission of Academic Psychiatry, papers ideally will be evidence-based, drawing upon data and outcome measures, and/or involving multiple sites. Comprehensive reviews and case studies are also welcome. All submissions will be peer reviewed in keeping with the journal's policy. Submissions are due by July 1, 2013.

Submissions should be uploaded to ScholarOne Manuscripts (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/appi-ap). Please indicate in the cover letter that the submission is for this special issue. For more information, please visit our Web site at ap.psychiatryonline.org. Please direct questions on the submission process to Ms. Ann Tennier, Senior Editorial Associate, at 262-346-1461 or acadpsych@gmail.com.

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience: Mechanisms of Motivation-Cognition Interactions

Editor-in-Chief: Deanna Barch

Special Guest Editor: Todd Braver

In the last decade, investigations of motivation have been revitalized by progress in social, affective, and cognitive psychology, as well as by progress in systems and computational neuroscience, that begin to elaborate the mechanisms by which motivation influences higher-level learning and information processing. Exciting investigations of motivational effects have now been carried out in a number of domains including attention, working memory, episodic memory, executive control, decision-making, and implicit goal formation. Importantly, this recent work has provided new theoretical frameworks, methodologies and analytical tools for characterizing the nature of motivation-cognition interactions. These range from experimental paradigms that provide more precise behavioral and cognitive assays, to neuroimaging methods enabling identification of neural activity dynamics in both localized regions and large-scale brain networks, to computational approaches that provide formalisms for understanding reinforcement learning and decision-making. Additionally, new work has addressed questions of how developmental, aging, and clinical populations are impacted by changes in the nature of motivation-cognition interactions.

This special issue of Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience will bring together a comprehensive set of articles identifying and addressing the mechanisms by which motivation interacts with cognitive and affective function. Consistent with the journal mission, submissions should provide a neuroscience-based perspective, with a particularly high priority placed on work that integrates across psychological and neurobiological levels of analysis.

Submissions may target any issues related to motivation-cognition interactions, including those that may overlap with topics within affective function, reward processing, or reinforcement learning. However, for these latter topics, it will be important to make clear how invoking the construct of motivation provides added theoretical and/or experimental leverage to the question of interest. We particularly encourage submissions that include a lifespan or aging perspective. Both original empirical articles and review/opinion pieces are welcomed.

One-page proposals are due July 1, 2013, and full manuscripts will be due October 1, 2013, with the goal of publishing the Special Issue in March of 2014. Please send the one-page proposal to Deanna Barch at dbarch@wustl.edu.

Call for Chapters: Global Issues and Ethical Concerns in Human Enhancement Technologies

Editors
Dr. Steven John Thompson (Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland University College, USA)

Proposals Submission Deadline: June 15, 2013

Full Chapters Due: September 1, 2013

Submission Date: November 30, 2013

Society is struggling with issues regarding rapid advancements in Human Enhancement Technologies (HET), especially in terms of definition, effects, participation, regulation, and control. These are global matters that legislators must sufficiently address, as was evidenced partly by debate within the 2008 European Parliament’s Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA), among other discussions; yet, relevance must not be relegated entirely to scientists, legislators, and lobbyists who may gain power and control at the expense of those parties most affected by these life-changing technologies. Since current and future HET initiatives should be in the best interests of those who will eventually participate, research into critical pragmatic elements of HET must expand beyond government and scientific experimentation for eventual societal adoption to incorporate deeper relevant inquiry from within the humanities.

Objective of the Book

While much of the realm of HET is in a state of growing experimentation, there is benefit to exploring ground that may be covered regarding universal concerns, ethics, objectives, and principles in aspects of HET as viewed through the humanities. This compendium will include contributions of professional researchers and others working with HET issues today and into the future. It will also provide a well-rounded composite of the HET field in emerging technologies.

Target Audience

The target audience of this book will be composed of researchers, graduate students, practitioners, and professionals in academe and the medical industry who should all find value in this publication. The recent surge in academic course offerings associated with the role of the body in the humanities and computer science will benefit, as will some persons engaged in a humanities approach to study of metasystems, new artificial life, and robotics. This book will merge some of the leading allied field voices regarding HET into a singular compelling voice of inquiry on the topic of human enhancement technology. Moreover, the book will provide insights and support executives concerned with the management of expertise, knowledge, information and organizational development in different types of work communities and environments.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Theory and Definition

• Body and Machine

• Cyborg Creation

• Enhancement and Modification

• Uses in Medicine and Science

Ethics and Philosophy

• Internet Brain Implants and Related Interfaces

• Human Rights and Requisite Modification

• Human Values and Freedom in Experimentation

• Safety Concerns

Policy and Regulation

• Control and Threat

• Corporations, Governments, and Military Axes

• Issues in Science, Technology, and Society

Digitality and Neuronics

• Access, Availability and Privilege

• Technological Production and Purposed Results

• Ubiquity

Levels of Participation

• Current Trends

• Freedom, Requisite Implementation and Universal Adoption

• Future and The Collective Hive

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before June 15, 2013, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concern of the proposed chapter. All authors of accepted proposals will be notified by July 1, 2013 about status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by September 1, 2013. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

Publisher

This book is scheduled to be published in 2014 by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” “Business Science Reference,” and “Engineering Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.

Important Dates

June 15, 2013: Proposal Submission Deadline

July 1, 2013: Notification of Acceptance

September 1, 2013: Full Chapter Submission

September 30, 2013:  Review Results Returned

November 30, 2013: Final Chapter Submission

January 31, 2014: Final Publication Deadline

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document):

Dr. Steven John Thompson (rhetorist@jhu.edu)

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of the Digital Human: Digital Human Devices – What They Can Do and How They Can Do It

Guest Editor: Dr. Shana Smith, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

The goal of this special issue is to present a comprehensive multi-disciplinary view of digital human devices – of what they can do and how they can do it.

The emphasis of the special issue will be on digital human devices with novel and exceptional abilities, and on both hardware and software elements. Manuscripts must therefore contain appropriate and interesting theoretical, experiential and application single-views and comparative-views of novel and exceptional digital human devices.

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• The state of the art in digital human devices

• Novel and exceptional visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory sensing abilities

• Novel and exceptional information integration and perception abilities

• Novel and exceptional higher-level cognition and decision-making abilities

• Novel and exceptional activation, action, response, feedback and adaptation abilities

• Trends in digital human devices

• Future trends in digital human devices

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All submissions should begin with a letter of intent (100-200 words) that describes the goals, content and results of the study (to be emailed to the Guest Editor at ssmith@ntu.edu.tw).

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our information on preparing and submitting articles.

Important Dates

Deadline for letter of intent (100-200 words): 31 August, 2013 (email submission)

Deadline for full paper: 30 November, 2013 (online submission)

First review completed: 31 January, 2014

Deadline for revised paper: 31 March, 2014 (online submission)

Second review completed: 31 May, 2014

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of the Digital Human:Digital Human Models – What They Can Do and How They Can Do It

Guest Editor:

Dr. Shana Smith, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

The goal of this special issue is to present a comprehensive multi-disciplinary view of digital human models – of what they can do and how they can do it.

The emphasis of the special issue will be on digital human models with novel and exceptional abilities, and on only software elements. Manuscripts must therefore contain appropriate and interesting theoretical, experiential and application single-views and comparative-views of novel and exceptional digital human models.

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• The state of the art in digital human models

• Novel and exceptional visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory sensing abilities

• Novel and exceptional information integration and perception abilities

• Novel and exceptional higher-level cognition and decision-making abilities

• Novel and exceptional activation, action, response, feedback and adaptation abilities

• Trends in digital human models

• Future trends in digital human models

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All submissions should begin with a letter of intent (100-200 words) that describes the goals, content and results of the study (to be emailed to the Guest Editor at ssmith@ntu.edu.tw).

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our information on preparing and submitting articles.

Important Dates

Deadline for letter of intent (100-200 words): 31 August, 2013 (email submission)

Deadline for full paper: 30 November, 2013 (online submission)

First review completed: 31 January, 2014

Deadline for revised paper: 31 March, 2014 (online submission)

Second review completed: 31 May, 2014

Call for Manuscripts for a Special Issue of the Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy: Motor Learning in Neurorehabilitation

The Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy (JNPT) is reviewing manuscripts for a special issue on Motor Learning in Neurorehabilitation. Over the past 30 years, we have witnessed an expansion of basic and clinical research in motor learning that has furthered our understanding of the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying learning in healthy and clinical populations.  This special issue will feature recent advances in the field and how they may be applied to neurorehabilitation.

Potential topics may include but are not limited to:

Reframing motor learning theories in the 21st century

Motivation, expectation, and self-efficacy influences on motor learning

Neural correlates and mechanisms of different forms of motor learning

Innovative approaches to enhancing motor learning in neurologic rehabilitation

Emerging interventions derived from new understandings of brain function (e.g. imagery, action observation)

Impact of neurologic pathology on motor learning capacity

Please note this is a competitive call for papers. JNPT receives more submissions than can be published and therefore it will likely not be possible to publish all manuscripts submitted in response to this call. Prospective authors are encouraged to contact the Special Issue Editors: Drs. Catherine Lang (langc@wustl.edu), Beth Fisher (bfisher@usc.edu) and Susanne Morton (susanne-morton@uiowa.edu) regarding their submission. First drafts will be due on September 1, 2013 with a target JNPT publication date of April 1, 2014.

JNPT and its web site offers fully searchable archives and:

Indexed by PubMed

Shortened time to press with individual articles Published ahead of Print and full issues published to the web site one to two weeks ahead of the mail date

Access via Ovid Technologies for libraries and other institutions to expand the global reach JNPT, offering an enhanced Web presence in Europe, Asia, and around the world

Published by Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a leading international publisher of professional health information resources

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Brain Research: Oxytocin and Human Social Behavior, Social Cognition and Psychopathology

Throughout evolution, nonapeptides in the central nervous system have played important roles in modulating increasingly complex behaviors. In particular, converging evidence suggests that oxytocin evolved from earlier nonapeptides to facilitate and coordinate critical aspects of placental mammalian reproduction. During subsequent mammalian evolution, oxytocin has been selected to play other pro-social roles including formation of pair bonds and formation of social memory in rodent species. A now vast number of studies employing intranasal administration have demonstrated in humans and monkeys that oxytocin facilitates numerous aspects of social cognition in a context-dependent manner. Preclinical studies in rodents have demonstrated a wide variety of effects that suggest oxytocin may have therapeutic efficacy in reducing anxiety, depression, psychosis, addiction, pain and other psychiatric and medical morbidities. Recent clinical trials involving daily intranasal doses of oxytocin over sustained periods of time have found significant improvements in social and other deficits in autism spectrum disorders, significant reduction in psychotic symptoms and social cognitive and neurocognitive deficits in schizophrenia, and inhibition of withdrawal in alcohol dependent subjects. These clinical effects may shed new light on additional oxytocin mechanisms that evolved to promote maternal behavior, and later in mammalian evolution, other social attachments. Such putative functions that may have been selected for during the evolution of mammals could be the basis of the surprising and diverse set of therapeutic effects of oxytocin in humans.  Numerous summaries of oxytocin effects on or associations with social behavior have been published (both in animal and human studies) and more investigations are underway.

Here we envision a special issue of Brain Research that focuses primarily on oxytocin relationships with human social behavior, social cognition and psychopathology. You are invited to contribute articles to this special issue. We are particularly interested in thought pieces/critical appraisals in these areas rather than traditional reviews. It is hoped that these collections will discuss the implications of what has been done as well as future directions for research.

The deadline for the submission is September 1st, 2013. The submitted materials will be peer-reviewed either by the special issue editors or outside reviewers. If you have further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact either Steve Chang (steve.chang@duke.edu) or Cort Pedersen (Cort_Pedersen@med.unc.edu).

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Neurocomputing: Advanced Computing for Image-Guided Intervention

In the past years, the rapidly growing area of image-guided intervention has dramatically changed the way how a typical surgery is carried out in an operation room. We have witnessed that traditional open surgery is gradually replaced by minimally invasive or non-invasive procedures. In comparison with conventional open surgeries, this new type of procedures has advantages of shorter patient recovery times, greater patient comfort, and lower risk of complications.

Imaging is the key to the image-guided intervention, involving pre-operative planning, intra-operative execution, post-operative assessment and verification. It becomes essential to support both diagnosis and therapy. To achieve successful interventions, usually multi-disciplinary knowledge and techniques are required such as physics, chemistry, electronics, mechatronics, software, and signal/image processing. Especially, signal/image processing and computing plays an increasingly important role, enabling the presentation of reliable and accurate information to the physician. In the past twenty years, this field has been greatly expanded from the developments of low-level processing techniques, such as signal filtering and enhancement, to the medium-level image registration and fusion, segmentation and motion tracking, further to the inventions of high-level signal/image interpretation or classification techniques. Examples include tissue classification/characterization from different imaging modalities. Such advanced techniques assist the physician to understand better the information and offers valuable inputs for the decision making.  At the same time, we have observed a trend in emerging imaging technologies in new clinical applications, such as embedded imaging sensors within in-body catheters, which offers new perspectives in the whole processing of navigation, tracking and visualization.

This special issue aims at capturing the latest advances of the research community working on image-guided intervention. We are soliciting original contributions and encouraging the work for (1) novel fundamental techniques, and (2) showcasing robust systems with emerging applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Advanced signal/image processing algorithms for navigation, tracking and visualization

New algorithm design for real-time imaging and information extraction

Image registration & fusion from multiple imaging sources and/or images from different stages during the intervention

Model-based image segmentation, 3D modeling and visualization

Signal/image processing in new clinical applications

Signal/image processing with emerging imaging modalities

Signal/image transformation or feature extraction for improved clinical understanding.

Database support for algorithm validation and/or training

Signal/image classification and interpretation, e.g. based on machine learning or pattern classification

Emerging applications using medical imaging techniques

Important Dates:

Submission of full papers 31. May, 2013
Notification to authors 15. Oct, 2013

Submission of Manuscripts

Prospective authors should visit http://www.elsevier.com/journals/neurocomputing/0925-2312/guide-for-authors for information on paper submission. Authors must submit their papers electronically by using online manuscript submission at: http://ees.elsevier.com/neucom/.

To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly included into the special issue, it is important that authors select the acronym "ACIGI" of this special issue when they reach the "Article Type" step in the submission process.

Guest Editors:

Dr. Fei Zuo
Philips Research
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
fei.zuo@philips.com

Dr. Jungong Han
Civolution Technology
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
jungonghan77@gmail.com

Prof. Pingkun Yan
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xi’an, China
pingkun@ieee.org

Dr. Hans van Assen
Eindhoven University of Technology
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
h.c.v.assen@tue.nl

Dr. Kenji Suzuki
The University of Chicago
Chicago, USA
suzuki@uchicago.edu

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Brain Research: RNA Metabolism in Neurological Disease

Special Issue Call for Papers Deadline: 31 August 2013

Brain Research will be publishing a Special Issue on “RNA Metabolism in Neurological Disease" for post-conference distribution to each delegate registered for the 8th Brain Research Conference on the same topic - a satellite meeting to the 2013 Society for Neuroscience, organized this year by Fen-Biao Gao and Paul Taylor.

In addition to the Review and Original Articles by invited speakers, we are inviting you to submit a relevant research paper on RNA Metabolism in Neurological Disease for consideration. Papers will be subject to normal peer review and must comply with the Guide for Authors.

To submit a paper to the “RNA Metabolism in Neurological Disease” Special Issue, please go to http://ees.elsevier.com/bres and click on "Submit new manuscript". It is important that authors select “Special Issue: RNA Metabolism 2013” as the Article Type. Manuscripts should be submitted by 31 August 2013.

Guest editors: Fen-Biao Gao & J. Paul Taylor