International Scholars Join 16th Adaptive and Learning Systems Workshop at SEAS

06/03/2013

Information and Systems Science scholars from seven countries and two dozen universities and research laboratories will arrive at Yale’s campus this week to attend the Sixteenth Yale Workshop on Adaptive and Learning Systems, hosted by the Center for Systems Science in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

Kumpati Narendra, Harold W. Cheel Professor of Electrical Engineering, who has organized the bi-annual event since 1979, says it has evolved adaptively over 34 years to address the increasingly cross-disciplinary problems that are arising in information and systems sciences.

This three day workshop will feature 42 speakers in six different topics – Neuroscience, Medicine and Biology, Artificial Neural Networks, Adaptive Control and Learning, Networks and Communication, and Robotics. Papers presented will include dynamic regulation of higher brain circuits, exploiting links between cancer and metabolism, and learning in humans and robots. A session dedicated to Networks will feature a talk on IBM’s research initiative in Ireland on “Big and Fast Data in the City” and a session on Neural Networks will include challenges and research priorities of the National Science Foundation. The Workshop will conclude with a lecture on The Boston Dynamics Cheetah- a fast quadruped robot.

The cross disciplinary nature of the meeting is useful to systems scientists in all fields: "In just about everything we do, we are always working under uncertainty," says Narendra. "We use information to predict. Part of everything we do is to adapt and learn." Meeting participants will benefit not only from gaining an understanding of how researchers in other fields formulate problems and use methods, he says, but also provide many opportunities during the three-day event to network over coffee, food, and wine.