December 30, 2016
Vol.1, No.2

APNNS NEWSICONIP 2016 Venue - Kyoto University Clock Tower

Vol.1, No.2 (December 2016)

Table of Contents

1. President’s message .......................................................................................................................... 19
2. Society Structure.................................................................................................................................. 20
3. Membership Update ........................................................................................................................... 22
3.1 Membership info ............................................................................................................................... 22
3.2 Update for 2017................................................................................................................................. 23
4. Election Results .................................................................................................................................... 24
5. ICONIP 2016 Kyoto Report ............................................................................................................. 25
5.1 New ICONIP Series Started in Japan’s Old Historic City .............................................. 25
5.2 Technical Program ........................................................................................................................... 27
5.3 Awards ................................................................................................................................................... 28
6. Conferences and Meetings ............................................................................................................ 30
6.1 ICONIP 2017 ...................................................................................................................................... 30
6.2 ICONIP 2018 ...................................................................................................................................... 31
6.3 ICONIP 2019 and beyond ............................................................................................................ 32
6.4 Technically co-sponsored conferences .................................................................................. 32

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1. President’s message

NN, CI or AI?
Akira Hirose, President, APNNSIn the last years of Asia-Pacific Neural Network Assembly (APNNA), the governing board
members discussed possible names of the forthcoming new society. Eventually we decided totake Asia-Pacific Neural Network Society (APNNS). But actually we had a few alternatives. One
includes Computational Intelligence (CI) just like IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. It may
be suitable when we expect a wider field than neural networks.
However, we consider that the origin of our activities lies in human beings and the brain, which isalso declared in APNNS Bylaws. Then we decided to choose neural networks (NN) to represent
the root of the field rather than CI. This idea is probably shared among such societies as INNS,
ENNS, JNNS and IEICE Neurocomputing Technical Group.
In the general public, at the same time, people often use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in these days.
Mass media use the word AI everyday. AI is also attractive, though it has a long history. Artificial
Brain (AB?) is also a word once popular previously.
Before 1940s, future intelligent machine was called Artificial Brain. Afterward in 1980s, AI
represented symbol-based machine with symbol database and logic deduction/inference.
"Prolog" was a newly developed programming language. Governments conducted many big
projects. The fruit, known as Expert System, serves presently in medical diagnosis and otherscenes widely. But its principle is very different from that of the brain after all. The brain dynamics
are based on pattern representation and pattern processing realized by many neurons to learncorrelations among events, and then symbol logic is also realized in addition as a part of its
functions. In late 1990s, the symbol-based AI entered its maturity. It newly started to absorb
learning dynamics that have been investigated in the field of neural networks, including machinelearning, as a significant part of its principle. Today, the learning is rather the essence of AI. In thissense, present AI is New AI, or Neural AI. It’s a big success of neural networks.
It is our great pleasure to develop science and technology that makes people happy. APNNS
holds an important part to play. The future is surely on the shoulders of you, the society members!

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2. Society Structure(same as APNNS News Vol. 1 No. 1 for the benefits of new members)

Irwin King, VP Administration
Dear APNNS Members,
After years of planning and discussing, the APNNS EXCO is pleased to share with you a few
highlights on the new APNNS structure based on the newly created bylaws. A complete APNNS
Bylaws (Version 1.3) is available at http://www.apnns.org/ .
The original goals for the APNNS’ bylaws given to the APNNA Bylaws Task Force were
To create a new structure based on our already strong APNNA’s tradition with consideration
with current and future needs of its members
To reflect the diverse interests from different regional and national technical communities andgrow this community together
To interface with other international societies with similar interests in order to enhance thevalue of the community
To address these points, the APNNA Bylaws Task Force labored over the bylaws through monthsof meeting and discussions to ensure that the bylaws is built to last for the uniqueness of theneural network technical communities in the Asia-Pacific region.
One of the cornerstones in the bylaws is the Governing Board structure of APNNS. To illustrate
the goal to reflect the diversity and also balance in the Asia-Pacific region, the bylaws set
specific guidelines to make up of the two-class Governing Board members with the Elected
Governors and Country/Region Governors.
general pool of available members.

The Elected Governors are elected from theMoreover, the maximum authorized number shall not be

more than 12 and the maximum authorized number of Elected Governors for eachcountry/region shall not be more than two.

Country/Region Governors shall be recommended

by Countries/Regions-at-Large, defined as the countries/regions whose regular members are
more than a certain number as specified by the Governing Board. The authorized number ofCountry/Region Governors for a Country/Region-at-Large shall not be more than one. Lastly,
the number of Countries/Regions-at-Large may be varied from time to time by resolution of theBoard of Governors, provided that the authorized number of Elected Governors andCountry/Region Governors in total shall be around 25. With this new structure, APNNS aims to
be inclusive and at the same time sensitive to the various needs of the representations of its
members.
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The nomination procedures for the Board of Governors and President-elect are through a
Nomination Committee (NC). The NC shall nominate a number of candidates for Elected
Governors and at least two candidates for the Office of President-elect. Each regular member(not student member) has one vote.

Those eligible candidates for Elected Governors who

receive the highest number of votes, up to the number of Elected Governors to be elected, shallbe elected as Elected Governors of APNNS.

Similarly, the eligible candidate for the Office ofPresident-elect who receives the highest number of votes for such Office shall be elected as
President-elect of APNNS.
We have also expanded and further clarified the roles of the APNNS Executive Committee(EXCO), which consists of the President, the President-elect, and four Vice-presidents (VPs), VP
of Administration, VP of Finance, VP of Membership, and VP of Conference to oversee the
day-to-day operation of APNNS. The President and President-elect shall hold office for theterm of one year, starting on January 1 of the year. For 2016, the EXCO consists of Prof. Akira
Hirose, President; Prof. Soo-Young Lee, President-elect; Prof. Irwin King, VP of Administration,
Prof. Seiichi Ozawa, VP of Finance, Prof. Jonathan Chan, VP of Membership, and Prof. Derong
Liu, VP of Conference.
The EXCO would like to thank the Ad Hoc APNNA Bylaws Task Force members: Prof. Akira
Hirose (Chair), Prof. Jonathan Chan, Prof. Irwin King, Prof. Minho Lee, Prof. Derong Liu, andProf. Seiichi Ozawa for their significant commitment and efforts in making the APNNS Bylaws
a reality. I would also like to thank the APNNA and APNNS Governing Board Members for theircontinuing support to seeing the process to its fruition.
It is our hope and belief that with the new structure, APNNS will continue to foster strong
supports from its members of diverse communities to expand and develop successfully thefield of neural networks, computational intelligence, and other related fields in the years tocome.

Akira Hirose

Soo-Young Lee

Irwin King

Seiichi Ozawa

President

President-elect

VP of

VP of

Jonathan Chan

Administration Finance

Derong Liu

VP of

VP of

Membership

Conference

Figure 2.1 APNNS Executive Committee (EXCO) starting members.
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3. Membership Update

Jonathan Chan, VP Membership

3.1 Membership info
At the beginning of 2016, APNNS have 215 regular and 25 student members for a total of 240
members. It is with pleasure to inform you that we have since grown to 265 regular members who
were eligible to vote in the 2016 APNNS Elections.
In 2016, we have 9 countries/regions and their breakdown based on regular membership (eligible
voters) and representative governors for 2016 are listed below. The order is based on the numberof regular members.
1) Japan (158 members)- Akira Hirose (President 2016)- Seiichi Ozawa (Country Governor 2016-2017)- Ko Sakai (Transitional Governor 2016)- Takashi Omori (Elected Governor 2016-2017)
2) China (57 members)- Derong Liu (Country Governor 2016-2017)- Bao-Liang Lu (Transitional Governor 2016)- Huaguang Zhang (Elected Governor 2016-2017)3) Asia Pacific and Greater Regions (9 members)- Nikola Kasabov (Region Governor 2016-2017)4) South East Asia (8 members)- Kittichai Lavangnananda (Region Governor 2016-2017)- Kay Chen Tan (Elected governor 2016-2017)- Jonathan Chan (Transitional Governor 2016)5) East Asia (7 members)- Soo-Young Lee (President-Elect 2016)- Minho Lee (Region governor 2016-2017)- Sung Bae Cho (Transitional governor 2016)22

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Back Cover- Hye Young Park (Elected governor 2016-2017)6) Hong Kong (7 members)- Irwin King (Region Governor 2016-2017)- Andrew Leung (Transitional Governor 2016)- James Kwok (Elected Governor 2016-2017)7) Middle East (7 members)- Sabri Arik (Region Governor 2016-2017)- Tingwen Huang (Elected Governor 2016-2017)8) Australia (6 members)- Tom Gedeon (Country Governor 2016-2017)- Kevin Wong (Transitional Governor 2016)
9) Malaysia (6 members)- Weng Kin Lai (Country Governor 2016-2017)- Chu Kiong Loo (Transitional Governor 2016)

3.2 Update for 2017
For 2017, we also have 9 countries/regions with South Korea (5 members) becoming standalone
and other members in East Asia joining the Asia Pacific and Greater Region (11 members)
instead. The other Countries/Regions remain the same. As such, Asia Pacific and Greater isunder-represented with only one Region Governor and no elected ones. We urge greater
participation from this growing region in 2017 and beyond.

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4. Election Results(Reported by VP Membership on behalf of Election Committee)

Jonathan Chan, VP Membership

The following are the APNNS Election Results for 2017. Congratulations to the winners! We
welcome new comer Kazushi Ikeda who was the Program Co-Chair for ICONIP 2016 to theGoverning Board for 2017.
President-Elect 2017
Derong Liu
Elected Governors 2017-18 (6 positions)
Bao-Liang Lu (China)
Kazushi Ikeda (Japan)
Jonathan H. Chan (South East Asia)
Andrew Leung (Hong Kong)
Kevin Wong (Australia)
Sung-Bae Cho (South Korea)

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5. ICONIP 2016 Kyoto Report

Akira Hirose, General Chair ICONIP 2016 Kyoto
Seiichi Ozawa, Co-General Chair ICONIP 2016 Kyoto
Kazushi Ikeda, Program Co-Chair ICONIP 2016 Kyoto

5.1 New ICONIP Series Started in Japan’s Old Historic CityThe 23rd International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP 2016,
http://www.iconip2016.org/) was held in Kyoto, Japan, during October 16-21, 2016. The venue
was Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall, which is located in the north-east area of
Kyoto city. Kyoto formerly flourished as the imperial capital of Japan as long as 1,000 years after
794 A.D., and known as “The City of Ten Thousand Shrines.” The new ICONIP series started insuch a historic city, which is the deepest heart of Japan.
The Conference received 423 participants from 35 countries/regions including Asia-Pacific ones,
such as China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand,
as well as European, Mideast, South & North American and Africa countries (see Table 5.1). This
time the conference implemented some special events, namely, Free Tutorial Sessions, theStudent Paper Award Session, Exhibition and Technical Tours. Each of them attracted many
participants and enhanced their discussion on science and technology in the wide fields.

Fig. 5.1 Student Award Session, Poster session and Exhibition snapshots captured in ICONIP 2016
Kyoto held during October 16 – 21, 2016.

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Fig. 5.2

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The number of participants (including invited speakers) in each country/region.

Banquet and reception snapshots: Presentation of a part of the conference-runningstaff, Shishi-mai (lion dance) with fortune bites, Tea ceremony
with maikos and geikos,
Taiko
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(Japanese drum) jam session, and APNNS Outstanding Achievement Award ceremony.

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The Organization Committee members constructed from APNNS and JNNS express sincere
gratitude to everyone involved in making the conference successful. We wish to acknowledge thesupport of all the ICONIP 2016 sponsors and supporters, namely, KDDI, NICT, Ogasawara
Foundation, SCAT, as well as Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International(ATR), Kyoto Prefecture Kyoto Convention and Visitors Bureau, Mitsubishi Electric Co., andSpringer Verlag. We also thank deeply the keynote, plenary and invited speakers, exhibitors,
student paper award evaluation committee members, special session and workshop organizers,
reviewers, authors and all the APNNS members.

5.2 Technical Program
The ICONIP 2016 Kyoto Organizing Committee received 431 submissions from 38 countries andregions worldwide. The most popular topic in submission was “machine learning”, 57 papers, andthe second most was “deep neural networks”, 37 papers including a special session. These are
popular topics not only in Neural Information Processing but Artificial Intelligence.
The submitted papers were reviewed by 156
reviewers and 296 papers were accepted forpresentation. The largest presenters by country/resionof first authors were Japn (100), China (78), Australia(22), India (13), Korea (12), France (7), Hong Kong (7),Taiwan (7), Malaysia (6), United Kingdom (6),Germany (5) and New Zealand (5).
The accepted papers were presented in 42 oral
sessions as well as 2 poster sessions, including 5
special sessions and 2 workshops. These papers
were published in four volumes of Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, Springer.
In addition to regular/special sessions and workshops,
the conference had 4 plenary talks and 3 tutorials byleading

researchersinMachineLearning

andComputational Neuroscience as below:

Fig. 5.3 General Chair’s address in theOpening Ceremony.

Plenary Speakers-

Kunihiko Fukushima (Fuzzy Logic Systems Institute, Japan)-

Mitsuo Kawato (ATR, Japan)

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Tutorial Speakers-

Nikola Kasabov (Auckland University of Technology, N-

Aapo Hyvarinen (University of Helsinki, Finland)-

Okito Yamashita (ATR, Japan)

The final day was devoted to a technical tour to visit ATR (Advanced Telecommunications
Research Institute International) in Kyoto, where the attendees visited the following laboratories,
1) Development of Brain Robot Interface: Dr. Jun Morimoto2) Department of Neuroinformatics: Prof. Yukiyasu Kamitani
3)

DepartmentofDynamic

Brain

Imaging: Dr. Takayuki Suyama
followed by a visit to Byodoin Shrine
and the Fushimi Kizakura Memorial
Museum.

5.3 Awards
The ICONIP 2016 Kyoto offered threekinds of awards: Excellent paper

Fig. 5.4

Technical Tour at ATR in Keihanna Kansai

Science City.

award, best student paper
award

and

student

travelgrants.
Excellent Paper Awards
The

programcommittee

chose 17 candidates basedonreviewers’

score

and

program committee members
and APNNS governing board
members re-evaluated them.
According to their scores, 6
papers were awarded.
Best Student Paper Awards
The

programFig. 5.5 Excellent Paper Award Ceremony at the banquet.

committee

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Back Coverchose 9 finalists based on reviewers’ score and had “Best Student Paper Awards Presentation”
session on the first day. Invited leading researchers including plenary speakers and tutorial
speakers evaluated their presentation as well as their papers. Accoridng to their scores, 4 papers
were awarded.
Student Travel Grants
The program committee chose 19 students based on reviewers’ score.

The Program Committee Co-Chairs thank all the committee members, reviewers andcontributing authors for their great contribution to realize such a high-quality conference.

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6. Conferences and Meetings

Derong Liu, VP Conferences

6.1 ICONIP 2017ICONIP 2017 will be in Guangzhou, China, November 11–14, 2017. Guangzhou, historicallyknown as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province, China.
Located on the Pearl River, about 120 km (75 mi) north-northwest of Hong Kong andnorth-northeast of Macau, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port. It is
one of the five National Central Cities and holds sub-provincial administrative status.
ICONIP 2017 website is: www.iconip2017.org
Please visit the website for most updated information about the conference.

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6.2 ICONIP 2018
The APNNS board of governors is pleased to announce the location of ICONIP 2018: Siem Reap,
Cambodia. It is currently planned in the Regency Angkor Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia,
November 26–29, 2018. Please mark your calendar.
After the last round of call for proposals, we received several proposals for ICONIP 2018. The
board of governors decided to go with the proposal from Cambodia, chaired by Professor Jun
Wang. We look forward to a successful gathering in Cambodia, in 2018.

Cambodia has a rich cultural past. The stunning temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom areworld famous listed as a UNESCO Cultural Heritage. Cambodia is blessed with pristine whitebeaches, far stretching green rice fields, lakes like Tonle Sap, unspoilt islands, lush forests, theMekong River, jungle and villages with restored colonial houses, as well as the massive Tonle
Sap.
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6.3 ICONIP 2019 and beyond
If you would like to organize ICONIP 2019, the main conference of APNNS, please prepare a
proposal according to the following guidelines:* List of organizing committee members; biosketch of key organizing committee members;* Location and date of the conference; venue; transportation; sightseeing;* Program highlights;* Budget; registration fee structure.
Please submit your proposal to APNNS Vice President for Conferences, Derong Liu(derongliu@foxmail.com).

6.4 Technically co-sponsored conferences
We have recently approved the technical co-sponsorship of the following conference:
ISNN 2017
14th International Symposium on Neural Networks
July 21-23, 2017
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
http://conference.cs.cityu.edu.hk/isnn/Please submit your request for APNNS technical co-sponsorship to APNNS Vice President forConferences (derongliu@foxmail.com), together with the following documents:- Conference CFP and keywords of your conference;- List of organizing committee members, with APNNS members clearly identified;- Publication plan of your conference;- Any special benefits to APNNS members.

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