Formatting Instructions for NIPS 2015

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David S. Hippocampus
Department of Computer Science
Cranberry-Lemon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
[email protected]
Coauthor
Affiliation
Address
email

Coauthor
Affiliation
Address
email

Coauthor
Affiliation
Address
email
Coauthor
Affiliation
Address
email
(if needed)

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Abstract

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The Abstract paragraph should be indented inch (3 picas) on both left and
right-hand margins. Use 10 point type, with a vertical spacing of 11 points.
Abstract must be centered, bold and in point size 12. Two line spaces
precede the Abstract. The Abstract must be limited to one paragraph.

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S u bm is s ion of p ap ers to NI PS 2015

21NIPS requires electronic submissions. The electronic submission site is

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http://papers.nips.cc

23Please read carefully the instructions below, and follow them faithfully.
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251 . 1
Style
26Papers to be submitted to NIPS 2015 must be prepared according to the instructions
27presented here. Papers may be only up to 8 pages long, including figures and references.
28Since 2009, an additional ninth page containing only cited references is allowed. Papers that
29exceed nine pages will not be reviewed, or in any other way considered for presentation at
30the conference.
31Please note that this year we have introduced automatic line number generation into the style
32file (for LaTeX 2e and MS Word versions). This is to help reviewers refer to specific lines
33of the paper when they make their comments. Please do NOT refer to these line numbers in
34your paper as they will be removed from the style file for the final version of accepted
35papers.
36The margins in 2015 are the same as since 2007, which allow for ~ 15% more words in the
37paper compared to earlier years. We are also again using double-blind reviewing. Both of
38these require the use of new style files.
39Authors are required to use the NIPS LaTeX or RTF (MS Word) style files obtainable at the
40NIPS website as indicated below. Please make sure you use the current files and not previous
41versions. Tweaking the style files may be grounds for rejection.
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Retrieval of style files

44The style les for NIPS and other conference information are available on the World Wide
45Web at

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http://www.nips.cc/

47The file nips2015.pdf contains these instructions and illustrates the various formatting
48requirements that your NIPS paper must satisfy. LaTeX users can choose between two style
49files: nips11submit_09.sty (to be used with LaTeX version 2.09) and
50nips11submit_e.sty (to be used with LaTeX2e). The file nips2015.tex may be used
51as a shell for writing your paper. All you have to do is replace the author, title, abstract and
52text of the paper with your own. The file nips2015.rtf is provided as a shell for MS Word
53users.
54The formatting instructions contained in these style files are summarized in sections 2, 3,
55and 4, below.
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Gen e ral f orm attin g ins tru ct ions

58The text must be confined within a rectangle 5.5 inches (33 picas) wide and 9 inches (54
59picas) long. The left margin is 1.5 inches (9 picas). Use 10 point type with a vertical spacing
60of 11 points. Times New Roman is the preferred typeface throughout. Paragraphs are
61separated by line space, with no indentation.
62Paper title is 17 point, initial caps/lower case, bold, centered between 2 horizontal rules. Top
63rule is 4 points thick and bottom rule is 1 point thick. Allow inch space above and below
64title to rules. All pages should start 1 inch (6 picas) from the top of the page.
65The version of the paper submitted for review should have "Anonymous Author(s)" as the
66author of the paper. For the final version, authors names are set in boldface, and each name
67is centered above the corresponding address. The lead authors name is to be listed first (left68most), and the co-authors names (if different address) are set to follow. If only one co69author, list both author and co-author side by side.
70Please pay special attention to the instructions in section 4 regarding figures, tables,
71acknowledgements, and references.
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Head in gs : f irs t level

74First level headings are lower case (except for first word and proper nouns), flush left, bold
75and in point size 12. One line space before the first level heading and line space after the
76first level heading.
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Headings: second level

79Second level headings are lower case (except for first word and proper nouns), flush left,
80bold and in point size 10. One line space before the second level heading and line space
81after the second level heading.
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Headings: third level

84Third level headings are lower case (except for first word and proper nouns), flush left, bold
85and in point size 10. One line space before the third level heading and line space after the
86third level heading.
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C itation s , f igu res , tab les , ref eren ces

89These instructions apply to everyone, regardless of the formatter being used.

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Citations within the text

92Citations within the text should be numbered consecutively. The corresponding number is to
93appear enclosed in square brackets, such as [1] or [2]-[5]. The corresponding references are
94to be listed in the same order at the end of the paper, in the References section. (Note: the
95standard BibTeX style unsrt produces this.) As to the format of the references themselves,
96any standard reference style is acceptable, as long as it is used consistently.

97As submission is double blind, refer to your own published work in the third person. That is,
98use "In the previous work of Jones et al. [4]", not "In our previous work [4]". If you cite
99your other papers that are not widely available (e.g. a journal paper under review), use
100anonymous author names in the citation, e.g. an author of the form "A.Anonymous".
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Footnotes

103Indicate footnotes with a number in the text. Place the footnotes at the bottom of the page
104on which they appear. Precede the footnote with a horizontal rule of 2 inches (12 picas).
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Figures

107All artwork must be neat, clean, and legible. Lines should be dark enough for purposes of
108reproduction; artwork should not be hand drawn. The figure number and caption always
109appear after the figure. Place one line space before the figure caption, and one line space
110after the figure. The figure caption is lower case (except for first word and proper nouns);
111figures are numbered consecutively.
112Make sure the figure caption does not get separated from the figure. Leave sufficient space
113to avoid splitting the figure and figure caption.
114You may use color figures. However, it is best for the figure captions and the paper body to
115make sense if the paper is printed either in black/white or in color.
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Figure 1: Sample Figure Caption

Tab l e s

120All tables must be centered, neat, clean and legible. Do not use hand drawn tables. The table
121number and title always appear before the table. See Table 1.
122Place one line space before the table title, one line space after the table title, and one line
123space after the table. The table title must be lower case (except for first word and proper
124nouns); tables are numbered consecutively.
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Table 1: Sample table title

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Part
Description
Dendrite
Axon
Soma
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Input terminal
Output terminal
Cell Body (contains cell nucleus)

Fin a l in s tru ction s

130Do not change any aspects of the formatting parameters in the style files. In particular, do
131not modify the width or length of the rectangle that the text should fit into, and do not
132change font sizes (except perhaps in the References section; see below). Please note that
133pages should be numbered.
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Prep ar in g Pos tS crip t or PD F f iles

136Please prepare PostScript or PDF files with paper size US Letter, and not, for example,
137A4. The -t letter option on dvips will produce US Letter files.

138Fonts were the main cause of problems in the past years. Your PDF file must only contain
139Type 1 or Embedded TrueType fonts. Here are a few instructions to achieve this.
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You can check which fonts a PDF files uses. In Acrobat Reader, select menu
Files>Document Properties>Fonts and select Show All Fonts. You can also use the
program pdffonts which comes with xpdf and is available out-of-the-box on
most Linux machines.
The IEEE has recommendations for generating PDF files whose fonts are also
acceptable for NIPS. Please see
http://www.emfield.org/icuwb2010/downloads/IEEE-PDF-SpecV32.pdf
LaTeX users:
o Consider directly generating PDF files using pdflatex (especially if you
are a MiKTeX user). PDF figures must be substituted for EPS figures,
however.
o Otherwise, please generate your PostScript and PDF files with the
following commands:

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dvips mypaper.dvi -t letter -Ppdf -G0 -o mypaper.ps

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ps2pdf mypaper.ps mypaper.pdf

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o Check that the PDF files only contains Type 1 fonts.

xfig patterned shapes are implemented with bitmap fonts. Use solid shapes
instead.
The \bbold package almost always uses bitmap fonts. You can try the equivalent
AMS Fonts with command

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\usepackage[psamsfonts]{amssymb}

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or use the following workaround for reals, natural and complex:

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\newcommand{\RR}{I\!\!R} %real numbers

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\newcommand{\Nat}{I\!\!N} %natural numbers

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o \newcommand{\CC}{I\!\!\!\!C} %complex numbers

Sometimes the problematic fonts are used in figures included in LaTeX files. The
ghostscript program eps2eps is the simplest way to clean such figures. For black
and white figures, slightly better results can be achieved with program potrace.
MSWord 2007 and Windows users (via PDF file):
o Install the Microsoft Save as PDF Office 2007 Add-in from
o http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?
displaylang=en&familyid=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041
o Select "Save or Publish to PDF" from the Office or File menu
MSWord and Mac OS X users (via PDF file):
o From the print menu, click the PDF drop-down box, and select "Save as
PDF"
MSWord and Windows users (via PS file):
o To create a new printer on your computer, install the AdobePS printer driver
and the Adobe PostScript Printer Description (PPD) file from
o http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=204
o Note: You must reboot your PC after installing the AdobePS driver for it to
take effect.
o To produce the ps file, select "Print" from the MS app, choose the installed
AdobePS printer, click on "Properties", click on "Advanced."
o Set TrueType Font to be Download as Softfont
o Open the PostScript Options folder

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Select PostScript Output Option to be Optimize for Portability

Select TrueType Font Download Option to be Outline
Select Send PostScript Error Handler to be No
Click OK three times, print your file.
Now, use Adobe Acrobat Distiller or ps2pdf to create a PDF file from the
PS file. In Acrobat, check the option Embed all fonts if applicable.

194If your file contains Type 3 fonts or non embedded TrueType fonts, we will ask you to fix it.
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M a r g i n s i n L a TeX

197Most of the margin problems come from figures positioned by hand using \special or
198other commands. We suggest using the command \includegraphics from the graphicx
199package. Always specify the figure width as a multiple of the line width as in the example
200below
201\usepackage[dvips]{graphicx} ...
202\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{myfile.eps}
203or

204\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx} ...
205\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{myfile.pdf}
206for .pdf graphics.
See section 4.4 in the graphics bundle documentation
207(http://www.ctan.org/texarchive/macros/latex/required/graphics/grfguide.ps)
208A number of width problems arise when LaTeX cannot properly hyphenate a line. Please
209give LaTeX hyphenation hints using the \- command.
210A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
211Use unnumbered third level headings for the acknowledgments. All acknowledgements go at
212the end of the paper. Do not include acknowledgements in the anonymized submission, only
213in the final paper.
214R e f e r e n c e s
215References
216references.
217permissible
218Remember
219references.

follow the acknowledgments. Use unnumbered third level heading for the
Any choice of citation style is acceptable as long as you are consistent. It is
to reduce the font size to small (9-point) when listing the references.
that this year you can use a ninth page as long as it contains only cited

220[1] Alexander, J.A. & Mozer, M.C. (1995) Template-based algorithms for connectionist rule
221extraction. In G. Tesauro, D. S. Touretzky and T.K. Leen (eds.), Advances in Neural Information
222Processing Systems 7, pp. 609-616. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

223[2] Bower, J.M. & Beeman, D. (1995) The Book of GENESIS: Exploring Realistic Neural Models with
224the GEneral NEural SImulation System. New York: TELOS/Springer-Verlag.

225[3] Hasselmo, M.E., Schnell, E. & Barkai, E. (1995) Dynamics of learning and recall at excitatory
226recurrent synapses and cholinergic modulation in rat hiippocampal region CA3.
227Neuroscience 15(7):5249-5262.

Journal of