Tutorials / Workshops

HUMASCEND 2013

Workshop on Human-Machine Systems, Cyborgs and Enhancing Devices
Co-sponsored by IEEE SMC. Sunday, Oct 13. (Free to SMC-2013 registrants)
http://www.humascend.info

Morning Session : Multimedia information retrieval

Duration : half day, (3 hours)
Responsible tutor : Prof. Stefan Ruger, The Open University, UK

The aims of the tutorial is to introduce a wide range of computerized content-based techniques for organizing digital multimedia documents and searching in them (metadata driven, piggy-back text retrieval, content-based retrieval, automated image annotation and fingerprinting); to make the participants familiar with the particular advantages, disadvantages and challenges of these techniques. This part of the tutorial considers video, image and music data under the perspective of querying, representing and retrieving.

At the end of the tutorial the participants will be able to

  • Outline challenges brought about by multimedia collections and their interface needs
  • Describe the principle components of a multimedia information retrieval system and how they differ from other retrieval systems, most notably text information retrieval systems
  • Describe and implement simple visual feature vectors commonly used in image search engines
  • Explain the workings of an image search engine and relate this to other media types

Stefan Ruger joined The Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute in 2006 to take up a chair in Knowledge Media. Before that he was a Reader in Multimedia and Information Systems at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London, where he also held an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship (1999–2004). Stefan is a theoretical physicist by training (FU Berlin) and received his PhD in Computing in 1996 from TU Berlin for his work on artificial intelligence and, in particular, the theory of neural networks. Since then he has made a continuous journey from theory to its applications in multimedia retrieval. In 2009 he was awarded a Honorary Professorship (until 2014) at the University of Waikato for his work with the Greenstone Digital Library group and is currently a visiting fellow at Cranfield University, UK. Stefan chaired ECIR 2006 and ECIR 2010, co-chaired ICTIR 2009, was programme chair of IRFC 2010, programme co-chair of WI 2010, ECIR 2013, is currently programme co-chair of RuSSIR 2013 and WI 2013, and has been asked to be programme co-chair of ICMR 2014. He acts as associate editor for three journals and has been reviewing for 32 other Computing journals, 70 international conferences and 15 research funders including the Commission of the European Communities and the European Research Council. Stefan is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK; a member of the EPSRC College, ACM and BCS; and of the BCS Specialist Group for Information Retrieval. During his academic career he and his team have authored over 100 scientific publications in the area of multimedia information retrieval.

Morning Session : Cloud Infrastructures for Smart Grids

Duration : half day, (3.5 hours)
Responsible tutor : Prof. Huaglory Tianfield, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK

This tutorial will present a systematic study on the state-of-art and realistic technologies of cloud computing infrastructures for smart Grids. It will be organized as a self-contained, comprehensive study of cloud based smart Grids, particularly identifying what technology breakthroughs cloud computing is able to offer for smart Grids. The tutorial aims to give audience a rewarding experience of interactive learning and discussions, and will also aim to draw up widest attentions and interests from the SMC community into this extremely challenging and highly promising technology direction.
The tutorial is particularly suited for graduate students, researchers and practitioners from smart Grids, Internet of Things, cloud computing, service- oriented computing, and Internet of Services. No specific prerequisite knowledge is required.

Huaglory Tianfield is the Professor of Distributed Systems at Glasgow Caledonian University, UK since early 2001. Previously he held positions in China (1992-1997), Germany (1997- 1998, 1999-2000), France (1998-1999) and England, UK (2000-2001). Prof Tianfield is extensively involved in professional activities. He is currently the Chair of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society’s Technical Committee on Self-Organized Distributed and Pervasive Systems, Editor-in-Chief of International Transactions on Systems Science and Applications, Systemics and Informatics World Network, and Multiagent and Grid Systems -- An International Journal, Associate Editor of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, and Journal of Control Theory and Applications, and member of editorial board, guest co-editor and co-editor of numerous journals and book series, and has served as (Co- )Chair for over 30 international conferences and symposia. Prof Tianfield is the Director of VOTER Lab -- Virtualization Open Technology Research. His research interests include cloud computing, Internet of Things, and wireless communications. He is (co-)author of over 160 research articles published in refereed journals and conferences. He holds BEng (Hons) in 1986, MEng (Research) in 1989 and PhDEng in 1992, all in Electronic Engineering.

Afternoon Session : Shared Control

Duration : half day
Responsible tutor : Prof. David A.Abbink, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

The goal of this workshop is to bring together a group of shared control experts from different application fields to use this position paper as a starting point for stimulating in-depth discussion with the attendees. Through this we want to encourage finding common ground for the evaluation of shared control systems such that we can learn more from each other's designs - even when applied in different fields.
Outline of the workshop:

  • Brief Introduction to Shared Control
  • Short introduction of participants and their interests
  • Presenting the position paper, with a group discussion.
  • Break-out groups to focus on specific topics, lead by experts in the field. Goal is to discuss to what extent the position paper reflects the views of the audience, and to what extent the presented approach of design and evaluation applies to the respective application field of the audience members.
  • Wrap up session, bringing together the outcomes of all the discussions, coming up with common guidelines to design and evaluate shared control systems.

David A. Abbink received his M.Sc. degree (2002) and Ph.D degree (2006) in Mechanical Engineering from Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. His Ph.D. dissertation ‘Neuromuscular Analysis of Haptic Feedback during Car Following’ was the culmination of a project for Nissan, where he helped develop and evaluate a force feedback gas pedal to support drivers with car following. It was released by Nissan on American and Japanese markets in 2008. He continued his research on haptics and neuromuscular analysis and became an Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology in 2009, heading the Delft Haptics Laboratory.

Tom Carlson, PhD:
Tom Carlson received his M.Eng. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (2006) and his Ph.D. in Intelligent Robotics (2010) from Imperial College London, UK. He was a “William and Ellen Vinten Trust Scholar” and was awarded the “Eric Laithwaite Prize for outstanding innovation” in his M.Eng. thesis, “From Musical Notes to Optimal 3D Finger Placement”. His Ph.D. thesis “Collaborative Control Mechanisms for an Intelligent Robotic Wheelchair” dealt extensively with both the design and user evaluation of shared control systems.

Mark Mulder, PhD obtained his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology in 2000. In 2002 he started working on his PhD, together with David Abbink, on haptic gas pedal feedback – our first steps in the development of our shared control ideas. This project, sponsored by Nissan Motor Company was later continued to develop haptic shared control for the lateral control of vehicles. In 2007 Mark obtained his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology where he is still at work today to further the ideas and concepts of haptic shared control. He has worked on projects funded by Nissan Motor Company and Boeing Aircraft Compan