DEI Talks | “Towards Industry and Operator 5.0: Challenges and Opportunities“ by Dr. Rodolfo Haber (CSIC/UPM)

The talk “Towards Industry and Operator 5.0: Challenges and Opportunities“ will be presented January 24th, at 15:00, room B011, moderated by Gil Gonçalves (DEI).

Abstract:

“Built on the pillars of human-centricity and resilience, Industry 5.0 is focused on fostering the industry towards a new paradigm that not only remains within economic boundaries but also actively contributes to well-being and sustainability. The adoption of Industry 5.0 principles is just at the beginning phase in Europe, where the paradigm is transitioning from awareness and methods development to implementation including the Operator 5.0. In this conference, the industrial human needs, human factors and potential future applications are analysed, exploring the links with cyber-physical human systems and enabling technologies. The initiative of Community of Practice of Industry 5.0 (CoP Industry 5.0, European Commission) is also presented. Transitioning from Operator 4.0 to Operator 5.0 involves advancing beyond the integration of digital technologies into fostering a more human-centric, intelligent, and resilient workforce in smart manufacturing environments. Key related issues with Operator 5.0 will be also discussed.”

About the Speaker:

Rodolfo Haber received the Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, in 1999. Researcher of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) since 2006. From 2020-24, he has been Director of the Center for Automation and Robotics of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM). He has authored 3 books, 14 patents, 1 trade secret, 21 book chapters, and dozen of articles in indexed journals and conference papers (h-index:42). He has been co-founder of the starts-up Kinequo S.L. (2015), Xymbot Digital Solutions S.L. (2020) and Invofox SL (2022). Since 2002, he has belonged to the IFAC’s TC3.1/5.1 Computers for Control/Manufacturing Plant Control of IFAC, ASME TC Model Identification and Intelligent Systems and IEEE IES TC on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems. He is member of the Editorial Board of several journals, editing nowadays a Collection Topic “Smart manufacturing systems and industry 4.0

Technologies” (Scientific Reports, Nature Portfolio). He represents CSIC in “Data, AI and Robotics (DAIRO)” EU Association and he is member of Industry 5.0 Community of Practice Initiative (European Commission). His main research activities are focused on cyber-physical systems, Internet-of-Everything, intelligent systems, modelling, control and supervisory systems, artificial cognitive systems and Industry 5.0.

LinkedIn: https://es.linkedin.com/in/rodolfo-haber-43b82b14

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rodolfo-Elias-Haber-Guerra

GoogleScholar: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=07IZQjQAAAAJ&hl=es

DEI Talks | “Key Challenges in Cyber Security and Cyber Resilience” by José Alegria

The talk “Key Challenges in Cyber Security and Cyber Resilience” will be presented November 27th, at 14:00, room B021, moderated by Prof. António Pimenta Monteiro (DEI).

 Abstract:

 Cybersecurity and cyber resilience must be viewed holistically under an active doctrine covering five dimensions: A) Governance, B) Prevention, C) Protection, D) Early Detection and Fast Counterresponse, and, finally, F) Quick Recovery. Prevention and Protection are designed as “inhibitor” dimensions to minimize the probability of a cyber-attack materializing and succeeding.

In this talk, we will discuss this active cyber governance doctrine and identify key, challenging, new research areas.

 About the Speaker:

 José Alegria (PhD) RedShift Board Advisor and CIIWA Ambassador and Strategy Advisor. Both focused on cybersecurity.

Former Chief Security Officer and CISO at Altice Portugal. Former Worldwide Coordinator of the CyberWatch Program at the Altice Group. Former Member of European Cybercrime Center (EC3) Advisory Group on Communication Providers at EUROPOL.

Previously, CTO at ONI Telecom, CEO of BanifServ, General Manager of IT Services at Banking Groups BBI/BFE and BFB/BPI, member of the Executive Board at IBM Portugal, and head of Data General’s European EuroACE competence center.

Senior Lecturer at New University of Lisbon, Computer Science Department. Fulbright-Hays and Gulbenkian Scholar at The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

Over 25 years of experience in applying advanced software technology to cybersecurity (complex event processing, event correlation, new languages, multi-paradigm frameworks, actor systems, data science, and machine learning applied to cybersecurity).

Co-advised over 66 MSc Thesis in Cybersecurity-related fields.”

DEI Talks | “Evaluating Diversification in Group Recommendation of Points of Interest” by Prof. Frederico Durão

The talk “Evaluating Diversification in Group Recommendation of Points of Interest” will be presented November 21st, at 15:00, room I-105, moderated by Prof. Rosaldo Rossetti (DEI).

 Abstract:

With the massive availability and use of the Internet, the search for Points of Interest (POI) is becoming an arduous task. POI Recommendation Systems have, therefore, emerged to help users search for and discover relevant POIs based on their preferences and behaviors. These systems combine different information sources and present numerous research challenges and questions. POI recommender systems traditionally focused on providing recommendations to individual users based on their preferences and behaviors. However, there is an increasing need to recommend POIs to groups of users rather than just individuals. People often visit POIs together in groups rather than alone. Thus, some studies indicate that the further users travel, the less relevant the POIs are to them. In addition, the recommendations belong to the same category, without diversity. This work proposes a POI Recommendation System for a group using a diversity algorithm based on members’ preferences and their locations. The evaluation of the proposal involved both online and offline experiments. Accuracy metrics were used in the evaluation, and it was observed that the level at which the results were analyzed was relevant. For the top 3, recommendations without diversity performed better, but diversification positively impacted the results at the top 5 and 10 levels.

 About the Speaker:

Frederico Araújo Durão is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Computing of the Federal University of Bahia. Frederico Durão did his post-doctoral research at Insight Centre for Data Analysis, University College Cork, Ireland in 2016/2017. In 2012, he obtained his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Aalborg, Denmark. Frederico Durão has reviewed and published several articles in conferences and journals relevant to the areas of Information Systems, Recommender Systems, and Semantic Web. Currently is a senior researcher and the project leader of the RecSys Research Group in Brazil.

DEI Talks | “Insert Coin” – A long-term study of education gamification by Prof. Daniel Gonçalves

The talk ““Insert Coin” – A long-term study of education gamification” will be presented December 9th, at 3pm, room I-105, moderated by Prof. Daniel Mendes (DEI).

Abstract:

“Education nowadays still follows, for the most part, the traditional lecture-based teaching paradigm that has been the leading approach for well over a century. This flies in the face of current personal learning dynamics, in a world where information is increasingly at our fingertips. This mismatch between student expectations and classroom practice directly impacts their interest, engagement, and will to learn. Gamification has shown promise, in recent years, as a way to bring a game-like experience to several contexts, including education. Using it, learning becomes a game, with expected increases in motivation and, consequently, learning outcomes. Over a period of thirteen years we have gamified a MSc-level course, Multimedia Content Production. We tried to appeal to student’s nature as gamers and provide a flexible experience whereby they can exercise their autonomy. We will present how the game experience has evolved over that period of time and the lessons learned based on student expectations and reactions in this context. What is more, it soon became clear to us that students do not all react to the gamified experience in the same way. We can profile them using a four-cluster taxonomy, that has shown resilience throughout the years and that serves as the basis for an adaptive learning experience that will, finally, allow us to depart from the monolithic one-size-fits-all approach to education.”

About the Speaker:

Daniel Gonçalves is full professor at the Computer Science Department of Instituto Superior Técnico – University of Lisbon, and a researcher in the Graphics and Interaction area at INESC-ID, where he specializes in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), in particular in Education Gamification and Information Visualization. With a prolific academic output, he has authored over 200 scientific articles and a textbook on HCI, guided 11 doctoral and 100+ master’s students, and played a prominent role in various research projects in the area.

DEI Talks | “Design and AI Innovation” by Prof. Jodi Forlizzi

The lecture “Design and AI Innovation” will be presented on October 24, at 11:00, in INESC TEC’s Auditorium B.

Abstract:

“As early as 2011, Marc Andreesen identified that the world was facing a broad technological and economic shift in which software companies were poised to command much of the world’s economy. Now, 13 years later, the emergence of computing, data, and AI have impacted all industries. In this talk, I will examine how AI is changing my discipline, design, but also how design is changing AI. I will reflect on these ideas along with the emergence and rapid growth of generative AI and Large Language Models. I will identify new spaces for product innovation that utilize the most fruitful elements of the practice of design and AI as a design material.”

 Bio:

Jodi Forlizzi is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is also the Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the School of Computer Science. Jodi has advocated for design research in all forms, mentoring peers, colleagues, and students in its structure and execution, and today it is an important part of the HCI community. Jodi studies the ethical impacts of human interaction with AI systems in front-line service industries including healthcare and hospitality. She also develops methods and tools to ensure that product developers can mitigate ethical harms and bias during product development. Jodi is an ACM SIGCHI Fellow and recently received its Lifetime Research Award. She recently testified to the US Senate in one an AI Innovation Briefing and is a central advisor to the AFL-CIO Tech Institute regarding technology research.

Creativity Talk | “The Role of Design in Purposeful and Pragmatic AI” by Prof. Jodi Forlizzi

What we design is changing; therefore, how we design is also changing. In this talk, I will set the context for the role of design in creating purposeful and pragmatic technology, both historically and today. I will then highlight some of our research showing the impact of design in creating, developing, and deploying AI and autonomous systems, with the goal of creating better social systems, better economic relations, and a better world in which to live.

The 15th Creativity Talk, ‘The Role of Design in Purposeful and Pragmatic AI‘, will be held on October 23 at 17:30 in room B032, moderated by António Coelho (DEI).

The session will also be streamed online via the YouTube channel of this lecture series.

Jodi Forlizzi is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is also the Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the School of Computer Science. Jodi has advocated for design research in all forms, mentoring peers, colleagues, and students in its structure and execution, and today it is an important part of the HCI community. Jodi studies the ethical impacts of human interaction with AI systems in front-line service industries including healthcare and hospitality. She also develops methods and tools to ensure that product developers can mitigate ethical harms and bias during product development. Jodi is an ACM SIGCHI Fellow and recently received its Lifetime Research Award. She recently testified to the US Senate in one an AI Innovation Briefing and is a central advisor to the AFL-CIO Tech Institute regarding technology research.

Free access but mandatory registration here.

DEI Talks | “Accelerating Implicit Mechanics” by Robert F. Lucas

“Historically, the run time of implicit mechanics has been dominated by the time required to solve a large sparse linear system. The default solver is a multifrontal sparse matrix factorization, which will reliably solve ill conditioned, indefinite problems. The multifrontal method turns a sparse matrix factorization into a directed acyclic graph of smaller, dense “frontal” matrix factorizations, and these can be accelerated using Graphics Processing Units. As the number of processors used grows into the thousands, reordering the sparse matrix to reduce the storage and operations required to factor it, is the emerging computational bottleneck. Reordering is NP-complete, and in computational mechanics the preferred heuristic is nested dissection, i.e., recursive graph partitioning. Finding a balanced min cut is NP-hard, and classical codes such as ParMetis have limited parallel scaling. This talk will also discuss on-going work to explore a new generation of specialized devices for solving optimization problems. These include the D-Wave adiabatic quantum annealer, so called Silicon annealers produced by Fujitsu and Toshiba, the LightSolver Laser Processing Unit. The Digital Annealer is a dedicated chip that uses non-von Neumann architecture to minimize data movement in solving combinatorial optimization problems.”

“Accelerating Implicit Mechanics” will be presented October 10, at 15:00, room Vasco Sá (L119) – Sala de Atos do Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica.

“Dr. Robert F. Lucas received his BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1980, 1983, and 1988 respectively. He is currently an Ansys Fellow where he is responsible for the default multifrontal linear solver used in LS-DYNA and MAPDL. Previously, he was the Operational Director of the University of Southern California (USC) – Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center. Before joining USC, he was the Head of the High-Performance Computing Research Department in the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and before that the Deputy Director of DARPA’s Information Technology Office. From 1988 to 1998 he was a member of the research staff of the Institute for Defense Analyses’s Center for Computing Sciences. From 1979 to 1984 he was a member of the Technical Staff of the Hughes Aircraft Company.”

Note: This talk is preceded by another talk, geared towards Mechanical Engineering and focusing on the use of ANSYS/LS-DYNA for modeling and simulation, by the same speaker at 14:00, in the same room, entitled “An Industrial Grand Challenge”. You are all welcome.

PhD Defense in Informatics Engineering: ”Enhanced multiview experiences through remote content selection and dynamic quality adaptation”

Candidate
Tiago André Queiroz Soares da Costa

Date, Time and Location:
September 16, 14:30, Sala de Atos da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

President of the Jury:
Doutor Carlos Miguel Ferraz Baquero-Moreno, Professor Catedrático da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

Members:
Klara Nahrstedt, PhD, Full Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States of America;
Pedro António Amado de Assunção, PhD, Coordinator Professor, Departamento de Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão do Instituto Politécnico de Leiria;
Luís António Pereira de Meneses Corte-Real, PhD, Associate Professor, Departamento de Engenharia Eletrotécnica e de Computadores, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto;
Maria Teresa Magalhães da Silva Pinto de Andrade, PhD, Assistant Professor, Departamento de Engenharia Eletrotécnica e de Computadores, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (Supervisor).

Abstract:
This thesis proposes a novel approach to immersive, multiview media distribution that uses Deep Learning models and user-centric data to predict user interest in the near future while multimediacontent is being presented. The main objective of this thesis is to give the user a truly ubiquitousmultimedia immersive experience without the need for expensive equipment, while also allowing him or her to see the scene being presented on the screen from almost any angle, as if they were actually there when the scene was shot. A methodological approach was envisioned based on the literature review and the identification of gaps in immersive streaming scenarios, which resulted in the conceptualization of a brand new architecture that was coined Smooth Multiview (SmoothMV). This architecture is capable of analysing user behaviour data in real-time and preemptively preparing content delivery accordingly based on viewing interests demonstrated by users while visualising a particular scene. Users effortlessly provide behaviour data without equiring intrusive equipment, which is then processed using the novel concept of the Hot&Cold matrix, which this thesis describes. With the use of this concept, the screen is divided into nine separate regions, each of which is connected to a neighbouring view that the SmoothMV architecture can prepare and choose to present. Separate queues designated for playback and buffering of upcoming content segments are introduced to provide minimal delay without compromising the user experience, since content adaptation is closely linked to user inputs. The number of views that are available and the approach employed for analysing behaviour while viewing content and selecting which view should be processed in the following moment affect how these queues are managed. This thesis developed from a purely reactive approach to a sophisticated, twofold Deep Learning architecture that can accurately identify the view that best fits the interests of the user with a high degree of accuracy. The development of a new dataset was needed in order to achieve this level of performance, as the data provided by existing datasets was not suitable for the scenario that was proposed. After a series of 128 experiments were conducted to collect visual attention data from 45 participants while viewing multi-perspective content, the Data2MV dataset was created and made available to the public. This thesis’ fundamental concepts and practical outputs are considered to be of significant importance to the body of knowledge currently available in the field of research, while also offering relevant tools for the general enhancement of current content distribution architectures.

Keywords: Multimedia, Streaming, Multiview, Focus-of-Attention, Deep Learning

DEI Talks | The Limitations of Data, Machine Learning & Us by Prof. Ricardo Baeza-Yates

“Machine learning (ML), particularly deep learning, is being used everywhere. However, not always is used well, ethically and scientifically. In this talk we first do a deep dive in the limitations of supervised ML and data, its key component. We cover small data, datification, bias, predictive optimization issues, evaluating success instead of harm, and pseudoscience, among other problems.  The last part is about our own limitations using ML, including different types of human incompetence: cognitive biases, unethical applications, no administrative competence, copyright violations, misinformation, and the impact on mental health. In the final part we discuss regulation on the use of AI and responsible AI principles, that can mitigate the problems outlined above.”

The Limitations of Data, Machine Learning & Us” will be presented September 10, at 11:00, room B032. Free entry but registration required here.

Ricardo Baeza-Yates is the Director of Research at the Institute for Experiential AI of Northeastern University, as well as part-time professor at the Dept. of Computer Science of University of Chile. Before, he was VP of Research at Yahoo Labs, based in Barcelona, Spain, and later in Sunnyvale, California, from 2006 to 2016. He is co-author of the best-seller Modern Information Retrieval textbook published by Addison-Wesley in 1999 and 2011 (2nd ed), that won the ASIST 2012 Book of the Year award. From 2002 to 2004 he was elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Computer Society and between 2012 and 2016 was elected for the ACM Council. In 2009 he was named ACM Fellow and in 2011 IEEE Fellow, among other awards and distinctions. He obtained a Ph.D. in CS from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and his areas of expertise are responsible AI, web search and data mining plus data science and algorithms in general.”

Applications for the Prof. Doutor Raul Vidal/Deloitte Prize are now open

The period for submitting applications for the Prof. Doutor Raul Vidal/Deloitte Prize has been running since July 19th. Students from the Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering and the Master in Software Engineering can apply until August 31st for the prize which is now in its third edition.

This award is intended to honour a recent graduate from one of these FEUP courses who has distinguished themselves in curricular activities, for the quality and innovation of the work carried out within the scope of Software Engineering, for their involvement in activities to support other students, namely in activities associated with FEUP’s student groups, and also for their involvement in social and solidarity initiatives.

The award was proposed by Deloitte, with the support of FEUP, through DEI, with the aim of honouring the Professor Emeritus of U.Porto in recognition of all his work at FEUP in the area of Informatics Engineering which has resulted in FEUP’s projection at national and international level and in the high-quality preparation of its students for the labour market, making FEUP unquestionably one of the leading schools with excellent technological teaching.

All the information on the application process and regulation can be found at: Prémio Prof. Doutor Raul Vidal – DEI – Departamento de Engenharia Informática (up.pt)