Brief Bio of Prof. Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick is a Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and cyborgs. He is also Director of the University TTI Centre, which links the University with SME's and raises over £2 million each year in research income.
Kevin was born in Coventry, UK and left school to join British Telecom, at the age of 16. At 22 he took his first degree at Aston University, followed by a PhD and research post at Imperial College, London. He subsequently held positions at Oxford, Newcastle and Warwick Universities before being offered the Chair at Reading, at the age of 32.
As well as publishing over 400 research papers, Kevin has appeared, on 3 separate occasions, in the Guinness Book of Records for his robotics and Cyborg achievements. His paperback 'In the Mind of the Machine' considered the possibility of machines in the future being more intelligent than humans. His recent Cyborg experiments however led to him being featured as the cover story on the US magazine, 'Wired'. Kevin has been awarded higher doctorates both by Imperial College and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. He was presented with The Future of Health Technology Award in MIT and was made an Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. In 2000 Kevin presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled "The Rise of the Robots".

Abstract:
In this paper a look is taken at how the use of implant technology can be used to either increase the range of the abilities of a human and/or diminish the effects of a neural illness, such as Parkinson's Disease. The key element is the need for a clear interface linking the human brain directly with a computer. The area of interest here is the use of implant technology, particularly where a connection is made between technology and the human brain and/or nervous system. Pilot tests and experimentation are invariably carried out apriori to investigate the eventual possibilities before human subjects are themselves involved. Some of the more pertinent animal studies are discussed here. The paper goes on to describe human experimentation, in particular that carried out by the author himself, which led to him receiving a neural implant which linked his nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this in place neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them. In particular, feedback to the brain was obtained from the fingertips of a robot hand and ultrasonic (extra) sensory input. A view is taken as to the prospects for the future, both in the near term as a therapeutic device and in the long term as a form of enhancement.

Brief Bio of Prof. Erik Sandewall

Erik Sandewall is professor of computer science at Linköping University, Sweden, since 1975. His research activities are in two areas: first, artificial intelligence methods for cognitive robotics and their use in systems for human-computer and human-robot interaction and, secondly, new methods for communication of scientific results, including electronic publication.

Erik Sandewall is the director of WITAS, the Wallenberg Laboratory for Information Technology and Autonomous Systems. He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief (together with Ray Perrault) of the Artificial Intelligence Journal, General Editor of the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, and Director of Linköping University Electronic Press.


Abstract:
The talk is both about 'external autonomy' where the software systems operates as a kind of robot vis-a-vis its environment and is autonomous in that respect, and 'internal autonomy' where it is able to modify its own structure - essentially, learning based on experience from the environment.

Brief Bio of Dr. Alberto Sanfeliu

Alberto Sanfeliu received the BSEE and PhD degrees from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 1978 and 1982, respectively. From 1979 to 1981, he was visiting researcher at Purdue University's K.S. Fu Lab. He joined the faculty of the UPC in 1981, and is since 1984, Professor with the Departament d'Enginyeria de Sistemes, Automàtica i Informàtica Industrial. From 1975 to 1995 he was a researcher at the Institut de Cibernètica, and in 1997, he moved to the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial. His current research areas are Pattern Recognition, Computer Vision, and Robotics.

Dr. Sanfeliu received in 1986 the Technology Award from the Catalonian Goverment. He has been scientific coordinator of numerous research projects in Europe, including the MUVI project, presented to the European Parliament in 1993. In 2000 he co-chaired the ICPR. He is past president of the Spanish Association for Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis 1984-2001, and of the IAPR SSPR TC. He is Fellow of IAPR.

Brief Bio of Dr. Paolo Rocchi

Paolo Rocchi received the degree in Physics at the University of Rome in 1969. He worked in the same University in 1970, then he entered IBM. He is still working as docent and researcher in the same company. Rocchi has been a pioneer in the applications on natual language processing and linguistic computing. In the eighties he started an ample plan of investigations upon the foundations of computer science that has produced stimulating outcomes in various directions such as the reliability theory, the coding theory, software methodologies, the probability calculus, didactics. Rocchi's scientific production has been appreciated even beyond the scientific community. He has received three prizes from IBM for his publications (1978, 1999, 1992) and has a biographical entry in Who's Who in the World (2002, 2004).


Abstract:
Information technology, robotics, automatic control and other leading sectors deal with redundant components that pursue very different scopes and yield a number of parameters that appear rather heterogeneous and inconsistent from the mathematical viewpoint. Redundant solutions are to be compared in software applications and this variety causes the need for the unified calculus. The talk puts forward a simple definition which leads to the various measurements in use nowadays. The present proposal also enhances the progress toward exhaustive understanding of the redundancy due to the discussion of the logical origins of this quantity.

Brief Bio of Prof. Janan Zaytoon

Janan Zaytoon received the PhD degree from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of Lyon, France in 1993. From 1993 to 1997 he was an assistant professor, and since 1997 he has been a Professor at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne. He is the Director of the CReSTIC Research Centre of the University of Reims, the Deputy-Director of French GDR MACS of CNRS, the leader of the French national group on hybrid dynamical systems, the Chairman of the IFAC French National Member Organizer, and the Co-Chair of the IFAC Technical Committee on Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems.

Janan Zaytoon has published more than 150 journal papers, books, book chapters, and communications in international conferences. His main research interests are in the fields of Discrete Event Systems and Hybrid Dynamical Systems. He is the Chair (or Co-Chair) of 7 international conferences, 6 of which are IFAC events, 2 national conferences and 1 International School. He is also an Associate Editor of Control Engineering Practice, the Keynote speaker for 3 conferences, and the Guest Editor for 8 special issues on Discrete Event Systems and/or Hybrid Dynamical Systems in the following journals : Control Engineering Practice (2), Discrete Event Dynamic Systems, European Journal of Automation, JESA (3), e-STA, and "Revue d'Elecrtronique et d'Electrotechnique".


Abstract:
The development of systematic methods for efficient and realiable realisation of hybrid systems is a key issue in industrial information and control technology and is therefore currently of high interest in many application domains. The engineering methods for hybrid systems should deal with issues related to modelling, specification, analysis, verification, control synthesis, and implementation. The aim of this lecture is to present an overview and a state-of-the-art related to hybrid systems.

Brief Bio of Prof. Palaniswamy

Marimuthu Palaniswami obtained his B.E. (Hons) from the University of Madras, M.Eng. Sc. from the University of Melbourne, and PhD from the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
His research interests are the fields of computational intelligence, Nonlinear Dynamics, and Bio-Medical engineering.
He has published more than 150 papers in these topics. He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks and is on the editorial board of a few computing and electrical engineering journals. He served as a Technical Program Co-chair for the IEEE International Conference on Neural Networks, 1995 and was on the programme committees of a number of internal conferences including IEEE Workshops on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Australian Conferences on Neural Networks, IEEE Australia-New Zealand Conferences on Intelligent Information Processing Systems. He has given invited tutorials in conferences such as International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, 2000, 2001, and is invited to be tutorial speaker for the World Conference on Computational Intelligence. He has also given a number of keynote talks in major international conferences mainly in the areas of computational intelligence, computer vision and Biomedical Engineering. He has completed several industry sponsored projects for National Australia Bank, ANZ Bank, MelbIT, Broken Hill Propriety Limited, Defence Science an Technology Organization, Integrated Control Systems Pty Ltd, and Signal Processing Associates Pty Ltd.
He also received several ARCs, APA(I)s, ATERBS, DITARD and DIST grants for both fundamental and applied projects. He was a recipient of foreign specialist award from the Ministry of Education, Japan.


Abstract:
In the recent times, there has been a phenomenal growth in the advancement of smart sensors with computation, storage and transceiver capabilities. These networked smart sensors, integrated with fast Internet unleash tremendous opportunities of pervasive computing, visualization and integration with its physical world. In this talk, interdisciplinary challenges (from Biology to Mathematics) and advances with real world examples will be presented.