Keynote Speakers

DISTINGUISHED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Andreas Spanias

Professor and Center Director School of ECEE, SenSIP Center, Arizona State University

The ASU-DCU International Research and Workforce Development Program on Sensors and Machine Learning

Abstract: The ASU-DCU international research experiences for students (IRES) project is a workforce development program that embeds students in machine learning and sensor research. This collaborative NSF IRES program engages faculty mentors at the ASU SenSIP Center and at the Dublin City University (DCU) Insight Center that will train students in sensor design, analytics and machine learning algorithm development, Sensor and machine learning research will address engineering and computing problems in health care and other related applications. IRES participants will be tasked with studying hardware, algorithms and software for various tasks including activity detection, gait modeling, cough pattern recognition, pulse rate and blood pressure monitoring, and health care analytics. The program will also likely feature one research project in quantum machine learning. Crosscutting efforts include training in international research presentations, research documentation and building awareness in international polices and standards. Students will be presenting their results to international audiences and receive feedback and mentorship by faculty, industry and program evaluators. The program includes weekly research updates by the students, participation in a workshop and continued engagement after the summer experience. The presentation will describe various components of IRES sensor and machine learning research through ongoing center projects at the two universities. We will also provide some details on research results and outcomes during the first year of this three year program. The IRES program is sponsored by NSF Award 2107439.

Bio: Andreas Spanias is Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). He is also the director of the Sensor Signal and Information Processing (SenSIP) center and the founder of the SenSIP industry consortium (also an NSF I/UCRC site). His research interests are in the areas of adaptive signal processing, speech processing, machine learning, quantum and sensor systems. He is author of two textbooks: Audio Processing and Coding by Wiley and DSP; An Interactive Approach (2nd Ed.). He contributed to more than 350 papers, 12 monographs, 13 full patents and10 provisional patents. He served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing and as General Co-chair of IEEE ICASSP-99. He also served as the IEEE Signal Processing Vice-President for Conferences. Andreas Spanias is co-recipient of the 2002 IEEE Donald G. Fink paper prize award and was elected Fellow of the IEEE in 2003. He served as Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Signal processing society in 2004. He is a series editor for the Morgan and Claypool lecture series on algorithms and software. He received the 2018 IEEE Phoenix Chapter award with citation: “For significant innovations and patents in signal processing for sensor systems.” He also received the 2018 IEEE Region 6 Outstanding Educator Award (across 12 states) with citation: “For outstanding research and education contributions in signal processing.” He was recently elected to Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors.

Maria Virvou

Professor and Head, Department of Informatics Director of the Software Engineering Lab Director of the Program of Postgraduate Studies in Informatics
University of Piraeus, Greece

The Emerging Era of Human-AI Interaction

Abstract: Nowadays, a major paradigm shift is taking place where computers are no longer solely executing human instructions, but, rather, they become agents with decision making capabilities through their AI-empowered software. This leads to a whole emerging era of human–AI interaction which is increasingly affecting people’s work and everyday lives. The promise of AI is big in assisting humans through all sorts of interactive applications, including smartphones, wearables, self-driving cars, smart homes, and offices, virtual personal assistants, as well as contributing to the advancements of human achievements in science and arts. AI alleviates human cognitive overload both on the use of complex software and in difficult problem-solving situations, it provides orientation in the vast cyberspace navigation, it offers enlightening visions in huge accumulated human knowledge all through deep learning, machine learning, decision making methods, cognitive theories, fuzzy logic and more, but this comes with a degree of uncertainty and possible consequent errors in results. However, in this new kind of interaction, human nature, capabilities, understanding, feelings, and needs remain unchanged and constitute the most important issue in the two-part dialogue, urging for more research on trustworthy and explainable AI. This talk aims to highlight important advantages and gains and discuss consequent challenges of the emerging human-AI interaction by presenting a critical overview of the state-of-the-art as well as the author’s personal point of view as to how this dialogue can acquire more explainability and trustworthiness.

Bio: Professor – Dr. Maria Virvou was born in Athens, Greece. She received a B.Sc. Degree in Mathematics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, a M.Sc. Degree in Computer Science from the University College London (UCL), U.K. and a Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sussex, U.K. Her postgraduate and doctoral studies were funded by a scholarship obtained from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation.

She is currently a FULL PROFESSOR, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT, DIRECTOR OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES and DIRECTOR OF THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING LAB in the Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, Greece. She is AUTHOR/CO-AUTHOR of over 350 research papers published in international journals, books and conference proceedings and of 7 books and monographs in Computer Science. She has been EDITOR of over 30 collections of papers in conference proceedings or books, published by major academic publishers, such as IEEE, Springer and IOS Press. She is currently EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of the Springer book series “Learning and Analytics in Intelligent Systems” and “Artificial Intelligence-enhanced Software and Systems Engineering”. She has also been EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of the SpringerPlus Journal (Springer) for the whole area of Computer Science. Additionally, she has been an ASSOCIATE EDITOR of many other journals. She has been GENERAL CO-CHAIR of the yearly conference series of International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications (IISA 2013-2022), technically-sponsored by IEEE, which aims at promoting research in the area of interactive multimedia and major applications. She has been the GENERAL CHAIR / PROGRAM CHAIR of over twenty (20) International Conferences. She has been the PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR or CO-INVESTIGATOR of numerous national / international research projects. She has supervised 12 Ph.D. alumni and many of them currently hold academic positions in Universities. She has been teaching under-graduate and postgraduate courses in Educational Software, Software Engineering and Mobile Software, Human Computer Interaction, Programming Languages and Compilers, Software Personalization Technologies, User Modeling, Adaptive Tutoring Systems. Read More

Prof.-Dr. Virvou has been a recipient of many best paper awards in international conferences. She has been an invited keynote speaker for many international conferences. She has received an honorary award by UNESCO in honour and recognition of her outstanding scholarly achievements and contributions to the field of Computer Science. She received the 1st Research Award from the Research Centre of the University of Piraeus for high quality international journal publications among Faculty Members of the University of Piraeus for the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 respectively. According to Microsoft Academic Search exploring entity analytics of 262,751,231 authors she has been ranked as top 1st author in the Computer Science area of EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE regarding citations and 2nd regarding publications. In addition, she has been ranked as top 1st author in publications in the Computer Science areas of MOBILE AUTHORING TOOLS, ADAPTIVE TUTORING, BI-MODAL AFFECTIVE COMPUTING, INTELLIGENT HELP, AUTOMATIC REASONING HELP, EDUCATIONAL GAME SOFTWARE, VIRTUAL REALITY EDUCATIONAL GAME, RUP LIFE CYCLE SOFTWARE. She has been ranked as 2nd top author regarding publications in the areas of SOFTWARE PERSONALIZATION STUDENT MODELING, INTELLIGENT HELP SYSTEMS FOR UNIX USERS, KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING AFFECTIVE SYSTEMS, top 4th author in the area of UML INTELLIGENT COLLABORATIVE LEARNING and top 5th in the whole area of USER MODELING. Moreover she has been ranked among the top 40 researchers worldwide in publications for the Computer Science area of MULTIMEDIA (out of 979.432 publications, 8.626.011 citations, 1.600.000 authors), among the top 50 authors in the area of USER INTERFACE (out of 176.156 publications, 3.462.738 citations) and among the top 65 authors in HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION (out of 538.396 publications, 6.497.244 citations). She is among the top 2% of the most influential scientists worldwide in the area of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, according to Ioannidis, J. P., Boyack, K. W., & Baas, J. (2020) “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”, PLoS Biology, 18(10), e3000918

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Haris Doukas

National Technical University of Athens

ENERGY TRANSITIONS, INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA: Towards a prosumer concept with energy autonomy

Abstract: Energy transition refers to the transition of the global energy sector towards renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, replacing fossil-based energy production and consumption systems (oil, gas and coal). The four main pillars towards this energy transition, also known as 4 Ds, will be presented as follows: Decarbonization, Decentralization, Digitization and Democritization. These dimensions are combined to change the nature of the way energy is produced, purchased and sold. In this context, consumer-centric big data application services and applications are being developed and will be discussed, based on the large amount of information available and the combination of the evolution of artificial intelligence and “big” data management technologies. Emphasis will be given to the optimal processing and use of data with the help of innovative techniques towards intelligent energy services. Such services can enable consumers to adopt energy-efficient practices, their transition to prosumers and the promotion of energy autonomy concepts, through the creation of resilient and energy-efficient communities, bringing multiple benefits to households and industry.

Bio: Haris Doukas (born in 1980 in Athens, Greece) is a Greek mechanical engineer and Associate Professor of energy policy and management at the School of Electrical & Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. His field of expertise is related with the development of decision support systems for energy and climate policy, placing the human factor at the core of the modelling processes and policymaking towards sustainable development. His integrative frameworks are based on co-creation with citizens, along with co-ownership where feasible. Dr Doukas uses linguistic variables for capturing the essence of human behaviour in energy and climate policymaking, enabling the design of policies that listen to “what people want” and “what people can do”, which is fundamental for their success. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications in his research areas, which have appeared in international journals and conferences, as well as chapters in collective volumes. He has received various research awards and, in 2019 and 2020, was included among the top 2% of highly cited scientists in the world, based on Harvard respective lists.