ICACCI'12 Plenary/Keynotes Speakers

Developments of ITS-based Advanced Driver Assistance Systems for Improved Traffic Safety Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Sikora, Dipl.-Ing. Dipl. Wirt.-Ing. Professorship for Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics Study Dean International Master Programme Communications and Media Engineering, Head of Steinbeis Innovation Center Embedded Design and Networking, University of Applied Sciences Offenburg, Germany

Abstract

"Safety is amongst the strategic objectives of today’s automotive industry. Although the absolute number of accidents and fatalities in traffic is continuously decreasing (at least in Europe), the relative risk for vulnerable road users (VRUs) increases, i.e. for pedestrians, cyclists, powered two wheelers, etc. Today’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are based on on-board environment perception sensors. Car2X communication technology enables a number of new use cases in order to improve driving safety or traffic efficiency and provide information or entertainment to the driver.

It is only shortly that predictive pedestrian protection systems (PPPS) can be used. These predictive systems use contact- or non-cooperative perception sensor systems for the detection of a pedestrian in the vicinity. They are limited by uncertainties in target classification. Moreover, these systems offer no benefit in case of fully or partially hidden pedestrians like e.g. children hidden by cars parked at the roadside. Cooperative pedestrian protection systems (CPPS) that follow the communication model of secondary surveillance radar from air traffic control overcome these weaknesses. Cooperative systems may be used alone or in conjunction with image-based systems. They may be seamlessly integrated into other upcoming car2X-communication systems.

The keynote describes the requirements and possible technologies, and gives an overview on the current status of research and development projects for ITS-based ADAS systems. As an example, the German research initiative Ko-FAS (Cooperative Driver Assistance Systems, http://www.kofas.de) with its different approaches will be presented."

Biography

Dr. Axel Sikora holds a masters degree of Electrical Engineering and a masters degree of Business Administration, both from Aachen Technical University, Germany. He has done a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the Fraunhofer Institute of Microelectronics Circuits and Systems, Duisburg, with a thesis on SOI-technologies. After various positions in the telecommunications and semiconductor industry, he became a professor at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Loerrach in 1999. Since 2011, he holds the professorship of Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics at the Offenburg University of Applied Sciences. He is guest lecturer at various other European Universities.

His major interest is in the field of wireless and wired connectivity of embedded systems. In his research group, algorithms and protocols for efficient, energy-aware, autonomous, and value-added networks are developed, simulated and implemented. Major application fields are traffic safety, smart metering/smart grid, telecare/telehealth and industrial. Dr. Sikora is author, co-author, editor and co-editor of several textbooks and around 100 reviewed papers. Amongst other duties, he is member of the steering board of the annual Embedded World Conference, and head of the program committee of the European ZigBee Developers' Conference.

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End to End Security and Privacy in Distributed Systems and Cloud Prof. Bharat Bhargava CERIAS Security Center and Department of Computer Sciences Purdue University, USA

Abstract

"Security and Privacy are of special concern when a service request migrates across multiple domains such as in Cloud. The request and data may navigate across multiple networks (internet and mobile) and untrustworthy sites/service providers. Privacy need to be enforced such that if requested neither the identity of service provider nor the requestor is identified, the routing between is kept secure and privacy of data disseminated across cross domains is preserved.

I will focus on attacks on networks as a major theme. Since networks are vulnerable to attacks from users and malicious hosts, we need to develop monitoring schemes based on low cost probes that use only edge to edge measurements. Stripes and overlay-based schemes are used to infer delay and loss at egress routers and detect congestions and misbehaved flows due to Service Level Agreement (SLA) violations. Research results provide guidelines that allow in integrating schemes that can deal with intrusions and preserve QoS. Filters at ingress routers are used to block violating flows. In mobile ad hoc networks malicious attackers can prevent the integrity of the route establishment. The research challenge is to identify and isolate the attackers. A reverse Labeling Restriction (RLR) is presented to deal with malicious activity by attackers that might collude. Wormhole attacks, authentication, and privacy preserving data dissemination, anonymity of sender and receiver, identity management and wormhole attacks will be briefly discussed. This talk is based on joint work with hard working students at Purdue."

Biography

Prof. Bharat Bhargava is a professor at Purdue since 1984. He built one of the first electronic medical care record systems in IU hospital. He has worked on reliability and integrity issues in distributed systems and has built several systems such as RAID (Reliable and Adaptable) and Promise (P2P). With Prof. Ramamoorthy and Kim, he founded the IEEE Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems in 1981, with Prof. Adam and Yesha, he founded the Digital Library conference in 1990 and the conference on Knowledge and Information Management in 1992. He is a fellow of IEEE and has received the technical achievement award, golden core award, and distinguished service award from computer society. He is a fellow of Institute of Electrical and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) and fellow of CERIAS security center. His passion is to advance the career of all students and specially minority students. He is using the cloud technology to assist blind and hearing impaired persons. At Purdue he has been inducted in the book of great teachers and his name is engraved on a display in Purdue Union. He has received the graduate mentoring, engagement award, and diversity awards from College of Science. More information is available at http://www.cs.purdue.edu/people/bb.

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Green Computing, Green Living Dr. Achuthsankar S. Nair Dept. of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, India

"Technology, Economy and Ecology are words that not only rhyme but also refer to three areas that are intricately inter-connected and inter-dependent. Every new technology needs to be evaluated from the context of these inter-relations. Information Technology, the technology that caused a tsunami of changes in our lives has been for very long viewed as an eco-friendly technology. Computers were considered to be modest consumers of power causing no harmful pollution and suited for small scale industries in densely populated countries like India. Tele-communing, a reference to working from home using internet connected computers was touted as a major way of reducing pollution arising from automobile use for daily commuting to and from offices. Tele-conferencing has cut down air-travels, web based govt. services made people travel lesser to public offices, and the net in general provided whatever informational needs people had without the need to travel. This rosy scene is now crumbling with emerging realization of the threats posed by information technologies to the environment. The cry to make computers and computing green is gradually reaching a crescendo.

What is the most striking imagery of the cyber space? It is perhaps the home page of the Google web site with a tiny search box in the middle. This sample and elegant web view is perhaps the most striking imagery of not only the cyber space, but our times. There was a time when we used to refer to the Television as the idiot box, summarizing our skepticism about the electronic media into two words. Well, today the reference to idiot box seems most suited for the Google search box- where people rush without thought to get their first impression about anything and everything. Let s leave the media-sociology analysis and look at not so well known ecological significance of the Google search box. Every seemingly simple search operation is today being debated for the 8 grams of CO₂ that it arguably produces, adding to global warming. This arises from the huge server farms of thousands of server computers arrayed by Google to provide us with a search through the cauldron of knowledge, wisdom, salvation, pulp, faith and ignorance that is boiling and expanding endlessly in cyber space. These server farms have become a considerable load on the power systems. Well, Google is and quick and intelligent to remind us, rightly, that each of the computer that emanates a search does so causing CO₂, of its own, which is more than that caused by the servers. With crores of computers in operation all over the world, perhaps it is true that the servers cause less damage to environment. But then, again we need to relook at the Google home page. The peaceful white that fills this home page is not that innocent. It means that the screen consumes about 4 times more energy than an equivalent black area. A search engine Blackle.com does exactly this-presents you with a black background and white letters which make a lot of sense in terms of energy conservation. Today many web sites & software are considering blackening their interfaces. The traditional black board and white chalk seems to be a metaphor for computer screens to latch on to.

If Google CO₂ emission is argued around 8 gms/ search with 300 crores of searches per day, imagine how we are warming up ourselves! Facebook, the hang-out of the youth, is no better. An average facebook user causes more than 120 gms of CO₂. Such estimates are available for many other cyber services.

The response to the alarming situation is of course not to shun technology, but to not over use it and fine tune its use to minimize energy consumption. Before you forward an unauthentic attention grabber email to hundreds of email addresses, remember, there is nothing called a free lunch. Yes free emails are not free. The whole humanity has to pay.

Mobile phones are the 'janatha' IT. If computers have penetrated only a miniscule of the population, mobile phones are 10 times popular. They are not just phones. They are 'janatha' computers with many of the features of a personal computer available on them. As far as eco-friendliness is concerned, they are far from innocent. Each Mobile manufacturing consumes 60 Kg of CO₂. An average user causes 100+ Kg/year of CO₂. Mobile phones were at one time considered as means of emergency communication, while on the move. However, today it has become a predominant media of socialisation and routine communication. The millions of SMS that fly around, are all causes of worry for mother earth.

What can we do to better the situation? Well, the answer is simple to state and difficult to implement. Live a simple life, driven by needs and not greed. Use technology sparingly, for meeting essential informational and communication needs, but not as a means of passing time. "Talk India Talk" might be a fancy call but it is neither good as a philosophy or as a eco-friendly living style. Perhaps green computing is possible only when it is practiced as a part of green living. When we throw away everything that is traditional as old-fashioned, we are also throwing away some very green practices that are knowingly or unknowingly scientific. The traditional Indian boque has given way to the plastic wrapped, plastic ribboned imitations of the West. The 'daridra narayanan' who sells the jasmine flowers wrapped in lotus leaves and tied with jute thread is not only green, but the last hope against cultural homogenisation that globalization threatens to catalyze. What a boring proposition it is if one were to fly from New York to New Delhi to find the same food, same dress, same cultural icons and same floral boque. We are almost there! Indian tradition is that Mother earth is the embodiment of patience. We seem to believe that too far. Act before it is too late. Let us recite the mantra: Green Living, Green Computing. Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavanthu."

Biography

Dr. Achuthsankar S. Nair heads the State Inter University Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics, University of Kerala. He had his B.Tech (Electrical Engineering) from College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram and M.Tech (Electrical Engineering) from IIT Bombay. He also holds an M.Phil in Computer Speech and Language Processing from the Dept of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK and Ph.D from University of Kerala. Since 1987, he has taught in various Engineering Colleges, Universities and Institutes both within India and abroad. During 2001-2004 he served as Director of Centre for Development of Imaging Technology, C-DIT, an autonomous techno-creative centre of Govt. of Kerala. In 2006 he was a Visiting Professor in University of Korea, Seoul.

He has authored 10 popular-science books on IT in Malayalam, including one on the internet in 1996 and one on Free software in 2002. His latest books are 'Googolavalkaranam' (2009) and Data Structures using C published by Printice Hall in 2009. He has also authored a science fiction novel for the children. His current research interests include use of digital signal processing (DSP) in bio-sequence analysis. 10 Candidates have taken PhD under his supervision and he is currently guiding 11 full-time researchers. He has a modest number of research publications in International & Indian Journals. One of his contributions on electro-mechanical model for the Transistor is cited in the classic text book: Hughes's Electrical Technology (7th Edition) published by Orient Longman, UK.

Carnatic classical music tops his hobby list, followed by local history of Thiruvananthapuram in early 19th century. He has published on both the areas. During his tenure as Director, C-DIT, he had led the establishment of the music-rich web site [http://www.swathithirunal.in]. He has widely traveled and given talks in hundreds of venues including Universities, a very large number of colleges in Keralam, University of Madras, Indore University, Bharathi Dasan University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, National University of Juridical Sciences, Culcutta and the Madras Music Academy.

He is recipient of Young Scientist Award of Govt. of Kerala (1991), Cambridge Barclay Scholarship (1991), ISTE National Award for Young Engineering Teachers (1994). He is a member of Computer Society of India, IEEE, Indian Society for Technical Education, and International Society for Computational Biology. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of State Higher Education Council of Govt. of Kerala. He is passionate about teaching and has been lucky to be mentored by great teachers including his own father Dr. A. Sukumaran Nair and his professor Dr. K.P.P. Pillai and Dr. R.P.R. Nair. One of his current projects is to develop a massive website Gurusmarana to archive the life and thoughts of past teachers.

More information at http://achu.keralauniversity.edu/.

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Software Testing Research - Why it is so Difficult? Narayan C. Debnath, Ph. D, D. Sc. Professor and Chairman, Department of Computer Science Winona State University Winona, MN 55987, USA and President, International Society for Computers and Their Applications (ISCA)

Abstract

" Software Engineering is one of the most important disciplines within computer science. The software verification, an important research topic in software engineering, needs a serious attention. Computer software typically follows the lifecycle that begins with (1) a requirements specification and analysis, followed by (2) a design phase, followed by (3) an implementation phase, and is (4) ultimately validated for acceptance. Finally, the software enters (5) a maintenance phase, where problems with the delivered product are corrected and further enhancements to the product are made.

The goal of validation is to establish confidence that the software should perform as intended. Software testing is considered as the most common, widely accepted and practiced method of validating computer software. Software testing, a practical engineering activity, is essential for producing high-quality software and to perform quality assessment. Testing of a piece of software is considered an important component of software quality assurance. Software testing typically assesses software quality by exercising the software on a representative set of test cases to verify if it meets the specified requirements.

Software Testing has been extensively studied in the literature. Researchers have been trying to come up with efficient testing theory, tools and techniques. Unfortunately, we are making very little progress and still much more work needs to be done in this area. As a result, we need more resources, and most importantly, more education and training to help make progress in this important field. This keynote presentation will explore a broad overview on software testing research including the fundamental definitions, concepts and testing techniques, different perspectives on testing, primary limitations and difficulties in software testing, and possible future research directions in software testing techniques and tools."

Biography

Dr. Narayan C. Debnath has been a Full Professor of Computer Science since 1989 and currently the Chairman of Computer Science at Winona State University, Minnesota, USA. He is also serving as the President of the International Society for Computers and Their Applications (ISCA). Dr. Debnath is a recipient of a Doctorate degree in Computer Science and a Doctorate degree in Applied Physics (Electrical Engineering). In the past, he served as the President, Vice President, and Conference Coordinator of the International Society for Computers and Their Applications (ISCA), and has been a member of the ISCA Board of Directors since 2001. He served as the Acting Chairman of the Department of Computer Science at Winona State University and received numerous Honors and Awards. During 1986-1989, Dr. Debnath was a faculty of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, USA, where he was nominated for the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1989.

Dr. Debnath has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science including Software Engineering, Software Testing, Theory of Computation, Compiler Design, and Principles of Programming Languages. He has made original research contributions on Software Engineering Models, Metrics and Tools, Software Testing, Software Management, and Information Science, Technology and Management. For the past several years, he has been working on research problems involving the development of software models, software complexity metrics and tools, Software testing theory, techniques and tools, Software design tools, techniques and environments, and Information technology and management. Dr. Debnath is an author or co-author of over 300 publications in numerous refereed journals and conference proceedings in Computer Science, Information Science, Information Technology, System Sciences, Mathematics, and Electrical Engineering. Since 2005, he has been serving as the Guest Editor of the special issues of the Journal of Computational Methods in Science and Engineering (JCMSE) published by the IOS Press, the Netherlands.

Professor Debnath has made numerous teaching and research presentations at various national and international conferences, industries, and teaching and research institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. He has been serving as an international teaching and research advisor/coordinator of the Master of Software Engineering Program at the National Universities in Argentina, South America, since 2000. He has offered courses and workshops on Software Engineering and Software Testing at the universities in South America, Asia, and Middle East. Dr. Debnath served as the General Chair, Program Chair, invited Keynote Speaker, Tutorial Chair, and technical Track or Session Organizer and Chair of the international conferences sponsored by various professional societies including the IEEE, IEEE Computer Society, the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), International Association of Computer and Information Science (ACIS), International Association for Science and Technology in Education (IASTED), Arab Computer Society, and the International Society for Computers and Their Applications (ISCA). Dr. Debnath is a member of the ACM, IEEE Computer Society, Arab Computer Society, and a senior member of the ISCA.

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Recent Research Trends in Sensor Networks Dr. Sudip Misra School of Information Technology Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

Dr. Sudip Misra is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Prior to this he was associated with Cornell University (USA), Yale University (USA), Nortel Networks (Canada) and the Government of Ontario (Canada). He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada, and the masters and bachelors degrees respectively from the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. Dr. Misra has several years of experience working in the academia, government, and the private sectors in research, teaching, consulting, project management, architecture, software design and product engineering roles.

His current research interests include algorithm design for emerging communication networks. Dr. Misra is the author/editor of over 100 scholarly research papers. He has won six research paper awards in different conferences. He was also the recipient of several academic awards and fellowships such as the Young Scientist Award (National Academy of Sciences, India), Young Systems Scientist Award (Systems Society of India), Young Engineers Award (Institution of Engineers, India), (Canadian) Governor General's Academic Gold Medal at Carleton University, the University Outstanding Graduate Student Award in the Doctoral level at Carleton University and the National Academy of Sciences, India - Swarna Jayanti Puraskar (Golden Jubilee Award). He was also awarded the Canadian Government's prestigious NSERC Post Doctoral Fellowship and the Humboldt Research Fellowship in Germany. Dr. Misra is the Editor-in-Chief of 2 journals - the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems (IJCNDS) and the International Journal of Information and Coding Theory (IJICoT), U.K. He has also been serving as the Associate Editor of the Telecommunication Systems Journal (Springer SBM), Security and Communication Networks Journal (Wiley), International Journal of Communication Systems (Wiley), and the EURASIP Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking. He is also an Editor/Editorial Board Member/Editorial Review Board Member of the IET Communications Journal, Computers and Electrical Engineering Journal (Elsevier), the International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology, the International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Computer Science, the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, Journal of Internet Technology, and the Applied Intelligence Journal (Springer). Dr. Misra has edited around 6 books in the areas of wireless ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, wireless mesh networks, communication networks and distributed systems, network reliability and fault tolerance, and information and coding theory, published by reputed publishers such as Springer and World Scientific. He was invited to chair several international conference/workshop programs and sessions. He has been serving in the program committees of over a dozen international conferences. Dr. Misra was also invited to deliver keynote lectures in over a dozen international conferences in USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa.

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Tracing Data on the Cloud Dr. Ryan Ko Cloud and Security Lab, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Singapore

Dr. Ryan Ko is a Researcher in HP Labs' Cloud and Security Lab, and founder/ co-chair of the Cloud Security Alliance (Global)'s Cloud Data Governance working group. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Cloud Security Alliance Singapore chapter as Director of Research. He is leading the HP Labs TrustCloud research project, global pioneers behind end-to-end data tracing in clouds and cloud data provenance. A global thought leader in cloud security and cloud accountability, Dr. Ko's work was recently featured in HP Labs Annual Report 2011 for its global and social impact; he publishes extensively in top conferences and journals in cloud computing and service computing, and is also the Associate Editor of Wiley's Security and Communication Networks, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing, founder and co-chair of the IEEE Symposium on Trust and Security in Cloud Computing (TSCloud) and technical program committee member of several conferences and workshops, including the top-tier IEEE TrustCom, IEEE ICPADS and IEEE Service Cup. A recent work on visualizing large linked data set won him the Best Paper Award in USEWOD 2011, part of the prestigious WWW 2011 conference in Hyderabad. Dr. Ko is regularly invited as speaker and workshop organizer on cloud security in Asia and in the United States. He holds two international patents and is a regular blogger for HP.com, volunteers extensively in rural computer education in Asia, and was an entrepreneur of two startups, a playwright and vice-president of a 26-year old theatre company in Singapore.

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Data Intensive Discovery Dr. Vipin Chaudhary Computational Research Laboratories Limited, Pune, India

Dr. Vipin Chaudhary is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CRL, Computational Research Laboratories Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited.

Since 2006 he has been an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, the Center for Computational Research, and the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences at University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA. Earlier, he spent several years at Wayne State University where he was the Director of Institute for Scientific Computing and Associate Professor of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurological Surgery. In between he was the Senior Director of Advanced Development at Cradle Technologies, Inc. where he was responsible for advanced programming tools for multi-processor chips. He has also held various technical and senior management positions, finally as Chief Architect, at Corio, Inc. which had a successful IPO in June 2000.

Vipin is a cofounder of several companies including Diagnaid Inc, Navivus, and Micass, and on the advisory board of several technology startups. He has been the CTO of Scalable Informatics, Inc. since 2004. Vipin has been the principal or co-principal investigator on some $25 million in research projects from government agencies and industry and has published over 150 papers in peer reviewed journals and conferences. He was awarded the prestigious President of India Gold Medal in 1986 for securing the first rank amongst graduating students in IIT.

Vipin received the B.Tech. (Hons.) degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1986, the MS degree in Computer Science, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, in 1989 and 1992, respectively..

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Clustering Techniques in Knowledge Mining Dr. Deepak Garg Thapar University, India

Dr. Deepak Garg has done his Ph.D. in the area of efficient algorithm design. His active research interests are designing efficient algorithms and knowledge management. He is certified on latest technologies from Sun for Java Products, IBM for Web services and Brain bench for Programming concepts. He is Senior Member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), USA, Senior Member of ACM,UK, Chair North India ACM SIGACT, Executive Member of IEEE Delhi Section and secretary of IEEE Computer Society, Delhi Section. He is Life Member of ISTE , CSI , IETE , ISC and British Computer Society. He started his career as a Software Engineer in IBM Corporation Southbury, CT, USA.

He has taught important core subjects at graduate and undergraduate levels and is guiding 12 PhD students, 17 M.Tech students. He has handled various research projects sponsored by Govt of India and organized two international conferences. He has successfully organized 19 short-term courses on latest technologies including UGC refresher course, ISTE-AICTE Short Term Training Programme, DBT sponsored courses, NSTEDB (National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board) sponsored workshops, Infosys sponsored Faculty Enablement Programme. Deepak has 87 publications in various International Journals and conferences. He is serving in important Govt committees and had been a member of Senate of Thapar University. He is on the advisory board of various organizations. He has 15 years of teaching/research/development experience. He has edited two books and is on the editorial board of 20 International Journals. He has also been nominated for National Distinguished Lecture Series Program for delivering expert lectures on various advanced topics in Computer Science. For details please visit: http://www.gdeepak.com

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Communication Analogies and Computing via Neuromorphic Engineering - A Perspective from Bio-Inspired Robotics Dr. Shyam Diwakar School of Biotechnology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kollam, India

Abstract

"Neuromorphic engineering aspires to match the computational abilities of neurobiological systems by adapting the microanatomy and physiology of these systems into custom hardware. Hardware associative memory networks and pattern classifiers require distinct learning and recall phases to perform memory tasks. In this talk, we discuss how cerebellar circuits of the brain help understand bio-inspired communication models. Cerebellar granule cells (GrCs) form the input layer of the cerebellar cortex and integrate sensory information carried by mossy fibers (MFs). By choosing two different mathematical models we will use the cerebellar microciruitry to study how details matter in highlighting network function and in particular, how to use simple cost effective models for understanding spike transmission in such networks. Such connectionist architectures have large numbers of simple and highly connected processing elements and employ massively parallel computing paradigms, features inspired by those found in the nervous system. For a hardware implementation, the physical laws that govern the cooperative behavior of these elements are exploited to process information. Novel neural pattern classifiers for robotics use the importance of signal representations in the implementation of such systems, emphasizing the role of currents. We shall take examples from bio-inspired neural architectures in small robots and see how new computing designs can be implemented."

Biography

Dr. Shyam Diwakar is the principal investigator of the computational neuroscience laboratory and is an assistant professor at the School of Biotechnology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Amrita University, Amritapuri, Kollam, Kerala). He is a co-investigator of VALUE (Virtual and Accessible Laboratories for Universalizing Education), a major virtual labs initiative supported by Sakshat mission of MHRD, Government of India and is also the main PI of two cognitive science projects on neuroscience and on bio-inspired neural processor design funded by DST. He holds a Ph.D. in computational sciences from University of Milan, Italy, a bachelors degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering and a post graduate diploma in Bioinformatics from Bharathiar University, India. He worked on neuroscience as a postdoctoral researcher at the department of General Physiology, University of Pavia, Italy. He has authored two books, one on data mining and another on computational neuroscience. He has also served on the program committees of leading conferences in his field in Europe and India.

Dr. Diwakar's research uses principles from electrical engineering and informatics to study cerebellum and its functioning. His research has shown how noise is represented in extracellular neuronal tissue besides developing multi-scale mathematical models of the cerebellum granular layer. The current work at his lab is on computational neurophysiology, neuromorphic hardware and bio-robotics besides pedagogical techniques for enhancing biotechnology laboratory education through ICT.

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Uncertainty Reduction in Text Data via Information Fusion Dr. Raghuram Krishnapuram Associate Director, Solutions, IBM Research - India

Biography

Dr. Raghuram Krishnapuram received his B. Tech degree from IIT-Bombay and his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. From 1987 to 2000, he served as a faculty member at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado. Dr. Krishnapuram joined IBM Research - India in 2000. His research encompasses many aspects of analytics, optimization, computational intelligence, and data mining. He has published over 160 papers in journals and conferences in these areas. He is currently Associate Director, Solutions, IBM Research - India, where he is leading research projects in the areas of information management, mobile solutions, IT/Wireless convergence, and analytics & optimization, with a particular focus on emerging markets. Dr. Krishnapuram is an IEEE Fellow, and a member of IBM's Technology Council of the IBM Academy of Technology.

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Implicit & Explicit Bias in Online Product Reviews used in Recommender Systems Dr. Selwyn Piramuthu Professor of Information Systems, University of Florida, USA

Abstract

"Recommender systems are gaining popularity as a secondary source of information for customers. These systems use both implicit (transaction data, bookmarks, social networks) and explicit data (customer reviews) to generate recommendations. Implicit data generally have less noise by their very nature and explicit data are notorious for their bias. While published research on various facets of recommender systems is extensive, there are very few published papers that identify or address such bias in explicit data. We consider a few such bias in online product reviews including sequential bias, social bias, among other and discuss their source, dynamic, and implications for recommender systems. "

Biography

Currently a Professor of Information Systems, Selwyn Piramuthu received his PhD (Information Systems) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been a faculty member at the University of Florida since Fall 1991. He is an Associate Researcher of Information Systems and Technologies at ESCP-Europe (Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris) and a member of the RFID European Lab in Paris. He taught in the Operations and Information Management department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1998 to 2001. He has also held teaching and/or research visiting appointments at a few other institutions including the Aarhus School of Business in Denmark, Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, IRIDIA (Institut de Recherches Interdisciplinaires et de Developpements en Intelligence Artificielle) at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the Universite du Luxembourg in Luxembourg, Technische Universitat Munchen in Munich Germany, and the Lehrstuhl fur Informations- und Technologie- Management at Universitat des Saarlandes in Saarbrucken, Germany. His research and teaching interests include artificial intelligence, cryptography, database management, data mining/machine learning, and simulation including their applications in computer integrated manufacturing, e-commerce, financial credit scoring, healthcare, recommender systems, RFID, supply chain management, and work flow management.

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Dr. Dilip Krishnaswamy Senior Staff Researcher, Qualcomm Research Center, San Diego CA, USA

Biography

Dr. Dilip Krishnaswamy is a senior staff researcher in the office of the chief scientist at Qualcomm in San Diego. He graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1997 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received the best paper award for research related to his thesis in the parallel processing area for the 1997 IEEE VLSI Test Symposium. He was a Platform Architect at Intel where he worked on various projects including the Pentium4 processor development, system-on-chip mobile platform architectures (lead architect for Intel's first cellular SoC - PXA800F), and cross-layer wireless multimedia optimizations in the digital home. He taught courses related to parallel computer architecture, and advanced digital systems design, at the University of California, Davis, where he now serves on the Industrial Board of Advisors. At Qualcomm, he has worked on adhoc heterogeneous tunneled access technologies, data-mining, heterogeneous cooperative techniques, wireless distributed computing, and concurrent bandwidth aggregation technologies. He serves as the Associate Editor-in-chief of the IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine. He chairs the IEEE comsoc emerging technical subcommittee on Applications of Nanotechnologies in Communications. He is an editor for the Journal of Nano Communication Networks. His current research interests include m2m technologies/services/applications, nano-biological networks, heterogeneous wireless networks, distributed cooperative processing, parallel processing, nano-interconnects, and distributed/non-linear optimization.

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Making Sense of Data through Visualization Dr. Alex Aravind Department of Computer Science, University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Canada

Abstract

"Our generation is overwhelmed with data. The accumulation of data seems to only increase, day-by-day, due to ubiquitous nature of computing, communication, and sensor technologies. This unprecedented trend brings extraordinary opportunity for us to explore answers to questions that are unimaginable in the past. At the same time, this trend also brings several challenges related to data - storage, management, and use. This talk is about one aspect of data which is how to make sense of huge data. Particularly, the talk will focus on making sense of data through visualization.

When properly designed, visualization can be a powerful means of understanding data. It is an effective technique that can make even complicated patterns and trends easy to understand. Often, the clarity acquired through properly designed visualization will not only engage the users but also can increase their interest to investigate the questions and challenges further and understand the data deeper. In this talk, we first will look at some important interactive dynamics for visualization and then demonstrate some of the visualization tools that we have developed for different applications."

Biography

Dr. Alex Aravind is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Canada. Alex received his Ph.D in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and M.Tech. in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India. After a brief stint at the Supercomputer Education and Research Center (SERC), IISc, he was a Post-doctoral fellow at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada.

Alex's areas of research interest include operating systems, concurrent and distributed computing, mobile ad hoc and wireless networks, and modeling and simulation of complex systems. He has published more than 40 research articles in leading journals and conferences. Alex has co-authored a book on Operating System, published by Pearson Education. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, and SCS, and served as a program technical committee member for many international conferences, and a reviewer for several leading journals and conferences. Alex has chaired a number of conference sessions and organized several workshops.

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Telephone Telepathy: A Next Generation Service Dr. Ram Dantu Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of North Texas (UNT), USA

Abstract

"In this talk, we present challenges and issues facing next generation real-time communications. We discuss next generation smart phones that can predict the following:

1. Who and when somebody is going to call you next
2. What are the special events in your life
3. What are you doing now (e.g., are you sitting at the table eating dinner or on the couch and watching TV)
4. Phones that can predict car accidents, safe driving and call E911 automatically and
5. Phones that can navigate you to walk in the dark using magnetic maps.

Finally, we discuss results and conclusions based on the research in our lab."

Biography

Dr. Ram Dantu has 15 years of industrial experience in the networking industry, where he worked for Cisco, Nortel, Alcatel, and Fujitsu and was responsible for advanced technology products from concept to delivery. He is a full professor in the the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas (UNT). During 2011, he was a visiting professor in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in school of engineering. He is the founding director of the Network Security Laboratory (NSL) at UNT, the objective of which is to study the problems and issues related to next-generation networks. He is also the director of center for information and computer security in UNT. He has received several NSF awards in collaboration (lead PI) with Columbia University, Purdue University, University of California at Davis and Texas A&M University.

His research includes mobile applications in health care and transportation sectors. In addition, he has been researching on the prevention of DoS and spam attacks in the VoIP networks. He has co-chaired three workshops on VoIP security. Prior to UNT, he was a technology director at Netrake (acquired by Audio Codes), where he was the architect of the redundancy mechanism for VoIP firewalls. His additional experience includes being a technical director in IPMobile (acquired by Cisco), where he was instrumental in the wireless/IP product concept, architecture, design, and delivery. In addition to more than 150 research papers, he has authored several Requests For Comments (RFCs) related to MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS), SS7 over IP, and routing. Due to his innovative work, Cisco and Alcatel were granted a total of 25 patents, and another 10 are pending.

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Advances and Current Research in Biometric Recognition Dr. El-Sayed M. El-Alfy College of Computer Sciences and Engineering King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

"Recently, there has been a growing interest and several advances have been witnessed in the field of biometric technology. Biometric authentication recognizes a person based upon the pattern of one or more intrinsic anatomical or behavioral human traits such as fingerprint, face, iris and retina, hand shape and palmprint, signature, voice, gait, etc. It has attracted significant attention of researchers and relies on a multitude of techniques from different areas including image and signal processing, computer vision, computational intelligence, pattern recognition, data mining, statistical analysis, multimedia systems, forensics and information security. It becomes very common to use biometrics in national security for border control; in securing access to restricted areas, e.g. airports, hospitals and academic buildings; and in gaining access to computing devices and services in healthcare, medical, governmental, educational, industrial, and business information systems. In this talk, we will first present a brief overview of biometric recognition systems. Then we will review the current status, challenges and emerging research trends and technologies in this field. Finally we will share some results on multimodal and fusion techniques for biometric recognition with several examples from the literature."

Biography

Dr. El-Alfy is currently Associate Professor in the College of Computer Sciences and Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia. He has been actively involved in several funded research projects and published widely in areas related to intelligent systems, computer networking, and information security. He is a founder and coordinator of the "Intelligent Systems Research Group (ISRG)" at KFUPM. He is also chairing the ABET/CAC Accreditation Committee in the Computer Science Department at KFUPM. Dr. El-Alfy has served in the organization of many international conferences and refereed several manuscripts and research proposals for leading journals, conferences and funding agencies. He is Senior Member of IEEE; Member of ACM, IEEE CS, and IEEE CIS; Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems; Associate Editor of the International Journal of Trust Management in Computing and Communications. He received several awards and recognitions among them King Abdullah Award for the Translation of Computer Networking textbook in 2012, Distinction Award for Excellence in Teaching from KFUPM in 2011 and is being listed in Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering.

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