Dr. Shugen MA

Bio: Dr. Shugen Ma received his Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering Science from Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo, Japan) in 1991. From 1991 to 1992, he was a Research Engineer with Komatsu Ltd, and from 1992 to 1993, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Riverside (USA). He joined the Department of Systems Engineering, Ibaraki University, Japan, as an Assistant Professor in July 1993. In October 2005, he moved to Ritsumeikan University, where he is currently a professor in Robotics. He is also the Shanghai Robotics Institute director at Shanghai University. He is/was a visiting professor at John Hopkins University, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Tianjin University, Shanghai University, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Xi’an Jiaotong University, respectively. His current research interests include the design and control of environment-adaptive robots, field robotics, and Bio-robotics. He has published over 460 papers in refereed professional journals and international conference proceedings. He has also developed more than 30 novel robot systems, filed 60 patents, and supervised 40 doctoral students to graduation. He is a fellow of the IEEE and the JSME. He is the general chair of IROS2022@Kyoto, was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transaction on Robotics from December 2003 to November 2007, an Editor of Advanced Robotics from April 2007, and Editor of Advanced Robotics from April 2007, serves many societies and conferences as well.

Title of talk:  From Study of Biologically-Inspired Robots to Design of Environment-Adaptive Robots

Abstract of talk: Nature systems having a body with many degrees of freedom are often considered the ultimate model for machines. To confer the performance advantage of animal systems on robotic machines, we are carrying out the studies on a thorough understanding of the biological systems at both biomechanical and physiological levels and the developments of biomimetic intelligent machines and biologically inspired robots. Unfortunately, many of these robots are crucial for investigation but have not widely applied to real applications. We, however, can use the insight obtained from the study of biologically-inspired robots to develop robotic machines for possible applications in the world. In this talk, I would like to introduce some of our studies on biologically-inspired robots first and then provide some designs of environment-adaptive robots for real applications.

EurAI talk. This keynote is supported and sponsored by EurAI. Dr. Valeriya Naumova

Bio: Dr. Valeriya Naumova is Senior Research Scientist at SimulaMet and Director at Simula Consulting. Valeriya received her PhD in applied mathematics / machine learning from the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics, Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2012. Her research focuses on the development of theoretical approaches and numerical methods for learning from samples of complex high-dimensional data sets and applying these approaches to biomedical applications. She pursues these questions by building upon concepts and techniques primarily from theory of inverse and ill-posed problems, regularization and learning theory, sparse recovery, and compressed sensing. Valeriya has extensive experience in leading and contributing to international and multidisciplinary research projects towards more personalised healthcare services by using latest technological advances. In the past years, she has been actively working towards translating and deploying research results into real-life to address societal and industrial challenges.

Title of talk:  Personalised and Targeted Healthcare with Machine Learning and Data-driven Models

Abstract of talk: The growth and availability of clinical and biological data together with recent technological advances provide a unique opportunity to transform healthcare, enabling  more  personalised and targeted services. To realise this transformation, we must find a way on how to integrate and analyse large and complex  clinical and biological data in order to generate intelligent insights that could be useful and trustworthy for a clinician in their everyday work. This talk presents various examples on how machine learning and data analytics tools are and can be used to enable personalised healthcare services. In addition, we highlight essential ingredients for bringing  the developed algorithms and tools from the lab into the everyday use.

Dr. Deepak Khazanchi

Bio: Dr. Deepak Khazanchi is Professor of Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis in the College of Information Science & Technology (IS&T) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), USA. During the past 20 years at UNO, Deepak has served as Department Chair for the Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Department, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Community Engagement and Internationalization Officer for the College of IS&T. Dr. Khazanchi has affiliate faculty appointments in UNO’s International Studies program and the Leonard and Shirley Goldstein Center for Human Rights. He also had the honor of serving as an affiliate full professor with the Center for Integrated Emergency Management (CIEM), University of Agder (Norway), and continues to serve as adjunct professor with Management Center Innsbruck (Austria) and University of International Business & Economics (China). Deepak has published more than 100 articles in a variety of multidisciplinary academic and/or practitioner-oriented peer-reviewed journals & conferences (national/international) and generated nearly $4 million in grants, donations, and service contracts. In addition to doing more than a decade of research on virtual work and virtual software teams, his recent research has focused on crisis/disaster informatics (particularly application of AI/ML for bridge infrastructure health and the study of virtual teams during crisis), Risk Assurance in the Extended Enterprise, and the development of technology interventions for behavioral research in medical science. Some of his recent articles have been published in British Journal of Ophthalmology, American Journal of Business, Journal of Information Systems, European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Journal of the AIS, Communications of the AIS, Journal of Business Ethics, ISACA Journal, and Western Journal of Nursing Research.  Dr. Khazanchi serves on the Board of Management of two private Universities in India and is on the Board of Trustees for Brownell Talbot School, a private independent school in Omaha. He is also an active member of the board of three nonprofits organizations in Omaha, Nebraska (USA): the Collective for Youth, Refugee Empowerment Center, and Benson Theater.   Dr. Khazanchi arrived in academics after working in managerial and technical positions with responsibility for designing structures (bridges and buildings) and as a project engineer for a multinational construction project.  He received the Ph.D. degree with a specialization in Management Information Systems from Texas Tech University. Prior to this, he earned the MBA degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and obtained an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur (India). He is living his dream as an academic and enjoys any free time he has with his family and travelling around the world (when there is no Covid-19 pandemic). His presence can be found twitter @khazanchi and on the web at http://dkhazanchi.com.

Title of talk: Musings on Research Innovations for Managing Infrastructure Health Using Intelligent Technologies and Applications

Abstract of talk: Drawing on 30+ years of experience as an information systems/technology researcher, educator, and consultant, his recent research, and those of his collaborators, Dr. Khazanchi will share some examples of projects that attempt to leverage AI/ML and other intelligent technologies to address advanced decision support and analytical problems for managing bridge infrastructure health.

Dr. Domenico Prattichizzo

Bio:  Dr. Domenico Prattichizzo is a Professor of Robotics and Haptics at University of Siena; Senior Scientist of the IIT in Genova; Co-founder of two startups: WEART and EXISTO on wearable robotics; IEEE Fellow; Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Haptics; President of Eurohaptics society. Human and robotic hands, along with haptic perception and the art of manipulating objects, have polarized his research, which is increasingly oriented towards highly wearable robotics and wearable haptics. Scientific Coordinator of several research projects funded by European Union, USA and Japan. In 2015 he pioneered the field of human augmentation with the robotic sixth finger to support patients with paretic limbs. In 2020 he co-authored the Springer book on Augmenting Human Manipulation Abilities with Supernumerary Robotic Limbs. He has been recognized with the award of Italia degli Innovatori from Italian Government at EXPO Shanghai 2010. He is the author of more than 500 publications in scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. He is the inventor of more than 10 patents filed on robotics, haptics and wearables.

Title of talk:  Robotics and Haptics: a Wearable Perspective

Abstract of talk: In this talk we will discuss the main challenges of human-centered technologies and I will present our current research activity developed in Siena, IIT and more recently with the team of Prof. Paolo Valigi in Perugia on human augmentation and human-human communication enabled by wearable robotics and wearable haptics.

Dr. Stephan Sigg

Bio: Dr. Stephan Sigg is an Associate Professor at Aalto University in the Department of Communications and Networking. With a background in the design, analysis and optimisation of algorithms for distributed and ubiquitous systems, he focuses on sensing systems for environmental perception and Usable (perception-based) Security. Especially, his work covers proactive computing, distributed adaptive beamforming, context-based secure key generation and device-free passive activity recognition. Stephan is an editorial board member of the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), the Elsevier Journal on Computer Communications and has been a guest editor for the Springer Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Systems Journal. He has served on the organizing and technical committees numerous prestigious conferences including IEEE PerCom, ACM Ubicomp, IEEE ICDCS.

Title of talk:  Device-free RF sensing: From sensor-less sensing to battery-less ambient intelligence

Abstract of talk: The recent decade has seen tremendous advances in RF-sensing - the utilization of electromagnetic signals for environmental perception. Movement, human gestures, subtle respiration motion, and even emotion have been recognized from distance and through walls via RF-sensing. I will discuss the recent history of advances in RF-Sensing in a range of sensing concepts and systems covering time domain, CSI, LoRa, RFID, mmWave, fingerprinting, tomography, FMCW, Fresnel, pointClouds and others. I will further touch on a frequent argument in favor of RF-sensing: it is perceived as less privacy intrusive than other environmental sensing mechanisms, such as, for instance, video. However, given the recent advances in RF-sensing combined with its ubiquitous nature, can we indeed claim that the technology is less privacy intrusive and is there a need for an ethically compliant re-design of the technology?