A component and an interface algebra for dynamic networks of interactions
Prof. José Fiadeiro, University of London, UK – Abstract: As a result of the global interconnectivity ensured by the Web, the new landscape of systems that are operating in cyber-space is that of networks of systems where execution at the network nodes, which could be…
Achieving Photoreal Digital Actors in Film and in Real-Time
Dr. Paul Debevec, USC Institute for Creative Technologies, USA – Abstract: Somewhere between “Final Fantasy” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, digital actors crossed the “Uncanny Valley” from looking strangely synthetic to believably real. This talk describes how the Light Stage scanning systems and…
Digital information storage in DNA
Dr. Paul Bertone, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK – Abstract: The amount of information that humans produce and want to store is increasing exponentially. It is estimated that the total digital information on Earth is of the order of zettabytes (thousands of billions of billions of…
Spoken Dialogue Systems: Progress and Challenges
Prof. Steve Young, University of Cambridge, UK – Abstract: The potential advantages of statistical dialogue systems include lower development cost, increased robustness to noise and the ability to learn on-line so that performance can continue to improve over time. This talk will briefly review the…
An integrated view on future information and communication networks and services.
Prof. Daniel Kofman, Telecom ParisTech (ENST), France – Abstract: The talk first presents a vision on future information and communication services and related requirements and challenges. It then shows a – unified – view on major trends enabling the presented services’ evolution, including better integrated…
The Multicore Revolution
Prof. Maurice Herlihy, Brown University, USA – Abstract: Computer architecture is undergoing, if not another revolution, then a vigorous shaking-up. The major chip manufacturers have, for the time being, mostly given up trying to make processors run faster. Instead, they have switched to “multicore” architectures,…
Model Checking and the Curse of Dimensionality
Prof. Edmund M. Clarke, Carnegie Mellon University, USA – Abstract: Model Checking is an automatic verification technique for large state transition systems. It was originally developed for reasoning about finite-state concurrent systems. The technique has been used successfully to debug complex computer hardware and communication…
Symbiotic Autonomy: Robots, Humans, and the Web
Prof. Manuela Veloso, Carnegie Mellon University, USA – Abstract: We envision ubiquitous autonomous mobile robots that coexist and interact with humans while performing assistance tasks. Such robots are still far from common, as our environments offer great challenges to robust autonomous robot perception, cognition, and…
Design reliable electronics in an unreliable world
Prof. Georges Gielen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium – Abstract: Microelectronics have changed the way of life of every individual person in our society. We use and rely more and more upon electronic systems, from communications to multimedia to biomedical and automotive. However, the use of…
Cyber-physical MPSoC Systems: Future Multi-Core Architectures for reliable Mobility & Technologies
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Juergen Becker, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology – KIT. Dept. Electrical Engineering & Information Technology. Institute for Information Processing – ITIV. Karlsruhe, Germany. – Abstract: The field of embedded electronic systems, nowadays also called cyber-physical systems, is still emerging. A cyber-physical system (CPS) is…
Upcoming Events
Mathematics, Physics & Machine Learning Seminar Series (Online)
The Mathematics, Physics & Machine Learning seminar series has started on October 2020 and runs until March 2021.
The seminars aim to bring together mathematicians and physicists interested in machine learning (ML) with ML and AI experts interested in mathematics and physics, with the goal of introducing innovative Mathematics and Physics-inspired techniques in Machine Learning and, reciprocally, applying Machine Learning to problems in Mathematics and Physics.
Attendance is free but registration is required.
More information is available here.
IST /INESC-ID Distinguished Lecture – An Ethical Crisis in Computing?
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Computer scientists think often of “Ender’s Game” these days. In this award-winning 1985 science-fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, Ender is being trained at Battle School, an institution designed to make young children into military commanders against an unspecified enemy. Ender’s team engages in a series of computer-simulated battles, eventually destroying the enemy’s planet, only to learn then that the battles were very real and a real planet has been destroyed.
The benefits of computing seemed intuitive to us. We truly believe that computing yields tremendous societal benefits; for example, the life-saving potential of driverless cars is enormous! Like Ender, however, we realized recently that computing is not a game–it is real–and it brings with it not only societal benefits, but also significant societal costs, such as labor polarization, disinformation, and smart-phone addiction.
The real issue is how to deal with technology’s impact on society.
Technology is driving the future, but who is doing the steering?
Moshe Y. Vardi is University Professor and the George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University. He is the recipient of several awards, including the ACM SIGACT Goedel Prize, the ACM Kanellakis Award, the ACM SIGMOD Codd Award, the Blaise Pascal Medal, the IEEE Computer Society Goode Award, and the EATCS Distinguished Achievements Award.
He is the author and co-author of over 650 papers, as well as two books. He is a fellow of several societies, and a member of several academies, including the US National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Science.
He holds seven honorary doctorates. He is a Senior Editor of the Communications of the ACM, the premier publication in computing.