Prof. Xavier Mestre | February 25, 2019 | 11:00 | S.1.42

Abstract:

Conventional tools in array signal processing have traditionally relied on the availability of a large number of samples acquired at each sensor or array element (antenna, hydrophone, microphone, etc.). Large sample size assumptions typically guarantee the consistency of estimators, detectors, classifiers and multiple other widely used signal processing procedures. However, practical scenario and array mobility conditions, together with the need for low latency and reduced scanning times, impose strong limits on the total number of observations that can be effectively processed. When the number of collected samples per sensor is small, conventional large sample asymptotic approaches are not relevant anymore. Recently, large random matrix theory tools have been proposed in order to address the small sample support problem in array signal processing. In fact, it has been shown that the most important and longstanding problems in this field can be reformulated and studied according to this asymptotic paradigm. By exploiting the latest advances in large random matrix theory and high dimensional statistics, a novel and unconventional methodology can be established, which provides an unprecedented treatment of the finite sample-per-sensor regime. In this talk, we will see that random matrix theory establishes a unifying framework for the study of array signal processing techniques under the constraint of a small number of observations per sensor, which has radically changed the way in which array processing methodologies have been traditionally established. We will show how this unconventional way of revisiting classical array processing has lead to major advances in the design and analysis of signal processing techniques for multidimensional observations.

Bio:

Xavier Mestre received the MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1997 and 2002 respectively and the Licenciate Degree in Mathematics in 2011. During the pursuit of his PhD, he was recipient of a 1998-2001 PhD scholarship (granted by the Catalan Government) and was awarded the 2002 Rosina Ribalta second prize for the best doctoral thesis project within areas of Information Technologies and Communications by the Epson Iberica foundation. From January 1998 to December 2002, he was with UPC’s Communications Signal Processing Group, where he worked as a Research Assistant and participated actively in several European-funded projects. In January 2003 he joined the Telecommunications Technological Center of Catalonia (CTTC), where he currently holds a position as a Senior Research Associate and head of the Advanced Signal and Information Processing Department. During this time, he has actively participated in 8 European projects and two ESA contracts. He has been coordinator of the European ICT project EMPhAtiC (2012-15) and has participated in 6 industrial contracts, some of which have lead to commercialized products. He is author of three granted patents, 9 book chapters, 41 international journal papers and more than 90 articles in international conferences. He has been associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2008-11, 2015-present) and associate co-editor of the special issue on Cooperative Communications in Wireless Networks at the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. He is IEEE Senior member and elected member of the IEEE Sensor Array and Multi-channel Signal Processing technical committee (2013-2018) and the EURASIP Special Area Teams on “Theoretical and  Methodological Trends in Signal Processing” (2015-present) and “Signal Processing in Communications” (2018-present). He has participated in the organization of multiple conferences and scientific events, such as the “IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference 2018″ (general vice-chair), the “IEEE International Symposium on Power Line Communications” (technical chair), the “European Wireless 2014″ (general co-chair), the “European Signal Processing Conference 2011″ (general technical chair), the “IEEE Winter School on Information Theory” 2011 (general co-chair), the “Summer School on Random Matrix Theory for Wireless Communications” 2006 (general chair). He is general chair of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing 2020.

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Rick Rabiser | February 7, 2019 | 10:00 | S.2.42

Abstract

Complex software-intensive systems are often described as systems of systems (SoS) due to their heterogeneous architectural elements. As SoS behavior is often only understandable during operation, runtime monitoring is needed to detect deviations from requirements. Today, while diverse monitoring approaches exist, most do not provide what is needed to monitor SoS, e.g., support for dynamically defining and deploying diverse checks across multiple systems. In this talk, I will describe our experiences of developing, applying, and evolving an approach for monitoring an SoS in the domain of industrial automation software, that is based on a domain-specific language (DSL). I will first describe our initial approach to dynamically define and check constraints in SoS at runtime, including a demo of our monitoring tool REMINDS, and then motivate and describe its evolution based on requirements elicited in an industry collaboration project. I will furthermore describe solutions we have developed to support the evolution of our approach, i.e., a code generation approach and a framework to automate testing the DSL after changes. We evaluated the expressiveness and scalability of our new DSL-based approach using an industrial SoS. At the end of the talk, I will also present general lessons we learned and give an overview of other projects in the area of software monitoring as well as other areas such as software product lines, that I am currently involved in.

Bio

Rick Rabiser (http://mevss.jku.at/rabiser) is currently a senior researcher at the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Monitoring and Evolution of Very-Large-Scale Software Systems (VLSS) at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. In this lab, he heads the research module on requirements-based monitoring and diagnosis in VLSS evolution, with Primetals Technologies Austria as industry partner. He holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. degree in Business Informatics as well as the venia docendi (Habilitation) in Practical Computer Science from Johannes Kepler University Linz. His research interests include but are not limited to variability management, software maintenance and evolution, systems and software product lines, automated software engineering, requirements engineering, requirements monitoring, and usability and user interface design. Dr. Rabiser co-authored over 120 (peer-reviewed) publications; served in 80+ program committees and 25+ conference and workshop organization committees; and frequently reviews articles for several international journals like IEEE TSE, IEEE TSC, ACM CSUR, EMSE, JSS, and IST. He is also a member of the steering committee of the Euromicro SEAA conference series and a member of the Euromicro Board of Directors (Director for Austria) and the Euromicro Executive Office (Publicity Secretary). He is also an elected member of the steering committee of the International Systems and Software Product Line Conference (SPLC). He currently is the speaker of computer scientists at JKU Linz, who are not full professors (Fachbereichssprecher Mittelbau Informatik).

Prof. Giorgio Brajnik | January 23, 2019 | 11:00 | N.1.42 (Germanistik)

Abstract

Testing lies at the heart of software development. Tightly woven with requirements engineering, the testing process influences how software is developed and its quality.  With adoption of agile and devops approaches, the continuous testing process has to rely on a testing strategy that is multi-level and has to balance test automation and exploratory testing.  Because so many things need to be tested, and because the system under test changes very often and rapidly, effectiveness and sustainability of the testing process is a must.

I will present an approach for automating end-to-end testing that is based on UML specifications of the behavior of the system and a toolkit that automatically generates source code supporting definition of high level test cases and related artifacts. In this way, a software development team can avoid dealing with low level details and focus instead on what needs to be tested, what test conditions need to be covered, how test results affect requirements coverage. This kind of information constitutes then a living documentatio of the system specification which can be used to guide exploratory testing. Such an approach is currently being used in mobile apps (in the area of workforce management) and web apps (in the financial domain).

Bio

Giorgio Brajnik is associate professor at the Computer Science Department of the University of Udine, Italy. He holds a degree in Computer Science (from the University of Udine) and a PhD in Computer Science (from the University of Manchester). After working on information search systems, since 1999 his focus is on methods for effective assessment of accessibility and quality of websites and web applications and more recently on model-based techniques for analysis of user interfaces.

At the university he teaches courses on object oriented programming and accessibility and user centered web development.  In ’92 and ’95-’96 he was visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. He has been invited lecturer, panelist and visiting professor in Europe, the U.S. and New Zealand. He participated to several of the W3C working groups dealing with accessibility. He also supervised the development of accessibility testing tools when he was working with a company he cofounded, Usablenet Inc.  Currently he is scientific advisor for Interaction Design Solutions, a startup company he co-founded that is specialized on model-driven techniques for software system testing.

He is program committee member of several conferences, including the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility and ACM Assets, for which he was co-chair of the Doctoral Consortium  and also General Chair; he is regular reviewer for several journals. Additional details are available at www.dimi.uniud.it/giorgio/vitae.html.

Andrea Bonani | December 10, 2018 | 11:00 | B01.0.14

Abstract:
In parallel with the rapid growth of digital technology and its pervasiveness in everyday life, it emerged the need to introduce knowledge of computer science at school, from the early years of the scholastic curriculum. This is not intended to promote programming careers among students, nor because they shall work in areas related to Information Technology, but because already in the present times, and more in the future, aware citizens must have digital skills and competences in order to be fully integrated into our society.
In the last decade Computational Thinking has gained attention as a way for schools to develop those skills required by the current digital age. Algorithmic thinking is at the core of Computational Thinking and tangible interactive solutions can help children develop algorithmic thinking skills.
This talk focusses on exploratory research concerning tangibles for graphs and graph algorithmic thinking (GAT) for learners aged from 9 to 15 years. The purpose of this research is to promote Algorithmic Thinking at school, by means of multi-sensory physical activities and learning-by-doing. Specifically, the research uses inter-connected interactive tangible objects. Manipulating tangibles fosters interplay between abstraction and concreteness, so as to enable learners to learn through visual and tactile experiences.
By following an action research process, interactive objects for GAT evolved through prototyping and actions-studies. The talk overviews their evolution and delves into its most recent action: an ecological study with learners using tangibles for GAT. It ends by reflecting on results and future work.

CV:
Andrea Bonani is a PhD student at the Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. After his graduation from the University of Padua, Italy, he worked as a teacher of Mathematics at the first level of secondary school. Later, he worked for 10 years in the Education Department of the Province of Bozen-Bolzano (Dipartimento Istruzione e Formazione Italiana) as the coordinator of the FUSS project. The FUSS project installed GNU/Linux in all Italian speaking schools of South Tyrol and promoted the use of new technologies among teachers. The focus of his PhD research fits between computer science education and interaction design. In particular, his PhD research is concerned with the design and development of interactive objects for the scaffolding of graphs and graph algorithmic thinking.

Univ.-Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ Martina Mara | November 20, 2018 | 13:00 | HS 2

Abstract:
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence entail many opportunities for humanity: From improving medical diagnoses to enabling greater autonomy for the elderly, from cleaning the house to optimizing energy efficiency. In the public discourse, however, smart technologies are customarily represented by the stereotypical image of the android, the artificial replication of the human being. Based on psychological findings, Mara argues that a human-centered approach towards technological development must foster new visions of complementary human-machine relationships instead of fueling fears of substitution. Furthermore, as many outside the expert circles still lack information about technical functions and feel uncomfortable with technology they don’t understand, there is a need for user empowerment: By explaining basic technological concepts to the public and by designing machines that are explainable themselves.

CV:
Prof. Martina Mara is a leading expert on human-robot relationships and head of the Robopsychology Lab at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. Her team explores how autonomous machines should look like, behave, and communicate in order to establish comfortable interaction experiences for varying target groups. She earned her doctorate at the University of Koblenz-Landau’s Institute for Communication Psychology and Media Education with a dissertation on anthropomorphic machines. She regularly speaks at international conferences and she writes about social impacts of emerging technologies in her weekly tech column „Schöne neue Welt“ („Brave new world“). As a member of the Austrian Council for Robotics, she advices the Austrian government in establishing a strategy for the application of robotics and artificial intelligence.

Jorge Barbosa, PhD | November 22, 2018 | 2 pm | S.2.69

Abstract:
A heterogeneous system can be defined as a range of different system resources, which can be local or geographically distributed, that are utilized to execute computationally intensive applications. The efficiency of executing parallel applications on heterogeneous systems critically depends on the methods used to define an assignment and mapping of the workflow tasks onto resources.

Scheduling in this context is mainly divided into two main approaches: single and multiple QoS parameters. On the single QoS parameter, the execution time of a workflow application, also called makespan, has been the major concern in most of the scheduling strategies. In this talk, it will be presented a novel algorithm for time optimization that implements a look-ahead feature while keeping a quadratic time complexity.

The problem becomes more challenging when two or more QoS parameters are considered in the scheduling problem. Time, cost, energy and reliability are common QoS parameters considered in recent research work in this area. Many algorithms consider time and cost in their formulation but most of them perform: (a) optimization of one parameter constrained to the other; (b) optimization of both parameters in a bi-objective formulation; and (c) a consideration of an unlimited number of resources, in particular for cloud platforms, where the strategy to accomplish time constraints is by allocating new computational instances.

In this talk two low-time complexity algorithms for QoS based scheduling, bounded to a set of resources, will be addressed. Namely, a time optimization and budget constrained scheduling and a budget-deadline constrained scheduling algorithm.

Research topics on resource management of heterogeneous systems will be discussed, namely, energy-aware scheduling, auto-tuning and concurrent scheduling.

CV:
Jorge Barbosa obtained his MSc degree from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, in 1993, and the PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (FEUP), in 2001. He is Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics Engineering at FEUP. He has (co-)authored over 60 scientific publications (including journal/conference papers and book chapters) on subjects related to parallel algorithms, resource management, energy-aware scheduling and performance modeling for heterogeneous systems. His current research interests are related to energy-aware scheduling, data locality, auto-parallelization tools and concurrent scheduling. He is member of the Editorial Board of Elsevier Journal „Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory“.

Dr. Michael Ortner | November 23, 2018 | 2 pm| L4.1.02 (IKT-LAB)

Abstract:
In the last decade, industrial fabrication of magnetic sensors has greatly improved producing ever cheaper and more reliable sensors. Consequently magnetic sensor systems have been developed for multiple applications that include current sensors, position and orientation sensors, compass applications, geomagnetic survey and others. Specific applications in modern automobiles include e.g. shift fork position detection, speed sensors, ABS sensors, steering wheel angle sensors, gas and break padel sensors and powertrain current sensors.

It is the aim of this lecture to provide a fundamental understanding of the working principles of such sensor systems and to discuss design difficulties. Computer aided design of magnetic sensor systems based on numerical methods and analytical implementations is discussed. Practical examples from industrial projects are shown.

CV:
Michael Ortner received the degree in theoretical physics from the Technical University of Vienna and the Ph.D. degree from the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Innsbruck. In 2012, he started as a Researcher at the CTR Carinthian Tech Research AG Institute, working on magnetics and magnetic sensors with a focus on analytical approaches and numerical simulation.

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Rott | 8. November 2018 | 18:15 | Sterneckstraße 15, S.0.16 (Aula)

Kurzfassung:
In der Mathematikdidaktik wird das Problemlösen seit Pólyas „Schule des Denkens“ – mal mehr und mal weniger intensiv – thematisiert. Im Vortrag werden wichtige Ergebnisse entsprechender Forschung resümiert und es werden an konkreten Beispielen aktuelle Forschungsprojekte aus Deutschland erläutert, in denen es u. a. um Heurismen, ihre Wirksamkeit und Lehrbarkeit sowie um Problemlösen im Mathematikunterricht und in der Lehrerbildung geht.

Abschließend wird aus Sicht des Vortragenden beschrieben, wie nächste Schritte auf dem Gebiet der Problemlöseforschung aussehen könnten und sollten.

CV:
Benjamin Rott hat von 2001 bis 2006 Mathematik und Physik für das gymnasiale Lehramt in Oldenburg studiert und anschließend in Salzgitter das Referendariat absolviert. Von 2008 bis 2012 hat er an der Universität Hannover in Mathematikdidaktik promoviert und anschließend eine Postdoc-Stelle an der PH Freiburg angenommen. Von 2014 bis 2017 war Benjamin Rott Juniorprofessor an der Universität Duisburg-Essen und seit 2017 ist er Universitätsprofessor an der Universität zu Köln.
Die Forschungsschwerpunkte von Benjamin Rott sind das mathematische Problemlösen, Überzeugungen und Beliefs zur Mathematik sowie mathematische Begabung.

Dr. Ali Roshanghias | November 9, 2018 | 2:30 pm | L4.1.02 (IKT-LAB)

Abstract

In this talk the basics of micro and nano fabrication techniques will be covered. We will discuss in particular how they are carried out in a typical clean room environment. We will learn what are the differences between the front-end and back-end in MEMs microfabrication. There will be a bunch of technical terms in thin film and thick film processing of MEMS, which will be explained briefly.  We then follow up by describing the basics of the various fabrication steps such as thin film formation, lithography as well as etching. Some typical in-line and off-line characterization and testing techniques of thin films will also be introduced.

CV

Dr. Ali Roshanghias is currently a senior researcher and project manager in the field of MEMS packaging at CTR Carinthian Tech Research AG. He recieved his PhD in materials science and technology from Sharif university of technology, Iran at 2012. Afterwards he pursued his career as a post-doc fellow at Nagaoka university of technology, Japan and Vienna universtity, Austria in the field of electronic materials and packaging. In 2015 he joined the CTR Carinthian Tech Research, Austria as a material scientist in the field of heterogeneous integration technologies and MEMS/ Power packaging. He has published over 30 papers on materials synthesis and characterization and is a verified peer-reviewer of Elsevier science.

Dr. Paulo Mendes | October 17, 2018 | 10:00 | L4.1.114 – Lakeside Labs GmbH im B04.b.1

Abstract

„Today’s internet is being populated, in its fringes, by large number of devices that are wireless and/or cellular enabled. Despite the fact that such devices are often in the vicinity of each other, communication among them follows the end-to-end principle and as such, traditional data transmission approaches do not take advantage of the physical proximity of devices.

In the area of computer networks, the concept of cooperation has been applied to mitigate such effects, in different layers of the OSI stack. For instance, in wireless networks, cooperative networking techniques are being applied in OSI Layer 1 (based on diversity); in OSI Layer 2 (based on overhearing); in OSI Layer 3 (based on estimation); and in the above layers, for instance, as occurred with overlaying (e.g., P2P).

This talk is based on the research findings and contributions that the speaker has been doing to the field of cooperative networking. The talk will go over the sustainability of cooperative networking, by studying the inclusion of derived models, such as user-centric networking, in the Internet wholesale model, and by investigating the basic requirements for the success deployment of cooperative networking mechanisms, in terms of the incentives that devices need to have to participate in cooperative activities. From a pure networking perspective the talk will focus on cooperative networking mechanisms related to few-hop relaying and cooperative routing aiming to take advantage of any opportunity to communicate in intermittently connected wireless networks.

The talk will end with an overview of the research challenges to apply cooperative networking principles to the development of an Internet encompassing a huge number of embedded devices able to produce a large amount of data, where there are potential advantages in combining communication and computation in what is called in this talk “cooperative computing”. As example, the talk will focus on autonomic vehicle technology, which is being driven by advances in sensing, computing and networking technologies. On the one hand, autonomous driving on urban roads has seen significant progress in recent years. On the other hand, autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have received increasing interest to tackle several use-cases from environment monitoring and emergency situations, to relaying communications to isolated areas.“

Paulo Jorge Milheiro Mendes

Paulo has 20 years of experience as computer engineer and 7 years as coordinator of research teams. Paulo has an entrepreneurial spirit, with the ability to take an idea from beginning to end, while dealing with fast-moving deadlines. He has a team leadership profile with capability to gather innovation funding. In 2004 he got his Ph.D. (summa cum laude) degree in Informatics Engineering from the University of Coimbra, having performed his thesis as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York (2000 – 2003).  He started building his research carrier at NTT Docomo research Labs in Munich, Germany. After that we co-founded the Internet Architecture and Networking research group at INESCTEC in Oporto, Portugal (2007-2010), and the Cognitive and People Centric Computing Lab (2010 – ) in Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests are in the field of self-organised systems (e.g. swarm intelligence), cognitive networks (e.g. orchestration of distributed edge systems) and cooperative wireless networks (e.g. relaying, opportunistic networking, named-data networking). His skills include Internet protocols, wireless networks, software engineering, sensing systems, as well as programming (C, C++, Java) for Linux and Android systems. Paulo Mendes has more than 80 articles in journals, magazines, books and conference proceedings and his inventions have been protected by 14 international patents.