Keynote Speaker I

Dr. Liu Jiren
Chairman& CEO, Neusoft Group Ltd.
Dr. Liu Jiren is chairman and CEO at Neusoft
Group Ltd., the leading software and solution provider in China.
As the principal founder of the company, Dr. Liu started his entrepreneur
career in 1988 when he, together with the other two young university
teachers set up the Computer Software and Network Engineering Research Lab
under NEU Computer Department with merely 3 PCs and RMB 30,000 Yuan as their
total asset. Through 13 years’ development, the lab, predecessor of Neusoft,
has now grown into a large software enterprise with 6000 employees and
annual sales revenue of more than RMB 2 billion Yuan.
Dr. Liu has conducted innovative explorations in the areas of software
application research and software industry development. He advanced the
point of “bridging software research and software application” which
represents a new mode of transferring software research achievement then.
For his outstanding contributions to the development of China software
industry, Dr. Liu has been awarded “May 1st Labor Medal” by the state. He
was also elected as one of China Top Ten IT Fortune People, and one of China
Top Ten Leaders of Software Enterprises.
Dr. Liu also serves on Neusoft Co., Ltd. as chairman, on Northeastern
University as vice president and on Software Center of Northeastern
University as director.
Dr. Liu is active with many social and industry organizations. He is vice
director-general of China Software Association, vice director-general of
Internet Society of China, member of Business Advisory Council of APEC.
After obtaining bachelor’s degree in computer application from Northeastern
Institute of Engineering (the present Northeastern University), Dr. Liu went
to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) of the United
States in 1986 to further his study where he finished his doctoral
dissertation. In 1988, he returned to China and got his doctoral degree,
becoming the first doctor in computer application in China. At the age of
33, he was promoted to professor, becoming one of the youngest professors in
China. He began to tutor doctoral students in 1995.
Keynote Speaker II

Prof. Chin-Chen Chang
Feng Chia University
Professor C.C. Chang was born
in Taichung, Taiwan on Nov. 12th, 1954. He obtained his
Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from National Chiao
Tung University. He's first degree is Bachelor of Science in
Applied Mathematics and master degree is Master of Science
in computer and decision sciences. Both were awarded in
National Tsing Hua University. Dr. Chang served in National
Chung Cheng University from 1989 to 2005. His current title
is Chair Professor in Department of Information Engineering
and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, from Feb. 2005.
Prior to joining Feng Chia
University, Professor Chang was an associate professor in
Chiao Tung University, professor in National Chung Hsing
University, chair professor in National Chung Cheng
University. He had also been Visiting Researcher and
Visiting Scientist to Tokyo University and Kyoto University,
Japan. During his service in Chung Cheng, Professor Chang
served as Chairman of the Institute of Computer Science and
Information Engineering, Dean of College of Engineering,
Provost and then Acting President of Chung Cheng University
and Director of Advisory Office in Ministry of Education,
Taiwan.
Professor Chang's specialties
include, but not limited to, data engineering, database
systems, computer cryptography and information security. A
researcher of acclaimed and distinguished services and
contributions to his country and advancing human knowledge
in the field of information science, Professor Chang has won
many research awards and honorary positions by and in
prestigious organizations both nationally and
internationally. He is currently a Fellow of IEEE and a
Fellow of IEE, UK. On numerous occasions, he was invited
to serve as Visiting Professor, Chair Professor, Honorary
Professor, Honorary Director, Honorary Chairman,
Distinguished Alumnus, Distinguished Researcher, Research
Fellow by universities and research institutes. He also
published over 1,100 papers in Information Sciences. In the
meantime, he participates actively in international academic
organizations and performs advisory work to government
agencies and academic organizations.
Keynote Speaker III

Prof. Xin Yao,
FIEEE
Natural Computation Group
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, U.K.
Biosketch of the
Speaker:
Xin Yao is a Professor (Chair) of Computer Science at the University of
Birmingham, UK, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of the University of
Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, China. He obtained his BSc
from USTC in 1982, MSc from the North China Institute of Computing
Technology in Beijing, China, in 1985, and PhD from USTC in Hefei, China, in
1990.
He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian National University
(ANU) in Canberra in 1990-91 and at CSIRO Division of Building, Construction
and Engineering in Melbourne in 1991-92. He was a lecturer, senior lecturer
and associate professor at the University College, the University of New
South Wales (UNSW), the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in Canberra
in 1992-99. Attracted by the English weather, he moved to Birmingham on the
April's Fool day in 1999 to take up a Chair of Computer Science.
Currently he is the Director of CERCIA (the Centre of Excellence for
Research in Computational Intelligence and Applications,
http://www.cercia.ac.uk) at the University of Birmingham, UK, which is
specialised in applied research and
knowledge transfer. He is an IEEE Fellow and a Distinguished Lecturer of
IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. He won the 2001 IEEE Donald G. Fink
Prize Paper Award and several other best paper awards. He was a Cheung Kong
Scholar
(Changjian Chair Professor) of the Ministry of Education of China and a
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Yuan Ze University, Taiwan. In his spare
time, he did the voluntary work as the Editor-in-Chief (2003-08) of IEEE
Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, and is an associate editor or
editorial board member of 12 international journals, and the editor of the
World Scientific book series on "Advances in Natural Computation". He
currently serves as the Vice President for Publications of the IEEE
Computational Intelligence Society. He has been invited to give more than 55
keynote/plenary speeches at international conferences in many countries.
His major research interests include evolutionary computation and neural
network ensembles. He has more than 300 refereed publications in
international journals and conferences. His work has been supported by AWM,
EPSRC, EU, Royal
Society, Chinese Academy of Sciences, NSFC, Honda, Marconi, BT, Thales and
Severn Trent Water.
Evolving, Training and
Designing Neural Network Ensembles
Xin Yao
(http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~xin)
CERCIA, School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK
Abstract:
Previous work on evolving neural networks has focused on single neural
networks. However, monolithic neural networks are too complex to train and
evolve for large and complex problems. It is often better to design a
collection of simpler neural networks that work cooperatively to solve a
large and complex problem. The key issue here is how to design such a
collection automatically so that it has the best generalisation.
This talk introduces work on evolving neural network ensembles, negative
correlation learning, and multi-objective approaches to ensemble learning.
The links among different learning algorithms are discussed.
Online/incremental learning using ensembles will also be presented briefly.
Selected References:
[1] On negative correlation: Y. Liu and X. Yao, ``Simultaneous training of
negatively correlated neural networks in an ensemble,'' IEEE Transactions on
Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics, 29(6):716-725, December
1999.
[2] On negative correlation and evolution: Y. Liu, X. Yao and T. Higuchi,
``Evolutionary Ensembles with Negative Correlation Learning,'' IEEE
Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 4(4):380-387, November 2000.
[3] On constructive ensemble learning: Md. Monirul Islam, X. Yao and K.
Murase, ``A constructive algorithm for training cooperative neural network
ensembles,'' IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 14(4):820-834, July 2003.
[4] On multi-objective approaches to ensemble learning: A Chandra and X.
Yao, ``Ensemble learning using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms,''
Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Algorithms, 5(4):417-445, December
2006.
[5] On incremental learning using ensembles: F. L. Minku, H. Inoue and X.
Yao, ``Negative correlation in incremental learning,'' Natural Computing,
8(2):289-320, June 2009.
[6] On ensemble pruning: H. Chen, P. Tino and X. Yao, ``Predictive Ensemble
Pruning by Expectation Propagation,'' IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and
Data Engineering, 21(7):999-1013, July 2009.
[7] On evolving ensembles: X. Yao and Md. M. Islam, ``Evolving artificial
neural network ensembles,'' IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine,
3(1):31-42,February 2008.
Keynote Speaker IV

Prof. Nikola Kasabov, Fellow IEEE, Fellow RSNZ
Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute, KEDRI
Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
nkasabov@aut.ac.nz, http://www.kedri.info
Biodata:
Professor Nikola Kasabov is the Director of the Knowledge Engineering and
Discovery Research Institute (KEDRI), Auckland. He holds a Chair of
Knowledge Engineering at the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
at Auckland University of Technology. He is a Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of the
Royal Society of New Zealand and Fellow of the New Zealand Computer Society.
He is the President of the International Neural Network Society (INNS) and a
Past President of the Asia Pacific Neural Network Assembly (APNNA). He is a
member of several technical committees of IEEE Computational Intelligence
Society and IFIP. Kasabov has served as Associate Editor of Neural Networks,
IEEE TrNN, IEEE TrFS, Information Science, J. Theoretical and Computational
Nanosciences, Applied Soft Computing and other journals. Kasabov holds MSc
and PhD from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria. His main research
interests are in the areas of intelligent information systems, soft
computing, neuro-computing, bioinformatics, brain study, novel methods for
data mining and knowledge discovery. He has published more than 400
publications that include 15 books, 120 journal papers, 60 book chapters, 32
patents and numerous conference papers. He has extensive academic experience
as an academic or a visiting scholar at the University of Otago, New
Zealand; University of Essex, UK; University of Trento, Italy; Technical
University of Sofia, Bulgaria; University of California at Berkeley; RIKEN
and KIT, Japan; TUniversity Kaiserslautern, Germany, and others. At present
he is also a Guest Professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Prof.
Kasabov has received the Bayer Science Innovation Award, the RSNZ Science
and Technology Silver Medal, the APNNA Excellent Service Award and other
awards. More information of Prof. Kasabov can be found on the KEDRI web
site: http://www.kedri.info.
Keynote Speaker V

Dr. Stanley H. Smith, Professor,
Life Senior Member of IEEE
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
Dr. Stanley H. Smith is a Professor Emeritus
in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Stevens
Institute of Technology. He was previously Professor and Head of the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stevens. He has
been engaged in consulting on modeling and simulation for network
architectures and in the development of embedded computer systems for
applications which include medical, control, instrumentation and data
acquisition, signal and image processing and communications.
Professor Smith has been in involved in embedded systems design, having
designed and produced more than thirty systems. All of these involved both
hardware and software development. He was one of the first (if not the
first) to offer courses and programs in microprocessor systems design in the
United States. He has given courses on this for the IEEE, industrial
corporations and the U.S. government. He has been involved in embedded
systems design for industry, medical and pharmaceutical companies and
government agencies such as the NIH and U.S. Army.
Dr. Smith has taught courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
He has given special courses and invited lectures for the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Weston Instruments Corporation,
ITT-DCD and the Department of Defense. While on a sabbatical leave of
absence from Stevens, he was a Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering
at the Polytechnic Institute of New York - now Polytechnic Institute of NYU.
There, he taught courses in radar systems, data acquisition and signal
processing, and high-speed digital signal and image processing with VLSI. In
1986, in Hefei, China he presented a course on High Speed Computer
Architectures in Hefei, China.
Dr. Smith is the author of more than one hundred technical reports and
papers. He has served as a consultant in the writing of nine books for
consumers and was a contributing author in books on product defects for the
legal profession and on digital signal processing. He was also an editorial
consultant for the IEEE Spectrum. He is a Life Senior Member of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the IEEE Computer
Society, the IEEE Communications Society and the Society for Photographic
and Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). He has appeared in Marquis’ Who’s Who
in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who on the Web.
Embedded Computing
Dr. Stanley H. Smith
Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA
Abstract
This talk deals with the
development of the digital computer from the middle of the last century
until today. Needless there have been very significant innovations that have
increased the capability while at the same time resulted in major (and that
may be an under emphasis) increases in capacity and speed, but even more
significant reductions in size, power consumption and, particularly, cost.
We have gone from the mainframe in the 1940’s with it hundreds of square
feet in cabinets containing power-consuming, heat-generating vacuum tubes
(and punched card input) to solid-state mainframes and minicomputers (with
less computing power than mainframes) in the 1950s through 1960’s. The late
1960s and the 1970’s saw the development of microprocessors virtually
replace the minicomputer and eventually the mainframe. We saw microcomputers
(based on microprocessors) operated with batteries! We started to see
automobile ignition systems controlled by microprocessors. Eventually, in
the 1980s (or even the late 1970s) we saw whole computers placed on a single
chip – called microcontrollers. The applications for these in automobiles,
communications, instrumentation, medical equipment, etc. was virtually
unlimited and it became almost impossible not to consider these and
virtually all digital system applications. The systems employing these
became known as “embedded computers” or “embedded systems.” In some cases,
the speed (throughput) of microcomputers was not adequate and LSI, VLSI and
XVLSI “chips” were developed. To some extent, they were replaced by custom
and semi-custom logic and gate arrays.
The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of Digital Signal Processors (DSP) complete
with onboard analog-to-digital converters (ADC). These provided some new
architectures to increase throughput. The 2000s also saw the rise of “motor
controllers” with other specialized features on board for phase control.
These also happen to be very good general purpose microcontrollers.
Also, in the 2000s, the application of gate arrays; particularly, Field
Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) came into prominence. These offer virtually
complete, specific-application architecture development, including
performing operations in parallel. We have also seen the emergence of
multiple-cores or multiple-processors in microcomputers.
This talk will concentrate on the history and the development of embedded
computers to cover a wide range of applications. These also require a wide
variety of development tools which will be described. Needless to say, it
will be almost impossible not to inject my own experience and opinions which
I hope will be useful to all.