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IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Winter School on Distributed Signal Processing for Secure Cyber Physical Systems

Concordia

November 2-4, IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) is hosting a Winter School on Distributed Signal Processing for Secure Cyber Physical Systems at Concordia. Speakers: This event consists of presentations given by internationally well-known Distinguished Speakers including members of IEEE Signal Processing Society Board of Governors, 6 IEEE Fellows, and a Notable Industry-based Presentation form PwC’s Cybersecurity & Privacy Practice in Canada as follows: Prof. Ali Sayed (UCLA, President-Elect of IEEE SPS); Prof. Georgios Giannakis (IEEE Fellow, University of Minnesota); Prof. Pramod Varshney (IEEE Fellow, Syracuse University); Prof. Deepa Kundur (IEEE Fellow, University of Toronto); Prof. Anna Scaglione (IEEE Fellow, Arizona State University); Prof. Tongwen Chen (IEEE Fellow, University of Alberta); Prof. Mark Coates (McGill University), and; Mr. Sajith Nair, Partner in PwC’s Cybersecurity & Privacy in Canada. About The Event: This is a unique opportunity for Concordia’s students/researchers, working/interested in security and signal processing, to learn more about the state-of-the-art research, get the chance to talk in person with elite and internationally well-known researchers, and to start/build the bases for future research collaborations. Register: ​Please check the School’s Homepage (below) for the call for participation (CPF), Biography of the invited speakers, and Registration details: https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~i-sip/s3pcps2016/

Acute, Sub-acute and chronic Therapeutic Strategies Post-SCI

Lecture Theatre (Basement), University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, 550 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 2A2

Thursday November 3, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Prof. Angelo All, Division of Neuroscience and Neuroengineering at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, will be presenting “Acute, Sub-acute and chronic Therapeutic Strategies Post-SCI”. Speaker: Prof. Angelo All Division of Neuroscience and Neuroengineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (JHU) Research Director at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Department of Biomedical Engineering, SiNAPSE Institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Director Spinal Cord Injury and Repair Research Laboratory at the JHU and NUS Day & Time: Thursday, November 3, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: Lecture Theatre (Basement), University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute 550 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 2A2 Co-sponsored by University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute No Admission Charge Abstract: Among neurological disorders, the cost of spinal cord injury (SCI) to society ranks second only after mental retardation. Acute SCI can manifest as ‘anatomically intact’ with spared demyelinated and electrically defunct axons showing physiological discontinuity across the site of lesion. Even if only a small number of spared fibers remain after SCI, with immediate treatment, the quality of life of patients can be greatly improved. Early knowledge of the extent of spared fibers will help rehabilitation therapists and scientists as well as neurologists to plan time-sensitive strategic treatment options. The therapeutic strategies would be tailored in order to ensure the survival of neurons post-primary injury and limit secondary phase of injury. Scientists and physicians would also need to devise ways to prevent progression of the injury and improve the microenvironment around the injury for treatment by using, for example, stem cell that aims to produce therapeutically-induced functional recovery. We have developed in vivo rodent models and quantitative assessment techniques and methods that can reliably quantify the repair and regeneration post-injury and demonstrate objective neuro-electro-physiological assessments of SCI recovery and rehabilitation. First, I will present experimental methods to create calibrated contusive SCI model and the neuroelectrophysiological function monitoring using Evoked Potentials (EP). The second part of my presentation involves the investigation of the effects of therapeutic hypothermia (acute), application of conjugated polymers for drug delivery within intraparenchymal of spinal cord and limiting the secondary phase of injury (sub-acute) and third, human stem cell replacement (chronic) therapy postcontusive SCI. I will present preliminary results on the effects of temperature manipulation on EP signals and a novel design of biodegradable polymers for drug delivery as well as the results of transplanting human stem cell derived oligodendrocyte progenitors to aid recovery of spinal cord function. Our expectation is that these techniques would be applicable in basic research as well as be able to translatable for future clinical studies. Biography: Angelo H. ALL, M.D., MBA, started his higher education in Pharmacy School, graduated from Medical School, continued his career as a surgery fellow and obtained a MBA degree from the Johns Hopkins University. Since 2000, his Biomedical and Neuro-Engineering research at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute has shaped his career. Dr. ALL is an Assistant Professor at the Division of Neuroscience and Neuroengineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (JHU), Baltimore, USA. He also holds faculty position of Assistant Professor and is the Research Director at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Department of Biomedical Engineering as well as SiNAPSE Institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is the director of the Spinal Cord Injury and Repair Research Laboratory at the JHU and NUS. Dr. ALL has established a very productive multidisciplinary translational research project through collaborations with scientists in both Medical and Engineering fields. The focus of his research is Central Nervous System (CNS) injury, repair and regeneration. His translational research projects involve cell replacement therapy using oligodendrocyte precursor cells derived from embryonic, iPSC and Directly Converted stem cells, as well as hypothermia treatment in the contusive model of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). In addition, part of his laboratory team is also investigating the application of nanoparticles to limit the secondary phase of SCI. Recently, his laboratory is developing the “Optomedicine” – we adopt Optogenetics-based approaches for rehabilitative treatment post-SCI. Optomedicine allows us to regulate the electrical activity of neuronal population cells with millisecond spatiotemporal precision. We are also testing the hypothesis of delivering genes into neurons of the CNS in a pioneering method that would translate “Optomedicine” into clinical settings. Dr. ALL Lab pioneered the monitoring and quantitative analysis of somatosensory and motor evoked potentials for assessment of long-term electrical integrity at various stages of pre- and post-injury. He and his team of researchers studied plasticity and adaptive changes in CNS, which enable reorganization of spared neuropathways following neurotrauma. He also uses different imaging techniques to monitor anatomical changes in the CNS architectures at various time points. These images allow the identification of spared fibers and the tracking of the extent of secondary injury to determine the therapeutic benefits of the various treatment strategies.

Digital Health Initiatives at eHealth Ontario

Room A3-21, Centennial College, Progress Campus, 941 Progress Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M1G 3T8

Friday November 11, 2016 at 11:30 a.m. Hosna Sedghi, Project Manager at eHealth Ontario, will be presenting “Digital Health Initiatives at eHealth Ontario”. Speaker: Hosna Sedghi, MSc, PMP Project Manager, eHealth Ontario Day & Time: Friday, November 11, 2016 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Location: Room A3-21, Centennial College, Progress Campus 941 Progress Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M1G 3T8 Map: http://www.centennialcollege.ca/about-centennial/contact-us/campus-locations/ Organizers: IEEE Toronto WIE, Nicoleta Zouri IEEE Toronto WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Maryam Davoudpour Registration: Registration is free, but space is limited. Please register via email to Nicoleta Zouri Abstract: eHealth Ontario was established by the provincial government in September 2008 as an independent agency of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. eHealth Ontario is enabling physicians and health care providers to establish and maintain electronic health records (EHRs) for all of Ontario’s 13 million residents. Biography: With a background in software engineering Hosna Sedghi has worked as a project manager at eHealth Ontario for the past 3 years and as a project lead previous to that. Hosna has extensive experience with HL7 standards, business analysis, system analysis, integration, and health information.

Will 2020 witness a significant impact empowered by IoT, 5G and virtualization?

BA 2179 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4

Monday November 14, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Fawzi Behmann, President, TelNet Management Consulting, Inc., will be presenting “Will 2020 witness a significant impact empowered by IoT, 5G and virtualization?”. Speaker: Fawzi Behmann President, TelNet Management Consulting, Inc. IEEE NA ComSoc Vice Chair Day & Time: Monday, November 14, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: BA 2179 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: Several technologies are converging empowering IoT and delivering a greater impact and advance services to multiple markets by 2020’s.This presentation will introduce the concept of IoT and architectural evolution from a pre-IoT to Collaborative IoT impacting many markets such as home, health, automotive, enterprise, transportation and infrastructure. This will be enriched by several examples. Advancement in computing processing power, cloud based services and virtualization have resulted in an environment and platform for convergence some of the key technologies for development and deployment of new products, applications and services that will have a great impact on improving business processes and quality of life. The talk will provide various examples and scenarios at different areas such as home, health & wellness, car, building, infrastructure and city. Solution building blocks include sensing, aggregation, and data analytics. Examples of some of the adjacent technologies such as 3D, Robot, Drone and Wearables will be highlighted. Finally the talk will conclude with some of the factors and challenges to deliver scalable solutions, delivering better quality of services and experience. These include development platforms, 5G, virtualization, collaborative applications and security. Takeaway points: · Understanding of rapid evolution of IoT & and other related technologies. · Emerging of ecosystem cloud based big data/analytics – use cases. · Considerations for scalable and secure networks. Biography: Fawzi is a visionary, thought leader, author and contributor in advancing adoption of technology in serving humanity. Fawzi spent over 30 years in industry and held various executive and leadership positions with Tier 1 companies in the areas of communications and networks spanning Semiconductor, communication systems and service provider. Fawzi was a principle architect and championed the definition and the developing of integrated pre-IoT telecom alert system and networking management solution at Teleglobe Canada. He was a senior product manager with Nortel Networks for product release for enterprise, broadband edge and core nodes. Fawzi also served as the Director of Strategic Marketing with Motorola/Freescale for SoC networking & Communications product line in Austin, Texas. Fawzi is passionate about technology automation and has founded TelNet Management Consulting Inc. in 2009 offering consulting services in the areas of technology trends and positioning for smart networking and IoT/GIS solutions. Examples included Solar Energy, Public Safety – emergency response systems. He organized and chaired workshops, tutorials and was a distinguished speaker on key topics such as IoT, 5G, virtualization and Big Data/Analytics. Fawzi is a board member with several companies and had several publication including a recent book on the subject of future IoT “Collaborative Internet of Things for Future Smart Connected Life and Business” published by Wiley, June 2015 http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118913744,subjectCd-EEJ0.html Fawzi is active in international forums and standards activities with ITU, ITRS and IEEE Fawzi is a senior member of IEEE, and is currently the ComSoc NA vice chair, CTS Conference & PACE Chair, and ComSoc/SP/CS Austin chapter chair. He was the recipient of several awards from Industry and IEEE including CEO Freescale Diamond Chip Award in 2008, and IEEE ComSoc Chapter of the year award in 2015 and Outstanding R5 member award for 2013, 2014 and 2015. He is currently serving as Conference chair for IEEE Central and organized sessions and workshops at BHI, Himss, Smart Tech on IoT and healthcare. Fawzi holds a Bachelor of Science with honors and distinction from Concordia University, Montreal; Masters in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Ontario and Executive MBA from Queen’s University, Ontario Canada.

IoT Advancement and impact on the future of Health and Wellness

BA B026 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4

Monday November 14, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. Fawzi Behmann, President, TelNet Management Consulting, Inc., will be presenting “IoT Advancement and impact on the future of Health and Wellness”. Speaker: Fawzi Behmann President, TelNet Management Consulting, Inc. IEEE NA ComSoc Vice Chair Day & Time: Monday, November 14, 2016 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Location: BA B026 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: The acceleration in communications technology has impacted our work, home, transportation, commerce, education and with no exception has increased adoption in healthcare. This presentation will introduce the concept of IoT and architectural evolution from a pre-IoT to Collaborative IoT impacting many markets such as home, health, automotive, enterprise, transportation and infrastructure. This will be enriched by several examples. The talk will then focus on healthcare and wellness exploring current and emerging solutions at hospitals, clinics, care centers and homes. Solution building blocks include sensing, aggregation, and data analytics. Examples of some of the adjacent technologies such as Drone, Wearables, 3D, and Robot will be highlighted. Finally the talk will conclude with some of the factors and challenges to deliver scalable solutions, delivering better quality of services and experience. These include development platforms, 5G, virtualization, collaborative applications and security. Takeaway Points: · Understanding of rapid evolution of technology and impact in critical healthcare areas · Examples of use cases in healthcare & nutrition. · Considerations for scalable and secure networks. Biography: Fawzi is a visionary, thought leader, author and contributor in advancing adoption of technology in serving humanity. Fawzi spent over 30 years in industry and held various executive and leadership positions with Tier 1 companies in the areas of communications and networks spanning Semiconductor, communication systems and service provider. Fawzi was a principle architect and championed the definition and the developing of integrated pre-IoT telecom alert system and networking management solution at Teleglobe Canada. He was a senior product manager with Nortel Networks for product release for enterprise, broadband edge and core nodes. Fawzi also served as the Director of Strategic Marketing with Motorola/Freescale for SoC networking & Communications product line in Austin, Texas. Fawzi is passionate about technology automation and has founded TelNet Management Consulting Inc. in 2009 offering consulting services in the areas of technology trends and positioning for smart networking and IoT/GIS solutions. Examples included Solar Energy, Public Safety – emergency response systems. He organized and chaired workshops, tutorials and was a distinguished speaker on key topics such as IoT, 5G, virtualization and Big Data/Analytics. Fawzi is a board member with several companies and had several publication including a recent book on the subject of future IoT “Collaborative Internet of Things for Future Smart Connected Life and Business” published by Wiley, June 2015 http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118913744,subjectCd-EEJ0.html Fawzi is active in international forums and standards activities with ITU, ITRS and IEEE Fawzi is a senior member of IEEE, and is currently the ComSoc NA vice chair, CTS Conference & PACE Chair, and ComSoc/SP/CS Austin chapter chair. He was the recipient of several awards from Industry and IEEE including CEO Freescale Diamond Chip Award in 2008, and IEEE ComSoc Chapter of the year award in 2015 and Outstanding R5 member award for 2013, 2014 and 2015. He is currently serving as Conference chair for IEEE Central and organized sessions and workshops at BHI, Himss, Smart Tech on IoT and healthcare. Fawzi holds a Bachelor of Science with honors and distinction from Concordia University, Montreal; Masters in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Ontario and Executive MBA from Queen’s University, Ontario Canada.

Health Informatics Evening at Centennial College

Room L1-02, Centennial College, Progress Campus 941 Progress Ave., Toronto

Wednesday November 16, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. Igor Sirkovich, Vikki Leung, Karim Keshavjee and Jimmy Poulin, will be presenting “Health Informatics Evening at Centennial College”. Speakers & Agenda: 5:15 to 5:30 Event Registration 1. Igor Sirkovich from 5:30 PM to 6:00 PM Founder and CEO of Xpertera HL7 FHIR and eHealth Architecture Consultant at Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Presentation title: Current initiatives at the Ministry of Health and eHealth Ontario, pan-Canadian standards collaborative, and health informatics standards (HL7 FHIR), Xpertera introduction. 2. Vikki Leung from 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM Full Stack Developer at Interdev Technologies Inc. Presentation title: Technology used for Community Paramedic Services, Interdev Technologies 3. Karim Keshavjee, MD from 6:30 PM to 7:00 PM CEO of InfoClin Inc. Adjunct Professor at University of Toronto, University of Victoria Visiting Scholar at Ryerson University Associate Member at Centre for Evaluation of Medicine, McMaster University Numerous publications on Health Informatics studies and medicine Presentation title: Health Apps by Design: A reference architecture for mobile apps for health 4. Jimmy Poulin from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM Director of Operations at m-Health Solutions Presentation title: ECG signal remote collection via mobile wireless external recorder and smartphone. 5. NSERC speaker (name will be announced later) from 7:30 PM to 8:00 PM Presentation: Funding opportunities for College Students in Science and Technologies programs. 8:00 to 8:30 PM Networking Day & Time: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Location: Room L1-02, Centennial College, Progress Campus 941 Progress Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M1G 3T8 Map: http://www.centennialcollege.ca/about-centennial/contact-us/campus-locations/ Organizers: IEEE Toronto WIE, Nicoleta Zouri IEEE Toronto WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Maryam Davoudpour Registration: Registration is free, but space is limited. Please register via email to Nicoleta Zouri Abstract: Offered as part of the Experiential Learning process for students in Health Informatics Program at Centennial College, this event facilitate skills and knowledge transfer between audience and speakers through an interactive session. Digital health solutions will be discussed and software demos will be presented.

Operational-Log Analysis for Big Data Systems: Challenges and Solutions

Room: ENG 288, 245 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3

Friday November 18, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Andriy Miranskyy, Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, Ryerson University, will be presenting “Operational-Log Analysis for Big Data Systems: Challenges and Solutions”. Speaker: Dr. Andriy Miranskyy Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Ryerson University Day & Time: Friday, November 18, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: George Vari Centre for Computing and Engineering Ryerson University Room: ENG 288 245 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3 Map – http://www.ryerson.ca/maps – Look for ENG Registration: Registration is free, but space is limited. Please register via this link: http://tinyurl.com/systemsEvent Organizers: IEEE Toronto Systems Chapter, Alexei Botchkarev albot@ieee.org IEEE Toronto WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics and Computer Science Department of Ryerson University IEEE Toronto WIE Chair: Maryam Davoudpour maryam.davoudpour@ieee.org Abstract: Big data systems (BDSs) are complex, consisting of multiple interacting hardware software components, such as distributed compute nodes, networking, databases, middleware, business intelligence layer, and high availability infrastructure. Any of these components can fail. Finding the failures’ root causes is extremely laborious. Analysis of BDS-generated logs can speed up this process. The logs can also help improve testing processes, detect security breaches, customize operational profiles, and aid with any other tasks requiring runtime-data analysis. However, practical challenges hamper log analysis tools’ adoption. The logs emitted by a BDS can be thought of as big data themselves. When working with large logs, practitioners face seven main issues: scarce storage, unscalable log analysis, inaccurate capture and replay of logs, inadequate log-processing tools, incorrect log classification, a variety of log formats, and inadequate privacy of sensitive data. This talk describes the challenges and practical solutions faced while building and institutionalizing dynamic analysis tools in the industry. Biography: Andriy Miranskyy is an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science, Ryerson University. His research interests are in the area of mitigating risk in software engineering, focusing on software quality assurance, program comprehension, software requirements, project risk management, Big Data, and Green IT. Andriy received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario. He has 17 years of software engineering experience in information management and pharmaceutical industries. Prior to joining Ryerson, Andriy worked as a software engineer in the IBM Information Management division at the IBM Toronto Software Laboratory; currently, he is the Faculty Fellow of the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies. He has served as Guest Editor for a special edition of IEEE Software as well as organizer, committee member, and reviewer for several software engineering workshops and conferences.

AI-Based Software Defect Predictors: Applications and Benefits and Lessons Learned

KHE 225, Ryerson University, 340 Church Street, Toronto

Monday November 21, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. Dr. Ayse Basar Bener, professor and director of Data Science Laboratory at Ryerson University, will be presenting “AI-Based Software Defect Predictors: Applications and Benefits and Lessons Learned”. Speaker: Dr. Ayse Basar Bener Professor, Director of Data Science Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Director of Big Data, Office of Provost and Vice President Academic Ryerson University Day & Time: Monday, November 21, 2016 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Location: KHE 225, Ryerson University, 340 Church Street, Toronto Contact: Maryam Davoudpour Organizer: WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Computer Science Department of Ryerson University Abstract: Software analytics guide practitioners in decision making throughout the software development process. In this context, prediction models can help managers efficiently organize their resources and identify problems by analyzing patterns on existing project data in an intelligent and meaningful manner. In this talk I will share my experiences building and deploying AI (machine learning) models in software organizations over 15 years. We have encountered similar data analytics patterns in diverse organizations and in different problem cases. I will give examples from deployed projects and discuss these patterns following a “software analytics” framework: problem identification, data collection, descriptive statistics, and decision making. Biography: Dr. Ayse Basar Bener is a professor and the director of Data Science Laboratory (DSL) in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University. She is the director of Big Data in the Office of Provost and Vice President Academic at Ryerson University. She is a faculty research fellow of IBM Toronto Labs Centre for Advance Studies, and affiliate research scientist in St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Her current research focus is big data applications to tackle the problem of decision-making under uncertainty by using machine learning methods and graph theory to analyze complex structures in big data to build recommender systems and predictive models. She is a member of AAAI, INFORMS, AIS, and senior member of IEEE.

Phase Noise in LC Oscillators: From Basic Concepts to Advanced Topologies

BA 1240, 40 St George Street, University of Toronto

Wednesday November 23, 2016 at 2:10 p.m. Dr. Carlo Samori, Professor at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, will be presenting “Phase Noise in LC Oscillators: From Basic Concepts to Advanced Topologies”. Speaker: Dr. Carlo Samori Professor, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Day & Time: Wednesday, November 23, 2016 2:10 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. Location: BA 1240 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto Contact: Dustin Dunwell Organizer: Solid State Circuit Society Abstract: Despite having been the subject of extensive study in last 20 years for the solid-state IC community, the phase noise in voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) is still today an important research subject. The main reason is that phase noise is one of the main issues encountered during the design of a transceiver whose understanding is an essential know-how for an RF designer. A second reason is that the intrinsic time-variant nature of VCOs makes these circuits difficult to analyze, therefore new topologies are often proposed, claiming advantages in term of phase noise and/or dissipation that in several cases are hard both to understand and verify without a direct implementation. This lecture will start from the basics of LC VCOs and of phase noise. The phase noise will be calculated in basic topologies and the fundamental trade-off with power dissipation and tuning range will be highlighted. The lecture then will continue by presenting advance VCO topologies, showing how these circuits typically aim to enhance either the current or the voltage efficiency, in order to improve the phase noise vs. power dissipation trade-off. Biography: Carlo Samori received the Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1995, at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, where he is now a professor. His research interests are in the area of RF circuits, in particular of design and analysis of VCOs and high performance frequency synthesizers. He has collaborated with several semiconductor companies. He is a co-author of more than 100 papers and of the book Integrated Frequency Synthesizers for Wireless Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Prof. Samori has been a member of the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference and he is a member of the European Solid-State Circuits Conference. He has been Guest Editor for the December 2014 issue of the Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

Who Are We Studying in Social Media: Bots or Humans?

Room ENG 288, George Vari Centre for Computing and Engineering, 245 Church Street

Thursday November 24, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd, Associate Professor of Ted Rogers School of Management and Canada Research Chair in Social Media Data Stewardship, will be presenting “Who Are We Studying in Social Media: Bots or Humans?”. Speaker: Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd Associate Professor Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University Canada Research Chair in Social Media Data Stewardship Day & Time: Thursday, November 24, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 288, George Vari Centre for Computing and Engineering, 245 Church Street Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3 Map: http://www.ryerson.ca/maps – Look for ENG Organizers: IEEE Toronto Systems Chapter, Alexei Botchkarev IEEE Toronto WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Computer Science Department of Ryerson University Maryam Davoudpour Registration: Registration is free, but space is limited. Please register via http://tinyurl.com/systemsChapterEvent24 Abstract: Researchers studying various online and computer-mediated communities used to be able to argue that the online is an extension of the offline, and that offline and online are just different slices of real life. But the increasing number of bots in our datasets and the increasing use of algorithmic filtering by social media giants are widening the gap between online and offline, and between computer-mediated and algorithm-driven communication. This in turn makes some online data less reliable, at least for those of us studying human behavior. It also begs the question, if we are using data from social media for modelling, are we modelling human behavior in social media or simply reverse engineering how bots and other algorithms operate? Therefore, there is an urgent need to better understand the nature of bots and algorithmic filtering, and their influence on users’ online interactions, not just from a computational, but also from sociological perspective. This talk will discuss some of the key challenges and possible solutions to detecting social bots in the context of conducting social media research. Biography: Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd is a Canada Research Chair in Social Media Data Stewardship, Associate Professor in the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. He is also the Director of the Social Media Lab and a co-editor of a multidisciplinary journal on Big Data and Society published by Sage. Dr. Gruzd’s research initiatives explore how the advent of social media and the growing availability of social big data are changing the ways in which people communicate, collaborate and disseminate information and how these changes impact the social, economic and political norms and structures of modern society. Dr. Gruzd and his lab are also actively developing and evaluating new approaches and tools to support social media data analytics and stewardship. His research and commentaries have been reported across Canada and internationally in various mass media outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles Times, Nature.com, The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Canadian Press, CBC TV, CBC Radio, CTV and Global TV.

Sensor Data Fusion, Levels, Models and Approaches

BA1230, Bahen Centre, 40 St. George Street

Friday November 25, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. Behzad Moshiri, senior member of IEEE and Professor at University of Waterloo & University of Tehran, will be presenting “Sensor Data Fusion, Levels, Models and Approaches”. Speaker: Professor Behzad Moshiri University of Waterloo University of Tehran Senior Member of IEEE Member of ISIF Day & Time: Friday, November 25, 2016 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Location: BA1230, Bahen Centre, 40 St. George Street Abstract: In this talk a review on sensor data fusion concept and multi-sensor array which is usually referred as sensor data fusion will be presented. Generally, “Sensor Data Fusion” as well as “Information Fusion” concepts deal with the synergistic combination of data or information provided by various knowledge sources such as sensors or information extractors, in order to provide a better understanding of a given scene or obtaining an accurate knowledge discovery. The use of sensor data fusion concept has advantages such as “Redundancy”, “Complementary”, “Timeliness” and “Less Costly Information”. The advantages of multiple-sensor data fusion approaches in terms of cost, accuracy and reliability will be explained. Fusion characterization addressing the application domain, fusion objective, fusion process input-output (I/O) characteristics and sensor suite configuration will be shown. In this seminar the different levels and models of Data Fusion will be presented and also different conventional and intelligent data fusion approaches will be introduced. Finally, some typical examples on applications of sensor data fusion in different fields such as Robotics, Process Control, Information Technology and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) will be presented. Biography: Behzad Moshiri received his B.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) in 1984 and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in control systems engineering from the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), U.K. in 1987 and 1991 respectively. He joined the school of electrical and computer engineering, University of Tehran in 1992 where he is currently professor of control systems engineering. He was the member of ISA (Canada Branch) in 1991-1992. He has been the member of ISIF since 2002 and senior member of IEEE since 2006. Dr. Moshiri is adjunct professor in department of electrical and computer engineering at university of Waterloo since 2014. His research collaborations with university of Waterloo, university of Toronto and university of Ryerson have been initiated since 2007 and the applications of sensor data fusion methods in different disciplines were the core and main field of research ties with colleagues in above mentioned universities during last decade. He is the author/co-author of more than 300 articles including 100 journal papers and 21 book chapters. His fields of research include mechatronics, automation, advanced industrial control design, smart sensing system design, broad spread of applications of “sensor/data fusion” as well as “information fusion” concepts in mechatronics, process control, robotics, information technology, bioinformatics, biomedical engineering and intelligent transportation systems (ITS).

Developing Wearable Technologies for improved management of sleep-related breathing disorders

Room ENG-460, 245 Church Street, Toronto, ON

Tuesday November 29th, 2016 at 2:30 p.m. Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi, Scientist at SleepdB Laboratory and Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, will be presenting “Developing Wearable Technologies for improved management of sleep-related breathing disorders”. Speaker: Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi Scientist, SleepdB Laboratory, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute Assistant Professor, Biomaterial & Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto Adjunct Faculty, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Manitoba Day & Time: Tuesday, November 29th, 2016 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Location: Room ENG-460 245 Church Street, Toronto, ON Ryerson University Organizer: IEEE Signal Processing Chapter Toronto Section Contact: Mehrnaz Shokrollahi Abstract: Over four million Canadians live with a chronic respiratory disease such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)—all of which are associated with high morbidity. In Canada, 6.5% of total health care costs are related to these disorders, amounting to $5.7B in direct and $6.72B in indirect costs per year. Moreover, the overlap between asthma, COPD, and OSA is common, is clinically important, worsens quality of life, and is associated with greater morbidity and mortality more than the sum of the contributing disorders. A feature common to chronic respiratory diseases is that their symptoms, eg. shortness of breath, worsen during sleep. Most emergency visits and deaths related to asthma and COPD occur during the night. However, our understanding of the mechanisms of respiratory disorders exacerbation at night is limited; which consequently challenges our ability to manage these disorders. One of the main barriers to determine the underlying pathophysiology of sleep-related respiratory disorders is that the available technologies to perform studies are expensive, invasive, and confound normal breathing and sleep patterns. Therefore, the results may not be applicable to a wide range of people or over a long period of time to evaluate treatments and interventions. Therefore, the mechanistic link between sleep and respiratory disease, particularly the role of night-time fluid redistribution, is not well understood. To address this gap, my team is developing novel technologies to monitor respiratory related physiological signals during sleep, as well and technologies to non-invasively assess tissue composition, and its role on the pathophysiology of sleep related breathing disorders. Biography: Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi is a Scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute – University Health Network, where she leads the SleepdB laboratory. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Biomaterial and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto and Adjunct Faculty Member in the Graduate Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Manitoba. Her research aims to determine the pathophysiology of sleep-related breathing disorders and to develop novel technologies for improved management of these disorders. She is particularly interested in developing innovative technologies for monitoring of physiological signals at home and implementing personalized treatments for older populations with chronic sleep-related respiratory diseases. To date, Dr. Yadollahi has authored and co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, had more than 60 presentations at national and international conferences, and been invited 26 times to give presentations on her research at prominent national and international academic institutions. Her research is supported by grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canadian Respiratory Research Network, and Ontario Centres of Excellence, among others. In the past 10 years, Dr. Yadollahi has been instrumental in developing new wearable technologies for improved diagnosis and treatment of breathing disorders during sleep. At Toronto Rehab, Dr. Yadollahi is leading SleepdB, a Sound-proof laboratory to examine sleep-disordered Breathing. SleepdB is the first laboratory in the world dedicated to understanding the mechanisms of airway narrowing during sleep and to developing acoustic technologies to improve sleep-related respiratory disorders. This laboratory will also serve as a hub for knowledge translation and exchange between researchers and clinicians to advance clinically relevant research and implement cutting-edge assessments and treatments for breathing disorders.