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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.

Women in Robotics Series: Erica Tiberia, Roboticist and Educator

Health Innovation Hub, 263 McCaul Avenue, Toronto, ON

Thursday December 8, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Erica Tiberia, roboticist, creative technologist, educator and entrepreneur, will be presenting “Women in Robotics Series”. Speaker: Erica Tiberia Roboticist, Creative Technologist, Educator and Entrepreneur Day & Time: Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Location: Health Innovation Hub 263 McCaul Avenue, Toronto, ON The meeting room is on the first floor. Note that the doors to H2I will lock at 6 but someone will be there to let you in. Please knock. Organizer: IEEE Toronto Section, Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) and the IEEE Women in Engineering Toronto Section (WIE) RVSP at https://www.meetup.com/Get-Your-Bot-On-Robotics-Hackathon/events/234793342/ Agenda: 6:00 pm – Networking 6:30 pm – Welcome 6:40 pm – Erica Tiberia – talk and Q&A 7:40 pm – Pitches from the community – Community members can ask for assistance on their projects 8:00 pm – Networking 9:00 pm – Close Biography: Erica is a tech educator and creative technologist. She has a technical background in molecular biology and biotechnology and a passion for science communication, digital education, and emerging technology. She has designed and coordinated education programs involving electronics, robotics, digital fabrication and programming for kids and adults. She also designs, builds and programs robots and is a level 1 winner of the 2016 sample return robot NASA Centennial Challenge. Her work has been featured on Bloomberg Tech, Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet, NASA.gov and more. A scientist by training, Erica has a B.Sc. In Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Waterloo. She completed M.Sc. work on research done at the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. She has done molecular biology research at Cornell University, the University of Waterloo, the Hospital for Sick Children, and the Princess Margaret Cancer Center, and is an author of multiple peer reviewed scientific papers.

5G RAN – Standards Developments

Room BA1230, 40 St. George Street, M5S 2E4

Wednesday December 14th, 2016 at 4:30 p.m. Dr. Ivo Maljevic, senior member of TELUS technology strategy team, will be presenting “5G RAN – Standards Developments”. Speaker: Dr. Ivo Maljevic Senior Member, TELUS Technology Strategy Team, Chief Technology Office Adjunct Lecturer, University of Toronto Day & Time: Wednesday, December 14th, 2016 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Location: Room BA1230 Bahen Centre for Information Technology 40 St. George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 University of Toronto Organizer: IEEE Communications Society Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: The 3GPP is in the process of standardizing the next, 5th generation of mobile communications. This talk provides an up to date overview of the current standardization status and focuses on the Radio Access Network (RAN) part. Specifically, it addresses the completion timelines of each of the phases (there are 3 phases), use cases that are driving the design and architecture options. Additionally, 5G spectrum, key performance targets & requirements and air interface proposals and open areas for research are discussed. Finally, the talk privies an up to data information about the 5G trials conducted so far. Biography: Dr. Ivo Maljevic is a senior member of TELUS technology strategy team within the Chief Technology Office, where he focuses on defining a long-term vision for the RAN, spectrum strategy and standardization. In terms of broader industry involvement, in the past he has participated in the Canadian Evaluation Group for the IMT-Advanced proposal, and now he is actively involved in NGMNs and ATIS 5G initiatives. He also participates in 3GPP RAN sessions. Additionally, Ivo is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Toronto. Prior to TELUS, he was with Soma Networks, and before that, he worked at Motorola Canada. His areas of expertise include LTE/WiMAX/CDMA wireless systems, software defined radio, signal processing, and digital communications theory.

CMOS Bioelectronics

Room GB 248, 35 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 1A4

Friday January 20, 2017 at 2:10 p.m. Professor Ken Shepard, Electrical and Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, will be presenting “CMOS Bioelectronics”. Speaker: Prof. Ken Shepard Electrical and Biomedical Engineering Columbia University Day & Time: Friday, January 20th, 2017 2:10 pm – 3:00 pm Location: Room GB 248, 35 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 1A4 Contact: Junho Jeong Organizer: IEEE Toronto Photonics Chapter **Refreshments will be served** Abstract: CMOS electronics, which has revolutionized communications and computation in the last 30 years, has the same transformative potential for life science applications with appropriate “more than Moore” augmentation. In this talk, we will outline work in my group over the last 10 years, which has applied augmented CMOS to problems in molecular diagnostics, microbiology, and neuroscience. We will discuss several on-going projects in my group in these areas include high-bandwidth CMOS-integrated nanopores, point-functionalized nanotube devices integrated on CMOS for genomic diagnostics, electrochemical imaging chips for understanding microbial communities, high-density electrophysiological arrays for in vivo and in vitro studies of neural systems, biologically powered solid-state electronics, and various wireless probes to studying neural and cellular systems. Biography: Ken Shepard received the B.S.E. degree from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, in 1987 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1988 and 1992, respectively. From 1992 to 1997, he was a Research Staff Member and Manager with the VLSI Design Department, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, where he was responsible for the design methodology for IBM’s G4 S/390 microprocessors. Since 1997, he has been with Columbia University, New York, where he is now the Lau Familty Professor of Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He also was Chief Technology Officer of CadMOS Design Technology, San Jose, CA, until its acquisition by Cadence Design Systems in 2001. He is current serving on the board of two other start-ups, Ferric, commercializing integrated voltage regulator technology, and Quicksilver, commercializing single-molecule electronic genomic diagnostics. His current research interests include power electronics, carbon-based devices and circuits, and CMOS bioelectronics.

Abstraction in Situation Calculus Action Theories

Room TRS2164, 575 Bay Street (entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University

Monday January 23, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. Bita Banihashemi, PhD Candidate in Computer Science at York University, will be presenting “Abstraction in Situation Calculus Action Theories”. Speaker: Bita Banihashemi PhD Candidate, Computer Science York University Day & Time: Monday, January 23, 2017 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: Room TRS2164, 575 Bay Street (entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University Contact: Maryam Davoudpour Organizer: WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics Abstract: We develop a general framework for agent abstraction based on the situation calculus and the ConGolog agent programming language. We assume that we have a high-level specification and a low-level specification of the agent, both represented as basic action theories. A refinement mapping specifies how each high-level action is implemented by a low-level ConGolog program and how each high-level fluent can be translated into a low-level formula. We define a notion of sound abstraction between such action theories in terms of the existence of a suitable bisimulation between their respective models. Sound abstractions have many useful properties that ensure that we can reason about the agent’s actions (e.g., executability, projection, and planning) at the abstract level, and refine and concretely execute them at the low level. We also characterize the notion of complete abstraction where all actions (including exogenous ones) that the high level thinks can happen can in fact occur at the low level. Biography: Bita Banihashemi is currently a PhD candidate in Computer Science at York University. Her research is primarily focused on agent supervision, which is a form of control/customization of an agent’s behavior. Her research interests include Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems, and AI and the Web.

Top 10 Ways to Design Safer Embedded Software

Room CB 114, Best Institute (University of Toronto) 112 College Street

Thursday January 26th, 2017 at 9:00 a.m. the IEEE Computer Society Toronto Chapter will be holding a Training Course: Top 10 Ways to Design Safer Embedded Software. We are sorry to inform you that this event has been cancelled. We will attempt to reschedule the event later this year. Abstract: Embedded systems are everywhere these days: from implantable medical devices to self-driving cars. The risks of human injury are also multiplying as more embedded systems connect to the Internet and become open to hacking as well as malfunction. There are design techniques that can be applied to develop safer and more reliable embedded systems. As we consult with companies in a range of industries, we are continually surprised that such techniques–including the 10 techniques you will be exposed to in this course–are not more widely known and practiced. Register today to join us at this important 1-day course where the focus is on minimizing the risk of injury or loss by firmware malfunction though a combination of lightweight, demonstrably-valuable design techniques. RSVP is required. Visit https://events.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_registration/register/42587 Agenda: 9:00am Coffee* 9:30am Morning Session 12:30pm Lunch* 1:30pm Afternoon Session 3:30pm End (approx.) * Morning coffee and lunch are included in the registration fee. Prerequisites: Attendees should be generally familiar with the terminology of embedded software or have first-hand experience doing embedded systems design. Fees: IEEE Members: CDN $135 + 13% HST Non-Members: CDN $160 + 13% HST Day & Time: Thursday, January 26th, 2017 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Location: Room CB 114, Best Institute (University of Toronto) 112 College Street Toronto, ON M5G 1L6 Canada Campus Map: http://map.utoronto.ca/building/052 Public Parking (Toronto General Hospital Parking Garage): https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Toronto+General+Hospital+Parking+Garage/@43.6589808,-79.3865625,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xd777822577805e72!8m2!3d43.6589808!4d-79.3865625