Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

  • Optimization and Research: Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges

    Room ENG 288 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3

    June 20, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Dr. Shahryar Rahnamayan, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at UOIT, will be presenting “Optimization and Research: Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges”. Speaker: Dr. Shahryar Rahnamayan Associate Professor Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UOIT Day & Time: Monday, June 20, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 288 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 Organizer: IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), IEEE Magnetics Chapter, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter and Computer Science Department Ryerson University Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Abstract: In this research seminar, the speaker will explain his recent optimization research work and accomplishments, categorized in the following two main groups of contributions: theoretical/developmental and practical. The first group will cover his contributions in large-scale optimization, opposition-based computation, many-objective optimization, image-based large-scale visualization and interaction, incremental cooperative coevolution, micro-differential evolution, 3D visualization of many-objective Pareto-front, preserving constraint handling, decision making in high-dimensional objective space, and multi-modal optimization. In the practical category, the speaker will explain several real-world applications to demonstrate effectiveness of optimization in medical image processing, renewable energy systems, forensic science, scheduling, and wireless sensors network. This seminar will be beneficial for faculty and students who conduct ‘research in optimization’ or ‘optimization in research’. Biography: Dr. Shahryar Rahnamayan received his B.Sc. and M.S. degrees both with honors in software engineering. In 2007, he received his Ph.D. degree in the field of evolutionary computation from Systems Design Engineering Department, University of Waterloo. Inspired from opposition-based differential evolution algorithm (ODE), more than 450 papers have been published. Before joining to the faculty of engineering and applied science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Canada, as a tenure-track faculty member, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada. He was granted tenure earlier and also was promoted to an associate professor position in 2013. His research includes evolutionary computation, image processing, machine learning, and opposition-based soft computing. Dr. Rahnamayan was awarded the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), President’s Graduate Scholarship (PGS), NSERC’s Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship, NSERC’s Industrial R&D Fellowship (IRDF), NSERC’s Visiting Fellowship in Canadian Government Laboratories (VF), and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Fellowship for two times. He has published more than 100 papers, Dr. Rahnamayan has received several prestigious research grants, such as, NSERC Discovery Grant and also Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative Fund. He recently visited the Michigan State University (MSU) and BEACON Research Center for two years in order to conduct research on large-scale and multi-objective optimization and visualization.

  • Quantum-confined oxide heteronanostructures: Low-cost design, electronic structure, interfacial properties & device applications for solar energy conversion

    BA 1200, 40 St George Street, Toronto

    June 24, 2016 at 11:10 a.m. Professor Lionel Vayssieres, of Xi’an Jiaotong University, will be presenting “Quantum-confined oxide heteronanostructures: Low-cost design, electronic structure, interfacial properties & device applications for solar energy conversion”. Speaker: Professor Lionel Vayssieres International Research Center for Renewable Energy (IRCRE), Xi’an Jiaotong University Day & Time: Friday, June 24, 2016 11:10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Location: Room BA 1200 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Junho Jeong Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture. Abstract: Given that conventional technologies which attempt to improve the performance of existing materials and devices for solar energy conversion and solar fuels generation by further development along the same incremental approach are reaching their limits, it is crucial to develop novel materials where bulk limitations are overcome by changing the fundamental underlying physics and chemistry, by e.g. nanostructuring design and quantum confinement effects. As important is a comprehensive fundamental and applied knowledge of their interfacial properties and electronic structure in relation with their structural and optical properties to quantitatively optimize their efficiency. Our strategy to address such crucial requirements is to fabricate materials and devices based on metal oxide (hetero)nanostructures consisting of surface chemistry-controlled quantum dots and rods building-blocks utilizing low-cost and large scale aqueous chemical growth. The electronic structure and structural, optical, and photoelectrochemical properties of such novel visible light-active oxide semiconductors based on vertically oriented quantum rod-arrays have been thoroughly investigated at synchrotron radiation facilities by X-ray spectroscopies. Direct correlation between dimensionality and surface chemistry, bandgap and band edges, orbital character and symmetry, surfaces states, electrical and defect properties have been unraveled and will be demonstrated on various oxide structures of high relevance for this field. An overview of decades of achievements as well as recent advances in novel materials design strategy will be demonstrated along with the latest breakthrough in highly efficient structure for low cost solar hydrogen generation by direct water splitting at neutral pH using the largest free natural resources on Earth, e.g. the Sun and seawater. Biography: Born in 1968, Prof. Vayssieres obtained a MSc in Physical Chemistry in 1990 and a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry in 1995 from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France for his research work on the Interfacial & thermodynamic growth control of metal oxide nanoparticles in aqueous solutions. He has been invited as a visiting scientist at: UT Austin; the UNESCO Centre for Macromolecules & Materials, Stellenbosch University and iThemba LABS, South Africa; the Glenn T. Seaborg Center, Chemical Sciences Division, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Texas Materials Institute; The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland; the University of Queensland, Australia, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was an independent scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Japan for 8 years. He has authored 100+ publications in major international journals and book series cited 9150+ times since the year 2000 (4500+ since 2011, Google Scholar); Top 1% Scientists in Materials Science (Thomson Reuters). All time 8 ESI Highly Cited papers (5 as first and corresponding author) in Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Environment/Ecology. He has given 344 talks in 30 countries: 166 lectures at international conferences/workshops (45 plenary/keynote, 98 invited, 21 contributed, 2 tutorials) including one of the last MRS Spring Symposium X lecture held in San Francisco in 2015 as well as 178 seminars at universities, governmental and/or industrial research institutes. He is currently a full time 1000-Talent Professor, co-founder and scientific director of the International Research Center for Renewable Energy (IRCRE) at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China as well as, since 2003, a guest scientist at the Chemical Sciences Division at Berkeley National Lab and the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanotechnology.

  • Ground Truth Bias in External Cluster Validity Indices

    ENG 106, 245 Church Street, Toronto, ON

    June 28, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. IEEE CIS Distinguished Lecturer James C. Bezdek will be presenting “Ground Truth Bias in External Cluster Validity Indices”. Speaker: James C. Bezdek IEEE CIS Distinguished Lecturer Day & Time: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 106, George Vary Engineering & Computing Centre 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 (Intersection of Church and Gould) Map: http://www.ryerson.ca/maps/ Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour, Dr. Glaucio Carvalho, Dr. Alireza Sadeghian Organizers: Signals & Computational Intelligence Chapter, Magnetics Chapter, Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Chapter Abstract: This talk begins with a short review of clustering that emphasizes external cluster validity indices (CVIs). A method for generalizing external pairbased CVIS (e.g., the crisp Rand and Jacard indices) to evaluate soft partitions is described and illustrated. Three types of validation experiments conducted with synthetic and real world labeled data are discussed: “best c” (internal validation with labeled data), and “best I/E” (agreement between an internal and external CVI pair). As is always the case in cluster validity, conclusions based on empirical evidence are at the mercy of the data, so the reported results might be invalid for different data sets and/or clustering models and algorithms. But much more importantly, we discovered during these tests that some external cluster validity indices are also at the mercy of the distribution of the ground truth itself. We believe that our study of this surprising fact is the first systematic analysis of a largely unknown but very important problem ~ bias due to the distribution of the ground truth partition. Specifically, in addition to the well known bias in many external CVIs caused by monotonic dependency on c, the number of clusters in candidate partitions, there are two additional kinds of bias that can be caused by an unusual distribution of the clusters in the ground truth partition provided with labeled data. The most important ground truth bias is caused by imbalance (unequally sized labeled subsets). We demonstrate these effects with randomized experiments on 25 pair-based external CVIs. Then we provide a theoretical analysis of bias due to ground truth for several CVis by relating Rand’s index to the Havrda-Charvat quadratic entropy. Biography: Jim received the PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1973. Jim is past president of NAFIPS (North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society), IFSA (International Fuzzy Systems Association) and the IEEE CIS (Computational Intelligence Society): founding editor the Int’l. Jo. Approximate Reasoning and the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems: Life fellow of the IEEE and IFSA; and a recipient of the IEEE 3rd Millennium, IEEE CIS Fuzzy Systems Pioneer, and IEEE technical field award Rosenblatt medals. Jim’s interests: woodworking, optimization, motorcycles, pattern recognition, cigars, clustering in very large data, fishing, co-clustering, blues music, wireless sensor networks, poker and visual clustering. And of course, clustering in big data. Jim retired in 2007, and will be coming to a university near you soon.

  • The Application of Optimization to Model Predictive Control

    Room ENG 288, 245 Church St., Toronto

    July 4, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Ruth Milman, Assistant Professor at UOIT, will be presenting “The Application of Optimization to Model Predictive Control”. Speaker: Dr. Ruth Milman Assistant Professor – Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Faculty Applied Science and Engineering, University of Ontario Institute of Technology Day & Time: Monday, July 4, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 288 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Organizers: IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), IEEE Magnetics Chapter, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter and Computer Science Department Ryerson University Abstract: Model predictive control (MPC) is the application of an optimal control scheme over a finite horizon. At each sample interval a cost function is minimized over a finite horizon and a resulting open loop controller is calculated. The control for the current sample interval is applied and the whole process is repeated at the next sample interval. By repeating the process at each sample interval, the resulting control scheme, which is technically open loop, inherits the benefits of a closed loop controller. These include some stability and robustness properties. By nature, MPC is computationally intensive and only makes sense when a there are constraints which must be enforced by the system. As would be expected, adding constraints into the system even further intensifies the computational requirements. By nature, MPC is an optimal control strategy. If a true optimal control is computed when solving the minimization problem, then the solution is independent of the choice of the optimizer. It is only when time constraints force the need for suboptimal controls to be used that the actual algorithm plays a role in the quality of the resulting controller. Despite (or because of) this, the choice of optimization schemes plays a critical role in the real time application of MPC for a simple but important reason – the computational time it takes to solve for the optimal solution. MPC is a flexible framework which allows for control in the face of both linear or nonlinear systems, and can be applied to systems with either hard or soft constraints. How each problem is set up is critical to the choice of optimizer. These choices can drastically impact the computational effort which is required to solve for the resulting controller. As such, the choice and application of optimization schemes to MPC is of critical importance to the resulting performance of the systems. Biography: Dr. Ruth Milman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering with the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. She has been with UOIT since June 2007, where she works in the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering, focusing in the field of control theory. Her research interests include optimization and computationally efficient algorithms for model predictive control as well as the application of both linear and nonlinear MPC to autonomous systems. She has worked on path planning for robotic applications in environments with both moving and stationary obstacles. She has worked extensively in the areas of nonlinear and optimal control theory and has developed algorithms for computation of the optimization problem that underlies Model Predictive control. Prior to coming to UOIT she did post-doctoral research at the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2007. Ruth Milman obtained her PhD in 2004 from the Systems Control Group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Toronto, Canada. Her dissertation focused on improving the speed and computational efficiency of a Linear Model Predictive Controller. As part of this she developed a novel algorithm for solving the quadratic programming subproblem in MPC. She obtained her MASC in 1997 from the Systems Control Group in the University of Toronto and her BASc (Honours) in Computer Engineering in 1995 from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto.

  • What can physical-layer security do for you?

    Room ENG LG21, 245 Church St., Toronto

    July 4, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Matthieu Bloch, Associate Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, will be presenting “What can physical-layer security do for you?”. Speaker: Matthieu Bloch Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Day & Time: Monday, July 4, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG LG21 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 All are welcome – No registration necessary Abstract: The conventional approach to ensure confidential communications relies on public-key/private-key protocols, which operate on error-free data after the physical-layer has been established. While the effectiveness of this approach in traditional settings is unquestionable, new systems are emerging where treating confidentiality as an overlay feature of top of reliability may not be the most appropriate solution. In particular, modern wireless networks, which comprise heterogeneous nodes with limited computational and energy resources, would benefit from the integration by design of confidentiality in the physical-layer, especially if this can be done in a cost-effective way. In this talk, we will provide a perspective on what physical-layer security can realistically do for wireless communication systems. Our objective will be not only to review the challenges faced by physical-layer security but also to present some of our recent research activities in the areas of information theory, coding theory, and wireless systems that suggest potential solutions to overcome these challenges. Biography: Matthieu Bloch is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received the Engineering degree from Supélec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in 2003, the Ph.D. degree in Engineering Science from the Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon, France, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008. In 2008-2009, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. Since July 2009, Dr. Bloch has been on the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and from 2009 to 2013 Dr. Bloch was based at Georgia Tech Lorraine. His research interests are in the areas of information theory, error-control coding, wireless communications, and cryptography. Dr. Bloch is a member of the IEEE and has served on the organizing committee of several international conferences; he was the chair of the Online Committee of the IEEE Information Theory Society from 2011 to 2014. He is the co-recipient of the IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Information Theory Society 2011 Joint Paper Award and the co-author of the textbook Physical-Layer Security: From Information Theory to Security Engineering published by Cambridge University Press.

  • Finding Common Ground: Channel Analysis and Receiver Models for Diffusive Molecular Communication

    July 27, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Adam Noel, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa, will be presenting “Finding Common Ground: Channel Analysis and Receiver Models for Diffusive Molecular Communication”. Speaker: Dr. Adam Noel Postdoctoral Fellow University of Ottawa Day & Time: Wednesday, July 27, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room BA 1200 40 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: Diffusive molecular communication (MC) is a promising strategy for the transfer of information in synthetic networks of “small” devices (on the scale of living cells or smaller). If such devices could communicate, then it would potentially enable applications such as cooperative diagnostics in medicine, bottom-up fabrication in manufacturing, and sensitive environmental monitoring. Results in this domain can also contribute to our understanding of diffusive signaling in natural biological systems and the diseases that develop when the signaling malfunctions. Diffusion based MC for synthetic networks faces challenges such as infinite inter-symbol interference and constrained computational resources in “simple” transceivers, but also interesting opportunities such as the possibility to manipulate the channel response via chemical means. This presentation highlights our contributions to the modeling and analysis of diffusion-based MC systems, including derivations of the channel impulse response and the development of simulation tools. We describe our recent work to find a unifying analytical framework for the two most common but distinct receiver models, where molecules are either absorbed by the receiver surface or passively diffuse through it. We also discuss some of our on-going work to bridge the gap between the realism of existing analytical models and the availability of relevant experimental data. Biography: Adam Noel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa. His Ph.D. and postdoctoral work are on the study of molecular communication, where he has focused on channel modeling, system design, and simulation methods. He has received the support of NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships and is currently holding an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship. He also received a Best Paper Award at IEEE ICC 2016. Dr. Noel received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2009 from Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and both the M.A.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2011 and 2015, respectively. In 2013 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Digital Communication at Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen, Germany.

  • Artificially Intelligent Imaging (AI2): System to Circuit to Device Level Implementations of Smart CMOS Imaging, A Generalized Approach for Non-Application Specific Intelligence Design (NAS-ID)

    Room ENGLG 05 George Vari Engineering Building

    August 11, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Dr. Faycal Saffih, Department of Electrical Engineering, UAE University, will be presenting “Artificially Intelligent Imaging (AI2): System to Circuit to Device Level Implementations of Smart CMOS Imaging, A Generalized Approach for Non-Application Specific Intelligence Design (NAS-ID)”. Speaker: Dr. Faycal Saffih Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering UAE University Day & Time: Thursday, August 11, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room ENGLG 05 George Vari Engineering Building Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ryerson University Contact: Dimitri Androutsos Abstract: In this talk we will present the development of intelligence (vs intelligent) implementations from top-down and bottom-up approaches and from Electrical engineering design and Biological Biomimicry to Solid-state Physics prediction. Smart CMOS imaging is the application of choice where these multi-disciplinary studies interacts to suggest a novel approach for research to design intelligent devices needed in a verity of advanced technological devices and systems for a variety of applications such as biomedical and renewables systems and devices to name a few. Biography: Dr. Fayçal Saffih (IEEE Member since 2000) received the B.Sc. (with Best Honors) degree in Solid-State Physics from the University of Sétif-1, Sétif, Algeria, in 1996, the M.Sc. degree in Digital Neural networks from Physics Department, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in Smart CMOS Imaging from Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. Taking a decade journey between academia and industry, Dr. Saffih enriched his experience multidimensionally spanning Microelectronics from devices up-to systems, and industry from R&D department to Entrepreneurship start-up, all of which from West USA (OR) to Singapore’s prestigious A*star Agency for Science, Technology and Research. Recently, Dr. Saffih endeavored into renewable energy research and business starting from Stanford certification in 2013 and currently undertaking an Online program from Renewables Academy (RENAC), Germany Dr. Faycal Saffih is currently an assistant professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the UAE University and a regular visiting scholar at the University of Waterloo, University of Alberta among others. His research is on intelligence extraction and implementation on devices and systems particularly smart CMOS image sensors.

  • Sparsity Constrained Estimation Using Spike and Slab Priors

    Room BA 7129 (tentatively) Bahen Centre for Information Technology

    August 12, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. Prof. Vishal Monga, Associate Professor at Pennsylvania State University, will be presenting “Sparsity Constrained Estimation Using Spike and Slab Priors”. Speaker: Prof. Vishal Monga Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University, University Park Day & Time: Friday August 12th, 2016 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Location: Room BA 7129 (tentatively) Bahen Centre for Information Technology 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: We address sparse signal, i.e. image recovery in a Bayesian estimation framework where sparsity is enforced on reconstruction coefficients via probabilistic priors. In particular, we focus on the popular spike and slab prior which is considered the gold standard in the statistics literature. The optimization problem resulting from this model has broad applicability in recovery, regression and classification problems and is known to be a hard non-convex problem whose existing solutions involve simplifying assumptions and/or relaxations. We propose an approach called Iterative Convex Refinement (ICR) that aims to solve the aforementioned optimization problem directly allowing for greater generality in the sparse structure. Essentially, ICR solves a sequence of convex optimization problems such that sequence of solutions converges to a sub-optimal solution of the original hard optimization problem. Applications will be considered in image classification as well as image reconstruction. Biography: Vishal Monga is a tenured Associate Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA. He was with Xerox Research from 2005-2009 and his doctoral work in Electrical Engineering was completed at the University of Texas, Austin in Aug 2005. His research interests are in computational imaging, statistical signal processing and convex optimization approaches to estimation problems. Prof. Monga is an elected member of the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing and the IEEE Signal Processing Letters. Prof. Monga is a recipient of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award. Four of his papers have won best paper or Top 10 percent awards at IEEE Signal Processing conferences. He is a 2016 recipient of Joel and Ruth Spira Foundation Teaching Excellence award. He holds 40 US patents.

  • Time-varying Nonlinear Models of Human Heartbeat Dynamics

    August 12, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Gaetano Valenza, M.Eng., Ph.D., will be presenting “Time-varying Nonlinear Models of Human Heartbeat Dynamics”. Speaker: Dr. Gaetano Valenza Assistant Professor, University of Pisa Harvard Medical School/MGH, Boston, USA Day & Time: Friday, August 12, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: UC-Lecture Theater (Basement) Toronto Rehab – University Centre 550 University Ave., Toronto, M5G 2A2 Contact: Azadeh Yadollahi For Registration: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/40511 Abstract: The application of nonlinear and time-variant systems theory to physiology and medicine has provided meaningful information for a wide range of biological processes and their disease-related aberrations. However, focusing on the cardiovascular system, information that can be extracted by quantifying second-order moments of time-varying heartbeat dynamics are often neglected. To this extent, we introduce a mathematical framework including instantaneous estimates defined in the time and frequency domains, as well as instantaneous complexity and higher-order statistics. Results from exemplary studies involving healthy subjects, as well as patients with Congestive Heart Failure, Major Depression Disorder, Parkinson’s Disease, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder will be presented. Multivariate analysis involving brain dynamics during visual affective elicitation will also be presented. Biography: Gaetano Valenza, M.Eng., Ph.D., is currently an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. In 2009, He started working at the Bioengineering and Robotics Research Centre “E. Piaggio” in Pisa and, in 2011, He joined the Neuro-Cardiovascular Signal Processing unit within the Neuroscience Statistics Research Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. In 2013, He received the Ph.D. degree in Automation, Robotics, and Bioengineering from the University of Pisa and, in the same year, was appointed as a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School/ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. His research interests include statistical and nonlinear biomedical signal and image processing, cardiovascular and neural modeling, and wearable systems for physiological monitoring. Application of his research include the assessment of autonomic nervous system activity on cardiovascular control, brain-heart interactions, affective computing, assessment of mood and mental disorders, and disorder of consciousness. He is author of more than 100 international scientific contributions in these fields published in peer-reviewed international journals, conference proceedings, books and book chapters, and is official reviewer of more than fifty international scientific journals. He has been involved in several international research projects, and currently is the scientific co-coordinator of the European collaborative project H2020-PHC-2015-689691-NEVERMIND. Dr. Valenza has been guest editor of several international scientific journals, and is currently member of the editorial board of the Nature’s journal “Scientific Reports”.

  • OMICRON Canada Protection Symposium

    Hilton Toronto/Markham Suites Conference Centre & Spa

    The OMICRON Canada Protection Symposium (CPS) 2016 will take place at Hilton Toronto/Markham Suites Conference Centre on September 7-8, 2016 in the Greater Toronto Area. Day & Time: September 7-8, 2016 Location: Hilton Toronto/Markham Suites Conference Centre & Spa Markham Ballroom 8500 Warden Ave, Markham, ON L6G 1A5 Register: http://www.registration123.com/OMICRON/2016CPS/ Interesting presentations on protection, control and automation shall be presented by 15 Industry Experts. Two of the presenters are IEEE Fellows—Wanda Reder who is Chief Strategy Officer of S&C Electric and past President of IEEE PES, and Alex Apostolov who is Editor in Chief of PAC World Magazine and an industry expert on Protection, Automation, and Control. The symposium also aims to provide a platform so participants can share their knowledge and experiences on the latest developments and trends of the power industry. One of the highlights of the conference will be a tour of GE Energy’s Grid IQTM Global Innovation Center in Markham. Schedule at a Glance: Wednesday, September 7th 8:00 – 8:30 Registration 8:30 – 5:00 Canada Protection Symposium 5:30 – 8:00 Welcome reception in the hotel Thursday, September 8th 8:30 – 12:15 Canada Protection Symposium 1:30 – 4:30 Tour of GE Energy’s Grid IQTM Global Innovation Center in Markham* * Competitors of GE are restricted from tour

  • PowerStream Smart Grid Tour

    PowerStream Main Office, 161 Cityview Boulevard, Vaughan, ON L4H 0A9

    September 8, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. IEEE Toronto Section Industry Relations will be hosting a tour visit to PowerStream’s Microgrid. Day & Time: Thursday, September 8, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Location: PowerStream Main Office 161 Cityview Boulevard, Vaughan, ON L4H 0A9 Contact: Hugo Sanchez-Reategui More Information: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/40692 For Registration: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/powerstream-smart-grid-tour-tickets-26990945645 PowerSteam is a community-owned energy company providing power and related services to more than 380,000 customers residing or owning a business in communities located immediately north of Toronto and in Central Ontario. The communities we serve include Alliston, Aurora, Barrie, Beeton, Bradford West Gwillimbury, Markham, Penetanguishene, Richmond Hill, Thornton, Tottenham and Vaughan as well as Collingwood, Stayner, Creemore and Thornbury through a partnership with the Town of Collingwood in the ownership of Collus PowerStream. Learn more about PowerStream at https://www.powerstream.ca/innovation/micro-grid/micro-grid-101.html This tour will provide a very good overview of the current support of Smart Grid development at the provincial level and raising awareness for the need to leverage innovative smart technologies in Ontario’s electricity sector. Do not miss the opportunity to join us and visit a microgrid implemented within our IEEE Toronto Section area. The number of participants is limited and will be closed a week before the event.

  • Teaching and Learning Methods

    Room KHE 225, Ryerson University

    Monday September 12, 2016 at 11:20 a.m. Dr. John Paul Fox, will be presenting “Teaching and Learning Methods”. Speaker: Dr. John Paul Fox Director of the Academic Integrity Office, Ryerson Day & Time: Monday, September 12, 2016 11:20 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Location: Ryerson, KHE 225 Contact: Maryam Davoudpour Organizer: WIE Abstract: Lesson planning can be a time consuming and needlessly stressful process. In this talk I will discuss strategies for efficiently preparing lesson plans. You will be presented with a framework for lesson planning which can be used to structure any type of lesson, from a 10 minute pre-lab talk to a 3-hour lecture. Attendees are encouraged to think about an upcoming lesson that they will be teaching so that this framework can be applied. Biography: John Paul Fox is the Director of the Academic Integrity Office here at Ryerson. Prior to accepting this position, John Paul worked in the Learning and Teaching Office (LTO) for six years, as an educational developer and as its manager. During this time John Paul was responsible for offering professional development in teaching to Ryerson’s faculty, TAs and GAs. He has an undergraduate degree in genetics from Trinity College Dublin, an MSc in molecular evolution and a PhD in population genetics, both from York University as well as a Masters in Public Police and Administration from Ryerson University. Finally,John Paul is a fellow of SEDA UK.