Guest of honor

Acad. Dr. Horia Colan

Romanian Academy of Technical Sciences, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Keynote Title: "Materials Science and Metallurgy in the Romanian Academy"

Bio: Acad. dr. Horia Colan is member of the Romanian Academy of Technical Sciences, Chairman of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
He obtained Ph.D degree in Materials Science (Physical Metallurgy, Powder metallurgy) at the Polytechnic Institute of Cluj-Napoca (1971), being professor (1971) at the Department of Materials Science and Technology, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and head of the Department of Materials Science and Technology (1971-1985). He is Ph. D. adviser in Materials Science and Engineering and Technical Sciences History, rector of the Polytechnic Institute of Cluj-Napoca (1990-1992).
Dr. Horia Colan is corresponding member (1991) of the Romanian Academy, chairman of the Division of History of Technology and Vice President of the Romanian Committee of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (CRIFST) - 1991 (member since 1958). Since 2010 he is member of the Romanian Academy, member of the General Association of Engineers - AGIR (1950, National Council of AGIR, 1994-1994, 1997-2001, Executive Office, 1997-2001), Conseil National des Ingenieurs et Scientifiques de France - CNISF (1982-1996); Association of Scientists from Romania - AOSR, Transylvania Branch Committee (1983-1994, Vice President, 1990-1994, National Scientific Council AOSR, 1994-1998), Executive Committee of ASM International, Romanian Chapter (1994). ), honorary member of the Société Française de Matallurgie et Matériaux (1991, member since 1975), honorary citizen of Cluj-Napoca (1997), etc. His activity was awards 4 times by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research (1958, 1961, 1963 and 1968).
Acad. dr. Horia Colan has an intense research activity in the areas of: Materials science, Powder metallurgy, History of science and technology. Over the time has published over 20 books and 220 articles, participating in international congresses, conferences and visits to universities in France, Germany, USA, China, etc.

Keynote speakers

Dr. Kenneth Revett

Loughborough University and the British University in Egypt, Department of Informatics and Computer Science

Keynote Title: "Datamining ECG datasets - a survey of fiducial versus non-fiducial based approaches"

Bio: Dr. Revett received his PhD in Computational neuroscience from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1999. He is actively engaged in a variety of research fields, focusing on computational neuroscience, affective computing, cognitive biometrics, and bioinformatics. He is editor-in-chief of 2 journals: International Journal of Cognitive Biometrics and International Journal of Cognitive Performance Support, and is on the editorial board of several international journals. He is the author of behavioral Biometrics: A Remote Access Approach, as well as a monograph on Cortical Spreading Depression. He is in the process of completing textbooks on Molecular Biology for Computer Scientists, Spreading depression: A Survey of Computational Modeling, Cognitive Biometrics, and Cognitive Robotics, all due for printing in late 2013..

Dr. Revett has over 160 publications in journals and conferences, and has/is currently served/ing on more than 40 international workshop committees, and continues to serve as an editor for a variety of International peer-reviewed journals. His current research projects include developing reinforcement learning algorithms in the context of cognitive robotics, affective computing design using biosignals, and the development of gene regulatory networks for neuropathologies.

Dr. John B. Stav

Sør-Trøndelag University College, Norway, Faculty of Technology

Keynote Title: "Advanced mobile technology for assessment in engineering education"

Bio: Dr. John B. Stav is Associate Professor at Sør-Trøndelag University College and received a PhD in theoretical physics (1994) from The Norwegian University for Sciences and Technology. He is a well-known specialist in response technologies, visual communication and collaboration technologies, assessment for learning solutions, and pedagogical utilization of mobile learning methods into training and assessment.
Dr. Stav teaches physics and mathematics since 1993. He has offered many courses targeting use of modern video solutions in vocational training during the last 4 years within Norway, Sweden, France, Italy and Hungary. This comprises pedagogical inclusion and use of video communication and collaboration solutions. He focused in particular towards combining blended learning methodologies into distance education in vocational education.
Dr. Stav has lead several national (Norwegian Research Foundation) and EU research projects in the area of combining state of the art information technologies with new pedagogical methods. The most recent ones are iQSim (A new environment for a simulator tools in VET, 2008-2010), EduMECCA (Effective integration of Student Response Systems (SRS) on iPod/iPhone, 2008-2010), and Done-IT (Developing the first Peer Learning Assessment System - PeLe - that utilize students own mobile devices to turn tests into a creative learning tool). The services from iQSim are currently used by more than 50 organizations in Europe, while more than 100 organizations in 16 countries in Europe want to test the SRS prototype. More than 30 organizations in Europe have signed up for testing of PeLe.
He has during the last 9 years lead and initiated:
- 20 national projects (budget in total 6.0 mill Euros) addressing new training methods and mobile learning methods, content management systems, math and physics on web, statistics reasoning, online video knowledgebase, construction of video networks in Norway and Romania, developments of new services in VET, etc.
- 10 international R&D projects (budget in total 5.0 mill euros) addressing development of new pilots and prototypes within e-learning, m-learning and flexible training solutions.
He has as a result of the EU-funded projects offered more than 60 lectures, presentations and demonstrations at international conferences during the last 5 years.
Dr. Stav has published more than 100 scientific articles and offered numerous presentations, demonstrations and talks at international conferences within e-learning, mobile learning, video technologies, simulator solutions, content management systems, vocational and education and training methods, in company training solutions.

dr. habil. László Kovács

University of Miskolc, Department of Information Technology

Keynote Title: "Inference of probabilistic context-free grammar from probabilistic prefix tree acceptor"

Bio: Dr. habil László Kovács from University of Miskolc, Department of Information Technology is a well known specialist in knowledge modeling and data mining. He obtained a PhD degree in technical sciences from University of Miskolc, (HU).
Main teaching areas cover Database Systems, Database Administration, OLAP and Data Mining, XML-data management, Ontology Management.
The research interest of Dr. Kovács involves the following areas: soft computing, heuristic optimizations, ontology modeling in database systems, statistical grammar induction.
He participated in several mobility programs on the field of software engineering and database management at DEC Munich, University of Helsinki, University of Lisboa, University of Karlsruhe, University of Dortmund, University of Klagenfurt, University of Erlangen.
Dr Kovács has about 110 publications with 36 references. He is the Head of the Department and the leader of the research group on ontology-based grammar induction at University of Miskolc.