Information and Training Session on Framework Programme 7 (FP7) for Research and Technological Development

The EU Delegation and Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) are organizing an Information and Training session on European Union Framework Programme 7 for Research and Technological Development (FP7). The event will take place on 16 May 2012, 9.00am - 4.00pm at the Prince Hotel Kuala Lumpur.

Date: 16 May 2012
Time: 9.00am - 4.00pm
Venue: Prince Hotel Kuala Lumpur

This year this annual event will also mark the ASEAN-EU Year of Science, Technology and Innovation. Apart from the general overview of the FP7 Programme by EU experts, presentations will be given by the Malaysian National Contact Points for FP7 on specific fields of their competence, such as renewable energy, climate change, transport sector (including automotives, space and aeronautics), and biotechnolgy, which are listed among the top research priorities for Malaysia.

The event aims to attract about 100 participants from universities and research instututions (including individual researchers), as well as companies specialised in research who are interested to participate in FP7.

Participant registrations are now open until 11 May (subject to space availability). Those interested may contact MOSTI (Mr Radzman: radzman@mosti.gov.my) and/or the EU Delegation (Ms Norfaizah Ismail: norfaizah.ismail@eeas.europa.eu).

For more information:

Draft Programme of the FP7 Information and Training Session

DMAS & CMS Seminar Series, 25/04/2012, Wednesday 2-4pm, SD 102, Setapak Campus, UTAR

Department of Mathematical and Actuarial Sciences & Centre of Mathematical Sciences Seminar Series

Dear all,

This week's DMAS & CMS talk will be on Wednesday, 2pm-4pm. The speaker is Ms Ho Yun Li and Ms Cheu Yea Loon from the Department of Civil Engineering and Department of Mathematical and Actuarial Science respectively, UTAR.

Date: 25 April 2012 (Wednesday)
Time: 2pm - 3pm
Venue: SD 102, Setapak Campus, UTAR, Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker: Ms Ho Yun Li
Title: Bi-objective Optimization of Exclusive Bus Lane Allocation and Scheduling in Urban Cities

Date: 25 April 2012 (Wednesday)
Time: 3pm - 4pm
Venue: SD 102, Setapak Campus, UTAR,  Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker: Ms Cheu Yea Loon
Title: Sample Size Requirements in Validating the Asymptotic Results for Generalized Linear Models for Poisson-Distributed Data

Abstract (Ho Yun Li):
Exclusive bus lane is a strategy that reserves a lane of the roads for buses travel. It could improve the buses level of service by increasing their schedule adherence and travel speed. Nevertheless, the strategy draws two important decisions making problems which are the lane allocation and scheduling problems. The lane allocation determines which links/roads in the network that needs to have the exclusive bus lane while the scheduling problem determines the start time and the duration of the strategy. To find the optimal solutions for these problems, a bi-level bi-objective optimization problem could be formulated. The upper level is the bi-objective optimization model that aims to minimize the total travel time of general purpose traffic and buses simultaneously. The lower level is a microscopic traffic simulation model that could simulate drivers (general purpose traffic) response based on the lane allocation and scheduling solutions. The proposed model is solved by a hybrid non-sorting genetic algorithm (NGSA II) –Paramics. An illustrative case study of Klang Valley region is developed to test and evaluate the proposed methodology. Results show that both objectives (i.e. the total travel time of general purpose traffic and buses) are contradicted in which Pareto solutions are obtained.

Abstract (Cheu Yea Loon):
In recent decades, Generalised Linear Models (GLMs) have provided a means of analysing the data from various non-Normal distributions that Normal-based procedures such as Analysis of Variance and multiple regression are not suitable as an analysis tool. In GLMs, the link between the observations and the model is not as simple as it is in regression and ANOVA. The results we have on the variances of the parameter estimators in GLMs are 'asymptotic' or large sample results. This study attempts to find out the sample size needed so that the asymptotic results are reasonable valid, specifically for the Poisson log-linear models. In addition, the study aims to find out as well whether the sample size required relies on the values of the parameters, values of the predictors and number of observations assigned at each design point. Two types of Poisson log- linear model are involved in this study, namely the two-parameter Poisson log- inear model and the three-parameter Poisson log-linear model.

For two-parameter log-linear models, the results of the study indicate that 100 observations are basically sufficient for the asymptotic results to be reasonable valid but this depends on the values of the parameters and predictors that are involved in the model. Different values of the parameters and predictors may require a higher number of observations for the asymptotic results to be valid. This criterion also applies to the three-parameter log-linear models. The values of the parameter and predictors are crucial factors that affect the sample size required for the asymptotic results to be valid.

All are welcome.

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Event Committee.

Software Engineer the Top Best Jobs of 2012 - CareerCast

According to a survey done by CareerCast, Software Engineer is the Top Best Job for 2012. The survey is done based on the following five key areas:

1. Work Environment
2. Physical Demands
3. Job Outlook
4. Income Levels
5. Stress

Top Best Jobs 2012

1. Software Engineer 
2. Actuary
3. Human Resources Manager
4. Dental Hygienist
5. Financial Planner
6. Audiologist
7. Occupational Therapist
8. Online Advertising Manager
9. Computer Systems Analyst
10. Mathematician

Check out the details here: http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/10-best-jobs-2012

Coursera: Free Online Courses

Coursera is a new web portal offering online courses, for free. The present partner universities are Princeton, Stanford, UMich and Penn. They currently have about 40 courses, ranging from Computer Science, Medicine, Biology, the Humanities, Social Sciences, Math, Statistics, Economics, and Finance.

Check out the site at www.coursera.org

PAKDD 2012 Data Mining Competition

The 16th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD) is pleased to organize a data mining competition. The competition is divided into two categories:

1. Open category (open to both academia, industry and students). The tasks for this category involve predicting customer churn and win-back for a large telecommunication company. The prizes for the competition are sponsored by  the Faculty of Computing and Informatics, Multimedia University.
2. Student category (open to only students enrolled at institutions of higher learning). The task for this category involves discovering the correlation between the number of job applications and Malaysia's economic indicators. The prizes for the student category is sponsored by SAS Malaysia.

The deadline for submitting the final entries is May 13, 2012. More details are available on the competition web site at http://fit.mmu.edu.my/pakdd2012/dmcomp.html.

The competition web site is also accessible via the PAKDD 2012 web site at pakdd2012.pakdd.org

Talk: Innovating in the Social Economy by Prof Nick Wreden

Date: 24 April 2012
Time: 10.00 an - 12.00 pm
Venue: Dewan Besar, UTM International Campus, Jalan Semarak, Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker: Nick Wreden, Visiting Professor, UTM.
Title: Innovating in the Social Economy: How social tools are transforming business & education.

Speaker Biography

Nick Wreden has an MS in technology management and an MS in journalism, giving him the intersecting technical and content strategy skills required for social applications. He is a visiting professor and a director at the Institute of Social Business Innovation (ISBI) under the umbrella of the Perdana School at UTM.

Abstract
Less than 10 years ago, Facebook was just an idea in the mind of a Harvard freshman. Now Facebook and other social tools network 1.2 billion people, spawning new businesses and new ways of doing business as the world transitions into the Social Economy. Social tools are also transforming education at all levels, leading to social learning, "flipped classrooms" and a new emphasis on community and peer collaboration.
This lecture will provide a broad overview of emerging social trends, what they mean to business and education today, and how you can take advantage of these innovations.

Talk: Market-Oriented Cloud Computing and the Aneka Platform by Prof Rajkumar Buyya

You are cordially invited to attend the following talk by Prof Rajkumar Buyya, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

Date: 23 April (Monday)
Time: 1pm-2pm (1 hour)
Venue: FES 6th floor Meeting Room (west room), UTAR KL Campus, Setapak, Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker: Professor Rajkumar Buyya, The University of Melbourne, Australia; CEO, Manjrasoft Pvt Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Title: Market-Oriented Cloud Computing and the Aneka Platform

Abstract 
Computing  is  being  transformed  to  a  model  consisting  of  services  that  are  commoditised  and delivered  in  a  manner  similar  to  utilities  such  as  water,  electricity,  gas,  and  telephony.  In  such  a  model,  users  access  services  based  on  their  requirements  without  regard  to  where  the  services  are  hosted.  Several  computing  paradigms  have  promised  to  deliver  this  utility  computing  vision.  Cloud  computing  is  the  most  recent  emerging  paradigm  promising  to  turn  the  vision of "computing utilities" into a reality.

Cloud  computing  has  emerged  as  one  of  the  buzzwords  in  the  ICT  industry. Several  IT  vendors  are  promising  to  offer  storage,  computation  and  application  hosting  services,  and  provide  coverage  in  several  continents,  offering  Service-Level  Agreements  (SLA)  backed  performance  and  uptime  promises  for  their  services.  It  delivers  infrastructure,  platform,  and  software  (application)  as  services,  which  are  made  available  as  subscription-based  services  in  a  pay-as-you-go  model  to  consumers.   The  price  that  Cloud  Service  Providers  charge  can vary with time and the quality of service (QoS) expectations of consumers.

This  talk
(1)  presents  the  21st  century  vision  of  computing  and identifies  various  IT  paradigms  promising  to  deliver  the  vision  of computing  utilities;
(2)  defines  the  architecture  for  creating market-oriented  Clouds  by  leveraging  technologies  such  as  VMs;
(3)  provides  thoughts  on  market-based  resource  management  strategies  that  encompass  both  customer-driven  service  management  and  computational  risk  management  to  sustain  SLA-oriented  resource  allocation;
(4)  presents  Aneka,  a  software  system  for  rapid  development  of  Cloud  applications  and  their  deployment  on  private/public Clouds  with  resource  provisioning  driven  by  SLAs  and  user  QoS  requirements,
(5)  reports  experimental  results  on  deploying  Cloud  applications  in  engineering,  gaming,  and  health  care  domains  on  private  or  public  Clouds,  and
(6)  concludes  with  the  need  for  convergence  of  competing  IT  paradigms  for  delivering  our  21st  century vision along with pathways for future research.


Speaker Bio 

Dr.  Rajkumar  Buyya  is  Professor  of  Computer  Science  and  Software  Engineering; and Director of the Cloud Computing and Distributed Systems (CLOUDS)  Laboratory at  the  University  of  Melbourne,  Australia.  He  is  also  serving  as  the  founding CEO  of  Manjrasoft.,  a  spin-off  company  of  the  University,  commercializing  its innovations  in  Cloud  Computing.  He  has  authored  350  publications  and  four  text books.  He  also  edited  several  books  including  "Cloud  Computing:  Principles  and Paradigms"  (Wiley  Press,  USA,  Feb  2011).  He  is  one  of  the  highly  cited  authors  in  computer  science  and  software  engineering  worldwide  (h-index=61,  g-index=126,  17900+ citations).

Software  technologies  for  Grid  and  Cloud  computing  developed  under  Dr.  Buyya's leadership  have  gained  rapid  acceptance  and  are  in  use  at  several  academic institutions  and  commercial  enterprises  in  40  countries  around  the  world.  Dr. Buyya  has  led  the  establishment  and  development  of  key  community  activities, including  serving  as  foundation  Chair  of  the  IEEE  Technical  Committee  on
Scalable  Computing  and  five  IEEE/ACM  conferences.  These  contributions  and international  research  leadership  of  Dr.  Buyya  are  recognized  through  the  award of "2009 IEEE Medal for Excellence in Scalable Computing" from the IEEE Computer Society,  USA.  Manjrasoft’s  Aneka  Cloud  technology  developed  under  his  leadership has  received  "2010  Asia  Pacific  Frost  &  Sullivan  New  Product  Innovation  Award"  and  "2011  Telstra  Innovation  Challenge,  People's  Choice  Award".  For  further
information on Dr. Buyya, please visit his cyberhome: www.buyya.com