CCSN Seminar by Dr. Jonathan Loo.

Dear all,

The Center for Communication Systems and Networking will be organizing a university-wide seminar, as part of Brain Gain Malaysia Lecture Series, on the 21st of September from 11 AM to 12 Noon. The details of the seminar is given below.

Topic: Future Trends in Video Coding R&D and Security Provision of Internet of Things/6LoWPAN
Date: 21 September 2011
Time: 11 AM to 12 Noon
Venue: 6th Floor Meeting Room, FES, UTAR KL Campus, Setapak, Kuala Lumpur.
Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Loo, Reader, Middlesex University, United Kingdom

Kok Keong Loo a.k.a Jonathan Loo received his MSc degree in Electronics (with Distinction) from University of Hertfordshire, UK in 1998 and the PhD degree in Electronics and Communications from the same university in 2003. Between August 2003 and May 2010, he was a Lecturer in Multimedia Communications at the School of Engineering and Design, Brunel University, UK. Currently, he is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the School of Engineering and Information Sciences, Middlesex University, UK. At Brunel, he was a Course Director for the MSc in Digital Signal Processing programme. He also involved in several research projects where he was a Principal Investigator for a joint research project between BBC and Brunel University on Dirac video codec research and development, and a co-investigator for several European funded projects namely IST FP6 PLUTO IST FP6 ENABLE, and recently the IST FP7 3D-Vivant. So far, he has successfully supervised 10 PhDs as the Director of Studies. His research interests are in the general area of multimedia communications include visual media processing, video coding and transmission, wireless communications, digital signal processing, embedded systems and wireless network, protocols and security. In the past 7 years, he published in total of 128 publications (book chapters, journals, conferences) in the aforementioned areas. Recently, he has completed an edited book called "Mobile Ad Hoc Networks: Current Status and Future Trends" which will be published by CRC Press.

PhD positions in Computer Science and Engineering at IMT Lucca

The institute for advanced studies IMT Lucca (Italy) announces 12 PhD positions in Computer Science and Engineering. The deadline for applications is September 28, 2011.

IMT (http://www.imtlucca.it/) is a research institute located in Lucca (Italy); courses are taught exclusively in English.

The PhD Program (https://www.imtlucca.it/phd_programs/computer_science_engineering/) coordinated by Rocco De Nicola aims at preparing researchers and professionals with broad training in the foundations of informatics as well as in applications to a variety of cutting-edge systems and disciplines.

A number of PhD students will be selected for working within the the two newly founded Research Unit:

SysMA (http://sysma.lab.imtlucca.it/) lead by Rocco De Nicola doing research on concurrent (distributed, mobile, autonomic) systems modelling and analysis and Dysco (http://dysco.lab.imtlucca.it/) lead by Alberto Bemporad doing research on control and optimization technologies.

In addition, students will be selected to work on topics related to medical imaging, and imaging for the life sciences http://users.eecs.northwestern.edu/~stsaft/#Openings

We hope that you may consider applying for and/or signaling these opportunities to colleagues and collaborators.

======= DETAILS ON THE ADVERTISED POSITIONS =======
6 IMT scholarship (12.423 EUR after taxes) plus accommodation and free meals (lunch and dinner).
1 MIUR scholarship (12.423 EUR after taxes) plus free meals (lunch and dinner).
5 positions to be funded with internal projects or third-party scholarships (negotiable salary) that come with a research budget of 3.000 EUR offered by IMT and free meals (lunch and dinner).

For further information please visit
http://www.imtlucca.it/phd_programs/call_for_applications/index.php
and/or contact the sender of this mail.

Excellence in TNE: Partnerships for the Future 15-16 Nov 2011 @ KL

DATE: 15 – 16 NOVEMBER 2011, KUALA LUMPUR    
VENUE: AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION, KUALA LUMPUR 

In order to support and inform decision making and practice in the area of Transnational Education, British Council and Australian Edn International would like to invite you to "Excellence in TNE: Partnerships for the Future".

This symposium and policy dialogue will bring together decision-makers, planners,practioners and academics from Ministries, Instituitions and teh private sector. Delegates will have opportunities to share info and highest examples of excellence in transnational education partnerships and explore the future evolution of transnational education in the region and beyond.

Should you require more info, please log onto: http://www.britishcouncil.org/malaysia-excellenceintne.htm or http://www.aei.gov.au/international-network/malaysia

or contact:

Mina Patel at mina.patel@britishcouncil.org.my or on 012 2950503.
Petronila Maurice at Petronila.Maurice@dfat.gov.au or on +603 21465605

Yours Sincerely

Louise McSorley,
the Australian High Commission

and

Francine Dawson
British Council Malaysia

The 12th Asia-Pacific ITS Forum and Exhibition 2012

The 12th Asia-Pacific ITS Forum and Exhibition 2012 (ITS-AP 2012) will be held in Kuala Lumpur from 16 to 18 April 2012. Due date for submission of abstract is on 1 October 2011. This year's event (ITS-AP 2011) was held with great success in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The event attracted over 500 participants from all over the world, spread evenly between academia and industry.

Check out the details of the event ITS-AP 2012 here: http://www.itsasiapacific2012.com/

Postgraduate Seminar: An Empirical Study of Business Intelligence adoption among Malaysia Organizations

You are cordially invited to attend the following proposal defense:


Speaker: Ong In Lih
Date: 13 September 2011 (Tuesday)
Time: 11:00am-11:45am
Venue: 5A meeting room, 5th floor, SA block, UTAR Setapak Campus, Kuala Lumpur.
Title: An Empirical Study of Business Intelligence adoption among Malaysia Organizations
Abstract 
In recent years, business intelligence (BI) has emerged as one of the top technology priorities for many worldwide organizations. BI acts as a source of competitive advantage to support key business processes that could affect an organization’s bottom line. Despite of the apparent significance of BI, many organizations still have not successfully gained full benefits from their BI investment. The contributing reasons are the lack of higher level analytics and intelligent functions, insufficient business involvement, absence of skilled staff, and poor data quality. Apparently, an organization needs to be in a higher level of maturity to reap full benefits of BI. However, for organizations to be able to evolve to a higher maturity level, it will require them to identify their position in the BI journey and know how to attain to the next level. To address these two issues, this research intends to develop a maturity model containing dimensions that are critical to the implementation of BI. For each dimension, it will spell out criteria to move from the lowest level of maturity all the way to the highest level of maturity. Having this maturity model as guidance to assess existing BI capabilities, organizations are assured that they can effectively devise a systematic plan to achieve higher BI maturity level. In this research, data will be collected using a mixed method of structured survey questionnaire and follow-up interviews. Based on the extensive literature review, an initial version of survey instrument will be developed using questionnaire and pilot-tested on five selected Malaysian organizations across a wide variety of industries. Then, the preliminary BI maturity model will be produced and further validated. The sample of actual survey is estimated to have at least 30 participants. It is believed that the results of the research will provide useful guidelines to move forward to expand the business value of the BI implementation. As such, BI stakeholders will be in a better position to discover existing problems and optimize their scarce resources by focusing on critical dimensions that have a greater impact on BI implementation.

Stanford Introduction to Databases Class

Apart from the AI class and Machine Learning Class, here is another online class offered by Stanford University's Computer Science Department: Introduction to Databases, by Prof Jennifer Widom. Sign up here: http://www.db-class.com/

Course Description:
This course covers database design and the use of database management systems for applications. It includes extensive coverage of the relational model, relational algebra, and SQL. It also covers XML data including DTDs and XML Schema for validation, and the query and transformation languages XPath, XQuery, and XSLT. The course includes database design in UML, and relational design principles based on dependencies and normal forms. Many additional key database topics from the design and application-building perspective are also covered: indexes, views, transactions, authorization, integrity constraints, triggers, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), and emerging "NoSQL" systems.

Check out the introductory video here:

Stanford Machine Learning Class

Similar to the Stanford University's AI Class, Prof. Andrew Ng, Director of Stanford's AI Lab, is also offering Machine Learning Class to the public. Sign up the class here: http://www.ml-class.com/

Below is the course description:
This course provides a broad introduction to machine learning, datamining, and statistical pattern recognition. Topics include:
(i) Supervised learning (parametric/non-parametric algorithms, support vector machines, kernels, neural networks).
(ii) Unsupervised learning (clustering, dimensionality reduction, recommender systems, deep learning).
(iii) Best practices in machine learning (bias/variance theory; innovation process in machine learning and AI).
(iv) Reinforcement learning.
The course will also draw from numerous case studies and applications, so that you'll also learn how to apply learning algorithms to building smart robots (perception, control), text understanding (web search, anti-spam), computer vision, medical informatics, audio, database mining, and other areas.

Check out the introductory video here: