Abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) image processing has a long history and many researches have been conducted on this topic. Over the last 25 years, we have been involved in 3D image processing research field. In 1993, we first proposed the ray space representation of 3D images which is a common data format for various 3D capturing and displaying devices. Based on the ray space representation, we have conducted various researches on 3D image processing, which include ray space coding and data compression, view interpolation, ray space acquisition, display, and a full system from capture to display of ray space. Recently, 3D imaging technologies have been attracting much attention including light field camera, 3D image coding such as MV-HEVC and 3D-HEVC, and light field display, etc. We are now conducting 3D image related researches such as multi-view image coding and data compression, view interpolation, coded aperture based light field acquisition, and light field display signal calculation.

In this talk, we introduce some of our 25-year researches in terms of 3D image processing – from capture to display. Among them, we specifically focus on capturing and display part. The capturing and displaying of 3D images used to be a straightforward process and the amount of computation was not a serious problem so far. However, new technologies have emerged in this fields such as a computational camera and a computational display. The challenge of these technologies is that they usually require heavy computation due to the large amount of data. On the other hand, the deep neural network (DNN) or the convolutional neural network (CNN) have been introduced and applied to various research field and they showed high performance in various problems. These newly emerged DNN or CNN could provide a solution for the problem of high computation cost for the 3D image processing mentioned above. In this talk, we report the results of some experiments where we replace these computations with deep neural network (DNN) and convolutional neural network (CNN). In some of the cases, DNN and CNN show better performance than conventional methods both in quality and calculation speed.

Biopic: Toshiaki Fujii received his B.E., M.E., and Dr.E. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1990, 1992, and 1995, respectively. His current research interests include multi-dimensional signal processing, multi-camera systems, multi-view video coding and transmission, free-viewpoint television, and their applications. From 1995, he has been with the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University. From 2008 to 2010, he was with the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is currently a Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University. Prof. Fujii is a member of IEEE Signal Processing Society, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, Information Processing Society of Japan, and Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers.

Abstract: The flying taxi business is projected to be a $5 Billion/year market. The industry is moving fast to realize this potential, with both established and startup companies competing as well as collaborating in this race. Airline companies including Boeing, Airbus, and Bell, are building the electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircrafts. Uber is collaborating with NASA to plan flying taxi service in Dallas by 2023 with early demonstrations planned in 2020. The big question that we need to address is “Are we ready for the big challenges that come with unmanned air transportation?” Just to give a perspective, think about self-driving cars. When, where, and how did we begin this journey and where are we now in this journey? What are you likely see first - A fully autonomous self-driving car in an urban area or an unmanned air taxi?

In this presentation, we will discuss the critical aspects of unmanned air transportation: (1) Technology Readiness (2) Safety, Security, Regulations and Standardization Efforts and (3) Privacy, Ethics and Community Acceptance. This presentation is based on my active engagement in activities related to Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) research, including US Science and Technology Research Panel (SARP) discussions, NASA’s UAS Traffic Management (UTM) flight tests, IEEE ’s P1920 Standards Working Group on Aerial Networks and Communications as the chair, IEEE’s Vehicular Technology Society’s Ad Hoc Working Group on Drones as the chair, NSF’s Cyber Physical Systems programs as a Principal Investigator, and NIST’s Global City Team Challenge initiative as an executive committee member of Public Safety Super Cluster and many others.

We begin this discussion with a review of the technology capability levels as discussed in NASA’s UTM initiative, which gives an idea of where the industry is today from a technology perspective. The capabilities that the industry is expected to demonstrate in the UTM project, including Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) communications, navigation in GPS-denied areas, and Remote Identification of aircraft with applications to law enforcement and public safety, wild fire management, and package deliveries, give an idea of where we are today in terms of technology readiness. In another related activity, NASA has just began a grand challenge on Urban Air Mobility. This will also be discussed.

Second, safety should be an important goal of Unmanned Air Transportation. While the industry mastered safety of manned aviation, the path to mastery was slow and steady. Is Unmanned Air Transportation as safe as manned aviation? Are there regulations to guarantee the desired levels of human safety? What needs to be done now to make unmanned aviation as safe as it needs to be? How are regulatory and standards organizations working towards achieving this goal?

The third topic is community acceptance. Community engagement at local and regional levels is also critical for the success of unmanned air transportation. How do we engage communities in this fast-paced evolution of unmanned air transportation? Community engagement includes education and training geared towards future workforce as well as town-hall meetings to inform the communities about changes that are coming to their communities and help prepare them for these changes. Their participation and inputs are very critical to the success of new endeavors that cities and municipalities are going to engage in.

We wrap up this discussion with a summary of our expectations from the industry perspective. Safety and trust can only be achieved through the whole community approach. Government-public-private partnership is the key to the success of safe and trusted unmanned transportation.

Biopic: Kamesh Namuduri is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of North Texas. He received his B.S. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Osmania University, India, in 1984, M.S. degree in Computer Science from University of Hyderabad in 1986, and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from University of South Florida in 1992. Over the past ten years, his research is focused on aerial networking and communications. He co-organized a series of workshops on “Airborne Networking and Communications” in conjunction with IEEE, AIAA, AUVSI, and ACM Conferences. He is serving as the chair for the IEEE Standards Working Group (IEEE 1920.1: Aerial Communications and Networking Standards). He is also serving as the Chair for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society’s Ad Hoc Committee on Drones. He is a co-editor for the book titled “UAV Networks and Communications” published by the Cambridge University Press in 2017. He published over one hundred research articles to date. He is leading the Smart and Connected Community project on “Deployable Communication Systems” in collaboration with the government, public, and private organizations. This living laboratory project was demonstrated thrice during the Global City Teams Challenge hosted jointly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and US Ignite in 2015, 2016, and 2017. He contributed to the development of research agenda, requirements and blueprints highly deployable communications systems led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Public Safety Telecommunications Council.

Abstract: A recommender system is an AI-based system with a power of suggestion. This suggestion includes not only products and services, similar to Amazon’s book recommender or tourist recommendation system, but also areas with more seriousness. Some examples of these areas are medical sciences such as disease diagnosis and treatments, laws such as legal recommendation systems, finance such as personal and institutional financial policies. It also includes some very personal and private areas such as a choice of food to eat for each meal, a choice of vacation places to go to, a choice of dresses to wear for each occasion, a choice of songs to listen to, or even information content we consume daily, such as news feed, etc. In short, since the mid-1990s, many recommenders have been invading and influencing human’s decisions in almost every area.

This talk reviews the evolution of recommender system development approaches from traditional rule-based recommenders to crowd-based followee-follower recommenders to sensorization of thing-based recommenders. The talk also discusses advantages, disadvantages, and impacts of modern recommenders toward individuals, societies, and communities.

Biopic: Ponrudee Netisopakul is currently an associate professor at the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL). She received her Ph.D. degree in Computing and Information Science from Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, USA, in 2002. She was formerly a head researcher of Information Science Laboratory, ReCCIT (Research Center for Communications and Information Technology) from 2004-2005. In 2006, she founded the Knowledge Management and Knowledge Engineering Laboratory at FIT, KMITL, where she worked with graduate and undergraduate students and other researchers in the topics related to Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and Knowledge Sharing. The studies in her laboratory focus on constructing recommendation systems employing various approaches in each stage. One main theme of applications is to apply Natural Language Processing to extracting relevant information from documents, web pages, and social network information. Then the information is analyzed, learned, and modeled. Finally, the discovered knowledge is utilized in applications such as chaos threat monitoring system using social network dissemination, among others. She is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Information Technology, KMITL, and MUT Journal of Business Administration. She is also a permanent member of the Association of Researchers of Thailand, the Thai Statistical Association, and the Science Society of Thailand Under the Patronage of His Majesty the King. She also is an active member of the Artificial Intelligence Association of Thailand, ECTI, IIAI, IEICE, and IEEE.

Abstract: Asia Pacific countries are currently inhabited by almost 4.7 billion peoples, which constitutes nearly 60% of the world's population, from totaling around 7.7 billion. Asia's the largest population is spread across China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan ad South Korea. The Asian Countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippine are currently working hard to encourage economic growth to be equal to what has been achieved by developed countries. The shifting from developing countries to becoming developed countries will require increased energy consumption, and will have an impact on the Asian energy market in the future. The growth of energy consumption is predicted to exceed the consumption of developed countries. Until now, the use of energy in the Asia Pacific countries is still dominated by using of energy from fossil sources. In transportation sector is still dominated by using fossil energy derived from oil, likewise in the electricity sector it is still dominated by using coal. Three Asian Countries, China, India and Indonesia are predicted will consume a greater amount of energy. At the present China that has the biggest power plant capacity in the world at around 1,899 GW, more than 60% still use thermal (coal and gas) and produce electricity reaching 70% from 6,999 TWh in 2018. The continuous increase of energy consumption in Asia Pacific region will certainly greatly influence to the dynamics of energy sustainability that affect the economy and technology development creation. Awareness to the climate change, reducing dependence to the fossil energy sources and creation of new jobs in renewable and nuclear energy development has encouraged various countries to make energy policies that can guarantee the sustainability of their supply and comply with sustainable development. With a new paradigm of energy global change, Indonesia has responded quickly to the dynamics of change in line with global thinking by optimizing the use of new and renewable energy and reduce dependence to the fossil sources. The policy of change has been planned in the new Indonesia National Energy Policy Towards 2050. In its National Energy Policy, new and renewable energy must contribute 23% from the amount of 400 MTOE in the 2025 and contributes 31% from the amount of 1000 MTOE in 2050. The main target of transition energy in Indonesia is concern for climate change, reduce oil imports, increasing as much as possible the contribution of new and renewable energy and encourage the creation of new jobs in the energy sector. The National Energy Policy towards 2050 is a transitional formula for how Indonesia can guarantee the sustainability of its energy availability and national energy security.

Biopic: Tumiran is now 59 years old, He got his first degree in Electrical Engineering from Electrical Engineering Dept. Gadjah Mada University, (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia(1985), Master of Engineering in lectrical Power System from Saitama University, Japan 1993 and got his Ph.D in Production and Information sciences from the same University, Japan in 1996. He worked at the department of Electrical Engineering as junior lecture in 1987 and He served as a chairman of Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering School, Gadjah Mada University, from 2000-2003, and was elected as Electrical Engineering Dept. Chairman from 2003-2008 at the same University. He was the Dean of Engineering Faculty, Gadjah Mada University from 1998-2012. This Faculty Consist of Eight Dept. and 11 study program and 12 Graduated Study Program, with total student of 7.500 students.

As the Dean of Engineering Faculty, he was worked as the AUNSEEDNET (Asean University Network-South East Engineering Education Development Network) steering committee under JICA program. He was also as one of founders of Excellent Energy Centre, Gadjah Mada University in 1998. He was the Dean of Engineering Faculty, Gadjah Mada University from 1998-2012. In national level, He was also one of the founders of The National Electrical Engineering Chairman Forum that created in 2004, and he was appointed as the General Chairman from 2006-2008 to this society. In March 2009, he was appointed by the Parliament of Republic Indonesia to be the Board Member of the National Energy Council of the Republic of Indonesia (NEC) as Academician/University representative for period of 2009-2014, after released from the president selection. And now, has been extended for the second term as the board Member of the National Energy Council in the second period for 2004-2019.

He is very active in International collaboration, especially in energy and climate change. Related to the Climate, Ecosystem change and adaptation, he was very active participating in curriculum development of adaptation and mitigation since 2009-2013, coordinated by United Nation University (UNU), Tokyo. A few times has given courses at UNU related to disaster, Energy, Energy Policy and Climate Change. In 2012 he was asked by UNU to participate working as chair committee in developing new and renewable energy curriculum for post graduate program, at UNU, Tokyo. Between 2011-2014 he was giving lecture at UNU Tokyo in the subject of New and Renewable Energy Policy for post graduate course. Starting in year 2000, he has many experiences working as professional to evaluate and analysis of Indonesia electricity policy, electricity pricing, electricity reliability, electricity energy losses, and energy management. In 2008, he got special award from the National Electricity State Company as his contribution for National Electricity Development and 2010 he got special awarded from the President of the Republic Indonesia for his commitment and Contribution for more than 25 years. In 2016, he appointed by Gadjah Mada Energy Study Center to Lead a group to evaluate the beneficial of the present electric energy supply in Java Island, 2000-2016. He also invited as key note speaker in many International Conference, Ha long bay, Vietnam, by UNU, 2009, ICLCT, Jeju Island, South Korea, 2010 APSOWET, Mokpo, South Korea, 2010, Indonesia-China Coal Summit, Bali 2012, Energy Charter, Bali 2013, Asean Energy Business Forum, Bali 2013, Asia Pacific Nuclear Energy Congress, Bali 2013, Asia Energy Risk Market, Singapore 2015, The Prospect of Implementing Nuclear Power Plant in the Asia Pacific Region, Manila 2016, Asia Energy Transition, Singapore Energy Assembly 2017, International Renewable Energy Conference, Singapore 2017, Oil, Gas & the Energy Transition in Asia Pacific 2019, Asia Pacific Energy Assembly, Singapore 2019, and Renewable Energy Week: Solar Power and PV Tech. Asia 2019 and Wind Power and Turbine Tech Asia 2019.