Prof. Dr. Ulrich Furbach

University of Koblenz, Germany

Joint Keynote of MATES 2016 and KI 2016:

Automated Reasoning and Cognitive Computing

Abstract:
This talk discusses the use of first order automated reasoning in question answering and cognitive computing. For this the natural language question answering project LogAnswer is briefly depicted and the challenges faced therein are addressed.  In a second part a bridge to human reasoning as it is investigated in cognitive psychology is constructed  and some benchmarks in commonsense reasoning are presented. First ideas to represent and reason about norms using deontic logic are depicted.

About the speaker:
Ulrich Furbach is a Senior Research Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Koblenz. His research interests include knowledge management, automated reasoning, multiagent systems, and cognitive science. Ulrich Furbach obtained his Diploma and Habilitation in informatics from the Technical University of Munich and his PhD from the University of Bundeswehr. He directed the Automated Reasoning Group at the TU Munich from 1987 to 1990 and the Institute for Knowledge Media in Koblenz from 2000 to 2003. He was president of CADE Inc., he was a board member of the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence and he was chair of the German AI Society. Currently he is the chair of IFIPs Technical Committee on AI. Ulrich Furbach is ECCAI- and GI-Fellow.

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Andre

University of Augsburg, Germany

Creating Affective Bonds in Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract:
Societal challenges, such as ambient assisted living, have created the need for a new generation of robots hat are able to smoothly interact with people in their daily environment. Such robots require a significant amount of social intelligence including the capability to be attentive to the user’s emotional state and respond to it appropriately. In the past ten years, a significant amount of effort has been dedicated to explore the potential of affective computing in human interaction with humanoid robots. On the one hand, robust techniques are researched that recognize emotional states from multi-sensory input, such as facial expressions, gestures and speech. On the other hand, mechanisms are under development that generate and display emotional states of robots, for example, by deformations of synthetic skin. In my talk, I will describe various computational approaches to implement empathic behaviors in a robot. Besides analytic approaches that are informed by theories from the cognitive and social sciences, I will discuss empirical approaches that enable a robot to learn empathic behaviors from recordings of human-human interactions or from life interactions with human interlocutors.

About the speaker:
Elisabeth Andre is a Full Professor of Computer Science at  Augsburg University, Germany, and Chair of the Research Unit  Human-Centered Multimedia. She received her Diploma and Doctoral Degrees  in Computer Science from Saarland University. Before joining Augsburg  University, she has been working as a principal researcher at the German  Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbrücken. In  addition, she has held various visiting appointments,most recently an  invited professorship at University Paris-Sud, France. Elisabeth has a long track record in multimodal human-machine  interaction, embodied conversational agents, affective computing and  social signal processing. She is on the editorial board of various  renowned international journals, such as ACM Transactions on Intelligent  Interactive Systems (TIIS), IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing  (TAC), Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (JAAMAS),  and AI Communications. Currently, she is serving as a General Co-Chair  of the 18th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI). In 2007 Elisabeth Andre was nominated Fellow of the Alcatel-Lucent  Foundation for Communications Research. In 2010, she was elected a  member of the prestigious German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the  Academy of Europe and AcademiaNet. She is also an ECCAI Fellow (European  Coordinating Committee for Articial Intelligence).
 

Prof. Dr. Peter Palensky

TU Delft, The Netherlands

Hybrid Models for Agents in Cyber-Physical Energy Systems

Abstract:
The power system experiences a continuing transformation, from a static,well-dimensioned and relatively transparent structure into adistributed, dynamic, and flexible system of systems. By adding distributed intelligence to this previously physical system we expect an increase of efficiency, flexibility, and resiliency, in order to host more renewable generation, modern market concepts and new energy services. This change, however, makes established methods of describing, analyzing and optimizing the power system obsolete. Traditional tools and methods cannot deal with distributed energy agents that participate autonomously on energy markets, they cannot describe digital controls that span entire continents, and they were never designed to take the human factor into account beyond a mere statistical fashion. A new way of modeling such intelligent power system is needed. Cyber-physical energy systems require hybrid models (discrete and continuous) described in new formal languages and implemented in numerical co-models.
This talk will tell you the state of the art in this discipline, what works, what does not work so well, how that can influence the design of agent systems for power grids, what we can expect from the future, and invites you to contribute your expertise to this important development.

About the speaker:
Peter Palensky is full Professor and Chair of Intelligent Electric Power Grids at TU Delft (Netherlands). Before that he was Principal Scientist for complex energy systems and Head of Business Unit "Sustainable Building Technologies" at the Austrian Institute of Technology, CTO of Envidatec Corp., Hamburg, Germany, associate Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University Assistant at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, and researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California. He is active in international committees like ISO, IEEE and CEN. He carries a PhD (EE, 2001) from the Vienna University of Technology and is an IEEE senior member. His research field is complex energy systems and smart grids. In his research he models, (co-)simulates and optimizes heterogeneous cyber-physical energy systems. The areas of optimization are stability, robustness, efficiency and control of smart grids.
http://iepg.ewi.tudelft.nl

Prof. Dr. Ryszard Kowalczyk

Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Enabling Smart Infrastructure with Intelligent Agent Technologies

Abstract:
Smart infrastructure encompasses networked infrastructure that uses ubiquitous sensor, information and communication technologies to better utilise or sustain resources. Examples of smart infrastructure include electricity grids that improve grid reliability and better utilise energy; transport systems that optimise traffic flows; water networks that improve productivity in agriculture; and cloud computing that improves productivity and utilisation of ICT resources. Emerging uses of smart infrastructure have the potential to reduce costs, enhance safety and reduce our environmental footprint. In order to realize the full potential of smart infrastructure, new technology solutions are required to support smart data use, distributed coordination and decentralised optimisation across the infrastructure.
The talk will focus on enabling smart energy grids and smart cloud systems with intelligent agent technologies. It will include examples of research in the areas of decision support system for socio-economic analysis & optimisation of renewable-based microgrids, market-based electricity management and control system for self-sufficient rural micro-grids. Cloud computing examples will focus on smart cloud broker involving smart cloud bench, manager and marketplace.

About the speaker:
Ryszard Kowalczyk is Professor of Intelligent Systems, and leads the Intelligent Agent Technology and Smart Energy Management Research in the School of Software and Electrical Engineering (SSEE), Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology (FSET), Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. During 2006-2010 he was the Founding Director of the Swinburne's Centre for Complex Software Systems and Services (CS3). Prior to joining the University in 2003, he worked with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and a number of corporate R&D centres of multinational companies in Australia and overseas. His research interests include intelligent systems, agent technology and collective intelligence, and their applications in building and managing open, large-scale, distributed systems such as service, grid and cloud computing and smart infrastructure (smart electricity grid, smart transport, smart internet). Prof Kowalczyk has authored 4 patents and more than 200 articles in international journals and refereed conference proceedings. He has successfully led more than 30 R&D projects funded by competitive grants and industry in excess of $17 million, delivering significant research and commercial benefits. Prof Kowalczyk is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence (Springer) and has served on a number of Editorial Boards of international journals. He is a founding member of Steering Committee of the Service Science Society (Australia) and a member of Advisory Board of the Centre for Intelligent Information Technologies (CETINIA) at University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid (Spain). More recently, he has been focusing on developing Smart Infrastructure research and commercialising Smart Cloud Broker technology.