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TUCS Newsletter 27.11.2014

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TUCS activities

New courses

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Latest publications at TUCS

TUCS activities

TUCS Research Programme activities

TITLE: Towards Indestructible Molecular Robots
ABSTRACT: The recently-introduced nubot model by Woods et al, brings movement and computation together in one model. The model can be understood as asynchronous and non-deterministic cellular automata model where cells  - here called monomers - have the capability to move relative to each other, and to form bonds between them. It also allows creation and destruction of cells and allows a random uncontrolled motion.
This model is an excellent framework to study the ultimate limitations and capabilities of the growth and rearrangements at a molecular scale. Given the probabilistic nature of the computation at this scale and the imprecise behavior of molecular elements, certain transitions would inevitably be faulty. Such faults can set a state of a cell to an arbitrary one, create a cell at any site, move a cell to the neighboring site, or even kill a cell completely. Such mishaps would inevitably interfere with computation and movement, leading to undesirable results.
We are interested in a model where faults occur independently at random with some small probability.
We first observe that the challenges here are very different and to certain extend more difficult than of those in conventional models of computation.
In this talk, we will focus our attention to  the reliable storage problem. The main concern of this problem is to store information such that losing any small part of it is not fatal: it can be restored using the rest of the data.  The Toom's rule and a careful organization of information  on a convex shape, proved to be sufficient for the task.
Then, we will  state and analyze the general problem: show that for any nubot program N, there is a nubot program that is subjected to noise, that acts just like N, but with some m x m scale-up in space, and a moderate slowdown in time, where  m and the slowdown are independent of N and its input.

New courses

Course: Multicriteria Decision Modelling in Problem Solving

Lecturer: Prof. Mario Fedrizzi, University of Trento, Italy

Lectures in ICT-house:

Week 48:

Tuesday 25.11, 15-18, Gamma (B1026)

Wednesday 26.11, 9-12, Cobol (B3040)

Thursday 27.11, 10-13, Consilia (A5059)

Friday 28.11, 13-16, Fortran (A3058)

Week 49:

Tuesday 2.12, 15-18, Gamma (B1026)

Wednesday 3.12, 9-12, Cobol (B3040)

Thursday 4.12, 15-18, Fortran (A3058)

Friday 5.12, 13-16, Fortran (A3058)

Goals:

The main goal of the course is to make students familiar with the basic models that can be used when addressing decision making problems taking care of the complex circumstances under which choosing an alternative is more an art of balancing multiple attributes or criteria than a mechanical search for a mathematical maximum or minimum.

Starting from a variety of real-world examples we will show how to elicit the set of feasible and competing alternatives, how to settle the measurement scales of preferences and how to search for the best alternative.

Contents:

TOPSIS and ELECTRE

TOPSIS: normalized ratings, weighting, positive-ideal and negative-ideal solutions, separation measures, similarities, rank preference order. ELECTRE: outranking relationships, preferred alternatives, normalization and weighting, concordance and discordance sets and indexes, dominance relationships.

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

How to reduce complex decisions to a series of pair-wise comparisons starting from a hierarchical representation of the criteria. How to manage tangible and intangible goals through the weighting of the criteria. The mapping of the pair-wise comparisons and its formal representation. On the consistency of pair-wise comparisons. From partial scoring of the criteria to total scoring of alternatives..

MCDM under fuzziness

How to represent vagueness and imprecision in decision making. Fuzzy sets and fuzzy numbers. Aggregation and ranking of fuzzy information. Linguistic variables and their use in decisions with multiple criteria and more than one expert involved.

Addressed student groups:

Doctoral students or master students with a background and interest in decision modelling and problem solving.

Organization/Structure:

8 days

8 lectures (3 * 45 min each), 1 per day

Assessment:

Based on a final report

Reading list

Material available in Moodle:

https://moodle.abo.fi/course/view.php?id=267

New INFORTE courses

 

Digital Activism

November 28th

Helsinki

Speakers:

Assistant professor Lisen Selander (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

Professor Sirkka Järvenpää (McCombs School of Business, University of Texas Austin / Aalto University School of Science)

Organizes:

Professor Matti Rossi (Aalto University School of Business)

 

Registration closing date: November 14th

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/digiact

 

 

ICT4D (New!)

December 11th-12th 

Tampere

Speakers:

Assistant Professor Keyur Sorathia (Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India)

Professor  Mikko J. Ruohonen (University of Tampere)

Professor Markku Turunen (University of Tampere)

Dr. Nicholas Mavengere (University of Tampere)

Organizes:

Dr. Nicholas Mavengere, University of Tampere

Ms. Sumita Sharma, University of Tampere

Mr. Juhani Linna, University of Tampere

 

Registration closing date: December 1st 

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/ICT4D

 

 

Software Release Planning

December 15th – 17th

Oulu

Speakers:

Professor Guenther Ruhe (University of Calgary, Canada)

Organizers:

Professor Burak Turhan, University of Oulu, Finland

 

Registration closing date: December 1st

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/SWP

 

Please, see all detailed programs in INFORTE.fi: http://inforte.jyu.fi/

Organising of INFORTE.fi courses

Inforte.fi program started operating originally in 2001.During this wholeperiod, the Inforte.fi program has however maintained its standing as a stat- wide program for ICT professionals. It is designed to offer networking and education events to PhD students and professionals working in Finnish companies, polytechnics and public administration. Invited speakers are some of the top international researchers or industry representatives in their field. Inforte.fi’s member university departments will annually organize about 12 workshops and seminars on diverse areas of ICT. The main areas of focus are:

These intensive events can be used as tools for professional education, or as parts of doctoral education. Inforte.fi program delivers certificates of participation, and participants negotiate how these achievements can be included in their studies with their home universities. Inforte.fi events are a way to connect you with other ICT professionals and academics in your field, and build important social networks. Inforte.fi events allow you to update your knowledge and keep on track with the latest scientific and practical knowledge in the ICT field.

HOW TO COME ALONG?

Anyone within the member departments can suggest an event. We hope that the event is in line with our main areas of focus. If you have something in mind, contact the Inforte.fi staff and let’s start planning the event!

Inforte.fi’s member university departments are:

ABOUT ORGANIZING INFORTE.FI EVENTS

The organizer’s payment for organizing an one-day event is 250 € and for a two-day event 500 €. The organizer has to send the Inforte.fi staff his or hers separate tax card or otherwise the Finnish tax authorities will take off 60 % taxes from the payment. Inforte.fi staff will send the organizer a travelling expenses claim form and a bank and personal information form. The travelling expenses claim form needs to be filled only if needed, but the bank and personal information form needs to be filled always. The Inforte.fi office will organize morning coffee with something small to bite to the events, but lunch and afternoon coffee can be bought at participant’s own expense. The organizer can however buy his/her and the speaker’s lunch and afternoon coffee and reimburse those expenses from the Inforte.fi office with the travelling expense claim. Also one feasible dinner with the speaker is allowed to reimburse with the travelling expense claim. However when using the travelling expenses claim, the organizer needs to send all of the original documents and receipts to Inforte.fi office (the address is at the bottom of this document).

The speaker’s payment Inforte.fi pays 120 € / lecturing hour and 60 € / group work hour at most. Lecturing fee is considered salary by Finnish tax office. Because the work is done in Finland, the Finnish tax authorities will automatically take off approximately 35 % taxes. In addition, it is mandatory to take off around 4 % other social security and pension contribution payments from the fee. This will happen automatically - no fee can be paid without these deductions.In addition to travel expenses and accommodation Inforte.fi will pay the speaker daily allowance. Daily allowance is 39 euros or 18 euros per travelling day. Inforte.fi will calculate the daily allowances. Inforte.fi does not cover meal expenses according to receipts. The fee and travel expenses will be paid separately and it may take approximately a month until the payment is on the speaker’s bank account.

The speaker’s travelling and accommodation

Inforte.fi pays for the speakers travelling and accommodation expenses and helps with the arrangements regarding these. If the Inforte.fi event will be merged with other activities in Finland (e.g. seminars) or during the trip, Inforte.fi will pay only a part of the expenses. If the speaker decides to book the trip independently, he/she needs to be in contact with the Inforte.fi staff because only travelling in Economy class will be accepted as expenses. Inforte.fi will book the hotel for the speaker.

Date and other important information about the event

The date of the event has to be agreed on in good time and the Inforte.fi staff has to be informed about it immediately after that. In addition to this the Inforte.fi staff will need the following information as soon as possible:

Remote access

The organizer has to agree with the speaker if participants can be included in the event with remote access. If both sides agree that it can be handled, the organizer has to find out that with what kind of system the speaker is used to and whether the remote access is possible to organize at the event location.

Inforte.fi staff’s contact information:

Annemari Soranto

Project Researcher

Email: office@inforte.fi

Phone: +358 400 247700

Nina Jakonen

Programme planner

Email:office@inforte.fi

Phone: +358 400 247700

Courses on transferable skills at University of Turku

http://www.utu.fi/fi/Tutkimus/tutkijakoulu/courses/Sivut/home.aspx

Announcements

The Best Business Path competition

Turku Science Park Ltd launches a business idea competition for the researchers, research groups and teachers in the universities and research institutes in Turku. The purpose of the competition is to encourage the academic staff to find new ideas, products or services with considerable commercial potential, as well as promoting the establishing of new enterprises. Companies are not eligible to enter the competition, and companies’ ideas cannot be submitted to the competition.

The participants shall fill out and submit the competition entry form plus a free-form summary with 10–15 ppt slides on the idea. The summary shall include a description of the business idea and its commercialisation, the market potential of the idea, and a proposal on how the possible prize money could be used to generate added value in the further development or commercialisation of the idea. The competition form can be downloaded here: http://www.turkusciencepark.com/media/uploads/hakulomake_eng_.pdf

The competition entry and free-form presentation of the idea shall be submitted by 25 November 2014 to kilpailu@turkusciencepark.com.

On the basis of the entries and summaries we will pick out the best ideas for the second round where the idea will be pitched to the jury. Those accepted to the second round will be informed on Monday, 1 December 2014. The second round will be held on Monday, 8 December 2014 from 2–4 p.m. The winners will be announced at a press conference on 16 December 2014 at 10 a.m.

Based on the competition entries and the second round, 1–5 best ideas will be awarded, and the total amount of the prizes will be 30,000 euro. The sum will be distributed as determined by the jury for further development and commercialisation of the ideas. The jury that chooses the winning ideas comprises of the members of the executive group of Turku Science Park Ltd.

The members of the jury are bound by a non-disclosure agreement concerning all entries and their content. We will agree with the winners on the public part of the proposals in such a way that the name of the person or group, subject area of the proposal and the basic idea can be published.

Further information about the competition is available from Rikumatti Levomäki, tel.: 050 5547 565 or e-mail:rikumatti.levomaki@turkusciencepark.com

More information: http://www.turkusciencepark.com/en/best-businesspath/

Call for papers - AUTOMATA 2015

21st International Workshop on Cellular Automata and Discrete Complex Systems

Turku, Finland
June 8-10, 2015

http://www.math.utu.fi/automata2015

Important dates
*Deadline for submissions: February 9, 2015
*Notification to authors: March 17, 2015
*Final version: March 27, 2015
*Submissions of exploratory papers: May 4, 2015
*Notification to authors of exploratory papers: within 10 days from submission
*AUTOMATA 2015: June 8-10, 2015

Scope
Papers presenting original and unpublished research on all fundamental aspects of cellular automata and related discrete complex systems are sought. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): dynamics, topological, ergodic and algebraic aspects, algorithmic and complexity issues, emergent properties, formal language processing, symbolic dynamics, models of parallelism and distributed systems, timing schemes, phenomenological descriptions, scientific modeling and practical applications. Papers authored or co-authored by PC members are also welcome and will follow a specific evaluation process.

Paper categories
There are two paper categories - full and exploratory contributions. Full papers are meant to report more complete and denser research, while the later submission deadline of exploratory papers allows quick reporting of most recent discoveries, work-in-progress and/or partial results. Papers in the full paper category are refereed and selected by the program committee. Papers in the exploratory category go through a less rigorous evaluation for suitability. Full papers receive a longer time slot for presentation in the workshop.

Invited speakers
Andreas Deutsch (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany)
Turlough Neary (University of Zürich and ETH, Switzerland)
Ville Salo (Universidad de Chile, Chile)
Luke Schaeffer (MIT, USA)

Submission
Papers have a page limit of 14 pages (full paper category) or 8 pages (exploratory paper category), they must be formatted in LaTeX using the LNCS format (see http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs/lncs+authors) and must be submitted in Portable Document Format (PDF).  Authors are invited to submit original papers by the EasyChair system at
 https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=automata2015

The submission may contain an appendix that exceeds the page limit if the author wants to provide the PC with more details than allowed by the strict paper limit. The appendix will not be published in the proceedings. The papers must not have been submitted simultaneously to other conferences with published proceedings. All accepted papers must be presented at the conference.

Proceedings
Accepted papers in the full paper category will appear in the proceedings published by Springer in the LNCS series and will be available at the conference. Exploratory papers will be printed locally and will also be available to conference participants. Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit an extended and improved version of their contribution to a special issue of Natural Computing, published by Springer.

Program committee
Matthew Cook (Institute of Neuroinformatics, Switzerland)
Nazim Fatès (Inria Nancy, France)
Enrico Formenti (Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, France)
Eric Goles (Adolfo Ibáñez University, Chile)
Jarkko Kari (chair, University of Turku, Finland)
Martin Kutrib  (Universität Gießen, Germany)
Andreas Malcher (Universität Gießen, Germany)
Kenichi Morita (Hiroshima University, Japan)
Pedro de Oliveira (Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Brazil)
Nicolas Ollinger (Université d’Orléans, France)
Ivan Rapaport (Universidad de Chile, Chile)
Klaus Sutner (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Véronique Terrier (Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, France)
Guillaume Theyssier (Université de Savoie, France)
Hiroshi Umeo (Osaka Electro-Communication University, Japan)
Thomas Worsch (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany)

Organizing committee
Mikhail Barash
Jarkko Kari (chair)
Michal Szabados
Ilkka Törmä
Sonja Vanto

Steering committee
Enrico Formenti (Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, France)
Teijiro Isokawa (University of Hyogo, Japan)
Jarkko Kari (University of Turku, Finland)
Andreas Malcher (Universität Gießen, Germany)
Thomas Worsch (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany)

EIT ICT Labs Results Day Helsinki on 4 December

Welcome to Results Day Helsinki on 4 December where we showcase innovative products and solutions from cloud, networking solutions and smart spaces. Our keynote speaker is CEO Christian Fredrikson from F-Secure, who talks about "Trusted cloud services as a key to European success". You get to see 30 demonstrations, hear pitches from start-ups, enjoy lunch and network with our business developers and students.

Programme and registration: http://resultsdayhelsinki.splashthat.com/

Health & Wellbeing community at SLUSH          

 

18 of the hottest European health & wellbeing start-ups attend SLUSH start-up conference on 18-19 November in Helsinki. These companies belong to the EIT ICT Labs Health & Wellbeing Business Community that helps European start-ups to grow internationally through new business contacts, knowledge sharing and co-creation.

These companies include six from Finland - Firstbeat Technologies, Fjuul Capital, Mendor, Wellmo, Optomed and Sports Tracking Technologies.

More information: http://www.eitictlabs.eu/news-events/events/article/health-and-wellbeing-business-community-at-slush-start-up-conference/#allView

 

Doctoral School application period open          

 

Do you have the passion to drive your innovation to the customers? Doctoral Training Center Helsinki gives you the right competencies and network as well as coaches you on the demanding path of starting and growing your own company. The EIT ICT Labs Doctoral School in ICT Innovation is a complementary program for Doctoral students in the field of ICT. Open to doctoral students from Aalto University and University of Helsinki.

Call for applications is open - apply by 15 November!

More information here: http://doctoralschool.eitictlabs.eu/doctoral-training-centres/dtc-helsinki/

Call for Papers – Pervasive Information Systems Workshop

WorldCIST'15 - 3rd World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies

Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal

1 - 3 April 2015

http://www.aisti.eu/worldcist15/index.php/workshops/pis

Scope

WorldCIST'15 - 3rd World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies, to be held at Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, Portugal, 1 - 3 April 2015, is a global forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, results, experiences and concerns in the several perspectives of Information Systems and Technologies. Azores is ranked as the second most beautiful archipelago in the world by National Geographic.

Pervasive Information Systems (PIS) extend the Information System paradigm by introducing a set of novel characteristics into the society. This workshop aims to discuss topics related to PIS, evaluate the importance for the society and the creation of new knowledge overcoming temporal and local barriers.

This workshop is focused on demonstrating how to take advantages from this new sort of information systems and which kind of solutions can be developed in order to support the decision making process anywhere and anytime. PIS 2015 is the ideal place for bringing together the researchers who are working in this particular area of information systems in order to promote discussion and explore new scope of scientific contributions.

Having conscience of the most recent situation in Europe and the Horizon 2020 strategy, a deeper analysis should be made on this emerging topic. Authors are invited to submit unpublished work, contributing with research papers, case studies and demonstrations that present original scientific results, methodological aspects, concepts and approaches in the multidisciplinary field of PIS. Authors should present new trends, discuss future challenges and understand how information affects the way humans interact with the built environments occupied by them.

Topics

Workshop topics include, but are not limited to:

Submission and Paper Format

Submissions must be of one of two types:

Full paper: Finished and consolidated R&D works. These papers are assigned a 10-page limit; and Short paper: Ongoing works with relevant preliminary results open to discussion. These papers are assigned a 7-page limit.

Submitted papers must comply with the format of Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Series (see Instructions for Authors at Springer Website or download a DOC example) be written in English, must not have been published before, not be under review for any other conference, workshop  or publication and not include any information leading to the authors’ identification. Therefore, the authors’ names, affiliations and bibliographic references should not be included in the version for evaluation by the Program Committee. This information should only be included in the camera-ready version, saved in Word or Latex format and also in PDF format. These files must be accompanied by the Publication form filled out, in a ZIP file, and uploaded at the conference management system.

All papers will be subjected to a “double-blind review” by at least two/three members of the Program Committee. Based on Program Committee evaluation, a paper can be rejected or accepted by the Conference Chairs. In the latter case, it can be accepted as the type originally submitted or as another type. Thus, full papers can be accepted as short papers. The authors of accepted full papers will have 15 minutes to present their work in a Conference Work Session; approximately 5 minutes of discussion will follow each presentation. The authors of accepted short papers and company papers will have 11 minutes to present their work in a Conference Work Session; approximately 4 minutes of discussion will follow each presentation.

All papers should be submitted using the EasyChair system, available in the following link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=worldcist-ws2015

Publication and Indexing

Workshop papers will be published in the Springer Conference Proceedings. To ensure that a paper is published in the Proceedings, at least one of the authors must be fully registered by 11th of January 2015, and the paper must comply with the suggested layout and page-limit. Additionally, all recommended changes must be addressed by the authors before they submit the camera-ready version. No more than one paper per registration will be published in the Conference Proceedings. An extra fee must be paid for publication of additional papers, with a maximum of one additional paper per registration.

Full and short papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings by Springer, in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Published full and short papers will be submitted for indexation by ISI, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS and DBLP, among others, and will be available in the SpringerLink Digital Library. Extended versions of the best papers accepted and presented at this workshop may be considered for publication in a Special Issue of a renowned international journal indexed by ISI, SCOPUS and DBLP (e.g. Journal of Universal Computer Science - JUCS).

Important Dates

DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service – Research Grants for foreign PhD

Candidates:

1. One-Year Grants, Application deadline: 19.12.2014

2. Short-Term Grants, Application deadline: 1.10.2014 / 1.04.2015

3. Cotutelle Doctoral Programmes, Application deadline: 19.12.2014

Information on application requirements and application procedure: www.funding-guide.de

DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) offers Research Grants for foreign PhD Candidates:

1.Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists

2.Re-invitation Programme for Former Scholarship Holders

Application deadline: October 1st for the scholarship period January 1st to June 30th of the following year. / April 1st for the scholarship period July 1st of the same year to January 31st of the following year.

Information on application requirements and application procedure: www.funding-guide.de

Information and advisory centres: DAAD-Lecturers in Finland

Dina Heegen

dvbhee@utu.fi

dheegen@abo.fi

Dr. Anta Kursisa

anta.kursisa@helsinki.fi

Anne Stegemann

anne.stegemann@uva.fi

Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Europe, Middle East and Africa
   

Scholarship for female Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students studying Computer Science or a closely related technical field. Recipients will receive a 7000 EUR Scholarship and have the opportunity to attend a networking retreat in summer 2015

Deadline for applications: February, 2015

More information: www.google.com/anitaborg/emea/

Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities  

Scholarship for Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD students with a disability studying Computer Science or a closely related technical field. Recipients will receive a 7000 EUR Scholarship.

Deadline for applications: February 17, 2015

More information: www.google.com/studentswithdisabilities-europe/

TUCS GP travel reports

TUCS GP travel report: Global Wireless Summit by Toni Ernvall

Full name of the event: 2014 Global Wireless Summit (GWS)

Place and date: Aalborg, Denmark, May 11th – 14th, 2014

Type of event: Conference

My article:

The scientific profile of the event: GWS is a conference on wireless communications from the theoretic and industry's perspective.

Opinion on the best paper and its topic: I think that 'New Codes and Inner Bounds for Exact Repair in Distributed Storage Systems' by Salim El Rouayheb was interesting because its topic was closely related to my research interests.

Number of participants: I am not sure but maybe about 200 participants.

Social events: Lunch and coffee breaks were at the conference center so they were also social events. Also, there was a gala dinner.

Touristic impressions: Aalborg is a nice town in the Northern Denmark and the city center is very attractive. Also, Lindholm Høje, a burial site from the Viking Age, situated to the north of the city, is very interesting.

TUCS GP travel report: International Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School by Sepinoud Azimi

Place and date: Taormina – Sicily, Italy, June 15th – 19th, 2014

Type of event: Summer School

The scientific profile of the event: The Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School (SSBSS) was a full-immersion course on cutting-edge advances in systems and synthetic biology.

Opinion on the best presentation and its topic: “Combinatorial DNA Assembly methods and their Applications” given by” Jef Boeke”, Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Methodologies and strategies for accomplishing the assembling pathways were discussed in this talk.

Number of participants: 150

Social events: Piano concert and Swimming pool party

Touristic impressions: The summer school venue was an ideal combination of history and natural beauty. Deep blue Ocean accompanied by tropical vegetation and ancient architecture made perfect scenery to provide a unique experience.

TUCS GP travel report: Healthcom by Natalia Díaz Rodríguez

Full name of the event: 16th International Conference on E-health Networking, Application & Services

Place and date: Natal, Brazil, October 15th – 18th, 2014

Type of event: Conference

My article:

The scientific profile of the event: The conference had as main topics interoperability issues in health-care systems, patient health records and assistive technologies for a diverse range of applications, e.g. health monitoring and eHealth for public health.

Most interesting papers:

HYDRA: a HYbrid Diagnosis and monitoRing Architecture for diabetes by Kafali et. Al.

Smart Health Systems for Personal Health Action Plans by Meyer et. Al.

ReHoblet - A Home-Based Rehabilitation Game on the Tablet by Vandermaesen et. Al.

And the best paper award was for Towards Health Exercise Behavior Change for Teams Using Life-logging, by Nishiyama et. Al.

An interesting tutorial was given on Brain-Computer Interfaces where EEG sensors were used to allow users to communicate in a non-verbally manner. Easy training of the system was performed with volunteers and showed successful results.

Number of participants: Around 100

Social events: Reception cocktail and gala dinner. The gala dinner was in a fancy chalet by the beach with fancy cocktails and all kinds of unknown fruit “caipifrutas”. There were optional tours for doing buggy rides in the dunes by the beach, visiting the city and the biggest cashew nut tree in the word (of a forest-size) or snorkeling.

Touristic impressions: Natal is a perfect conference destination to combine work with holiday. White sand beaches and turquoise water allow to do surf, paddle surf, and other water sports or local dances. The cuisine is very rich on seafood and churrasquerias with all you can eat are frequent, e.g., different kinds of meat or shrimps cooked in 20 different ways.

TUCS GP travel report: Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems by Tingting Lin

Full name of the event: Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems

Place and date: Italy, Verona, September 3rd – 5th, 2014

Type of event: Conference

My article:

The scientific profile of the event: The conference theme is “IS in times of metamorphosis”, exploring challenges and opportunities in an ever-changing digitalized world. A wide range of research areas are covered, including digital innovation and design, enterprise engineering, corporate social responsibility, social media analytics, and many more. Although this conference is “Mediterranean”, participants are from many different countries in Europe. I met many Swedish and Danish researchers there, for example

Opinion on the best paper and its topic: It is the key-note by professor Carlo Pelanda, on “The challenges of the governance of info-genesis”, in which he talked about many problems on the understanding of new technology hindering the progress of our society.

Number of participants: Around 100

Social events: Welcome party: with drinks and light cocktail food in Casa Mazzanti Caffè; Social dinner: in Aquila Nera Caffè, with light food only

Touristic impressions: The conference was held in the premise of University of Verona. I didn’t have much time to walk around the city, just a walk on the leaving day from the hotel to the bus station. It looks like a typical Roman city, with lots of old buildings and a river. Food is nice, except the conference offered lunch and dinner.

Open jobs at University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University

Latest publications at TUCS

Articles in journals (3):

Articles in proceedings (9):

Ph.D. thesis (3):