SRT Faculty Seminar

Title:
Analysis of Mass Spectrometry Data: Problems and Tools

Abstract:
Mass spectrometry is one of the most common measurement techniques used in chemical engineering and research. The data acquisition/generation is such, however, that the resulting data can not immediately be analyzed using traditional multivariate data analysis techniques. The seminar will highlight some of the problems encountered in analysis of mass spectrometry data and some of the pre-processing techniques required to enable traditional multivariate analysis. An example of a new analysis method will also be given.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Dependable Data Communication in Dense Sensor Networks

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
An Overview of Long-Term Digital Preservation and R&D at LDP Centre

Abstract:
Why is digital preservation even a problem? This presentation will point out some fields where what normally are considered to be "best practice" and in general good solutions/ideas will cause problems from a digital preservation perspective. One such example is encryption, and another one is compression. Should we even use these in digital preservation, and if so, can we make sure that we are able to use the digital objects in a couple of decades?

The presentation will refer to past, present, and potential research projects at LDP Centre, but also broadly cover Digital Preservation from the perspective of Information Systems, through the use of the Open Archival Information Systems reference model (ISO 14721:2003) as a road map.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Seminar on Some Future Research Possibilities

Abstract:
There are many different methods to investigate the workings of brains. One family of such methods constitutes the discipline of "computational neuroscience". Simulations with hypothetical architectures of neural networks and comparisons with results from psychophysical experiments show that many characteristics of "the real thing" can be mimicked or modelled (depending on how pretentious you dare be).

I will claim that the architecture that Tamas Jantvik and I have worked with the last five years is by far the most accomplished among the classical neural networks for simulating sensory integration, e.g. integration of auditory and visual stimuli. I will also claim that the architecture is quite general and can readily be extended.

I will briefly discuss some possibilities that are within reach in the near future.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
The Physical Internet - Threats and Opportunities

Abstract:
Internet and computers are getting ever more important roles in our daily life, and large amounts of data is constantly being uploaded to the Internet. Which possibilities are opened when information from the physical world is combined with the net? When sensor information from houses, cars and even humans are available for everyone? What happens when we can even control physical properties of our world from the virtual world? This presentation will show the remarkable transformation that the Internet has undergone, and discuss the possibilities that new technologies enables, but also outline risks and threats that occur when the virtual and physical worlds integrate.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Zitizenz – Empowered Individuals through Visual Component-Based Design and Open Data

Abstract:
The future envisioned by Ray Kurzweil and others indicate that computing will become integrated with almost everything in our society, which would generate massive amounts of private, corporate and governmental data. At the same time the software architectures we use become more powerful and simpler to use, through reconfigurable components etc, which means that end-user programming may become common in that future. This talk will give a brief overview of this development and its challenges, both through ongoing projects at LTU and by looking ahead towards 2030.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Automated, Online, Non-Contact Particle Size Measurement on Conveyor Using 3D Surface Profile Data

Abstract:
2012 marks 15 years since the start of Matthew's PhD research to determine whether it was possible to estimate the size distribution of a pile of particles based on measurement of the surface. 2012 also marks the completion of the main research and development questions and the production of a system that achieves this goal for piled, overlapping particle piles also containing fine material below the resolution of the sensor.

Matthew will present the nature of the problem and a number of the algorithms in the solution. 3D profile data of the surface of the pile is collected and segmented using morphological image processing and watershed segmentation. Topological variation in the 3D surface profile data provides clues to the type of material identified in each segmented region and allows the determination of whether particles are overlapped, non-overlapped, or are actually areas of fine material below the resolution of the sensor. Finally volumetric size estimation of individual particles provides an approximation of particle weight, in order to produce sieve-size-distributions by weight as required by industry. This allows the system to produce realistic results directly from the measured data without any requirement for "calibration" against sieve samples, resulting in a system that can be easily installed in industrial measurement locations.

Optimisation and quality control of blasting, comminution and agglomeration processes is a complex task with large potential for gains in energy efficiency and productivity in the numerous industries, particularly in mining. In order to realise these benefits fully automated, noncontact,on-line particle size measurement technology has been developed to provide feedback for control and optimisation. Results from two industrial installations are presented showing results for crushed rock on conveyor belt with a variety of sieved products between 0 and 100 mm and material from a primary crusher up to 250 mm. Detailed size distribution results are presented with results calculated directly from the 3D surface profile data of the conveyor.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Kernel Wait Queues

Abstract:
When designing a software system that handles or reacts to several events or runs several "programs" at the same time (a multitasking system), it is beneficial if each program can "tell" the operating system (the "kernel") that it is waiting for a specific event. This way, the kernel knows which program to run at each instant of time and which program to start when a specific event occurs. In essence, there are several small wait queues, where each thread ("program") or class of threads can wait for its specific event or events.

In a classical kernel design, there can be a trade-off between memory consumption and efficiency of such wait queues. In my talk, I will introduce and discuss these problems as well as suggest a simple, yet efficient, solution where memory consumption is reduced considerably while preserving queue performance. Remaining problems and further research directions will also be discussed.

Title:
Explaining and Theorizing on Contextual Systems and Software Development Practices

Abstract:
The lecture introduces an empirically grounded model for analyzing intended and unintended changes in the prevalence of systems and software development practices in software development organizations. In the model, any development practice observable in a development organization can be analyzed according to two dimensions: the intended scope of defined practices versus the actual scope of enacted practices. The model identifies eight types of change paths in systems development practices based on the two dimensions: emergence, entropy, initiation, abandonment, formalization, informalization, implementation, and recalcitrance. The eight types of change paths provide an integrated theoretical model for understanding how systems development practices can change in organizations and projects and among individual developers in a given context.

The model is furthermore extended towards a framework for building theory from studying development practices in-use. The framework locates development practices in a learning loop that is situated in a development context. The framework recognizes that software practices-in-use are related to their learned rationale that may come from previous experiences, i.e. observed impacts of practices, or from existing theory. These concepts recognized by the framework are needed for building theory from practices, for designing research approaches for studying methodical software development, for evaluating existing research on development practices and for evaluating systems and software development methods.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Driver Drowsiness — Detection of This Insidious Enemy of a Driver

Abstract:
In this talk I will give a short background on the topic of active safety systems in vehicles and specifically discuss the problem of driver drowsiness and its detection. Drowsiness, fatigue or impairment in general, is a main contributing factor in traffic accidents and usually drivers underestimate the severity of their impairment. Detection of drowsiness is difficult and has been addressed by researchers for a long time, rendering in a variety of systems and solutions with different levels of reliability. I will present some commonly known solutions on how to detect drowsiness and will give more details on the development of drowsiness detection system that I have been involved in.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF). Interesting YouTube videos: here and here.

Title:
Atmospheric Water Vapour — Why and How We Use Satellites for Observation

Abstract:
In this talk I will briefly explain why we try to observe water vapour in the troposphere and stratosphere. Water vapour is the strongest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and is highly variable both in space and time, and a good knowledge is important to understand its influence on the global climate. I will try to give an overview how we use satellite borne instruments to obtain global coverage global distributions of tropospheric water vapour with good resolution and why the observations of the stratosphere, where water vapour is only present in traces, can provide interesting details which help to understand processes.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Challenges and Possibilities in Electronics Building and Production Technology

Abstract:
Currently feature sizes on silicon circuit reaches down to 14 nm with high volumes at 20-32 nm. At the circuit board (PCB) level the state of the art in production is 20 um with high volume about 100 um. The gap between silicon and PCB technology constitute a major possibility for next generation of electronics devices. To address this gap we do see a number of approaches like through silicon via, embedded chip, embedded passives, etc. Most of these still fail to address the differences in scale. Thus finding technologies enabling smaller feature sizes at PCB level is a real challenge. At EISLAB we are investigating one promising technology addressing this gap.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Activity Inference in Healthcare Applications

Abstract:
Activity recognition has become an essential component in many applications in context-aware and pervasive environments. With the possibility to infer a user's current activity comes the possibility to support the user in the current activity, to adapt the interaction methodology, to improve the user experience, and to detect behavioural changes over time. In home healthcare this is especially important and may actually improve the quality of life and enable a person to live longer at home. However, exposing patients to complex procedures, procedures that stigmatizes the patient, or even intrusion of privacy when capturing annotated data for machine learning, is often not possible or ethically viable. However, there are alternatives to the traditional methods which utilize domain knowledge for activity recognition. This presentation gives and introduction to some of these alternative methods, and evidence theory in particular, and explains how this can be practically used in the healthcare sector.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF) and a short demo of HomeML is available here (MP4) and here (Flash).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
The Calculus of a Full-Featured Programming Language

Abstract:
Foundational calculi play an important role in the study of programming languages, but the gap towards real languages is usually too wide to allow practical use of theoretical properties on real programs. Modern programming languages, on the other hand, offer a wealth of advanced features for the programmer's convenience, but these are rarely characterized by the clarity and robustness that goes into the design of foundational calculi. An interesting question is if this claculus-language-gap is absolutely necessary.

In this talk I will present recent work by Viktor Leijon and myself, in which we have redesigned the full-featured programming language Timber with the aim of making it simultaneously qualify as a calculus for theoretical exploration. The result is interesting: almost all aspects of Timber could be included, albeit only after some clarifying changes to both syntax and semantics. Moreover, the resulting calculus is also able to shed some new light on formal issues such as the coexistence of computation and communication, and the separation of timing correctness and platform dependencies.

The talk will give an overview of the issues involved and contain plenty of examples. Despite the rather theory-heavy subject, no prior knowledge of foundational calculi will be assumed. Some experience with concurrent programming will however be beneficial.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Vehicle Automation

Abstract:
Challenging activities within the field of vehicle automation is emerging at SRT. A Volvo L60F wheel loader is on its way, and a newly started CASTT project will look into driverless winter test of cars. When simulation is not enough, experimental research on full scale vehicles is the way to go. The seminar will give an overview of past activities, ongoing work, and future plans in the area of vehicle automation.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Photoacoustics, what the heck is that? Or, how do we create ultrasound by light and how do we use it to make measurements?

Abstract:
The theme of the seminar is photoacoustics, that is simply sound created by light, and it is described in a few examples how scattered light and ultrasound can be combined in measuring different things. We will describe, for example, how to determine the elastic properties of cellulosic fibres or the degree of alignment of fibres in a paper sheet.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Introduction to Modelica: An Object-Oriented Language for Modelling Complex Physical Systems

Abstract:
Modelica is an object-oriented language that is designed to be a convenient tool for modelling the dynamical behaviour of complex technical systems consisting of components from different domains such as mechanical, optical, electrical, thermal, hydraulic, pneumatic, fluid, control, and others. The object-oriented property of the modelling language facilitates the writing of general model libraries that can easily be expanded and modified. The language is equation-based, and it is easy to mix differential, algebraic and discrete equations with algorithms. I will present an overview of Modelica and demonstrate the usage of Modelica for simulation and optimisation.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Towards Complex Event Processing in Embedded Systems

Abstract:
Event-based systems play an increasingly important role within IT and the area of general computing. Atomic events, however, such as pressing a single button, do not capture the scenario when an event in question is complex in nature and corresponds to the occurrence of several "simpler" events matching a specific pattern. Complex event processing (CEP) deals with recognizing and filtering event patterns, based on different parameters and correlation among individual events.

In the context of process industry, especially in process monitoring and control, there is a need to perform CEP in low-level control loops, and therefore to run event filtering in embedded systems. The talk will report on preliminary ideas of implementing CEP in the concurrent reactive objects computation model of Timber, which is suitable for resource-constrained embedded platforms.

This research is part of the FP7 "AESOP" project.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
EIT ICT Labs

Abstract:
The outcome of European projects has generally been disappointing, not leading to the envisioned goals of an increased labour market within ICT (Information and Communication Technology). A new EU initiative has therefore been started, Knowledge and Innovation Communities, which focuses on increasing innovation in Europe. The first KIC to start is the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) ICT Labs, where LTU is an affiliated partner. This seminar will give a brief overview of what EIT ICT Labs is, which activities LTU is involved in for 2011 and 2012, and how you can be involved from 2013 and forward.

EIT ICT Labs website.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
From Doctor to Docent – A Personal Reflection

Abstract:
In the period of my PhD studies, the goal was quite clear: publish and defend your thesis. Once through this "eye of the needle", I was lucky enough to be given the possibility to pursue an academic career and to stay with LTU. With that, the target was quickly (at least as perceived by me) set to the next goal: becoming a docent. Thus, the requirement remained: publish. This was, however, for me easier said than done. Eventually, I could with own effort and through excellent cooperation with "my" PhD students achieve that goal. This talk reflects on this 7-year journey and highlights the people and research involved in it.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Applications of Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract:
Much work is being done at SRT around the subject of Wireless Sensor Network. The research is of interest to some of us but the applications can influence most of us. During the faculty seminar, applications will be presented which focus on energy (heating, electricity) and transport (on-board display, parking, car heating) as well as their overlap. The topic of self configuration will conclude the presentation.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF), the presentation in HTML5 format is available here, and the RoadEye video is available here (MP4) and here (Flash).

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Multiple Applications of Electron Tracking Compton Camera (ETCC) and Planning for a Circum-Polar Flight of the Balloon-borne ETCC.

Abstract:
Firstly, I will present the principles of ETCC, which consists of a gaseous tracker (Time Projection Chamber, TPC) that detects Compton-recoil electrons and pixel scintillator arrays (PSAs, and each PSA is attached to a multi-anode photo-multiplier) that detects the Compton-scattered gamma-rays. The TPC makes use of one type of Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors (MPGDs) which is called micro-Pixel Chamber, "mu"-PIC. The ETCC has originally been developed for an astrophysical purpose: to survey and image the universe at "almost unexplored" sub-MeV-to-MeV energy range (i.e., MeV Gamma-ray Imaging). However, it is revealed that the ETCC has a potential for multiple applications. So secondly, I will briefly introduce several applications, such as radiation (proton) therapy, neutron imaging, and medical imaging. We are now planning an interdisciplinary – through astrophysics, space physics, to atmospheric science – application of the balloon-borne ETCC (balloon experiment). Therefore, thirdly, I will very briefly touch the background science (mainly the spectroscopy of Relativistic Electron Precipitation, REP) on this application, and then present several technical aspects of the balloon experiment.

This presentation will be a part of the fial report to the grant program VINNOVA/VINNMER Marie Curie international qualification (planning grant), and I am preparing for the Complete Proposal (full grant) on "Interdisciplinary and multiple applications of ETCC". Although this grant program supports individuals, I welcome you to join my project for future collaboration. This is another purpose/intention of this presentation.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Location-Based Services on Next-Generation Internet

Abstract:
Karl Andersson, Assistant Professor at our Pervasive and Mobile Computing Laboratory, and from June this year also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Internet Realtime Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, USA, will give a tech talk about mobile networking and mobile computing. Following his PhD on mobility management in heterogeneous wireless networks last November Karl is now starting new projects in the area of mobile e-services and location-based services for next-generation Internet.

In the talk, recent developments in the area of smartphone deployment, wireless network evolution, and new types of e-services being launched will be discussed. New geolocation APIs, technologies for mobile web services, and interesting offloading techniques enabling wireless heterogeneous networking will be covered. Important trends, current standardization initiatives and identified research challenges will be presented.

The recording is also available as a Flash movie here.

Title:
Scheduling of Concurrent Reactive Objects for Embedded Real-Time Software

Abstract:
The Embedded Systems group at EISLAB has a strong focus on modeling, analysis, and automatic code generation of embedded real-time software for resource-constrained platforms (down to 8-bit micro-controllers with less than 1k RAM). To this end, we are developing a tool-chain that will be presented in the talk. The underlying Concurrent Reactive Objects (CRO) model and the process of code synthesis from CRO models will be briefly reviewed. A special focus in the presentation will be given to our ongoing work on schedulability analysis of CRO-based software.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Software Defined Radio and Challenging Research Opportunities in Wireless Communications

Abstract:
In this talk I will describe software defined radio (SDR) and the ongoing paradigm shift it represents in wireless communications. Besides having a large technical impact on how to implement complex wireless communication systems it changes gradually also the "rules-of-the-game" in the wireless communication market and leads, for example, to better and more competitive conditions for small and medium sized companies. I will also scratch the surface to reveal some of the many interdisciplinary and challenging research opportunities and new markets for wireless communications which aim to exploit the large flexibility that SDR offers such as cognitive radio (CR), cooperative wireless networks, reconfigurable radio systems (RRS), dynamic spectrum access (DSA), multi-standard transceivers, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, non-standard ad-hoc radio systems, over-the-air (OTA) radio, decentralized dynamic & dependable radio systems, open source GnuRadio, Software Communications Architecture (SCA) and the military Joint-Tactical Radio System (JTRS).

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
The Cooperative Web – Turning Web Browsers into a Ubiquitous Collaboration Platform

Abstract:
Johan Kristiansson, an LTU alumnus now working at Ericsson Research, will give a tech talk about the Cooperative Web, which is an emerging browser-based platform trying to provide richer human-to-human communication by allowing users to interact simultaneously in real-time using shared web applications. Ultimately, by turning web browsers into a ubiquitous collaboration platform, it becomes possible to develop highly customized and cost effective solutions for various domains (e.g., e-health, e-learning, call centers etc.) thus increasing efficiency and productivity.

In the talk, collaboration enabling technologies such as Operational Transformation will be discussed. The Distributed Shared Memory service on Ericsson Labs which is framework for implementing collaborative web apps will be presented. Upcoming standards in W3C such as the video element and the new PeerConnection API in HTML5 which makes it possible to develop video conferencing in a browser will also be discussed. Several proof-of-concept prototypes will be demonstrated.

Title:
Sensor Networks – Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract:
The concept of sensor networks has started a revolution in how the physical world can be sensed and controlled. The merge of the virtual Internet with the physical world enables new and exciting applications and opportunities in a large number of applications such as sports, health care, industrial and home automation, intelligent transport systems and safety & security, just to mention a few.

The presentation will outline current research challenges in the area of low-power electronics and wireless communication, and in the realm of networked sensors.

Title:
Resonance Sensors in Medicine

Abstract:
Resonance sensors which consist of piezoelectric transducers, PZT, have a mechanical resonance frequency or relative phase of oscillation dependent on the measured parameter. The sensors are used to develop measurement systems in industry as well as in medicine. Sensor systems have been developed for detection of breast cancer, for measuring muscular elasticity, for measuring stiffness of human ovum and also for modelling micturition characteristics based on prostate stiffness. In other studies it has been shown that pitting oedema and elasticity or spring constant of human skin could be estimated with a tactile sensor combined with measurement of force and position. Resonance sensors may also be used in tele-surgery to give haptic feedback to the surgeon.

We have earlier developed an instrument based on resonance sensors for measuring the intraocular pressure (IOP) in the human eye that is today a clinical product called ART (Bioresonator AB, Umeå, Sweden). Ongoing research at the Biomedical Engineering group at LTU, concerns the use of resonance sensors to detect stiffness of human prostate with the aim to detect prostate cancer. Together with a Japanese research group we have developed a Micro Tactile Sensor (MTS) system that can detect stiffness differences on thin slices of prostate tissue and we are comparing these results with Raman spectroscopy and morphometry (microscopy).

In conclusion, the use of resonance sensors in health care applications are of great interest, e.g. when biomechanical parameters like contact area and/or stiffness of human organs are to be estimated for clinical diagnosis.

Title:
Soft and Hard Modeling Strategies in Measurement Systems Engineering – How to Combine Them and Why

Abstract:
Historically, measurement systems design has been based on either one of the two following principles:
1. Empirical or statistical modeling, i.e. there is no physical model describing the relationship between the measured quantity and the process properties of interest. Instead, either empirical models (e.g. polynomial curve fits) or more or less complex regression models are used. This is sometimes referred to as soft models.
2. Physical modeling, where the measured quantity is directly modeled from fundamental physical principles in terms of the process properties of interest. This is referred to as hard models.

Critics of the strictly empirical methods claim that the lack of physics in the models makes them less robust to changes in the process and that it is also difficult to gain any in-depth understanding of the underlying process from such models. The critics are partly right.

On the other hand, since one is often interested in solving the inverse problem, i.e. inferring process properties from observations of the modeled/measured quantity, the model complexity must be kept reasonably low. If modeling a process is difficult, solving the inverse problem is rarely any easier.

In practice there are, of course, many applications where the hard modeling approach works well. In other applications one has had to, due to the complexity of the problem, resort to strictly empirical models in order to address the measurement task at hand. In other natural sciences, e.g. organic chemistry, biology, etc. almost all models are to some extent based on empirical knowledge gained from practical experiments.

This talk will give examples of existing techniques, some advantages and drawbacks will be highlighted, and then a strategy for how to combine hard and soft models will be presented, also with an example. Finally, a discussion of why this will in many cases simplify both the measurement and the modeling stage will be given.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).

Title:
Anti-Lock Braking Systems

Abstract:
I will present the following points:
– What is ABS? How does it work? Why does it work?
– Scrub radius and split mu stops.
– A traditional implementation.
– EMC and noise issues.
– Modeling in Timber.
– Simulation and performance in CarSim / Simulink.
– Real world equivalence promise.
– PEEC integration.

Title:
Hyperdimensional computing: from arithmetics to semantics

Abstract:
High-dimensional spaces are different from the two- and three-dimensional spaces that we are naturally trained to imagine, e.g., in the sense that most vectors are nearly orthogonal to each other. In this talk I will illustrate that property and explain how high-dimensional vectors are used to construct semantic representations of information. This enables storage of information in auto-associative memories and learning of logic or arithmetic operations that generalize to new and possibly uncertain situations. I will present new results and work that is in progress.

Title:
Bounds of State Variables for a Timber-Like Computation Model
(joint work with Martin Kero and Johan Nordlander)

Abstract:
Bounds (sizes) of persistent state variables play a vital role in predicting behavior of real-time embedded software, where fragments of code execute concurrently and in orders determined by periodic and sporadic events. The bounds are necessary to statically determine stack usage, loop upper bounds, etc.

The talk will discuss an analysis of state variable values, which for heap-allocated variables correspond to live heap space upper bounds. The method is based on an accurate prediction of task execution orders. The key component of our analysis is the construction of a non-deterministic finite state machine capturing all task executions that are legal under given timing assumptions. By adding size for state variables inferred for each sequential task, our analysis finds an upper bound on the inter-task state variable sizes as a solution to an integer linear programming problem.

Extensions of the method and future research directions will be discussed.

Title:
Towards the Unification of Lists and Arrays

Abstract:
Lists are linked sequences of data which offer a very flexible means of extension, and particularly in the context of functional languages, a convenient pattern-matching syntax paired with a powerful induction principle. Arrays, on the other hand, are data sequences stored in consecutive memory locations, thereby providing fast and constant-time access to all data elements. Most programming languages support both forms of sequences, although in fundamentally incompatible ways. This forces the programmer to encode a preference for either flexibility or efficiency in each data structure, with superficial type rigidity, code duplication, and missed opportunities for program reuse as a result.

Motivated by the increasing focus on data sequences in multicore computing, I will present some new ideas that actually allow the list and array data representations to be unified. The resulting datatype offers the same notational and reasoning flexibility as functional lists, yet it has the operational behavior of an array for every uniformly allocated sequence. While still in progress, the work presented will focus on the compile-time program transformation that is the heart of the proposed technique, discuss machine-level representations, and outline the way towards a fully-fledged implementation in the Timber compiler.

Title:
Have you played Sudoku?

Abstract:
We will discuss some algorithmic thoughts when playing Sudoku.

Title:
Mechatronics Research at EISLAB

Abstract:
I will start with a short overview of the work on navigation systems for mobile robots which started around 1981 at LTU and evolved to a commercial product in 1990. Then our present research vehicle MICA – an electrical wheelchair – will be described and I will show some videos demonstrating its abilities. We have used several types of optical sensors for mapping of the environment for our mobile robots and they will be described. I will shortly go through some of the principles used for these types of distance measuring sensors. Presently we are doing research on a new type of TOF (Time Of Flight) sensor with high sensitivity using SPAD (Single Photon Avalanche Diode) technique. Resent results on combining a laser scanner and a haptic robot mounted on MICA will be presented. These devices enable a blind person to drive a wheelchair. Through the student project Baldos I have become interested in power electronics for electrical motors. I will give some live simulations using PSpice to illustrate the problems associated with this kind of applications.

Title:
On the Necessity of Network Protocol Synthesis for Industrial Applications

Abstract:
In this seminar we discuss the requirements placed by industrial applications on wireless communication system and challenges associated with the design of network protocols. We show that currently when matter comes to engineering a wireless sensor network for a new industrial application with a unique set of reliability and security requirements, the developer should undergo a lengthy process of analyzing the existing solutions in order to select an appropriate functionality. On an example of engineering the MAC layer functionality for two real world applications we demonstrate a line of reasoning when identifying a solution, which satisfies their performance and security requirements.

Title:
Antenna Design in the EISCAT_3D Preparatory Phase Project

Abstract:
EISCAT_3D will be Europe's next-generation radar for the study of the high-latitude atmosphere and geospace, located in northern Scandinavia. The facility will consist of several very large phased-array antenna transmitters/receivers and multiple receiver sites, distributed over at least three countries and comprising up to 100,000 individual antenna elements. After a short introduction to the EISCAT_3D system, the talk will be focused on antenna design issues related to the project.

Title:
Consolidated Priority Queues – Space-Efficient Wait Queues in Kernels

Abstract:
When designing software systems that are supposed to be able to handle or react to several events or "programs" at the same time (a multitasking system), it is beneficial for the system if each program can "tell" the operating system ("kernel") that it is waiting for a specific event. This way, the kernel "knows" which program to run at each instant of time (and which program to start if something happens). In essence, we have several small wait-queues, where each program ("thread") can wait for its specific event.

In a classical kernel design, there can be a trade-off between memory consumption and efficiency of such wait queues. In my talk, I will introduce and discuss these problems as well as possible solution approaches.

Title:
Automated Online Machine Vision for Measurement in Industrial Processes

Abstract:
Matthew Thurley is leader of an emerging group in Industrial Image Analysis within the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He has developed a series of industrial machine vision prototypes for particle size measurement within the Swedish mining, and aggregates industries. His research focuses on algorithms for automated online image analysis systems to facilitate efficiency and sustainability improvements in industrial processes. The talk will provide an overview of the challenges, contributions and roadmap in this area.

Slides from the seminar are avialable here (PDF).