22 February 2011

ICT PORTUGAL WORKSHOP: New Projects in Networks, Software, Energy and Security

Date: March 1, 2011 (10:45 to 16:45)
Place: Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau (http://www.cccm.mctes.pt/), Lisbon, Portugal
url: www.cmuportugal.org

The Carnegie Mellon Portugal program is organizing a public session to present the research projects selected for competitive funding by FCT under the second Call for proposals. The goal of this event is to get together all the research teams and the Carnegie Mellon Portugal community, creating the opportunity to promote the ongoing work, to find out more about other projects, and to set the stage for new collaborations.

The research projects funded under this second call converge on the strategic areas of the Program, including Software Engineering for Large Scale Systems, Cyber-physical Systems for Environmental Intelligence, New Generation Networks and Resilient Operations in a Network Environment, and other areas related to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

European Newsletter Published Article about the DRIVE-IN Project

The Future Internet Forum, in association with ceFIMS FP7 Coordination Action, published, in February 2011, its first Newsletter with a special feature about the Largest Vehicular Network Testbed in Europe which is taking place in Portugal. The name of the project that is responsible for this initiative is Drive-In - Distributed Routing and Infotainment through Vehicular Inter-Networking. The project is affiliated with the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program which is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).

Read more at http://www.cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=3434 .

16 December 2010

Workshop: Frontiers in Entrepreneurship research: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Human Capital

Date: December 17-18, 2010
Place: Católica Lisbon, School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, Portugal

Motivation
One of the major socio-economic trends since the 1990s has been the rise of entrepreneurshipvas a driver of innovation, competitiveness and economic development. One central aspect in the creation and growth of knowledge-based firms is the role played by the human capital of the entrepreneur. Human capital entails the stock of knowledge and skills that reside within individuals and that can be developed over time. This includes general human capital, which comprises formal education, and previous job-market experience. But it also entails specific human capital, encompassing prior experiences that might be more relevant for an individual to decide on engaging in the development of knowledge-based firms. For instance, entrepreneurial experience, top management experience, or previous work experience in the same sector where the new firm is being started are likely to endow individuals with knowledge and skills that are specific for the tasks required from a knowledge-based entrepreneur.

The last two decades have seen the emergence of encompassing data sources linking individuals and firms over time. Such data sets are rare and hard to access. These longitudinal datasets can be used to track the evolution of markets and individual firm performance as well as individuals’ professional and entrepreneurial experiences over time, allowing for the examination of their decisions and behavioral patterns in the labor market. Some of these longitudinal datasets match employees, employers, patents and their characteristics over time.

This workshop aims to present and discuss cutting edge work from leading researchers in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation focusing on the role played by human capital in the entrepreneurial and innovation processes. Most papers will leverage new longitudinal databases, often in connection with other complementary sources of data.

Scientific Coordination:
• Rui Baptista, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (IST-UTL)
• Steven Klepper, Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
• Pedro Oliveira, Católica Lisbon, School of Business and Economics (FCEE-Católica)• Francisco Veloso, Católica Lisbon, School of Business and Economics (FCEE- Católica) and Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

See the Agenda at http://www.cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=3174

11 November 2010

2010 MSE Seminars of Software Engineering: SCRUM: Agile Software Development

Dates: November 27, 2010, 10:00h (Auditorim of Novabase/Parque das Nações, Lisboa) and December 4, 2010, 10:00 (Hotel Ipanema Porto, Porto)
Organization: University of Coimbra | Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program
[Admission is free with the registration 3 days prior to each seminar]

Topics:
- Organization and management of agile teams
- Efficient Management of Requirements
- Planning and monitoring
- Estimate

Audience:
- Software Engineers - Team Leaders and Project Managers
- Companies interested in participating in the program CMU | Portugal

Lecturers:
Professor Mário Zenha-Rela, University of Coimbra / Carnegie Mellon University
Professor Licinio Roque, University of Coimbra / Carnegie Mellon University
Professor Pedro Bizarro, University of Coimbra / Carnegie Mellon University
Professor Paulo Rupino, Universidade de Coimbra / Carnegie Mellon University

More information available at http://www.cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=3118

10 November 2010

Priberam Machine Learning Lunch Seminar: Learning simple texture discrimination filters, by Rui Guerreiro (ISR)

Venue: IST Alameda, Sala PA2 (Edif. de Pós-Graduação)
Date: Tuesday, November 16nd, 2010
Time: 13:00
Lunch will be provided

Abstract:
Everyday tasks like walking on the street, recognizing a friend or understanding a scene seem so simple and immediate that transposing it to a computer might seem like an easy task. Only when we try it do we realize our immense talent, as humans, in making sense of the data that reaches our senses. In this talk I illustrate some of these difficulties and particularize for the context of texture discrimination. I introduce a simple supervised learning approach (using Genetic Algorithms) that enables high-frame rate texture discrimination and compare it with current state-of-the-art methods. I further particularize the general methodology to rotationally discriminant and rotationally invariant discrimination. I conclude with experimental results, which illustrate that it is successful in capturing the essence of the texture discrimination problem.

Bio:
Rui Guerreiro received his licenciatura (2002) and MSc (2003) degrees from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Portugal, in Electrical & Electronical Engineering, the latter on the topic of 2D-to-3D conversion using Structure from Motion. In 2003, he joined Siemens S.A. in Lisbon where he worked in high-speed circuit design for communication systems.~In 2005, he joined the Video Processing Group of Philips Research, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where he worked on picture enhancement topics (motion estimation, halo-free frame-rate up-conversion, multi-band enhancement, temporal compression artifact suppression, spatial color processing, color therapy), 2D-to-3D conversion for 3D-TVs (scene classification, depth-from-focus, motion-based segmentation) and supervised student work on low-cost gaze tracking. In 2009, he started a PhD at IST, on perception-based 2D-to-3D conversion. He has 4 patents and 9 peer-reviewed publications on these topics.