FERI

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Looking forward to meeting you!
EUmaster4HPC coordination team

It was organised by the members of the Data Technologies Laboratory, Institute of Informatics from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The event was attended by 23 experts from Japan, Lithuania, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic.

The conference brought together experts from different areas of computer science and other disciplines who share a common understanding and problem-solving of information modelling and knowledge bases and the application of research results in practice. The conference programme was complemented by two invited speakers, József Györkös from the University of Maribor, who gave a lecture on Open Science - a reality check within ATHENA European University, and Bernhard Thalheim from the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, who gave a lecture on Modelology - A New Scientific and Engineering Discipline: The Science and Practice of Models and Modelling.

The conference started with the 4th Asian-European Summer School of AI-5D Consortium, which focused on covering Global & Environmental AI in Nature and Society. The speakers from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and Slovenia presented topics such as “AI System for Ocean Nature”, “AI System for Earthquake Density Measurement”, “AI-based Plastic Garbage Collection project” and “Fairness of AI”. The summer school was held in a hybrid style.

Participants also enjoyed a varied social programme with a visit to the Old Vine Museum, wine tasting, folklore performance, the Rogatec Open Air Museum, Olimje Monastery and Deer Ridge, and a guided tour of Maribor.

The speakers from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and Slovenia presented topics such as “AI System for Ocean Nature”, “AI System for Earthquake Density Measurement”, “AI-based Plastic Garbage Collection project” and “Fairness of AI”. The summer school was held in a hybrid style as a part of the conference EUROPEAN – JAPANESE CONFERENCE ON INFORMATION MODELLING AND KNOWLEDGE BASES - EJC 2023 (https://ejc2023.um.si/).

More information about INTIS 2023 and his talk is available at https://intis2023.sciencesconf.org/.

At the Institute of Computer Science, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (FERI) of the University of Maribor, we are coordinating the HybridNeuro project, which offers insight into the future of non-invasive muscle-machine and brain-machine interfaces. New methods and ideas are created, which will enable users to test such "sci-fi" use cases in the future. Recently, the project goals and methods were presented by prof. dr. Aleš Holobar in the article that was published by the Maribor24.si portal. In this contribution, Prof. Holobar gave more examples of the use of developed technologies and non-invasive human-machine interfaces, such as the third arm, improved rehabilitation, non-invasive signal acquisition and mind reading. He also emphasized that UM FERI is one of the world's leading research institutions in the field of muscle-machine interfaces. The HybridNeuro project joins the effort of leading research institutions in the fields of brain-machine and muscle-machine interfaces: Chalmers University from Sweden, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, Imperial College London, UK, and UM FERI, and is financially supported by the European Commission within Horizon Europe Framework Program for Research and Innovation, (GA No. 101079392) .

Many challenges that we face require the integration of various fields and combining professional knowledge, which is reflected in innovative solutions and further possibilities for interdisciplinary cooperation.

The goal of the event is to raise awareness about accessibility, and GAAD 2023 is the first such event in Slovenia.

It was attended by dr. Maja Pušnik from the UM FERI Institute of Informatics, who presented three current European projects (ADORE, SET4Inclusion and INTUX), and dr. Matjaž Debevc, retired UM FERI professor, currently national expert for the European Center for Accessibility Resources - AccessibleEU.

The candidates can find it on the website:https://moja.um.si/en/future-students/Strani/enrolment-postgraduate.aspx

IMPORTANT DATES:

CITIZENS OF NON-EU MEMBER STATES - FOREIGNERS:

• FIRST APPLICATION PERIOD: from 24 March 2023 until 31 May 2023.
• SECOND APPLICATION PERIOD: from 7 July 2023 until 8 September 2023 - if enrolment places are not filled in the first application period and faculties decide to publish a list of vacancies. Candidates intending to apply in the second application period should take into account that the decision of recognition will not be issued in due time.

If enrolment places remain after the first application period for citizens of the Republic of Slovenia and other EU Member States, faculties may decide to offer them in an additional application period for still-available enrolment places also to Slovenians without Slovenian citizenship and citizens of non-EU Member States – foreigners; however, as per priority order, enrolment places are first filled by citizens of the Republic of Slovenia and other EU Member States, followed by Slovenians without Slovenian citizenship and lastly by citizens of non-EU Member States – foreigners.

SLOVENIAN CITIZENS AND EU NATIONALS:

• FIRST APPLICATION PERIOD: from 24 March 2023 until 8 September 2023.
• APPLICATION PERIOD FOR STILL-AVAILABLE ENROLMENT PLACES: from 21 September until 22 September 2023 at 12 p.m. CET (this deadline also applies to supporting documents) - if enrolment places are not filled in the first application period and faculties decide to publish a list of vacancies.

SLOVENIANS WITHOUT SLOVENIAN CITIZENSHIP:

• First application period for master's studies: from 24 March 2023 until 8 September 2023 - Candidates may also apply within the application period for still-available enrolment places if the faculty decides so.
• First application period for doctoral studies: from 24 March 2023 until 31 May 2023 - ​Candidates may also apply within the application period for still-available enrolment places if the faculty decides so.
• Second application period for doctoral studies: from 3 July until 8 September 2023 - ​Candidates may also apply within the application period for still-available enrolment places if the faculty decides so.

NOTE:

- Candidates shall submit their application for enrolment in postgraduate programmes of the University of Maribor electronically via the eVŠ web portal.

- Proof of completed previous education is not a requirement for the submission of an application, it is, however, required for enrolment.

- After the expiration of application deadlines referred to in this Call, applications for enrolment in postgraduate programmes can no longer be submitted.

The application is valid only if the candidate pressed the SUBMIT button in eVŠ. In the opposite case, the application will not be submitted and will thus be rejected by means of an official decision. Before completing the application procedure, candidates are advised to verify whether the application has indeed been submitted. Candidates will receive an email notification of the successful application to the email address indicated in the application form.

At the fair, they presented an innovative upgrade of the Pepper robot called Frida, enabling advanced human interaction. Frida spoke to visitors about FERI, ATHENA and the HoSmartAI project, under which the robot upgrade was developed.

Coordinated by the Universität Siegen, ATHENA contributed to the joint stand of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the federal state of Germany where Siegen is located. Together with the Université d'Orléans, the Politécnico do Porto and the University of Maribor, they presented the ATHENA's offers and research priorities to companies from all over the world.

Information and communication technologies are among the most dynamic economic sectors in the EU and the world. Despite this, the lack of personnel in the ICT sector is still a widely recognized challenge today. The lack of women in ICT professions can also be detected in Slovenia. The European Commission therefore warns and urges member states to take an active approach to reducing this difference, as no profession should choose gender or vice versa.

The University of Maribor strives for gender equality, and especially encourages girls to enroll in study programmes that are "atypically female". Activities in this area are reflected in the annual increase in enrollment of female students in ICT study programmes. We are convinced that women can be successful in the digital world and ICT professions at least as much as men, and we wish that many more of them would choose this career path in the future.

What did two successful university teachers from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Scienceof the University of Maribor say about the situation of girls in ICT?

​​Asst. Prof. Dr. Lili Nemec Zlatolas

Asst. prof. dr. Lili Nemec Zlatolas is an assistant professor and researcher in the field of informatics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Maribor. Her research focuses on studying the privacy and security of users when using ICT. She is also a founding member of the group Ladies in informatics, which is committed to bringing together female scientists with related research interests and reducing the gender gap in STEM fields. As an expert, she actively works in several international projects. She also participated in the organization of nine international conferences, which were organized across Slovenia. She is the recipient of the title Congress Ambassador of Slovenia 2021.

»The International Girls in ICT Day is an excellent opportunity to encourage girls to focus on the field of ICT, as there is a huge shortage of personnel in this field. The advantage of employment in the field of ICT usually includes a good balance between work and free time, and often allows for good pay, which is often a motivator for choosing a career path. Research shows that diverse work teams solve problems more easily and better, and the productivity of such teams is also higher. In Slovenia, approximately 18 percent of female students are enrolled in ICT studies, and here we are at the European average, but there are still many untapped opportunities to increase the enrollment of girls in ICT studies. It is important to encourage entry into the field of ICT among young people already in elementary school and remove stereotypical thinking about these professions. Girls who show an interest in technical sciences should not be hindered from joining the field of ICT, but should be encouraged to do so. Sometimes just one person who acts as a role model or motivator is enough to direct/enthuse someone about the ICT field. An example of good practice for the inclusion of girls in ICT is also the organization of ICT events just for them (e.g. programming for girls, etc.). With various mechanisms, we will more easily reduce the shortage of personnel and increase the digital skills of society.«

Asst. Prof. Dr. Aida Kamišalić Latifić

Asst. prof. dr. Aida Kamišalić Latifić is an assistant professor and researcher at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Maribor. Her research areas include data technologies, big data, blockchain technology and medical informatics with a focus on modeling medical procedures for chronic patients and developing machine learning technologies to extract and represent clinical procedures from data to support decision making in medical processes. She is one of the founders of the EduCTX initiative, which received the 2019 eAward for the best project in the field of computing and informatics. In January 2020, she was awarded the title of Engineer of the Year 2019, and she is currently the State Secretary at the Ministry of Digital Transformation.

»My decision to pursue an engineering career was probably quite different from most girls. After completing hight school, I had to make a decision about further studies. Without much idealization, I then made a pragmatic decision to study computer science and informatics at UM Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I was guided by the fact that the company needs personnel from this field and that I will have no problems finding a job after completing my studies. At the same time, I realized that with the knowledge and development of modern information technologies, I can improve people's lives, promote the development of society and contribute to its progress. This was key in my decision to study computer science and informatics.

It has been considered for many years that there is a shortage of ICT personnel in our society. I am convinced that every girl in ICT can find the field of activity that is most suitable and interesting for her. Unfortunately, we still underutilize the potential among girls. I often emphasize something that is not negligible, namely that with such professions we can contribute and enable the development of modern products and services in well-paid jobs. Today, I often talk about the use of technology and engineering knowledge for the benefit of society. It is important that women actively co-shape and develop the society in which we live. We must not be mere passive observers of social changes, but unfortunately in society we still deal with the stereotypical division into female and male professions. It is time that we outgrow such divisions and use all the potential that we need for the development of modern society.«

This post was prepared together with the University of maribor.

The meeting was aimed at coordinating the technological design and methods of installing sensor systems in the Living Lab (a fish farm on Lake Victoria). In this project, GeMMA leads work package no. 4 and technological development of the platform for monitoring agroecological indicators.

The new committee consists of the chairman of the board Theodoros Chatzinikolaou (Greece), the former chairman of the board Abdullateef Aliyu (Nigeria), members Lucija Brezočnik (Slovenia), Lavender Ndunya (Kenya) and George Papadimitriou (Switzerland), and corresponding members Jan Verveckken (Benelux), Neemat Awadelkarim (Sudan), Nour Sbaoulji (Tunisia) and Omar Salameh (Jordan). Committee also consists of ex-officio members from the Humanitarian Technologies Board (HTB).

The new composition of the committee was also presented at the annual meeting of IEEE Region 8 committee members in Bucharest (Romania). More information about the committee can be found on the website: huac.ieeer8.org.

In case of additional questions, you can contact us at the e-mail address: tto@um.si

The lecture entitled "Exploration and Exploitation in Evolutionary Algorithms: Recent Developments" was given to PhD students at Qatar University.

Abstract: This talk aims to share our experience in establishing a large national research infrastructure for supercomputing. This was made possible through the HPC RIVR investment project, jointly funded by the Republic of Slovenia, the European Union (from the European Regional Development Fund), and The European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). To meet the needs of the Slovenian and European scientific community, we built three hybrid HPC systems, with the flagship production supercomputer HPC VEGA rated at 6.9 PETAFLOPS (Rmax = 10.1 PETAFLOPS). This was the first EuroHPC JU supercomputer to be put into operation in Europe. The built HPC systems are accessible under the Open Access to Public Research Infrastructure rules and regulations. During the talk, we will focus on explaining our journey from the idea of building a National supercomputer center to ensuring the necessary political and national support, executing the investment project, and finally achieving full-scale operation of the HPC systems.

About the speaker: Prof. dr. Zoran Ren, is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maribor in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In 1987, he received his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maribor, Slovenia. Continuously he received his MSc from the same Institution in 1990. He continued his studies in UK, where he was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Swansea in Computational Engineering.

The purpose of the conference was to promote the importance of the economic benefit of computer image processing and computer vision in the fields of industry, biomedicine and other business processes. After the welcome speech by Prof. Dr. Gorazd Štumberger, Dean of UM FERI, the conference was opened by two invited lectures, which presented the integration of machine vision into the solutions of the companies SICK and NAVKOM. In the sequel, we learned about the applicative use of image segmentation and classification based on deep learning, namely on examples of monitoring baking in an oven, creating artificial training images for an industrial environment, and automatically detecting arrows in classic darts. The computer vision methods necessary to protect information about the identity of a person in imaging material were presented in the third invited lecture by the PiktID company. The morning session continued with an interesting application that is able to predict the face of children based on the appearance of their parents. We also learned about guidelines on how to include knowledge about artificial intelligence and computer vision in vocational education and training. The afternoon session was opened by an invited lecture by Sinergise, which demonstrated the automatic agricultural field delineation using satellite images and advanced computational procedures.Two biomedical solutions were demonstrated in the sequel, namely the computer analysis of the geometry of pit-fall traps in the sand and the detection of aortic valve landmarks in CT images. The conference ended with a lecture on an automatic procedure for detecting unexploded ordnance using convolutional neural networks and thermal images. Details about the conference and conference proceedings are available on the website https://rosus.feri.um.si. The conference was supported by the Public Fund of the Republic of Slovenia for Entrepreneurship and the company AUDAX. The magazines IRT3000, Svet elektronike, Avtomatika + elektronika and Ventil took care of the media coverage of the event.

Find out more photos at our photogalery.

The best papers from the conference will be invited to the journals "Journal of Computer Languages" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-computer-languages) and "Applied Soft Computing" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/applied-soft-computing), where prof. Marjan Mernik is acting as Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor.

The project’s the acronym ARACNE stands for "Advocating the Role of silk Art and Cultural heritage at National and European scale", whose name is inspired by the weaver transformed into a spider by the goddess Athena in Greek mythology, aims to exploit silk as the common element of the pan-European culture and history.

Under the auspices of the University of Maribor, 3 faculties are interdisciplinarily involved in the project (Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Informatics and Computer Science), which involves the research of old mulberry trees (natural heritage) and the establishment of new plantations, the exploration of silk products in museums and their reinterpretation in contemporary design, the study of the use of silk as a source for new materials and advanced applications, and the promotion of the intangible and technical heritage of sericulture.

ARACNE is one of the three projects funded by the European Commission that emerged victorious over a fierce competition with 55 projects in the framework of the call "Research and innovation on cultural heritage and Cultural and Creative Industries" (HORIZON-CL2-2022-HERITAGE-01-02); it has the ambition to contribute to the creation of a broad and connected innovation ecosystem related to silk in Europe, including the industrial sector, and intended as a tool for expressing cultural and landscape heritage, thus, connecting culture, tradition, and new industrial production within an ideal network of exchanges and visions. ARACNE has a duration of 36 months and involves 11 partners and 3 associated partners from 7 European and non-European countries.

With an overall budget of approximately 3 million euros, the project aims to achieve the following specific objectives:

• Enhancement of knowledge and memory for the renaissance of a European Silk Innovation Ecosystem
• Co-creation of human-centred and place specific creative silk-based solutions leveraging on digital and cutting-edge technologies
• Implementation of innovative strategies and business, governance and financing models for the involved CCIs organisations and SMEs, building on previous research
• Support to the establishment of a cultural European Silk Route, based on the tangible and intangible silk cultural heritage and landscapes
• Raising awareness of ARACNE results and impacts among different stakeholders of the territories and CCIs of the silk sector and raising the expectation for the constitution of a European Silk Route in support to the European silk CH and silk CCIs
• Enhancing the European cultural identity and strengthen European competitiveness for a more resilient post-crisis society
• Contribution to the European Green Deal, the New European Bauhaus and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

On March 6th and 7th, CREA Agriculture and Environment, the coordinator of ARACNE, officially launched the project, hosting its kick-off meeting at the Padua headquarters. During the kick-off meeting, the partners presented the individual work packages that characterize the project and defined an implementation strategy that considers not only the multidisciplinarity of ARACNE, but also the cultural and historical identities of the many countries involved (Italy, Spain, France, Slovenia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Georgia), all linked by the ancient art of silk production and processing.

The start-up of the project includes an inventory of the sericulture heritage carried out through studies and field research made by historians and researchers, also involving schools. Therefore, a wealth of knowledge will be available not only for tourism purposes for people travelling along the future European Silk Route, but also to classify and record all the different mulberry cultivars and silkworm strains, traceable in the involved territories, and to recover their history. Once reproduced and selected, plants and silkworms will be available for European farmers to produce both zero-kilometre silk and various by-products for different uses

The project activities will support European companies operating in the Cultural and Creative Industries sector, which can promote and strengthen a common cultural and artistic heritage centred on silk. The project also aims to prevent the loss of know-how and traditional technical and cultural skills; in fact, this loss has led to a decline in the production of the fibre and, consequently, has damaged the competitiveness of these companies in fashion, art, design, and product communication.

The development and revitalization of the sericulture sector in the countries involved in the ARACNE consortium will also be strategic for the future realization of the European Silk Route, strongly desired by the Council of Europe and by the local and regional authorities; it is intended as a cultural itinerary capable of linking Europe around the silk arts and effectively promoting their immense material and immaterial cultural heritage.

Behind the project, there is a carefully constructed consortium made up of 6 universities and research centres, 3 museums, a cultural association, a cultural foundation, 2 cultural and creative SMEs, a finance and innovation consulting company, and an international organization.

The Consortium's partners include the following members:

CREA – Agriculture and Environment (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell'Economia Agraria), Italy,

• Iniziativa Cube (Italy)
• State Silk Museum of Tbilisi (Georgia)
• Scientific Center on Sericulture (Bulgaria)
• Cultural Foundation of Piraeus Bank Group (Greece)
• University of Maribor (Slovenia)
• University of Athens (Greece)
• Murcia Institute for Agriculture Research and Development (Spain)
• D'orica Benefit Corporation (Italy)
• “Silk Trails – From the Cévennes to the Alpujarras” Association (France)
• Sericyne (France)
• University of Padua (Italy)
• Council Of Europe (France)
• National Silk Art Museum of Soufli (Greece)

ARACNE project partners with coordinator dr. Silvio Cappellozza, CREA-Agriculture and Environment in front of the museum Esapolis in Padua.

Meeting of the project group for research on the European mulberry and silkworm heritage.