FERI

When including users with disabilities in user testing, it is necessary to consider various factors that significantly affect the success of the participation of such users. The identified good practices aim to improve the conditions for successfully including users with disabilities in the user testing process. We are very grateful for the positive response and the active participation of many people with various disabilities (impaired vision, deafness, cerebral palsy, paraplegia and amputation) who attended the workshop from different parts of Slovenia. The workshop was also attended by representatives of disabled people's associations, teaching staff and experts who work with the mentioned issue in the teaching and research process. At the same time, workshops were carried out in three EU countries (Spain, Latvia and Slovenia). The results of this successfully conducted workshop will provide the basis for further activities planned within the project.

According to the European Strategy for Universities, a persistent gender gap still remains in some fields of study and research and in decision-making positions at universities. Gender balance clearly decreases with seniority among heads of higher education institutions, where women hold slightly below 24% of these positions in EU27.

The panellists and more information are available on the Women in Leadership Round Table webpage.

Join us online on the 8 March, 16:00 CET.

You can register for the discussion here: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdk592mrem1HO…/viewform

It will autonomously detect passengers and objects that fall from railway platforms or are deliberately pushed onto railway tracks. In case of such a dangerous incident, an alarm will be immediately sent from the sensor to stop the train and alert the security staff. The GeMMA Lab of UM FERI joined the project as a subcontractor at the beginning of 2023 and is responsible for the software development, while both consortium partners, FOKUS TECH d.o.o. from Celje, Slovenia, and ALTPRO d.o.o. from Zagreb, Croatia, provided the adequate LiDAR sensors, determined crucial events, monitoring regimes and event-based transitions between them, and designed the first testing scenarios. In the last 6 months of the project, the software will be completed and validated in a real environment. After the SecuRAIL completion, the open platform of the developed LiDAR sensor(s) system will allow the addition of further safety applications.

In November 2022, Mladen Borovič, member of Institute of Computer Science, appeared as a guest on the AIDEA podcast, where he had a thorough conversation about artificial intelligence, its development, its meaning for humanity and its many applications in the world today. The episode aired on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvMKYWJAsEs) on January 19th 2023 as well as on many other popular platforms (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts; links available on https://kite.link/90-aidea).

On January 24th 2023, Mladen Borovič, member of Institute of Computer Science, attended an open discussion event titled "How can ChatGPT increase your productivity?". Other speakers included Aleksej Miloševič, Miha Pavlinek (both from Databox company) and Blaž Škrlj (from Outbrain company). The event was organized by Start:up Maribor and took place in the Technology Park Ptuj. The speakers debated about the newly released chatbot ChatGPT and its impact on the productivity of our everyday work. The debate was also recorded and is published on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/startupmaribor/startup-musli-chatgpt).

On Wednesday, 1. 2. 2023, assoc. prof. dr. Damjan Strnad, a member of Institute for computer science, attended the show Omizje aired at 8pm on TV Maribor (https://365.rtvslo.si/arhiv/omizje-tv-maribor/174933037). The discussion topics included safe use of Internet, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, in particular its impact on Internet safety and task automatization.

Beyond Now, a leading company in the field welcomed the students and provided a comprehensive look at their approach to agile development and implementation of solutions. More than ten experts from Beyond Now shared their wealth of experience. They offered insights into the challenges faced by developers, solution architects, product owners, and methodology managers (such as Scrum Masters). The students also had the opportunity to view concrete production solutions designed on cloud technologies and serverless architectures.

Upon returning to Maribor, the students then had a chance to visit Comtrade Gaming, where they learned about critical aspects of the company's organization and working processes, which contribute to its successful international development, implementation, and maintenance of digital platforms for the gaming industry.

The UM FERI recognises the importance of women and girls in the field of science and their potential to address the Sustainable Development Goals, e.g., affordable and clean energy; industry, innovation, and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities, which we will be addressed in our lectures for parents and workshops for the children. We believe that by showcasing the potential of women in the field of electrical engineering and computer science, we can inspire the next generation of female scientists. The event will be concluded in a relaxed atmosphere with strategic talks addressing possible contributions to climate action through reduced inequalities and extending partnerships beyond the European Education Area.

The Slovenian power system model

The award committee evaluated the received contributions mainly according to the quality of the contribution, novelty and significance of the research work. The award was presented at the SPLASH 2022, Auckland, New Zealand. More about the award-winning articles are published on the journal's official website.

Congratulations!

First, they held a presentation on the Databox company, the basics of the Databox app, and the most common integration methods. After the presentation of the main concepts, students were challenged with a practical task, where they had to use their programming skills to integrate data from any source or API and push it to the app using the created custom token. They had to study the SDKs provided by Databox, define custom metrics, and develop a Databoard for visualizing data. This exciting lecture, together with the practical work, was an excellent experience for the students and an opportunity to upgrade the knowledge acquired during their studies.

In the study, the researchers proved that these innovative systems for capturing multichannel intramuscular EMG signals combined with computer algorithms developed at the Institute of Computer Science UM FERI, support monitoring of simultaneous activity of a relatively large number of motor neurons in the individual skeletal muscle. Up to 67 simultaneously active motor neurons were tracked with identification accuracy of 99% or above. These results significantly exceed the efficiency of the procedures known to date. The presented methodology enables the discovery of new mechanisms in the functioning of motor neurons, which could not be observed with the previously established measurement procedures. Among them, the study discusses the functional coupling of motor neurons at significantly higher frequencies than known until now (even at frequencies around 75 Hz) and measuring of the impact of the Renshaw cells inhibition on the motor neurons. The presented methodology and findings demonstrate the applicability of a new paradigm of human motor system analysis by means of large populations of concurrently active motor neurons. The contribution is available on the website https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abo5040?af=R

A guest lecture, "Is a Comparison of Metaheuristics on Whole Convergence Graphs More Helpful?", by Dr. Shih-Hsi Liu from California State University Fresno, will be held on Thursday, November 17, 2022, at 9.00 am, in lecture room G2-Beta, at the course Evolutionary Computation, 2nd-year R-IT MAG.

A guest lecture, "Surfing at the Interface between Theory and Practice in Evolutionary Computation", by Dr. Carola Doer from Sorbonne Université, France, will be held on Friday, November 18, 2022, at 9.00 am, in lecture room G2-Beta, at the course Introduction to Evolutionary Algorithms, 3rd-year R-IT VS.

Two of our teams presented the best challenge in their category and won a cash prize. The team, The thinkers, consisting of Avguštin Erdelji, Jakob Smolič, Katja Frančič, Andrija Novaković, Goran Kirov, and Tomi Milošič, presented the best idea in the category Enabling green and sustainable investments. Their idea was focused on the use of satellite imagery to detect and monitor boats fishing illegally in protected areas without the support of IAS (Automatic Identification System) trackers.

The Port'o'lyzer team, consisting of Ana Plečko, Domen Leš, Rok Kukovec, and Uroš Zagoranski, presented the best solution in the category of Advancing global financial intelligence. Based on satellite location data and vessel draught data, they developed an artificial intelligence model to predict the traffic of a port. Their solution provides an independent real-time view of port traffic.

The team Urbano with members Blaž Vidovič, Anže Galun, Filip Kren, Filip Zdjelar, and Bard Grujič, also scored highly in the category of Enabling green and sustainable investments with their proposition. They developed a solution that uses satellite images and an artificial intelligence model to generate suggestions for the most appropriate choice of one or more crops at a particular location, addressing the problem of inefficient farming.

Congratulations to all participants for the quality of the solutions they prepared and presented!