FERI

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.

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.