Invited Speakers

Invited speakers at FLINS 2008:

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

• Lotfi A. Zadeh (USA) Dr. Lotfi A. Zadeh is an alumnus of the University of Tehran , MIT and Columbia University . He held visiting appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ; MIT, Cambridge, MA; IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, CA; AI Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA; and the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. His earlier work was concerned in the main with systems analysis, decision analysis and information systems. His current research is focused on fuzzy logic, computing with words and soft computing, which is a coalition of fuzzy logic, neurocomputing, evolutionary computing, probabilistic computing and parts of machine learning. Lotfi Zadeh is a Fellow of the IEEE, AAAS, ACM, AAAI, and IFSA. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the Finnish Academy of Sciences, the Polish Academy of Sciences, Korean Academy of Science & Technology and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He is a recipient of the IEEE Education Medal, the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, the IEEE Medal of Honor, the ASME Rufus Oldenburger Medal, the B. Bolzano Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Kampe de Feriet Medal, the AACC Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, the Grigore Moisil Prize, the Honda Prize, the Okawa Prize, the AIM Information Science Award, the IEEE-SMC J. P. Wohl Career Achievement Award, the SOFT Scientific Contribution Memorial Award of the Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory, the IEEE Millennium Medal, the ACM 2001 Allen Newell Award, the Norbert Wiener Award of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, Civitate Honoris Causa by Budapest Tech (BT) Polytechnical Institution, Budapest, Hungary, the V. Kaufmann Prize, International Association for Fuzzy-Set Management and Economy (SIGEF), the Nicolaus Copernicus Medal of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the J. Keith Brimacombe IPMM Award, the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame, the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum Wall of Fame, other awards and twenty-six honorary doctorates. He has published extensively on a wide variety of subjects relating to the conception, design and analysis of information/intelligent systems, and is serving on the editorial boards of over sixty journals.

 

PLENARY SPEAKERS:

• Piero Bonissone (USA) Dr. Piero Bonissone received an MS in Mechanical Engineering, and an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, all from the University of California at Berkeley. A computer scientist at the GE Global Research since 1979, Dr. Bonissone has been a pioneer in the field of fuzzy logic, AI, soft computing, and approximate reasoning systems applications. Recently he has led a Soft Computing (SC) group in the development of SC application to diagnostics and prognostics of processes and products, including the prediction of remaining life for each locomotive in a fleet, to perform efficient assets selection. His current interests are the development of multi-criteria decision making systems applied to PHM issues, and the automation of intelligent systems lifecycle, i.e. the development of processes to create, deploy, and maintain smart SC-based systems that provide customized performance while adapting themselves to avoid obsolescence. Dr. Bonissone is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ), of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence ( AAAI ), of the International Fuzzy Systems Association ( IFSA ), and a Coolidge Fellow at GE Global Research. He served as Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning for 13 years. He is in the editorial board of five technical journals and is Editor-at-Large of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine. He has co-edited six books and has over 150 publications in referred journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He has received 34 patents issued from the US Patent Office (plus 39 pending patents). Since 1982, he has been an Adjunct Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy NY . He has co-chaired nine scientific conferences focused on Multi-Criteria Decision-Making, Fuzzy sets, Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Uncertainty Management. Dr. Bonissone is very active in the IEEE, where is currently a member of the Fellow Evaluation Committee . In the past, while serving as President of the IEEE Neural Networks Society (now Computational Intelligence Society) he was also a member of the IEEE Technical Board Activities (TAB). He has been an Executive Committee member of NNS/CIS society for the past 15 years.
• Witold Pedrycz (Canada) Dr. Witold Pedrycz (M'88, SM'94, F'99) is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (CRC) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Canada . He is also with the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. His active research pursuits are in Computational Intelligence, human-centric computing, fuzzy modeling, knowledge discovery and data mining, fuzzy control including fuzzy controllers, pattern recognition, knowledge-based neural networks, relational computation, bioinformatics, and Software Engineering. He has published numerous papers in this area. He is also an author of 11 research monographs covering various aspects of Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering. He has been a member of numerous program committees of IEEE conferences in the area of fuzzy sets and neurocomputing. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, and IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems. Dr. Pedrycz is an Editor-in-Chief of Information Sciences. He is a President of the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA) and the past president of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS). He is a recipient of the prestigious K.S. Fu award.
• Enric Trillas (Spain) Dr. Enric Trillas got a Ph.D on Sciences from the University of Barcelona. Became Professor at the Technical University of Catalonia in 1974. In 1989 moved to the Technical University of Madrid, where he was Professor at the Department of Artificial Intelligence until September 2006. Formerly, and among other positions, he was Vice-Rector of the Technical University of Catalonia, President of the High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Director General of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), Secretary General of the National Plan for Scientific and Technological Research, and Chairman of the company Aerospace Engineering and Services (INSA). Other than several distinctions and medals, he is Fellow of the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA), got the Fuzzy Pioneers Award of the European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technologies, an the Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. He has published over two hundred papers in Journals, Conference's Proceedings, and editor's books, as well as several books. His current research interests are, Fundamentals of Fuzzy Set Theories, and Fuzzy Logic, Methods of reasoning: conjectures, hypotheses and consequences.

SEMIPLENARY SPEAKERS:

• Luis Magdalena (Spain) Dr. Luis Magdalena received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Telecommunication Engineering, both from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain, in 1988 and 1994, respectively. He has been an Associate Professor in Computer Science at the Department of Applied Mathematics of this Universidad since 1995. From 2003 to 2005 he was Deputy Director (and promoter) of the Centro de Domótica Integral (Smart House Research Center), a Research Center of the UPM. In 2006 he joined the Foundation for the Advancement of Soft Computing/European Centre for Soft Computing as Director General. From 2001 to 2005 he has been the President of the “European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technologies” as well as member of the Board of the International Fuzzy Systems Association. His research interests include Soft Computing and its application, particularly in the field of robotics and automation. He has been actively involved in research projects funded by National and European programs, as well as by private companies, being project leader in more than ten of those projects.
• Pierre D'hondt (Belgium) Dr. Pierre D'hondt (1950) is Deputy Director-General of SCK•CEN, the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, Mol, Belgium. He has a Master degree and PhD in Physics. Pierre D'hondt is the scientific secretary of the Scientific Board of SCK•CEN, vice-chairman of the NEA–Nuclear Science Committee, chairman of the NEA–Nuclear Science Committee Executive Group and of the European Working Group on Reactor Dosimetry (EWGRD). He is author or co-author of more than 150 papers and has (co-)edited about ten books.
• Andrea Murari (Italy) Dr. Andrea Murari was born in Verona, Italy, on August 19, 1963. He received the B.A. degree in applied electronics and the M.S. degree in plasma engineering, in 1989 and 1991, respectively, from the University of Padua, Padua, Italy, where he obtained the Ph.D. degree in nuclear power plants from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, in 1993. He has mainly worked in the field of measurements for nuclear fusion experiments. He has installed various diagnostic systems on several European experiments, and between 1998 and 2002, he was responsible for the support to all the diagnostics of the RFX experiment in Padua . Since 2002, he has been the Task Force Leader for Diagnostics (TFD) at the Joint European Torus (JET). Since 2003, he is a Member of the Eiroforum thematic working group on measurements. He is now the Scientific Coordinator of all JET diagnostic upgrades for the next framework programme and in January 2008 he has been nominated co-chair of the European Fusion Agreement (EFDA) Topical Group on diagnostics.