This year we are very pleased to include two keynote addresses, one from industry and one from academia.

Patrick Dantressangle

GaianDb and the challenges of distributed databases on dynamic networks

Abstract:

The International Technology Alliance (ITA) research project challenges: accessing fully heterogenous distributed data sets over mobile ad-hoc networks for agile querying.

How do you access data seamlessly on mobile ad-hoc networks, when the data nodes can move, disappear, add or remove data sources, be very slow or very fast, aggregate data from sensors, where nodes are potentially connected using changing network protocols and interfaces? How can you provision a data infrastructure that would cope with constantly changing queries?

How do you cope with so much variability without a human in the loop and still get a good performance focused middleware?

Biography:

Patrick Dantressangle is a Master inventor and senior technical staff member working for IBM Software Group and Emerging Technology Services, focused on research and development of innovative information management products and technologies. He has worked on many RDBMs technologies since 1990 and for IBM since 1996. Mr. Dantressangle is currently working on what’s next in the RDBMs space, involved with big data and large database projects, as well as participating actively in the International Technology Alliance (ITA) research project. The ideas underpinning GaianDB were initially developed as part of this research project.

Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn

Social Robots as Assistants

Abstract:

Robots are increasingly used in application areas where social skills play a major role for the robot to fulfill its functions and to be accepted by its users. A key challenge is to decide which social cues and social behaviours of the robot will improve it’s suitability for such application areas. My talk will highlight some open issues and challenges that we have encountered in two application oriented research directions: We investigate the use of robots as home companions for elderly people (current FP7 STREP ACCOMPANY and previous FP6 and FP7 projects COGNIRON and LIREC). Important lessons for HRI design can also be learnt from our studies (since 1997) into the use of robot- assisted therapy for children with autism. The talk will focus on the notion of companion robots and present selected results in these domains.

Biography:

Kerstin Dautenhahn is full Professor in the School of Computer Science at University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. where she coordinates the Adaptive Systems Research Group. She has lead research in social robotics, human-robot interaction, assistive technology and published more than 300 research articles. Prof. Dautenhahn has edited several books and frequently gives invited keynote lectures at international meetings. She organizes international conferences and has been Principal Investigator of her research team in many European FP5/6/7 projects. Prof. Dautenhahn is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, as well as Associate Editor of several other international journals.