TUTORIALS

As media content is prominent in our everyday life, efficient data mining within this massive source of information through its full life cycle (from creation to consumption by the user) defines the general scope of this tutorial. Multimedia content features (also called descriptors) play a central role in many computer vision and image processing applications. Features are various types of information extracted from the content and represent some of its characteristics or signatures. However, especially the (low-level) features, which can be extracted automatically usually lack the discrimination power needed for accurate processing especially in the case of a large and varied media content data reserves. Therefore, we shall present a recent evolutionary technique, the Multi-Dimensional Particle Swarm Optimization to synthesize highly discriminative features using a novel evolutionary feature synthesis framework. Furthermore, for classifying and indexing a large media content data reserve, the key questions are: 1) how to select certain features so as to achieve the highest discrimination over certain classes, 2) how to combine them in the most effective way, 3) which distance metric to apply, 4) how to find the optimal classifier configuration for the classification problem at hand, and 5) how to scale/adapt the classifier if a large number of classes/features are present and finally, 6) how to train the classifier efficiently to maximize the classification accuracy. In this tutorial recent evolutionary techniques and novel classifier topologies will be introduced to address these questions.

Serkan Kiranyaz was born in Turkey, 1972. He received his BS degree in Electrical and Electronics Department at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1994 and MS degree in Signal and Video Processing from the same University, in 1996. He worked as a Researcher in Nokia Research Center and later in Nokia Mobile Phones, Tampere, Finland. He received his PhD degree from Tampere University of Technology; Institute of Signal Processing in 2005 and his Docency at 2007 respectively. He is currently working as a Professor in Signal Processing Department. Prof. Kiranyaz published 20 journal papers on several IEEE Transactions and some other high impact journals and more than 50 papers in international conferences. One of his publications, (Kiranyaz, Ince, Yildirim, Gabbouj, “Evolutionary Artificial Neural Networks by Multi-Dimensional Particle Swarm Optimization”, Neural Networks, 2009), which also be covered in this tutorial, has recently become one of the Most-Read-Ever papers in the Journal’s history (see: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/neural-networks/most-read-articles/ ).

Application designers and developers believe that they need to make difficult tradeoffs between time to market and the availability of their applications on mobile devices. But the world is changing with the fast proliferation of smart phones and tablet computers. Today, the market of mobile applications is growing at an unprecedented rate offering new opportunities for developers, researchers and entrepreneurs. Also, recent advances in mobile technologies and development tools make it possible to design cross-platform mobile applications and get to the market faster. This can be accomplished by choosing the right combination of technologies and development tools. The goal of this tutorial is to introduce students, researchers and industry practitioners to the latest technologies used to develop cross-platform mobile applications. The tutorial starts by providing the audience background information about the hardware capabilities available in today’s smart devices. Background information about mobile Operating Systems (OS) will be discussed taking the Android OS as a case study. The process of native mobile application development on Android and Java ME (Mobile Edition) will be discussed and demonstrated to illustrate the challenges encountered during the process of cross-platform mobile application development. The core of the tutorial discusses the details of using PhoneGap, HTML5 and CSS3 to build cross-platform mobile applications. The tutorial also provides live demos and examples of applications that access smart device capabilities. The tutorial mixes the fundamentals with both programming and pragmatic views of mobile software engineering issues. Participants will learn about the features and limitations of today’s smart devices including CPU, GPU, Cellular, WiFi, Compass, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer and Geolocation capabilities. Special emphasis will be given to the latest developments in HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript including the Canvas, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Video, Geolocation, App Cache & Database, Web Workers and jQTouch features. Throughout the tutorial, we will look at industry trends and discuss some innovative ideas that have recently been developed.

Ala Al-Fuqaha (S’00-M’04-SM’09) received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Missouri, in 1999 and 2004 respectively. Currently, he is an Associate Professor and director of NEST Research Lab at the Computer Science Department of Western Michigan University. Before joining Western Michigan University, Dr. Al-Fuqaha was a senior member of technical staff at LAMBDA Optical Systems in Reston, Virginia where he worked on the design and development of embedded routing protocols and network management systems. Prior to LAMBDA, Dr. Al-Fuqaha was a Software Engineer with Sprint Telecommunications Corp. where he worked as part of the architecture team. His research interests include Network Management and Planning, QoS routing in optical and wireless networks, and performance analysis and evaluation of high-speed computer and telecommunication networks. He served as an investigator on multiple research projects funded by Cisco, Boeing, Stryker, Wolverine, and Western Michigan University. Dr. Al-Fuqaha is currently serving on the editorial board for John Wiley’s Security and Communication Networks Journal. Dr. Al-Fuqaha is a senior member of the IEEE and has served as Technical Program Committee member and reviewer of many international conferences and journals.

Dr. Amir Esmailpour, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Haven West Haven, CT, USA

Dr. Nidal Nasser, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Alfaisal University Saudi Arabia

The evolution of wireless network technologies has gone through an exponential era of improvements and adjustments in the past decade or two. The quantity and quality of research in wireless technologies that we have witnessed in the past two decades could easily surpass those during the century prior to that. The phenomenal advancements in the wireless arena have been highly influenced by the user demands for sophisticated applications with unique requirements for Quality of Service (QoS) support, high standards for security and mobility, in addition to an enormous appetite for capacity and long-range coverage. Unprecedented amounts of research in different fields of wireless and communication technologies in the past two decades have contributed to the advancement and improvements in this area of technology. In this tutorial, we intend to cover a wide range of topics related to the movement, enhancement, improvements, and achievements of the research community in various areas related to technologies such as 3G, 4G, WiFi g/n, WiMAX, and LTE with SAE and EPC. Within these areas we will concentrate on progression in network architecture, Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques, QoS provisioning, power and mobility management strategies, security, and wireless network integration, covering standards progression in various releases within the ITU, 3GPP, IEEE, and other wireless standards bodies. Emphasis will be given to Physical, MAC, Network, and Application layers’ enhancements in the latest 3G and 4G technologies. Various new protocols, schemes, strategies, and policies in different layers from the Physical and Data Link layers, up to the Network, Transport and Application layers will be investigated and analyzed in detail. Although other technologies such as the latest releases of the IEEE 802.11 will also be covered, the main focus will be on the two contending technologies that have been marked by ITU as the front runners for the 4G implementation: WiMAX and LTE. The tutorial consists of two parts. The first part includes a survey of natural progression and related issues in the 4G technologies, such as network architecture, RRM, QoS, security, and network integration. The second part presents in more detail various components in the architecture of each technology, and how they have evolved in various releases to fulfill the requirements set by the ever increasing service providers and user demands, and their outcomes and effects on the concepts such as RRM, QoS provisioning, mobility and power management, and security issues. Finally we will cover detailed analysis of how RRM and QoS provisioning are implemented in both WiMAX and LTE based on case studies that show how to develop analytical models that integrate and implement radio resource management components..

Amir Esmailpour is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, USA, where he is teaching advanced courses in networking and wireless communication and networks. His area of research is in Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning and Radio Resource Management (RRM) for the 4G wireless technologies. Prior to that he was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of ECE at the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada, where he was performing research on the 4th Generation of wireless networks. Dr. Esmailpour received his PhD at the University of Guelph, in Guelph, Canada, and he has been teaching wireless network courses at different Colleges and Universities in Toronto.

Nidal Nasser completed his Ph.D. in the School of Computing at Queen’s University, Canada, in 2004. He is currently an Associate Professor and Chairman of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia. He worked in the School of Computer Science at University of Guelph, Canada (2004-2011). Dr. Nasser is the founder and Director of the Wireless Networking and Mobile Computing Research Lab @ Guelph (WiNG: http://wing.socs.uoguelph.ca). He has authored 129 journal publications, refereed conference publications and book chapters in the area of wireless communication networks and systems. He has also given tutorials in major international conferences. Dr. Nasser is currently serving as an associate editor of Wiley’s International Journal of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Wiley’s International Journal on Communication Systems, Wiley’s Security and Communication Networks Journal and International Journal of Ad Hoc & Sensor Wireless Networks. He has been a member of the technical program and organizing committees of several international IEEE conferences and workshops. Dr. Nasser is a member of several IEEE technical committees. He received Fund for Scholarly and Professional Development Award in 2004 from Queen’s University. He received the Computing Faculty Appreciation Award from the University of Guelph-Humber. He received the Best Research Paper Award at the ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA’08), at the International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC’09) and at the International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC’11).

Virtual Reality (VR) is a simulation in which computer graphics is used to create a realistic-looking world. Moreover the synthetic world is not static, but responds to the user input and it can be modified in real time. Interactivity and captivating power contributes to the feeling of immersion in the virtual world, of being part of the action that the user experiences. It is possible not only see and manipulate the virtual objects, but also feel and touch them using specific haptic devices. Researchers are also talking about sense of smell and taste, although these sensorial modalities are less frequently used at present. In contrast with Virtual Reality technology that completely immerses a user inside a synthetic environment where he cannot see the real world around him, Augmented Reality as a technology allows the user to see 3-dimensional virtual objects superimposed upon the real world. Augmented Reality as a technology allows the real-time fusion of computer-generated digital content with the real world and supplements reality rather than completely replacing it; the user is under the impression that the virtual and real objects coexist in the same space. Augmented Reality enhances the users' perception and improves their interaction with the real world. The augmented visualization of virtual objects allows the user to have information that he cannot directly detect with his senses, and helps him to better perform some real-world tasks. Many applications of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies have been developed in different fields: medicine, education, arts and cultural heritage, entertainment, military, and manufacturing. In medicine, Virtual Reality applications allow surgeons to practice and rehearse the surgical procedures on virtual patients, who are realistic replicas of living patients with actual pathologies, and to experiment various scenarios without risk. In addition, advances in technology are making it possible to develop systems that can help surgeons to perform their tasks in ways that are both faster and safer. Virtual Reality as a technology can also be used to guide the physicians and bring them extra information before (diagnosis) or during the procedures (image-guided therapy). In addition, Augmented Reality as a technology has a potential in medicine to bring the direct visualization advantage of open surgery back to minimally invasive surgery and can increase the physician's view of his surroundings with information gathered from a patient's medical images. This tutorial will present a review of current Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies and provides a detailed analysis of the engineering, scientific and functional aspects of VR systems and the fundamentals of VR modeling and programming. The tutorial also introduces to the development and building of virtual environments and simulators and presents some force and tactile feedback devices and newer visualization and interaction interfaces. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications in medicine and surgery, cultural heritage and games are also described.

Lucio Tommaso De Paolis is an Assistant Professor of Information Processing Systems and the scientific coordinator of the Augmented and Virtual Reality Laboratory (AVR Lab) at the Department of Innovation Engineering of the University of Salento. De Paolis is also the responsible of the Research Division “Advanced Techniques of Virtual Reality for Medicine” of the D.R.e.A.M. (Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Research Applied to the Medicine) at the Lecce Hospital. He received the Master Degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1994 and after, first at the Scuola Superiore S.Anna of Pisa and then at the University of Salento, his research interest has concerned the study of the interactions in the virtual environments and the development of human-computer interfaces. This study has been focused on the building of realistic simulators for surgical training and on the applications of the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies in medicine and cultural heritage. De Paolis has been in 2007 and 2010 visiting researcher at the Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico), in 2007 and 2009 visiting researcher at Computer Graphics Laboratory, Sabanci University of Istanbul (Turkey) and in 2011 visiting professor at the University of Tallinn (Estonia). De Paolis is the organizer of the Annual Italian Conference “Medicine Meets Virtual Reality” and has been member of programme committee and chair, invited speaker and organizer of special sessions in international conferences focused on Virtual Reality applications.