Keynotes
Speaker: Dr. Ivan Lukovic, Full Professor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Title of Talk: Organizational Capability for Information Management -- Do we Feel a Big Data Crisis?
Biography: Ivan Lukovic received his diploma degree (5 years) in Informatics from the Faculty of Military and Technical Sciences in Zagreb in 1990. He completed his M.Sc (former Mr, 2 years) degree at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in 1993, and his Ph.D. at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences in 1996. Currently, he works as a Full Professor at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences of the University of Belgrade, where he lectures in several Computer Science and Informatics courses. His research interests are related to Database Systems, Business Intelligence Systems, and Software Engineering. He is the author or co-author of over 200 papers, 4 books, and 30 industry projects and software solutions in the area. He created a new set of B.Sc. and M.Sc. study programs in Information Engineering, i.e. Data Science, at the Faculty of Technical Sciences. The programs were accredited the first time in 2015. Currently, he is a chair of Managing Board of the Computer Science and Information Systems (ComSIS) journal. URL: http://www.fon.bg.ac.rs/eng/about-fos/academic-staff/ivan-lukovic/
Talk description: Nowadays, modern business includes acquisition and store of enormous data volumes, even larger than ever before. Most often, collected data are used in a shorter time frame, and then they are archived and almost not used, effectively. On the other hand, such data represent a significant value that a company can utilize so as to reach created goals and provide a sustainable development. Unfortunately, a daily practice in many companies still intensively points out to the problem of a serious gap between the identified needs for knowledge, on one hand side, and inability of modern software products to address such needs in an effective way, on the other hand side, despite that massive data volumes already exist, while modern information technologies provide the excellent technology prerequisites for a development and industry implementation of high quality software applications. We can call such phenomenon a “big data crisis”. Some of important causes of the aforementioned phenomenon are in the following: (1) Unsatisfactory level of organization maturity in regard to the: capabilities for information management, quality management, and business processes; (2) Unsatisfactory level of accumulated knowledge in a problem domain; and (3) Unsatisfactory level of accumulated knowledge in a domain of software engineering, particularly in a domain of the development and formal specification of models for software products aimed at generation of company knowledge and decision support.
Alleviating the aforementioned phenomenon is a strategic and long-life task, only possible by simultaneous addressing all its significant causes. As data analytics over big data sets would lead to greater benefits and achievements in any organization, in this talk, we will discuss cause (1), trying to address the most influencing factors to raise the organizational capability, necessary to utilize benefits of big data analytics and data science methods in a greater extent, and by this provide an effective way to digital transformation process.
Speaker: Dr. Jan W. Owsinski, Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
Title of Talk: On Ups and Downs in Analyzing Web Activity Data: Notes from a Project
Biography: Jan W. Owsinski specialises in data analysis (clustering, preference aggregation), as well as in modelling and analysing socio-economic and environmental systems. PhD in computer science for the dissertation on a novel method of cluster analysis. Deputy Director at the Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, and lecturer at the Warsaw School of Information Technology (data analysis in management, information retrieval systems). Author and co-author of more than 250 scientific papers, and editor of more than 30 volumes, most in English. Executive Editor of the quarterly journal Control & Cybernetics. Member of Editorial Boards of several journals. Secretary General of the Polish Operational and Systems Research Society. Prof. Jan headed several research projects or project work-packages, national and international, dealing with, chronologically: (a) modelling of regional agricultural systems; (b) interactive data analysis software for in-session use; (c) data analysis systems for Polish companies in transition; (d) modelling of Polish economy in the period of transition (developed the demographic module); (e) distance teaching on sustainable development (PHARE); (f) integrated DSS for transboundary catchments (FP5); (g) e-administration & local networks vis a vis local development in conditions of the information society and knowledge economy; (h) logistic and transport systems modelleg through graph (and hypergraph) network representations.
Talk description: Analyzing data from the web is now one of the primary tasks, understood in a variety of manners and solved for a very wide variety of purposes. The talk describes the experience from a project, devoted to analyzing such data, while drawing some more general conclusions. The project was aimed at distinguishing the artificial ad-related traffic from the genuine one. The rationale is simple: the flow of money depends upon the number of clicks on / views of an ad. If so, fake clicking changes the market to the benefit of some, and to the loss of the other ones. The talk describes the problem and its conceptual framing, as well as a number of technical details, involving the issues and techniques of (1) variable analysis and choice; (2) clustering; (3) classification / classifiers; (4) potential hybrid techniques, along with citations of the most interesting results. These often imply definite general conclusions, some of them quite surprising.
Speaker: Dr. Costin Badica, Professor of Computer Science, University of Craiova, Romania
Title of Talk: Intelligent Distributed Computing: Synergies of Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems
Biography: Dr. Costin Badica received his MSc and PhD in Computer Science from University of Craiova, Romania in 1990 and 1999, respectively. Since 2006, he is Professor of Computer Science at Faculty of Automatics, Computers and Electronics, Software Engineering Department, University of Craiova, Romania. During 2001–2002, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow within the Department of Computer Science, King’s College London, UK. His research covers themes in artificial intelligence, distributed systems and software engineering. He authored more than 100 publications: contributed books, special issues, journal articles, book chapters and conference papers. He initiated Intelligent Distributed Computing symposium series and also was PC member of many international conferences.
Talk description: The talk will emphasize the synergies of AI and Multi-Agent Systems through a number of examples and applications of the new trend of Intelligent Distributed Computing by focusing on their elements and characteristics.