Dr. Ryan Hayward

Professor

Department of Computing Science

University of Alberta

Artificial Intelligence, AlphaGo, and Computer Hex

Time & Date: 1 pm–2 pm, Thursday, March 29th, 2018
Location: ASC 301, UBC, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC

Talk Abstract: In 2016 DeepMind astonished the Go world with its superhuman-strength program AlphaGo. I will give a brief history of AlphaGo and discuss and its influence on current board game research, including computer Hex. Hex is the connection board game invented by Piet Hein in 1942 and introduced in North America by John Nash around 1949. Our research group at the University of Alberta has built strong Hex players and solvers.

Speaker Biography:

Ryan Hayward received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in mathematics from Queen’s University (Kingston) in 1981 and 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from McGill University in 1987.
His doctoral thesis, Two Classes of Perfect Graphs, was supervised by Vaclav Chvatal. From 1986 through 1989 he was assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University, after which he held an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship at the Institute for Discrete Mathematics in Bonn for 1989-90. From 1990 through 1992 he was assistant professor in the Department of Computing Science at Queen’s University. From 1992 he was assistant and then associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Lethbridge, until in 1999 joining the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, where he was promoted to professor in 2004.

He has supervised 13 graduate and 29 undergraduate students, some of whom later became university professors. His current research interests include algorithms for two-player games.
His group (including at times Yngvi Bjornsson, Michael Johanson, Broderick Arneson, Philip Henderson, Jakub Pawlewicz, and Aja Huang — later lead programmer of AlphaGo) has built the world’s strongest computer Hex player, and has solved two 1-move 10×10 Hex openings and all smaller-board openings. With Bjarne Toft, he is writing a book on the history of Hex,
to be published in 2018.

For further information please contact:
Dr. Yong Gao (yong.gao@ubc.ca) and Dr. Jim Nastos (jim.nastos@ubc.ca) and
Youry Khmelevsky (email: youry@ieee.org)
Registration is open now: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/170241
Refreshments will be provided

Dr. Nghi Tran

Associate Professor

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

The University of Akron, OH, USA

Fundamental Limits and Coding for Additive Gaussian and non-Gaussian Channels

Time & Date: 2:45 pm–4:15 pm, Monday, March 26th, 2018
Location: EME 4218, UBC, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC

Talk Abstract: In many communication channels, the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) has been widely used to model the receiver thermal noise. Over the last few decades, many state-of-the-art techniques have been developed to address the problem of reliable transmissions over AWGN channel links in digital communications. These developments include both information-theoretic studies and explicit source and channel coding/modulation schemes for practical purposes. As a result, effective solutions have been devised and the results can serve as the fundamental theory and practice behind many modern communication systems. While AWGN model is useful in providing an insight into the underlying behavior of communication systems, it ignores some other impairments which are prevalent in various communication environments. For instance, non-Gaussian impulsive interference caused undesirable impulse triggers in the form of random bursts that occur over short durations severely affect the throughput and reliability of many modern communication systems, including power line communications, digital subscriber lines, cognitive radio, urban and indoor wireless communications, underwater acoustic communications and so on. Non-Gaussian interference is also observed in audio, video, and imaging systems. Despite many advancements, channels under non-Gaussian interference are not fully understood, from both an information-theoretic and a practical point of view.

This talk shall provide an introduction on the well-established area of information theory and coding for AWGN channels, as well as emerging research directions in information theory and coding for non-Gaussian channels. The talk is divided in two parts. In the first part, I will introduce some introductory materials on information theory and coding designs in AWGN channels. The main focus is on the Shannon capacity and evolution of error control coding from the simplest block codes such as Hamming codes to near-Shannon limit coding schemes that have recently been invented. I also discuss the improvements of error control coding over AWGN channels during the last few decades, with respect to both the error performance and the complexity issue. In the second part of the talk, I will provide an overview of current research on information theory and coding for non-Gaussian and non-linear channels, with particular attention paid to impulsive interference channels and channels with low-resolution output quantization. I will also discuss major open research issues and directions for future research on these channels.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Tran received the B.Eng. degree from Hanoi University of Technology, Vietnam in 2002, the M.Sc. degree (with Graduate Thesis Award) and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada in 2004 and 2008, respectively, all in Electrical and Computer Engineering. From May 2008 to July 2010, he was at McGill University as a Postdoctoral Scholar under the prestigious Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Postdoctoral Fellowship. From August 2010 to July 2011, Dr. Tran was at McGill University as a Research Associate. He also worked as a Consultant in the satellite industry. Since August 2011, Dr. Tran has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Akron, OH, USA. Dr. Tran’s research interests span the areas of signal processing and communication and information theories for wireless systems and networks. Dr. Tran is currently an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications, an Editor for IEEE Communications Letters, an Editor for Elsevier Physical Communication, and a Lead Guest Editor for EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, Special Issue on Full-Duplex Radio: Theory, Design, and Applications. Dr. Tran has been serving as a TPC member for a number of flagship IEEE conferences. He was a TPC co-Chair of the Workshop on Trusted Communications with Physical Layer Security for IEEE GLOBECOM 2014, a Publicity Chair of the Workshop on Full-Duplex Communications for Future Wireless Networks for IEEE ICC 2017, a Publicity Chair of the Second Workshop on Full-Duplex Communications for Future Wireless Networks for IEEE GLOBECOM 2017, and a Publicity Chair of the Third Workshop on Full-Duplex Communications for Future Wireless Networks for IEEE ICC 2018.

For further information please contact: Dr. Md. Jahangir Hossain (jahangir.hossain@ubc.ca) and
Youry Khmelevsky (email: youry@ieee.org)
Registration is open now: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/170018
Refreshments will be provided