Seminar
On challenges in image generation
Abstract: Recent work has shown impressive success in automatically synthesizing new images with desired properties such as transferring painterly style, modifying facial expressions, increasing image resolution or manipulating the center of attention of the image. In this talk I will discuss two of the standing challenges in image synthesis and how we tackle them: - [...]
Learning Common Sense: a Grand Challenge for Academic AI Research
Abstract: In a world where Google, Facebook, and others possess massive proprietary data sets, and unprecedented computational power---how is a graduate student to make a dent in the universe? I’ll address this conundrum by re-visiting one of the holy grails of AI: acquiring, representing, and utilizing common-sense knowledge. Can we leverage modern methods including deep [...]
Signal Processing – From Images to Surfaces
Abstract: In this talk we will revisit some classical techniques from image processing and explore what is involved in translating them to the context of surfaces. We will show that by leveraging existing methodology from discrete differential geometry, it is often easy to extend the image-based techniques so that they can be used to edit [...]
Bio-inspired dynamics for multi-agent decision-making
Abstract: I will present distributed decision-making dynamics for multi-agent systems, motivated by studies of animal groups, such as house-hunting honeybees, and their extraordinary ability to make collective decisions that are both robust to disturbance and adaptable to change. The dynamics derive from principles of symmetry, consensus, and bifurcation in networked systems, exploiting instability as a [...]
Multimodal, multilevel analysis of human behavior
Abstract: Computer analysis of human behavior is an interdisciplinary endeavor combining sensing technology, theoretical and empirical models of human behavior, pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms, and interaction sciences. The applications in this area range widely, from robotics to healthcare, from smart environments to multimedia, from security to humanitarian response. While human behaviors span different [...]
Robotics-Inspired Implantable Passive Mechanisms to Surgically Re-Engineer the Human Body
Abstract: Tendon-transfer surgeries are performed for a variety of conditions such as stroke, palsies, trauma, and congenital defects. The surgery involves re-routing a tendon from a nonfunctioning muscle to a functioning muscle to partially restore lost function. However, a fundamental aspect of the current surgery, namely the suture that attaches the tendon(s) to the muscles, [...]
Rendering Material Properties through Touch
Abstract: Humans haptically perceive the material properties of objects, such as roughness and compliance, through signals from sensory receptors in skin, muscles, tendons, and joints. Approaches to haptic rendering of material properties operate by stimulating, or attempting to stimulate, some or all of these receptor populations. My talk will describe research on haptic perception of [...]