Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Prof. Richard Appleby
Research Area：Industrial Design Studio Practice; Furniture Design; Form and Materials; Materials and Studio Practice
Research experience:
Richard Appleby is Professor of Industrial Design in the Department of Industrial Design at XJTLU Xi'an Jiaotong - Liverpool University. He teaches design studio projects for undergraduate and postgraduate design practice and prepares Phd study.He graduated from the Royal College of Art, where his final work was featured at the Victoria and Albert Museum ‘Boilerhouse’ Exhibition in 1982. With further exhibitions in Europe and the Kunstlerhaus, Vienna, within the Best of Young British Design Exhibition 1984. He has established a significant profile as an industrial designer whose creative skills founded the ‘Atlantic Design’ product design studios, designing for manufacturing companies in many parts of the world.His initial product design commissions came from Sony Tokyo for consumer music products and Sports products for the European marine industries, designing sailing and navigation products that became market leaders. Richard has also designed products in the telecoms industries BT, NEC, Psion, Maxon and many others, in Canada, USA, Europe and Korea. As a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers in 1992, he was later invited to Eindhoven as a founding design member of the new TU/e Faculty for Industrial Design. As Design Director for the Master program he initiated many future concepts with many collegiate designers, scientists and engineers, for the ‘Intelligent Spaces’ platform. Later as Course Leader for Product Design at the University for the Creative Arts in the UK, he introduced Product and Interaction Design and Product and Furniture Design, in collaboration with Textiles, Ceramics, Metalwork and Jewellery Design. His design research has been published in Paris, the Czech Republic, also featured within China’s Art and Design magazine ‘Designing Social Interaction and Shared Experiences’. His most recent essay "Material and Immaterial" (2019) considers different materials processes for designer’s studio practice.
Speech Title: Interaction, Performance and Materiality
Abstract:
Through evolution, people’s way of life changes with the world around us. We interact with curiosity, spontaneity, desire and expression, according to every new situation and context. New research questions our perception and functions, and how these things are interconnected. Our environment becomes a performance space that integrates people and objects as a complete system. Contemporary products and spaces often fail our expectations, so a more critical research definition is needed that questions the role and format of existing consumer products. Research and design through user perception and sensory affordance that replace traditional product functionalities, creating a new performance space for human interaction, culture and context.
Designing for spatial interaction requires a more ‘immersive’ approach to the design process. Spaces don’t really change to such a great extent but the interventions of light, sound, movement and other media can radically change the ‘feeling’ and ‘awareness’ of the space around us and change the way we perform and move within a space. We are interested to explore adaptive elements (products) and applications (services), that can make spaces more interactive. These can be concerned with direct movement and functional objects, or with more ambient media that is more seductive and within the background context: To what extent do our senses pick up the contextual media and how does this influence your own performance and movement within the space? How can environment media be introduced within the spaces we occupy? How can our movements and interactions intervene and change space? This requires a more phenomenological and reflective approach to designing, that considers more immediate experiences and sensations that are relevant to each person and place.
Richard Appleby presents some views and early design interaction ideas, with product concepts that suggest distributed technologies can introduce new products for intelligent spaces. This continues to emphasize the importance
Assoc. Prof. Alex Ivanov
Research Area：Innovative interfaces for group collaboration, Cultural psychology and theories of motivation, Advertising and user experience design
Research experience:
Alex conducts research and teaches courses in creative advertising, information visualization, and user experience design. He received his Ph.D. in Interactive Arts and Technology from Simon Fraser University (Canada) in 2010, an M.A. in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin (U.S.) in 1999, and a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from American University of Bulgaria in 1996. In 2015 Alex also received a diploma in Brand Planning from Miami Ad School (U.S.). Prior to joining SJTU in 2017, Alex was Assistant Professor at Ontario College of Art and Design University (Canada) and at City University of Hong Kong, as well as a visiting lecturer in South Korea and Vietnam.
Dr. Ivanov has published in various journals from the fields of communications, information systems, and human-computer studies. At present he serves as an Editorial Board member of the SSCI-indexed Telematics and Informatics. Alex has also worked for seven years in the marketing communications industry, including at a start-up in Silicon Valley, the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Bulgaria, and as a freelance social media consultant in Vancouver, Canada.
Speech Title: The Augmented Reality Consumer Experience: the case of clothing virtual try-on apps
Abstract:
Virtual try-on apps (VTOs) enable consumers to see how fashion products would look on their real self without physically trying them on. While many such apps for the beauty category have been well adopted, clothing VTO have faced resistance. One reason is technical, as early prototypes have disappointed users with cartoonish avatars and inaccurate fit visualizations. Yet in the past two years a new generation of clothing VTO offer a much improved visualization. Users take a picture of themselves with their smarthone and create an avatar in minutes. But what about privacy concerns from uploading to an uknown app a full-body picture of yourself wearing tight-fitting clothing? This talk will discuss prior and current studies related to this "personalization-privacy" paradox.
Prof. Xiaodong Zhang
Research Area：Intelligent Robotics, Intelligent Measurement, Diagnosis & Control Technology
Research experience:
Professor Xiaodong Zhang received the B.E. degree in Energy and Power Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1989, and the M.E. and Ph.D. degree in Mechanics from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. From 1996 to 2010, he was a Teacher, and in 1999 promoted as an Associate Professor in school of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. Since 2011 he has been a Professor, and now is a deputy director, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems with school of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China.
Professor Xiaodong Zhang was a Visiting Scholar in Department of Mechanical and Medical Engineering, University of Bradford, UK, about three months from 2001 to 2002. He was a Researcher in School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, about two years from 2003 to 2005. He was a visiting professor in the Lab on Intelligent robotics, Michigan State University, USA, about one month in November, 2010, and in the Lab on the Control and Intelligent Systems Engineering, University of Hull, UK, about 3 weeks in October, 2011, and in School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, about 2 weeks in July, 2017, and in the Lab on Mechatronics and Intelligent robotics, University of Essex, UK, about 6 months from 2019 to 2020, respectively. Furthermore, he was a lecture professor funded by K. C. Wong Education Foundation in Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, about 2 weeks in December, 2018.
Professor Xiaodong Zhang has published more than 100 papers, include 30 papers indexed by SCI & about 50 papers indexed by EI, and won 20 Patents of invention & 10 Design Patents, and served as an Associate Editor of Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology & Editor of Intelligent Service Robotics. He won best paper award of the 2008 International Conference on Rehabilitation in China, best session paper award of CCCT 2010 in USA, best application paper award of IEEE URAI 2016 in China, outstanding paper award of IEEE URAI 2017 in Korea, finalist best paper award of IEEE CYBER 2019 in China, respectively. He served the IEEE NEMS 2015 as the local arrangement chair, the IEEE URAI 2016 & URAI 2017 as a program co-chair, and the IEEE CYBER 2020 as the General Chair. His recent research interests are Robotics and Intelligent System, Bio-mechatronics technology, EEG/EMG signal processing and its application on robotics, intelligent measurement and control technology, etc.
Speech Title: Research on the EMG-based Fine Perception and Human-Machine Interactive Control Methods for Lower Limb Rehabilitation Training Robot
Abstract:
With the development of robot technologies, traditional human assisted rehabilitation training has been gradually replaced by robot assisted rehabilitation training which has the advantages of movement controllable, high repetition, high training density and so on. However, due to the lack of an effective human-machine interaction interface as well as an interactive control technique, the rehabilitation robot which can provide a safe, comfortable and natural training environment is fewer. In addition, how to improve the patients’ active participation in training process is always a technical problem and need to be solved urgently.
The bioelectric-based human-machine interface established a direct communication and control channel between the human and the collaborative object (robot, et al.) as well as the environment and it provides new ideas for the study of human-machine interaction and interactive control of lower limb rehabilitation training robot. In order to improve the human-machine interaction performance and achieve synchronous active body weight supported treadmill training, surface EMG based fine movement perception and interactive control methods are presented in this talk as follows.
1) A method for surface EMG based human’s gait events fast recognition
2) A method of surface EMG decoding for continuous joint angles of lower limb
3) A method for quantitative prediction of human’s active joint torque
4) The interactive control methods of lower limb rehabilitation training robot based on surface EMG
Finally, the experimental system of lower limb rehabilitation training robot is designed, and the servo motor type determination and the control system design are discussed detailed. Based on this, the trajectory tracking control experiment without load and the normal human passive walking control experiment are carried out. The experimental results validate the precision of structure design and the accuracy of the control approach.
Prof. Filippo Fabrocini
Research Area: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Mathematical Logic
Research experience:
Prof. Fabrocini has cumulated 25+ years of theoretical/practical experience in “translating” AI technologies in business practices, engaging and delivering projects on Cognitive Computing, Machine Learning, Big Data, Business Analytics, Knowledge Management, Semantic Search, and Bioinformatics. All these projects have spanned over several industries including Automotive, Banking, Fashion, Health, Travel & Transportation, and Public Government. He likes to say that a new algorithm, or a new computational tool, are not innovation till they are going to solve real-world problems and to improve the everyday life. Prof. Fabrocini is the author of more than 30 publications including three books spanning over areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Mathematical Logic. Recently he has started to be interested in the social and ethical implications of AI.
Speech Title: What is the author?
Abstract:
How to re-define creativity in the AI age? May AI help us in understanding better what human creativity is and how differs from machine creativity? Is it possible to speak of creativity when talking about machines? Should we say “who is the author?” or “what is the author?” when talking about AI Art? The speech will provide an answer to these questions.