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Reliability and Safety of Intelligent Systems

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Featured Speakers

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Joseph Sifakis
Turing Award (2007)
Verimag Laboratory, France
Biography
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Joseph Sifakis

Turing Award (2007)
Verimag Laboratory, France

Prof. Joseph Sifakis is Emeritus Research Director at Verimag laboratory. His current area of interest is trustworthy autonomous systems design with focus on self-driving cars.

In 2007, he received the Turing Award for his contribution to the theory and application of model checking. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, of the French National Academy of Engineering, of Academia Europea, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the National Academy of Engineering, and of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a Grand Officer of the French National Order of Merit, a Commander of the French Legion of Honor. He has received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal in 2012.

For more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Sifakis

Why is it so Hard to Make Self-driving Cars?

Why is self-driving so hard? Despite the enthusiastic involvement of big technological companies and the massive investment of many billions of dollars, all the optimistic predictions about self-driving cars “being around the corner” went utterly wrong.

I argue that these difficulties emblematically illustrate the challenges raised by the vision for trustworthy autonomous systems. These are critical systems intended to replace human operators in complex organizations, very different from other intelligent systems such as game-playing robots or intelligent personal assistants.

I discuss complexity limitations inherent to autonomic behavior but also to integration in complex cyber-physical and human environments. I argue that existing critical systems engineering techniques fall short of meeting the complexity challenge. I also argue that emerging end-to-end AI-enabled solutions currently developed by industry, fail to provide the required strong trustworthiness guarantees.

I advocate a hybrid design approach combining model-based and data-based techniques and seeking tradeoffs between performance and trustworthiness. I also discuss the validation problem emphasizing the need for rigorous simulation and testing techniques allowing technically sound safety evaluation.

I conclude that building trustworthy autonomous systems goes far beyond the current AI vision. To reach this vision, we need a new scientific foundation enriching and extending traditional systems engineering with data-based techniques.

Keynote Speakers

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Jim McDonald
President, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK
Principal and vice-chancellor, University of Strathclyde, UK
Biography
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Jim McDonald

President, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK
Principal and vice-chancellor, University of Strathclyde, UK

Professor Sir Jim McDonald is Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde. He was elected President of the Royal Academy of Engineering in September 2019, through which he is a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology. He Co-chairs, with the First Minister of Scotland, the Scottish Government’s Energy Advisory Board. He is Co-Chair of the Independent Glasgow Economic Leadership Board. He currently holds several non-executive appointments with organisations including the Weir Group plc, Scottish Power plc, the UK National Physical Laboratory, and the UK Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. Additionally, he Chairs or participates in several senior committees related to research, economic development, and education. In the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours List 2012, Professor McDonald was awarded a Knighthood for services to education, engineering, and the economy. He has held the Rolls-Royce Chair in Electrical Power Systems since 1993. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Engineering (US), the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institute of Physics, the Energy Institute, a Foreign Fellow of the Chinese Society of Electrical Engineering and Honorary Professor at Peking University. Sir Jim is also an International Economic Adviser to the Province of Shandong, China. He is also a member of international advisory board in the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation, affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education.

Intelligent Systems and Data Centric Engineering Applications
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Zhihua Zhong
Vice-President, Chinese Academy of Engineering, China
Biography
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Zhihua Zhong

Vice-President, Chinese Academy of Engineering, China

Zhong Zhihua is an expert in vehicle engineering. He graduated from Linkoping University in Sweden in 1988 with a doctorate in engineering. He is currently Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He served as president of Hunan University from 2005 to 2011 and president of Tongji University from 2016 to 2018. He also served as secretary-general of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Dr Zhong has long been engaged in the research and applications in automobile design and manufacturing technology. His research mainly focuses on automobile collision safety technology, body forming technology, modular lightweight automobile technology and innovation technologies for intelligent new energy vehicles.

For more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhong_Zhihua https://www.cae.cn/cae/html/main/col9/2022-06/02/20220602175129254887596_1.html

Some Safety Issues on Intelligent Vehicles
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Nancy Leveson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
US National Academy of Engineering, USA
Biography
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Nancy Leveson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
US National Academy of Engineering, USA

Nancy Leveson is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and also Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Prof. Leveson conducts research on the topics of system safety, software safety, software and system engineering, and human-computer interaction. She consults extensively in for industries on ways to prevent accidents. In 1999, she received the ACM Allen Newell Award for outstanding computer science research and in 1995 the AIAA Information Systems Award for “developing the field of software safety and for promoting responsible software and system engineering practices where life and property are at stake.” In 2005 she received the ACM Sigsoft Outstanding Research Award. She has published over 400 research papers and is author of “Safeware: System Safety and Computers,” published by Addison-Wesley (1995), "Engineering a Safer World", published by MIT Press (2012) and also “An Introduction to System Safety Engineering” to be published soon.

For more information:
http://sunnyday.mit.edu/

Safety of Software-Intensive Systems
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Xiaohong Guan
Xian Jiaotong University, China
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Biography
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Xiaohong Guan

Xian Jiaotong University, China
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Xiaohong Guan received the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, in 1993. Since 1995, he has been with the Department of Automation, Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, and the Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems, Tsinghua University. He is currently with the MOE Key Laboratory for Intelligent Networks and Network Security, Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, where he is also the Dean of the Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering. He is an Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fellow of IEEE.

For more information:
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%AE%A1%E6%99%93%E5%
AE%8F/5637397

Safety and Security of Power Systems

Invited Industry Speakers

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Tony Lee Kar-yun
Operations Director, MTR Corporation Limited, Hong Kong
Biography
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Tony Lee Kar-yun

Operations Director, MTR Corporation Limited, Hong Kong

Dr Lee joined the Company in 1991 and has held various management positions related to the design, construction, operations and maintenance of the Company’s railway system in Hong Kong. He has been the Operations Director and a Member of the Executive Directorate since 1 January 2020. Before his appointment as Operations Director, Dr Lee took up the position of Chief of Operations Engineering in September 2013 and was appointed as Deputy Operations Director in November 2019.

Dr Lee is responsible for managing the Company’s railway related operations in Hong Kong.

Dr Lee is a Chartered Engineer and is a Member of The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, The Institution of Engineering and Technology and The Hong Kong Institute of Directors. He is also a Member of the Advisory Committee of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of The University of Hong Kong, the Engineering Discipline Advisory Board of the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education and a Member of the Technical Committee of National Rail Transit Electrification and Automation Engineering Technology Research Center (Hong Kong Branch). Dr Lee holds a Doctoral degree in Engineering and a Master degree in Philosophy both from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and a Master of Business Administration degree from The Open University of Hong Kong (now known as Hong Kong Metropolitan University).

Artificial Intelligence Enabled Applications Towards Intelligent Railway Transportation to be More Customer-centric, Reliable, and Safer
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Matthew Hu
Senior Vice President Engineering and Quality at HAYLION Technologies
Biography
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Matthew Hu

Senior Vice President Engineering and Quality at HAYLION Technologies

Dr. Matthew Hu, a Senior Vice President Engineering and Quality at HAYLION Technologies, has been a recognized exceptional industrial expert and leader in robust engineering, quality, reliability, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Robust Design for Reliability. Dr. Hu is an adjunct professor at University of Houston and leading Supply Chain Innovation Lab initiative. Dr. Hu has made significant contributions as an engineer, specialist, six sigma master black belt, program manager, and executive during a long career in technology and product development, manufacturing, supply chain, commercialization and operation. He held numerous leadership positions in automotive, aerospace, oil & gas, technology, medical device and consulting. He helped and saved companies over $19 million cost savings, including over $5.5 million cost savings for Ford Motor Company. He received numerous awards, including Ford Motor Company Global Customer Satisfaction Gold Winner Award.

He holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial and System Engineering at Wayne State University. He also holds two master digresses, one MS in Statistics and another MS in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. Dr. Hu is a Certified Robust Design Expert, a Certified LSS Master Black Belt and also a certified DFSS Master Black Belt, a Certified Quality Engineer and a Certified Reliability Engineer.

Robustness Thinking: A Best Practice in Design for Reliability
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Zheng Hu
Director of Reliability Technology Lab, Huawei
Biography
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Zheng Hu

Director of Reliability Technology Lab, Huawei

Dr. Zheng Hu is the Director of Reliability Technology Lab, HUAWEI, a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. Dr. Hu is also currently leading a corporate-level project, Trustworthy AI, in charge of the research and innovation of key technologies towards the reliable and safe AI system. Meanwhile his research also focuses on the software reliability, reliability theory and ah-hoc networks, etc. Zheng Hu received his PhD degree in Computer Science from Lyon University in Lyon, France. Before joint Huawei, he was the senior researcher in Orange Labs (France Telecom), working on the self-configuration network of smart home/smart building.

Explorations and Practices towards a Reliable Intelligent System