Double Danish Dynamism: Foundation Models and Biological Shape
Thomas Hildebrant and Jon Sporring - University of Copenhagen
Feb. 16, 2024, 2:30 p.m. - Feb. 16, 2024, 4 p.m.
ENGMD 276
Hosted by: Kaleem Siddiqi and Paul Kry
======== TALK #1: start at 2:30pm ==========
Title: From foundational models for concurrency to digital law and hyper-automation
Abstract: The talk will describe the result of more than 15 year of research & development, starting with Winskel’s event structures, a foundational model for concurrent processes, and leading to the Dynamic Condition Response (DCR) graphs model for collaborative distributed processes, able to express deontic rules with time, data and liveness. The graphs are supported by mature design, execution and process mining tools that can be used by domain experts, developed by the research-based spin-off DCRSolutions.net . The talk will both dig into some of the current lines of work in research, such as declarative choreographies, smart contracts and information flow security and give examples of how the technology is used in practice, e.g. by users of the NEC/KMD WorkZone Enterprise Information System and support for the use of ChatGPT to formalize legal rules.
Bio: Thomas Hildebrandt is professor at department of Computer Science, Copenhagen University, at which he founded the research section for Software, Data, People and Society section and is currently head of the Data Steward education.
Thomas has a PhD in computer science from Aarhus university and his research focus on the development of theory and tools based on formal models for concurrency for the digitalization of work and business processes and the interplay with law, in particular the digitalization of law, AI, accountability, privacy and security. He has been PI and co-PI of several research projects, often with an interdisciplinary approach leading to the development of DCR Graphs, a knowledge graph based approach to maintainable digitalization of law and work processes. He is member of Danish Standards groups for AI and Cyber Security, representing Denmark in ISO.
===== TALK #2, start around 3:10pm =========
Title: On Betti curves and the structure of cristae
Abstract: Mitochondria in cells are essential for cellular energy production. They undergo dynamic changes in their morphology and internal structure to maintain cellular equilibrium. A major structure of mitochondria is the cristae membrane, whose spatial characteristics are likely related to the mitochondria function. Despite the great advances in electron microscopy and data science, we are limited to investigating snapshots in which segmenting and analyzing cristae membranes is challenging. In this work, we show how we segment 3-dimensional EM images with the multiplanar UNet and perform statistical analysis of the mitochondria and its cristae membrane. In particular, we will show how we use persistent homology to calculate Betti curves, and how we relate these curves to the tubular structure of the cristae.
Bio: Jon Sporring received his Master and Ph.D. degree from the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Part of his Ph.D. program was carried out at IBM Research Center, Almaden, California, USA. Following his Ph.D, he worked as a visiting researcher at the Computer Vision and Robotics Lab at Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas, Greece, and as an assistant research professor at 3D-Lab, School of Dentistry, University of Copenhagen. Since 2003 he has been employed as an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen. From 2008-2009 he was a part-time Senior Researcher at Nordic Bioscience a/s. In the period 2012-13, he is a visiting professor at the School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Jon Sporring also co-founded DigiCorpus Aps in 2012 and served as Chief research officer of the company from 2012-16 developing computer vision-based systems for automatic feedback for physiotherapeutic rehabilitation. In 2007-2012, 2015-2019, and 2021 he was Deputy head of the Department for Research at the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen. Since 2018, he is a full professor at the University of Copenhagen, and since 2019 he is the Deputy head of the Center for Quantifying Images for MAXIV (QIM).
