- Date: April 17, 2018
Awarded to: Zhong-Qiu Wang
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - Former MERL intern Zhong-Qiu Wang (Ph.D. Candidate at Ohio State University) has received a Best Student Paper Award at the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2018) for the paper "Multi-Channel Deep Clustering: Discriminative Spectral and Spatial Embeddings for Speaker-Independent Speech Separation" by Zhong-Qiu Wang, Jonathan Le Roux, and John Hershey. The paper presents work performed during Zhong-Qiu's internship at MERL in the summer 2017, extending MERL's pioneering Deep Clustering framework for speech separation to a multi-channel setup. The award was received on behalf on Zhong-Qiu by MERL researcher and co-author Jonathan Le Roux during the conference, held in Calgary April 15-20.
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- Date: April 15, 2018 - April 20, 2018
Where: Calgary, AB
MERL Contacts: Petros T. Boufounos; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Jonathan Le Roux; Dehong Liu; Hassan Mansour; Philip V. Orlik; Pu (Perry) Wang
Research Areas: Computational Sensing, Digital Video, Speech & Audio
Brief - MERL researchers are presenting 9 papers at the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech & Signal Processing (ICASSP), which is being held in Calgary from April 15-20, 2018. Topics to be presented include recent advances in speech recognition, audio processing, and computational sensing. MERL is also a sponsor of the conference.
ICASSP is the flagship conference of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and the world's largest and most comprehensive technical conference focused on the research advances and latest technological development in signal and information processing. The event attracts more than 2000 participants each year.
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- Date: March 20, 2018
Where: Asian Conference on Supercomputing Frontiers -
- Date: April 19, 2018
Where: Room 202 Stratton Hall Worcester Polytechnic Institute Brief - Andrew Knyazev, Distinguished Research Scientist of MERL, has accepted an invitation to speak at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) located in Worcester, MA, at a series of industry speakers about different career paths for applied mathematicians.
Andrew Knyazev studied at the Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of the Moscow State University in 1976-1981. He obtained PhD Degree in Numerical Mathematics at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in 1985. Knyazev worked at the Kurchatov Institute in 1981-1983 and at the Institute of Numerical Mathematics RAS in 1983-1992, where he collaborated with Academician Bakhvalov (Erdos number 3 via Kantorovich) on numerical methods for homogenization. In 1993-1994, Knyazev held a visiting position at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. From 1994 and until retirement in 2014, he was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), supported by many grants from the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Energy. He was awarded the title of CU Denver Professor Emeritus and named the SIAM Fellow in 2016. During his 30 years in the academy, Knyazev supervised 7 PhD students. He is best known for his Locally Optimal Block Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (LOBPCG) eigenvalue solver. In 2012, Knyazev starts his industrial research career joining Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in Cambridge, MA, where he invents and develops algorithms for control, machine learning, data sciences, computer vision, coding, communications, material sciences, and signal processing, having 11 US patent applications filed (6 issued, 5 pending) and over 20 papers published.
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- Date: March 19, 2018
MERL Contact: Mouhacine Benosman Brief - MERL researcher Mouhacine Benosman has been appointed as a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing.
The International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing is concerned with the design, synthesis and application of estimators or controllers where adaptive features are needed to cope with uncertainties.
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- Date: April 10, 2018
Research Area: Machine Learning
Brief - Andrew Knyazev, Distinguished Research Scientist of MERL, has accepted an invitation to speak about his work on Big Data and spectral graph partitioning at the Schlumberger-Tufts U. Computational and Applied Math Seminar. A primary focus of this seminar series is on mathematical and computational aspects of remote sensing. A partial list of the topics of interest includes: numerical solution of large scale PDEs (a.k.a. forward problems); theory and numerical methods of inverse and ill-posed problems; imaging; related problems in numerical linear algebra, approximation theory, optimization and model reduction. The seminar meets on average once a month, the location alternates between Schlumberger's office in Cambridge, MA and the Tufts Medford Campus.
Abstract: Data clustering via spectral graph partitioning requires constructing the graph Laplacian and solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem. We consider and motivate using negative edge weights in the graph Laplacian. Preconditioned iterative solvers for the Laplacian eigenvalue problem are discussed and preliminary numerical results are presented.
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- Date: November 30, 2017
Awarded to: Yan Zhu, Makoto Imamura, Daniel Nikovski, Eamonn Keogh
MERL Contact: Daniel N. Nikovski
Research Area: Data Analytics
Brief - Yan Zhu, a former MERL intern from the University of California at Riverside has won the Best Student Paper Award at the International Conference on Data Mining in 2017, for her work on time series chains, a novel primitive for time series analysis. The work was done in collaboration with Makoto Imamura, formerly at Information Technology Center/AI Department, and currently a professor at Tokai University in Tokyo, Japan, Daniel Nikovski from MERL, and Yan's advisor, Prof. Eamonn Keogh from UC Riverside, whose lab has had a long and fruitful collaboration with MERL and Mitsubishi Electric.
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- Date: March 11, 2018 - March 15, 2018
Where: Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition (OFC)
MERL Contacts: Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Kieran Parsons
Research Areas: Communications, Electronic and Photonic Devices, Signal Processing
Brief - Six papers from the Optical Comms team will be presented at OFC2018 to be held in San Diego from 11-15 March 2018. The papers relate to high performance modulation formats, error correction coding and optimized pulse shape filtering for coherent optical links, and optical devices.
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- Date: January 31, 2018
Where: SPIE Photonics West
MERL Contact: Bingnan Wang
Research Areas: Communications, Electronic and Photonic Devices, Signal Processing
Brief - MERL presents two invited papers at SPIE Photonics West 2018, to be held in San Francisco from Jan 27 to February 1. MERL researchers Bingnan Wang and Keisuke Kojima will give an talk on "Metamaterial absorber for THz polarimetric sensing" and "System and device technologies for coherent optical communications", respectively.
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- Date: February 14, 2018
Where: Tokyo, Japan
MERL Contacts: Devesh K. Jha; Daniel N. Nikovski; Diego Romeres; William S. Yerazunis
Research Areas: Optimization, Computer Vision
Brief - New technology for model-based AI learning for equipment control was demonstrated by MERL researchers at a recent press release event in Tokyo. The AI learning method constructs predictive models of the equipment through repeated trial and error, and then learns control rules based on these models. The new technology is expected to significantly reduce the cost and time needed to develop control programs in the future. Please see the link below for the full text of the Mitsubishi Electric press release.
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- Date: February 14, 2018
Where: Tokyo, Japan
MERL Contacts: Mouhacine Benosman; Philip V. Orlik; Koon Hoo Teo
Research Areas: Communications, Electronic and Photonic Devices, Signal Processing
Brief - MERL machine learning power amplifier and all-digital transmitter technologies that enable future intelligent wireless communications were reported at a recent press release event in Tokyo. Please see the link below for the full Mitsubishi Electric press release text.
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- Date: February 5, 2018
Where: National Public Radio (NPR)
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - MERL's speech separation technology was featured in NPR's All Things Considered, as part of an episode of All Tech Considered on artificial intelligence, "Can Computers Learn Like Humans?". An example separating the overlapped speech of two of the show's hosts was played on the air.
The technology is based on a proprietary deep learning method called Deep Clustering. It is the world's first technology that separates in real time the simultaneous speech of multiple unknown speakers recorded with a single microphone. It is a key step towards building machines that can interact in noisy environments, in the same way that humans can have meaningful conversations in the presence of many other conversations.
A live demonstration was featured in Mitsubishi Electric Corporation's Annual R&D Open House last year, and was also covered in international media at the time.
(Photo credit: Sam Rowe for NPR)
Link:
"Can Computers Learn Like Humans?" (NPR, All Things Considered)
MERL Deep Clustering Demo.
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- Date: February 1, 2018
MERL Contact: Scott A. Bortoff
Research Area: Control
Brief - Scott A. Bortoff has been selected by the IEEE Control System Society Board of Governors to serve as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Control Systems Magazine, effective January 1, 2018.
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- Date: January 31, 2018
MERL Contact: Chiori Hori
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - Chiori Hori has been elected to serve on the Speech and Language Processing Technical Committee (SLTC) of the IEEE Signal Processing Society for a 3-year term.
The SLTC promotes and influences all the technical areas of speech and language processing such as speech recognition, speech synthesis, spoken language understanding, speech to speech translation, spoken dialog management, speech indexing, information extraction from audio, and speaker and language recognition.
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- Date: June 2, 2018 - June 4, 2018
Where: Newton, Massachusetts (USA)
Research Areas: Control, Computer Vision, Dynamical Systems, Machine Learning, Data Analytics
Brief - Dr. Andrew Knyazev of MERL has accepted an invitation to participate at the 2018 MathWorks Research Summit. The objective of the Research Summit is to provide a forum for leading researchers in academia and industry to explore the latest research and technology results and directions in computation and its use in technology, engineering, and science. The event aims to foster discussion among scientists, engineers, and research faculty about challenges and research opportunities for the respective communities with a particular interest in exploring cross-disciplinary research avenues.
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- Date: January 1, 2018
MERL Contact: Anthony Vetro Brief - Anthony Vetro has been appointed to the Conference Board of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. His term is two years and expires in December 2019. He will also serve as a member of the Conference Board Executive Subcommittee.
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- Date: December 16, 2017 - December 20, 2017
Where: Okinawa, Japan
MERL Contacts: Chiori Hori; Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - MERL presented three papers at the 2017 IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding Workshop (ASRU), which was held in Okinawa, Japan from December 16-20, 2017. ASRU is the premier speech workshop, bringing together researchers from academia and industry in an intimate and collegial setting. More than 270 people attended the event this year, a record number. MERL's Speech and Audio Team was a key part of the organization of the workshop, with John Hershey serving as General Chair, Chiori Hori as Sponsorship Chair, and Jonathan Le Roux as Demonstration Chair. Two of the papers by MERL were selected among the 10 finalists for the best paper award. Mitsubishi Electric and MERL were also Platinum sponsors of the conference, with MERL awarding the MERL Best Student Paper Award.
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- Date: November 27, 2017
Brief - A recent report by JLL finds that MERL is among the top 10 organizations in Massachusetts in terms of patent filings in 2010-2015. This is especially notable since MERL is by far the smallest organization in that group.
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- Date: February 15, 2018
Brief - University faculty members are invited to spend part or all of their sabbaticals at MERL, pursuing projects of their own choosing in collaboration with MERL researchers.
To apply, a candidate should identify and contact one or more MERL researchers with whom they would like to collaborate. The applicant and a MERL researcher will jointly prepare a proposal that the researcher will champion internally. Please visit the visiting faculty web page for further details: http://www.merl.com/employment/visiting-faculty.php.
The application deadline for positions starting in Summer/Fall 2018 is February 15, 2018.
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- Date: November 27, 2017
MERL Contact: Mouhacine Benosman Brief - MERL researcher Mouhacine Benosman has been appointed as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications (JOTA).
The Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications publishes carefully selected papers covering mathematical optimization techniques and their applications to science and engineering. An applications paper should be as much about the application of an optimization technique as it is about the solution of a particular problem.
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- Date: October 28, 2017
Where: Venice, Italy
MERL Contact: Tim K. Marks
Research Area: Machine Learning
Brief - MERL Senior Principal Research Scientist Tim K. Marks will give an invited keynote talk at the 2017 IEEE Workshop on Analysis and Modeling of Faces and Gestures (AMFG 2017). The workshop will take place On October 28, 2017, at the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV 2017) in Venice, Italy.
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- Date: October 18, 2017
Where: International Federation of Automatic Control
MERL Contact: Stefano Di Cairano
Research Area: Control
Brief - MERL Mechatronics Senior Principal Research Scientist and Senior Optimization-based Control Team Leader, Stefano Di Cairano, was recently appointed the Vice-Chair of IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Technical Committee for Optimal Control. His term will continue through July 2020.
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- Date: September 17, 2017 - September 20, 2017
Where: Beijing, China
MERL Contacts: Petros T. Boufounos; Dehong Liu; Hassan Mansour; Huifang Sun; Anthony Vetro
Research Areas: Computer Vision, Computational Sensing, Digital Video
Brief - MERL presented 5 papers at the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), which was held in Beijing, China from September 17-20, 2017. ICIP is a flagship conference of the IEEE Signal Processing Society and approximately 1300 people attended the event. Anthony Vetro served as General Co-chair for the conference.
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- Date: October 4, 2017 - October 6, 2017
Where: Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL
MERL Contacts: Elizabeth Phillips; Jinyun Zhang Brief - Every year, women technologists and the best minds in computing convene to highlight the contributions of women to computing. The Anita Borg Institute co-presents GHC with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).
The conference results in collaborative proposals, networking and mentoring for our attendees. Conference presenters are leaders in their respective fields, representing industry, academia and government.
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- Date: September 17, 2017 - September 21, 2017
Where: 2017 European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), Sweden
MERL Contacts: Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Kieran Parsons; Ye Wang
Research Areas: Communications, Electronic and Photonic Devices, Signal Processing
Brief - Two papers from the Optical Communications team were presented at the 2017 European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) held in Gothenburg, Sweden in September 2017. The papers relate to enhanced error correction coding for coherent optical links and advanced precoding for optical data center networks. The invited paper studied irregular polar coding to reduce computational complexity, decoding latency, and bit error rate at the same time. In addition to two papers, the team member was invited to talk about constellation shaping as a workshop panelist.
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