Prof. Farid Amirouche
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Dr. Amirouche is currently a Professor and Director of Orthopaedic research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the Director of Biomechanics at the Northshore University Systems, Orthopaedic Research Institute affiliate of the University of Chicago. He is also a senior research scientist at Jesse Brown Veterans Hospital, Chicago, IL. A graduate of University of Cincinnati where he received his BS, MS, and Doctorate degree in Engineering Science Aerospace, and mechanical engineering with focus on Biomechanics.
He served as a professor of Mechanical ad Bioengineering at UIC. He worked closely Dr. Gunnar Anderson in the department of Orthopaedics at Rush Presbyterian Hospital; Dr. Amirouche joined the Department of Orthopedics at UIC in 1998. He received the prestigious award of Scholar Professor at University of Illinois in December 2005 and served as the Director of Orthopaedics Research since 2006 where he served as full professor of Orthopaedics and Director of orthopaedic research.
Dr. Amirouche has developed a broad experience in orthopaedic biomechanics and related areas where he works on innovative new solutions and their realization, from concept phase to market readiness. His particular research interests are in the areas of knees/hips, spine biomechanics, biological tissues, the bone/implant interface, kinematics/kinetics of human joints, experimental and finite element analysis used to characterize the mechanical behavior of biological tissues and reconstructive devices for orthopedics.

Title: The Evolution of Engineering of Human Joints. How is Innovation, AI, and Imaging Shaping the Future of Orthopaedics?

Engineering plays a crucial role in advancing our understanding of the human joints. Building intelligence into materials for diagnosis and repair involves understanding the structure, function, and biomechanics of joints and developing strategies for their repair, replacement, and augmentation. Virtual simulation and surgical planning are becoming fundamentally crucial to a cost-effective and successful joint replacement. This field combines advancements in engineering and plays a vital role in areas like orthopedic surgery, biomechanics, and the design of prosthetic joints.
Key applications will address the re-emergence of robotics, computer navigation, sensing techniques, AI, and imaging, and how they are shaping the future of human joint replacements.

Prof Samia Nefti-Meziani
University of Birmingham, UK

Professor Nefti-Meziani is an international leading expert with 25 years of experience in AI and robotics. She has recently been awarded an Order of the British Empire for her services to Robotics and featured as the 2020’s top 30 world’s women in robotics you need to know about by Silicon Valley Robohub, the largest scientific community in robotics.
She is the former Vice Chairman of IEEE Robotics and Automation UK & RI, Co-director of the EPSRC National Hub in Robotics and Future AI for Space Technology (FAIR-SPACE) and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems and she is serving as an Advisory board member for the RGP, the Asian council and the EPSRC centre for innovative manufacturing and intelligent Automation. She is also a member of the Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Peer Review College and reviewer for UKRI, Finland research funding agency and EC.
Chaired by DSIT, she is currently the lead on the UK Cross-Industry RAS Development Task Force initiative, funded by EPSRC, which aims at shaping the policies and initiatives for the UK's effort to develop a world-leading market and innovation environment for exploiting advancements in RAS. This task force involves Industry influencers, many national infrastructure organizations, including DFT, DEFRA, NHS, UK Space Agency, Lower Thames Crossing, Sellafield Ltd, Network Rail, National Highways and many others from the UK- Cross Industry RAS Development Task Force Network.

Title: The EPSRC Manufacturing Research hub RESCn-M2

This presentation will introduce the EPSRC Manufacturing Research hub RESCn-M2 which is developing an integrated, holistic approach toward creating a new manufacturing ecosystem for circular resource use of high value products through advances in Robotics, AI, Smart Machines and Intelligent Automation, empowering the UK to be a world leader in circular manufacturing. The hub will fundamentally transform the sustainable use of critical materials and radically improve the productivity of Re-X (reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, recycycling) manufacturing processes.

Prof. Maria Beatrice Ligorio
University of Bari, Italy

Professor M. Beatrice Ligoria teaches Educational Psychology and a specialized course on E-learning. She a co-founder of the Collaborative Knowledge Building Group (www.ckbg.org) and is the main editor of the journal Qwerty. She is currently member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Association of Psychology (AIP) for the section of Developmental and Educational Psychology. She has been a member of EARLI and the ISCAR Executive Committee. She has been nominated by the Minister of Education, Instruction and University as a member for the National Scientific Qualification. Her research interests lie in the areas of educational technology, innovation in education, communities, identity, learning organization, intersubjectivity, blended and mobile learning, dialogical approach, virtual environments, sustainable learning, knowledge building, social networks and web-forum in education.

Title: Learning and Identity: the Role of Technology

When we learn something that is perceived as useful in relation to ourselves, that touches who we are and who we want to be, learning becomes a symbolic resource for a change of identity. On the basis of this assumption, some theories that articulate the interconnection between identity and learning will be presented. Particular reference will be made to the Vygotskian and post-Vygotskian approach, as for instance the contribution of Bruner, Bakhtin, and Hermans. The possible contribution of technologies for identity development will then be illustrated. In this perspective, technology is conceived as a mediation tool for the knowledge building and social interaction. In fact, these two dimensions are the ones most capable of influencing identity development understood as the transformation of students into scholars and future active citizens. Finally, a psycho-pedagogical model, called Trialogical approach, will be illustrated with examples taken from different school levels, different context and with some research data.

Prof. Stefano Secci
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, France

S. Secci is professor at CNAM, Paris, since 2018, responsbile of research and teaching activities in networking. He previously held positions at Sorbonne University as associate professor, at George Mason and NTNU Universities as postdoc researcher, at Telecom ParisTech and Politecnico di Milano as Ph.D candidate, and at CNIT and Fastweb as engineer. He graduated from Politecnico di Milano in telecommunications engineering in 2005. His current research interests are about network automation and distributed learning.

Title: Towards in-Network Learning: Challenges, Algorithms and Systems

Discuss potential approaches to overcoming them. We will introduce a closed-loop automation framework that spans from network data pipelining—designed to power in-network artificial intelligence nodes—to distributed anomaly detection modules and node orchestration. Preliminary results will be presented and discussed. Additionally, we will present a 5G use case and introduce the recently updated 5G3E dataset, which aims to advance research in in-network learning.