Prof. Kung Wong, LAU (Nick)
Head & Professor, Department of Applied Data Science
Director of Virtual Reality Laboratory
Director of Game Development Laboratory
Hong Kong Shue Yan University


Biography: Prof. Lau is an active researcher specializing in XR technology and related studies. He obtained his PhD in studying human/user experiences and virtual reality from the IoE, University College London (UCL), and finished his MSc and BA from the University of Kong (HKU) and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPolyU) respectively. Prof. Lau’s interdisciplinary background encompasses virtual technologies, human-interaction research, design thinking, education and creative industries, making him a recognized expert in these fields. Prof. Lau has been working in various universities and tertiary institutes for over 27 years, where he has simultaneously engaged in the publication of high-end papers internationally. His publications contribute to the consolidation of related theories and explorations in the aforementioned areas. Until 2024, he had hitherto published around 100 research papers in diverse internationally referred journals (including SCI, SSCI and ESCI journals), books, and invited book chapters and conferences (with the best presenter award). Likewise, Prof. Lau has been undertaking 22 research projects studying human-computer interaction, the use of virtual reality, augmented reality, serious games, and other interactive platforms for various purposes.

Prof. Lau's contributions extend beyond academia. He is an advisor to UNESCO and has served as a chief examiner at the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA). He has been a subject specialist in the creative industry for the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation (HKCAA) and a member of the British Education Research Association (BERA) and the Hong Kong Designers' Association (HKDA). Additionally, Prof. Lau has actively participated in government-related committees and NGOs, providing continuous consultancy in both formal and informal capacities.

 

Prof. Yen-Wei Chen
Ritsumeikan University, Japan

 

Speech Title: Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality in Medical Applications 

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) have become key technologies and are playing today important roles in many academic and industrial areas. Applications of AI and VR in medicine and healthcare have received increasing attention in recent years. The AI technique has been widely used in computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) and the VR technique has been used in computer-aided surgery (CAS) such as surgery simulator. In this talk, I will introduce fundamental basis of AI for CAD and some applications of AI for diagnosis of hepatic disease. I will also introduce some applications of VR technique for support and simulations of hepatic surgery.
 

Biography: Yen-Wei Chen received the B.E. degree in 1985 from Kobe Univ., Kobe, Japan, the M.E. degree in 1987, and the D.E. degree in 1990, both from Osaka Univ., Osaka, Japan. He was a research fellow with the Institute for Laser Technology, Osaka, from 1991 to 1994. From Oct. 1994 to Mar. 2004, he was an associate Professor and a professor with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Univ. of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan. He is currently a professor with the college of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He is the founder and the first director of Center of Advanced ICT for Medicine and Healthcare, Ritsumeikan University, Japan.

His research interests include medical image analysis, computer vision and computational intelligence. He has published more than 300 research papers in a number of leading journals and leading conferences including IEEE Trans. Image Processing, IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging, CVPR, ICCV, MICCAI. He has received many distinguished awards including ICPR2012 Best Scientific Paper Award, 2014 JAMIT Best Paper Award. He is/was a leader of numerous national and industrial research projects.

 

Prof. Ruidong Li
Kanazawa University, Japan

Speech Title: Towards Decentralized Intelligent Metaverse  

Abstract: The Metaverse aims to provide users with immersive experiences as the next generation of services. Targeting at realizing the decentralized intelligent metaverse, we firstly investigate an Large Language Model (LLM)-based vehicle AI assistant using a Large Language and Vision Assistant (LLaVA) and propose a task-oriented semantic communication framework to facilitate efficient interaction between users and cloud servers. Then, we construct a comprehensive mathematical model for Metaverse user utility, and design a deep reinforcement learning method that dynamically optimizes the allocation of Metaverse computational tasks according to the available resource status of local devices and edge servers. Furthermore, we propose a novel decentralized digital twin network (DeDTN) paradigm based on blockchain and edge computing technologies.

Biography: Dr. Ruidong Li was with National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan from 2008 to 2021 as an expert researcher, researcher, and senior researcher. Then he joined Kanazawa University, Japan as an associate professor since 2021. His research interests include big data, metaverse, digital twin, big data, machine learning, and future networks. He has published technical research papers in leading journals and conferences, such as IEEE JSAC, ACM/IEEE TON, IEEE TWC, IEEE TCCN, IEEE TNSE, IEEE Network, and IEEE INFOCOM. He is the recipient of the best paper awards for IEEE ICC 2022 and IWCMC 2022, IEEE Network 2022 Editor Appreciation Award, and IEEE MMTC Outstanding Leadership Award 2023. He serves as the chair of IEEE ComSoc Internet Technical Committee (ITC) and serves as the associate editor of IEEE TCOM, TCCN, IEEE Network and IEEE OJCS. He also served as chairs for conferences, such as general chair for AIoT 2025, ICNC 2025, IEEE HealthCom 2024, MOBILWare 2022, MSN 2021, CPSCom 2021, Area TPC chair for INFOCOM 2023, TPC chair for ICCCN 2025, IEEE AIoT 2024, QCNC 2024, ICNC 2024, MetaCom 2023, HotICN 2022, IEEE/ACM IWQoS 2021, MSN 2020, BRAINS 2020, and ICCSSE 2019.

 

Prof. Tatsuya Yamazaki
Niigata University, Japan

Speech Title: Research and Development of Wave-Dissipating Block Installation Simulator 

Abstract: In recent years, some developed countries are facing labor shortages in various work environments due to the aging of society. The civil engineering and construction sector is also facing similar issues, and as part of the solution, the introduction of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies), including computer technology and network technology, is being promoted. In this study, we are researching and developing a block installation simulator for the installation of wave-dissipating blocks on coasts, etc., which allows inexperienced workers to practice block installation without being restricted by time and place, instead of time-consuming and expensive on-site training. The block installation simulator has been developed based on the Unity 3D game development engine, and wave-dissipating blocks, which usually weigh more than 1 ton, are hung one by one by a rope on a computer screen and can be placed in any position. In addition, we propose a method to efficiently calculate the merits and demerits of block installation using porosity, and incorporated it into the simulator. Porosity is defined as the ratio between the total volume of the wave-dissipating blocks inside the structure and the ideal final shape of the structure. Voxelization technology and octree-based methods are used to calculate the porosity. We will introduce the simulator we actually built and show a specific method for calculating the porosity.
 
Biography: Tatsuya Yamazaki received the B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in information engineering from Niigata University, Niigata, Japan, in 1987, 1989 and 2002, respectively.He joined Communications Research Laboratory (at present, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) as a researcher in 1989.
Since August 2013, he has been with the Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University, Niigata, where he is currently a Professor. Currently, he is alsothe director at the Big Data Activation Research Center of Niigata University.
From 1992 to 1993 and 1995 to 1996 he was a visiting researcher at the National Optics Institute, Canada.From 1997 to 2001 he was a senior researcher at ATR Adaptive Communications Research Laboratories.

His research interests include pattern recognition, statistical image processing, sensing data analysis, and communication service quality management.

He served as general co-chair of IEEE Workshop on Knowledge Media Networking (KMN'02) and general chair of the 5th International Conference On SmartHomes and Health Telematics (ICOST 2007).

He is a member of the IEEE, the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, the Information Processing Society of Japan, the Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers, and the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence.

 

 

Prof. Margarita Favorskaya
Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology, Russia

 

Speech Title: Challenges and Opportunities of AR/VR Technologies for Intelligent Manufacturing

Abstract: Advances in software algorithms and the decreasing cost of AR/VR devices have led to immersive technologies being deployed in a wide range of applications in recent years. AR technology allows the user to experience human sensory modalities such as vision, tactile sensation, and hearing, among others. The virtual scene information superimposed on the real world is additive or masking, depending on whether the virtual scene is represented in the form of symbolic or graphical data. VR is one of the immersive technologies in the current era where the user completely moves from the experience of the real environment to a fully immersive virtual environment. The implementation of AR/VR technologies in industry has focused on guiding and training semi-skilled workers to perform complex tasks efficiently. Besides VR/AR, the term Mixed Reality represents the combination of both real and virtual environment scenes. Augmented Reality has covered more prominent scenes of the real environment in the user's view compared to the virtual 3D scene context. Augmented Virtuality has covered a more prominent scene of the virtual environment compared to the real environment scene. Extended Reality is another new emerging technology in industry 5.0 and is being employed in various fields of applications such as assembly line monitoring, remote assistance, maintenance, health education/training and so on.
This talk will cover hardware and software aspects of AR manufacturing systems, applications, key challenges, and research opportunities.


Biography: Margarita Favorskaya received her engineering diploma from Rybinsk State Aviation Technological University, Russia, in 1980 and was awarded a Ph. D. by S.-Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, S.-Petersburg, in 1985. Since 1986 she is working in the Siberian State Aerospace University, Krasnoyarsk, in which she is responsible for the Digital Image and Videos Processing Laboratory. Prof. Dr. Margarita Favorskaya is the Head of the Department of Informatics and Computer Techniques at Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology.
Her main research interests are in the areas of digital image and videos processing, pattern recognition, fractal image processing, artificial intelligence, information technologies, and remote sensing. She is the authored/ co-authored more than 130 publications.
Margarita Favorskaya is a member of KES International organization and the IPC member of a number of National and International Conferences. She is on the editorial board of Int. J. Computer and Information Science and International Journal of Intelligent Decision Technology.
She has a number of awards from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for significant contribution in educating and training a number of highly qualified specialists over a number of years.

 

Prof. Srikanta Patnaik
I.I.M.T., India


Biography: Srikanta Patnaik has received his Bachelor in Engineering from University College of Engineering, Burla (presently VSSUT, Burla) in 1989, MBA from Sambalpur University in 1991 and Ph. D. (Engineering) from Jadavpur University, India in 1999. He has served at University College of Engineering, Burla and Fakir Mohan University and SOA University for more than 30 years. Presently, Prof. Srikanta Patnaik is Director of I.I.M.T., Bhubaneswar, which is an AICTE approved management institute. He has supervised more than 30 Ph. D. Theses and 100 Master theses in the area of Computational Intelligence, Machine Learning, Soft Computing Applications and Re-Engineering. Dr. Patnaik has published more than 100 research papers in international journals and conference proceedings. He is author of 3 text books and edited more than 100 books and few invited book chapters, published by leading international publisher like IEEE, Elsevier, Springer-Verlag, Kluwer Academic, IOS Press and SPIE. He is the Editors-in-Chief of International Journal of Information and Communication Technology and International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics published from Inderscience Publishing House, England and, Editor of Journal of Information and Communication Convegence Engineering and Associate Editor of Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS). He is also Editors-in-Chief of Book Series on “Modeling and Optimization in Science and Technology” published from Springer, Germany and Advances in Computer and Electrical Engineering (ACEE) and Advances in Medical Technologies and Clinical Practice (AMTCP), published by IGI Global, USA. Prof. Patnaik is a Guest Professor to Hunan University of Finance and Economics, Changsha and Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China. He is a member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is also Fellow of IETE, Life Member of ISTE, and CSI. He has visited various countries such as Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Algeria, Thailand and Vietnam for delivering Key note addresses at various conferences and symposiums.