Professor Pascal Poupart of the University of Waterloo visited the NCHC and gave speeches

At our invitation, Professor Pascal Poupart of the University of Waterloo visited the NCHC and gave two speeches, on April 10 and 11.

4/10 topic: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence

He gave an overview of Vector Institute for AI and the Waterloo AI Institute and the Borealis AI Institute of Canada and North Europe on how they, through the research and exploration in machine learning theories and applications, advance AI research, execute its missions, and move toward its objectives.

4/11 topic: Unsupervised Video Object Segmentation for Deep Reinforcement Learning

He introduced a kind of technique for deep, enforced learning. That technique can automatically examine moving objects and use relevant information to carry out motion selection. Through motion structure, the technique uses no human to monitor and examine moving objects. This technique does not employ a strategy to learn from the original images, but rather it first learns to use the flowing messages in the visual frequency sequence to examine and segment moving objects. With passing time, it learns to recognize which objects are of vital importance to the decision, and it gradually builds up its strategy about the moving objects. This method is called Motion-Oriented Reinforcement Learning (MOREL). The strategy formulated by this technique can better explain moving object than does that formulated by black box nurunetwork, which directly projects an image on the motion or the value.

Professor Pascal Poupart of the University of Waterloo

 

About the University of Waterloo

The University of Waterloo (UW for short) was founded in 1957. It is a public research university in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded initially to bring up engineers and technicians of all kinds to help with the economy in the post-war era.

UW has been known as the first university to set up a computer science department in Canada. Its Faculty of Mathematics is the largest in the world, and its Faculty of Environment is the largest in Canada. UW is known for its co-operative education. UW students work as student intern at relevant organizations. UW graduates have for many years ranked first in landing jobs at big companies in Silicon Valley.

In October 2018, Donna Theo Strickland, associate professor at the University of Waterloo, won the Nobel Prize in Physics. She developed intense laser-matter, short-pulse intense laser system, which allows ultra-precision cutting or boring through materials of various types, including biological tissues. It can even be used in ophthalmological surgery. Her achievements were recognized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as “revolutionary”. Professor Strickland is the third female to win this prize as well as the first female scientist to win Nobel Prize in Physics in 55 years.