BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Factor Graph Transforms - Prof. Pascal O. Vontobel\, Department of
  Information Engineering\, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
DTSTART:20150529T103000Z
DTEND:20150529T113000Z
UID:TALK59506@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Prof. Ramji Venkataramanan
DESCRIPTION:Transforms of functions play an important role in many applica
 tions\, be it for\nanalysis purposes or for computational complexity reaso
 ns. For example\, the\nFourier Transform of a time function immediately te
 lls us if that function is\nbandlimited or not. Or\, Fast-Fourier-Transfor
 m-based techniques can be used to\nefficiently compute the convolution of 
 two discrete-time functions.\n\nGiven that factor graphs represent multiva
 riate functions\, it is not\nsurprising that transforms play also an impor
 tant role for factor graphs. In\nthis talk\, we first present an example o
 f a factor graph transform that helps\nin the analysis of the partition fu
 nction of a factor graph. (Many important\nquantities can be expressed as 
 the partition function of a factor graph\, and\nso a good understanding of
  this object and its approximations is a worthwhile\nendeavor.)\n\nAfterwa
 rds\, we present an example of a factor graph transform that leads to an\n
 efficient implementation of the sum-product algorithm message update rules
  for\ncertain function nodes. (The sum-product algorithm is at the basis o
 f decoding\nalgorithms for low-density parity-check codes\, a class of cod
 es which appears\nin various telecommunication standards\, and so efficien
 t implementations of\nthe sum-product algorithm are highly desirable.)\n\n
 _The_ _talk_ _is_ _planned_ _to_ _be_ _self-contained_\; basics of factor 
 graphs will be\nintroduced as needed.\n\n*BIO*: Biography:\nPascal O. Vont
 obel received the Diploma degree in electrical engineering in\n1997\, the 
 Post-Diploma degree in information techniques in 2002\, and the Ph.D. degr
 ee in electrical engineering in 2003\, all from ETH Zurich\,\nSwitzerland.
  From 1997 to 2002 he was a research and teaching assistant at the Signal 
 and\nInformation Processing Laboratory at ETH Zurich\, from 2006 to 2013 h
 e was a\nresearch scientist with the Information Theory Research Group at\
 nHewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto\, CA\, USA\, and since 2014 he 
 has been\nan Associate Professor at the Department of Information Engineer
 ing at the\nChinese University of Hong Kong. Besides this\, he was a postd
 octoral research\nassociate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champa
 ign (2002-2004)\, a\nvisiting assistant professor at the University of Wis
 consin-Madison\n(2004-2005)\, a postdoctoral research associate at the Mas
 sachusetts Institute\nof Technology (2006)\, and a visiting scholar at Sta
 nford University (2014).\nHis research interests lie in information theory
 \, data science\,\ncommunications\, and signal processing.\n\nDr. Vontobel
  has been an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on\nInformation Th
 eory (2009-2012) and an Awards Committee Member of the IEEE\nInformation T
 heory Society (2013-2014). Currently\, he is an Associate Editor\nfor the 
 IEEE Transactions on Communications\, a Distinguished Lecturer of the\nIEE
 E Information Theory Society\, and a TPC Co-Chair of the upcoming 2016 IEE
 E\nInternational Symposium on Information Theory. He has been on the techn
 ical\nprogram committees of several international conferences and has co-o
 rganized\nseveral topical workshops\, most recently a workshop at Princeto
 n University on\n"Counting\, Inference\, and Optimization on Graphs." More
 over\, he has been three\ntimes a plenary speaker at international informa
 tion and coding theory\nconferences and has been awarded the ETH medal for
  his Ph.D. dissertation.
LOCATION:LR5\, Department of Engineering
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR