Plenary Lecture
Artificial Neural Networks Applications in Different Scientific Areas
Associate Professor Silviya Popova
Institute of Systems Engineering and Robotics
Department of Bioengineering
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Bulgaria
E-mail: Popova_Silvia2000@yahoo.com
Abstract: Artificial neural networks (ANN) as an innovative approach have greatly enhanced the opportunities for analysis and treatment of information in different scientific and engineering areas. The great advantage of ANN is that they impose less restrictive requirements with respect to the available information about the character of the relationships between the processed data, the functional models, the type of distribution, etc. They provide a rich, powerful and robust non-parametric modeling framework with proven efficiency and potential for applications in many field of science. The advantages of ANN encouraged many researchers to use these models in broad spectrum of real-world applications. In some cases, the ANNs are a better alternative, either substitutive or complementary, to the traditional computational schemes for solving many engineering problems.
The purpose of this plenary talk is to present some examples of various applications of the ANNs for different purposes in the area of biotechnology, ecology, geosciences, metallurgy, etc. The examples from my research are as follow: Modelling and control of a biotechnological process; Forecasting of the daily sea level from tide gauge data; Air pollution nowcasting; Classification of yeast cells; Parameters’ identification of the linear state space model; Gap filling in time series; Optimization of steel alloys.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Silviya Popova received her M.Sc. degree in mathematics (Real and Functional Analysis) from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Control and System Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. Silviya Popova habilitated in 2003 as Associate Professor in “Application of the Principles and Methods of Cybernetics in Different Areas of Science”.
Assoc. Prof. Popova currently works at the Institute of Systems Engineering and Robotics of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. Her research interests include: modelling of biotechnological processes, state and parameters estimation of biotechnologycal processes, neural networks, image processing. She has been awarded with five fellowships in the Czech Republic, Germany and Sweden, and has presented several lectures on topics of the ANN applications in the United Kingdom, France and Slovenia as a part of the ERASMUS programme.
Assoc. Prof. Popova has more than 25 publications in highly rated ISI journals (14 with IF), over 40 publications in scientific international conferences, over 50 citations. She took part as a principal investigator in more than 20 scientific projects.