Prof Michael Pecht is a world renowned expert in reliability and risk assessment. Prof PechtProf Michael Pecht has a BS in Physics, an MS in Electrical Engineering and an MS and PhD in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a Professional Engineer, an IEEE Fellow, an ASME Fellow, and an SAE Fellow. He is the editor-in-chief of IEEE Access, and served as chief editor of the IEEE Transactions on Reliability for nine years, and chief editor for Microelectronics Reliability for sixteen years. He has also served on three U.S. National Academy of Science studies, two US Congressional investigations in automotive safety, and as an expert to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He is the founder and Director of CALCE (Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering) at the University of Maryland, which is funded by over 150 of the world's leading electronics companies at more than US$6M/year. The CALCE Center received the NSF Innovation Award in 2009 and the National Defense Industries Association Award. He is currently a Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering and a Professor in Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computation at the University of Maryland. He has written more than twenty books on product reliability, development, use and supply chain management. He has also written a series of books of the electronics industry in China, Korea, Japan and India. He has written over 700 technical articles and has 8 patents. In 2015 he was awarded the IEEE Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Award for visionary leadership in the development of physics-of-failure-based and prognostics-based approaches to electronic packaging reliability. He was also awarded the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's International Fellowship. In 2010, he received the IEEE Exceptional Technical Achievement Award for his innovations in the area of prognostics and systems health management. In 2008, he was awarded the highest reliability honor, the IEEE Reliability Society's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Speech Title: The Era of Embedded Intelligence
Abstract: The Internet of Things is not only permitting the sensing and control of numerous products and systems but enabling autonomous activities and the collection of otherwise unattainable information. With this information we can now assess a system under its actual application conditions and anticipate its operational behavior. One goal is to integrate sensor data with models that enable in-situ assessment of the "health" (e.g. deviation or degradation) of a system from an expected normal operating condition and also predicts the future state of the system based on current and historic conditions. This presentation discusses the possibilities for the future and some methods used for anomaly detection and prognostics, including the monitoring and reasoning of parameters that are precursors to impending "failure", such as shifts in performance parameters; and the modeling of stress and degradation utilizing life cycle loads.

Saman Halgamuge, Fellow of the IEEE, is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the School of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering of University of Melbourne, an honorary Professor of Australian National University (ANU) and an honorary Member of ANU Energy Change Institute. He was previously the Director/Head of Research School of Engineering of Australian National University (2016-18), Professor, Associate Dean International , Associate Professor and Reader and Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne (1997-2016). He graduated with Dipl.-Ing and PhD degrees in Data Engineering ("Datentechnik") from Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany and B.Sc. Engineering from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Bioinformatics, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II and Applied Mathematics (Hindawi). His research that led to 260 publications has been funded over the last 22 years by Australian Research Council (16 grants), National Health and Medical Research Council (2 grants), industry and other external organisations (13 grants or contracts) and funding to support stipends for about 50 PhD students. His research contributions are in AI and Data engineering, which includes Data Analytics based on Unsupervised and Near Unsupervised Learning and Optimization focusing on applications in Mechatronics, Energy, Biology and Medicine. His publication profile is at http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=9cafqywAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

Speech Title: Low cost Grid Usage Achieved through Optimization, Forecasting and Energy Storage
Abstract: Energy sector in most countries is undergoing a complex transition not only due to access to increasingly affordable solar technologies but also due to the increased ability to predict how electricity will be used by consumers, which then can be used to optimize the usage of non-dispatchable energy. In Australia, there are remote areas where grid electricity is not available and cost prohibitive. Therefore, fully renewable off grid opportunities for buildings will be a practical and sustainable solution for energy crisis and challenges.
There has also been an increased interest in cost and energy efficiency for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems for buildings since these are responsible for between 25% and 40% of total building energy demand. Solar assisted ground source heat pump systems which combine solar and geothermal energy are gaining attention due to their higher efficiency and greater functional diversity when compared with conventional systems. Some of the recent work on minimizing the operational cost of a solar assisted ground source heat pump system, considering time-of-use electricity price (peak, off peak) will be discussed.
The work presented includes [1-4] completed by PhD students and industry partners. . Acknowledgement: Australia-Indonesia Centre Strategic Research Grant, ARC Research Grant LP160101486, IBM Research Lab Melbourne, CSIRO/Data61, Resources provided by the Australian National University and University of Melbourne.
[1] H. Weeratunge, G. Narsilio, J. de Hoog, S. Dunstall and S. Halgamuge, Model predictive control for a solar assisted ground source heat pump system Energy, Elsevier, 2018
[2] K Abdulla, J De Hoog, K Steer, A Wirth, S Halgamuge, "Multi-resolution Dynamic Programming for the Receding Horizon Control of Energy Storage",IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 2017
[3] K Abdulla, K Steer, A Wirth, S Halgamuge, "Improving the on-line control of energy storage via forecast error metric customization", Journal of Energy Storage 8 (November), 51–59, 2016
[4] K Abdulla, J De Hoog, V Muenzel, F Suits, K Steer, A Wirth, S Halgamuge, "Optimal Operation of Energy Storage Systems Considering Forecasts and Battery Degradation", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2016
 

Paulo Sérgio Duque de Brito has a degree in chemical engineering, Processes and Industry specialization, in the Technical Superior Institute; has a master's degree in "Corrosion Science and Engineering" by UMIST, Manchester University; is a PhD in Chemical Engineering, by the Superior Technical Institute in the electrochemical – on fuel cells. He has also an MBA – Master of Business and Administration. Currently, he is a Coordinator Teacher in the Superior School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (IPP), where he is also the President of the Technologies and Design Department. He is also, Institutional Coordinator for I&DT of IPP and responsible for C3i – Investigation and Innovation Interdisciplinary Coordination. The main areas he investigates are related with Bioenergy, waste environmental treatments, materials corrosion and energy galvanic production. He has published more than 150 works, in books, articles and conferences presentations.
Speech Title: Construction and Demolition Wastes for Energy Production Through Gasification Processes Abstract: Municipal solid (MSW) and construction and demolition wastes (CDW) are heterogeneous residual fluxes containing organic fractions like plastics, wood and paper/card that traditional methods for the treatment and disposal of wastes like landfilling, incineration or application in agriculture raise several health and environmental concerns. Recent directives like 2008/98/EC and the future RED II for 2021–2030 have encouraged the adoption of new waste-to-energy solutions using advanced technologies. In this context, gasification may be considered a valid alternative. It consists in a thermochemical conversion of wastes at c.a. 800 °C with limited amounts of oxygen to produce a combustible gas (syngas) that can be used for energy production and to produced chemicals in a bio-refinery concept. The Syngas obtained from gasification constitutes an interesting resource for biofuels and hydrogen because it has lower impacts for the environment compared to traditional technologies and allows for the valorization of waste residues as feedstock. This work presents the scope, potential and technologies related to energy valorization of MSW and CDW, with a focus on gasification process.  

Wanyang Dai is a Distinguished Professor in Mathematics Department of Nanjing University, a Special Guest Expert in Jiangsu FinTech Research Center, President of Jiangsu Probability & Statistics Society, and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Advances in Applied Mathematics, where his research includes stochastic processes related optimization and Pareto optimal control/game, admission/scheduling/routing protocols and performance analysis/optimization for BigData-Blockchain oriented cloud computing and wireless/wireline communication systems, forward/backward stochastic (ordinary/partial) differential equations and their applications to queueing systems, Internet of Things, energy and power engineering. His "influential" papers are published in "big name" journals, e.g., Operations Research, Communications in Mathematical Sciences, Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Queueing Systems, Mathematical and Computer Modeling of Dynamical Systems. His researches are awarded as outstanding papers and by academic societies, e.g., IEEE Top Conference Series. He received his Ph.D degree in applied mathematics jointly with industrial engineering and systems engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A., in 1996, where he worked on stochastics and applied probability concerning network performance modeling and analysis, algorithm design and implementation via stochastic diffusion approximation. The breakthrough results and methodologies developed in his thesis were cited, used, and claimed as "contemporaneous and independent" achievements by other subsequent breakthrough papers that were presented as "45 minute invited talk in probability and statistics" in International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 1998, which is the most privilege honor in the mathematical society. The designed finite element-Galerkin algorithm to compute the stationary distributions of reflecting Brownian motions (weak solutions of general dimensional partial differential equations) is also well-known to the related fields.
He was an MTS (permanent) in End-to-End Network Architecture Department of AT&T Bell Labs (now called Nokia Bell Labs) in U.S.A. from 1996-1999, where he was principal investigators and developers of several projects in telecommunication network architecture and design, network performance and financial engineering, operating system and database development to support various intelligent engines/models for strategy planning and BigData analytics in a "Plug-in and Play" manner, with some (nowadays called cloud computing) project won "Technology Transfer".
He is also editors of over 20 international journals ranging from pure mathematics to its applications (e.g., Wireless Engineering and Technology, Artificial Intelligence), General Chairs and plenary/keynote speakers of over 20 IEEE and international conferences, member/group leader of judge committee in mathematics for National Natural Science Awards of China. He was a visiting scholar in Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of China, a Long Term Participant of IMA Annual Program of Probability and Statistics in Complex Systems: Financial Engineering, Communication Networks and Genomics in (U.S. based) Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications (IMA), a visiting professor in Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management in Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Speech Title: Smart Power Scheduling and Security via Blockchain for Internet of Energy, Quantum Cloud-Computing and MIMO Communications Abstract: We develop a unified system that can be used to handle the smart power scheduling and security issue in Internet of Energy, quantum cloud-computing and MIMO wireless communications. The system hardware is based on the quantum cloud-computer network and the software is based on the quantum blockchain. The internal data flow dynamics of the system is modeled by our recently developed big data models. Inside the blockchain, BestGo power control and scheduling strategies via dynamically evolving smart contracts are developed by "win-fail" zero-sum saddle points and "win-win" non-zero-sum Pareto-optimal Nash equilibrium points. They are aimed to offer efficient power admission control, capacity scheduling, routing and switching. In addition, our policies have the advantage to select multiple decision points in a single step to meet the requirements for a resource-competing allocation game with multiple players.