Joint Projects in Big Data Discussed at HSE
The workshop on ‘Big Data and Applications’ was organized by HSE School of Business Informatics, Institut Mines-Télécom in association with CNRS MADICS with the support of the French Embassy in Russia, and the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.
Today the application of big data technologies is one of the priority areas of research and technological cooperation between Russia and France. This is the second Russian-French workshop in this field, and its goal is to strengthen scientific and educational cooperation between organizations in both countries working in the field of big data, to implement joint projects, in particular as part of the European programme Horizon 2020, to facilitate the exchange of views on the application of big data in science, business and public administration, and to establish partnerships with industrial and commercial enterprises. HSE Vice Rector for International Relations Ivan Prostakov and Aurélien Leynet, Attaché for Science and Technology of the French Embassy, took part in the event.
About 40 reports dedicated to various aspects of working with big data, from data analysis methods and algorithms to a variety of application practices were presented during the two-day workshop.
Peter Golubtsov from Moscow State University (MSU) showed how the problem of big data is considered from an information theory point of view. Research Fellows from the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) laboratories Aurélien Bellet and Nataliia Bielova looked at how to work with collaborative machine learning and increase browser security. Stéphan Clémençon from Télécom ParisTech and the Institut Mines-Télécom presented a report on methods for the detection of anomalies and weak signals. His colleague Florence d'Alché spoke on efficient complex output prediction. Antoine Chambille from ActiveViam gave a talk on in-memory computing to accelerate business processes. Yury Maximov from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology shared his view on theoretical problems of machine learning algorithms.
Mikhail Posypkin, from the Federal Research Center ‘Computer Science and Control’ at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and Anne-Sophie Taillandier from Teralab and the Institut Mines-Télécom spoke on new features of cloud platforms and large-scale crowd computing. Vladimir Efimushkin from the Central Science Research Telecommunication Institute presented a report on big data in software defined networks. Alexander Boukhanovsky, Director of the ITMO School of Translational Information Technologies and Head of Department of High Performance Computing, looked at the use of smart big data infrastructures for domain-specific problems.
Several reports were presented by HSE staff members. Dmitry Vetrov, Head of the International Laboratory of Deep Learning and Bayesian Methods, presented a report titles ‘Deep Bayes: Compressing & Regularizing Deep Net Using Variational Dropout’. Boris Mirkin, HSE Tenured Professor, shared the results of research into clustering obtained as part of international cooperation with colleagues from Canada and the UK.
Evgeny Burnaev, Associate Professor at the Department of Technologies for Complex System Modelling, discussed regression based on Gaussian processes as used to detect anomalies, and shared his experience of the successful use of this approach in practice, for example, in the fashion and aircraft industries.
Ilya Kuzminov, Head of the Information and Analytical Systems Unit at the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, presented a report on applications of text mining and semantic analysis in foresight studies.
A number of reports were devoted to more applied aspects of using big data technologies. Researchers from the University of Toulon Hervé Glotin and Marion Poupard gave a talk about applying big data analysis methods to solving problems related to animal monitoring. Olga Gorchinskaya from the FORS Group presented a report on the successful application of big data for curing Parkinson’s disease. Alexander Shapoval, Professor at HSE’s Big Data and Information Retrieval School, spoke about the study of the global problem of sea-level rise and the application of nonlinear data analysis methods to the prediction of this phenomenon.
Arnaud Trousset from Retail Intelligence Location Solutions, Jérôme Baray from University Paris XII, Marina Kholod from Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Dmitry Shostko from MTS and Anastasia Grigoreva from X5 Retail Group discussed the problems, challenges and opportunities of big data application in the retail trade.
Sergei Nechaev from the Interdisciplinary Scientific Center Poncelet and the Lebedev Physical Institute and Nataliia Bielova centered their reports on an analysis of social networks as used to gather information about user profiles – one of the most interesting applications of big data technologies.
Dilara Khannanova from FactSet SARL and a graduate of the HSE School of Business Informatics, gave a talk about data challenges in the financial sector.
It is not only major companies and renowned scholars that are engaged in big data research. Young researchers are also involved. HSE doctoral students Pavel Sulimov, Tatiana Makhalova and Elizaveta Prokofyeva looked at how to train models based on multivariate probability distributions, apply the classifiers on the basis of formal concepts and predict the influx of patients in hospitals, with the desired result being to significantly improve the quality of medical care.
During the workshop, there was a session on competitions and funding programmes supported by the Information and Communication Technologies NCP. Pierre Simay from the Institut Mines-Télécom and Télécom ParisTech, Maxime Baconnet from the French Embassyin Russia and Maria Putseleva from EEAS-Moscow spoke at the event.
The session focused on presenting an overview of the financial conditions for implementing big data research under the European Commission’s "Horizon 2020" programme, as well as other programmes on research and innovation cooperation between the EU or France and Russia. Joint academic mobility programmes were also outlined at the event.