Czech-Israeli workshop schedule May 2023

Arrival day May 8

14:40 Arrival at the airport in Vienna.

14:40 – 15:20 Custom formalities

15:20 – 18:00 Traveling to Zlín by Car

18:00 – 19:00 Dinner in the hotel

19:00 – 21:00 Welcome drink in a city centre pub (15 min. walk)

First work day May 9

8:00 – 9:00 Breakfast in the hotel

9:00 Meeting in front of the hotel

9:00 - Walk to the University HQ 9:00 - 9:15

9:15 – 9:55 Visiting HQ meeting University vice president for International affairs, getting basic information about University and Faculty of applied informatics

9:55 – 10:15 – Moving to the Faculty of applied informatics by public transport

10:15 – 10:45 - Short tour of the faculty premises

10:45 – 11:15 Presentation about Hebrew University (Dr. Herrmann, 15 min) and BGU (Dr. Yuval, 15 min)

11:20 – 12:00 Presentation about Research conducted by AI lab (prof. Oplatková, prof. Šenkeřík, Dr. Viktorin)

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch in the faculty cafeteria

13:00 – 13:10 Opening speech by CMA President Olga Girstlova

13:10 – 13:25 Global Trends 2040 by president Bohumir Štědroň

13:25 – 13:45 Delana Mikolášová - scientific diplomat in Israel – Grant funding possibilities for mutual research of Czech-Israely partnets

13:45 – 14:00 Coffe break

14:00 – 14:40 Spectral sensing of crops, can we estimate what we do not see? By prof. Herrmann.

14:40 – 15:00 KKL - one of the world's oldest ecological organizations by Zoša Vyoralová

15:00 – 15:15 Coffe break

15:15 – 15:55 When Language Models Meet Words by Yuval Pinter

16:00 – 17:00 This place will be occupied - buffer

17:00 – Social event with the dinner outside of the hotel

Second work day May 10

8:00 – 9:00 Breakfast in the hotel

9:00 Meeting in front of the hotel

9:00 – 9:15 Walk to the regional government HQ

9:15 – 9:45 Meeting with a member of regional government

9:45 – 10:35 Tour around historical Bata HQ and Zlin history

10:35 – 10:50 by public transport to faculty

10:50 – 11:20 High-throughput spectral phenotyping promotes genomic detection of conferring wheat climate change adaptability by Roy Sadeh

11:20 – 11:40 Democracy and political violence: from online to offline by Sophia Solomon

11:40 – 12:00 Prof. Jakub Novak practial phenotaping of seedling

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch in the faculty cafeteria

13:00 – 13:20 Monitoring chickpea physiological traits by Sentinel-2 imagery by Omer Perach

13:20 – 13:40 Small object detection in high-resolution images by Alžběta Turečková

13:40 – 14:00 Data-Driven Solutions for Trend Mining in Open Big Data: A Multi-Domain Approach by Tima Kagan

14:00 – 14:15 Coffe break

14:15 – 15:00 PSI cameras presentation

15:00 – 16:00 Open brainstorm section

16:00 – 17:00 This place will be occupied - buffer

17:00 – 18:00 Transportation to the hotel, rest, possible visit of Bata Memmorial

18:00 – 19:00 Dinner in the hotel

19:00 – 21:00 Good by drink in an another city center pub (15 min. walk)

Departure day 11. May

8:00 – 9:00 Breakfast in the hotel

9:00 – 9:30 Check out from the hotel

9:30 – 12:00 By car to the Vienna airport

People from Hebrew University:

Prof. Ittai Herrmann:

Title: Spectral sensing of crops, can we estimate what we do not see? (40 min)

Abstract: Remote sensing in general and specifically spectral sensing use in agricultural research and applications is growing. Together with computational tools such as machine learning their role in improving agricultural productivity while minimizing the environmental footprint is far from fulfilling its potential. Crop traits can be estimated from ground, air, and space and together with additional data inputs support agricultural management as well as breeding projects.

Junior researcher, Roy Sadeh:

Title: High-throughput spectral phenotyping promotes genomic detection of conferring wheat climate change adaptability (20 min)

Abstract: My study aims to use spectral tools for wheat phenotyping under drought conditions and examine the potential of leveraging it with genomic data to improve genomic selection. We use UAV based septral sensors (i.e. hyperspectral and thermal) to phenotype a large collection of wheat varieties in a rainout shelter facility to mimic drought conditions alongside optimal conditions. Data collected on the reproductive stage enables us to identify cultivars more suitable to terminal drought conditions.

Junior researcher, Omer Perach:

Title: Monitoring chickpea physiological traits by Sentinel-2 imagery (20 min)Abstract: The aim of the research is to assess the ability of Sentinel-2 to estimate in-field Chickpea physiological traits. The estimation of these traits is a step towards developing a tool for decision making in chickpea irrigation as a precision agriculture application. We use Sentinel-2 satellite imagery as a tool together with meteorological information to improve traits estimation.

Peoplefrom BGU:

Prof. Yuval Pinter

Title: When Language Models Meet Words (40 min)

Abstract:

Over the last few years, deep neural models have taken over the field of natural language processing (NLP), brandishing great improvements on many of its sequence-level tasks. But the end-to-end nature of these models makes it hard to figure out whether the way they represent individual words aligns with how language builds itself from the bottom up, or how lexical changes in register and domain can affect the untested aspects of such representations, or which phenomena can be modeled by units smaller than the word.

In this talk, I will present NYTWIT, a dataset created to challenge large language models (LLMs) at the lexical level, tasking them with identification of processes leading to the formation of novel English words, as well as with segmentation and recovery of the specific subclass of lexical blends, demonstrating the ways in which subword-tokenized LLMs fail to analyze them. I will then present XRayEmb, a method which alleviates the hardships of processing these novelties by fitting a character-level encoder to existing models' subword tokenizers; and SaGe, a subword tokenizer that incorporates context into the vocabulary creation objective.

Junior researcher, Sophia Solomon

Title: Democracy and political violence: from online to offline (20 min)

Abstract:

My research deals with political violence that promotes a divisive discourse of "us" versus "them" based on ethno-religious, nationalist and racist perceptions. Throughout Critical Discourse analysis, I study the exploitation of democratic regime values, including the freedom of speech and association, to benefit extremism. Here, one of the key stakeholders in the digital space is social media. Among others, the ability to create, spread and reproduce false and incitive information, such as conspiracy theories, connects radical notions from the 'online' cyberspace with various acts of violence in the 'offline' public space. My recent study, which examined forms of violence in Jerusalem's public parades over the past 20 years, showed far-right entities' involvement in online and offline incitement against minorities and the counter-actions that emerged from civic society.

Junior researche: Tima Kagan

Title: Data-Driven Solutions for Trend Mining in Open Big Data: A Multi-Domain Approach (20 min)

Abstract:

The rapid growth of global connectivity has marked the past three decades, and data is accumulating at an unprecedented rate, revolutionizing the world as never before. However, most of the data is unstructured and in its raw format is challenging to use to find insights and extract trends. That said, as data volume, variety, and velocity have increased, the opportunities for data science and data fusion have increased. Using various algorithms and fusing multiple data sources, data science can transform unstructured data into a new form to discover novel trends and solutions that would not have seen the light of day otherwise. In this talk, I will present how data-driven solutions can transform open data to find important trends that have significant societal benefits. Our research presents examples of diverse domains where open data can help discover trends in important issues utilizing a generic pipeline for transforming, fusing, and analyzing the data.

From TBU:

Junior researcher: Alžběta Turečková

Title: Small object detection in high-resolution images

Small object detection in high-resolution images is an important task with many practical applications, including in fields such as medical imaging, remote sensing, and security and surveillance. Thanks to deep learning, there have been significant advances in general object detection. Still, small object detection, especially in high-resolution images, is a challenging and ongoing research topic in computer vision and machine learning. The talk summarizes some common approaches to alleviate this problem. Then I will introduce our new method and demonstrate it on tomato fruit detection in a greenhouse.

Guests:

Guest: Doc. RNDr. Bohumír Štědroň, CSc, chairman of the Prognostic Club of the Czech Management Association

Title: Global Trends 2040 (15 min)

Abstract: The paper analyzes new trends in 3 areas: a) technological trends (quantum computers, 3D, artificial intelligence, etc.), b) economic forecasts (GDP development), c) political forecasts (islands, orbits and communities).

Guest: Ing. Olga Girstlova, Ph.D., president of Czech Managers Association CMA

Topic: Opening speech (10 min)

Guest: Zoša Vyoralová, executive director of KKL-JNF

Title: KKL - one of the world's oldest ecological organizations (20 min)

Abstract: The Jewish National Fund was founded by Theodor Herzl for the purpose of buying up land in the then Ottoman Empire. After more than 120 years, KKL is the owner of approximately 80 percent of the land. And how he takes care of the entrusted lands, I want to tell you about that for a moment...

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