Abstract:
The talk begins with a general introduction to Big Data and Data Mining. Various applications of artificial neural networks will be discussed with some examples drawn from text mining, pattern recognition, and digital archives for music files.
The “shifting gears” as used in the title would then be explained when the author shifts research attention to the building of the GetBetter system - towards quality healthcare for poor patients in rural communities. The GetBetter tele-diagnosis system allows for the telepresence of medical doctors in community health centers where it would not be possible for medical doctors to be posted on a fulltime basis. The GetBetter system is web-based, making use of databases that are stored in the ‘cloud” and using the WebRTC protocol for building the interface on top of Html5. With the use of 10-inch Android tablets, community health workers are able to upload medical information about the patients, scan or take picture of laboratory tests and filled medical history sheets, as well as upload a voice-recording of the “history of present illness” as extracted from the interview with the patient (or the parent/guardian). The community health worker is also able to take pictures of the affected area of the body (e.g. lumps or rashes on skin, sore or inflamed throat, infected open wounds) as well as video-tape the patients while they cough or as they limp. These uploaded information are all made available to a medical doctor stationed elsewhere, who gets to assess the patient by just relying on the uploaded information. For confirmation and for additional information, the doctor can make further queries and can interview the patient real-time. The GetBetter system allows for referrals to specialist doctors for second medical opinion. Once satisfied with the assessment, the doctor finally sends instructions to the community health worker, and also uploads a prescription sheet that the health worker can print at health center. These are all made possible, and are only possible, with a good Internet connection.
The GetBetter system has been deployed in Calapan City, Mindoro Oriental. The System paves the way for full-blown health informatics. Coming full circle once the System is widely deployed in a few years, the more in-depth research in data mining, data analytics and Big Data can once again be pursued in earnest. As such, towards the end of the talk, various Computer Science projects, suitable for undergraduate and graduate thesis topics, will be explained, as well as clinical trials and interdisciplinary studies that would require collaboration with researchers in Business, Medicine, Economics, Social Science, Communication Arts, as well as Instrumentation Physics and Communications Engineering.
About the speaker:
Arnulfo P. Azcarraga is a Professor of Computer Science at De La Salle University. He obtained a Doctorat Nouveau Regime en Informatique (PhD Computer Science) from INP Grenoble, France in 1993, an MS Computer Science from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand in 1987, and a BS Applied Mathematics, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB) in 1982. He graduated grade school valedictorian from the Ateneo de Zamboanga, then went to Philippine Science High School where he excelled in Mathematics and had represented the school in several Mathematics competitions. He was awarded the NSDB scholarship after high school but opted for the INTAPS scholarship programme, that allowed him to finish the Bachelor’s degree in 3 years. His MS studies at AIT was funded by a DAAD grant of the German government, while his studies in France was funded by a scholarship from the French government. In 1996, he was awarded an IATSS grant from the Honda Foundation for a 3-month study in Japan, along with 30 other ASEAN participants, about the socio-cultural and political conditions and consequences that marked the development of Japan as a first world nation. As a researcher, Arnie Azcarraga has been working on data mining, text mining, music storage and retrieval, and various other applications of self-organizing maps and neural networks. His work has been published in various journals, including IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, and International Journal of Artificial Intelligence Tools. He is an author of a chapter in the book “Soft Computing for Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining”, published by Springer in 2007. He has also presented his work in numerous international conferences, most notably in several of the IEEE/INNS Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) in Washington, Hong-Kong, Brisbane and Beijing, the Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps (WSOM) in Helsinki, and the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) in Seattle.
Since his PhD from France and his return to the Philippines in 1993, Professor Azcarraga has been appointed to various important academic positions at De La Salle University, including Graduate Director, Vice Dean and Dean of the College of Computer Studies, Associate Vice Chancellor for External Relations, and most recently as Vice Chancellor for Research. He was also, at one time, the Executive Vice President of De La Salle Canlubang, which is now the Science and Technology Complex of DLSU. Prior to pursuing graduate studies abroad, he was a Systems Analyst at the National Computer Center in Manila. Also, while on research leave at DLSU from 1999 to 2002, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Computing of the National University of Singapore, managing a very large research project (Program of Research into Intelligent Systems - PRIS). He is in the board of the International Association of La Salle Universities (IALU), and also at various times, had served as member of the board of the PSHS National Alumni Association. He has been trained on university leadership under the UNISTAFF programme of DAAD in Witzenhausen, University of Kassel in Germany in 2007, and conducted a portion of the UNISTAFF programme in 2009. He has also participated in the IALU Lasallian Leadership programme in Rome in 2010, and helped organize the Lasallian Research Symposium in Minneapolis in 2013. He has been awarded the Gawad Lagablab, as one of the most outstanding alumnus of the Philippine Science High School, has been named an outstanding alumnus of UPLB. As a senior Quality Assurance assessor of the ASEAN University Network (AUN), he has done numerous Quality Assurance assessment of various programmes in several top universities in the ASEAN region, including Gadjah Mada University, Universitas Indonesia, Bandung Institute of Technology, IP Bogor, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam National University (Hanoi), Vietnam National University (Ho Chi Minh), Naresuan University, and Chiang Mai University. He helps conduct the regular tier 1 training on Quality Assuance, organized by the QA Secretariat of the ASEAN University Network. He has been admitted to the Mensa in 2005. He is Fluent in English, French, Pilipino, and Chavacano. Married, with three children.
Email : arnie.azcarraga@delasalle.ph