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Teuvo Kohonen has made pivotal contributions in the field of artificial neural networks, having developed the self-organizing map (SOM), a data-analysis method that helps with the problem of clustering and data exploration. SOM is regularly used in finance, trade, natural sciences and linguistics. This method and its derivatives are also used in speech recognition and robotics. The SOM method, considered by experts to be one of the most significant inventions in computational science, has been the subject of some 8,000 scientific papers, a dozen books and six international workshops that have been organized using the method. Dr. Kohonen is currently a professor and Academician at Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland. An IEEE Fellow, he has received several awards including the IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Award, the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Technical Achievement Award and the International Neural Network Society Lifetime Achievement Award.
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2011 - Hans-Paul Schwefel
Hans-Paul Schwefel’s groundbreaking contributions to evolution strategies helped define the field of evolutionary computation and have had lasting impact on the computational intelligence community. Working with fellow students Ingo Rechenberg and Peter Bienert at the Technical University of Berlin during the mid 1960s, Dr. Schwefel's contributions concerned the first theoretical investigations and industrial application of the shape optimization of a supersonic nozzle for a one-component two-phase flow. He pioneered the shift from experiments done by hand to computational optimization by introducing the collective self-adaptation of internal parameters within evolutionary algorithms, which helped to make such methods effective and efficient. He later introduced evolutionary principles beyond variation and natural selection into the algorithms to handle special features of the search space. In 1990 he was co-founder of the international conference series on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN). An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Schwefel is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany.
2010 - Michio Sugeno
Dr. Sugeno first introduced fuzzy measures and the Sugeno Integrals leading to the concept of the Choquet Integrals as an extension of the conventional Lebesgue Integrals. Dr. Sugeno has also been a leader in creating industry partnerships to bring practical applications to life, ranging from smart cameras to industrial control systems. One of Dr. Sugeno’s early breakthroughs was the automatic control of a small car using fuzzy systems based on the Takagi-Sugeno Model. The groundbreaking work has had a tremendous impact on fuzzy control researchers and has impacted applications such as home appliances, automobiles and process control. Dr. Sugeno next tackled intelligent control of an unmanned helicopter by demonstrating fuzzy control through verbal instructions combined with real-time flight data from the GPS and on-board cameras. This achievement has implications for agriculture industry and disaster recovery applications.
An IEEE Member, Dr. Sugeno is currently an Affiliated Distinguished Researcher at the European Centre for Soft Computing,
2009 - John J. Hopfield
John J. Hopfield’s research demonstrated how modeling biological processes in the brain can be used to solve complex computational problems. The beginning of the modern era of neural networks can be traced to Dr. Hopfield’s pioneering work in the early 1980s.
Relating an understanding of the electrical and cellular activity that takes place in the brain to computer technology, Dr. Hopfield described a feedback network of highly interconnected neurons that could reconstruct memories from clues (associative memory) and showed how stable states of network activity could represent memories, emphasizing the importance of computers (and the brain) as dynamical systems (now known as a “Hopfield Network”). A large portion of all studies concerning neural circuits are based on Hopfield’s concepts and the use of attractors for computation. Beyond the benefit to computing technology, Dr. Hopfield’s work also serves as a basic paradigm in neuroscience for understanding how the brain carries out its tasks.
Dr. Hopfield is the Howard Prior Professor of Molecular Biology, emeritus, at Princeton University, New Jersey.
2007 - James C. Bezdek
Dr. Bezdek is the Nystul Professor and Eminent Scholar of Computer Science at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. He developed the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm, considered one of the most important discoveries in fuzzy pattern recognition and related areas and the clustering algorithm of choice for most practitioners in fuzzy exploratory data analysis. The original model has inspired many applications in related areas of pattern recognition and image processing.
Areas of research benefiting from Dr. Bezdek’s work include diagnostic medicine, economics, chemistry, image processing, meteorology, web mining, geology, target recognition, regression analysis, document retrieval, structural failure and irrigation models. One of the most notable applications has been in medical image analysis, where FCM segmentation of magnetic resonance images is used in conjunction with rule-based analysis for both diagnosis and pre-operative planning for brain tumor patients. Dr. Bezdek also has made pioneering contributions in deriving the theories for clustering of relational (Euclidean and non-Euclidean) data.
2006 - Lawrence J. Fogel
Dr. Lawrence J. Fogel has been described by colleagues as “a father of computational intelligence.”
Beginning in 1960, he devised evolutionary programming, a radical approach in artificial intelligence that simulated evolution to literally evolve solutions to problems. While a senior staff scientist at General Dynamics/Astronautics in San Diego, California he conducted a research study in evolutionary programming to advise management on the technical aspects of man-machine relations within aerospace systems.
His 1964 doctoral dissertation on evolutionary programming was the basis of the first book on evolutional computation, “Artificial Intelligence through Simulated Evolution,” which he co-authored with Alvin Owens and Michael Walsh. In 1965, Dr. Fogel, with Owens and Walsh, founded Decision Science, Inc. in San Diego, California, the first company to focus on solving real problems via evolutionary computation.
As president of Decision Science, he directed its activities, guiding research in the informational sciences in areas such as computer simulation, mathematical prediction and control systems, real-time data processing and materials handling systems. He also developed evolutionary programming methods that led to the Adaptive Maneuvering Logic, aheuristic approach to missile evasion for simulated aerial combat, as well as for naval and tank warfare. His method also has been used to discover new pharmaceuticals, improve industrial production and optimize mission planning in defense applications. In 1982, Decision Science merged with and became a division of Titan Systems, Inc., in San Diego.
In 1993, Dr. Fogel founded Natural Selection, Inc. in La Jolla, California, which combines evolutionary computation with neural networks, fuzzy systems and other computational intelligence technologies. The company has addressed and solved problems in many areas, including bioinformatics, medical diagnostics, pattern recognition, data mining, perimeter security, factory optimization, route scheduling, autonomous vehicle capabilities and risk management.
An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. Fogel is the recipient of the IEEE Neural Networks Council Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Evolutionary Programming Society and the Computational Intelligence Pioneer Award from the International Society for Optical Engineering.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University in New York City and a master’s degree from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, both in electrical engineering, and a doctoral degree in engineering with a major in biotechnology from the University of California at Los Angeles.
