Evaluation of trends in jobs and skill‑sets using data analytics: a Case study, by Dr Armin Alibasic et al.

Member of the EuroCC Montenegro National Competence Center team, Dr Armin Alibasic together with co-authors Himanshu Upadhyay, Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Thomas Kurfess, Wei Lee Woon and Mohammed Atif Omar conducted research published in the paper titled “Evaluation of trends in jobs and skill ‑ sets using data analytics: a Case study” in the Journal of Big Data. The article is available at the following link.

APSTRACT – A novel data-driven approach is developed to identify trending jobs through a case study in the oil and gas industry. The proposed approach leverages a range of data analytics tools, including Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), Factor Analysis and Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), to study changes in the market. Further, our approach is capable of identifying disparities between skills that are covered by the educational system, and the skills that are required in the job market. Novel data-driven approach is developed to identify trending jobs through a case study in the oil and gas industry. The proposed approach leverages a range of data analytics tools, including Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), Factor Analysis and Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), to study changes in the market. Further, our approach is capable of identifying disparities between skills that are covered by the educational system, and the skills that are required in the job market.​

Dr. Alibasic published an article in the Journal of Big Data

A Scientific Paper on Edge AI and Face Mask Detection

A paper titled “Face Mask Detection Based on Machine Learning and Edge Computing”, authored by I. Jovovic, D. Babic, S. Cakic, T. Popovic, S. Krco, and P. Knezevic, was presented at the 2022 21th International Symposium INFOTEH-JAHORINA. The paper was presented by a young researcher Mr Ivan Jovovic, Faculty for Information Systems and Technologies, on 18 March 2022. The paper discussed the use of machine learning for face mask detection and porting of prediction models onto the edge Ai platform. The effort was supported by the EuroCC Monteengro team link.

Presentation of the paper in the virtual online session of the conference

ABSTRACT – This paper describes research effort aimed at the use of machine learning, Internet of Things, and edge computing for a use case in health, mainly the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases. The main motivation for the research was the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to improve control of the prevention measures implementation. In the study, the experimentation was focused on the use of machine learning to create and utilize prediction models for face mask detection. The prediction model is then evaluated on the various platforms with a focus on the use on various edge devices equipped with a video camera sensor. Different platforms have been tested and evaluated such as standard laptop PC, Raspberry Pi3, and Jetson Nano AI edge platform. Finally, the paper discusses a possible approach to implement a solution that would utilize the face mask detection function and lays out the path for the future research steps.

The paper was presented at the IEEE 2022 21st INFOTEH-JAHORINA Conference

A Conference Paper on Machine Learning in Agriculture

A paper titled “Detection of Plant Diseases Using Leaf Images and Machine Learning”, authored by A. Suljovic, S. Cakic, T. Popovic and S. Sandi, was presented at the 2022 21th International Symposium INFOTEH-JAHORINA. The paper was presented by a young researcher Ms Almira Suljovic, Faculty of Applied Sciences, on 18 March 2022 in the paper presentation session. The paper discussed the use of machine learning for detection of plant diseases that could be used in agriculture. The effort was supported by the EuroCC Monteengro team link.

Paper presented in the afternoon session by Ms Almira Suljovic

ABSTRACT – Prevention and early detection of plant diseases is one of the main issues and challenges in agriculture. Farmers spend a lot of time observing and detecting diseased plants, often by looking at and analyzing plant leaves. Inadequate handling of plant disease such as late detection or the use of wrong pesticides often causes damage to crops, which causes a deterioration in the quality of food. This problem could be addressed using artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect plant diseases by processing digital images of leaves. As the leaf is the best indicator of whether the plant is healthy or not, by applying machine learning we can create predication models to detect the condition of the leaf in a shorter period of time and possibly prevent or reduce the losses. This paper describes experimenting with Detectron2 software library and Faster R-CNN neural network in order to detect the condition of the leaf. A dataset containing 6407 images was used to train the model. The original dataset has been extended by augmenting images using the RoboFlow tool. The experimentation and implementation was done using Google Colab, environment designed for cloud computing and machine learning development.

Paper presented at the IEEE 2022 21st INFOTEH-JAHORINA Conference

A Scientific Paper on Parking Occupancy Detection Using Deep Learning

A paper titled “Image-Based Parking Occupancy Detection  Using Deep Learning and Faster R-CNN”, authored by Z. Scekic, S. Cakic, T. Popovic and A. Jakovljevic, was presented at the 26th International Conference on Information Technology, IEEE IT2022. The paper was presented by a young researcher Ms Zoja Scekic, Faculty of Applied Sciences, on 17 February 2022 in the paper presentation session at IT2022. The paper discussed the use of machine learning and HPC to develop prediction models that could be embedded into edge AI setting for Smart parking solutions The effort was supported by the EuroCC Monteengro team.

ABSTRACT – Smart city is one area with the growing use of Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. The concept of smart cities relies on making quality of life better, and solving important problems, such as global warming, public health, energy and resources. Smart parking management is one of the smart city use cases. This paper describes the use of deep learning algorithms to process images of parking lots and determine their current occupancy. The development of prediction models was done using PKLot dataset with 12417 images, Detectron2 software library, and Faster R-CNN algorithm. The resulting models can be integrated into parking space sensors and used for building smart parking solutions, and thus lead to more efficient use of space in urban areas, reduced traffic congestion, as well as reducing parking surfing to minimum.

The paper presented at the 26th IEEE IT2022 Conference

Master Thesis: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Ms Jelena Tijanic, a master student at the University of Donja Gorica just defended her Master thesis titled “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence”. The thesis was done at the Master academic studies “Statistics” (EMOS) under supervision of her mentor prof. dr Milica Vukotic.

ABSTRACT – Artificial intelligence is ubiquitous and enables many of our daily routines – booking flights, driving without a driver, supports decision-making in governments and the private sector. Artificial intelligence technology delivers outstanding results in highly specialized areas such as cancer screening and building an inclusive environment for people with disabilities. They also help combat global problems such as climate change and world hunger, and help reduce poverty by optimizing economic aid. But technology also brings unprecedented new challenges. We see increased gender and ethnic bias, significant threats to privacy, dignity, dangers of mass surveillance, and increased use of unreliable law enforcement technologies.

The first part of the thesis presents the basic problems that the world is facing and why the development of artificial intelligence is a potential threat to the future of mankind. A new recommendation adopted by UNESCO member countries was presented. The second part of the thesis describes the basic concepts related to recommendation systems, the way they work, as well as their division. Here are some examples of where systems are used. Ethical problems that can be encountered during their development are described.Finally, a practical example of a movie recommendation system is described. The process of making the systems was described and the result analyzed.

Master Thesis: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence – Ms Jelena Tijanic

AI for the Energy Sector: Forecasting Day-Ahead Electricity Metrics with Machine Learning

The day-ahead energy market lets market participants commit to buy or sell wholesale electricity one day before the operating day, to help avoid price volatility. Forecasting day-ahead electricity prices and loads creates basis for decision making in this process. Mr. Milutin Pavićević, a young researcher from the University of Donja Gorica , explored the possibility to utilize artificial neural networks in order to improve the forecasting day-ahead electricity prices and loads based on the historical data. This was the topic of his Master thesis research work done under supervision of professor Tomo Popovic, which finally resulted in a scientific article published in MDPI journal Sensors. The paper is titled ”Forecasting Day-Ahead Electricity Metrics with Artificial Neural Networks” within the Special Issue Complex Data Processing Systems and Computing Algorithms: New Concepts and Applications.

During this research effort the researchers engaged the domain experts which provided us with generous help in obtaining datasets and understanding the problem of day-ahead consumption, spot price prediction, and the electricity market. The results show the promising efficiency of AI and machine learning for the task of short-term prediction of electricity metrics. With the support of EuroCC Montenegro, the future work will include experimenting on the HPC infrastructure and creation of an industry pilot demonstration for the energy sector.

Forecasting Day-Ahead Electricity Metrics with Machine Learning

ABSTRACT – As artificial neural network architectures grow increasingly more efficient in time-series prediction tasks, their use for day-ahead electricity price and demand prediction, a task with very specific rules and highly volatile dataset values, grows more attractive. Without a standardized way to compare the efficiency of algorithms and methods for forecasting electricity metrics, it is hard to have a good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. In this paper, we create models in several neural network architectures for predicting the electricity price on the HUPX market and electricity load in Montenegro and compare them to multiple neural network models on the same basis (using the same dataset and metrics). The results show the promising efficiency of neural networks in general for the task of short-term prediction in the field, with methods combining fully connected layers and recurrent neural or temporal convolutional layers performing the best. The feature extraction power of convolutional layers shows very promising results and recommends the further exploration of temporal convolutional networks in the field.

The paper can be accessed at the Sensors website at the following link.

Click on image to open the publication

UDG / EuroCC Montenegro will participate in the IEEE TELFOR 2021 conference

Researchers from the UDG / NCC Monteengro will be presenting the paper titled “Human Activity Detection Using Deep Learning and Bracelet with Bluetooth Transmitter”, authored by S. Cakic, S. Sandi, D. Nedic, S. Krco and T. Popovic, at the upcoming IEEE TELFOR 2021 conference. The conference will be taking place on 23-24 November 2022. The paper presents the use of AI/ML algorithms to implement human activity detection based on data collected from wearable IoT device and the research is done through collaboration with DNET Labs, an innovation technology company from Novi Sad, Serbia. More info on the conference is available at the following link.

ABSTRACT – The use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning is finding its purpose in various fields nowadays. This paper describes a study in which Internet of
Things and deep learning are used to implement human activity detection based on data collected from bracelet equipped with Bluetooth transmitter. The main focus of the study was development of a prediction model using deep learning that would help elderly people and their caretakers. Time series data about elderly people activity was collected from bracelet using a Bluetooth gateway and IoT platform, and later annotated based on the activity logs they kept in a form of diary. A neural network is trained to classify data into two groups (binary classification problem) corresponding to activity of the person wearing the
bracelet. Initial study shows promising results of the presented approach for the use in human activity detection for elderly.

Paper to be presented on November 24th