DISTINGUISHED INVITED SPEAKERS

Professor Laszlo Koczy, Professor and Dean, Szechenyi Istvan University (SZE, Gyor) and Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) Hungary

Laszlo Koczy received the M.Sc., M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from the Technical University of Budapest (BME) in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively; and the (postdoctoral) D.Sc. degree from the Hungarian Academy of Science, all in Electrical/Control Engineering. He spent most of his career at BME until 2001 and from 2002 at SZE. However, he has been a visiting professor at various universities abroad, namely in Australia (ANU, Murdoch and UNSW), Japan (TIT), Korea (POSTECH), Austria (J. Kepler U.), Italy (U. of Trento) and Brazil, China, Finland and Poland for summer schools. He was one of the LIFE Endowed Fuzzy Theory Chair Professors at Tokyo Institute of Technology and advisor to the Laboratory for International Fuzzy Engineering Research in Yokohama. His focus of research interest is fuzzy systems and Computational Intelligence topics (evolutionary algorithms, neural networks), as well as applications. He has published over 370 refereed papers and several text books on the subject. He introduced the concept of rule interpolation in sparse fuzzy models, and applied it successfully to the control of an automatic guided vehicle; further hierarchical interpolative fuzzy systems and fuzzy Hough transform. This latter provided the key technology in the winning vehicle in the 2007 Hungarian Mars Rover Competition. His research interests include applications of CI for telecommunication, transportation, vehicles and mobile robots, control, information retrieval, etc. Among others he had been an Associate Editor of IEEE TFS and he is an Associate Editor of Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Int. J. of Fuzzy Systems, J. of Advanced Computational Intelligence, Mathware and Soft Computing, etc. He was the General Chair of FUZZ-IEEE 2004 in Budapest, and a number of other conferences, co-chair, PC member, etc. at many other scientific events. He served in the International Fuzzy Systems Association as President, and is now Administrative Committee member of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. At SZE he serves his second term as Dean of Engineering, he chairs the Ph.D. School Council and is one of the sponsors of the Szechenyi Alternative Fuel Engine Vehicles Competition, the National Conference of Mechanical Engineering Students, etc.

Professor Peter Varlaki, Professor at the Szechenyi Istvan University (SZE, Gyor) and Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE)

Graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1971 at the Faculty of Transportation Engineering at the Technical University of Budapest now (BUTE). He earned his PhD in 1975, his CSc in 1979, and his DSc in 1988. He received his Dr. habil degree in 1995. He is a Professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE) from 1990. He was the editor of the "Periodica Politechnica Transportation Engineering" journal. He also participated in the work of the editorial board of the "Journal of Problems of Control and Information Theory". He was a member of the System Engineering Committee of the IFAC and of the Community Network for Technology Transfer. He received the Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1987. He was a staff member of the Department of Telecommunication and Telematics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics and of the Department of Automobiles at the Faculty of Transportation of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He is a founding member of the Hungarian Academy of Engineering. The main topics of his research field are the stochastic control theory, statistical system identification and computational intelligency, especially, with applications in vehicle system dynamics. Now, he works as a Professor at the Department of Chassis and Lightweight Structures at BUTE. At the same time he is a Professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Széchenyi István University in Győr. He is author or co- author of 10 books and more then 250 other scientific and technical publications.

Associate Professor Peter Foldesi, Vice Dean & Head of Department of Logistics and Forwarding, Széchenyi István University (Hungary)

Péter Földesi’s degrees earned: Budapest Technical University: M.Sc. in Transportation Engineering (1986), Hungarian Academy of Sciences: Ph.D. (1994). Visiting positions: long-term and short-term visits and scholarships: Liverpool Polytechnic (UK), Heriott-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK), University of Huddersfield (UK), Nottingham Trent University (UK). Present position: Head of Department of Logistics and Forwarding, Széchenyi István University (Hungary), President of the Hungarian Association for Logistics Innovation. Research interests: computational intelligence, logistics networks, quality management, operation and production management.