People of ACM European Chapters - Richard Chbeir

December 19, 2017

Can you briefly describe your own line of research and how you became interested in this area?

My research works lie within three domains: databases, information retrieval, and multimedia processing. With the rapid evolution of social media and, more recently, the open linked data and Internet of Things (IoT), many information-sharing and collaboration platforms have been designed, leading to the emergence of a new type of complex system: digital ecosystems (DE). These DE platforms offer users the opportunity to properly create and share massive amounts of heterogeneous data. However, the sources of these datasets are different and have diversified representations. As a result, several challenges have emerged, such as: selection and collection of appropriate contents; classification and categorization of diversified contents; interoperability; collaboration between data and services; and data and usage control. Given these issues and challenges, my goal since 1998 has been to provide more appropriate solutions for managing and manipulating this mass of data by exploiting their metadata but also their semantics.

In your area of research, what recent advance/emerging subfield will yield important advances in the years ahead?

Currently, IoT is a new emerging field where constructing and retrieving complex and multimodal representations of our daily lives will be possible. Thus, it will be interesting to continuously extract the semantics of several important events, and to react with the sensors/actuators by injecting some response actions into the mix in order to ensure the desired outcome and meet our expectations. One of the most promising subfields here is pragmatic multimodal event detection, which studies event meaning and context (cultural, social, and historical) while considering the integration of various data types. For example, it will be then possible to express the speaker’s intent, body language, and penchant for sarcasm, as well as other signals, when analyzing a statement.

Can you tell us a little about the French ACM SIGAPP Chapter?

The chapter promotes and supports activities of ACM SIGAPP, as well as ACM, in France, Europe, and developing countries. The purpose of the chapter is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas in the field of applied computing; to bring together scientists and professionals engaged in the development of new and emerging applications and application areas; and to transfer computing technology to new problem domains that exist around the world (and particularly in developing countries), by sharing and exchanging knowledge, experience, and results.

The chapter has 41 members (16 students and 25 professionals). It is involved in several events, but mainly organizes two international conferences: the International Conference on Management of Digital EcoSystems (MEDES) and the International Conference on Signal Image Technology & Internet Based Systems (SITIS). In 2018, the chapter will organize the ACM SAC (Security and Control) conference in Pau.

Why do you think participation in an ACM Europe chapter has been helpful for your career?

Participation in an ACM Europe chapter has allowed me to get connected to various research networks. Thanks to that, I was able to set up various European research projects with a significant number of partners.