To aid and support the continued collaboration and knowledge exchange of the ULTRACEPT researchers, the consortium hosts online quarterly ‘Sandpit Sessions’. The aim of these sessions is to provide researchers an opportunity to share their work in an informal forum where they can raise and discuss issues and challenges in order to gain support and feedback from the group.

The project group’s fifth sandpit session was hosted online by ULTRACEPT partner Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Muenster (WWU) on the 17th of May 2022. The session also hosted a guest speaker from Chaoyang University of Technology (CYUT) in Taiwan. The session was chaired by Prof. Xiaoyi Jiang (WWU) and featured three speakers: Andreas Nienkötter, Postdoc, WWU; Jiaqi Zhang, PhD student, WWU; and Vani Saravanarajan, PhD student, CYUT. The theme of the session was ‘Machine Learning: Methods and Applications’.

Sandpit Session 5: Machine Learning: Methods and Applications

• Date: 17th May 2022
• Time: UK 11:00; China 18:00; Germany 12:00; Argentina 07:00; Malaysia 18:00; Japan 19:00.
• Facilitators:
  • Andreas Nienkötter, Postdoc, WWU, Germany
  • Jiaqi Zhang, PhD student, WWU, Germany
  • Vani Saravanarajan, PhD student, CYUT, Taiwan
  • Xiaoyi Jiang, WWU, Germany (chair)

• Location: MS Teams

Sandpit Schedule
UK Time	Item	Presenter/s
11:00-11:05	Arrival and welcome	Xiaoyi Jiang
11:05-11:35	Generalized median computation for consensus learning This talk presents the generalized median computation that is a particular form of consensus learning based on a mathematical optimization framework. Computational algorithms and potential applications will be briefly presented.	Andreas Nienkötter
11:35-12:00	Soft min/max and median estimation This talk presents different ways of soft estimation of minimum, maximum, and median operator. Such soft estimation makes the computation differentiable and is thus helpful in many applications.	Jiaqi Zhang
12:00-12:25	Car crash detection using ensemble and transfer learning neural networks This talk presents different types of neural networks and the ways to combine them for multi-class car crash detection.  The neural networks are trained with a small dataset and can be extended to many useful applications.	Vani Saravanarajan
12:25-12:30	Final comments	Xiaoyi Jiang
Next session Our next sandpit session will be held in September 2022 and hosted by Jiannan Zhao. More details will be provided closer to the time.

Andreas Nienkötter presented his talk on ‘Generalized median computation for consensus learning’.

Jiaqi Zhang presented her talk on ‘Soft min/max and median estimation’.

Vani Saravanarajan presented her talk on ‘Car crash detection using ensemble and transfer learning neural networks’.