【GIR Open Seminar】 Dr. Andrzej Cichocki / Polish Academy of Science (Poland)

Date	2026.3.27 (15：00 - 17：00)
Venue	L0012, 1st Fl., Lecture Hall Building for the Faculty of Engineering, Koganei Campus, TUAT
Speaker	Dr. Andrzej Cichocki
Affiliation	Polish Academy of Science (Poland)
Title	"Electroencephalography Foundation Models: State of Arts Developments, Self Supervised Algorithms and Epilepsy Applications" ＜Abstract＞ Electroencephalography (EEG) foundation models aim to learn reusable neural representations from large, heterogeneous EEG corpora so that a single pretrained backbone can be efficiently adapted to diverse downstream tasks such as classification, prediction, and clustering with relatively little labelled data. In this talk, the focus is on both the “what” and the “why”: what the main training procedures are, and why they are particularly needed for EEG, where signals are noisy, multichannel, non stationary, long, and strongly affected by subject, device, and montage variation. Special attention is devoted to epilepsy and interictal epileptiform discharge (IED) analysis, detection, diagnosis, and classification, because these tasks concentrate exactly the challenges that make foundation models attractive: expensive expert labelling, strong event rarity and class imbalance, pronounced inter patient variability, and the need to integrate local waveform morphology with long range temporal context. The main emphasis will be on self supervised learning algorithms—especially contrastive learning, masked autoencoding (MAE), Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture (EEG VJEPA), and self distillation—and on how improved loss designs can increase robustness to noise and artifacts. The talk will conclude with an outlook on current trends and open challenges in the development of EEG and multimodal foundation models.
Language	English
Intended for	Everyone is welcome to join
Organized by	Institute of Global Innovation Research "Research Center of Informatics for Human-Animal Interaction"
Contact	Institute of Global Innovation Research, Institute of Engineering Prof. Toshihisa Tanaka Email: tanakat(at)cc.tuat.ac.jp
Remarks	This seminar will only be held face-to-face. ——————————————————————————————————————— PhD students currently in Japan will have research presentations simultaneously. Pauline Dreyer （Inria Center at the University of Bordeaux (INRIA)・France） “A multilevel approach to intra-user variability in active Brain Computer Interfaces.” ＜Abstract＞ Context: Brain computer interface (BCI) performances are significantly affected by both inter-and intra-user variabilities. Although there are advances in Machine Learning (ML) to deal with them, the understanding of the specific variability factors affecting BCI performance remains limited. Goal: In the Proteus project, we investigated how circadian factors and subjective states jointly shape BCI performance across repeated sessions. Methods: Twenty participants completed six experimental BCI sessions alternating morning and afternoon, with two interface contexts (Graz and Brain Hero), and three mental tasks. Across 480 runs, online BCI performance and subjective states were analyzed using multilevel models. Results: Results revealed that BCI performance was not driven by time of day or chronotype alone, but by their interaction, highlighting the role of circadian alignment. In contrast, sleepiness increased in the afternoon and was lower in more morning-oriented participants, without directly affecting performance. Engagement and workload followed distinct within-session dynamics, with decreasing engagement and increasing workload over time. Conclusion: These findings suggest that BCI performance and user experience follow partially independent trajectories: performance appears primarily modulated by circadian alignment, whereas subjective states are more strongly driven by short-term fatigue accumulation and repeated task exposure across sessions. Giorgos Iacovides （Imperial College London・UK） “Financial Sentiment Analysis for Algorithmic Trading through Preference Optimization of LLMs” Wuyang Zhou (Imperial College London ・UK） “Tensor Networks for Efficient LLMs” ——————————————————————————————————————— Program 15:00 – 15:20 Pauline Dreyer 15:20 – 15:40 Giorgos Iacovides 15:40 – 16:00 Wuyang Zhou 16:00 – 16:20 Break 16:20 – 17:00 Prof. Andrzej Cichocki

Event

【GIR Open Seminar】 Dr. Andrzej Cichocki / Polish Academy of Science (Poland)