Projects per year
Personal profile
Quote
"Increases in data and computational power mean Artificial Intelligence (AI) has considerable societal impact. Although impactful, the AI theory is extremely far from creating true intelligence. Thus, the question is not what AI will do to humans, but how humans will improve AI and what they will do with it?"
Research profile
Decebal Mocanu is Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning within the DMB group, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science at University of Twente and Guest Assistant Professor within the Data Mining group, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Eindhoven University of Technology. From September 2017 until February 2020, Decebal was Assistant Professor at TU/e, and a member of TU/e Young Academy of Engineering. His short-term research interest is to conceive scalable deep artificial neural network models and their corresponding learning algorithms using principles from network science, evolutionary computing, optimization and neuroscience. Such models shall have sparse and evolutionary connectivity, make use of previous knowledge, and have strong generalization capabilities to be able to learn, and to reason, using few examples in a continuous and adaptive manner.
Most science carried out throughout human evolution uses the traditional reductionism paradigm, which even if it is very successful, still has some limitations. Aristotle wrote in Metaphysics “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”. Inspired by this quote, in long term, Decebal would like to follow the alternative complex systems paradigm and study the synergy between artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and network science for the benefits of science and society.
Academic background
In 2017, Decebal received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Network Science from TU/e. During his doctoral studies, Decebal undertook three research visits: the University of Pennsylvania (2014), Julius Maximilian University of Wurzburg (2015), and University of Texas, Austin (2016).
Prior to this, in 2013, he obtained his MSc in Artificial Intelligence from Maastricht University . During his master studies, Decebal also worked as a part time software developer at We Focus BV in Maastricht. In the last year of his master studies, he also worked as an intern at Philips Research in Eindhoven, where he prepared his internship and master thesis projects. Decebal obtained his Licensed Engineer degree from University Politehnica of Bucharest. While in Bucharest, between 2001 and 2010, Decebal started MDC Artdesign SRL (a software house specialized in web development), worked as a computer laboratory assistant at the University Nicolae Titulescu, and as a software engineer at Namedrive LLC.
Affiliated with
For an updated webpage, please see https://people.utwente.nl/d.c.mocanu
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Network
Projects
- 1 Finished
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Interoperability of Heterogeneous IoT Platforms
Exarchakos, G., Mocanu, D. C. & Exarchakos, G.
1/01/16 → 31/12/18
Project: Research direct
Research output
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Scalable training of artificial neural networks with adaptive sparse connectivity inspired by network science
Mocanu, D. C., Mocanu, E., Stone, P., Nguyen, H. P., Gibescu, M. & Liotta, A., 19 Jun 2018, In : Nature Communications. 9, 1, 12 p., 2383.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
Open AccessFile58 Citations (Scopus)439 Downloads (Pure) -
Decentralized dynamic understanding of hidden relations in complex networks
Mocanu, D. C., Exarchakos, G. & Liotta, A., 1 Dec 2018, In : Scientific Reports. 8, 1, 15 p., 1571.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
Open AccessFile7 Citations (Scopus)93 Downloads (Pure) -
Online contrastive divergence with generative replay: experience replay without storing data
Mocanu, D. C., Torres Vega, M., Eaton, E., Stone, P. & Liotta, A., 18 Oct 2016, In : arXiv. 16 p., 1610.05555.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic
File34 Downloads (Pure) -
On the synergy of network science and artificial intelligence
Mocanu, D. C., 2016, Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2016). Palo Alto: AAAI PressResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review
Open AccessFile3 Citations (Scopus)436 Downloads (Pure) -
Factored four way conditional restricted Boltzmann machines for activity recognition
Mocanu, D. C., Bou Ammar, H., Lowet, D. J. C., Driessens, K., Liotta, A., Weiss, G. & Tuyls, K. P., 2015, In : Pattern Recognition Letters. 66, p. 100-108Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
Open AccessFile30 Citations (Scopus)160 Downloads (Pure)
Prizes
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Highly Commended Paper Award - International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications
Mocanu, Decebal C. (Recipient), 2017
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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Travel Award at IJCAI 2016
Mocanu, Decebal C. (Recipient), 11 Jul 2016
Prize: Other › Scholarships › Scientific
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Master AI Thesis Award, 1st prize, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Mocanu, Decebal C. (Recipient), 12 Jul 2013
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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Best Paper Award MoMM2015
Mocanu, Decebal C. (Recipient), 13 Dec 2015
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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Certificate of appreciation from the Journal of Electronic Imaging for serving as a reviewer.
Mocanu, Decebal C. (Recipient), 1 Jan 2015
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
Activities
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University of Texas at Austin
Decebal Mocanu (Visiting researcher)
16 Jan 2016 → 16 Apr 2016Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Visiting an external academic institution › Scientific
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"Deep Learning and its applicability" at University of Würzburg, Germany.
Decebal Mocanu (Speaker)
24 Aug 2015 → 28 Aug 2015Activity: Talk or presentation types › Contributed talk › Scientific
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University of Pennsylvania
Decebal Mocanu (Visiting researcher)
15 Sep 2014 → 15 Dec 2014Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Visiting an external academic institution › Scientific
Courses
Press / Media
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-The University of Oslo: New AI method increases the power of artificial neural networks
20/06/18
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Expert Comment
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New AI method increases the power of artificial neural networks
20/06/18
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Expert Comment