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Dr. Zilu

Liang

 

Junior Associate Professor

Director, Ubiquitous and Personal Computing Lab

Faculty of Engineering

Kyoto University of Advanced Science (KUAS), Japan

Check out our lab website for more information of on-going research projects!

Research areas: ubiquitous computing, wearable computing, personal informatics, digital health (sleep, stress, circadian rhythm)

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Chichén Itzá 

Yucatán, México

WHO AM I ?

I received my MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering and Information Systems from the University of Tokyo in 2011 and 2015 respectively. I pursued exchange studies at the University of Oxford in 2010 and at the Imperial College London (with Prof John Polak) in 2012. In 2015 I was selected as a recipient of the Australian Government Endeavor Research Fellowship which sponsored my postdoctoral research at the University of Melbourne (with Prof James BaileyProf Lars Kulik and Dr Bernd Ploderer). During 2016-2019 I was an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Engineering of the University of Tokyo, where I was intensively involved in implementing several initiatives of internationalizing engineering education. I'm a member of a number of research associations and I received several awards for my research achievements.

 

I'm an avid supporter of the Quantified Self movement. I combine a wide variety of sensing, computing, and data mining techniques to tackle the challenges surrounding data collection, data analysis, and human-computer interaction in the Quantified Self, with a strong focus on health and wellbeing. In 2020 I founded and has since then led the Ubiquitous Computing and Personal Informatics Lab at KUAS. My research projects have been sponsored by JSPS and AMED. I have close collaborations with the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. I'm also a regular reviewer for a number of international journals and conferences. I'm looking forward to involving highly-motivated students in several exciting on-going research projects.

 

Growing up in a family of teachers, I have a natural passion for teaching. I hold a teaching certificate from the University of Melbourne and an English medium instruction (EMI) certificate from the University of Tokyo. In line with the ISTE standard by the International Society for Technology in Education, my mission is to prepare students to thrive in the Innovation Age by teaching them to think at three levels: WHAT (what is the basic concept?), SO WHAT (what is its relevance and what is it related to?), NOW WHAT (what can I do with what I have learned to find solutions to unmet needs?). ​I combine a variety of learning technologies in my class to help students develop the key competences for 21st-century learners, aka. the ”Four Cs”: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration. I'm also committed to educational research surrounding learning design for integrating technology and incorporating the 4Cs. Since 2018, I've been serving as a program committee member and a reviewer for top notch international conferences on engineering and computing education. I'm a member of several educational research societies.   

 

I treasure physical strength and self-discipline. When I'm not researching or teaching, you can find me doing barbell training, Pilates, yoga, kick boxing to maintain a metabolic profile at the pro-athlete level. I received 10 years of training in Taekwondo, Chinese martial art and Shotokan Karate. I'm following a Paleo diet with time-restricted feeding and I'm strongly against sugar and artificial sweeteners. 

NEWS

[Conference] 29 Nov 2023. IEEE ICMU 2023 @ Kyoto, Japan

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Mobile Computing and Ubiquitous Networking, indexed by Scopus.

  • Liang Z. (2023) Effect of Decision Boundary for Logistic Regression Classifiers on Sleep Apnea Screening Accuracy with Wearable SpO2 Data. 

[Conference] 4 Dec 2023. IEEE ICCE 2023 @ Takamatsu, Japan

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2023), indexed by Scopus. (ICCE)

  • Liang Z. (2023) Enhancing Learning Experience in University Engineering Classes with Kahoot! Quiz Games.

[Conference] 27 Nov 2023. IEEE TALE 2023 @ Auckland, New Zealand

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering (TALE 2023), indexed by Web of Science and Scopus. 

  • Liang Z. (2023) Comparing Attitudes Towards Mobile App Development between International Students and Domestic Japanese Students. 

[Conference] 15 Nov 2023. WEBIST 2023 @ Rome, Italy

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2023), indexed by Scopus.

  • Yapa H. P. P. P., Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2023)  Who Says What (WSW): A Novel Model for Utterance-Aware Speaker Identification in Text-Based Multi-Party Conversations

[Conference] 15 Nov 2023. CHIRA 2023 @ Rome, Italy

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of 7th the International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications (CHIRA 2023), indexed by Scopus.

  • Del Valle A, Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2023)  A bi-national investigation of the needs of visually disabled people from Mexico and Japan.

[Conference] 10 Oct 2023. IEEE GCCE 2023 @ Nara, Japan

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 12th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2023), indexed by Scopus.

  • Liang Z. (2023) Developing Sleep Apnea Screening Models Compatible With Low-Resolution SpO2 Data

  • Jayen H, Lukovnikova A, Nhung HH, Liang Z. (2023) Mining Contrast Rules in a Sleep Apnea Dataset

[Conference] 22 Sep 2023. ARTscientific 2023 @ Bangkok, Thailand

We will give the following presentation in the 2023 International Artinis (f)NIRS Symposium

  • Liang Z, Saskovets M. (2023) Investigating Subjective-Objective Sleep Discrepancy with Consumer Sleep Tracking and Wearable fNIRS Technologies

  • Saskovets M, Liang Z. (2023) Validation of a New Stress Induction Protocol using Speech Improvisation in Front of Audience: an fNIRS Pilot Study

[Conference] 15 Sep 2023. The 48th Annual Meeting of Japanese Society of Sleep Research @ Yokohama, Japan

Our following submissions were accepted to present at the 48th Annual Meeting of Japanese Society of Sleep Research. 

  • Liang Z. (2023) Machine Learning based Sleep Apnea Screening with Overnight SpO2 Recordings. 

  • Nhung HH, Jayen H, Lukovnikova A, Liang Z. (2023) Beyond Statistical Analysis: Identifying Meaningful Patterns in Sleep Apnea Dataset using Contrast Set Mining. 

  • Khotchasing K, Nhung HH, Liang Z. (2023) Design and Development of Gamification mHealth Application for Sleep Hygiene Intervention.

[Conference] 15 Sep 2023. IEICE Society Conference 2023 @ Nagoya, Japan

Our following short papers were published in the Proceedings of the 2023 Society Conference of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.

  • Sirithummarak P., Liang Z. (2023) Developing a Cross-Platform Application for Health Data Integration from Multiple Wearable Sensors.

[Outreach] 1 Sep 2023. Research Talk 

Prof. Hiroyuki Mitsuhara (University of Tokushima) and Prof. Hisashi Hatakeyama (Tokyo Institute of Technology) visited our lab and introduced their research projects on disaster training education.

[Outreach] 22 Aug 2023. Co-design Workshop

We organized a co-design workshop to prototype a smartwatch serious games app for sleep health. The workshop was coordinated by Prof. Edward Melcer and Dr. Liang. Thank you everyone for your participation! It was a blast. 

[Outreach] 21 Aug 2023. Ubicomp Lab Research Talk Series

Prof. Edward Melcer (University of California, Santa Cruz) gave a talk "Building Better Serious Games: Novel Approaches to Learning and Assessment" in our Ubicomp Lab Research Talk Series.

[Conference] 31 Aug 2023. IEEE CollabTech 2023 @ Osaka, Japan

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing (CollabTech 2023), indexed by Scopus.

  • Yapa H. P. P. P., Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2023) HelaDepDet: A Novel Multi-Class Classification Model for Detecting the Severity of Human Depression

[Conference] 9 Aug 2023. IEEE CSEE&T 2023 @ Tokyo

​​Our following paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 35th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T 2023), indexed by DBLP and Scopus.

  • Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2023) An Experience Report on English Medium Instruction (EMI) based Computing Education in a Faculty of Engineering in Japan

[Outreach] 6 Aug 2023. Demo Lecture

I provided a demo lecture on app development based on ChatGPT in KUAS Open Campus.

[Outreach] 9 July 2023. Interactive Webinar

I provided a demo lecture on app development based on ChatGPT in an webinar for Indian students, co-organized by KUAS and Education Japan.

[Outreach] 9 July 2023. Open Campus

Our lab showcased our research projects in the open campus event.

[Invited Talk] 5 July 2023. KUAS Research Network Symposium 2023 @ Kyoto, Japan

​​I was invited to give a talk at the KUAS Research Network Symposium

  • From Serious Games to Wearables: Supporting People with Developmental Disorders with AI-Empowered Ubiquitous Computing Technologies

[Journal] 6 June 2023. JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Our following paper was published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus.

[Program Committee] 2 June 2023. CHI 2024 @ Hawaii, USA

​​I was invited to serve as an Associate Chair (AC) for the ACM CHI 2024 (Subcommittee: Health), a top conference in the field of human-computer interaction.

[Grant] 11 May 2023. KUAS Overseas Collaboration Research Grant 

Our following research proposal was accepted by the KUAS Overseas Collaboration Research Grant (PI: Dr. Zilu Liang, overseas collaborator: Dr. Edward Melcer / University of California, Santa Cruz, JPY 2,000,000, 2023-2024). 

  • When Smartwatch Meets Serious Games: Towards a New Paradigm of swHealth (SmartWatch Health) for Improving Sleep Hygiene

[Grant] 1 April 2023. JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)/科研費基盤(B)

Our following research proposal was accepted by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (PI: Prof. Hiroyuki Mitsuhara/University of Tokushima, Co-PIs: Prof. Hisashi Hatakeyama/Tokyo Institute of Technology, Dr. Kaede Kido/Nara Medical University, Dr. Zilu Liang, Amount: JPY 13,600,000, 2023-2028).  

  • 仮想と現実を密にリンクする避難訓練XRシステム (XR-based Evacuation Training Systems with Close Link Between Real and Virtual Environments) 

[Conference] 10 May 2023. ICMHI 2023 @ Kyoto

​​Our following paper was published in the Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Medical and Health Informatics, indexed by Scopus.

  • Liang Z. (2023) Multiscale attention entropy (MSAE) of overnight pulse oximetry for assessing sleep apnea.

[Program Committee] 27 April 2023. IEEE TALE 2023

I was invited to join the program committee of the 2023 IEEE International Conference on on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering. 

[Outreach] 13 March 2023. Demo Lecture @ KUASE

I provided a demo lecture to high school girls from the Notre Dame High School. 

[Conference] 6 March 2023. IEICE General Conference 2023 @ Oomiya, Japan

​​Our following short papers were published in the Proceedings of the 2023 General Conference of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.

  • Nhung H. H., Liang Z. (2023) Identifying Patterns in Continuous Glucose Monitoring Data using Contrast Set Mining.

  • Liang Z. (2023) Gamifying Digital Signal Processing Learning with Kahoot! Quiz.

[Conference] 23 Feb 2023. HEALTHINF 2023 @ Lisbon, Portugal

​​Our following paper were published in the Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Health Informatics, indexed by Scopus.

[Program Committee] 16 Feb 2023. ICMHI 2023

I was invited to join the program committee of the 7th International Conference on Medical and Health Informatics (ICMHI 2023).

[Invited Talk] 22 Dec 2022. ISMODE @ Jakarta, Indonesia

I was invited to give a plenary talk at the International Seminar on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science.

  • Ubiquitous and Personal Computing for Health and Wellbeing

[Program Committee] 19 Dec 2022. ACM ITiCSE 2023

I was invited to join the program committee of the 28th annual conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE).

[Outreach] 6 Dec 2022. IEEE CIS Hackathon on Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Healthcare

Our master student Ms Hoàng Huyền Nhung won an Honorable Mention Award of the 2022 IEEE CIS Student Hackathon on Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Healthcare, with the following project "Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensor wearable device with a smartphone application for Parkinson’s disease falls prevention".

[Conference] 6 Dec 2022. IEEE TALE 2022 @ Hong Kong

​​Our following full paper will be published in the Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering, the flagship conference of the IEEE Education Society.

[Journal] 4 Nov 2022. Frontiers in Medical Technology

Our following full paper was published in Frontiers in Medical Technology (Section: Medtech Data Analytics).

[Program Committee] 28 Oct 2022. IEEE CSEE&T 2023

I was invited to join the program committee of the 35th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T 2023).

[Outreach] 25 Oct 2022. Welcome two exchange students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA

A big welcome to Ms Alena Lukovnikova and Ms Hannah Jayne, two exchange students from the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA. They will stay at KUAS from October to December to work on a research project about sleep apnea detection with consumer wearable technologies.​​​

[Journal] 19 Oct 2022. MDPI Electronics

Our following full paper was published in Electronics (Q2), indexed by SCI and Scopus.

[Conference] 18 Oct 2022. IEEE GCCE 2022 @ Osaka, Japan

​​Our following short paper was published in the Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE 11th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2022).

  • Tanaka D., Tanaka J., Ikuru K., Liang Z., Piumarta I. (2022) AkiKomi: Design and Implementation of a Mobile App System for Real-Time Room Occupancy Estimation.

[Program Committee] 11 Oct 2022. IEEE EDUCON 2023

I was invited to join the program committee of the IEEE EDUCON 2023 special session Learner Engagement Analytics Informed Pedagogy (LEAP). Submission deadline: 5 Dec 2022.

[Program Committee] 9 Oct 2022. ACM CHI 2023

I was invited to review papers for the 2023 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 

[Preprint] 26 Sep 2022. JMIR Preprint

Our following preprint is available in JMIR Preprint.

[Research] 8 Sep 2022. Welcome two new PhD students from Sri Lanka and Russia

​A big welcome to Mr YAPA HETTI PATHIRANNAHALAGE Prasan Priyadarshana and Ms SASKOVETS Marina for joining our lab. 

[Review] 1 Sep 2022. IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine

I was invited to review papers for the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine.

[Conference] 23 Aug 2022. IFIP WCCE 2022 @ Hiroshima, Japan

​​I gave the following presentation at the IFIP 2022 World Conference on Computers in Education.

  • Liang Z. (2022) Changes in attitude towards mobile app development: a preliminary comparison between MIT App Inventor and Android Studio. 

[Outreach] 22 Aug 2022. Demo Lecture @ KUASE

I provided a demo lecture to high school girls from the Kyoto Koka Women's High School. 

[Review] 12 Aug 2022. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies

I was invited to review papers for the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies.

[Review] 29 July 2022. Frontiers in Endocrinology

I was invited to review papers for Frontiers in Endocrinology journal.

[Outreach] 29 July 2022. Demo Lecture @ Shinagawa Shouei Junior High School

I provided a demo lecture to junior high school students at the Shinagawa Shouei Junior High School in Tokyo.

[Outreach] 28 July 2022. Demo Lecture @ Shinagawa Shouei Senior High School

I provided a demo lecture to senior high school students at the Shinagawa Shouei Senior High School in Tokyo.

[Review] 24 July 2022. Computers in Human Behavior Reports

I was invited to review papers for Computers in Human Behavior Reports journal.

[Program Committee] 9 July 2022. IEEE GCCE 2022

I was invited to review papers for the IEEE 11th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2022). 

[Review] 7 July 2022. Frontiers in Computer Science

I was invited to review papers for Frontiers in Computer Science journal.

[Outreach] 7 July 2022. Demo Lecture @ KUASE

I provided a demo lecture to senior high school students from the Kamiichi High School of Toyama Prefecture. 

[Conference] 1 July 2022. The 47th Annual Meeting of Japanese Society of Sleep Research @ Kyoto, Japan

​​I gave the following presentation at the 47th Annual Meeting of Japanese Society of Sleep Research. This presentation was nominated (= top 12.5%) for the Best Presentation Award.

  • Liang Z. (2022) Mining associations between Fitbit measured sleep structure and subsequent daytime glycemia patterns. 

[Program Committee] 18 June 2022. IEEE TALE 2022

I was invited to join the program committee of the 2022 IEEE International Conference on on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering. 

[Book Chapter] 23 March 2022. IoT Technologies for Health Care.

​​Our following paper was published in IoT Technologies for Health Care: Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

[Conference] 9 March 2022. IEEE LifeTech 2022 @ Osaka, Japan

Our following short paper was published in the Proceedings of the IEEE 4th Global Conference on Life Sciences and Technologies, indexed by Scopus, IEEE Xplore and DBLP.

[Editorial Board] 24 Feb 2022. IEEE Journal Of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine

I was invited to serve as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine.

[Grant] 22-23 Feb 2022. Interstellar Initiative Alumni Program

As a former recipient of the Interstellar Initiative Grant in 2018, I was invited to join the Interstellar Initiative Alumni Program, co-funded by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) & The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). I teamed up with Dr. Edward Melcer (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Dr. Carolyn Parsey (University of Washington) to develop a novel gamification system for personalized management of mild cognitive impairment, under the mentorship of Profs. Hiroki Ueda (The University of Tokyo), Haruhiko Bito (The University of Tokyo), Suzie Chen (Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School), Toshio Suda (National University of Singapore).

[Conference] 9 Feb 2022. HEALTHINF 2022 @ Cyberspace

​​Our following full paper was published in the Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Health Informatics, indexed by Scopus.

[Invited Talk] 29 Jan 2022. ISMODE @ Indonesia

I was invited to give a plenary talk at the International Seminar on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science.

[Conference] 29 Jan 2022. ISMODE @ Indonesia

​​Our following paper was published in the Proceedings of the International Seminar on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science, indexed by Scopus and IEEE Xplore. 

[Journal] 28 Jan 2021. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

Our following full paper was published in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[Program Committee] 25 Jan 2022. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

I was invited to review papers for the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies journal. 

[Outreach] 21 Jan 2022. MS&AD Digital College from Kyoto 

I gave a lecture on data analytics for wearable technology in the MS&AD Digital College from Kyoto, a customized employee training and development program for the MS&AD Insurance Group.

I was invited to join the program committee of the 26th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE).

...[Omitted]...

[Experiment] 27 Jul 2015. Study Participants Wanted ($25 voucher/interview)

Do you have a Fitbit? Are you using Fitbit to track your sleep and lifestyle data like steps walked, exercise or diet? We are building a new web app to help you analyse how your lifestyle affects your sleep. We are looking for Fitbit users to try out the app over 2 weeks and to comment on it in interviews at the start and at the end of the study (1 hour per interview). Volunteers will receive a $25 book/iTunes voucher per interview. HREC #1339336. Register interest at http://go.unimelb.edu.au/39qn or get in touch with Zilu Liang (zilu.liang@unimelb.edu.au).

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