Dr. Caleb A. Rascón E.

Education:

• Department of Computer Science, Institute of Research in Applied Mathematics and in Systems, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico.
  • Postdoctoral Research. (January 2010 - February 2012)
    • Project: Adding on a pair of 'ears' to the in-house service robot Golem II, for the purpose of it being able to deduce its surroundings by auditive data alone.
• Control Systems Centre, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
  • PhD in Applied Arfiticial Intelligence. (September 2006 - September 2009)
    • Doctoral Thesis: Automatic correction of spectral data applying Artificial Intelligence and Optimization concepts.
      Tested on quality monitoring scenarios with poorly calibrated spectral sensors.
• Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft des Saarlandes (HTW), Saarbrucken, Germany.
  • Integrated Digital and Fuzzy Control Summer Course. (August 2004). (100/100 Grade)
• Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).
  • Electronic Systems Engineer Degree.(August 2000 – December 2004). (94/100 GPA)
    • Honorary Mention and Student Merit Award ¹ Nominee.

¹ Most prestigious award given to an undergraduate, just 12 nominees per generation. Minimum requirements for nomination: 90/100 or higher GPA and have participated in an outstanding manner in at least three extracurricular departments.

Academic Interests:

Dinstinctions, Awards

• Innovator under 35 Mexico 2014, MIT Technology Review (in Spanish).
  • Mexican youth presents each year the most original and impressive technological projects in the country that respond to issues of global concern and have a strong social and economic impact. All are part of a global community of young leaders who are changing the world.
• Innovation Award, RoboCup@Home Netherlands 2013.
  • Awarded only on rare occasions when a team has been able to demonstrate an innovative technology that has not been previously demonstrated in competitive circumstances.
  • In this case, the demonstrated technology estimated the number and direction of arrival of multiple simultaneous sound sources in the environment (which was noisy and reverberative) for the benefit of a task, in which the robot acted as a waiter. For more information: http://golem.iimas.unam.mx/waiter
• I was granted the opportunity to carry out my PhD without requiring a Master's degree beforehand, under advisement of my supervisor and the institutional committee, based on my academic performance.

Publications, Presentations

• O. Ruiz-Espitia, J. Martinez-Carranza, C. Rascon. AIRA-UAS: an Evaluation Corpus for Audio Processing in Unmanned Aerial System. Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS). ISSN 2575-7296.
• L. Pineda, Arturo Rodriguez, G. Fuentes, C. Rascon, I. V. Meza. A light non-monotonic knowledge-base for service robots. Intelligent Service Robotics 2017. ISSN 1861-2776.
• I. V. Meza, C. Rascon, G. Fuentes, L. Pineda. On Indexicality, Direction of Arrival of Sound Sources, and Human-Robot Interaction. Journal of Robotics 2016(3081048), 2016. ISSN 1687-9619.
• C. Rascon, G. Fuentes, I. V. Meza. Lightweight multi-DOA tracking of mobile speech sources. EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing 2015(11), 2015. ISSN 1687-4722.
• C. Rascon, I. V. Meza, G. Fuentes, L. Pineda. Integration of the Multi-DOA Estimation Functionality to Human-Robot Interaction. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 12(8), 2015. ISSN 1729-8806.
• L. Pineda, Arturo Rodriguez, G. Fuentes, C. Rascon, I. V. Meza. Concept and Functional Structure of a Service Robot. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 12(6), 2015. ISSN 1729-8806.
• C. Rascon, L. Pineda. Multiple Direction-of-Arrival Estimation for a Mobile Robotic Platform with Small Hardware Setup. IAENG Transactions on Engineering Technologies, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering , Vol 247, Springer Netherlands, 2014. Print ISBN 978-94-007-6817-8, Online ISBN 978-94-007-6818-5, Series ISSN 1876-1100.
• T. Villareal, C. Rascon, I. Meza. Emotion Based Features of Bird Singing for Turdus migratorius Identification. Advances in Soft Computing and its Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol 8266, Springer Berling Heidelberg, 2013. Print ISBN 978-3-642-45110-2, Online ISBN 978-3-642-45111-9, Series ISSN 0302-9743.
• I. Meza, C. Rascon, L. Pineda. Practical Speech Recognition for Contextualized Service Robots. Advances in Soft Computing and its Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol 8266, Springer Berling Heidelberg, 2013. Print ISBN 978-3-642-45110-2, Online ISBN 978-3-642-45111-9, Series ISSN 0302-9743.
• L. Pineda, L. Salinas, I. Meza, C. Rascon, G. Fuentes. SitLog: A Programming Language for Service Robot Tasks. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2013, 10:538. ISSN 1729-8806.
• C. Rascon, L. Pineda. Lightweight Multi-direction-of-arrival Estimation on a Mobile Robotic Platform. Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2012 Vol I, October 24-26, 2012, San Francisco, USA, 665-670.
• L. Pineda, I. Meza, H. Aviles, C. Gershenson, C. Rascon, M. Alvarado, L. Salinas. IOCA: Interaction-Oriented Cognitive Architecture. Research in Computer Science, Vol. 54, 273-284, 2011.
• C. Rascon, H. Aviles, L. Pineda. Robotic Orientation towards Speaker for Human-Robot Interaction. Advances in Artificial Intelligence - IBERAMIA 2010, Vol. 6433, Springer, 10-19, Eds: Kuri-Morales, Angel, and Simari, Guillermo R., 2010.
• H. Aviles, M. Alvarado-Gonzalez, Esther Venegas, C. Rascon, I. V. Meza, L. Pineda. Development of a Tour-Guide Robot Using Dialogue Models and a Cognitive Architecture. Advances in Artificial Intelligence - IBERAMIA 2010, Vol. 6433, Springer, 10-19, Eds: Kuri-Morales, Angel, and Simari, Guillermo R., 2010.
• C. Rascon. B. Lennox. O. Marjanovic. Recovering Independent Components from Shifted Data using FastICA and Swarm Intelligence. Applied Spectroscopy 63(10), Oct. 2009.
• Extraction of Fundamental Components from Distorted Spectral Measurements. Advances in Process Analytics and Control Technology 2009 Conference. May 5-7, 2009.
• Effects of Frequency Displacement in Independent Component Analysis. ICA Research Network International Workshop 2008. Sept. 25-26, 2008.
• C. Rascon, B. Lennox, O. Marjanovic. Using Lagged Spectral in Feedback Control Using Particle Swarm Optimisation. Proceedings of UKACC International Conference in Control 2008. ISBN: 978-0-9556152-1-4.
• Effects of De-Tuning on Current Note Detection Algorithms. DMRN+2: Digital Music Research Network One-day Workshop 2007. Dic. 18, 2007.

Experience:

• National Council in Science and Technology (October 2014 – Present).
  • Researcher ICC1
    • Carry out the project Robot Audition, commissioned to the National Autonomous University of Mexico, specifically to the IIMAS. This projects includes: Multiple Direction-of-Arrival Estimation of Mobile Sound Sources, Online Source Separation, Automatic Source Labeling, Reverb Estimation and Removal, Voice Activity Detection, and Non-Stationary Noise Filtering.
• National Autonomous University of Mexico (January 2010 – October 2014).
  • Research Assistant(March 2012 - October 2014).
    • Sound pre-processing and engineering, sound source separation via advanced statistic algorithms, multi-modular system integration, robotic navigation.
    • Technical support for department network.
    • Part of the team responsible for student social service in the department, as well co-supervising bachelor and postgraduate thesis.
  • Postdoctoral Research (January 2010 - February 2012).
    • Integrated various disciplines: Control Theory, Signal Processing, and Artificial Intelligence, for the benefit of Human-Robot Interaction, implemented in the conversational service robot Golem.
• University of Manchester (September 2006 – September 2009).
  • Laboratory Demonstrator.
    • Demonstrated various laboratory exercises for both Undergraduate and MSc students. I co-held groups of up to 40 students at a time.
  • Website Designer and Developer.
    • Designed and developed the UKACC International Conference in Control 2008 Website: It has been taken down. Proceedings mirror.
    • Designed the home page for the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering website: http://www.eee.manchester.ac.uk, and advised on topics of website structure.
• Makko Solutions, S.A. de C.V. (July 2005 – Present).
  • Software Development Director.
    • GDGraph for PHP Creator. A PHP class library that facilitates the creation of bar, line, and pie graphs given preformed arrays. This project is distributed with the GPL License. For more information: http://gdgraph.makko.com.mx
    • Developed the generic portal for Stock, a portal that administers a company's inventory by linking to it's own sales point (with just-in-time billing) and it's own acquisition point.
    • Technical support/maintenance for several client's equipmen, including professional advice on the acquisition of such equipment, ranging from domestic to industrial size.
    • Coding and automation for most of the websites credited to Makko Solutions from July 2005 to August 2006.
    • Part of the group that added to the SICCI security system in PEMEX Queretaro 54 smoke detectors. Developed with the colaboration of Alpha Controla (PLC programming), GEOmar (physical instalation and testing of the smoke detectors) and Makko Solutions (expansion of the SICCI system itself to read the added smoke detectors).
• Queretaro State's Citizen Registry (February 2005 – August 2005).
  • Co-developer the INCERQRO system.
    • It automatizes the creation, expedition and formalization of certificates in the state registry.
  • Co-creator of the system that verifies the authenticity of the registry's certificates. For a demostration go to: http://www.dercqro.gob.mx and click on “Módulo Verificador de Actas”.
• Tres Guerras S.A. associated with Dr. Carlos Ramírez, ITESM professor, (January 2004 – August 2004).
  • Developed a program that reduced costs in a transportation company by predicting the demand of trucks by means of Statistics and Artificial Intelligence.
• National Institute of Adult Education, Queretaro (September 2003 – April 2004).
  • Principal tutor of the Weekend Program.
    • At one point, I tutored 18 persons by myself.
  • Creator of the Tutor Transition Sessions.
    • The main goal was to ease the transition between tutors for the students, being trust the main issue. Later surveys indicated that these sessions were very helpful for both the students and the new tutors to the point that they have been included as part of the Weekend Program in the state of Queretaro.

Other Skills:

• Languages: Spanish, native language. English, 290 points in the CBTOEFL.
• Software: Microsoft Office; OrCad Pspice; Multisim; MatLab; CITECT.
• Electronics: VHDL and the FPGA (Xilinx Foundation); MS-51 and PIC microprocessors; Analog, Digital and Fuzzy Control Design.
• Programming Languages: C++; Java; Assembly (x86); PHP; PERL; ASP.
• Databases: MySQL, SQL Server, Dbase, Fox Pro, Access.
• Operating Systems (administered): Windows 2000 y XP; Linux; Mac OS X.
• Artificial Inteligence Concepts: Fuzzy Logic, Neural Network, Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization.

Interests:

• Music: I play the guitar, and compose my own music, which came in handy when, while working in Makko, several clients asked for multimedia presentations of their businesses with original music. In Mexico, I had a musical group called Maple. I played electric bass as part of the musical comedy group in the university when we did Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle.
• Writing: I received an Honorary Mention for a story called "Llovizna Hambrienta" (Hungry Rain) in a national literature contest that the university organized. I also constantly update and write essays and stories in my blog: http://balkce.blogspot.com