SCCS Kolloquium
The SCCS Colloquium is a forum giving students, guests, and members of the chair the opportunity to present their research insights, results, and challenges. Do you need ideas for your thesis topic? Do you want to meet your potential supervisor? Do you want to discuss your research with a diverse group of researchers, rehearse your conference talk, or simply cheer for your colleagues? Then this is the right place for you (and you are also welcome to bring your friends along).
Upcoming talks
Franziska Wagner: Classification of EEG Motor Movement/Imagery Signals Using Rational Discrete Short-Time Fourier Transform
SCCS Colloquium |
This thesis investigates the rational DSTFT as a feature extraction method for EEG classification in a motor-related setting. The work is motivated by earlier results in seizure-related EEG analysis, where the rational DSTFT was reported to provide an adaptive and compact time--frequency representation. Here, the method is transferred to the classification of ME versus MI.
The recordings are preprocessed by channel selection, average referencing and band-pass filtering between 7 and 32,Hz, followed by epoch extraction relative to event onset. Experiments are conducted on 91 subjects and focus on four binary ME-versus-MI tasks (Left Fist, Right Fist, Both Fists, Both Feet), with an additional baseline task (eyes open vs.\ eyes closed) used as reference. Feature extraction is based on classical and rational DSTFT representations, where the rational case is evaluated with different basis systems, pole values, window lengths and numbers of retained coefficients. The resulting feature vectors are classified with several classical machine learning models using subject-wise five-fold cross-validation.
The results show that the pole parameter has a clear influence on classification accuracy and must therefore be selected carefully. Among the tested rational basis systems, the MT basis achieved the best overall performance, while MRF gave very similar results. The most suitable compromise between time and frequency resolution was obtained with a window length of M=160 samples and C=32 retained coefficients. In the final comparison, the rational DSTFT outperformed the classical DSTFT and the tested wavelet-based methods on the baseline task as well as on all four motor tasks. These findings indicate that the adaptive basis of the rational DSTFT can provide a more informative time--frequency representation for motor-related EEG classification, while also showing that ME-versus-MI decoding remains a challenging problem.
Bachelor’s thesis presentation. Franziska is advised by Dr. Nadiia Derevianko.
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Contribute a talk
To register and schedule a talk, you should fill the form Colloquium Registration at least four weeks before the earliest preferred date, at the end of a semester typically even earlier reservation is necessary due to a very high influx of presentations. Keep in mind that we only have limited slots, so please plan your presentation early! In special cases, contact colloquium@mailsccs.in.tum.de.
Colloquium sessions are now on-campus. We have booked room MI 02.07.023 for WS25/26. You can either bring your own laptop or send us the slides as a PDF ahead of time. The projector only has an HDMI connection, so please bring your own adapters if necessary.
We invite students doing their Bachelor's or Master's thesis, as well as IDP, Guided Research, or similar projects at SCCS to give one 20min presentation to discuss their results and potential future work. The time for this is typically after submitting your final text. Check also with your study program regarding any requirements for a final presentation of your project work.
New: In regular times, we will now have slots for presenting early stage projects (talk time 2-10min). This is an optional opportunity for getting additional feedback early and there is no strict timeline.
Apart from students, we also welcome doctoral candidates and guests to present their projects.
During the colloquium, things usually go as follows:
- 10min before the colloquium starts, the speakers setup their equipment with the help of the moderator. The moderator currently is Ana Cukarska. Make sure to be using an easily identifiable name in the online session's waiting room.
- The colloquium starts with an introduction to the agenda and the moderator asks the speaker's advisor/host to put the talk into context.
- Your talk starts. The scheduled time for your talk is normally 20min with additional 5-10min for discussion.
- During the discussion session, the audience can ask questions, which are meant for clarification or for putting the talk into context. The audience can also ask questions in the chat.
- Congratulations! Your talk is over and it's now time to celebrate! Have you already tried the parabolic slides that bring you from the third floor to the Magistrale?
Do you remember a talk that made you feel very happy for attending? Do you also remember a talk that confused you? What made these two experiences different?
Here are a few things to check if you want to improve your presentation:
- What is the main idea that you want people to remember after your presentation? Do you make it crystal-clear? How quickly are you arriving to it?
- Which aspects of your work can you cover in the given time frame, with a reasonable pace and good depth?
- What can you leave out (but maybe have as back-up slides) to not confuse or overwhelm the audience?
- How are you investing the crucial first two minutes of your presentation?
- How much content do you have on your slides? Is all of it important? Will the audience know which part of a slide to look at? Will somebody from the last row be able to read the content? Will somebody with limited experience in your field have time to understand what is going on?
- Are the figures clear? Are you explaining the axes or any other features clearly?
In any case, make sure to start preparing your talk early enough so that you can potentially discuss it, rehearse it, and improve it.
Here are a few good videos to find out more:
- Simon Peyton Jones: How to Give a Great Research Talk (see also How to Write a Great Research Paper)
- Susan McConnell: Designing effective scientific presentations
- Jens Weller: Presenting Code
Did you know that the TUM English Writing Center can also help you with writing good slides?
Work with us!
Do your thesis/student project in Informatics / Mathematics / Physics: Student Projects at the SCCS.