A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Predrag V. Neskovic

Adjunct Associate Professor of Brain and Neural Systems

I received my B.Sc. in theoretical physics from Belgrade University and a Ph.D. in physics from Brown University. I was a post-doc and then a faculty at the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems. I moved to Washington, DC in 2008 where I currently work in the Federal Government as a program manager covering the area of Mathematical Data Science.

Brown Affiliations

  • Brain and Neural Systems

Education and training

  • PhD. Brown University 1999
  • MS. Brown University 1992
  • BS. Belgrade University 1990

Awards and honors

  • Brown University Research Seed Fund Award
  • Brown University Brain Science Program's Pilot Research Award

Scholarly work

  • P. Neskovic, I. Sherman, L. Wu, L. N Cooper. Learning faces with the BIAS model: On the importance of the sizes and locations of fixation regions, Neurocomputing 72(13-15): 2915-2922, 2009.
  • J. Wang, P. Neskovic, and L. N. Cooper. Selecting Data for Fast Support Vector Machine Training. Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 35, pp. 61-84, 2007.
  • J. Wang, P. Neskovic, and L. N. Cooper. Improving Nearest Neighbor Rule with a Simple Adaptive Distance Measure. Pattern Recognition Letters, 28(2), pp. 207-213, 2007.
  • J. Wang, P. Neskovic and L. N. Cooper. Bayes Classification Based on Minimum Bounding Spheres. Neurocomputing, Vol. 70, pp. 801-808, 2007.
  • J. Wang and P. Neskovic and L. N. Cooper. A minimum Sphere Covering Approach to Pattern Classification. ICPR, pp. 433-436, 2006.
  • J. Wang and P. Neskovic and L. N. Cooper. Neighborhood Size Selection in the k-Nearest Neighbor Rule Using Statistical Confidence. Pattern Recognition, 39(3), pp. 417-423, 2006.
  • P. Neskovic, L. Wu and L. N. Cooper. Learning by Integrating Information Within and Across Fixations. Lecture Notes In Computer Science: Artificial Neural Networks - ICANN, Vol. 4132, pp. 488-497, 2006.
  • J. Wang and P. Neskovic and L. N. Cooper. A Probabilistic Model For Cursive Handwriting Recognition Using Spatial Context. ICASSP, 2005.
  • T. Steinherz, E. Rivlin, N. Intrator, and P. Neskovic. An Integration of Online and Pseudo-Online Information for Cursive Word Recognition. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence PAMI, 27(5), pp. 669-684, 2005.
  • P. Neskovic, D. Schuster and L. N Cooper. Biologically inspired recognition system for car detection from real-time video streams. Neural Information Processing: Research and Development, J. C. Rajapakse and L. Wang (eds.), Springer-Verlag, pp. 320-334, 2003.
  • P. Neskovic, P. C. Davis and L. N. Cooper. Interactive Parts Model: an Application to Recognition of On-line Cursive Script. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), pp. 974-980. 2000.

Research overview

  • My research interests are mainly in the fields of statistical pattern recognition, machine learning, and biologically inspired vision.

Funded research

  • "Using advanced mathematical techniques to analyze physiological responses to stimulation of specific acupoints." The Rhode Island Foundation, PI, 2007.
  • "Using physiological measurements and artificial neural networks to monitor and predict cognitive states." Research Seed Fund Award, Brown University, PI (with William Heindel), 2005-2006.
  • "Visual analysis of complex scenes: breaking camouflage and detecting occluded objects using Bayesian inference." Army Research Office (ARO), W911NF-04-1-0357, Co-PI (with Leon Cooper), 2004-2009.
  • "Reducing the cognitive workload while operating in complex sensory environments: constructing a recognition system that utilizes aspects of human perception and cognition." ARO, DAAD19-01-1-0754, Co-PI (with Leon Cooper), 2001-2004.

Source: Brown University


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Tihomir Novakov

Tihomir Novakov, Ph.D, known also as Tica Novakov (born March 16, 1929) is an American physicist. As a scientist, Novakov is known for his black carbon, air quality, and climate change research.

After graduating from the University of Belgrade with a PhD in Nuclear Physics, he taught at the University of Belgrade and worked at the Vinca Nuclear Institute. Novakov immigrated to the United States in 1963 and began working as a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He later founded an Aerosol Research Group, which traveled the world conducting ground breaking research on climate change. Dr. Novakov is a distinguished member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

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Publishing

Holy Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan

by Bishop Athanasius (Yevtich)

In 2013 Christian world celebrates 1700 years since the day when the Providence of God spoke through the holy Emperor Constantine and freedom was given to the Christian faith. Commemorating the 1700 years since the Edict of Milan of 313, Sebastian Press of the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church published a book by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, Holy Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan. The book has 72 pages and was translated by Popadija Aleksandra Petrovich. This excellent overview of the historical circumstances that lead to the conversion of the first Christian emperor and to the publication of a document that was called "Edict of Milan", was originally published in Serbian by the Brotherhood of St. Simeon the Myrrh-gusher, Vrnjci 2013. “The Edict of Milan” is calling on civil authorities everywhere to respect the right of believers to worship freely and to express their faith publicly.

The publication of this beautiful pocket-size, full-color, English-language book, has been compiled and designed by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, a disciple of the great twentieth-century theologian Archimandrite Justin Popovich. Bishop Athanasius' thought combines adherence to the teachings of the Church Fathers with a vibrant faith, knowledge of history, and a profound experience of Christ in the Church.

In the conclusion of the book, the author states:"The era of St. Constantine and his mother St. Helena, marks the beginning of what history refers to as Roman, Christian Empire, which was named Byzantium only in recent times in the West. In fact, this was the conception of a Christian Europe. Christian Byzantine culture had a critical effect on Europe; Europe was its heir, and then consciously forgot it. Europe inherited many Byzantine treasures, but unfortunately, also robbed and plundered many others for its own treasuries and museums – not only during the Crusades, but during colonial rule in the Byzantine lands as well. We, the Orthodox Slavs, received a great heritage of the Orthodox Christian East from Byzantium. Primarily, Christ’s Gospel, His faith and His Church, and then, among other things, the Cyrillic alphabet, too."