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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Vinka Ellesin

Vinka Ellesin was a folk singer who sang Serbian music in the sevdalinka style. The national Serbian community referred to her as the "Queen of Sevdalinka". She was born to Serbian immigrants, Djoka and Sophia (Soka) Ellesin, in Akron, Ohio around 1921. By the age of 16, she was singing on a nationally broadcast radio show on WADC. Later, she performed at the Black Whale, a well-known club in Cleveland. In 1938, the bandleader Sammy Kaye invited her to audition to be the lead vocalist in his orchestra, but she turned him down, preferring to continue singing Serbian folk music instead. During World War II, Ellesin performed at the Blue Danube and the Russian Samovar in Detroit, Mich. where she lived. Ellesin stayed in the Pittsburgh area for an extended period of time in the early 1950s while she performed nightly at the Sunrise Inn in Monroeville, Pa. During the 1930s through the 1970s, Ellesin toured throughout North America and Australia while returning to Pittsburgh many times to perform at local Serb National Federation events.

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Publishing

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Welcome to the Sebastian Press Publishing House of the Western Diocese!

Founded in 2006 and named in honor of a first American born Orthodox priest, Fr. Sebastian Dabovic, a pioneer of the Orthodox Church in the West, Sebastian Press is one of the largest and most active publishers of Christian Orthodox publications on the West Coast.

Our hard working staff seeks to fruitfully enrich and deepen the faith of Christians from all over the world with a variety of titles, embracing a diversity of Orthodox Traditions, while also presenting the works of Serbian theologians.

Sebastian Press is building its reputation for promoting high quality theological, historical, ecclesiastical, spiritual, hagiographical, iconographical, philosophical and patristic writings in its repertoire. Also, due to growing demand, we are giving special attention to the publishing of new titles for children, teens, and families, including video and audio programs.

The primary mission of Sebastian Press is to motivate and inspire its readers to seek a deeper union with the God-Man, through the written word of Orthodox Christian material, both on the scholarly and popular level, and to give glory to the life-giving Trinity.

Sebastian Press is located in Los Angeles, at the headquarters of the Western Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church.