IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY
Signal Processing and Communications Electronics Technical Committee (SPCE)
Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting at GLOBECOM, Singapore, 2017

Dec. 7, 2017

1. Introductions – The TC meeting was started at 12:30 PM. The SPCE Chair Dr. Octavia Dobre introduced the agenda of the meeting and welcomed all SPCE members to the meeting. Attendees introduced themselves. The Charter of the TC and current officers were introduced as well.

2. Minutes of ICC 2017 – The draft minutes of ICC 2017 SPCE TC meeting were shown and the Chair checked with audience if there were any corrections. There were no requests for modification or other comments and the minutes were then approved to be posted on the SPCE web site.

3. Technical Program Committee Reports

• SPC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2017: Co-chairs for the symposium include Xianbin Wang (Western University, Canada), Gerhard Wunder (Freie Universität- Berlin, Germany), and Weiliang Zeng (Qualcomm, USA). Xianbin Wang was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 163, the number of TPC members was 198, and the number of accepted papers is 63, with an acceptance rate of 38%. There will be 10 oral sessions and 3 interactive sessions.
• CT Symposium – GLOBECOM 2017: Co-chairs for the symposium include Wei Chen (Tsinghua University, China), Marco Di Renzo (Paris-Saclay University/CNRS, France), and Lifeng Lai ( University of California, Davis, USA). Wei Chen was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 179, the number of TPC members was 127, and the number of accepted papers is 66 with an acceptance rate of 36.8%. There will be 10 oral sessions and 2 interactive sessions.
• SPC Symposium – ICC 2018: Co-chairs for the symposium include Xiaohu Ge (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China), Takahiko Saba (Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan), and Andrea Giorgetti (University of Bologna, Italy). Takahiko Saba was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 142, and the number of TPC members was 440.
• CT Symposium – ICC 2018: Co-chairs for the symposium include Maged Elkashlan (Queen Mary University of London, UK), Aylin Yener (Pennsylvania State University, USA), and Yonghui Li (The University of Sydney, Australia). Yonghui Li was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 113, and the number of TPC members was 132.
• WCS Symposium – ICC 2018: Co-chairs for the symposium include Walaa Hamouda (Concordia University, Canada), Lian Zhao (Ryerson University, Canada), Lingjia Liu (Virginia Technology University, USA), and Huiling Zhu (University of Kent, UK). Lian Zhao was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 422, and the number of TPC members was 486.
• SPC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2018: Co-chairs for the symposium include Ali Grayeb (TAMU, Qatar), Caijun Zhong (Zhejiang University, China), and Arafat Al-Dweik (Kalifa University, UAE). Caijun Zhong was recommended by SPCE.
• SPC Symposium – ICC 2019: Co-chairs for the symposium include Jingxian Wu (University of Arkansas, USA), Yongming Huang (Southeast University, China), and Yi Ma (University of Surrey, UK). Jingxian Wu was recommended by SPCE.

4. Other Endorsed Conferences by SPCE

• ISWCS 2017 (Bologna, Italy, August 2017), SPCE members involved: Andrea Conti, Marco Chiani, Jordi Perez Romero
• Sarnoff 2017 (University Heights Newark, USA, September 2017), SPCE members involved: Telex Ngatched, Adam Noel, Redha M. Radaydeh
• WCSP 2017 (Nanjing, China, October 2017), SPCE members involved: Jingxian Wu, Cheng Li, Jinhong Yuan
• ICSPCS 2017 (Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Australia, December 2017), SPCE members involved:Tadeusz Wysocki, Octavia A. Dobre, Lajos Hanzo, Joao Paulo da Costa
• ICNC 2018 (Maui, Hawaii, March 2018), SPCE members involved: Yahia Eldemerdash, Haijun Zhang, Francesco Verde
• Wireless Telecommunications Symposium (Phoenix, Arizona, USA, April 2018), SPCE members involved: Guan Gui, Nanjing Post and Telecom, China, Quoc-Tuan Vien, Mohammadali Mohammadi
• ICT 2018 (Saint-Malo, France, June 2018), SPCE members involved: Octavia A. Dobre, Ana Garcia Armada, Markku Juntti

5. Special Interest Group (SIG) Activity Report – The following SIGs have been organized recently:

• SIG on Signal Processing Techniques in 5G Communication Systems. Chairs include Chau Yuen, SUTD, Singapore; Woon Hau Chin, Toshiba Research Lab, UK; Yan Zhang, Simula Research Lab, Norway; Linglong Dai, Tsinghua University, China and Shiwen Mao, Auburn University, USA. Over 20 members have been recruited.
  • A number of special issues have been developed, including IEEE JSAC, special issue on mmWave; IEEE Wireless Communications, special issue on NOMA; IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Special Issue on Video over Future Networks: Emerging Technologies, Infrastructures, and Applications, to appear; IEEE Access Journal, Special Issue on Cooperative and Intelligent Sensing, to appear; Elsevier Digital Communications and Networks, Special Issue on Next Generation Wireless Communication Technologies, vol.2, no.4, Nov. 2016; IEEE Access, special issue on The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications; IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, special issue on Wireless Big Data: Technologies and Applications; IEEE Access, special issue on Deployment and Management of Small Heterogeneous Cells for 5G.

• SIG on Signal Processing Techniques for Big Data in Wireless Networks. Chair: Jingxian Wu, University of Arkansas; Vice Chair: Huaiyu Dai, North Carolina State University. Proposed activity plan includes: Journal special issues: JSAC, IEEE Access, EURASIP WIN; Conference workshops and special sessions: Globecom, ICC, WCNC, GlobeSIP; Form LinkedIn group. Recent activity of the SIG include:
  • Technical scope of SIG includes: Low-dimensional and sparse signal representations in wireless systems; Signal processing based on graphic models; Advanced interference coordination techniques with cloud computing; Distributed optimization algorithms over wireless networks; Resource management (energy, storage, bandwidth, complexity, etc.); High-dimensional statistical learning for wireless signals; Scalable and decentralized optimizations in ad hoc networks; Randomized algorithms; Bad data detection/Intrusion detection in sensor networks; Security and privacy in big data; Fundamental limits: convergence, consistency, robustness, and performance guarantees

6. SPCE TC Newsletter

• Editor: Prof. Ana Garcia Armada.
• Goal: to share important information for the members of the committee; to have some brief contact approximately every six months; to become an useful communication tool; it will be brief and at the same time open for everybody to contribute.
• The 2nd issue of the newsletter has been published in Nov. 2017, it is avaiable at http://spce.committees.comsoc.org/newsletter/

6. ComSoc Student Competition

• SPCE Representative: Prof. Sinem Coleri Ergen
• The goal of the ComSoc Student Competition is to recognize students who demonstrate the capacity to improve the lives of people through the application of communication technology. The eligibility is: a team led by a student member or graduate student member of IEEE communications society.
• There were 23 eligible applications and there were 43 reviewers.
• First Prize: Yuzhe Yang (Peking University, 3D Air Pollution Monitoring System in Urban Areas); Second Prize: Mohammad Hosseini (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), An Adaptive Physiology-Aware Communication Framework); Honorary mention certificates were awarded to the remaining 7 projects selected for Phase II of the review process.

6. Distinguished Lecture (DL) Program

• The SPCE TC can nominate a maximum of 4 members. For 2018-2019, the SPCE nominees are: Feifei Gao (Tsinghua University, China);
  George Karagiannidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece); Jingxian Wu (University of Arkansas, USA); and Zhiguo Ding (Lancaster University, UK).

6. SPCE P&P Updates

• A motion was made by Prof. Hai Lin to change of P&P 8: Policies and Procedures for the SPCE Outstanding Services Award. The motion was to replace
  • “Award: This award is given by the SPCE Technical Committee. Upon successful nomination and selection, one award is given per year. The award consists in a plaque.”

  with

  • “Award: This award is given by the SPCE Technical Committee. Upon successful nomination and selection, no more than two awards will be given per year. The award consists in a plaque. The award will be announced and conferred during the IEEE Global Communications (GLOBECOM) conference.”

  The motion was seconded by Prof. Xianbin Wang. The motion was voted on and passed unanimously.

• A motion was made by Prof. Hai Lin to change of P&P 9: Policies and Procedures for the SPCE Technical Recognition Award. The motion was to replace
  • “Award Frequency: The SPCE Technical Recognition Award will be given in each calendar year. If no suitable candidate is proposed in a given year, the award will not be presented for that year. The award will be announced and conferred during the IEEE Global Communications (GLOBECOM) conference.”

  with

  • “Award: This award is given by the SPCE Technical Committee. Upon successful nomination and selection, no more than two awards will be given per year. The award consists in a plaque. The award will be announced and conferred during the IEEE Global Communications (GLOBECOM) conference.”

  The motion was seconded by Prof. Tomoaki Ohtsuki. The motion was voted on and passed unanimously.

6. Awards

• The IEEE SPCE Outstanding Service Award was given to Prof. Moe Win (MIT, USA) for continuous and outstanding contribution to the technical activities sponsored and endorsed by the SPCE technical committee.
• The IEEE SPCE Technical Recognition Award was given to Professor Geoffrey Ye Li (Georgia Tech, USA) for outstanding contribution to the area of signal processing for communications.

8. Other Business

• Next SPCE meeting will be held during ICC 2018 in Kansas City.

9. 9. Adjourn – Dr. Octavia Dobra thanked SPCE members for the support in the past years. The meeting was adjourned at 1:45 PM. There were 55 people in attendance.
   10. Attendance List