IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY
Signal Processing and Communications Electronics Technical Committee (SPCE)
Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting at GLOBECOM 2016, Washington DC, USA

December 7, 2016

1. Introductions – The TC meeting was started at 12:30 PM. The SPCE Chair Dr. Hai Lin 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 2016 – The draft minutes of ICC 2016 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 2016: Co-chairs for the symposium include Dania Marabissi (University of Florence, Italy), Trung Q. Duong (Queens University Belfast, UK), and Yuan Shen (Tsinghua University, China). Trung Q. Duong and Yuan Shen were recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 152, the number of TPC members was 174, and each paper was reviewed by at least 3 reviewers. A total of 56 papers were accepted with 36.8% of acceptance rate.
• WCS Symposium – GLOBECOM 2016: Co-chairs for the symposium include Yiqing Zhou (Chinese Academy of Science, China), Michail Matthaiou (Queens University Belfast, UK), Shaodan Ma (University of Macau), and Nader Alagha (European Space Agency). Shaodan Ma was recommended by SPCE. The total submissions received were 455, 366 TPC members were, secured with each paper allocated to at least 3 reviewers. A total of 167 papers were accepted with 36.7% acceptance paper. Accepted papers were organized into 30 oral sessions with 5 papers for each session and 1 interactive session with 17 papers.
• CT Symposium – GLOBECOM 2016: Co-chairs for the symposium include Petar Popovski (Aalborg University, Denmark), Jinhong Yuan (University of South Wales, Australia), Philippa Martin (University of Canterbury, New Zealand). Jinhong Yuan was recommended by SPCE. The total submissions received were 141, 113 TPC members were secured, with each paper allocated to at least 3 reviewers. A total of 54 papers were accepted with 38% of acceptance rate.
• SPC Symposium – ICC’17: Co-Chairs of the SPC Symposium: Michael Buehrer (Virginia Tech, USA) and Tomohiko Taniguchi (Fujitsu, Japan). The representative of the SPCE to the SPC Symposium is Tomohiko Taniguchi. The symposium received a total of 185 submissions. The submitted papers will be reviewed by a total of 131 TPC members. Decisions not made yet.
• CT Symposium – ICC’17: Co-Chairs of CT Symposium include Ender Ayanoglu (University of California, Irvine, USA), Fulvio Babich (University of Trieste, Italy) and Steven Weber (Drexel University, USA). The representative of the SPCE to the CT Symposium is Fulvio Babich. This symposium received 165 submissions. The papers will be reviewed by a total of 141 TPC members. Decisions not made yet.

4. Other Endorsed Conferences by SPCE

• IEEE Sarnoff 2016 (Newark, New Jersey, September 2016), SPCE members involved:   Liang Xiao, Guosen Yue, Tam N. Vu
• WCSP 2016 (Yangzhou, China, October 2016), SPCE members involved: Yulong Zou, Lingyang Song, Shi Jin
• ICSPCS 2016 (Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Australia, Dec 2016), SPCE members involved:  Tadeusz Wysocki, Takahiro Saba, Salman Durani
• ICCS 2016 (Shenzhen, China, Dec 2016), SPCE members involved: Rui Zhang, Hai Lin, Shaodan Ma
• ICNC 2017 (Silicon Valley, USA, Jan 2017),  SPCE members involved:  Tomohiko Taniguchi, Hai Lin, Xiang Cheng
• ICT 2017 (Limassol, Cyprus, May 2017), SPCE members involved:  Rui Dinis, Chau Yuen, Yik-Chung Wu

5. Special Interest Group (SIG) Activity Report – The TC Chair Dr. Hai Lin overviewed the recent initiatives of SPCE in engaging the members. 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 and 83 papers are submitted; IEEE Access, special issue on “The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications” (deadline: December 31, 2016); IEEE Wireless Communications, special issue on NOMA (deadline: Feb. 28, 2017); IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, special issue on “Wireless Big Data: Technologies and Applications” (deadline: May 1, 2017); IEEE Access, special issue on “Deployment and Management of Small Heterogeneous Cells for 5G”
  • Key roles in major conferences, around 15 conferences have been involved members of this SIG, including Area TPC Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2017; Co-Chair, Next Generation Networking and Internet Symposium, IEEE ICC 2017; Co-Chair, MAC and Cross-Layer Design Track, IEEE WCNC 2017; TPC Co-Chair, the 12th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks (IEEE MSN 2016); Co-Chair, Next Generation Networking Symposium, IEEE ICCC 2016; Co-Chair, Selected Area Communications, IEEE ICCC 2016; Co-Chair, Big data track, WICON 2016; Area TPC Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2016; Publicity Co-Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2016; Organizer, Workshop on Multimedia Streaming in Information-/Content-Centeric Networks (MuSIC 2016), in conjunction with IEEE INFOCOM 2016; Co-Chair, Next Generation Networking and Internet Symposium, IEEE ICC 2016; TPC Co-Chair, The 23rd International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT 2016); Student Travel Grant Co-Chair, IEEE GLOBECOM 2015; Publication Chair, ICCS 2016

• 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
  • Workshop and special sessions, including IEEE GlobalSIP 2016, Dec. 7 – 9, Washington DC and IEEE GLOBECOM 2016, Dec. 4 – 9, Washington DC, ICC and WCNC
  • Journal Special Issue proposals including IEEE Access Special Issue on Signal Processing for Big Data and IEEE JSAC Special Issue on Big Data in Wireless Networks

6. SPCE TC Recertification

The chair shared the news that SPCE has been approved for recertification.
“The TC has been part of ComSoc for a long time, and has made significant contribution over the years.”
“Website Actions has been taken to satisfy REC. Cttee. Objections.”
“Membership Participation increased, Invited talks at TC meetings.”
“Conferences/Publications: Significant participation”

7. New IEEE Fellows

The Chair shared the news that three SPCE members have been elevated to IEEE Fellows this year, including Arumugam Nallanathan, Chengxiang Wang and Xianbin Wang.

8. SPCE Election

Election of new SPCE officers has been held at this TC meeting. The newly elected officers are
Chair:  Octavia Dobre
Vice Chair:  Xianbin Wang
Secretary:  Jingxian Wu

9. Update of Voting Policy

The voting policy on the use of proxy has been updated as follows:
“Proxy voting shall be permitted. Each person asking another to vote on her/his behalf shall inform a SPCE-TC officer of this arrangement prior to the election. The Nomination and Election committee can also act as a proxy.  An actual voter shall represent no more than three proxies. However, the Nomination and Election committee can represent any voter without any limitation. “

10. Awards

The SPCE Outstanding Service Award was presented to Dr. Jingxian Wu for his continuous and outstanding contribution to the technical activities sponsored and endorsed by the SPCE technical committee.

The SPCE Technical Recognition Award was presented to Dr. Vincent Poor for his significant contribution in the application of signal processing techniques in wireless communications.

11. Other Business – Next SPCE meeting will be held during ICC 2017 in Paris, France.
12. Adjourn – Dr. Hai Lin thanks SPCE members for the support in the past years. The meeting was adjourned at 1:45 PM. There were 65 people in attendance.
13. Attendance List