IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY
Signal Processing for Communications & Computing Technical Committee (SPCC)
Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting at GLOBECOM, Waikoloa, 2019

Dec. 12, 2019

1. Introductions – The TC meeting was started at 12:00 PM. The SPCC Chair Dr. Xianbin Wang introduced the agenda of the meeting and welcomed all SPCC members to the meeting. Attendees introduced themselves. The Charter of the TC and current officers were introduced as well.
2. Minutes of ICC 2019 – The draft minutes of ICC 2019 SPCE TC meeting were shown and the Chair checked with the 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 SPCC web site.
3. Technical Program Committee Reports

• SPC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2019: Co-chairs for the symposium include Ana Garcia Armada (Carlos III University, Spain), Haijun Zhang (University of Science and Technology, China), and Abdelhamid Mellouk (University of Paris-Est Créteil, France). Ana Garcia Armada and Haijun Zhang were recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 172, the number of TPC members was 157, and the number of accepted papers is 69, with an acceptance rate of 40%.There will be 8 oral sessions and 2 interactive sessions.
• SPC Symposium – ICC 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Tomoaki Ohtsuki (Keio University, Japan), Xiaoming Tao (Tsinghua University, China) and Santiago Mazuelas (BCAM, Spain). Tomoaki Ohtsuki and Santiago Mazuelas were recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 110 and the number of TPC members was 225.
• WCS Symposium – ICC 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Simon Pun (Chinese University of Hong Kong, China), Xiangyun (Sean) Zhou, (Australian National University, Australia), Changchuan Yin (Beijing University of Posts and Telecom., China), Yuan Shen (Tsinghua University, China) and Paulo Cardieri (Unicamp, Brazil). Xiangyun (Sean) Zhou was recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 368 and the number of TPC members was 461.
• SPC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Hai Lin (Osaka Prefecture Univ., Japan), Jemin Lee (DGIST, Korea), and Dania Marabissi (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy). Hai Lin was recommended by SPCC.
• WCS Symposium – GLOBECOM 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Lian Zhao (Ryerson University, Canada), Koichi Adachi (The University of Electro-Communications, Japan), Wenchi Cheng (Xidian University, China), Xiangwei Zhou (Louisiana State University, USA), and Nicolo Michelusi (Purdue University, USA). Koichi Adachi and Xiangwei Zhou were recommended by SPCC.
• CT Symposium – GLOBECOM 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Marco Chiani (Università di Bologna, Italy), Rui Dinis (FCT-UNL, Instituto de Telecomunicacoes, Portugal), and Paschalis Sofotasios (Khalifa University of Science and Technology, UAE). Rui Dinis was recommended by SPCC.

4. Other Endorsed Conferences by SPCE

Tenth International Conference on Wireless Communications and Signal Processing (WCSP 2019) (Hangzhou, China, October 2019). http://www.ic-wcsp.org SPCC representatives:

• Hai Lin
• Lajos Hanzo
• Jinhong Yuan

IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE 2019) (Ottawa, Canada, October 2019). http://sites.ieee.org/wisee-2019/ SPCC representatives:

• Marco Chiani, University of Bologna, Italy
• Rui Dinis, University Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Xu Zhu, University of Liverpool, UK
• Yik-Chung Wu, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

13th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ICSPCS 2019) (December 16-18, 2019, Surfers Paradise, Australia). https://www.dspcs-witsp.com/icspcs_2019/index.html SPCC representatives:

• Octavia Dobre
• Takahiko Saba
• Tadeusz Wysocki

International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC 2020) (Big Island, Hawaii, USA, February 17-20, 2020). http://www.conf-icnc.org/2020/ SPCC representatives:

• Tomohiko Taniguchi
• Cheng Li
• Jingxian Wu
• Feifei Gao

5. Special Interest Group (SIG) Activity Reports – The following SIG’s activities were reported:

• 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. Recent activity of the SIG includes:

Published

• IEEE JSAC, Special Issue on mmWave, June and July of 2017
• IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Special Issue on Video over Future Networks: Emerging Technologies, Infrastructures, and Applications, Oct. 2017.
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on Cooperative and Intelligent Sensing, Jan 2018.
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on Deployment and Management of Small Heterogeneous Cells for 5G.
• IEEE Wireless Communications, Special Issue on Wireless Big Data: Technologies and Applications, Feb 2018.
• IEEE Wireless Communications, Special Issue on NOMA, April and May, 2018.
• IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Special Issue on hybrid analog-digital signal processing for hardware-efficient large scale antenna arrays, May and June, 2018.

To appear

• IEEE Access, Special Section on Network Resource Management in Flying Ad Hoc Net-works: Challenges, Potentials, Future Applications, and Wayforward, to appear.
• IEEE Access, Special Section on Urban computing and intelligence, to appear.
• Springer Neural Computing and Applications Journal, Special Issue on Multi-access Edge Computing Enabled Internet of Intelligences, to appear.
• IEEE/CIC China Communications Journal, Special Issue on Quality of Experience for multimedia communications, to appear.

Submission closed

• Elsevier Future Generation Computer Systems, Special Issue on “Computation Intelligence for Energy Internet,“ submission closed.
• IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, Special Issue on “Mobile Edge Computing for Vehicular Networks,” submission closed.
• IEEE Network Magazine, Special Issue on “AI for Network Traffic Control,“ submission closed.
• IEEE Communications Magazine, Special Issue on “Multi-Access Mobile Edge Computing for Heterogeneous IoT,“ submission closed.
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Special Issue on “Blockchain for Industrial Internet of Things”, submission closed.
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on “Emerging technologies on vehicle to everything (V2X)“, submission closed.
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, special issue on “Security and Privacy in Industry 4.0“, submission closed.

Ongoing

• IEEE Network Magazine, special issue on “Blockchain and AI for Beyond 5G Networks” (deadline: 30 November, 2019)
• IEEE JSAC, special issue on “Wireless Networks Empowered by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces” (deadline: 15 December, 2019)
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Special Issue on “IoT with Cognitive Computing”
• IEEE Open Journal on Vehicular Technology (OJ-VT), Special Issue on “Machine Learning/Deep Learning for Wireless Communications”

Other activities

• IEEE VTS and Comsoc Joint Workshop on 6G (Apr 2019)
• IEEE Asia Pacific Wireless Communications Symposium 2019 (Aug 2019)
• 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. 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. ComSoc student competition

• SPCC Representative: Prof. Sinem Coleri Ergen, Koc University, Turkey

Goal is to recognize students who demonstrate the capacity to improve the lives of people through the application of communication technology. A team led by a Student Member or Graduate Student Member of IEEE Communications Society is eligible. A number of 49 applications were reviewed (highest number so far).

In Phase I a ranking of applications is done based on evaluations considering five different aspects, namely social impact, technical content, originality, practical applicability, and quality of presentation. In Phase II voting of the best 2 projects among the top projects. The results were as follows:

• First Prize:
  • MiNiMAP: Localization and Tracking in a Multistatic Millimeter Wave MIMO Radar Network
    Miller Samuel,  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
  • AirScope: An Indoor Air Quality Monitoring System with Distributed Multi-Robots,
    Hu Zhiwen, Peking University, China
  • LICOT: Litter-Information-Centric Ocean of Things
    Rahmati Mehdi, Rutgers University, USA.
• Second Prize:
  • 2 Sons- A Smart Outdoor Navigation System for Visually Impaired People
    Shiber Aviad, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
• Honorary mention certificates to the remaining 11 projects selected for Phase II

7. Standard Activities

• SPCC Representative: Dr. George C. Alexandropoulos, University of Athens, Greece

3GPP

• Radio Access Networks (RAN): Next meeting information and previous meeting reports and documents are available here. List of Tdocs
• Services & Systems Aspects (SA): Next meeting information and previous meeting reports and documents are available here. List of Tdocs
• Core Network & Terminals (CT): Next meeting information and previous meeting reports and documents are available here. List of Tdocs
• 3GPP Keywords and Acronyms
• 3GPP Latest Release: Release 16
• ETSI 5G NR detailed description

IEEE Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Working Group

• IEEE P2048.1™ – Device Taxonomy and Definitions and more…

IEEE DySPAN Standards Committee

• IEEE 1900.7 Working Group and more…

IEEE 802 Standard

• IEEE 802.11 Working Group and more…

IEEE 1906.1-2015 – Recommended practice for nanoscale and molecular communication framework

(And more on the newsletter)

8. Newsletter

• Editor: Prof. Xiangwei Zhou.
• Goal: to share important information for the members of the committee; to have some brief contact approximately every six months; to become a useful communication tool; it will be brief and at the same time open for everybody to contribute.
• The 6th issue of the newsletter has been published in Nov 2019, it is available at http://spce.committees.comsoc.org/files/2019/12/SPCE-Newsletter-Issue-6.pdf

9. Distinguished Lecture (DL) Program / Fellow Nomination

The SPCC TC can nominate a maximum of 4 members. For 2018-2020, the SPCC successful nominees were:

• Marco Di Renzo, CNRS (CentraleSupelec – Univ Paris-Sud, France).
• George Karagiannidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece).
• Octavia Dobre (Memorial University, Canada)

Most recent nominations are: Arumugam Nallanathan, Theodoros Tsiftsis, Hong-Chuan Yang, Yulong Zou

10. Recent IEEE Fellows

Congratulations to recent Fellows (class of 2020), members of SPCC: Prof. Octavia Dobre, Prof. Marco Di Renzo and Prof. Feifei Gao.

11. TC recertification, title, scope and P6P update

Technical Committees Recertification Standing Committee recommends the establishment of new Technical Committees and reviews current Committees to determine whether they are fulfilling their responsibilities. SPCC (former SPCE) has been requested to submit the Recertification report by May 30th, 2019. Extensive data collection has been carried out in this April and May.

We have just received the positive results for the recertification. Our TC has successfully passed the ComSoc recertification.

Scope of the TC remains relatively stable disregard the dramatic expansion of the related communication and computing areas. New emerging topics are added. particularly related to computing, machine learning and data analytics. IEngaging new TC members is advised.

TEA-C issued call for TC title and scope change. New title of the TC will be “Signal Processing and Computing for Communications (SPCC)”.

Scope of the TC: The Signal Processing and Computing for Communications Technical Committee (SPCC-TC) sponsors papers, participates in organization of conferences, and promotes technical activities on those aspects of converged communications and computing systems that pertain to the innovation, development and application of algorithms, devices, systems and protocols for generation, exchange, recovery, analysis and utilization of different signals and data.

The title and scope have been approved by Opcom, which is a BoG meeting with reduced number of MAL, VPs and the President.

With this new title and scope we have:

• Dramatically expanded technical scope and portfolio of the technical committee
• Integrating signal processing and high layer design for handling more technical challenges from connected society
• Significantly increasing of potential TC members
• More involvement in TC sponsored technical activities

The P&P are updated as follows:

TC Members shall:

1. a) be ComSoc members in good standing
2. b) be those members who have been active in the TC activities for the past three years
3. c) participate in TC meetings

Election and Voting: A voting member is an active SPCC Technical Committee member who attended at least 2 out of 5 last TC meetings. A voting member shall only be permitted to vote in-person for a specific individual and position.

Award selection: Award selection and results need to be reported and approved by Director-Technical Committees and the VP-TEA.

12. SPCC Awards

The following two annual awards were presented:

• SPCE Technical Recognition Award: presented to Prof. Naofal Al-Dhahir, for outstanding technical contributions to signal processing for communications.
• SPCE Outstanding Service Award: presented to Prof. Ana Garcia Armada, for outstanding contribution to the activities sponsored and endorsed by the SPCE technical committee.

13. Discussions

Ideas to make the SPCC TC more successful were discussed.

14. Other Business

Next SPCC meeting will be held during ICC 2020.

15. Adjourn –The meeting was adjourned at 14:30 PM. There were 46 people in attendance.

16. Attendance List