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

May 23, 2017

1. Introductions – The TC meeting was started at 12:30 PM. The SPCE Secretary Dr. Jingxian Wu 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 GLOBECOM 2016 – The draft minutes of GLOBECOM 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 – ICC 2017: Co-chairs for the symposium include Michael Buehrer (Virginia Tech, USA, USA), and Tomohiko Taniguchi (Fujitsu Labs, Japan).  Tomohiko Taniguchi was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 185, the number of TPC members was 131, and each paper was reviewed by at least 3 reviewers. A total of 64 papers were accepted with 34.6% of acceptance rate.
• CT Symposium – ICC 2017: Co-chairs for the symposium include Ender Ayanoglu (University of California, Irvine, USA), Fulvio Babich (University of Trieste, Italy), and Steven Weber (Drexel University, USA).  Fulvio Babich was recommended by SPCE. The number of submissions was 164, the number of TPC members was 143, and each paper was reviewed by at least 3 reviewers. A total of 64 papers were accepted with 39% of acceptance rate.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

4. Other Endorsed Conferences by SPCE

• ICT 2017 (Limassol, Cyprus, May 2017), SPCE members involved: Rui Dinis, Chau Yuen, Yik-Chung Wu
• WCSP 2017 (Nanjing, China, October 2017), SPCE members involved:Jingxian Wu, Cheng Li, Jinhong Yuan
• ISWCS 2017 (Bologna, Italy​, August 2017), SPCE members involved:Andrea Conti, Marco Chiani, Jordi Perez Romero
• ICSPCS 2017 (Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Australia, December 2017), SPCE members involved:Tadeusz Wysocki, Octavia A. Dobre, Lajos Hanzo, Joao Paulo da Costa
• Sarnoff 2017 (Newark, US, September 2017), SPCE members involved: Telex Ngatched, Adam Noel, Redha M. Radaydeh

5. Special Interest Group (SIG) Activity Report – The TC Secretary Dr. Jingxian Wu 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; IEEE Wireless Communications, special issue on NOMA, 44 papers are submitted; 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
  • GC’16 Workshop Big Data and Wireless Networks was held on Dec. 4, 2016.
  • 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 after Globecom 2016, the SPCE TC Officers answered successfully to the remaining questions of the Recertification Committee, and the SPCE TC was re-certified.

7. New Initiative: SPCE TC Newsletter

A new initiative of SPCE TC newsletter was announced during the meeting. The newsletter editor is Prof. Ana Garcia Armada (University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain). The goals of the newsletter is to share important information for the members of the committee, and to have some brief contact approximately every six months. First issue of the news letter is available on the SPCE website.

8. Other Business

• Prof. Moe Win (MIT, US) brought up the issue regarding the format difference between the submitted final version and camera ready version of journal papers. He felt that the TCs should bring this up during the TAC meetings, such that the upper governing body of ComSoc can hear our voices. He made the following motion. “The SPCE TC recommend ComSoc to improve upon the following two aspects:
  1. Improve the process of preparing and proofreading camera ready papers. It is desirable that the final version prepared by the authors has similar template and fonts as the camera ready version prepared by IEEE, such that the authors can have better control over the equations typesetting, paper quality, and paper length. 2. Help the IEEE authors understand how the decisions on format changes are made at the ComSoc level.” The motion was voted on and approved unanimously during the meeting.
• Next SPCE meeting will be held during GLOBECOM 2017 in Singarpore.

9. Adjourn – Dr. Jingxian Wu thanked SPCE members for the support in the past years. The meeting was adjourned at 1:45 PM. There were 63 people in attendance.
10. Attendance List