Please find hereafter the CSIM Newsletter – Fall 2021

Many thanks to all the contributors for their interesting inputs.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Aiman Erbad was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on October 19th 2021, at 10:30 EST.

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Aiman Erbad  |  SM-IEEE  |  SM-ACM

Head, Information & Computing Technology Division  |  Associate Professor  |  Hamad Bin Khalifa University

Seminar Title: Distributed Inference in Resource-Constrained IoT/Edge Devices: Challenges and Opportunities

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording in https://youtu.be/A7dv8Q_hI6Y

Brief Abstract: Traditional cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) architectures cannot guarantee communication and computational efficiency in data intensive applications leading to issues in scalability, real-time interactions, and data privacy. This motivated the need for new emerging architecture such as edge, fog and pervasive computing, where we merge hierarchical computing with efficient communication, leveraging learning-based distributed optimization, in order to resolve many of the issues highlighted above.

In this talk, we will highlight the motivation and the challenges in distributed inference for IoT applications, and cyber-physical systems (CPS), in light of traditional cloud-based architectures. We will discuss state-of-the-art work in distributed inference/classifications in IoT, and multi-drone systems, taking into consideration the privacy and mobility of network users. We will motivate the need for segment-based vs layer-based inference for achieving different objectives as part of distributed inference over resource-constrained devices. Finally, we will discuss future research directions in distributed inference.

Short biography: Aiman Erbad is an Associate Professor and Head of Information and Computing Technology Division in the College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor and the Director of Research Planning and Development at Qatar University until May 2020. He also served as the Director of Research Support responsible for all grants and contracts (2016-2018) and as the Computer Engineering Program Coordinator (2014-2016) at Qatar University. Dr. Erbad obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia (Canada), a Master of Computer Science in embedded systems and robotics from the University of Essex (UK), and a BSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Washington. He received the Platinum award at Qatar Education Excellence Day 2013 (Ph.D. category). He also received the 2020 Best Research Paper Award from Computer Communications (ComCom), the IWCMC 2019 Best Paper Award, and the IEEE CCWC 2017 Best Paper Award. His research interests span cloud computing, edge intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), private and secure networks, and multimedia systems. He is a senior member of IEEE and ACM.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Shiwen Mao was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on September 21st 2021, at 10:30 EST.

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Shiwen Mao.

Professor and Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar Chair. Director of the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center | Auburn University, USA. IEEE Fellow.

Seminar Title: Vision-aided 3D Human Pose Estimation with RFID: Design, Implementation, and Generalization

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording in https://youtu.be/LQEMPlCqLRE

Brief Abstract: To In recent years, 3D human pose tracking has become an important topic in computer vision (CV). It is a more challenging problem than classification problems such as human activity recognition, and is the enabler of many human-computer interaction (HCI) applications. To improve the privacy of human pose tracking, there is considerable interest in techniques without using a video camera. To this end, RFID tags, as a low-cost wearable sensor, provide an effective solution for 3D human pose tracking. In this talk, we first present RFID-Pose, a vision-aided realtime 3D human pose estimation system based on deep learning. The RFID phase data is calibrated to effectively mitigate the severe phase distortion, and High Accuracy Low Rank Tensor Completion (HaLRTC) is employed to impute missing RFID samples. The system then estimates the spatial rotation angle of each human limb, and utilizes the rotation angles to reconstruct human pose in realtime with the forward kinematic technique. The second part of this talk addresses the user adaptation problem, when a well-trained system is used to monitor the 3D pose of a new subject. We propose Cycle-Pose, a user-adaptive realtime 3D human pose estimation system. A cycle kinematic network is proposed to remove the restriction in pairing RFID and vision data for training. The resulting system is user-adaptive, achieved by learning to transform the RFID data into a human skeleton for different subjects. The third part of this talk addresses the environment adaptation problem, when a well-trained system is applied in a new environment. Meta-learning, as an effective technique to improve the model adaptability, is leveraged as a promising solution to the generalization problem. We develop an RFID based pose estimation system, termed Meta-Pose, which is based on the meta-learning framework to address the generalization problem. The three systems are prototyped with commodity RFID devices and validated with extensive experiments, where high pose estimation accuracy and realtime operation are demonstrated.

Short biography: SHIWEN MAO received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY in 2004. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL in 2006, and held the McWane Endowed Professorship from 2012 to 2015 and the Samuel Ginn Endowed Professorship from 2015 to 2020. Currently, he is a professor and Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar Chair, and Director of the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center at Auburn University. His research interest includes wireless networks, multimedia communications, and smart grid. He is on the editorial board of IEEE/CIC China Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, ACM GetMobile, an IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking, IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Multimedia, IEEE Network, and IEEE Networking Letters. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Council of RFID, and a Distinguished Speaker of IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. He received the IEEE TC-CSR Distinguished Technical Achievement Award in 2019 and NSF CAREER Award in 2010. He is a co-recipient of the 2021 IEEE Communications Society Outstanding Paper Award, the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society 2020 Jack Neubauer Memorial Award, the IEEE MMTC 2018 Best Journal Award and 2017 Best Conference Paper Award, the 2004 IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize in the Field of Communications Systems, and several best paper/demo awards from IEEE conferences. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on 30 August 2021, at 13:00 EST.

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou.

Assistant Professor at University of New Mexico

Seminar Title: Proficient Resource Orchestration for Next Generation Integrated Communications and Computing Systems

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording in https://youtu.be/6DNetwlee_Q

Brief Abstract: To efficiently deal with the stringent requirements of emerging diverse applications, such as time-, bandwidth-, and connectivity-critical, or combinations thereof, the underlying Communications and Computing (CC) systems are expected to be characterized by flexibility, adaptability, and heterogeneity. In this talk, we offer and discuss the appropriate science and technology to conceptualize, model, and design for the realistic deep interdependencies among behaviors, interactions, and decisions, within the era of resource management in the engineered integrated communications and computing systems, and natural world.  In particular, we aim to lay the foundations of a novel economic-driven holistic resource orchestration framework for next generation multi-tier integrated communication and computing systems, capitalizing on the principles of context-awareness and learning-based modeling. In this setting, an important and yet unresolved challenge is how and under what conditions, the involved actors can jointly conclude to an operation point where they all enjoy satisfactory performance. In this talk, we will address this fundamental challenge based on three pillars. Firstly, labor economics-based principles will be investigated to capture the relationships among the actors involved in such interdependent systems, while properly driving their behavior and actions to mutual beneficial operation points. Secondly, context-aware decision-making models will be presented, by adopting a human-centric approach, encompassing the principles of satisfaction instead of blind maximization, while benefiting from learning-based methodologies to cope with partial information  availability scenarios. Thirdly, the innovative treatment of those two theoretic foundations, will drive the introduction of unified, integrated, modularized end-to-end resource orchestration models in integrated communication and computing systems. Numerical results under a diverse set of scenarios are presented to demonstrate that the introduced paradigm, does not only address the resource orchestration problem in multi-tier settings, but it provides a holistic approach of treating several realistic considerations, including the complete and incomplete information availability, discrete and continuous actors’ strategy spaces, as well as the resource stochasticity, fragility, and the impact thereof.

Short biography: Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico. She received her Diploma in ECE, MBA in techno-economics, and PhD in ECE from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 2008, 2010, and 2014, respectively. Her main research interests lie in the area of cyber-physical social systems and wireless heterogeneous networks, with emphasis on network modeling and optimization, resource orchestration in interdependent systems, reinforcement learning, game theory, network economics, and Internet of Things. Five of her papers received the Best Paper Award at IEEE WCNC in 2012, ADHOCNETS in 2015, IEEE/IFIP WMNC 2019, INFOCOM 2019 by the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Communications Systems Integration and Modeling, and IEEE/ACM BRAINS 2020. She was selected by the IEEE Communication Society – N2Women – as one of the top ten Rising Stars of 2017 in the communications and networking field. She received the NSF CRII Award in 2019 and the Early Career Award by the IEEE Communications Society Internet Technical Committee in 2019.

Our ICC 2021 CSIM meeting was held online. Video recording is available on our YouTube channel: check it out!

CSIM Newsletter – Spring 2021

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Melike Erol-Kantarci was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on 28 June 2021. Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Melike Erol-Kantarci, IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Senior Member, ACM Senior Member.

Canada Research Chair in AI-enabled Next-Generation Wireless Networks

Associate Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa

Seminar Title: AI-Enabled Wireless Networks: A Bridge from 5G to 6G

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__qQS1rrBw

Brief Abstract: Future wireless networks are expected to support a multitude of services demanded by Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra-Reliable and Low-latency Communications (uRLLC), and massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) users. Heterogeneous devices with different quality of service (QoS) demands will require intelligent and flexible allocation of network resources in response to network dynamics. For instance, a highly reliable and low-latency network is needed to enable rapid transfer of messages between connected autonomous vehicles. At the same time, the same physical infrastructure is expected to serve users with high-quality video demand or even mobile Augmented/Virtual Reality entertainment applications. Next-generation wireless networks are expected to accommodate such diverse use cases. In addition, resource efficiency, reliability, and robustness are becoming more stringent for 5G and beyond networks. To meet this, the next generation wireless network, namely 6G, must incorporate a paradigm shift in network resource optimization, in which efficient and intelligent resource management techniques are employed. Artificial intelligence, or more specifically machine learning algorithms stand as promising tools to intelligently manage the networks such that network efficiency, reliability, robustness goals are achieved and quality of service demands are satisfied. The opportunities that arise from learning the environment parameters under varying behavior of the wireless channel, positions AI-enabled 5G and 6G, superior to preceding generations of wireless networks. In this talk, we will provide an overview of the state-of-art in machine learning algorithms and their applications to wireless networks, in addition to their challenges and the open issues in terms of their applicability to various functions of future wireless networks.

Short biography: Melike Erol-Kantarci is Canada Research Chair in AI-enabled Next-Generation Wireless Networks and Associate Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa. She is the founding director of the Networked Systems and Communications Research (NETCORE) laboratory. She is a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute, Toronto, and the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at University of Ottawa. She has over 150 peer-reviewed publications which have been cited over 5500 times and she has an h-index of 39. She has received numerous awards and recognitions. Recently, she received the 2020 Distinguished Service Award of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Green Communications and Computing and she was named as N2Women Stars in Computer Networking and Communications in 2019. Dr. Erol-Kantarci has delivered 50+ keynotes, tutorials and panels around the globe and has acted as the general chair and technical program chair for many international conferences and workshops. Her main research interests are AI-enabled wireless networks, 5G and 6G wireless communications, smart grid and Internet of things. She is an IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Senior member and ACM Senior Member.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Petar Popovski will be our next speaker at CSIM Online Seminars. Please mark your calendar, and we look forward to seeing you on 30 April 2021 at 13.00 CEST in this interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Petar Popovski, IEEE Fellow.

Professor in Wireless Communications at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Seminar Title: Wireless Connectivity Beyond 5G: A Take on Spectrum, Time, Space, and Blockchains

Registration: Please register in the link https://forms.gle/5u7RpCqKHg2NgSCm7 Connection Details will be provided prior to the seminar.

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CziWNbSnFgE

Brief Abstract: Perhaps the main innovation in 5G wireless systems has been the platform approach to connectivity: using a single system that can flexibly support connections with very diverse requirements, such as massive Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity, enhanced broadband and connections with high reliability and low latency. This talk will provide a perspective on the evolution of the connectivity space, with an emphasis on the IoT. Specific aspects that will be covered are interaction among different traffic types and spectrum usage. The talk will also discuss the evolution of timing requirements as well as the emergence of new technologies for spatial processing of wireless signals. Finally, the talk will provide perspective on the long-term traffic changes in IoT connectivity, as the systems move towards autonomous distributed transactions among humans and machines. 

Short biography: Prof. Petar Popovski (F’15) is a Professor at Aalborg University, where he heads the section on Connectivity. He received his Dipl.-Ing and M. Sc. degrees in communication engineering from the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje and the Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University in 2005. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He received an ERC Consolidator Grant (2015), the Danish Elite Researcher award (2016), IEEE Fred W. Ellersick prize (2016), IEEE Stephen O. Rice prize (2018), Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Technical Committee on Smart Grid Communications (2019) and the Danish Telecommunication Prize (2020). He is currently a Member at Large at the Board of Governors in IEEE Communication Society. His research interests are in the area of wireless communication and communication theory. He authored the book “Wireless Connectivity: An Intuitive and Fundamental Guide”, published by Wiley in 2020.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Walid Saad will be our next speaker at CSIM Online Seminars. Please mark your calendar, and we look forward to seeing you on 31 March 2021 at 9:30 AM EST in this interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Walid Saad, IEEE Fellow

Professor at Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA

Seminar Title: Wireless Extended Reality over 6G Terahertz Networks: A Tale of Two Rs. 

Registration: Please register in the link https://forms.gle/WGwKT3d9g8AXSoCX9  Connection Details will be provided prior to the seminar.

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording in this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcAn_R5NDwU

Brief Abstract: Unleashing the true potential of extended reality (XR) applications, encompassing virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality, requires providing them with seamless and pervasive connectivity over wireless cellular networks such as 5G and 6G. However, deploying wireless XR applications will impose new visual and haptic requirements that are directly linked to the quality-of-experience of XR users. These requirements can only be met by wireless 6G connectivity that offers high-rate and high-reliability low latency communications (HRLLC), unlike the low rates usually considered in vanilla 5G ultra-reliable low latency communication scenarios. Therefore, in this talk, after a brief overview on our vision on the role of XR in 6G systems, we will explore the potential of using wireless 6G networks operating at the terahertz (THz) frequency bands for meeting HRLLC requirements of VR applications. We first quantify the risk for an unreliable VR performance through a novel and rigorous characterization of the tail of the end-to-end (E2E) delay. Then, we perform a thorough analysis of the tail-value-at-risk  to concretely characterize the behavior of extreme wireless events crucial to the real-time VR experience. We use this analysis to derive system reliability for scenarios with guaranteed line-of-sight (LoS)  as a function of THz network parameters. We then present simulation results that show how abundant bandwidth and low molecular absorption are necessary to improve the VR application reliability, although their effect remains secondary compared to the availability of LoS. Subsequently, we summarize some of our key results in two related areas: a) the reliability of AR over THz systems and b) the role of machine learning can play in enabling wireless VR applications.  We conclude our talk with an overview on other key open problems in the area of cellular-connected XR.

Short biography: Prof. Walid Saad (S’07, M’10, SM’15, F’19) received his Ph.D degree from the University of Oslo in 2010. He is currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he leads the Network sciEnce, Wireless, and Security (NEWS) laboratory. His research interests include wireless networks, machine learning, game theory, security, unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber-physical systems, and network science. Dr. Saad is a Fellow of the IEEE and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. He is also the recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2013, the AFOSR summer faculty fellowship in 2014, and the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 2015. He was the author/co-author of ten conference best paper awards at WiOpt in 2009, ICIMP in 2010, IEEE WCNC in 2012, IEEE PIMRC in 2015, IEEE SmartGridComm in 2015, EuCNC in 2017, IEEE GLOBECOM in 2018, IFIP NTMS in 2019, IEEE ICC in 2020, and IEEE GLOBECOM in 2020. He is the recipient of the 2015 Fred W. Ellersick Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, of the 2017 IEEE ComSoc Best Young Professional in Academia award, of the 2018 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee Early Achievement Award, and of the 2019 IEEE ComSoc Communication Theory Technical Committee. He was also a co-author of the 2019 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper. Dr. Saad received the Dean’s award for Research Excellence from Virginia Tech in 2019. He currently serves as an editor for the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing and the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking. He is an Editor-at-Large for the IEEE Transactions on Communications.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Ekram Hossain will be our next speaker at CSIM Online Seminars. Please mark your calendar, and we look forward to seeing you on 01 March 2021, at 10:30 AM Eastern time (ET) in this interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Ekram Hossain, FIEEE, FCAE, FEiC

Member, College of the Royal Society of Canada. Professor and Associate Head (Graduate Studies) at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Canada.

Seminar Title: Spectrally-Efficient Multiple Access Design for B5G/6G Networks Exploiting Deep Reinforcement Learning. 

Content (Slides + recording): Please find the slides (as PDF file) at the end of this post. The lecture recording is found in this link  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lph9W3bQQj0.

Brief Abstract: While the fifth generation (5G) cellular wireless communication technologies are currently being developed and deployed, research on the beyond 5G (B5G) technologies, also referred to as 6G technologies, has already begun. For design and optimization of multiple access and resource allocation techniques in 6G, machine learning (ML) tools, including deep supervised learning and deep reinforcement learning (DRL), will be particularly useful. In this talk, I will discuss about candidate multiple access techniques for B5G/6G systems, and the role of ML in general for design and optimization of multiple access and resource allocation in 6G systems. Also, I will give a specific example of how DRL techniques can be used for massive non-orthogonal multiple access in a cell-free MIMO system. 

Short biography: Ekram Hossain (IEEE Fellow) is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He is a Member (Class of 2016) of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Victoria, Canada, in 2001. Dr. Hossain’s current research interests include design, analysis, and optimization of wireless communication networks (with emphasis on beyond 5G cellular), applied machine learning, game theory, and network economics (http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~hossaina). He was elevated to an IEEE Fellow “for contributions to spectrum management and resource allocation in cognitive and cellular radio networks”. He was listed as a Clarivate Analytics  Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Dr. Hossain has won several research awards including the “2017 IEEE Communications Society Best Survey Paper Award”,  University of Manitoba Merit Award in 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2015 (for Research and Scholarly Activities), and the 2011 IEEE Communications Society Fred Ellersick Prize Paper Award. He received the 2017 IEEE ComSoc TCGCC (Technical Committee on Green Communications & Computing) Distinguished Technical Achievement Recognition Award “for outstanding technical leadership and achievement in green wireless communications and networking”. Currently he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Press and an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Previously, he served as an Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications in the area of “Resource Management and Multiple Access” (2009-2011) and an Editor for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications – Cognitive Radio Series (2011-2014). He serves as the Director of Magazines for the IEEE Communications Society (2020-2021). Dr. Hossain was an elected Member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society for the term 2018-2020.