Yearly Archives: 2012

The IEEE R8 Continuing Education (CE) together with the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Working Group of the IEEE Ad Hoc Committee on Africa Activities (IEEE AHCAA) performed a survey targeting the African community, in November-December 2012. The idea to perform the survey and the completion of the specific questionnaire was done with the help of Saurabh Sinha, IEEE R8 Vice-Chair on Technical Activities, and Zac Oyedokun, IEEE AHCAA Chair. One interest is to determine whether there would be an interest by local or national professional societies to partner with IEEE in extending the access to the eLearning at local/national levels in Africa. The other interest is to develop a baseline in terms of CPD resources available in various countries.

The online questionnaire was created with the help of George Michael, IEEE R8 Electronic Communications Coordinator, http://ieee.fluidsurveys.com/surveys/R8/ahcaa/. The invitation for the questionnaire was distributed using the IEEE e-notice tool to 21,687 IEEE members in Africa (and other parts of Region 8), and 134 IEEE members responded. The deadline for completing the questionnaire was given two e-notice extensions, the first one because of the Hurricane Sandy that hit NJ and the headquarters of IEEE, and the second one because of the Thanksgiving holiday in USA!

The most important results are summarized to the following charts. Wherever a rating scale is applicable, it is used from 0 to 5, where 0 stands for “Don’t know” or “Not aware”. All the charts and the answers given in text by the participants are provided in detail in the Continuing Education Forum (CEF) website. Stay tuned with the CEF activities http://newton.ee.auth.gr/cef.ieee.

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George Papadopoulos, Volunteer for Continuing Education, Region 8
Niovi Pavlidou, Lead Volunteer for Continuing Education, Region 8

A webinar entitled “How to Fail EMC in Ten Easy Lessons” was organized on December 13, 2012, by the organizing team comprised by Saurabh Sinha, IEEE R8 Vice-Chair on Technical Activities, Niovi Pavlidou, IEEE R8 Lead Volunteer for Continuing Education (CE) (Educational Activities Subcommittee – EASC) and George Papadopoulos, IEEE R8 Volunteer for CE. The webinar was intended to all members of the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Society in R8. The webinar was quite well disseminated through the IEEE e-Notice service. The event was organized on WebEx facilities and the attendance was considered as satisfactory. Niovi Pavlidou welcomed the participants and introduced various subcommittees relating to technical activities, with emphasis on educational activities in Region 8. The central speaker of the webinar was Mr. Elya Joffe, distinguished lecturer for the IEEE EMC Society. The duration of the webinar was one and a half hour. The event was recorded on the WebEx platform and is available to everyone for free in http://newton.ee.auth.gr/cef.ieee/activities.html.

George Papadopoulos, IEEE R8 Volunteer for Continuing Education
Niovi Pavlidou, IEEE R8 Lead Volunteer for Continuing Education

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Marko Delimar, Professor at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical engineering and Computing, has been elected 2013 IEEE Secretary by the IEEE Assembly during its regular meeting in New Brunswick, NJ, USA on 10 November 2012. The IEEE Assembly annually elects the following five Corporate Officers: IEEE Secretary; IEEE Treasurer; IEEE Vice President, Educational Activities; IEEE Vice President, Member and Geographic Activities; and IEEE Vice President, Publication Services and Products. The Assembly-elected officers serve a one-year term. Dr. Delimar is currently serving a two-year term as IEEE Region 8 Director. Previous Region 8 Directors who also served as IEEE Secretary include Levent Onural (2003), Maurice Papo (1999), Charles Turner (1995), Karsten Drangeid (1992), Hugo Ruechardt (1989), Walter Proebster (1985), and Dick Poortvliet (1981/82).

We have received a startlingly large number of individual requests for the extension of the paper submission deadline. In order to give all authors equal opportunities to participate, we are extending the submission period to 30 November 2012. Kindly pass this information along to your colleagues. For all details please visit our website www.eurocon2013.org. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for important updates.

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EUROCON is a multidisciplinary conference, focusing on emerging technologies, and traditionally covers a variety of topics in the fields of Information and Communications Technologies, Circuits and Systems for Signal Processing and Power and Energy. We are also preparing an interesting networking and social program. Zagreb is well known for its hospitality, rich cultural life, numerous museums, theatres, concert halls and art galleries. We will do our best to provide you a memorable experience during your stay.

We look forward to your contributions! See you in Zagreb!

In celebration of the IEEE Day on the October 2nd, 2012, the Committee of the IEEE VTS & AESS Joint Greece Chapter visited the SOS Children’s Villages of Plagiari, Thessaloniki, Greece (http://www.sos-villages.gr/page/english). They offered a pc with a monitor, a full encyclopedia, and school material to the children hosted in the Village. The children and the Village officers accepted the charity with great joy.

Stay tuned with our events at http://ewh.ieee.org/r8/greece/avtc/.

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Dr. George Papadopoulos
Secretary, VTS & AESS Joint Greece Chapter
Supporting Team Member, Continuing Education works, Region 8

IEEEXtreme is one of many opportunities and benefits for members. In addition, IEEEXtreme is an educational experience for students around the world. This year, InterviewStreet was used as the platform of choice.
6 db severs, 90 webservers, 120 codechecker servers, 2 memcache servers = maximum limit on the Cloud. 150,095 total submissions = 5X load compared to last time ( 32K last yr).
While we apologize for the technical challenges and the downtime, there are many positives to take away from Xtreme 6.0. This year, we had the highest number of problems released. There were 20 problems distributed and each problem was solved. Xtreme 6.0 also saw a growth in participation rates with over 1,900 registered teams. Over 95% of registered teams participated in the testing phase and actual competition.

IEEE-Oman section on its continuing commitments to keep its members and the professional community at large abreast with the fast evolving technologies organized two technical seminars focusing on the  latest developments and challenges in the area of Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and Information Security Management System (ISMS) in industrial environments.

The seminars took place at the renowned National Oil and Gas Exhibition Center of the Sultanate of Oman on 9^th of October 2012. They were conducted in cooperation with the Oman Society of Engineers (OSE) and in partnership with TUV Rheinland, one of the leading global providers of technical, safety and certification services.

Mr. Anil Kumar, in-charge for TUV Rheinland business stream industrial services for West and North India regions, presented some of the pre-service and in-service plant inspection methods using the most advanced non-destructive testing techniques.

Dr. Ing. Oliver Weissmann, Vice President for Information Security of the TÜV Rheinland AG, tackled a very interesting topic that outlined all the mechanics of an information security management system directly applicable in industrial environments.

The event culminated with the awarding of the token of appreciation to the two invited expert speakers by Dr. Muhammad Bin Aref Abu-Zaki, one of the board members of OSE representing the transportation and communications sector and Dr. Ahmed Al-Naamany, IEEE Oman section Chairman.

The event was well received and attended by IEEE professionals and student members from various companies, colleges and universities all over the Sultanate Oman.

By Mr. Arnold N. Santos
ICT IEEE Student Branch Counselor

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Dr. Muhammad Bin Aref Abu-Zaki and Dr. Ahmed Al-Naamany presenting the Plaque of Appreciation to Dr. Ing. Oliver Weissmann

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IEEE professional and student members with Dr. Ing. Oliver Weissmann, TUV Rhienland VP for Information security